‘OK. It is very important that we all give our honest opinions. But let’s again remind everyone of the judge’s comments about Michael Starr, which I wrote down. He said we need to bear in mind that Starr had given evidence implicating Terence Gready in the hope of getting a lesser sentence.’ She looked down at her notes. ‘The judge instructed us to – in his words – approach Mr Starr’s evidence with caution. He also went on to say, and I think this is very important for us to consider, you should ask yourselves whether Mr Starr has, or may have, tailored his evidence to implicate Mr Gready falsely.’

She looked up again. ‘To me, that is pretty unequivocal – I think the judge was going as far as he dared to warn us not to trust Starr.’

Trout shook his head. ‘I think you might be reading too much into those words, Meg. My interpretation is that undoubtedly he is doing the right thing in warning us of the possibility that Starr could be lying for his own gain, but I don’t interpret that as a thinly veiled instruction to use from the judge.’

‘I disagree with you,’ she replied and noticed enough nods around the table to indicate she had most of the jury with her on this.

‘Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this, won’t we!’ Trout retorted, with irritating smugness.

Meg fleetingly wondered what living with this man must be like. She was sorely tempted to snap back, I was told always to allow other people to be right, it consoles them for not being anything else. But instead she decided it was best to change the subject.

‘Let’s move on to the evidence given by Emily Denyer. I have to say that by the time she had finished, I was almost certain that Mr Gready had to be the mastermind behind all the banking and financial shenanigans. But then we heard from Carolyn Herring. A person with impressive credentials from her former senior role in the Fraud Prevention Department of the Inland Revenue. After she had given her evidence it made me think.’

To Meg’s relief, there were several nods of agreement around the table. ‘Can we,’ she said, ‘be sure, again, that it was Mr Gready behind all the banking and financial transactions? I wouldn’t be comfortable saying it was.’

There were several murmurs of assent. But to her slight consternation, there was no reaction from Rory O’Brien, who had, for the past hour or so of their discussions, been totally focused on the spreadsheets. She wasn’t even sure if he was listening, but then again, he hardly ever spoke. For the moment, though, she didn’t mind, she was on fire, adrenaline coursing through her. She really sensed this was going her way.