Innocent Victims

by Minette Walters

  01:10 a.m.—Tuesday, 9th March, 1999

  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.”

  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.” 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 the face. “Whatever depths you may have sunk me to,” he said, “I am not a murderer. . . .”

  ***LATE NEWS—The Telegraph—Tuesday,

  9th 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.”

  6.

  Tuesday, 9th March, 1999

  When Siobhan heard a car pull into the driveway at 6:00 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 recognised 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—“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 unrecognisable. 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 are recent tire 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 Estate isn’t there now, Mrs. Lavenham, and whoever died in Kilkenny Cottage probably died at the hands of Liam O’Riordan.”

  Wednesday, 10th 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 told him.

  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 jeopardise 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 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. . . .”

  Tuesday, 9th March, 1999

  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 the 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?”

&nb
sp; “Because Uncle Liam phoned and said Auntie Bridey wasn’t feeling very well.”

  “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.”

  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.”

  Later—Tuesday, 9th March, 1999

  “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 every 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 terrorising 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.”

  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.”

  ***The Telegraph—Wednesday, 10th March, a.m.

  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 guardee have been assisting them in their search for the missing family. Suspicion remains that the body found in Kilkenny Cottage was that of Sowerbridge resident Kevin Wyllie, 28, although police refuse to confirm or deny the story.

  04:00 a.m.—Thursday, 11th March, 1999

  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 everything so wrong . . . sorry for blaming the English 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 attraction, 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 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 believe 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.”

  03:00 p.m.—Thursday, 11th March, 1999

  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. She 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 Ki
lkenny 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 curiously. “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.” She 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 realise 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 into Kilkenny Cottage only to sauce out again five minutes later without them. 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.”