A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy (3 page)

The parish church was close to the river, next to the abbey ruins, at the end of a narrow street full of stylish boutiques, second-hand bookshops and small restaurants. Outside the parish hall, on the other side of the street, well-dressed elderly women were carrying trays of cakes and scones from the boots of large cars. They spoke in loud voices about the laziness of the caretaker who had failed once more to set out the tables they had requested, and Ramsay thought with relief that they had not yet heard of Dorothea’s death. The vicarage was behind the church, almost invisible from the street. Ramsay had never really noticed it before. It was large and gloomy, with a wilderness of a garden. The stone was grimy and even in full sunlight it looked cold. Ramsay stood on the front step and rang the bell. The paint on the front door was beginning to peel in long strips so the bare wood showed through.

The door was opened almost immediately by an athletic young man who seemed to be on his way out. He was dressed in jeans with patched knees, a dark T-shirt and trainers. He seemed surprised to see Ramsay on the doorstep, as if he had been expecting someone else and he stood for a moment staring, the door wide open behind him.

‘Can I help you?’ he said.

‘I’m looking for Edward Cassidy,’ Ramsay said.

The young man continued to stare and for a moment Ramsay wondered if this was the vicar. They wore jeans, didn’t they, those trendy young priests the papers made so much fuss about? But he realised immediately that this was impossible. The boy was eighteen or nineteen, too young certainly to be a clergyman. And too young to be married to Dorothea Cassidy.

‘Yes,’ the boy said. ‘Of course, I’ll get him. Who shall I say it is?’

‘Ramsay,’ the inspector said quietly. ‘ Stephen Ramsay. But he won’t know me.’

He expected the boy to ask for more information but perhaps he was used to strangers turning up on the doorstep.

‘Yes,’ the young man said. ‘Right.’ He left Ramsay outside and disappeared down a long, dark corridor yelling, ‘Dad, there’s someone here to see you!’

The vicar must have asked if it was Dorothea because Ramsay heard the boy reply. ‘No, sorry. It’s a man,’ in a tone that surprised the detective. There was no sympathy there.

Soon after, the boy returned. He was fair, sandy-haired, with the pale, almost transparent, skin that freckles like a child’s, and strangely unblinking eyes.

‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m in rather a hurry, I’m afraid, so I’ll have to leave you to it.’

Yet he lingered beside Ramsay on the doorstep. He was very thin and seemed to have an enormous, barely controlled energy.

‘Oh,’ Ramsay said in a polite, interested way. ‘ Where are you off to?’

‘The university,’ the boy said, almost rudely, as if it were none of Ramsay’s business.

Ramsay was surprised that he did not mention Dorothea. His stepmother had been missing all night. Hadn’t he guessed that Ramsay was a policeman?

‘I’m sorry,’ the inspector said apologetically. ‘ I must ask you to stay at home this morning. I’m a police officer investigating the disappearance of Mrs Dorothea Cassidy. I’ve some news for your father. I don’t think he should be left alone today.’

The boy stared in bewilderment as if he did not understand what the man was saying. Ramsay had expected him to ask questions, demand information, but he said nothing.

‘If there’s any problem with the university,’ Ramsay said, ‘I could always phone and explain.’

‘No,’ the boy said. ‘It’s not that.’ He stood, loose-limbed, the sports bag still in one hand and for a moment Ramsay thought he might volunteer information. He seemed on the brink of saying something important, then changed his mind.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘ I’ll be in the garden if you need me.’ And he walked off to be swallowed up almost immediately by the overgrown shrubs and trees.

Ramsay walked slowly into the house and shut the door behind him so that he was suddenly in shadow. After the stark sunlight of the garden he could make out little in the gloom and when Edward Cassidy approached he was at first aware of him only because of the sound of firm steps on wooden floorboards. Then his eyes grew accustomed to the shade and he saw a tall man, grey-haired, straight-backed, handsome. He must have been at least twenty years older than Dorothea but he was still attractive. He looked after his appearance, Ramsay thought with irrational disapproval as if it were wrong for a vicar to care what he looked like. He wore casual trousers and an open-necked shirt and possessed the same air of easy affability as a politician or a chat-show host.

‘Yes?’ Cassidy said. ‘How can I help you?’ His voice was rich and without accent. He added, more uncertainly, ‘Is it about Dorothea?’

