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

pants.’ She stopped suddenly, aware that Ramsay was impatient and wanting to move on.
    ‘I’ve some news for you,’ she said. ‘Something I think will help. Mrs Cassidy was here yesterday afternoon.’
    ‘Did you see her?’
    ‘No,’ she said regretfully. ‘I must have been at the bingo. But I can introduce you to someone who did. Her name’s Emily Bowman. She’s very poorly. Cancer.’ She whispered the word. ‘Mrs Cassidy came to visit her regularly because she couldn’t make it to church. Shall I take you to meet her?’
    But Ramsay was not prepared to give his time to another old lady. It was interesting, of course, but visiting the sick was a traditional occupation for a vicar’s wife and he was convinced that in the end it would be Dorothea’s other activities which would lead to her murderer. He wanted to find out about the case conference.
    ‘I’ll send Hunter, my sergeant, along. He’s doing house-to-house inquiries in the street.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’ll like him,’ he said. ‘He’s a good-looking chap.’
    Then he left, because what motive could an old lady who was dying of cancer have for murder?
    Clive Stringer was in the garden picking up litter that had blown there from the street when the policeman arrived at the flats. He was in plain clothes but Clive’s experience of the police went back to early childhood. There was something about the way they stood, their confidence, the way they looked about them that gave them away. He continued to pick up the litter, moving with slow, stooped movements over the grass, filling the black plastic sack which he carried in one hand. He was wearing gloves. The warden always insisted that he should wear gloves when he was working with the rubbish. She was afraid that he would catch germs. Yet every time he put a scrap of paper or a can into the sack he glanced sideways, so he saw the tall policeman walk away from Dorothea’s car and into the front door of Armstrong House.
    That’s it, he thought. They know. It didn’t occur to him that there was no way they could know. He continued to work but when the old man from next door came out of his house he dropped the plastic sack and put the gloves in his pocket.
    Distracted for a moment from his worry, he grinned maliciously and followed Walter Tanner up the street.
    In the small house Walter Tanner had felt trapped. There were things he needed to do but he felt he could not leave while Hunter and the police constable stood outside on the pavement. They might ask where he was going. He began to devise some fictitious explanation but felt suddenly ashamed that he could have considered such deceit. He hadn’t sunk, he hoped, to lying. It was unnecessary. He went to the kitchen and began to wash up his breakfast dishes. Usually he left the plates on the draining board but today, because he wanted to delay for as long as possible a decision about going out, he dried them on a threadbare tea towel and put them away. By the time he had hung the tea towel to dry on the oven door and returned to the living room the car had disappeared from the drive and Hunter and the constable were on the other side of the road, knocking on doors, talking to neighbours. Even if they saw him leave the house, Tanner thought, there was nothing they could do to stop him. He had not, after all, been placed under some sort of house arrest. This anxiety was ridiculous.
    But he waited until Hunter was right at the end of the street before leaving the house. Hunter was the one who frightened him. He would not listen to excuses or explanations. There would be no shades of grey with Hunter. Out in the street Tanner felt very exposed. He hurried, making his short legs walk very fast. He turned once and saw the half-wit from Armstrong House lurching up the street behind him.
    What’s the matter with the boy? he thought. Why is he persecuting me like this?
    He walked faster until he was almost running but it did no good. When he