The Circle (25 page)

'I thought I'd take you to my hotel,' he said with one hand steering Hen out to the street again.

'Here will do,' she said. 'Your time is precious and so is mine.'

'We can talk more freely there.'

He was well organised; he had a taxi waiting. They were driven along the Mall and past the palace to the Goring Hotel in Beeston Place, around the corner from the Royal Mews.

'Would tea and sandwiches in the garden suit you?' he asked.

They stepped right through the small hotel to the rear, where a large square lawn was intersected by a paved path. No one else was there. They chose a spot in the shade and the tea and sandwiches arrived while Lord Chalybeate was still talking about the advantages of living close to Victoria Station.

'Do you remember Edgar Blacker?' Hen asked as soon as the waitress had stepped away.

'Not particularly well,' he said. 'It was a brief association.'

'Is that a joke?' she asked.

'What?'

'Brief, briefs. Girlie magazines.'

His face was a mask of displeasure. 'What about them?'

You published them, didn't you?'

After a long pause he said, 'The odd title. It was a tiny part of our output. Glamour mags, we called them in those days.'

'Blacker edited some of them.'

'Probably.'

'I'm telling you,' Hen said. 'He did. One of the tides was
Innocents.
We found a picture on his bedroom wall of the two of you with your arms around each other's shoulders at what looks like an office party. On the back is written "Innocents, Christmas 1982".'

'I wouldn't recall it.'

'Wouldn't recall, or would rather forget?'

'Both,' Chalybeate said. 'It's not a time I wish to revisit.'

'But you remember the magazine?'

'Just about.' He looked away. 'We were publishing scores of tides on any number of topics: music, motoring, wildlife, sport. The top-shelf stuff was a tiny part of the output.'

'That you'd rather forget.'

He shrugged and tried to seem unconcerned. 'In fact it was all very tame. More nudge-nudge, wink-wink than porn.'

'Blacker was your editor, right?'

'Yes.'

'He seems to have looked back on his time at the magazine with some affection. He kept that photo for over twenty years. Have you any idea why?'

'No.'

'Arms around each other. You must have been close.'

Chalybeate held up a warning finger. 'You won't tar me with that particular brush, inspector. I'm straight and always have been.'

'Was Blacker?'

'I'd be surprised if he wasn't.'

'Perhaps he was simply proud to be linked with a peer of the realm, then. Found the photo in a drawer and thought, "Lord Chalybeate and I were mates once." Helped his self-esteem.'

Chalybeate gave a shrug, and it seemed like acquiescence.

'Did he try to make contact again?'

'He may have done.'

'He set himself up as an independent publisher. He'd have been looking for financial backers.'

'I dare say.' His tone suggested he was thinking of other things. Or trying to.

'Did he put the bite on you, Lord Chalybeate?'

A sigh. 'All right. You know, don't you? I chipped in a couple of grand, mainly to keep him quiet. I'm a politician. I could be in line for a government post. We have to be squeaky clean these days.'

'Hush money.'

'I don't care for the term, but that's what it amounted to.'

Hen exchanged a glance with Shilling. 'And there was no guarantee that he wouldn't come back for another handout.'

'If you're thinking I caused the man's death, forget it,' Chalybeate said. 'I was in Los Angeles until last weekend attending the World Fitness Fair.'

'Actually we're investigating three separate deaths by fire,' Hen said. She let him stew before adding, 'You're not a suspect.'

He relaxed as if he'd just completed a lift on one of his machines.

Hen said, 'But I'd like to know more about the men's magazines.'

He tried laughing it off. 'That was over twenty years ago.'

'Blacker was editor, and you owned the tides, right? What was his role exactly? My impression of soft porn is that it's more pictures than words.'

'There's a certain amount of text. But, yes, the pictures sell the magazine.'

'Would he have taken the pictures?'

'No, no. We had a couple of professional photographers.'

'Blacker hired the models and set up the photo sessions?'

'Yes, and chose the shots for publication.'

'The girls were professional models?'

'In the main.'

'Not all of them, then? The idea of a magazine like
Innocents
was that the girls hadn't posed nude before. Am I right?'

'Supposedly they hadn't. You can make it look like an amateur shoot in a number of ways, varying the lighting and the location, and so forth.' He was more willing to talk now he'd been told he wasn't a crime suspect.

'So they weren't amateurs?'

He rolled his eyes.

Shilling said, 'Blue, but not true blue,' and got a glare from his boss.

