A Lesson in Dying

Chapter Six

Every day the local newspapers were full of the news of Medburn’s murder and it was from the newspaper that Jack learned Kitty had been to court. There was even a film of her on the early evening television news, huddled among a crowd of policemen with a coat over her head, but he was too upset then to listen to the commentary. From the newspaper he learned that she had been charged with murder and remanded in custody to await trial. He was distressed by the news, by the huge headlines which talked about the WITCHES’ NIGHT MURDER and which encouraged the readers to speculate that Kitty must have killed her husband by supernatural means. The media had been given no details of the method and circumstances of the murder, and the scarcity of information had led journalists into the realms of horror fiction. Jack would have liked to be in the court to give her comfort, so that she would have seen at least one friendly face, but despite his new experience in the council chamber he felt he was excluded completely from the criminal justice process. He did not know even if he would have been allowed to attend. He did not understand the terms used in the newspaper report. Was a remand centre the same as a prison? What did it mean that no plea was taken? He felt he was no use to her. She was being damned as a witch and there was nothing he could do.

It was a week after Harold Medburn’s death, and he caught a bus to see Irene Hunt. Patty offered to drive him in the car but he decided to go alone. The conversation with Miss Hunt would need tact and Patty had precious little of that. The weather was still clear and sunny, but it was cold and the days were so short now that it was dark by late afternoon. He did not warn Miss Hunt of his visit. If she were not there he would wait for her. The newspaper reports of Kitty’s ordeal had given him a sort of desperation.

The bus dropped him at Nellington, a small village with a pub and several houses and the grey scars of an open-cast mine. It was two o’clock when he climbed off the bus and he was tempted to go into the pub for a drink before he approached her, but he decided against it and began the walk down the lane to the bungalow.

Irene Hunt saw him coming – he was a slight, upright figure in a macintosh which was too long for him – and recognized him at once. She thought at first he was there to tell her that Matthew Carpenter had got himself into another scrape, then realized that was ridiculous. She was irritated by the unwanted company. If there was some problem at school, why had the man not phoned? She had thought the bungalow was secluded enough to protect her from this kind of intrusion. She did not want to appear too welcoming, and waited until he knocked at the door before going to open it.

In the farmyard it was unusually quiet. There were no dogs, no farm machinery. The farmhouse was so rundown that Jack thought it must be empty, then he saw that there was washing on the line. There were long discoloured bloomers, tent-like nightdresses and grey sheets. Jack found the silence and the space unnerving. He was aware of the vast sweep of the countryside behind him. It gave him a sense of vertigo. He wished Miss Hunt would let him in. He would feel more at ease in the small rooms of the bungalow.

‘Mr Robson,’ she said haughtily, feigning surprise. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. He moved inside the porch and felt happier, sheltered from the space outside. ‘It’s a private matter,’ he said more confidently. ‘I didn’t want to discuss it at school.’

She still would not let him into the house. ‘If you have any problems about work,’ she said, ‘it would be much better, don’t you think, to discuss them on Monday morning?’

‘I don’t have any problem,’ he said. He was confused by her attitude. Previously he had always found her so helpful and understanding. Perhaps the power of running the school has gone to her head, he thought.

‘It’s about Mr Medburn,’ he said. ‘I think you know more about him than you’ve told the police.’

Without a word she stood aside and let him in.

She took him into the kitchen and he chose a chair with his back to the sea. He felt safer that way. She must have been shopping because there was a cardboard box waiting to be unpacked on the table. She thought he might at least have waited to be invited to sit down and she remained standing, looking down at him, to make the point. He felt her hostility and realized that her privacy was important to her. Perhaps after all it would have been better to talk to her at school.

‘Have you seen the newspapers?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Poor Kitty Medburn,’ she said. ‘They’re making her out to be some kind of monster.’

He felt in his pocket for the comforting packet of cigarettes, but realized it would not do to light one.

‘I don’t think she killed Medburn,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t that sort of coward.’

Irene Hunt raised her eyebrows. ‘I think we would all have been capable of killing Harold Medburn,’ she said.