‘My name’s Ramsay. I’m from Northumbria Police.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Then before Ramsay could continue. ‘What am I thinking of leaving you standing here in the hall? Come in and sit down.’

He threw open a door and suddenly they were in a room full of light and colour. Sunshine flooded in through a long window. There was a shabby but richly embroidered
chaise-longue,
a worn leather chesterfield with a red-striped rug thrown over the back, vases of dried flowers, paintings, photographs. Against one wall was a desk covered in books.

‘Sit down,’ Cassidy said, and Ramsay was surprised that he seemed so calm, so determined to do the right thing.

‘Do you know where my wife is?’ the vicar asked. ‘You must have some news.’

‘Yes,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘She’s dead. Her body was found early this morning in Prior’s Park.’

He looked at the clergyman, waiting for his response. Surely now he would lose his pose of considerate composure. Cassidy stared, his mouth open, looking almost ridiculous in his confusion.

‘Dead? How can Dorothea be dead? There must be some mistake. She was young, you know. Much younger than me.’ He shook his head in a gesture of disbelief. ‘I can show you a photo,’ he said, moving impulsively across the room. ‘That will prove that you’re wrong.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ramsay said interrupting. ‘There’s no mistake.’

Still the priest seemed not to be convinced. He opened a drawer and frantically pulled out a leather-bound photograph album.

‘One of our officers is a member of your congregation,’ Ramsay said. ‘He identified the body.’

Cassidy stood quite still, clutching the photographs.

‘How did she die?’ he said. ‘She never told me she was ill.’ The tone was almost petulant.

‘There are suspicious circumstances. I’m afraid there will have to be questions.’

‘What sort of suspicious circumstances?’

‘We’re afraid,’ Ramsay said, ‘that she was murdered.’

‘No. That’s impossible. Who would murder Dorothea?’

Yet still Ramsay thought that he was self-conscious, continually aware of the impression he was making. Perhaps performance was a habit and spontaneous response was impossible for him.

Then Cassidy sat down on a wooden chair with a curved back close to the desk and put his head in his hands, and for the first time Ramsay thought he had stopped acting. But the gesture seemed not so much an indication of grief as an attempt to come to terms with the fact of his wife’s death.

Ramsay sat still and quietly waited for him to recover. At last the man looked up.

‘Can I see her?’ he asked.

‘Of course, but later. You understand that there are procedures, formalities.’

‘Yes,’ Cassidy said. ‘I understand.’ He was very pale.

‘Do you feel ready to answer questions now? Can I fetch you anything?’

Outside in the garden the boy was struggling to set up an old-fashioned canvas deck chair on the long grass. Ramsay caught his eye through the window but Cassidy seemed unaware of his son.

‘No,’ the priest said. ‘I don’t need anything. Let’s get on with it.’

He crossed his legs and put his arms along the sides of the chair. Ramsay was for a moment ludicrously reminded of a
Mastermind
contestant waiting for the imminent challenge of the questions.

‘How long have you been married?’ Ramsay asked. The question threw Cassidy and he paused. Perhaps he had been expecting something more specifically relevant to his wife’s disappearance. Then he answered readily, almost with pleasure, as if the memory of their marriage and meeting brought him comfort.

‘Three years,’ he said. ‘Almost exactly three years. Tomorrow would be our wedding anniversary.’

Ramsay looked at the boy in the garden. He sat with books on his knees but seemed to make no attempt to work.

‘You had been married before?’ Ramsay asked.

‘Yes.’ Cassidy moved a gold wedding ring on his finger. ‘ Sarah, my first wife, died fifteen years ago after a long illness, cancer. Patrick was four then. It was such a blessing to have him with me. We became close and I thought that from then on it would be just the two of us. Then I met Dorothea. I had never thought that happiness like that would be possible for me again. I lost my heart and all my senses.’

He looked at Ramsay apologetically as if in the circumstances he should be excused such hyperbole.

‘What did your son make of your marriage?’

‘Patrick?’ Again Cassidy seemed surprised, as if he had been so wrapped up in his relationship with Dorothea that he had hardly considered his son. ‘He was pleased for me. By then he was quite independent, you know. He came to admire her tremendously.’

