'That they later got involved in some criminal act.'
'Do you have any evidence of this?'
Naomi shook her head. 'It's only a guess, but it would account for the "innocents" comment. A scam they both got into.'
Hen said, 'If they did, we have no record of it. Blacker was clean.'
'I've got another theory, then. Suppose they both fell for some confidence trick. A third person duped them. That would give another meaning to "innocents", wouldn't it?'
'Sure would. Any idea who this third person might be?'
'The killer,' Naomi said. 'The arsonist.'
'Covering up old crimes? You've obviously given this a lot of thought. Who do you suspect?'
'Is this in confidence?'
'Of course.'
'That pain in the arse, Tudor.'
20
All these courts must be lit, and our detectives improved. They are not what they should be.
Queen Victoria, letter to Lord Salisbury, 10 November 1888
After that, I need a bevvy. How about you?' Bob said. Thomasine smiled. 'Mind-reader.'
It was just after ten. Neither of them said so, but one good reason for choosing the Ship, the hotel at the top of North Street, was that no one else from the circle was likely to be in there. They had enough in common not to need other company now.
Thomasine asked for a gin and tonic. 'Don't worry,' she added. 'You won't have to put me to bed. The other evening wasn't typical. Dagmar and I had almost two hours to fill while you were visiting Fran. .'
'I'd forgotten,' he said with tact.
'… and there was all the stress of Maurice being arrested.' Then, catching up, she said on a sharper note, 'What do you mean — forgotten? You visit a lady's bedroom and forget about it? That's not very gendemanly.'
'I'm such a perfect gent I wiped it from my memory.'
'Oh yeah?'
When he returned with the drinks, she said, 'I don't know if you heard the buzz back there in the nick about Zach and Sharon. He took her to Harrogate last weekend. Some fantasy convention.'
'Zach and Sharon? Strewth.'
'So they're off the list of suspects now.'
'Nice work if you can get it. Another one in the clear is Anton,' he said. 'He proved he was at home and online at the time Miss Snow was killed. The sad bastard sits up every night at the computer.'
There was a moment while each absorbed what the other had said.
'So who's left?' Thomasine asked. 'You, me and who else?'
'Tudor.'
'Basil and Naomi.'
'Jessie.'
'And Dagmar. That's it.'
'How many's that? Seven?'
'Five really,' Thomasine said. 'I'm in the clear and so are you, or I wouldn't be sitting here with you. You weren't around when Blacker was killed.'
'That doesn't wash with the police,' Bob said. 'They reckon I had a run-in with Blacker at some time in the past.'
'In that case, why are you supposed to have joined the circle?'
'To muddy the waters. You lot are the obvious suspects. I can stir up more trouble as an insider.'
'That's stretching it a bit. If it was a game of chess I might believe a theory like that, but you're not going to draw attention to yourself when you don't need to.'
'That's not what they think.'
'High risk if you're the arsonist.'
'Which I'm not.'
'And as you're not, it's no picnic to be one of the circle. Two people have died. Someone else could cop it.'
'Scared?'
She hesitated and took a deep sip. 'Who wouldn't be?'
'Have you worked out why Miss Snow was killed?'
'Because of something she knew?'
Bob said, 'I think it was because of what she had in her possession. That video of Blacker's visit'
She frowned. 'But we all know what's on the video. We were there, all except you, and you've watched it'
He nodded.
She added, 'There's nothing except some cringe-making footage of people hoping to be told they are geniuses and finding out they are not.'
'Something on it pinpoints the killer.'
'I can't think what.'
'Either something Blacker said, that sealed his fate, or something one of the circle said that reveals them as the killer.'
'And they didn't want it known? But Miss Snow handed the video to the police.'
'The killer didn't know that,' Bob said. 'If you think back, most of the circle thought she was in charge of it.'
'She was. She was the secretary, she needed it to help write the minutes and she kept it as a record of the meeting.'
