Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

‘I need to speak to Hannah Wilcox,’ she said. ‘She’s all alone in that great house. She needs the company.’

‘Will Ramsay be there?’

She looked at him sharply. ‘ No,’ she said. ‘No, of course not. Why should he be?’ He’s jealous, she thought, and was surprised again.

‘I don’t know,’ Jim said unhappily. ‘I thought he might have asked to meet you again. He seems to have confidence in you.’

‘He took me to the pub to ask some questions about Angela Brayshaw,’ she cried. ‘There was no more to it than that.’

‘I know.’ He was trying so hard to be understanding that he was pulling strange, strained faces, as the children did when they were constipated. She smiled and kissed him.

‘People are talking,’ he said, ‘ about you and Ramsay.’

‘Do you mind?’

Before he could answer the doorbell rang and there was Ramsay, his face gaunt and grooved through lack of sleep. Patty never found out if Jim believed that he was there by chance.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ the inspector said. ‘I was wondering if there was a chance of some coffee.’

‘I was just on my way out,’ Patty said, angry because he had put her in such an awkward position, ‘to visit Hannah Wilcox.’ Then because she wanted to boast about her initiative in applying for the job at Burnside: ‘I suppose it can wait until the morning, Jim wasn’t happy about me going out anyway.’

So Ramsay sat in the most comfortable chair in the room, with Jim glowering at him from the corner where he was marking a pile of dog-eared exercise books and Patty sitting on the floor in front of the fire.

The interviews with Matthew Carpenter and Irene Hunt had left Ramsay drained and disappointed. The hope that he would persuade Matthew to confess to the murders had left him, and he had no energy to start again. It was only as Patty told him the story of the visit to Burnside, with humour and much irrelevant detail, that his interest returned. He began to relax, to believe again that he might succeed before the pressure to remove him from the case grew too great for his superiors to resist. When he left the house it was very late and he felt refreshed as if he had slept for a long time.

Angela had enjoyed an afternoon’s window shopping in Newcastle. She had wandered through Eldon Square and down Northumberland Street and knew that the things she saw in the shop windows were within her grasp. There was no need to buy. There was pleasure enough in looking and planning and knowing the pressure of debt had been removed. Some of the stores had started to decorate the windows for Christmas and the streets were busy with well-organized women doing Christmas shopping. This year will be different, she thought. There’ll be no skimping this year, and she imagined the presents she would buy for Claire. She could afford the best food, the most expensive decorations. The day would be perfect, as the articles in the women’s magazines she read said it could be. David would be sorry he had ever left her.

She left before the shops shut. There was no hurry because Claire was going to a friend’s for tea, but Angela thought it was time to face her mother. She had parked on the quayside and sat in the car, watching the lights come on over the Tyne Bridge, thinking what she would say. The London train moved slowly across the river towards the station. She had already told her mother that she would not be working at Burnside because Medburn had left her enough money to repay the debt. She knew that she would receive a great deal. Beside his savings there was a house in Tynemouth he had bought years before in preparation for his retirement. But she had given her mother no details. She had not explained why Medburn had left her the money. Everyone else in Heppleburn knew and her mother would have heard the gossip by now. It was time to put her point of view. She drove over the cobbles through the darkening streets along the quay, past the multi-coloured brickwork of the Byker wall and along the coast towards Heppleburn.

Angela had guessed her mother might be angry about the rumours circulating in the village about herself and Medburn, but she had never seen the woman in such a state. For as long as Angela could remember, Mrs Mount had been composed and stately. There had been a few seemly tears at her husband’s funeral, the occasional outburst or irritation when one of the staff at Burnside had not followed her instructions precisely, but throughout these her control had remained intact. Now she was almost unrecognizable. She did not shout or cry, but the impression of strength and power had gone. She was vulnerable, small, weak. The whole place seemed to be in disorder. Usually tea had been served and cleared away by five o’clock, but when Angela arrived the residents were still at the table. There were remnants of the meal on plates in front of them sandwich crusts, half-eaten pieces of scone, the plain biscuits which no one had chosen – like the debris after a children’s tea party.

An old man was shouting that he needed the toilet and the staff were too harassed to go to his assistance. Angela took his arm and helped him. Surprisingly, because she knew now that this was done voluntarily, she felt no resentment at being required to help. When he was back in his chair she went to find her mother.

Mrs Mount was in her room, sitting behind her desk, and she looked tired. Angela had never seen her anything but fresh, brisk and efficient. The exhaustion made her seem more human and Angela realized suddenly how much she must have been hurt by her daughter’s refusal to work with her.

‘You must have had a busy day,’ Angela said.

Mrs Mount looked up.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘Haven’t you caused trouble enough?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Angela said. ‘I know there’ll be gossip. But it’ll soon be over and they’ll find something else to stick their nebby noses in.’

‘I’ve worked hard for this place,’ Mrs Mount said. ‘You think it was easy.’

‘No,’ Angela said. ‘I never thought that.’ But it had seemed easy for Mrs Mount who swept through the place with her smile and her dignity, seeming not to notice the loneliness, humiliation, or smell of her residents.

‘I knew what I wanted,’ Mrs Mount continued, ‘ and I did what I had to do to get it.’ She looked at her daughter. ‘Just like you and Medburn.’ It was the only time the man was mentioned throughout the conversation.

‘Why don’t you sell the place and retire?’ Angela asked. ‘You’d get a good price for it.’ But she could not imagine her mother powerless, with only herself to organize, having to cook her own meals and make her own bed. She brought me up to be spoiled and waited on too, Angela thought. For the whole of my childhood I was told I was special. Well, I am special now. The sudden insight chilled her.

‘How can I retire until I know what’s going to happen?’ The woman turned on her in anger.

‘What do you mean?’

‘There was a woman here this afternoon. She’d pretended to come about a job as care assistant, but she was here asking questions. She said you’d sent her.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Atkins.’

Angela was shocked. She supposed she should have expected it, but she had never thought Patty would have the application to see the thing through.

‘She’s Jack Robson’s daughter,’ she said. ‘You know, he’s the old man who always claimed that Kitty Medburn was innocent of the murder. She was helping him find out about it. I never sent her here.’

‘She knew too much,’ Mrs Mount said. ‘She was asking about the Heminevrin. What if Kitty Medburn talked to Robson before she died?’ She looked with desperation at her daughter. ‘ You’ll have to do something about them. I can’t have either of them talking to the police.’