‘No,’ Ramsay said slowly. ‘I rather wanted to do that myself.’
‘How did he seem last night when he knew his wife was missing?’
Ramsay shrugged. ‘He wasn’t too concerned apparently. Not at first, anyway. He said it wasn’t unusual for her to be late. She wasn’t naturally punctual, he said. She was easily distracted.’
Hunter looked disapproving. ‘It seems a strange set up to me. You’d have thought she’d have to be home to get his tea.’
Ramsay wondered briefly what Diana, his ex-wife, would have made of Hunter’s views on the responsibilities of women. Ramsay had known from the beginning that she wasn’t the sort of woman to wait at home to cook a policeman’s tea and her independence had nothing to do with the breakdown of their marriage. There was something about Dorothea Cassidy that reminded him of Diana, the full mouth perhaps, and he turned suddenly away from her to speak to the constable who had been sent, because he was a regular member of Cassidy’s congregation, to identify the body.
‘Did she have any children?’ he asked.
The man shook his head. Ramsay was surprised, then relieved. He could picture her with a baby in her arms. Now who’s being tempted into stereotypes? he thought.
‘One of the first priorities is to find her car,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t be difficult. It’s quite distinctive. A twenty-year-old Morris Thousand estate. Her husband had it done up for her at one of those specialist garages as a present.’ He turned absent-mindedly towards Hunter. ‘Can you organise that?’
Hunter nodded and took out his radio.
‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘ Take the car back to the station. There’s no more to do here. I’ll join you when I’ve seen the vicar.’
Hunter walked off towards the bridge, pleased at last to have something to do.
Ramsay knew that he would have to get to the vicarage quickly if he wanted to break the news of Dorothea Cassidy’s death to her husband. The tragedy would soon become general knowledge. Yet he found it hard to move away. Like the school boy who had found her, he was tempted to kneel and touch her. He turned towards the young constable who stood now with his back to the body staring blank-eyed across the river towards the abbey.
‘What was she like?’ Ramsay asked. ‘ What did you think of her?’
The constable turned back to face the inspector but he shook his head, too upset to speak.
In the large vicarage kitchen Edward and Patrick Cassidy sat facing each other and pretended to eat breakfast. There were reminders of Dorothea everywhere – in the plants on the deep window-sill, in the chaos of laundry in the basket on the washing machine, even in the scrubbed table which she had found in a junk shop in Morpeth and brought home strapped to the top of her car. Yet although both men were thinking of Dorothea, neither spoke of her directly.
‘Where were you last night?’ Edward Cassidy said abruptly.
Patrick looked up from his coffee and for a moment his father thought he would refuse to answer. He had been so moody lately.
‘I was at the fair,’ he said. If Dorothea had been there he would have found it possible to explain why he had been drawn by the noise and the colour and the cheap, tacky prizes. He would have said that in the crowd he felt anonymous. It was a good way to escape. But Dorothea had disappeared and he knew he was responsible for driving her away.
‘On your own?’ his father demanded, disbelieving.
How much does he know? Patrick wondered. How much did she tell him?
‘Yes,’ he said sullenly. ‘On my own.’
‘I don’t know what’s going on!’ Edward Cassidy cried. ‘ Why isn’t she here?’
Patrick looked at his father carefully, unconvinced by the outburst. He had been caught out by his father’s histrionics before. Once Edward had confessed to him that as a young man he had ambitions to be an actor. ‘I would have been very good,’ he had said laughing. ‘It isn’t very different after all. Every sermon’s a performance.’
Patrick found the notion troubling, though it explained a lot. Did anyone know his father well? Perhaps even Dorothea had been taken in by him.
‘I’ve got to get a move on,’ he said. ‘ I’ll be late for college.’
The front doorbell rang and Edward leapt to his feet and rushed to answer it. Patrick watched without emotion, but moved to the kitchen door so he could hear what was going on.
It was Dolly Walker, the church warden’s wife. Patrick recognised her middle-class, rather vague voice, and heard his father immediately become charming. If Edward Cassidy had expected to find Dorothea at the door he hid his disappointment well.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Of course I knew the Mothers’ Union wanted the parish hall today for the coffee morning. I should have opened it for you. I’ll fetch the key.’
Dolly did not ask if Dorothea would be there to help. She knew that Dorothea had no interest in her coffee mornings.
Patrick went upstairs to his room to fetch books and bag. As he came down a few minutes later he hesitated by the telephone in the hall, but before he could make up his mind whether to make the call, the doorbell rang again and his father shouted from the study:
‘That’ll be Dolly Walker returning the key. Can you go?’
Patrick opened the door quickly. He would pretend to be in a hurry to reach the university then there would be no opportunity for awkward questions about Dorothea. But instead of Dolly Walker with her blue silk dress and fluffy grey hair there stood a tall, stem man who stared at Patrick curiously and frightened him.
Chapter Two
Ramsay followed Hunter across the park to the street. As he walked along the footpath close to the water there was the smell of mud and vegetation from the river. Apart from the rumble of traffic in the distance the place was very quiet. No one had been allowed into the park and the usual cries of squabbling children, the inevitable hum of the motor-mower, were absent.
He reached the main road at eight thirty. The church clock had just chimed the half-hour. The bridge was clogged with cars tailing back from the traffic lights in Front Street. Between two lamp-posts across the road a large banner announced the Otterbridge Carnival and Folk Festival. Already he could hear some busker playing ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ on a scratchy violin. All week the town had been overrun with strangers, filling the pubs to listen to the music, crowding into the fair on Abbey Meadow. Tomorrow it would all be over and the clowns and mime artists and jugglers who held up the traffic and disrupted the routine of the town would be gone.
Ramsay spoke briefly to the policemen by the gate who were turning people away from the park, then joined the crowd walking towards the town centre. Office workers in shirt sleeves crossed the road between stationary cars and sauntered on to their businesses. The shops were starting to open and some owners were setting goods for display on the pavements. There had been good weather for weeks and the place had a Continental air. Everyone Ramsay passed had a suntan and in his dark suit he felt sober, pale and over-dressed.
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.