Had she ever actually been in danger or were they just using Laura as a bargaining chip and a threat? Should she now go to the police, she wondered? But tell them what? And what would that achieve? She would simply be implicating herself and, at the end of the day, she hadn’t really done anything wrong – she’d made the right moral decision in finding Gready guilty. It was now time to move on. Hopefully, they no longer viewed her as useful to them. But would she ever feel really safe again? Only time would tell, but there was no point worrying about things she couldn’t change.

The real excitement at this moment was reuniting with her daughter. There was just one cloud on the horizon – telling Laura about Horace. She’d been trying to think of ways to cushion it.

Guinea pigs had a lifespan of around five years. Poor Horace had been close to that, she calculated. She’d bought him for Laura as a coming-home-from-hospital companion after the accident. Maybe she would tell her he’d died peacefully in his sleep, slipped away in his old age.

After all the lies she’d heard in court over the past few weeks, this seemed a pretty tame one.

109

Friday 31 May

‘Dead?’ Roy Grace said, in near disbelief. ‘Stabbed by his co-defendant, in the dock, in broad daylight?’

It was just gone 2 p.m. Glenn Branson stood in front of him in his office, nodding. ‘Yep.’

Grace shook his head.

‘You all right, Roy, you seem very distracted recently?’

He waved a hand, dismissively. ‘More grief about Bruno. Cleo had a call from the school this morning, he was really rude to a teacher. Anyhow, we’ll deal with that later. So, tell me. How the hell did he get a weapon in through court security?’

‘Did I tell you Starr has a prosthetic right arm? He must have spent hours – days – on it, turning it into a weapon – a shank. It was plastic so wouldn’t have been picked up by the metal detector.’

‘Doesn’t sound like Terence Gready is a big loss to the human race but, shit, I’ve never heard of that happening, ever.’

‘No doubt Cassian Pewe will find a way to hold you responsible, boss,’ Branson said with a sardonic smile.

‘No doubt.’ He shrugged. ‘So, talk me through what exactly happened.’

Branson gave him chapter and verse. When he had finished, Roy Grace was pensive. ‘So, first Starr pleads guilty, to get a reduction in his tariff. Next, his brother, Stuie, his raison d’être for his “guilty” plea, is murdered. Then, in court, he negates his potential reduced tariff by murdering his co-defendant in cold blood. Why?’

‘Anger?’ Glenn ventured.