The Tinder Box

by Minette Walters

  Sam Bentley surprised her with a sudden bark of laughter. ‘Well spoken, Cynthia, considering you’ll be bearing the brunt of it. The prevailing winds are south-westerly, which means most of the muck will collect in Malvern House. Still – ’ he paused to glance from her to Peter – ‘you sow a wind and you reap a whirlwind, eh?’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘Have you noticed how Liam’s wrecks have survived intact?’ asked Nora then, with assumed brightness. ‘Is it a judgement, do you think?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Jeremy.

  Sam gave another brief chortle. ‘Is it ridiculous? You complained enough when there were only the cars to worry about. Now you’ve got a burnt-out cottage as well. I can’t believe the O’Riordans were insured, so it’ll be years before anything is done. If you’re lucky, a developer will buy the land and build an estate of little boxes on your doorstep. If you’re unlucky, Liam will put up a corrugated-iron shack and live in that. And do you know, Jeremy, I hope he does! Personal revenge is so much sweeter than anything the law can offer.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’d have been wiser to call the fire brigade earlier,’ said the old doctor bluntly. ‘Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but it didn’t do his reputation any good.’

  Another silence.

  ‘What are you implying?’ demanded Cynthia aggressively. ‘That Jeremy could somehow have prevented the fire?’

  Jeremy Jardine folded his arms. ‘I’ll sue you for slander if you are, Sam.’

  ‘It won’t be just me. Half the village is wondering why Nora and I smelt burning before you did, and why Cynthia and Peter took themselves off to Salisbury on a Monday evening for the first time in living memory.’

  ‘Coincidence,’ grunted Peter Haversley. ‘Pure coincidence.’

  ‘Well, I pray for all your sakes you’re telling the truth,’ murmured Sam, wiping a weary hand across his ash-grimed face, ‘because the police aren’t the only ones who’ll be asking questions. The Lavenhams certainly won’t stay quiet.’

  ‘I hope you’re not suggesting that one of us set fire to that beastly little place,’ said Cynthia crossly. ‘Honestly, Sam, I wonder about you sometimes.’

  He shook his head sadly, wishing he could dislike her as comprehensively as Siobhan Lavenham did. ‘No, Cynthia, I’m suggesting you knew it was going to happen, and even incited the local youths to do it. You can argue that you wanted revenge for Lavinia and Dorothy’s deaths, but aiding and abetting any crime is a prosecutable offence and – ’ he sighed – ‘you’ll get no sympathy from me if you go to prison for it.’

  Behind them, in the hall of Malvern House, the telephone began to ring . . .

  Wednesday, 10 February 1999

  Siobhan had put an opened envelope on the desk in front of the detective inspector. ‘Even if Patrick is the murderer and even if Bridey knows he is, it doesn’t excuse this kind of thing,’ she said. ‘I can’t prove it came from Cynthia Haversley, but I’m a hundred per cent certain it did. She’s busting a gut to make life so unpleasant for Liam and Bridey that they’ll leave of their own accord.’

  The inspector frowned as he removed a folded piece of paper and read the letters pasted onto it.

  ‘Who was it sent to?’ he asked.

  ‘Bridey.’

  ‘Why did she give it to you and not to the police?’

  ‘Because she knew I was coming here today and asked me to bring it with me. It was posted through her letterbox sometime the night before last.’

  (‘They’ll take more notice of you than they ever take of me,’ the old woman had said, pressing the envelope urgently into Siobhan’s hands. ‘Make them understand we’re in danger before it’s too late.’)

  He turned the envelope over. ‘Why do you think it came from Mrs Haversley?’

  Feminine intuition, thought Siobhan wryly. ‘Because the letters that make up “hell” have been cut from a Daily Telegraph banner imprint. It’s the only broad sheet newspaper that has an “h”, an “e”, and two “l”s in its title, and Cynthia takes the Telegraph every day.’

  ‘Along with how many other people in Sowerbridge?’

  She smiled slightly. ‘Quite a few, but no one else has Cynthia Haversley’s poisonous frame of mind. She loves stirring. The more she can work people up, the happier she is. It gives her a sense of importance to have everyone dancing to her tune.’

  ‘You don’t like her.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ admitted the inspector, ‘but it doesn’t make her guilty, Mrs Lavenham. Liam and/or Bridey could have acquired a Telegraph just as easily and sent this letter to themselves.’

  ‘That’s what Bridey told me you’d say.’

  ‘Because it’s the truth?’ he suggested mildly. ‘Mrs Haversley’s a fat, clumsy woman with fingers like sausages, and if she’d been wearing gloves the whole exercise would have been impossible. This – ’ he touched the letter – ‘is too neat. There’s not a letter out of place.’

  ‘Peter then.’

  ‘Peter Haversley’s an alcoholic. His hands shake.’

  ‘Jeremy Jardine?’

  ‘I doubt it. Poison-pen letters are usually written by women. I’m sorry, Mrs Lavenham, but I can guarantee the only fingerprints I will find on this – other than yours and mine, of course – are Bridey O’Riordan’s. Not because the person who did it wore gloves, but because Bridey did it herself.’

  Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 1.10 a.m.

  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 her face. ‘Whatever depths you may have sunk to,’ he said, ‘I am not a murderer . . .’

  LATE NEWS Daily Telegraph Tuesday, 9 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.’
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  Six

  Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 6.00 a.m.

  When Siobhan heard a car pull into the driveway at six 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 recognized 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 unrecognizable. 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 tyre 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 car isn’t there now, Mrs Lavenham, and whoever died in Kilkenny Cottage probably died at the hands of Liam O’Riordan.’

  Wednesday, 10 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 said.

  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 jeopardize 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, 9 March 1999, noon

  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 her waste-paper 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?’

  ‘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.’

  Tuesday, 9 March 1999, later

  ‘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 terrorizing 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 stare
d 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.’

  Daily Telegraph – Wednesday, 10 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 Garda 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.

  Thursday, 11 March 1999, 4.00 a.m.

  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 attaction, but I did.’