The Tinder Box
Also by Minette Walters


THE ICE HOUSE

THE SCULPTRESS

THE SCOLD'S BRIDLE

THE DARK ROOM

THE ECHO

THE BREAKER

THE SHAPE OF SNAKES

ACID ROW

FOX EVIL

DISORDERED MINDS
First published in Dutch 1999 by dc Boekerij by, Amsterdam
First published in English 1999 in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, New York

This edition published 2004

byBCA

by arrangement with Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Maemillan

CN 128552
Copyright © Minette Walters 1999

The right of Minette Walters to be identified as the

author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.


All rights reserved. No part of this public.irion m.iy he

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or

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For our goddaughters
Holly, Laura and Olivia,
Author's Note


In 1998 CPNB, the Organization for the Promotion
of Books in the Netherlands, invited me to write a
promotional suspense novella for the 1999 Book Week.
I called the story The Tinder Box and it first appeared in
Dutch translation under the title De Tondeldoos. I was
already working on ideas for my next novel, Acid Row, and I took the opportunity of the novella to explore
themes of prejudice, incitement and vigilantism that
would re-occur in the novel. The Tinder Box portrays
immigrant Irish tinkers as hate figures in a wealthy
Hampshire village, but a similar hatred is demonstrated
against a convicted paedophile in a sink estate in Acid
Row. Both stories depict the dangers of ignorance,
and how unrelated, misunderstood events combine to
trigger violent reactions. Re-reading The Tinder Box for
this publication, I was struck by how little human nature
changes. When I conceived the idea for the plot, the
Good Friday Peace Accord had just been signed, and
the people of these islands were optimistic that terrorism
was at an end. How quickly that optimism was dashed
when the twenty-first century exploded in flames across
our television screens.


Minette Walters
One


Daily Telegraph - Wednesday, 24 June 1998


Sowerbridge Man
Arrested

Patrick O'Riordan, 35, an unemployed Irish
labourer, was charged last night with the
double murder of his neighbours Lavinia Fan
shaw, 93, and her live-in nurse, Dorothy Jenkins,
67. The murders have angered the small
community of Sowerbridge, where O'Riordan
and his parents have lived for fifteen years.
The elderly victims were brutally battered to
death after Dorothy Jenkins interrupted a robbery
on Saturday night. 'Whoever killed them
is a monster,' said a neighbour. 'Lavinia was a
frail old lady with Alzheimer's who never hurt
a soul.' Police warned residents to remain calm
after a crowd gathered outside the O'Riordan
home when news of the arrest became public.
'Vigilante behaviour will not be tolerated,' said
a spokesman. O'Riordan denies the charges.



Monday, 8 March 1999, 11.30p.m.


Even at half past eleven at night, the lead news story
on local radio was still the opening day of Patrick
O'Riordan's trial. Siobhan Lavenham, exhausted after
a fourteen-hour stint at work, listened to it in the
darkness of her car while she negotiated the narrow
country lanes back to Sowerbridge village.

' O^Riordan smiled as the prosecution case unfolded...
harrowing details of how ninety-three-year-old Lavinia
Fanshaw and her live-in nurse were brutally bludgeoned
to death before Mrs Fanshaw's rings were ripped from
her fingers . . . scratch marks and bruises on the defendant's
face, probably caused by a fight with one of the
women . . . a crime of greed triggered by O'Riordan's
known resentment of Mrs Fanshaw's wealth . . . unable
to account for his whereabouts at the time of the murders
. . . items of jewellery recovered from the O'Riordan
family home which the thirty-five-year-old Irishman still
shares with his elderly parents . . .'

With a sinking heart, Siobhan punched the Off
button and concentrated on her driving. ''The Irishman . . .' Was that a deliberate attempt to inflame
racist division, she wondered, or just careless shorthand?
God, how she loathed journalists! Confident of
a guilty verdict, they had descended on Sowerbridge



like a plague of locusts the previous week in order to
prepare their background features in advance. They
had found dirt in abundance, of course. Sowerbridge
had fallen over itself to feed them with hate stories
against the whole O'Riordan family.

She thought back to the day of Patrick's arrest,
when Bridey, his mother, had begged her not to
abandon them. 'You're one of us, Siobhan. Irish
through and through, never mind you're married to
an Englishman. You know my Patrick. He wouldn't
hurt a fly. Is it likely he'd beat Mrs Fanshaw to death
when he's never raised a hand against his own father?
Liam was a devil when he still had the use of his arm.
Many's the time he thrashed Patrick with a stick when
the drunken rages were on him, but never once did
Patrick take the stick to him.'

It was a frightening thing to be reminded of the
bonds that tied people together, Siobhan had thought
as she looked out of Bridey's window towards the
silent, angry crowd that was gathering in the road.
Was being Irish enough of a reason to side with a man
suspected of slaughtering a frail bedridden old woman
and the woman who looked after her?

'Patrick admits he stole from Lavinia,' Siobhan had
pointed out.

Tears rolled down Bridey's furrowed cheeks. 'But
not her rings,' she said. 'Just cheap trinkets that he
was too ignorant to recognize as worthless paste.'

'It was still theft.'

'Mother of God, do you think I don't know that?'



She held out her hands beseechingly. 'A thief he may
be, Siobhan, but never a murderer.''

And Siobhan had believed her because she wanted
to. For all his sins, she had never thought of Patrick
as an aggressive or malicious man - too relaxed by
half, many would say - and he could always make her
and her children laugh with his stories about Ireland,
particularly ones involving leprechauns and pots of
gold hidden at the ends of rainbows. The thought
of him taking a hammer to anyone was anathema to
her.

And yet. . .?

In the darkness of the car she recalled the interview
she'd had the previous month with a detective
inspector at Hampshire Constabulary Headquarters,
who seemed perplexed that a well-to-do young
woman should have sought him out to complain
about police indifference to the plight of the
O'Riordans. She wondered now why she hadn't gone
to him sooner.

Had she really been so unwilling to learn the
truth . . .?

I



Wednesday, 10 February 1999


The detective shook his head. 'I don't understand
what you're talking about, Mrs Lavenham.'

Siobhan gave an angry sigh. 'Oh, for goodness
sake! The hate campaign that's being waged against
them. The graffiti on their walls, the constant telephone
calls threatening them with arson, the fact that
Bridey's too frightened to go out for fear of being
attacked. There's a war going on in Sowerbridge
which is getting worse the closer we come to Patrick's
trial, but as far as you're concerned it doesn't exist.
Why aren't you investigating it? Why don't you
respond to Bridey's telephone calls?'

He consulted a piece of paper on his desk. 'Mrs
O'Riordan's made fifty-three emergency calls in the eight months since Patrick was remanded for the murders,'
he said, 'only thirty of which were considered
serious enough to send a police car to investigate.
In every case, the attending officers filed reports
saying Bridey was wasting police time.' He gave an
apologetic shrug. The realize it's not what you want to
hear, but we'd be within our rights if we decided
to prosecute her. Wasting police time is a serious
offence.'

Siobhan thought of the tiny, wheelchair-bound



woman whose terror was so real she trembled constantly.
'They're after killing us, Siobhan,' she would
say over and over again. 'I hear them creeping about
the garden in the middle of the night and I think to
myself, there's nothing me or Liam can do if this is
the night they decide to break in. To be sure, it's only
God who's keeping us safe.'

'But who are they, Bridey?'

'It's the bully boys whipped up to hate us by Mrs
Haversley and Mr Jardine,' wept the woman. 'Who
else would it be?'

Siobhan brushed her long dark hair from her forehead
and frowned at the detective inspector. 'Bridey's
old, she's disabled, and she's completely terrified. The
phone never stops ringing. Mostly it's long silences,
other times it's voices threatening to kill her. Liam's
only answer to it all is to get paralytically drunk
every night so he doesn't have to face up to what's
going on.' She shook her head impatiently. 'Cynthia
Haversley and Jeremy Jardine, who seem to control
everything that happens in Sowerbridge, have effectively
given carte blanche to the local youths to make
life hell for them. Every sound, every shadow has
Bridey on the edge of her seat. She needs protection,
and I don't understand why you're not giving it to
her.'

'They were offered a safe house, Mrs Lavenham,
and they refused it.'

'Because Liam's afraid of what will happen to
Kilkenny Cottage if he leaves it empty,' she protested.



'The place will be trashed in half a minute flat... You
know that as well as I do.'

He gave another shrug, this time more indifferent
than apologetic. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but there's
nothing we can do. If any of these attacks actually
happened . . . well, we'd have something concrete
to investigate. They can't even name any of these
so-called vigilantes . . . just claim they're yobs from
neighbouring villages.'

'So what are you saying?' she asked bitterly. 'That
they have to be dead before you take the threats
against them seriously?'

'Of course not,' he said, 'but we do need to be
persuaded the threats are real. As things stand, they
seem to be all in her mind.'

'Are you accusing Bridey of lying?'

He smiled slightly. 'She's never been averse to
embroidering the truth when it suits her purpose, Mrs
Lavenham.'

Siobhan shook her head. 'How can you say that?
Have you ever spoken to her? Do you even know her? To you, she's just the mother of a thief and a
murderer.'

'That's neither fair nor true.' He looked infinitely
weary, like a defendant in a trial who has answered the
same accusation in the same way a hundred times
before. 'I've known Bridey for years. It's part and
parcel of being a policeman. When you question a
man as often as I've questioned Liam, you get to
know his wife pretty well by default.' He leaned



forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping
his hands loosely in front of him. 'And sadly, the one
sure thing I know about Bridey is that you can't
believe a word she says. It may not be her fault, but
it is a fact. She's never had the courage to speak out
honestly because her drunken brute of a husband
beats her within an inch of her life if she even dares to
think about it.'

Siobhan found his directness shocking. 'You're
talking about things that happened a long time ago,'
she said. 'Liam hasn't struck anyone since he lost the
use of his right arm.'

'Do you know how that happened?'

'In a car crash.'

'Did Bridey tell you that?'

'Yes.'

'Not so,' he countered bluntly. 'When Patrick was
twenty, he tied Liam's arm to a table top and used
a hammer to smash his wrist to a pulp. He was so
wrought up that when his mother tried to stop him,
he shoved her through a window and broke her pelvis
so badly she's never been able to walk again. That's
why she's in a wheelchair and why Liam has a useless
right arm. Patrick got off lightly by pleading provocation
because of Liam's past brutality towards him,
and spent less than two years in prison for it.'

Siobhan shook her head. 'I don't believe you.'

'It's true.' He rubbed a tired hand around his face.
'Trust me, Mrs Lavenham.'

The can't,' she said flatly. 'You've never lived in



Sowerbridge, Inspector. There's not a soul in that
village who doesn't have it in for the O'Riordans and
a juicy titbit like that would have been repeated a
thousand times. Trust me.''

'No one knows about it.' The man held her gaze
for a moment, then dropped his eyes. 'It was fifteen
years ago and it happened in London. I was a raw
recruit with the Met, and Liam was on our ten-most
wanted list. He was a scrap-metal merchant, and up
to his neck in villainy, until Patrick scuppered him for
good. He sold up when the lad went to prison and
moved himself and Bridey down here to start a new
life. When Patrick joined them after his release, the
story of the car crash had already been accepted.'

She shook her head again. 'Patrick came over from
Ireland after being wounded by a terrorist bomb.
That's why he smiles all the time. The nerves in his
cheek were severed by a piece of flying glass.' She
sighed. 'It's another kind of disability. People take
against him because they think he's laughing at them.'

'No, ma'am, it was a revenge attack in prison for
stealing from his cellmate. His face was slashed with
a razor. As far as I know, he's never set foot in
Ireland.'

She didn't answer. Instead she ran her hand rhythmically
over her skirt while she tried to collect her
thoughts. Oh, Bridey, Bridey, Bridey . . . Have you been
lying to me . . .?

The inspector watched her with compassion.
'Nothing happens in a vacuum, Mrs Lavenham.'



'Meaning what, exactly?'

'Meaning that Patrick murdered Mrs Fanshaw - '
he paused - 'and both Liam and Bridey know he did.
You can argue that the physical abuse he suffered at
the hands of his father as a child provoked an anger in
him that he couldn't control - it's a defence that
worked after the attack on Liam - but it won't cut
much ice with a jury when the victims were two
defenceless old ladies. That's why Bridey's jumping at
shadows. She knows that she effectively signed Mrs
Fanshaw's death warrant when she chose to keep quiet
about how dangerous Patrick was, and she's terrified
of it becoming public.' He paused. 'Which it certainly
will during die trial.'

Was he right, Siobhan wondered? Were Bridey's
fears rooted in guilt? 'That doesn't absolve the police
of responsibility for their safety,' she pointed out.

'No,' he agreed, 'except we don't believe their
safety's in question. Frankly, all the evidence so far
points to Liam himself being the instigator of the
hate campaign. The graffiti is always done at night
in car spray paint, at least a hundred cans of which are
stored in Liam's shed. There are never any witnesses
to it, and by the time Bridey calls us the perpetrators
are long gone. We've no idea if the phone rings as
constantly as they claim, but on every occasion that a
threat has been made Bridey admits she was alone
in the cottage. We think Liam is making the calls
himself.'


10



She shook her head in bewilderment. 'Why would
he do that?'

'To prejudice the trial?' he suggested. 'He has a
different mindset to you and me, ma'am, and he's
quite capable of trashing Kilkenny Cottage himself
if he thinks it will win Patrick some sympathy with a

jury.'

Did she believe him? Was Liam that clever? 'You
said you were always questioning him. Why? What
had he done?'

'Any scam involving cars. Theft. Forging MOT
certificates. Odometer fixing. You name it, Liam was
involved in it. The scrap-metal business was just a
front for a car-laundering operation.'

'You're talking about when he was in London?'

'Yes.'

She pondered for a moment. 'Did he go to prison
for it?'

'Once or twice. Most of the time he managed to
avoid conviction. He had money in those days - a lot
of money - and could pay top briefs to get him off.
He shipped some of the cars down here, presumably
with the intention of starting the same game again,
but he was a broken man after Patrick smashed his
arm. I'm told he gave up grafting for himself and took
to living off disability benefit instead. There's no way
anyone was going to employ him. He's too unreliable
to hold down a job. Just like his son.'

The see,' said Siobhan slowly.


11



He waited for her to go on, and when she didn't
he said, 'Leopards don't change their spots, Mrs
Lavenham. I
wish I could say they did, but I've been
a policeman too long to believe anything so naive.'

She surprised him by laughing. 'Leopards?' she
echoed. 'And there was me thinking we were talking
about dogs.'

'I don't follow.'

'Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Did the
police ever intend to let them wipe the slate clean and
start again, Inspector?'

He smiled slightly. 'We did ... for fifteen years . . .
Then Patrick murdered Mrs Fanshaw.'

'Are you sure?'

'Oh, yes,' he said. 'He used the same hammer on
her that he used on his father.'

Siobhan remembered the sense of shock that had
swept through the village the previous June when the
two bodies were discovered by the paper boy after his
curiosity had been piqued by the fact that the front
door had been standing ajar at six thirty on a Sunday
morning. Thereafter, only the police and Lavinia's
grandson had seen inside the house, but the rumour
machine described a scene of carnage, with Lavinia's
brains splattered across the walls of her bedroom and
her nurse lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen. It
was inconceivable that anyone in Sowerbridge could
have done such a thing, and it was assumed the Manor
House had been targeted by an outside gang for
whatever valuables the old woman might possess.

I


12



It was never very clear why police suspicion had
centred so rapidly on Patrick O'Riordan. Gossip said
his fingerprints were all over the house and his toolbox
was found in the kitchen, but Siobhan had always
believed the police had received a tipoff. Whatever the
reason, the matter appeared to be settled when a
search warrant unearthed Lavinia's jeweller}' under his
floorboards and Patrick was formally charged with the
murders.

