The Circle (16 page)

'And I don't think you should have another glass,' Dagmar said to Thomasine.

18

People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might
have become very successful liars.

Ernest Hemingway, interviewed in
This Week
(1959)

I
n the dark-blue minibus carrying members of the circle from the New Park Centre to the police station, Anton was saying, 'I'm so grateful my old colleagues in the civil service can't see me now.'

'You want to try riding in a prison van,' Zach said.

'No thank you.' After a moment's further thought Anton spoke again. 'When were you in prison?'

'I wasn't. I was conditionally discharged.'

'What was the offence?'

'Disorderly behaviour.'

'Where?'

'In Storrington.'

'Storrington? That's no place to misbehave.'

'I didn't. I was protesting. The hunt came through there.'

'Ha - a saboteur. I should have guessed.'

Jessie Warmington-Smith said, 'Well, I'm dying of shame. I've never broken the law.'

Zach said, 'It's only a people-carrier, for fuck's sake.'

Jessie made a sharp sound, sucking in air through her teeth.

Anton said in a low voice to Dagmar, who was sitting beside him, 'You might think Zach is the only calm one among us, but take a look at his hands. He's got the shakes, poor fellow. I wonder what causes that.'

Tudor said, 'Keep your head down, Jessie. Isn't that the bishop looking over that wall?'

'Tudor. Enough!' Thomasine said in the voice she used to subdue the third years.

They were driven around Basin Road and into the forecourt of the police station where the CID officers were waiting, among them Hen Mallin, who had gone ahead in her own car. She'd met everyone at the New Park Centre and explained how the interviews would be organised. She'd made a powerful impact, courteous, but firm. No one had complained until she'd gone and they were all in the minibus.

Good shepherd that he was to his fellow writers, Maurice McDade had turned up and was there to help the older ones step down from the minibus. This thoughtfulness was typical of the man. The police hadn't asked him to come. There was no intention to interview him again.

In Interview Room One, Anton seemed to have decided to treat this as a civil service interview, presenting a confident posture, back straight, chin up and legs crossed at the ankles, hands (after checking his bow tie) clasped lightly one over the other, resting on his left thigh.

He needed to be alert. He was facing Hen Mallin, the senior investigating officer.

'Mr Gulliver, you joined the writers' circle soon after its formation, I understand,' she said with the gentle opener he expected.

'That's correct.'

'Yet by all accounts you don't contribute much in the way of writing. What do you get out of it?'

'The cut and thrust of the meetings. I'm well to the fore in the discussions.'

'Wouldn't a debating society be a better club for you?'

'Excellent suggestion,' he said, flattering his interviewer, a classic technique. 'Unfortunately I don't know of one this side of Portsmouth.'

'So you're content to be an observer rather than an active member.'

'In which sense?'

'If you don't write anything . . .'

'Oh, that doesn't matter a jot. Most of what is written isn't fit to be read out. I contribute by offering suggestions and praise where it's due, which it seldom is.' He gave a knowing smile to the silent constable seated next to Hen.

'But you had nothing to submit to Mr Blacker when he visited the circle.'

'That is correct.' Anton smiled.'Ican see where you're coming from now. Unlike most of the others, I wasn't held up to the light and judged. I had no reason to set Mr Blacker's house on fire.'

'Let's not race ahead here,' Hen said. 'It doesn't follow that you had no reason, just that you didn't have the same reason as some of the others. You could have set light to his place because you owed him money or he once insulted your mother.'

'Neither of which is true.'

'Or you have a pathological hatred of thatched cottages.'

'What makes you say that?'

'It's just an example. You care about architecture. You worked in the Department of Ancient Monuments, I gather.'

'That is about the first true thing you've said.'

'We're on course, then. I can look forward to some straight answers. Do cutesy old cottages upset you?'

'Not in the least, as it happens.'

'Did you know Mr Blacker prior to his visit?'

'Certainly not.'

'Your paths had never crossed?'

'To save you time, chief inspector, I am absolutely neutral about the late Mr Blacker. I neither liked the man, nor disliked him.'

