by Cleeves, Ann
He was shown into a large, airy office and saw a tall woman in her thirties. She was single, obviously independent and Ramsay thought she would be ambitious. She was dressed in a cotton skirt and blouse in swirling pastel colours which did not suit her. Her legs were very long and her feet rather big. Yet she was, as Hunter had said, a beauty. Her face was startling – oval, flawless and perfectly symmetrical. She sat behind her desk and stared at him with calm grey eyes.
The police station had been in touch with her and she was expecting him.
‘Inspector Ramsay,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’
He felt ill at ease with her. Partly it was her perfect face and her air of competence, but he felt too that she was magically perceptive. She seemed to know his weakness just by looking at him. But he was not disappointed by her.
‘I’m investigating the murder of Dorothea Cassidy,’ he said. ‘I understand that she was here for a case conference yesterday.’
She paused, as though wondering if it were against her principles even to tell him that.
‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘She was here yesterday.’
‘Can you tell me what the conference was about?’
She frowned. ‘Is it relevant to your investigation?’
‘It might be. We’re trying to trace Mrs Cassidy’s movements yesterday. She was seen at lunchtime on the Ridgeway Estate. Perhaps you could tell me who she had gone to visit there.’
Hilary Masters sat quite still.
‘A woman called Stringer,’ she said. ‘Theresa Stringer.’
‘Was she the subject of the case conference?’
‘No,’ she said reluctantly. ‘It was her daughter, Beverley. We had to decide whether or not she should be taken into care.’
‘What decision did you come to?’
‘We decided that we would go for a place-of-safety order.’
‘What does that mean?’
She looked at him as if offended by his ignorance. ‘It means that we thought she would be at risk if she were left at home.’
He wondered if the measured, uninformative answers were designed to provoke him to anger. Why was she so politely hostile? Did she dislike him personally or simply distrust all men in authority? He recognised her prickly defensiveness as part of himself.
‘What sort of risk was she in?’ he asked evenly. ‘Neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse?’
‘It was a complicated situation,’ she said. ‘We were worried about the influence of her mother’s boyfriend. His name’s Corkhill. Joss Corkhill.’
Her apparent inability to give a direct answer frustrated him but he kept his patience.
‘Perhaps you could tell me all about the case,’ he said carefully, ‘and about how Dorothea Cassidy came to be involved. I realise that you have ethics to consider, but you can understand how important it is.’
She paused and shrugged.
‘We’ve been involved with the Stringer family for a long time,’ she said. ‘Theresa was a difficult child, not very bright, rather disturbed. She went to a number of special schools. Her parents were elderly. They did their best for her but when she left school they couldn’t cope and threw her out. She worked for a while as a chambermaid in a hotel in the Midlands, then turned up here again, homeless and pregnant.’
‘And Beverley was born?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not then. I explained that Theresa has been known to the department for a long time. The baby was a boy. She called him Clive. He’s sixteen now.’
‘Did Theresa cope with bringing up the child by herself?’
Hilary Masters shrugged. ‘She tried her best.’ she said. ‘She was very fond of him. We gave her all the support we could. The council found her a hard-to-let house on the Ridgeway – it was easier to get a council house sixteen years ago. We’ve had a social worker visiting the family since that time. Clive was put on the “at risk” register when he was born, not because we thought Theresa meant to harm him but because she could be careless, thoughtless about his safety. She let him wander about the estate when he was a very young child. It was hardly surprising that he first got into trouble when he was nine.’
‘What sort of trouble?’ Ramsay was unsure how much value this information could have for the murder investigation, but he had asked Miss Masters to tell him about the family.
‘I’m surprised you’ve never heard of him,’ she said, ‘though perhaps you’ve more important things to deal with than a petty thief …’ He thought she might be sneering at him but when he looked at her she was quite serious. ‘Clive has been in the juvenile court on numerous occasions,’ she said. ‘Mostly for vehicle related offences – taking and driving away and the theft of car radios. He seems to have an obsession about cars.’
‘Is he still at school?’ Ramsay asked.
She shook her head. ‘He left officially at Christmas but he hasn’t attended regularly for a couple of years. He’s always had problems at school. He struggled even in the remedial stream. A different parent might have pushed for him to have special help but Theresa had experienced the stigma of going to a special school and didn’t want that for her son.’
‘So what is he doing now? YTS?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He started on a scheme in a garage in town but it never came to anything. I don’t know exactly what happened. He said the boss picked on him but I expect he was simply unreliable. Then he appeared in court again and that seemed to be the final straw. He got the sack about three months ago.’
She began to straighten a pile of printed forms in front of her. Ramsay wondered if she had finished her story but it seemed she was just starting to come to the point. She hesitated, still unsure how much to give away.
‘That was when Dorothea Cassidy took him on,’ she said. ‘She was a qualified social worker, you know, very experienced and sometimes she did some voluntary work for us, on difficult cases that needed more time than most field workers could give.’
Ramsay said nothing.
‘We had our differences,’ the woman went on. ‘I found Dorothea’s approach disturbing, risky. She was too involved, unprofessional. But she seemed to work wonders with Clive Stringer. She even persuaded him to go to church with her.’ This time there was a sneer in her voice.