Predictably, shock had turned to fury but, with
Patrick already in custody, it was Liam and Bridey
who took the full brunt of Sowerbridge's wrath. Their
presence in the village had never been a particularly
welcome one - indeed, it was a mystery how 'rough
trade like them' could have afforded to buy a cottage
in rural Hampshire, or why they had wanted to - but
they became deeply unwelcome after the murders.
Had it been possible to banish them behind a physical
pale, the village would most certainly have done so;
as it was, the old couple were left to exist in a social
limbo where backs were turned and no one spoke to
them.

In such a climate, Siobhan wondered, could Liam
really have been stupid enough to ratchet up the
hatred against them by daubing anti-Irish slogans
across his front wall?

'If Patrick is the murderer, then why didn't you
find Lavinia's diamond rings in Kilkenny Cottage?'
she asked the inspector. 'Why did you only find pieces
of fake jewellery?'


13



'Who told you that? Bridey?'

'Yes.'

He looked at her with a kind of compassion. 'Then
I'm afraid she was lying, Mrs Lavenham. The diamond
rings were in Kilkenny Cottage along with everything
else.'


14
Two


Monday, 8 March 1999, 11.45p.m.


Siobhan was aware of the orange glow in the night
sky ahead of her for some time before her tired brain
began to question what it meant. Arc lights? A party?
Fire, she thought in alarm as she approached the
outskirts of Sowerbridge and saw sparks shooting into
the air like a giant Roman candle. She slowed her
Range Rover to a crawl as she approached the bend
by the church, knowing it must be the O'Riordans'
house, tempted to put the car into reverse and drive
away, as if denial could alter what was happening.
But she could see the flames licking up the front of
Kilkenny Cottage by that time and knew it was too
late for anything so simplistic. A police car was blocking
the narrow road ahead, and with a sense of
foreboding she obeyed the torch that signalled her to
draw up on the grass verge beyond the church gate.

She lowered her window as the policeman came
over, and felt the warmth from the fire fan her face
like a Saharan wind. 'Do you live in Sowerbridge,


15



madam?' he asked. He was dressed in shirtsleeves,
perspiration glistening on his forehead, and Siobhan
was amazed that one small house two hundred yards
away could generate so much heat on a cool March
night.

'Yes.' She gestured in the direction of the blaze.
'At Fording Farm. It's another half-mile beyond the
crossroads.'

He shone his torch into her eyes for a moment his
curiosity whetted by her soft Dublin accent, she
guessed - before lowering the beam to a map. 'You'll
waste a lot less time if you go back the way you came
and make a detour,' he advised her.

'I can't. Our driveway leads off the crossroads by
Kilkenny Cottage and there's no other access to it.'
She touched a finger to the map. 'There. Whichever
way I go, I still need to come back to the crossroads.'

Headlights swept across her rearview mirror as
another car rounded the bend. 'Wait there a moment,
please.' He moved away to signal towards the verge,
leaving Siobhan to gaze through her windscreen at
the scene of chaos ahead.

There seemed to be a lot of people milling around,
but her night sight had been damaged by the brilliance
of the flames; and the water glistening on the tarmac
made it difficult to distinguish what was real from
what was reflection. The rusted hulks of the old cars
that littered the O'Riordans' property stood out in
bold silhouettes against the light, and Siobhan
thought that Cynthia Haversley had been right when


16



she said they weren't just an eyesore but a fire hazard
as well. Cynthia had talked dramatically about the
dangers of petrol, but if there was any petrol left in
the corroded tanks, it remained sluggishly inert. The
real hazard was the time and effort it must have taken
to manoeuvre the two fire engines close enough to
weave the hoses through so many obstacles, and Siobhan
wondered if the house had ever stood a chance of
being saved.

She began to fret about her two small boys and their
nanny, Rosheen, who were alone at the farmhouse,
and drummed her fingers impatiently on the steering
wheel. 'What should I do?' she asked the policeman
when he returned after persuading the other driver to
make a detour. 'I need to get home.'

He looked at the map again. 'There's a footpath
running behind the church and the vicarage. If you're
prepared to walk home, I suggest you park your car
in the churchyard and take the footpath. I'll radio
through to ask one of the constables on the other side
of the crossroads to escort you into your driveway.
Failing that, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here until the road's clear, and that could take several hours.'

'I'll walk.' She reached for the gear stick, then let
her hand drop. 'No one's been hurt, have they?'

'No. The occupants are away.'

Siobhan nodded. Under the watchful eyes of
half of Sowerbridge village Liam and Bridey had set
off that morning in their ancient Ford estate, to
the malignant sound of whistles and hisses. 'The


17



O'Riordans are staying in Winchester until the trial's
over.'

'So we've been told,' the policeman agreed.

Siobhan watched him take a notebook from his
breast pocket. 'Then presumably you were expecting
something like this? I mean, everyone knew the house
would be empty.'

He flicked to an empty page. 'I'll need your name,
madam.'

'Siobhan Lavenham.'

'And your registration number, please, Ms Lavenham.'

She gave it to him. 'You didn't answer my question,'
she said unemphatically.

He raised his eyes to look at her but it was impossible
to read their expression. 'What question's that?'

She thought she detected a smile on his face and
bridled immediately. 'You don't find it at all suspicious
that the house burns down the minute Liam's back is
turned?'

He frowned. 'You've lost me, Ms Lavenham.'

'It's Mrs Lavenham,' she said irritably, 'and you
know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Liam's
been receiving arson threats ever since Patrick was
arrested, but the police couldn't have been less
interested.' Her irritation got the better of her. 'It's
their son who's on trial, for God's sake, not them,
though you'd never believe it for all the care the
English police have shown them.' She crunched
the car into gear and drove the few yards to the

18



churchyard entrance, where she parked in the lee of
the wall and closed the window. She was preparing
to open the door when it was opened from the
outside.

'What are you trying to say?' demanded the policeman
as she climbed out.

'What am I trying to say?' She let her accent slip
into broad brogue. 'Will you listen to the man? And
there was me thinking my English was as good as his.'

She was as tall as the constable, with striking good
looks, and colour rose in his cheeks. 'I didn't mean
it that way, Mrs Lavenham. I meant, are you saying it
was arson?'

'Of course it was arson,' she countered, securing
her mane of brown hair with a band at the back of her
neck and raising her coat collar against the wind which
two hundred yards away was feeding the inferno. 'Are
you saying it wasn't?'

'Can you prove it?'

'I thought that was your job.'

He opened his notebook again, looking more like
an earnest student than an officer of the law. 'Do you
know who might have been responsible?'

She reached inside the car for her handbag. 'Probably
the same people who wrote "IRISH TRASH"
across their front wall,' she said, slamming the door
and locking it. 'Or maybe it's the ones who broke
into the house two weeks ago during the night and
smashed Bridey's Madonna and Child before urinating
all over the pieces on the carpet. Who knows?'


19



She gave him credit for looking disturbed at what she
was saying. 'Look, forget it,' she said wearily. 'It's late
and I'm tired, and I want to get home to my children.
Can you make that radio call so I don't get held up at
the other end?'

Till do it from the car.' He started to turn away,
then changed his mind. Till be reporting what you've
told me, Mrs Lavenham, including your suggestion
that the police have been negligent in their duty.'

She smiled slightly. 'Is that a threat or a promise,
Officer?'

'It's a promise.'

'Then I hope you have better luck than I've had. I
might have been speaking in Gaelic for all the notice
your colleagues took of my warnings.' She set off for
the footpath.

'You're supposed to put complaints in writing,' he
called after her.

'Oh, but I did,' she assured him over her shoulder.
'I may be Irish, but I'm not illiterate.'

'I didn't mean--'

But the rest of his apology was lost on her as she
rounded the corner of the church and vanished from
sight.


20



Thursday, 18 February 1999


It had been several days before Siobhan found the
courage to confront Bridey with what the detective
inspector had told her. It made her feel like a thief
even to think about it. Secrets were such fragile things.
Little parts of oneself that couldn't be exposed without
inviting changed perceptions towards the whole.
But distrust was corroding her sympathy and she
needed reassurance that Bridey at least believed in
Patrick's innocence.

She followed the old woman's wheelchair into the
sitting room and perched on the edge of the grubby
sofa that Liam always lounged upon in his oil-stained
boiler suit after spending hours poking around his
unsightly wrecks. It was a mystery to Siobhan what
he did, as none of them appeared to be driveable, and
she wondered sometimes if he simply used them as a
canopy under which to sleep his days away. He complained
often enough that his withered right hand,
which he kept tucked out of sight inside his pocket,
had deprived him of any chance of a livelihood, but
the truth was he was a lazy man who was only ever
seen to rouse himself when his wife transferred from
her wheelchair to the passenger seat of their old
Ford.


21



'There's nothing wrong with his left hand,'
Cynthia Haversley would snort indignantly as she
watched the regular little pantomime outside Kilkenny
Cottage, 'but you'd think he'd lost the use of both
hands the way he carries on about his disabilities.'

Privately, and with some amusement, Siobhan
guessed the demonstrations were put on entirely for
the benefit of the Honourable Mrs Haversley, who
made no bones about her irritation at the level of state
welfare that the O'Riordans enjoyed. It was axiomatic,
after all, that any woman who had enough strength in
her arms to heave herself upstairs on her bottom, as
Bridey did every night, could lift her own legs into a
car ...

Kilkenny Cottage's sitting room - Bridey called it
her 'parlour' - was full of religious artefacts: a shrine
to the Madonna and Child on the mantelpiece, a foot
high wooden cross on one wall, a print of William
Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, on another, a
rosary hanging from a hook. In Siobhan, for whom
religion was more of a trial than a comfort, the room
invariably induced a sort of spiritual claustrophobia
which made her long to get out and breathe fresh air
again.

In ordinary circumstances, the paths of the
O'Riordans, descendants of a roaming tinker family,
and Siobhan Lavenham (nee Kerry), daughter of an
Irish landowner, would never have crossed. Indeed,
when she and her husband, Ian, first visited Fording
Farm and fell in love with it, Siobhan had pointed out


22



the eyesore of Kilkenny Cottage with a shudder and
had predicted accurately the kind of people who were
living there. Irish gypsies, she'd said.
'Will that make life difficult for you?' Ian had asked.

'Only if people assume we're related,' she answered
with a laugh, never assuming for one moment that
anyone would . . .

Bridey's habitually cowed expression reminded
Siobhan of an ill-treated dog, and she put the detective
inspector's accusations reluctantly, asking Bridey
if she had lied about the car crash and about Patrick
never striking his father. The woman wept, washing
her hands in her lap as if, like Lady Macbeth, she
could cleanse herself of sin.

'If I did, Siobhan, it was only to have you think
well of us. You're a lovely young lady with a kind
heart, but you'd not have let Patrick play with your
children if you'd known what he did to his father,
and you'd not have taken Rosheen into your house if
you'd known her uncle Liam was a thief.'

'You should have trusted me, Bridey. If I didn't
ask Rosheen to leave when Patrick was arrested for
murder, why would I have refused to employ her just
because Liam spent time in prison?'

'Because your husband would have persuaded you
against her,' said Bridey truthfully. 'He's never been
happy about Rosheen being related to us, never mind
she grew up in Ireland and hardly knew us till you
said she could come here to work for you.'

There was no point denying it. Ian tolerated


23



Rosheen O'Riordan for Siobhan's sake, and because
his little boys loved her, but in an ideal world he
would have preferred a nanny from a more conventional
background. Rosheen's relaxed attitude to child
rearing, based on her own upbringing in a three
bedroomed cottage in the hills of Donegal, where the
children had slept four to a bed and play was adventurous,
carefree, and fun, was so different from the
strict supervision of his own childhood that he constantly
worried about it. 'They'll grow up wild,' he
would say. 'She's not disciplining them enough.' And
Siobhan would look at her happy, lively, affectionate
sons and wonder why the English were so fond of
repression.

'He worries about his children, Bridey, more so
since Patrick's arrest. We get telephone calls too, you
know. Everyone knows Rosheen's his cousin.'

She remembered the first such call she had taken.
She had answered it in the kitchen while Rosheen was
making supper for the children, and she had been
shocked by the torrent of anti-Irish abuse that had
poured down the line. She raised stricken eyes to
Rosheen's and saw by the girl's frightened expression
that it wasn't the first such call that had been made.
After that, she had had an answerphone installed, and
forbade Rosheen to lift the receiver unless she was sure of the caller's identity.

Bridey's sad gaze lifted towards the Madonna on
the mantelpiece. 'I pray for you every day, Siobhan,
just as I pray for my Patrick. God knows, I never

24



wished this trouble on a sweet lady such as yourself.
And for why? Is it a sin to be Irish?'

Siobhan sighed to herself, hating Bridey's dreary
insistence on calling her a 'lady'. She did not doubt
Bridey's faith, nor that she prayed every day, but she
doubted God's ability to undo Lavinia Fanshaw's
murder eight months after the event.

And if Patrick was guilty of it, and Bridey knew he
was guilty...

'The issue isn't about being Irish,' she said bluntly,
'it's about whether or not Patrick's a murderer. I'd
much rather you were honest with me, Bridey. At the
moment, I don't trust any of you, and that includes
Rosheen. Does she know about his past? Has she been
lying to me too?' She paused, waiting for an answer,
but Bridey just shook her head. 'I'm not going to
blame you for your son's behaviour,' she said more
gently, 'but you can't expect me to go on pleading his
cause if he's guilty.'

'Indeed, and I wouldn't ask you to,' said the old
woman with dignity. 'And you can rest your mind
about Rosheen. We kept the truth to ourselves fifteen
years ago. Liam wouldn't have his son blamed for
something that wasn't his fault. We'll call it a car
accident, he said, and may God strike me dead if I
ever raise my hand in anger again.' She grasped the
rims of her chair wheels and slowly rotated them
through half a turn. 'I'll tell you honestly, though
I'm a cripple and though I've been married to Liam
for nearly forty years, it's only in these last fifteen that


25



I've been able to sleep peacefully in my bed. Oh yes,
Liam was a bad man, and oh yes, my Patrick lost his
temper once and struck out at him, but I swear by the
Mother of God that this family changed for the better
the day my poor son wept for what he'd done and
rang the police himself. Will you believe me, Siobhan?
Will you trust an old woman when she tells you her
Patrick could no more have murdered Mrs Fanshaw
than I can get out of this wheelchair and walk? To
be sure, he took some jewellery from her - and to be
sure, he was wrong to do it - but he was only trying
to get back what had been cheated out of him.'

'Except there's no proof he was cheated out of
anything. The police say there's very little evidence
that any odd jobs had been done in the manor. They
mentioned that one or two cracks in the plaster had
been filled, but not enough to indicate a contract
worth three hundred pounds.'

'He was up there for two weeks,' said Bridey in
despair. 'Twelve hours a day every day.'

'Then why is there nothing to show for it?'

The don't know,' said the old woman with difficulty.
'All I can tell you is that he came home every night
with stories about what he'd been doing. One day
it was getting the heating system to work, the next
re-laying the floor tiles in the kitchen where they'd
come loose. It was Miss Jenkins who was telling him
what needed doing, and she was thrilled to have all
the little irritations sorted once and for all.'

Siobhan recalled the detective inspector's words.


26



'There's no one left to agree or disagree' he had said. 'Mrs Fanshaw's grandson denies knowing anything
about it, although he admits there might have been a
private arrangement between Patrick and the nurse.
She's known to have been on friendly terms with him . . .'

'The police are saying Patrick only invented the
contract in order to explain why his fingerprints were
all over the Manor House.'

'That's not true.'

