Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

‘You want me to interview her for you?’

‘Of course not,’ he said. The disapproval was assumed. ‘Not that. But if you did discover anything relevant to the inquiry you’d have a duty to tell me.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I see.’ She did not have the strength to argue with him, but realized that she had been used again. She had been trapped, not this time by flattering words, but by a ride in a fast car, the sunshine and his attention. It made no difference to how she felt about him. They went back to Heppleburn in silence.

Early the next afternoon Patty called at the old mill. Hannah was alone. Joe was at school and Lizzie, the baby, was upstairs in bed. Hannah was sitting in the window, in the same chair as when Patty had seen her on the day of Paul’s death. She must have seen Patty walking through the trees but she did not move. Perhaps she hoped Patty would see her lack of response as rejection and turn away. But Patty continued up the gravel path and knocked at the back door. There was a long pause and she could hear the burn beyond the garden. There was no sound within the house and she was about to go away when the door opened. Hannah was flushed and her eyes were very bright as if she were feverish.

‘Come in,’ she said quickly. All her movements were violent and jerky. ‘Do come in.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Patty said. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t interfere. But I thought there might be something I could do.’

Patty knew she would never endure even a lesser crisis alone, in a strange part of the country without the support of her family and friends. Hannah seemed not to be listening. Throughout the conversation she was restless, nervous, and Patty had the impression that this was only an intensification of her usual state.

‘If you’d prefer to be alone,’ Patty said, ‘just tell me and I’ll go away.’

‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘It was kind of you to come. I must seem very rude.’ She opened the door wide. ‘ Would you like some tea? I expect you would.’

She switched taps full on and filled a kettle. There was a pile of dishes in the sink and she began to wash two mugs, then gave up and took clean ones from hooks on the wall. She banged open cupboards and drawers with a random frenzy.

‘I don’t know where Paul put the tea,’ she said helplessly. ‘I’m not here much and he saw to all that.’

Patty found the tea in a caddy on the work top. There was milk in the fridge. She had never been in the old mill and was reassured by the domestic clutter. Hannah Wilcox was not very different from her after all.

They took the tea into the long living room. It smelled fusty, of stale smoke, and Patty wished she could open a window. The Sunday papers were still lying open on a coffee table. There was a dirty mug and a plate with a half-eaten piece of toast on the window sill. Hannah kicked open the door of a big wood-burning stove and threw on more logs.

‘I feel so cold,’ she said. ‘I can’t seem to get warm.’

‘It’ll be the shock.’

‘I suppose it is.’ Hannah looked at Patty. ‘You found his body, didn’t you? That must have been a shock too.’ She walked backwards and forwards in front of the stove then sat on the hearth rug and stared at Patty, waiting for an answer.

‘It was.’

‘Did you know Paul well?’

‘Not well. Only through the Parents’ Association. But I liked him. I thought he was brave. It can’t have been easy for him staying at home with the children. My husband would never manage it.’

‘No, I never realized how hard he found it, not until it was too late.’ Hannah paused. ‘Would you mind if I talked to you about him? I’ve no-one else to talk to. My mother wants to come and look after me but I can’t stand the thought of anyone staying in the house. I haven’t seen anyone since the policewoman went. Except the children. Mrs Irving will pick Joe up from school for me but she won’t stay.’

‘Of course,’ Patty said. She remembered that Ramsay had said she was a good listener. It was nice, she thought bitterly, to be considered good at something.

Hannah was curled up on the rug. She seemed to have shrunk, to be no bigger than a child. She wore large round spectacles which covered most of her face. She was very dark – dark-haired, olive-skinned, exotic. Then she jumped up and lit a cigarette. Patty wished she would sit still.

‘Paul wanted me to give up smoking,’ she said, ‘but I could never manage it.’ She seemed to Patty to have enormous energy. Patty thought she would always be dissatisfied, looking forward to new plans, a new challenge.

‘Did you know Paul had a lover?’ she asked suddenly. Patty was shocked, a little embarrassed.

‘No,’ she said awkwardly, ‘I had no idea. He always seemed so happy.’ It seemed tactless to mention that Jack had seen Paul and Angela together on the night of the bonfire.

‘He thought I didn’t know,’ Hannah said, and she wandered off again to fetch an ashtray.

‘But you found out?’

‘I guessed,’ she said. ‘Paul was an innocent. I could tell he was guilty about something. Then I thought it must be over.’

‘You didn’t ask him?’ Patty imagined the scenes there would be in their house if she suspected Jim of infidelity. She would never pretend that nothing was wrong. There would be thrown plates, shouting, tears.

‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘I didn’t ask him. Perhaps I didn’t want to know. It would have been a reflection on our marriage. I couldn’t afford to give it any more time.’ She looked at Patty with dry, angry eyes. ‘ Now I would give all the time in the world to have him back.’

She began to pace again and to talk, as if movement and speech were some relief.

‘He’d written poetry to her,’ Hannah said. ‘I never found out until the morning he died. He’d written poetry to her and the cow had given the poems to Harold Medburn. Medburn blackmailed Paul. He was frightened that I’d find out, that I might leave him, as if I hadn’t in a way left him already.’

‘When did you find out about this?’

‘The morning of the day he died. Sunday morning.’ She began to speak more quickly, a stream of words, part confession of her own responsibility, part a terrible reliving of the hours and days before her husband’s death.

‘We all went to the bonfire on the recreation ground on Saturday evening,’ she said. ‘I could tell that something had been worrying him all day. He took the children to the swings in the afternoon and came home in a furious temper. We had a row about the bonfire. He didn’t want to come with us, but I persuaded him. It would be fun, I said. The children would enjoy it. We went to the recreation ground together but early in the evening he disappeared. He didn’t tell me he was going home or that he was feeling ill. He just vanished. I didn’t think too much of it. He was in a bad mood and wanted to be on his own. I expected him to be at home when we returned, but the house was empty. I started to be worried, but I got the children ready for bed, and soon after he came in. He was in a terrible state. He poured himself a drink and his hands were shaking so much that he spilled it. I asked him to tell me what was the matter. Whatever it was, we could sort it out together. He said he’d done something terrible, despicable. I told him I didn’t care and I’d love him just the same. But he wouldn’t talk to me. He went straight to bed and I could feel him lying beside me, rigid and wide awake. He was cold. He’d had a shock too, you see.

‘In the middle of the night he thought I was asleep. He got out of bed and came downstairs. I was worried and followed him down. I didn’t mean to pry on him, but I thought he’d feel better if he could share whatever was troubling him. He was standing here in front of the stove, holding a pile of papers. I thought they were letters. He was tearing them into little pieces and throwing them on the fire.’ She paused for breath, took off her glasses and rubbed them with the hem of her jersey. Without her spectacles Patty could see that the skin around her eyes was tight and strained. ‘I thought he would be angry,’ she continued, ‘ because I’d followed him. I would have been. But I think he was glad. It showed at least that I cared. We sat up all night talking. He told me what had happened.’