‘Was he blackmailing you?’

There, he thought, and I meant to be tactful.

She did not answer directly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said coldly. ‘I don’t understand what business this is of yours.’

‘Kitty Medburn’s a friend,’ he said. ‘I’m going to prove that she’s innocent.’

He thought for a moment that she was going to laugh. After all, who could blame her? He was a school caretaker, a retired miner with no education or skill. But she did not laugh. She turned away from him and filled a kettle with water.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to leave it to the police?’ she asked.

‘The police think Kitty killed him.’

Her back was still turned to him. She spooned tea into a pot.

‘Was he blackmailing you?’ Jack asked more gently.

‘Yes,’ she said. She sat slowly in a chair by the table. Her face was blank with thought.

‘There was a woman who came to the church looking for you,’ he said. ‘Did that have something to do with it?’

She looked up suddenly, surprised, impressed perhaps that he had found out so much. She nodded.

‘That was my daughter,’ she said. ‘My illegitimate daughter. She was born while I was still very young. I was seventeen. My parents persuaded me to place her for adoption. Then an act was passed which allowed adopted children to trace their natural mothers. Anne came to Heppleburn to look for me. She went to the church. I suppose she thought she could go there with confidence. And she met Harold Medburn.’

‘Would it have been so dreadful,’ Jack asked, ‘if people knew that you had an illegitimate child?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. Not at that time. It would have been awkward and unpleasant but not so dreadful. I could have dealt with that. But he wasn’t threatening me. He was threatening that he would tell Anne’s family. Her husband hadn’t wanted her to look for me. I’m not sure why. Perhaps he thought I must be a wicked woman who would bring depravity and destruction into his happy home. She had come to Heppleburn against his wishes and without his knowledge. The marriage wasn’t a happy one but she was determined to sustain it because of the children. She confided all this to Harold Medburn on her first visit to the church. He told me that he would inform her husband that she had found me unless I paid him.’ She looked seriously at Jack. ‘I had betrayed my daughter once,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do it again.’

‘And you’ve been paying him ever since?’

She nodded, and gave a sad, unnatural laugh. ‘Do you know what’s so ironic?’ she said. ‘ There would have been no need to pay him any more. She had decided to separate from her husband. Her children have grown up so she doesn’t feel the need to pretend any longer. I’d decided that I’d made my last payment and then he died. I missed the satisfaction of telling him he wouldn’t get more money from me.’

He knew she would want no sympathy.

‘Can I speak to your daughter?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘ I’ll not have her involved in this. You’ll have to trust that what I’ve told you is true.’

Jack tried to remember when Miss Hunt had first come to the school. The village had been more isolated then and he thought it must have been a big event, the arrival of an attractive young woman. He could not picture her, but could remember the gossip that surrounded her, the excitement she had generated. She had spoken differently from them. In post-war austerity her clothes had been expensive, the envy of all the local women.

‘You aren’t local,’ he said. ‘ You didn’t come from the north-east.’

‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘ My parents banished me from the civilized world.’

‘Who was the father of your child?’

He realized at once that he had made a mistake. She was white with anger. ‘ That’s an impertinance!’ she cried. He was a child again, reprimanded for a rudeness he had never intended. ‘The father of my child has no relevance to this. He would never be mixed up with anything so sordid.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He longed to take a cigarette from the packet in his coat pocket, but was afraid of provoking her to more anger. He saw then that she had begun to cry.

‘I loved him,’ she said. ‘There hasn’t been a day for forty years when I’ve not thought about him.’

How sad, he thought, how pathetic to be so obsessed with the past.

‘Then you’ll understand,’ he said, ‘ why I need to help Kitty.’

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I suppose I understand.’

She stood up briskly and dried her eyes on a large white handkerchief. She brought a teapot and two mugs to the table. The admission that they had something important in common encouraged him. He took it for granted now that she would help him. She unpacked the brown cardboard box of shopping until she found a fruit cake. She cut two slices and handed one to him on a brown earthenware plate.

