Peter Lovesey - The Circle

She'd asked Stella to look through it.

'Done?'

Stella nodded.

'Close the door.'

Stella knew what was coming. The anger had brought a kind of paralysis to Hen's normally mobile face.

'It's obvious, isn't it, that someone's been talking out of school? This stuff about two people working together. It comes straight from our last meeting.'

'I thought so, guv.'

'Scumbags. I knew as soon as you and I walked into this nick we were in for a hard time, but I didn't reckon on this.'

'They're not all bad.'

'One is, at the very least. One of the team is bending Naomi's ear. Who is it? Who did the interview with her?'

'The first one? You did, guv.'

'No — the latest. After Jessie was killed.'

'Andy Humphreys.'

'Him?'

'Don't rush in, guv. I know he got off to a bad start with you, that crack about gays, but he's keen.'

'Too damn keen if he's playing his own game, feeding titbits to one of the suspects.'

'Want me to talk to him?'

'No, I will.'

Stella feared for Andy. She'd seen Hen in warlike moods, but this was Armageddon. 'It could be one of the others.'

'I don't think so. Who else in the team has spent time with Naomi? Duncan Shilling hasn't been near her. I made a point of clobbering Johnny Cherry with the dumb blonde. It's Humphreys, bang to rights.'

Stella decided to let her simmer for a while. Finally, she said, 'What about this website? Shall we close it down?'

'No need, if I plug the leak. Most of it's self-serving rubbish. Let the woman rant on as much as she likes.' Realising that she was ranting herself, she gave a half-smile and made an effort to lighten up. 'I must say I enjoyed some of these names. Nitpicker.'

'Passionella.'

'I wonder what she calls you and me.'

'Better not ask,' Stella said. 'Anyway, I've read it, like you asked. Seems to me she wants to be a part of the action even at the cost of drawing suspicion on herself. Basically the diary shows she's in the clear, if it's true. And this latest entry supports Tudor's statement that he was at home all night.' She reached for another stack of printed sheets.

'Tudor.' Hen pulled a face. 'His stuff is even more of a pain to read. Remind me what he says about yesterday. Don't give me earache by reading the whole thing.'

Stella picked up the printout of Tudor's book and turned to the last sheet. '"And so to bed about three in the morning, dog-tired, pooped and tuckered, but with another two thousand words of purple prose in my trusty computer.'"

'Can you beat it? These bloody writers think they're God's gift. But you're right, Stell. Three a.m. was when his light went out according to Naomi.'

'So they're both in the clear.'

'Apparently.'

'Which means Naomi is right. We're down to the last three. Or four, if we include Fran.'

'Five,' Hen said. 'Naomi doesn't know if Basil went out that night, and neither do we.'

'Basil?' Stella had some difficulty grasping Basil as a serious suspect. 'He's easy to overlook, I'll grant you. Inoffensive, modest, devoted to his garden. Is he the worm that turned? But if he is, wouldn't he turn against Naomi? He had nothing against Blacker, or Miss Snow or Mrs Warmington-Smith.'

'Nothing we know about,' Hen said, and then added, 'He stays on my list.'

'He's on the fringe,' Stella said, giving serious consideration to Basil for the first time. 'Doesn't regard himself as a serious writer. Only joined to make up the numbers. I wonder if he hates the lot of them.'

'Might do.'

'But he's an ex-fireman. They don't start fires, do they?'

'Coppers can go wrong, so why not firemen?'

'He'd have to be a nutcase.'

'Whoever is doing it has to be a nutcase,' Hen said. 'But if you think about it, we're left with the level-headed ones. Dagmar never says anything outrageous. Thomasine is more animated, but has her feet on the ground. Fran has a kind of worldly wisdom learned from those years as the wife of a gangster. And Bob is the guy on the Clapham omnibus.'

'The Parcel Force van.'

'Right. Your all-round good egg. Not a nutter among them that I can see.'

The mention of Bob reminded Stella of something. She opened the drawer of her desk and took out the diary he had loaned her. 'While we're looking at their literary efforts — I didn't tell you about this, guv.'

'What is it?'

'Bob's poems. His doggerel, he calls it.'

'He lent them to you? He's very trusting. I wouldn't lend you an umbrella on a wet day.'

'Thanks!'

'Anything of interest?'

'I haven't had time to read them.'

'Let's hear one, then. They can't be worse than these other literary efforts.'

Stella thumbed through the pages and smiled. 'Here's a sample:

Is Basil green

When his wife is seen

With the new Tolkien?'

'Likes his puns, doesn't he?' Hen said, not much impressed.

'Okay,' Stella said, turning to another page. 'Here's one about a cat:

Amelia was a dancing cat, I'm able to disclose

Before she started writing the lives of all the Snows.'

'We're into T. S. Eliot territory now,' Hen said. 'One of the few things I remember from school, his poems on cats. Is there any more?'

'At the local writers' circle she sits beside the Chair

Keeping minutes of the meeting with single-minded care.

If the members criticise her she might give a little shrug

And privately remember how she used to cut the rug.

At home, she does her writing and if it doesn't flow

She'll choose another chapter, start another Snow.

But as the night approaches and the work gets really tough

She allows herself a memory of how she'd strut her stuff.

For Amelia was a dancing cat, I'm able to disclose

Before she started writing the lives of all the Snows.'

'What's he on about here?' Hen said, frowning. 'This is Miss Snow, right?'

'Must be.'

'Does he know something we don't? You're the one who interviewed him. Did you ever hear about Miss Snow being a dancer?'

'Sounds unlikely, guv.'

'Is it his quirky sense of humour?'

'He's got that for sure.'

'How would he know what she got up to? He was new to the circle.'

'He did visit her house on two occasions, once to borrow the video of Blacker at the circle and once to return it.'

Hen raised both thumbs. 'You're right, Stell. I was forgetting. I'm sure you questioned him about the visits?'

'Of course. I thought we covered everything. He doesn't hold back.'

'But the dancing didn't come up?'

Stella shook her head. 'Does it matter?'

'Don't know yet.'

'What time are you expecting your dad?'

'Depends,' Sue Naylor said on the phone.

'On what, love?'

'On the job. Like sometimes he's here when I get in from school and sometimes he gets in really late.'

'It's not regular hours, you mean?'

'Yeah.'

'Does he have a mobile?'

'For emergencies only, he says. He don't like me calling when he's on the road.'

'What's the number?'

Hen got through to Bob directly. The signal wasn't good, but she heard him say, 'Thanks a bunch. Is this how you nick people, then, calling them up on the motorway?'

She said, 'I want to ask about one of your poems.'

'Come again?'

'The things you write.'

'For crying out loud — I'm doing seventy on the M27 and you want to talk about writing?'

'The one about the dancing cat. "Amelia was a dancing cat".'

'I don't believe this.'

'Amelia was Miss Snow, right? Is there any truth in it — in the dancing, I mean?'

'Yeah.'

'She told you this herself?'

'Yeah.'

'Right. Where are you now?'

'Just passing Rownham services.'

'You'll be home shortly, then?'

'If I don't hit the bloody barrier, I will.'