Authors: Minette Walters
'There's no one left to agree or disagree' he had said. 'Mrs Fanshaw's grandson denies knowing anything
about it, although he admits there might have been a
private arrangement between Patrick and the nurse.
She's known to have been on friendly terms with him . . .'
'The police are saying Patrick only invented the
contract in order to explain why his fingerprints were
all over the Manor House.'
'That's not true.'
'Are you sure? Wasn't it the first idea that came
into his head when the police produced the search
warrant? They questioned him for two days, Bridey,
and the only explanation he gave for his fingerprints
and his toolbox being in the manor was that Lavinia's
nurse had asked him to sort out the dripping taps in
the kitchen and bathroom. Why didn't he mention a
contract earlier? Why did he wait until they found the
jewellery under his floorboards before saying he was
owed money?'
Teardrops watered the washing hands. 'Because
he's been in prison and doesn't trust the police . . .
because he didn't kill Mrs Fanshaw . . . because he
was more worried about being charged with the theft
of her jewellery than he was about being charged with
murder. Do you think he'd have invented a contract
that didn't exist? My boy isn't stupid, Siobhan. He
doesn't tell stories that he can't back up. Not when
he's had two whole days to think about them.'
Siobhan shook her head. 'Except he couldn't back
it up. You're the only person, other than Patrick, who
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claims to know anything about it, and your word
means nothing because you're his mother.'
'But don't you see?' the woman pleaded. 'That's
why you can be sure Patrick's telling the truth. If he'd
believed for one moment it would all be denied,
he'd have given some other reason for why he took
the jewellery. Do you hear what I'm saying? He's
a good liar, Siobhan - for his sins, he always has been
- and he'd not have invented a poor, weak story like
the one he's been saddled with.'
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Three
Tuesday, 23 June 1998
It was a rambling defence that Patrick finally produced
when it dawned on him that the police were serious
about charging him with the murders. Siobhan heard
both Bridey's and the inspector's versions of it, and
she wasn't surprised that the police found it difficult
to swallow. It depended almost entirely on the words
and actions of the murdered nurse.
Patrick claimed Dorothy Jenkins had come to
Kilkenny Cottage and asked him if he was willing
to do some odd jobs at the Manor House for a cash
sum of three hundred pounds. 'I've finally persuaded
her miserable skinflint of a grandson that I'll walk out
one day and not come back if he doesn't do something
about my working conditions, so he's agreed to
pay up,' she had said triumphantly. 'Are you interested,
Patrick? It's a bit of moonlighting ... no VAT
... no tax . . . just a couple of weeks' work for money
in hand. For goodness sake don't go talking about
it,' she had warned him, 'or you can be sure Cynthia
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Haversley will notify social services that you're working
and you'll lose your unemployment benefit. You
know what an interfering busybody she is.'
'I needed convincing she wasn't pulling a fast one,'
Patrick told the police. 'I've been warned off in the
past by that bastard grandson of Mrs F's and the whole
thing seemed bloody unlikely to me. So she takes me
along to see him, and he's nice as pie, shakes me by
the hand and says it's a kosher contract. "We'll let
bygones be bygones," he says. I worked like a dog for
two weeks and, yes, of course I went into Mrs Fan
shaw's bedroom. I popped in every morning because
she and I were mates. I would say "hi," and she would
giggle and say "hi" back. And yes, I touched almost
everything in the house - most of the time I was
moving furniture around for Miss Jenkins. "It's so
boring when you get too old to change things," she'd
say to me. "Let's see how that table looks in here."
Then she'd clap her hands and say, "Isn't this exciting?"
I thought she was almost as barmy as the old
lady, but I wasn't going to argue with her. I mean,
three hundred quid is three hundred quid, and if that's
what was wanted I was happy to do the business.'
On the second Saturday - 'the day I was supposed
to be paid . . . shit ... I should have known it was a
scam . . .' - Mrs Fanshaw's grandson was in the hall
waiting for him when he arrived at the Manor House.
'I thought the bastard had come to give me my
wages, but instead he accuses me of nicking a necklace. I called him a bloody liar, so he took a swing at
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me and landed one on my jaw. Next thing I know,
I'm out of the front door, face down on the gravel.
Yeah, of course that's how I got the scratches. I've
never hit a woman in my life, and I certainly didn't
get into a fight with either of the old biddies at the
manor.'
There was a two-hour hiatus during which he
claimed to have driven around in a fury wondering
how 'to get the bastard to pay what he owed'. He
toyed with the idea of going to the police - 'I was
pretty sure Miss Jenkins would back me up, she was
that mad with him, but I didn't reckon you lot could
do anything, not without social services getting to
hear about it, and then I'd be worse off than I was
before . . .' - but in the end he opted for more direct
action and sneaked back to the manor through the
gate at the bottom of the garden.
'I knew Miss Jenkins would see me right if she
could. And she did. "Take this, Patrick," she said,
handing me some of Mrs F's jewellery, "and if there's
any comeback I'll say it was my idea." I tell you,' he
finished aggressively, 'I'm gutted she and Mrs F are
dead. At least they treated me like a friend, which is
more than can be said of the rest of Sowerbridge.'
He was asked why he hadn't mentioned any of this
before. 'Because I'm not a fool,' he said. 'Word has it
Mrs F was killed for her jewellery. Do you think I'm
going to admit to having some of it under my floorboards
when she was battered to death a few hours
later?'
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Thursday, 18 February 1999
Siobhan pondered in silence for a minute or two.
'Weak or not, Bridey, it's the story he has to go to
trial with, and at the moment no one believes it. It
would be different if he could prove any of it.'
'How?'
'I don't know.' She shook her head. 'Did he show
the jewellery to anyone before Lavinia was killed?'
