Takes All Sorts, has been found dead in her Chicago apartment. Her body was found last Thursday morning when her neighbor, Beryl Witherspoon, became concerned after not hearing from her friend in over a week. ‘At first I thought she had gone to visit her daughter, Sheridan. She was desperate to make up with her, especially since she had the baby. Leo was all Dorothy would talk about, even though they had never met. She tried to get in touch, but Sheridan had changed her phone number.’ When asked about the rift between mother and daughter, Beryl said: ‘Dorothy was thrilled when she read about the pregnancy. She said her daughter must have had treatment because she was infertile, as far as Dorothy was aware. She tried to contact her through her agent, but her letters were returned.’ When asked if Sheridan ever visited her mother, Beryl replied, ‘She came to see her once, years ago. Dorothy even gave her a key. It’s a sorry state of affairs when your own daughter won’t acknowledge you. After all Dorothy did for her, to die alone in squalor like this, it’s so sad.’ Reports state that the one-bedroom apartment was in a shocking state. Her bedroom was filled with hundreds of newspapers featuring clippings of Sheridan’s success, along with dozens of VCR tapes, DVDs, posters, and memorabilia of the show. Press cuttings were pinned to the wall from as early as the 1970s. Police have ruled that Dorothy’s death was accidental, but Beryl is not so sure. ‘The police said she tripped over a pile of newspapers and fell down the stairs. But I’ve been there plenty of times. She may have been a hoarder, but she was ever so careful getting around, and she never kept anything near the stairs.’ There’s another reason why Beryl believes in foul play. ‘The night before the accident, I heard shouting coming from Dorothy’s apartment. It was a man’s voice, I’m sure of it. I should have called in to check on her. The police said it was her television that made the noise that night.’ Beryl has spoken to the police and they appear unconcerned. ‘I saw a van in the area earlier that day. The man driving it had a mustache and wore a cowboy hat. I know everyone in this area. He looked like he was up to no good.’ But the police’s apathy could be due to the number of calls Beryl makes. ‘I call them every time I see anyone suspicious – sometimes every day.’ Police state there was no evidence of a forced entry at Dorothy’s address.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ROZ
MARCH 2019
‘You’re the size of an aubergine now,’ I said to my baby as I read aloud. ‘You can blink, see light, and you’re a whole thirty-seven centimetres long.’ At twenty-eight weeks, my pregnancy was advancing, and I was finding it difficult to sleep at night. I closed the pregnancy diary as bittersweet memories of Dympna invaded my thoughts. I wished I could call her. She couldn’t have received the message that I left eight weeks ago. Had she known my address, someone would have called to check up on me by now. Dympna had tried to warn me. She’d been right. I glared at the air-conditioning unit, wishing I could rip it out of the walls that imprisoned me here. Sheridan had turned it up: her punishment for my refusing to follow her schedule. I knew by now how the game went. Behave and I received privileges. Misbehave and punishment ensued.
Call it my hormones or my inbred streak of stubbornness, but I could not simper and smile for her today. The bitch. The thought of her bringing up my baby made me feel physically sick. I only saw Sheridan at my scans and health checks, and that suited me just fine. She never spoke to me. These days, she sent Juanita to monitor my schedule. The girl would stand before me, her brown eyes as big as saucers as she pleaded with me to comply. But not a word of English would pass her lips. Back issues of Celeb Goss were still coming and going, with snippets of gossip about Sheridan’s past life. It didn’t surprise me that her relationship with her mother had been fraught. But was there more to it than that? There was no forced entry at the address where Dorothy died, yet the same article mentioned Sheridan being given a key.
Was Juanita issuing the warnings? If so,