Authors: Minette Walters
his life. I should imagine most of Sowerbridge could
name names if they wanted to. At least he's had the
guts to stand by Rosheen.'
'He's an illiterate oaf with an IQ often,' growled
Ian. 'Rosheen's not stupid, so what the hell do they
find to talk about?'
Siobhan giggled. 'I don't think his conversation is
what interests her.'
Recognizing that she was too hyped-up to sleep,
she poured herself a glass of wine and played the
messages on the answerphone. There were a couple of
business calls followed by one from Ian. ''Hi, it's me.
Things are progressing well on the Ravenelli front. All jŁ
being well, hand-printed Italian silk should be on offer
through Lavenham Interiors by August. Good news, eh?
I can think of at least two projects that will benefit from
the designs they've been showing me. You'll love them,
Shiv. Aquamarine swirls with every shade of terracotta
you can imagine.'' Pause for a yawn. ''I'm missing you
and the boys like crazy. Give me a ring if you get back
before eleven, otherwise I'll speak to you tomorrow. I
should be home on Friday.'' He finished with a slobbery
kiss which made her laugh.
The last message was from Liam O'Riordan and
had obviously been intercepted by Rosheen. ''Hello?
Are you there, Rosheen? It's. . .' said Liam's voice
before it was cut off by the receiver being lifted.
Out of curiosity, Siobhan pressed one-four-seven
one to find out when Liam had phoned, and she
listened in perplexity as the computerized voice at
58
the other end gave the time of the last call as 'twenty
thirty-six hours', and the number from which it was
made as 'eight-two-seven-five-three-eight'. She knew
the sequence off by heart but flicked through the
telephone index anyway to make certain. Liam and
Bridey O'Riordan, Kilkenny Cottage, Sower bridge, Tel:
827538.
For the second time that night her first instinct
was to rush towards denial. It was a mistake, she told
herself . . . Liam couldn't possibly have been phoning
from Kilkenny Cottage at eight thirty . . . The
O'Riordans were under police protection in Winchester
for the duration of Patrick's trial . . . Kilkenny
Cottage was empty when the fire started . . .
But, oh dear God! Supposing it wasn't?
'Rosheen!' she shouted, running up the stairs again
and hammering on the nanny's door. 'Rosheen! It's
Siobhan. Wake up! Was Liam in the cottage?' She
thrust open the door and switched on the light, only
to look around the room in dismay because no one
was there.
59
I
Wednesday, 10 February 1999
Siobhan had raised the question of Lavinia Fanshaw's
heirs with the detective inspector. 'You can't ignore
the fact that both Peter Haversley and Jeremy Jardine
had a far stronger motive than Patrick could ever have
had,' she pointed out. 'They both stood to inherit
from her will, and neither of them made any bones
about wanting her dead. Lavinia's husband had one
sister, now dead, who produced a single child, Peter,
who has no children. And Lavinia's only child, a
daughter, also dead, produced Jeremy, who's never
married.'
He was amused by the extent of her research. 'We
didn't ignore it, Mrs Lavenham. It was the first thing
we looked at, but you know better than anyone that
they couldn't have done it because you and your
husband supplied their alibis.'
'Only from eight o'clock on Saturday night until
two o'clock on Sunday morning,' protested Siobhan.
'And not out of choice either. Have you any idea what
it's like living in a village like Sowerbridge, Inspector?
Dinner parties are considered intrinsically superior to
staying in of a Friday or Saturday night and watching
telly, never mind the same boring people get invited
every time and the same boring conversations take
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place. It's a status thing.' She gave a sarcastic shrug.
'Personally, I'd rather watch a good Arnie or Sly
movie any day than have to appear interested in someone else's mortgage or pension plan, but then hell
- I'm Irish and everyone knows the Irish are
common as muck.'
'You'll have status enough when Patrick comes to
trial,' said the inspector with amusement. 'You'll be
the one providing the alibis.'
'I wouldn't be able to if we'd managed to get rid
of Jeremy and the Haversleys any sooner. Believe
me, it wasn't Ian and I who kept them there - we did
everything we could to make them go - they just
refused to take the hints. Sam and Nora Bentley went
at a reasonable time, but we couldn't get the rest
of them to budge. Are you sure Lavinia was killed
between eleven and midnight? Don't you find it suspicious
that it's my evidence that's excluded Peter and
Jeremy from the case? Everyone knows I'm the only
person in Sowerbridge who'd give Patrick O'Riordan
an alibi if I possibly could.'
'What difference does that make?'
'It means I'm a reluctant witness, and therefore
gives my evidence in Peter and Jeremy's favour more
weight.'
The inspector shook his head. 'I think you're
making too much of your position in all of this, Mrs
Lavenham. If Mr Haversley and Mr Jardine had conspired
to murder Mrs Fanshaw, wouldn't they have
taken themselves to - say, Ireland - for the weekend?
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That would have given them a much stronger alibi
than spending six hours in the home of a hostile
witness. In any case,' he went on apologetically, 'we
are sure about the time of the murders. These days,
pathologists' timings are extremely precise, particularly
when the bodies are found as quickly as these ones
were.'
Siobhan wasn't ready to give up so easily. 'But you
must see how odd it is that it happened the night Ian
and I gave a dinner party. We hate dinner parties.
Most of our entertaining is done around barbecues in
the summer when friends come to stay. It's always
casual and always spur-of-the-moment and I can't
believe it was coincidence that Lavinia was murdered
on the one night in the whole damn year for which
we'd sent out invitations - ' her mouth twisted - ''six
weeks in advance . . .'