'Are you sure? Wasn't it the first idea that came
into his head when the police produced the search
warrant? They questioned him for two days, Bridey,
and the only explanation he gave for his fingerprints
and his toolbox being in the manor was that Lavinia's
nurse had asked him to sort out the dripping taps in
the kitchen and bathroom. Why didn't he mention a
contract earlier? Why did he wait until they found the
jewellery under his floorboards before saying he was
owed money?'

Teardrops watered the washing hands. 'Because
he's been in prison and doesn't trust the police . . .
because he didn't kill Mrs Fanshaw . . . because he
was more worried about being charged with the theft
of her jewellery than he was about being charged with
murder. Do you think he'd have invented a contract
that didn't exist? My boy isn't stupid, Siobhan. He
doesn't tell stories that he can't back up. Not when
he's had two whole days to think about them.'

Siobhan shook her head. 'Except he couldn't back
it up. You're the only person, other than Patrick, who


27



claims to know anything about it, and your word
means nothing because you're his mother.'

'But don't you see?' the woman pleaded. 'That's
why you can be sure Patrick's telling the truth. If he'd
believed for one moment it would all be denied,
he'd have given some other reason for why he took
the jewellery. Do you hear what I'm saying? He's
a good liar, Siobhan - for his sins, he always has been
- and he'd not have invented a poor, weak story like
the one he's been saddled with.'


28
Three


Tuesday, 23 June 1998


It was a rambling defence that Patrick finally produced
when it dawned on him that the police were serious
about charging him with the murders. Siobhan heard
both Bridey's and the inspector's versions of it, and
she wasn't surprised that the police found it difficult
to swallow. It depended almost entirely on the words
and actions of the murdered nurse.

Patrick claimed Dorothy Jenkins had come to
Kilkenny Cottage and asked him if he was willing
to do some odd jobs at the Manor House for a cash
sum of three hundred pounds. 'I've finally persuaded
her miserable skinflint of a grandson that I'll walk out
one day and not come back if he doesn't do something
about my working conditions, so he's agreed to
pay up,' she had said triumphantly. 'Are you interested,
Patrick? It's a bit of moonlighting ... no VAT
... no tax . . . just a couple of weeks' work for money
in hand. For goodness sake don't go talking about
it,' she had warned him, 'or you can be sure Cynthia


29



Haversley will notify social services that you're working
and you'll lose your unemployment benefit. You
know what an interfering busybody she is.'

'I needed convincing she wasn't pulling a fast one,'
Patrick told the police. 'I've been warned off in the
past by that bastard grandson of Mrs F's and the whole
thing seemed bloody unlikely to me. So she takes me
along to see him, and he's nice as pie, shakes me by
the hand and says it's a kosher contract. "We'll let
bygones be bygones," he says. I worked like a dog for
two weeks and, yes, of course I went into Mrs Fan
shaw's bedroom. I popped in every morning because
she and I were mates. I would say "hi," and she would
giggle and say "hi" back. And yes, I touched almost
everything in the house - most of the time I was
moving furniture around for Miss Jenkins. "It's so
boring when you get too old to change things," she'd
say to me. "Let's see how that table looks in here."
Then she'd clap her hands and say, "Isn't this exciting?"
I thought she was almost as barmy as the old
lady, but I wasn't going to argue with her. I mean,
three hundred quid is three hundred quid, and if that's
what was wanted I was happy to do the business.'

On the second Saturday - 'the day I was supposed
to be paid . . . shit ... I should have known it was a
scam . . .' - Mrs Fanshaw's grandson was in the hall
waiting for him when he arrived at the Manor House.

'I thought the bastard had come to give me my
wages, but instead he accuses me of nicking a necklace. I called him a bloody liar, so he took a swing at


30



me and landed one on my jaw. Next thing I know,
I'm out of the front door, face down on the gravel.
Yeah, of course that's how I got the scratches. I've
never hit a woman in my life, and I certainly didn't
get into a fight with either of the old biddies at the
manor.'

There was a two-hour hiatus during which he
claimed to have driven around in a fury wondering
how 'to get the bastard to pay what he owed'. He
toyed with the idea of going to the police - 'I was
pretty sure Miss Jenkins would back me up, she was
that mad with him, but I didn't reckon you lot could
do anything, not without social services getting to
hear about it, and then I'd be worse off than I was
before . . .' - but in the end he opted for more direct
action and sneaked back to the manor through the
gate at the bottom of the garden.

'I knew Miss Jenkins would see me right if she
could. And she did. "Take this, Patrick," she said,
handing me some of Mrs F's jewellery, "and if there's
any comeback I'll say it was my idea." I tell you,' he
finished aggressively, 'I'm gutted she and Mrs F are
dead. At least they treated me like a friend, which is
more than can be said of the rest of Sowerbridge.'

He was asked why he hadn't mentioned any of this
before. 'Because I'm not a fool,' he said. 'Word has it
Mrs F was killed for her jewellery. Do you think I'm
going to admit to having some of it under my floorboards
when she was battered to death a few hours
later?'


31



Thursday, 18 February 1999


Siobhan pondered in silence for a minute or two.
'Weak or not, Bridey, it's the story he has to go to
trial with, and at the moment no one believes it. It
would be different if he could prove any of it.'

'How?'

'I don't know.' She shook her head. 'Did he show
the jewellery to anyone before Lavinia was killed?'

A sly expression crept into the woman's eyes as if a
new idea had suddenly occurred to her. 'Only to me
and Rosheen,' she said, 'but, as you know, Siobhan,
not a word we say is believed.'

'Did either of you mention it to anyone else?'

'Why would we? When all's said and done, he took
the things without permission, never mind it was Miss
Jenkins who gave them to him.'

'Well, it's a pity Rosheen didn't tell me about it. It
would make a world of difference if I could say I knew
on the Saturday afternoon that Patrick already had
Lavinia's rings and necklace in his possession.'

Bridey looked away towards her Madonna, crossing
herself as she did so, and Siobhan knew she was lying.
'She thinks the world of you, Siobhan. She'd not
embarrass you by making you a party to her cousin's
troubles. In any case, you'd not have been interested.


32



Was your mind not taken up with cooking that day?
Was that not the Saturday you were entertaining Mr
and Mrs Haversley to dinner to pay off all the dinners
you've had from them but never wanted?'

There were no secrets in a village, thought Siobhan,
and if Bridey knew how much Ian and she
detested the grinding tedium of Sowerbridge social
life, which revolved around the all-too-regular 'dinner
party', presumably the rest of Sowerbridge did as well.
'Are we really that obvious, Bridey?'

'To the Irish, maybe, but not to the English,' said
the old woman with a crooked smile. 'The English
see what they want to see. If you don't believe me,
Siobhan, look at the way they've condemned my
Patrick as a murdering thief before he's even been
tried.'

Siobhan had questioned Rosheen about the jewellery
afterwards and, like Bridey, the girl had wrung
her hands in distress. But Rosheen's distress had
everything to do with her aunt expecting her to perjure
herself and nothing at all to do with the facts.
'Oh, Siobhan,' she had wailed, 'does she expect me to
stand up in court and tell lies? Because it'll not do
Patrick any good when they find me out. Surely it's
better to say nothing than to keep inventing stories
that no one believes?'


33



Monday, 8 March 1999, 11.55p.m.


It was cold on the footpath because the wall of the
Old Vicarage was reflecting the heat back towards
Kilkenny Cottage, but the sound of the burning house
was deafening. The pine rafters and ceiling joists
popped and exploded like intermittent rifle fire while
the flames kept up a hungry roar. As Siobhan emerged
onto the road leading up from the junction, she found
herself in a crowd of her neighbours who seemed to
be watching the blaze in a spirit of revelry - almost,
she thought in amazement, as if it were a spectacular
fireworks display put on for their enjoyment. People
raised their arms and pointed whenever a new rafter
caught alight, and 'oohs' and 'ahs' burst from their
mouths like a cheer. Any moment now, she thought
cynically, and they'd bring out an effigy of that other
infamous Catholic, Guy Fawkes.

She started to work her way through the crowd
but was stopped by Nora Bentley, the elderly doctor's
wife, who caught her arm and drew her close. The
Bentleys were far and away Siobhan's favourites
among her neighbours, being the only ones with
enough tolerance to stand against the continuous
barrage of anti-O'Riordan hatred that poured from
the mouths of almost everyone else. Although, as Ian


34



often pointed out, they could afford to be tolerant.
'Be fair, Siobhan. Lavinia wasn't related to them. They
might feel differently if she'd been their granny.'

'We've been worried about you, my dear,' said
Nora. 'What with all this going on, we didn't know
whether you were trapped inside the farm or outside.'

Siobhan gave her a quick hug. 'Outside. I stayed
late at work to sort out some contracts, and I've had
to abandon the car at the church.'

'Well, I'm afraid your drive's completely blocked
with fire engines. If it's any consolation, we're all in
the same boat, although Jeremy Jardine and the Haversleys
have the added worry of sparks carrying on the
wind and setting light to their houses.' She chuckled
suddenly. 'You have to laugh. Cynthia bullied the
firemen into taking preventative measures by hosing
down the front of Malvern House, and now she's
tearing strips off poor old Peter because he left their
bedroom window open. The whole room's completely
saturated.'

Siobhan grinned. 'Good,' she said, unsympathetically.
'It's time Cynthia had some of her own
medicine.'

Nora wagged an admonishing finger. 'Don't be
too hard on her, my dear. For all her sins, Cynthia can
be very kind when she wants to be. It's a pity you've
never seen that side of her.'

'I'm not sure I'd want to,' said Siobhan cynically.
'At a guess, she only shows it when she's offering
charity. Where are they, anyway?'


35



'I've no idea. I expect Peter's making up the
spare-room beds and Cynthia's at the front somewhere
behaving like the chief constable. You know
how bossy she is.'

'Yes,' agreed Siobhan, who had been on the receiving
end of Cynthia's hectoring tongue more often
than she cared to remember. Indeed, if she had any
regrets about moving to Sowerbridge, they were all
centred around the overbearing personality of the
Honourable Mrs Haversley.

By one of those legal quirks of which the English
are so fond, the owners of Malvern House had title to
the first hundred feet of Fording Farm's driveway while
the owners of the farm had right of way in perpetuity
across it. This had led to a state of war between the
two households, although it was a war that had been
going on long before the Lavenhams' insignificant
tenure of eighteen months. Ian maintained that
Cynthia's insistence on her rights stemmed from the fact that the Haversleys were, and always had been,
the poor relations of the Fanshaws at the Manor
House. ('You get slowly more impoverished if you
inherit through the distaff side,' he said, 'and Peter's
family has never been able to lay claim to the manor.
It's made Cynthia bitter.') Nevertheless, had he and
Siobhan paid heed to their solicitor's warnings, they
might have questioned why such a beautiful place had
had five different owners in under ten years. Instead,
they had accepted the previous owners' assurances
that everything in the garden was lovely - You'll like


36



Cynthia Haversley. She's a- charming woman -- and put
the rapid turnover down to coincidence.

Something that sounded like a grenade detonating
exploded in the heart of the fire and Nora Bentley
jumped. She tapped her heart with a fluttery hand.
'Goodness me, it's just like the war,' she said in a
rush. 'So exciting.' She tempered this surprising statement
by adding that she felt sorry for the O'Riordans,
but it was clear her sympathy came a poor second to
her desire for sensation.

'Are Liam and Bridey here?' asked Siobhan, looking
around.

'I don't think so, dear. To be honest, I wonder if
they even know what's happening. They were very
secretive about where they were staying in Winchester;
unless the police know where they are, well -' she
shrugged - 'who could have told them?'

'Rosheen knows.'

Nora gave an absent-minded smile. 'Yes, but she's
with your boys at the farm.'

'We are on the phone, Nora.'

'I know, dear, but it's all been so sudden. One
minute, nothing - the next, mayhem. As a matter of
fact, I did suggest we call Rosheen, but Cynthia said
there was no point. Let Liam and Bridey have a good
night's sleep, she said. What can they do that the
fire brigade haven't already done? Why bother them
unnecessarily?'

Till bear that in mind when Cynthia's house goes
up in flames,' said Siobhan dryly, glancing at her


37



watch and telling herself to get a move on. Curiosity held her back. 'When did it start?'

'No one knows,' said Nora. 'Sam and I smelt
burning about an hour and a half ago and came to
investigate, but by that time the flames were already
at the downstairs windows.' She waved an arm at the
Old Vicarage. 'We knocked up Jeremy and got him
to call the fire brigade, but the whole thing was out
of control long before they arrived.'

Siobhan's eyes followed the waving arm. 'Why
didn't Jeremy call them earlier? Surely he'd have smelt
burning before you did? He lives right opposite.'
Her glance travelled on to the Bentleys' house, Rose
Cottage, which stood behind the Old Vicarage, a
good hundred yards distant from Kilkenny Cottage.

Nora looked anxious, as if she, too, found Jeremy
Jardine's inertia suspicious. 'He says he didn't, says he
was in his cellar. He was horrified when he saw what
was going on.'

Siobhan took that last sentence with a pinch of salt.
Jeremy Jardine was a wine shipper who had used his
Fanshaw family connection some years before to buy
the Old Vicarage off the church commissioners for its
extensive cellars. But the beautiful brick house looked
out over the O'Riordans' unsightly wrecking ground,
and he was one of their most strident critics. No one
knew how much he'd paid for it, although rumour
suggested it had been sold off at a fifth of its value.
Certainly questions had been asked at the time about
why a substantial Victorian house had never been


38



advertised for sale on the open market, although, as
usual in Sowerbridge, answers were difficult to come
by when they involved the Fanshaw family.

Prior to the murders, Siobhan had been irritated
enough by Jeremy's unremitting criticism of the
O'Riordans to ask him why he'd bought the Old
Vicarage, knowing what the view was going to be.
'It's not as though you didn't know about Liam's
cars,' she told him. 'Nora Bentley says you'd been
living with Lavinia at the manor for two years before
the purchase.'

Jeremy had muttered darkly about good investments
turning sour when promises of action failed
to materialize and Siobhan had interpreted this as
meaning he'd paid a pittance to acquire the property
from the church on the mistaken understanding that
one of his district councillor buddies could force the
O'Riordans to clean up their frontage.

Ian had laughed when she told him about the
conversation. 'Why on earth doesn't he just offer to
pay for the clean-up himself? Liam's never going
to pay to have those blasted wrecks removed, but
he'd be pleased as punch if someone else did.'

'Perhaps he can't afford it. Nora says the Fan
shaws aren't half as well off as everyone believes, and
Jeremy's business is no great shakes. I know he talks
grandly about how he supplies all the top families with
quality wine, but that case he sold us was rubbish.'

'It wouldn't cost much, not if a scrap-metal merchant
did it.'


39



Siobhan had wagged a finger at him. 'You know
what your problem is, husband of mine? You're too
sensible to live in Sowerbridge. Also, you're ignoring
the fact that there's an issue of principle at stake. If
Jeremy pays for the clean-up then the O'Riordans will
have won. Worse still, they will be seen to have won
because their house will also rise in value the minute
the wrecks go.'

He shook his head. 'Just promise me you won't
start taking sides, Shiv. You're no keener on the
O'Riordans than anyone else, and there's no law that
says the Irish have to stick together. Life's too short
to get involved in their ridiculous feuds.'

'I promise,' she had said, and at the time she had
meant it.
But that was before Patrick had been charged with
murder . . .

There was no doubt in the minds of most of
Sowerbridge's inhabitants that Patrick O'Riordan saw
Lavinia Fanshaw as an easy target. In November, two
years previously, he had relieved the confused old
woman of a Chippendale chair worth five hundred
pounds after claiming a European directive required
all hedgerows to be clipped to a uniform standard. He
had stripped her laurels to within four feet of the
ground in return for the antique, and had sold the
foliage on to a crony who made festive Christmas
wreaths.

