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A WEEK LATER, AARON was still feeling like a bloody idiot in his spare time. It could be his new hobby.

He just suggested a pint, you could have gone was circling round in his brain, with He all but suggested going to your place and Yes, he did, he wanted to and Job, career, reputation hot on its heels. The only thing that shut the parade down briefly was Wait till the results. He’d never cared more about the results of an examination. He’d rarely cared more about the results of a case.

Which was stupid. Suppose numbers three or seven turned out to be the culprit and the graphologist was vindicated: that wouldn’t make it safe for him to take Joel Wildsmith out to dinner, with his reckless smile, his sharp tongue, his gloriously scowling eyebrows, the indomitable, endlessly belligerent attitude and the vulnerability it hid. Because he had a conviction for indecent behaviour to go along with those things, and a decided problem with the police, and of all the men on whom Aaron might risk his career, his life—

All what men? There weren’t any. He’d made bloody sure there weren’t since he’d joined CID: at that point, illegal fumbles in dark streets or back rooms were far too weighted with catastrophic consequences. He’d experienced the humiliation of exposure at school, when Paul had caught him with another boy and made sure everyone heard about it. That had been bad enough; a CID sergeant arrested for indecency would be all over the papers. It would be career-ending.

Career-ending. The thought sat in his stomach like suet pudding, with a whole lot of other thoughts floating around it. Maybe you oughtn’t be a policeman if you can’t obey the law was one, and also Why did you do all this if you’re going to throw it away? , and of course the throbbing, unexamined question that was always at the back of his mind, which he never looked at because if you didn’t look, it might not be that bad.

You wouldn’t have to get caught , a little voice wheedled. A meal with a friend at a little place in Lisson Grove? Who’s to know if he comes back to your flat after?

Joel Wildsmith would know, that was who. And if he was indeed a fraud, a sufficiently clever one, it was entirely possible the approaches were aimed at trapping Aaron into a position where he couldn’t denounce the fellow.

Aaron didn’t really think Wildsmith was like that. He was also very aware that his thoughts were unfounded, unhelpful, and clouded by wanting, and it would be a lot easier if the many and worrying voices in his head would shut up for a bit.

So he set himself doggedly to work. At least it kept him busy.

The job was more frustrating than usual at the moment. Among his many other tasks, he’d looked into whether there had been a complaint about demands for protection money from a Pentonville pawnbroker, and been slapped down hard by Detective Inspector Davis, suggesting he do his own work before interfering in other people’s.

That was partly due to the Gerald Marks investigation, which was hopelessly mired. None of the leads that had seemed so enticing had gone anywhere. Marks’s increased spending money had, it seemed, been paid in cash and there were no records of where it had come from. His notebooks still hadn’t turned up, and nor had any recent client.

“Absolutely nothing, sir,” Challice summarised. “I checked back with Mrs. Trotter, and I asked at his bank. He doesn’t have a safety deposit box or anything lodged there.”

“Well, it was a good idea.”

“And...” She hesitated a fraction. “Sir, you remember Mrs. Trotter said he worked on a miscarriage of justice case? I looked it up.”

Aaron had meant to do that, and forgotten. He kicked himself mentally. “What was it?”

“It was during the war—early seventeen. A man called Thaddeus Knight—wealthy art dealer—was beaten to death in the course of a robbery. He’d had a labourer, Sammy Beech, doing some work in his garden. A young chap, not bright, but everyone said he was a nice enough fellow.” She made a face. “They found Beech dead drunk, with a bloodstained poker and a pile of cash under his bed. Beech had never been in trouble before, but there was just too much against him. He hanged.”

It was a sad story, but not out of the ordinary. “Where’s the problem?”

“The investigating officer had played cards with the victim a few times—in private homes, of course. He reported that at the outset of the case, but it was a very slight acquaintance, and neither owed the other money, and there was a war on and a shortage of manpower, so they left him in charge of the case. The defence barrister made quite a fuss about that in court. He said it was entirely inappropriate and the officer should have stood down, and that seems to be what the Beech family stuck on.”

