‘That was a Saturday, was it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you ask the defendant if he’d seen or talked to his father the day before?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And what did he say?’

Sarah looked over at Graham. Hardy thought he saw a flush creeping into her complexion, but in a moment she was back at Drysdale. ‘He said no. He hadn’t seen or talked to his father the day before.’

And so it began. To get to most of the answers Drysdale had to use the same approach he’d used on the first question. ‘Did you ask?’ ‘What did he say?’

Throughout, Sarah managed to retain her composure. Hardy had coached her that her testimony would not ultimately affect the verdict. She should tell the truth, and he’d explain the falsehoods in his closing statement.

But Hardy had to admit that listening to this almost unbelievable litany of lies was more than disheartening. He prayed that the jury would buy his version of why Graham had lied, but perhaps he’d underestimated how much people valued the truth. He saw it in the eyes of almost all the jurors.

Say what one will about evidence, juries were often helped along in their deliberations by a perception of the kind of person who was charged with the crime. And Graham, with this testimony, looked very, very bad.

Under Drysdale’s patient and meticulous examination, the jury learned that Graham had lied to the police about being close to his father, about knowing what was causing Sal’s pain, about the number of phone calls he’d received from Sal, about the morphine supply and the doctor who’d supplied it. He’d lied about giving the shots themselves.

He’d lied to his own brother about the existence of the money, to his sister about the baseball cards.

He’d denied knowing about his father’s safe, professed ignorance of his own bank, to say nothing of his safe deposit box, denied that he and Sal had ever talked about money to pay for doctor bills.

It was four-twenty and Drysdale had to be getting to the end. Hardy couldn’t even remember any more lies that Graham had told him, although he was sure that given time he could come up with some. Finally he heard those magic words, ‘Your witness.’

Freeman reached over, around Graham, and touched Hardy’s sleeve. ‘Let me take her,’ he whispered.

Graham, joking, poked him with an elbow. ‘She’s mine,’ he said, and Hardy told him to shut up again.

Freeman didn’t let go. ‘I can undo it. Soma sat down for her and let Drysdale do it. You can sit down and let me.’

Hardy wasn’t sure what Freeman had in mind, but the old man had a well-deserved reputation in the courtroom. He shook things up, often with great success. Indeed, this was precisely the reason Hardy had agreed to let him sit in with them. And now he wanted to play.

Hardy nodded. ‘Go for it.’

Freeman wasted no time. He stood up at his place at the table and, as Drysdale had done, introduced himself and began. ‘Inspector Evans,’ he asked, ‘in your opinion, and based on your training and experience as a law-enforcement officer, is the defendant here, Graham Russo, a man that you can trust?’

There was a long, dead pause of shock in the courtroom.

Freeman had obviously given this question a lot of thought during the ninety minutes or so that Drysdale had kept Sarah on the stand and Hardy thought it was perfect – pure Freeman. He would never had thought of it.

Of course it was inadmissible. It was speculation. It wasn’t based on evidence. It was, from any legal perspective, a just plain dumb question.

But Hardy had a sense – and Freeman probably knew - that neither Drysdale nor Soma would object. After all, they had a police officer up on the stand who had just recounted what seemed like a million lies the defendant had personally told her. What was she going to say? How could she possibly say that, yes, she trusted him?

Sarah bit her lip, looked at Drysdale, then Graham, finally Freeman. Hardy threw a look up to Salter, who seemed to be waiting for the objection that did not come.

‘Yes,’ she said.

In the room itself order of a sort was restored in time for Salter to call an end to the day’s proceedings.

But as the gallery began filing out, the orderly queue trying to get through the double doors dissipated into pushing and name-calling. The fireworks picked up out in the hallway and overflowed out the back door – the legal professionals’ exit from the building.

Hardy went with Graham back to the changing room; the defendant would be sleeping, as usual, in his jumpsuit. Pleased that Freeman had so beautifully undercut Sarah’s damaging testimony, Hardy’s mind nevertheless kept going back to Michelle and Frannie and what in the world he was going to do with the rest of his life.

So twenty minutes later, accompanied by the bailiff and Graham, he was surprised when they got to the corridor behind the building on the way back to the jail and were stopped by the gathered crowd of at least eighty people.

The reaction to Sarah’s testimony.

Pratt was in the thick of it. The district attorney had been in the courtroom and had raised her fist and said, ‘Yes,’ very audibly, right after Sarah had uttered the same word.

Now, back behind the hall, it was a mob scene. Hardy saw Freeman standing over by Drysdale. Barbara Brandt was there, Soma, a bunch of cops in uniform, tons of press.

In nearly twenty years under a great variety of stresses and burdens, Hardy had never before seen Art Drysdale really lose his temper. But he’d lost it now with Sharron Pratt, the person who’d fired him a few months ago.

‘I’ll tell you what you are, Sharron.’ His voice carried all the way back to where Hardy stood with Graham and the bailiff at the doorway. ‘You are an absolute disgrace to law enforcement. In fact, you’re not in law enforcement at all. You’re in social engineering.’

To Pratt this was a badge of distinction. ‘You’re damn right I am! The people elected me, Art. You know why? They were tired of the letter of the law, and the spirit be damned! They were tired of deals getting cut in back rooms.’

The bailiff decided he ought to get Graham back into the jail, to his cell, but Hardy stopped him. ‘You’re going to want to hear this, Carl.’ So they stayed, flies on the back door.

Cameras were rolling. Microphones were pointed. Hardy saw Sarah next to Marcel Lanier, inside the knot of acrimony. She hadn’t been the grenade, but she was the pin that, once pulled, had led to the explosion.

‘We didn’t cut any deals in back rooms.’ Drysdale was raving, standing on a concrete planter box. He stormed at the crowd. ‘This woman has no clue! Doesn’t anybody see that?’

Pratt shot back at him. ‘You put Graham Russo on trial for murdering his father when you know he didn’t. That says it all.’ The DA played it for the crowd, raising her own voice. ‘Anybody out here think this wasn’t an assisted suicide? Anybody think this was a murder? I’m waiting.’

Hardy didn’t miss the irony in the fact that the defense team and Sarah were probably the only ones who did think Sal had been murdered. But this wasn’t the time to bring it up.

Taking his cue from Pratt, Drysdale struck again. ‘Ask your friend Barbara Brandt, Sharron. Ask her if she’s ever met Graham Russo. I’ll tell you what – she hasn’t! We checked her out, Sharron. It’s all made up.’

Brandt yelled out, ‘That’s a damn lie. That’s-’

Drysdale shouted her down. ‘But don’t let the truth get in your way. It never has before.’

Suddenly, even Sarah was in his sights. He turned to her and pointed. ‘And while we’re at it, what reward are you giving Sergeant Evans for her testimony today? You going to let her be your chauffeur?’

Freeman, in the unaccustomed role of peacemaker, reached a hand up to Drysdale. ‘That’s out of line, Art. Come on down.’