The Inspector contemplates an outcome of her investigation in which she is compelled to place under arrest for sedition a pile of limited edition magical realist novels allegedly containing a human mind, and devoutly hopes Mr. Shand’s construction of the situation is not the right one. She feels confident in believing that it is not, on the basis that such an idea is plainly poppycock—Shand’s gallant version of English must be rubbing off on her—but does not entirely dismiss the possibility of some secret hidden in Hunter’s books. That is always the position one occupies in the Witness: that something is taking place that needs to be observed and understood. This of course makes for a vulnerability to recursive investigations: the acknowledged danger of assuming that an absence of evidence is itself evidence of obfuscation.