The Tinder Box (2 page)

forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping

his hands loosely in front of him. 'And sadly, the one

sure thing I know about Bridey is that you can't

believe a word she says. It may not be her fault, but

it is a fact. She's never had the courage to speak out

honestly because her drunken brute of a husband

beats her within an inch of her life if she even dares to

think about it.'

Siobhan found his directness shocking. 'You're

talking about things that happened a long time ago,'

she said. 'Liam hasn't struck anyone since he lost the

use of his right arm.'

'Do you know how that happened?'

'In a car crash.'

'Did Bridey tell you that?'

'Yes.'

'Not so,' he countered bluntly. 'When Patrick was

twenty, he tied Liam's arm to a table top and used

a hammer to smash his wrist to a pulp. He was so

wrought up that when his mother tried to stop him,

he shoved her through a window and broke her pelvis

so badly she's never been able to walk again. That's

why she's in a wheelchair and why Liam has a useless

right arm. Patrick got off lightly by pleading provocation

because of Liam's past brutality towards him,

and spent less than two years in prison for it.'

Siobhan shook her head. 'I don't believe you.'

'It's true.' He rubbed a tired hand around his face.

'Trust me, Mrs Lavenham.'

The can't,' she said flatly. 'You've never lived in

Sowerbridge, Inspector. There's not a soul in that

village who doesn't have it in for the O'Riordans and

a juicy titbit like that would have been repeated a

thousand times. Trust me.''

'No one knows about it.' The man held her gaze

for a moment, then dropped his eyes. 'It was fifteen

years ago and it happened in London. I was a raw

recruit with the Met, and Liam was on our ten-most

wanted list. He was a scrap-metal merchant, and up

to his neck in villainy, until Patrick scuppered him for

good. He sold up when the lad went to prison and

moved himself and Bridey down here to start a new

life. When Patrick joined them after his release, the

story of the car crash had already been accepted.'

She shook her head again. 'Patrick came over from

Ireland after being wounded by a terrorist bomb.

That's why he smiles all the time. The nerves in his

cheek were severed by a piece of flying glass.' She

sighed. 'It's another kind of disability. People take

against him because they think he's laughing at them.'

'No, ma'am, it was a revenge attack in prison for

stealing from his cellmate. His face was slashed with

a razor. As far as I know, he's never set foot in

Ireland.'

She didn't answer. Instead she ran her hand rhythmically

over her skirt while she tried to collect her

thoughts. Oh, Bridey, Bridey, Bridey . . . Have you been

lying to me . . .?

The inspector watched her with compassion.

'Nothing happens in a vacuum, Mrs Lavenham.'

'Meaning what, exactly?'

'Meaning that Patrick murdered Mrs Fanshaw - '

he paused - 'and both Liam and Bridey know he did.

You can argue that the physical abuse he suffered at

the hands of his father as a child provoked an anger in

him that he couldn't control - it's a defence that

worked after the attack on Liam - but it won't cut

much ice with a jury when the victims were two

defenceless old ladies. That's why Bridey's jumping at

shadows. She knows that she effectively signed Mrs

Fanshaw's death warrant when she chose to keep quiet

about how dangerous Patrick was, and she's terrified

of it becoming public.' He paused. 'Which it certainly

will during die trial.'

Was he right, Siobhan wondered? Were Bridey's

fears rooted in guilt? 'That doesn't absolve the police

of responsibility for their safety,' she pointed out.

'No,' he agreed, 'except we don't believe their

safety's in question. Frankly, all the evidence so far

points to Liam himself being the instigator of the

hate campaign. The graffiti is always done at night

in car spray paint, at least a hundred cans of which are

stored in Liam's shed. There are never any witnesses

to it, and by the time Bridey calls us the perpetrators

are long gone. We've no idea if the phone rings as

constantly as they claim, but on every occasion that a

threat has been made Bridey admits she was alone

in the cottage. We think Liam is making the calls

himself.'

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She shook her head in bewilderment. 'Why would

he do that?'

'To prejudice the trial?' he suggested. 'He has a

different mindset to you and me, ma'am, and he's

quite capable of trashing Kilkenny Cottage himself

if he thinks it will win Patrick some sympathy with a

jury.'

Did she believe him? Was Liam that clever? 'You

said you were always questioning him. Why? What

had he done?'

'Any scam involving cars. Theft. Forging MOT

certificates. Odometer fixing. You name it, Liam was

involved in it. The scrap-metal business was just a

front for a car-laundering operation.'

'You're talking about when he was in London?'

'Yes.'

She pondered for a moment. 'Did he go to prison

for it?'

'Once or twice. Most of the time he managed to

avoid conviction. He had money in those days - a lot

of money - and could pay top briefs to get him off.

He shipped some of the cars down here, presumably

with the intention of starting the same game again,

but he was a broken man after Patrick smashed his

arm. I'm told he gave up grafting for himself and took

to living off disability benefit instead. There's no way

anyone was going to employ him. He's too unreliable

to hold down a job. Just like his son.'

The see,' said Siobhan slowly.

11

He waited for her to go on, and when she didn't

he said, 'Leopards don't change their spots, Mrs

Lavenham. I

wish I could say they did, but I've been

a policeman too long to believe anything so naive.'

She surprised him by laughing. 'Leopards?' she

echoed. 'And there was me thinking we were talking

about dogs.'

'I don't follow.'

'Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Did the

police ever intend to let them wipe the slate clean and

start again, Inspector?'

He smiled slightly. 'We did ... for fifteen years . . .

Then Patrick murdered Mrs Fanshaw.'

'Are you sure?'

'Oh, yes,' he said. 'He used the same hammer on

her that he used on his father.'