Nor had he shown any remorse. 'It was a bit of
business,' he said in the pub afterwards, grinning


40



happily as he swilled his beer, 'and she was pleased as
punch about it. She told me she's always hated that
chair.' He was a small, wiry man with a shock of dark
hair and penetrating blue eyes which stared unwaveringly
at the person he was talking to - like a fighting
dog whose intention was to intimidate. 'In any case,
I did this village a favour. The manor looks a damn
sight better since I sorted the frontage.'

The fact that most people agreed with him was
neither here nor there. The combination of Lavinia's
senility and extraordinary longevity meant the Manor
House was rapidly falling into disrepair, but this did
not entitle anyone, least of all an O'Riordan, to take
advantage of her. What about Kilkenny Cottage's
frontage? people protested. Liam's cars were a great
deal worse than Lavinia's overgrown hedge. There
was even suspicion that her live-in nurse had connived
in the fraud because she was known to be extremely
critical of the deteriorating conditions in which she
was expected to work.

'I can't be watching Mrs Fanshaw twenty-four
hours a day,' Dorothy Jenkins had said firmly, 'and
if she makes an arrangement behind my back, then
there's nothing I can do about it. It's her grandson
you should be talking to. He's the one with power of
attorney over her affairs, but he's never going to sell
this place before she's dead because he's too mean to
put her in a nursing home. She could live forever the
way she's going, and nursing homes cost far more
than I do. He pays me peanuts because he says I'm


41



getting free board and lodging, but there's no heating,
the roof leaks, and the whole place is a death trap of
rotten floorboards. He's only waiting for the poor old
thing to die so that he can sell the land to a property
developer and live in clover for the rest of his life.'


42



Monday, 8 March 1999, midnight


The crowd seemed to be growing bigger and more
boisterous by the minute, but as Siobhan recognized
few of the faces, she realized word of the fire must
have spread to surrounding villages. She couldn't
understand why the police were letting thrill-seekers
through until she heard someone say that he'd parked
on the Southampton Road and cut across a field to
bypass the police block. There was much josding for
position; the smell of beer on the breath of one man
who pushed past her was overpowering. He barged
against her and she jabbed him angrily in the ribs with
a sharp elbow before taking Nora's arm and shepherding
her across the road.

'People are going to be hurt in a minute,' she said.
'They've obviously come straight from the pub.' She
manoeuvred through a knot of people beside the wall
of Malvern House, and ahead of her she saw Nora's
husband, Dr Sam Bentley, talking with Peter and
Cynthia Haversley. 'There's Sam. I'll leave you with
him and then be on my way. I'm worried about
Rosheen and the boys.' She nodded briefly to the
Haversleys, raised a hand in greeting to Sam Bentley,
then prepared to push on.

'You won't get through,' said Cynthia forcefully,


43



planting her corseted body between Siobhan and the
crossroads. 'They've barricaded the entire junction,
and no one's allowed past.' Her face had turned
crimson from the heat, and Siobhan wondered if
she had any idea how unattractive she looked. The
combination of dyed blonde hair atop a glistening
beetroot complexion was reminiscent of sherry trifle,
and Siobhan wished she had a camera to record the
fact. Siobhan knew Cynthia to be in her late sixties
because Nora had let slip once that she and Cynthia
shared a birthday, but Cynthia herself preferred to
draw a discreet veil over her age. Privately (and rather
grudgingly) Siobhan admitted she had a case because
her plumpness gave her skin a smooth, firm quality
which made her look considerably younger than her
years, although it didn't make her any more likeable.

Siobhan had asked Ian once if he thought her antipathy
to Cynthia was an 'Irish thing'. The idea had
amused him. 'On what basis? Because the Honourable
Mrs Haversley symbolizes colonial authority?'

'Something like that.'

'Don't be absurd, Shiv. She's a fat snob with a
power complex who loves throwing her weight
around. No one likes her. I certainly don't. She
probably wouldn't be so bad if her wet husband had
ever stood up to her, but poor old Peter's as cowed
as everyone else. You should learn to ignore her. In
the great scheme of things, she's about as relevant as
birdshit on your windscreen.'


44



'I hate birdshit on my windscreen.'

'I know,' he had said with a grin, 'but you don't
assume pigeons single your car out because you're
Irish, do you?'

She made an effort now to summon a pleasant
smile as she answered Cynthia. 'Oh, I'm sure they'll
make an exception of me. lan's in Italy this week,
which means Rosheen and the boys are on their own.
I think I'll be allowed through in the circumstances.'

'If you aren't,' said Dr Bentley, 'Peter and I can
give you a leg-up over the wall and you can cut
through Malvern House garden.'

'Thank you.' She studied his face for a moment.
'Does anyone know how the fire started, Sam?'

'We think Liam must have left a cigarette burning.'

Siobhan pulled a wry face. 'Then it must have been
the slowest-burning cigarette in history,' she said.
'They were gone by nine o'clock this morning.'

He looked as worried as his wife had done earlier.
'It's only a guess.'

'Oh, come on! If it was a smouldering cigarette
you'd have seen flames at the windows by lunchtime.'
She turned her attention back to Cynthia. 'I'm surprised
that Sam and Nora smelt burning before you
did,' she said with deliberate lightness. 'You and Peter
are so much closer than they are.'

'We probably would have done if we'd been here,'
said Cynthia, 'but we went to supper with friends in
Salisbury. We didn't get home until after Jeremy called


45



the fire brigade.' She stared Siobhan down, daring her
to dispute the statement.

'Matter of fact,' said Peter, 'we only just scraped in
before the police arrived with barricades. Otherwise
they'd have made us leave the car at the church.'

Siobhan wondered if the friends had invited the
Haversleys or if the Haversleys had invited themselves.
She guessed the latter. None of the O'Riordans'
neighbours would have wanted to save Kilkenny
Cottage, and unlike Jeremy, she thought sarcastically,
the Haversleys had no cellar to skulk in. 'I really must
go,' she said then. 'Poor Rosheen will be worried
sick.' But if she expected sympathy for Liam and
Bridey's niece, she didn't get it.

'If she were that worried, she'd have come down
here,' declared Cynthia. 'With or without your boys.
I don't know why you employ her. She's one of the
laziest and most deceitful creatures I've ever met.
Frankly, I wouldn't have her for love or money.'

Siobhan smiled slightly. It was like listening to a
cracked record, she thought. The day the Honourable
Mrs Haversley resisted an opportunity to snipe at an
O'Riordan would be a red-letter day in Siobhan's
book. 'I suspect the feeling's mutual, Cynthia. Threat
of death might persuade her to work for you, but not
love or money.'

Cynthia's retort, a pithy one if her annoyed
expression was anything to go by, was swallowed by
the sound of Kilkenny Cottage collapsing inwards
upon itself as the beams supporting the roof finally


46



gave way. There was a shout of approval from the
crowd behind them, and while everyone else's attention
was temporarily distracted, Siobhan watched
Peter Haversley give his wife a surreptitious pat on the
back.


47
Four


Saturday, 30 January 1999


Siobhan had stubbornly kept an open mind about
Patrick's guilt, although as she was honest enough to
admit to Ian, it was more for Rosheen and Bridey's
sake than because she seriously believed there was
room for reasonable doubt. She couldn't forget the
fear she had seen in Rosheen's eyes one day when
she came home early to find Jeremy Jardine at the
front door of the farm. 'What are you doing here?'
she had demanded of him angrily, appalled by the
ashen colour in her nanny's cheeks.

There was a telling silence before Rosheen stumbled
into words.

'He says we're murdering Mrs Fanshaw all over
again by taking Patrick's side,' said the girl in a shaken
voice. 'I said it was wrong to condemn him before the
evidence is heard - you told me everyone would
believe Patrick was innocent until the trial - but Mr
Jardine just keeps shouting at me.'

Jeremy had laughed. 'I'm doing the rounds with


48



my new wine list,' he said, jerking his thumb towards
his car. 'But I'm damned if I'll stay quiet while an
Irish murderer's cousin quotes English law at me.'

Siobhan had controlled her temper because her
two sons were watching from the kitchen window.
'Go inside now,' she told Rosheen, 'but if Mr Jardine
comes here again when Ian and I are at work, I want
you to phone the police immediately.' She waited
while the girl retreated with relief into the depths
of the house. 'I mean it, Jeremy,' she said coldly.
'However strongly you may feel about all of this,
I'll have you prosecuted if you try that trick again.
It's not as though Rosheen has any evidence that can
help Patrick, so you're simply wasting your time.'

He shrugged. 'You're a fool, Siobhan. Patrick's
guilty as sin. You know it. Everyone knows it. Just
don't come crying to me later when the jury proves
us right and you find yourself tarred with the same
brush as the O'Riordans.'

'I already have been,' she said curtly. 'If you and
the Haversleys had your way, I'd have been lynched
by now, but, God knows, I'd give my right arm to see
Patrick get off, if only to watch the three of you
wearing sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your lives.'

Ian had listened to her account of the conversation
with a worried frown on his face. 'It won't help
Patrick if he does get off,' he warned. 'No one's going
to believe he didn't do it. Reasonable doubt sounds
all very well in court, but it won't count for anything
in Sowerbridge. He'll never be able to come back.'


49



'I know.'

'Then don't get too openly involved,' he advised.
'We'll be living here for the foreseeable future, and I
really don't want the boys growing up in an atmosphere
of hostility. Support Bridey and Rosheen by all
means - ' he gave her a wry smile - 'but do me a
favour, Shiv, and hold that Irish temper of yours in
check. I'm not convinced Patrick is worth going to
war over, particularly not with our close neighbours.'

It was good advice, but difficult to follow. There
was too much overt prejudice against the Irish in
general for Siobhan to stay quiet indefinitely. War
finally broke out at one of Cynthia and Peter
Haversley's tedious dinner parties at Malvern House,
which were impossible to avoid without telling so
many lies that it was easier to attend the wretched
things. 'She watches the driveway from her window,'
sighed Siobhan when Ian asked why they couldn't
just say they had another engagement that night.
'She keeps tabs on everything we do. She knows
when we're in and when we're out. It's like living in
a prison.'

'I don't know why she keeps inviting us,' he said.

Siobhan found his genuine ignorance of Cynthia's
motives amusing. 'It's her favourite sport,' she said
matter-of-factly. 'Bear-baiting . . . with me as the
bear.'

Ian sighed. 'Then let's tell her the truth, say we'd
rather stay in and watch television.'

'Good idea. There's the phone. Ton tell her.'


50



He smiled unhappily. 'It'll make her even more
impossible.'

'Of course it will.'

'Perhaps we should just grit our teeth and go?'

'Why not? It's what we usually do.'

The evening had been a particularly dire one, with
Cynthia and Jeremy holding the platform as usual,
Peter getting quietly drunk, and the Bentleys making
only occasional remarks. A silence had developed
round the table and Siobhan, who had been firmly
biting her tongue since they arrived, consulted her
watch under cover of her napkin and wondered if nine
forty-five was too early to announce departure.

'I suppose what troubles me the most,' said Jeremy
suddenly, 'is that if I'd pushed to have the O'Riordans
evicted years ago, poor old Lavinia would still be
alive.' He was a similar age to the Lavenhams and
handsome in a florid sort of way - too much sampling
of his own wares, Siobhan always thought - and loved
to style himself as Hampshire's most eligible bachelor.
Many was the time Siobhan had wanted to ask why,
if he was so eligible, he remained unattached, but
she didn't bother because she thought she knew the
answer. He couldn't find a woman stupid enough to
agree with his own valuation of himself.

'You can't evict people from their own homes,'
Sam Bentley pointed out mildly. 'On that basis, we
could all be evicted any time our neighbours took
against us.'

'Oh, you know what I mean,' Jeremy answered,


51



looking pointedly at Siobhan as if to remind her of his
warning about being tarred with the O'Riordans'
brush. 'There must be something I could have done had
them prosecuted for environmental pollution,
perhaps?'

'We should never have allowed them to come here
in the first place,' declared Cynthia. 'It's iniquitous
that the rest of us have no say over what sort of people
will be living on our doorsteps. If the Parish Council
was allowed to vet prospective newcomers, the problem
would never have arisen.'

Siobhan raised her head and smiled in amused
disbelief at the other woman's arrogant assumption
that the Parish Council was in her pocket. 'What a
good idea!' she said brightly, ignoring lan's frown
across the table. 'It would also give prospective newcomers a chance to vet the people already living here.
It means house prices would drop like a stone, of
course, but at least neither side could say afterwards
that they went into it with their eyes closed.'

The pity was that Cynthia was too stupid to understand
irony. 'You're quite wrong, my dear,' she said
with a condescending smile. 'The house prices would
go up. They always do when an area becomes
exclusive.'

'Only when there are enough purchasers who want
the kind of exclusivity you're offering them, Cynthia.
It's basic economics.' Siobhan propped her elbows
on the table and leaned forward, stung into pricking
the fat woman's self-righteous bubble once and for

52



all, even if she did recognize that her real target was
Jeremy Jardine. 'And for what it's worth, there won't
be any competition to live in Sowerbridge when word
gets out that, however much money you have, there's
no point in applying unless you share the Fanshaw
mafia's belief that Hitler was right.'

Nora Bentley gave a small gasp and made damping
gestures with her hands.

Jeremy was less restrained. 'Well, my God!' he burst
out aggressively. 'That's bloody rich coming from an
Irishwoman. Where was Ireland in the war? Sitting on
the sidelines, rooting for Germany, that's where. And
you have the damn nerve to sit in judgement on us!
All you Irish are despicable. You flood over here like a
plague of sewer rats looking for handouts, then you
criticize us when we point out that we don't think
you're worth the trouble you're causing us.'

It was like a simmering saucepan boiling over. In
the end, all that had been achieved by restraint was to
allow resentment to fester. On both sides.

'I suggest you withdraw those remarks, Jeremy,'
said Ian coldly, rousing himself in defence of his wife.
'You might be entitled to insult Siobhan like that if
your business paid as much tax and employed as many
people as hers does, but as that's never going to
happen I think you should apologize.'

'No way. Not unless she apologizes to Cynthia
first.'

Once roused, lan's temper was even more volatile
than his wife's. 'She's got nothing to apologize for,'


53



he snapped. 'Everything she said was true. Neither
you nor Cynthia has any more right than anyone else
to dictate what goes on in this village, yet you do it
anyway. And with very little justification. At least the
rest of us bought our houses fair and square on the
open market, which is more than can be said of you
or Peter. He inherited his, and you got yours cheap
via the old-boy network. I just hope you're prepared
for the consequences when something goes wrong.
You can't incite hatred and then pretend you're not
responsible for it.'

'Now, now, now!' said Sam with fussy concern.
'This sort of talk isn't healthy.'

'Sam's right,' said Nora. 'What's said can never be
unsaid.'

Ian shrugged. 'Then tell this village to keep its
collective mouth shut about the Irish in general and
the O'Riordans in particular. Or doesn't the rule apply
to them? Perhaps it's only the well-to-do English like
the Haversleys and Jeremy who can't be criticized?'

Peter Haversley gave an unexpected snigger. 'Well
to-do?' he muttered tipsily. 'Who's well-to-do? We're
all in hock up to our blasted eyeballs while we wait for
the manor to be sold.'

'Be quiet, Peter,' said his wife.

But he refused to be silenced. 'That's the trouble
with murder. Everything gets so damned messy.
You're not allowed to sell what's rightfully yours
because probate goes into limbo.' His bleary eyes
looked across the table at Jeremy. 'It's your fault, you


54



sanctimonious little toad. Power of bloody attorney,
my arse. You're too damn greedy for your own good.
Always were . . . always will be. I kept telling you to
put the old bloodsucker into a home but would you
listen? Don't worry, you kept saying, she'll be dead
soon . . .'


55


Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 0.23 a.m.


