IT HAD gone unspoken until a passing mention from the bench in late afternoon.
Informing jurors that ongoing legal argument meant they wouldn't be needed until Monday morning, Mr Justice Barry White asked them not to rush to judgment or draw conclusions "as to what happened in Mr and Mrs Kearney's home this day two years ago".
With its austere layout and its comfortingly repetitive rituals, the courtroom occasionally has the feel of some kind of secular church, the long wooden benches its pews, and the public gallery its silent congregation.
We stand only when instructed to do so.
Yesterday, on the second anniversary of Siobhán Kearney's death, the McLaughlin parents and siblings might have been mourners at an improvised Mass. They sat close together in silence, the women dressed in black, hands clasped and resting on their laps.
Their composure only falters when the veneer of legal formality is breached by a sudden reminder of the sister and daughter they knew. Brighid McLaughlin yesterday fought back tears as Garda John Phelan told of finding her sister's passport wrapped in sheets under some clothes in the hot press.
Behind the tank, there was a diary she had been keeping since January 27th 2006, its last entry dated February 27th - the day before her body was found.
Ann Marie Sparks, another of Siobhán's sisters, then held the blue A4 diary aloft and confirmed the handwriting as that of "my sister, Siobhán McLaughlin, the wife of Brian Kearney".
All the while, Kearney sat still, impassive, his hands linked on his lap and one thumb tapping gently against the other. He turned 51 yesterday, on the anniversary of his wife's death.
He listened as Toni Massey, a forensic accountant, told the court his assets were worth €4.6 million in February 2006.
She explained that there were borrowings of €844,456 against the family's home in Goatstown, with mortgage repayments of €15,300 a month for two properties in Dublin and Majorca.
Asked by Dominic McGinn, for the prosecution, what the financial implications of a separation might be, Massey said the couple needed to sell an asset to relieve the €850,000 they had borrowed on the family home to build a new one next door.
If they did that, they would be mortgage-free. She added that they would both have to agree to selling either Carnroe or the house next door. However, Massey also agreed that Associated Electrical - a company Kearney part-owned - was profitable and was selling some of its property at the time. Had it been liquidated, she said, Kearney would have made €1.355 million on his 25 per cent stake.
After two intense and draining weeks of evidence, the signs of weariness are everywhere in court No 3. The pauses are longer, and the fidgeting more frequent.
But with the prosecution concluding its case yesterday, the trial is coming to an end.
The jury will return on Monday to hear closing speeches from the prosecution and the defence. After hearing the judge's charge, the jurors will retire.
And the rest of us will wait.