'Some did it for love, if you know what I mean,' Chalybeate said.

'I'm not sure if I do,' Hen said.

'When we could persuade a girl to pose, we did. These were low-budget mags. Any savings we could make were a bonus.'

'How did you find such girls?'

'Don't look at me personally. This was more Blacker's department than mine. My understanding was that some of them were pickups. He'd buy them a few drinks and chat them up, flatter them into stripping off.'

'Drinks or drugs?'

His mouth gave a twitch that answered the question.

'Same old trickery men have used on gullible girls from time immemorial,' Hen said. 'I'm not surprised you want to distance yourself from all that'

'Blacker, too,' he said. 'Let's be fair. He was trying to cut it as a serious publisher.'

'But not without some gentle blackmail to fund it.'

'I wouldn't call it that'

'I do,' Hen said. 'And if he'd lived you can bet your life he'd have been back to you for more.'

26

One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live
down anything except a good reputation.

Oscar Wilde,
A Woman of No Importance
(1893)

T
he printout of Naomi's website material on what she called 'The Chichester Arson Killings' amounted to thirty-three pages. Each now bore Hen's imprint, the whiff of cigar.

She'd asked Stella to look through it.

'Done?'

Stella nodded.

'Close the door.'

Stella knew what was coming. The anger had brought a kind of paralysis to Hen's normally mobile face.

'It's obvious, isn't it, that someone's been talking out of school? This stuff about two people working together. It comes straight from our last meeting.'

'I thought so, guv.'

'Scumbags. I knew as soon as you and I walked into this nick we were in for a hard time, but I didn't reckon on this.'

'They're not all bad.'

'One is, at the very least. One of the team is bending Naomi's ear. Who is it? Who did the interview with her?'

'The first one? You did, guv.'

'No - the latest. After Jessie was killed.'

'Andy Humphreys.'

'Him?'

'Don't rush in, guv. I know he got off to a bad start with you, that crack about gays, but he's keen.'

'Too damn keen if he's playing his own game, feeding titbits to one of the suspects.'

'Want me to talk to him?'

'No, I will.'

Stella feared for Andy. She'd seen Hen in warlike moods, but this was Armageddon. 'It could be one of the others.'

'I don't think so. Who else in the team has spent time with Naomi? Duncan Shilling hasn't been near her. I made a point of clobbering Johnny Cherry with the dumb blonde. It's Humphreys, bang to rights.'

Stella decided to let her simmer for a while. Finally, she said, 'What about this website? Shall we close it down?'

'No need, if I plug the leak. Most of it's self-serving rubbish. Let the woman rant on as much as she likes.' Realising that she was ranting herself, she gave a half-smile and made an effort to lighten up. 'I must say I enjoyed some of these names. Nitpicker.'

'Passionella.'

'I wonder what she calls you and me.'

'Better not ask,' Stella said. 'Anyway, I've read it, like you asked. Seems to me she wants to be a part of the action even at the cost of drawing suspicion on herself. Basically the diary shows she's in the clear, if it's true. And this latest entry supports Tudor's statement that he was at home all night.' She reached for another stack of printed sheets.

'Tudor.' Hen pulled a face. 'His stuff is even more of a pain to read. Remind me what he says about yesterday. Don't give me earache by reading the whole thing.'

Stella picked up the printout of Tudor's book and turned to the last sheet. '"And so to bed about three in the morning, dog-tired, pooped and tuckered, but with another two thousand words of purple prose in my trusty computer.'"

'Can you beat it? These bloody writers think they're God's gift. But you're right, Stell. Three a.m. was when his light went out according to Naomi.'

'So they're both in the clear.'

'Apparently.'

'Which means Naomi is right. We're down to the last three. Or four, if we include Fran.'

'Five,' Hen said. 'Naomi doesn't know if Basil went out that night, and neither do we.'

'Basil?'
Stella had some difficulty grasping Basil as a serious suspect. 'He's easy to overlook, I'll grant you. Inoffensive, modest, devoted to his garden. Is he the worm that turned? But if he is, wouldn't he turn against Naomi? He had nothing against Blacker, or Miss Snow or Mrs Warmington-Smith.'

'Nothing we know about,' Hen said, and then added, 'He stays on my list.'

'He's on the fringe,' Stella said, giving serious consideration to Basil for the first time. 'Doesn't regard himself as a serious writer. Only joined to make up the numbers. I wonder if he hates the lot of them.'

'Might do.'

