A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

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 the 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.’

‘There are cops all over the place asking questions.’

Without speaking Corkhill motioned to the dog and left. He walked to the Otterbridge by-pass and stood by the side of the road to hitch a lift.

In the kitchen of his mother’s house Clive Stringer hungrily ate his chips. He gathered together the greasy paper in an untidy ball and threw it into the cardboard box in the corner which served as a bin. I should have stayed at Armstrong House, he thought. I would have been safer there. The kitchen door was still wide open and the living-room door was ajar so he could hear the murmur of voices as the policeman talked to his mother and Miss Masters, but in his panic he could not make out the words. I should get away, he thought. But escape seemed impossible. There was no back door from the kitchen and the windows would not open since the council workmen had painted the frames two years ago. His only way out was through the front. Why don’t they come and get me? he thought. What are they doing? At last his confinement in the kitchen became unbearable. The voices in the living room had stopped and that added to his tension. He walked carefully sideways out into the hall, sliding his back against the wall in a futile attempt to make himself invisible. He had reached the front door and was lifting his hand to the catch when the inspector spoke.

‘Clive!’ he said and the sudden sound of the stern voice in the quiet house made Clive’s heart pound and his legs shake. ‘ I hope you weren’t intending to leave without talking to us. Why don’t you come in here?’

The boy stood, still with his back to the wall, staring through the crack in the door towards them.

‘Come in, Clive,’ Hilary Masters said. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

The boy sidled into the room and looked at them with frightened, unfocused eyes.

‘Sit down. The police inspector wants to ask you some questions.’ He sat on the edge of the settee. He was shaking. ‘You musn’t be frightened,’ Hilary said. ‘ The police don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. They just want your help.’

Clive heard the words as if they came from a great distance away, but knew that it was all a trick. He would have to be clever or they would catch him out.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ he said.

‘Of course not, Clive,’ Hilary said reassuringly. ‘Just listen to the inspector and answer his questions.’

‘Clive,’ Ramsay said. ‘I understand that Mrs Cassidy was a friend of yours.’

The boy nodded cautiously. ‘She took me to the youth club. And then I went to church with her.’

‘When did you last see her?’ Ramsay asked.

Clive thought carefully. He had to be dead clever.

‘Yesterday afternoon,’ he said. ‘At Armstrong House.’

‘You were working at Armstrong House yesterday afternoon?’

‘Yes.’ He sat, his mouth open, staring.

‘What were you doing?’ Ramsay asked, trying to control his impatience.

‘Cleaning the corridors and the stairs.’

‘So you would have seen anyone coming and going?’

He nodded.

‘What was Mrs Cassidy doing at Armstrong House?’

Clive thought carefully again, weighing up the answer before he decided there was no harm in the truth.

‘She’d come to visit Mrs Bowman,’ he said. ‘ She came to visit her a lot. Sometimes once, twice a week.’

‘Can you tell the time?’ Ramsay asked.

‘Of course!’ Clive was indignant. ‘And I’ve got a watch. Mrs Cassidy gave it me last birthday.’

‘Were you wearing your watch yesterday?’

‘I always wear it,’ he said simply.

‘So you’ll be able to tell me what time Mrs Cassidy arrived at Armstrong House yesterday afternoon and what time she left,’ Ramsay said.

‘She came at half past one,’ Clive said proudly, his guard dropping more with each question. ‘I’d finished my dinner. If I’m there all day the warden gives me dinner. It was shepherd’s pie.’

‘And when did she go?’ Ramsay asked.

‘Straight away,’ Clive said. ‘The ambulance hadn’t come to take Mrs Bowman to the hospital, so Mrs Cassidy said she’d give her a lift.’

‘Did Mrs Cassidy bring Mrs Bowman back to Armstrong House?’

The boy nodded.

‘I don’t suppose you have any idea what time that was.’

‘Half past three!’ Clive said, triumphant. ‘It was half past three.’

‘How are you so certain?’ Ramsay asked.

‘I’d been waiting for her. I liked to see her. She always cheered me up like when I saw her.’

‘What did you do then? Did she take Mrs Bowman to her room?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ I helped her.’

‘And then,’ Ramsay said, ‘I suppose Mrs Cassidy left Armstrong House.’

‘No,’ Clive said. ‘I saw her go into Mrs Bowman’s room but I never saw her leave. I waited for Mrs Cassidy. Sometimes she gave me a lift home – the warden doesn’t mind me going early if all the work’s done. I waited until gone four o’clock and then I walked into town and got the bus.’

‘Perhaps you missed her,’ Ramsay suggested. ‘Perhaps you were working and didn’t see her go.’

But Clive was quite positive.

‘No!’ he said. ‘I’d finished my work by then and I was waiting for her, sitting on the bottom of the stairs. I was bound to have seen her even if she’d come in the lift. Bound to.’

