Free A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy by Ann Cleeves

forward.
    ‘She was murdered,’ she said. ‘Strangled to death. Two boys found her in Prior’s Park early this morning.’
    Emily shut her eyes, then opened them and fixed Annie with a fierce stare.
    ‘How do you know all this?’ she said. ‘Have you spoken to your nephew about it?’
    ‘No,’ Annie answered with some regret. ‘I phoned the station earlier but they said he was busy. I heard it on Radio Newcastle. The police are asking for anyone who saw her yesterday to come forward.’
    Emily moved uncomfortably in her chair.
    ‘I saw her yesterday,’ she said carelessly, though she must have been aware of the excitement it would cause Annie. ‘She was here in the afternoon. She came to visit me.’
    At that moment the warden knocked on the door and said that Inspector Ramsay was downstairs and would like to speak to Annie.
    Annie Ramsay took her nephew to her own flat. She did not want Emily Bowman to steal her glory and decided she would save the information that Dorothea Cassidy had been to Armstrong House the previous afternoon until the end of the conversation. She walked beside him down the wide corridor, holding on to his arm, hoping all her friends would see her. In her flat she sat him in her favourite chair and made him tea, ignoring his insistence that he was in a hurry.
    ‘Now, pet,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’ She thought it was the most natural thing in the world that he should come to her for help.
    ‘I want you to tell me about Dorothea Cassidy,’ he said. ‘I know you go to St Mary’s. What was she like?’
    ‘She was a treasure,’ Annie Ramsay said. ‘Man, we were lucky to have her there. She brought the whole place to life. And the laughs we had!’
    ‘In what way did she bring the place to life?’
    ‘She was all questions. She made us think. When you’re old like us you take it all for granted. We were brought up to go to church – not like the bairns these days – and for some of us it has no more meaning than a trip to the Co-op. Then she came and the talks we had …’ She wiped her eyes.
    ‘There must have been some opposition,’ he said, ‘if she began to challenge the old ways of doing things.’
    ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘you get stick-in-the-muds everywhere.’
    ‘What about Walter Tanner?’ he asked. ‘ Is he a stick-in-the-mud?’
    ‘Man,’ she said, ‘he’s the biggest stick-in-the-mud in the world.’
    ‘Dorothea’s car was found in his drive this morning,’ he said.
    The gem of information cheered her. ‘But that’s only next door.’
    ‘That’s why I’m here. Did you see anything last night?’
    ‘Why no. If I’d seen it last night I’d have told you.’
    ‘Would you have noticed it?’
    She paused, considering. ‘ No,’ she said. ‘Probably not. My flat’s at the front, you see. You canna see Tanner’s house from here.’
    ‘And you didn’t go out last night?’
    ‘No,’ she said and smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have minded going to the fair but I was worried about Dorothea. Besides, I couldn’t find anyone to take me.’ She looked at Ramsay intently. ‘Tanner wouldn’t have killed her,’ she said. ‘They might have had their differences but there’s no violence in him. He’s too boring for that and he’s not a bad man.’
    ‘What did he do before he retired?’ Ramsay asked.
    ‘His family had that posh grocer’s in Front Street. You must have seen him in there.’
    Ramsay shook his head but he remembered that his ex-wife, Diana, had shopped at Tanner’s. ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere else,’ she would say to her friends. ‘It’s the only place in Northumberland where you can get a decent piece of Brie. And real old-fashioned service.’
    ‘What about Edward Cassidy?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Whose side did he take in all this?’
    ‘Edward Cassidy never took a side in his life. Not since he moved to Otterbridge at any rate. He’s spent so much time sitting on the fence you’d think he’d have a hole in his