'But he's an ex-fireman. They don't start fires, do they?'

'Coppers can go wrong, so why not firemen?'

'He'd have to be a nutcase.'

'Whoever is doing it has to be a nutcase,' Hen said. 'But if you think about it, we're left with the level-headed ones. Dagmar never says anything outrageous. Thomasine is more animated, but has her feet on the ground. Fran has a kind of worldly wisdom learned from those years as the wife of a gangster. And Bob is the guy on the Clapham omnibus.'

'The Parcel Force van.'

'Right. Your all-round good egg. Not a nutter among them that I can see.'

The mention of Bob reminded Stella of something. She opened the drawer of her desk and took out the diary he had loaned her. 'While we're looking at their literary efforts - I didn't tell you about this, guv.'

'What is it?'

'Bob's poems. His doggerel, he calls it.'

'He lent them to you? He's very trusting. I wouldn't lend you an umbrella on a wet day.'

'Thanks!'

'Anything of interest?'

'I haven't had time to read them.'

'Let's hear one, then. They can't be worse than these other literary efforts.'

Stella thumbed through the pages and smiled. 'Here's a sample:

Is Basil green

When his wife is seen

With the new Tolkien?'

'Likes his puns, doesn't he?' Hen said, not much impressed.

'Okay,' Stella said, turning to another page. 'Here's one about a cat:

Amelia was a dancing cat, I'm able to disclose

Before she started writing the lives of all the Snows.'

'We're into T. S. Eliot territory now,' Hen said. 'One of the few things I remember from school, his poems on cats. Is there any more?'

'At the local writers' circle she sits beside the Chair

Keeping minutes of the meeting with single-minded care.

If the members criticise her she might give a little shrug

And privately remember how she used to cut the rug.

At home, she does her writing and if it doesn't flow

She'll choose another chapter, start another Snow.

But as the night approaches and the work gets really tough

She allows herself a memory of how she'd strut her stuff.

For Amelia was a dancing cat, I'm able to disclose

Before she started writing the lives of all the Snows.'

'What's he on about here?' Hen said, frowning. 'This is Miss Snow, right?'

'Must be.'

'Does he know something we don't? You're the one who interviewed him. Did you ever hear about Miss Snow being a dancer?'

'Sounds unlikely, guv.'

'Is it his quirky sense of humour?'

'He's got that for sure.'

'How would he know what she got up to? He was new to the circle.'

'He did visit her house on two occasions, once to borrow the video of Blacker at the circle and once to return it.'

Hen raised both thumbs. 'You're right, Stell. I was forgetting. I'm sure you questioned him about the visits?'

'Of course. I thought we covered everything. He doesn't hold back.'

'But the dancing didn't come up?'

Stella shook her head. 'Does it matter?'

'Don't know yet.'

'What time are you expecting your dad?'

'Depends,' Sue Naylor said on the phone.

'On what, love?'

'On the job. Like sometimes he's here when I get in from school and sometimes he gets in really late.'

'It's not regular hours, you mean?'

'Yeah.'

'Does he have a mobile?'

'For emergencies only, he says. He don't like me calling when he's on the road.'

'What's the number?'

Hen got through to Bob directly. The signal wasn't good, but she heard him say, 'Thanks a bunch. Is this how you nick people, then, calling them up on the motorway?'

She said, 'I want to ask about one of your poems.'

'Come again?'

'The things you write.'

'For crying out loud - I'm doing seventy on the M27 and you want to talk about writing?'

'The one about the dancing cat. "Amelia was a dancing cat".'

'I don't believe this.'

'Amelia was Miss Snow, right? Is there any truth in it — in the dancing, I mean?'

'Yeah.'

'She told you this herself?'

'Yeah.'

'Right. Where are you now?'

'Just passing Rownham services.'

'You'll be home shortly, then?'

'If I don't hit the bloody barrier, I will.'

'I'll be waiting at your house.'

These intervals of inactivity were a trial for Hen. She found herself thinking about the traitor in her team. Betrayal may not cause physical injury, but it hurts. By God, it hurts. The question of who had leaked Naomi the inside information troubled her almost as much as the identity of the arsonist. She'd been over it in her mind many times, recalling things that were said, meetings, interviews with suspects. She felt it ought to be possible to work it out. She could have asked Naomi - who would be evasive, but might cough it up eventually - but she preferred not to. Pride in her leadership demanded that she cleared this up herself. After all, the possibilities were limited. Stella wasn't the source. If she couldn't trust Stella she might as well jack in the job now. That left three names: Humphreys, Shilling and Cherry.

