A Lesson in Dying

Chapter Five

Patty persuaded Jack to spend the night with her and the family – his house would be cold, she said – but he found it hard to sleep and wished he had insisted on going home. First he was disturbed by Jennifer who refused to settle on the camp bed in her parents’ room; and when the house was quiet he thought of Kitty and the tall policeman and the people who had been Medburn’s victims. They’d be glad that Medburn was dead and would want to forget him. Jack had started the investigation with his intentions firm and starkly clear. He would save Kitty whatever the cost in reputation or inconvenience to other people. Now it seemed the thing was not so simple. If Kitty were innocent someone else must be guilty, and the unpleasantness which had surrounded Medburn during his life would continue long after he had been buried. Jack would need to discover Medburn’s secrets and would become as much an object of hatred as the headmaster had been. Yet as he lay in Jennifer’s small bed waiting for the morning a childish persistence and romanticism made him cling to his original purpose. He saw Kitty as Rapunzel, locked in a tower, and himself as the prince charged to rescue her. Then, as in the stories, they would live happily ever after.

He read until three and fell into a tense and fitful sleep. When he woke several hours later Andrew was practising the recorder and Jennifer was screaming that she must wear the pink jumper with the Care Bears on it, even if it meant disturbing Grandpa to fetch it. Patty brought him tea and told him to stay where he was, but he got up.

He preferred to be at work, where it was quieter.

‘But I need to talk to you,’ Patty said. She was burning toast. Upstairs on the landing Jim was cursing because Andrew was playing the recorder in the bathroom and he wanted to shave.

‘What were you doing in the village yesterday bothering everyone?’ she asked. ‘People are saying you’re mad.’

Jack pretended not to hear. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘ I’ll have to unlock the school to let them all in.’

‘But what do you want me to do?’ she asked.

Jack thought. ‘Talk to the vicar,’ he said. ‘He knew Medburn as well as anyone. He was always in the church. Will you do that?’

She nodded and scraped flakes of charcoal from the toast into the stainless steel sink.

‘Take care,’ she said, looking round with concern at his exhausted face. ‘When can I see you?’

‘This afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’ll be home this afternoon. You can talk to me then.’

It was the first severe frost of the autumn and in the street men were scraping ice off precious cars. Everywhere was as white as if snow had fallen and as he walked briskly along the pavement his breath came in clouds of steam. The fallen leaves which had collected water in the gutters had frozen, so they crunched as he crossed the road, and made his way into the village. He called to everyone he knew, hoping that one of them would have information about Medburn’s death, information which would lead to Kitty’s release. Outside the Northumberland Arms he paused to chat to the lollipop lady who was retrieving her sign from one of the pub’s out-houses. She stood on the edge of the pavement stamping white boots, blowing hot air into gloved hands and waiting for her first customer.

‘Back to work again today,’ he said. He hovered there, waiting for someone to approach him. ‘You could have stayed in bed yesterday.’

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I could have done. But no one bothered to tell us and I stood here for an hour wondering what had happened to the bairns.’

They laughed together and he crossed the main road away from the pub and walked up the lane towards the school. The playground was empty. He had half expected the police to be there and it was a relief. He unlocked the doors and carried crates of milk into the kitchen, then went to his room. He filled his kettle at the sink in the boys’ toilet and plugged it in. While he was waiting for it to boil he lit a cigarette. It was the same ritual he followed every morning, yet it was not the same. Everything he did seemed sharper, more urgent, more exciting. He had expected to slip gently into retirement and eventually into death. The challenge of discovering who had killed Harold Medburn was new, and he was enjoying it.

He sat with his tea by the small window and watched the teachers arrive. Miss Hunt came first, driving a red Metro. She was wearing black boots and a black woollen cape and reminded him of the pictures of witches which had been pinned to the walls of the classrooms on Hallowe’en. Immediately afterwards Matthew Carpenter walked in through the gate from the lane. He was dressed in a green parka with the hood pulled over his head, so he looked like a teenager. The teachers shouted to each other. It was something meaningless about the weather, but Jack thought they would never have done that if Medburn had been there. Then each would have scuttled into their own classroom without a word, afraid of attracting attention or censure. Everyone, it seemed, felt a sense of release after Medburn’s death.

On his way to his classroom Matthew called into Jack’s room. ‘Will you be going to the post later for Miss Hunt?’ he asked. Jack nodded. ‘Could you take this letter for my mum? I wrote it on Sunday and forgot to post it.’

