A Lesson in Dying (16 page)

Eventually, to their relief, Jack fell asleep, almost in mid-sentence. The incident in the school house and the excitement of his meeting with Kitty Medburn had exhausted him. Patty and Jim waited in silence for Ramsay’s return.

It was nine o’clock when the policeman finally knocked at the door. The house was quiet. The children were in bed and Jack was still sleeping. Jim sat beside her and felt awkward because there was nothing to do to help. She would not talk to him. She felt that by an effort of will she could arrange the facts so that Paul Wilcox had not been killed after all. She could persuade herself that she had made a mistake. She had seen not Paul Wilcox but a bundle of rags that had been dumped in the ditch. And if he were dead, it might be possible to convince herself that there had been an accident. He had been knocked down by a frightened driver on the grey, badly lit road. She heard the knock at the door but was so tense with the strain of these thoughts that she could not move. Jim let Ramsay into the house and the policeman walked straight into the living room as if he were a family friend.

‘I can’t stay long,’ he said in a low voice. He seemed eager not to wake Jack. ‘As you can imagine there’s a lot to do.’

‘So it was Paul Wilcox?’ Patty said. She had known all along that it was.

Ramsay nodded.

‘Was there anything I should have done?’ Patty said. ‘ Perhaps I should have tried to revive him. But I thought perhaps I shouldn’t touch him.’

And I couldn’t have done it, she thought. I couldn’t have got any closer to him. I would have been ill.

‘No,’ Ramsay said firmly. ‘There was nothing you could have done.’

He began to leave the room when suddenly Jack woke up with a start, like a character in a badly written situation comedy. It was so like comic acting that Patty wondered if he had been asleep at all.

‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘What happened?’

‘Paul Wilcox is dead,’ she said.

‘You told me that earlier,’ he said. ‘But how did he die? Was it a car accident? Or was he murdered?’

‘Mr Wilcox was murdered,’ Ramsay said reluctantly. She thought he was embarrassed as if there was something he had failed to tell them. ‘It’s too early to be certain, but it seems that he was strangled.’

‘There you are!’ Jack struggled out of his chair. He had lost all trace of fatigue. ‘You’ll have to let Kitty go now.’ He was already planning her return home. He would get champagne, the real stuff. He had never in his life drunk champagne.

Ramsay was silent for a moment, as if considering how much to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s too late for that.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jack was puzzled. ‘You know that she can’t have killed Paul Wilcox so it’s obvious that Kitty isn’t the murderer.’

‘Oh yes,’ Ramsay said. ‘That’s obvious now. I don’t believe Mrs Medburn killed her husband.’

‘Well!’ Jack was beginning to get angry. ‘When are you going to let her go?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ramsay repeated. ‘ I’ve got some terrible news for you.’ He hesitated. ‘Mrs Medburn’s dead. She committed suicide this afternoon. She hanged herself.’

‘Why?’ Jack cried. ‘I told her I’d get her out. Why didn’t she trust me?’

He turned on Ramsay. ‘You killed her. If you’d let her go earlier she’d still be alive.’

‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘ She was never frightened of captivity.’

‘Then what was going on? What were they doing to her in that place?’

‘Nothing.’ Ramsay spoke gently. ‘She left a note for you. Perhaps you’ll understand then. She was afraid, I think, of being released.’

After Kitty Medburn’s suicide Ramsay, according to his colleagues lost all sense of proportion. He spent all day and most of the night in Heppleburn and if he slept at all it was in the chair in his office.

‘It’s the divorce,’ Hunter said. ‘It’s finally caught up with him. That and guilt because the old lady killed herself.’

Hunter, who had always wanted an inspector’s salary, watched Ramsay’s slow disintegration with satisfaction, and took as little part as possible in the inquiry. So Ramsay ran the investigation almost alone and made up his own rules as he went along. He felt he had nothing to lose.

Monday, the day after the second murder, Angela Brayshaw received the letter for which she had been waiting. It had been posted on the preceding Thursday and had been unaccountably delayed in the post. If it had arrived on time, she thought, she would have been saved a troublesome and unpleasant weekend. The letter was from Harold Medburn’s solicitors and informed her that she was the sole beneficiary of his estate. She wondered briefly how her mother would take the news.

Jim had offered to stay at home with Patty. She was touched by his concern but sent him to work. She preferred to be alone. Besides, she felt that only the normal domestic routine would prevent her from dissolving into panic. There was nothing to prevent her following the usual pattern. Jack had insisted on going home the night before. They were worried about him – he seemed so blank and withdrawn – and they had not wanted to let him go, but Patty could understand that he needed to be alone and it was a relief to have him out of the house. So she tried to put the horror of the day before from her mind. Surprisingly she had dreamed not about Paul Wilcox, but about Ramsay. In normal times she might have been concerned by this obsession with a stranger, by the dreams, the excitement. She always considered herself happily married and avoided contacts which might make her dissatisfied with Jim. Now, with her security shattered anything seemed possible and she clung to the image of Ramsay, as if he alone could make her happy again. From the beginning she had been attracted by him. It seemed now he was the only man strong enough to set her world to rights.

That morning she got up a little early. She was calmer and more efficient than she might otherwise have been on a Monday. She even had time to wash the breakfast dishes and make the beds before walking the children to school. They too were quiet and subdued.

The playground was crowded with parents. Even the careless mothers, the slatterns, who usually stood on the doorstep unwashed and undressed, to wave their children out alone, were there this morning. They would have heard of the murder. Patty was aware of stares and whispers. They would have heard too that she had found the body. Patty stood alone and waited until Andrew and Jennifer were safely in the school.

