As expected, Kelly’s investigation was being pulled apart by the defence in their summing up. They’d moved to dismiss on the grounds that they lacked evidence several times during the proceedings. It was common, but it still made her blood boil. All she could do was listen, as each point was elucidated, to the horror and gasps of the gallery. She watched the jury. There were six women and six men, of all different ethnicities, ages and backgrounds. Gone were the days when lawyers could get their heads together and kick a few off the final line-up, now it was in the hands of the jury service. Contrary to common belief, judges could sway trials easily. The standard perception was that the judge simply sat and umpired, and made sure everybody did their job. However, in his (or her) summing up, he regularly and easily was able to influence the ordinary men and women sat watching and eager to get home and out of the circus, particularly if it was a trial that attracted a lot of attention, and this one had. Of course it had; it was multiple murder, and it was Cumbria.

Kelly wondered which way the judge would go. She was a wizened old bird: white, Caucasian, no doubt heterosexual, a few kids, stereotypically standard in her politics, and part of The Firm. The prosecution expected her to go with them.

She did.

She was spectacular in her bias against Ian Burton being stitched up, as the defence had continually argued, as much as anyone could be in a democratic and fair legal system, with her tongue firmly in one cheek. Kelly could tell from the facial expressions and tics emanating from the jury bench that they had them on side. She glanced over to Johnny, who was grimacing every time the judge reminded the jury about Burton’s crimes in detail, which was her right, inside her courtroom. Behind the thick glass of the dock, Burton sat expressionless. The prosecution barrister sneaked a look behind her towards Kelly and smiled.

They had him.

The defence’s summing up had been brutal, but thankfully brief. It was all about reducing Ian Burton’s sentence, rather than placing doubt in the mind of the jury over whether he was guilty. The defence knew it, but they were dangling as many loose ends as they possibly could to get a life sentence reduced to, say, twenty years, out in ten.

Ted reached across and squeezed her hand.