'But she lent it to me — well, I asked for it — and then she called me late at night saying she needed it back because the fuzz had called it in. Only you and her knew I'd borrowed the thing. As far as anyone else was concerned, it never left her place.'
'And you think that's why she was killed?'
'Got to be, hasn't it, if it fingers the killer?'
'But she handed it to the police.'
'Like I said, the killer didn't know about that. The fire at Miss Snow's was mainly to destroy the evidence.'
Thomasine shivered. 'That's horrible.'
'Makes sense, doesn't it?'
'She was killed for that pesky video? And in reality she'd given it to the police, so she needn't have been killed at all?' She gave a nervous, angry sigh. 'Bob, that's too cruel.'
He stared down at his drink. 'What it means is Blacker's death is still the key to all this. His pep talk to the circle gave something away that triggered the second murder. Be nice if we could run that video again.'
Thomasine's eyes widened. 'If we told this to the police, maybe they'd let us look at it.'
He shook his head. 'Policemen like amateur detectives about as much as they like losing their helmets.'
The circle members had been allowed to leave, but their interrogators were in for a longer night. Hen had summoned them to the incident room for the debriefing. 'A worthwhile exercise,' she summed up. 'Not much in the way of deathless prose, but three interesting alibis to check. Stella has already contacted the hotel at Harrogate and it seems Zach Beale and Sharon paid for a double room and made full use of it.'
'What does that mean? They were at it day and night?' Andy Humphreys said.
'There was a conference going on,' Shilling said.
'Is that what it's called?'
'Envious?' Stella said.
Hen said, 'And Anton's computer appears to show he was sending e-mails at the time Miss Snow's house was being torched. It looks as if we're down to seven. What is more' — she pointed to the enlargement Shilling had made on the computer, now displayed on the board behind her — 'we may have a real breakthrough with this photo Blacker had on his bedroom wall.'
'Or a bloody great red herring,' Johnny Cherry murmured.
'You said something, Johnny?'
'No.'
'Because I want everyone's take on this. Two guys in striped shirts with their arms around each other's shoulders, one of them Blacker. It looks like a celebration. They're holding drinks. On the back someone — presumably Blacker — has written "Innocents, Christmas 1982". We don't know the identity of the blond man. He doesn't resemble anyone in the circle. There's a coffee machine in the background and part of a notice board and over to the right could be the corner of a desk.'
'Office party?' Humphreys said.
'That's my assumption.'
Stella said, 'He was in publishing all his life, so it's a good bet this is a publisher's office.'
'We can find which firm he was with in nineteen eighty-two,' Shilling said. 'Maybe that way we can identify the blond guy.'
'Your job, then,' Hen said.
Johnny said as if the relevance of this had escaped him, 'Why are we taking so much interest in one picture from over twenty years ago?'
'Because we haven't established a definite motive for Blacker's murder.'
'I thou
ght we had. I thought we'd agreed he made a fatal error by trashing the writers' work. One of them took it to heart and put a match to his house.'
'That's only a theory. I'm not a writer looking for a publisher and I don't know how desperate they get.'
'They'd murder just to get into print'
'You say, Johnny, but I can't help feeling it isn't enough. I'm not ruling out some grievance from way back.'
'A blast from the past?'
'Why did he have this picture on his bedroom wall and what does that word "innocents" mean? We don't know. It may be a factor in the case. I want it checked, in any event. Meanwhile let's look at the writers we have left on our list. Which of them really shape up as killers? Some of them seem more serious contenders than others.'
'Basil isn't serious,' Andy said. 'Not about writing. He's a serious gardener. The writing is secondary.'
'How did the interview go?'
'Fine. He's very open. Told me things I didn't need to know, like how he met Naomi.'
'Now you've started, you've got to tell us, Andy.'
He gave them the story of Naomi with her head stuck in the toilet window at Shippam's. Even Johnny Cherry laughed.
'So Basil was in the fire service,' Hen said. 'That's hard to picture.'
'But useful to know if you ever get your head stuck,' Duncan Shilling said, and got an easy laugh from the team and a pointed look from Hen. The young man had a knack of running off at the mouth.