All logic said it was Humphreys. He knew Naomi. He was the one who'd interviewed her. But his denials had been solid and convincing.

Shilling was a more likeable lad than Andy. Brighter, too. He'd solved the mystery of the writing on the back of Blacker's picture. To Hen's certain knowledge he hadn't interviewed Naomi. Yet he did have this unfortunate knack of speaking up at inappropriate times. Immaturity, probably. She couldn't have absolute confidence in him.

And that left Johnny Cherry. If anyone had a vested interest in undermining her, it was Johnny. He couldn't handle the fact that the case had been taken out of his lap and handed to her. He was jealous, cynical and probably knew in his heart that he couldn't hack it as head of a murder investigation team. But there was a problem. Johnny, like Shilling, had had little to do with Naomi. Johnny had interviewed Sharon and Thomasine, but he'd scarely even spoken to Naomi. Satisfying as it might be to pin the blame on him, logic suggested otherwise.

Bob and his daughter lived in a council semi in Parklands, a large estate to the west of the city. Inside, it had the clutter you would expect of a place occupied by a shift-worker and his teenage daughter. Sue Naylor kicked aside some Tesco bags to clear a path to the living room. She was pretty without make-up, dressed in baggy jeans and a sleeveless top that displayed her tattoos. She went back to watching a soap on TV while Hen and Stella cleared some space on the sofa and sat down.

Bob arrived soon after, shaking his head at the idea of two detectives interested in his rhymes. But his temper had improved now he was off the road. He filled a ketde.

'Sure,' he said when Hen asked about Miss Snow, 'I didn't make it up. She was a dancer and a cat.'

'How do you mean?'

'She was in the musical,
Cats -
the original West End version. The chorus, I think. She had a photo on her wall of herself in tights and a cat costume. Nice figure, too. Surprising, isn't it, what some quiet little ladies have got up to in the past? She didn't seem the chorus girl type. I asked if it was really her and she said it was.'

'She must have been proud of it.'

'To have the picture on the wall? She didn't make much of it. I'm trying to remember what she said. Some stuff about dancing being a short career. Is it important, then?'

'Is that all?'

'There was some more, but not about the dancing. She was a bookkeeper, wasn't she? Retired, but still did a few audits for old times' sake, her dentist and what are those people who cut the corns off your feet?'

'Chiropodists.'

'No.'

'Excuse me,' Hen said. 'I know about chiropodists. I get my feet done by one in Bognor.'

He snapped his fingers. 'Podiatrists.'

'Same thing, buster.'

'Okay, don't get heavy with me. As I pointed out to her, she was working the old barter system. She did their books and they did her feet and her teeth.'

'It sounds as if she opened up with you.'

'A load of stuff about Maurice, the chairman. She was all steamed up on account of him being nicked for the fire at Blacker's house.'

'What sort of stuff - his past?'

He hesitated, and it was clear that he was stalling. 'A bit of this and that.'

'His time in prison?'

A look of relief. 'Right, so you know all about that. And how he was sure to be stitched up unless we did something about it. She meant well.'

'I'm sure. And she wanted your help?'

'Anyone's. She wasn't the only one trying to help Maurice. Thomasine and Dagmar were worried, too. He's popular with the ladies.'

'Getting back to Miss Snow, how did she first approach you?'

'Phone. She asked me to come to the shop.'

'The charity shop where she helped out?'

'I met her there before we went round to Tower Street. She was running it single-handed. The place stank of old clothes. I wouldn't have stuck that job for ten minutes.'

'If she was alone in the shop, what happened when she took you home? Did she have to close?'

He said with a flash of annoyance, 'Don't you believe me? I'm telling it straight. She phoned the women's refuge and asked for someone to take over. We waited for her, a foreigner called Nadia or some such. Refugee, I reckon.' He winked without letting his face soften. 'That's what a refuge is for, refugees, isn't it?'

Provocation. Remembering her visit to the refuge with DC Shilling, Hen let the question remain unanswered. She was investigating serial arson, not illegal immigrants. 'Moving on, you made a second visit to Tower Street. Is that right?'

He nodded. 'The night before I was caught in the boat house fire.'

'What happened?'

'She said she needed the video back. It was late in the evening. After eleven.'

'What did you think?'

He looked straight into her eyes. 'I could have thought I'd got lucky.'