Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

She saw the vicar through his study window before she rang the bell. He was running the pages of the parish magazine off a primitive printing machine. His fingers were stained with blue ink and he turned the handle with great ferocity. He was red and flushed although there seemed to be no heating in the vicarage. Before becoming a clergyman he had been in the merchant navy, though now he seemed too thin, too quiet, too academic for a sailor. He looked to Patty no older than when he had come to Heppleburn ten years before. He was probably in his mid-forties. His arrival at the church from the south of England had coincided with a period of religious enthusiasm in her life. Perhaps he had been the cause of it. She had attended regularly, had even, for one disastrous winter, been in the choir. Like all her interests it had passed and now she only came to church when the children had some special Sunday school activity and for the Midnight Communion of Christmas Eve.

Peter Mansfield, the vicar, seemed to feel a personal responsibility for her disaffection. He seemed to regard each attendance as a possible rebirth of faith, would speak to her specially as she left the church, saying that he hoped to see her again soon. Each time he was disappointed. Now, when he let her into the draughty hall he greeted her with great affection and she felt a fraud as if she were there on false pretences.

‘How good to see you!’ he said. ‘Come in. Shall I take your coat? Or would you rather keep it on for a while.’

‘I’ll keep it,’ she said.

In the cavernous corners of the house there were competing noises and strange echoes. His wife was a music teacher and must have had an early pupil because the nerve-jangling squeal of a poorly played violin came from a room at the end of the corridor. Upstairs there was the surprising sound of a pop record.

They had taken in a lodger, the vicar said in explanation, an unmarried mother whose parents had thrown her out. As if on cue a baby started crying. He seemed to take it all for granted but to Patty the sounds were tantalizing, glimpses of a freer, more confident way of living. She wished she knew more about the household. Like the family in the old mill it had a sophistication she associated with the south.

‘Come in,’ Peter said again, taking Patty’s arm and leading her into his study. He must have seen that she was cold because he stooped and lit a small Calor gas heater.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’

‘It’s about Harold Medburn,’ she said, then stopped. She was not sure how to continue. But there had always been an element of hero worship in her relationship with Mansfield and she decided that she could trust him with the truth. ‘ My father doesn’t think that Kitty killed him,’ she said in a rush. ‘He wants to prove her innocent. He asked me to talk to you. Mr Medburn was a church warden and you must have known him very well.’

‘I see.’ He seemed surprised. He bent and warmed long, blue fingers in front of the fire to give himself time to think.

‘Perhaps you think we shouldn’t interfere,’ she said.

‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think it might be a little dangerous? It’s not a thing to be taken lightly.’

‘We’re not taking it lightly,’ she said. Then more honestly she added: ‘Well, perhaps I am. I think it’s exciting: It’s hard to be sorry that Mr Medburn’s dead. But Dad’s not playing at this. Kitty was a friend of his a long time ago, before he met my mother. I’ve never seen him so serious about anything.’

‘I don’t understand how I can help,’ Peter Mansfield said. ‘I don’t think Kitty killed her husband but I’ve no way of proving it.’

‘You could tell us about Harold Medburn,’ she said. ‘He didn’t have any other close friends. There’s no one else to ask.’

‘He was no friend of mine,’ the vicar said so sharply that Patty gazed at him in astonishment. He looked awkward. Usually he wore kindness and tolerance as part of his clerical garb. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘ I didn’t mean to be abrupt. I could never like Medburn. He made life very difficult for Julie and me when we first came. He was always prying and challenging my authority. He made Julie’s life a misery. This was my first parish and I was too inexperienced to know how to deal with him. He undermined my confidence. At one time I thought I might have to leave the Church altogether.’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘No,’ Mansfield said. ‘I suppose I realized what a sad little man he was. He was no threat to anyone.’

‘Someone saw him as a threat,’ Patty said. ‘Someone killed him.’

‘Yes,’ Mansfield said earnestly, ‘ and that’s why I find it hard to believe that the murderer is Kitty. She knew him too. She knew how weak and lonely he was. I don’t think she was ever frightened of him – he could do nothing more to hurt her.’

‘Why did they marry?’ Patty asked. ‘Did you ever find out?’

The vicar shook his head. ‘That was long before my time and I never asked. Kitty has never come to church. Perhaps they were lonely. They both seem to be outsiders. Kitty does marvellous work with the old people in the village and everyone admires her, but she had no real friends.’

‘Except my father,’ Patty said.

‘Perhaps,’ the vicar said. He paused. ‘I don’t mean to be impertinent but I’m not sure how real that friendship is. You know Jack better than me but wasn’t it a romantic memory that only returned when your father was on his own and Kitty was in trouble? I doubt whether the relationship would have survived years of marriage. She’s a destructive woman in many ways.’

Patty did not know what to say. She assumed the vicar thought she might be hurt because Jack’s affection was directed at someone other than her mother. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that she only wanted Jack to be happy.

‘It matters a lot to him,’ she said, ‘to prove that Kitty’s innocent.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it would be wiser to leave it to the police, but I can see that.’

‘Is there nothing you can tell us which would help?’ she asked.

‘Medburn enjoyed power,’ Mansfield said. ‘ It was an indication, I suppose, of his own inadequacy, but it was hard to be charitable about its consequences.’

‘Was he evil?’ she asked suddenly. It was a religious question. She might have been at confirmation class, though she would never have asked such a question of the old priest.

Mansfield seemed shocked and avoided a direct answer. ‘That sort of judgement is not for me to make,’ he said. He moved away from the fire and leant on the edge of his desk. He seemed to have come to a decision to talk to her. ‘I remember soon after I came here,’ he said, ‘a woman came into the church. She was trying to trace Irene Hunt. That seemed a matter of great importance to her. Harold was in the church at the time and I suggested that she talk to him. I didn’t know Medburn very well then, and although I was aware that Miss Hunt taught in the school I knew nothing about her. I can remember how pleased he was when I introduced the woman to him and I saw him again when she had gone. He was very smug and satisfied with himself. “What will Miss Hunt say,” he said, “when I tell her?” When I knew him better I realized that I had probably given him the opportunity of discovering something about one of his staff, something which she would probably prefer him not to know. I felt as if I had betrayed a confidence.’

‘Who was the woman?’

The vicar shook his head. ‘ I never asked,’ he said. ‘It was none of my business. But I expect that Harold found out all about her. I had the thing on my conscience for a long time afterwards. I never liked to ask Miss Hunt what came of it. Of course it’s possible that I misjudged Harold and he simply passed on the address.’