A Lesson in Dying

Chapter Three

Saturday night was a bad time for murder, especially in Northumberland, where serious crime was rare. The divisional commander was at a dinner dance but was so shocked by the news of the murder that he sobered immediately. Ramsay was the only detective inspector the Otterbridge Communications Centre could contact, and he was in bed. No one knew where to find the portable generators to power the spotlights and when they were tracked down it took some time to find the keys to the storeroom. Detective Sergeant Hunter, who was supposed to be on duty, was not answering the radio. As the unfamiliar first steps of a murder inquiry were taken, Medburn’s body swung from the netball hoop, waiting for the photographer, and for the senior policemen to come to a decision about how the investigation should progress.

The commander, the superintendent from Otter-bridge and Ramsay stood in the moonlight on the frosty playground, unwilling participants in the Hallowe’en drama. The commander had been moved from the city centre division to wind down before retirement. He had been a good policeman in his day, everyone admitted, but was more adept at public relations now than catching criminals. The superintendent was a fat and idle man whose limited energies were devoted to his hobby of amateur dramatics. In the end they left it all to Ramsay. He would carry out the investigation after all.

‘Delegation,’ the superintendent muttered to himself as he walked back to his car. ‘That’s the secret of good management.’

More importantly Ramsay was unpopular and if anyone was to make a mistake it would better be him.

The inspector watched them make their excuses and scurry away. He knew better than to expect their support. He had no illusions about his work.

The commander went home to bed, to sleep off the effect of too much food and whisky, and Ramsay was left alone with the uniformed policeman who was guarding the gate to the playground. Ramsay was a tall, angular figure in a long overcoat and he waited without moving.

Later the young constable told his friends that he was more spooked by the motionless, silent figure of the inspector than by the body still wrapped in the bat-like gown. It was dawn before the civilian scene-of-crime officer arrived and Ramsay finally allowed the the body to be removed. It was dawn before Gordon Hunter, cocksure and unrepentant, turned up in a taxi.

If Kitty Medburn had not been given sedation, Ramsay would have spoken to her first and the relationship with Patty Atkins might not have become so central to the case. In the event Patty was first alphabetically on the list of suspects, and Ramsay was aware, almost immediately, that she could be useful to him. She was bright, curious, involved in the community. She spoke without thinking and wanted to please them. At first he set Gordon Hunter to charm her. Hunter was young, attractive in a brash way, appealing, Ramsay thought, to women. But as they sat in her living room, with Hunter asking the questions, Ramsay came to realize that she was performing for him. Hunter was asking the questions but when she came to answer she faced the corner where Ramsay was sitting. This came as a shock to the inspector. Since his wife had left him some months before he had avoided the company of women. He had no intention of making a fool of himself again. Yet even on that first meeting there was an understanding between the bored, disorganized housewife and the aloof, rather arrogant policeman, which would dictate the course of the investigation. They liked each other from the beginning.

‘Come on, love,’ Hunter said, smiling, showing no indication that he had spent the night drinking. ‘You knew Harold Medburn. Tell us about him. Anything would be useful.’

She had hesitated and glanced towards Ramsay who nodded in encouragement. Later her father was to ask her what she saw in Ramsay and she did not know what to say. He was middle-aged, dark, so tall he seemed to have an habitual stoop. Yet she felt from the beginning that his approval was worth having. He was a man of judgement. If he showed that he had confidence in her she would have confidence in herself. So, quite quietly, with none of her usual melodrama, she told the policemen about Medburn’s affair with Angela Brayshaw. She was rewarded by Ramsay’s smile.

She only learned later, from her father, that Kitty Medburn had been taken into custody.

Jack Robson was beside himself with fury.

In the afternoon he walked with Patty on the empty sandy beach at the end of the valley. Jim had taken the children to his mother’s and Patty had insisted that she needed fresh air.

‘I want to talk to you,’ Jack said angrily. As soon as he heard of Kitty’s arrest he had stormed to her house and banged on the door, ignoring the enjoyment of the neighbours.

