Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

On the way home she called at her father’s house. She was worried about his continued depression, but she felt too that she needed his support. She had some vague hope that he would have come to terms with Kitty’s death and she would be able to share with him Hannah’s information. The hope was not realized. When Jack Robson came to the door he was clean and tidily dressed. He was polite, thanked her for calling and said he was fine, but he did not invite them in and made it clear that he wanted them to go. Nothing she could say would console him.

Jack stood at his window and watched them go with relief. He could not bear his daughter’s pity. He walked back to the mantelshelf and took down the note which Kitty Medburn had written before hanging herself from a curtain rail in the shower room at the remand centre.

He knew the words by heart but read them again.

‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ it said. ‘I could never live up to your dreams.’

Ramsay was haunted by a growing desperation and isolation. His colleagues seemed to have distanced themselves from him. He, after all, had taken the decision to arrest Kitty Medburn and there would be an inquiry into her suicide. And now, instead of covering his back, of following police procedure to the letter, he had begun to work in a way that was even more idiosyncratic and unorthodox. Those who were concerned about their own careers made their disapproval of his methods clear. It was a bad thing to be associated with failure.

In the police station at Otterbridge, in the canteen and corridors people whispered and waited for his downfall. Hunter seemed to grow in influence and stature.

Ramsay knew that others considered him a failure but was too proud, too clear-sighted about past achievements to accept their judgement. It was all added pressure though at a time in an inquiry which was always most difficult. He knew that a positive result was possible, but could not even guess who the murderer was. More than usual he felt that this case was a battle for survival. He was convinced that the answer lay in Heppleburn and was always drawn back to the school. He had become fascinated, almost obsessed, with the personality of the headmaster. There, with wilful and inconsistent autocracy, Harold Medburn had ruled. There he had been murdered. Although he had no evidence Ramsay felt that the death of Paul Wilcox was almost an irrelevance. Wilcox was a weak and ineffective man who would have no natural enemies. Unless it was the work of a lunatic, his death was an attempt by the murderer to cover his tracks. Ramsay thought that the murderer too was becoming desperate.

Medburn had been different, Ramsay thought as he parked his car in the playground, avoiding a crocodile of children returning from a nature walk. Medburn had been larger than life, a worthy victim of murder. At times, when he was almost faint with sleeplessness, he could imagine the headmaster taunting and teasing him. He knew that to be ridiculous, but the personality of the victim, his own pride and his guilt at Kitty’s suicide made this case special. He was determined to get a result.

Ramsay knew that his visits to the school had begun to irritate the staff, and as he approached the building he thought he could already sense their hostility. Jack Robson was seldom there now. Since Kitty’s death he seemed only to go to the school early in the morning and last thing at night. Occasionally Ramsay did meet him and then he was withdrawn and resentful.

There had been changes in the school. The vicar’s wife had come in as supply teacher to take Miss Hunt’s class while she was acting head teacher and the secretary, an elderly lady, had resigned with accusations and floods of tears. She had seemed to think that death, like the measles, was contagious and she could not stay there without being affected. Perhaps she was right, thought Ramsay, remembering Kitty Medburn and Paul Wilcox.

Ramsay went into the school and along the corridor to Matthew Carpenter’s room. He knew his way round now. He knocked at the door and the teacher came into the corridor to speak to him. As if I’m infectious too, Ramsay thought, and the children might catch something from me. Inside the children were painting.

‘Yes Inspector,’ Matthew said. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Just a few more questions.’ In interview the young man had always been pleasant and polite. He had already answered Ramsay’s questions about the bonfire, the children’s attempts to dress the guy as a witch. But now Ramsay wanted to ask about the rumours that Matthew had been threatened by Medburn with dismissal. He wondered if Carpenter would be so eager to discuss that.

‘Could you wait for five minutes?’ Matthew asked. ‘The children will be going home then and we can talk in peace.’

Ramsay nodded and prowled along the corridor, as if by being in the building, by walking as the headmaster had done, he would receive some inspiration about who had hated the man so much to kill him and then to dress him up in such a grotesque and undignified way. He felt he had wasted time. He had believed so strongly that Kitty had killed her husband that he had not taken sufficient notice of the other people involved while they were still shocked by Medburn’s death and might have given something away. The fingerprint and forensic tests had not helped. All the fingerprints in the school belonged to people who had a reason to be there and that only reinforced his theory that the murderer was connected with the school.

A bell rang and the children pushed into the corridor, then ran into the playground. In Matthew’s classroom the two men sat on children’s desks. Ramsay began his questions gently, retracing old ground about the bonfire, asking for the names and addresses of the children who were there. Then he began to inquire about Matthew’s relationship with Medburn.

‘You didn’t get on with Mr Medburn, did you?’ Ramsay asked.

‘We had different ideas about teaching.’

‘But he was a headmaster and you had just qualified so he was in a position to impose his ideas on you?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Isn’t it true that he didn’t think much of you as a teacher?’

‘I don’t know,’ Matthew had begun to stammer but he remained polite, quiet. ‘Perhaps I wasn’t as strong on discipline as he would have liked.’

‘I’ve heard that he was going to get you the sack.’

‘I don’t know where you could have heard that.’ Matthew’s voice was louder and he was starting to lose control. ‘You shouldn’t listen to the parents’ gossip.’

‘But you’ve been happier here since Mr Medburn died?’

‘Yes. If you’ve been talking in the village you’ll know that I’m happier now. So are all the children.’

Without a pause Ramsay changed the subject of his questions.

‘Were you drunk on the night of the Hallowe’en party?’

‘Yes!’ Matthew was almost shouting. ‘I’ve admitted that before.’

‘Why did you get drunk?’

‘I don’t know. I was lonely, unhappy, homesick. I missed my friends.’

‘Do you lose control when you’re drunk?’

‘Not enough to commit murder.’

And although Matthew was angry and frightened, nothing Ramsay could say would shake him from that. Ramsay was surprised, throughout the interview, to see Irene Hunt looking in from the corridor, watchful and protective, as if she had coached the young man in what he would say and she wanted to ensure that he was word perfect. Her presence encouraged Ramsay in the belief that Carpenter had something to hide. He began to feel happier.

Ramsay had spoken to Miss Hunt earlier in the week and the memory of that interview remained with him in perfect detail. In her bungalow she had struck him as relaxed, human. He had liked her. At school she was quite different. She had seen him in the headmaster’s office and had been as imperious and distant as Medburn himself. She had intimidated Ramsay with her sharp, honest intelligence and her refusal to compromise. And because she was a teacher of such an age and type, he admitted to himself later. As a child he had been terrified of a schoolmistress just like her. He’d had nightmares about her and dreamed she was an ogre.