“What for?”

Fowler hesitated for a few seconds, and finally spoke with clear reluctance. “The third paper was written by Wilfred Molesworth.”

Joel took a second to place the name then sat bolt upright. “Molesworth? Kids under the floorboards Molesworth? And you made me touch that? Jesus! What the hell did you do that for?”

Fowler’s brows had gone steeply up. “It was just a letter. There was nothing telling in it.”

“It was his hand. I read characters from hands and I do not want to read the characters of child murderers, certainly not without warning. Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Fowler had a sceptical look, as if he thought Joel was play-acting. He could go screw himself. Molesworth’s writing had been like plunging into a mass of cold grey cobwebs—sticky, clinging, crawling. “He hanged, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Maybe try catching the next one before he racks up four children.”

That came out with a touch more venom than, perhaps, it should have, because Fowler gave just the tiniest flinch. His voice was deliberately level when he said, “I suspect it was more than four. He wouldn’t say, though, and now he’s dead.”

Joel paused on that, considered his face. “I don’t remember the case well. It was in the papers when I was in hospital getting the remains of my hand taken off, so I wasn’t paying much attention.”

Fowler gave a tiny shrug—not indifference, more like helplessness. “We found four bodies under the floorboards, and they had not had easy deaths. That’s all we ever managed to discover. We only caught him through sheer luck in the first place. None of the missing children had even been reported, poor little wretches.”

“So how did it come out?”

“Oh, Molesworth’s next door neighbour marched into my police station and said she thought he was a murderer. That might be written off as spite or feuding or eccentricity, but there was something about her; she was truly unsettled. I went round on a pretext, had a nice chat and a cup of tea, and when we were done I popped into the kitchen to rinse the cups. There was a smell, and it didn’t require a lot of police work from there.” Fowler grimaced. “It was counted as a success, but as you say, there must have been an opportunity to catch him earlier. Something that could have been done.”

“You can’t solve a crime before it’s been discovered, I suppose,” Joel said, and then wondered how the blazes he had found himself offering comfort to a rozzer. “Except when you entrap people into them, or frame them up, of course.”

“Naturally that would make it easier,” Fowler said, with some sarcasm. “Did you recognise his hand?”

“Who, Molesworth? From where?”

“You tell me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. How many times must I say—”