Andy Humphreys said, 'He also goes for an early swim.'
'How early?'
'Not that early. Around seven. He's older than Naomi, he says, so he needs to stay fit. But he's relaxed about it.'
'True. He's pretty laid back. Unlike his wife.'
'Naomi. She's capable of anything,' Stella said. 'Those eyes!'
'Capable of nicking a picture from a burnt-out house, anyway,' Hen said. 'Yes, I interviewed Naomi myself, and she's — how shall I put it?'
'Spooky?'
'I was going to say committed. She claims she's writing the inside story of the investigation from the point of view of a suspect. A good excuse for some very odd behaviour.'
'Confirmed by Zach,' Shilling said.
'Which means Zach believed it, no more than that.'
'But if Naomi is the killer, would she have taken the risk of using Zach as a collaborator?'
'Why did she use him?'
'For his writing skills. He's the one Blacker said was the new Tolkien.'
'So it was to be a writing partnership?'
'That's his explanation, guv, and he seemed to feel he was forced into it.'
'Okay,' Hen said. 'We have Naomi as a contender. Who else? What about Tudor Thomas?'
'I interviewed him,' Stella said, 'and he came over as confident when I tackled him on the insurance he'd sold to Blacker.'
'The stolen Wodehouse manuscript?'
'Yes. It was obvious he's been questioned before and he thinks he's watertight on this one. It stinks to high heaven, and it probably scuppered his career prospects, but he smiles and answers the questions like a man who knows he can't lose.'
'Do you think they did a deal and split the payout?'
'You can see it in his eyes as he says the opposite, guv. I suggested to him that Blacker did the dirty on him over his own manuscript and there was a glimmer of agreement about that, but not enough to pin the murder on him.'
'He can feel safe about any deal they did now Blacker is dead.'
'Yes, but Blacker wouldn't ever have admitted to the fraud. I don't think that's enough for a motive.'
Hen turned back to Andy Humphreys. 'Who did you see first — Mrs Warmington-Smith?'
He reddened at the memory. 'We got off to a bad start. She seemed to think I was attacking her for living in a house owned by the church. When we got round to her movements on the two nights in question she admitted she goes for late-night walks.'
'How late?'
'After midnight sometimes. She's a poor sleeper. The walks are just in the cathedral area. She also owns an old car that runs on leaded. I asked if she ever uses it at night and she says she doesn't.'
'She would, wouldn't she?'
'Maybe, but she didn't have to tell me about the walks.'
'Agreed. What do you make of her personality? How does she shape up as a potential arsonist?'
Humphreys drew in a long breath. 'She came out with some weird stuff. Gets signs and that, like Joan of Arc, she said.'
'What, heavenly voices?'
He nodded. 'She told me God was in the interview room with us.'
'Only place he can get a smoke,' said Shilling, and got another laugh.
'She said some stuff about the journey of the soul.'
'Are you saying she's strange enough to go to the top of our list?'
'Don't know about that. She wasn't bitter about Blacker or Miss Snow. I don't think she hated either of them.'
'Okay, there's a question mark over Warmington-Smith. That leaves us with Thomasine O'Loughlin, Bob Naylor and one other.'
'Dagmar Bumstead,' Shilling said. 'The one you can easily forget. I interviewed her. She keeps a low profile, even though she was one of the founders of the circle. Very discreet about everybody. Works for a solicitor.'
'She doesn't leap to mind as a suspect, I agree,' Hen said. 'Remind me what she writes.'
'Romances. That's the surprise. She's got them stacked up at home, all unpublished.'
'That's how she gets her rocks off,' Humphreys said. 'Writing about it.'
'And some people get theirs off talking about it,' Stella said with a glare.
Shilling said, 'It's easy to overlook Dagmar, but she's close to the centre of things. A friend of McDade, the chairman, and of Thomasine O'Loughlin. She and Thomasine were the most active trying to get McDade released from custody.'
'But what had she got against our two murder victims?'
