The Tinder Box by Minette Walters

Author:Minette Walters [Walters, Minette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: ISBN|9781447213710
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

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 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? 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.

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