“Good. What do we do about it?”

“We, you and Mr. Fowler?”

“We, you and me, Mr. Wildsmith,” Challice said crisply. “Mr. Fowler is in deep trouble and it would be a very bad idea for him to embroil himself further in the Marks case, speak to Darby Sabini, or contact you. That leaves us. Given you seem to be in this to your eyebrows, I was rather hoping you’d be able to give me some ideas.”

“Me? You’re the police!”

“Yes, and look how well we’ve done,” Challice said. “Mr. Fowler’s the most honest and decent man I’ve met in—well, in the Met—and the DDI intends to ruin him. I don’t want that to happen but I’m dratted if I know how to avoid it. I asked DS Fowler and he told me not to get involved for my own sake.”

“He would,” Joel said. “Stupid pri—uh, prig.”

“Quite. Talk to me, Mr. Wildsmith. I didn’t have long with the DS, so you’ll need to fill me in.”

Joel did his best. Challice was a sharply intelligent listener, and swiftly grasped the situation as he presented it. He didn’t know if she’d also grasped the parts he wasn’t admitting.

“So Sabini wanted to you make indecency allegations, and you refused,” she mused. “But the DDI nevertheless said you’d made them. That’s quite a bluff.”

“Is the DDI saying it because he thinks he can scare Aaron—Mr. Fowler—with the mere accusation, or because he thinks he can make me say it?” Joel asked. “Because if it was the latter, I’d have thought Darby Sabini might have had another word with me already, to let me know what I was obliged to do.”

“And he hasn’t?”

“No,” Joel said thoughtfully. “This Colthorne chap: nice as pie until he doesn’t get what he wants, and then the temper comes out?”

“Very much so. Where are you going with this?”

Joel thought back on the conversation with Sabini, the various hands he’d read. “Sabini likes to be a man who does favours. Once I started appealing to him for help, he was generosity itself. But he doesn’t like taking orders. I’m just wondering, if Colthorne told him to get an accusation of indecency out of me, and all Sabini brought him was an accusation of inappropriate graphology, would that have gone down badly? Would Colthorne maybe say Go back and do it properly, sort of thing? They both need to be the big man in the room, can’t be challenged—”

“Have you met DDI Colthorne?” she demanded.

“I read his hand.”

“Hmm. DS Fowler told me about that. It sounds plausible knowing the DDI, but does it get us anywhere?”