She looked around at her fellow jurors. ‘What I suggest we do now, in the interests of being fair to the defendant, and complying with the judge’s directions, is to review all the evidence from both sides.’

‘Do we really need to?’ asked Trout. ‘The man is so obviously guilty. In my view the prosecution has made it an open-and-shut case.’

‘Actually, Harold,’ Hugo rounded on him, ‘we do. Of course the prosecution wants him to be guilty, they’ve invested a large amount of time and money in bringing this case – they would have very red faces if Terence Gready walked free. Which is precisely why we need a proper discussion.’

‘I don’t believe he is guilty,’ Hari Singh said. ‘He has a kind face.’

‘What?’ Trout said. ‘He has a kind face, ergo he is innocent?’

‘Can you trust all of the people on both sides who gave evidence?’ Singh asked him. ‘Tell me honestly. You believed and trusted every word?’

Trout shrugged. ‘Maybe not every single word. But pretty much most of it.’

‘Are you sure?’ Meg quizzed.

Trout dug a finger into his ear and twiddled it. His face flushed slightly, showing some emotion for the first time since the trial had started. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

‘You suppose so?’ she pounced. ‘You’d sleep easily knowing he had been put behind bars for maybe fifteen years because you suppose he is guilty? Are you saying you are not one hundred per cent sure?’

‘One hundred per cent certainty on anything is very hard to achieve, Meg,’ he said, defensively.

And now she knew she had him on the ropes. ‘Please correct me if I’m wrong – your job was assessing the risks of everything your company insured?’

‘I had to assess the risks of loss at sea of both ships and their cargoes.’

She nodded. ‘All right, let’s imagine the hypothetical situation in which your company had been asked to insure Terence Gready for ten million pounds against the risk of going to prison. How would you have calculated the premium?’

‘That is pretty much an impossible question,’ he said, affably.

‘You must have had a model on which to calculate your premiums? A ratio of risk to reward?’

‘Ah, I see. You want me to give the percentage chance of a “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict?’

‘Based on the hard facts of the evidence. Without the spin put on it by the prosecution or defence counsels.’

He pouted his lips. ‘With my insurance hat on, I would put it at around eighty per cent probability of guilt on all counts.’

‘So a twenty per cent chance he is innocent?’

After a moment he responded with a reluctant, ‘Yes.’

She looked at him hard. ‘Could you say that a horse in a race, given odds of four to one, would, for sure, fail to win that race?’