The Circle (23 page)

'All I'm saying,' Shilling said, 'is that the two women were sitting ducks.'

'No, you said the idea was to pick off members of the circle and I'm challenging that assumption.'

Hen sensed that there was more behind Cherry's remark. The man was still a peevish, grudging presence at meetings, unable to get over his displeasure that the investigation had been taken from him. But if he had something to contribute she wanted to hear it. 'What's your take on this, Johnny?'

'I reckon more than one person is involved.' He paused to watch them all sit up, and it certainly created interest.

'Go on. We're listening.'

'As you know, I nicked Maurice McDade, the chairman, for the murder of Blacker, and I still think the case would stand up in court. Okay, someone else must have started the fire at Miss Snow's, but McDade could have been behind that, too.'

Frowning, Hen said, 'That's unlikely, isn't it? Miss Snow was a friend of his.'

Johnny was enjoying this, spacing his words for maximum effect. 'She was the one who knew about his past, his jail term. And she betrayed him. She told someone else. Who did she tell? Naylor, the new man. And who nearly died in a fire at the boat house? Naylor.' He looked around for approval, and there were certainly some eyebrows raised. 'Then Miss Snow herself was killed.'

'Who are you suggesting did this?'

'McDade's partner, Fran.'

Shilling gave a long, low whistle. Everyone else was dumbstruck.

Hen's stomach gave a lurch and her self-confidence plummeted. She'd forgotten Fran. All this concentration on the circle members had clouded her judgement. It was a whopping oversight, and she'd been shown up in front of the team. She grappled with the concept for some seconds. Johnny, sod him, was right. Fran was well placed to know what was going on and had a motive. Digging deep for a scrap of credibility, she said, 'She's rather elderly to be a fire-raiser, isn't she?'

Johnny dismissed that with a sneer. 'Is there an upper age limit for arsonists? As far as I know, Fran isn't disabled. She's devoted to McDade. Maybe she acted with his encouragement, maybe not. Let's not forget she was married to one of the Richardson gang.' He leaned back in his chair, savouring the impact he'd made. 'If it was up to me . . . But of course it isn't'

'If it was up to you, what?'

'I'd find out where she was on the nights of each of the fires.'

Hen said, 'We can do that, but before we get too excited how does the latest fire fit into this hypothesis?'

'We don't know until we question Fran. Jessie Warmington-Smith was one of the founders of the circle, wasn't she? It could be that she, too, knew about McDade's past form.'

He'd obviously thought this through. Hen hadn't looked outside the circle because it seemed that the crimes required inside knowledge. His theory had to be tested. Hen said she would follow it up.

'You can send me,' he offered.

'I'll do it,' she said. There were limits.

No one pointed out that if Johnny's theory was right, Hen had made a fatal mistake in releasing Maurice McDade. No one needed to point it out. They all knew Jessie Warrnington-Smith might still be alive.

She made another effort to claw back some respect. 'I'm still giving high priority to Naomi Green. I want a printout of everything on this website of hers. Duncan, will you see to it?'

'No problem,' Shilling said.

'And we'll demand the same from anyone else who has been writing about the case. Tudor, for example. Who interviewed Tudor?'

Stella raised her hand.

'Why the long face, Stell?'

'He's not going to like this.'

'He'll be flattered,' Hen said. 'They're writers, these people. They want to be read.'

She wound up the meeting. Johnny Cherry had a grin as wide as a grand piano. His intervention had rocked the team's confidence in her. Divided loyalties threatened.

DC Shilling was the last to leave, and for one humbling moment Hen feared he was going to offer sympathy. But it was something else. 'I've got a scrap of information for you, guv. Don't know if it helps. It's about that photo of Blacker and his unknown friend. You asked me to find out where he was working at Christmas, nineteen eighty-two, the year it was taken.'

'And?'

'He was with a magazine group called Lanarkshire Press.'

'Up in Scotland?'

'The name's misleading. It operated from a trading estate in Tilbury. You know Tilbury? Thames estuary.'

'I know Tilbury. Go on.'

'They specialised in men's magazines, soft porn.'

'I remember someone saying Blacker had done a bit of that.'

'None of them were big sellers. They kept trying different titles, producing a couple of issues and then thinking of something else. Like
Headlights
made a big thing of boobs and
Hot Buns
was mainly bottoms.'

'Okay, I get the drift,' Hen said.

'Well, towards the end of eighty-two, they had this idea of a mag with pictures of girls who were supposed to be amateurs and first-timers. Some men prefer them to professional models.'

'Like "Readers' Wives".'

'Same idea, except that the title they came up with was "Innocents".'

'Was it indeed?' she said, her spirits lifting a little. 'So the writing on the back of the photo wasn't what we thought at all. It wasn't a comment on the two blokes, it was a porno mag and they were at the Christmas party. Nice work, Duncan. That's a mystery solved. A small one, but who knows how useful it may be?'

'No problem, guv.'

'Good. Now you can impress me even more by finding out who the other guy was.'

