The Baker Street Jurors (14 page)

“No one gets a mistrial,” said the judge. “We still have jurors to spare. Just as soon as they get here.”

“I have dibs on shotgun,” said Slattery.

“No such thing,” said Langdon. “First in, first choice.”

“You're both wrong. My bailiff gets shotgun, and then Ms. Sreenivasan, and then you two sit together behind her.”

The judge looked around. Ms. Sreenivasan looked at her mobile phone and nodded, but there was still no car in sight.

“My lord,” said Langdon, “in the interests of us all not catching pneumonia, may I suggest that if the remaining jurors do not arrive within the next five minutes, a dismissal would be in order—”

“Oh, please,” said Slattery. “My learned friend should just learn to suck it up.”

“My lord, I object! My learned friend's tone is—”

“Get ready to board,” said the judge. “Here's their car now. And if you two don't watch your manners and elbows, we'll turn the whole thing around and go right back home.”

And indeed, at the far end of the alley, the police barricade had parted, and the constables were waving a sedan on through.

Lucy, Mrs. Peabody, and a third juror got out of the car.

The jurors who had been waiting were told to board. Nigel tried to hang back, waiting for Lucy, but Mr. Walker and Ms. Sreenivasan got behind him and ushered him immediately onto the bus.

Mrs. Peabody settled into the seat next to Nigel. “Would anyone like a wine gum?” she said, holding a package up for all to see.

No one did, at first—but then, as Mrs. Peabody opened the package, Lucy, taking the seat behind her, relented.

“Thank you,” said Lucy. As she peeled off a purple wine gum from the roll, she glanced at Mrs. Peabody's purse. “My, you certainly come prepared,” said Lucy.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Peabody. “I just wish I had remembered to wear my sensible shoes. But I do have a sleeve of Hobnob's chocolate-covered oatmeal biscuits. And my own Earl Grey tea bags, because it has to be Twinings. And my sunscreen, though I doubt I'll need it, given how that sky is shaping up. And my bottle of allergy pills, because who knows what the flora is like on the island. And a pen. And a penlight. I had a penknife, but they confiscated that the first day at the courthouse, so I don't bring that anymore.”

“They confiscated my lighter the first day as well,” said Siger, seated behind her. “But if I'm allowed an opportunity to smoke, I'm prepared for it.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Peabody. “One should always be. As my late husband used to say, for want of a nail, a shoe was lost. And then it went on from there, of course.”

The windows were tinted, but the judge wasn't satisfied with that. There were curtains on the windows as well, and he ordered all the jurors to draw them closed before the bus proceeded.

Two officers on motorcycles in front of the bus started their engines, a marked sedan pulled up behind the bus, and then they were ready. The police moved the barricades aside, and the convoy came out of the alley, made a right turn, and then a left onto Newgate Street.

For the first forty minutes, getting out of the city, they might have been just any holiday tour group that happened to have a police escort. But then they reached the M4 and headed west—and within a few moments, a BBC helicopter appeared overhead. And then one for Sky News. And then a couple of motorbikes began suspiciously trailing them from behind.

The bailiff looked out the window and called the judge's attention to their pursuers.

“Yes,” said the judge. “And that's why we have curtains.”

 

13

Two miles from the coast of Devon, the bus and its escort took one more turn—and then marked police cars came up behind them and set up the final barricade. This far the media could pursue, and no farther.

The bus continued on, and in a last wheeze of diesel exhaust, came to a stop in the car park in front of the Running Monk pub.

The judge got out first. He wore a pastel cardigan under his open mac, with a white short-brimmed cap, looking very much like a well-off pensioner on holiday. He held one arm out behind him, keeping everyone else in the vehicles, as he surveyed the scene. He looked first at the street in front of the pub—which was clear—and then at the sky directly overhead—which was not.

“What's he doing?” said Lucy, her face up against the glass.

“Extending his middle finger, I think,” said Nigel. “At the media helicopters.”

Now an officer in one of the marked cars got on the radio, and a few moments later, the news helicopters with their cameras backed off.

