Authors: Minette Walters
gave way. There was a shout of approval from the
crowd behind them, and while everyone else's attention
was temporarily distracted, Siobhan watched
Peter Haversley give his wife a surreptitious pat on the
back.
47
Four
Saturday, 30 January 1999
Siobhan had stubbornly kept an open mind about
Patrick's guilt, although as she was honest enough to
admit to Ian, it was more for Rosheen and Bridey's
sake than because she seriously believed there was
room for reasonable doubt. She couldn't forget the
fear she had seen in Rosheen's eyes one day when
she came home early to find Jeremy Jardine at the
front door of the farm. 'What are you doing here?'
she had demanded of him angrily, appalled by the
ashen colour in her nanny's cheeks.
There was a telling silence before Rosheen stumbled
into words.
'He says we're murdering Mrs Fanshaw all over
again by taking Patrick's side,' said the girl in a shaken
voice. 'I said it was wrong to condemn him before the
evidence is heard - you told me everyone would
believe Patrick was innocent until the trial - but Mr
Jardine just keeps shouting at me.'
Jeremy had laughed. 'I'm doing the rounds with
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my new wine list,' he said, jerking his thumb towards
his car. 'But I'm damned if I'll stay quiet while an
Irish murderer's cousin quotes English law at me.'
Siobhan had controlled her temper because her
two sons were watching from the kitchen window.
'Go inside now,' she told Rosheen, 'but if Mr Jardine
comes here again when Ian and I are at work, I want
you to phone the police immediately.' She waited
while the girl retreated with relief into the depths
of the house. 'I mean it, Jeremy,' she said coldly.
'However strongly you may feel about all of this,
I'll have you prosecuted if you try that trick again.
It's not as though Rosheen has any evidence that can
help Patrick, so you're simply wasting your time.'
He shrugged. 'You're a fool, Siobhan. Patrick's
guilty as sin. You know it. Everyone knows it. Just
don't come crying to me later when the jury proves
us right and you find yourself tarred with the same
brush as the O'Riordans.'
'I already have been,' she said curtly. 'If you and
the Haversleys had your way, I'd have been lynched
by now, but, God knows, I'd give my right arm to see
Patrick get off, if only to watch the three of you
wearing sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your lives.'
Ian had listened to her account of the conversation
with a worried frown on his face. 'It won't help
Patrick if he does get off,' he warned. 'No one's going
to believe he didn't do it. Reasonable doubt sounds
all very well in court, but it won't count for anything
in Sowerbridge. He'll never be able to come back.'
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'I know.'
'Then don't get too openly involved,' he advised.
'We'll be living here for the foreseeable future, and I
really don't want the boys growing up in an atmosphere
of hostility. Support Bridey and Rosheen by all
means - ' he gave her a wry smile - 'but do me a
favour, Shiv, and hold that Irish temper of yours in
check. I'm not convinced Patrick is worth going to
war over, particularly not with our close neighbours.'
It was good advice, but difficult to follow. There
was too much overt prejudice against the Irish in
general for Siobhan to stay quiet indefinitely. War
finally broke out at one of Cynthia and Peter
Haversley's tedious dinner parties at Malvern House,
which were impossible to avoid without telling so
many lies that it was easier to attend the wretched
things. 'She watches the driveway from her window,'
sighed Siobhan when Ian asked why they couldn't
just say they had another engagement that night.
'She keeps tabs on everything we do. She knows
when we're in and when we're out. It's like living in
a prison.'
'I don't know why she keeps inviting us,' he said.
Siobhan found his genuine ignorance of Cynthia's
motives amusing. 'It's her favourite sport,' she said
matter-of-factly. 'Bear-baiting . . . with me as the
bear.'
Ian sighed. 'Then let's tell her the truth, say we'd
rather stay in and watch television.'
'Good idea. There's the phone. Ton tell her.'
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He smiled unhappily. 'It'll make her even more
impossible.'
'Of course it will.'
