Peter Lovesey - The Circle

'Today?'

'If you like. I'd forgotten you didn't meet Mr Blacker. Wait a minute. I'll phone the refuge and ask someone to come in and take care of the shop.'

While Miss Snow made the call, Bob stood in front of the shelves of secondhand books, most of them dog-eared and fading paperbacks. They didn't interest him. He was basking in his own good fortune. A video of Blacker's appearance in front of the circle. He hadn't dreamed it existed.

'That's fixed.' She was back. 'Nadia will take care of the shop. She's not been here long.' She mouthed the word 'illegal'. 'Speaks good English, though.'

Whilst waiting, she made an instant coffee that smelt of footballers' socks. Bob was grateful when Nadia arrived ten minutes later, a smiling, middle-aged woman dressed, presumably, in things from the shop, because she looked as English as Miss Snow herself.

Out in North Street, the air had never smelt so fresh.

The wide walkways of Chichester give people the chance to move freely at the pace they like, and on the whole that is brisker than in most cities. But Amelia Snow was slower than the average pedestrian, which suited Bob, because they could talk. 'What do you write, apart from minutes of the meetings?' he asked her.

'Oh, I'm doing a book on famous Snows,' she said.

He didn't catch on. 'As in snowstorms?'

'No, no. People who share my name, like Dr John Snow, the founder of anaesthetics, and C. P. Snow, the novelist.'

'Are there enough for a book?'

'More than enough. My problem is who to leave out.'

'How far have you got?'

'I'm working on my third draft. It runs to over a hundred thousand words already'

'Strewth.'

'They have such interesting lives. Edgar Snow, the great sinologist. Marguerite Snow, the silent film star.'

'There's that guy on TV who pops up on election night with the swingometer.'

'Peter Snow. And Jon Snow, the Channel Four News man, of course. But they're not included. I'm restricting this to dead Snows.'

'Do you read bits out at the meetings?'

'Frequently. I get the impression it goes over their heads.'

'Did you show it to Edgar Blacker?'

'I gave him a sample chapter to read. He said some flattering things, but he seems to have praised almost everybody's work.'

'Better than knocking it.'

'I don't agree with that. If you praise everything, it devalues the currency of your opinion.'

'Did he make you an offer?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'To publish the book?'

'Oh. Well, he wanted to acquire it, I'm sure of that.'

'What was his game, do you think?'

'His game?'

'What was he up to, telling everyone their work was great?'

She frowned and looked away. 'I don't know, unless he was one of those people incapable of giving bad news to anyone.'

At the Cross, they turned left into West Street. The stonework of the cathedral glowed in the morning sun.

'I live behind the Army amp; Navy,' she said, and a surreal picture popped into Bob's head, worthy of a rhyme.

'Is that a fact?' he said, stringing it together. He was a rapid rhymer.

'The department store.'

'Right. Got it.'

I live behind the Army amp; Navy

Knickers off for Sergeant Davy,

Captain Billy, Corporal Jeff

And Gordon from the RAF.

'Nice and central,' he said without a hint of his thinking. 'Convenient for everything.'

'Yes, it's small, but it suits me.' She took a key from her bag. They'd come to a terraced row of houses that opened directly onto Tower Street. 'Please come in and I'll find that videotape.'

She stepped inside and turned on a light. Just off the hallway was the room where she did her writing.

'My den,' she said with just a suggestion of intrigue.

A computer and printer on a trolley. Bookshelves. An entire set of Who Was Who. Plenty of Snows in there, he imagined. She also had a framed photo of a showgirl in a cat costume, but without the headgear. He took a closer look and got a whole new slant on Miss Snow.

'This you?'

'Mm.'

'Wow.'

'I did some stage work when I was younger.'

'In Cats} This looks like the original show.'

'Yes, but I wasn't one of the stars, or anything.'

'You must have been good.' Good figure, too, he noted. Better than good, and the cut of the costume hid very little.

'I trained as a dancer, but it's a short career unless you can act, and I'm hopeless at speaking lines.'

'So you write them instead.'

'I can't write dialogue. Biography is my forte.'

On a table in the corner was a typescript.

'Is that it?' he asked.

'Only a draft. The clean version is in the other room.'

She was such an innocent that he resisted the obvious gag.

She added, 'Fortunately I got it back from Edgar Blacker before his house burned down. It can be awfully expensive printing out five hundred pages, don't you find?'

'Me? I've never written anything that length.'

'What have you done, then?'

Oops. He stonewalled. 'The odd bit of verse. I'm not in your league at all.'

She was bending over a carton in the corner, searching for the tape. I guess we've all changed shape since our dancing days, Bob told himself.

She said, 'I'd like to write poetry, but I haven't got the talent. What sort of thing inspires you?'

'Whatever pops into my head,' he said to her rear view. 'You'd be surprised what gets me going.'

'I hope you'll read some of it out at a meeting.'

He thought of his Army amp; Navy lines. 'That'll be the day.'

'Got it,' she said, straightening up, holding a cassette. You mustn't be nervous of reading your work, Bob. I hope you keep it nicely in a notebook.'

'It's not worth it'

'Then you can read to us at a meeting. We've all had to lose our virginity at some time — figuratively speaking — so we're a very sympathetic audience.'

'I'll take your word for it.'

'Promise you'll get a notebook and keep everything you write. They'll offer an opinion, some of them, and that can be valuable.'

'What do they do in real life?' he asked.

'The circle is real life.'

'Yes, but. .'

'You mean, how do they earn a living? Maurice works for British Gas, at management level. Zach, the fantasy writer, who read out his work to us, serves in the record shop in South Street. Basil, the gardening man, is retired.'

'Anton?'

'Also retired. He was some kind of civil servant. Then there's Tudor, the Welshman. He sells cars, or insurance. I'm not sure which.'

'I can believe that. What about the dolly bird?'

'Sharon? She's a hairdresser. Does one day a week at college. She hasn't been with us long and to be frank I don't know how long she'll want to stay. As you saw, she doesn't contribute much.'

'Except when Tudor forces her to speak.'

'You noticed? He thinks he has a way with the ladies.'

'Then there's Thomasine. She told me she's a teacher.'

'At the girls' school, yes.'

'And Dagmar works for a solicitor.'

'You are well informed. She keeps that to herself. Who does that leave, apart from me?'

'The woman who had the letter published.'

'Jessie. She's a widow. She was married to someone quite important in the church, an archdeacon, I believe. That's only one down from a bishop. Oh, and I didn't mention Naomi.'

'X-ray eyes?'

'What makes you say that?'

'She saw right through Edgar Blacker and didn't mind saying so. She was the one who spoke up first, saying he was a bit flaky, raised too many hopes.'

'That's true, now I recall it.' She stared at him for a moment in silence. 'You don't miss a thing.'

'I bet you didn't put what she said in the minutes.'

She coloured. 'It was off the cuff. I can't put down every word.' She handed him the cassette. 'But this will tell you everything that happened the evening Mr Blacker spoke to us.'