A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

by Cleeves, Ann

  Ramsay did not know what to say and left the office nervously, surprised that he cared so much what impression Hilary Masters had gained of him.

  Chapter Seven

  At the last minute Hilary Masters decided to visit the Stringer family with Ramsay. He decided that she was what Diana would have called a ‘ control freak’. She was afraid that the young social worker who had directly supervised the family would let down her team, that his attitude would reflect badly on her. She preferred to be in command of situations. He could understand the attitude. Diana had called him a control freak too.

  ‘We’ll go in my car,’ she said, taking charge again. ‘I know where we’re going. It’ll be quicker.’

  He said nothing and followed her downstairs, waited while she gave instructions to the receptionist then followed her outside. It was nearly midday and very hot. The car seat burned through the back of his shirt and even with both windows open he began to sweat. Hilary Masters remained cool and frostily pale. She drove well with a minimum of effort. They went down Armstrong Street, past the old people’s flats. Hunter was still knocking at doors and Ramsay was torn for a moment. Perhaps, after all, he should speak to the old lady who had seen Dorothea in the afternoon. But he did not want Hilary Masters to think him indecisive and he said nothing.

  His sergeant was continuing that morning’s thankless task of looking for a witness who might have seen Dorothea Cassidy’s car being driven on to Tanner’s drive. Most of the residents seemed elderly, deaf. It was so rowdy during festival week, they all said. They preferred to be in their beds.

  He came to a house where he thought the residents must have recently moved in. The grass in the front garden was long and an estate agent’s board had been pulled out and lay against the wall. Through the living-room window he could see evidence of renovation. There was little furniture. The upstairs curtains were still drawn. Hunter rang the bell. There was no reply and he rang it again and banged on the door with his fist. Inside there was a muffled thud and an angry voice demanding to know what the hell was going on. He rang the bell a third time and there were footsteps on the stairs. The door opened.

  It was obvious to Hunter that the young man inside had a hangover. He recognised the symptoms. He would have to be treated gently.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘ I’m from Northumbria Police. Perhaps I could come in?’

  And the young man, wrapped only in a bathrobe, slow-witted with the drink, could do nothing to stop him.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he demanded, as Hunter walked straight through to the kitchen and put on the kettle for tea.

  ‘Eleven o’clock,’ said Hunter.

  ‘Bloody hell, I’m late for work.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Hunter said. ‘You can tell your employer you were helping the police in a murder inquiry. They can phone me if there’s any problem. Do you keep the tea in here?’

  ‘Murder?’ the young man said. ‘What murder?’

  Hunter sat him down and made sure that he was listening properly, then explained about Dorothea Cassidy.

  ‘Her car was found this morning parked in a drive on the other side of the road. We’re looking for witnesses who might have seen it driven there. Where were you yesterday evening?’

  ‘In a pub,’ the man said. ‘In several pubs.’ He moaned. ‘I’m a morris man.’ Then, as Hunter seemed not to understand. ‘You know, morris dancing. We were performing as part of the festival.’

  ‘What time did you get home?’ Hunter regarded the man suspiciously. He looked more like a rugby player than a morris dancer. It seemed a strange activity for a grown man.

  The man shook his head painfully. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘ Late. Well after midnight. I walked back.’

  ‘Was anyone about in the street?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. They go to bed very early round here.’ He stood up and poured himself a glass of water. ‘ There was the drunk …’

  ‘What drunk?’

  ‘I suppose he was drunk. He nearly knocked me off the pavement when his car veered off the road.’

  ‘What sort of car was he driving?’

  ‘It was one of those Morris Thousand estates. My mam and dad had one when I was a kid.’

  ‘Are you sure the driver was a man?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘I’m not sure of anything. I was pissed. The car came up the road towards me. The road was clear but it swerved so two of the wheels were on the pavement. I jumped clear and it drove off.’

