Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

There was a noise from upstairs, a faint nervous noise of a throat being cleared.

‘Who’s there?’ Jack shouted. ‘Who are you? Is it the police?’

There was no reply and Jack went up the stairs. He was halfway up when the front door, which he had left wide open, to let light into the house, banged shut. As he climbed the stairs Jack remembered suddenly his first day down the pit. His dad had told him what it would be like – the men squashed into the cage, the heat, the dark, the speed of descent, but he had been too dull then, too cocky, to have any imagination and the thing itself had come as a complete shock. He had come through it without showing fear and the memory that he had not let himself down in front of the other lads kept him going as he came to the top of the stairs and walked onto the landing. He was as proud and foolhardy as he had been as a boy.

He stood on the landing and pushed open the first door he came to with his boot. The moon was shining right into the room and it was light enough to see every detail, to see even to read. There were no curtains at the window. It had never been used as a bedroom. It had been, Jack thought, some kind of study. There was a big, old-fashioned desk under the window with papers scattered all over it. Jack approached the desk to see more clearly. First he picked up a small scrap of paper with Irene Hunt’s name and address written on it. It caught his attention because the address was not local and he put it into his pocket to look at later. The paper was so small that it would not be missed. He was about to sort through the larger items, which he could tell now were letters, when he heard a noise behind him and he was hit on the head. He fell unconscious to the floor.

He woke to bright torchlight and the sound of his name being called.

‘Dear me, Mr Robson,’ Ramsay said. ‘You’ll really have to take more care of yourself.’

Jack tried to sit up and was sick. Even then, through the giddiness, he saw that the desk was empty and that all the letters had disappeared.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. The loss of dignity annoyed him. He felt that the policeman was in some way to blame for his humiliation.

‘I’ve had a man keeping an eye on the place as part of his patrol. He saw that the front door was open.’ Ramsay helped Jack to his feet and into the bathroom. ‘I should ask you what you’re doing here,’ he said. ‘But that can wait for a while.’

Alone in the bathroom Jack was sick again, then washed his face and hands and felt better. Ramsay was waiting tactfully on the landing.

‘Someone hit me,’ Jack said. He was too angry to keep anything from the police now. Besides it would be impossible otherwise to explain what he was doing here. ‘Somebody bloody hit me.’

Ramsay took his arm and began to walk him slowly down the stairs.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said. ‘You can tell me about it then.’

He led Jack into the front room and sat him in a big armchair. Jack looked around him. The room seemed for some reason different. It was as if a great time had elapsed since he had been there. Only then did he realize that Ramsay must have switched on the electricity at the mains because the room was lit by a tall standard lamp with a pink shade, and the curtains were drawn.

‘I was looking at the letters on the desk upstairs,’ he said, ‘ and some bugger came up behind me and hit me on the head.’

‘Letters?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Are you sure? There are no letters on the desk now. When we searched the house after Medburn’s death there were a lot of papers in the drawers but nothing that was relevant to the inquiry. And there was nothing on top of the desk.’

‘Someone was in the house before me,’ Robson said impatiently. ‘I don’t suppose your policeman noticed that. They’d got in through the kitchen window. I opened the door with my spare key.’

‘Why didn’t you leave well alone and phone me?’ It was the policeman’s turn to sound angry. ‘Whatever possessed you to wander around playing detective?’

‘I’m the caretaker. It’s my job.’

‘Don’t be a fool, man. You must have realized it could be dangerous.’

Ramsay looked at the little man huddled in the big chair on the other side of the room and wondered if he was mad.

‘I love Kitty Medburn,’ Robson said.

The declaration sounded desperate, moving and a little ridiculous. Ramsay had the same reaction as he would have done hearing six-year-olds swearing undying love in a school playground.

‘And I don’t think she killed her husband.’

‘Why?’ Ramsay asked.

‘Because I know her. She would never do a thing like that.’ He realized that the emotional outburst would never convince the policeman and tried to calm himself. ‘Harold Medburn was a blackmailer,’ he said. ‘I know he was getting money out of Irene Hunt, and Paul Wilcox was frightened of him too. I heard Wilcox and Angela Brayshaw in the park this afternoon. Perhaps she had an affair with him before she moved on to Medburn.’ He felt suddenly weak. ‘I shouldn’t have told you about Miss Hunt,’ he said. ‘The information was given me in confidence.’

‘Away man!’ For the first time the policeman raised his voice. ‘You can’t go snooping round in a village like this without people getting hurt. If you’re right and Kitty Medburn isn’t a killer then there’s someone here who is. Do you want to protect them too?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jack Robson said. He was no longer sure of anything.

‘You’d better tell me everything you know.’

So Robson told the whole story, starting with his conversation with Kitty Medburn on the night of the party. He spoke slowly first, but then the words came easily. Ramsay was a good listener and it was a relief to tell it.

‘So your daughter’s involved in all this too?’

Jack nodded.

‘I would have thought she’d have better things to do.’

‘She wanted to come to you. I told her not to.’

‘You’d have saved yourself a bump on the head.’

‘Aye.’ Jack grinned suddenly. ‘ Perhaps it’s knocked some sense into me.’

‘I doubt it.’ It was hard not to like the man. Ramsay did not want to raise his expectations, then hurt him again. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s still most likely that Kitty killed her husband. Despite what happened tonight.’

‘Perhaps,’ Robson said. He looked directly at the policeman. ‘Did you read all those papers in the drawers upstairs?’

The policeman hesitated. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We were sure, you see, that Mrs Medburn had killed her husband.’ He paused again. ‘It was a mistake.’

‘Aye,’ Jack Robson said bitterly. ‘And now it’s too late. The letters have gone.’

There was a silence. It was the only form of apology he would receive.

‘It’s like the Heminevrin,’ Jack said suddenly. It had been on his mind, a growing grievance. ‘You’ve not bothered to find out who else could get it. You assumed it was Kitty.’

‘We’re still making inquiries,’ Ramsay said. ‘Really.’ He could not tell if Jack believed him, but it was true. Hunter had yet to find one of Kitty Medburn’s patients who was taking the syrup. ‘I’d like your help,’ he said. ‘I want you to go and see Kitty Medburn.’

‘I don’t know that she’ll see me,’ Jack said.

‘Surely she would if you’re such good friends… She must know you’re trying to help her.’

‘Why do you want me to see her?’

Ramsay chose his words carefully. ‘She’s a very self-contained woman,’ he said. ‘I find it hard to talk to her, to get through to her. Nothing seems to move her. If she did kill Harold Medburn it would be better for us all if she admitted it. It would certainly be better for her, and uncertainty places everyone under suspicion. That’s uncomfortable. It makes people frightened, as you found out tonight. She might talk more freely to you.’