Next Monday, General Augusto Pinochet's legal team will walk into Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London to argue, once again, the case against his extradition to Spain.
Almost a year after Gen Pinochet's arrest at a London clinic, most people assume that the former Chilean dictator has only a few more steps to walk along a legal road that will deliver him either into the hands of the Spanish authorities, or freedom in Chile.
Imagining such a scenario is to assume that the English extradition system has almost exhausted itself, that the wheels of the English courts are moving so quickly that Gen Pinochet has already packed his overnight bag.
The reality is rather more convoluted.
The decision by Spain's crusading investigative magistrate, Mr Baltasar Garzon, to bring 34 new charges against Gen Pinochet is just one complication.
A Law Lords ruling in March had reduced the number of charges against him, when it decided he was protected by sovereign immunity on 27 charges related to alleged crimes prior to December 8th 1988, leaving only two charges subject to British justice. But Mr Garzon's move has raised that figure to 36.
There are also preliminary jurisdictional issues to resolve. Then there is the question of the legal definition of torture to consider. So the courts have set aside five days for Gen Pinochet's first committal hearing.
The general is not expected to attend the committal hearing. He will remain in contact with his legal team from his rented home in Surrey.
A friend of Gen Pinochet's, Mr Peter Schaad, says he is a tired man, but clinging to his faith and confident that he will return to Chile eventually.
"In big groups he has trouble with concentration," says Mr Schaad. "He is tired of the whole thing. He is a religious man. He has faith in an early return to Chile but he has been hit on the head so often in this that he doesn't think he is going back next week."
In fact, Gen Pinochet is highly unlikely to return to Chile or be sent to Spain this year, or even in six months' time.
If the magistrate at Bow Street chooses to reserve judgment on his committal for extradition, both sides could wait a matter of days or weeks for the decision.
Some legal experts argue that far from rushing the case through the legal system - which many believe led the Law Lords to overlook Lord Hoffman's association with Amnesty International - the courts have now turned his previously-favoured status on its head and Gen Pinochet must simply take his place in the queue.
His legal team estimates that the Hoffman episode delayed his case by six months.
Nonetheless, they are prepared for a long legal battle. If the committal hearing goes against Gen Pinochet his lawyers can apply for a writ of habeas corpus at the High Court. If they are not satisfied there, they can then appeal to the House of Lords, which in turn passes the case to the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, and then his decision, if it goes against the general again, can be challenged by judicial review.
Members of Chile Democratico, which represents victims of the Pinochet regime, will be demonstrating outside Bow Street next week. Mr Carlos Reyes, a spokesman for the group, says he does not believe Gen Pinochet's lawyers will challenge his extradition.