Hardy turned to him. ‘It has not been erased.’ But even as he said it, he knew it had to be true. Soma wouldn’t have any reason to bluff. ‘I asked the bank to save it.’

He had figured he had the copy. He’d even copied the copy to give to Soma and Drysdale. The efficient and personable Ms Reygosa, the manager, had assured Hardy that the bank would keep the original as backup.

With his infuriating calm, Drysdale was back at Salter. ‘Naturally, we wanted to review the original for accuracy after we’d seen Mr Hardy’s copy, Your Honor. Evidently the bank misinterpreted Mr Hardy’s request and thought that once the tape had been copied, they would be free to reuse it.’

Hardy pressed his fingers against his temples. This could not be happening. It was completely his incompetence. He couldn’t believe it, and there was no one to blame but himself. ‘Your Honor, I have the copy and it has remained unedited and in my possession-’

Soma cut him off, shaking his head in disagreement. ‘The copy could have come from Blockbuster, Your Honor. There’s no date or time on it. It could be anything.’

‘I’ll get Ms Reygosa to testify it is a complete and accurate copy of the original that’s been erased, Your Honor. That’s sufficient foundation.’

‘Alas, Mr Hardy’ – Soma’s dramatic reading made Hardy want to punch him – ‘Ms Reygosa didn’t make the copy. The copy was made by one Juan Xavier Gonzalez, who has returned to his native Honduras after somebody took a hard look at his immigration status.’

‘You son of a-’

‘Look, Diz.’ This was Drysdale, serious now, cutting Hardy off before he talked himself into a contempt fine. ‘Technical inadmissibility aside, your tapes are supposed to cover three working days, right? Twenty-four hours.’

‘We all know this,’ Hardy said.

‘Except they’re only a little over twenty-two and a half hours long. There’s an hour and a half missing.’

Hardy well remembered his day of fast-forwarding the videos to the good parts. Evidently Soma hadn’t let his own boredom make him sloppy.

Drysdale went on. ‘This guy Gonzalez not only erased the originals. He couldn’t have given you full copies.’ He turned to Salter. ‘There’s no foundation, Judge, and more to the point, these tapes don’t prove a thing.’ Drysdale didn’t have the gloating tone, but the words alone were enough.

Unnoticed by Hardy, Freeman had pulled himself out of his chair. Hardy felt a hand on his shoulder, reassuring.

Salter had heard enough. The tapes were inadmissible.

Gil Soma started on each witness with an enthusiasm that Hardy found daunting, especially so after the defeat he’d just suffered in chambers. No videotapes! After all of his effort to procure them. What a fool he was.

Now, on Thursday afternoon, Soma was approaching the end of his case in chief. From his self-confident demeanor it was clear that he barely, if at all, felt any of the wounds that Hardy had inflicted.

Alison Li started out as nervous as she’d been at the bank on the day Hardy had first interviewed her. Soma was gentle with her, leading her through the standard witness questions – name, place of business, and so on – gradually getting to the meat. ‘Ms Li, do you recognize the defendant here’ – pointing – ‘Graham Russo?’

‘Yes, I do. He’s a customer at the bank where I work.’

Pleased out of all proportion, Soma slowly walked back to his table and picked up a piece of paper, and entered it into evidence. ‘Now, Ms Li, I’d like you to look at People’s Fourteen here and tell us if you recognize this document.’

She took the paper and scanned it quickly. ‘Yes, this is a sign-in form for customers holding safe-deposit boxes.’

‘And did you see Graham Russo, the defendant, sign this document?’

‘Yes, I did.’

Now Soma put his enthusiasm to good use. ‘Ms Li, aren’t customers supposed to sign in and date this form?’

‘Yes.’

‘But, as we see here, Mr Russo didn’t do that, did he?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ask him to do it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And yet he didn’t?’

Hardy wanted to break up the rhythm, so he stood up. ‘Asked and answered, Your Honor.’

Perhaps Salter was sympathetic to Hardy’s despair. This wasn’t much of an objection. Still, the judge nodded. ‘True enough. Sustained. Move along, Mr Soma.’

But Soma had a knack for the small and telling variation. ‘Did the defendant give a reason why he wouldn’t put the date on this form?’

‘No. I didn’t notice. He said he would and I thought he did, but he didn’t.’

And so it went.

By the time Hardy stood to begin his cross-examination, Alison Li had drawn the picture clearly. Graham Russo had come in sometime that Friday afternoon and deposited something in his safe deposit box. He appeared nervous. He was in a hurry.

They thought they’d have the videotapes to fall back upon, and without them Hardy was forced to bring David Freeman’s argument into play. The defense team had prepared extensively for it, and Hardy was possessed of a near ethereal, desperate calm as he walked to the center of the courtroom.

He brought a smile forth and showed it to the witness. ‘Ms Li. You have testified that Graham Russo brought a briefcase with him on the afternoon in question. At any time, did you see the contents of the briefcase?’

Alison’s nerves were back in play. She shifted in her chair, looked at the jury, then at Soma, finally back to Hardy. ‘I never said I did.’

‘I didn’t say you did either.’ Hardy kept any threat out of his voice. They were having a conversation, that was all. ‘But I am asking you now. Did you see what was in the briefcase?’

‘No.’

‘Not at any time?’

‘No, never.’

‘So you don’t know what was in the briefcase, or in fact if anything was in the briefcase, isn’t that true?’

Hardy took the moment to get a read on the jury. Obvious as this question was, it did what Freeman had predicted: poked a hole into one of the prosecution’s main assumptions, its scenario of the day of Sal’s death. He saw several members of the jury sit up, digesting this.

Alison Li nodded her head and told him that yes, it was true. She didn’t know what was in the briefcase.

Hardy was making the point that Graham had not necessarily taken the money and baseball cards from Sal’s apartment and essentially hidden them in his safe deposit box. There was no proof that Graham had deposited the money or anything else within months of Sal’s death.

In fact, Hardy believed Graham’s version completely, he had had the money and the baseball cards in the briefcase, and he’d put them into his safe deposit box on Thursday. But the truth here did not serve the ends of justice – Hardy was beginning to wonder if it ever would in this case – so he jettisoned the truth without a backward glance.

Hardy continued. He was going to nail this down. ‘Did you, personally, Ms Li, ever get a chance to see the contents of Graham Russo’s safe deposit box?’

‘No. Customers generally go into a private room.’

‘So to your own personal knowledge, do you know how long the baseball cards and money were in Mr Russo’s box?’

This slowed her to a stop. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times and she looked at the jury as though asking for help. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Could it have been weeks?’

‘Yes, possibly.’

‘Months?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Hardy had gotten what he wanted. To the jury, he’d gotten to reasonable doubt about whether Graham had killed Sal and then taken the money and run it to the bank to hide it.

His own confidence was beginning to come back, and he still had another point to make. ‘Do you remember talking to me at your bank last May sometime?’

At this line of questioning Alison’s eyes took on a defiant glow. ‘Of course.’

‘And during our discussion, didn’t you tell me you thought that Graham Russo had come in to make his deposit on Thursday?’