The Circle

and finding out they are not.'

'Something on it pinpoints the killer.'

'I can't think what.'

'Either something Blacker said, that sealed his fate, or something one of the circle said that reveals them as the killer.'

'And they didn't want it known? But Miss Snow handed the video to the police.'

'The killer didn't know that,' Bob said. 'If you think back, most of the circle thought she was in charge of it.'

'She was. She was the secretary, she needed it to help write the minutes and she kept it as a record of the meeting.'

'But she lent it to me — well, I asked for it — and then she called me late at night saying she needed it back because the fuzz had called it in. Only you and her knew I'd borrowed the thing. As far as anyone else was concerned, it never left her place.'

'And you think that's why she was killed?'

'Got to be, hasn't it, if it fingers the killer?'

'But she handed it to the police.'

'Like I said, the killer didn't know about that. The fire at Miss Snow's was mainly to destroy the evidence.'

Thomasine shivered. 'That's horrible.'

'Makes sense, doesn't it?'

'She was killed for that pesky video? And in reality she'd given it to the police, so she needn't have been killed at all?' She gave a nervous, angry sigh. 'Bob, that's too cruel.'

He stared down at his drink. 'What it means is Blacker's death is still the key to all this. His pep talk to the circle gave something away that triggered the second murder. Be nice if we could run that video again.'

Thomasine's eyes widened. 'If we told this to the police, maybe they'd let us look at it.'

He shook his head. 'Policemen like amateur detectives about as much as they like losing their helmets.'

The circle members had been allowed to leave, but their interrogators were in for a longer night. Hen had summoned them to the incident room for the debriefing. 'A worthwhile exercise,' she summed up. 'Not much in the way of deathless prose, but three interesting alibis to check. Stella has already contacted the hotel at Harrogate and it seems Zach Beale and Sharon paid for a double room and made full use of it.'

'What does that mean? They were at it day and night?' Andy Humphreys said.

'There was a conference going on,' Shilling said.

'Is that what it's called?'

'Envious?' Stella said.

Hen said, 'And Anton's computer appears to show he was sending e-mails at the time Miss Snow's house was being torched. It looks as if we're down to seven. What is more' — she pointed to the enlargement Shilling had made on the computer, now displayed on the board behind her — 'we may have a real breakthrough with this photo Blacker had on his bedroom wall.'

'Or a bloody great red herring,' Johnny Cherry murmured.

'You said something, Johnny?'

'No.'

'Because I want everyone's take on this. Two guys in striped shirts with their arms around each other's shoulders, one of them Blacker. It looks like a celebration. They're holding drinks. On the back someone — presumably Blacker — has written 'Innocents, Christmas 1982'. We don't know the identity of the blond man. He doesn't resemble anyone in the circle. There's a coffee machine in the background and part of a notice board and over to the right could be the corner of a desk.'

'Office party?' Humphreys said.

'That's my assumption.'

Stella said, 'He was in publishing all his life, so it's a good bet this is a publisher's office.'

'We can find which firm he was with in nineteen eighty-two,' Shilling said. 'Maybe that way we can identify the blond guy.'

'Your job, then,' Hen said.

Johnny said as if the relevance of this had escaped him, 'Why are we taking so much interest in one picture from over twenty years ago?'

'Because we haven't established a definite motive for Blacker's murder.'

'I thought we had. I thought we'd agreed he made a fatal error by trashing the writers' work. One of them took it to heart and put a match to his house.'

'That's only a theory. I'm not a writer looking for a publisher and I don't know how desperate they get.'

'They'd murder just to get into print'

'You say, Johnny, but I can't help feeling it isn't enough. I'm not ruling out some grievance from way back.'

'A blast from the past?'

'Why did he have this picture on his bedroom wall and what does that word 'innocents' mean? We don't know. It may be a factor in the case. I want it checked, in any event. Meanwhile let's look at the writers we have left on our list. Which of them really shape up as killers? Some of them seem more serious contenders than others.'

'Basil isn't serious,' Andy said. 'Not about writing. He's a serious gardener. The writing is secondary.'

'How did the interview go?'

'Fine. He's very open. Told me things I didn't need to know, like how he met Naomi.'

'Now you've started, you've got to tell us, Andy.'

He gave them the story of Naomi with her head stuck in the toilet window at Shippam's. Even Johnny Cherry laughed.

'So Basil was in the fire service,' Hen said. 'That's hard to picture.'

'But useful to know if you ever get your head stuck,' Duncan Shilling said, and got an easy laugh from the team and a pointed look from Hen. The young man had a knack of running off at the mouth.

Andy Humphreys said, 'He also goes for an early swim.'

'How early?'

'Not that early. Around seven. He's older than Naomi, he says, so he needs to stay fit. But he's relaxed about it.'

'True. He's pretty laid back. Unlike his wife.'

'Naomi. She's capable of anything,' Stella said. 'Those eyes!'

'Capable of nicking a picture from a burnt-out house, anyway,' Hen said. 'Yes, I interviewed Naomi myself, and she's — how shall I put it?'

'Spooky?'

'I was going to say committed. She claims she's writing the inside story of the investigation from the point of view of a suspect. A good excuse for some very odd behaviour.'

'Confirmed by Zach,' Shilling said.

'Which means Zach believed it, no more than that.'

'But if Naomi is the killer, would she have taken the risk of using Zach as a collaborator?'

'Why did she use him?'

'For his writing skills. He's the one Blacker said was the new Tolkien.'

'So it was to be a writing partnership?'

'That's his explanation, guv, and he seemed to feel he was forced into it.'

'Okay,' Hen said. 'We have Naomi as a contender. Who else? What about Tudor Thomas?'

'I interviewed him,' Stella said, 'and he came over as confident when I tackled him on the insurance he'd sold to Blacker.'

'The stolen Wodehouse manuscript?'

'Yes. It was obvious he's been questioned before and he thinks he's watertight on this one. It stinks to high heaven, and it probably scuppered his career prospects, but he smiles and answers the questions like a man who