The Tinder Box

by Minette Walters

  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 jostling 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, 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.’

  ‘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. Ian’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 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 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.

  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 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.’

  ‘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. You tell her.’

  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, 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 Ian’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 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, Ian’s temper was even more volatile than his wife’s. ‘She’s got nothing to apologize for,’ 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 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 . . .’

  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 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’re terrorizing Liam and Bridey.’