Ramsay paused. He knew that Hunter would have structured the interview quite differently, going immediately for the facts, demanding information about her movements, her friends, but he had decided that Dorothea Cassidy was an unusual woman and he wanted to know more about her.

‘Where did you meet your wife?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Was she a member of your congregation?’

‘No,’ Cassidy said. ‘She was the cousin of one of my college friends. I met her quite by chance when I went to Cornwall to visit him for a weekend.’

Even in his grief his excitement at the meeting was obvious.

‘She was working then for a Christian aid agency and had just come back from a spell overseas … You can’t know what it was like.’

He turned in his seat and opened the photograph album he had found earlier.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘This is how I first saw her. I took this photograph in Cornwall.’ Ramsay stood up and moved over to the desk. Cassidy pointed to a picture of Dorothea on a beach. She was sitting on a large boulder, her head thrown back, laughing into the camera. The wind blew her hair away from her face.

‘It was early March,’ Cassidy said. ‘One of those breezy, sunny days. The three of us went for a walk …’

He continued to turn the pages and Ramsay saw Dorothea at their wedding, stately and elegant in white, then at the Sunday school picnic in Prior’s Park, surrounded by children, then in the vicarage garden with Patrick on one side of her and a pale blonde girl on the other, her arms around them both.

‘That’s Patrick’s girlfriend, Imogen,’ Cassidy said. ‘ It was his last birthday. Dorothea cooked a meal for us all …’

The images suddenly seemed too painful for Cassidy and he shut the album abruptly. Ramsay returned to his seat. He said nothing. He felt that Cassidy wanted to talk about his wife and if he waited the words would come.

‘Dorothea was so enthusiastic!’ the priest said at last. ‘Even in the photographs that shines through. I felt I had only been half alive for years, that I’d wasted all the time before I knew her. I still can’t believe that she agreed to marry me. I wrote to ask her, you know, as soon as I’d come home after that weekend. I couldn’t sleep until I heard back from her. I don’t know why she agreed. She said she had read my books and had admired me for years, but she was much younger than me. It was a wonderfully impulsive thing to do. I’m not surprised by her death, you know. Not after the first shock. It was all too good to last.’

There was another silence.

‘What about the parish?’ Ramsay asked. ‘How did the church react to your new wife? Your marriage must have come as something of a shock.’

‘They loved her,’ Cassidy said quickly. ‘Everyone loved Dorothea.’

‘In my experience,’ Ramsay said, ‘ change is never universally welcomed.’

Surprisingly Cassidy smiled. ‘ Of course you’re right,’ he said. ‘St Mary’s has always been considered conservative and some of the elderly parishioners found it hard to adjust to a new situation. When I was first ordained I had the reputation, through my books, of being something of a rebel, but over the years I’ve learned the value of compromise and tolerance. Dorothea had strong views and always found compromise difficult.’

‘So she ruffled a few feathers?’

‘I suppose so,’ Cassidy said. ‘Not deliberately, of course. She never set out to shock. I don’t think she even realised the reaction she provoked.’

‘That must have put you in a difficult position,’ Ramsay said.

‘Perhaps. I don’t like unpleasantness, bad feeling. It seems unnecessary. Occasionally I thought I should have supported her more strongly but I didn’t want to offend. Some of the church council had a misleading impression of our relationship. They saw me, I gather, as a hen-pecked husband who had been bullied to accept new ideas.’

‘Was that true?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Were you in sympathy with your wife’s views?’

‘Oh, yes. Completely. All the same I could understand the distress that change can bring to people who hold very traditional opinions.’

So you sat on the fence, Ramsay thought. He had known senior police officers like the clergyman. They took all the credit when things were going well but denied responsibility at the first whiff of criticism.

‘Perhaps you could explain the changes which were specifically objected to,’ he said. ‘It’s hard for an outsider to understand.’

‘Oh,’ Cassidy said, ‘there was nothing specific, you know. It was more a difference in attitude, in perspective.’

Ramsay decided then that he would have to learn the substance of any disagreement between Dorothea and the elderly parishioners from someone else and that it was time to change the direction of the questions.

‘When did you last see your wife?’ he asked.

‘Yesterday morning,’ Cassidy said. ‘The three of us had breakfast together.’