On reaching Court Six he found a lone figure peering wryly back through the glass at him – Lord Waugh, a hairy-kneed sexagenarian with the craggy look of a matinee idol from Blaylock’s parents’ era, one who might have played Heathcliff and Hamlet before settling into middle-age and saturnine villainy. ‘Shall we knock up?’ asked the Lord Chief Justice. Sure, thought Blaylock, nodding. Let the weirdness begin. Blaylock had not struck a squash ball in anger for twenty-odd years, and had to reacquaint himself with the little rubber pellet and the needful speed of the racquet head. Conversely he was surprised, and not pleasantly, by the relative nimbleness of the older man. Having stooped to retrieve a shot he had failed to return, Blaylock straightened upright to see his opponent clearly impatient to get to business. ‘What’s on your mind this fine morning, Mr Blaylock?’ ‘Human rights law.
