A Question of Guilt(4)

‘That was another theory that was going around, of course,’ Mum said. ‘I never did believe it myself, though. He wouldn’t risk it – not when he knew there were two girls asleep upstairs.’

‘People do awful things if they’re desperate,’ I said. I’d come across quite a few instances of unbelievable ruthlessness in the course of my career.

‘Well, it wasn’t that, anyway,’ Mum said. ‘It turned out he’d let his insurance lapse – couldn’t afford to keep up the payments. The fire ruined him – the shop never reopened, not as an electricals store anyway. It’s a café now. Very nice, too, they say. They do quite a trade on a Saturday, coffee and cakes, and toasted sandwiches. It’s one of the girls who used to rent the flat upstairs that’s got it, funnily enough. You’d think she’d have wanted to get as far away from the place as possible, wouldn’t you? I know I would, if I’d had an experience like that . . .’

‘Mm, yes.’ I shuddered, imagining how terrifying it must have been for them. ‘But what made the police think it was this Brian Jennings and not the yobs? And what on earth possessed him to do something like that?’

Mum shook her head. ‘Who knows? He was a strange one, by all accounts, a real loner, and he’d had a crush on one of the girls for ages. It was a case of “if I can’t have you, no one else will”, I think. They found a lot of stuff in his flat, strange stuff, you know what I mean? Pornography, lots of photographs of Dawn that he must have taken with a long-lens camera – and she reckoned he’d been stalking her, hanging around outside, just watching the place, and following her if she went out. I think a couple of witnesses said they’d seen him lurking about on the night of the fire, which put the police on to him. But the final nail in his coffin was when they found traces of petrol in the pocket of his jacket. They had him up in court, and he was found guilty. Arson and endangering life, I think it was. He got put away for a good long time.’

‘But his sister maintains he’s innocent?’ I said.

‘She does. Poor soul, she’s put her life on hold trying to get the case looked at again. She’s given up everything, from what I hear, to fight to prove his innocence, and like I say, it’s all been for nothing.’

I sipped my tea, but prickles of excitement were darting in my veins as if it were champagne and my brain had gone into overdrive.

It was so long now since I’d been able to go after a story, I’d almost forgotten the adrenalin rush, the singing anticipation. But I was feeling it now.

I didn’t know if this Brian Jennings was guilty or not; it could very well be that his sister’s love and loyalty was misplaced. But her fight for ‘justice’ was a compelling story, and who knew what I might discover if I did some digging into the facts? For the first time in months, I had something other than my own aches and pains to think about. It was a great feeling.





Two


I could hardly wait to begin looking into the case, but, before speaking to Marion Jennings, I needed to have all the information that was out there at my fingertips and decided the best starting point was probably the local newspaper office, where it was sure to be archived. I might have been able to discover most of the facts by going online, but Dad was busy on the computer, bringing his accounts up to date, and in any case I thought I’d get more of a feel for things if I could chat to the reporter who had covered the case. Even if he or she was busy, the girls in the office would probably be able to fill me in on most of the background; the premises occupied by the Stoke Compton Gazette were practically next door to the shop that had been petrol bombed.

‘There’s no chance you’re going into town today, I suppose, Mum?’ I asked, as we shared a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

‘You mean you’d like to go into town?’ Mum gave me a straight look, but the corners of her mouth were turned up into a half smile.

‘Well . . . yes . . .’

‘I usually do my supermarket shop on a Friday . . .’ This was Wednesday. ‘But if you give me half an hour to check the cupboards and see what we need, I don’t suppose there’s any reason why I shouldn’t do it today.’

‘I wasn’t really thinking of going to the supermarket,’ I said.

‘No, I know you weren’t. But if I dropped you off in town, did my shopping and popped back to pick you up . . . How long would you need?’

‘How long does it take you to do your shopping?’

‘A couple of hours, usually.’

‘That would be great.’