Innocent Victims by Minette Walters

Author:Minette Walters
Language: ara, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2012-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

HAnGInG IS Too GOoD foR THE LikEs of YOU.

BUrN in h e l l

“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 envolope 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 broadsheet 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.”

01:10 a.m.—Tuesday, 9th March, 1999

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.

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