‘You can talk just as well outside.’

She had not slept and her eyes felt tight with tiredness. The sea was grey despite the sunshine, and a strong east wind blew sand around their ankles and flattened the marram grass against the dunes. They walked from the car park through the dunes to the flat hard shore.

‘What did you do it for?’ he demanded. ‘Why did you have to tell the police?’

‘Why not?’ she said defensively. ‘They would have found out anyway.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘ They needn’t have done. Who was going to tell them? Not me. I’d not tell them anything. Not Angela Brayshaw. She’s too sly to get herself involved with the police.’

‘But if Kitty killed her husband,’ Patty said, stung to anger, ‘the police had to find out.’

They walked in silence. Patty had a hangover and the waves breaking on the beach echoed her thumping head. She pulled her thick padded jacket around her. She felt drained and ill.

‘You never told me,’ she said at last, sulky as a schoolgirl. ‘You never told me to keep quiet about it.’

‘You shouldn’t need telling!’ Jack said. His anger and unhappiness floated undirected over the sea. He could not really blame Patty.

He was wearing a long grey macintosh, exactly the same as the one he had bought after leaving the army, and his Sunday black shoes. He looked out of place: a Raymond Chandler detective on a Northumberland beach. All he needed was a hat. He had never enjoyed the beach. He had come there a lot with his dad when he was a boy, not playing like Patty’s children in the summer with buckets and spades, but for the fishing and to see what they could find washed up on the tide line. The water was beginning to seep into his shoes and he felt cold, though he would never admit it to her.

‘If Kitty Medburn had killed her husband,’ he said more quietly, ‘she would have told me so last night.’

‘You went to see her last night?’

He nodded. ‘I went to find out why they weren’t at the party.’

‘What did she say?’ Patty was fascinated. She still thought Kitty Medburn was a murderess. There was a ghoulish curiosity about the meeting.

‘She’d had a row with Harold. He said he was going to leave her for another woman. Then he had a phone call and he went out.’

‘What time?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Early in the evening. When she came in from work, I suppose.’

‘So she could have killed him,’ Patty said. ‘The school was empty between five o’clock and seven. The noose was made from bandages. She was a district nurse, she would have had bandages at home. The police said that. They think it was a dreadful sick joke, a way of paying him back for his infidelity.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘She might have killed him in a temper, but she would never have gone through all that charade. She would have told me when I went there that evening.’

‘How do you know?’ she demanded. ‘Why are you such an expert on Kitty Medburn’s state of mind?’

‘I used to know her.’ It was his turn to be defensive. ‘She was a friend. Before I met your mother.’

She could tell that there was little point in asking more questions about this mysterious friendship. He turned to face the sea and they watched the white shape of the Norway Line’s Jupiter move out of the mouth of the Tyne on its way to Scandinavia, the white gulls hovering over her.

‘Did the police tell you how he died?’ Jack asked. ‘They would tell me nothing.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘They say they’re waiting for the results of the post mortem.’

‘You seem to have got on very well with them,’ he said.

‘And why not? They’re not some kind of enemy.’ But as she spoke she thought she couldn’t be sure about that. There was something dangerous about the policeman who sat in the corner. It was hard to forget him.

Jack turned again towards the sea.

‘Medburn mightn’t have been a big man,’ he said. She knew he was trying to persuade himself, not her, of Kitty’s innocence. ‘But she would never have been able to carry him from the house to the playground.’

‘She could have killed him in the school,’ Patty said. She felt spiteful because of his hurtful comments. ‘That’s what the police said. Or they think she could have moved him in a wheelchair. She had one at home because of her work.’

‘He was dead when he was strung up like that?’ Jack asked sharply. ‘Did your friends from the police tell you that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. She began to sob quietly. ‘I don’t want to think about it any more. It’s too horrible.’

He put his arm around her and pulled her head onto his shoulder.

‘Now pet,’ he said, as he had when she was a baby. ‘ Don’t cry!’

