A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

Chapter Two

Ramsay followed Hunter across the park to the street. As he walked along the footpath close to the water there was the smell of mud and vegetation from the river. Apart from the rumble of traffic in the distance the place was very quiet. No one had been allowed into the park and the usual cries of squabbling children, the inevitable hum of the motor-mower, were absent.

He reached the main road at eight thirty. The church clock had just chimed the half-hour. The bridge was clogged with cars tailing back from the traffic lights in Front Street. Between two lamp-posts across the road a large banner announced the Otterbridge Carnival and Folk Festival. Already he could hear some busker playing ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ on a scratchy violin. All week the town had been overrun with strangers, filling the pubs to listen to the music, crowding into the fair on Abbey Meadow. Tomorrow it would all be over and the clowns and mime artists and jugglers who held up the traffic and disrupted the routine of the town would be gone.

Ramsay spoke briefly to the policemen by the gate who were turning people away from the park, then joined the crowd walking towards the town centre. Office workers in shirt sleeves crossed the road between stationary cars and sauntered on to their businesses. The shops were starting to open and some owners were setting goods for display on the pavements. There had been good weather for weeks and the place had a Continental air. Everyone Ramsay passed had a suntan and in his dark suit he felt sober, pale and over-dressed.

The parish church was close to the river, next to the abbey ruins, at the end of a narrow street full of stylish boutiques, second-hand bookshops and small restaurants. Outside the parish hall, on the other side of the street, well-dressed elderly women were carrying trays of cakes and scones from the boots of large cars. They spoke in loud voices about the laziness of the caretaker who had failed once more to set out the tables they had requested, and Ramsay thought with relief that they had not yet heard of Dorothea’s death. The vicarage was behind the church, almost invisible from the street. Ramsay had never really noticed it before. It was large and gloomy, with a wilderness of a garden. The stone was grimy and even in full sunlight it looked cold. Ramsay stood on the front step and rang the bell. The paint on the front door was beginning to peel in long strips so the bare wood showed through.

The door was opened almost immediately by an athletic young man who seemed to be on his way out. He was dressed in jeans with patched knees, a dark T-shirt and trainers. He seemed surprised to see Ramsay on the doorstep, as if he had been expecting someone else and he stood for a moment staring, the door wide open behind him.

‘Can I help you?’ he said.

‘I’m looking for Edward Cassidy,’ Ramsay said.

The young man continued to stare and for a moment Ramsay wondered if this was the vicar. They wore jeans, didn’t they, those trendy young priests the papers made so much fuss about? But he realised immediately that this was impossible. The boy was eighteen or nineteen, too young certainly to be a clergyman. And too young to be married to Dorothea Cassidy.

‘Yes,’ the boy said. ‘Of course, I’ll get him. Who shall I say it is?’

‘Ramsay,’ the inspector said quietly. ‘ Stephen Ramsay. But he won’t know me.’

He expected the boy to ask for more information but perhaps he was used to strangers turning up on the doorstep.

‘Yes,’ the young man said. ‘Right.’ He left Ramsay outside and disappeared down a long, dark corridor yelling, ‘Dad, there’s someone here to see you!’

The vicar must have asked if it was Dorothea because Ramsay heard the boy reply. ‘No, sorry. It’s a man,’ in a tone that surprised the detective. There was no sympathy there.

Soon after, the boy returned. He was fair, sandy-haired, with the pale, almost transparent, skin that freckles like a child’s, and strangely unblinking eyes.

‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m in rather a hurry, I’m afraid, so I’ll have to leave you to it.’

Yet he lingered beside Ramsay on the doorstep. He was very thin and seemed to have an enormous, barely controlled energy.

‘Oh,’ Ramsay said in a polite, interested way. ‘ Where are you off to?’

‘The university,’ the boy said, almost rudely, as if it were none of Ramsay’s business.

Ramsay was surprised that he did not mention Dorothea. His stepmother had been missing all night. Hadn’t he guessed that Ramsay was a policeman?

‘I’m sorry,’ the inspector said apologetically. ‘ I must ask you to stay at home this morning. I’m a police officer investigating the disappearance of Mrs Dorothea Cassidy. I’ve some news for your father. I don’t think he should be left alone today.’

