The jury were filing back into the room. Eight men and four women. They looked serious, as they were supposed to. Donna was reminded of long-forgotten courtroom dramas from America, in which the suspect’s wife, knowing her husband is innocent, has to watch him being condemned. But now there was no amiable cop around to pip the jury to the post. She felt an insane urge to laugh, only knew it was not with humour but with hysteria. She fought the urge, and held her breath instead.

As she watched a reporter at work sketching Georgio, she expelled the breath in a long silent sigh. Six weeks ago at the start of the trial, Georgio had been jaunty, confident. He had sat upright, offering his profile to the young girl so she could draw him at his best. Smiling that engaging smile of his. Today, he sat slumped in his chair. He looked beaten. Donna felt her heart going out to him, this man of hers, this husband whom she missed so much, especially in the night.

‘Jaysus, they’re taking their time. Would they just get it all over with?’

Maeve Brunos’s voice was loud, her face, semi-obscured by a large hat, looked ferocious. Donna took her hand and squeezed it tightly. Pa Brunos was wiping his forehead with a large handkerchief. His enormous bulk was squeezed into a dark blue suit, and he looked out of place - a peasant once more in the company of his betters.

Donna felt her heart constrict with love for these two kind people, both of whom were amazed and bewildered by the events of the last year. God-fearing, law-abiding citizens of their adopted country, they couldn’t comprehend what had transpired. Their eldest son, their pride and joy, had been accused of masterminding a bank robbery, a robbery that had been violent in the extreme. During the execution of it, a guard had died - a young man with a pretty plump wife and two innocent children. Another guard had been shot in the leg, wounded badly enough to be confined to a desk, his permanent limp a painful legacy of doing his job. He had lain beside his dead colleague while the masked raiders loaded up the money into a car, one that Georgio Brunos had reported stolen three months previously.