This was definitely ringing a bell. “Wait. The investigating officer—”

“The DDI, sir. It was Mr. Colthorne.”

“Right,” Aaron said. “Right. Was any substance found to the family’s complaints?”

“None, sir. They spent a few years paying Marks and writing to the Home Secretary and so on, but the conviction was considered solid. The family gave up eventually, and left for Canada two years ago to start a new life. I asked Mr. Colthorne if he recalls anything about Marks—”

“You asked him that?”

“It seemed sensible,” Challice said, looking a touch alarmed at his tone. “He might have remembered something. But he didn’t know the name at all; he looked quite blank. Should I not have done?”

Aaron would have strongly preferred that she hadn’t, but there was no point saying so now. They tossed around a few other ideas, but got nowhere. It was frustrating enough that Aaron took a long lunchbreak to walk off his annoyance.

When he got back, there was a message for him to call Sergeant Hollis.

***

“D ONE AND DUSTED,” HOLLIS said jovially. They’d gone to a quiet pub, not one frequented by coppers, where you could reliably get a seat and a bit of distance to talk. That meant the beer was awful, but swings and roundabouts.

“You got your man? Already?”

“It went very nicely. Found the money, got a full confession.”

“Congratulations,” Aaron said, tipping his glass in a casual manner that he hoped would conceal his tension. “So what was the case?”

“An embezzlement job, in a stockbroker’s office.”

“Embezzlement. Nothing violent?”

“Not at all. It was very niftily done, in fact. The missing money wasn’t noticed for a while, and there were five clerks who would have been in a position to steal the funds. Tracks well covered. So, how shall we do this?”

“I have Wildsmith’s impressions here,” Aaron said, passing him the envelope. “I’ve kept it safe since our meeting. Do you want to check it’s untouched?”

Hollis had a good look. “Not tampered with at either end. May I?” He opened the envelope, ripping across Aaron and Wildsmith’s names. “Shall I read them all, or did he give a suspect?”

“He had several people who he thought were plausible candidates—”

“Ha. That’s how these people work. Any number of guesses and you just hear the one you want to.”

“True,” Aaron said. “But he did specifically say, for a crime on paper, he’d point the finger at number three.”

Hollis’s mouth dropped open. He fished out a paper from his pocket and checked it. “Damnation. Damn .”

“He was right?”

“Spot on. Number three is an older man who’d been passed over for promotion for the third time, and decided the business owed him something for his years of service. Sour piece of work with a face like a wet weekend.”

Aaron pointed wordlessly at the envelope. Hollis extracted the notes, found number three, read the paper with his brows rising steeply, and said, “What the devil.”

“Yes.”

“What the devil . No, wait. These people are jolly good at meaningful-sounding statements that could apply to anyone. Let me see the rest.” He squinted at Aaron’s notes. “One...yes, that’s about right, very drab woman. Two is one of your ringers. I can’t argue with three. Well.”

“What about the rest?” Aaron made himself say.

Hollis went on through the notes. “Four—not much there, is there? Five. Oh, you’re bloody joking.”

“He was wrong?”

Hollis shook his head, in disbelief rather than disagreement. “He was absolutely right. Number five is up to his neck in debt on the horses. We wasted quite a lot of time assuming he was the guilty party because of it. How the blazes ?”

They stared at each other for a moment, then Hollis shook his head and looked back at the notes. “Number six is another ringer. Seven— God almighty!”

“One of yours?” Aaron said hopefully.

“One of yours.” Hollis’s brows went up again as he read. “This is ripe stuff. He’s calling number seven a murderer? Who is it?”

“I picked one sample out of a case file,” Aaron said, his voice horribly wooden in his own ears. “I expect that’s the one.”

“Ha! And is his read accurate?”

“It would be, yes.”

“My God. And then number eight—oh for pity’s sake. It says here he might do charitable work in his spare time. The fellow volunteers at an East End boys’ club. For God’s sake, Fowler, this is absurd. It’s too much. Did we miss something? Could he have found out what case it was?”