They walked back to the car. He bought coffee from a van parked by the side of the road and they sat in the car looking over the dunes down to the beach.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘ I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I was worried about Kitty.’ He hesitated. ‘I was very fond of her.’

She had mopped up her tears and was looking with horror at her red, blotchy face in the car mirror. She was determined to be sensible. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing we can do to help her: We’ll have to leave it to the police now.’

‘But she’s no friends!’ he cried. ‘ No one to speak up for her.’

‘The police will get her a solicitor.’

‘It won’t be the same,’ he said. ‘ He won’t know her. I feel responsible. I should have stayed with her last night.’

‘What good would that have done?’ Patty said. ‘Medburn was already dead then.’

‘I can help her now,’ Jack said with an outrageous gallantry which left her breathless. ‘I can find out who killed Medburn.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dad!’ she said. ‘That’s a job for the police. What could we do?’

He was encouraged by the ‘we’. Joan had always supported him, even when she thought he was wrong. Independence had come hard to him and he needed Patty now.

‘We could talk to people,’ he said. ‘We know them. Where do the police come from? Otterbridge? They know nothing about Heppleburn. We know what a bastard Harold Medburn was, and we know how many people hated him.’ He looked at his daughter. ‘You could talk to Angela Brayshaw,’ he said. ‘ She’s a neighbour of yours. That would be a start. Find out what she was getting from that relationship with Medburn. She wasn’t doing it for love.’

‘Oh Dad!’ she said. ‘I don’t even like her. I wouldn’t know what to say.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ He shouted so loud that a woman walking past the car turned and stared at them. ‘You’re always telling me there’s no purpose to your life and you’re sick with boredom. Well, I’m giving you a purpose. We’re going to prove that Kitty Medburn was innocent.’

He knew that she would agree to do as he said. She would agree to anything that was different, a bit of excitement, an excuse to let the housework slide for a few days. She turned to him.

‘Are you sure,’ she said, ‘that Kitty is innocent?’

‘Of course,’ he said uncomfortably, but they both knew that there was no certainty and that the thing would probably end in embarrassment and disaster.

As she stood on Angela Brayshaw’s doorstep, dishevelled from the wind, with sand still on her boots, Patty realized that she should have gone home and changed first. Then perhaps she would not have felt at such a disadvantage. Angela was as calm and immaculate as ever. She opened the door only wide enough to see who was there.

‘Yes?’ she said distantly. ‘What can I do for you?’

Patty might have been there to borrow sugar or sell insurance. There was no recognition in Angela’s face, no indication that they had shared an experience of such horror as the discovery of Medburn’s body.

‘Can I come in?’ Patty said, stamping her feet on the path in a vain attempt to shift the sand from her boots. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’

It was already growing dark and lights were coming on in the other houses in the street. Angela could see the flickering images of colour television sets, the peering faces as neighbours, who had seen policemen call at the house earlier in the day, hoped for further excitement.

Reluctantly Angela moved aside to let Patty into the room. She was wearing a black skirt which reached to the middle of her calves and a black and white blouse. Her face was smooth, discreetly made up. She stood quite still and waited for Patty to speak.

‘Where’s Claire?’ Patty asked. The children were something they had in common. Angela’s daughter and Jennifer were friends.

‘She’s at my mother’s,’ Angela said. ‘She stayed there last night so I could be at the school. She’s better off there today. I don’t want her troubled by this unpleasantness.’

She spoke as if murder were a trivial inconvenience. Patty stood awkwardly, unsure how to go on. The room was hot and she felt suddenly flushed. Perhaps she should make some excuse about having called to see how Angela was, then leave. But she thought of her father, waiting at her home, desperate for some information which would dramatically prove the innocence of the woman Patty realized, now, she knew little about. She sat resolutely on the small grey sofa.

‘Have the police been to see you?’ she asked.

Angela looked at her, unoffended but disapproving. She wished Patty would go away. She did not want to be reminded of the police or Harold Medburn. She wanted to forget about that now. And how big and clumsy Patty was, with that shapeless old coat and long scarf! She seemed to take up all the space in the room. Yet it was impossible for Angela to cause a scene, to tell Patty that it was none of her business. She sat, tense and upright, on a chair with her back to the window.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They were here this morning.’

