The Circle

by Peter Lovesey

Dagmar was still finding excuses for Thomasine. 'It's the shock about Maurice. It affects us in different ways. He's a dear man. He doesn't deserve this.'

  He looked at his watch. Too late to return the call. He guessed Miss Snow had seen the item on TV.

  He called her next morning after Sue had left for school.

  'I've been sitting by the phone,' she said.

  All night? he thought.

  'You're the only person I can speak to with any confidence.'

  'Why is that?'

  'Could we meet?'

  'What's it about?'

  'I'd rather not say over the phone.' She was a lot more discreet than Thomasine.

  'Okay. Where?'

  'Do you know the women's refuge shop?'

  'Charity shop? In that little lane off North Street?'

  'That's the one. I'm on duty there this morning.'

  'I'll come there, then.'

  'We should have it to ourselves if you can get there early.'

  'What time is early?'

  He met her outside the shop door. She was wearing a black silk headscarf that made her look ready for the confession-box and for a moment he wondered if she was the killer and was about to tell all. But she took the scarf off when they got inside.

  He helped her pick up the morning's junk mail and a few paperbacks some donor had pushed through the door. The smell of old clothes was overpowering.

  'I don't know how to begin,' she said.

  'We could open the door at the back, get the air flowing.' He was thinking he wouldn't work in a charity shop if they paid him. This was poky, dark and stacked high with junk.

  'I'm talking about Maurice.'

  But Bob hadn't yet got over the smell. 'Some air freshener would help.'

  'We'll sort it out, love. Don't let it get to you.'

  He put her down beside her Mini and drove home. The speed of things, the way he'd been pitched into this, surprised him. Here he was, not even committed to joining the circle, taking on their problem as if it was his own.

  When he got in, young Sue was still up and on the phone. Seeing him, she ended the call and offered to make coffee.

  'Tea would do me nicely, love.'

  'So have you cleared up the mystery, Dad?'

  'Not yet.'

  'This murder. Was it someone's house burned down with him in it?'

  'Yes.'

  'You could be too late, then. It was on the news. They're questioning some bloke.'

  'Doesn't mean they've got the right one.'

  'Hey, listen to Mr Sherlock Holmes! You want to get one of them funny hats and a magnifying glass.'

  'Any more of that from you, young lady, and I'll be asking you what your homework was.'

  'All done.'

  'I bet. And how long have you been on the phone?'

  She busied herself with the teapot.

  'You weren't using your mobile, I notice.'

  'I can't win, can I?' Sue said. 'If I go out, I'm in trouble for wasting my time, and if I stop in I'm stacking up the phone bill. Do you want to know about the call you had?'

  'Who from?'

  'Some posh bird.'

  'Didn't she leave her name?'

  'Big laugh, that was. "Miss Snow," she said. "Tell him Miss Snow would like to hear from him as soon as possible." Miss Snow! Is that what you call your latest pick-up, Dad?'

  'She's secretary of the circle. Did she leave a number?'

  'By the phone.'

  She said, 'I'm used to it. Leave the door open if you like.'

  'And you do this by choice? You're a saint.'

  'If you saw the state of the refuge, you'd understand. I'm on the committee, and we need new furniture badly. But I want to talk about Maurice.'

  'You're going to tell me he's on the level.'

  Nodding, she said, 'They're making a ghastly mistake.'

  'The law?'

  'Yes. They kept him overnight. It was on local radio. They don't do that unless it's serious, do they?'

  He tried to look uncertain.

  'He's a good man,' she said. 'Don't misunderstand me. I don't carry a torch for him, or anything.'

  Carry a torch. Bob loved that. Miss Snow being racy. Looking at her now, with those worry lines and silver streaks, it was hard to imagine her carrying a torch for anyone. Twenty years ago, maybe.

  Get real, Naylor. She could be your age. Probably thinks you're on the scrapheap yourself.

  She said, 'I'm just so worried that he's being - what's the word?'

  'Fitted up?'