Jack nodded once more and wondered again that such a normal conversation was possible.

Children began to run into the playground, followed by scolding mothers with toddlers in pushchairs. The girls formed circles, sang ‘Brown girl in the ring’ and ‘In and out the dusty bluebells’ until they were red with exertion and the circles dissolved and reformed with new members. The boys fought and tried to slide on the frosty concrete. All the children were noisy and excitable.

Patty arrived in a rush, her shaggy hair looking as if it had never seen a brush, the trousers of her tracksuit splashed with paint. She kissed the children and walked away in the direction of the vicarage. As she went she passed Paul Wilcox. He stopped her and talked so intently that he did not notice his daughter climbing out of the buggy to play with the other children until his son tugged his sleeve and pointed out her naughtiness. Jack wondered what the man was saying, and waited. Angela Brayshaw came late, holding her daughter’s hand, but not late enough to avoid the other mothers, the stares, the whispers. They had all heard the rumours Jack had spread in the village the day before.

Paul Wilcox turned away from Patty and began to walk towards the school. At first, of course, Medburn’s death had come as a great relief to him. There would be no need now to admit to Hannah that he had been unfaithful. They could work out their family problems without that pressure. There would be no more of the frightening phone calls which summoned him to come to the school, just to discuss a question of Parents’ Association policy, and were an excuse for Medburn to scare him. He arrived on those afternoons at Medburn’s office white and shaking. Medburn would lecture him on morality and virtue, then ask for money. Every time he was summoned Wilcox swore to himself that this time he would not pay, and on each occasion the demand for payment came almost as a relief because it meant that the interview was over. He was sorry when Kitty was arrested – he had nothing against Medburn’s wife – but he had himself to think of first.

On the Saturday night, after the body had been discovered he had been calm. He and Hannah had drunk tea and discussed the murder.

‘What an extraordinary thing to have happened!’ Hannah said, her eyes big. ‘Whoever would want to kill a village headmaster?’

He had agreed with her. It was extraordinary, he said.

He had slept deeply and well. Then on the Sunday morning they learned that Kitty Medburn had been arrested and he thought the whole thing would be over.

He had begun to be troubled by the idea of the letters before he heard that Jack Robson had been going round the village asking questions, claiming that Kitty Medburn was innocent, insinuating that Angela Brayshaw was somehow involved. He should have thought before about the letters. He tried to persuade himself that they would have no significance for anyone else, but he could not forget them and by the time Mrs Irving, the cleaning lady, arrived on Monday afternoon he was tense and jumpy.

He never usually minded her gossip. It was a change to have someone else to talk to. But that afternoon it was all about the murder and the fuss Jack Robson was making in the village.

‘But what can he possibly know about it?’ Paul had demanded, and realized at once that he must sound too aggressive.

‘He says he knows more than the police,’ Mrs Irving replied. ‘He’s a canny man, Councillor Robson.’

‘What nonsense.’

But as he thought about it Paul Wilcox thought that perhaps Jack Robson did know more than the police. After all he worked in the school. He would have access to Medburn’s office, perhaps even to the headmaster’s desk. There was no knowing what he might have overheard. The thought obsessed him and he could not stop brooding on it. When she came home that evening Hannah could tell that he was upset, and was sympathetic.

‘It’ll be delayed shock,’ she said. ‘You worked with Mr Medburn. You were close to him. It’s natural that you should feel like this.’

He wanted to tell her that her sympathy was misguided, that he did not deserve it, but he was too weak and frightened.

By Tuesday morning he was determined to find out how much Jack Robson knew. He could not bear the anxiety of this uncertainty. He tried to talk to Patty in the playground, but she seemed to know nothing, so when the school bell went and the playground was empty of parents and children he went to look for the caretaker.

He found Jack Robson in his room. He realized that Jack had seen him coming and was expecting him. He had left Lizzie strapped in her buggy in the playground, with a bag of sweeties to keep her quiet.

‘Come in, man,’ Jack Robson said when he tapped on the door. ‘What can I do for you?’

Wilcox did not know what to say. He stood on the threshold and his mind went blank. He started to stammer some excuse but Jack interrupted him.

‘You’ll have come about Harold Medburn,’ he said.

Wilcox was the last person Jack had expected to see. Surely his set were beyond Medburn’s power. He came from the south, he was wealthy, the chairman of the Parents’ Association. If anything Medburn should have been in awe of him. Yet here he stood, gawping like a goldfish. Jack looked at him with interest.

