‘Have you read The Trial?’

I nodded.

‘Then you will know what to expect. Good luck, my dear.’

I thanked her, grasped the door handle and, with heavily beating heart, entered.

The courtroom was packed full of men all dressed in black, chattering and gesticulating constantly. There was a gallery running around just below the ceiling where more people stood, also talking and laughing, and the room was hot and airless to the point of suffocation. There was a narrow path between the men, and I slowly advanced, the crowd merging behind me and almost propelling me forward. As I walked the spectators chattered about the weather, the previous case, what I was wearing and the finer points of my case—of which, it seemed, they knew nothing. At the other end of the hall was a low dais upon which was seated, just behind a low table, the examining magistrate. Behind him were court officials and clerks talking with the crowd and each other. To one side of the dais was the lugubrious man who had knocked on my door and tricked me into confessing back in Swindon. He was holding an impressive array of official-looking papers. This, I assumed, was Matthew Hopkins, the prosecution lawyer. Snell joined me and whispered in my ear:

‘This is only a formal hearing to see if there is a case to answer. With a bit of luck we can get your case postponed to a more friendly court. Ignore the onlookers—they are simply here as a narrative device to heighten paranoia and have no bearing on your case. We will deny all charges.’

‘Herr Magistrate,’ said Snell, as we took the last few paces to the dais, ‘my name is Akrid S defending Thursday N, in Jurisfiction v the Law, case number 142857.’

The magistrate looked at me, took out his watch and said:

‘You should have been here an hour and five minutes ago.’

There was an excited murmur from the crowd. Snell opened his mouth to say something but it was I who answered.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘I am to blame. I beg the court’s pardon.’

At first, the magistrate didn’t hear me and began to repeat himself for the benefit of the crowd:

‘You should have been here an hour and… what did you say?’

‘I said I was sorry and begged your pardon, sir,’ I repeated.

‘Oh,’ said the examining magistrate as a hush fell upon the room. ‘In that case, would you like to go away and come back in, say, an hour and five minutes’ time, when you will be late through no fault of your own?’

The crowd applauded at this, although I couldn’t see why.

‘At Your Honour’s pleasure,’ I replied. ‘If it is the court’s ruling that I do so, then I will comply.’

‘Very good,’ whispered Snell.

‘Oh!’ said the magistrate again. He briefly conferred with his clerks behind him, seemed rattled for a moment, stared at me again and said:

‘It is the court’s decision that you be one hour and five minutes late!’

‘I am already one hour and five minutes late!’ I announced to scattered applause from the room.

‘Then,’ said the magistrate simply, ‘you have complied with the court’s ruling and we may proceed.’

‘Objection!’ said Hopkins.

‘Overruled,’ replied the magistrate as he picked up a tatty notebook that lay on the table in front of him. He opened it, read something and passed the book to one of his clerks.

‘Your name is Thursday N. You are a house-painter?’

‘No, she—’ said Snell.

‘Yes,’ I interrupted. ‘I have been a house-painter, Your Honour.’

There was a stunned silence from the crowd, punctuated by someone at the back who yelled: ‘Bravo!’ before another spectator thumped him. The examining magistrate peered at me more closely.

‘Is this relevant?’ demanded Hopkins, addressing the bench.

‘Silence!’ yelled the magistrate, continuing slowly and with very real gravity: ‘You mean to tell me that you have, at one time, been a house-painter?’

‘Indeed, Your Honour. After I left school and before college I painted houses for two months. I think it might be safe to say that I was indeed—although not permanently—a house-painter.’

There was another burst of applause and excited murmuring.

‘Herr S?’ said the magistrate. ‘Is this true?’

‘We have several witnesses to attest to it, Your Honour,’ answered Snell, getting into the swing of the strange proceedings.

The room fell silent again.

‘Herr H,’ said the magistrate, taking out a handkerchief and mopping his brow carefully and addressing Hopkins directly, ‘I thought you told me the defendant was not a house-painter?’

Hopkins looked flustered.

‘I didn’t say she wasn’t a house-painter, Your Honour, I merely said she was an operative for SpecOps 27.’

‘To the exclusion of all other professions?’ asked the magistrate.

‘Well, no,’ stammered Hopkins, now thoroughly confused.

‘Yet you did not state she was not a house-painter in your affidavit, did you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well then!’ said the magistrate, leaning back in his chair as another peal of laughter and spontaneous applause broke out for no reason. ‘If you bring a case to my court, Herr H, I expect it to be brought with all the details intact. First she apologises for being late, then she readily agrees to having painted houses. Court procedure will not be compromised—your prosecution is badly flawed.’

Hopkins bit his lip and went a dark shade of crimson.

‘I beg the court’s pardon, Your Honour,’ he replied through gritted teeth, ‘but my prosecution is sound—may we proceed with the charge?’

‘Bravo!’ said the man at the back again.

The magistrate thought for a moment and handed me his dirty notebook and a fountain pen.

‘We will prove the veracity of prosecution counsel by a simple test,’ he announced. ‘Fraulein N, would you please write the most popular colour that houses were painted when you were’—and here he turned to Hopkins and spat the words out—’a house-painter!’

The room erupted into cheers and shouts as I wrote the answer in the back of the exercise book and returned it.

‘Silence!’ announced the magistrate. ‘Herr H?’

‘What?’ he replied sulkily.

‘Perhaps you would be good enough to tell the court the colour that Fraulein N has written in my book?’

‘Your Honour,’ began Hopkins in an exasperated tone, ‘what has this to do with the case in hand? I arrived here in good faith to arraign Fraulein N on a charge of a Class II Fiction Infraction and instead I find myself embroiled in some lunatic rubbish about house-painters. I do not believe this court represents justice—’

‘You do not understand,’ said the magistrate, rising to his feet and raising his short arms to illustrate the point, ‘the manner in which this court works. It is the responsibility of the prosecution counsel not only to bring a clear and concise case before the bench, but also to fully verse himself about the procedures that he must undertake to achieve that goal.’