Still Ramsay remained intently silent and she continued:
‘When Clive last appeared in court, Dorothea went and spoke up for him. He was expecting youth custody – we all thought that this time he would definitely go away – but she persuaded the magistrates to consider another supervision order. She told them that Clive had agreed to do some community service. She said it would be a fitting reparation for him to give something back to the more frail and vulnerable residents of the town.’
She smiled and for the first time Ramsay thought she might have a sense of humour. ‘Dorothea was magnificent in court,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. She was terribly effective at that kind of thing.’
‘What sort of community service?’ Ramsay asked.
‘Oh,’ Hilary said. ‘She had persuaded the warden of Armstrong House to let him work there.’
Ramsay looked up sharply.
‘Was he working at Armstrong House yesterday?’
She seemed surprised by his sudden interest. ‘I expect so,’ she said. ‘He works there most days. Why?’
‘It appears that Dorothea was there visiting a sick old lady yesterday afternoon,’ Ramsay said, ‘ and she was due to speak to the residents’ association in the evening. Then her car was found this morning outside a house next door to the old people’s flats. It all seems rather too much of a coincidence.’
‘You can’t think that Clive Stringer had anything to do with her murder?’ Hilary said. ‘ He’s a bit simple but there’s no history of violence. And he adored her. In fact I was worried that he was becoming too dependent on her. He’ll need special help now, to come to terms with her death.’
There was a knock on the door and a young social worker came in. He blu
shed awkwardly and held out a sheet of typed paper.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘This is the social report you wanted, Hilary.’
She was obviously irritated by the interruption and took the report without a word. He backed his way out of the room, stepping on his lace and stumbling. Ramsay waited until the social worker had shut the door behind him then continued:
‘Perhaps you could give me the background to yesterday’s case conference. You said there was a second child. Was Corkhill the father?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘ He’s only come on to the scene fairly recently. Theresa would never tell us the identity of Beverley’s father. She might not have known it. I’d always presumed that the pregnancy was the result of a casual relationship.’
‘If, as you say, she’s irresponsible, isn’t it surprising that there weren’t more children?’
‘There was another child,’ Hilary said. ‘A daughter, Nicola. She died suddenly when she was six months old. It was a typical cot death. Clive was three or four at the time. Theresa was dreadfully upset. I think it shocked her into being more careful for a while.’
‘Were there any suspicious circumstances surrounding Nicola’s death?’ Ramsay asked.
Hilary Masters shook her head. ‘No more than with any cot death,’ she said. ‘The police accepted that it was accidental.’
‘How old is Beverley?’
‘Two and a half. We were very pleased with the way Theresa was coping until Corkhill moved in with her.’
‘When was that?’
‘Just after Christmas.’ She paused. ‘Corkhill’s rather a romantic figure. Quite unreliable but I can understand why Theresa was taken in by him. He even charmed Dorothea, though she knew he had an extensive record. He was born in Liverpool and has moved around a lot. Not only here, but in Ireland and the States. It’s hard to imagine, though, how he made the arrangements or got enough money for his travels. And he’s probably alcoholic – certainly he drinks very heavily. I gather that there was a brief marriage when he was very young but this is probably the longest he’s settled anywhere since he left home as a teenager. He’s always had temporary labouring jobs then moved on. His longest period of employment was with one of those tacky fairgrounds that move round the country. Apparently he came to the north-east to work on one of those rides at the Town Moor Hoppings and stayed on. I’m not sure where he met Theresa.’
‘What’s he been done for?’ Ramsay asked. The name was unfamiliar.
‘Mostly drunk and disorderly. Some petty theft. And there was one charge of assault after a fight in a bar in Newcastle.’
‘Is he working now?’
‘He’s been unemployed since he moved in with Theresa, but this week he’s been helping with the fair on Abbey Meadow. He met up again with some old contacts. That’s partly why we’re so concerned.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Ramsay said.
‘There was some suspicious bruising on Beverley’s body,’ Hilary Masters explained. ‘When he’s drunk Joss is unpredictable, moody. We think it’s possible that he hit her.’
‘And on those grounds you took her into care?’
He realised, too late, that he sounded critical. She became embarrassed, defensive.
‘This is an impossible job, Inspector,’ she said. ‘When I was a student one of the social workers in the team where I was training was called before a public inquiry after the death of a child she was supervising. I’ll never forget it. The press camped out in her garden and followed her wherever she went. No one could withstand that sort of pressure and in the end she had a nervous breakdown.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He wanted to tell her that he understood, that he too had once made a mistake which had ended in tragedy. ‘I wasn’t trying to tell you how to do your job.’
‘Why not?’ She shrugged. ‘Everyone else does.’ Then she smiled. ‘I’m sorry. Paranoia goes with the work.’ She paused. ‘You’re right, of course. In normal circumstances we wouldn’t take a child into care without stronger grounds. But in this case the circumstances were exceptional. I’ve explained that Joss had renewed his contacts with his friends on the fairground. The day before yesterday he and Theresa suddenly announced that they intended to leave Otterbridge and become travellers themselves, taking Beverley with them. And Clive if he wanted to go. Practical problems like where they would live or whether Joss could make enough money to keep them seem not to have occurred to them. They’re like children. It’s all a game.’