It had been a surprise when Ramsay and Hunter arrived and began, almost at once, to ask about her relationship with Harold Medburn. She had thought she had managed to keep the thing secret. The knowledge that the village was discussing her, grinning, as the young policeman had grinned at the thought of the two of them together, she young and beautiful, Medburn unpopular and unattractive, was worse almost than the indignity of having to answer the policeman’s questions. She had got rid of them as quickly as she could and given away as little as possible.

‘I saw you with Harold Medburn on the evening of the committee meeting,’ Patty said. ‘I told the police.’

Angela stared at Patty with expressionless blue eyes.

‘I thought it might be you,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ Patty said. ‘ It seemed important. I didn’t think until later how awkward it might be for you.’

‘No,’ Angela said bitterly, showing emotion for the first time. ‘You never do think, do you? It’s easy for you with your husband and your family and your friends in the village. That’s all you want.

You’ve got everything you need. You never think of people like me. I hate it in Heppleburn.’

It’s not all I want, Patty thought, but it was not the time to explain her problem. She had been shocked by Angela’s outburst. She felt that the woman hated her and she wanted to make things better between them. She was accustomed to being liked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘It must have been a dreadful shock when Harold Medburn died. Especially when you were so close to him.’

Angela did not reply immediately. She stared, and for a moment Patty wondered if she had said the wrong thing again. Angela thought at first that Patty might be sneering at her, laughing at her liaison with Medburn, but Patty seemed so earnest and confused that it was impossible after all to doubt her sincerity.

‘Yes,’ Angela said. ‘It was a shock.’

There was another silence. The gas fire hissed and outside the street lamps came on with a sudden orange light. In a moment of weakness, caused by her tiredness and the other woman’s sympathy, Angela felt she wanted to talk about Harold Medburn. She wanted Patty to understand about him, in a way that the police with their intimate, tasteless questions had been unable to. Since she had left school she had been without friends. Patty, with her intrusive good will, was the best she had.

‘I thought Harold could give me something different,’ she said. ‘I want more than this.’

Patty followed her gaze around the square little room. The house was smaller than her own home, but Angela had made it stylish. It seemed more spacious than it was.

‘It’s fine,’ she said encouragingly. ‘It’s big enough for the two of you.’

‘No,’ said Angela crossly, frustrated because she could not find the words to explain. ‘ I don’t just mean the house…’

She wanted to tell Patty that she aspired to a certain dignity, to a lifestyle that did not involve struggling for every penny, making do with second best.

‘I’ve not got any skills,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t go out and earn a good living. All I’ve got is the way I look and the fact that men find me attractive.’

There was a pause.

‘You mean you went with Harold Medburn for money?’ Patty asked. She could think of no tactful way of putting it. She was shocked, not by Angela’s confession, but because she had never guessed. Everyone on the estate thought that Angela led a life of great respectability.

‘I don’t usually take money,’ Angela said.

‘Oh,’ said Patty, perhaps a little disappointed.

Angela looked at her again with clear blue eyes. ‘I take other things,’ she said. ‘I take meals in good restaurants, trips to the theatre, clothes. From Harold Medburn I could have taken marriage.’

‘You would never have married him!’ Patty cried, shocked to indiscretion. ‘What could you have seen in him?’

‘Comfort,’ Angela said. ‘He had a lot of money, you know. More than you’d realize. He’d a lot saved and he’d not spend it on himself. He’d have bought me a nice house and furnished it as I wanted.’ She hesitated. ‘He loved me.’

She thought, with a vivid horror, of his leering face, his insistent pressing hands, his moist tongue, and was glad that he was dead.

‘He loved me,’ she repeated calmly. ‘He said he would leave his wife for me.’

‘Would you have married him?’ Patty asked. The thing seemed to her inconceivable, grotesque, like the fable of Beauty and the Beast.