‘When I first came to Heppleburn I tried to make friends with Kitty Medburn,’ she said. ‘Harold was assistant master at the school then and we were a similar age. But she seemed suspicious of me. She made it clear that I wasn’t welcome in their home. I found it hurtful. Everything here was so strange and I felt completely alone.’

‘That would have been Harold,’ he said. ‘Kitty wouldn’t have meant to be unkind.’

‘Perhaps.’

He wanted to make the most of her new cooperation and refused to be distracted by her memories.

‘Did you go into Medburn’s room on Saturday afternoon?’ he asked.

She thought. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I needed more Sello-tape to put up the decorations. He always kept a hoard in his desk.’

‘Did you see the gown there?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The police have asked me that and I can’t remember.’

‘Did you notice if anyone else went into the office?’

She shook her head. ‘How was he killed?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I don’t understand what happened.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said helplessly.

‘Why don’t you ask Ramsay?’

‘I don’t like to.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ she said, turning into a teacher again. ‘You won’t get Kitty free with that attitude.’

‘I don’t think I’m very good at this,’ he said. ‘ Perhaps I should leave it to the police after all.’

‘Don’t give up,’ she said. She felt sorry for him. She had never realized before how sensitive he was. He had been a little man in a brown overall who mended the school’s central heating. But she could not believe that his investigation would produce a result.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive you to the bus stop.’

She led him out to the farmyard. A small boy with a dog was driving cows in to be milked. The sun was a big orange ball low over the Cheviots. She drove him to the main road and left him, stranded in the countryside, in the magic orange light.

Angela Brayshaw had planned her day meticulously. It was the only way she could live. She was frightened by chaos and the unexpected. She would take the bus to Whitley Bay to shop in the morning, bake in the afternoon and later she would take her daughter to the firework display on the recreation ground. She was still in her dressing gown when Paul Wilcox telephoned. The whispered phone call, his desperate entreaty to meet her, disturbed and irritated her. It was upsetting because it was so unexpected. It had been a long time since she had been alone with Paul Wilcox. She had thought the affair was all over. In these matters she was always the passive partner. It never occurred to her to wonder if she loved. To be loved was important. To be the object of adoration was to be in a position of power. Paul Wilcox had never adored her but had seemed to need her, he had been physically attracted to her. Then his conscience had got the better of him. More recently, whenever he saw her he looked timid and ashamed.

‘I’m not sure I can see you today,’ she said. ‘ I’m very busy.’ She was irritated because she might have to rearrange her plans. Besides, she knew he would insist on meeting her.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Hannah will be out this afternoon. I was going to take the children to the park. I could meet you there, as if by chance…’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. But she was flattered by his attention and desperation. It occurred to her suddenly that he might be of some use. He could lend her money, so she could pay at least some of what she owed to her mother. She was convinced that she only had to buy time, that there would be no need now to join her mother in the old people’s home. She was already deciding which clothes to wear, what make-up to use.

In the afternoon he was at the park before her. There were more people than she had expected: dog walkers, bored teenagers, rowdy children. If Wilcox had been hoping for privacy he would be disappointed. A group of boys was hovering around the bonfire. They were as fascinated as if it were already alight and prodded it, and threw bits of wood onto the top of it. Paul Wilcox was pushing his little girl on the swing. The boy was on the climbing frame absorbed in some game of his own. As she approached she thought derisively how pathetic Wilcox was. What sort of a man was he? He allowed his wife to dominate him, to go out to work, to take all the decisions in the house. Even when he was employed he had been a nurse, which was women’s work. Harold Medburn had been more of a man than him. But perhaps now Paul had come to his senses, she thought. He had decided how much he needed her. Well, she would make him pay for his pleasure.

Paul Wilcox had been looking out for her, but pretended not to notice her until she came quite close to him.

‘Hello,’ he said. His voice was so falsely cheerful that even the child in the swing turned round to see what was wrong.

‘What a surprise,’ she said, leaning against one of the metal supports of the swing, ‘to see you here!’

