The Circle ihmi-1

by Peter Lovesey

  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 striking 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 Am
elia 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.'

  'At the refuge, you mean?'

  'Yes, she took it upon herself to help them in whatever way she could. It wasn't just a matter of raising funds in the charity shop. She was often at the refuge itself, trying to counsel the clients, or whatever they're called. It did cross my mind that if one of those people confided in her, told her about a crime, for instance, and later panicked, they could have decided killing her was the only remedy.'

  'We're looking into that, Mr McDade, but thanks for mentioning it. Did you hear anything from Miss Snow after your arrest?'

  'Only at one remove. My partner mentioned on the phone that Miss Snow was doing all she could to secure my release. She and Dagmar and Thomasine.'

  Hen played ignorant. 'Let me get these names clear in my head. Dagmar was one of the founders?'

  'Yes, with Naomi.'

  'Which one is Thomasine?'

  'Thomasine O'Loughlin. A splendid woman, salt of the earth. She contributes so much, and in a positive way. Writes some rather good erotic poetry as well. I'd expect her to take
the initiative.'

  'Is that typical of erotic poets, then?'

  'The initiative in proving my innocence.'

  'It's all right, Mr McDade. I was being flippant. You also mentioned Naomi. Is she one of your supporters?'

  'Naomi? She's more of a lone wolf. No, that's unkind. Her intentions are good, I'm sure, but she has an off-putting manner. I can't see her teaming up with anyone else, not the women, anyway.'

  'Off-putting in what way?'

  'Hard to explain. I always feel there's a mountain of resentment behind Naomi. She knew straight away that Blacker was bluffing when he said he'd read her book on the Sussex witchcraft trials and it was timed just right for the current fascination with the occult. She asked him straight out if he'd actually read it. Believe me, if you're eye to eye with Naomi you back down. He moved on rapidly to someone else.'

  'Tell me about Dagmar, then.'

  'Little Dagmar. A delightful person. Very serious, very earnest. Of Austrian or German stock, I would think. But she has this other side you'd never dream of until she mentions she's written twelve steamy romances as Desiree Eliot.'

  'Written and published?'

  'Not published yet, but I'm sure her chance will come. They could be a goldmine for an enterprising publisher, all those novels written already.'

  'Are they good?'

  'Who can tell, except the kind of person she's writing for? Romantic writers, more than any others, have to hit the spot, if you understand me.'

  Hen thought she did, and managed to keep a straight face.

  'It's a huge market,' he said, 'and to my admittedly inexpert ear, Dagmar's writing is equal to the challenge.'

  'Did Blacker agree?'

  'He said he'd shown her script to a friend who devoured it at a sitting. He was sounding very bullish about it until she mentioned she had eleven more that she'd been hawking around the publishers.'

  'Without so much as a nibble?'

  'Not up to now.'

  'When Blacker heard this he went into reverse?'

  'Well, yes.'