The boy stared in bewilderment as if he did not understand what the man was saying. Ramsay had expected him to ask questions, demand information, but he said nothing.

‘If there’s any problem with the university,’ Ramsay said, ‘I could always phone and explain.’

‘No,’ the boy said. ‘It’s not that.’ He stood, loose-limbed, the sports bag still in one hand and for a moment Ramsay thought he might volunteer information. He seemed on the brink of saying something important, then changed his mind.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘ I’ll be in the garden if you need me.’ And he walked off to be swallowed up almost immediately by the overgrown shrubs and trees.

Ramsay walked slowly into the house and shut the door behind him so that he was suddenly in shadow. After the stark sunlight of the garden he could make out little in the gloom and when Edward Cassidy approached he was at first aware of him only because of the sound of firm steps on wooden floorboards. Then his eyes grew accustomed to the shade and he saw a tall man, grey-haired, straight-backed, handsome. He must have been at least twenty years older than Dorothea but he was still attractive. He looked after his appearance, Ramsay thought with irrational disapproval as if it were wrong for a vicar to care what he looked like. He wore casual trousers and an open-necked shirt and possessed the same air of easy affability as a politician or a chat-show host.

‘Yes?’ Cassidy said. ‘How can I help you?’ His voice was rich and without accent. He added, more uncertainly, ‘Is it about Dorothea?’

‘My name’s Ramsay. I’m from Northumbria Police.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Then before Ramsay could continue. ‘What am I thinking of leaving you standing here in the hall? Come in and sit down.’

He threw open a door and suddenly they were in a room full of light and colour. Sunshine flooded in through a long window. There was a shabby but richly embroidered chaise-longue, a worn leather chesterfield with a red-striped rug thrown over the back, vases of dried flowers, paintings, photographs. Against one wall was a desk covered in books.

‘Sit down,’ Cassidy said, and Ramsay was surprised that he seemed so calm, so determined to do the right thing.

‘Do you know where my wife is?’ the vicar asked. ‘You must have some news.’

‘Yes,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘She’s dead. Her body was found early this morning in Prior’s Park.’

He looked at the clergyman, waiting for his response. Surely now he would lose his pose of considerate composure. Cassidy stared, his mouth open, looking almost ridiculous in his confusion.

‘Dead? How can Dorothea be dead? There must be some mistake. She was young, you know. Much younger than me.’ He shook his head in a gesture of disbelief. ‘I can show you a photo,’ he said, moving impulsively across the room. ‘That will prove that you’re wrong.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ramsay said interrupting. ‘There’s no mistake.’

Still the priest seemed not to be convinced. He opened a drawer and frantically pulled out a leather-bound photograph album.

‘One of our officers is a member of your congregation,’ Ramsay said. ‘He identified the body.’

Cassidy stood quite still, clutching the photographs.

‘How did she die?’ he said. ‘She never told me she was ill.’ The tone was almost petulant.

‘There are suspicious circumstances. I’m afraid there will have to be questions.’

‘What sort of suspicious circumstances?’

‘We’re afraid,’ Ramsay said, ‘that she was murdered.’

‘No. That’s impossible. Who would murder Dorothea?’

Yet still Ramsay thought that he was self-conscious, continually aware of the impression he was making. Perhaps performance was a habit and spontaneous response was impossible for him.

Then Cassidy sat down on a wooden chair with a curved back close to the desk and put his head in his hands, and for the first time Ramsay thought he had stopped acting. But the gesture seemed not so much an indication of grief as an attempt to come to terms with the fact of his wife’s death.

Ramsay sat still and quietly waited for him to recover. At last the man looked up.

‘Can I see her?’ he asked.

‘Of course, but later. You understand that there are procedures, formalities.’

‘Yes,’ Cassidy said. ‘I understand.’ He was very pale.

‘Do you feel ready to answer questions now? Can I fetch you anything?’

Outside in the garden the boy was struggling to set up an old-fashioned canvas deck chair on the long grass. Ramsay caught his eye through the window but Cassidy seemed unaware of his son.

‘No,’ the priest said. ‘I don’t need anything. Let’s get on with it.’

He crossed his legs and put his arms along the sides of the chair. Ramsay was for a moment ludicrously reminded of a Mastermind contestant waiting for the imminent challenge of the questions.

