When they had gone, I said, as plainly as I could, ‘This was witchcraft.’ I did so because I judged the mayor to be a man of sound sense, a man not likely to fall into panic or hysteria when encountering the darker arts.

He had clearly steeled himself against a wound, against a death, of the traditional kind. This was much different. His eyes widened somewhat, but otherwise he kept his composure, under the circumstances.

‘Help me turn him over,’ I said. If the mayor was unused to taking orders, the strangeness of the situation overrode his natural inclinations. But what was to come next, I knew, would be beyond the man.

I unfastened the constable’s breeches at his waist and above his knees, and proceeded to lower them.

‘Inspector Morden! What is the meaning of this?’ Eder said, a hand raised to his mouth.

With no more relish than the mayor, I lifted the constable’s shirt and prised apart the dead man’s buttocks. A more invasive investigation proved unnecessary – paper was clearly evident and in just the same abundance as the rest of the body. I returned the breeches to their former position and stood.

‘I do not think a full dissection will be necessary.’

Mayor Eder gave me a look of such bewilderment, of such shock, that I worried he was but a breath away from denouncing me as some kind of devil. I guided him to one of the chairs in the hallway, a little way from the former constable. I told Eder to breathe deeply and focus his gaze on his own hands: something familiar and solid and safe.

I left him there and returned to the desk. It did not take long to find what I sought: missing pages. The constable’s ledger sat squarely at the centre of the desk, the most recent volume in his chronicle of Drekenford. Other, older volumes were arrayed on shelves on the far wall but I had strong doubts I would need to disturb their slumber. This was a matter of recent history.

The ledger on the desk covered the last twenty-five years. It struck me in that moment that Constable Webber not only maintained a history of his town but, more immediately, his own life, both sides of the ettiene. His was perhaps the most extreme form of sibling diary I had ever come across. If I knew the man more, I may have felt more willing to speculate if such a record was born of curiosity, diligence, paranoia, or something else.

Of the twenty-five years, fifteen were cut cleanly from the book. The final entry, however, was still there: the night of my meeting with the constable, which was recorded in efficient detail. Then the gap and the next intact page was dated fifteen years previous, to the day.

I looked over to where Constable Webber lay, pain still so evident in every part of his over-full body.

The law devours its history.

That line from the Ritual of Berith, that Custodian Ignatius had shown me in Esteberg Cathedral’s library, was clearly evident here. It was too neat, too grotesquely literal, to be a coincidence. There were more conditions – that was Ignatius’ word – for the ritual to summon the demon, but I saw no evidence of them that night. Even so, I would require the text itself: Bartrey’s History of the Baalimine. The book with the serpent-spine that drew me so, among those darkened shelves. I would request Ignatius send the text to Drekenford.