The hall lights were on in the farmhouse when
Siobhan finally reached it, but there was no sign of
Rosheen. This surprised her until she checked the
time and saw that it was well after midnight. She went
into the kitchen and squatted down to stroke Patch,
the O'Riordans' amiable mongrel, who lifted his head
from the hearth in front of the Aga and wagged his
stumpy tail before giving an enormous yawn and
returning to his slumbers. Siobhan had agreed to
look after him while the O'Riordans were away and
he seemed entirely at home in his new surroundings.
She peered out of the kitchen window towards the
fire, but there was nothing to see except the dark line
of trees bordering the property, and it occurred to her
then that Rosheen probably had no idea her uncle's
house had gone up in flames.

She tiptoed upstairs to check on her two young
sons who, like Patch, woke briefly to wrap their arms
around her neck and acknowledge her kisses before
closing their eyes again. She paused outside Rosheen's
room for a moment, hoping to hear the sound of the
girl's television, but there was only silence and she
retreated downstairs again, relieved to be spared explanations
tonight. Rosheen had been frightened enough


56



by the anti-Irish slogans daubed across the front of
Kilkenny Cottage; God only knew how she would
react to hearing it had been destroyed.

Rosheen's employment with them had happened
more by accident than design when Siobhan's previous
nanny - a young woman given to melodrama
- had announced after two weeks in rural Hampshire
that she'd rather 'die' than spend another night away
from the lights of London. In desperation, Siobhan
had taken up Bridey's shy suggestion to fly Rosheen
over from Ireland on a month's trial - 'She's Liam's
brother's daughter and she's a wonder with children.
She's been looking after her brothers and cousins since
she was knee-high to a grasshopper, and they all think
the world of her' - and Siobhan had been surprised by
how quickly and naturally the girl had fitted into the
household.

Ian had reservations - ''She's too young - she's too
scatter-brained . . . I'm not sure I want to be quite so
cosy with the O'Riordans' - but he had come to respect
her in the wake of Patrick's arrest when, despite the
hostility in the village, she had refused to abandon
either Siobhan or Bridey. 'Mind you, I wouldn't bet
on family loyalty being what's keeping her here.'

'What else is there?'

'Sex with Kevin Wyllie. She goes weak at the knees
every time she sees him, never mind he's probably
intimately acquainted with the thugs who've terrorizing
Liam and Bridey.'

'You can't blame him for that. He's lived here all


57


his life. I should imagine most of Sowerbridge could
name names if they wanted to. At least he's had the
guts to stand by Rosheen.'

'He's an illiterate oaf with an IQ often,' growled
Ian. 'Rosheen's not stupid, so what the hell do they
find to talk about?'

Siobhan giggled. 'I don't think his conversation is
what interests her.'

Recognizing that she was too hyped-up to sleep,
she poured herself a glass of wine and played the
messages on the answerphone. There were a couple of
business calls followed by one from Ian. ''Hi, it's me.
Things are progressing well on the Ravenelli front. All j£
being well, hand-printed Italian silk should be on offer
through Lavenham Interiors by August. Good news, eh?
I can think of at least two projects that will benefit from
the designs they've been showing me. You'll love them,
Shiv. Aquamarine swirls with every shade of terracotta
you can imagine.'' Pause for a yawn. ''I'm missing you
and the boys like crazy. Give me a ring if you get back
before eleven, otherwise I'll speak to you tomorrow. I
should be home on Friday.'' He finished with a slobbery
kiss which made her laugh.

The last message was from Liam O'Riordan and
had obviously been intercepted by Rosheen. ''Hello?
Are you there, Rosheen? It's. . .' said Liam's voice
before it was cut off by the receiver being lifted.
Out of curiosity, Siobhan pressed one-four-seven
one to find out when Liam had phoned, and she
listened in perplexity as the computerized voice at


58



the other end gave the time of the last call as 'twenty
thirty-six hours', and the number from which it was
made as 'eight-two-seven-five-three-eight'. She knew
the sequence off by heart but flicked through the
telephone index anyway to make certain. Liam and
Bridey O'Riordan, Kilkenny Cottage, Sower bridge, Tel:
827538.

For the second time that night her first instinct
was to rush towards denial. It was a mistake, she told
herself . . . Liam couldn't possibly have been phoning
from Kilkenny Cottage at eight thirty . . . The
O'Riordans were under police protection in Winchester
for the duration of Patrick's trial . . . Kilkenny
Cottage was empty when the fire started . . .

But, oh dear God! Supposing it wasn't?

'Rosheen!' she shouted, running up the stairs again
and hammering on the nanny's door. 'Rosheen! It's
Siobhan. Wake up! Was Liam in the cottage?' She
thrust open the door and switched on the light, only
to look around the room in dismay because no one
was there.


59


I



Wednesday, 10 February 1999


Siobhan had raised the question of Lavinia Fanshaw's
heirs with the detective inspector. 'You can't ignore
the fact that both Peter Haversley and Jeremy Jardine
had a far stronger motive than Patrick could ever have
had,' she pointed out. 'They both stood to inherit
from her will, and neither of them made any bones
about wanting her dead. Lavinia's husband had one
sister, now dead, who produced a single child, Peter,
who has no children. And Lavinia's only child, a
daughter, also dead, produced Jeremy, who's never
married.'

He was amused by the extent of her research. 'We
didn't ignore it, Mrs Lavenham. It was the first thing
we looked at, but you know better than anyone that
they couldn't have done it because you and your
husband supplied their alibis.'

'Only from eight o'clock on Saturday night until
two o'clock on Sunday morning,' protested Siobhan.
'And not out of choice either. Have you any idea what
it's like living in a village like Sowerbridge, Inspector?
Dinner parties are considered intrinsically superior to
staying in of a Friday or Saturday night and watching
telly, never mind the same boring people get invited
every time and the same boring conversations take


60



place. It's a status thing.' She gave a sarcastic shrug.
'Personally, I'd rather watch a good Arnie or Sly
movie any day than have to appear interested in someone else's mortgage or pension plan, but then hell
- I'm Irish and everyone knows the Irish are
common as muck.'

'You'll have status enough when Patrick comes to
trial,' said the inspector with amusement. 'You'll be
the one providing the alibis.'

'I wouldn't be able to if we'd managed to get rid
of Jeremy and the Haversleys any sooner. Believe
me, it wasn't Ian and I who kept them there - we did
everything we could to make them go - they just
refused to take the hints. Sam and Nora Bentley went
at a reasonable time, but we couldn't get the rest
of them to budge. Are you sure Lavinia was killed
between eleven and midnight? Don't you find it suspicious
that it's my evidence that's excluded Peter and
Jeremy from the case? Everyone knows I'm the only
person in Sowerbridge who'd give Patrick O'Riordan
an alibi if I possibly could.'

'What difference does that make?'

'It means I'm a reluctant witness, and therefore
gives my evidence in Peter and Jeremy's favour more
weight.'

The inspector shook his head. 'I think you're
making too much of your position in all of this, Mrs
Lavenham. If Mr Haversley and Mr Jardine had conspired
to murder Mrs Fanshaw, wouldn't they have
taken themselves to - say, Ireland - for the weekend?


61



That would have given them a much stronger alibi
than spending six hours in the home of a hostile
witness. In any case,' he went on apologetically, 'we
are sure about the time of the murders. These days,
pathologists' timings are extremely precise, particularly
when the bodies are found as quickly as these ones
were.'

Siobhan wasn't ready to give up so easily. 'But you
must see how odd it is that it happened the night Ian
and I gave a dinner party. We hate dinner parties.
Most of our entertaining is done around barbecues in
the summer when friends come to stay. It's always
casual and always spur-of-the-moment and I can't
believe it was coincidence that Lavinia was murdered
on the one night in the whole damn year for which
we'd sent out invitations - ' her mouth twisted - ''six
weeks in advance . . .'

He eyed her thoughtfully. 'If you can tell me how
they did it, I might agree with you.'

'Before they came to our house or after they left
it,' she suggested. 'The pathologist's timings are
wrong.'

He pulled a piece of paper from a pile on his desk
and turned it towards her. 'That's an itemized British
Telecom list of every call made from the manor during
the week leading up to the murders.' He touched the
last number. 'This one was made by Dorothy Jenkins
to a friend of hers in London and was timed at ten
thirty p.m. on the night she died. The duration time
was just over three minutes. We've spoken to the


62



friend and she described Miss Jenkins as at "the end
of her tether". Apparently Mrs Fanshaw was a difficult
patient to nurse - Alzheimer's sufferers usually are and
Miss Jenkins had phoned this woman - also a
nurse - to tell her that she felt like "smothering the
old bitch where she lay". It had happened several
times before, but this time Miss Jenkins was in tears
and rang off abruptly when her friend said she had
someone with her and couldn't talk for long.' He
paused for a moment. 'The friend was worried enough
to phone back after her visitor had gone,' he went
on, 'and she estimates the time of that call at about a
quarter past midnight. The line was engaged so she
couldn't get through, and she admits to being relieved
because she thought it meant Miss Jenkins had found
someone else to confide in.'

Siobhan frowned. 'Well, at least it proves she was
alive after midnight, doesn't it?'

The inspector shook his head. 'I'm afraid not. The
phone in the kitchen had been knocked off its rest we
think Miss Jenkins may have been trying to dial
nine-nine-nine when she was attacked - ' he tapped
his fingers on the piece of paper - 'which means that,
with or without the pathologist's timings, she must
have been killed between that last itemized call at ten
thirty and her friend's return call at fifteen minutes
past midnight, when the phone was already off the
hook.'


63

1

Five


Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 0.32 a.m.


Even as Siobhan lifted the receiver to call the police
and report Rosheen missing, she was having second
thoughts. They hadn't taken a blind bit of notice in
the past, she thought bitterly, so why should it be
different today? She could even predict how the conversation
would go simply because she had been there
so many times before.

Calm down, Mrs Lavenham . .. It was undoubtedly
a hoax . . . Let's see now . . . didn't someone phone you
not so long ago pretending to be Bridey in the throes of
a heart attack . . .? We rushed an ambulance to her only
to find her alive and well and watching television . . .
You and your nanny are Irish . . . Someone thought it
would be entertaining to get a rise out of you by creeping
into Kilkenny Cottage and making a call. . . Everyone
knows the O'Riordans are notoriously careless about
locking their back door . . . Sadly we can't legislate for
practical jokes . . . Tour nanny. . . ? She'll be watching
the fire along with everyone else . . .


64



With a sigh of frustration, she replaced the receiver
and listened to the message again. 'Hello? Are you
there, Rosheen? It's. . .'

She had been so sure it was Liam the first time she
heard it, but now she was less certain. The Irish accent
was the easiest accent in the world to ape, and Liam's
was so broad any fool could do it. For want of
someone more sensible to talk to, she telephoned Ian
in his hotel bedroom in Rome. 'It's me,' she said,
'and I've only just got back. I'm sorry to wake you
but they've burnt Kilkenny Cottage and Rosheen's
missing. Do you think I should phone the police?'

'Hang on,' he said sleepily. 'Run that one by me
again. Who's they?'

'I don't know,' she said in frustration. 'Someone anyone
- Peter Haversley patted Cynthia on the back
when the roof caved in. If I knew where the
O'Riordans were I'd phone them, but Rosheen's
the only one who knows the number - and she's not
here. I'd go back to the fire if I had a car - the village
is swarming with policemen - but I've had to leave
mine at the church and yours is at Heathrow - and
the children will never be able to walk all the way
down the drive, not at this time of night.'

He gave a long yawn. 'You're going much too fast.
I've only just woken up. What's this about Kilkenny
Cottage burning down?'

She explained it slowly.

'So where's Rosheen?' He sounded more alert now.
'And what the hell was she doing leaving the boys?'


65




'I don't know.' She told him about the telephone
call from Kilkenny Cottage. 'If it was Liam, Rosheen
may have gone up there to see him, and now I'm
worried they were in the house when the fire started.
Everyone thinks it was empty because we watched
them go this morning.' She described the scene for
him as Liam helped Bridey into their Ford estate then
drove unsmilingly past the group of similarly unsmiling
neighbours who had gathered at the crossroads to
see them off. 'It was awful,' she said. 'I went down to
collect Patch, and bloody Cynthia started hissing at
them so the rest joined in. I really hate them, Ian.'

He didn't answer immediately. 'Look,' he said ,|ai
then, 'the fire brigade don't just take people's words f
for this kind of thing. They'll have checked to make ^
sure there was no one in the house as soon as they got ;1
there. And if Liam and Bridey did come back, their
car would have been parked at the front and someone
would have noticed it. OK, I agree the village is full
of bigots, but they're not murderers, Shiv, and they
wouldn't keep quiet if they thought the O'Riordans
were burning to death. Come on, think about it. You
know I'm right.'

'What about Rosheen?'

'Yes, well,' he said dryly, 'it wouldn't be the first
time, would it? Did you check the barn? I expect she's
out there getting laid by Kevin Wyllie.'

'She's only done it once.'

'She's used the barn once,' he corrected her, 'but
it's anyone's guess how often she's been laid by Kevin.


66



I'll bet you a pound to a penny they're tucked up
together somewhere and she'll come wandering in
with a smile on her face when you least expect it. I
hope you tear strips off her for it, too. She's no damn
business to leave the boys on their own.'

She let it ride, unwilling to be drawn into another
argument about Rosheen's morals. Ian worked on the
principle that what the eye didn't see the heart didn't
grieve over, and refused to recognize the hypocrisy of
his position, while Siobhan's view was that Kevin was
merely a bit of 'rough' that was keeping Rosheen
amused while she looked for something better. Every
woman did it. . . the road to respectability was far from
straight. In any case, she agreed with his final sentiment.
Even if it was Liam who had phoned from the
cottage, Rosheen's first responsibility was to James
and Oliver. 'So what should I do? Just wait for her to
come back?'

'I don't see you have much choice. She's over
twenty-one so the police won't do anything tonight.'

'OK.'

He knew her too well. 'You don't sound convinced.'

She wasn't, but then she was more relaxed about
the way Rosheen conducted herself than he was. The
fact that they'd come home early one night and
caught her in the barn with her knickers down had
offended Ian deeply, even though Rosheen had been
monitoring the boys all the time via a two-way transmitter
that she'd taken with her. Ian had wanted to


67



sack her on the spot, but Siobhan had persuaded him
out of it after extracting a promise from Rosheen that
the affair would be confined to her spare time in
future. Afterwards, and because she was a great deal
less puritanical than her English husband, Siobhan had
buried her face in her pillow to stifle her laughter. Her
view was that Rosheen had shown typical Irish tact
by having sex outside in the barn rather than under
the Lavenhams' roof. As she pointed out to Ian: 'We'd
never have known Kevin was there if she'd smutted
him into her room and told him to perform quietly.''

'It's just that I'm tired,' she lied, knowing she
could never describe her sense of foreboding down
the telephone to someone over a thousand miles away. Empty houses gave her the shivers at the best of times
- a throwback to the rambling, echoing mansion of
her childhood, which her overactive imagination had
peopled with giants and spectres . . . 'Look, go back
to sleep and I'll ring you tomorrow. It'll have sorted
itself out by then. Just make sure you come home by
Friday,' she ended severely, 'or I'll file for divorce
immediately. I didn't marry you to be deserted for the
Ravenelli brothers.'

'I will,' he promised.

Siobhan listened to the click as he hung up at the
other end, then replaced her own receiver before
opening the front door and looking towards the dark
shape of the barn. She searched for a chink of light
between the double doors but knew she was wasting
her time even while she was doing it. Rosheen had


68



been so terrified by lan's threat to tell her parents in
Ireland what she'd been up to that her sessions with
Kevin were now confined to somewhere a great deal
more private than Fording Farm's barn.

With a sigh she retreated to the kitchen and settled
on a cushion in front of the Aga with Patch's head
lying across her lap and the bottle of wine beside her.
It was another ten minutes before she noticed that the
key to Kilkenny Cottage, which should have been
hanging on a hook on the dresser, was no longer
there.


