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

causing offence. He says the congregation is elderly and easily shocked. I’ve told him that we need a new congregation. If we had your support it would give Edward confidence. We both have so much respect, you know, for your opinions.’
    Then she began to discuss with great clarity and knowledge an article he had written in the church magazine so he became seduced by her interest and learning, and when she went he was never sure how things were between them. Perhaps she thinks I approve, he thought, and he would go to church the next week with some trepidation, expecting to find the dance group already active, or electric guitars, or a black gospel singer performing from the pulpit.
    His first impulse when he saw Dorothea Cassidy’s car was to pretend that he was out. Today he had more reason than usual to be afraid of her. With some shame he quickly drew the living-room curtains back together and stood in the stuffy half light waiting for her to ring the doorbell. The waiting and the silence made his heart pound. He began to sweat. This isn’t fair, he cried to himself. At my age I should be left in peace. What is the woman playing at? He crept into the kitchen in case she had gone to the back of the house but there was no sign of her there. All the time he listened for the engine to start and the car to drive away. After ten minutes he decided that the tension of waiting was worse than facing her so suddenly he threw open the door and called with all the courage he could muster.
    ‘Dorothea! Where are you? Come in, my dear.’
    But there was no reply and he was left feeling foolish and resentful, talking to himself like that in full view of everyone in the street. In the garden of Armstrong House next door, Clive Stringer, the teenage boy who worked there, stared at him, his mouth wide open, so he looked more gormless than ever. His presence confused Walter Tanner. He distrusted the boy and never knew what to say to him, but if Dorothea was around he did not want her to catch him being impolite. He stood on the doorstep uncertainly and swore under his breath. Where was the woman?
    One of the domestic staff was standing on a kitchen stool, half-heartedly polishing the windows of Armstrong House. Walter Tanner went to the boundary hedge and called to her. The woman clambered down carefully and approached him.
    ‘Have you seen Mrs Cassidy?’ he asked. ‘ Her car’s here but there’s no sign of her.’
    Then to his amazement she backed away from him and began to cry, mopping her eyes with the hem of her overall.
    ‘Man,’ she said, ‘haven’t you heard? Mrs Cassidy’s dead.’
    When Ramsay and Hunter arrived at Walter Tanner’s house he was eating his breakfast with a single man’s economy of effort. The same plate was used for his egg and toast and he stirred his tea with the handle of his knife. He had never married. He had thought, when he was a fervent young man, that he would join the priesthood and none of the women he had met then had seemed possible vicar’s wives. He had drifted into the family business prompted by some sense of obligation, expecting it only to be a temporary measure. When his mother’s health improved, when they could afford more reliable staff, he would leave, but neither condition was ever met and he suddenly found that he was too old either to train to be a priest or to marry.
    The sound of the doorbell startled him and he piled the mug and the plate with its half-eaten food on to the draining board. Then he opened the door to the detectives, fumbling with the catch in his haste to let them in. He took them into the living room and had to open the curtains again. He shivered as he remembered with horror his attempt to hide from a dead woman. He felt terribly guilty, as if in desiring her absence he had been responsible for her death.
    ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’ Then he watched them looking around the room and saw it through their eyes – the furniture large and