‘I don’t know,’ Angela said. Then she seemed to reconsider. ‘No,’ she said. ‘ I don’t think I could have married him.’ But there are worse things, she thought, than marriage to Harold Medburn.

‘Did you tell him that?’

Angela shook her head. ‘ I hoped when it came to it, he wouldn’t be able to leave his wife.’

‘Last night he’d made up his mind to leave her.’

They looked at each other. Both were amazed at the ease with which Angela had confided in Patty. They felt that they had known each other for a long time and that each was being entirely honest. Yet they still disliked each other.

‘Did you phone Mr Medburn yesterday evening?’ Patty asked. ‘After we had left the school at half past four?’

‘No,’ Angela said. ‘ The police asked me that. I never phoned him at home.’

‘Were you expecting to see him at the party?’

‘Yes,’ Angela said. ‘He’d told me that he wanted to dance with me.’ She gave a slight shudder, as if she were cold. ‘I was glad,’ she said, ‘when he didn’t turn up.’

‘Do you think his wife killed him because she was jealous?’

‘I don’t know,’ Angela said. She seemed almost indifferent. ‘Who else would have done it?’

‘Nobody liked him,’ Patty said. ‘Everyone with kids at the school wanted rid of him.’ She paused. ‘Had there been any other women before you?’

‘Probably,’ Angela said. ‘He was that sort of man.’

‘Was there someone in Heppleburn?’

‘He never talked about it,’ Angela said. ‘He wanted me to think I was special, the first apart from his wife. In a way it was true. He might have had other women but I was special. He wanted me. I was the only person he was willing to spend money on. You know how mean he was. He would have done anything for me.’ She spoke in the same matter-of-fact voice but added bitterly, ‘At least, nearly anything.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘A couple of weeks ago, the night you saw us after the meeting, I asked him for a favour. He wouldn’t take me seriously.’

‘What sort of favour?’

‘Nothing important,’ Angela said. ‘It doesn’t matter now. I would probably have got my way in the end.’

But Patty had the impression that it had mattered, very much, and there was an edge of triumph in Angela’s voice which suggested that she had got the better of Harold Medburn, after all.

Outside it was beginning to get dark and the wind scattered the first brown leaves from the sycamore trees in the street. Angela stood up and pulled together the grey nylon velvet curtains. It was an indication that she wanted Patty to go, but Patty refused to take the hint.

‘Do you know who might have killed him?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Angela said. ‘ Of course not.’ Then she added maliciously, ‘You could ask Miss Hunt. She’s a nosy old cow and she never liked him.’

‘How do you know?’

Angela shrugged. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘ from some of the things he said.’ She went to a cupboard under the stairs and pulled out her coat. ‘I’ll have to go to my mother’s. She’ll be expecting me. She’s busy at weekends. None of the staff want to work on Sundays.’

‘I’d better go then,’ Patty said, but still did not stand up. She wanted to be sure that she had asked all the important questions. She knew that the opportunity would not arise again. Already Angela was speaking in her polite, distant voice, as if there had never been any intimacy between them.

‘There’s nothing else you can tell me about Mr Medburn?’ Patty said.

‘No,’ Angela said. ‘He was very secretive about a lot of his life.’

Patty stood up, buttoned her coat, wound the scarf around her neck.

‘I’ll go now,’ she said, ‘and let you get off to your mam’s.’

She waited for the other woman to open the door, but now it was Angela’s turn to hesitate.

‘Why are you asking all these questions?’ she asked. ‘What has it to do with you?’

Patty was going to say that she had no special interest, that she was only being friendly, but she thought that Angela deserved honesty too.

‘Kitty Medburn is an old friend of my father’s,’ she said. ‘He wants to prove that she’s innocent.’

Angela nodded her understanding.

‘I didn’t kill Harold,’ she said. ‘ You can tell your father that. I’m not sorry he’s dead, but I didn’t kill him.’

Then she opened the door and let Patty out into the dark street.

