He was a fierce wattled martinet in his seventies, bald but with clumps of hair like wool-balls above his ears. Next to him sat an assistant magistrate, a plain flat-chested woman with a drab hat on. The clerk of the court was loud and insolent. Bev was addressed as plain Jones. The constable with the bloody hairline on his cheek, which, Bev could have sworn, had been cunningly emphasized with lipstick, read out the charges in the gorblimied form that the desk sergeant had dressed them up in. They sounded pretty bad. Miss Porlock from the supermarket confirmed everything except what was supposed to have happened at the station. The clerk of the court handed up the flick-knife to old Ashthorn who, with frightening expertise, kept shooting in and out the blade, on which dried blood stains had been imposed, presumably by the police. He dared Bev to say something in answer to the charges. ‘I admit the attempted theft,’ said Bev. ‘But I have no job. The Workers’ State denies me unemployment benefit.
