by Cleeves, Ann
‘Are you expecting Joss?’ Hilary asked. ‘Where is he?’
‘On the Abbey Meadow,’ Theresa said defiantly. ‘ Working on the fair. He’ll come home this afternoon then go back to work with his mate this evening. It’s the last night. They’ll be busy.’
‘Will he come home?’ Hilary asked quietly. ‘Or will he go to the pub? Drink all his wages.’
‘He’ll come home!’ Theresa said. ‘He promised.’
But the footsteps outside the house seemed to have unsettled her and though she returned to the sofa her attention was elsewhere. There was a silence, then the sound of a baby crying through the thin walls from next door.
‘You were talking to me about Mrs Cassidy,’ Ramsay prompted. ‘She asked lots of questions. Was she an easy person to talk to?’
With some effort Theresa directed her attention away from the window and back to him.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like her coming at first. I knew she was a vicar’s wife. I told her at the beginning: “You might persuade our Clive to come to your church but you’ll not get me inside.”’
‘What did she say to that?’
‘She laughed. There was nothing you could say to offend her. She said there were more important things than going to church.’
‘Tell me about yesterday,’ Ramsay persisted. ‘What exactly did you talk about then? When Mr Peacock left you alone.’
Suddenly Theresa went mysterious. It was none of Ramsay’s business what they talked about, she said. It had nothing to do with him.
‘But you must have talked about Joss. She must have wanted to know what happened between Joss and Beverley.’
‘She believed me!’ Theresa said defensively. ‘She believed it was an accident.’
‘Theresa,’ Hilary Masters said, ‘did you tell Mrs Cassidy how Beverley got those bruises?’
‘Yes!’ Theresa shouted defiantly. ‘ I told her everything. You couldn’t lie to her.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Mr Peacock before the case conference? Or me?’
Theresa shrugged. ‘Mr Peacock doesn’t like Joss,’ she said. ‘He’d always believe the worse of him.’
Ramsay interrupted quietly. ‘What did happen, Miss Stringer? You do realise that you’ll have to tell us.’
Theresa crouched on the sofa, her knees by her chin, her red and black dress stretched over them.
‘Joss was pissed,’ she said. ‘It was before the fair came and he was fed up, bored. He couldn’t get work. We had a row.’
‘What about?’ Hilary asked.
‘I can’t remember exactly how it started,’ Theresa said. ‘ It doesn’t matter now.’
Ramsay thought she would be a fighter and imagined the pair of them, the drunken man and the tiny woman, hurling insults from one room to another, throwing things, waking the baby, confusing Clive. Probably they both enjoyed the drama of it. A good row would clear the air, get rid of some of Corkhill’s frustration. Only the children would be terrified.
‘When was this?’ he asked.
‘About a fortnight ago. It was in the evening. Joss had had a win on the horses and had been drinking all day. I’d been here with Beverley. It didn’t seem right that he’d been out enjoying himself. I wouldn’t have minded a change.’
‘Where were the children when this was happening?’
‘Clive was in his bedroom, reading comics. I was getting Bev ready for bed. When I heard Joss come in I sent her upstairs.’
‘Did you often row when Joss had been drinking?’
‘No,’ she said, desperate for him to understand. ‘ He’s not violent, not really. Usually we have a laugh. Or he goes to sleep.’
‘But that night he picked a fight.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, then added honestly: ‘I expect I picked the fight. Because I’d been in all day with the bairn.’
‘If you and Mr Corkhill were arguing here and the children were upstairs how did Beverley come to be hurt?’
‘She must have been frightened by the noise. By that time Joss was throwing things around. We were in the kitchen. We didn’t hear her come downstairs. She just appeared at the door. Then she ran between us and held on to me, crying. Joss wanted to move her out of the way, to get at me. He didn’t mean to hurt her.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He picked her up and threw her to one side. She hit her head and cheek on the oven and her ribs on the floor.’