Patty walked home the long way, along the footpath by the burn past the old mill. She wanted to be alone to savour the exhilaration of the successful interview with Angela Brayshaw. She had achieved more than she had expected. She had never thought that Angela would speak to her so freely. There was nothing definite of course, nothing which would lead directly to Medburn’s murderer, but Patty thought that Jack would be pleased with her.

On the recreation field by the burn a huge bonfire had already been built in preparation for Firework Night. The bonfire was an annual event in Heppleburn. Patty supposed that they would bring the children to see the firework display, though now it seemed hard to imagine that life in the village would continue as normal. She certainly felt different. Her ability to persuade Angela to talk to her had given her a new confidence. She was determined, as she walked along the windy path, that she and her father would discover the identity of Harold Medburn’s murderer. She needed to succeed at something.

As she walked past the old mill she looked in and even from the road, across the garden, she could see the whole family, like toys in a doll’s house. None of the curtains were drawn. It was a sort of arrogance, Patty thought. It indicated that the family had nothing to hide, that they did not care whether or not the world knew their business. Upstairs Hannah Wilcox was working at a desk by the window. Her face was caught in the light of an anglepoise lamp, and Patty thought she had probably been working there all day. In a large room downstairs the children sat on the carpet in front of the television. The set was on, but they were not watching it. They were squabbling, fighting over a picture book. In the same room, but ignoring the quarrelling children, Paul Wilcox stood by the window and stared out into the dark garden. She hurried past and quickly turned her head away in case he should see her looking in and think she was prying.

In fact he saw nothing. The road was dark and he was deep in thought.

In the big house there seemed to be no contact between the inhabitants. The children fought out of boredom and the adults were concerned with private problems. Patty wondered how she could ever have thought that the Wilcoxes were glamorous. That evening they seemed lonely and rather pathetic. The thought that her own family life was preferable to theirs made her feel stronger, more content. She hurried home quickly to see Jim and the children and to tell her father what had happened. In the village, walking briskly away from her, she saw Ramsay. She almost ran up to him and told him what she had discovered from Angela Brayshaw, but a sense of loyalty to her father, and the thought that the policeman would find her foolish, prevented her.

Angela Brayshaw drove her Mini through the stone gateway and parked in front of Burnside, the house which she had considered her own home since she was a child. When her parents had bought it the place had been a guest house, rundown and shabby, with very few residents. It had been bought cheap. Her father had done all the building, the repair and the plumbing to turn it into her mother’s dream of a nursing home for the elderly. Uncharitable neighbours said that Mrs Mount had killed her husband with her nagging. He had worn himself out with all the work.

It was a square, angular house built of an unpleasant mustard-coloured brick. There were no trees or shrubs near the building. Mrs Mount was afraid of leaves in the drainpipes, roots in the foundations, dirt and expense.

As she locked her car Angela could hear the television. It was always turned up so loud that even the deafest of residents could hear it. She could picture the room, plain and antiseptic, the vinyl-covered chairs against each of the four walls, the silent staring faces.

Mrs Mount must have been listening for the car because as soon as Angela opened the door she was there, smooth and ageless, smelling of disinfectant and talcum powder.

‘Well,’ Mrs Mount said. ‘What’s been going on? I’ve been hearing nothing but rumours all day.’

‘Oh Mam,’ Angela said. ‘Let me in. It’s cold out here and I’m tired.’

Inside, two old people with walking frames were racing for the only vacant toilet. One was a man, tall and skeletal, with bony cheek and hands like claws. The other was a tiny woman. They jostled down the corridor, banging the paintwork with their frames. The race was in deadly earnest; neither spoke or smiled. When the woman reached the toilet first the man howled obscenities at her.

‘Not now, Mr Wilson,’ Mrs Mount said in her nanny’s voice. ‘There’s no need for such a fuss. I’m sure Miss Watkins won’t take long.’

In her triumph Miss Watkins had forgotten to close the lavatory door and they could see her sitting there, her skirt bunched around her thighs, frail legs dangling like a child’s.

‘I hear the police were at your house,’ Mrs Mount said. ‘It is true that Mr Medburn’s dead?’

