The Walking Dead

His attention roved between the future and the present. The future was the enormity of the mission on which he was now embarking, and it would take him to a continent that was beyond his previous experience; the message had come from the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, from old men who were fugitives. The present was the open expanse of sand grit, where the only mark of human habitation was the single-storey building of concrete blocks, which was thirty kilometres from the mid-point of the road that ran for nine hours of driving between the Saudi desert communities of Hafr Al-Batin, to the south-east, and Arar, which was north-west; where he sat, ate and talked he was not more than a kilometre from the border.

He saw the misery in the face of the young man, saw him blink away tears. He went to him. He squatted beside him. 'What is your name?'

A choked response: 'Ibrahim, Ibrahim Hussein.'

'Where are you from?'

'From Asir Province, the town of Jizan.'

'Do you have work in Jizan?'

'At Jeddah, in the university, I am a student of medicine.'

The sun had started to slip from its zenith. Soon, perhaps, small rats or rabbits would emerge to scurry on the sand having scented the crumbs of the bread they had eaten. Later, maybe, as the greyness of dusk approached, foxes would track them.

'We do not move before darkness. There is danger here, but greater danger if we travel in the light…Are you strong?'

'I hope to be. Please, am I rejected?'

'Not rejected, but chosen.'

He saw again the fullness of the smile, and relief broke on the young man's face.

He went to his own vehicle, and lay down full length in the sand, his head against the forward off-side lyre. Beneath the balaclava he closed his eyes and slept in the knowledge that the cool of dusk would wake him. More than the present, the images of the future sidled into his mind, and the part in it that a young man would play because he walked well.

* * *

'The laws of justice permit a jury to be reduced from twelve persons to ten. With ten of you the trial may still proceed. Regretfully, we have lost two — first, through tragic bereavement, and second, by this sad accident today in which your foreperson has fallen on the way into the building and has, I am informed, suffered a fractured bone in her leg…I am sure you will all join me in expressing our sincerest sympathy to your colleague. But now we must move on.'

When he had been told in his chambers of the wretched woman's tumble, Mr Justice Herbert had cursed softly, but to himself, not in the view or hearing of the bailiff.

'We have now been together for a day less than nine weeks and I anticipate that three more weeks, at a maximum, will enable us to reach a conclusion and you to find the defendants guilty or not guilty of the offences with which they are charged.'

He was a careful man. Sitting as judge in court eighteen at Snaresbrook on the eastern extremity of metropolitan London, Wilbur Herbert was renowned for his weighted words…He had no intention of letting the trial, Regina v. Oswald (Ozzie) Curtis and Oliver (Ollie) Curtis, slip from his grip, and no intention that his words now could justify any subsequent appeal by defence counsel for the overturning of a guilty verdict.

'We will adjourn, I hope briefly, so that you may go back to your room and choose a new foreperson. Then we will resume.'

He spoke softly. It was his belief that a lowered voice caused jury members to lean forward the better to hear him and held their attention. They were a run-of-the-mill crowd, neither remarkable nor unremarkable but typical, and he thought the case against the Curtis brothers was unlikely to tax them with complications. Should he tell them to be certain to have a bottle of aspirin conveniently adjacent should any relative show signs of sickness? No, indeed not. A momentary titter from a relaxed jury valuable as it was, denigrated the majesty of the Bench. He believed that majesty important to the process of justice.

'A few minutes only, I hope, for your choice of a new foreperson, and then we will continue…The matter of flowers is in hand.'

He gathered his robes closely against his stomach, rose and left the court. He was damned if this case would slide from under him — and slide it would if court eighteen lost just one more of those jurors.

* * *

A bitter little argument had divided the room. Trouble was that both Corenza and Rob had wanted the job, and both had trumpeted their claim. Important, was it, to be foreman, forewoman or foreperson of a jury? Both had obviously thought so. What they had in common — Corenza, the toff, and Rob, the pompous idiot — was the dislike they generated among the remaining eight jurors. Deirdre, Fanny and Ettie had gone with Corenza, as Glenys's successor, while Dwayne, Baz, Peter and Vicky had supported Rob. Himself? Well, he didn't give a damn, and he'd used his casting vote to give Rob, an officious, pedantic prat, the job that the imbecile seemed to yearn for.