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

the courtesy to knock.’
    She flushed with anger and the release of the tension caused by the waiting. One of the compensations of her illness was that she no longer cared what people thought of her. She was excused rudeness. She could say exactly what she chose.
    Annie Ramsay was unperturbed by the hostility. Since Emily’s arrival at Armstrong House she had taken it upon herself to make the woman feel welcome, bringing home-made cakes and invitations to the afternoon bingo sessions with each visit. Emily Bowman had reacted to the attention at first with haughty politeness and later with more direct requests to be left alone. Annie Ramsay seemed not to hear or to understand.
    ‘It’s no trouble, man,’ she would say, settling into Emily’s only easy chair with her knitting. ‘We’re neighbours and both on our own. It’s a pleasure to have someone to chat to.’
    But we have nothing in common, Emily wanted to say. My husband worked in a bank and yours down the pit. You’ve probably never read a book in your life and the very idea of bingo makes me want to scream. But as the cancer and the radiotherapy sapped all her energy she resisted less. She even began to find some relief in Annie Ramsay’s visits. She talked so much that Emily was required to make no contribution to the conversation. There was something relaxing about Annie’s gossip. It was like easy melodic popular music. Her irritability at these regular interruptions had become meaningless and ritual.
    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