  ‘Where did it go then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t interested. I just wanted to get home to my bed.’ He paused. ‘It might have stopped further down the street, but I can’t remember.’

  ‘Tell me what the driver looked like,’ Hunter said.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see. There are only a couple of street lamps along here and his headlights dazzled me. It could have been a woman. It could have been anyone.’

  It was all he could say. Hunter tried to bully more information out of him but in the end he gave up. No one else in the street had seen or heard anything, so Hunter moved on.

  Annie Ramsay had been planning to visit the St Mary’s coffee morning, but after her nephew’s visit she decided she would not go. There would have been some pleasure in explaining that it had been she who had first alerted the police to investigate Dorothea’s disappearance but she was afraid of missing further excitement. Besides, by now the event would almost be over and she would be roped in to clear up.

  Although she usually disliked sloppy eating she made a sandwich for an early lunch and ate it from a tray on her knees, sitting in an easy chair pulled up close to the window. From there she could see the main entrance of Armstrong House and she saw Hunter appear suddenly below her. She recognised him – Ramsay had brought him to a couple of the weekly tea parties for moral support. Without finishing her lunch she set the tray on the window-sill and jumped to her feet, afraid that Hunter might find Emily Bowman’s room without her assistance. In the corridor she paused, uncertain whether she should take the lift or the stairs to the ground floor. Usually she took the lift but surely a fit young man like Hunter would want to walk and she was afraid of missing him. She grasped the banister firmly and with determination began the descent to the ground floor.

  Half-way down she realised she had made the right decision. She heard light young footsteps and the warden calling up to him:

  ‘Mrs Bowman is number thirteen. The second on the left.’

  She turned a corner and he was there, sprinting up the stairs towards her, so quickly that she was afraid he would pass her before she could catch her breath to speak.

  ‘Mr Hunter,’ she gasped. ‘It is Mr Hunter?’ He stopped and she held out her hand to him and smiled. ‘You know my nephew,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you recognise me. It’s Annie Ramsay.’

  He was balanced on his back leg with his front foot on the next step. He smiled at her. He was good with old ladies. He just had to turn on the charm and they adored him.

  ‘I’m glad I caught you,’ Annie Ramsay went on. ‘I wanted to warn you about Emily …’ She paused, still wheezing from her hurried flight from her room. ‘She’s very poorly.’ There was another hesitation then she mouthed noiselessly, ‘Cancer. She’s riddled with it.’

  In her strategy to be present at the interview it was the most effective thing she could have said. Hunter was terrified by illness. He could face road accidents without squeamishness and once when an ear was severed from a thug’s head in a pub brawl he had picked it up and taken it to the ambulanceman in case it might be reattached. But disease was different. It struck at random, without provocation. It robbed a person of everything Hunter considered important.

  Annie Ramsay must have recognised his unease because she pressed home her point.

  ‘She has to go to the General every day for x-ray treatment, poor thing. I don’t know how she puts up with it.’

  Hunter hated h
ospitals. He said nothing.

  ‘I was wondering,’ Annie said, as if she were doing him the biggest favour in the world. ‘I was wondering if you’d like me to be there with you. When you talk to her. Just in case, you know …’

  He nodded gratefully and in triumph Annie climbed the stairs again to Emily’s room.

  It was Annie who tapped on the door and Annie who went in first.

  ‘Emily, dear,’ she said. ‘ There’s a policeman to see you. It’s all right. It’s Sergeant Hunter. He’s a friend of my nephew’s. He wants to talk to you because Dorothea came to visit you yesterday. They’re trying to trace her movements.’

  Emily Bowman was sitting in the same chair. She was still waiting for the ambulance. It gets later every day, she thought. Goodness knows what time it turned up yesterday. The visitors looked at her. They thought she had been dozing, unaware of her obsessive attention turned on the street. Once she had been a large, powerfully built woman. Now she seemed all bone, hard and fleshless, with knotted knuckles resting on a bony lap.

