PICTURE OF INNOCENCE : Extract

In silence, over a black background, the most serious charges being brought against the man arrested were rolled up the screen, with a note of maximum sentence allowed on each, followed by the number of other arrests made as a direct consequence. Over this rolling list of iniquities, Curtis Law's voiceover said that perhaps the problem society had to face in the twenty-first century was less one of organised crime than one of disorganised policing.

The black faded up to the freeze-frame of Lloyd's face and the silence in which the credits went up was broken by his voice: 'These are random break-ins, not the work of some Mr Big,' now with multiple echo effect, so that the last words repeated several times as the soundtrack faded to silence again. An Aquarius Television Production rounded the whole miserable thing off.

'Well, gentlemen?'

Lloyd had been mocked once before, in his childhood, because he had a first name that other children found funny. The mockery had made him want to cry then, and now he had discovered that it still made him want to cry. But he was a fifty-year-old man, and his colleagues would find it more than a little odd if he did. Besides, he had embarrassed them enough already by making the bloody remark in the first place. He was aware that his face was flushed, and wished he smoked, like Judy did in times of emotional stress. He understood why now.