Moving to the other side of the desk, I began leafing through its rather chaotic contents. The drawers were stuffed full of papers, files, and spare bottles of ink. The top of the desk was similarly burdened, and in no way organised that I could see; though I had long ago come to accept that one man’s chaos is another man’s order. Lifting stacks of paper revealed more pages, dried-out quills and, in one instance, a rotting apple core. If anything was to be gleaned from Constable Webber’s desk, it was that the man bore the wrong title: Archivist, Librarian, Chronicler even, would have been more accurate. I had to search long and hard before I found evidence of his work as a man of the law, and then I almost mistook the report of drunken behaviour as a potted history of a Mr Perlak’s family’s misfortunes.

All this mess also served to highlight the strange, calm oasis at the very centre of the desk, where the fallen, marked candle lay alongside the damaged ledger. To call them ‘murder weapons’ would have been difficult in front of a judge or magistrate, but that was my impression as I stared down at them in the weak light.

I carefully picked up the ledger and opened it. I skimmed through the ten years of Drekenford history that remained intact, but found nothing concerning either Stefan or Mrs Harsson. In fact, I found little of note concerning anyone. What possessed a man to record the intricate banalities of the everyday? I read his account of our meeting, noting the detail in which he described my clothing and manner. Apparently these marked me as remarkable – a foreign oddity was the implication, if it was not plainly stated. I smiled grimly at that.

Finding nothing of use in the ledger, I went to examine the candle once more. A seed of doubt had started to take root: had I really seen pinpricks in it the other day?

But as I touched its hard, slick surface I was overcome with dizziness.

I staggered, only just managing to catch hold of the chair and then fall into it before I went careening to the floor. I closed my eyes and tried to take steadying, deep breaths.

I saw the constable. I saw the candle. I saw them both, as one, their image flickering interchangeably as they fell, rigid, to the stone floor.

Opening my eyes, I waited as the dizziness passed. As a young man I knew nothing of visions. But over my years as a Special Inspector I had experienced them with increasing frequency. Though I did not speak of it to anyone, not even my colleagues, the visions were often a boon: the forces I encountered were regularly beyond the realms of normal sight. The phrase ‘it requires a thief to catch a thief’ is not particularly popular with the constabulary. Its equivalent for my line of work is unheard of, unspeakable, and yet ever-present. I was not a witch. I caught and executed witches. But… was the power of my crucifix so different from that which animated inked letters? Were my visions so different from augurs drawn from flames, from water, or from darker sources? I shook such heretical thoughts from my head.