The evidence was all circumstantial. Georgio had been in the car lot the day of the robbery - three people had testified to that. Except that those three people were not reliable. One, a woman named Matilda Braithwaite, had been looking at cars; she had dropped in to inspect a small Mercedes Sports. A woman in the wrong place at the wrong time. Under oath she had been reduced to a quivering wreck, finally unsure if it had been on that day or the one before that she had called in at the lot; admitting that she often traipsed around car dealerships looking at different models. It was a kind of hobby with her, rather like those women who look at other people’s houses. The other two witnesses had been swiftly discredited because one was a convicted criminal, the other a well-known layabout already convicted of perjury.

The prosecution had brought forward a battery of men who said they would not, under any circumstances, give evidence against Georgio. It had been a farce, but an elaborate farce. No one had been able to get a straight answer from any of them. Only that they refused to give evidence either way. One man, a Jimmy Something or other, had mumbled his lines as if rehearsed. Which Donna had a sneaking feeling they were. Well-rehearsed.

Then out had come the reliable, and oh so plausible Peter Wilson, dressed in a nice grey catalogue suit with his hair cut and blowdried. He told the court he was a wheelman, and had been approached by Georgio Brunos to drive the car on the day of the robbery. He said he had taken the car that was used for the job from the car lot three months previously, in order to get it ‘tuned up’. He too refused to name the other men in the robbery - men who were supposedly now on the run - for fear of his life. He was only telling the truth about Georgio because he understood it was his duty. As for the others, he did not know them personally; they were ‘outside’ men brought in by Brunos and known only to Wilson by sight: he had first seen them on the actual day of the robbery. He understood they had travelled over from Marbella for the job, and supposed that was where they were now. He would receive a reduced sentence for his part in the robbery because of his help.

As all this travelled through her mind, Donna became aware that the judge was being handed a piece of paper. He opened it, deliberately taking his time. Pulling herself back to reality, she listened intently to his words.

‘Has the jury reached a decision?’