Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

‘Didn’t you mind that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘There are different kinds of meanness.’

‘Did it not occur to you that people were frightened of him?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I was never scared of him. I knew he wasn’t well liked.’

‘Harold was drugged with Heminevrin before he was strangled,’ Jack said. ‘Did the police tell you that?’

She nodded. ‘ They asked me where I got it.’

‘Have you collected a prescription for Heminevrin for a patient recently?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but I had access to it. I helped out at Mrs Mount’s nursing home the weekend before Harold died and they have it there to calm some of the old people.’

‘Did you tell the police that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten. But I’ll tell them when they come again. I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘Have you no idea who phoned him on the night of the murder?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I presumed it was his mistress. I didn’t ask.’

She looked at him with affection and amusement. He felt so happy he could sing. ‘I’m not a lot of help, am I?’ she said.

‘Why did you marry him?’ he asked suddenly. It had nothing to do with the investigation. He was desperate to know.

‘I thought it would work,’ she said. ‘I thought we would suit each other. It did work in a way. He gave me privacy. That was important. And security.’

‘I would have married you,’ he cried. ‘ You know I would have married you.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I knew that.’

‘I’ve so many dreams,’ he said. ‘Just wait until you come home. We’re so lucky to have found each other after all these years…’

She might have answered but the prison officer came in carrying two thick white cups three-quarters full of dark brown tea.

‘I’ve put sugar in,’ the young woman said. ‘ I thought you’d take sugar.’

She set the cups on the table and turned away, a dark plait swinging behind her, keys clanking at her side. The interruption threw Jack. The intimacy was suddenly lost. Perhaps he had presumed too much. The awkwardness between them had returned. Kitty seemed to withdraw into her own thoughts. She drank tea in silence. Her tears had dried on her cheeks. He coughed and she looked up sharply as if she had forgotten that he was still there.

‘I think you should go,’ she said. ‘There are rules about visiting.’

‘Of course,’ he said. He stood up. He did not know if the door would be locked and what he should do to attract the prison officer’s attention. ‘Shall I come and see you again?’ he asked.

‘Not here,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re quite right. This isn’t a good place to talk. We need time together. You’ll be home soon.’

He wanted to lean over and kiss her smooth cheek, but the prison officer outside had seen that he was standing and had the door open. So he left the room without touching Kitty at all.

‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you soon. You can depend on me.’

He was a proud, fierce little man, shorter than the woman who patiently held the door for him. Kitty remained sitting. She said nothing but she smiled at him.

Ramsay, waiting in the car, found Jack altered. He thought at first Kitty Medburn had confessed to the murder and it would all be over.

‘What did she say?’ he asked. He made no move to drive away.

‘She didn’t kill him,’ Robson said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s a truthful woman and she told me straight out.’ He looked at Ramsay. ‘She shouldn’t be in a place like that,’ he said. ‘ It’s made her hard.’

‘Did she tell you anything else?’

‘Aye. She had access to that Heminevrin. They use it in Mrs Mount’s old people’s home, and she helped out there at weekends. I’m not betraying any confidence by telling you. She would have told you herself.’

Ramsay looked at the old man with sympathy. Don’t get so involved, he wanted to say. That sort of infatuation is always destructive. I know. I loved Diana. The only way to survive is to stay detached. But he said only:

‘Was she pleased to see you?’

Jack Robson flushed. ‘ Of course she was,’ he said too loudly. ‘We’ve always been friends.’ As Ramsay started the engine, he added: ‘Will you let her go?’

‘No,’ the inspector said. ‘ I can’t do that. But I’ll not close the case. Not yet.’

Patty Atkins felt angry and excluded for most of the day. When Kitty Medburn was arrested her father had asked for her help. They had become in a sense partners. Yet with a monumental folly and arrogance, without consulting her, he had wandered alone into the school house and been knocked unconscious. When Ramsay had helped him home the night before it had been as if Jack and the policeman were partners and she were fit for nothing better than making the tea. They told her nothing. She found out about the dummy dressed in the witch’s costume, the possibility that there were two intruders, one who had been in the school house when Jack had arrived and another who had followed him in, only by listening to their conversation. Mixed with anger there was guilt. She should have taken more care of her father. What would Ramsay think? That she was irresponsible and incompetent. It had come to matter a great deal what Ramsay thought.

On the Sunday morning her irritation persisted. Her father told her that Ramsay planned to arrange a visit for him to the remand centre but gave her no details. He wanted to go to the club with Jim for his usual Sunday morning drink, but she expressed her disapproval of the idea with a ferocity that surprised them both.

‘I’m not spending all morning cooking a roast dinner only to have the pair of you too drunk to know what you’re eating.’

They realized that she was upset, and surrendered without a fight. After all she never usually made a fuss about the club. They hung about the house, subdued and bored, until late morning when Jack said he had to go for a walk.

‘Not far,’ he said. ‘I’ll not go near the club. Just to the paper shop and back to stretch my legs.’

In fact he was gone for an hour, and she was beginning to become concerned. He arrived just as she was setting the meal on the table.

‘Just as well you’re back,’ she said. ‘It would have gone in the bin.’

Then the doorbell rang and Ramsay was standing there, tall and beautiful and apologetic.

‘I’ve come to see your father,’ he said. ‘It’s an awkward time. I’m sorry.’

‘Have you eaten?’ she asked. ‘There’s plenty.’ Jack and her husband looked on with resentment. Why was she so pleasant to the policeman when she had been so unreasonably bad-tempered with them?

‘Are you sure?’ Ramsay asked. ‘You’re very kind.’

‘Wait till you’ve tasted it before you say that,’ Jack said spitefully. ‘Our Patty’s never been much of a cook.’

Ramsay sat at the table in a space squeezed between the children and ate everything put before him. He seemed not to mind that the beef was not as tender as it might have been or that the sprouts had begun to disintegrate. He liked his vegetables well-cooked, he said. And not to worry that the Yorkshire puddings were stuck to the pan. It was the taste that mattered. At the end of the meal he said he had not enjoyed such a good Sunday dinner since his mother had died. She felt such a glow of pleasure and gratitude that she hardly noticed when he took her father away without explaining why or where they were going.

It was not until the dishes had been washed that she realized she had been flattered into releasing her father without asking questions. Ramsay was a clever man. She did not blame him, only her own vanity and gullibility. Her anger returned.