  ‘Emily, dear,’ Annie said again. ‘I don’t believe you’ve had any dinner. Let me open a tin of soup while you talk to the detective.’

  Emily shook her head. Why didn’t the ambulance come? The only time she had to relax was in the afternoon and evening when it was all over for the day. And yesterday, even that had been spoiled …

  ‘I’d like some tea,’ she said, suddenly grateful that Annie Ramsay was there. The policeman, tall and healthy, frightened her. Perhaps she should never have admitted to having seen Dorothea Cassidy the day before. As it was there were secrets between her and Dorothea which could never be told. She remembered the last conversation between them and closed her eyes with pain and guilt. She turned sharply to the policeman.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Sergeant?’

  Hunter nodded uncomfortably. ‘That would be very nice,’ he said.

  The room was hot. Usually he teased old ladies, flirted with them, made them believe that they were young and attractive again. He realised immediately that Emily Bowman would not be taken in. He resented Ramsay for having sent him there. He should be out looking for real villains. It was inconceivable that this old lady could be capable of murder.

  To hide his discomfort he sat on a hard-backed chair close to the table and took out his notebook. ‘I understand that you saw Mrs Cassidy yesterday afternoon. What time was that?’

  ‘At about half past one,’ Emily said.

  ‘Were you expecting her?’

  ‘No.’ Emily paused. ‘ No, but I wasn’t surprised to see her. She had taken to calling in if she was in the neighbourhood.’ And that was true enough, she thought.

  ‘So it was just a routine visit?’

  ‘No,’ Emily said. ‘Not exactly. When she arrived I was still waiting for the ambulance, just as I am now. Dorothea offered to take me into the hospital for treatment. I have to go every day.’ Then she added, as if she did not want to make too much of it, ‘At least every week day.’

  Annie Ramsay had been listening to the conversation through the open kitchen door.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ she shouted above the hissing of the kettle. ‘I didn’t know Dorothea took you in to the General.’

  ‘No,’ Emily said. ‘Well. You don’t know everything.’

  ‘It was kind of her, mind, to drive you all that way.’

  The patronising note in Annie’s voice stung Emily to reply.

  ‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘There was someone she had to see at the hospital anyway. I wasn’t putting her out.’

  ‘How did Mrs Cassidy seem?’ Hunter asked, interrupting the conversation between the women.

  ‘Well enough,’ Emily said, then feeling that was not quite enough: ‘Maybe a bit quiet. Perhaps she was concerned about the person she had to visit at the General. Families were always a worry, she said. Perhaps she was lucky never to have had children.’

  ‘What did she mean by that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Emily said firmly. ‘I didn’t like to pry.’

  ‘Did she mention her meeting at the hospital when she brought you home?’

  ‘No,’ Emily said. ‘ She didn’t stay. She saw me to my flat then went away. She’s a busy woman.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Half past three.’ She was surprised that she lied so fluently, and quickly turned back to the window to hide her astonishment.

  Annie Ramsay came in from the kitchen, carrying a tray with cups and saucers and a tin of biscuits. She set the tray on the table and handed a cup to her friend. The tea was stronger than Emily liked but she took it gratefully and sipped at it.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Annie said, excited, not content just to watch the interview but wanting to push the action along. ‘Why doesn’t Sergeant Hunter take you in to the General, dear? Then you can get your treatment without having to wait for the ambulance and you can show him where Mrs Cassidy went. The warden can phone the hospital to cancel the ambulance for you.’ She paused, then whispered, ‘Perhaps he’ll be able to discover a clue.’

  Then hopefully, because unlike Hunter she found the bustle and drama in hospitals attractive and because she had always been curious about where Emily Bowman went every day, ‘I could come with you. Keep you company while you’re waiting. It would make a nice change for you.’

  She turned to Hunter, her eyes gleaming. ‘There, Sergeant, don’t you think that’s a good idea? My nephew would be proud of me.’