‘How long have you been married?’ Ramsay asked. The question threw Cassidy and he paused. Perhaps he had been expecting something more specifically relevant to his wife’s disappearance. Then he answered readily, almost with pleasure, as if the memory of their marriage and meeting brought him comfort.

‘Three years,’ he said. ‘Almost exactly three years. Tomorrow would be our wedding anniversary.’

Ramsay looked at the boy in the garden. He sat with books on his knees but seemed to make no attempt to work.

‘You had been married before?’ Ramsay asked.

‘Yes.’ Cassidy moved a gold wedding ring on his finger. ‘ Sarah, my first wife, died fifteen years ago after a long illness, cancer. Patrick was four then. It was such a blessing to have him with me. We became close and I thought that from then on it would be just the two of us. Then I met Dorothea. I had never thought that happiness like that would be possible for me again. I lost my heart and all my senses.’

He looked at Ramsay apologetically as if in the circumstances he should be excused such hyperbole.

‘What did your son make of your marriage?’

‘Patrick?’ Again Cassidy seemed surprised, as if he had been so wrapped up in his relationship with Dorothea that he had hardly considered his son. ‘He was pleased for me. By then he was quite independent, you know. He came to admire her tremendously.’

Ramsay paused. He knew that Hunter would have structured the interview quite differently, going immediately for the facts, demanding information about her movements, her friends, but he had decided that Dorothea Cassidy was an unusual woman and he wanted to know more about her.

‘Where did you meet your wife?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Was she a member of your congregation?’

‘No,’ Cassidy said. ‘She was the cousin of one of my college friends. I met her quite by chance when I went to Cornwall to visit him for a weekend.’

Even in his grief his excitement at the meeting was obvious.

‘She was working then for a Christian aid agency and had just come back from a spell overseas… You can’t know what it was like.’

He turned in his seat and opened the photograph album he had found earlier.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘This is how I first saw her. I took this photograph in Cornwall.’ Ramsay stood up and moved over to the desk. Cassidy pointed to a picture of Dorothea on a beach. She was sitting on a large boulder, her head thrown back, laughing into the camera. The wind blew her hair away from her face.

‘It was early March,’ Cassidy said. ‘One of those breezy, sunny days. The three of us went for a walk…’

He continued to turn the pages and Ramsay saw Dorothea at their wedding, stately and elegant in white, then at the Sunday school picnic in Prior’s Park, surrounded by children, then in the vicarage garden with Patrick on one side of her and a pale blonde girl on the other, her arms around them both.

‘That’s Patrick’s girlfriend, Imogen,’ Cassidy said. ‘ It was his last birthday. Dorothea cooked a meal for us all…’

The images suddenly seemed too painful for Cassidy and he shut the album abruptly. Ramsay returned to his seat. He said nothing. He felt that Cassidy wanted to talk about his wife and if he waited the words would come.

‘Dorothea was so enthusiastic!’ the priest said at last. ‘Even in the photographs that shines through. I felt I had only been half alive for years, that I’d wasted all the time before I knew her. I still can’t believe that she agreed to marry me. I wrote to ask her, you know, as soon as I’d come home after that weekend. I couldn’t sleep until I heard back from her. I don’t know why she agreed. She said she had read my books and had admired me for years, but she was much younger than me. It was a wonderfully impulsive thing to do. I’m not surprised by her death, you know. Not after the first shock. It was all too good to last.’

There was another silence.

‘What about the parish?’ Ramsay asked. ‘How did the church react to your new wife? Your marriage must have come as something of a shock.’

‘They loved her,’ Cassidy said quickly. ‘Everyone loved Dorothea.’

‘In my experience,’ Ramsay said, ‘ change is never universally welcomed.’

Surprisingly Cassidy smiled. ‘ Of course you’re right,’ he said. ‘St Mary’s has always been considered conservative and some of the elderly parishioners found it hard to adjust to a new situation. When I was first ordained I had the reputation, through my books, of being something of a rebel, but over the years I’ve learned the value of compromise and tolerance. Dorothea had strong views and always found compromise difficult.’

‘So she ruffled a few feathers?’

‘I suppose so,’ Cassidy said. ‘Not deliberately, of course. She never set out to shock. I don’t think she even realised the reaction she provoked.’

