Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

‘What was the woman like?’ Patty asked.

‘She was in her thirties,’ he said. ‘Tall and very dark. She caught my attention because she was remarkably beautiful.’

‘Have you any idea who killed him?’ she asked suddenly.

He hesitated before replying: ‘ No,’ he said. ‘ I’m sorry.’

She was not sure he would tell her anyway.

‘I think I should go now,’ Patty said. She felt awkward again, sitting there, presuming to take his time. It was too easy to take him for granted and perhaps he resented her assumption that he was prepared to talk to her. She felt that he would want something in return – an indication that she might share his faith and commitment – and that she was unwilling to give.

He must have realized that, because he smiled sadly as he let her out into the garden and he said nothing about hoping to see her in church again. He seemed almost pleased to be rid of her. As she walked away from the house she heard the sound of the printing machine thumping again, and of someone playing a scale on the violin.

By the time she walked to her father’s home the sun had melted the frost and the people she met in the street said what a beautiful day it was and that they must make the most of it before the winter came.

In the house nothing had changed since Joan had died, and very little was different from when she was a child. She opened the door with her own key and she might have been coming home after a day at school. There was the same red carpet with the pattern of flowers and leaves, the same hideous three-piece suite. The mantelshelf was crammed with the ornaments Joan had collected on her coach trips with the Mothers’ Union. There was even the same smell of furniture polish. Patty went in to clean for Jack once a week and took far more care than she did with her own housework. Otherwise he managed for himself, much better than she would ever have imagined. Before Joan’s death he had done nothing in the house. She had polished his boots, brought in the coal and added sugar to his tea. Now he cooked for himself and did his own laundry.

He was sitting in the front room by the fire, his boots off, reading a library book. Joan had liked the television but now he never watched it during the day. Patty offered to make some tea, but he put down his book and went into the kitchen to do it himself. He came back with the pot and cups on a tray and a packet of his favourite shortcake biscuits.

‘Did you go to see the vicar?’ he asked. She nodded and told the story of the mysterious woman who had come to the church looking for Irene Hunt.

‘What do you make of it?’ she asked.

‘I think Medburn was blackmailing Miss Hunt,’ he said. He remembered again what the landlady of the Northumberland Arms had said about the staff being frightened of the headmaster. His idea had been confirmed.

‘Will you talk to her?’ Patty said. ‘Miss Hunt still makes me feel like a six-year-old.’

‘I’ll talk to her,’ Jack said, ‘but not in school. She’ll give nothing away there. I’ll wait until the weekend and go to see her at home.’ He did not like to admit that he too was frightened of her.

‘What do you make of Paul Wilcox?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘ He’s pleasant enough,’ she said. ‘A bit of a wimp.’

‘He’s scared of something,’ Jack said. ‘He came to see me today to find out how much I know.’

‘He’s no murderer,’ she said. ‘He’d not have the guts.’

‘It must have been one of the Parents’ Association or the staff,’ he said. ‘Someone with access to the school. No one else could have taken Medburn’s gown from his room.’

‘So it was one of us,’ she said. She felt a sudden thrill of fear.

They drank their tea in silence. Patty would have liked to ask him about Kitty, about how he met her and how close they were, but she said nothing about Mansfield’s theory that Jack’s memory of Kitty Medburn was flawed – romanticized, distorted by his own loneliness. She was too excited by the investigation to want him to call it off now. Besides, he would never have believed her.

Every day the local newspapers were full of the news of Medburn’s murder and it was from the newspaper that Jack learned Kitty had been to court. There was even a film of her on the early evening television news, huddled among a crowd of policemen with a coat over her head, but he was too upset then to listen to the commentary. From the newspaper he learned that she had been charged with murder and remanded in custody to await trial. He was distressed by the news, by the huge headlines which talked about the WITCHES’ NIGHT MURDER and which encouraged the readers to speculate that Kitty must have killed her husband by supernatural means. The media had been given no details of the method and circumstances of the murder, and the scarcity of information had led journalists into the realms of horror fiction. Jack would have liked to be in the court to give her comfort, so that she would have seen at least one friendly face, but despite his new experience in the council chamber he felt he was excluded completely from the criminal justice process. He did not know even if he would have been allowed to attend. He did not understand the terms used in the newspaper report. Was a remand centre the same as a prison? What did it mean that no plea was taken? He felt he was no use to her. She was being damned as a witch and there was nothing he could do.

It was a week after Harold Medburn’s death, and he caught a bus to see Irene Hunt. Patty offered to drive him in the car but he decided to go alone. The conversation with Miss Hunt would need tact and Patty had precious little of that. The weather was still clear and sunny, but it was cold and the days were so short now that it was dark by late afternoon. He did not warn Miss Hunt of his visit. If she were not there he would wait for her. The newspaper reports of Kitty’s ordeal had given him a sort of desperation.

The bus dropped him at Nellington, a small village with a pub and several houses and the grey scars of an open-cast mine. It was two o’clock when he climbed off the bus and he was tempted to go into the pub for a drink before he approached her, but he decided against it and began the walk down the lane to the bungalow.

Irene Hunt saw him coming – he was a slight, upright figure in a macintosh which was too long for him – and recognized him at once. She thought at first he was there to tell her that Matthew Carpenter had got himself into another scrape, then realized that was ridiculous. She was irritated by the unwanted company. If there was some problem at school, why had the man not phoned? She had thought the bungalow was secluded enough to protect her from this kind of intrusion. She did not want to appear too welcoming, and waited until he knocked at the door before going to open it.

In the farmyard it was unusually quiet. There were no dogs, no farm machinery. The farmhouse was so rundown that Jack thought it must be empty, then he saw that there was washing on the line. There were long discoloured bloomers, tent-like nightdresses and grey sheets. Jack found the silence and the space unnerving. He was aware of the vast sweep of the countryside behind him. It gave him a sense of vertigo. He wished Miss Hunt would let him in. He would feel more at ease in the small rooms of the bungalow.

‘Mr Robson,’ she said haughtily, feigning surprise. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. He moved inside the porch and felt happier, sheltered from the space outside. ‘It’s a private matter,’ he said more confidently. ‘I didn’t want to discuss it at school.’

She still would not let him into the house. ‘If you have any problems about work,’ she said, ‘it would be much better, don’t you think, to discuss them on Monday morning?’