“There isn’t?” said Will.

“Of course there isn’t. I know Scripture by heart. I’ve had it drummed into me all my life. Do you think that if it said I’d get drunk in a Brentford pub, get arrested and then put on trial for my life, I would have let it happen?”

“Well, I’d like to see exactly how I’m supposed to do the thwarting of the witches.”

“Thwarting,” said Tim. “I like that.”

“We’re frankly sick of the word,” said Will.

“Then you could use ‘confounding’ or even ‘trouncing’ or even ‘vanquishing’. Or ‘creaming’. That’s a good word, one of my favourites.”

“I’ve never heard you use it.”

“One of my new favourites.”

Will flicked through The Book Of Rune. “My goodness,” he said. “This is all terribly exciting. It reads like a Lazlo Woodbine thriller.”

“Never heard of those.” The other Will jiggled about on the hammock. “I’m really hungry,” he said. “Do you think they’ll serve us lunch, or will they just starve us?”

“I’ve already ordered lunch,” said Tim. “A delivery from The Flying Swan. It’s called a sowman’s lunch. It includes a lot of pork scratchings. But go on, Will. What’s a Lazlo Woodbine thriller?”

“Stumbled on them by accident,” said Will, “when I was downloading books from the British Library. I was looking for stuff by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Woodbine books had been filed there by mistake. Woodbine was a nineteen fifties American genre detective, the greatest of them all. He worked only four locations: his office, where clients came over to offer him business; an alleyway, where he got into sticky situations; a bar, where he talked toot with the barman; and a rooftop, where he had the final confrontation with the villain. Who always took the big plunge to oblivion at the end. The Book Of Rune reads just like one of these thrillers.”

“So,” said Tim, “are you going for Woodbine or are you going to stick with the Sherlock Holmes technique?”

“I’m going to stick with the Will Starling technique. I’m doing things my way.” Will pushed The Book Of Rune into his pocket. “Let’s see what we can pull off in the courtroom, eh, Tim?”

“No sweat,” said Tim and he made an “O” with his thumb and forefinger. “After all, we’ve spent ages planning this, haven’t we?”

“Have you?” asked the other Will. “How did this come about?”

“I, er, did a little time-travelling,” said Will. “From the court a few minutes ago. Surely you noticed that one moment I was wearing my somewhat besmutted morning suit and the next I was, as I am now, rather nattily dressed in this Boleskine three-piece.”

The other Will shrugged. “I thought I was just hallucinating. This hangover is wrecking my brain. But how did you travel through time, did you reacquire my time machine?”

“No,” said Will. “But I don’t want to bore you with the details.”

“But I want to be bored by the details. You travelled through time and you didn’t take me?”

“I couldn’t,” said Will. “It was only possible for one of us to go.”

“Then it should have been me. Remember, I’m the innocent party. Let me travel through time now.”

“It can’t be done,” said Will.

“This is outrageous,” said the other Will and he made a very grumpy face.

There came a knock at the cell door, followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock, followed by the opening of the door and the entrance of a portly gentleman wearing, amongst other things, a chef’s hat and a leather apron. He carried a food hamper. “Good day gents,” said he. “I’m Croughton the pot-bellied potman from The Flying Swan. And I bring you your lunch.”

“Splendid,” said Will.

“Give it to me, please,” said the other Will. “I will eat my fill and you can share whatever remains.”

“We’ll all have fair shares,” said Will.

“That is fair shares. I am the Promised One. I eat before lesser folk.”

“He’s losing it again, chief,” said Barry. “Get Tim to give him a little smack.”

Will took the hamper, opened it and shared out its contents. Croughton the pot-bellied potman bowed and departed, closing the cell door behind him. The other Will sat on the hammock, folded his arms and sulked. At length however, he unfolded his arms and ate.

“That Gwynplaine Dhark is pretty scary,” said Tim, between munchings. “If he really is in league with the Devil and the witches, he could well be ordering up another demonic clockwork terminator, even as we speak.”

“He’s in league with the Devil, all right,” said the other Will, who had finished munching and now was supping from a bottle of ale. “We’re all going to die and it’s all your fault. He’ll have us all killed!”

“Not if I can help it.” Will now took to supping ale. “We’ll beat him and we won’t die. Trust me, I’ve no intention of dying just yet.”

“Trust him,” said Tim. “He means what he says. We have a plan. Two plans in fact. A plan ‘A’ and a plan ‘B’. Plan ‘A’ is an absolute blinder.”

“What about plan ‘B’?” asked the other Will.

“Plan ‘A’ is an absolute stonker,” said Tim. “We’ll get you out of here.”

“What about plan ‘B’?” asked the other Will, once again.

“You’ll really love plan ‘A’,” said Tim.

The other Will finished his ale and uncorked another bottle. “My hangover is leaving me,” he said. “Order some more ales; we can drink them during the afternoon.”

“I doubt whether the magistrate will allow that.” Will sought his second bottle of ale, but found that his other self had acquired it. “And give that back to me.”

The other Will said, “No,” and shook his head.

“Give him a smack, please, Tim,” said Will.

And Tim would certainly have done so, had not the cell door opened once again to reveal two large constables, wielding truncheons and carrying an assortment of handcuffs and leg irons. “Time to go, lads,” one of the constables said. “The hangman awaits.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Will.

28

Numbers in the courtroom had increased significantly since the lunchtime adjournment. Gentlemen of the press, clad in their distinctive white trousers, striped blazers and straw boaters, now crowded into the public gallery and milled about in the doorway. Other gentlemen from the British Broadcasting Company, dressed in sombre black morning suits, had erected microphones all about the courtroom and were bivouacked wherever they could, adjusting sound levels on complicated-looking equipment which bulged with valves and doodads. The poet laureate was making a guest appearance as a roving correspondent. And then there were locals. Many locals, drawn by the promise of scandal and controversy as the moth of fable (or otherwise) is drawn unto the flame.

There were also certain others in the courtroom, certain others who occupied the very front row of the public gallery: six women all in black, well-dressed women, lavishly dressed women, but with preposterously slender bodies and tiny, pinched faces. The clerk of the court called, “All rise”, and those who were able to do so, did so.

Mr Justice Doveston elbowed his way through the crush. “Get out of my chair, damn you,” he told a blonde Swedish weather girl, whose agent had advised her to make an appearance, “just in case”. The blonde Swedish weather girl vacated the magistrate’s chair and sank from view beneath his bench/table/desk or whatever the word is for the piece of furniture magistrates sit behind.

“And get out from behind my wardrobe,” said Mr Justice Doveston, who didn’t know either. The blonde Swedish weather girl departed, flashing her smile at the press photographers.

Mr Justice Doveston settled into his chair. He had a somewhat dishevelled look to him and there were traces of lipstick on his wig. “All sit down,” he told the court. And all that could, sat down.

Mr Justice Doveston smiled all round the courtroom. “This is a bit more like it,” he said. “I’m very pleased to see so many members of the press favouring these proceedings with their presence. And the gentlemen of the British Broadcasting Company.” And he tapped his microphone with his gavel, raising a scream from a sound engineer, who tore off his headphones and took to hopping about.