The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [74]
Mr. Justice Buchanan frowned before asking if there were any chance of a unanimous verdict being reached if he allowed more time. Once he had learned that it was proving impossible, he reluctantly nodded his agreement to a majority verdict.
The jury disappeared downstairs again to continue its deliberations, and did not return for another three hours. I could sense the tension in the court as neighbors sought to give each other opinions in noisy whispers. The clerk called for silence as the judge waited for everyone to settle before he instructed the clerk to proceed.
When the clerk rose, I could hear the person next to me breathing.
“Would the foreman please stand?”
I rose from my place.
“Have you reached a verdict on which at least ten of you are agreed?”
“We have, sir.”
“Do you find the defendant, Paul Menzies, guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty,” I replied.
YOU’LL NEVER LIVE TO REGRET IT
And so it was agreed: David would leave everything to Pat. If one of them had to die, at least the other would be financially secure for the rest of their life. David felt it was the least he could do for someone who’d stood by him for so many years, especially as he was the one who had been unfaithful.
They had known each other almost all their lives, because their parents had been close friends for as long as either of them could remember. Both families had hoped David might end up marrying Pat’s sister Ruth, and they were unable to hide their surprise—and in Pat’s father’s case his disapproval—when the two of them started living together, especially as Pat was three years older than David.
For some time David had been putting it off and hoping for a miracle cure, despite a pushy insurance broker from Geneva Life called Marvin Roebuck who had been pressing him to “take a meeting” for the past nine months. On the first Monday of the tenth month he phoned again, and this time David reluctantly agreed to see him. He chose a date when he knew Pat would be on night duty at the hotel, and asked Roebuck to come round to their apartment—that way, he felt, it would look as if it was the broker who had done the chasing.
David was watering the scarlet Clupea harengus on the hall table when Marvin Roebuck pressed the buzzer on the front door. Once he had poured his visitor a Coke, David told him he had every type of insurance he could possibly need: theft, accident, car, property, health, even vacation.
“But what about life?” asked Marvin, licking his lips.
“That’s one I don’t need,” said David. “I earn a good salary, I have more than enough security, and on top of that, my parents will leave everything to me.”
“But wouldn’t it be prudent to have a lump sum that comes to you automatically on your sixtieth or sixty-fifth birthday?” asked Marvin, as he continued to push at a door that he had no way of knowing was already wide open. “After all, you can never be sure what disaster might lie around the corner.”
David knew exactly what disaster lay around the corner, but he still innocently asked, “What sort of figure are you talking about?”
“Well, that would depend on how much you are currently earning,” said Marvin.
“A hundred twenty thousand a year,” said David, trying to sound casual, as it was almost double his real income. Marvin was obviously impressed, and David remained silent as he carried out some rapid calculations in his head.
“Well,” said Marvin eventually, “I’d suggest half a million dollars—as a ballpark figure. After all,” he added, quickly running a finger down a page of actuarial tables he had extracted from his aluminium briefcase, “you’re only twenty-seven, so the payments would be well within your means. In fact, you might even consider a larger sum if you’re confident your income will continue to rise over the next few years.”
“It has done so every year for the past seven,” said David, this time truthfully.
“What kind of business are you in, my friend?” asked Marvin.
“Stocks and bonds,” replied David, not offering any details of the small firm he worked