'Right,' she said to her murder investigation team, 'you've heard from me. I want some input from you now. Why does a decent, clean-living litde lady like Miss Snow get incinerated?'
No one was rash enough to speak.
'Come on. You've had longer to think about it than me,' Hen said. 'A semi-retired accountant who also does a bit of charity work. Secretary of the writers' circle.'
The keeno, DC Humphreys, decided this was the moment to redeem himself. 'An accountant gets to know a lot about a person's finances. Could someone have panicked that she knew too much?'
'Someone with money problems? Good thought. Do we know whose accounts she managed?'
DI Cherry said in a dismissive way, 'Only a few clients she'd known for years.'
'Like?'
'Like Miss Peabody's, the private dress shop in Crane Street. I'm certain Miss Peabody doesn't have a money problem. Neither does the dentist, Michael Wheatley-Smith, nor the podiatrist, Anita Jacques.'
'Podiatrist?'
Stella said, 'Feet, guv.'
'Have you looked at any of these people's balance sheets?' Hen said to Cherry.
'No need. In Chichester, we know who's doing okay.'
'So what other accounts was she auditing?'
'Probably looked after the women's refuge she supported.
She'll have done that without a fee.'
DC Humphreys said, 'Maybe she'd taken on someone else we don't know about. I was thinking how convenient it would be if the accounts were dodgy and they went up in the fire at the same time as she did.'
'Good thought, too,' Hen said, 'only let's not forget the killer had two tries. The first time, Miss Snow was invited to the boat house. There weren't any account books stored there, far as I know.'
A sergeant at the back said, 'Here's another theory, ma'am. You said she worked in the refuge. You get some hard cases ending up in those places. Junkies, alcos, illegals, you name it. What if one of them decided Miss Snow was a soft touch, and it turned out she wasn't?'
'You mean they tapped her for cash and she refused?'
'She could have threatened to report them.'
'Now that isn't bad,' Hen said, 'not at all bad. We know she visited the refuge and helped there, as well as working in the shop. It would explain the trap at the boat house, and the fire at her place. My problem with this theory is the lure, the call she took asking her to go to the boat house. The reason she was hooked is that the caller talked about proving Maurice McDade was innocent. How would anyone from the refuge know about her link to McDade? He wasn't in the papers at this point.'
'It was on local radio.'
'Was it, indeed? I didn't know that.'
Stella said, 'For starters, guv, why don't we focus on the people who knew McDade was being held?'
DC Humphreys said, 'The circle.'
'And a few others. McDade has a partner, I understand. Some of the circle may have talked to friends and families.'
'Okay,' Hen said, 'but there's another factor, isn't there? The killing of Amelia Snow is a carbon copy of Edgar Blacker's murder. I'm hoping forensics will tell us the same accelerant was used. Certainly both fires were started at the front door.'
'And by night,' Stella said. 'Are you saying Miss Snow was killed for the same reason as Blacker?'
'I'm saying the evidence points to one killer carrying out both murders. The reason may be less straightforward. You sometimes find a second murder being done when the killer gets panicky and thinks someone is on to him.'
'Was Miss Snow a bit of an amateur sleuth, then?'
'Like Miss Marple? Let's find out. Tomorrow evening I want to try something rather novel. I'm calling a special meeting of the writers' circle. When they've assembled at their usual place I'm going to tell them what the evening is all about. Then we'll bus them round here and interview every one of them, all in one evening.'
'What if they refuse, guv?'
'They won't. It's their chance to prove they had nothing to do with it. And the killer won't want to draw attention to himself — or herself — by opting out.'
'Some of them may be able to prove they're in the clear,' Humphreys said.
'I hope so. I've never had so many suspects. Any with alibis that check out will get a free lollipop from me.'
'We don't have enough interview rooms,' DI Cherry pointed out straight-faced, in case anyone should think he was getting pleasure from gumming up the works.
'Then we'll do it in relays. You'll each be assigned to one or more of these geniuses and armed with a list of questions. But don't let that inhibit you, or them. Encourage them to talk about themselves. They're storytellers. The results should be — what's the word I'm looking for? — unputdownable.'
Maurice McDade was watering the vegetable garden at Ford Prison when Hen arrived with a silver-haired DC at her side.
'Put down the hose, Mr McDade. It makes me nervous.'
He handed it to someone else. The three made themselves as comfortable as a low stone wall allowed. Hen offered McDade one of her small cigars, but he was a non-smoker. She lit one herself. There were advantages to doing an interview outside.
'I don't know how much you've heard,' she said after introducing herself and the DC.
'About Miss Snow? I saw it on the news.' McDade had an earnest, confidential manner. On remand he was allowed his own clothes, a striped shirt and well-pressed fawn trousers. Hen reckoned he was not much over fifty, a tall, decent-looking man with an accent that would get him into the stewards' enclosure at Henley. But she wasn't going to forget his record.
'Devastating, I should think,' she said, wondering how the death of his friend played against the prospect of an early release.
He nodded. 'She was a gentle soul. I don't understand it.'
'It's the gende souls who cop it, Mr McDade.'
'Is it certain she was murdered?'
'Well, it wasn't an accident for sure. How long had she been secretary of the circle?'
'Since the start, two years ago. She was very good at it. Kept me up to the mark. I relied on her a lot.'
'Whose suggestion was it to invite Edgar Blacker to give a talk?'
'That was down to me, one letter I didn't ask Miss Snow to write. To be honest, I was basking in my success a bit. Wanted the others to see that I actually had succeeded in netting a real, live publisher.'
'Instead of which, he'd netted you.'
He rolled his eyes upwards. 'As it turned out, yes.'
'Let's get back to Amelia Snow. You must have met her before the circle was founded.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Well, if she was your secretary from the start. .'
'She wasn't one of the founders. Dagmar and Naomi were my co-founders. I met Miss Snow at the first meeting, after we'd put a letter in the
'I'm interested that you keep referring to her as Miss Snow. You must have known her well enough to use her first name.'
'Yes, it's difficult to explain. She had a ladylike manner, and it would have seemed crass to address her any other way.'
'Maybe she secretly wanted to be called Amelia.'
'I don't think so. She was immensely proud of her surname. She was writing a book about famous people called Snow.'
'Did she show it to Edgar Blacker?'
'He spoke well of it. Compared her to Lytton Strachey'
'Lit on what?'
