Graphology has remained on the fringes of scientific acceptability, often classified with phrenology and physiognomy. One of the leading forensic analysts of documents and forgeries admitted that it could provide revealing clues to a person’s character, although ‘Support is spare for graphology’s claim that handwriting accurately reflects personality variables.’ Earlier experts, however, had agreed that ‘Every time a person writes he automatically and subconsciously stamps his individuality in his writing.’ It certainly reveals something of where one learned to write. The letter-writer had a definitely French style of handwriting; the Professor had commented on it, and I too had immediately identified it as being similar to the writing of several French friends of mine, and very different from German handwriting, or my own English script. Individual characters are differently formed in the various national scripts, but would graphology be sophisticated enough to be able, for instance, to tell whether the writer was French or a French-speaking Belgian? It was far from being an exact science, even in France where it retained most credibility, but perhaps the general impressions one could derive from a study of handwriting were less elusive than quantifying the exact scientific accuracy of graphology. Whether or not I was going to get any answers that would help me track down the letter-writer was unclear, but I thought I would probably be offered some insights into her character and motivation. Perhaps that was becoming just as important as finding her.

The graphologist lived in a small high-rise block on the outskirts of Paris. She was a poet, and her small flat was full of flowers and scraps of paper covered in short scribbled phrases. It suited her, a bright, small woman, dressed in a floral print, with a hint of fragility behind the gaiety.

We made our introductions, and I opened the Evian bottle. I had not touched the original letter since first reading it, and had never even opened the bottle since my friend the dog-walker passed it on to me. For all my investigations, I used a colour photocopy I had made when I first received the letter. But the graphologist needed to see the original paper, the pressure of the pen, the texture of the script, so we carefully unrolled the little cylinder and straightened out the sheets. The lock of hair was twisted into a curl, and appropriately formed the shape of a question mark. It was impossible to tell whether the original was curly or whether the shape had been imposed by the paper scroll. We stared at the lock in shocked silence. Suddenly it was obvious that there were two people’s hair entwined together like lovers. A light chestnut and a dark brown.

The graphologist shuddered and blew out her cheeks in an effort to relax. The small noise released the tension in the room that had gripped us both. She seemed to clear her thoughts, and picked up the letter. ‘It’s very compact, very well-organized,’ she said immediately, trying to sound businesslike after the emotional silence. ‘There is a great respect for the norms: the margins are very crisp, especially the one on the left. It shows a great desire for clarity, there is nothing casual about it. It shows little imagination. Lots of control, a great desire for mastery. It is very organized,’ she repeated. ‘Precise, rigorous, it shows continuity, perseverance . . . She is tenacious, she follows through on what she has decided to do. It reveals cohesion, definition. It is very compact, very dense.’