The Baker Street Jurors (8 page)

Nigel processed that quickly. “Done. I'm Nigel. Which juror?”

She looked around. “I don't see him yet. I'll let you know. Do you know anything about the food here?”

“Avoid the shepherd's pie, if they offer it. I hear they include elements of the shepherd. And shepherds aren't as cleanly as one might hope.”

“They said something about a pasta?”

“Yes,” said Nigel, “but get the red sauce, not the white.”

They both did that. They took their trays out into the common eating area and sat at one of the large Formica tables.

“There he is now,” said Lucy. “That's him.”

Nigel looked. Just now coming through the cashier queue was the tall man who Nigel had spoken to earlier in the alley. The one who had interrupted the opening statements. He had a pad of paper out, and he was jotting something down as the cashier rang up his lunch.

“Him?”

“Yes,” she said. “He smells like pipe smoke. He ran to catch up with me on the stairs, and he keeps trying to talk to me for some reason. And he says he has lots of questions for the judge. See, there he is, writing them out right now. Is he allowed to do that?”

“He shouldn't be writing notes except in the courtroom, and he has to leave them there on our breaks. Perhaps he's writing something else. But yes, when opening arguments are completed and we get to the witness testimony, the judge can allow questions. And I expect there will be some.”

“When he followed me in the stairway, he was talking about how he's going to want to see the witnesses' hands, and their hats, and their shoes, and their watch fobs.”

“Watch fobs?”

“Yes. I don't think I've ever seen a real-life watch fob. Have you?”

“Not since my great-grandfather died.”

“And he keeps staring at me.”

“Yes. Well. Regarding staring—”

“I mean in a weird way.”

“Just for my own future reference, how do you distinguish between staring in a weird way and staring—”

“Omigod, he's coming over. Don't look!”

And yes, indeed, the tall alternate juror was coming over.

“I said not to look!” said Lucy.

“Well,” said Nigel, who had looked, “you should have said that first, and then said that he was coming over. I can take instructions, but they need to be in the proper order.”

Now the man was only a few feet from their table. And now he was right next to them.

And now he kept walking, with his tray, right on by.

“Oh,” said Lucy.

“Disappointed?” said Nigel.

“I'll bet he was coming to our table, but then you looked, and so he didn't.”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “I sometimes have that effect on people.”

Then suddenly, at the last moment, just as they were settling in, the tall man turned and came back to join them.

“What did you two get?” he said, pulling up a chair.

As he put his tray down on the table, other jurors from the lunch queue, seeing a group begin to form, brought their trays over as well.

“I got fish-and-chips,” said the tall man. “Hope they have the same next week. I mean, if it goes that long. Do you think it will?”

The pensioner widow and the man with the calloused hands sat down at the table now. They introduced themselves as Armstrong and Mrs. Peabody.

“I don't think we're supposed to talk about the trial, are we?” said Mrs. Peabody.

“No,” said Nigel, trying to hide his disappointment at the arrival of a crowd. “We're not.”

“A technicality,” said the man with the expensive shoes, who joined them now. “Everyone does talk.” He introduced himself as Bankstone, and he took the chair on the other side of Lucy.

“I wish we weren't on a murder case though,” said Lucy. “I had a friend who was on a brutal rape case—they detailed each of the several counts, and everything that led up to them. When she went home at night, she wanted to tell her husband about it, but you're not allowed to talk about the case. She had to go in for counseling after.”

“If it's graphic medical testimony you're concerned about,” said Mrs. Peabody, “I was on a civil case involving a malfunctioning wood chipper that was as awful as anything you can imagine.”

“But the stakes are so high,” said Lucy. “What if we get the verdict wrong?”

“The police and the lawyers and the judge have to do their jobs first,” said Nigel. “Then we decide based on what they present to us.”

“Yes, but if the lawyers say it's really up to the jury, and we say it's really up to the lawyers, then who is really responsible?”