'Blacker showed some interest in her script and then dropped her like a hot brick when he heard she'd had so many rejections. That must have hurt.'
'But why would she have wanted to kill Miss Snow?'
Shilling was silent for a moment, then came out with a profound remark. 'Why would anyone want to kill Miss Snow? On the face of it she was a harmless little lady, but she had a few secrets, didn't she? She was an accountant, so she probably knew if anyone in the circle had money problems. She was secretary and treasurer of the circle.'
'Worked in a charity shop,'Johnny chimed in. 'Knew who bought their clothes secondhand.'
'Are you saying Dagmar was strapped for cash and didn't want anyone to know it?'
Shilling shook his head. 'I can't be certain of that, guv.'
'But worth a thought. All right. That leaves Tommy and Tuppence.'
This got some blank looks.
Hen was shaking her head, disappointed in her squad. 'You're not with it, are you? Agatha Christie's amateur detectives. I've got all the tapes.'
Nobody said a word.
She went on, 'I'm referring to Bob Naylor and Thomasine O'Loughlin. Stella, you spoke to Naylor. What do you make of him?'
'Bright guy. Popular. They all seem to trust him.'
'Too good to be true?'
'If he is, it's a good act, guv. He makes you smile, too. Mind, he's pushy. Give him another week and he'd take over that circle completely. He makes all the other guys look like extra baggage.'
'Capable of murder?'
'Well capable. But I can't see why.'
'Unless there's something in his background we don't know about.' Hen sighed and said in a voice already thinking of other things, 'There's still plenty to be discovered about all of them. So what's new on Thomasine O'Loughlin?'
You could almost see Johnny Cherry pump himself up for this. 'I interviewed her and it was pretty sensational. She admitted that she met Maurice McDade in Chichester on the afternoon before Blacker was killed.'
'What for?'
'It wasn't prearranged. It was chance. She was out with
her schoolkids doing a survey. But the point is that McDade told her how Blacker had ripped him off. Thomasine knew about it, guv. And she told Dagmar.' He folded his arms. In Johnny's view, no more needed to be said.
Thomasine finished her second G amp;T. 'It's been a long day.'
'One for the road?'
She shook her head. 'Tired.'
'I'll call a taxi.'
She placed her hand over Bob's. 'I was wrong earlier. I take it all back.'
'Take what back?'
'About you being ungentlemanly. You're a perfect gent.'
'Not all the time.'
'No?'
Their eyes met and hers had an invitation.
He said, 'But tonight I have to get back.'
'Something on TV?'
'Ouch,' he said. 'That's below the belt'
In the taxi, halfway there, he said, 'It wouldn't be a bad idea to put a block on your letterbox at nights.'
'And how would I do that?'
'Have you got a screwdriver and some screws? I'll do it for you.'
'Now?'
'But I do have to get back after.'
She leaned her head on his shoulder. 'Just like Cinderella.'
21
EOD
Text message abbreviation for END OF DAY.
Just after midnight, Jessie Warmington-Smith changed into her walking shoes, put on a jacket and stepped outside. For her, this was routine, a time to breathe the cooler air and put the day's frustrations to rest. Minor frets — and there were always minor frets — had a way of getting out of proportion and interfering with sleep if she didn't take this late stroll through the streets. Some people thought she was nervous, the widow living alone, but they were mistaken. Jessie had an iron will. What unsettled her was loss of dignity, threats to her status as a person of good family and a respected member of the church.
The evening walk worked so well every time that she had put it into 'Tips for the Twenty-First Century'. Anyone would benefit. So many people relied on sleeping tablets and herbal remedies without realising that one needn't take anything at all before going to bed except fresh air and gentie exercise.
She started along Vicars Close, noting the darkened houses and the lights at certain windows. She knew which of her neighbours retired early and which liked to read in bed. The canon in the next house but one always watched television until late with the main lights turned down. She couldn't imagine what he found to look at because a lot of late-night television was unsuitable for a man of the church to view. His was the only house apart from hers where the lights were on downstairs.
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