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‘Thank you,’ he said dryly. ‘You can all be seated again. Now, from what I understand, this is a question of the disposition of an involuntarily held mental patient. A Section 41 case, Mister . . . Rafael Ditko.’

Someone who looked like an extra in Judge John Deed, impossibly young and suave and dark-suited, stood as if on cue on Jenna-Jane’s side of the courtroom, and the magistrate flicked him a glance but went on without giving him a chance to open his mouth. ‘Has there been a tribunal hearing?’ he demanded, lingering on the word tribunal as though it was particularly tasty.

‘Your honour,’ the barrister said, holding up his own wodge of papers as if to prove that he was earning his salary here too, ‘Michael Fenster, representing Haringey health authority. Yes, the review tribunal met three weeks ago. If you look in the court papers, you’ll see the minutes of that meeting. It took place at the Charles Stanger Care Home in Muswell Hill. In attendance were Doctor Smart, Mister Prentice, and your colleague Mister Justice Lyle.

’

‘And the recommendation?’ The magistrate rummaged in the depths of the paperwork again, looking a little put out."

"‘The issue, your honour, is the transferral of Mister Ditko from the Stanger Home to a separate secure facility under the management of Professor Mulbridge – the Metamorphic Ontology Unit at Saint Mary’s in Paddington.’

‘I’m aware of the issue, Mister Fenste#82Mister r. I asked about the recommendation.’

‘Of course, your honour. But as you’ll also note from that document, the tribunal did not in fact manage to complete its deliberations.

Miss Bruckner, who represents herself here today –’ he glanced across at Pen ‘– was also in attendance, and claimed – somewhat forcefully – that the tribunal was not properly convened.’

The Honourable Mister Runcie had found his place now. He scanned the pages in front of him, tight-lipped. ‘Yes,’ he said. And then, a little later, ‘Oh yes.’ After reading on for a good half-minute longer, while the rest of us examined our fingernails and the paint on the walls, he put the paper down and stared at Pen.

‘You disrupted the hearing, Miss Bruckner,’ he said, with a slightly pained emphasis. ‘You’re facing criminal charges as a result.’

Pen stood up again. ‘I had to, your honour,’ she said, levelly. ‘They were going to break the law. I needed to stop them.’

I listened carefully to her words, or rather to the tone of them, trying to assess how tightly she was wound up.