Ann Cleeves - A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

Ramsay shut the folder and went out on to the landing. The three spare bedrooms were dusty, the furniture large and old-fashioned. One had bare floorboards. Ramsay walked slowly downstairs. The phone began to ring loudly.

He found the telephone on a small table in the hall and answered it.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Could I speak to Patrick, please?’ It was a young woman, breathless, anxious. Perhaps this was the object of Patrick Cassidy’s affection.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Patrick’s not here at the moment. Can I take a message?’

But she had already replaced the receiver.

Outside in Front Street two clowns on stilts were entertaining the morning shoppers and someone with a megaphone was shouting that, this was the last day of the festival and the grand parade would be held that night. After the cool of the vicarage it seemed very hot.

On his way into the police station Ramsay bumped into Gordon Hunter, who was making a great show of being in a hurry. There had just been a phone call, Hunter said. Some old boy had found Dorothea Cassidy’s car parked in his drive.

Walter Tanner did not find Dorothea Cassidy’s car parked in the drive of his modest, semi-detached house until nine thirty that morning. Since his retirement he indulged himself in the mornings with breakfast television and several cigarettes before even leaving his bedroom. He was ashamed of his laziness but as with his other secret vices found he could do little to change them.

He saw the car as he drew the living-room curtains and thought for a moment it was some monstrous prank. Then he expected to see Dorothea Cassidy herself on the doorstep.

‘What nonsense will it be this time?’ he said out loud to give himself courage. He was St Mary’s second church warden, secretary of the parochial church council, and since her arrival she had taken to dropping round, uninvited. She seemed to need no excuse though he could guess why she wanted to see him today. She said it was useful for her to discuss her ideas with him. He had so much experience, she said. So much to give. Then she would fix him in her gaze and launch into her plans for some new scheme. Last month’s enthusiasm had been the formation of a liturgical dance group. Even now the thought of it gave him a sick, light-headed feeling, which had nothing to do with having eaten no breakfast.

‘What would they wear?’ he had asked, to give himself time.

‘I don’t know,’ she had said. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it. Something loose and expressive, I suppose. Or leotards. And bare feet.’

‘Bare feet!’ The words had seemed to him to reflect all that was wrong with the present state of the church. They represented a denial of the ritual and majesty of the Book of Common Prayer. They made him think of mothers feeding babies on the back pew, toddlers frolicking around the altar and hymn numbers being called out bingo-fashion to disrupt the rhythm of the worship.

Dorothea had smiled at him, apparently unaware of his horror. Was she really so innocent, he wondered, that she could not guess the extent of his disapproval? Surely these visits were only part of her plan to get her own way. Yet alone in her presence he found it impossible to doubt her good intentions. When she brought up her plans at the PCC meeting he found it easy to discuss them with righteous indignation. The old forms of worship had held the church together for hundreds of years, he said. They shouldn’t abandon them in a misguided attempt to be fashionable. But confronted in his own home by Dorothea’s idealism he found his hostility harder to express. He was frightened that without the security of the familiar words of the old service his faith would fall apart, and how could he tell her that? She was so intimidating in her certainty.

‘I don’t see how I can help you,’ he had said. ‘Church wardens have no real power, you know. Edward is the vicar. You should discuss your ideas with him.’

‘Ah Edward,’ she had said, softening. ‘Of course he’s sympathetic but he’s too frightened of causing offence. He says the congregation is elderly and easily shocked. I’ve told him that we need a new congregation. If we had your support it would give Edward confidence. We both have so much respect, you know, for your opinions.’

Then she began to discuss with great clarity and knowledge an article he had written in the church magazine so he became seduced by her interest and learning, and when she went he was never sure how things were between them. Perhaps she thinks I approve, he thought, and he would go to church the next week with some trepidation, expecting to find the dance group already active, or electric guitars, or a black gospel singer performing from the pulpit.

His first impulse when he saw Dorothea Cassidy’s car was to pretend that he was out. Today he had more reason than usual to be afraid of her. With some shame he quickly drew the living-room curtains back together and stood in the stuffy half light waiting for her to ring the doorbell. The waiting and the silence made his heart pound. He began to sweat. This isn’t fair, he cried to himself. At my age I should be left in peace. What is the woman playing at? He crept into the kitchen in case she had gone to the back of the house but there was no sign of her there. All the time he listened for the engine to start and the car to drive away. After ten minutes he decided that the tension of waiting was worse than facing her so suddenly he threw open the door and called with all the courage he could muster.

‘Dorothea! Where are you? Come in, my dear.’

But there was no reply and he was left feeling foolish and resentful, talking to himself like that in full view of everyone in the street. In the garden of Armstrong House next door, Clive Stringer, the teenage boy who worked there, stared at him, his mouth wide open, so he looked more gormless than ever. His presence confused Walter Tanner. He distrusted the boy and never knew what to say to him, but if Dorothea was around he did not want her to catch him being impolite. He stood on the doorstep uncertainly and swore under his breath. Where was the woman?

One of the domestic staff was standing on a kitchen stool, half-heartedly polishing the windows of Armstrong House. Walter Tanner went to the boundary hedge and called to her. The woman clambered down carefully and approached him.

‘Have you seen Mrs Cassidy?’ he asked. ‘ Her car’s here but there’s no sign of her.’

Then to his amazement she backed away from him and began to cry, mopping her eyes with the hem of her overall.

‘Man,’ she said, ‘haven’t you heard? Mrs Cassidy’s dead.’

When Ramsay and Hunter arrived at Walter Tanner’s house he was eating his breakfast with a single man’s economy of effort. The same plate was used for his egg and toast and he stirred his tea with the handle of his knife. He had never married. He had thought, when he was a fervent young man, that he would join the priesthood and none of the women he had met then had seemed possible vicar’s wives. He had drifted into the family business prompted by some sense of obligation, expecting it only to be a temporary measure. When his mother’s health improved, when they could afford more reliable staff, he would leave, but neither condition was ever met and he suddenly found that he was too old either to train to be a priest or to marry.

The sound of the doorbell startled him and he piled the mug and the plate with its half-eaten food on to the draining board. Then he opened the door to the detectives, fumbling with the catch in his haste to let them in. He took them into the living room and had to open the curtains again. He shivered as he remembered with horror his attempt to hide from a dead woman. He felt terribly guilty, as if in desiring her absence he had been responsible for her death.