the lights. I was dizzy. I couldn't stand up straight, so he sat me on the sofa. Then it's just a blur. I don't know what else he did to me. I feel nauseous talking about it. I'm not denying that the pictures were taken.'
'We can move on, then,' Hen said. 'When did you find out they were in the magazine?'
'When it went on sale, six months later. He sent me a copy from their office in Tilbury suggesting I could earn big amounts of money if I posed again. I can't begin to describe how appalled I was. He hadn't used my real name, but if any of my friends or family saw the pictures, they'd know me. The pictures were in sharp focus, obviously taken in brilliant light. They destroyed my confidence totally … totally. I dreaded that any man I met would have seen that disgusting magazine and recognise me. I stopped the dancing. Stopped all social contact. Moved house. Applied myself to the bookkeeping course. It took me years and years to recover. Well, I say 'recover'. I didn't ever recover. I mean it took me all that time to get to the point where I was when he entered my life again.'
'When he came to speak to the circle?'
Yes, after nearly twenty-five years. Normally I'd have made the arrangements for a speaker, but this time Maurice did it all, because he knew Blacker personally. So when he walked in I had the most dreadful shock. He was older and had spectacles and his hair was coloured, but the face was the one I'd seen in a thousand nightmares grinning at me from behind a camera.' She paused and bit her lip, reliving the memory. 'I can't describe my feelings. I wanted to dash out of the room, but everyone would have asked why. So I kept my head down, taking the minutes. Even when he talked about my script I didn't speak.'
Hen nodded. 'We've seen the video.'
'Then you'll know what he said towards the end, that his house was filled with photos from years back and he was starting to write his memoirs. I died when he said that. My life ended.'
'He must have photographed scores of girls,' Hen said. 'Why should he pick you out from the rest?'
'He was going to keep coming to the circle, wasn't he? Through his friendship with Maurice he was forging a link with us and he offered to come back and they accepted. They wanted to encourage him, some of them, at least. To have a publisher in their pocket was too good to be true.'
'You could have left the club.'
'Impossible. I was treasurer and secretary, remember. I had all the files at home. Maurice wouldn't have let me drop out. He'd have made it his mission to keep me aboard.'
'You couldn't see any closure?'
'Exactly. I had to do something about that beast and his house full of pictures. It wasn't enough just to get rid of him. The cottage and all its contents had to go as well. So a fire at night seemed the only remedy.'
'You didn't waste much time.'
'I was desperate. I had a spare can of petrol for my old car. I knew his address because it was my job to send him his fee for the meeting. I drove out there the next night and pushed oily rags through the door and poured in some petrol and put a match to it. The place soon caught alight.'
Hen was listening intently. She needed to know why. 'You're a quiet, respectable woman leading a useful life. Couldn't you think of any other way of dealing with it?'
'I thought I'd explained. He'd visited me in my thoughts almost daily for years. I had nightmares. He was my personal demon, leering at me when I was at my most vulnerable. Nothing short of destroying him would do.' Her intensity left no doubt.
'Let's move on,' Hen said. 'The next development is what foxed us all. How on earth did you think of faking your own murder?'
'It was a build-up of events I hadn't planned. I thought I'd got away with the burning of the cottage. Well, I think I had.'
'Just about,' Hen said.
'Then, to my horror, you arrested Maurice and charged him with it'
Stella said, 'That wasn't DCI Mallin. That was DI Cherry.'
The finer points of the chain of command didn't interest Miss Snow. 'And it came out that Maurice had once been sent to prison for some incident involving burning his neighbour's garden fence.'
'And boat,' Stella said.
'It was looking certain that Maurice would be put on trial for my crime. He's a good man, truly good. I couldn't allow that to happen. First of all, I thought of letting it be known that you were wrong about Maurice, that the arsonist was still at liberty. I couldn't just make a phone call to the police station or I'd give myself away. And I couldn't tell anyone. So I decided to demonstrate that the fire-raiser was still at liberty by starting another fire. I made use of our new member, Bob Naylor.'
'With his agreement?'
'No, no. He didn't know what I was doing. How could I confide in anyone? He's a strong man, willing to help. I made up a story telling him someone had offered to hand me the proof that Maurice was innocent. I'd been invited to the boat house early Saturday morning to collect it. I asked Bob to go in my place.'
'And then you nearly killed him.'
'No, that was never going to happen, and it wasn't my intention.' The firmness of the answer gave an insight into Miss Snow's resolve.
Hen started to say, 'He had to break out-'
'Through the roof, yes. I'd been to the boat house before. I often walk along there. I'd looked inside. The boat racks reach right up. Any fit man could climb up and make a hole in the roof. I knew he'd find a way out. He's strong because of the work he does.'
'According to his account, he was lucky to escape.'
'But the fire had to be convincing. Basically I used the same method, except that the petrol and rags were stuffed underneath the boat house. I kept out of sight when he arrived, but as soon as I'd closed the door on him I lit the rags. Then I left, before the fire was obvious.'
'Lovely burn-up, but all to no purpose because it didn't succeed in getting Maurice McDade out of the remand centre.'
Miss Snow's eyes moistened.
Hen could imagine the desperation. 'All right,' she said, 'let me try and see it your way. Everything was going pear-shaped. You had a great affection for Maurice and he was still being blamed for your crime. Bob Naylor and Thomasine had set themselves up as amateur sleuths, going round asking questions. Naomi was doing much the same on her own account. Soon enough someone was going to find out you were the arsonist. It was then that the solution came to you: faking your own death by fire.'
After a moment's consideration she gave a nod.
'A huge step to take,' Hen said. 'It could only be justified if it achieved that closure you needed so much because not only did it mean wiping away your life as Amelia Snow, the well-respected Chichester lady, but it meant killing someone else. A second murder, the murder of someone who had done you no harm at all.'
Her lips tightened, but she didn't deny it.
'This is how things got out of proportion, isn't it?' Hen said. 'Your freedom was paramount. You needed an out. You'd found a way of killing that was well within your capacity, hard to detect and simple to carry out. You didn't see the victim choke and burn to ashes so it was all at one remove.'
Miss Snow was listening intently. She hadn't challenged any of Hen's version yet.
'I think you must have read about fire victims being identified by their teeth. Am I right? In a serious fire, that's often all we have.'
This was rewarded with a nod so slight it might have been a nervous twitch.
'Thanks to your charity work at the refuge you had access to women who would not be missed if they disappeared. Foreign immigrants, asylum seekers, some of them illegal, in that trap where they can't ask for asylum unless they're already here, and they can't get here except illegally. Non-persons.'
On Hen's right, Stella gave a little intake of breath as she anticipated what Hen was going on to say.
'You decided one of these women should die at a fire in your house in Tower Street. You sometimes had them there for meals and to stay overnight. I don't know what method you used to subdue her. Sleeping tablets crushed up and mixed with the food? Something that ensured she would be out to the world when the fire started. She died and was reduced almost to ashes, but the teeth were preserved well enough for identification purposes. When they were checked by the forensic odontologist against your dental chart, the match was perfect. How was it done?' She turned and addressed the question more to Stella than Miss Snow.
