“Not as a character witness,” Fowler said, perhaps a touch bitchily. “But Paul told me in so many words that he bedded another lady before writing to his fiancée. I’m not going to deny that on the stand— You thought I would.” His face changed as he said that. “You came here because you thought I’d, what, refuse to tell the truth? Claim that he never said it? Perjure myself in court?”

“I wondered,” Joel said, a little defensively. “He’s your cousin. The police lie.”

Fowler started to say something. Joel distinctly heard the fricative of an Ffff before he stopped himself, jaw muscles tightening visibly. “I do not lie on oath. If I’m called I will tell the truth.”

That rather cut the legs from under Joel’s grievance. “Right. Yes. Well, thank you. I, er, didn’t mean to insult you.”

“You didn’t think insulting my professional integrity would insult me?”

The budding efforts at peacemaking instantly withered. “As it happens, I have personal experience of the Metropolitan Police in the witness box, and maybe you’re an honest copper but I can assure you, the one who testified against me wasn’t. I suppose everyone who is accused of anything insists that the policeman lied, but this one did. And if that leaves me with a prejudice against the police, I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but that does tend to happen when you screw people over.”

“It doesn’t help you to assume bad intent of an entire group based on an experience with one man.”

“That’s true if you say it about Jews, or Greeks, or redheads,” Joel said. “I don’t think it applies to people who choose to do a particular job. Come off it, Detective Sergeant. You don’t believe there’s any corrupt police?”

“I know very well there are,” Fowler said, clipped. “A small minority. People love to say that one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, but I would say that most of my colleagues do a difficult job with dedication and good intent. If you encountered someone else—” He paused there for a second, then went on deliberately. “I am aware you were convicted. And of what.”

Of course he was. Of course he’d looked. Joel’s heart was thudding with a peculiarly unpleasant combination of fear and anticipation. “Are you.”

“You’re saying the charge was trumped up?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Do you actually want me to answer that? Because I will be obliged to go into details which you might not want to hear.”

“Go on.”

Joel shrugged. “Public lavatory. Minding my own business. A gentleman indicated I might want to suck his cock. It seemed like a good idea at the time and there was nobody else there, so I obliged him. He seemed to enjoy himself; he certainly made sure he finished before he arrested me.”