  'Exactly.' She switched on a strip light that flickered about ten times before coming on. 'He needs a spokesman. An advocate. You're concerned about him, aren't you? You wouldn't have joined us in the bar the next night if you hadn't wanted to help.'

  To help sounded a warning bell in his head. He didn't trust himself to say anything.

  'You're one of us,' she said, meaning it as a tribute. 'What is more, you took the measure of us all the other evening. I could tell by the way you conducted yourself that you had us all summed up. You didn't have a lot to say, but what you said was so perceptive.'

  'Trying to fit in, that's all.'

  'You see,' she said, with a narrowing of the eyes that made Bob feel like a stag being stalked, 'I happen to believe it wasn't pure chance that brought you to the circle that night. There is a destiny that shapes our ends.'

  You've lost me now.'

  'You were sent, Mr Naylor. The circle needs you, and you arrived, a man with gravitas.'

  'Come again?'

  'People listen to you because you are who you are. It's about personality. Well, you saw what the others are like. They mean well, but heaven help us if they're all we've got as spokesmen.'

  Time to back-pedal. 'Hang about - I'm no spokesman.'

  'Too modest,' she said. 'Getting back to Maurice, he is in desperate need of someone to take up his case, and you're the obvious choice.'

  He shook his head, but it did no good.

  'So I'm about to take you into my confidence. I happen to know that Maurice was in trouble once before with the police, and once they get their claws into you . . .'

  He was undermined by his own curiosity. 'What sort of trouble?'

  She hesitated and took a look around the empty shop. 'You will treat this as confidential?'

  'If you want.'

  She started rearranging the skirts hanging on a circular rail, as if it helped to occupy her hands. 'He had a dispute with a neighbour when he was living in Brighton some years ago. I happen to know because I was living in Hove and read about it in the Argus. This man was extremely unpleasant. He had some kind of boatbuilding business and his garden was full of timber, front and back. I don't know all the details, but there were planks and things stacked against the fence, the fence owned by Maurice, and one day it collapsed under the weight. Maurice asked him to repair it and got a mouthful of abuse. The man had two of those fierce guard dogs. Black and brown. What are they called?'

  'Rottweilers?'

  'Yes, and they now had the run of Maurice's garden. He was afraid to open his back door. They took over the garden, fouling it and making it their own territory. He tried reporting the man to the council and nothing was done. His life became a misery. So he took the law into his own hands. He shot the dogs with a shotgun he owned and made a bonfire of the wood that had tipped over into his garden.

  Unfortunately the fire got out of control and spread next door and destroyed a shed and a couple of the boats the neighbour was working on. Apparently they were worth a lot of money. The firemen were called, and the police, and Maurice was arrested. There was a lot of sympathy for him locally, but he was charged with causing criminal damage and' - she drew a sharp breath - 'found guilty and sent to prison. I can't remember how long it was - a few months, I think.'

  'Bit steep.'

  'I'm glad you agree.'

  'Mind,' he said, 'shooting the dogs wasn't clever. That wouldn't have helped. You get the picture of a bloke wi
th a short fuse.'

  'It had gone on for months.'

  'Yeah, but you can't argue it was an accident.'

  'You're right,' she said.

  'And it won't help him now.'

  'That's why I'm so worried for him.'

  'Throw in the fact that it's a fire again,' Bob said, speaking more to himself than Miss Snow.

  'But the two events are quite different.'

  'Unless you're a cop looking to nick someone. Then it adds up neatly. An angry man with a record of fire-raising.'

  'Don't!'

  'He's in deep. He had the motive, the opportunity and this. He's got no alibi.'

  'But surely his partner must know where he was.'

  'I spoke to her yesterday,' Bob said. 'Maurice went out about eleven on the night of the fire and she didn't hear him come in.'

  She stared. 'You went to see her?'

  Thomasine and Dagmar asked me to.'

  All this took her a moment to absorb, then she recovered. 'You see? We're all turning to you for help.'

  'God knows why,' Bob said with feeling. 'How do you know he didn't do this?'

  'Maurice? Oh, no.'

  'You only see one side of him.'

  She leaned forward and eyeballed him intently. 'Mr Naylor—'

  'Bob. No one calls me that.'