Her voice was softly seductive but she found it impossible to keep the sneer from it. His reaction surprised her. She had considered him humiliated, crawling back to her to ask for her favours, but he was angry, accusing.

‘You told Harold Medburn about us,’ he said. ‘It was a despicable thing to do.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘Are you ashamed? You seemed to enjoy making love to me.’

‘Be quiet,’ he said, looking anxiously at his daughter, his anger collapsing with embarrassment.

‘I was lonely,’ he said. ‘Frustrated. You took advantage of that.’

It was her turn to pretend to righteous anger.

‘I don’t remember it that way at all,’ she said. ‘You asked me into your house for a cup of coffee after a Parents’ Association meeting. I accepted. You didn’t tell me that your wife was working away. It wasn’t my fault that I never drank the coffee.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘You’re right. I’m to blame for the mess.’

She looked at him in disgust. It was astonishing now to believe that she’d had such hopes of the relationship. He had been kind, touchingly eager to please. And he had lived in such a beautiful house. She would have done almost anything to live in a house like that. But he had never really been her type. Almost immediately after they had begun to meet regularly he had started to discuss his wife. It had irritated Angela intensely. He still loved Hannah, he said, more than anyone else in the world. What a bastard he was to carry on like this! She had hoped he would lose the romantic obsession with his wife, but it had come as no surprise when he stopped inviting her back for coffee after the meetings, stopped dropping into her home during the day when Lizzie was at the toddler group. There had been no explanation. Fortunately there had been no emotional scenes. She had taken the rejection philosophically and turned her whole attention to Harold Medburn.

‘You didn’t tell me it was supposed to be a secret,’ she said, trying to provoke him to anger again.

‘I thought it was obvious!’

There was a silence. ‘Let’s not argue,’ she said then. She stood close beside him and touched his arm. The attempt to excite him was habitual, given purpose now by her need for money. ‘We used to be such good friends. Tell me what Harold did to upset you.’

‘He tried to blackmail me,’ Wilcox said. He was too humiliated at first to say that Medburn had succeeded. The little girl screamed to be let out of the swing. He lifted her out and watched her run off to play with the other children. Wilcox continued speaking, becoming more heated and confused as he talked: ‘It seemed incredible. He was a headmaster. I couldn’t believe it. He told me that he was going to tell Hannah about you and me. He thought it was his moral duty. When I said there was nothing to tell, he said he had proof. It might be possible to come to some arrangement, he said. I could support one of his charities. It was ridiculous but I believed in his charity at first. He was a church warden, after all. Then he wanted more money and when I refused he threatened to talk to Hannah. He was going to see her at the Hallowe’en party, he said. He’d have a little chat with her then.’

For a moment she said nothing and the lack of reaction made the rush of words seem ludicrous.

Angela Brayshaw smiled unpleasantly. ‘Perhaps you had better tell the police,’ she said. ‘If he were blackmailing you, you had a reason to kill him.’

‘No!’ he was shocked.

‘I bet you were relieved when he didn’t turn up at the party.’

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean…’ He lapsed unhappily into silence again, then said suddenly: ‘ Could he have had proof? You wouldn’t have given him my letters, the poetry I wrote for you?’

‘Wouldn’t I?’ she said, enjoying his discomfort. ‘You’ll never know now, will you?’ She walked close to him again so their shoulders were almost touching. ‘ I need help,’ she said. ‘I need money myself.’

‘You bitch!’ he shouted, losing all control, almost hysterical in his temper. ‘ You think you can try the same trick as Medburn. Well you’ll never blackmail me. No one will believe you. They all know you’re a whore. You’re an evil little bitch!’

She only laughed at him, a cruel, humourless laugh, her head thrown back, her pointed chin high in the air.