'Perhaps we should just grit our teeth and go?'
'Why not? It's what we usually do.'
The evening had been a particularly dire one, with
Cynthia and Jeremy holding the platform as usual,
Peter getting quietly drunk, and the Bentleys making
only occasional remarks. A silence had developed
round the table and Siobhan, who had been firmly
biting her tongue since they arrived, consulted her
watch under cover of her napkin and wondered if nine
forty-five was too early to announce departure.
'I suppose what troubles me the most,' said Jeremy
suddenly, 'is that if I'd pushed to have the O'Riordans
evicted years ago, poor old Lavinia would still be
alive.' He was a similar age to the Lavenhams and
handsome in a florid sort of way - too much sampling
of his own wares, Siobhan always thought - and loved
to style himself as Hampshire's most eligible bachelor.
Many was the time Siobhan had wanted to ask why,
if he was so eligible, he remained unattached, but
she didn't bother because she thought she knew the
answer. He couldn't find a woman stupid enough to
agree with his own valuation of himself.
'You can't evict people from their own homes,'
Sam Bentley pointed out mildly. 'On that basis, we
could all be evicted any time our neighbours took
against us.'
'Oh, you know what I mean,' Jeremy answered,
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looking pointedly at Siobhan as if to remind her of his
warning about being tarred with the O'Riordans'
brush. 'There must be something I could have done had
them prosecuted for environmental pollution,
perhaps?'
'We should never have allowed them to come here
in the first place,' declared Cynthia. 'It's iniquitous
that the rest of us have no say over what sort of people
will be living on our doorsteps. If the Parish Council
was allowed to vet prospective newcomers, the problem
would never have arisen.'
Siobhan raised her head and smiled in amused
disbelief at the other woman's arrogant assumption
that the Parish Council was in her pocket. 'What a
good idea!' she said brightly, ignoring lan's frown
across the table. 'It would also give prospective newcomers a chance to vet the people already living here.
It means house prices would drop like a stone, of
course, but at least neither side could say afterwards
that they went into it with their eyes closed.'
The pity was that Cynthia was too stupid to understand
irony. 'You're quite wrong, my dear,' she said
with a condescending smile. 'The house prices would
go up. They always do when an area becomes
exclusive.'
'Only when there are enough purchasers who want
the kind of exclusivity you're offering them, Cynthia.
It's basic economics.' Siobhan propped her elbows
on the table and leaned forward, stung into pricking
the fat woman's self-righteous bubble once and for
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all, even if she did recognize that her real target was
Jeremy Jardine. 'And for what it's worth, there won't
be any competition to live in Sowerbridge when word
gets out that, however much money you have, there's
no point in applying unless you share the Fanshaw
mafia's belief that Hitler was right.'
Nora Bentley gave a small gasp and made damping
gestures with her hands.
Jeremy was less restrained. 'Well, my God!' he burst
out aggressively. 'That's bloody rich coming from an
Irishwoman. Where was Ireland in the war? Sitting on
the sidelines, rooting for Germany, that's where. And
you have the damn nerve to sit in judgement on us!
All you Irish are despicable. You flood over here like a
plague of sewer rats looking for handouts, then you
criticize us when we point out that we don't think
you're worth the trouble you're causing us.'
It was like a simmering saucepan boiling over. In
the end, all that had been achieved by restraint was to
allow resentment to fester. On both sides.
'I suggest you withdraw those remarks, Jeremy,'
said Ian coldly, rousing himself in defence of his wife.
'You might be entitled to insult Siobhan like that if
your business paid as much tax and employed as many
people as hers does, but as that's never going to
happen I think you should apologize.'
'No way. Not unless she apologizes to Cynthia
first.'