‘You’ll have come about Harold Medburn,’ he repeated, then taking pity on the man he added: ‘I expect you want to know why I’m so interested in the case.’

‘Yes,’ Wilcox said gratefully, ‘that’s right.’ He composed himself. ‘We must think about the reputation of the school,’ he said. ‘We don’t want any more adverse publicity than is strictly necessary. You’re a governor, you’ll understand that.’

‘And we don’t want an innocent woman to go to gaol,’ Jack said quickly.

There was a pause.

‘Do you think Kitty Medburn is innocent?’ Wilcox asked.

‘Aye.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘What makes you so interested?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Wilcox blustered. ‘I’m concerned about the school. We want the thing over quickly.’

‘Kitty Medburn is a friend of mine,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t think she could have killed him.’

Is that all? Wilcox thought, overwhelmed with relief. He doesn’t know about the letters, he has no evidence at all. He’s just a romantic fool.

Jack Robson recognized the relief and wished he had not given so much away.

‘Can I ask you some questions?’ he said. ‘As you’re here.’

‘Of course.’ There was nothing to be frightened of now.

‘You used to come to the school quite often,’ Jack said. ‘ What did you and Medburn have to talk about?’

‘Oh,’ Wilcox said. ‘General matters concerning the school. Mr Medburn was interested in getting feedback from the parents.’

That, Jack thought, was a fantasy. Medburn hadn’t given a shit what the parents thought.

But Wilcox was continuing: ‘ If you’re looking for another suspect for Mr Medburn’s murder, perhaps you should talk to young Matthew Carpenter. Did you know that the headmaster was determined to get rid of him? Mr Medburn was going to try to persuade him to resign and if that didn’t work he was going to sack him. The headmaster asked me what the parents thought of Mr Carpenter’s teaching.’

‘That’s why you came to the school last week?’

‘That, and to discuss the final arrangements for the Hallowe’en party with Miss Hunt.’

He stood up and held out his hand to Jack. He saw with satisfaction that it was steady and unshaking.

‘I’ll have to go now,’ he said, ‘ my daughter’s waiting outside.’

In the playground he took a deep breath. It was unfortunate, he thought, that he should have shifted suspicion onto young Matthew Carpenter, but he must think of his own safety. He thought he had handled things rather well. It was only later in the day that his anxiety about the letters returned and he decided that something had to be done about them.

Jack Robson watched Wilcox from the window. The information about Matthew Carpenter had been interesting, but he thought he had learned more about Wilcox himself. The man was frightened. In the school hall the children began to sing ‘All things bright and beautiful’.

The vicarage was big and ugly and had seen better days. It had been built a hundred years before at the same time as the church to serve the expanding community, though few of the men who worked in the pit worshipped there. They went every Sunday to the Methodist chapel in the village. In the churchyard were the graves of men who had lost their lives in the colliery accidents, and by drowning, and of women who had died in childbirth. Only recently, it seemed, had it become common to die of old age.

Patty walked past the tombstones on her way to the house. Brown chrysanthemums, covered in frost, lay on her mother’s grave. She wondered, briefly, where Medburn would be buried. Here, she presumed, as he was such a pillar of the church. It was a high, exposed place. The trees around the church were bent and some were bare, stripped of their leaves by the wind the previous day. As she walked along the icy path to the vicarage she noticed that there were blackbirds everywhere and that the clear air was full of their song.

She saw the vicar through his study window before she rang the bell. He was running the pages of the parish magazine off a primitive printing machine. His fingers were stained with blue ink and he turned the handle with great ferocity. He was red and flushed although there seemed to be no heating in the vicarage. Before becoming a clergyman he had been in the merchant navy, though now he seemed too thin, too quiet, too academic for a sailor. He looked to Patty no older than when he had come to Heppleburn ten years before. He was probably in his mid-forties. His arrival at the church from the south of England had coincided with a period of religious enthusiasm in her life. Perhaps he had been the cause of it. She had attended regularly, had even, for one disastrous winter, been in the choir. Like all her interests it had passed and now she only came to church when the children had some special Sunday school activity and for the Midnight Communion of Christmas Eve.

Peter Mansfield, the vicar, seemed to feel a personal responsibility for her disaffection. He seemed to regard each attendance as a possible rebirth of faith, would speak to her specially as she left the church, saying that he hoped to see her again soon. Each time he was disappointed. Now, when he let her into the draughty hall he greeted her with great affection and she felt a fraud as if she were there on false pretences.