They were so engrossed in the argument that neither of them had seen Jack Robson approaching on his way home from the bus stop. He looked different, suddenly elderly, his hands deep in his macintosh pockets, his head bent in thought. Even when he drew close to them they did not quite recognize him. But Wilcox’s shout made Robson look up quickly, so that they knew who it was, and the three of them stood in embarrassed silence, until Robson nodded his head in greeting and walked on. By then it was almost dark and quite cold. Wilcox shivered, called to the children and hurried away without speaking or looking at Angela again. She watched him until he disappeared into the dusk. His back was stooped over his daughter’s pushchair, so that from her perspective he seemed deformed. She pulled her coat tightly around her and walked past the menacing silhouette of the bonfire on her way home.

In Jack Robson’s house, on the door mat, there was a letter from Kitty. It was in a thin, pale blue envelope and written on prison notepaper with a number stamped on the top. His hand was shaking as he opened it. It might have been a first love letter. Then, with a kind of superstition, he decided it would be wrong to read it immediately. He left it on his dining room table, lit the fire and put on his slippers. He drew all the curtains and made himself tea. Then he sat by the fire and gave the letter his full attention.

It was an old-fashioned flowing script. It had a formality which distressed him. Why did she write as if he were a mere acquaintance? He could have been an employee. Did she feel she could not trust him? At the end he was not sure exactly what she meant to say. The letter was an anticlimax.

Dear Mr Robson, I would like to thank you for your kindness to me on the night of my husband’s murder. You must forgive my foolishness. You must not concern yourself about my welfare. Everyone here has been most considerate and I do not need anything.

Yours, Kathryn Medburn

As Jack read the letter for a second time he realized that it was a form of dismissal. He was angry and refused to accept it. He decided he would take Miss Hunt’s advice and he went to look for Ramsay.

Northumberland police’s B Division spread from the old pit villages of the south-east plain to the rural wildness of the inland hills. Its headquarters were in Otterbridge, in the middle of the region. Otterbridge was a stately county town with a ruined abbey, a wide, slow-flowing river and walls which had once protected it from Scottish brigands. The police station was in the middle of the town. It was an ugly red-brick building, extended into a modern block where the communications centre was housed. Ramsay’s office was at the top of the old building with a view of the sheep market and the moors. The surface of the desk was clear. Once he had kept a photograph of his wife there, but since Diana had left he preferred things uncluttered. He could hear Hunter’s voice above all the others in the large communal office at the other side of the glass door. The sergeant had just come in but already had the others listening to his stories, laughing at his jokes. Ramsay opened the glass door and the outer office fell silent.

‘Gordon,’ he said quietly, ‘could you spare a moment?’

Hunter sauntered in and leaned against the window sill, as if Ramsay was hardly worth his attention. Ramsay shut the door carefully behind him.

‘I think we can soon close the Medburn case,’ he said. ‘The pathologist’s report seems to tie it up.’

That’s good, Hunter thought. He might make that date with the nurse from the Freeman after all. But he pretended interest. He was ambitious in his own way. He wanted an inspector’s salary.

‘How’s that then?’ he asked.

‘Medburn was drugged before he was strangled with his own tie,’ Ramsay said. ‘The business with the noose was a charade. The pathologist found traces of Heminevrin in the body. It’s a medicine used in the control of alcohol addiction. It’s also taken by old people to help them sleep. As a district nurse Mrs Medburn worked a lot with elderly people in their own homes.’

‘Did she give them the Heminevrin herself?’ Hunter asked.

‘Not officially. She wouldn’t have had access to it directly. It’s a controlled drug only available on doctor’s prescription, but she often went to the chemist’s to collect her patients’ medicines. Apparently it would only have taken three teaspoons to knock out Medburn. He took it on an empty stomach and that would have made it work more quickly. Mrs Medburn could easily have taken that much from a bottle of syrup without her patient noticing. All we need is the information that one of her regular patients has been prescribed the drug recently.’ He looked at Hunter. ‘You can do that,’ he said. ‘ It’ll not take long.’

‘Won’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘Let’s get it wrapped up tonight,’ Ramsay said. ‘I thought you needed the overtime.’

‘Slave-driver,’ Hunter said, only half joking. As he left the office the phone was ringing.

At first Ramsay did not recognize Jack Robson’s name. He had thought of the old man only as Patty Atkins’s father.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Robson said. ‘When can I see you?’

