Page 15 of Copper Script
“I knew what he was, not who he was!”
“That isn’t possible.”
“Well, it is sodding possible, because I do it.I just look at handwriting,” Joel said savagely.“I think,What kind of person would I be if I wrote like that?Iimaginebeing the person who wrote like that, and then I tell you what I feel like.That’s the big secret you’re after: I put myself behind their pen, rather than in their shoes.I don’t know why it works—Christ, I don’t even know that it works at all, except that everyone tells me I’m right.And I certainly can’t teach you how to do it, any more than you could teach a colourblind man to see in colour.”
Fowler stared at him.Joel glared back.“Don’t look at me like that.It’s not my fault.”
“If you’re unqualified—”
“Who’s supposed to qualify me?Was I wrong about any of your letters?”
“But you’re asking for money to do something akin to palm reading.Drawing conclusions and making things up.”
“Fine.That’s what I’m doing.It’s still not against the law.”He’d checked that carefully, and was quite sure that if he didn’t claim supernatural powers, he was in the clear.“And if I’m just making it up, the laws of probability suggest I must be getting a majority of it wrong so I’m not sure why you care about a few lucky guesses landing compared to all the mistakes you’re about to tell me I made.”
If Fowler’s mouth got any tighter, he was going to need to see a dentist.He put a hand up to massage his neck, taking a couple of deep inhalations as he did it.“So you looked at Molesworth’s handwriting and thought, this is a warped and evil man.You looked at my brother-in-law’s and thought, this is a decent, reliable one.Any particulars you cited were chance.Very well.So how did you make a highly specific accusation about my cousin?Or did his fiancée invent it?”
Joel was tiring of this.He had other appointments, accounts to do, and an aversion to interrogation.“Shall we stop messing about?I’m not talking about my client, but your cousin is Paul Napier-Fox, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.I was presented with a letter rambling about a costume ball.I said the man who wrote it was selfish and deceptive.I said he wrote it with immense self-satisfaction, as if he’d got one over on her.Specifically, I said it felt like he’d just rolled out of bed with someone else and was feeling jolly smug about it.”He glowered at his opponent.“Are you telling me he had?”
There was a silence, then Fowler said, “As it happens, yes.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
Fowler made a noise that suggested something had ripped.Possibly his brain, possibly his trousers, who could say.“That specific detail—you cannot claim that’s the same as a rose bed.People don’tdothat.”
“Apparently your cousin does.I didn’t think much of him,” Joel added.“I’d choose my cousins more carefully if I were you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.The letter didn’t have a glob of spunk on it or whatever you may be imagining.The writer felt smug and sneery and, I don’t know, careless, the way you do after a good screw, and...it was how it felt.That’s all.”
“A lucky guess.”
“Yes!”Joel said, a bit too loudly.“A lucky guess.A dramatic illustration of what a rotten fiancé would do, which you tell me is what your rotten cousin actually did.How is that my fault?”
“Do you gamble?”Fowler asked.
“With all the spare money I have lying around?No.”
“Perhaps you should.On your telling, you’re an extremely lucky man.”
“Yes, I often think that,” Joel said, absolutely deadpan, and saw the flick of Fowler’s eyes to his left arm.
A little silence.Then Fowler said, “What would you do in my place?”
“As a proud member of the Metropolitan Police?Beat someone up for a confession, I expect.”
“Does your mouth ever get you into trouble?”Fowler enquired, and it was the most unguarded he’d sounded yet.It made his own mouth look really rather good.“It’s not a marvellous idea to talk like that.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it is not.This is a free country, and you can talk as you wish.I just hope you aren’t quite so provoking in your daily life.”
“My daily life doesn’t include coppers,” Joel said.“As for what I’d do in your place...I hope I would realise that the graphologist whose time I’m taking up couldn’t possibly have intimate knowledge of my cousin’s post-coital correspondence or my brother-in-law’s horticultural pursuits.That I’m fretting about a couple of freak coincidences, and everything else can be explained by the fact that said graphologist is as talented as he is good-looking.”