Once roused, lan's temper was even more volatile
than his wife's. 'She's got nothing to apologize for,'
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he snapped. 'Everything she said was true. Neither
you nor Cynthia has any more right than anyone else
to dictate what goes on in this village, yet you do it
anyway. And with very little justification. At least the
rest of us bought our houses fair and square on the
open market, which is more than can be said of you
or Peter. He inherited his, and you got yours cheap
via the old-boy network. I just hope you're prepared
for the consequences when something goes wrong.
You can't incite hatred and then pretend you're not
responsible for it.'
'Now, now, now!' said Sam with fussy concern.
'This sort of talk isn't healthy.'
'Sam's right,' said Nora. 'What's said can never be
unsaid.'
Ian shrugged. 'Then tell this village to keep its
collective mouth shut about the Irish in general and
the O'Riordans in particular. Or doesn't the rule apply
to them? Perhaps it's only the well-to-do English like
the Haversleys and Jeremy who can't be criticized?'
Peter Haversley gave an unexpected snigger. 'Well
to-do?' he muttered tipsily. 'Who's well-to-do? We're
all in hock up to our blasted eyeballs while we wait for
the manor to be sold.'
'Be quiet, Peter,' said his wife.
But he refused to be silenced. 'That's the trouble
with murder. Everything gets so damned messy.
You're not allowed to sell what's rightfully yours
because probate goes into limbo.' His bleary eyes
looked across the table at Jeremy. 'It's your fault, you
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sanctimonious little toad. Power of bloody attorney,
my arse. You're too damn greedy for your own good.
Always were . . . always will be. I kept telling you to
put the old bloodsucker into a home but would you
listen? Don't worry, you kept saying, she'll be dead
soon . . .'
55
Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 0.23 a.m.
The hall lights were on in the farmhouse when
Siobhan finally reached it, but there was no sign of
Rosheen. This surprised her until she checked the
time and saw that it was well after midnight. She went
into the kitchen and squatted down to stroke Patch,
the O'Riordans' amiable mongrel, who lifted his head
from the hearth in front of the Aga and wagged his
stumpy tail before giving an enormous yawn and
returning to his slumbers. Siobhan had agreed to
look after him while the O'Riordans were away and
he seemed entirely at home in his new surroundings.
She peered out of the kitchen window towards the
fire, but there was nothing to see except the dark line
of trees bordering the property, and it occurred to her
then that Rosheen probably had no idea her uncle's
house had gone up in flames.
She tiptoed upstairs to check on her two young
sons who, like Patch, woke briefly to wrap their arms
around her neck and acknowledge her kisses before
closing their eyes again. She paused outside Rosheen's
room for a moment, hoping to hear the sound of the
girl's television, but there was only silence and she
retreated downstairs again, relieved to be spared explanations
tonight. Rosheen had been frightened enough
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by the anti-Irish slogans daubed across the front of
Kilkenny Cottage; God only knew how she would
react to hearing it had been destroyed.
Rosheen's employment with them had happened
more by accident than design when Siobhan's previous
nanny - a young woman given to melodrama
- had announced after two weeks in rural Hampshire
that she'd rather 'die' than spend another night away
from the lights of London. In desperation, Siobhan
had taken up Bridey's shy suggestion to fly Rosheen
over from Ireland on a month's trial - 'She's Liam's
brother's daughter and she's a wonder with children.
She's been looking after her brothers and cousins since
she was knee-high to a grasshopper, and they all think
the world of her' - and Siobhan had been surprised by
how quickly and naturally the girl had fitted into the
household.
Ian had reservations - ''She's too young - she's too
scatter-brained . . . I'm not sure I want to be quite so
cosy with the O'Riordans' - but he had come to respect
her in the wake of Patrick's arrest when, despite the
hostility in the village, she had refused to abandon
either Siobhan or Bridey. 'Mind you, I wouldn't bet
on family loyalty being what's keeping her here.'
'What else is there?'
'Sex with Kevin Wyllie. She goes weak at the knees
every time she sees him, never mind he's probably
intimately acquainted with the thugs who've terrorizing
Liam and Bridey.'
'You can't blame him for that. He's lived here all
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