Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

‘It’s lovely,’ he said. He had never been to her house before. ‘This is just the sort of house I’d live in. But don’t you find it lonely?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I get on well with my neighbour. She’s rather confused and eccentric at times, but we’ve become good friends. Her sons farm the land and live in a bungalow in the village. She doesn’t want to leave the house. I don’t blame her.’

Back in the house she made more tea and toast. There was a fire in the living room and she refused to put on the light. Then she might feel she should draw the curtains and shut out the sea. The room was hung with her paintings.

It was nearly dusk when he set off on his bike for his flat in Heppleburn. She had not wanted him to go. It had been one of the most pleasant afternoons Irene Hunt could remember and she felt relaxed and ready to return to school the next day. She had long ago given up any thought of a family life and had persuaded herself that she would not enjoy it anyway, but this afternoon she regretted that she had never married. When Matthew left she felt very alone.

She got to school at a quarter to nine on the Monday morning. The police were on the premises. There was still white tape around the small playground and a uniformed constable stood by the wooden door in the wall. She ignored the activity and went straight to her classroom, as she would have done if the children had been there. At the main door into the school a policeman stopped her and asked who she was, then let her through. To Miss Hunt the police were an anonymous body, like Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education or the Inland Revenue. She supposed that the men on their hands and knees in the playground had some specialized function, but she had no real interest. As her retirement came closer she was coming to feel that she was a stranger in the school. She was increasingly more detached from everything that went on there, even the horror of murder. She longed for her time as a teacher to be over, so she could spend her days in her bungalow with her paint and her cat and the noise of the waves.

At half past twelve when the children would usually have gone out to play before lunch she went to the staff room and made a cup of coffee. It was a luxury to have the place to herself. It was strangely tidy and uncluttered. She wondered if she should offer to make drinks for the policemen in the hall but decided not to disturb them. They might think she was prying like a common gossip. The kettle was just starting to boil when there was a knock on the door and a plain-clothed policeman came in, stooping slightly as if the door was too low. She recognized the inspector who had come to her bungalow the day before.

Ramsay had been at the school since early morning. After his wife had left him there was nothing to keep him at home and he was aware of the comments of his colleagues. Just because he couldn’t keep his wife, they said, he seems to think none of us want to spend time with our families. They said that he’d lost his sense of proportion, that there was more to life than work, after all. To Ramsay there was little more to life than work.

He had insisted that Medburn’s office, the staff room and all the corridors should be fingerprinted. When they told him it would take days, he shrugged. The murderer must have come into the school, he said, to get the black gown. No one had said that a long murder investigation was easy. Usually you found the culprit in the first hour. If not it was hard work. So he expected them to work hard. They knew who had killed Harold Medburn. They had to prove it.

He waited to talk to Miss Hunt until he saw her go into the staff room. He thought she might be more prepared to give him her full attention there than in the classroom where there was work to do.

‘Would you like coffee?’ she asked. When he had come to the bungalow the day before he had pleased her. ‘I’m making some for myself.’

‘That would be very nice,’ he said. He seemed relaxed and easy. He sat on one of the chairs without being asked.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘ How can I help you, Inspector?’ He was tall and dark and quite athletic, with a gentle local accent. She had known physical education teachers of a similar type. He was middle-aged but fit and wearing well. She could imagine him rock climbing.

‘Have you time to answer some questions?’ he asked. ‘It would save me having to trouble you at home again.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘The gown he was wearing when the body was found,’ Ramsay said. ‘It was his?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, and despite herself there was a trace of bitterness in her voice. ‘He never went to university as a young man, you know. He wasn’t particularly academic. He went to college later, in middle age, and took a Bachelor of Education then. We all thought he intended to try for promotion to a bigger school, but he never moved. He was very proud of his gown.’

‘Where was it kept?’

‘In his office. On a hook on the door.’

‘I see,’ he said. He took a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it with tobacco from a leather pouch. She waited for him to light it, but he seemed to change his mind and laid it carefully on the low table before him.

‘How did Mr Medburn die?’ Irene asked. She was enjoying Ramsay’s company. The question came naturally.

‘He was dead before he was hung up,’ the policeman said. ‘He was strangled but not by the noose of bandages. We think he may have been drugged first.’

They drank instant coffee in silence.

‘Is there anything else you want to ask me?’ she said in the end. ‘I think I should go back to my classroom. I feel I should be working even though the children aren’t here.’

‘Did he take any private pupils?’ Ramsay asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sure not.’

‘He didn’t work for one of the examination boards, marking papers?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He was a primary specialist.’

‘So he had no other income?’

‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

‘No one seems very sorry he’s dead,’ the policeman said suddenly, and she thought perhaps he was clever, more imaginative than she had first supposed.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t very popular.’

‘Why was that then? Did he pick on the children?’

‘Not on the children, no. He was a good teacher in a lot of ways, though a little boring by today’s standards. No. Adults were his victims.’

‘Did he knock his wife around?’ He asked the question in the same level, matter-of-fact tone.

She was very shocked. She supposed that in his work the detective must mix often with men who beat their wives, but it seemed offensive to suggest that she was acquainted with such people. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There was nothing like that.’ Then, feeling surprisingly disloyal, she added: ‘He was too subtle, you see, for that kind of violence.’

‘You sound almost glad that he’s dead,’ Ramsay said.

Irene Hunt thought then that her original assessment of him was correct but that after all he had an instinctive intelligence, like an animal’s.

‘Do I?’ she said. ‘Life will be a lot easier, you know, without him.’

She took their cups to the sink and washed them. The policeman sat back in his chair and watched her.

Outside in the corridor, Jack Robson was cleaning the floor where the police had finished. He had heard every word of the conversation, but neither the policeman nor Miss Hunt took any notice of him. He was as much a part of the school furniture as the blackboards and the wall bars in the gym.

All day, in the village, Jack had been asking questions about Medburn and Angela Brayshaw. Patty’s description of her conversation with Angela had excited him. There was already the possibility of another motive.