The Circle

'Yes?'

'I was asked to compare the teeth of the deceased with the dental records of Miss Amelia Snow.'

'And?'

'As I'm sure you're aware, the skull recovered from the fire was severely burned and disintegrating in places but the jawbones were intact. Teeth withstand intense heat better than any other parts of the body. These were in good enough condition for me to make a comparison. I'm satisfied that we have a match with the records of Miss Snow. The number and positioning of the fillings — and there are eight — and two extractions, are more than sufficient statistically to establish identity beyond reasonable doubt.'

'I can't tell you how grateful I am,' Hen said. 'There wasn't much else to go on.'

Ms Cooper wasn't the chatty sort. It seemed to be a point of pride in the Forensic Science Service that they never revealed satisfaction in work well done, but this was a human being on the end of the line, not a cipher, and she deserved her pat on the back.

But whatever she privately thought, Ms Cooper was unemotional to the end. 'I'll send you the written report shortly and a copy will go to the coroner. Someone else wishes to speak to you now. Hold on and I'll transfer you.'

Hen put her hand over the mouthpiece and said to Stella, 'What did I do to deserve this? Two forensic reports in one call.'

This one announced himself as the gas chromatographist, but for Hen's purposes he was the ash man, the fellow who'd sifted through the remains at the seats of all three fires. He started to explain how he went about separating components of hydrocarbons, but Hen asked him to cut to the chase.

'You want to know if the fires appear to have been started using the same materials?'

'In a nutshell, yes.'

'Fire number one, at the cottage on the Selsey Road, employed a liquid accelerant and saturated rags, and this appears to have been the case with the second and third fires, at the boat house and Tower Street. The agent was gasoline in all three cases, leaded gasoline. So the answer — in a nutshell — is yes.'

'Petrol?'

'Of course it vaporises quickly, but the fact that it was leaded was useful. You have a chance of measuring the lead content. We recovered enough through seepage to make comparisons and there's no doubt all three fires employed a similar grade with a good correspondence of the lead.'

'So we have a serial arsonist?'

'I just report our findings, chief inspector.'

'Okay, and it's up to me to interpret them. We have a serial arsonist.' After she'd thanked him, Hen turned back to Stella. 'You heard my side of it? Let's start getting this mess unscrambled, Stell. The guy on remand, Maurice McDade, has to be released a.s.a.p. and we'll need a magistrate's order. He's the only one of the circle who can't be the arsonist.'

Naomi had arranged to meet Zach in St Martin's tea rooms, a low-beamed seventeenth-century building reached from North Street by way of a passage called the Crooked S. Most patrons came for the tea, coffee and pastries, pricy but prizewinning, and unequalled in the city. Some may have been drawn by the beautiful waitresses, also unequalled. Naomi, however, had picked the place for its dimly lit interior and honeycomb layout, ideal for people not wanting to be observed. She'd chosen a table screened by tall settles and she and Zach sat close to the wall and facing each other. The secrecy suited Zach. He'd told his boss in the record shop that he was down with flu.

'What we've got now,' Naomi said, 'is a classic murder plot.'

'I guess,' Zach said,

'There's no guessing about it. Two deaths and a near death all connected with the circle. You and I are wonderfully placed.'

'I'm not so sure of that.'

'You're not so sure of anything this morning.'

'Wonderfully placed to get murdered.'

He could have been Basil, talking like that. Naomi didn't care for it. 'Get a grip, man. I'm talking about our e-book. Imagination and investigation striding side by side. You've started work, I hope?'

'I put down a few ideas.'

'Not on the website, you haven't.'

'I'm not ready for that yet'

'Work in progress, man. It doesn't have to be perfect. I'll hear these ideas, anyway.'

He fingered his earring. 'Like you suggested, I'm trying to draft a story that begins in the past, with Blacker and the guy in the photo, his gay lover — as we assumed.'

'You can assume anything,' she said. 'You don't have to bother with the truth. It's up to me to unearth the facts and write them down — as I'm doing, on the website — and you'd better start soon. The killing of Miss Snow gives this a dimension I hadn't dared to expect, definitely a serial arsonist at work.'

'Seems so.'

'Come on, Zach. Don't tantalise. How does your story go?'

'I had a good look at that photo,' he said. 'The writing on the back says it was taken in 1982, over twenty years ago. It would have been neat if the other guy turned out to be a member of the circle, but I can't see any resemblance.'

'There's such a thing as artistic licence.'

He shook his head. 'I've already headed in another direction. In this version, he's the second son of a duke. I've called him Jason. The family are rich, but rich, filthy rich.'

She gave an approving nod. 'That's always good in a book.'

'A castle, a house in Belgravia and a place in the South of France. Edgar Blacker — may I call him by his real name?'

Now she gazed down at her coffee. 'Maybe not. We'll think about that.'

'For the time being?'

A pause, then, 'All right.'

'He asks to use one of the family homes as the background to a photo shoot for a magazine feature, and that's how he gets to meet Jason.'

Naomi nodded again, liking it. 'They are attracted to each other and. . '

'Jason invites Blacker to share his penthouse in London. They're very close, those two. The next thing is, Jason's older brother — the heir to the dukedom — is killed in a boating accident'

'Lovely. Drops overboard?'

'On a sea trip off the coast of France.'

'Is it murder?'

'Of course. Blacker is responsible. While the yacht was anchored in a big marina and everyone was sleeping, he came aboard and chloroformed the brother and dragged him out of the cabin and heaved him overboard. The body isn't recovered for several days. No one suspects Blacker. No one knows he was anywhere near the boat.'

'This is more like it,' Naomi said, reaching out to put a hand over Zach's. 'You have such a fertile imagination.'

'It never sounds so clever just describing the plot,' Zach said. 'It will grab you when I get it on paper.'

'On the web,' she corrected him. 'It grabs me now. Does he tell Jason what he's done?'

'Not yet. But of course Jason is now the heir. Blacker does all he can to cultivate the relationship. For a time everything is cool. Then there are problems. Blacker is taking too much for granted, bringing clients back to the flat to impress them. There's a suspicion he's pocketing money that Jason leaves around. They fall out, big time. Jason shows him the door. Blacker goes apeshit and tells Jason what he did to ensure he inherited. He says if the murder ever gets known he'll swear he was acting under orders from Jason. He demands a big pay-off, and gets it. Do you see now? That's the back story. It's all set up for the murder of Blacker some years later.'

'By Jason?'

'Yes. Maybe Blacker has surfaced again and wants a big handout to finance his publishing venture. Jason can see this blackmail going on indefinitely.'

Naomi's eyes glittered. 'So he goes out to the cottage one night and sets it on fire? This is where our two stories touch base at a point of reality. Mine will be a faithful account of all the known facts about the fire while yours has soared away into fantasy.'

Zach nodded. 'But I'm still not clear how this will look on a computer screen. What's the reader going to make of it?'