Ann Cleeves - A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

Hunter wanted to be at the scene of the crime. He bounced impatiently from one foot to the other like a runner at the start of a race. Ramsay knew his mind would already be racing in tabloid headlines.

‘Well?’ Hunter demanded. ‘Are you coming?’

Ramsay shook his head. ‘Not yet. You go. Take charge. See what you can get out of the old man.’

Delighted, Hunter ran off, jumping down stairs three at a time, slamming doors, making as much of a drama as he could manage. Ramsay sat quietly at his desk waiting for information.

It came relentlessly, proving conclusively that Corkhill could have played no active part in Clive’s murder. The arresting officer reported that Corkhill had been standing on the by-pass for at least an hour waiting for a lift. He was drunk and disreputable and no one had stopped. He had been seen by a number of council workmen who were digging up that stretch of road. Then the pathologist who had arrived promptly at Tanner’s house to examine the body had said that Clive was only recently dead. He had died perhaps only a matter of minutes before Tanner found him, he had told Ramsay cheerfully over the telephone. Certainly not more than half an hour. So Ramsay realised that unless there was the coincidence of two murderers in Otterbridge, each separately choosing to implicate Walter Tanner, Corkhill had not killed Dorothea Cassidy. Ramsay ordered more black coffee and knew he would have to start from the beginning again.

From his office he made several phone calls. The first was to Hilary Masters.

‘Hold the line a minute,’ the receptionist said, ‘while I check that she’s in.’

Then there was the social worker’s voice, cool and professional, matching the formality of his own. He told her, unemotionally, that Clive Stringer was dead and there was a silence. He wondered if she had been called away from the phone but when at last she answered it was obvious that she had been crying.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was fond of him.’

He was terribly moved but could think of nothing to say to comfort her.

‘I’ve sent a WPC to tell Theresa,’ he said, ‘but I thought you would want to visit.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

There was a silence. ‘Who killed him?’ she cried suddenly. ‘Was it Joss?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘ We’ve brought in Mr Corkhill to help us with our inquiries but it’s unlikely that he’ll be charged.’

He realised he was hiding behind the jargon. He did not know how to respond to her distress.

‘Then who was it?’ she cried again.

‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘ Not yet.’ He had never felt so inadequate.

‘Will you be coming to talk to Theresa today?’ she said. ‘Will I see you there?’

‘I won’t be there until later,’ he said. ‘I know you’re very busy. Perhaps you won’t have the time to wait.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll wait. I think I should be there when you talk to Theresa. Besides…’

Her voice trailed off and yet he was left with the sense that a promise had been made, that the possibility of contact between them had been established, and he was as excited as a boy.

The next phone call was made to the Walkers. His determination that he should start again at the beginning made the Cassidys an obvious target of investigation. When the phone rang Dolly was picking raspberries, stooping under the nets which were supposed to stop the birds taking the fruit, and she heard the bell through the open kitchen door. It took some time for her to disentangle herself from the net and she expected the phone to stop before she reached it but it continued with a persistence that frightened her. When she picked up the receiver her hand was shaking.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Hello?’ She expected it to be her husband.

‘Mrs Walker,’ Ramsay said. ‘I wonder if I might speak to Edward Cassidy.’

She felt defensive, as if he had accused her of neglecting her duty.

‘He’s not here,’ she said and felt herself blushing. ‘He insisted on going home. We tried to persuade him but he wasn’t himself at all.’

‘Patrick then? It is rather urgent.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Patrick’s not here either. We were rather worried about him. He went off in such a state. Actually my husband’s out looking for him.’ Then she stopped abruptly, feeling strangely disloyal.

Ramsay probed gently for precise times – when exactly had Patrick left them? What time did they leave the vicar in Otterbridge?

She sensed that something was wrong and became flustered and evasive. She was no good about time, she said. Ramsay would have to talk to her husband. But when the Major returned from his unsuccessful attempt to find Patrick Cassidy, he persuaded her that it was dangerous to lie and that the police had their own methods to get to the truth. He thought it might be safer to distance themselves from the Cassidys.

Ramsay was tempted to leave Joss Corkhill to be interviewed by someone else. It seemed now that the man was only on the periphery of the investigation, an incidental distraction. Let Hilary Masters sort out the Stringer family’s problems. Yet Joss had had a reason to seek out Dorothea Cassidy on the afternoon of her death. And Ramsay was curious to meet the man who had brought such apparent joy to Theresa Stringer’s life and who had betrayed her trust so completely. Later Ramsay was glad that he had taken the time to talk to Corkhill. For the conversation gave him the first glimmer of a real motive.

After the hours of waiting Corkhill was sober and looked ill and drained like all alcoholics needing a drink. He was perfectly at home in the interview room. He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, his eyes shut, and though he must have heard Ramsay come into the room he did not move. He was a slight man with dark, curly hair and the inspector could see why Theresa might have found him attractive. He had cultivated the image of the travelling man. He was dressed in a striped collarless shirt, the sort students had worn when Ramsay was young, and a grey waistcoat. Round his neck was tied a red cotton scarf. In the interview he was almost entirely self-centred, yet occasionally there were bursts of wit and self-mockery. When he had had a drink or two Ramsay could see that he would be good company, lively, funny, but wanting always to be the centre of attention.

He opened his eyes, though still he did not look at Ramsay. He spoke with a thick Merseyside accent.

‘What have you done with my dog?’ he said. ‘ That’s a valuable animal. I’ll not have her ill-treated. She might be sick already, poisoned. She took a good bite out of that pig’s leg.’

Ramsay said nothing. It was as if Corkhill had not spoken. He sat at the table and arranged papers in front of him, a fussy civil servant, then switched on the tape-recorder to begin the interview.

‘We have a problem, Mr Corkhill,’ he said in his polite, civil servant’s voice, ‘and we think you may be able to help us. Perhaps you would be kind enough to answer a few questions.’

Corkhill looked up. ‘What is this all about?’ he said.

‘Come now, Mr Corkhill,’ Ramsay said, ‘I’m sure you know. I would have thought that the news of Mrs Cassidy’s murder must have reached the Ridgeway by now. A major talking-point, I should have thought, the murder of a vicar’s wife in a town like Otterbridge.’

Corkhill shrugged. ‘ Nothing to do with me, pal.’

‘But you did know Mrs Cassidy?’ Ramsay persisted.

‘So did most of Otterbridge,’ Corkhill said. ‘She had her nose into everything.’

‘But recently I understand you came under her special attention.’

Corkhill refused to answer directly. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘ this is intimidation. Why pick on me? I know you haven’t locked away the old boy who had her car on his drive. I saw him today.’