Peter Lovesey: The Circle

The night of the first murder.

In a cottage on the Selsey Road the central heating had cooled and the floorboards were creaking. Alone and wheezing in his bedroom, Edgar Blacker stirred, turned over, took a few shallow breaths and settled into a dream of bestsellers and huge profits. He was a publisher.

Downstairs, the flap on the letterbox opened and a plastic hose was pushed through. Liquid trickled from it onto the fitted carpet. The hose was withdrawn. The flap closed.

Seconds after, it was pushed open again. A piece of cloth saturated with fuel was forced through. More oily rags came after it. They made a small heap.

One cloth reeking of petrol hung from the letterbox. No attempt was made to push it through. There was the faint sound of a match being struck. The cloth fizzed into flame, dropped on the other rags and they ignited at once. Two parcels of page proofs were lying beside the door ready for posting. The flame touched them and they caught fire.

In the next phase of his dream, Blacker was lunching with J. K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter. She'd asked for a salad. For himself he'd ordered the best item on the menu: fillet steak flambe. He believed he could smell it being cooked.

The bookshelves lining two walls were perfect tinder. This cottage was stuffed with inflammable material. Even the filing cabinets were made of teak. The flames made green tongues of fire as they reacted with the cloth and the glue of the book bindings. In seconds, the shelves caught and glowed. Soon the wood was hissing.

It took a while for the fire to reach the small oak staircase at the far end of the living room but when it did the polish on the handrail burned green and yellow. The whole structure was soon ablaze. Deadly fumes were funnelled upstairs. Smoke is usually the killer in house fires. And there were no smoke alarms in this old building.

Edgar Blacker didn't get to close the deal with J. K. Rowling. He inhaled various gases, including carbon monoxide, and was called away to keep an appointment with the Chairman in the sky.

Bob Naylor never said much about his rhymes. The world he moved in didn't go in for rhyming, and on the one night in the pub he'd confessed to being 'a bit of a poet on the quiet' he'd had the reaction you get if you say you're a cross-dresser. No one ever spoke of it after that. You don't mess with a man as powerful as Bob. But he continued to play with words, enjoying the challenge of making them rhyme in ways that amused him. Rhyming was more fun than watching television or sitting in front of a computer. He could do it in bed, in the bathroom or while driving his Parcel Force van.

One Friday night when he was making faint moaning sounds, trying to nail a word he was sure must exist, his daughter Sue looked up from her computer and said, 'Dad, have you ever thought of joining a circle?'

'Come again?'

'A writers' circle. There's one here in Chichester. I've just found the website. Says they meet at the New Park Centre on Tuesday evenings.'

'Never heard of it'

'You have now. Come and look while it's on the screen.'

He got up and stood beside her just to show interest. It was a change from the chat rooms she spent most of her evenings visiting.

Welcome to the Chichester Writers' Circle

Whatever your interest in writing, you are guaranteed enrichment and support if you join our circle. We are creative people who enjoy words, working in poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and our interests range from fantasy to family history, from the theatre to the scene of the crime. We meet on the second Tuesday of each month at the New Park Centre and it's very friendly. Since joining the circle we have all become published writers, because what is publication if it is not making publicly known? Sample our work by clicking on all or any of the following. Then make a date in your diary. We are looking out for you.

• Extract from Passion Fruit, a romantic novel, by Desiree Eliot

• First chapter of The Sussex Witchcraft Trials, by Naomi Green

• Unsolved. A sample case. By Maurice McDade

• Two erotic poems by Thomasine O'Loughlin

• Madrigor: The Coming of the Warrior, by Zach Beale

• The Snows of Yesteryear, a sample chapter, by Amelia Snow

• Tips for the Twenty-First Century, by Jessie Warmington-Smith

• Showing Prize Marrows, by Basil Green

• My Meeting with Sir Larry, by Tudor Thomas

'Do you want me to click on one of them?' Sue asked.

Sod that for a lark. 'No thanks, love. Kind of you to mention it'

'A writers' circle might be just the thing for you.'

'Like Alcoholics Anonymous?'

'Don't be like that'

'They'll be serious writers. It's not for oiks like me.'

'Have it your way. But you ought to get out more.'

This from a fourteen-year-old.

In his van on the M3 next day he composed a few lines. 'Circle' is not a word that rhymes with much, but Bob liked a challenge.

Let's see if the jerk'll

Join a circle

His loving daughter said

But the jerk gave ferk all

For the circle

He was horribly low-bred

That summed up Bob and his writing. He was the son of a plumber and a barmaid who had parted when he was seven. With young Bob in tow, his mother had gone through at least ten cheap addresses and almost as many men. He'd failed all his exams and left school at sixteen. The only thing he'd ever passed was a driving test. He'd never read anything by Shakespeare or Dickens. Didn't look at the arts programmes on TV. Didn't drink wine or borrow books from the library. The books in the house belonged to Sue, or her mother Maggie, who'd died of leukaemia three years ago. Three years, one month and two days.

Rhymes helped him fill the times when everything went quiet.

'They'll be know-alls,' he said that evening.

Sue looked up from her homework. 'Excuse me?'

'That writers' circle. Teachers and such. I'd be way out of my depth.'

'I thought you'd put it out of your head.'

'I have. I was telling you why.'

'Oh sure.' Sue looked down again. It wasn't the homework that made her smile.

He didn't mention the circle for two weeks, but that was par for the course. He always began with 'no way' and got more positive by stages. In his fertile imagination he was facing every hazard, the pointy-heads with university degrees who could quote Shakespeare, the old ducks in twinsets who could spell anything, the crossword solvers and the English teachers. He could picture himself reading out his rhymes, stuttering and sweating and losing his place and swearing and seeing the shocked faces around the table. Mayhem was going on in his head. When he'd faced every horror he could imagine, he would decide that, after all, it couldn't be that bad.

'Do you think they allow smoking?'

'Probably,' Sue said.

'I can't see it.'

'I expect they have a coffee break.'

'Maybe. What do they do at these meetings, do you reckon? Write stuff?'

She flicked her hair back. 'Why ask me?'

'And read it to each other?'

'Go along and find out.'

'You're joking.'

The following Tuesday at six forty-five he parked in front of the New Park Centre and watched who went in. New Park was also a cinema and they were showing a sexy French film, so it was difficult to tell who was part of the writers' circle, except that some of them came with bags and briefcases. Why would you need a briefcase for a sex flick? He hadn't brought a briefcase. If he went in at all he was damn sure he wouldn't be reading out his rhymes.