Throughout the exchange Hilary had been watching Theresa anxiously, like some defence solicitor, Ramsay thought, who is frightened a client will incriminate herself. Did she know more about Theresa’s relationship with Dorothea than she was letting on? With the last admission she seemed almost relieved. Perhaps she felt that now her decision to take Beverley into care had been justified.
‘You do see,’ Hilary said, ‘that it makes no difference whether Joss meant to hurt her or not. He might have killed her.’
‘I know,’ Theresa said. ‘That’s what Dorothea told me.’
‘Did she give you any idea what you should do next?’ Ramsay asked quietly.
‘She said I couldn’t go with Joss to work on the fair.’ Theresa spoke reluctantly. Ramsay could tell that she was still attracted by the romance of the idea. ‘She said that was impossible if I wanted to have Beverley back.’
‘We’d all told you that,’ Hilary said with some irritation. ‘You didn’t believe us!’
‘She said I had to tell Joss that I wouldn’t go with him as soon as I saw him. If I left it I would find it harder. If he loved me enough he would stay. If he didn’t I was strong enough to carry on by myself. She would be there to help me.’
She turned to them, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘But she won’t. Not now.’
‘Did you do as Mrs Cassidy suggested and talk to Mr Corkhill as soon as he got home yesterday afternoon?’ Ramsay asked.
‘Oh yes!’ she said. ‘I thought I was so brave, I told him all right.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a scene,’ she said. ‘He was furious. No interfering old bat was going to tell him what to do. He was going to leave with the fair when it goes at the weekend. It was up to me to decide whether or not I wanted to go with him. He’d give me until tonight to decide.’
‘So he was very angry?’ Ramsay said. ‘Was he violent?’
‘Not with me,’ she said. ‘He blamed Mrs Cassidy.’ Ramsay thought she was going to say more, but she must have realised the implication of the question and her voice trailed off.
Outside a small girl with tangled hair pedalled furiously down the pavement on a tricycle. They watched her hoist on a handlebar to turn a corner.
‘I’m surprised that Mrs Cassidy didn’t stay and talk to Mr Corkhill with you,’ Ramsay said slowly. ‘It seems unlike her that she would expect you to face him alone.’
‘She wanted to visit an old lady,’ Theresa said defensively. ‘Someone with cancer. She offered to stay but I told her to go. I was afraid of what Joss might do …’
Again she stopped, frightened.
‘What were you afraid of?’ Ramsay asked. ‘What did you think he might do?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Not what you think. Joss couldn’t have killed her. He wouldn’t do a thing like that.’ But there was uncertainty in her voice. Ramsay would have liked to reassure her, but he was beginning to feel excitement at nearing a conclusion to the case.
‘So Mrs Cassidy went and left you here to wait for Joss,’ he said. ‘What time was that?’
She shook her head. There was no clock in the house. She had nothing to be on time for.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘One o’clock. Half past.’
Ramsay hesitated. It still seemed uncharacteristic that Dorothea Cassidy would leave a woman who had just lost her daughter to face a potentially violent man alone. With a sudden inspiration he said:
‘She arranged to come back later, didn’t she? After she had visited the old lady in Armstron
g House?’
Theresa nodded reluctantly. This is it, Ramsay thought. This is the end of it. Dorothea came back to the Ridgeway and Joss was waiting for her, still drunk, his pride hurt, wanting an argument. Dorothea had stood up to him because she was, as Theresa said, frightened of nothing. And he had strangled her, frustrated and furious because she had wrecked his dream of taking Theresa travelling.
‘What time did Mrs Cassidy come back?’ he said gently. He felt sorry for Theresa. He thought she was about to lose everything.
Theresa looked towards Hilary Masters as if only a woman could help her, but Hilary stood up suddenly and moved to the window, looking out.
‘Tea time,’ she said. ‘About half past four. The children’s programmes had started on the telly.’
‘Was there another row?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Between her and Mr Corkhill?’