“Not through me, since I didn’t know. And I haven’t mentioned this scheme of ours to anyone. Have you?”

“Not a living soul.”

“I suppose he might have guessed I was doing this with you, and perhaps he could get hold of a list of everything you’re working on from someone in your department—”

“I should damned well hope he could not,” Hollis objected.

“But even if he could, he’d still need to pick the right case, get a list of the suspects and the ringers, get hold of samples of their hands to know who was who, discover enough about each of them to give these summaries, and then—”

“Work out that number three was the culprit, days before we did,” Hollis finished for him. “That’s where I stick. Stage magicians and mediums go to extraordinary lengths to get their effects, and I wouldn’t put much past them. But to pull this off, this he’d have had to solve the blasted crime!”

“If he could do all that in the few days between you picking the case and me giving him the handwriting, he wouldn’t be a shabby graphologist off the Pentonville Road,” Aaron said. “He’d be running the Met.”

They both contemplated that for a moment. Hollis took a long gulp of beer, and grimaced. “Hell’s bells, Fowler. Is he the real thing?”

“Do you have a better explanation?”

“Not at the moment. Well, well, well. Do you suppose we could use him in court?”

“I wouldn’t like to try it,” Aaron said. “No professional qualification, and the defence would insist on proof. As well they should.”

“Still, a useful man to have in the back pocket, as a consultant,” Hollis mused. “Off the record.”

Aaron had his doubts as to whether Wildsmith would do it. Then again, he needed the money, or at least wanted it. He didn’t voice that to Hollis, and they talked a little longer about Wildsmith’s accuracy, circling repeatedly back to any way he could have fixed it, concluding there simply wasn’t one.

Aaron wasn’t paying full attention. There were two thoughts occupying his mind to the exclusion of all else. One was that Joel Wildsmith was—impossibly, gloriously—the real thing. Not a liar or a manipulator or a fraud, but the bizarrely gifted, outrageously frank man he seemed.

The other was number seven.

“Well, this has been damned interesting,” Hollis said at last. “More things in heaven and earth, and all that.”

Aaron agreed with the sentiment. They finished their beers, and left the pub. Hollis walked off with a wave. Aaron went in the direction of the next pub that didn’t look crowded, bought himself a half he didn’t want, and sat at the table with the envelope in his hand.

He’d been assuming, or making himself assume, or perhaps simply praying, that either the case was a murder and number seven the guilty party, or that Wildsmith would be proved to be fraudulent, deluded, wrong. Either of those outcomes would be better than this one, which was that a terrifyingly accurate graphologist had identified one of Aaron’s colleagues as a moral imbecile and a probable murderer.

He’d told Hollis he’d taken number seven’s sample from a file. He’d lied. In fact what he had done was to ask Challice for a sample of her handwriting, and have her copy out a passage from the novel she was reading at lunch. A few colleagues had demanded what they were up to, and Aaron had given them a cover story since he had not wanted to explain the test to his colleagues. Wildsmith called him honest, and he hoped he was, but he wasn’t stupid.

So he’d claimed that his niece was enthused by a book on how to read handwriting, and had exhausted her own acquaintance. DI Davis had snorted, but DDI Colthorne had laughed and offered his services, and so Davis had done the same. And Aaron had put them in as the ringers, feeling a secret desire to get Wildsmith’s opinion of his superiors. He’d thought it would be interesting, maybe even useful. That would teach him.

He knew which one was Challice’s hand; he could guess number two, the unimaginative bully, was DI Davis. He did not want to face what that meant.

He wasn’t usually a coward, but he still felt an urge not to check. To throw the envelope on the fire, pretend he never knew, keep his head down, let harm happen and make no effort to intervene.

No: that would not do. He could not ignore this, because Joel Wildsmith had proved his gifts again and again, and if Aaron ignored this warning, he didn’t deserve to keep his job.

So he opened the envelope, found the paper with a ringed 7 in the top corner and pulled it out, enough to confirm the very familiar hand.

