Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

Perhaps Medburn had another lover. Perhaps there were other jealousies. Perhaps Angela had found Medburn’s attentions unwelcome, hateful even. Jack was sure that someone in Heppleburn would have information about Medburn, and that morning he set out to make it known that he needed the information too. First he went to the small chemist shop in the high street to ask if someone had been in during the previous week to buy a quantity of bandages. The police had been there before him but it gave him the opportunity to explain why he wanted to know. Medburn’s murderer must have had bandages, he said, to twist into a noose. He made a nuisance of himself in the grocer’s shop and the post office, where he waited to talk to the pensioners, because they were always the best gossips. They all knew him as a diligent and caring councillor who fought with officials and bureaucrats on their behalf. They wanted to help him. By lunch-time, when he had to go to school, everyone in the village knew he intended to prove Kitty innocent. Everyone in Heppleburn knew where to find him. He had thought that all he had to do was wait for the information to come to him. Now, Ramsay’s questions to Irene Hunt about the headmaster suggested that he had a source of income they had been unable to trace. Medburn was mean. His reluctance to part with money was legendary in the village and Jack would not have been surprised to learn that he had some other work, something the taxman knew nothing about. If he could discover what that was, he might find another candidate for murder. He had other questions to put in the village.

He stayed in the school until five thirty and by then most of the policemen had gone, and it was ready for classes to resume the next day. He took off his brown overall, hung it in his room and lit a cigarette. As he walked down the corridor to go out into the playground, the inspector who had been talking to Irene Hunt waved at him through the window of the hall. Jack thought Ramsay’s face was familiar and he wondered if perhaps he had worked down the pit with the policeman’s father.

Outside it was nearly dark and he could see the orange street lights, filtered through hazy smoke, in the village below him. The sudden cold weather had encouraged people to light fires, and a cloud of smoke hung in the valley.

As he walked down the steep lane the familiar smell of the smoke and sulphur took him back to childhood. It was the smell of winter. It reminded him of the back kitchen at home, where his mother made pans of leek broth on the black-leaded range and boiled kettles of hot water for his father’s bath.

There was a fire in the bar of the Northumberland Arms. It was a gloomy place with dark-stained wood panelling and leaded windows. The lights never seemed quite bright enough. During the war the pub had been used by submariners stationed in Blyth and the walls were hung with photographs of men in uniform and ships and submarines. The pub had just opened and the bar was empty. The landlady, a thin, grey little woman with twig-like arms and enormous energy, was putting clean ashtrays on the tables and seemed surprised to see him.

‘By man, you’re early tonight,’ she said.

‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘I’ve worked hard today getting the school ready for the bairns to go back.’

‘Are the police still there then?’ she asked. She was avid for news. He hoped she had other information with which to reciprocate.

‘Aye, I don’t know when they’ll be finished. They say that the school can open again tomorrow. Miss Hunt will be in charge until they get a new head.’

She polished the last ashtray with a duster then scuttled behind the bar to serve him.

‘A pint of Scotch is it?’

He nodded and watched her pull the beer. ‘And something for yourself,’ he said.

She poured a small glass of whisky and sipped at it, like a pigeon taking grain.

‘What do you think of Mr Medburn getting himself murdered?’ she asked. Nothing so exciting had ever happened in the village before.

‘I don’t think Kitty killed him,’ he said firmly.

‘Do you not?’ Her eyes were bright and she pecked again at the whisky.

‘No.’ He looked at her across the bar. ‘You haven’t heard anything,’ he said, ‘ which might help? People talk to you.’

‘Folks were scared of him,’ she said. ‘ I know that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You should talk to Miss Hunt,’ she said. ‘She was scared of him. My daughter was dinner nanny at the school years ago and she heard some things then…’

‘What sort of things?’

But she refused to say and changed the subject abruptly.

‘I’ve heard Angela Brayshaw got herself into a terrible lot of debt,’ she said. ‘ They were going to take her house off her, but her mother stepped in and paid off the building society. I hear Angela will be working at the nursing home now. She won’t like that.’

He drank the rest of his beer. ‘ No,’ he said, ‘ she won’t like that.’ He smiled broadly. ‘ Thanks,’ he said, ‘you’ve been a great help.’

She winked at him as he went out. Walking out of the gloomy pub into the street he almost bumped into the policeman who had been at the school. It occurred to him that Ramsay had followed him and was waiting for him. As if I was a bloody criminal, he thought. He had never liked the police, and the miners’ strike had made things worse.

‘Councillor Robson,’ Ramsay said. ‘I was hoping to talk to you.’

‘I can’t stop now,’ Robson said. ‘ My daughter’s expecting me.’ It was a lie. He had made no arrangements to visit Patty.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Ramsay said smoothly. ‘ I was wanting to talk to Mrs Atkins again.’

‘You’ll be lucky if you get any sense out of her tonight,’ Jack said spitefully. ‘ It’ll be chaos in there. It always is. The bairns’ll not be in bed yet.’

‘All the same,’ Ramsay said, ‘you’ll not say no to a lift.’

His car was parked outside the British Legion Hall.

‘You seem to have been taking a lot of interest in this case,’ the inspector said.

Jack remained stubbornly silent.

‘If you have any information you will come to see me,’ Ramsay said gently. ‘I understand that Mrs Medburn was an old friend of yours.’

Sly bastard, Jack thought. What business is it of yours? You think she killed him. But still he said nothing. He allowed himself to be helped into the big, comfortable car, then Ramsay drove to Patty’s house and parked immaculately close to the kerb.

‘Surely you don’t need to come in now,’ Jack said irritably. ‘You can talk to Patty tomorrow.’

‘I’ll just come to the door,’ Ramsay said, ‘and ask Mrs Atkins if it’s convenient.’

Jack had hoped that it would be a mess, that Ramsay would find it impossible to make himself heard above the noise of the television and the children’s games. He had thought that they would still be at their tea, had imagined the smell of fried food, the floor covered with Andrew’s Lego and Jennifer’s crayons. But Patty was alone there. Jim had taken Andrew to cubs and Jennifer was at a friend’s for tea. The toys had been put away and the dishes, if unwashed, were hidden in the kitchen.

‘Dad,’ she said as she opened the door and saw him standing there, a Charlie Chaplin figure with the policeman by his side. ‘What have you been doing? Why are you here?’

‘I thought Mr Robson was expected,’ Ramsay said in mock surprise. She was aware of him immediately, felt flushed and awkward in front of him as she invited him in, moved a pile of magazines from a chair so that Ramsay could sit down.

‘It was kind of you to bring my father home,’ she said.

Look at her! Jack thought. Just because he’s got a pretty face.