He stared back at her levelly. ‘As I’ve maintained all along, Primrose, I’ve been fitted up. You understand better than most how much the police loathe us lawyers. Give them any opportunity to hit back and pot one of us and they’ll seize it with open arms. I’m a victim. An innocent victim. This is all a huge embarrassment for me.’

She glanced down and made another note, then looked back up at Gready and their eyes locked.

Her expression was deadpan, but there was the hint of humouring him in her bright blue eyes.

They both knew the score. Two pros. Fighting on the same side. No moral judgements. The trial that began next Tuesday in Court 3 of Lewes Crown Court, in Sussex, like all jury trials, was never going to be about delivering justice. It was going to be a game where personality ran roughshod over evidence. It was going to be about convincing twelve ordinary citizens that the family guy standing in the dock with a pleasant smile in the dark-blue suit and nice tie could not possibly be guilty of the allegations.

It was about those one or two words the foreperson would read out after the jury had retired to deliberate their verdict. Quite binary, really.

Guilty.

Not guilty.

Or in a barrister’s more colloquial terms –

Win.

Lose.

Fox remained behind after Brown and her junior barrister left the room. He gave Gready a reassuring smile. ‘We’ll sort it, Terry,’ he said.

‘What’s the update on Mickey Starr?’

‘No news – a lot depends on the outcome of your trial. If you were found guilty – heaven forbid – you’d both be sentenced together.’

‘And he’s kept schtum?’

‘Appears to have done. He doesn’t feature in any of the trial documents. Want him as a character reference?’

‘Funny,’ Gready said, bitterly.

Fox was silent.

Gready went on. ‘You said a while back he’s looking at the wrong end of fifteen years plus?’

Fox nodded again. ‘For that amount of drugs, yes, plus his violence at Newhaven. He’d likely serve half actually inside, less what he’s done already on remand, the rest out on licence.’

‘How much reduction do you think he’d get for ratting me up?’

The solicitor was evasive. ‘Depends. You know the score, Terry, you’ve been in that situation with clients yourself.’

‘I know – but I’m finding it hard to think straight sometimes, at the moment. Depends on what?’

‘On how valuable the prosecution thinks what he has to say is. He could be looking at a substantial reduction in sentence.’

Gready smiled. It was a while since he had last smiled. But Nick Fox would sort it, he knew. They had their plan. King of the Jungle. He always sorted everything.

23

Friday 3 May

‘You look tired, Roy. Are you OK?’ Alison Vosper asked.

They were in a booth of a hotel on the Embankment, close to New Scotland Yard.