  'Then you must call me Amelia.'

  By Miss Snow's lights this was probably as reckless as it gets. She was in earnest, no question. 'Maurice is a gentleman in every sense of the word. It wouldn't cross his mind to make an attack at night on someone asleep in his bed.'

  'You mean he'd blast him with his shotgun?'

  It was a flip remark and wasn't appreciated. 'Not Maurice.'

  'Look at it this way, em, Amelia,' Bob said. 'If he didn't do it, we're looking for some other geezer. The police won't give up on Maurice without someone else in the frame. Are we going to do their work for them?'

  'It needn't come to that'

  'Like I said, he's got no alibi. His partner Fran is bricking it, but she's no help. She knows he was out on the night of the murder and she's not going to cover up for him.'

  'This is so distressing.'

  'If we knew more about the murdered guy, it might help. You heard him speak to the circle. What was he like?'

  'Friendly. He encouraged some of us to believe we might get into print very soon.'

  'A right conman, then.' The moment he'd said this, he wished he hadn't. She had her heart set on publication, like everyone else in the circle.

  Drawing herself up a little, she said, 'Well, certain of us are up to professional standards. It's in the lap of the gods whether we find a publisher. Edgar Blacker was willing to take us on, or so he was suggesting. If you don't believe me, you can look at the tape.'

  There was a pause of several beats before Bob asked, 'What tape?'

  'There's a video of the talk he gave us. We asked his permission to film him so that we could show it later and discuss it among ourselves.'

  'I wouldn't mind seeing that tape.'

  'You can borrow it if you wish. I have it at home.'

  'Today?'

  'If you like. I'd forgotten you didn't meet Mr Blacker. Wait a minute. I'll phone the refuge and ask someone to come in and take care of the shop.'

  While Miss Snow made the call, Bob stood in front of the shelves of secondhand books, most of them dog-eared and fading paperbacks. They didn't interest him. He was basking in his own good fortune. A video of Blacker's appearance in front of the circle. He hadn't dreamed it existed.

  'That's fixed.' She was back. 'Nadia will take care of the shop. She's not been here long.' She mouthed the word 'illegal'. 'Speaks good English, though.'

  Whilst waiting, she made an instant coffee that smelt of footballers' socks. Bob was grateful when Nadia arrived ten minutes later, a smiling, middle-aged woman dressed, presumably, in things from the shop, because she looked as English as Miss Snow herself.

  Out in North Street, the air had never smelt so fresh.

  The wide walkways of Chichester give people the chance to move freely at the pace they like, and on the whole that is brisker than in most cities. But Amelia Snow was slower than the average pedestrian, which suited Bob, because they could talk. 'What do you write, apart from minutes of the meetings?' he asked her.

  'Oh, I'm doing a book on famous Snows,' she said.

  He didn't catch on. 'As in snowstorms?'

  'No, no. People who share my name, like Dr John Snow, the founder of anaesthetics, and C. P. Snow, the novelist.'

  'Are there enough for a book?'

  'More than enough. My problem is who to leave out.'

  'How far have you got?'

  'I'm working on my third draft. It runs to over a hundred thousand words already'

  'Strewth.'

  'They have such interesting lives. Edgar Snow, the great sinologist. Marguerite Snow, the silent film star.'

  'There's that guy on TV who pops up on election night with the swingometer.'

  'Peter Snow. And Jon Snow, the Channel Four News man, of course. But they're not included. I'm restricting this to dead Snows.'

  'Do you read bits out at the meetings?'

  'Frequently. I get the impression it goes over their heads.'

  'Did you show it to Edgar Blacker?'

  'I gave him a sample chapter to read. He said some flattering things, but he seems to have praised almost everybody's work.'

  'Better than knocking it.'

  'I don't agree with that. If you praise everything, it devalues the currency of your opinion.'

  'Did he make you an offer?'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'To publish the book?'

  'Oh. Well, he wanted to acquire it, I'm sure of that.'

  'What was his game, do you think?'

  'His game?'

  'What was he up to, telling everyone their work was great?'

