The Tinder Box

by Minette Walters

  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 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 Fanshaw’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 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?’

  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. 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?’

  Monday, 8 March 1999, 11.55 p.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 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 dri
ve’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?’

  ‘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 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?’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind when Cynthia’s house goes up in flames,’ said Siobhan dryly, glancing at her 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 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 Fanshaws 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.’

  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 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 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.’