Angela nodded.

‘Why did the police come to you?’

‘Because I was at the school on the night he died.’ She had been dreading these explanations.

‘Of course,’ Mrs Mount said. Her face was wrinkle-free, complacent. Inside the nursing home it was very hot and her skin glowed, as if she had completed some vigorous exercise. ‘ I’ve been hearing rumours,’ she said, ‘ about you and Mr Medburn. They can’t be true?’

‘Oh Mam,’ Angela said. ‘Of course not.’ She was twelve again, pretending to be good, pretending that it was the other girls who started nastiness, other girls who told lies.

‘Of course not,’ Mrs Mount repeated. ‘I told them: “My Angela’s no gold-digger,” I said. “She might have had financial problems, but we’ve sorted them out now. I’m dealing with her debts and she’s going to help me out in the nursing home in return.”.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘It’ll be like the old times,’ she said. ‘You and I working together again.’

‘Perhaps,’ Angela said evasively. ‘I wish you wouldn’t tell the whole of Heppleburn about my financial problems.’

Mrs Mount seemed not to have heard.

‘Come into my room,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking through those bills you gave me. I’m sure we can sort it all out. Claire’s in with the residents watching the television. They do enjoy her company.’

Mrs Mount led her into the small flowered and scented room which was part office, part parlour, where she presided over her empire. Against one wall was a piano, whose lid had never been opened in Angela’s lifetime. In a cage on a stand a budgerigar slept.

‘Margaret!’ Mrs Mount shouted and a young woman in a white overall appeared at the door. ‘Bring us some tea dear, will you.’

The woman disappeared and Mrs Mount turned to her daughter.

‘Now dear,’ she said. ‘When do you think you’ll be able to start work here? It would be easier, don’t you think, if you and Claire moved back to live.’

‘No,’ Angela said firmly. ‘ Whatever happens we’ll keep our own home.’

‘Only if the mortgage is paid, dear. You know what the building society said… I was happy to settle the arrears but that was a considerable sum even for me to find. I don’t think I’d be able to do it again.’ Mrs Mount smiled but the threat behind the words was clear. ‘ I’ve been lonely here since you married,’ she went on. ‘I would like the company.’

‘In another couple of weeks,’ Angela said, ‘I may have some money myself.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear. Whatever can you mean?’

Before Angela could answer there was a knock on the door and Margaret walked in nervously, carrying a tray.

‘Thank you, Margaret,’ said Mrs Mount, taking the tray from her, but the girl hovered in the doorway.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Mount,’ she said, ‘ but the nurse is doing Mrs Richardson’s dressing and she can’t find the bandages.’

‘They’re in the cupboard where they always are,’ Mrs Mount said, implying that Margaret or the nurse, or both, were fools.

‘I’m sorry,’ Margaret said. ‘They’re not. They’ve all gone.’

‘Can’t you manage for a moment by yourselves!’ Mrs Mount swept out to deal with the problem, her face still fixed in a smile. Angela sipped weak tea and waited. Her mother was soon back, shaking her head at the extravagance of her staff.

‘All gone,’ she said. ‘It’s ridiculous. There were boxes in that cupboard at the beginning of the month. Now, where were we?’

‘I was saying,’ Angela said slowly, ‘ that I might not need to work here after all. I might be able to find the money to clear all my debts.’

‘Where would you find that sort of money?’ Mrs Mount demanded. But Angela could be stubborn too and refused to say.

Anything would be better than working here, she thought. Anything would be better than bed-sores and bandages and emptying commodes. Prison would be better than that. Harold should have given me the money when I asked him. He would have given it to me in the end. He shouldn’t have been so mean.

‘I’m sorry,’ Angela said. ‘I wouldn’t be any good at this work. I’d let you down. I’m not as patient as you.’

It was as if she had bestowed sainthood on her mother. Mrs Mount beamed and simpered.

‘You’re a good girl,’ she said. ‘A very good girl. But if this money doesn’t appear you won’t have any choice.’