  She frowned and looked away. 'I don't know, unless he was one of those people incapable of giving bad news to anyone.'

  At the Cross, they turned left into West Street. The stonework of the cathedral glowed in the morning sun.

  'I live behind the Army & Navy,' she said, and a surreal picture popped into Bob's head, worthy of a rhyme.

  'Is that a fact?' he said, stringing it together. He was a rapid rhymer.

  'The department store.'

  'Right. Got it.'

  I live behind the Army & Navy

  Knickers off for Sergeant Davy,

  Captain Billy, Corporal Jeff

  And Gordon from the RAF.

  'Nice and central,' he said without a hint of his thinking. 'Convenient for everything.'

  'Yes, it's small, but it suits me.' She took a key from her bag. They'd come to a terraced row of houses that opened directly onto Tower Street. 'Please come in and I'll find that videotape.'

  She stepped inside and turned on a light. Just off the hallway was the room where she did her writing.

  'My den,' she said with just a suggestion of intrigue.

  A computer and printer on a trolley. Bookshelves. An entire set of Who Was Who. Plenty of Snows in there, he imagined. She also had a framed photo of a showgirl in a cat costume, but without the headgear. He took a closer look and got a whole new slant on Miss Snow.

  'This you?'

  'Mm.'

  'Wow.'

  'I did some stage work when I was younger.'

  'In Cats} This looks like the original show.'

  'Yes, but I wasn't one of the stars, or anything.'

  'You must have been good.' Good figure, too, he noted. Better than good, and the cut of the costume hid very little.

  'I trained as a dancer, but it's a short career unless you can act, and I'm hopeless at speaking lines.'

  'So you write them instead.'

  'I can't write dialogue. Biography is my forte.'

  On a table in the corner was a typescript.

  'Is that it?' he asked.

  'Only a draft. The
clean version is in the other room.'

  She was such an innocent that he resisted the obvious gag.

  She added, 'Fortunately I got it back from Edgar Blacker before his house burned down. It can be awfully expensive printing out five hundred pages, don't you find?'

  'Me? I've never written anything that length.'

  'What have you done, then?'

  Oops. He stonewalled. 'The odd bit of verse. I'm not in your league at all.'

  She was bending over a carton in the corner, searching for the tape. I guess we've all changed shape since our dancing days, Bob told himself.

  She said, 'I'd like to write poetry, but I haven't got the talent. What sort of thing inspires you?'

  'Whatever pops into my head,' he said to her rear view. 'You'd be surprised what gets me going.'

  'I hope you'll read some of it out at a meeting.'

  He thought of his Army & Navy lines. 'That'll be the day.'

  'Got it,' she said, straightening up, holding a cassette. You mustn't be nervous of reading your work, Bob. I hope you keep it nicely in a notebook.'

  'It's not worth it'

  'Then you can read to us at a meeting. We've all had to lose our virginity at some time - figuratively speaking - so we're a very sympathetic audience.'

  'I'll take your word for it.'

  'Promise you'll get a notebook and keep everything you write. They'll offer an opinion, some of them, and that can be valuable.'

  'What do they do in real life?' he asked.

  'The circle is real life.'

  'Yes, but . . .'

  'You mean, how do they earn a living? Maurice works for British Gas, at management level. Zach, the fantasy writer, who read out his work to us, serves in the record shop in South Street. Basil, the gardening man, is retired.'

  'Anton?'

  'Also retired. He was some kind of civil servant. Then there's Tudor, the Welshman. He sells cars, or insurance. I'm not sure which.'

  'I can believe that. What about the dolly bird?'

  'Sharon? She's a hairdresser. Does one day a week at college. She hasn't been with us long and to be frank I don't know how long she'll want to stay. As you saw, she doesn't contribute much.'

  'Except when Tudor forces her to speak.'

  'You noticed? He thinks he has a way with the ladies.'

  'Then there's Thomasine. She told me she's a teacher.'

  'At the girls' school, yes.'

  'And Dagmar works for a solicitor.'

  'You are well informed. She keeps that to herself. Who does that leave, apart from me?'