The Tinder Box

by Minette Walters

  ‘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 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 Sowerbridge? 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.’

  ‘I 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.’

  Thursday, 11 March 1999, 3.00 p.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.’

  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 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. 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—’ 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 th
rust her indignant red face through Ian’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 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. ‘I 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.

  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 Jardine 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?’

  ‘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. 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 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.’

  ‘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 m
onths. 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 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?’

  ‘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?’