“Amcester? Yes, been there. Just outside Birmingham, yes?”

  “Yes,” I nodded eagerly. This was a promising start.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, that was where Tommy the Tumbler took his final bounce. Quite the talent was Tommy. Used to recite poetry while he was going over. Claimed it helped him time the spin and stick the landing. I don’t know about that, but there was none better under the big top. And few out of it as well—I suppose I can tell you now, as he’s long dead. Tommy was one of those—and there were a few—who, when he was short a few shillings, would take a fall down a flight of stairs in some swanky department store and threaten to sue them for the steps being so slippery. He was an old man by this point, very sympathetic, everyone grouping about and saying ‘Oh you poor man, can you walk?’. Could he walk? He could have danced a rumba (fine dancer was Tommy). He could take a fall like that, no problem. But he played it up and the store would always pay him off so as to keep their name out of the papers.”

  “Did any of this happen twenty years ago?” I asked. It seemed rude to interrupt, but it wasn’t quite on-message.

  “Twenty years ago? No. More like thirty or forty now. Tommy was at his peak in the fifties.”

  “That would be seventy years ago,” said Tim Thumb, not unkindly.

  “Would it really? How the time does fly when you’re dead.”

  “With people like Tommy around, it’s no wonder circus folk used to have a bad name.”

  “What do you mean ‘used to’? You think that’s gone away?”

  “It’s a wonder we survive.”

  “Back to Amcester,” I tried to wrestle the old ghosts’ errant attentions back and, for a few minutes, the talk was exclusively about Amcester and various shows they’d played there.

  “Good houses, as I recall. Responsive audience.”

  “Fine shows.”

  “But the somersault was weak in the out. Nearly missed the catch.”

  “Audience wouldn’t have known.”

  “No, but they lost the set-up so settled for the single.”

  “And the thrower came close, as I recall.”

  “I thought that was deliberate.”

  “Wasn’t Toni on the sauce back then? You could tell in her balance on that black mare of hers. What was it called?”

  “Divine.”

  They had extraordinary recall when it came to the circus itself, to the performances and the players, but when it came to events that happened outside the Big Top, they had almost no memory at all, getting years and names hopelessly muddled. And it wasn’t long before they’d drifted back into reminiscence with the nostalgic inertia of the elderly.

  “Wasn’t it around then that Brooks had his trouble?”

  “The hernia?”

  “No, money.”

  “That was a few years later, surely.”

  “Nonsense, that was ten years earlier. At least. Mid-seventies I’d say.”

  “Rubbish, it was only five years ago.”

  “What happened there?”

  “Bad investments. Never touched the market again. Came damn near to losing the circus.”

  “Someone stepped in.”

  “The clown.”

  “Saved the place.”

  “Only thing to do if he’d the wherewithal to do it.”

  “That’s what the circus is, Miss Dance,” Tim Thumb explained. “People helping each other out when they need it, because we’re family here. Does that answer your question?”

  “I honestly don’t remember what I asked.” I tried not to sound too utterly frustrated. This had seemed like such a good idea. I had access to a resource which Inspector Lean didn’t; a comprehensive history of the circus. Unfortunately, while all the information was there, like an encyclopedia, it wasn’t laid out in any sort of order. “Well, thanks. I’m sure with your help, we’ll save Patrice.”

  “I did warn you,” said Petra, after they’d gone.

  “Now we’re relying on Bastian.”

  Petra shook her head. “It’s worse than I thought.”

  ***

  The phone call came from Bastian later that afternoon.

  “Can you come round to mine?” he asked. “I’ve got something I want you to see.”

  Generally, a call like that from Bastian would have raised some serious red flags, but his sincerity that morning had been genuine and not even Petra objected when I said ‘yes’ and sped over to Chambon Hall.

  “Good to see you,” Bastian greeted me as eagerly as a little puppy when its master returns home. “I’ve found something. I don’t know if it’ll be useful but… it’s something.”

  “What?”

  “CCTV footage of the jewel robbery.”

  “What?!” I gasped.

  Bastian shrugged. “Family connections will get you a long way when you’ve got a family like mine. I’m related to someone who’s related to someone who’s related to someone who’s married to the chief constable or something of somewhere or other. And I did a favor for so-and-so when that thing happened and she didn’t tell anyone about the hair loss when Whatshisname tried that patent medicine and he never said how much her daughter looks like their gardener and so on down the line, a chain of favors and undisclosed indiscretions and here we are; CCTV footage that I definitely shouldn’t have. Doubt even your Inspector Lean will have been able to get his hands on this.”

  Excitedly, we sat down to watch, Petra leaning over us from behind.

  The footage was grainy and deteriorated—which seems ridiculous when you consider technology twenty years ago, but it’s somewhere written that all CCTV footage should be grainy and deteriorated because that’s how we see it in TV shows and movies. In fact, one of the reasons that CCTV footage remains low quality is because if it’s crystal clear then juries assume it to be fake and so it becomes useless.