69


Wednesday, 10 February 1999


'But why are you so sure it was Patrick?' Siobhan had
asked the inspector next. 'Why not a total stranger?
I mean, anyone could have taken the hammer from
his toolbox if he'd left it in the kitchen the way he
says he did.'

'Because there were no signs of a break-in. Whoever
killed them either had a key to the front door or J£
was let in by Dorothy Jenkins. And that means it must
have been someone she knew.'

'Maybe she hadn't locked up,' said Siobhan,
clutching at straws. 'Maybe they came in through the
back door.'

'Have you ever tried to open the back door to the
manor, Mrs Lavenham?'

'No.'

'Apart from the fact that the bolts were rusted in
their sockets, it's so warped and swollen with damp
you have to put a shoulder to it to force it ajar, and
it screams like a banshee every time you do it. If a
stranger had come in through the back door at eleven
o'clock at night, he wouldn't have caught Miss Jenkins
in the kitchen. She'd have taken to her heels the
minute she heard the banshee-wailing and would have
used one of the phones upstairs to call the police.'


70



'You can't know that,' argued Siobhan. 'Sower
bridge is the sleepiest place on earth. Why would she
assume it was an intruder? She probably thought it
was Jeremy paying a late-night visit to his grandmother.'

'We don't think so.' He picked up a pen and
turned it between his fingers. 'As far as we can establish,
that door was never used. Certainly none of the
neighbours reported going in that way. The paper
boy said Miss Jenkins kept it bolted because on the
one occasion when she tried to open it, it became so
wedged that she had to ask him to force it shut again.'

She sighed, admitting defeat. 'Patrick's always been
so sweet to me and my children. I just can't believe
he's a murderer.'

He smiled at her naivety. 'The two are not mutually
exclusive, Mrs Lavenham. I expect Jack the Ripper's
neighbour said the same about him.'


71



Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 1.00 a.m.


People began to shiver as the smouldering remains
were dowsed by the fire hoses and the pungent smell
of wet ashes stung their nostrils. In the aftermath of
excitement, a sense of shame crept among the inhabitants
of Sowerbridge - schadenfreude was surely alien
to their natures? - and bit by bit the crowd began to
disperse. Only the Haversleys, the Bentleys and Jeremy
Jardine lingered at the crossroads, held by a
mutual fascination for the scene of devastation that
would greet them every time they emerged from their
houses.

'We won't be able to open our windows for weeks,'
said Nora Bentley, wrinkling her nose. 'The smell will
be suffocating.'

'It'll be worse when the wind gets up and deposits
soot all over the place,' complained Peter Haversley,
brushing ash from his coat.

His wife clicked her tongue impatiently. 'We'll just
have to put up with it,' she said. 'It's hardly the end
of the world.'

Sam Bentley surprised her with a sudden bark of
laughter. 'Well spoken, Cynthia, considering you'll
be bearing the brunt of it. The prevailing winds are
south-westerly, which means most of the muck will


72



collect in Malvern House. Still - ' he paused to glance
from her to Peter - 'you sow a wind and you reap a
whirlwind, eh?'

There was a short silence.

'Have you noticed how Liam's wrecks have survived
intact?' asked Nora then, with assumed brightness.
'Is it a judgement, do you think?'

'Don't be ridiculous,' said Jeremy.

Sam gave another brief chortle. 'Is it ridiculous?
You complained enough when there were only the
cars to worry about. Now you've got a burnt-out
cottage as well. I can't believe the O'Riordans were
insured, so it'll be years before anything is done. If
you're lucky, a developer will buy the land and build
an estate of little boxes on your doorstep. If you're
unlucky, Liam will put up a corrugated-iron shack
and live in that. And do you know, Jeremy, I hope he
does! Personal revenge is so much sweeter than anything
the law can offer.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'You'd have been wiser to call the fire brigade
earlier,' said the old doctor bluntly. 'Nero may have
fiddled while Rome burned, but it didn't do his
reputation any good.'

Another silence.

'What are you implying?' demanded Cynthia
aggressively. 'That Jeremy could somehow have prevented
the fire?'

Jeremy Jardine folded his arms. Till sue you for
slander if you are, Sam.'


73



'It won't be just me. Half the village is wondering
why Nora and I smelt burning before you did, and
why Cynthia and Peter took themselves off to Salisbury
on a Monday evening for the first time in living
memory.'

'Coincidence,' grunted Peter Haversley. 'Pure
coincidence.'

'Well, I pray for all your sakes you're telling the
truth,' murmured Sam, wiping a weary hand across
his ash-grimed face, 'because the police aren't the only
ones who'll be asking questions. The Lavenhams certainly
won't stay quiet.'

'I hope you're not suggesting that one of us set
fire to that beastly little place,' said Cynthia crossly.
'Honestly, Sam, I wonder about you sometimes.'

He shook his head sadly, wishing he could dislike
her as comprehensively as Siobhan Lavenham did.
'No, Cynthia, I'm suggesting you knew it was going
to happen, and even incited the local youths to do it.
You can argue that you wanted revenge for Lavinia
and Dorothy's deaths, but aiding and abetting any
crime is a prosecutable offence and - ' he sighed -
'you'll get no sympathy from me if you go to prison
for it.'

Behind them, in the hall of Malvern House, the
telephone began to ring . . .

74



Wednesday, 10 February 1999


Siobhan had put an opened envelope on the desk in
front of the detective inspector. 'Even if Patrick is the
murderer and even if Bridey knows he is, it doesn't
excuse this kind of thing,' she said. 'I can't prove it
came from Cynthia Haversley, but I'm a hundred per
cent certain it did. She's busting a gut to make life so
unpleasant for Liam and Bridey that they'll leave of
their own accord.'

The inspector frowned as he removed a folded
piece of paper and read the letters pasted onto it.


Hanging is too good
for the tikes of JOU

m hell


'Who was it sent to?' he asked.

'Bridey.'

'Why did she give it to you and not to the police?'

'Because she knew I was coming here today and
asked me to bring it with me. It was posted through
her letterbox sometime the night before last.'


75



('They'll take more notice of you than they ever
take of me,' the old woman had said, pressing the
envelope urgently into Siobhan's hands. 'Make them
understand we're in danger before it's too late.')

He turned the envelope over. 'Why do you think
it came from Mrs Haversley?'

Feminine intuition, thought Siobhan wryly. 'Because
the letters that make up "hell" have been cut from a Daily Telegraph banner imprint. It's the only broad
sheet newspaper that has an "h", an "e", and two "l"s
in its title, and Cynthia takes the Telegraph every day.'

'Along with how many other people in Sower
bridge?'

She smiled slightly. 'Quite a few, but no one else
has Cynthia Haversley's poisonous frame of mind.
She loves stirring. The more she can work people up,
the happier she is. It gives her a sense of importance
to have everyone dancing to her tune.'

'You don't like her.' It was a statement rather than
a question.

'No.'

'Neither do I,' admitted the inspector, 'but it doesn't
make her guilty, Mrs Lavenham. Liam and/or Bridey
could have acquired a Telegraph just as easily and sent
this letter to themselves.'

'That's what Bridey told me you'd say.'

'Because it's the truth?' he suggested mildly. 'Mrs
Haversley's a fat, clumsy woman with fingers like
sausages, and if she'd been wearing gloves the whole
exercise would have been impossible. This -' he

76



touched the letter - 'is too neat. There's not a letter
out of place.'

'Peter then.'

'Peter Haversley's an alcoholic. His hands shake.'

'Jeremy Jardine?'

'I doubt it. Poison-pen letters are usually written
by women. I'm sorry, Mrs Lavenham, but I can
guarantee the only fingerprints I will find on this other
than yours and mine, of course - are Bridey
O'Riordan's. Not because the person who did it wore
gloves, but because Bridey did it herself


77


Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 1.10 a.m.


Dr Bentley clicked his tongue in concern as he glanced
past Cynthia to her husband. Peter was walking
unsteadily towards them after answering the telephone,
his face leeched of colour in the lights of
the fire engines. 'You should be in bed, man. We
should all be in bed. We're too old for this sort of
excitement.'	a

Peter Haversley ignored him. 'That was Siobhan,'
he said jerkily. 'She wants me to tell the police that
Rosheen is missing. She said Liam called the farm
from Kilkenny Cottage at eight thirty this evening,
and she's worried he and Rosheen were in there when
the fire started.'

'They can't have been,' said Jeremy.

'How do you know?'

'We watched Liam and Bridey leave for Winchester
this morning.'

'What if Liam came back to protect his house?
What if he phoned Rosheen and asked her to join
him?'

'Oh, for God's sake, Peter!' snapped Cynthia. 'It's
just Siobhan trying to make trouble again. You know
what she's like.'

'I don't think so. She sounded very distressed.'


78



He looked around for a policeman. 'I'd better report
it.'

But his wife gripped his arm to hold him back.
'No,' she said viciously. 'Let Siobhan do her own dirty
work. If she wants to employ a slut to look after her
children then it's her responsibility to keep tabs on
her, not ours.'

There was a moment of stillness while Peter
searched her face in appalled recognition that he was
looking at a stranger, then he drew back his hand and
slapped her across her face. 'Whatever depths you may
have sunk to,' he said, 'I am not-a murderer . . .'


79


I



LATE NEWS Daily Telegraph Tuesday, 9 March, a.m.



Irish Family Burnt Out
by Vigilantes


The family home of Patrick O'Riordan,
currently on trial for the murder of
Lavinia Fanshaw and Dorothy Jenkins,
was burnt to the ground last
night in what police suspect was a
deliberate act of arson. Concern has
been expressed over the whereabouts
of O'Riordan's elderly parents, and
some reports suggest bodies were
recovered from the gutted kitchen.
Police are refusing to confirm or deny
the rumours. Suspicion has fallen on
local vigilante groups who have been
conducting a 'hate' campaign against
the O'Riordan family. In face of criticism,
Hampshire police have restated
their policy of zero tolerance towards
anyone who decides to take the law
into his own hands. 'We will not hesitate
to prosecute,' said a spokesman.
'Vigilantes should understand that
arson is a very serious offence.'


i




80


i
Six


Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 6.00 a.m.


When Siobhan heard a car pull into the driveway at
six a.m. she prayed briefly, but with little hope, that
someone had found Rosheen and brought her home.
Hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, she opened her front
door and stared at the two policemen on her doorstep.
They looked like ghosts in the grey dawn light.
Harbingers of doom, she thought, reading their
troubled expressions. She recognized one of them as
the detective inspector and the other as the young
constable who had flagged her down the previous
night. 'You'd better come in,' she said, pulling the
door wide.

'Thank you.'

She led the way into the kitchen and dropped onto
the cushion in front of the Aga again, cradling Patch
in her arms. 'This is Bridey's dog,' she told them,
stroking his muzzle. 'She adores him. He adores her.
The trouble is he's a hopeless guard dog. He's like
Bridey - ' tears of exhaustion sprang into her eyes 81



'not overly bright - not overly brave - but as kind as
kind can be.'

The two policemen stood awkwardly in front of
her, unsure where to sit or what to say.

'You look terrible,' she said unevenly, 'so I
presume
you've come to tell me Rosheen is dead.'

'We don't know yet, Mrs Lavenham,' said the
inspector, turning a chair to face her and lowering
himself onto it. He gestured to the young constable
to do the same. 'We found a body in the kitchen area,
but it'll be some time before--' He paused, unsure
how to continue.

'I'm afraid it was so badly burnt it was unrecognizable.
We're waiting on the pathologist's report to give
us an idea of the age and - ' he paused again - 'sex.'

'Oh, God!' she said dully. 'Then it must be
Rosheen.'

'Why don't you think it's Bridey or Liam?'

'Because . . .' she broke off with a worried frown,
'I assumed the phone call was a hoax to frighten
Rosheen. Oh, my God! Aren't they in Winchester?'

He looked troubled. 'They were escorted to a safe
house at the end of yesterday's proceedings but it
appears they left again shortly afterwards. There was
no one to monitor them, you see. They had a direct
line through to the local police station and we sent
out regular patrols during the night. We were worried
about trouble coming from outside, not that they
might decide to return to Kilkenny Cottage without
telling us.' He rubbed a hand around his jaw. 'There

I


82



are recent tyre marks up at the manor. We think Liam
may have parked his Ford there in order to push
Bridey across the lawn and through the gate onto the
footpath beside Kilkenny Cottage.'

She shook her head in bewilderment. 'Then why
didn't you find three bodies?'

'Because the car isn't there now, Mrs Lavenham,
and whoever died in Kilkenny Cottage probably died
at the hands of Liam O'Riordan.'


83


Wednesday, 10 February 1999


She had stood up at the end of her interview with the
inspector. 'Do you know what I hate most about
the English?' she said.

He shook his head.

'It never occurs to you, you might be wrong.' She
placed her palm on the poison-pen letter on his desk.
'But you're wrong about this. Bridey cares about my
opinion - she cares about me - not just as a fellow
Irishwoman but as the employer of her niece. She'd
never do anything to jeopardize Rosheen's position
in our house because Rosheen and I are her only lifeline
in Sowerbridge. We shop for her, we do our best
to protect her, and we welcome her to the farm when
things get difficult. Under no circumstances whatsoever would Bridey use me to pass on falsified evidence
because she'd be too afraid I'd wash my hands of her
and then persuade Rosheen to do the same.'

'It may be true, Mrs Lavenham, but it's not an
argument you could ever use in court.'

'I'm not interested in legal argument, Inspector,
I'm only interested in persuading you that there is a
terror campaign being waged against the O'Riordans
in Sowerbridge and that their lives are in danger.' She
watched him shake his head. 'You haven't listened to


84



a word I've said, have you? You just think I'm taking
Bridey's side because I'm Irish.'

'Aren't you?'

No.' She straightened with a sigh. 'Moral support
is alien to Irish culture, Inspector. We only really
enjoy fighting with each other. I thought every Englishman
knew that. . .'


85




Tuesday, 9 March 1999, noon


The news that Patrick O'Riordan's trial had been
adjourned while police investigated the disappearance
of his parents and his cousin was broadcast across the
networks at noon, but Siobhan switched off the radio
before the names could register with her two young
sons.

They had sat wide-eyed all morning watching a «
procession of policemen traipse to and from Rosheen's
bedroom in search of anything that might give them
a lead to where she had gone. Most poignantly, as far
as Siobhan was concerned, they had carefully removed
the girl's hairbrush, some used tissues from her wastepaper
basket and a small pile of dirty washing in order
to provide the pathologist with comparative DNA
samples.

She had explained to the boys that Rosheen hadn't
been in the house when she got back the previous
night, and because she was worried about it she had
asked the police to help find her.

'She went to Auntie Bridey's,' said six-year-old
James.

'How do you know, darling?'

'Because Uncle Liam phoned and said Auntie
Bridey wasn't feeling very well.'


86



'Did Rosheen tell you that?'

He nodded. 'She said she wouldn't be long but
that I had to go to sleep. So I did.'

She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. 'Good
boy.'

He and Oliver were drawing pictures at the kitchen
table, and James suddenly dragged his pencil to and
fro across the page to obliterate what he'd been doing.
'Is it because Uncle Patrick killed that lady?' he asked
her.

Siobhan searched his face for a moment. The rules
had been very clear . . . Whatever else you do, Rosheen,
please do not tell the children what Patrick has been
accused of. . . 'I didn't know you knew about that,'
she said lightly.

'Everyone knows,' he told her solemnly. 'Uncle
Patrick's a monster and ought to be strung up.'

'Goodness!' she exclaimed, forcing a smile to her
lips. 'Who said that?'

'Kevin.'

