The Circle

10

'I want you out of the way tonight,' Naomi told Basil. ' I've got someone coming to see me.'

'Who's that, dear?'

'Zach from the circle.'

'Zach? I didn't know you and Zach were seeing each other.'

He received one of her looks. 'Don't make it sound like adultery. We may be collaborating as writers, that's all.'

'And you want me to make myself scarce?'

'Yes. Why don't you prick out some more of those seedlings?'

Basil said with a touch of irritation, 'I finished that job the evening I rescued you from Blacker's house. Don't worry, I'll find something else to do.' He hesitated. You'll probably shoot me down in flames for saying this, but isn't Zach's writing rather far removed from yours?'

She didn't shoot him down. She said in a bored voice, as if it was so obvious he should have thought of it himself, 'We'll each bring a different perspective to the project, and that can be stimulating.'

'May I ask what it's about, this project?'

You may ask, but you won't get an answer from me. This is still at an early stage and we don't want other people stealing our idea.'

Basil accepted this rebuke with philosophy. 'Writing is more competitive than I appreciated before I joined the circle. In my innocence I thought it was just about self-expression.'

'You're not innocent,' she said. 'You're naive.'

Zach's motorbike roared up Whyke Lane a few minutes before eight. He braked and dismounted and marched up to the front door feeling good in his leathers. In an encounter with Naomi you needed all the confidence you could muster, not to mention protection.

She was wearing a purple trouser suit and black silk blouse. She looked him up and down.

'You'll be wanting to get out of that stuff.'

'I'm fine, thanks.'

'Don't be ridiculous. Give me the crash helmet and close the door behind you.'

'Er, yes.'

She put the helmet on the table by the door and said, 'Jacket.'

There was no future in protesting. He began the business of unfastening and unzipping under Naomi's steady gaze.

She said, 'Distinctive smell.'

'The leather?'

'Yes. Motorcycling is another world to me. I've never even ridden pillion.'

Against his better judgement he said, 'You must try some time.'

She gave a slight nod. 'I'll need to if we're going to achieve anything as a writing team. Do you have a spare helmet?'

He hadn't foreseen this as a serious possibility. 'I may have at home.' He removed the boots and stepped out of the trousers. In his T-shirt and denim shorts he felt about six years old. 'Is Basil about this evening?'

'I sent him to the greenhouse. We don't want him watching us like Big Brother.'

Basil as Big Brother was a difficult concept.

She led him into the room with the piano and her ancestors' photographs. 'A glass of wine? Good for the getting of ideas.'

'Just one, then.'

She poured him a large glass of Bulgarian red. 'Did you get a visit from the new man?'

'Bob Naylor? Yes. And Thomasine.'

'So did we. And did they tell you about the fire this morning? Naylor was lucky to get out alive.'

'It's true, then?'

'The boat house burnt down, so it must be true. But I don't think he was the intended victim. Miss Snow was the target, and she would have died. She isn't capable of knocking a hole in the roof and climbing out. We're dealing with a ruthless killer here.'

'You think it's the same person who torched the publisher's cottage?'

'I'd put money on it.'

Zach frowned. 'Why Miss Snow? She hasn't upset anyone.'

'I know,' Naomi said. 'She's Goody Two-Shoes. When she isn't working in the charity shop she's visiting the women's refuge or helping her friends with their accounts. I can't think of anyone who'd want to kill her unless it's because she's so damned saintly. There were girls at school I would cheerfully have murdered because they were like that.'

'Too good to be true?'

'No. So good and so true it made the rest of us feel like trash. At one time we tried to get up a protest about the school dinners, which were vile, unfit for pigs, and one of these little angels said that instead of complaining we ought to think of the starving millions in China. Wouldn't you have strangled someone like that?'

He grinned. 'What did you do?'

'Not much. Changed her knife and fork for a pair of chopsticks. Girls en masse are feeble when it comes to the point. A woman acting alone, or preferably with a man, is another animal altogether.' She raised her glass. 'Here's to you and me.'

'Em, sure.'

'This isn't just about writing, Zach.'

'No?' His leg gave an involuntary jerk.

'We've got to get out and about. What are they up to, those two, Thomasine and the new man?'

'Trying to prove Maurice is innocent?'

'They say.'

'You don't believe them?'

'It could be my suspicious mind, but I wonder if they're doing the same as you and me, trying to get a book out of this.'

Zach weighed this for a moment. 'I wouldn't think so. Thomasine writes poetry and I don't think Bob Naylor has written anything at all.'

'Then why has she teamed up with him?'

'Maybe she fancies him.'

'Is he single?'

'Don't know.'

'We must find out,' she said. 'We must find out everything about him. He may be the arsonist.'

'What — Bob Naylor?' Zach said, making it clear what he thought of that theory. 'Edgar Blacker was already dead before Bob joined the circle.'

'That doesn't mean he's innocent,' Naomi said. 'He could be playing a very clever game.'

'How do you mean?'

'Suppose he has some grudge against Blacker that none of us knows about, and sets his house on fire. Then he comes along to the circle and starts treating all of us as suspects.'

'But he had nothing to do with Maurice being arrested.'

'How do you know? How do you know he didn't tip off the police to raid the circle that night they came for Maurice?'

'He didn't know Maurice.'

'He may have known Blacker had just dumped Maurice and his book. We have to be alert to every angle, Zach. I'm going to get the background on our new member Bob. What's his real motive for joining the circle? He hasn't told us much about his writing.'

