The Circle

by Peter Lovesey

  Cherry smirked. 'Not Woman's Own.'

  'I get you. Top-of-the-shelf stuff?'

  'Mostly.'

  'Then he goes upmarket into educational publishing and only recendy branched out on his own.'

  'Was the Blacker List a public company?' someone else asked.

  'No. He owned the whole thing, put some money of his own into it and took out a loan. How long he would have survived like this we don't know, because a publisher employs loads of specialists: designers, editors, proofreaders, printers, salespeople.'

  'And the writers.'

  'Well, his idea was to get the writers to cover the cost. It's known as vanity publishing. Believe it or not, there are millions of people whose greatest ambition is to see themselves in print. Personally, I'd rather spend my money on a really good cause like shopping in Knightsbridge, but we're all different. Vanity publishing is okay by me so long as the writer knows what he's getting into. Blacker's writers didn't. We're holding a first-time author called McDade who was asked for five grand shortly before his book was due for publication. He didn't pay up and he was dumped. You nicked him, Johnny. Maybe you'd like to say some more.'

  DI Cherry looked as if he'd prefer to say nothing, but there was no get-out. 'When we charged him he was looking bang to rights. He'd been to the house and had a run-in with Blacker on the day of the fire, and he's got form as a fire-raiser. There wasn't anyone else in the frame.' Cherry hesitated and cocked his head, as if listening to his own voice played back to him. 'However, these other fires have raised a few doubts.'

  'Cue another fire,' Hen said. 'This one may appear to be unrelated. There's a link that I'll explain.'

  The remains of the boat house appeared on screen with wisps of smoke still rising from the damaged roof.

  'Not a private dwelling, but one of the two boat houses used by the local canoe club. It's beside the canal, a stone's throw from here. A week ago last Friday a middle-aged woman called Amelia Snow takes a call from a voice she doesn't recognise. Male. The caller says he can prove Maurice McDade is in the clear if she'll meet him at the boat house at eight next morning. I should explain that McDade is the chairman of the Chichester Writers' Circle and Miss Snow is the secretary. An extremely loyal secretary. But she's also a canny lady and she asks someone else to go in her place. He's Bob Naylor, a Parcel Force driver who recently joined the circle. Naylor gets there as arranged. The door's open, so he goes in. Through this end.'

  She shone a point of light at the screen.

  'Soon as he's inside, the door slams behind him. It's a strong metal door and there's no way he can force it open. In minutes, the building is on fire. Some kind of accelerant was placed in the space under the floor and it spreads quickly. Luckily Naylor is pretty fit and climbs up a boat rack and batters his way out through the roof with a canoe paddle. According to his statement he saw no one.'

  A long shot of the exterior, showing the hole in the roof and the blackened source of the fire in the space below the building.

  'It's safe to assume Miss Snow wouldn't have got out of the boat house if she'd acted on the phone call herself. She was wise, or lucky, to ask Naylor to go in her place. Her luck ran out a week later when her dinky little town house went up in flames with her inside.'

  The shell of Miss Snow's house appeared on screen.

  'The fire service categorised this as a fire out of control. They were called too late to make any difference, except to limit the damage to the neighbours. A clock in the kitchen stopped at four twenty a.m., so it's a fair estimate that the fire-raiser struck up to thirty minutes before that. I went to see the building this morning. You often hear the word "gutted" used about a fire. In this case, it's accurate. There's nothing left inside except ash and some objects that resist fire. The conditions were special. A mixture of convection and radiation produced an effect known in the service as a firestorm. All that's left of Miss Snow is a few powdery bones, including parts of the skull.'

  'And the teeth,' Stella Gregson prompted her.

  'And the teeth. We're checking them against dental records.'

  'Do we know where the fire started?' a sergeant asked.

  'Front door, same as the fire at the cottage. Forensics are checking to see if the same accelerant was used.'

  'Witnesses?'

