here.'
'Who's missing, then?'
'Zach.'
'And Naomi,'Jessie said.
'We can wait a few minutes,' Thomasine said.
'I don't think Zach is coming back,'Jessie said. 'I saw him putting on his motorcycle clothes.'
'He didn't say he was leaving.'
'I saw Naomi get on her bike and ride away,' Dagmar said.
Tudor said, 'It's a bit off, leaving like that without letting us know why.'
'It's about what we were discussing before the break,' Dagmar said with her way of seeing to the heart of things. 'Zach was talking about freedom of expression. I think they expected to be outvoted.'
'Did she say anything to you about leaving?' Thomasine asked Basil.
'I'd be the last to know,' he said. 'Naomi is her own woman. But the two of them met the other day to talk about a project, so this may have something to do with it.'
There was a pause while the others took this in.
'Hoho. Sounds to me as if we've got a couple of dark horses in our midst,' Tudor said. 'It wouldn't surprise me at all if they're planning something. This wasn't about freedom of expression. They've done a deal with the papers — dishing the dirt on the rest of us.'
Jessie gave a strangled cry and put her hand to her throat.
Thomasine said, 'Tudor, you're at it again, letting your imagination run riot. We discussed talking to the press and they said nothing.'
'Too guilty to own up.'
'You're talking about two of our colleagues. Let's have some loyalty here. They probably each had other appointments they had to hurry away for.'
'If you believe that, you'll believe anything.'
'I'll speak to them later and find out.'
Through his clenched teeth Anton drew in a long, audible breath. 'Madam Chair, before the break I put a proposal to the meeting. I now move that we put it to the vote.'
'There are only nine of us here,' Dagmar said.
'Eight if you exclude me,' Bob said. 'I haven't joined yet.'
Thomasine said, 'I was hoping you wouldn't insist, Anton. Perhaps as temporary chair I shouldn't express a view, but I think Zach had a point about censorship. There is a larger principle at stake. It would be a pity if we painted ourselves into a corner.'
'I agree,' Dagmar said.
Without looking up from her sketching, Sharon said, 'Me, too.'
'And me,' Basil said.
'Looks as if we're far from unanimous,' Thomasine said.
Dagmar said, 'And I think we need a two-thirds majority to change the constitution. There's something in it about freedom to write on any subject and in any style we choose.'
'Sorry, Anton,' Thomasine said, 'you're out of order.'
14
Reading isn 't an occupation we encourage among police officers. We try to keep the paper work down to a minimum.
A All right, boys and girls, settle down and be grateful it isn't my holiday pictures.'
Detective Chief Inspector Henrietta Mallin — better known as Hen — from Bognor, had taken over as Chief Investigating Officer on what was being called the Chichester arson case. It was a pity the city's own CID couldn't handle this one, but Hen had a good clear-up rate, and it was agreed that the local man, DI Johnny Cherry, wasn't the brightest fruit in the basket. He looked blighted before meeting Hen, and bruised after.
'This is the cottage on the Selsey Road where the publisher died,' Hen said, as the image of a burnt-out ruin appeared on the video screen. The entire CID team was watching, together with Stella Gregson, a DS from Bognor who had arrived with Hen. 'Victim was asleep upstairs and died in bed.'
She took them quickly through a sequence showing the space where Edgar Blacker's front door had been. Nothing was left of it. The floor, walls and ceiling were black and disintegrating. 'The seat of the fire,' Hen said. 'Our perpetrator stuffs some oily rags through the letterbox and puts a flame to them. From here it spreads through the main room, which was lined with books wall to wall, and into the kitchen and bathroom.'
It was difficult to make out one room from another in the blackened debris. She paused the videotape.
'We go upstairs now. People of a nervous tendency, look through your fingers.'
They were shown the head and shoulders of the dead man, the face stained by smoke, yet untouched by flames. The skin was undamaged, the eyeballs still white. 'If you were expecting roast publisher, this will come as a surprise,' Hen said. 'The bedroom escaped the worst of the fire damage. He died of a cocktail of toxic fumes. Never even got out of bed.'
The camera panned slowly around the bedroom. The used shirt draped over a chair was a touching reminder that its owner had gone to bed expecting a peaceful night's sleep. 'The thatch above this room caught fire and took out the roof, but fire burns upwards and outwards, and the door you see was closed. The fire service got here before the flames from downstairs could burn through, but the fumes seeped in through the cracks.'
'Who raised the alarm, guv?' Stella Gregson asked.
'A passing motorist with a mobile.'
'No connection, I suppose?'
'None, but you're right to mention it. The person who reports the fire is often the perpetrator. In this case, he wasn't. He was a local radio guy on his way in to present the breakfast programme.'
Some close shots in the bedroom showed how little damage there was. A framed photo of two men still hung on the wall. 'Is one of those the victim, ma'am?' a keen DC asked.
Hen referred the question to DI Cherry. 'Johnny?'
'Er, apparently … in his younger days.'
Hen said, 'I didn't notice this when I visited the site this morning. Was it removed and bagged up?'
'Must have been,' Cherry said.
'I'd like to see it. I should have mentioned that Mr Blacker was fifty-two, and a bachelor.'
'Say no more, guv,' the keen DC said with a grin.
Hen's eyes flashed. 'Have a care, my beauty. I don't do homophobia, and in case you're wondering, I'm unmarried and I'm straight. What's your name?'
'Humphreys, ma'am.'
'No need to blush, Humphreys. Anyone can tell you're straight as well, straight back into uniform if you make another crack like that. But let's return to someone of more importance: Edgar Blacker. His publishing company is called the Blacker List, ha bloody ha. He spent his entire career in the industry, starting as tea boy. Worked up to packer in a Birmingham warehouse. Moved down to Essex and got some editorial experience producing magazines. Do we know any tides, Johnny?'
Cherry smirked. 'Not
'I get you. Top-of-the-shelf stuff?'
'Mostly.'
'Then he goes upmarket into educational publishing and only recendy branched out on his own.'
'Was the Blacker List a public company?' someone else asked.