Inside the hour she was doing penance, sitting on the chintz sofa opposite the Swiss mountain scene in Fran's front room in Lavant, a tray of tea and fruitcake in front of her. She hadn't dismissed the idea of Fran as the arsonist, but she had to stretch her brain to picture this silver-haired old lady patrolling the streets in the small hours with a can of petrol and a bundle of oily rags. The thing that made her hesitate was the voice. Tough, hard, resolute.

'I'm surprised you have the gall to come back,' Fran said as she poured the tea, making it clear from the start that she was no pushover.

'I'm the one who released Maurice,' Hen said. 'When I took over he was already in custody.'

'What's this about, then?'

'Like I said on the doorstep, it's more about you than Maurice.'

'You bastards never let go, do you?' Fran said with all the bitterness of long experience. 'Just because I made an unfortunate marriage a long time ago, I'm listed as a lowlife for ever. How do I get through to you people that I was never involved in crime?'

'It's not about the past. It's about last night. I expect you heard another woman died in a fire in Chichester.'

'That. It was on the radio.' Not much sympathy there.

'She was one of the circle. You probably knew Mrs Warmington-Smith.'

A shake of the silver curls. 'They're just names to me. The circle is Maurice's baby. I'm not interested in writing.'

You haven't met the members?'

'One came on his own when Maurice was in custody. Bob, he said his name was. I'd never even heard of him. He was back later with a woman, something like Tamsin.'

'Thomasine O'Loughlin.'

'They said they were trying to get Maurice released so I took them at their word. I'm very trusting.'

In trying to assess her character, Hen hadn't thought of 'trusting'. Words like 'canny' and 'hard-nosed' sprang more readily to mind, try as Fran might to cultivate the little old lady look.

'Can we turn to last night, or, rather, early this morning between three and five? We're asking everyone where they were.'

'Here, as usual.'

'Is there any way of proving it?'

'Maurice will tell you.'

'Thanks, but it would count for more if there was some independent proof.'

'That's ridiculous. What do you expect, some neighbour knocking on the door at four in the morning?'

'Point taken,' Hen said. 'Do you drive?'

'Can do, at a pinch. I rely on Maurice mostly.'

'But you keep your hand in? Sensible. What make of car is it?'

'Ford Escort'

'An old model?'

'Depends what you mean. The mileage has gone round the clock.'

'I'd like to see it before I go. Have you used it today?'

'We took a shopping trip into town.' She gave a sharp, impatient sigh. 'Listen, you're wasting your time with me. I've got nothing against the writers. Maurice gets a lot of pleasure from the meetings, and I'm happy for him. There's no earthly reason why I would want to set fire to people's homes.'

'Oh, if we're dealing in earthly reasons, I think there's one you have to face,' Hen said. 'The second victim, Miss Snow, knew about Maurice's past, the prison sentence, and she blabbed about it to Bob Naylor, the man you met. Each of them was attacked by the arsonist - fatally, in the case of Miss Snow, though Naylor escaped. Both incidents happened while Maurice was in custody, which let him off the hook, but not you.'

Her hands formed bony little fists and she leaned forward, glaring. 'Maurice's past is public knowledge. It was in the papers at the time.'

'The Brighton papers, yes, but hardly anyone in this town knew of it. Most of the circle hadn't the faintest idea. They respect him. Miss Snow had the potential to blow away his reputation.'

Fran switched to a more defensive tone. 'Nobody told me Miss Snow was putting this about. I agree it would have angered me. I don't know what my reaction would have been except I wouldn't have torched her house. That's sneaky and detestable. I'd have had it out with her, face to face. Besides, I didn't even know where the Snow woman lived until I read about the fire in the paper.'

'Presumably Maurice has an address list for the circle.'

'If he has, it's in his office upstairs and I don't go in there.'

'But you know where to look.'

'That's unfair.'

'Where is he right now?'

'In Chichester library, I should think. That's where I left him. He'd arranged to meet one or two of the circle there, to talk over this latest fire.'

'So you drove home alone? You do use the car?'

'Just as I said, at a pinch. I may be older than Maurice, but I'm not decrepit, you know'

Anything but, Hen thought. This was a foxy lady with a sharp mind. 'Do you keep a can of petrol here? People sometimes do, as a back-up.'

'You'd have to ask Maurice. He deals with things like that. You haven't had a slice of my cake.'

'I've got no appetite, thanks. Mind if I look at the shoes you were wearing?'

'Wearing when?'

'This morning, when you drove the car.'

'What for?'

'Just to check. It's my job.'

Shaking her head, Fran got up and left the room and presently returned with a pair of flat-heeled brogues. Hen examined them and found no trace of petrol or of burning, but then she wouldn't have expected this with-it old woman to leave anything so obvious.

She asked to see the car and took the opportunity to poke around the garage in search of the spare can of petrol. She didn't find one.

'Are you sure you don't want a specimen of my DNA as well?' Fran said.

The sense of failure still nagged at Hen as she drove back into town. Johnny Cherry, blast him, had touched a raw nerve. No question: Fran was a suspect now and should have been from day one.

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