A sly expression crept into the woman's eyes as if a
new idea had suddenly occurred to her. 'Only to me
and Rosheen,' she said, 'but, as you know, Siobhan,
not a word we say is believed.'
'Did either of you mention it to anyone else?'
'Why would we? When all's said and done, he took
the things without permission, never mind it was Miss
Jenkins who gave them to him.'
'Well, it's a pity Rosheen didn't tell me about it. It
would make a world of difference if I could say I knew
on the Saturday afternoon that Patrick already had
Lavinia's rings and necklace in his possession.'
Bridey looked away towards her Madonna, crossing
herself as she did so, and Siobhan knew she was lying.
'She thinks the world of you, Siobhan. She'd not
embarrass you by making you a party to her cousin's
troubles. In any case, you'd not have been interested.
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Was your mind not taken up with cooking that day?
Was that not the Saturday you were entertaining Mr
and Mrs Haversley to dinner to pay off all the dinners
you've had from them but never wanted?'
There were no secrets in a village, thought Siobhan,
and if Bridey knew how much Ian and she
detested the grinding tedium of Sowerbridge social
life, which revolved around the all-too-regular 'dinner
party', presumably the rest of Sowerbridge did as well.
'Are we really that obvious, Bridey?'
'To the Irish, maybe, but not to the English,' said
the old woman with a crooked smile. 'The English
see what they want to see. If you don't believe me,
Siobhan, look at the way they've condemned my
Patrick as a murdering thief before he's even been
tried.'
Siobhan had questioned Rosheen about the jewellery
afterwards and, like Bridey, the girl had wrung
her hands in distress. But Rosheen's distress had
everything to do with her aunt expecting her to perjure
herself and nothing at all to do with the facts.
'Oh, Siobhan,' she had wailed, 'does she expect me to
stand up in court and tell lies? Because it'll not do
Patrick any good when they find me out. Surely it's
better to say nothing than to keep inventing stories
that no one believes?'
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Monday, 8 March 1999, 11.55p.m.
It was cold on the footpath because the wall of the
Old Vicarage was reflecting the heat back towards
Kilkenny Cottage, but the sound of the burning house
was deafening. The pine rafters and ceiling joists
popped and exploded like intermittent rifle fire while
the flames kept up a hungry roar. As Siobhan emerged
onto the road leading up from the junction, she found
herself in a crowd of her neighbours who seemed to
be watching the blaze in a spirit of revelry - almost,
she thought in amazement, as if it were a spectacular
fireworks display put on for their enjoyment. People
raised their arms and pointed whenever a new rafter
caught alight, and 'oohs' and 'ahs' burst from their
mouths like a cheer. Any moment now, she thought
cynically, and they'd bring out an effigy of that other
infamous Catholic, Guy Fawkes.
She started to work her way through the crowd
but was stopped by Nora Bentley, the elderly doctor's
wife, who caught her arm and drew her close. The
Bentleys were far and away Siobhan's favourites
among her neighbours, being the only ones with
enough tolerance to stand against the continuous
barrage of anti-O'Riordan hatred that poured from
the mouths of almost everyone else. Although, as Ian
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often pointed out, they could afford to be tolerant.
'Be fair, Siobhan. Lavinia wasn't related to them. They
might feel differently if she'd been their granny.'
'We've been worried about you, my dear,' said
Nora. 'What with all this going on, we didn't know
whether you were trapped inside the farm or outside.'
Siobhan gave her a quick hug. 'Outside. I stayed
late at work to sort out some contracts, and I've had
to abandon the car at the church.'
'Well, I'm afraid your drive's completely blocked
with fire engines. If it's any consolation, we're all in
the same boat, although Jeremy Jardine and the Haversleys
have the added worry of sparks carrying on the
wind and setting light to their houses.' She chuckled
suddenly. 'You have to laugh. Cynthia bullied the
firemen into taking preventative measures by hosing
down the front of Malvern House, and now she's
tearing strips off poor old Peter because he left their
bedroom window open. The whole room's completely
saturated.'
Siobhan grinned. 'Good,' she said, unsympathetically.
'It's time Cynthia had some of her own
medicine.'
Nora wagged an admonishing finger. 'Don't be
too hard on her, my dear. For all her sins, Cynthia can
be very kind when she wants to be. It's a pity you've
never seen that side of her.'
'I'm not sure I'd want to,' said Siobhan cynically.
'At a guess, she only shows it when she's offering
charity. Where are they, anyway?'
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'I've no idea. I expect Peter's making up the
spare-room beds and Cynthia's at the front somewhere
behaving like the chief constable. You know
how bossy she is.'
'Yes,' agreed Siobhan, who had been on the receiving
end of Cynthia's hectoring tongue more often
than she cared to remember. Indeed, if she had any
regrets about moving to Sowerbridge, they were all
centred around the overbearing personality of the
Honourable Mrs Haversley.
By one of those legal quirks of which the English
are so fond, the owners of Malvern House had title to
the first hundred feet of Fording Farm's driveway while
the owners of the farm had right of way in perpetuity
across it. This had led to a state of war between the
two households, although it was a war that had been
going on long before the Lavenhams' insignificant
tenure of eighteen months. Ian maintained that
Cynthia's insistence on her rights stemmed from the fact that the Haversleys were, and always had been,
the poor relations of the Fanshaws at the Manor
House. ('You get slowly more impoverished if you
inherit through the distaff side,' he said, 'and Peter's
family has never been able to lay claim to the manor.
It's made Cynthia bitter.') Nevertheless, had he and
Siobhan paid heed to their solicitor's warnings, they
might have questioned why such a beautiful place had
had five different owners in under ten years. Instead,
they had accepted the previous owners' assurances
that everything in the garden was lovely - You'll like
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