‘That must have put you in a difficult position,’ Ramsay said.

‘Perhaps. I don’t like unpleasantness, bad feeling. It seems unnecessary. Occasionally I thought I should have supported her more strongly but I didn’t want to offend. Some of the church council had a misleading impression of our relationship. They saw me, I gather, as a hen-pecked husband who had been bullied to accept new ideas.’

‘Was that true?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Were you in sympathy with your wife’s views?’

‘Oh, yes. Completely. All the same I could understand the distress that change can bring to people who hold very traditional opinions.’

So you sat on the fence, Ramsay thought. He had known senior police officers like the clergyman. They took all the credit when things were going well but denied responsibility at the first whiff of criticism.

‘Perhaps you could explain the changes which were specifically objected to,’ he said. ‘It’s hard for an outsider to understand.’

‘Oh,’ Cassidy said, ‘there was nothing specific, you know. It was more a difference in attitude, in perspective.’

Ramsay decided then that he would have to learn the substance of any disagreement between Dorothea and the elderly parishioners from someone else and that it was time to change the direction of the questions.

‘When did you last see your wife?’ he asked.

‘Yesterday morning,’ Cassidy said. ‘The three of us had breakfast together.’

‘Was it unusual for your wife to be out all day?’

‘Not on a Thursday. She had trained to be a social worker and Thursday was her day for voluntary work. Sometimes she managed to get home for lunch but not that often. I didn’t really expect her back yesterday.’

‘Did you know that she had planned to give a talk to the old people at Armstrong House in the evening?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so. I mean I expect she told me but I don’t quite remember. She was so disorganised, you know, always brimming with new projects. Thursday was her day you see. I didn’t interfere. Quite often she arrived home late in the evening after a meeting; sometimes she went out with her friends for a meal. She said that it was important for her to have one day when she felt she really achieved something. It wasn’t always easy to organise but I could understand why she needed it…’

He tailed off and sat again with his head in his hands. Ramsay said nothing and as the silence grew he could sense Cassidy’s discomfort. The man had loved his wife but he wanted Ramsay to understand that living with her had not always been easy.

‘Sarah was very much a traditional vicar’s wife,’ he said. ‘She ran the Mothers’ Union, saw to the flowers. You know the sort of thing. Dorothea had other gifts.’ There was self-pity in his voice. He made it clear that Dorothea’s gifts had been to him a mixed blessing. ‘She was very concerned that we should attract young people into the church and was convinced that we should make the worship more accessible to them. A lot of her energy was focused in that direction. She started a youth club, for example, and organised the crèche during family communion. But she had so many enthusiasms that she was still unfulfilled. She needed her Thursdays.’

‘Yes,’ Ramsay said, ‘I see.’ But what did she get up to? he wanted to say. What did she do on Thursdays that so fulfilled her? Instead he said: ‘Did she work with any one organisation? The social services department? Probation?’

Cassidy shook his head. ‘Nothing like that,’ he said. ‘ Though she worked very closely with both of them. She saw herself as a catalyst, setting up new projects, encouraging other people to help themselves.’

‘Did she have a diary?’ Ramsay asked. ‘You can see that it’s vital that we find out where she went yesterday.’

‘Yes,’ Cassidy said. ‘ It was one of those big page-a-day affairs. She was always losing it and throwing the whole house into panic. Her memory was appalling and she wouldn’t have survived without it.’

‘What about a handbag?’ Ramsay asked. ‘We didn’t find one with her.’

‘Yes, though it was too big really to be called a handbag. She had brought it back from Africa. It was made of brown leather with an embossed pattern of birds on the flap. She was very fond of it.’

For the first time in the interview Ramsay wrote in his notebook.

‘And you have no idea at all where she might have gone yesterday?’ he said. ‘Did she have any regular Thursday appointments?’

But Cassidy only shook his head sadly and absent-mindedly. He stood up and walked to the window and looked out at his son.

‘I must ask you some questions about your movements last night,’ Ramsay said. ‘You do understand. In a murder inquiry we have to take statements from everyone.’

‘Yes,’ Cassidy said. ‘Of course.’ He still seemed preoccupied with his son.

‘Where were you yesterday evening? Perhaps we could start at about five and go on until this morning.’