  Hunter felt that he had been trapped but saw little way out of it. Ramsay would expect him to make inquiries at the hospital if Dorothea Cassidy had planned to meet a mysterious stranger there. Yet, it seemed from what Emily had told him that the arrangement had hardly been definite. Dorothea had taken the opportunity to go to the hospital because Mrs Bowman needed a lift. Would she have gone otherwise? It was impossible to tell, but Hunter thought he could work on the theory that Dorothea had known that the person she wanted to see would be in the hospital anyway. Who could it be? A patient? A member of staff? Or another voluntary worker?

  Without waiting for Hunter’s reply to her suggestion Annie was already helping Emily into her cardigan. Emily stood up stiffly and steadied herself by holding on to the back of her chair.

  ‘Would that be convenient, Sergeant?’ she said. She felt stronger. She had been frightened into weakness by a stupid nightmare. There was nothing now to be afraid of. She even felt more optimistic about going for the treatment. The whole thing was over so much more quickly travelling by car than in the ambulance. She was almost looking forward to the smooth ride through the dry countryside. If she could go by car every day, perhaps she would feel differently about everything. She should have thought of that before. She felt a sudden stab of self-pity. No, she thought. Someone else should have realised. All those people at church who come here to offer help and support. Why didn’t one of them see how much easier it would be for me to go by car and offer me a lift? They’re all soft words and no action.

  Annie went with Emily in the lift while Hunter ran down the stairs. He said it was so he could get the car, have it waiting right outside the door for them but both women sensed his revulsion, knew that he could not bear to be in an enclosed space with age and frailty. When the lift doors opened he was there to meet them. He even offered his arm to Emily to help her out, though he was grateful when she refused to take it.

  At the front door of the building Emily Bowman paused and looked around her. ‘Where’s Clive?’ she demanded. ‘He should be here, picking up the rubbish in the garden. I haven’t seen him since this morning.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Annie said soothingly. ‘He’s probably just wandered off. You know what lads are like.’

  But Clive’s absence seemed to disturb Emily. ‘ He should be here,’ she repeated, and in the car she fidgeted, taking no pleasure in the trip into town.

  Chapter Eight

  In the mornings the waiting room of the radiotherapy cent
re was packed with people squashed two to a chair, leaning against the walls, sometimes sitting on the floor. Now, at midday, it was quieter, only half full and the people seemed unbothered about the wait. The door was propped open to let in the sunshine and some younger patients sat on the narrow strip of grass outside the building, their skirts hitched around their thighs to expose their legs to the sun. The women were planning a trip to Otterbridge fair. The last night was always the best, they said laughing. The rides were more expensive but the atmosphere was great. Behind a tea counter two elderly WRVS helpers stood and chatted lazily. Emily took her appointment card from her handbag and placed it face-down on the receptionist’s desk. A nurse would come eventually to take the cards and patients would be called to the treatment room in order of arrival.

  Annie looked around her with undisguised curiosity.

  ‘Eh, pet,’ she said. ‘ Isn’t it nice in here? Easy chairs and carpet and everything.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘And don’t the folks look normal.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ Emily snapped, something of her old spirit returning. ‘It isn’t a zoo.’

  ‘No, well …’ Annie stared at a young man with a bald head and purple paint marks on his neck, who was doing The Times crossword with outstanding speed.

  Hunter had gone to park the car and appeared awkwardly at the door. He regarded the women, laughing in the sunshine, with something like fear. Were they mad? What did they have to laugh about? Annie and Emily settled into chairs while he stood and looked across at them.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘did Mrs Cassidy give you any idea where she was going?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘No, she was rather mysterious. Usually she was very open, you know. She’d tell you anything. But not yesterday.’ She felt no obligation to this young man. Let him find out for himself, she thought.

  ‘Was she away for a long time?’

  ‘Not more than half an hour, possibly less. She was here when I came back from treatment.’