'Where were you on the night he was killed?'

'That's some time back.'

'But you must have thought about where you were in case someone like me asked you to account for your movements.'

'True. I was at home.'

'All night?'

'Yes, and I can prove it. My sleeping pattern is somewhat erratic, so I was working on my computer until daylight. Then I went to bed for a couple of hours. I have a dedicated phone line and I can show you my statement.'

'I'm afraid all it shows is when your computer was online,' Hen said. 'It can't tell us if you were sitting in front of it. What do you do on the computer?'

'Sometimes I'm surfing the internet. Sometimes I'm making virtual models.'

'Models of what?'

'Buildings mainly.'

'Ancient monuments?'

'And modern.'

'Real buildings?'

'Yes.' He leaned towards her and took a less defensive pose with his elbows on the table and hands linked, the two forefingers touching his chin. 'It's a project with huge potential. I should think you would find it a godsend. I'm building up a street by street reference to central Chichester. If, for example, you had a report of a shoplifting incident in Woolworths, you could pinpoint North Street and get a picture of the shop on the screen and then actually go inside.'

'We'd want a picture of the shoplifter.'

'You're asking the impossible.'

'No. CCTV does it nicely,' Hen said. 'But I'm sure you get hours of pleasure. Let's turn to the matter of Miss Snow's death. You knew her quite well.'

'She was our secretary and treasurer.'

'Were you on good terms with her? I got the impression there was some tension between you.'

'Nothing serious,' he said. 'She didn't like her mistakes in the minutes being discussed.'

'It's a thankless task, writing up minutes,' Hen said. 'I've done it in my time. The chairman asks if there are any corrections and it's open house for everyone who wants to hear the sound of his own voice. No disrespect, Mr Gulliver, but that's how it seems from the secretary's end.'

'And it's the secretary's end that you're investigating.'

Hen gave him the smile he seemed to expect for this piece of wit.

He said, 'But we were talking about the minutes and I say mistakes shouldn't be ignored.'

'Certain mistakes can. I'd say a lot can, and meetings would be shorter as a result. I can understand why Miss Snow would feel the criticism was directed at her.'

'We were always on civil terms.'

'I believe you. I'd have heard if you weren't. People are quick to point the finger, and they haven't. From all I hear, she was an inoffensive lady.'

'I agree with that.'

'Did you ever visit her house in Tower Street?'

'No.'

'I expect it's on your computer.'

'The exterior is. I don't put the interiors of private houses into my system.'

'That would be taking a liberty,' Hen said.

'That's why.'

'And did you have any professional dealings with her in her work as an accountant?'

'No. I told you, I was a civil servant.'

'Now retired?'

'Yes.'

'Presumably you still do a tax return. I was wondering if you got help with that.'

'I do my own. There's a simple computer programme.' He altered his posture again, sitting back with his arms folded, but he was well defended. He was enjoying the exchanges.

'Do you have any view who might have killed this inoffensive lady?' Hen asked.

He smiled and shook his head. 'You said people are quick to point the finger. Not in my case.'

Andy Humphreys, the detective constable who'd got off to such a bad start with Hen Mallin, was in Interview Room Two, stuck with an old bird called Warmington-Smith who had once been married to an archdeacon. She seemed convinced she was about to get the third degree, even though a female officer was present and doing her best to calm things down. It had taken a cup of hot, sweet tea and a biscuit and all of the Humphreys charm to induce the old dear to talk at all.

'Ever since it was formed,' she was saying in a stiff voice. 'I was one of the first members to join, at the personal invitation of the chair.'

'The chairman. Maurice McDade, right - the guy we had in custody?'

'The chair. We refer to him as the chair.'

'No problem. So you joined this writers' club in Chichester. That's a bit whacky, isn't it, a club for writers?'

She shifted her head to one side like a cockatoo. 'Whacky?'

'Weird, then.'

'Not at all. Writing is a solitary occupation.'

You took the words out of my mouth,' DC Humphreys said.

