Peter Lovesey - The Circle

Three or four magazines in, and she knew which pages to ignore. The joke section, the letters and the car feature, and the news of the latest X-rated films. There were whole sections of adverts for phone sex. Like any job, it got easier as you persevered.

Things were making more sense at last, but Hen was still unsure why Jessie Warmington-Smith had been murdered. She needed more on Jessie's past. Was it too much to hope that Jessie, too, had once been a chorus girl?

The widow of an archdeacon?

Heaven forbid!

She would take another look at the video of Jessie, and ask Andy Humphreys, whose interview it was, to sit with her. He looked ten years older since their last encounter.

'Do I really have to, guv?' he said. 'It makes me squirm each time I look at it.'

'Why?'

'She gave me the runaround, didn't she? I've taken no end of flak from the others. That stuff about my wedding, and my christening. "We're all God's children." I took a right pasting.'

'It wasn't a stand-up fight, Andy. It was about getting information, and you managed that.'

'At a cost, guv.'

'If you keep whingeing, I'll invite everyone to sit in.'

They ran the video, and it was hard to ignore Andy's unease, on screen and off. Some of his questions begged for a sharp response: 'That's a bit whacky, isn't it, a club for writers?'

Hen put Andy to the back of her mind. What had Jessie said about herself? She was one of the first members of the circle, 'at the personal invitation of the chair'. A staunch supporter of Maurice McDade then. This was followed by some flimflam about the benefits of being in a writers' circle. Then the outrage at having her grace and favour living arrangements discussed: 'My late husband spent a lifetime in the service of the church and he couldn't have done it without my support.' She moved on to the offensive after that, questioning Andy's church-going.

Then came that weird claim that she was in touch with the supernatural. 'You have to open your heart. Then you'll be given signs. I get them quite often because I'm receptive, like Joan of Arc, except that she heard them as voices.'

Joan of Arc, no less. Jessie didn't suffer from low self-esteem.

'Only last night I had a sign. Some people would find it disturbing and I suppose it might be to a disbeliever, but I took it as affirmation of all I believe in, the afterlife, the journey of the soul.'

Did she think she was psychic?

'Stop the tape and spin it back. I want to see that section again.'

Andy sank deeper into his chair.

Hen watched and listened a second time and then let the tape run on. Jessie insisted she'd been at home on the night of the fire at Blacker's house, 'or most of it'. Then she spoke about her habit of walking at night before going to bed, when the streets were quiet, 'but always within sight of the cathedral spire'. Andy had asked if she ever took the car out at night. She spotted straight away what was behind the question and pointed out that she had no reason to kill Blacker, who had said something favourable about her book of tips. But she'd admitted she owned an old Mini Metro that ran on leaded and she kept it in her garage somewhere out of sight of visitors to the cathedral.

The interview ended soon after.

'Are you thinking she had some kind of premonition, guv?' Andy asked.

'Of what?'

'Her own death.'

'Why do you say that?'

'The bit you wanted to hear again, about the journey of the soul.'

'I get you. The answer is no.' She got up and took out one of her cigars. 'Did we check Jessie's lock-up?'

'Lock-up?'

'The place where she kept her car. Did someone look inside?'

He said, 'I'm sure of it, guv,' in a way that said he wasn't.

'Do it now. Now.'

She would have gone herself, but she'd just seen something she hadn't expected. Stella, back from the evidence depository already. She was with Johnny Cherry and a couple of others, leafing through a magazine.

Hen went over. It was a copy of Innocents, now open at the centrefold of a naked blonde face down on a bed and turning to look at the camera, which must have been positioned between her knees. The foreshortened view left nothing to the imagination. The girl's face, of negligible importance in a shot like this, and small as a thumb-print, was just visible looking over her raised shoulder. The features weren't in the sharpest focus, but were clear enough to recognise. She had a look of genuine surprise, as if she'd just been woken up.

'Is that her?'

'I'd put money on it, guv. It says "Mandy, 19, Our Innocent of the Month", but it's Amelia Snow, looking drunk as a skunk. Your hunch was right.'

Thomasine had driven out to see where Lord Chalybeate lived. Bosham, pronounced 'Bozzum', is a sailing village of great antiquity, built on an inlet four miles west of Chichester. It is a much visited place, with a Saxon church depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, a watermill (now occupied by the sailing club), and fine, changing views from the shore road. Here King Canute is said to have commanded the tide to turn, and many a visitor to Bosham has wished for the same result. The water looks benign, but regularly washes over parked cars below Lane End. The local sport is watching the drivers return too late.

She soon discovered what escapes most visitors, that however attractive are the large properties along the shoreline, there are even more splendid residences inland and to the east. Here, with the help of a postman, she found the Chalybeate house. To describe it as a 'barn conversion', as The Bodybuilder had, was to do it an injustice. Maybe it had started as a barn, but it had been transformed into something on a grander scale, with a drive and outbuildings, all set back from the road in wooded grounds.

She saw this through tall wrought-iron gates incongruously set into a low wall that could easily be stepped over. Not that she planned to explore the house this afternoon. The purpose of the trip was to locate the place.

As she turned away, a small red Fiat drove up to the gate. The woman inside put down her window.

'Were you looking for someone?'

'Lord Chalybeate, actually,' Thomasine said. 'It doesn't look as if he's home.'

She was friendly enough. She looked about Thomasine's age, with black, frizzy hair. 'He isn't, and he won't be, I'm afraid. I'm Kate, the housekeeper.'

'He doesn't know me,' Thomasine said, giving her name. Then she thought up a pretext for being there. 'I'm a local teacher. Not Bosham. Chichester. I'm trying to set up new projects for the girls, interviewing local celebrities.'

'You'd better make an appointment. He's in London through the week. Only comes down weekends. But I'd better warn you he doesn't like people coming here. This is his getaway place.'

Thomasine's eyebrows pricked up. 'Ooh. Like that, is he?'

'No, not like that. He's always alone.'

'I'm with you. Just likes to chill out?'

Kate the housekeeper laughed. 'The opposite. He's straight into the sauna when he gets here. Well, he would be› wouldn't he? Got to test the products.'

Thomasine had to think a moment before guessing that saunas were supplied by Chalybeate Fitness, or whatever his company was called. 'So if I came back Saturday. . '

'After phoning for an appointment.'

Thomasine thanked her and drove back to Chichester.

Hen Mallin had called the murder investigation team to an eight a.m. meeting, so they assumed she had something important to announce. She'd not been seen in the police station before nine up to now.