by Cleeves, Ann
‘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 stat
ion.
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.
Chapter Eleven
At the Walkers’ house in the country the Cassidys were treated as invalids. Mrs Walker even wanted to make them soup for lunch. Soup was comforting, she said. But her husband, a retired major with a limp and a surprisingly boyish face, would not hear of it.
‘In this heat?’ he said. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
So she made one of her special salads, with strawberries for dessert, then took the meal into the garden for them on a tray. There the Cassidys sat on white wooden chairs in the dappled shadow of a willow tree, stunned and bewildered, unable to move. In the background was the house, square and white with a dovecote and stables and beyond that a wood where pheasants were reared. Major Walker was something big in the County Landowners’ Association and in feudal Northumberland he was treated as a squire.
When the meal was over the Walkers tactfully left the Cassidys alone and returned to the house. They watched the father and son through open french windows.
‘Poor things,’ Dolly Walker said. ‘Poor dear things.’ She was a magistrate and her husband often told her she was too soft to sit on the bench. Sometimes, after a day in court, she would come home and cry at the stories she had heard.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s been a terrible shock.’ But he was disturbed to find that he was not as shocked as he should have been and that there was an uneasy sensation of relief. Now things could get back to normal again. Dorothea had been tremendous, of course. She had brought a breath of life to the whole church. What did his wife call it? A spirit of renewal? But there had been something unsettling about Dorothea. All that waving of her hands in the air during the singing of the hymns had unnerved him. He would never say anything to Dolly who had become quite a new woman since Dorothea Cassidy had arrived, but he felt that there was something pagan in such exhibitionism. Perhaps she had spent too long in Africa.
Then there was the tension between Dorothea and Walter Tanner. The Major had never got to the bottom of Walter’s problems. Walter was not the sort to confide and it had seemed wrong to pry. He was not a sensitive man and had never been aware of Walter’s simmering resentment about the sharing of church wardens’ responsibilities, but the grocer’s hounded, haunted look in Dorothea’s presence touched Major Walker deeply. He would have liked to offer Walter help, but after a relationship of distant politeness he was not sure how to go about it.
‘I’d almost say Patrick was taking it worse than his father,’ Dolly Walker said tentatively. She was usually good about people but too diffident to trust her own judgement. She was afraid of her husband’s sarcasm. ‘He’s not mentioned Dorothea since he arrived. I hope he doesn’t feel responsible. People do, you know, quite irrationally at times like these.’
She was taking psychology A-level at evening classes and felt almost an expert.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Major Walker said again. But as he looked out at the boy he could see what she meant. Edward Cassidy was limp and exhausted and wept openly, but Patrick sat gripping the arms of his chair and staring ahead of him with a rigid intensity.
There was something about the boy which irritated Major Walker. He thought the display of emotion must be a show. Dorothea was only the stepmother. They had not known each other very long. If she had been his natural mother the grief would be understandable. The Walkers had never had children and the Major had a sentimental view of the parental relationship. He thought Patrick should have more self-control. Two years of National Service would make a man of him, he thought, but he said nothing. Dolly would accuse him of being heartless.
The Walkers had gone back to the house ostensibly to fetch more wine and now they filed back over the grass towards the Cassidys, the Major in front carrying the wine in a bucket of ice. Like Beech, he thought. At Blandings. He was a great Wodehouse fan and the memory of the books came as a welcome relief.
The remains of their meal were still on the table. Edward Cassidy had hardly eaten anything, though he had drunk several glasses of wine very quickly and now when he spoke his words were a little slurred and incoherent. Patrick had seemed ravenous, pushing forkfuls of food into his mouth in silence, then wiping his plate with a piece of bread. Dolly fussed and gathered the dirty plates on to a tray. The Major stood to open the wine and was about to draw the cork from the bottle when Patrick Cassidy got suddenly to his feet, rocking the unsteady garden furniture, making the glasses rattle dangerously.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand this. I’ll have to go.’ He blinked and his eyelashes showed very fair against his pink skin. He turned stiffly and walked across the lawn.
The vicar looked up from his empty glass. ‘Patrick?’ he said in confusion and surprise. ‘ What is this about?’
But by then the boy had gone and gave no sign that he had heard.
Poor dear, Dolly thought. He’s going to cry and he’s too proud to let us see. The Major, who had seen many young soldiers before him on
disciplinary charges, thought he detected something else. Shame perhaps. Or guilt.
They watched until Patrick disappeared to the back of the house where the cars were parked, then they heard the sound of the engine as he drove too quickly towards the road and the squeal of brakes as he stopped at the end of the drive to let a tractor pass in the lane.
Dear God, the Major thought. If he’s not careful he’ll kill himself. Reckless young fool. Automatically he completed the process of opening the bottle and poured wine into Edward Cassidy’s glass.
Edward Cassidy seemed not to notice and stared after his son with horror. He was suddenly taken up with the arrangements for his own return to Otterbridge.
‘Oh dear,’ he said wretchedly. ‘Patrick’s taken the car. Now how will I get home?’
He fidgeted and worried like a confused old person at a day centre who believes he has been deserted.
‘Of course we’ll take you back,’ Dolly said. ‘Or if you prefer you can spend the night here.’ She found his selfish preoccupation with what was to become of him a little embarrassing. It was unlike him. Usually he had impeccable manners.
No, no, he said. There were so many things to do. He knew he was being a nuisance but he would really rather be at home. Patrick after all would go back to the vicarage. They should be together. Perhaps if it wasn’t too much trouble they could go now. He stood up, his glass still in his hand, and waited for them to arrange it.
‘Of course,’ Dolly said and by now there were tears in her eyes. He was usually so confident, so able to put on a good show. ‘We’ll come with you and wait at the vicarage until Patrick gets home.’
Then he turned on them and shouted, his voice querulous and pitiful.
‘No!’ he cried. ‘You don’t understand. I have to be on my own.’
When he saw how offended and hurt they were there was a brief show of the old charm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘ You must forgive me. I’m really not myself today.’
He drank the remainder of the wine and allowed Dolly to take his arm and lead him back towards the house.
They had a big BMW and sat him in the back of it, treating him still like an invalid. If it had not been so hot Dolly would have tucked a rug around his knees. The Major drove slowly, avoiding the pot-holes in the lane, and in Otterbridge they were held up by two men on stilts who paraded down the centre of Front Street. All the same when they arrived at the vicarage the church clock showed only two o’clock. Later, when the police asked questions about the time, Dolly was tempted to lie, but the Major told her that liars were always caught out and anyway it was impossible to believe that Patrick or Edward could have murdered that half-wit from Armstrong House. What motive could there be? The police asked too if Patrick was already back at the vicarage by the time they returned with the priest. Again, reluctantly, they told the truth. No, they said, there was no sign of Patrick’s car when they saw Edward into the vicarage and sat him in the study, surrounded by his photographs of Dorothea.
