Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

Paul Wilcox turned away from Patty and began to walk towards the school. At first, of course, Medburn’s death had come as a great relief to him. There would be no need now to admit to Hannah that he had been unfaithful. They could work out their family problems without that pressure. There would be no more of the frightening phone calls which summoned him to come to the school, just to discuss a question of Parents’ Association policy, and were an excuse for Medburn to scare him. He arrived on those afternoons at Medburn’s office white and shaking. Medburn would lecture him on morality and virtue, then ask for money. Every time he was summoned Wilcox swore to himself that this time he would not pay, and on each occasion the demand for payment came almost as a relief because it meant that the interview was over. He was sorry when Kitty was arrested – he had nothing against Medburn’s wife – but he had himself to think of first.

On the Saturday night, after the body had been discovered he had been calm. He and Hannah had drunk tea and discussed the murder.

‘What an extraordinary thing to have happened!’ Hannah said, her eyes big. ‘Whoever would want to kill a village headmaster?’

He had agreed with her. It was extraordinary, he said.

He had slept deeply and well. Then on the Sunday morning they learned that Kitty Medburn had been arrested and he thought the whole thing would be over.

He had begun to be troubled by the idea of the letters before he heard that Jack Robson had been going round the village asking questions, claiming that Kitty Medburn was innocent, insinuating that Angela Brayshaw was somehow involved. He should have thought before about the letters. He tried to persuade himself that they would have no significance for anyone else, but he could not forget them and by the time Mrs Irving, the cleaning lady, arrived on Monday afternoon he was tense and jumpy.

He never usually minded her gossip. It was a change to have someone else to talk to. But that afternoon it was all about the murder and the fuss Jack Robson was making in the village.

‘But what can he possibly know about it?’ Paul had demanded, and realized at once that he must sound too aggressive.

‘He says he knows more than the police,’ Mrs Irving replied. ‘He’s a canny man, Councillor Robson.’

‘What nonsense.’

But as he thought about it Paul Wilcox thought that perhaps Jack Robson did know more than the police. After all he worked in the school. He would have access to Medburn’s office, perhaps even to the headmaster’s desk. There was no knowing what he might have overheard. The thought obsessed him and he could not stop brooding on it. When she came home that evening Hannah could tell that he was upset, and was sympathetic.

‘It’ll be delayed shock,’ she said. ‘You worked with Mr Medburn. You were close to him. It’s natural that you should feel like this.’

He wanted to tell her that her sympathy was misguided, that he did not deserve it, but he was too weak and frightened.

By Tuesday morning he was determined to find out how much Jack Robson knew. He could not bear the anxiety of this uncertainty. He tried to talk to Patty in the playground, but she seemed to know nothing, so when the school bell went and the playground was empty of parents and children he went to look for the caretaker.

He found Jack Robson in his room. He realized that Jack had seen him coming and was expecting him. He had left Lizzie strapped in her buggy in the playground, with a bag of sweeties to keep her quiet.

‘Come in, man,’ Jack Robson said when he tapped on the door. ‘What can I do for you?’

Wilcox did not know what to say. He stood on the threshold and his mind went blank. He started to stammer some excuse but Jack interrupted him.

‘You’ll have come about Harold Medburn,’ he said.

Wilcox was the last person Jack had expected to see. Surely his set were beyond Medburn’s power. He came from the south, he was wealthy, the chairman of the Parents’ Association. If anything Medburn should have been in awe of him. Yet here he stood, gawping like a goldfish. Jack looked at him with interest.

‘You’ll have come about Harold Medburn,’ he repeated, then taking pity on the man he added: ‘I expect you want to know why I’m so interested in the case.’

‘Yes,’ Wilcox said gratefully, ‘that’s right.’ He composed himself. ‘We must think about the reputation of the school,’ he said. ‘We don’t want any more adverse publicity than is strictly necessary. You’re a governor, you’ll understand that.’

‘And we don’t want an innocent woman to go to gaol,’ Jack said quickly.

There was a pause.

‘Do you think Kitty Medburn is innocent?’ Wilcox asked.

‘Aye.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘What makes you so interested?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Wilcox blustered. ‘I’m concerned about the school. We want the thing over quickly.’

‘Kitty Medburn is a friend of mine,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t think she could have killed him.’

Is that all? Wilcox thought, overwhelmed with relief. He doesn’t know about the letters, he has no evidence at all. He’s just a romantic fool.

Jack Robson recognized the relief and wished he had not given so much away.

‘Can I ask you some questions?’ he said. ‘As you’re here.’

‘Of course.’ There was nothing to be frightened of now.

‘You used to come to the school quite often,’ Jack said. ‘ What did you and Medburn have to talk about?’

‘Oh,’ Wilcox said. ‘General matters concerning the school. Mr Medburn was interested in getting feedback from the parents.’

That, Jack thought, was a fantasy. Medburn hadn’t given a shit what the parents thought.

But Wilcox was continuing: ‘ If you’re looking for another suspect for Mr Medburn’s murder, perhaps you should talk to young Matthew Carpenter. Did you know that the headmaster was determined to get rid of him? Mr Medburn was going to try to persuade him to resign and if that didn’t work he was going to sack him. The headmaster asked me what the parents thought of Mr Carpenter’s teaching.’

‘That’s why you came to the school last week?’

‘That, and to discuss the final arrangements for the Hallowe’en party with Miss Hunt.’

He stood up and held out his hand to Jack. He saw with satisfaction that it was steady and unshaking.

‘I’ll have to go now,’ he said, ‘ my daughter’s waiting outside.’

In the playground he took a deep breath. It was unfortunate, he thought, that he should have shifted suspicion onto young Matthew Carpenter, but he must think of his own safety. He thought he had handled things rather well. It was only later in the day that his anxiety about the letters returned and he decided that something had to be done about them.

Jack Robson watched Wilcox from the window. The information about Matthew Carpenter had been interesting, but he thought he had learned more about Wilcox himself. The man was frightened. In the school hall the children began to sing ‘All things bright and beautiful’.

The vicarage was big and ugly and had seen better days. It had been built a hundred years before at the same time as the church to serve the expanding community, though few of the men who worked in the pit worshipped there. They went every Sunday to the Methodist chapel in the village. In the churchyard were the graves of men who had lost their lives in the colliery accidents, and by drowning, and of women who had died in childbirth. Only recently, it seemed, had it become common to die of old age.

Patty walked past the tombstones on her way to the house. Brown chrysanthemums, covered in frost, lay on her mother’s grave. She wondered, briefly, where Medburn would be buried. Here, she presumed, as he was such a pillar of the church. It was a high, exposed place. The trees around the church were bent and some were bare, stripped of their leaves by the wind the previous day. As she walked along the icy path to the vicarage she noticed that there were blackbirds everywhere and that the clear air was full of their song.