“Hell,” he said.

***

H E HEADED STRAIGHT to Pentonville without calling. Wildsmith might be out, or occupied, but Aaron couldn’t wait. He couldn’t sit alone at home tonight, and go into work tomorrow with this in his lap.

He arrived at about half past eight. Wildsmith’s landlady made angry noises about late callers; Aaron made placatory ones and got himself allowed up. He knocked urgently on the door.

Wildsmith answered. He was wearing a frankly disreputable woollen cardigan over his shirtsleeves, and looked tousled and tired. “Oh,” he said. “Hello. Was I expecting you?”

“May I come in?”

Wildsmith stepped back to let Aaron in. The bare room was familiar enough that he had an odd sense of finding safety. He still bolted the door after him.

He turned back from that to see Wildsmith looking rather startled. “Private conversation, is it?”

“Yes,” Aaron said. “Please. I’m sorry it’s late.”

Wildsmith blinked. “Are you all right?”

“Not entirely. No.”

“Sit. I’d offer you tea but you look more like neat gin.”

“That—would be good, actually. Thanks.”

Wildsmith had a bottle of Gordon’s stashed. He poured two generous measures and handed Aaron a glass, and they took their usual seats, watching one another.

“So?” he said.

Aaron took a deep breath. “We got the results. The case, I mean. It’s been solved.”

“Oh. And?”

“It was an embezzlement case. The man who did it was number three. The one you named as the paper criminal, for the reasons you laid out. You got it exactly right. And you were right about number five too, he’s a gambler, and number eight, who does good works. You were spot on with all of it.”

“Oh,” Wildsmith said again. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? So you owe me dinner.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Wildsmith narrowed his eyes. “You know, I was anticipating feeling triumphant at this moment. Or maybe vindicated, or just to have slightly impressed you, but instead you seem to be in the grip of despair. Is it really that bad I’m not a fraud?”

Aaron tried to make himself sound more enthusiastic. “No, of course it’s not. Congratulations. You’ve more than proved yourself. It still doesn’t make any sense that you can do this, but you quite clearly can.”

Wildsmith leaned back and steepled his hands, which was to say, he angled his right against the split hook. “You wanted to know if I was a liar, and you’ve proved to your own satisfaction that I’m not. So is this attitude of dismay because you no longer understand the world around you, or is it that you’ve run out of excuses not to trust me?”

It was a provocation Aaron didn’t have the energy to deal with. He did try, but what came out of his mouth was, “I don’t think I can trust anyone else.”

Wildsmith’s light eyes widened sharply. “Are you all right?”

“I— Just give me a moment, would you? Or, no, tell me something. When you make very specific assertions, as with my brother-in-law. You said that the rose bed was just an example, a lucky guess.”

“It was.”

“But with Paul’s indiscretion, you said you knew. That you saw it.”

“Not saw, felt. I had a very strong feeling.”

“ How? Where does it come from?”

Wildsmith gestured helplessly. “I have absolutely no idea. I try to put myself in the writer’s shoes when I read hands, and sometimes I get quite vivid, definite impressions, and sometimes they’re very strong. I don’t know what gives me the clue, but I bet you have similar things in your field—policeman’s instinct, or hunches, or whatever you call them. I think it’s training oneself to note the tiny things that other people don’t pay attention to.”

“But you felt certain about Paul? That wasn’t a wild guess that happened to land?”

Wildsmith exhaled. “Anything I say is a guess, in the sense that I can’t know it to be true. But I didn’t pull it out of my—out of the blue and it’s not something I’ve ever said before. I had a very, very strong impression that he’d just fucked, and I really cannot tell you more. Why does it matter?”

“I just want a comparison,” Aaron said. “Because when you said number seven—you remember hand number seven?—was probably a killer, how sure were you about that?”

Wildsmith didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “Can I see it again?”