He eyed her thoughtfully. 'If you can tell me how
they did it, I might agree with you.'
'Before they came to our house or after they left
it,' she suggested. 'The pathologist's timings are
wrong.'
He pulled a piece of paper from a pile on his desk
and turned it towards her. 'That's an itemized British
Telecom list of every call made from the manor during
the week leading up to the murders.' He touched the
last number. 'This one was made by Dorothy Jenkins
to a friend of hers in London and was timed at ten
thirty p.m. on the night she died. The duration time
was just over three minutes. We've spoken to the
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friend and she described Miss Jenkins as at "the end
of her tether". Apparently Mrs Fanshaw was a difficult
patient to nurse - Alzheimer's sufferers usually are and
Miss Jenkins had phoned this woman - also a
nurse - to tell her that she felt like "smothering the
old bitch where she lay". It had happened several
times before, but this time Miss Jenkins was in tears
and rang off abruptly when her friend said she had
someone with her and couldn't talk for long.' He
paused for a moment. 'The friend was worried enough
to phone back after her visitor had gone,' he went
on, 'and she estimates the time of that call at about a
quarter past midnight. The line was engaged so she
couldn't get through, and she admits to being relieved
because she thought it meant Miss Jenkins had found
someone else to confide in.'
Siobhan frowned. 'Well, at least it proves she was
alive after midnight, doesn't it?'
The inspector shook his head. 'I'm afraid not. The
phone in the kitchen had been knocked off its rest we
think Miss Jenkins may have been trying to dial
nine-nine-nine when she was attacked - ' he tapped
his fingers on the piece of paper - 'which means that,
with or without the pathologist's timings, she must
have been killed between that last itemized call at ten
thirty and her friend's return call at fifteen minutes
past midnight, when the phone was already off the
hook.'
63
1
Five
Tuesday, 9 March 1999, 0.32 a.m.
Even as Siobhan lifted the receiver to call the police
and report Rosheen missing, she was having second
thoughts. They hadn't taken a blind bit of notice in
the past, she thought bitterly, so why should it be
different today? She could even predict how the conversation
would go simply because she had been there
so many times before.
Calm down, Mrs Lavenham . .. It was undoubtedly
a hoax . . . Let's see now . . . didn't someone phone you
not so long ago pretending to be Bridey in the throes of
a heart attack . . .? We rushed an ambulance to her only
to find her alive and well and watching television . . .
You and your nanny are Irish . . . Someone thought it
would be entertaining to get a rise out of you by creeping
into Kilkenny Cottage and making a call. . . Everyone
knows the O'Riordans are notoriously careless about
locking their back door . . . Sadly we can't legislate for
practical jokes . . . Tour nanny. . . ? She'll be watching
the fire along with everyone else . . .
64
With a sigh of frustration, she replaced the receiver
and listened to the message again. 'Hello? Are you
there, Rosheen? It's. . .'
She had been so sure it was Liam the first time she
heard it, but now she was less certain. The Irish accent
was the easiest accent in the world to ape, and Liam's
was so broad any fool could do it. For want of
someone more sensible to talk to, she telephoned Ian
in his hotel bedroom in Rome. 'It's me,' she said,
'and I've only just got back. I'm sorry to wake you
but they've burnt Kilkenny Cottage and Rosheen's
missing. Do you think I should phone the police?'
'Hang on,' he said sleepily. 'Run that one by me
again. Who's they?'
'I don't know,' she said in frustration. 'Someone anyone
- Peter Haversley patted Cynthia on the back
when the roof caved in. If I knew where the
O'Riordans were I'd phone them, but Rosheen's
the only one who knows the number - and she's not
here. I'd go back to the fire if I had a car - the village
is swarming with policemen - but I've had to leave
mine at the church and yours is at Heathrow - and
the children will never be able to walk all the way
down the drive, not at this time of night.'
He gave a long yawn. 'You're going much too fast.
I've only just woken up. What's this about Kilkenny
Cottage burning down?'
She explained it slowly.
'So where's Rosheen?' He sounded more alert now.
'And what the hell was she doing leaving the boys?'
65
'I don't know.' She told him about the telephone
call from Kilkenny Cottage. 'If it was Liam, Rosheen
may have gone up there to see him, and now I'm
worried they were in the house when the fire started.
Everyone thinks it was empty because we watched
them go this morning.' She described the scene for
him as Liam helped Bridey into their Ford estate then
drove unsmilingly past the group of similarly unsmiling
neighbours who had gathered at the crossroads to
see them off. 'It was awful,' she said. 'I went down to
collect Patch, and bloody Cynthia started hissing at
them so the rest joined in. I really hate them, Ian.'
He didn't answer immediately. 'Look,' he said ,|ai
then, 'the fire brigade don't just take people's words f
for this kind of thing. They'll have checked to make ^
sure there was no one in the house as soon as they got ;1
there. And if Liam and Bridey did come back, their
car would have been parked at the front and someone
would have noticed it. OK, I agree the village is full
of bigots, but they're not murderers, Shiv, and they
wouldn't keep quiet if they thought the O'Riordans
were burning to death. Come on, think about it. You
know I'm right.'
'What about Rosheen?'
'Yes, well,' he said dryly, 'it wouldn't be the first
time, would it? Did you check the barn? I expect she's
out there getting laid by Kevin Wyllie.'
'She's only done it once.'
'She's used the barn once,' he corrected her, 'but
it's anyone's guess how often she's been laid by Kevin.
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