'Your evidence, Miss Edalji, is exactly the same, down to the smallest detail, as that of your parents.'

Maud looked evenly back at him, waiting to see if this was a question, or the precursor to some deadly assault. Whereupon Mr Disturnal, with a sigh, sat down again.

Later, at the deal table in the basement of Shire Hall, George felt exhausted and dispirited. 'Mr Meek, I fear my parents were not good witnesses.'

'I would not say that, Mr Edalji. It is rather the case that the best people are not necessarily the best witnesses. The more scrupulous they are, the more honest, the more they dwell on each word of the question and doubt themselves out of modesty, then the more they can be played with by counsel like Mr Disturnal. This is not the first time it has happened, I can assure you. How can I put it? It's a question of belief. What we believe, why we believe it. From a purely legal point of view, the best witnesses are those whom the jury believes most.'

'In fact, they were bad witnesses.' All through the trial it had been not George's hope but his certainty that his father's evidence would bring him instant vindication. The prosecuting counsel's attack would break against the rock of his father's integrity, and Mr Disturnal would come away like a miscreant parishioner rebuked for idle slander. But the attack had never come, or rather not in the form that George had anticipated; and his father had failed him, had failed to reveal himself as an Olympian deity whose sworn word was irrebuttable. Instead, he had shown himself pedantic, prickly and at times confused. George had wanted to explain to the court that if as a boy he had committed the slightest misdemeanour, his father would have marched him to the police station and demanded exemplary punishment: the higher the duty, the greater the sin. But instead the opposite impression had emerged: that his parents were indulgent fools who could easily be duped. 'They were bad witnesses,' he repeated dismally.

'They spoke the truth,' replied Mr Meek. 'And we should not have expected them to do otherwise, or in a fashion that was not their own. We should trust the jury to be able to see that. Mr Vachell is confident for tomorrow; so must we be.'

And by the next morning, as George was taken from Stafford Gaol to Shire Hall for the last time, as he prepared to hear his story laid out in its final and ever-diverging form, he felt in good heart again. It was Friday 23rd October. By tomorrow he would be back at the Vicarage. On Sunday he would worship again beneath the upturned keel of St Mark's. And on Monday the 7.39 would take him back to Newhall Street, to his desk, his work, his books. He would celebrate his freedom by beginning a subscription to Halsbury's Laws of England.

As he emerged from the narrow staircase into the dock, the courtroom seemed even more crowded than on previous days. The excitement was both palpable and, to George, alarming: it did not feel like the grave anticipation of justice, more like a vulgar theatrical expectation. Mr Vachell looked across and smiled at him, the first time he had made such a gesture openly. George did not know whether to return the greeting in the same fashion, but settled for a slight inclination of the head. He looked across at the jury, twelve good Staffordshire men and true, who from the start had struck him as being of decent and sober mien. He noted the presence of Captain Anson and Inspector Campbell, his twin accusers. Though not his real accusers – they were perhaps out on Cannock Chase, gloating at what they had done, and even now sharpening what in Mr Lewis's view was a curved weapon with concave sides.

At Sir Reginald Hardy's invitation, Mr Vachell began his final address. He asked members of the jury to put aside the sensational aspects of the case – the newspaper headlines, the public hysteria, the rumours and allegations – and concentrate their minds on the simple facts. There was not the slightest evidence to show that George Edalji had left the Vicarage – a building closely watched by the Staffordshire Constabulary for days previously – on the night of the 17th to 18th of August. There was not the slightest evidence to connect him to the crime with which he was charged: the minuscule bloodstains found could have come from any source, and were quite incompatible with the violent damage wreaked upon the Colliery pony; as for the hairs supposedly found upon his clothing, there was a complete discrepancy of evidence, and, even had hairs existed, there were alternative explanations for their presence. Then there were the anonymous letters denouncing George Edalji, which the prosecution maintained had been written by the defendant himself, a ludicrous suggestion quite out of keeping with both logic and the criminal mind; as for Mr Gurrin's testimony, it was no more than a matter of opinion, from which the jury was entitled, and indeed expected, to dissociate itself.

Mr Vachell then dealt with the various innuendos made against his client. His refusal to accept bail had been made out of reasonable, not to say admirable, sentiments: the filial desire to lighten the burden on his frail and elderly parents. Then there was the murky business of John Harry Green to consider. The prosecution had sought to tarnish George Edalji by association; yet not the slightest link had been established between the defendant and Mr Green, whose absence from the witness box spoke volumes. In this, as in other regards, the prosecution case amounted to no more than a thing of shreds and patches, of hints and innuendos and insinuations, none of which connected to one another. 'What have we left,' counsel for the defence asked in peroration, 'what have we left after four days here in this courtroom, except the crumbling, crumpled and shattered theories of the police?'

George was pleased as Mr Vachell regained his seat. It had been clear, well-argued, with no false emotional appeals of the kind some advocates went in for; and it had been most professional – that is to say, George had noted the places where Mr Vachell took more liberties of phrasing and inference than might have been allowed in Court A under Lord Hatherton.

Mr Disturnal was in no hurry; he stood and waited, as if for the effect of Mr Vachell's closing words to dissipate. Then he began to take those shreds and patches alluded to by his adversary, and patiently sewed them back together again, making a cloak to hang round George's shoulders. He asked the jury to consider first the behaviour of the prisoner, and reflect upon whether or not it was that of an innocent man. The refusal to wait for Inspector Campbell and the smile at the railway station; the lack of surprise at his arrest; the question about Blewitt's dead horses; the threat to the mysterious Loxton; the refusal of bail and the confident prediction that the Great Wyrley gang would strike again and effect his liberation. Was this the behaviour of an innocent man, Mr Disturnal asked as he reconnected each of these links for the jury's mind.

The bloodstains; the handwriting; and then the clothing yet again. The prisoner's clothes were wet, his house-coat and boots in particular. The police had stated this, and sworn this. Every policeman who had examined his house-coat had testified that it was wet. If so, and if the police were not completely mistaken – and how could or should they be? – then there was only one possible explanation. George Edalji had, as the prosecution maintained, stealthily crept out of the Vicarage into the stormy night of the 17th to the 18th of August.

But even so, despite the overwhelming evidence of the prisoner's deep involvement in the crime, whether alone or with others, there was, Mr Disturnal admitted, one question that needed to be answered. What had been his motive? It was a question the jury had every right to raise. And Mr Disturnal was there to help with the reply.