Anger tightened like knots in her chest. Ian had
laid it on the line following the incident in the barn . . .
You may see Kevin in your spare time, Rosheen, but not
when you're in charge of the children . . . 'Kevin Wyllie?
Rosheen's friend?' She squatted down beside him,
smoothing a lock of hair from his forehead. 'Does he
come here a lot?'

'Rosheen said we weren't to tell.'

'I don't think she meant you musn't tell me,
darling.'


87



James wrapped his thin little arms round her neck
and pressed his cheek against hers. 'I think she did,
Mummy. She said Kevin would rip her head off if we told you and Daddy anything.'


88



Tuesday, 9 March 1999, later


'I can't believe I let this happen,' she told the inspector,
pacing up and down her drawing room in a frenzy
of movement. 'I should have listened to Ian. He said
Kevin was no good the minute he saw him.'

'Calm down, Mrs Lavenham,' he said quietly. 'I
imagine your children can hear ever}' word you're
saying.'
'But why didn't Rosheen tell me Kevin was threatening
her? God knows, she should have known she
could trust me. I've bent over backwards to help her
and her family.'

'Perhaps that's the problem,' he suggested. 'Perhaps
she was worried about laying any more burdens
on your shoulders.'

'But she was responsible for my children, for God's
sake! I can't believe she'd keep quiet while some low
grade neanderthal was terrorizing her.'

The inspector watched her for a moment, wondering
how much to tell her. 'Kevin Wyllie is also
missing,' he said abruptly. 'We're collecting DNA
samples from his bedroom because we think the body
at Kilkenny Cottage is his.'

Siobhan stared at him in bewilderment. 'I don't
understand.'


89



He gave a hollow laugh. 'The one thing the pathologist can be certain about, Mrs Lavenham, is that the
body was upright when it died.'

'I still don't understand.'

He looked ill, she thought, as he ran his tongue
across dry lips. 'We're working on the theory that Liam,
Bridey and Rosheen appointed themselves judge, jury
and hangman before setting fire to Kilkenny Cottage
in order to destroy the evidence.'


90





Daily Telegraph - Wednesday, 10 March, a.m.




ii

Couple Arrested

Two people, believed to be the parents
of Patrick O'Riordan, whose trial at
Winchester Crown Court was
adjourned two days ago, were arrested
on suspicion of murder in Liverpool
yesterday as they attempted to board
a ferry to Ireland. There is still no clue
to the whereabouts of their niece
Rosheen, whose family lives in
County Donegal. Hampshire police
have admitted that the Irish Garda
have been assisting them in their
search for the missing family. Suspicion
remains that the body found in
Kilkenny Cottage was that of Sower
bridge resident Kevin Wyllie, 28,
although police refuse to confirm or
deny the story.



91


Thursday, 11 March 1999, 4.00 a.m.


Siobhan had lain awake for hours, listening to the -- clock on the bedside table tick away the seconds. She *! heard Ian come in at two o'clock and tiptoe into
the spare room, but she didn't call out to tell him she
was awake. There would be time enough to say sorry
tomorrow. Sorry for dragging him home early . . .
sorry for saying Lavenham Interiors could go down .£{
the drain for all she cared . . . sorry for getting every- '*'
thing so wrong . . . sorry for blaming the English <j|j
for the sins of the Irish . . .

Grief squeezed her heart every time she thought
about Rosheen. But it was a complicated grief that
carried shame and guilt in equal proportions because
she couldn't rid herself of responsibility for what the
girl had done. 'I thought she was keen on Kevin,' she
told the inspector that afternoon. 'Ian never understood
the attaction, but I did.'

'Why?' he asked with a hint of cynicism. 'Because
it was a suitable match? Because Kevin was the same
class as she was?'

'It wasn't a question of class,' she protested.

'Wasn't it? In some ways you're more of a snob
than the English, Mrs Lavenham. You forced Rosheen
to acknowledge her relationship with Liam and Bridey


92



because you acknowledged them,' he told her brutally,
'but it really ought to have occurred to you that a
bright girl like her would have higher ambitions than
to be known as the niece of Irish gypsies.'

'Then why bother with Kevin at all? Wasn't he just
as bad?'

The inspector shrugged. 'What choice did she
have? How many unattached men are there in Sower
bridge? And you had to believe she was with someone,
Mrs Lavenham, otherwise you'd have started asking
awkward questions. Still - ' he paused - 'I doubt the
poor lad had any idea just how much she loathed
him.'

'No one did,' said Siobhan sadly. 'Everyone thought
she was besotted with him after the incident in the
barn.'

'She was playing a long game,' he said slowly, 'and
she was very good at it. You never doubted she was
fond of her aunt and uncle.'

The believed what she told me.'

He smiled slightly. 'And you were determined that
everyone else should believe it as well.'

Siobhan looked at him with stricken eyes. 'Oh
God! Does that make it my fault?'

'No,' he murmured. 'Mine. I didn't take you
seriously when you said the Irish only really enjoy
fighting each other.'


93


Thursday, 11 March 1999, 3.00p.m.


Cynthia Haversley opened her front door a crack.
'Oh, it's you,' she said with surprising warmth. 'I
thought it was another of those beastly journalists.'

Well, well! How quickly times change, thought
Siobhan ruefully as she stepped inside. Not so long
ago Cynthia had been inviting those same 'beastly'
journalists into Malvern House for cups of tea while
she regaled them with stories about the O'Riordans'
iniquities. Siobhan nodded to Peter, who was standing
in the doorway to the drawing room. 'How are you
both?'

It was three days since she had seen them, and she
was surprised by how much they had aged. Peter, in
particular, looked haggard and grey, and she assumed
he must have been hitting the bottle harder than
usual. He made a rocking motion with his hand.
'Not too good. Rather ashamed about the way we've
all been behaving, if I'm honest.'

Cynthia opened her mouth to say something, but
clearly thought better of it. 'Where are the boys?' she
asked instead.

'Nora's looking after them for me.'

'You should have brought them with you. I wouldn't have minded.'


94


f



Siobhan shook her head. 'I didn't want them to
hear what I'm going to say to you, Cynthia.'

The woman bridled immediately. 'You can't
blame--'

'Enough!' snapped Peter, cutting her short and
stepping to one side. 'Come into the drawing room,
Siobhan. How's Ian bearing up? We saw he'd come
home.'

She walked across to the window, from where she
could see the remains of Kilkenny Cottage. 'Tired,'
she answered. 'He didn't get back till early this morning
and he had to leave again at crack of dawn for the
office. We've got three contracts on the go and they're
all going pear-shaped because neither of us has been
there.'

'It can't be easy for you.'

'No,' she said slowly, 'it's not. Ian was supposed
to stay in Italy till Friday, but as things are . . .' She
paused. 'Neither of us can be in two places at once,
unfortunately.' She turned to look at them. 'And I
can't leave the children.'

'I'm sorry,' said Peter.

She gave a small laugh. 'There's no need to be. I
do rather like them, you know, so it's no hardship
having to stay at home. I just wish it hadn't had to
happen this way.' She folded her arms and studied
Cynthia seriously. 'James told me an interesting story
yesterday,' she said. 'I assume it's true because he's
a truthful child, but I thought I'd check it with you
anyway. In view of everything that's happened, I'm


95



hesitant to accept anyone's word on anything. Did
you go down to the farm one day and find James and
Oliver alone?'

'I saw Rosheen leave,' she said, 'but I knew no one
was there to look after them because I'd been - well watching
the drive that morning.' She puffed out her
chest in self-defence. 'I told you she was deceitful and
lazy but you wouldn't listen to me.'

'Because you never told me why,' said Siobhan
mildly.

'I assumed you knew and that it didn't bother you.
Ian made no secret of how angry he was when you
came home one night and found her with Kevin in
the barn, but you just said he was overreacting.'
Cynthia considered the wisdom of straight speaking,
decided it was necessary, and took a deep breath. 'If
I'm honest, Siobhan, you even seemed to find it rather
amusing. I never understood why. Personally, I'd have
sacked her on the spot and looked for someone more
respectable.'

Siobhan shook her head. 'I thought it was a one
off. I didn't realize she'd been making a habit of it.'

'She was too interested in sex not to, my dear. I've
never seen anyone so shameless. More often than not,
she'd leave your boys with Bridey if it meant she could
have a couple of hours with Kevin Wyllie. Many's the
time I watched her sneak them into Kilkenny Cottage
only to sauce out again five minutes later on her own.
And then she'd drive off in your Range Rover, bold
as brass, with that unpleasant young man beside her.


96



I did wonder if you knew what your car was being
used for.'

'You should have told me.'

Cynthia shook her head. 'You wouldn't have
listened.'

'In fact, Cynthia tried several times to broach the
subject,' said Peter gently, 'but on each occasion you
shot her down in flames and all but accused her of
being an anti-Irish bigot.'

'I never had much choice,' murmured Siobhan,
without hostility. 'Could you not have divorced Rosheen
from Liam, Bridey and Patrick, Cynthia? Why did
every conversation about my nanny have to begin with
a diatribe against her relatives?'

There was a short, uncomfortable silence.

Siobhan sighed. 'What I really don't understand
is why you should have thought I was the kind of mother who wouldn't care if her children were being
neglected.'

Cynthia looked embarrassed. 'I didn't, not really. I
just thought you were - well, rather more relaxed than
most.'

'Because I'm Irish and not English?'

Peter tut-tutted in concern. 'It wasn't like that,' he
said. 'Hang it all, Siobhan, we didn't know what
Rosheen's instructions were. To be honest, we
thought you were encouraging her to make use of
Bridey in order to give the poor old thing a sense
of purpose. We didn't applaud your strategy - as a
matter of fact, it seemed like a mad idea to us--'


97
	IB

'If

#1
He broke off with a guilty expression. 'As Cynthia

kept saying, there's no way she'd have left two boisterous
children in the care of a disabled woman
and a drunken man, but we thought you were trying
to demonstrate solidarity with them. If I trust the
O'Riordans with my children, then so should the rest
of you . . . that sort of thing.'

Siobhan turned back to the window and the blackened
heap that had been Kilkenny Cottage. For want
of a, nail the shoe was lost . . . for want of a shoe the
horse was lost . . . for want of mutual understanding
lives were lost . . . 'Couldn't you have told me about
the time you went to the farm and found James and
Oliver on their own?' she murmured, her breath
misting the glass.

'I did,' said Cynthia.

'When?'

'The day after I found them. I stopped you and Ian at the end of the drive as you were setting off
for work and told you your children were too young to be left alone. I must say I thought your attitude
was extraordinarily casual but - well - ' she shrugged
- 'I'd rather come to expect that.'

Siobhan remembered the incident well. Cynthia
had stood in the drive, barring their way, and had
then thrust her indignant red face through lan's open
window and lectured them on the foolishness of
employing a girl with loose morals. 'We both assumed
you were talking about the night she took Kevin into
the barn. Ian said afterwards that he wished he'd never


98



mentioned it because you were using it as a stick to
beat us.'

Cynthia frowned. 'Didn't James and Oliver tell
you about it? I sat with them for nearly two hours,
in all conscience, and gave Rosheen a piece of my
mind when she finally came back.'

'They were too frightened. Kevin beat them about
the head because they'd opened the door to you and
said if I ever asked them if Mrs Haversley had come
to the house they were to say no.'

Cynthia lowered herself carefully onto a chair. 'I
had no idea,' she said in an appalled tone of voice.
'No wonder you took it so calmly.'

'Mm.' Siobhan glanced from the seated woman to
her husband. 'We seem to have got our wires crossed
all along the line, and I feel very badly about it now.
I keep thinking that if I hadn't been so quick to
condemn you all, no one would have died.'

Peter shook his head. 'We all feel the same way.
Even Sam and Nora Bentley. They're saying that if
they'd backed your judgement of Liam and Bridey
instead of sitting on the fence--' He broke off on a
sigh. The can't understand why we allowed it to get so
out of hand. We're not unkind people. A little misguided
. . . rather too easily prejudiced perhaps . . .
but not unkind.''

Siobhan thought of Jeremy Jardine. Was Peter
including Lavinia's grandson in this general absolution,
she wondered.


99

Seven


Friday, 12 March 1999, 9.00 a.m.


'Can I get you a cup of tea, Bridey?' asked the
inspector as he came into the interview room.

The old woman's eyes twinkled mischievously. 'I'd
rather have a Guinness.'

He laughed as he pulled out a chair. 'You and
Liam both. He says it's the first time he's been on the
wagon since his last stretch in prison nearly twenty
years ago.' He studied her for a moment. 'Any
regrets?'

'Only the one,' she said. 'That we didn't kill Mr
Jar dine as well.'

'No regrets about killing Rosheen?'

'Why would I have?' she asked him. 'I'd crush a
snake as easily. She taunted us with how clever she'd
been to kill two harmless old ladies and then have my
poor Patrick take the blame. And all for the sake of
marrying a rich man. I should have recognized her as
the devil the first day I saw her.'

'How did you kill her?'


100



'She was a foolish girl. She thought that because
I'm in a wheelchair she had nothing to fear from me,
when, of course, every bit of strength I have is in my
arms. It was Liam she was afraid of, but she should
have remembered that Liam hasn't been able to hurt
a fly these fifteen years.' She smiled as she released the
arm of her wheelchair and held it up. The two metal
prongs that located it in the chair's framework protruded
from each end. 'I can only shift myself to a
bed or a chair when this is removed, and it's been
lifted out that many times the ends are like razors.
Perhaps I'd not have brought it down on her wicked
head if she hadn't laughed and called us illiterate Irish
trash. Then again, perhaps I would. To be sure, I was
angry enough.'

'Why weren't you angry with Kevin?' he asked
curiously. 'He says he was only there that night
because he'd been paid to set fire to your house. Why
didn't you kill him, too? He's making no bones about
the fact that he and his friends have been terrorizing
you for months.'

'Do you think we didn't know that? Why would
we go back to Kilkenny Cottage in secret if it wasn't
to catch him and his friends red-handed and make you
coppers sit up and take notice of the fearful things
they've been doing to us these many months? As Liam said, fight fire with fire. Mind, that's not to say we
wanted to kill them - give them a shock, maybe.'

'But only Kevin turned up?'

She nodded. 'Poor greedy creature that he is.


101



Would he share good money with his friends when a
single match would do the business? He came creeping
in with his petrol can and I've never seen a lad so frightened as when Liam slipped the noose about his
throat and called to me to switch on the light. We'd
strung it from the beams and the lad was caught like
a fly on a web. Did we tell you he wet himself?'

'No.'

'Well, he did. Pissed all over the floor in terror.'

'He's got an inch-wide rope burn round his neck,
Bridey. Liam must have pulled the noose pretty tight
for that, so perhaps Kevin thought you were going to
hang him?'

'Liam hasn't the strength to pull anything tight,'
she said matter-of-factly, slotting the chair arm back
into its frame. 'Not these fifteen years.'

'So you keep saying,' murmured the inspector.

'I expect Kevin will tell you he slipped and did it
himself. He was that frightened he could hardly keep
his feet, but at least it meant we knew he was telling
the truth. He could have named anybody . . . Mrs
Haversley ... Mr Jardine . . . but instead he told us it
was our niece who had promised him a hundred quid
if he'd burn Kilkenny Cottage down and get us out of
her hair for good.'

'Did he also say she had been orchestrating the
campaign against you?'

'Oh, yes,' she murmured, staring past him as her
mind replayed the scene in her head. ' "She calls you
thieving Irish trash," he said, "and hates you for your


102



cheap, common ways and your poverty. She wants rid
of you from Sowerbridge because people will never
treat her right until you're gone."' She smiled slightly.
'So I told him I didn't blame her, that it can't have
been easy having her cousin arrested for murder and
her aunt and uncle treated like lepers - ' she paused to
stare at her hands - 'and he said Patrick's arrest had
nothing to do with it.'

'Did he explain what he meant?'

