Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) - By Caitlyn Robertson Page 0,15

felt sick. Why hadn’t she returned her form saying she was getting married at the weekend?

Two middle-aged men filled the final two places in the box and that was it—they were done. The judge told them they were to make their way to the jury room and choose a foreperson, and that they should inform the registrar if they knew the defendant or were aware of the case in any way.

They all shuffled out of the box and followed the registrar out the courtroom, down a carpeted hallway and into a room at the end. The room had a long table with twelve seats around it, a coffee machine, a water cooler, a door to a tiny garden and a bathroom off one end.

The registrar gave them all a note pad and a pen, and told them to take a seat and choose a foreperson to speak for them in court. Then she left the room, shutting the door behind her.

“God damn it,” said one of the men. “I really didn’t want to do this today. I’m right in the middle of an important project.”

“Me neither.” An older woman sat in one of the chairs with a long sigh. “I was going to Auckland to visit my daughter if I wasn’t chosen.”

The elderly man with white hair also sat, and gradually they all took their places.

“Where do we start?” someone asked.

“Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves,” suggested the elderly man. “I’m Tom. I’m retired, but I used to be a gardener.”

They went around the table, each saying their name and their occupation. When her turn came, Honey said, “I make sweet pastries in a café—I guess that’s why I’m called Honey.” She’d meant it as a joke. Nobody laughed. Everyone looked nervous. She bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t bothered.

When the introductions were finished, one of the men said, “Okay, so how do we choose a foreperson?”

The impatient man who’d been the first to speak—who’d told them his name was Matt and that he worked in investment—snorted. “It used to be foreman. Bloody political correctness.” He tapped his pen on the paper in front of him. “I’ll do it.”

The woman next to him gave a wry laugh. “I don’t think so. With an attitude like that?”

“What attitude?”

“Somebody else might like to do it too,” one of the men said resentfully.

Matt glared around the table. “Okay, who else wants to do it?”

“Not me,” said one of the women. “I hate that sort of thing.”

Nobody else said anything. Most looked at the table.

Shit, though Honey. If the misogynistic idiot did it, they might as well lock up the defendant and throw away the key now.

“There,” Matt said triumphantly.

Could she bring herself to do it? She swallowed, the words teetering on the edge of her lips. She wanted to say it badly, but then Matt looked at her and the words faded. She didn’t have the strength to do something like this, to argue with others who would no doubt be vehement in their opinions. Shame flooded her, and she looked away.

“I’ll put myself forward.” Tom spoke.

Matt frowned, but Honey felt a surge of relief.

“Okay,” said one of the men, “let’s take a vote.”

Six of the women and one man voted for Tom. The other two men voted for Matt, and so did the youngest woman there—who was already making eyes at the moderately handsome banker. How frickin’ predictable.

“Right,” Tom said. “Let’s tell the court we can get started.”

Chapter Seven

Constable Dex had a busy Monday morning. First up, he did some paperwork in the station, and then helped out with a call in town from a woman complaining that the guy she’d taken a restraining order out on was bothering her. The woman didn’t want to press charges, so he gave the guy a talking to and let him off with a warning, thinking as he watched the man slouch away how difficult it was sometimes to let someone go, how hard it was to move on.

Then at ten, as the schools’ liaison officer, he had a training session with a bunch of kids from the local primary school who’d volunteered as road crossing patrol before and after school. He spent a while showing them how to fit the pole of the metal safety barrier into the slot—which proved a more difficult task than he’d expected—then walked them through the process of looking both ways and waiting for an empty road before saying, “Signs out, check, walk now!” As usual, the