‘How good to see you!’ he said. ‘Come in. Shall I take your coat? Or would you rather keep it on for a while.’

‘I’ll keep it,’ she said.

In the cavernous corners of the house there were competing noises and strange echoes. His wife was a music teacher and must have had an early pupil because the nerve-jangling squeal of a poorly played violin came from a room at the end of the corridor. Upstairs there was the surprising sound of a pop record.

They had taken in a lodger, the vicar said in explanation, an unmarried mother whose parents had thrown her out. As if on cue a baby started crying. He seemed to take it all for granted but to Patty the sounds were tantalizing, glimpses of a freer, more confident way of living. She wished she knew more about the household. Like the family in the old mill it had a sophistication she associated with the south.

‘Come in,’ Peter said again, taking Patty’s arm and leading her into his study. He must have seen that she was cold because he stooped and lit a small Calor gas heater.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’

‘It’s about Harold Medburn,’ she said, then stopped. She was not sure how to continue. But there had always been an element of hero worship in her relationship with Mansfield and she decided that she could trust him with the truth. ‘ My father doesn’t think that Kitty killed him,’ she said in a rush. ‘He wants to prove her innocent. He asked me to talk to you. Mr Medburn was a church warden and you must have known him very well.’

‘I see.’ He seemed surprised. He bent and warmed long, blue fingers in front of the fire to give himself time to think.

‘Perhaps you think we shouldn’t interfere,’ she said.

‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think it might be a little dangerous? It’s not a thing to be taken lightly.’

‘We’re not taking it lightly,’ she said. Then more honestly she added: ‘Well, perhaps I am. I think it’s exciting: It’s hard to be sorry that Mr Medburn’s dead. But Dad’s not playing at this. Kitty was a friend of his a long time ago, before he met my mother. I’ve never seen him so serious about anything.’

‘I don’t understand how I can help,’ Peter Mansfield said. ‘I don’t think Kitty killed her husband but I’ve no way of proving it.’

‘You could tell us about Harold Medburn,’ she said. ‘He didn’t have any other close friends. There’s no one else to ask.’

‘He was no friend of mine,’ the vicar said so sharply that Patty gazed at him in astonishment. He looked awkward. Usually he wore kindness and tolerance as part of his clerical garb. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘ I didn’t mean to be abrupt. I could never like Medburn. He made life very difficult for Julie and me when we first came. He was always prying and challenging my authority. He made Julie’s life a misery. This was my first parish and I was too inexperienced to know how to deal with him. He undermined my confidence. At one time I thought I might have to leave the Church altogether.’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘No,’ Mansfield said. ‘I suppose I realized what a sad little man he was. He was no threat to anyone.’

‘Someone saw him as a threat,’ Patty said. ‘Someone killed him.’

‘Yes,’ Mansfield said earnestly, ‘ and that’s why I find it hard to believe that the murderer is Kitty. She knew him too. She knew how weak and lonely he was. I don’t think she was ever frightened of him – he could do nothing more to hurt her.’

‘Why did they marry?’ Patty asked. ‘Did you ever find out?’

The vicar shook his head. ‘That was long before my time and I never asked. Kitty has never come to church. Perhaps they were lonely. They both seem to be outsiders. Kitty does marvellous work with the old people in the village and everyone admires her, but she had no real friends.’

‘Except my father,’ Patty said.

‘Perhaps,’ the vicar said. He paused. ‘I don’t mean to be impertinent but I’m not sure how real that friendship is. You know Jack better than me but wasn’t it a romantic memory that only returned when your father was on his own and Kitty was in trouble? I doubt whether the relationship would have survived years of marriage. She’s a destructive woman in many ways.’

Patty did not know what to say. She assumed the vicar thought she might be hurt because Jack’s affection was directed at someone other than her mother. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that she only wanted Jack to be happy.

‘It matters a lot to him,’ she said, ‘to prove that Kitty’s innocent.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it would be wiser to leave it to the police, but I can see that.’

‘Is there nothing you can tell us which would help?’ she asked.

‘Medburn enjoyed power,’ Mansfield said. ‘ It was an indication, I suppose, of his own inadequacy, but it was hard to be charitable about its consequences.’

‘Was he evil?’ she asked suddenly. It was a religious question. She might have been at confirmation class, though she would never have asked such a question of the old priest.