Siobhan remembered the sense of shock that had

swept through the village the previous June when the

two bodies were discovered by the paper boy after his

curiosity had been piqued by the fact that the front

door had been standing ajar at six thirty on a Sunday

morning. Thereafter, only the police and Lavinia's

grandson had seen inside the house, but the rumour

machine described a scene of carnage, with Lavinia's

brains splattered across the walls of her bedroom and

her nurse lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen. It

was inconceivable that anyone in Sowerbridge could

have done such a thing, and it was assumed the Manor

House had been targeted by an outside gang for

whatever valuables the old woman might possess.

I

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It was never very clear why police suspicion had

centred so rapidly on Patrick O'Riordan. Gossip said

his fingerprints were all over the house and his toolbox

was found in the kitchen, but Siobhan had always

believed the police had received a tipoff. Whatever the

reason, the matter appeared to be settled when a

search warrant unearthed Lavinia's jeweller}' under his

floorboards and Patrick was formally charged with the

murders.

Predictably, shock had turned to fury but, with

Patrick already in custody, it was Liam and Bridey

who took the full brunt of Sowerbridge's wrath. Their

presence in the village had never been a particularly

welcome one - indeed, it was a mystery how 'rough

trade like them' could have afforded to buy a cottage

in rural Hampshire, or why they had wanted to - but

they became deeply unwelcome after the murders.

Had it been possible to banish them behind a physical

pale, the village would most certainly have done so;

as it was, the old couple were left to exist in a social

limbo where backs were turned and no one spoke to

them.

In such a climate, Siobhan wondered, could Liam

really have been stupid enough to ratchet up the

hatred against them by daubing anti-Irish slogans

across his front wall?

'If Patrick is the murderer, then why didn't you

find Lavinia's diamond rings in Kilkenny Cottage?'

she asked the inspector. 'Why did you only find pieces

of fake jewellery?'

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'Who told you that? Bridey?'

'Yes.'

He looked at her with a kind of compassion. 'Then

I'm afraid she was lying, Mrs Lavenham. The diamond

rings were in Kilkenny Cottage along with everything

else.'

14

Two

Monday, 8 March 1999, 11.45p.m.

Siobhan was aware of the orange glow in the night

sky ahead of her for some time before her tired brain

began to question what it meant. Arc lights? A party?

Fire, she thought in alarm as she approached the

outskirts of Sowerbridge and saw sparks shooting into

the air like a giant Roman candle. She slowed her

Range Rover to a crawl as she approached the bend

by the church, knowing it must be the O'Riordans'

house, tempted to put the car into reverse and drive

away, as if denial could alter what was happening.

But she could see the flames licking up the front of

Kilkenny Cottage by that time and knew it was too

late for anything so simplistic. A police car was blocking

the narrow road ahead, and with a sense of

foreboding she obeyed the torch that signalled her to

draw up on the grass verge beyond the church gate.

She lowered her window as the policeman came

over, and felt the warmth from the fire fan her face

like a Saharan wind. 'Do you live in Sowerbridge,

15

madam?' he asked. He was dressed in shirtsleeves,

perspiration glistening on his forehead, and Siobhan

was amazed that one small house two hundred yards

away could generate so much heat on a cool March

night.

'Yes.' She gestured in the direction of the blaze.

'At Fording Farm. It's another half-mile beyond the

crossroads.'

He shone his torch into her eyes for a moment his

curiosity whetted by her soft Dublin accent, she

guessed - before lowering the beam to a map. 'You'll

waste a lot less time if you go back the way you came

and make a detour,' he advised her.

'I can't. Our driveway leads off the crossroads by

Kilkenny Cottage and there's no other access to it.'

She touched a finger to the map. 'There. Whichever

way I go, I still need to come back to the crossroads.'

Headlights swept across her rearview mirror as

another car rounded the bend. 'Wait there a moment,

please.' He moved away to signal towards the verge,

leaving Siobhan to gaze through her windscreen at

the scene of chaos ahead.

There seemed to be a lot of people milling around,

but her night sight had been damaged by the brilliance

of the flames; and the water glistening on the tarmac

made it difficult to distinguish what was real from

what was reflection. The rusted hulks of the old cars

that littered the O'Riordans' property stood out in

bold silhouettes against the light, and Siobhan

thought that Cynthia Haversley had been right when

16

she said they weren't just an eyesore but a fire hazard

as well. Cynthia had talked dramatically about the

dangers of petrol, but if there was any petrol left in

the corroded tanks, it remained sluggishly inert. The

real hazard was the time and effort it must have taken

to manoeuvre the two fire engines close enough to

weave the hoses through so many obstacles, and Siobhan

wondered if the house had ever stood a chance of

being saved.

She began to fret about her two small boys and their

nanny, Rosheen, who were alone at the farmhouse,

and drummed her fingers impatiently on the steering

wheel. 'What should I do?' she asked the policeman

when he returned after persuading the other driver to

make a detour. 'I need to get home.'

He looked at the map again. 'There's a footpath

running behind the church and the vicarage. If you're

prepared to walk home, I suggest you park your car

in the churchyard and take the footpath. I'll radio

through to ask one of the constables on the other side

of the crossroads to escort you into your driveway.

Failing that, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here until the road's clear, and that could take several hours.'

'I'll walk.' She reached for the gear stick, then let

her hand drop. 'No one's been hurt, have they?'

'No. The occupants are away.'

Siobhan nodded. Under the watchful eyes of

half of Sowerbridge village Liam and Bridey had set

off that morning in their ancient Ford estate, to

the malignant sound of whistles and hisses. 'The

17