Her nerves jangled as she found herself standing alone in the wide, maroon-carpeted hall, along with a bunch of other slightly lost-looking people. She was rescued by a smiling, fair-haired young man brandishing a clipboard, who approached her, limping slightly. ‘Are you here for jury service?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

‘Do you have your summons?’ he asked.

Meg removed the pink document from her handbag and showed it to him. He flipped over a couple of pages on his clipboard, looking through a list, then ticked her off. ‘I’ll be taking you all up to the jury room in a few minutes,’ he said, indicating a group of around thirty people standing a little awkwardly, all total strangers but all here for a common purpose, many busy looking at their phones. Meg smiled at a woman and got a friendly shrug back.

She watched the steady procession of people passing through the scanner with interest, trying to guess what they were all doing here. A complete mix. Fellow jurors, defendants and their lawyers and friends and family, witnesses, police officers, reporters or just curious members of the public?

Finally, the man with the clipboard announced brightly to the group, ‘Right, jurors, this way please!’

Meg followed him, amid the throng of fellow jurors, up two flights of ornately balustraded stairs, then along past a wooden bench into a cavernous room with the feel of a school assembly hall, filled with rows of green chairs, the walls lined with noticeboards.

‘Can you all please take a seat!’ he said, pleasantly but firmly.

Meg sat down next to a man in a checked shirt, who smelled unpleasant. A young man in skinny jeans, with a precious hairstyle and a nervous tic, took the seat to her right and immediately began studying his phone.

She had dressed smartly for the occasion, but from what she had seen of the others in here, she was in the minority. There were a couple of older men in suits and ties, and one strange-looking woman who appeared to have dressed for a garden party, but most people were in casual attire. She needn’t have bothered going to such an effort, she realized. Maybe she’d come in more comfortable clothes tomorrow.

Some moments later, the man who had led them up stood in front of them and said, loudly, ‘Hello, jurors, I’m Jacobi Whyte, your jury bailiff. Thank you for your patience with the delayed start of this trial. I’m going to show you a video which will tell you what to expect today – you will all be handed a form which has everything on it, including how to claim your expenses, but it is very important you pay attention.’

Meg paid attention.