Peter Lovesey - The Circle

'Who from?'

'Some posh bird.'

'Didn't she leave her name?'

'Big laugh, that was. "Miss Snow," she said. "Tell him Miss Snow would like to hear from him as soon as possible." Miss Snow! Is that what you call your latest pick-up, Dad?'

'She's secretary of the circle. Did she leave a number?'

'By the phone.'

She said, 'I'm used to it. Leave the door open if you like.'

'And you do this by choice? You're a saint.'

'If you saw the state of the refuge, you'd understand. I'm on the committee, and we need new furniture badly. But I want to talk about Maurice.'

'You're going to tell me he's on the level.'

Nodding, she said, 'They're making a ghastly mistake.'

'The law?'

'Yes. They kept him overnight. It was on local radio. They don't do that unless it's serious, do they?'

He tried to look uncertain.

'He's a good man,' she said. 'Don't misunderstand me. I don't carry a torch for him, or anything.'

Carry a torch. Bob loved that. Miss Snow being racy. Looking at her now, with those worry lines and silver streaks, it was hard to imagine her carrying a torch for anyone. Twenty years ago, maybe.

Get real, Naylor. She could be your age. Probably thinks you're on the scrapheap yourself.

She said, 'I'm just so worried that he's being — what's the word?'

'Fitted up?'

'Exactly.' She switched on a strip light that flickered about ten times before coming on. 'He needs a spokesman. An advocate. You're concerned about him, aren't you? You wouldn't have joined us in the bar the next night if you hadn't wanted to help.'

To help sounded a warning bell in his head. He didn't trust himself to say anything.

'You're one of us,' she said, meaning it as a tribute. 'What is more, you took the measure of us all the other evening. I could tell by the way you conducted yourself that you had us all summed up. You didn't have a lot to say, but what you said was so perceptive.'

'Trying to fit in, that's all.'

'You see,' she said, with a narrowing of the eyes that made Bob feel like a stag being stalked, 'I happen to believe it wasn't pure chance that brought you to the circle that night. There is a destiny that shapes our ends.'

You've lost me now.'

'You were sent, Mr Naylor. The circle needs you, and you arrived, a man with gravitas.'

'Come again?'

'People listen to you because you are who you are. It's about personality. Well, you saw what the others are like. They mean well, but heaven help us if they're all we've got as spokesmen.'

Time to back-pedal. 'Hang about — I'm no spokesman.'

'Too modest,' she said. 'Getting back to Maurice, he is in desperate need of someone to take up his case, and you're the obvious choice.'

He shook his head, but it did no good.

'So I'm about to take you into my confidence. I happen to know that Maurice was in trouble once before with the police, and once they get their claws into you. .'

He was undermined by his own curiosity. 'What sort of trouble?'

She hesitated and took a look around the empty shop. 'You will treat this as confidential?'

'If you want.'

She started rearranging the skirts hanging on a circular rail, as if it helped to occupy her hands. 'He had a dispute with a neighbour when he was living in Brighton some years ago. I happen to know because I was living in Hove and read about it in the Argus. This man was extremely unpleasant. He had some kind of boatbuilding business and his garden was full of timber, front and back. I don't know all the details, but there were planks and things stacked against the fence, the fence owned by Maurice, and one day it collapsed under the weight. Maurice asked him to repair it and got a mouthful of abuse. The man had two of those fierce guard dogs. Black and brown. What are they called?'

'Rottweilers?'

'Yes, and they now had the run of Maurice's garden. He was afraid to open his back door. They took over the garden, fouling it and making it their own territory. He tried reporting the man to the council and nothing was done. His life became a misery. So he took the law into his own hands. He shot the dogs with a shotgun he owned and made a bonfire of the wood that had tipped over into his garden.

Unfortunately the fire got out of control and spread next door and destroyed a shed and a couple of the boats the neighbour was working on. Apparently they were worth a lot of money. The firemen were called, and the police, and Maurice was arrested. There was a lot of sympathy for him locally, but he was charged with causing criminal damage and' — she drew a sharp breath — 'found guilty and sent to prison. I can't remember how long it was — a few months, I think.'

'Bit steep.'

'I'm glad you agree.'

'Mind,' he said, 'shooting the dogs wasn't clever. That wouldn't have helped. You get the picture of a bloke with a short fuse.'

'It had gone on for months.'

'Yeah, but you can't argue it was an accident.'

'You're right,' she said.

'And it won't help him now.'

'That's why I'm so worried for him.'

'Throw in the fact that it's a fire again,' Bob said, speaking more to himself than Miss Snow.

'But the two events are quite different.'

'Unless you're a cop looking to nick someone. Then it adds up neatly. An angry man with a record of fire-raising.'

'Don't!'

'He's in deep. He had the motive, the opportunity and this. He's got no alibi.'

'But surely his partner must know where he was.'

'I spoke to her yesterday,' Bob said. 'Maurice went out about eleven on the night of the fire and she didn't hear him come in.'

She stared. 'You went to see her?'

Thomasine and Dagmar asked me to.'

All this took her a moment to absorb, then she recovered. 'You see? We're all turning to you for help.'

'God knows why,' Bob said with feeling. 'How do you know he didn't do this?'

'Maurice? Oh, no.'

'You only see one side of him.'

She leaned forward and eyeballed him intently. 'Mr Naylor-'

'Bob. No one calls me that.'

'Then you must call me Amelia.'

By Miss Snow's lights this was probably as reckless as it gets. She was in earnest, no question. 'Maurice is a gentleman in every sense of the word. It wouldn't cross his mind to make an attack at night on someone asleep in his bed.'

'You mean he'd blast him with his shotgun?'

It was a flip remark and wasn't appreciated. 'Not Maurice.'

'Look at it this way, em, Amelia,' Bob said. 'If he didn't do it, we're looking for some other geezer. The police won't give up on Maurice without someone else in the frame. Are we going to do their work for them?'

'It needn't come to that'

'Like I said, he's got no alibi. His partner Fran is bricking it, but she's no help. She knows he was out on the night of the murder and she's not going to cover up for him.'

'This is so distressing.'

'If we knew more about the murdered guy, it might help. You heard him speak to the circle. What was he like?'

'Friendly. He encouraged some of us to believe we might get into print very soon.'

'A right conman, then.' The moment he'd said this, he wished he hadn't. She had her heart set on publication, like everyone else in the circle.

Drawing herself up a little, she said, 'Well, certain of us are up to professional standards. It's in the lap of the gods whether we find a publisher. Edgar Blacker was willing to take us on, or so he was suggesting. If you don't believe me, you can look at the tape.'

There was a pause of several beats before Bob asked, 'What tape?'

'There's a video of the talk he gave us. We asked his permission to film him so that we could show it later and discuss it among ourselves.'

'I wouldn't mind seeing that tape.'

'You can borrow it if you wish. I have it at home.'