‘Look,’ Corkhill said, confiding, world-weary. ‘ I know what this is all about. I had it all out with that Mrs Cassidy. “Why do you blame everything on me?” I told her. “ How do you know it wasn’t Theresa who knocked the kid around. She lost a baby before after all.”’
‘But it wasn’t Theresa who knocked Beverley around, was it?’ Ramsay said. ‘Theresa told us what happened. And she told Mrs Cassidy yesterday. Mrs Cassidy wanted to talk to you about it. And she persuaded Theresa that she couldn’t go away with you. You wouldn’t like that.’
Corkhill longed for a drink. His attention was wandering and he could think of nothing else. He moved restlessly in his seat. Ramsay noted his discomfort.
‘Now I want to talk about yesterday,’ the inspector said. ‘Perhaps you could give me an account of your movements. You worked on the fair in the morning?’
Corkhill nodded.
‘What time did you get back to Miss Stringer’s house?’
‘Two o’clock. Half past.’ He wanted the interview to be over so he could get out.
‘What did you and Theresa talk about?’
‘Nothing!’ Corkhill said defensively. ‘I wanted some peace before I started work again. What would there be to talk about?’
‘Her daughter had been taken into care,’ Ramsay said. ‘She might have thought that worth a mention.’
The sarcasm was lost on Corkhill.
‘Oh that!’ he said. ‘She was rambling on about that but I told her to shut up.’
‘I thought you had a row. Didn’t Theresa tell you she wasn’t going to come away with you after all?’
This surprised Corkhill. He hadn’t expected Ramsay to have so much detailed information about him.
‘You were angry, weren’t you?’ Ramsay went on. ‘You thought Theresa had let you down. And you blamed Dorothea Cassidy. She came back later to talk to Theresa. Did you wait to have it out with her?’
‘No!’ Corkhill said. ‘I didn’t touch her. I didn’t even see her then. I was bloody angry and I went out to work.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About four o’clock.’
‘What happened then?’ Ramsay asked. ‘ How did you get into town?’
‘I walked. I’ve not got money to spend on bus fares.’
‘Did you stop anywhere on the way?’
Corkhill hesitated. ‘I needed a drink,’ he said. ‘ I stopped at the off licence on the estate.’
‘Did you see Dorothea’s car on its way to the Ridgeway?’
Corkhill shook his head. ‘I was bloody angry,’ he said. ‘ I didn’t see anything.’
‘What time did you get to the fair?’
‘Half past four, quarter to five. And I was there all evening. My mate will tell you.’
‘You didn’t slip away to the pub? For a meal?’
‘It was too busy,’ he said. ‘We had some chips on the site.’
That’s it then, Ramsay thought. It’s impossible for him to have killed Dorothea Cassidy. Even without the news of Clive’s death they would have to let him go. He was preparing to tell Corkhill that the boy was dead when Corkhill volunteered information of his own.
‘She was there last night,’ he said. ‘At the fair. She didn’t come to my ride but I saw her all the same.’
‘Who?’ Ramsay demanded. ‘Who was there?’
‘The vicar’s wife. Mrs Cassidy.’ He spoke as if Ramsay was a fool.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. She was wearing that blue jacket. I’d know her anywhere.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
‘No,’ Corkhill said, reluctantly, as if admitting some lack of courage. ‘ By then I’d calmed down again. It didn’t seem worth making a fuss.’
‘What time did you see her?’
He shrugged. ‘ I don’t know. It wasn’t late. Some time between eight and half past.’
‘Was she on her own?’
‘No,’ Corkhill said. Despite himself he was enjoying the sense of importance the information was giving him. He could tell Ramsay was excited. He paused, tantalising the inspector, smiling.
‘Well?’ Ramsay said. ‘Who was with her?’
‘It was a woman,’ Corkhill said. ‘A pale thing, pretty enough.’
‘What were they doing?’
‘How should I know?’ Corkhill said. ‘I was busy. There was a crowd.’
‘But you must have seen something.’
‘They were walking together, talking. There’s nothing else to say.’
Ramsay was already planning the next stage of the investigation. They would put as many men as he could spare into the fair that night, with photographs of Dorothea. Who was the woman with her? Corkhill’s description had stirred some vague memory. Perhaps Cassidy would know, he thought.
‘Can I go then?’ Corkhill said, suddenly cocky.
‘Not yet,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’m afraid I have some news for you.’ He spoke in exactly the same tone as before. ‘Clive Stringer is dead. He was found murdered this afternoon.’
He watched the man carefully and was convinced it came as a surprise to him.
‘I didn’t know,’ Corkhill said. Then, with a burst of temper, ‘I suppose you want to pin that on me too!’
Ramsay shook his head.
‘Just make a statement,’ he said. ‘ Then you can go. I expect Theresa will be glad of your support at a time like this.’
Corkhill shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m not going back there. She’s too much like bloody trouble. I’m leaving, going back on the road. On my own.’
He stared out of the window.
Ramsay stood up to leave the room when Corkhill spoke again.
‘Poor bastard,’ he said. ‘He didn’t have much of a life, did he?’
It seemed a fitting epitaph for the boy.
Ramsay called a constable into the room to help Corkhill make his statement then returned to his office. When he got there the phone was ringing.
‘It’s your aunt,’ someone said. ‘She says it’s urgent.’
Ramsay almost refused to speak to her. Tell her I’m too busy, he wanted to say. She can leave a message. But the conversation with Corkhill had chilled him. Corkhill had lost the habit of human contact. He cared for Theresa but preferred loneliness to the responsibilities that came through living with her. Perhaps I’m like that, Ramsay thought. I resent the demands of friendship. So when Annie came through to him he spoke to her kindly, with unusual warmth. But he knew it was all pretence and like Corkhill he was better on his own.
In Armstrong House Annie Ramsay had been playing detectives. At lunchtime she had cancelled the afternoon’s bingo. It wasn’t fitting, she said, after such a tragedy. All the same it brought everyone together for a laugh and a cup of tea and she missed it.
When she first got back from the hospital she pottered around her flat, making scones, thinking that later she would take them round to Emily’s so they could share some tea. She wasn’t much of a cook. Not like her mother… With the memory of her mother, the warm kitchen, the big range in the pit cottage where she had grown up, she pulled herself together. She had always vowed that she would never become one of those old people who bored the pants off the world by talking about when they were bairns. There was more to life than dreaming about the past. Her flat was too quiet, that was the trouble. It looked over the respectable street leading to the park and at this time in the afternoon the children were at school and the parents were away in their offices in the town. She wanted a bit of bustle, a bit of something to watch.
At the front of the building there was a small patch of garden – some lawn, a few pots of geraniums and a wooden bench donated, according to the plaque on the back, by St Mary’s Mother’s Union. The bench was seldom used – too bloody uncomfortable for one thing, Annie thought as she settled herself on to it. And too close to the busy road with its noise, fumes and dust. From where she sat she could see the main road into town and round the corner into Armstrong Street. There, in the mid-afternoon heat, everything seemed quiet, lifeless. In one of the gardens was a pram with a dazzling white sun-shade, but throughout the afternoon the baby made no sound. A little way up the street a car was started. It pulled into the street and disappeared over the brow of the hill into shadow. Annie was aware of it because it was the first thing to move in the street since she had been sitting there, but later she was unable to describe it at all.