A Question of Guilt by Janet Tanner Page B

with Lisa.
    â€˜It must have been awful for you . . . the fire, I mean,’ I said, trying to sound suitably sympathetic. ‘Did you lose everything? All your precious belongings?’ It was a pretty crass question, but the sort I thought a nosy stranger might ask. I didn’t want to put Lisa on her guard.
    â€˜Pretty much,’ Lisa said shortly, piling Brenda’s plate and cup and saucer together.
    â€˜You know I don’t think I could bear to stay here, where it happened, if I were in your shoes,’ I went on. ‘Do you still live upstairs, in the flat?’
    â€˜No, we don’t,’ Lisa said in the same short tone. ‘And anyway, there’s no danger of it happening again. Brian Jennings is behind bars, where he belongs.’ She looked pointedly at my empty cup. ‘Can I get you another coffee?’
    â€˜No, I’m OK thanks.’ I didn’t want to risk her going off and leaving her young assistant to serve me. ‘So you think the police definitely got the right man?’ I persisted.
    â€˜Well of course they did!’ It was almost a snap.
    I risked it. ‘His sister doesn’t think so.’
    Lisa snorted. ‘She wouldn’t, would she?’
    â€˜I suppose not . . . but . . .’
    â€˜Brian Jennings was obsessed with Dawn,’ Lisa said vehemently. ‘Everybody knew that. The nights we looked out of the window and saw him, just standing there, staring up. If Dawn went out, he followed her. She was frightened to death of him. She reported him to the police, but they never did anything about it.’
    â€˜But it’s what put them on to him, I suppose.’
    â€˜I suppose.’
    â€˜It must have been really scary for you, too, before they caught him,’ I said. ‘You must have wondered . . .’
    â€˜Wondered what?’ Her tone was slightly aggressive now.
    â€˜Well . . . it might have been
you
the fire raiser was targeting . . . not Dawn . . .’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous!’ Lisa snapped. ‘Why would anyone target me?’
    â€˜You didn’t think somebody might have had it in for you?’
    â€˜It never crossed my mind. Dawn was the honeypot. When she was around, she was always the one who was the centre of attention.’ There was something that might almost have been resentment in Lisa’s voice now.
    â€˜But she’s not around any more?’ I said tentatively.
    â€˜No, she’s not.’ Lisa was whisking away a few odd crumbs from the table where Brenda had been sitting, using an old-fashioned wooden crumb brush and tray.
    â€˜Where is she now, then?’
    â€˜I haven’t the faintest idea. We’re not in touch.’ Lisa stopped what she was doing and fixed me with a baleful look. ‘Look, I don’t know what your interest in all this is, but it’s pretty morbid. So if there’s nothing else you want . . .’
    â€˜No, there’s nothing else.’ And nothing else I was going to learn today, either, I thought. Unless I owned up to the real reason I was asking questions, and possibly not then. But I wasn’t ready to come clean yet in any case. I wanted to be able to sniff around a bit more first without people clamming up on me.
    â€˜I’ll get your bill,’ Lisa said, fetching the same pad she’d written out Brenda’s bill on. But instead of waiting for me to get out my purse, she carried the used china into the kitchen beyond the curtain, and it was the little waitress who came to take my money.
    I didn’t see Lisa again. I’d upset her, I knew. But it was more than just that. I was left with a vague but persistent feeling that there was something she had not wanted to tell me.
    It took me a good ten minutes to walk down the High Street to the town square where Compton Properties had their office, twice as long as if I hadn’t been on crutches. But in any case, I wasn’t hurrying. I was busy