“Six... Oh, well, this is better. Oh, I like her. Her? Definitely her. This is someone...goodness, I bet she was Head Girl.” In the corner of his eye, he saw Fowler’s head twitch, as if he’d started to look up. “Full of enthusiasm and positivity and absolutely determined to do a jolly good job of things. Real salt of the earth stuff. A thoroughly nice person, probably so nice you barely notice the iron will.” Fowler choked slightly. “Oh, definitely. Would she commit a crime? Quite possibly, if it needed doing. Beat a man to death with a lacrosse stick or a rolling pin, and then go straight to the police station to explain why it was a necessary and reasonable thing to have done. This isn’t a mean soul.”

That felt a bit better. He swigged tea and took up the next paper. “Seven. Oh.”

“Wh—”

Joel flapped his arm for silence, glaring at the paper he held as the impressions coalesced. “Oh, no, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. I told you not to give me these people, for Christ’s sake!”

“What is it?” Fowler demanded.

“This is bad. This is someone—absolutely no moral compass. Ruthless. Entirely ruthless. I would not put a lot past him. I think he would do extraordinarily bad things with open eyes. I think...shit. I think he might have blood on his hands.” He stared at the uncaring loops of ink, awash with feelings he didn’t like. “I really think he might. There’s something so bad here, and he knows it, he’s embraced it, he’s relishing it, even, because it shows he’s superior to everyone else.”

“Superior?”

“It’s how he feels. Whether he should...” Joel made himself take a step back, trying to look beyond the dark. “It’s an educated hand, and he’s a clever man. He might be doing pretty well in life. Well, it’s probably easier if you’re not encumbered with feelings—except self-interest and vanity, he’s got plenty of those. Does it show? I don’t know. He might seem a perfectly normal fellow, but behind the mask there’s a sodding great void where a person should be. He does what he wants because what he wants is all that matters, and only he counts. That kind of superior. I don’t like it.” He shuddered. “Take a damn good look at this one. I don’t know if he did your particular crime, but he’s bloody well done something.”

He stopped there. Fowler’s pen scritched on a moment, taking it down. Joel waited for him to finish, and added, “And I did tell you not to bring me people like this.”