“It's just like raising children to adulthood, dear,” said Mrs. Peabody. “There are some things that are up to you—and there are some other things that just aren't, no matter how sad they might make you.”

“Even so,” said Lucy. “I'm glad I'm an alternate and not one of the regular jurors. I don't want to have to decide someone's fate.”

“You won't be doing it by yourself, dear,” said Mrs. Peabody. “We'll all do it together. It is rather tricky, I admit—you have to be independent enough to have your own point of view, and cooperative enough to listen to everyone else's. In every one of the juries I've been on, we reached a verdict. Either there never was any real doubt—or else there was plenty of it—and we all felt the same way. Perhaps we were just lucky, though.”

“I saw one fellow get dismissed from the jury pool because he said he wouldn't convict no matter what the evidence showed,” said Armstrong. “He said he thought everyone is entitled to one mistake.”

“That's what he said, but it's not what he meant,” said Nigel. “What he meant was that he wouldn't convict because he was willing to give his hero a pass.”

“True,” nodded the tall juror.

“Don't either of you believe in second chances?” said Mrs. Peabody.

The tall juror raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't answer immediately. He took a moment to douse his fish-and-chips generously with vinegar and inhale the scent of it striking the still-hot deep-fried batter. Then he said, “I very much believe in second chances. But that doesn't mean you don't pay a price. You make your one mistake, and then you are lucky or unlucky in the consequences of it, and then you recover from it as best you are able, and then you repeat the process. With new mistakes. And with some correct choices as well, probably, but of course it's not always easy to tell one from the other.”

“So we're talking about life here, or the law?” said Nigel.

“Oh, sorry,” said the tall juror, and then he bit into the flaky white fish with obvious satisfaction. “In my opinion, the food here is better than its reputation.”

Nigel took that remark as an invitation to talk about something else, but Mrs. Peabody wasn't willing to let it go quite yet.

“How did you know that the man in the back row would get dismissed?”

“Simple,” said the tall juror. “It was warm in the courtroom, and everyone else had removed their macs and sweaters. But not him. He kept his mac on, zipped up to the neck. Now, this could have been either because he was wearing a McSweeney cricket jersey underneath, or because he had an England cricket team tattoo on his neck or forearms, but because he was actually sweating from too much clothing, I concluded it was a jersey that he was trying to conceal. He wore it to the courthouse to proclaim his support for McSweeney, but he covered it up with his jacket when it looked like he had a chance of getting on the jury. It was obvious and I knew the judge would dismiss him.”

“That's a lot from a zipped jacket,” said Mrs. Peabody.

“No,” said the tall juror, “not within the context. You can tell quite a lot about anyone from their appearance, and that information is amplified exponentially if you know just the slightest bit of their current or past circumstances.”

“For example?” said Bankstone.

The tall juror put down his fork and glanced at all four of the alternate jurors seated around him.

First he looked at Nigel and at Lucy.

“No, I don't think I should do yours at the moment,” he said to Nigel. “Or yours,” he said to Lucy.

“Well, if you don't do someone, we're not going to believe you,” said Mrs. Peabody. “Try me. I should be easy.”

“You married at a young age, remained so for more than forty years, until your husband passed away. He was in the legal profession himself, probably a judge. You miss him.”

She raised an eyebrow, pondered for a moment, then said, “You got most of that because I moved my wedding ring, along with my ruby anniversary band, to my right hand.”

“Yes. Easy, as you said.”

“But how do you know my late husband was a judge?”

“You said in court that you've done jury duty three times, all in the last six years. Something prevented you from being eligible before that. Until very recently, officers of the court were absolutely prohibited in England from being on jury service, and their spouses typically would not be impaneled, either. So you did not begin to be placed on juries until after he passed away. The expensive design of the clothes you are wearing suggests that he was a judge, as opposed to some lower officer of the court.”

