She nodded. “Has Jeremy admitted his part in it?”
“Not yet,” murmured the inspector dryly, “but he will. He’s a man without scruples. He recognised a fellow traveller in Rosheen, seduced her with promises of marriage, then persuaded her to kill his grandmother 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.”
“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 she was having an affair with Jeremy. Cynthia Haversley thought she was a common little tart. Ian thought Kevin was taking advantage of her. I 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 recognises 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 thim.”
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 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 were 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?”
“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 realising they’re digging an even bigger hole for themselves on the one they haven’t.”
“Go on.”
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 get 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 rate rebates.” 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 pealed round the room. “He must have done at the time. You can’t fake a shattered 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 realise that neither of them is as disabled as they claim to be.”
“No.”
“And we’d have arrested them immediately on suspicion of murder.”
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 I am.”
“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 Bentley’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 cas
e, 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.”
Innocent Victims Page 15