The judge and the two barristers stood to one side of the bus, looking nervously about at the road, and the sky, and even the distant sea.

Finally the judge gave the all-clear. The jurors disembarked from the bus and assembled on the pavement in a little huddle with Mr. Walker and Ms. Sreenivasan.

The sign above the pub illustrated its presumed namesake—a plump monk, smiling and jogging in his brown robe and fluorescent Nike trainers.

To the south, the sky was mostly clear over the Devon coast, with only faint white clouds. To the northeast, the clouds were thicker and grayer. The small surf hitting the coast showed the misty blowback of an offshore wind. To the west was one of the several tidal islands for which this part of the coast was famous, and where Liam McSweeney had made his vacation home.

Ms. Sreenivasan pointed in that direction. The island was about a mile away, across the knee-deep water. “That's our destination,” she said. “We'll go across shortly.”

“Go across in what?” said one of the primary jurors.

“The tide's rather deep, so we're taking the passenger ferry,” said Ms. Sreenivasan, with an apologetic smile. “It's at the island right now, but they'll bring it back within the hour. You are all welcome to go into the pub until it is our turn to cross; we don't want you to stand around outside and become a spectacle or catch cold. You may use your lunch allowance here, but you may not use it for alcohol. And if you decide to indulge on your own—no more than a pint each, please. Wait, wait, please, don't everyone rush off yet—one more thing. We have done everything in our power to keep the media away, but we cannot prohibit the locals from enjoying their own pub, so there may be a few inside. You must not fraternize with them. Please remember that you are still a jury, and an anonymous one, and behave accordingly. Thank you.”

She smiled and nodded, and all the jurors rushed toward the pub entrance.

Inside the Running Monk pub, the barmaid peeked out the window. “Here they come,” she said.

Bert—a local man in his fifties, with a weathered tan, a wool pullover cap, and a slick windbreaker—came over to look as well. “I've never seen a whole courtroom on holiday before,” he said.

“Shh,” said the barmaid. “Don't spread it around. The poor dears are trying to be a secret.”

Bert shrugged and went back to his booth with his beer.

Then the barmaid turned and faced everyone else in the pub—most of whom weren't paying any attention at all. “Everyone,” she announced, “when this new group of … ah, tourists … comes in, please do not talk to them. Especially anything regarding sports or the law. Thank you.”

“Can we talk about you then, Maggie?” yelled a local in a middle booth.

“Got any fresh chips made up yet?” shouted another from a back booth.

At the dartboard on the back wall, a man in a golfing cap tossed a dart and cried out, “Double twenty! That's it! I win again!”

His darkly tanned opponent, wearing the rugby jersey of a New Zealand team, grumbled something, put his own darts away, and brought out a wallet. Several bills changed hands.

“I think this nearly puts my retirement plan back in order,” grinned the man in the golfing cap. “G'night, Maggie! My work here is done.”

The man in the golfing cap went out the back door, and the man in the rugby jersey came up to the bar to console himself with another pint.

The visitors from the Old Bailey entered the pub. They seated themselves in an instinctive grouping—most of the jurors sat together, the officers of the court keeping to themselves.

On the display wall behind the bar was a black-and-white photo, perhaps a few decades old. Lucy studied it as Maggie brought their lunch specials and a pint each.

“What is that?” said Lucy.

“What, the odd-looking thing in the photo, with the ridiculously big tires, listing to one side with waves crashing into it?” said Maggie.

“Yes.”

“That's the sea tractor. Trying to get out to the island during the storm of '96.”

“Don't think I've ever seen one of those before,” said Nigel.

The barmaid nodded. “That's just another of the lovely things that makes our little tidal island unique. During low tide, you can walk across and not even get your ankles wet. During a very high tide, you can take a shallow-draft boat across, if the weather's decent. But when the tide is at just a certain height—quite a bit lower than it's at right now—you can ride the sea tractor. There are two of them actually, one is for the hotel and our pub, and the other belongs to … to Mr. McSweeney.”