Aaron fished it out. Wildsmith looked at the paper in silence for what felt a painfully long time, and put it down. “I stand by it. There’s the sense that he’s superior, or untouchable, or above the normal run of humanity, and it goes with an absolute callousness. Sadistic, even. I’d be really astonished if he hasn’t killed.”

“We have had quite a large war,” Aaron observed, a last throw of the dice.

“No, it’s not that. Or at least, not just shooting at the other side. If it was in the war, it was killing unarmed prisoners, or civilians. He does things that are not allowed because it gives him pleasure, and because—well, why shouldn’t he?”

“Hell.”

“Is there any chance you could tell me what’s going on? I mean, do you know who he is?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not happy that I passed your test, because that suggests I’m right about him, and you don’t like that at all.”

“No.”

Wildsmith hesitated. Then he leaned forward, and put his hand very gently on Aaron’s knee.

“Look,” he said. “I have no idea about this, but I do know that you’re a decent man. More than decent. I am absolutely sure you’ll do the right thing if you can.”

Aaron tried to ignore the warm touch of his hand. He ought to shift his knee, shake it off. He didn’t. “I don’t know what I can do. If I have the nerve to do it. I’m— Christ. The truth is, I’m afraid.”

“This is sounding worse by the minute,” Wildsmith said. “Do I want to know?”

“ I didn’t want to know,” Aaron said, and the words rasped in his throat. “I’m sorry. You ought not be involved. I should go.”

“No, stop. Have you involved me? I mean, does anyone other than you know about this experiment, or my conclusions?”

“Hollis. He was on the embezzlement case, but he doesn’t know who the ringers were.”

“The...?”

“There were five suspects. We felt one in five was too good odds for guessing so I got three other people to give me their writing. I didn’t mention you.”

“And number seven was one of those ‘ringers’, because if he was one of the suspects in Hollis’s case, it wouldn’t be your problem. And...I’m going to speculate you asked people at work... Oh fuck. Number seven’s a copper? CID?”

Aaron really should not have come here. Wildsmith was too good a guesser. “This is not something to repeat.”

“On the contrary,” Wildsmith said. “It’s bloody well something for you to repeat. It’s not something I’m going to repeat because I’ve had quite enough trouble from the Met, thank you. Hollis isn’t going to tell anyone about this, is he?”

“He doesn’t know who the ringers were.”

“But number seven knows he gave you a sample of his handwriting! And if word gets around about a particularly good-looking graphological genius—”

“Hollis isn’t in CID. I only involved him because we’d already discussed you. I told everyone the samples were for my ten-year-old niece who’s obsessed with graphology.”

“Is she?”

“She’s three and I hope she stays well away from the subject. Look, I won’t involve you. I can’t: nobody else would listen to ‘A graphologist says so’. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried, until you turned up and terrified me,” Wildsmith pointed out. “Let me get this straight. You asked your colleagues to contribute simply to make up the numbers? You didn’t suspect this man?”

“No. Or... No.”

“Really? Because if your only reason to suspect him now is a ginger beer in a moth-eaten cardigan telling you he’s a murderer on the basis of his handwriting—”

“I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“But here you are, looking sick as a dog, and I very much doubt that’s simply faith in my powers. You think I’m right about number seven. You’ve got reason to think I’m right.”

Aaron’s head felt slightly fuzzy with the thrum of panic, the urgent desire to squash it all away. Don’t think about it, don’t look .

If he wasn’t going to look, he should have gone back to Lisson Grove. He was here because Wildsmith’s incisive gift had cut through to a truth, and he had to face that.

He took a deep breath. “If what you say is true, a number of other things make sense. It forms a picture. A damned ugly picture, but a coherent one.”

“Is this man, number seven, clever?”

“Yes.”

“Dangerous?”

“Perhaps,” Aaron said, and had to add, “Yes.”

“Hell and the devil,” Wildsmith said. “So what are you going to do?”

Aaron knocked back a mouthful of gin. It was neat, oily, harsh on his throat. He never drank neat gin. “I’m going to look into it. There’s nothing else to do, is there? I can’t ignore it. He’s in a position to do an astonishing amount of harm.”

