Annie Ramsay was a small woman, very tough and thin with stringy arms. All her clothes seemed too big for her. Her sparse hair was permed every month into tight curls.
‘We mustn’t let ourselves go,’ she would say to Emily, ‘ just because we’re on our own.’
At the Armstrong House socials she would make a bee-line for the unattached men and flirt with them. Sometimes Emily suspected that she had been drinking.
Now Annie seemed strangely subdued. Emily thought she had been crying.
‘I’ve some news,’ Annie said. But even in her sadness she found it impossible not to make a drama of the situation, so she added: ‘You’d best sit down. I’ll not take the risk of telling you while you’re standing. The shock might have you over.’
Although it was still in full sunlight Emily returned to the chair by the window, because from there she had a view of the main street and would see the ambulance arriving.
‘What is this all about?’ she said but her eyes were still on the traffic outside. When she turned back to the room Annie was crying again.
‘Come on,’ Emily said, more kindly. ‘It can’t be as bad as all that.’
‘It’s Dorothea Cassidy,’ Annie said in a whisper. ‘She’s dead.’
At first she could not tell if the woman had heard her. There was no reaction and that was disappointing. Everyone else in the place had expressed shock, horror and a desire for all the details. Emily Bowman had been a regular at St Mary’s until her illness had meant she couldn’t get out. She knew Dorothea Cassidy as well as any of them and Annie thought it would have been more fitting to show some grief.
‘Did you hear?’ Annie said more loudly. ‘Dorothea Cassidy is dead.’
‘I heard,’ Emily said. She shivered again as she had done when waking from the dream. She was not surprised. I wish it had been me, she thought. It should have been me.
‘It was me that raised the alarm,’ Annie Ramsay said. She could not keep the self-importance from her voice. ‘ She was coming to talk to the residents’ association about her work in Africa. She had slides, you know, of all the poor little black babies. When she didn’t turn up I knew something was wrong. I felt it in my bones. That’s why I phoned our Stephen. I thought he’d know what to do.’
Emily Bowman dragged her eyes away from the street below her.
‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘How did she die?’
Annie Ramsay had been waiting for the opportunity and leaned forward.
‘She was murdered,’ she said. ‘Strangled to death. Two boys found her in Prior’s Park early this morning.’
Emily shut her eyes, then opened them and fixed Annie with a fierce stare.
‘How do you know all this?’ she said. ‘Have you spoken to your nephew about it?’
‘No,’ Annie answered with some regret. ‘I phoned the station earlier but they said he was busy. I heard it on Radio Newcastle. The police are asking for anyone who saw her yesterday to come forward.’
Emily moved uncomfortably in her chair.
‘I saw her yesterday,’ she said carelessly, though she must have been aware of the excitement it would cause Annie. ‘She was here in the afternoon. She came to visit me.’
At that moment the warden knocked on the door and said that Inspector Ramsay was downstairs and would like to speak to Annie.
Annie Ramsay took her nephew to her own flat. She did not want Emily Bowman to steal her glory and decided she would save the information that Dorothea Cassidy had been to Armstrong House the previous afternoon until the end of the conversation. She walked beside him down the wide corridor, holding on to his arm, hoping all her friends would see her. In her flat she sat him in her favourite chair and made him tea, ignoring his insistence that he was in a hurry.
‘Now, pet,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’ She thought it was the most natural thing in the world that he should come to her for help.
‘I want you to tell me about Dorothea Cassidy,’ he said. ‘I know you go to St Mary’s. What was she like?’
‘She was a treasure,’ Annie Ramsay said. ‘Man, we were lucky to have her there. She brought the whole place to life. And the laughs we had!’
‘In what way did she bring the place to life?’
‘She was all questions. She made us think. When you’re old like us you take it all for granted. We were brought up to go to church – not like the bairns these days – and for some of us it has no more meaning than a trip to the Co-op. Then she came and the talks we had…’ She wiped her eyes.
‘There must have been some opposition,’ he said, ‘if she began to challenge the old ways of doing things.’
‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘you get stick-in-the-muds everywhere.’
‘What about Walter Tanner?’ he asked. ‘ Is he a stick-in-the-mud?’
‘Man,’ she said, ‘he’s the biggest stick-in-the-mud in the world.’
‘Dorothea’s car was found in his drive this morning,’ he said.
The gem of information cheered her. ‘But that’s only next door.’
‘That’s why I’m here. Did you see anything last night?’
‘Why no. If I’d seen it last night I’d have told you.’
‘Would you have noticed it?’
She paused, considering. ‘ No,’ she said. ‘Probably not. My flat’s at the front, you see. You canna see Tanner’s house from here.’
‘And you didn’t go out last night?’
‘No,’ she said and smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have minded going to the fair but I was worried about Dorothea. Besides, I couldn’t find anyone to take me.’ She looked at Ramsay intently. ‘Tanner wouldn’t have killed her,’ she said. ‘They might have had their differences but there’s no violence in him. He’s too boring for that and he’s not a bad man.’
‘What did he do before he retired?’ Ramsay asked.
‘His family had that posh grocer’s in Front Street. You must have seen him in there.’
Ramsay shook his head but he remembered that his ex-wife, Diana, had shopped at Tanner’s. ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere else,’ she would say to her friends. ‘It’s the only place in Northumberland where you can get a decent piece of Brie. And real old-fashioned service.’
‘What about Edward Cassidy?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Whose side did he take in all this?’
‘Edward Cassidy never took a side in his life. Not since he moved to Otterbridge at any rate. He’s spent so much time sitting on the fence you’d think he’d have a hole in his 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.’