‘This morning?’ Cassidy said. ‘But Dorothea went missing at seven thirty yesterday evening. Annie phoned from Armstrong House to tell me.’

‘We think she must have been murdered rather later than that,’ Ramsay said. ‘Though of course we’ll have to trace her movements to find out where she was in the early evening. So, where were you at five o’clock?’

‘I was here in the vicarage but only until about quarter past,’ Cassidy said. ‘From half past five until half past seven I was in the cottage hospital visiting the patients. Most of them are geriatric and many are quite confused but they seem to welcome the visit. It’s a regular commitment. I go every week.’

‘Then Dorothea could have returned to the vicarage during that time without you knowing?’

‘I suppose so. Patrick might have been in, of course, at least for some of the time.’

‘But there was no indication that she had been in the house? No sign, for example, that she had prepared herself a meal?’

‘No,’ Cassidy said. ‘ I don’t think so, though if she had just made coffee and a sandwich I probably wouldn’t have noticed.’

‘What time did you return from the cottage hospital?’

‘At about a quarter to eight.’

‘Was your son here then?’

‘No,’ Cassidy said. ‘He had come home from the university but he’d gone out again. He has a very active social life. I find it hard to keep up with him.’

‘Soon after you arrived home Annie Ramsay phoned from Armstrong House to say that Dorothea hadn’t turned up for the talk?’

‘Yes,’ Cassidy said. ‘That must have been at about eight o’clock.’

‘Were you concerned?’

‘Not at first. To tell the truth I was a little irritated. Dorothea was sometimes so busy that she over-committed herself. I presumed that she was late because a previous appointment had taken longer than she had expected.’

‘Did you go out to look for her?’

‘Not then. I had arranged for a young couple who plan to marry in St Mary’s to come to see me. They came at half past eight and stayed for about twenty minutes. By then I was starting to be a little worried about Dorothea. Usually if she was that late she phoned me and it was unlike her to miss an appointment altogether. I phoned some of her friends but no one had seen her. At about ten o’clock I went out to look for her.’

‘Did you have any idea where to look?’

‘None at all. It was hopeless. With the fair and the festival there was traffic everywhere. I’d planned vaguely just to drive around the by-pass in case her car had broken down but it all took much longer than I anticipated. It was a foolish thing to do but I felt so helpless, just waiting here on my own. I suppose I just hoped that when I returned she would be here waiting for me with some perfectly reasonable explanation for why she’d gone missing…’ He paused. ‘It happened once before, you know, after an argument, one of those trivial arguments that develop out of nothing. We both lost our tempers and said some unpleasant things. Dorothea left the house and didn’t come back all night. Patrick and I were frantic with worry. At dawn I went out to look for her and when I came back she was here, sitting at the kitchen table as if nothing had happened, drinking coffee. She offered to make me breakfast. Later, when I asked her where she had been she said it didn’t matter. She had needed to be on her own, a time almost of retreat. She hadn’t realised, I think, how anxious I would be.’

‘But yesterday there was no argument?’

‘Oh no,’ Cassidy said. ‘There was nothing like that.’

‘Yet you didn’t contact the police?’

‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Dorothea would have been furious if there had been a fuss. Thursday was her day and I’d promised not to interfere. The police did phone, when I got back, to see if I’d heard from her. Apparently Annie had alerted them.’

‘What time did you return from your search for her?’

‘I’m not sure. Perhaps half past eleven.’

‘Was your son back then?’ Ramsay asked.

‘No,’ Cassidy said sadly. ‘The house was still dark. I went to bed in the end. There seemed nothing else to do. Patrick came in at half past twelve. I heard his footsteps on the drive and looked out of the bedroom window in case it was Dorothea. He saw me and waved but we didn’t speak.’

There was a silence and then Cassidy said simply: ‘I’d like to be on my own for a while now, Inspector. I’m sure you understand. If you have any more questions you can come back later.’

‘Of course,’ Ramsay said. ‘ There’s just one more thing. Had Mrs Cassidy cut herself when she left home yesterday morning? Perhaps there was some accident? There appears to be a wound on her wrist.’

Cassidy seemed confused. ‘No,’ he said. ‘ There was nothing like that. I’m sure I should have noticed.’

Ramsay thanked him and left him alone in the room that was full of memories of his wife.