  In the footage, we saw the shop, engaged in everyday business, and then the robbers charged in.

  “It’s not them we’re looking at, is it?” checked Bastian.

  “No. They’re all accounted for,” I nodded. “All of them went to jail. All now released. But if the police theory at the time was right, then one of these innocent bystanders was an accomplice.”

  “Either a customer or one of the staff?”

  “Correct. And if they’re right about that, and we’re right in our theory, then that person is now a performer in the Brooks’ Circus.”

  I squinted at the screen.

  “Which would be a hell of a lot easier to determine if we could clearly make out their faces.”

  Somewhere in that uncertain footage was—I hoped—the face of a trapeze artist or juggler, a clown or tightrope walker, someone I’d seen perform and had talked to in the past few days, but in this condition, it was hard to tell.

  “I wonder if this footage could be cleaned up. We should probably share it with Lean.”

  “There we do hit a little snag,” admitted Bastian.

  “A snag?”

  He nodded. “I’m not supposed to have this and the person from who I acquired it made it very clear that, if the question comes up, then he will deny all knowledge of it and me. So, if we share it with the police, then there’s a chance I end up in jail.”

  “Well, we all have to make sacrifices,” muttered Petra.

  “Nothing is every easy with you, Bastian, is it?” I grumbled.

  He just smiled as if to agree with me.

  I squinted at the screen again, then drew back suddenly. “Holy hell!”

  “Ouch,” added Bastian.

  “And he got up after that?” wondered Petra.

  We’d just watched one of the customers as he was pushed down the stairs. It was a miracle he’d survived, because he looked like he could have broken his neck.

  “Neil Montgomery,” said Bastian, checking an article. “Amazingly escaped with just some bruises. He was the police’s key witness. Should be possible to track him down and see if he can add anything to this story.”

  “Gotta be worth a try,” I agreed. Sadly, it seemed as if we weren’t going to get anything else out of this footage. But we watched it again, more out of hope than expectation, but it was as unedifying the second time round as the first.

  “Damn it!” snapped Bastian. “I really thought I’d found something there.”

  “You did,” I smiled. “You went above and beyond, and I really appreciate it.”

  “Always happy to go above and beyond for you,” Bastian smiled back, and it seemed to me that his tone had changed.

  “Warning bells ringing!” Petra had also noticed the change in tone.

  “Bastian…”

  “How about you stay for dinner?” suggested Bastian, conversationally.

  “Bastian,” I began, firmly, “I am happy for us to remain friends…”

  “I’m not.” Bastian shook his head. “Let me be quite clear; when I asked you to stay for dinner, I am most definitely ‘romancing’ you. Not something I often do (‘romance’ is low on my dating checklist) but in your case…” he grinned and shook his head. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  “Bastian, I’m with Leo…”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Bastian dismissed this. “But, in the strictest terms, I had you first (so to speak) and I wasn’t done with you yet.”

  “You weren’t?” I didn’t know what else to say. This evening was taking a turn I hadn’t counted on.

  “No,” Bastian insisted. “It was a fun night we had, but there was more I wanted. Something, I must confess, that I didn’t realize until afterwards and which I don’t usually look for. I mean, the sex was fantastic—and you were good too—and a repeat engagement would be a consummation devoutly to be wished for, but… that’s not what I want.”

  I held up my hands. “Delighted though I am that you’ve found a level beyond the one on which you usually operate, you’ve found it with the wrong girl.”

  “I’m not convinced—”

  “I love Leo.”

  “Really?” Bastian screwed up his face in disbelief. “I’m sure he’s appealing and solid in all sorts of ways, but what you have to remember, Gwen dear, is that you’re comparing him to me. I have it on good authority that I really am something special. There is a queue of women who want, from me, the more that I’m offering you.”

  “Maybe you should try getting to know them?” I suggested.

  For the first time, the confident mask of Bastian Chambon slipped, “But none of them make me feel like you do. No one has. No one does. I suspect no one ever will again. I don’t know what I felt when I walked away from your place the morning after but… I’ve never felt it before. And now, every woman I’m with, I’m waiting to feel that again. That same sensation. And I never do.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s like this feeling of... being friends,” he continued, smiling and nodding. “And actually caring for you and respecting you... but, at the same time, wanting to tear your clothes off.”

  “What a visual!” Petra said, frowning.

  “You’re like a drug,” Bastian continued. “I’m after another hit and nothing and no one else will do. No matter how many other women I sleep with.”

  “Well… I guess it’s good that you keep trying,” I acknowledged, cagily. “In your own way. But again; I’m with Leo and I’m happily with Leo. And he wouldn’t be happy about this conversation.”

  “I daresay not,” agreed Bastian. “And I have tried to be the good guy—you have been witness to this. I haven’t made a single move on you.”

  “True.”

  “Which has taken a lot of restraint on my part (restraint which, frankly, is alien to my nature). And then I thought; what am I doing? That’s not me. And, Gwen, you must know that you should always be true yourself.”

