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On the other side, the Thornbers are back. Gabriel’sin situ, still invisible and wearing yet another fancy suit, but the sunglasses are on today, and he’s making no obvious attempt to unleash his power on the court.

He notices my eyes on him and gives a wide smile of greeting. I look away before he can drag me further into his net.

The first witness is a barmaid from The Angel, which is apparently a bar in the town centre, though it wasn’t there in my day. Weird to think of the town changing, even in small ways. In my mind, it’s fixed in time.

Her eyes are a clear, cheerful blue, with no sign of mesmerism. Her long, highlighted hair sways as she walks into the witness box, giving me enough of a glimpse of the side of her neck to convince me there’s no Thornber tattoo there. Which doesn’t prove she’s not affiliated with the Thornbers, merely that she’s not a full member, not in the inner circle.

She’s looking down at the floor, and her hands are trembling slightly, but it appears to be merely the normal nerves of someone giving evidence in a major trial. There’s none of the wide-eyed terror I’d expect if the Thornbers were forcing her to lie under oath.

Imran gives her a gentle smile and starts his questioning. “Where were you on the evening of the 15th June?”

Her reply is clear and certain. “At work. At The Angel, on York Road. Started at five, finished just before midnight.”

I scribble down a note. For whatever reason, Gabriel’s not attempting to project his power on the court today, which makes focusing on my legal duties a damn sight easier.

“Did you see the defendant that night?”

She nods. “He came in around seven, by himself. Sat down at the bar. Ordered a beer.”

“Was the defendant known to you? Had you spoken to him before?”

“He comes in every so often. We’ve had the odd bit of banter over the bar. I wouldn’t say I know him personally. But everyone in Mannith knows about Brendan Sadler.”

The judge gives the witness and the prosecution lawyer a pointed look. “Stick to the facts, please. What you think you know about the defendant is not relevant here.”

“Thank you, Your Honour,” Imran says. “Now, you say he ordered a beer. Did he say anything else to you?”

“That or just thinking aloud. He said something like,I’m going to make those Thornber bastards pay.”

I almost laugh out loud. Really? Everything else she’s said was in her witness statement, but this detail is new. She’s obviously in the pay of the Thornbers rather than merely mistaken, if she’s spouting such obviously made up “evidence”. She could have tried to come up with something vaguely subtle.

“And how did you respond?”

“Customers talk a load of crap when they’re drunk, even if you’d normally take a threat from Brendan Sadler a bit more seriously than one from a random guy. Still, half the point of my job is to be a sympathetic ear. So I was all like, ‘Why? What have they done to you, love’?”

“Did he reply?”

“Yes. He stood up and downed his drink.‘I’ll make them pay for what they did to my sister. It’s been six years. Long enough for the prohibition on taking revenge to have faded. But not long enough for me to have forgotten’.”

My head swivels in Bren’s direction. He’s shaking his head. That line wasn’t in the witness statement either. But it sounds a lot like something my brother would say, and not much like something someone would make up.

I do the calculation in my head. It hadn’t clicked, but the night of Niall’s murder would have been exactly six years since the night of the lien.

Imran asks a few more questions to establish the details, then the witness’s account ends with Bren slamming down his glass, storming out, and driving off in his open-topped Mercedes, way over both the speed limit and the drink drive limit.

When it’s finally my turn to speak, I stand up, bracing myself for another onslaught of power from Gabriel, but still nothing comes. I can’t help turning around to check he’s still there. He is. Watching silent and expressionless, sunglasses on.

Not that I need magic to distract me. The witness’s words rushing through my head are quite enough. Still, I’ve been trained to do this. I’ve practiced hundreds of times. I may be emotionally invested in the result and worried my brother’s lying to me, but it’s surprisingly easy to slip into the role of smooth defence lawyer.

“How many people did you serve that night?”

The witness frowns. “Quite a few.”

“Did you have conversations with all of them?”

“A couple of words while I poured their drinks.”

“So why were you talking to the man at the bar? Why do you remember what he said so clearly?”