Theresa Stringer had been following the conversation. ‘He’s telling the truth,’ she said. ‘I told you Dorothea didn’t get here until half past four. She left just before Clive came home.’

‘Could she have met Mr Corkhill in the street?’

‘No,’ she cried. ‘I’ve told you Joss wouldn’t have wanted to hurt her.’

Ramsay ignored the outburst and turned back to Clive.

‘Did you see Mrs Cassidy again yesterday?’ Ramsay asked.

‘No,’ Clive said, thinking how clever he was, cleverer than any old policeman.

‘What time did you get home?’

‘About quarter past five.’

‘Did it take you a whole hour to walk from Armstrong House?’

Clive was beginning to enjoy himself. He looked at the inspector as if shocked by the man’s lack of faith in him.

‘I’ve told you,’ he said. ‘I walked into town. I hung around the shops there for a bit then I got the bus home.’

‘Who was in the house when you got here?’

‘No one,’ he said. ‘Only my mam.’

‘Did you go out again yesterday evening?’

There was a pause and for a moment Clive was struck by a terrible panic.

‘Well?’ Ramsay said. ‘Did you go out again yesterday evening?’

‘Yes,’ Clive said at last. ‘I went to the fair.’

‘Did you see anyone you knew?’

Again there was a moment’s hesitation. Then Clive answered. ‘Only Joss,’ he said. ‘He was in a good mood. He gave me some money.’

‘What time did you see Joss?’ Ramsay asked.

‘When I first got there. At about eight.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘Late,’ Clive said. ‘ Really late.’ And despite the watch which Dorothea had given him it seemed that he could not be more specific than that.

They lapsed again into silence. Ramsay felt a mounting impatience. Where was Corkhill? Despite Theresa’s insistence that Joss had not met Dorothea the afternoon before, he was still the most obvious suspect.

Clive stood up suddenly.

‘I’m going back to work,’ he said. ‘To Armstrong House.’

They heard the front door bang and saw him lope past the window on the way to town.

‘I should go too,’ Hilary Masters said. That decided Ramsay. He could not sit there, waiting, all afternoon. He put out a general alert for Corkhill on his personal radio and asked her to give him a lift back to the police station.

That afternoon Northumberland bus drivers went on strike after a dispute about overtime. Walter Tanner waited at the bus stop at the entrance of the Ridgeway for an hour before he realised that no bus was going to come. He was unused to vigorous exercise and the prospect of walking home dismayed him. The elation of his time at the bookmaker’s had long since left him. It was three o’clock. The boys from the High School, let out early because it was carnival Friday, were wandering back to the estate in an aimless, can-kicking, gum-chewing group. Tanner waited until they passed before starting off down the hill to the town. Their undirected aggression frightened him.

It was very hot still and he felt his face burn with the exertion of walking. The road into town was busy with traffic but there were no pedestrians and he was grateful at least for that. At last he came to the streets which were more familiar to him. Close to home, on a corner, a large public house was open. People holding long glasses were sitting in the garden under striped umbrellas. Tanner was tempted for a moment to go inside, to find a dark corner, to sit and recover his composure with a pint of beer, but he knew he was in no state to meet anyone. It would be better, after all, to go straight home.

At the door he stood for a moment, his muscles trembling, almost faint. He felt in his trouser pocket for his keys and pushed one into the keyhole. He tried to turn it with shaking fingers before realising that the door was already unlocked. In the shock of finding Dorothea’s car he must have gone out with the door still open. It hardly mattered. There was nothing inside worth stealing. He shut the door behind him and stood, breathing deeply, enjoying the cool of the house and the relief of being home.

Never again, he thought automatically. No more gambling. That must be the last time.

But as he began to relax he was already trying to find ways around the self-imposed ban. I could arrange everything on the telephone, he thought, though he knew he would miss the excitement and companionship which was as much part of the addiction as the thought of winning. I could just go on the big days.

He sat heavily on the bottom of the stairs and took off his shoes. One of his socks had a hole in the heel and his skin was red and blistered after the walk. He padded into the kitchen, filled a kettle and set it on the gas stove. While he was waiting for it to boil he went upstairs to swill his hands and face.

He knew when he reached the top of the stairs that someone had been into the house because the bathroom door was open. With an instinctive embarrassment he always shut the bathroom door.

‘Hello!’ he shouted. ‘Is anyone there?’

He thought the police might be back. He had a vague idea that scientists came and did tests. There was no reply and he walked on into the bathroom.

Clive Stringer lay in the grimy bath in a pool of blood. He was curled like a child with his knees almost up to his chin. He had been stabbed in the back and his wrists had been cut.

It was too much for Walter Tanner. The boy had been haunting him all day. Downstairs the kettle howled. He stood quite still. It was like a nightmare.