“Looks like fun,” said Lucy. “I can't wait to try it.”

“Really?” said Nigel.

“You are with the party that just pulled up in the bus, aren't you?” said Maggie.

“Yes,” said Lucy.

“Well then, you won't get to do the sea tractor this time,” said Maggie. “It's across at the island right now, and the tide is too deep to bring it over. So you'll be taking the boat instead. Bert will take you across when it's your turn. In the meanwhile, you've arrived just in time for my afternoon tourist welcome speech.”

“Must you?” said Bankstone. “We aren't exactly tourists, you know.”

Mrs. Peabody looked alarmed at that remark, and she tried to shush Bankstone with an elbow nudge and a whisper. “We're supposed to keep a low profile!”

“Well, I know you aren't locals,” whispered Maggie, quite pleasantly, “and I didn't see any paintball weapons and you aren't all giggling like fools, so I knew you aren't on a corporate team-building retreat, either.”

“He only meant,” said Nigel, “that we are short on time—so perhaps you could give us just the abbreviated version?”

“I'll do my best,” she replied, “although I hate to shortchange the American tourists. There's at least one here today.”

“You mean the man from Las Vegas?” said Siger. “The fellow in the back booth, with his sunglasses on indoors, and wearing alligator shoes that have bits of sand stuck in them, of a type that is more characteristic of deserts than the sea? Sitting across from the dedicated sports enthusiast from New Zealand? Next to a local who, judging from the wear on his face, spends significant time exposed to the elements, and from the wear on his clothes does it as an occupation rather than for recreation, and from his wool pullover cap and his presence in this pub at this hour is quite possibly the watercraft operator who will take us across to the island?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” said Maggie. “That's Bert. And I think you guessed right about the Yank next to him as well; I heard his accent earlier.”

Now she reached up and rang a little brass bell that hung over the bar. “Attention, everyone. If you are new to Westbury-on-Sea and want to hear a bit of history and similar things, gather around. If you've heard me before, feel free to put your headphones back on or just tune me out, as you choose. I promise to stop as soon as the season is done.

“First, if you have wondered about the name of our little establishment—well, we used to be called the Pilchard's Scent—because there used to be a packing plant just a mile or so up the coast, and—well, you can imagine, especially those of you with keen olfactories. Fortunately, it was taken down more than fifty years ago, although rumor has it that if you go out to our back lawn and stand in exactly the right place and tilt your head in exactly the proper way, you can get a whiff of it still. Now we call ourselves something else, and I'll get to that in just a moment.

“You've seen that we have a little island across the way, and it has a very nice hotel, almost as famous as the one on Burgh Island, and not very much else by way of modern accommodations. On the one hand, the hotel has indoor plumbing. On the other hand, you can't get mobile phone reception on the island, no matter where you stand or who your carrier is. But the island does have English red squirrels, an endangered species. And it has monastery ruins from the ninth century, when English monks were an endangered species as well. The Vikings raided the island monastery at least three times. Legend has it that the first time, the monks were totally unprepared—so the Norsemen murdered as many as they wanted to for entertainment, then drank all their wine, stole all their bling, looked around for some maidens to ravish but didn't find any, and so departed. On the second raid a decade or so later, the monks were better prepared—they had installed a lookout tower, with a bell that they rang when they saw the longships approaching. So this time when the Vikings stormed in, they had the sport of knocking around a few monks who had armed themselves with wooden cudgels, the fun of breaking holes in walls to find the bling, and when they got down to the cellar to get the wine, they discovered that several of the bare-pated fellows had run down ahead of them, drunk half the casks themselves, and had begun singing songs. Still no maidens this time, either, because the only nunnery within a day's distance was many miles away on the mainland. Even so, the Norsemen found this trip to be even more fun than the first one, so they spared the monks who had the wisdom to get drunk and sing and only killed the ones who remained upstairs. A bit later in the century they came back to do it again, and this time as they approached, the Norsemen heard the bell ringing from the tower once again, and they eagerly readied their swords for whatever festivities the monks might have prepared for them.