  “True again.”

  “Right and I am, by nature, a dog. It has been said by others and I’ve never, until recently, tried to deny it. But—you know what?—why fight it? I am a dog and this feels like one of those rare times when being a dog might actually pay off in my favor.”

  “Well, sadly for you, it’s not,” I said simply.

  “No?”

  “No. And I think I’ll be going now.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. I shall see you soon again?”

  “No.”

  “No. No, I suppose not.” Bastian slumped. “I had to try.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes,” he straightened again. “I did. I am a Chambon, and we go down fighting. I may have lost but I did so on my own terms and I can take pride in that.”

  ***

  “I’m not one to say ‘I told you so’…” said Petra, as we left Chambon Hall.

  “And yet you just did.”

  Petra gave me a half-hearted smile. “I’m very proud of you.”

  “Are you?”

  She nodded. “You do like him—don’t deny it—but you did the right thing and stuck with the man you like more. You walked away when it counted.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What now?”

  “I’ll cut him out for a few months, then maybe see about being friends again.” I didn’t want to lose Bastian out of my life altogether. That was part of the problem.

  “I meant with the case.”

  “Oh.”

  Well, that was a whole other question. We didn’t seem to be making any noticeable headway, and I didn’t see immediately how to progress.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  We were heading down the drive of Chambon Hall, and I suddenly found myself feeling rudderless. Today had blindsided me in a couple of ways. I wanted to get away from Chambon Hall, but I didn’t really want to go home yet either, not least because at some point, I’d have to decide what to tell Leo. He deserved to know what Bastian had said, and I didn’t want to keep things from him, but I also didn’t want to make him any worse disposed to Bastian than he already was.

  Out to my left, in the field on the edge of the wood, the circus tent glowed invitingly.

  “They’re opening again tonight,” said Petra, following my gaze. “First time since Argos hit the pole. The show must go on.”

  “How about we go and watch?”

  “You think you might be able to recognize someone you saw on the CCTV?”

  “No. I just feel like going to the circus.”

  I took a left onto the slip road that led to the part of the field being used as a parking lot, got out and strolled towards the Big Top. The show had already begun and sounds of laughter and gasps of excitement floated towards us through the cool night air.

  The show must go on. How lovely to have a mantra like that, something that insists you put all else aside and just keep going. It forced you to get over things, it gave you an excuse to do something that might seem disrespectful in other circumstances, it laid on you an obligation to keep going when all you wanted to do was lay down and stop—yes, you could give up, but what about the audience? You must go on for them. Everybody needs something like that in their life from time to time.

  Petra and I approached the tent from the back end, where performers were milling outside, limbering up and going through their last minute rehearsals out in the pleasant evening. There were the Tsong family, bending their bodies into impossible angles; there was Mark, the sword swallower, swallowing a knife as a light snack before the main event; there was Hamish, the clown, practicing his athletic falls before shocking the audience into horrified laughter then letting them relax into more relieved laughter as he proved he was okay.

  “Oh, my…”

  He climbed a tall ladder in his big floppy shoes then missed a step and went tumbling down, landing as if he’d broken both back and neck, just as I’d seen him doing the other night during his act, and just as I’d seen Neil Montgomery doing on that CCTV footage less than an hour ago.

  There could be no doubt, and one look at Petra told me that she’d seen the same thing I had. The face in the footage had been unclear, but the movements, the practiced way in which he’d taken the fall, making it look real whilst subtly guarding himself; it was the same man.

  Now I thought back… yes, the circus ghosts had identified him as one of the longest standing members of the troupe, second only to Roberto. And there had been that rambling story of the clown who had bailed out the circus when it was in financial trouble; a clown who had money.

  Hamish Gordon.

  Hamish Gordon was the man in the footage, which made him the man who shopped his accomplices and hid out at the circus, the man whom Argos the Magnificent had recognized in Terry Brooks’ scrapbooks where the old circus owner had pasted in stories about the robbery, and the man who had killed Argos in order to keep that secret. He loved the circus, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a killer.

  So, what did I do now?

  There were various intelligent things that I could have done, with the benefit of hindsight, but what I did right then, in the moment was to stand, staring at the clown with my mouth, dumbly open.

  “Clowns! Two minutes!”

  A stagehand emerged from the stage entrance and called out into the night to let the clowns know that they would be on shortly. Warm up exercises finished and the troupe headed into the tent. Hamish Gordon was the last to go inside.

  Without thinking, acting only on instinct, I followed.

  “Umm… Gwen?” Petra called after me. “Are you sure this is the best idea?”

  But it wasn’t an ‘idea’, it was just what I did.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gwen Dance (Author, Amateur Detective, Clown Chaser)

  Beyond the slitted entrance into the tent, I was swallowed into a sudden and surprising darkness, relieved by flashes of light from beyond a further canvas-drawn entrance ahead, which led into the Big Top.