'So it's all the more helpful to get together and compare experiences. There are circles all over the country. One learns so much about the way others work. Quite practical things, like how to set out the manuscript. A publisher won't accept anything handwritten these days. It all has to be typed, double-spaced and on one side of the paper only. Then one hears important things about literary agents.'

DC Humphreys didn't want to hear about literary agents. 'You live in the middle of town, then?'

She blinked behind her bifocals. 'Is that significant?'

'You tell me, ma'am. It's a line of enquiry.'

'I can't think why.'

'You're in Vicars Close, right?'

'This is getting personal.'

'It's only your address I'm trying to confirm. Vicars Close, right behind the cathedral. All the tenants are church pensioners, right?'

She shifted in her seat. 'I can't think why my domestic situation should interest the police. My late husband spent a lifetime in the service of the church and he wouldn't have done it without my support.'

Humphreys held up a calming hand. 'All right, all right. Lighten up, dear. I'm not questioning your right to be there.'

'I should hope not, and I don't care for strangers calling me "dear".'

'No problem.'

'But it
is
a problem. Either it's patronising or it assumes an intimacy that doesn't exist.' Jessie put in a question of her own. 'Are you a church-goer?'

'Can't say I am, ma'am.'

'But I see you have a wedding ring. I expect you were married in church.'

'Well, yes,' he said, aware that this was getting away from him.

'Baptised, too, I dare say. People use the church when it suits them and then ignore it the rest of the time.'

'It's got nothing to do with this.'

'It's got everything to do with it, young man. We're all God's children, you know. He's here in this police station, in this interview room. Never neglect your spiritual side. I'm a very practical person. I've written a book on practical tips for everyday life. But I still allow the spiritual side to play a part in my life, and so should you.'

'If you say so,' Humphreys said, wanting to reclaim the initiative. 'Now can we move on?'

'Are you listening?' Jessie said. 'You have to open your heart. Then you'll be given signs. I get them quite often because I'm receptive, like Joan of Arc, except that she heard them as voices.'

Humphreys groaned inwardly. All of this was going on tape to be listened to later by Hen Mallin and the whole of the murder investigation team.

She wouldn't stop now. 'Only last night I had a sign. Some people would find it disturbing and I suppose it might be to a disbeliever, but I took it as affirmation of all I believe in, the afterlife, the journey of the soul.'

Humphreys had been accused already of being homophobic. He didn't want to come across as a persecutor of Christians as well. 'Ma'am,' he said with all the respect he could put into the word, 'I follow what you're saying, but this is supposed to be a witness interview. Where were you on the night of the fire in Edgar Blacker's cottage?'

'At home, I imagine.'

'That won't do, ma'am. It's no good imagining.'

'I don't. Too much imagination can addle the brain. I was using an expression of speech. I meant to say that I was certainly at home most of that evening.'

'Not all of it?'

'I'm trying to be helpful. I like to go for a walk before retiring, so I wouldn't have been at home the whole time.'

'A walk -just for exercise?'

'I don't visit public houses, if that's what you're implying. Exercise isn't the main purpose. I'm taking stock of the day. The streets are pleasantly quiet.'

'How late is this?'

'Oh, it can vary. At my age you don't always feel ready for sleep before midnight.'

'Don't you feel unsafe on the streets at night?'

'In
Chichester?
No. I don't go far. I'm always within sight of the cathedral spire.'

Humphreys thought of Miss Snow's house in Tower Street, only a stone's throw from the cathedral. But what about Blacker's place, out in the country?

'I was wondering if you went for a drive some evenings. You have a car, do you?'

'Yes, but I don't use it much, and certainly not at nights. If you're thinking I drove out to Mr Blacker's cottage and set it alight, you're mistaken. Why should I wish to kill him? He called my book of tips rather clever. He said he liked it very much. A fine idea.' She had the quotes right, but was silent about Blacker's other comments.

'But you do have a car? An old car?'

'Why do you want to know?'

'You said you don't use it much. I got the impression it was old.'

'It's perfectly legal to have an old car if it has a certificate.'