When she got home Ramsay was sitting in his car outside her house. He saw her approaching and got out to stand on the pavement. He might have been a lover impatient to take her into his arms. It would have been warmer, she thought, to wait in the car. The fog had lasted all night, but now, as she walked down the road towards him the sun broke through the mist. It was a hazy globe above his head.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.

‘One of your men came last night and took a statement.’

She could not make polite conversation with him; She wanted to be honest but she was not sure what he wanted. It would be easier if he went, then she could resume the ritual of the day.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s not that. I need your help.’

‘Do you want to come in?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you out. Where shall we go?’

She thought of the previous day, of the children’s appeal: can’t we take the car and go to Whitley Bay? ‘Let’s go to Whitley,’ she said. It represented safety, the time before the walk up the gloomy lane, the possibility of fun.

‘Why not?’ he said.

It was a big car and he seemed to drive off very fast. There was something reckless and exhilarating about driving to the coast beside an attractive man and she thought again that the old rules of her life no longer applied. He pushed in a cassette which played loud music – opera, she thought. It was hot in the car and she found it hard to breathe. He smelled of pipe tobacco and leather.

A scattering of old ladies were walking dogs on the links, but the beach was almost empty. The mist had disappeared and there was a soft breeze from the southwest. It was like an early spring day. He opened the car door for her with a flourish and they walked along the promenade towards Cullercoats. On the other side of the road there were chip shops, amusement arcades. In the sunshine they seemed less sleazy and dismal than usual. They were jolly, with a fifties innocence. The light was clear and reflected on the wet, ridged sand and the retreating tide. Everything was clean and bright. She saw it all very sharply.

He ran across the road to buy her an ice cream and returned with a huge multi-coloured cornet. It seemed to her a frivolous gesture. She felt the morning had a great significance and wished he would take it more seriously.

‘Aren’t you busy?’ she said. She thought he was being irresponsible. Surely he should be working. There was a murderer in Heppleburn and he was enjoying a jaunt to the seaside. She did not recognize his desperation.

‘I thought you would like ice cream,’ he said. ‘But perhaps you would have preferred the candy floss.’

She held the ice cream awkwardly. It dribbled down the cone and onto her fingers. ‘I don’t want to take up your time,’ she said. She wanted him to say that although his time was valuable he would give it to her.

‘It helps me to get away from it for a while,’ he said. ‘I’ve not had much sleep.’

They walked on until they came to a seat looking out over the beach, and sat there. A woman in jeans and sweater was pushing an old lady in a wheelchair along the promenade. They were laughing together over some joke.

‘How can I help you?’ Patty asked. It was what he had been waiting for and he answered immediately.

‘Give me your time,’ he said, ‘and your local knowledge. Listen to what’s going on in the village and tell me what you find out. I was sure Kitty Medburn killed her husband. Of course I was wrong and I have to start from the beginning again. You and your father discovered more by poking around the village than I ever will. I had a long talk to Jack on Saturday night and I was impressed. Jack’s no good to me now. He’s distraught. He’ll blame himself for Kitty’s death. Besides, he’s lost his incentive. He doesn’t care who the murderer is.’

‘I’ve no incentive,’ she said.

‘But you’ll help,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘ You
will
help.’

‘I’m not easily bribed,’ she said, to give herself time to think. ‘I’ll want more than an ice cream cornet.’ She knew she would do anything he asked her.

‘You’ll have your village back,’ he said. ‘When the murderer’s found, it’ll belong to you again.’

She looked up suddenly, amazed and flattered because he understood so well. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Later she thought he must have enchanted her because she agreed so readily to his plans. Perhaps the shock of finding Paul Wilcox’s body had left her weak and impressionable. Perhaps it was because she had been attracted to him from the first time they met, in her front room, after Medburn’s murder. She knew she was being manipulated but could do nothing about it. He smiled at her, as if she had lived up to all his expectations.

‘What you’ve been doing all along,’ he said. ‘ Listen. You’re a good listener. You persuaded Angela Brayshaw to talk to you about Harold Medburn. Talk to her again. Medbum left her all his money in his will. Did she tell you that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘She didn’t mention it. Perhaps Harold hadn’t told her that he was making a will in her favour.’

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps she’s cleverer than we realize.’ He turned away from her and she quickly dropped the remainder of the ice cream into a litter bin and wiped her face with a handkerchief.

‘Did your father tell you that Medburn was drugged before he died?’ he asked.

‘It was in the papers,’ she said.

‘He was drugged with Heminevrin, a medicine used in the care of old people. It’s a controlled drug. I need to know who would have access to it.’

‘Angela Brayshaw’s mother runs an old people’s home.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been there. She’s giving nothing away.’

‘Paul Wilcox used to be a nurse,’ she said, trying to be helpful.

‘Did he? That’s hardly relevant now.’

‘Should you be telling me all this?’ Patty said helplessly. It seemed a terrible responsibility. ‘Isn’t it confidential? It doesn’t seem right to discuss the case with me.’

‘I trust you,’ he said. It sounded better than confessing that he was making up his own rules for the investigation. ‘I need a result soon. The press is already having a field day about Kitty’s suicide. They’re blaming the police for her death of course. They have a point. I made a mistake. I should never have arrested her.’

She wanted to console him, to tell him that she did not blame him, but he wanted more than that. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can be much use.’

She hesitated. ‘Have you been to see Hannah Wilcox?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I suppose she’ll be going home to her parents.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘ I don’t think so. She told me she wanted to stay at the old mill. She thought it would be better for the children.’

‘But she must be so lonely!’ Patty cried.

‘Perhaps you should visit her,’ the policeman suggested smoothly.

‘She needs friends now. And she’ll probably find it easier to talk to you than me.’

‘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.