'That she'd hated us from the first day she met us.'
She shook her head. 'Though, to be sure, I don't
know what we did to make her think so badly of us.'

'You lied to your family, Bridey. We've spoken to
her brother. According to him, her mother filled her
head with stories about how rich you and Liam were
and how you'd sold your business in London to retire
to a beautiful cottage in a beautiful part of England. I
think the reality must have been a terrible disappointment
to her. According to her brother, she came over
from Ireland with dreams of meeting a wealthy man
and marrying him.'

'She was wicked through and through, Inspector,
and I'll not take any of her fault on me. I was honest
with her from the beginning. We are as you see us, I
said, because God saw fit to punish us for Liam and
Patrick's wrongdoing, but you'll never be embarrassed
by it because no one knows. We may not be as rich as
you hoped, but we're loving, and there'll always be a
home for you here if the job doesn't work out with
Mrs Lavenham.'


103



'Now Mrs Lavenham's blaming herself, Bridey. She
says if she'd spent less time at the office and more
with Rosheen and the children, no one would have
died.'

Distress creased Bridey's forehead. 'It's always the
same when people abandon their religion. Without
God in their lives, they quickly lose sight of the devil.
Yet for you and me, Inspector, the devil exists in the
hearts of the wicked. Mrs Lavenham needs reminding
that it was Rosheen who betrayed this family . . . and
only Rosheen.'

'Because you gave her the means when you told
her about Patrick's conviction.'

The old woman's mouth thinned into a narrow
line. 'And she used it against him. Can you believe
that I never once questioned why those poor old
ladies were killed with Patrick's hammer? Would you
not think - knowing my boy was innocent - that I'd
have put two and two together and said, there's no
such thing as coincidence?'

'She was clever,' said the inspector. 'She made
everyone believe she was only interested in Kevin
Wyllie, and Kevin Wyllie had no reason on earth to
murder Mrs Fanshaw.'

'I have it in my heart to feel sorry for the poor lad
now,' said Bridey with a small laugh, 'never mind he
terrorized us for months. Rosheen showed her colours
soon enough when she came down after Liam's phone
call to find Kevin trussed up like a chicken on the
floor. That's when I saw the cunning in her eyes and


104



realized for the first time what a schemer she was.
She tried to pretend Kevin was lying, but when she
saw we didn't believe her, she snatched the petrol can
from the table. "I'll make you burn in hell, you stupid,
incompetent bastard," she told him. "You've served
your purpose, made everyone think I was interested
in you when you're so far beneath me I wouldn't
have wasted a second glance on you if I hadn't had
to." Then she came towards me, unscrewing the lid
of the petrol can as she did so and slopping it over
my skirt. Bold as brass she was with her lighter in her
hand, telling Liam she'd set fire to me if he tried to
stop her phoning her fancy man to come and help
her.' Her eyes hardened at the memory. 'She couldn't
keep quiet, of course. Perhaps people can't when
they believe in their own cleverness. She told us
how gullible we were . . . what excitement she'd had
battering two old ladies to death . . . how besotted
Mr Jardine was with her . . . how easy it had been to
cast suspicion on a moron like Patrick . . . And when
Mr Jardine never answered because he was hiding
in his cellar, she turned on me in a fury and thrust
the lighter against my skirt, saying she'd burn us
all anyway. Kevin will get the blame, she said, even
though he'll be dead. Half the village knows he's
been sent down here to do the business.'

'And that's when you hit her?'

Bridey nodded. 'I certainly wasn't going to wait
for her to strike the flint, now was I?'

'And Kevin witnessed all this?'


105



'He did indeed, and will say so at my trial if you
decide to prosecute me.'

The inspector smiled slightly. 'So who set the
house on fire, Bridey?'

'To be sure, it was Rosheen who did it. The petrol
spilled all over the floor as she fell and the lighter
sparked as it hit the quarry tiles.' A flicker of amusement
crossed her old face as she looked at him. 'Ask
young Kevin if you don't believe me.'

'I already have. He agrees with you. The only
trouble is, he breaks out in a muck sweat every time
the question's put to him.'

'And why wouldn't he? It was a terrible experience
for all of us.'

'So why didn't you go up in flames, Bridey? You
said your skirt was saturated with petrol.'

'Ah, well, do you not think that was God's doing?'
She crossed herself. 'Of course, it may have had
something to do with the fact that Kevin had managed
to free himself and was able to push me to the door
while Liam smothered the flames with his coat, but
for myself I count it a miracle.'

'You're lying through your teeth, Bridey. We think
Liam started the fire on purpose in order to hide
something.'

The old woman gave a cackle of laughter. 'Now
why would you think that, Inspector? What could two
poor cripples have done that they didn't want the
police to know about?' Her eyes narrowed. 'Never
mind a witch had tried to rob them of their only son?'


106



Friday, 12 March 1999, 2.00p.m.


'Did you find out?' Siobhan asked the inspector.

He shrugged. 'We think Kevin had to watch a ritual
burning and is too terrified to admit to it because he's
the one who took the petrol there in the first place.'
He watched a look of disbelief cross Siobhan's face.
'Bridey called her a witch,' he reminded her.
Siobhan shook her head. 'And you think that's the
evidence Liam wanted to destroy?'

'Yes.'

She gave an unexpected laugh. 'You must think
the Irish are very backward, Inspector. Didn't ritual
burnings go out with the Middle Ages?' She paused,
unable to control her amusement. 'Are you going to
charge them with it? The press will love it if you do.
I can just imagine the headlines when the case comes
to trial.'

'No,' he said, watching her. 'Kevin's sticking to the
story Liam and Bridey taught him, and the pathologist's
suggestion that Rosheen was upright when she
died looks too damn flakey to take into court. At the
moment, we're accepting a plea of self-defence and
accidental arson.' He paused. 'Unless you know differently,
Mrs Lavenham.'

Her expression was unreadable. 'All I know,' she


107



told him, 'is that Bridey could no more have burnt
her niece as a witch than she could get up out of her
wheelchair and walk. But don't go by what I say,
Inspector. I've been wrong about everything else.'

'Mm. Well, you're right. Their defence against
murder rests entirely on their disabilities.'

Siobhan seemed to lose interest and fell into a
thoughtful silence which the inspector was loath to
break. 'Was it Rosheen who told you Patrick had
stolen Lavinia's jewellery?' she demanded abruptly.

'Why do you ask?'

'Because I've never understood why you suddenly
concentrated all your efforts on him.'

'We found his fingerprints at the manor.'

'Along with mine and most of Sowerbridge's.'

'But yours aren't on file, Mrs Lavenham, and you
don't have a criminal record.'

'Neither should Patrick, Inspector, not if it's fifteen
years since he committed a crime. The English have a
strong sense of justice, and that means his slate should
have been wiped clean after seven years. Someone - '
she studied him curiously - 'must have pointed the
finger at him. I've never been able to work out who it
was, but perhaps it was you? Did you base your whole
case against him on privileged knowledge that you
acquired fifteen years ago in London? If so, you're a
shit.'

He was irritated enough to defend himself. 'He
boasted to Rosheen about how he'd got the better of
a senile old woman and showed her Mrs Fanshaw's

108


"T4



jewellery to prove it. She said he was full of himself,
talked about how both old women were so gaga
they'd given him the run of the house in return for
doing some small maintenance jobs. She didn't say
Patrick had murdered them - she was too clever for
that - but when we questioned Patrick and he denied
ever being in the Manor House or knowing anything
about any stolen jewellery, we decided to search Kilkenny
Cottage and came up trumps.'

'Which is what Rosheen wanted.'

'We know that now, Mrs Lavenham, and if Patrick
had been straight with us from the beginning, it
might have been different then. But, unfortunately,
he wasn't. His difficulty was he had the old lady's
rings in his possession as well as the costume jewellery
that Miss Jenkins gave him. He knew perfectly well
he'd been palmed off with worthless glass, so he
hopped upstairs when Miss Jenkins's back was turned
and helped himself to something more valuable. He
claims Mrs Fanshaw was asleep so he just slipped the
rings off her fingers and tiptoed out again.'

'Did Bridey and Rosheen know he'd taken the
rings?'

'Yes, but he told them they were glass replicas which
had been in the box with the rest of the bits and pieces.
Rosheen knew differently, of course - she and Jardine
understood Patrick's psychology well enough to know
he'd steal something valuable the minute his earnings
were denied - but Bridey believed him.'

She nodded. 'Has Jeremy admitted his part in it?'


109


'f

'Not yet,' murmured the inspector dryly, 'but he	f i

will. He's a man without scruples. He recognized a	j

fellow traveller in Rosheen, seduced her with promises	1

of marriage, then persuaded her to kill his grand	"<

mother and her nurse so that he could inherit. Rosheen
didn't need an alibi - she was never even
questioned about where she was that night because

you all assumed she was with Kevin.'	I

*i
'On the principle that shagging Kevin was the only	|

thing that interested her,' agreed Siobhan. 'She was clever, you know. No one suspected for a minute that	r

she was having an affair with Jeremy. Cynthia Haver
si ey thought she was a common little tart. Ian thought	j!
Kevin was taking advantage of her. / thought she was
having a good time.'

'She was. She had her future mapped out as Lady
of the Manor once Patrick was convicted and Jardine
inherited the damn place. Apparently, her one ambition
in life was to lord it over Liam and Bridey. If you're
interested, Mrs Haversley is surprisingly sympathetic
towards her.' He lifted a cynical eyebrow. 'She says
she recognizes how easy it must have been for a
degenerate like Jardine to manipulate an unsophisticated
country girl when he had no trouble persuading sophisticated - ' he drew quote marks in the air - 'types
like her and Mr Haversley to believe whatever he told
them.'

Siobhan smiled. 'I'm growing quite fond of her in
a funny sort of way. It's like fighting your way through
a blackened baked potato. The outside's revolting but


110



the inside's delicious and rather soft.' Her eyes strayed
towards the window, searching for some distant
horizon. 'The odd thing is, Nora Bentley told me
on Monday that it was a pity I'd never seen the kind
side of Cynthia . . . and I had the bloody nerve to say
I didn't want to. God, how I wish--' She broke off
abruptly, unwilling to reveal too much of the anguish
that still churned inside her. 'Why did Liam and
Bridey take Kevin with them?' she asked next.

'According to him, they all panicked. He was scared
he'd get the blame for burning the house down with
Rosheen in it if he stayed behind, and they \\zrz scared
the police would think they'd done it on purpose to
prejudice Patrick's trial. He claims he left them when
they got to Liverpool because he has a friend up there
he hadn't seen for ages.'

'And according to you?'

'We don't think he had any choice. We think Liam
dragged him by the noose round his neck and only
released him when they were sure he'd stick by the
story they'd concocted.'

'Why were Liam and Bridey going to Ireland?'

'According to them, or according to us?'

'According to them.'

'Because they were frightened . . . because they
knew it would take time for the truth to come out. . .
because they had nowhere else to go ... because
everything they owned had been destroyed . . .
because Ireland was home . . .'

'And according to you?'


Ill



'They guessed Kevin would start to talk as soon as
he got over his fright, so they decided to run.'

She gave a low laugh. 'You can't have it both ways,
Inspector. If they released him because they were
sure he'd stick by the story, then they didn't need to
run. And if they knew they could never be sure of him
- as they most certainly should have done if they'd
performed a ritual murder - he would have died with
Rosheen.'

'Then what are they trying to hide?'

She was amazed he couldn't see it. 'Probably
nothing,' she hedged. 'You're just in the habit of
never believing anything they say.'

He gave a stubborn shake of his head. 'No, there is something. I've known them too long not to know
when they're lying.'

He would go on until he found out, she thought.
He was that kind of man. And when he did, his
suspicion about Rosheen's death would immediately
raise its ugly head again. Unless . . . 'The trouble
with the O'Riordans,' she said, 'is that they can never
see the wood for the trees. Patrick's just spent nine
months on remand because he was more afraid of
being charged with what he had done . . . theft . . .
than what he hadn't done . . . murder. I suspect Liam
and Bridey are doing the same - desperately trying to
hide the crime they have committed, without realizing
they're digging an even bigger hole for themselves
for the one they haven't.'

'Go on.'


112



Siobhan's eyes twinkled as mischievously as Bridey's
had done. 'Off the record?' she asked him. 'I
won't say another word otherwise.'

'Can they be charged with it?'

'Oh, yes, but I doubt it'll trouble your conscience
much if you don't report it.'

He was too curious not to give her the go-ahead.
'Off the record,' he agreed.

'All right, I think it goes something like this. Liam
and Bridey have been living off the English taxpayer
for fifteen years. They got disability benefit for his
paralysed arm, disability benefit for her broken pelvis,
and Patrick gets a care allowance for looking after
both of them. They get mobility allowances, heating
allowances and anything else you can think of.' She
tipped her forefinger at him. 'But Kevin's built like a
gorilla and prides himself on his physique, and Rosheen
was as tall as I am. So how did a couple of elderly
cripples manage to overpower both of them?'

'You tell me.'

'At a guess, Liam wielded his useless arm to hold
them in a bear hug while Bridey leapt up out of her
chair to tie them up. Bridey would call it a miracle
cure. Social services would call it deliberate fraud. It
depends how easily you think English doctors can be
fooled by professional malingerers.'

He was visibly shocked. 'Are you saying Patrick
never disabled either of them?'

Her rich laughter peeled round the room. 'He
must have done at the time. You can't fake a shattered


113



wrist and a broken pelvis, but I'm guessing Liam and
Bridey probably prolonged their own agony in order
to milk sympathy and money out of the system.' She canted her head to one side. 'Don't you find it
interesting that they decided to move away from the
doctors who'd been treating them in London to hide
themselves in the wilds of Hampshire where the only
person competent to sign their benefit forms is - er medically
speaking - well, past his sell-by date? You've
met Sam Bentley. Do you seriously think it would
ever occur to him to question whether two people
who'd been registered disabled by a leading London
hospital were ripping off the English taxpayer?'

'Jesus!' He shook his head. 'But why did they need
to burn the house down? What would we have found
that was so incriminating? Apart from Rosheen's body,
of course.'

'Sets of fingerprints from Liam's right hand all over
the door knobs?' Siobhan suggested. 'The marks of
Bridey's shoes on the kitchen floor? However Rosheen
died - whether in self-defence or not - they couldn't
afford to report it because you'd have sealed off
Kilkenny Cottage immediately while you tried to work
out what happened.'

The inspector looked interested. 'And it wouldn't
have taken us long to realize that neither of them is as
disabled as they claim to be.'

'No.'

'And we'd have arrested them immediately on
suspicion of murder.'


114



She nodded. 'Just as you did Patrick.'
He acknowledged the point with a grudging smile.
'Do you know all this for a fact, Mrs Lavenham?'

'No,' she replied. 'Just guessing. And I'm certainly
not going to repeat it in court. It's irrelevant anyway.
The evidence went up in flames.'

'Not if I get a doctor to certify they're as agile as
lam.'
'That doesn't prove they were agile before the
fire,' she pointed out. 'Bridey will find a specialist to
quote psychosomatic paralysis at you, and Sam Bent
ley's never going to admit to being fooled by a couple
of malingerers.' She chuckled. 'Neither will Cynthia
Haversley, if it comes to that. She's been watching
them out of her window for years, and she's never
suspected a thing. In any case, Bridey's a great believer
in miracles, and she's already told you it was God who
rescued them from the inferno.'

'She must think I'm an absolute idiot.'
'Not you personally. Just your ... er ... kind.'
He frowned ominously. 'What's that supposed to
mean?'

Siobhan studied him with amusement. 'The Irish
have been getting the better of the English for
centuries, Inspector.' She watched his eyes narrow
in instinctive denial. 'And if the English weren't so
blinded by their own self-importance,' she finished
mischievously, 'they might have noticed.'