The Walking Dead

David Banks sat in the public gallery. His Glock was on his hip and gouged awkwardly into it; it was with Wally's agreement that he had been allowed to wear it into court eighteen — too much palaver to check it into the police booth at the main door, then get it back when he followed the jurors to their sealed room and stood outside at an adjournment, and he'd sensed that the chief inspector had a distaste for firearms but he'd promised — and smiled drily — that the safety catch would be firmly on. He wore the loaded pistol at his belt and had given his guarantee that the weapon could not accidentally discharge a bullet. If the holster, and the Glock's handle, had not pushed into him, Banks might have dozed: nothing to hold his attention as the prosecution's barrister droned through the minutiae of the evidence that the court had heard, that would convict the lowlife brothers. Banks did not close his eyes, let his head sag.

The public gallery was divided into two sections by an aisle. The case detectives, men and women from the Crime Directorate, were in the other section, and among them were uniformed constables of the beefed-up security detail. On the row in front of Banks, two women had gold at their throats, real fur on the collars of their coats and highlights in their hair; he thought them cousins of the lowlife or mistresses. Beyond the court door were more uniforms and some of them had Heckler & Kochs slung from black webbing straps, but Banks's was the only firearms officer inside — and the damn thing hurt him.

Nothing of the Victorian history of the building seeped into court eighteen. It was, he thought bitterly, 'customer friendly', designed to put men and women at their ease, to make them lose sight — with the soft pastel paint on the walls, and the beechwood furnishings — of the real world of crude violence, that of the Curtis brothers. The judge, didn't seem a bad sort, was on a shallow raised dais to his right, and the brothers were at the far end to his left; there were only low panels hiding their legs, no armoured glass screen or a cage's bars to keep them in place. Between the judge and the prisoners there were layers of lawyers, then the court staff, and the prosecution's man ploughed his way through his prepared notes. About the only damn action was from the stenographer who rattled away at her keyboard. Opposite Banks was the jury.

His Principal was in the second row. The guy lounged easily in his seat and was one of the few who took no notes of the barrister's address. Didn't have on a clean shirt, as the other men did. Hadn't combed his hair, and the other men's was tidily brushed. Banks knew the first names of the jury, and his Principal was close, too close, to the woman on his right, Vicky. She wore a cheesecloth-type blouse and a loose-fitting cotton skirt of bright print colours, both of which showed off her body's contours, and his Principal was too bloody close to her. The chests, shoulders and heads of the front rank of jurors cut off his view of the hips and knees of the one called Vicky and his Principal, but he fancied they would be touching, which was too damn close.

The hatred gnawed in him. He could have stood up then, pushed himself to his feet, interrupted the calm and quiet of the barrister's words — could have yelled, full volume, from the depths of his throat, a torrent of obscenities.

David Banks loathed Cecil Darke, the man whose notebook was in his jacket pocket with the pebbles and coins, resting on the Glock's holster.

He had no photograph of Cecil Darke, his great-uncle, only imagined images. Probably small, probably slight, probably anonymous in a crowd, probably had a squeaky voice, probably had no distinguishing marks…His ignorance consumed Banks Probably had courage, determination…The man overwhelmed him, had destroyed already the delicate equilibrium of his life. Cecil Darke had pitchforked his way, uninvited, into the life of his great-nephew. Each hour of the day, and most of those at night when he slept and dreamed, Banks now walked alongside the volunteer in the British battalion — and had been with him when the vitality of hope was lost on the sodden, frozen or parched fields of battle. Had learned to love and admire Cecil Darke. Had learned of his own life's destruction by association. Had learned to curse. Had learned to hate, loathe, detest. The words from a canteen lark played in his mind, and a senior man's, and the caution of an armourer: his defence of Cecil Darke had imploded on him. David Banks was, and could recognize it — as a price for that defence — rejected by his team and cast out, alone…He was with a bloody jury, was reckoned unreliable by the Delta crowd, unable to hack the big-time. They wanted, in Delta, 'steady' men, 'team' men, and they thought his defence of his great-uncle left him short of the qualities they demanded. He had no one to confide in — felt naked, vulnerable, a failure.