  'None so far, which is surprising in a built-up area like this, but Chichester isn't exactly a hub of night life. We'll be making the usual appeals for information. It was on local telly and radio and that may help.' Hen switched off the video. 'To sum up, we have two victims, one near-victim, and a suspect, and all four have a connection to this writers' circle.' She turned to a DC in the front row. 'What do they do in a writers' circle?'

  'Write, ma'am?'

  'They can't spend all the time writing.'

  'Do they drink?'

  "Do they drink?Ml the writers I've ever heard of are winos, and most of them are weirdos as well. However, we're dealing with part-timers here, so they may not all have got the habit. Johnny, how often does this circle meet?'

  'Once a month,' Cherry said. 'In the New Park Centre. Blacker gave them a talk at the July meeting. We've got it on video. They did it themselves.'

  'Useful. I'll watch it after this. And was that the last meeting they had?'

  'Last but one. August was the last proper meeting.'

  'The last proper meeting. Do they have improper meetings?'

  Laughter.

  'There's a serious point here,' Hen said. 'The meetings certain individuals have outside the regular meetings could be the key to this. For example, Amelia Snow must have met the Parcel Force driver to persuade him to go to the boat house in her place. What was going on between those two? Was someone else made jealous?'

  Cherry said, 'Unlikely.'

  'Why do you say that, Johnny?'

  'Miss Snow was an old maid.'

  He regretted it.

  'As opposed to a nice bit of skirt?' Hen said. 'Or a dolly bird? Or crumpet? I thought you people might have got the message that I don't do labelling. How many are in this circle?'

  'Eleven now.'

  'That's eleven potential suspects, right, and each one is an individual. So we're not calling them old maids or fat gits or, em . . .'

  'Winos and weirdos, guv?' Stella Gregson said.

  After a moment's extreme tension, Hen's lips softened into a slow smile. 'Thank you for that, Stell.' She made the shape of a gun with two fingers and pointed it at the side of her head. 'Let's all agree to treat them as human beings, shall we? We're going to get to know them, who their friends are, what they do for a living, where they live and what sort of writing they do. From now on, this is the incident room. I want the usual display board on this wall with all the names on it. Pictures, too, if poss.' She paused, and looked around the room. 'As for you lot, you're just a faceless murder squad, so you're going to get labels. Johnny, you're my office manager. Get us up and running today. Stella is my admin officer. I'll also be appointing a receiver, an action allocator, statement readers and indexers. Cheer up, kiddos. This could be a positive experience. At this point, I'm going out for a smoke. Ten minutes - and then I want your theories.'

  Hen's smoke was a small cigar. The bliss on her face as she took the first deep drag left no doubt that this was serious dependence. 'How did they take it, Stell?'

  Stella Gregson was a non-smoker used to standing among the fag ends with her boss. 'Mr Cherry's pissing his pants that you've taken over, but no one else seems to mind.'

  'He thought the case was done and dusted.'

  'Are you going to talk to the guy he nicked?'

  'Have to. I'll read the paperwork first. It should be a feature of this case, the paperwork. Instead of "I am John Smith, unemployed, and I was proceeding up the street" we're going to get stuff like "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again". Some of the statements could be worth a fortune in years to come.'

  Stella smiled. '"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were str
iking thirteen."'

  'Who wrote that? We don't want crazy stuff.'

  'George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four.''

  'As long ago as that?' She spoke without a smile. Stella would never know if she was serious.

  'Right,' she said to her murder investigation team, 'you've heard from me. I want some input from you now. Why does a decent, clean-living litde lady like Miss Snow get incinerated?'

  No one was rash enough to speak.

  'Come on. You've had longer to think about it than me,' Hen said. 'A semi-retired accountant who also does a bit of charity work. Secretary of the writers' circle.'

  The keeno, DC Humphreys, decided this was the moment to redeem himself. 'An accountant gets to know a lot about a person's finances. Could someone have panicked that she knew too much?'

  'Someone with money problems? Good thought. Do we know whose accounts she managed?'

  DI Cherry said in a dismissive way, 'Only a few clients she'd known for years.'

  'Like?'

