Terence Blue’s barrister stood up again almost at once.

‘My Lady,’ said Mr Tweed. ‘I would like permission to call a further witness for the defence. New evidence has come to light that reflects on my client’s case.’

There was a rumble of conversation in the courtroom, people turning to one another in surprise. They thought they had come for the summing up. After some further discussion, eliciting the fact that this new evidence was not an alibi for the defendant, it was agreed by the judge that this was possible.

‘My Lady,’ said Mr Tweed, ‘I would like to call Pauline O’Brien.’

Tall and beautiful and pale, in the same creamcoloured and elegant suit that she had worn the one and only time she had met her father, and wearing bright red lipstick, the actress daughter of a trapeze artist appeared from a side door and entered the court room.

After Pauline had sworn on the Bible, after the judge, blowing her nose, had courteously invited Pauline, as she had invited all witnesses, to sit down in the witness box, Mr Tweed began.

‘You are the actress Pauline O’Brien?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have you known the defendant Terence Blue?’

‘Since nineteen fifty-nine, we were students at the London Academy of Drama together.’

‘Miss O’Brien,’ said Mr Tweed, ‘you have come to this court this morning in Mr Blue’s defence because you are privy to some knowledge that you feel means that he is not guilty of the rape of Simone Taylor.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you, in your own words, please give that information to the court.’

‘Mr Blue,’ said Pauline O’Brien, actress, in careful well-modulated actress’s tones (not looking at Terence, looking at the jury), ‘Mr Blue –’ and she took a deep breath and leapt into the unknown ‘– is impotent.’

In the split second before the uproar in the court room, before journalists, unable to believe their ears, quite literally jumped over the press desks and out into the corridors to use their mobile phones, in that split second Terence Blue, actor, leapt up in the dock.

‘That’s a lie!’ he shouted at Pauline. ‘THAT IS A LIE!’

‘Silence in court!’ cried the judge, banging the gavel as the reporters ran, ‘Silence! The defendant will immediately be arraigned for contempt of court, and I am now going to consider holding the rest of this trial in camera. I will not have my court made a circus of in this way.’

There was chaos. Journalists ran everywhere, the prosecution lawyer was on his feet, Terence was being restrained in the dock by the uniformed guard who, as the trial recommenced, had been quietly reading a lurid paperback with a naked woman on the front. The judge was pink-faced with anger. And Elvira noted that Simone Taylor was as white as a sheet.