Ramsay looked at his watch.

‘I could come to Heppleburn now,’ he said, ‘if it’s urgent.’

‘Aye,’ Robson said. ‘It’s urgent all right.’

‘Will I come to your home?’

‘Where else? I don’t live with my daughter, you know, I’m a grown man.’

When Ramsay arrived at the house in the quiet, ordered street Jack was waiting for him, the fire made up, the room tidy. Ramsay was determined not to antagonize Robson. He sat where he was told.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘How can you help me?’

‘I don’t know that I can,’ Jack said. Now that Ramsay was in his house he felt awkward and the embarrassment came out as hostility. ‘Not yet. I need information. How did Medburn die?’

Ramsay considered. Jack thought he would refuse to tell him and prepared to be angry.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Ramsay said at last. ‘There’ll be a press statement tomorrow anyway. He was drugged with a medicine called Heminevrin which is used to treat old people.’ He paused, then continued a little apologetically: ‘It’s just the evidence we needed to convict Mrs Medburn. She would have had access to the drug through her patients. We’ll probably be closing the case tomorrow.’

‘Why tomorrow?’ Robson demanded. ‘ If you’re so certain, why haven’t you closed it already?’

‘We need to confirm that one of Mrs Medburn’s patients was taking the drug.’

‘If you’ve not done that yet, there’s no proof,’ Robson exclaimed. ‘You’re being a bit hasty, man. What about all the other folk who could get hold of it? This estate is full of old people. The bathrooms are full of pills and potions and no one would notice if a bottle was missing. And what about Angela Brayshaw? She’s always in and out of her mother’s nursing home. I expect they use that medicine there.’

He stopped abruptly, realizing how desperate he sounded.

‘We’ll check, of course,’ Ramsay said, ‘but I think you should prepare yourself to accept the fact that Kitty Medburn killed her husband.’

Robson did not answer. Ramsay felt he had been misled. The old man had brought him all the way to Heppleburn under false pretences. He had no useful information at all. He was an infatuated old fool who could not believe that a childhood sweetheart was capable of murder. Well, he would have no part in his games. When he spoke again it was with brisk formality.

‘Heminevrin has a very unpleasant taste,’ he said. ‘You can’t think how Medburn was persuaded to drink the stuff? Even in coffee it must have been very bitter.’

‘Medburn didn’t have much of a sense of taste,’ Jack said, despite himself. ‘He had a lot of sinus trouble.’ Then he added quickly: ‘Everyone who came to the school knew that. He was always complaining about it. It doesn’t mean Kitty killed him.’

‘Why did you ask to talk to me?’ Ramsay said, his patience suddenly at an end. ‘Have you any new information or is this all a waste of time? If you know anything it’s your duty to pass it on.’

‘My duty is to the people I represent,’ Robson cried. ‘I’ve nothing to tell you. Not yet. Unless I find proof you’ll never let Kitty go. You’re only interested in getting a result.’

‘No,’ Ramsay said quietly. ‘That’s not true. I’m not that sort of policeman.’

Robson wanted to believe him. There was a great temptation to share the responsibility, to tell Ramsay that Wilcox was frightened of Medburn, that Miss Hunt was a blackmail victim, that he had seen Wilcox and Angela Brayshaw together in the park. It was only stubbornness and an habitual distrust of the police which kept him silent. He was confused and did not know how best Kitty could be helped.

Ramsay was irritated by Robson’s determined silence, but he would not allow himself to be roused to anger. Why had he given up valuable time to talk to the old man? He had gained nothing but the information that Harold Medburn had suffered from a blocked nose. Robson’s obsession with Kitty Medburn’s innocence was foolish. It was time for the police to get out of Heppleburn and leave the matter to the courts. But as he left the council house and drove back to Otterbridge he felt a sudden unease. Robson’s certainty had undermined his own judgement. He hoped Hunter had found the evidence to link Kitty Medburn to the drug which had made her husband unconscious. And he wished he had persuaded Robson to talk to him.