  'Like Miss Peabody's, the private dress shop in Crane Street. I'm certain Miss Peabody doesn't have a money problem. Neither does the dentist, Michael Wheatley-Smith, nor the podiatrist, Anita Jacques.'

  'Podiatrist?'

  Stella said, 'Feet, guv.'

  'Have you looked at any of these people's balance sheets?' Hen said to Cherry.

  'No need. In Chichester, we know who's doing okay.'

  'So what other accounts was she auditing?'

  'Probably looked after the women's refuge she supported.

  She'll have done that without a fee.'

  DC Humphreys said, 'Maybe she'd taken on someone else we don't know about. I was thinking how convenient it would be if the accounts were dodgy and they went up in the fire at the same time as she did.'

  'Good thought, too,' Hen said, 'only let's not forget the killer had two tries. The first time, Miss Snow was invited to the boat house. There weren't any account books stored there, far as I know.'

  A sergeant at the back said, 'Here's another theory, ma'am. You said she worked in the refuge. You get some hard cases ending up in those places. Junkies, alcos, illegals, you name it. What if one of them decided Miss Snow was a soft touch, and it turned out she wasn't?'

  'You mean they tapped her for cash and she refused?'

  'She could have threatened to report them.'

  'Now that isn't bad,' Hen said, 'not at all bad. We know she visited the refuge and helped there, as well as working in the shop. It would explain the trap at the boat house, and the fire at her place. My problem with this theory is the lure, the call she took asking her to go to the boat house. The reason she was hooked is that the caller talked about proving Maurice McDade was innocent. How would anyone from the refuge know about her link to McDade? He wasn't in the papers at this point.'

  'It was on local radio.'

  'Was it, indeed? I didn't know that.'

  Stella said, 'For starters, guv, why don't we focus on the people who knew McDade was being held?'

  DC Humphreys said, 'The circle.'

  'And a few others. McDade has a partner, I understand. Some of the circle may have talked to friends and families.'

  'Okay,' Hen said, 'but there's another factor, isn't there? The killing of Amelia Snow is a carbon copy of Edgar Blacker's murder. I'm hoping forensics will tell us the same accelerant was used. Certainly both fires were started at the front door.'

  'And by night,' Stella said. 'Are you saying Miss Snow was killed for the same reason as Blacker?'

  'I'm saying the evidence points to one killer carrying out both murders. The reason may be less straightforward. You sometimes find a second murder being done when the killer gets panicky and thinks someone is on to him.'

  'Was Miss Snow a bit of an amateur sleuth, then?'

  'Like Miss Marple? Let's find out. Tomorrow evening I want to try something rather novel. I'm calling a special meeting of the writers' circle. When they've assembled at their usual place I'm going to tell them what the evening is all about. Then we'll bus them round here and interview every one of them, all in one evening.'

  'What if they refuse, guv?'

  'They won't. It's their chance to prove they had nothing to do with it. And the killer won't want to draw attention to himself - or herself - by opting out.'

  'Some of them may be able to prove they're in the clear,' Humphreys said.

  'I hope so. I've never had so many suspects. Any with alibis that check out will get a free lollipop from me.'

  'We don't have enough interview rooms,' DI Cherry pointed out straight-faced, in case anyone should think he was getting pleasure from gumming up the works.

  'Then we'll do it in relays. You'll each be assigned to one or more of these geniuses and armed with a list of questions. But don't let that inhibit you, or them. Encourage them to talk about themselves. They're storytellers. The results should be - what's the word I'm looking for? - unputdownable.'

  Maurice McDade was watering the vegetable garden at Ford Prison when Hen arrived with a silver-haired DC at her side.

  'Put down the hose, Mr McDade. It makes me nervous.'

  He handed it to someone else. The three made themselves as comfortable as a low stone wall allowed. Hen offered McDade one of her small cigars, but he was a non-smoker. She lit one herself. There were advantages to doing an interview outside.

  'I don't know how much you've heard,' she said after introducing herself and the DC.

  'About Miss Snow? I saw it on the news.' McDade had an earnest, confidential manner. On remand he was allowed his own clothes, a striped shirt and well-pressed fawn trousers. Hen reckoned he was not much over fifty, a tall, decent-looking man with an accent that would get him into the stewards' enclosure at Henley. But she wasn't going to forget his record.

