to understand the trauma of seeing again an ex-lover, a man who had, quite literally, thrown her out of his life.
Clenching her fists till it hurt, Paris said, ‘Are the other people already at this safe place?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of them? All the jurors?’
His assessing eyes met hers. ‘All except the lady who was murdered, yes.’
Murdered. Such a dreadful word. It brought home to Paris for the first time the danger she was in. But she still said, ‘Please, I can’t go with—with all the others. I’ll go somewhere else, if you like, but not with them.’
He nodded, in no way surprised. ‘I see.’
She caught her breath, realising that there had been no need for any soul-searching; he already knew it all. ‘Yes, very likely you do,’ Paris said bitterly.
The inspector glanced at his colleague, hesitated, then said with a degree of sympathy that she hadn’t expected, and which confirmed his knowledge, ‘It probably won’t be for long, perhaps just a week or so, and then you’ll be able to come home. There will be a lot of people there, enough so you won’t be thrown together with anyone you don’t want to be with. You’ll have your own room and be as private as you like. But I’m sorry, I can’t arrange for somewhere else for you at this short notice. If it goes on for longer I might be able to arrange for you to go somewhere else after Christmas, though.’
When it would be a complete waste of time, Paris thought despondently. Her nightmare of the last three years had been that she might chance to meet the man she’d been so in love with, have to face him again and see the contempt in his eyes. Now it looked as if she was not only going to see him, but would have to spend an indefinite period in his proximity.
With a sigh, Paris said dully, ‘If you’ll promise to find me somewhere else as soon as possible, then, all right, I’ll come. Where are we going?’
‘I’m afraid we’re not allowed to tell you that.’
She gave him a look that spoke volumes. ‘I am going to wash my hair,’ she said forcefully. ‘And then I’m going to have something to eat, unpack, and make several phone calls. Then I’ll get ready to go. Is that all right by you?’ Her hands were on her hips and the last sentence was said in a dangerous tone that dared him to argue.
The inspector, having got his own way by forceful coercion, could have been magnanimous, but all he said was, ‘So long as you can do all that within the next two hours, yes.’
They took her in a car and drove for quite some way, but then, to Paris’s surprise, the car stopped and they hurried her into a station and onto a train where she was to share a sleeping compartment with a policewoman. The blinds were pulled down across the windows on both sides and she couldn’t see out. The door was locked and the light turned low.
Paris’s thoughts were far too full for her to want to sit and chat with the policewoman, so she said that she was tired, took off her shoes and coat and climbed into the upper bunk, firmly closing her eyes.
Her heart was filled with a dread so deep that it was almost like a physical fear. How would she bear it if Will openly showed his hatred of her? Even now, after so long, it was still sometimes hard to understand how it had all gone so wrong—so horribly, humiliatingly wrong. Maybe it was because of the circumstances in which they’d met: at a murder trial, of all things. But there had been such radiant happiness, too, at the beginning…
The train journeyed on through the night, swaying, clanking along the rails, the rushing air loud outside, and Paris’s mind went back to the very beginning, when she had been sitting at breakfast with Emma, one morning in late spring.
‘Jury service!’ Paris gazed at the letter in her hand in consternation. ‘But I can’t possibly do it. I don’t have the time.’
‘When are you supposed to go?’ Emma, her flatmate, reached over and took the letter from her. ‘The seventh. That’s only three weeks away. And at the Old Bailey, too; that’s where they have the longest cases, isn’t it?’
Paris’s frown deepened into gloom. ‘I know—and I’m supposed to be going to the conference in Brussels that week.’
‘Perhaps you can get out of it,’ Emma suggested languidly as she handed the letter back. ‘Tell them you’re going on holiday or something.’
Paris hesitated. ‘Wouldn’t that be against the law? Couldn’t you be fined or something if you were found out?’
Emma gave an astonished laugh. ‘For heaven’s sake! Who’s going to find out? People do it all the time.’
‘Well, I can try, I suppose,’ Paris said, still rather dubious, but she reflected that Emma, who was more than ten years older and worked for the same company, usually knew what she was talking about.
Later that morning, as soon as she arrived at her office at the cable network company for which she worked as a sales representative, Paris called the clerk of the court’s office and asked to be released from doing the jury service. He asked for proof that she had booked a holiday, and when she lamely admitted that she had none he refused point-blank to let her off.
‘Isn’t it possible to postpone it indefinitely?’ she begged.
‘No, madam, it is not,’ the man said shortly.
So there was no getting out of it. Paris had to go and see her boss, who arranged for Emma to attend the Brussels conference in her place. Paris was furious at her bad luck; she’d had this job for less than a year since leaving university and was putting everything she had into it. Representing the company at conferences, going abroad to promote their network strategies, being always available to visit potential clients constituted a big part of the job.
Paris had passed the training course with flying colours, was one of the brightest young reps, and knew that a good career lay ahead of her. Which she certainly intended to achieve. She was ambitious and wanted to get to the top just as soon as she possibly could. But there were always others with the same ambitions, the same aims. Having to sit through some criminal case for weeks on end, or even months, she thought with a groan, wouldn’t do her career any good at all.
Angrily reluctant to serve as she was, Paris had to admit to a feeling of awe when she arrived at the Central Criminal Court—the Old Bailey as the building was commonly known—in the heart of the City of London. The courtroom was so old, the polished wooden benches and the judge’s throne-like seat high on a dais so reminiscent of all the trial films she’d ever seen that she couldn’t help but feel the solemnity and power of the place. Looking at the dock, she thought of all the-people who had been tried there—murderers, rapists; she gave a shiver, her anger momentarily chastened.
Her fellow jurors seemed to have similar feelings. Earlier, they’d had to stand one by one and give their name and age and take the oath. Paris hated that, considering her age to be her own business. When it was her turn, her voice had a strong note of defiance as she said, ‘Paris Reid. I’m twenty-two.’
A couple of the younger barristers smiled, as did one of the male jurors, she noticed. He was sitting on the end of the row and hadn’t yet been
