The Circle

1

The night of the first murder.

In a cottage on the Selsey Road the central heating had cooled and the floorboards were creaking. Alone and wheezing in his bedroom, Edgar Blacker stirred, turned over, took a few shallow breaths and settled into a dream of bestsellers and huge profits. He was a publisher.

Downstairs, the flap on the letterbox opened and a plastic hose was pushed through. Liquid trickled from it onto the fitted carpet. The hose was withdrawn. The flap closed.

Seconds after, it was pushed open again. A piece of cloth saturated with fuel was forced through. More oily rags came after it. They made a small heap.

One cloth reeking of petrol hung from the letterbox. No attempt was made to push it through. There was the faint sound of a match being struck. The cloth fizzed into flame, dropped on the other rags and they ignited at once. Two parcels of page proofs were lying beside the door ready for posting. The flame touched them and they caught fire.

In the next phase of his dream, Blacker was lunching with J. K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter. She'd asked for a salad. For himself he'd ordered the best item on the menu: fillet steak flambe. He believed he could smell it being cooked.

The bookshelves lining two walls were perfect tinder. This cottage was stuffed with inflammable material. Even the filing cabinets were made of teak. The flames made green tongues of fire as they reacted with the cloth and the glue of the book bindings. In seconds, the shelves caught and glowed. Soon the wood was hissing.

It took a while for the fire to reach the small oak staircase at the far end of the living room but when it did the polish on the handrail burned green and yellow. The whole structure was soon ablaze. Deadly fumes were funnelled upstairs. Smoke is usually the killer in house fires. And there were no smoke alarms in this old building.

Edgar Blacker didn't get to close the deal with J. K. Rowling. He inhaled various gases, including carbon monoxide, and was called away to keep an appointment with the Chairman in the sky.