She didn’t give a lot of thought to awards—that wasn’t why she wrote—but it was nice to be recognised. Perhaps this story would rate a mention somewhere too.

With a keen interest in this case, Zara had travelled from South Australia to attend the trial. She’d also spent a lot of time researching the people involved. The investigation she’d done was in-depth—she never wrote anything that couldn’t be substantiated by at least two sources. Zara had spoken to many people off the record and found that Colin Grawd was a serial protestor. He wasn’t one of the rent-a-crowd who so often turned up at these types of protests—he was hardcore. An extremist.

He liked breaking the rules.

Why the lawyer for the defendant hadn’t brought that up, she wasn’t sure. He could’ve made a case around the fact that Colin broke the law regularly. He trespassed, did things that weren’t legal. Surely that would help Gerard, who didn’t seem to have done anything like this before. Well, not that she’d found out about yet.

The hallway door opened and a few more people entered, expectation on their faces. Among them was a tall, thin man with a balding head and a ponytail. He took a seat in the back row, where he’d sat for the past week, and put his hand to his face to adjust his sunglasses. He wore them constantly, which is what had caught Zara’s attention when they’d left the courtroom on the first day. Wearing sunglasses inside was strange; although at first she’d thought they were prescription. But she’d seen him later that day rubbing his eye. Before he put his glasses back on she’d noticed that his eye was damaged somehow—it was milky. Now Zara suspected he was blind in that eye.

The man, whom she’d given the name Cloudy Eye, had been an avid follower of the case, but she hadn’t been able to work out what his interest was. She hadn’t managed to link him with either the defendant or the dead man, and he didn’t seem to know their families. He kept to himself, listening intently and leaving the courtroom as soon as the judge’s gavel had fallen for the day. That in itself had piqued her curiosity. Why would a member of the public be interested enough to sit in on five days of evidence without a particular reason?

She knew he wasn’t a journalist—he didn’t have an identification tag like the one she wore around her neck, and he didn’t take notes. She didn’t know his name and wanted to get a photo of him to see whether she could identify him when she was at the office, but the use of mobile phones wasn’t permitted in the courtroom. She made a mental note to get a photo when they were leaving court after the verdict. Perhaps someone at work would know who he was.

Her smart watch vibrated, and she looked at it. Lachy had sent her a text. Quickly she got up and went out into the hallway, before digging her phone out of her bag.