‘No. How could there be? Joss wasn’t here. He stormed out earlier. I thought I would never see him again.’
‘But you did see him again? He did come home last night?’
She nodded.
‘What time did he come home?’
‘I don’t know. Very late. I’d fallen asleep in front of the television.’
‘How did he seem? Was he still angry?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Pissed, sentimental. You know how they get.’
‘Did he tell you where he’d been last night?’
‘To work,’ she said. ‘ To the fair. Then to the pub with his mates.’
‘Did he mention Mrs Cassidy?’ Ramsay asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘ It was as if he’d forgotten about her. Or as if it didn’t matter any more.’
Ramsay looked across at Hilary Masters. She had regained her pose of cool detachment. She turned back into the room, unmoved it seemed by Theresa’s distress. He supposed it was the only way she could survive the demands of her job. Dorothea had remained human, accessible, involved – and she was dead.
‘If you don’t mind we’ll wait until Mr Corkhill comes home,’ Ramsay said. ‘Then we’ll take him down to the station to ask him some questions. And I’d like some scientists to look at your house. It won’t cause you any inconvenience.’
Theresa stared blankly ahead of her and he could not tell if she had understood him. The three of them sat in silence, watching the dust in the sunlight, waiting for the footsteps on the pavement which would mean that Joss Corkhill was on his way home.
Chapter Ten
In the bus from Armstrong Street to the Ridgeway Clive Stringer stared at Walter Tanner and grinned. They got off the bus at the same stop and Clive hurried home. He saw the old man again, a little later, when he went to fetch chips for himself and his mother. Tanner was standing outside the row of shops at the centre of the estate. He waited until Clive had bought the chips and disappeared back up the road before he made his move.
Walter Tanner had started coming to the betting shop on the Ridgeway Estate when his mother was still alive. He had chosen the Ridgeway because it was unlikely that he would meet any of his acquaintances there and in those days, before he had gambled away all the family money, he had owned a car. His mother was one of those women who became elderly in middle age and who suffered from persistent and undefined illnesses. When Walter’s father was alive there was some controlling her. She accepted his authority with resentment but not hostility and saw it as her duty to prepare him meals and help him occasionally in the shop. But Walter’s father had died in late middle age and then she became almost permanently an invalid. She left her room in the evenings to watch television, which she enjoyed, but took no active part in the household. Walter found himself hating her and hating himself because he could find no compassion for her. He took his religion seriously.
At first the trips to the betting shop were weekly. Inside, in the hot and smoky little room he felt anonymous. He could take any risk he liked and no one would know. Then he became recognised as a regular, one of the gang, and he found a warmth and friendship he had never experienced in church. As a single man in church he was isolated, exceptional. The place seemed full of happy families or gaggles of elderly ladies. He felt more an employee of the congregation than a participating member. There was no social contact. The bookmaker’s was full of single men, and they accepted Walter without question. He was terribly unlucky and they loved him for it. No matter how much they lost they could console themselves that Walter had lost more. When occasionally he did win they were honestly pleased for him. They clapped him on the shoulder, told him his luck must be about to change. He felt that the weekly trips to the Ridgeway kept him sane. Without them he would have murdered his mother. Soon once a week was not enough and his savings began to disappear.
His mother died without his assistance on the weekend after he had had to sell the car. He felt surprisingly little emotion, not even relief, when he came home from the Ridgeway to find her cold and stiff in her bed. She still had the complaining, slightly petulant look on her face which was as much a part of her as the mole on her cheek and her watery brown eyes. He began automatically to wonder which horse he would back in the three fifteen at Newmarket.
After his mother’s death he tried to keep away from the betting shop for a while. He told himself that now he had no reason to escape. But he was wrong. There were other pressures. He cared about the shop and wanted to maintain it in its old glory but it was expensive to run and his regular customers grew older and less willing to spend money. Soon he was in debt. More disturbingly Dorothea Cassidy turned up at the vicarage and began to question his authority in the only place he had ever had any power. Eventually he sold the business and then, even with the gambling, he had a little financial security. But Dorothea Cassidy remained less easy to deal with.