“Not just a constable then?”

“Don’t ask any more. I mean that. I’ve said too much.”

“Which is not your besetting sin,” Wildsmith said. “You came here because you needed to talk to someone. If you want to keep doing that, you can.”

Aaron’s throat hurt, in the clenched way that suggested he was getting a cold, or going to cry, except he hadn’t cried in a long time. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’d be best off staying entirely out of this.”

“And what about you? Are you going to bring anyone else in? Tell anyone at work what’s happening?”

“I don’t know it’s happening. That’s the damned thing. I’ll have to prove it from scratch, and looking into him is an unappealing prospect. Even raising it, if it gets back to him— Oh God, this is a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry to have dropped this on you.”

“Not your fault.”

Wildsmith exhaled hard. Aaron caught the waft of gin. “I don’t suppose I can do much, but if you’d care to take the night off—well, you’re here already.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you’d like to just sit here and drink gin for a while, feel free. Or tea? Or I think I have cocoa, and there’s definitely toast. Well, it’s currently bread, but it could become toast. And you could tell me all about it if that would help—strict confidence—or talk about something else, or sit in silence. Whatever makes you feel better.”

Aaron stared at him. “Why?”

“Because you look like you need it? You’ve had what sounds like hell’s own responsibility dumped on your shoulders out of nowhere, you seem quite upset, and if I were you, I wouldn’t want to be alone right now. I’ve been alone when I didn’t want to be, and I didn’t like it. So if it helps, you’re welcome to be not alone with me.”

Aaron shut his eyes. He’d found Wildsmith by turn bewildering, provocative, alarming, infuriating, arousing. He thought this kindness might be the most devastating facet yet.

“Thank you,” he managed. “But you missed something. I am upset and afraid and alone, but I’m also angry. I am bloody angry.” He felt the truth of it rising as he spoke. “This isn’t right. It is not how it should be. That man took an oath, and he takes a salary, and if he’s a cuckoo in the nest, I am damned well going to deal with him, starting tomorrow.”

“Good for you,” Wildsmith said forcibly. “Oh, good for you.”

He held out his glass. Aaron clinked it with his own, the proxy touch sending the tiniest shudder up his arm.

“And you needn’t apologise,” he said. “I knew something was wrong, and I haven’t been facing it. If you’ve identified the source of the rot, I’m grateful.”

Wildsmith winced. “Does it make sense that I simultaneously bloody hope I’m right, and bloody hope I’m wrong?”

“I will be looking into it properly,” Aaron assured him. “I’m not just going to take your word for it. But I’ve yet to see you be wrong.”

“Stick around, boyo.”

“About graphology.”

“I’ll grant you that. So, Detective Sergeant. Does this mean you’ve concluded you can trust me?”

"I don’t think I have a choice,” Aaron said. “If you’ve managed to do this by fraud, you’re so much cleverer than me that I wouldn’t stand a chance anyway.”

“I’d prefer you to say that as if you think it’s possible.”

“I find it easier to believe in the graphology.”

“ Ooh .”

Wildsmith grinned at him, the familiar spark of mischief glinting in his eyes. Aaron found he was smiling back. As if his indomitable attitude was contagious; as if the crushing weight of fear and responsibility was something he could leave outside Wildsmith’s door, just tonight.

As if...

“I do think I can trust you,” he said. “That still leaves the question of whether you might be able to trust me.”

The words landed in silence. Not uncomfortable, more a quivering awareness that he’d taken a step forward. A moment of recalibration.

Wildsmith’s eyes didn’t leave his face. “We could put that to the test too, Detective Sergeant. If you wanted. Though if you’d prefer gin and toast—”

“What test do you have in mind?”

Wildsmith took a deep breath. “I could make an indecent approach and see if you arrest me?”

Aaron’s heart was thundering. This was terrifying and dangerous and stupid, but so was everything else in his life. He’d been afraid and despairing, and now he wasn’t alone. And Wildsmith was lovely.

“Go on, then,” he said.