“Fair enough,” said Mrs. Peabody. “Now do someone else.”

“How about him?” said Lucy.

She was indicating Bankstone, the man with the expensive haircut, and the expensive casual clothes, and the very expensive shoes. A man who was taller than Nigel, in better shape than Nigel, and clearly making much more money.

Nigel found her apparent interest discouraging.

“Do you mind?” she said to the man, leaning toward him a bit.

“No, go right ahead,” he said, smiling slightly.

“Investment broker,” said the tall juror. “Partly from your haircut, but mostly from your shoes. You tried to get excused because of a planned vacation, but you've used that excuse once before already this year, so they kept you on over your objection.”

“That's close,” said the man, quite enthusiastically. “I was a derivatives day trader, but now I'm in biomedical/pharmaceutical acquisitions.”

“What's that?” said Nigel.

“Surprisingly simple. I buy a small biomed company that isn't doing well but still has some drugs that are under patent, or even generic drugs for which it is the only manufacturer. Then I cut back on the resources that are dead weight—that is to say, the research division—and then I raise the price on the patented or unique drugs as high as the market will bear—and then, having made all those improvements, I sell the whole thing to the highest bidder and move on to my next project.”

Lucy took perhaps two seconds to absorb that information—and then she very subtly edged away from him at the table.

I still have a shot, thought Nigel.

“Now him,” said Lucy, indicating Nigel.

“Barrister,” said the tall man. “They almost threw you out, but they were so desperate to fill the quota that they kept you on.”

“Wrong,” said Nigel. “Not a barrister. Only a solicitor.”

The tall man studied Nigel for a moment. “My error. It was a close call, I should have said simply ‘lawyer,' to cover both possibilities. It's a capital mistake to theorize before one has all the facts.”

Nigel recognized that phrase immediately. He knew where he had read it—many times. But he had never heard anyone say it in real life.

“You've evaluated our occupations,” said Nigel. “What about yours?”

“I'm a musician,” said the tall juror. “You may call me Siger. The longer form is Sigerson, but that's been overused.”

Now the steward stepped in at the canteen entrance. “Your attention please. All jurors from court number thirteen, please return to the courtroom immediately.”

There were murmurs and a commotion of eating utensils, and everyone in the canteen looked questioningly toward the steward. “Again, jurors from court thirteen. Jurors from court thirteen only. Both primary jurors and alternates. Please return immediately to the courtroom. You may bring your portable food items with you, this one time only. Thank you.”

Nigel and Lucy both stood, and she started to pick up her plate of unfinished pasta.

“I wouldn't,” said Nigel. “Portable means a bag of crisps. And you don't want to be sitting there for three hours with that plate in your lap.”

In Court 13, the judge was already in place as the summoned jurors filed in. But the door to his chambers was ajar. He was leaning his chin on his hand, his elbow on the bench, staring down at a document, and he did not look happy.

Ms. Sreenivasan motioned for the jurors to take their seats, and then she closed the courtroom doors. The judge looked over at the jurors. “I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch,” he said. The scent of fish-and-chips with vinegar filled the room. The judge inhaled. “And I myself am so very, very hungry. However, I have some sad news. You may have noticed that there is one empty seat among you. This morning there were twelve of you seated as primary jurors, and now there are eleven.”

Everyone looked at the primary jury section—except the people in the spectator and press galleries, who couldn't see around the partition, and so had to content themselves with murmuring. And except the barristers for both defense and prosecution, who wanted to pretend (at least to the jury itself) that exactly who was a juror and who not was a matter of complete indifference to them.

“It is always sad when we lose one of our own. I regret to tell you that less than an hour ago, when we broke for lunch”—the judge paused now, wincing at his own choice of words, but then had no choice but to just continue—“juror number seven, in the process of descending the stairs to the canteen, slipped and fell. Fortunately, her knitting needles were carefully stowed, and so no one else was injured—but she herself has broken her hip.”