When Dorothea’s car was found on his drive the instinct to escape to the betting shop was irresistible. He felt that in the accepting, unquestioning atmosphere of the shop he would find the strength to sort himself out and decide what to do. After a few bets he would relax again. But when he pushed open the door and waved his usual greeting to Susan behind the counter he found they were all talking about the murder.
‘Here’s Wally,’ one of the punters said. ‘He’ll know what’s going on. Tell us about it, Wally.’
In comparison to them he was well educated and seemed to have a limitless supply of money. They trusted his judgement. They gathered around him wanting information and it was almost the same elated sensation as after a win.
‘Well,’ he said, diffident, in case they should think he was boasting. ‘Actually her car was found on my drive.’
Then he was the most popular person in the place. Was there blood, they wanted to know, any clues? Had the police given him a bad time? Perhaps he could sell the story to the papers and make a fortune.
On Abbey Meadow the fair was still. Men cleared up the mess of the night before. They called to each other, using nicknames and the technical terms of their trade which would have been incomprehensible to outsiders. Joss Corkhill walked among them, an Alsatian as big as a wolf by his side, shouting greetings, feeling immensely at home. He told himself the fair was the only place he had ever belonged. It was his Irish blood, he thought. He needed to travel. He regarded each of the rides with affection. He passed the waltzers where the night before teenage couples had clung to each other, shrieking with mock-terror above the music, and the galloping horses and the old-fashioned helter-skelter with its wooden slide and woven rope mats. His mate’s ride was called the Noah’s Ark. Carved animals spun at great speed around an undulating track. There was nothing heavy to do. Most of the work was in setting up the fair and clearing it away at the end, but Joss was occupied all morning in cleaning and general maintenance and when they packed up at dinnertime his friend gave him ten pounds.
As he worked Joss tried to decide what to do about Theresa. He wanted her with him. It was a matter of pride. He had thought he had persuaded her and then the bloody social worker and the bloody vicar’s wife had got in t
he way. Yet as he walked around the wooden animals, he smiled to himself.
‘You’re in a good mood today,’ his mate said. Usually, before he had had a few drinks, Joss was bad-tempered, taciturn, inclined to lash out. Once, after a court appearance for being drunk and disorderly, a well-meaning magistrate had asked for a social inquiry report to get to the root of his drinking and his violent mood swings. The probation officer had sent him to a psychiatrist, but the doctor had failed to come up with a convenient label. Corkhill had a personality disorder, he said, and they could do nothing to treat that. So he had been fined and sent away to continue drinking.
Rumours of the murder across the river came early but were not specific. By the time the police came to Abbey Meadow with their photographs and their suspicion of everyone who worked on the fair, Joss Corkhill had left the site and was spending his wages in one of the pubs in the town, his Alsatian under the bench at his feet. He drank quickly and heavily but he did not stay long. He wanted to talk to Theresa. It was time, he thought, for a showdown.
The streets in the centre of town were busy with Friday shoppers and visitors. Joss Corkhill pushed his way through them and walked quickly out of the town towards the Ridgeway Estate, stopping on the way at a small off licence to buy a bottle of cider. At the corner of the street where Theresa lived he paused. There was a smart car he did not recognise outside. It was probably the social worker’s boss, he thought. That was all he needed. Another bloody woman. So he took a drink from the bottle and went back to the bookmaker’s thinking that he would wait until the visitor had gone.
At the door of the betting shop he stopped and let the dog in first. He liked to make an entrance. But when he followed no one had noticed that the dog was there. The regulars were gathered together in a huddle like a bunch of old women. They talked excitedly; not of horses but of Dorothea Cassidy’s murder.
‘She was here yesterday afternoon, you know,’ one said. ‘Down at the Stringers. There’s a policeman in the house now. He came with the social worker. I saw them.’