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

caught the bus towards the Ridgeway Estate Clive Stringer was right behind him and sat in the seat across the aisle from him, grinning all the time.

Chapter Six
    The social services office for north Otterbridge was only a street away from Armstrong House and it backed on to the park. Ramsay wondered whether the geographical closeness had any significance but came to no conclusion. The street was wider than where Walter Tanner lived and the houses were larger. There were smooth green lawns and trees to ensure privacy. The only indication that the social services were housed in the building was a discreet sign by the gate and a car park at the end of the drive. Next door there was an exclusive private nursery and as Ramsay left his car he heard the fluting sound of a Joyce Grenfell nursery nurse calling to her charges. He wondered what the social workers’ clients who lived on the Ridgeway Estate thought of it all. It would be like walking into another world.
    The senior social worker who had worked most closely with Dorothea Cassidy was called Hilary Masters. Ramsay had never met her, though Hunter had come across her when he was investigating a series of school arsons, and for a while she had been the subject of his canteen gossip. He had nicknamed her the Snow Queen.
    ‘Talk about icy,’ he had said. ‘Man, she’d freeze your balls off.’ He had spoken with regret. ‘She’s a beauty, mind.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Ramsay had said tartly, ‘she’s just discriminating.’
    ‘Aye well. Perhaps you’re right. She might go for your type. But I like my women to have a bit of life in them all the same. There’s something weird about that one.’
    Because of that exchange Ramsay felt Hilary Masters was worthy of admiration – he had never trusted Hunter’s judgement – and as he waited in the reception room he was nervous, and at the same time prepared to be disappointed.
    He was shown into a large, airy office and saw a tall woman in her thirties. She was single, obviously independent and Ramsay thought she would be ambitious. She was dressed in a cotton skirt and blouse in swirling pastel colours which did not suit her. Her legs were very long and her feet rather big. Yet she was, as Hunter had said, a beauty. Her face was startling – oval, flawless and perfectly symmetrical. She sat behind her desk and stared at him with calm grey eyes.
    The police station had been in touch with her and she was expecting him.
    ‘Inspector Ramsay,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’
    He felt ill at ease with her. Partly it was her perfect face and her air of competence, but he felt too that she was magically perceptive. She seemed to know his weakness just by looking at him. But he was not disappointed by her.
    ‘I’m investigating the murder of Dorothea Cassidy,’ he said. ‘I understand that she was here for a case conference yesterday.’
    She paused, as though wondering if it were against her principles even to tell him that.
    ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘She was here yesterday.’
    ‘Can you tell me what the conference was about?’
    She frowned. ‘Is it relevant to your investigation?’
    ‘It might be. We’re trying to trace Mrs Cassidy’s movements yesterday. She was seen at lunchtime on the Ridgeway Estate. Perhaps you could tell me who she had gone to visit there.’
    Hilary Masters sat quite still.
    ‘A woman called Stringer,’ she said. ‘Theresa Stringer.’
    ‘Was she the subject of the case conference?’
    ‘No,’ she said reluctantly. ‘It was her daughter, Beverley. We had to decide whether or not she should be taken into care.’
    ‘What decision did you come to?’
    ‘We decided that we would go for a place-of-safety order.’
    ‘What does that mean?’
    She looked at him as if offended by his ignorance. ‘It means that we thought she would be at risk if she were left at home.’
    He wondered if the measured, uninformative answers were designed to provoke him to anger. Why was she so