‘So that precipitated the decision about taking the girl into care?’
‘Of course. This is the last day of the festival. Tomorrow the fair will pack up and leave. We couldn’t risk the family disappearing.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose I hoped it would shock Theresa to her senses. I suspect that Joss has got itchy feet and wants to be off. She won’t let him go.’
‘When did you suspect that Corkhill was ill-treating Beverley?’
The defensiveness returned. ‘We had no statutory involvement with the family,’ Hilary Masters said. ‘ Only through Clive. Beverley was going to nursery regularly and seemed to be thriving.’
‘Who alerted you to what was going on?’ Ramsay asked. Then it became obvious. ‘ Was it Dorothea Cassidy?’
Perhaps that explained some of the social worker’s hostility towards the vicar’s wife. An amateur had succeeded where she had failed. He could understand how Hilary must feel.
Hilary Masters nodded. ‘As I explained, Clive started going to church. Dorothea ran a youth club there and he started going to that. Then she persuaded him to go to the service on Sunday too. I wasn’t very happy about that development. What right had she to impose her beliefs on an impressionable boy? I got his social worker, Mike Peacock, to talk to him about it once. He told him that it wasn’t part of his supervision order and he didn’t have to go if he didn’t want to.’
‘What did he say?’
She shrugged. ‘That he enjoyed it. I think he had a teenage crush on Dorothea. Not many people have been kind to him. After a few weeks he started taking Beverley to Sunday school. I suppose Theresa was glad to be rid of her for an hour but it was probably Dorothea’s idea.’
‘And she thought Beverley was being ill-treated?’
‘Yes. At first she noticed a change of personality. Beverley had always been a bright, out-going child. She seemed unnaturally withdrawn and listless. Then Dorothea found the bruises. As I’ve explained she was an experienced social worker. She realised that it was unlikely that they had been caused accidentally.’
‘Did the child tell you that Corkhill had hit her?’
‘No,’ Hilary said. ‘She’s only two and a half. We couldn’t get her to talk about it. But anyway, that’s not unusual in child abuse cases, even with older children.’
‘But you were convinced that Corkhill was the culprit?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Hilary said. ‘We were all convinced of that. When he was sober he was helpful, courteous, but when he had been drinking he had a foul temper. He’s given Theresa a black eye after a row before now.’
‘And where’s the little girl now?’
‘With foster parents.’
There was a silence, and Ramsay remembered there was something else which the social worker had failed to tell him.
‘Can you tell me what happened at the case conference yesterday? What position did Dorothea Cassidy take?’
He thought at first Hilary would refuse to reply, but she answered reluctantly. ‘She believed we should leave Beverley at home. She liked Joss Corkhill. I think, despite her experience, she allowed herself to be manipulated. And she was extremely idealistic. There was a lot of talk yesterday at the case conference about a child being better off with its mother. She thought she could persuade Theresa to stay in Otterbridge.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘I wasn’t prepared to take the risk. In the past Theresa has never been susceptible to rational persuasion. I said that if Joss Corkhill left the t
own with the fair and Theresa stayed at home, then of course there would no longer be any grounds to keep Beverley in care. Dorothea was going to Theresa’s house yesterday to talk to her about it.’
‘How did Mrs Cassidy seem at the case conference?’ Ramsay asked. ‘She wasn’t upset or unusually preoccupied?’
‘No,’ Hilary said. ‘She was enthusiastic, optimistic. Quite normal.’
‘Did you notice if she had a sticking plaster on her wrist? We think she may have cut herself at some point during the day.’
If Hilary was surprised by the question she gave no indication.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m sure she didn’t.’
‘What was the result of her meeting with Theresa after the case conference?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hilary said. ‘And that’s surprising. I would have expected Dorothea to call in or to phone me after she’d spoken to Theresa. I’ll be sending her social worker there this morning. We have to know what Theresa intends to do.’
‘Could I go with your social worker?’ Ramsay asked. ‘I have to talk to Miss Stringer about Dorothea’s visit yesterday. She might find it easier to talk to me if I’m with someone she knows.’
Hilary Masters stood up. ‘If you feel you need my staff’s protection,’ she said icily, ‘ I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.’
The sarcasm surprised him. He had thought that they had reached some understanding. Suddenly he felt a wave of sympathy for her and realised she must be as lonely as he was.
‘Thank you for your time and your help,’ he said. He wanted to show her that he admired her, that he realised she was good at her job. ‘ I must congratulate you. You have a very detailed knowledge of what must be only one of hundreds of cases your staff are supervising.’
She looked at him, unsure whether or not he was mocking her, but when she saw it was meant as a compliment she answered seriously.
‘I told you, Inspector, it’s never a trivial matter to take a child into care, no matter what the tabloid papers say. I always want to be sure of my facts. Besides, I know the family well. Before I was made a senior I was the Stringers’ social worker. It was the first case I took on when I arrived here, newly qualified. You might say that Theresa and I have grown up together.’