'That's true.'

'Can we be certain his story about the fire at the boat house is true?'

'It burned down. You just said so.'

'We've only got his word that he was shut inside.'

'You've got a suspicious mind.'

'No, I just consider every possibility. But that's not why I asked you here.' She went to the piano and started removing the photos of her family from the top, placing them face down on the stool.

Zach watched like a male spider on the edge of a black widow's web. He supposed she didn't want to make the first move while the images of her family were on display.

He crossed his legs.

But Naomi had other things in mind. She took the last of the pictures off the piano lid and opened it and dipped her arm inside. She lifted out something that was hidden in there. It was another photo, unframed. 'This shouldn't be in my possession,' she said, handing it to him. 'I took it from Edgar Blacker's bedroom wall.'

The photo still smelled faintly of smoke. It was of Blacker, much younger than when he came to the circle — in his thirties, probably — standing beside a blond man of about the same age. Zach didn't recognise him. Each had an arm over the other's shoulder. In their spare hands they held cans of lager. They were in trousers and striped shirts, as if they'd arrived in suits and discarded the jackets and ties.

'It was the only picture there, so it must have been important to him,' Naomi said.

'Is it important to us?'

Her eyes narrowed. 'If you can't tell, I must have overestimated you.'

'The other guy? Who is he?'

'I've no idea.'

'Was Edgar Blacker gay?'

'I got that impression, didn't you? That voice. The way he dressed.'

'Haven't thought about it till now,' he said. 'I've been proved wrong making assumptions like that.'

'Look at what's written on the back.'

He turned it over. Someone had written 'Innocents, Christmas 1982'.

'Okay,' he said. 'We know when it was taken.'

'And. .?'

'You mean the "innocents" bit? I guess that was written later, when the relationship got more serious.'

'My thought exactly,' Naomi said. 'They meet in 1982, possibly the evening this was taken. The friendship develops into a homosexual relationship. We can only guess at how long it lasts, but the blond young man here is the love of Blacker's life, which is why he keeps the picture on his bedroom wall. Is that assuming too much?'

'Sounds feasible. But does it have anything to do with the fire?'

'That's where your imagination comes in.'

'Does it?'

'We're writing a book, remember?' Naomi said with an edge to her voice. 'You're the creative one. See if you can think of a link between this picture and the fire that killed Blacker.'

'It doesn't have to be true?'

'Of course not. Leave the truth to me. I'll try and get some background on Blacker and I may even get the facts on his friendship with this man.'

'I'm getting confused,' Zach said. 'You want me to use my imagination while you go rooting out the facts?'

'Precisely. Isn't it exciting? We'll set out the two stories side by side, incident by incident, your imaginative version and my discoveries about the actual events. To my knowledge nobody has ever attempted anything like this. It's true that writers have used real crimes as inspiration-'

'Ellroy.'

'Who?'

'James Ellroy,' Zach said. You wouldn't have read him. He's not your kind of writer.'

'What about him?'

'He uses real crimes like the Black Dahlia case as the structure for his imagination to work on. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is another example, written almost as documentary but with the characters speaking dialogue. It's brilliant.'

'I've read Capote,' she said without enthusiasm. 'But you and I will be going one better. We're adding an extra dimension. I'll be investigating the real facts at the same time as you're doing the fictional version. There'll be tension there. Electricity.'

She leaned forward and put her hand on his arm and he felt the electricity all right. He drew away and smoothed the hairs down, but they sprang up again. 'When do we start?'

'I've already started.'

'What about me?'

'This photo is your starting point. Try to bridge the gap between nineteen eighty-two and the present.'

'Do you want me to do an outline, or what?'

'Good idea. I have high expectations of you, Zach. You have an imagination to die for.'

'Some people find it weird.'

She flapped her hand in a dismissive way. 'Pay no attention. I've been called weird myself and I take it as a compliment. We're achievers, you and I. Who knows what this will lead to? More wine?'

He decided against another glass. Just being with Naomi made him feel heady.

He plucked up the courage to ask, 'Who do you think would publish a book like this?'

'We do,' she said. 'We're in the century of the e-book.'

'The internet?'

'We publish it ourselves and release it into cyberspace. Anyone on the world-wide web can access it.'

'I've heard about e-books. Never seen one.'

'They're tucked away in obscure sites, most of them. My plan is to create a new website called www.ChichesterMurderDetectives.com. Key words, you see, that search engines pick up. All kinds of people wanting to read about murder will find it, and be captivated. It's unique, this collaboration.'

'Well, yes,' he said with a tone of reserve.

'I've already purchased the authoring software. It's so simple to use. Accepts Word and WordPerfect. We don't even have to wait for the book to be finished. We can show it as work in progress.'

'Is that a good idea?'

'A brilliant idea. It's revolutionary. Visitors to our website will see the creative process at work. As it progresses and gets known, I predict that publishers will beat a path to our door. They'll be in competition to sign us up. And I don't just mean British publishers. We'll do deals with America, Japan, China.'

'Do you think so?'

'All of Europe. I know it. Never again will you and I have to submit a script and wait for some high-handed publisher to come to a decision. They'll have to make up their minds on what is out there, or risk being trampled in the stampede.'

'It sounds promising, but-'

'I'm starting straight away and I'll be looking to you to make your contribution, Zach.'

He left soon after, his thoughts in a spin.