Mansfield seemed shocked and avoided a direct answer. ‘That sort of judgement is not for me to make,’ he said. He moved away from the fire and leant on the edge of his desk. He seemed to have come to a decision to talk to her. ‘I remember soon after I came here,’ he said, ‘a woman came into the church. She was trying to trace Irene Hunt. That seemed a matter of great importance to her. Harold was in the church at the time and I suggested that she talk to him. I didn’t know Medburn very well then, and although I was aware that Miss Hunt taught in the school I knew nothing about her. I can remember how pleased he was when I introduced the woman to him and I saw him again when she had gone. He was very smug and satisfied with himself. “What will Miss Hunt say,” he said, “when I tell her?” When I knew him better I realized that I had probably given him the opportunity of discovering something about one of his staff, something which she would probably prefer him not to know. I felt as if I had betrayed a confidence.’

‘Who was the woman?’

The vicar shook his head. ‘ I never asked,’ he said. ‘It was none of my business. But I expect that Harold found out all about her. I had the thing on my conscience for a long time afterwards. I never liked to ask Miss Hunt what came of it. Of course it’s possible that I misjudged Harold and he simply passed on the address.’

‘What was the woman like?’ Patty asked.

‘She was in her thirties,’ he said. ‘Tall and very dark. She caught my attention because she was remarkably beautiful.’

‘Have you any idea who killed him?’ she asked suddenly.

He hesitated before replying: ‘ No,’ he said. ‘ I’m sorry.’

She was not sure he would tell her anyway.

‘I think I should go now,’ Patty said. She felt awkward again, sitting there, presuming to take his time. It was too easy to take him for granted and perhaps he resented her assumption that he was prepared to talk to her. She felt that he would want something in return – an indication that she might share his faith and commitment – and that she was unwilling to give.

He must have realized that, because he smiled sadly as he let her out into the garden and he said nothing about hoping to see her in church again. He seemed almost pleased to be rid of her. As she walked away from the house she heard the sound of the printing machine thumping again, and of someone playing a scale on the violin.

By the time she walked to her father’s home the sun had melted the frost and the people she met in the street said what a beautiful day it was and that they must make the most of it before the winter came.

In the house nothing had changed since Joan had died, and very little was different from when she was a child. She opened the door with her own key and she might have been coming home after a day at school. There was the same red carpet with the pattern of flowers and leaves, the same hideous three-piece suite. The mantelshelf was crammed with the ornaments Joan had collected on her coach trips with the Mothers’ Union. There was even the same smell of furniture polish. Patty went in to clean for Jack once a week and took far more care than she did with her own housework. Otherwise he managed for himself, much better than she would ever have imagined. Before Joan’s death he had done nothing in the house. She had polished his boots, brought in the coal and added sugar to his tea. Now he cooked for himself and did his own laundry.

He was sitting in the front room by the fire, his boots off, reading a library book. Joan had liked the television but now he never watched it during the day. Patty offered to make some tea, but he put down his book and went into the kitchen to do it himself. He came back with the pot and cups on a tray and a packet of his favourite shortcake biscuits.

‘Did you go to see the vicar?’ he asked. She nodded and told the story of the mysterious woman who had come to the church looking for Irene Hunt.

‘What do you make of it?’ she asked.

‘I think Medburn was blackmailing Miss Hunt,’ he said. He remembered again what the landlady of the Northumberland Arms had said about the staff being frightened of the headmaster. His idea had been confirmed.

‘Will you talk to her?’ Patty said. ‘Miss Hunt still makes me feel like a six-year-old.’

‘I’ll talk to her,’ Jack said, ‘but not in school. She’ll give nothing away there. I’ll wait until the weekend and go to see her at home.’ He did not like to admit that he too was frightened of her.

‘What do you make of Paul Wilcox?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘ He’s pleasant enough,’ she said. ‘A bit of a wimp.’

‘He’s scared of something,’ Jack said. ‘He came to see me today to find out how much I know.’

‘He’s no murderer,’ she said. ‘He’d not have the guts.’

‘It must have been one of the Parents’ Association or the staff,’ he said. ‘Someone with access to the school. No one else could have taken Medburn’s gown from his room.’

‘So it was one of us,’ she said. She felt a sudden thrill of fear.

They drank their tea in silence. Patty would have liked to ask him about Kitty, about how he met her and how close they were, but she said nothing about Mansfield’s theory that Jack’s memory of Kitty Medburn was flawed – romanticized, distorted by his own loneliness. She was too excited by the investigation to want him to call it off now. Besides, he would never have believed her.