  'Devastating, I should think,' she said, wondering how the death of his friend played against the prospect of an early release.

  He nodded. 'She was a gentle soul. I don't understand it.'

  'It's the gende souls who cop it, Mr McDade.'

  'Is it certain she was murdered?'

  'Well, it wasn't an accident for sure. How long had she been secretary of the circle?'

  'Since the start, two years ago. She was very good at it. Kept me up to the mark. I relied on her a lot.'

  'Whose suggestion was it to invite Edgar Blacker to give a talk?'

  'That was down to me, one letter I didn't ask Miss Snow to write. To be honest, I was basking in my success a bit. Wanted the others to see that I actually had succeeded in netting a real, live publisher.'

  'Instead of which, he'd netted you.'

  He rolled his eyes upwards. 'As it turned out, yes.'

  'Let's get back to Amelia Snow. You must have met her before the circle was founded.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Well, if she was your secretary from the start . . .'

  'She wasn't one of the founders. Dagmar and Naomi were my co-founders. I met Miss Snow at the first meeting, after we'd put a letter in the Chichester Observer.'

  'I'm interested that you keep referring to her as Miss Snow. You must have known her well enough to use her first name.'

  'Yes, it's difficult to explain. She had a ladylike manner, and it would have seemed crass to address her any other way.'

  'Maybe she secretly wanted to be called Amelia.'

  'I don't think so. She was immensely proud of her surname. She was writing a book about famous people called Snow.'

  'Did she show it to Edgar Blacker?'

  'He spoke well of it. Compared her to Lytton Strachey'

  'Lit on what?'

  He looked pained, like a schoolmaster disappointed with an answer. 'One of the most famous of all biographers. Blacker said Miss Snow's book reminded him of Strachey, except that she wasn't so critical of her subjects. But that was the whole point with Strachey. He really wielded the hatchet on some Victorian demigods like Florence Nightingale. I couldn't see Miss Snow doing that.'

 
'So was he being sarcastic? Blacker, I mean.'

  'I'm afraid so. He wasn't a nice man, as I discovered.'

  'He let you down badly'

  'I'm sure it was calculated.' His voice took on a harder note. 'He'd buttered me up for months and he waited until almost the eve of publication before demanding extra money. A "cash-flow crisis". I was sure to recoup it all in royalties, he said blithely. I'm not a complete mug. I refused. Well, you must have read my statement. We had the mother and father of all rows and I walked out. I can't begin to tell you what an effort that took when I was so near to having the book in my hand. My book.'

  'Great Unsolved Murders?'

  'The title is Unsolved.' A faint smile. 'A single word gets larger letters on the cover.'

  'Good thinking.'

  'And now you're going to say what all the other policemen said, that I must be the world's leading expert on getting away with murder.'

  She took her time over answering. This was a man skilled in using words. 'No, but I'm going to ask for your opinion. You've had plenty of time to think about it. Who's the arsonist?'

  Maurice McDade shook his head. 'No use asking me. As a matter of fact I asked for the printer to insert a large question mark above the heading of each chapter. I don't go in for theories. That's up to my readers.'

  If and when you ever get any, Hen almost said, tempted to prick his complacency. 'Put it another way, then. Some of the people in the circle took a dislike to Edgar Blacker. Should any of them be on my list of suspects?'

  'You need more than just dislike to carry out a murder.'

  'Which is why you're on remand, Mr McDade. You're the one he shafted.'

  You won't get me to point the finger at my fellow writers.'

  'And that's why you're here,' Hen said. 'We don't have another serious suspect'

  He took a step forward and his voice rose sharply. 'But it's about my innocence, not their guilt. Look, I couldn't have started the fire at Miss Snow's. I was locked up here.'

  'You haven't been charged with the fire at Miss Snow's. Can you help me with that?'

  Now he was making a huge effort to sound more calm. 'I'll say this much. She rubbed shoulders with some desperate people.'