A Lesson in Dying

Chapter Seven

All the village was at the bonfire. Mothers carried babies as fat as Eskimos with extra clothes and even the old men from the Miners’ Welfare cottages stood in the comfort of the cricket pavilion to watch the fireworks. When Ramsey drove back through the village towards Otterbridge, the streets were deserted and the Northumberland Arms was empty.

Matthew Carpenter had been asked to supervise the event and he left his flat early. In the chemist shop below the lights were still on, though the door was locked. The pharmacist was checking medicines against a list on a clipboard and looked up to wave at him. Although Matthew arrived at the bonfire half an hour before it was scheduled to start groups of older boys were there before him, prodding the bonfire and annoying each other. When they saw Matthew approaching they fell silent. They treated him with respect, not because he was a teacher at the little school, but because he had been in the school on the night of the murder. They were fascinated by the macabre and melodramatic manner of Harold Medburn’s death. The murder was a vast video nasty, performed in the village for their entertainment. They talked about it in giggled whispers, creating grotesque fantasies, then accused each other of being scared.

As soon as he arrived on the field Matthew sensed that some mischief was being planned. He was an inexperienced teacher but the furtive conversations and nervous bravado brought back memories of his own boyhood.

‘I won’t have any messing about with fireworks,’ he said firmly.

‘It’s dangerous and there’ll be too many people here tonight. We don’t want accidents.’

He was surprised by the authority in his voice and the boys’ easy agreement. He spoke to a group of three, uniform shapes in his torchlight. He did not know their names.

‘We’ve not got fireworks of our own,’ one said. ‘ It’s not allowed. There’s a display.’

‘That’s all right then.’

It was seven o’clock. A huge moon was rising above the silhouettes of the trees. It lit the bonfire and the faces of the boys.

‘Aren’t you having a guy?’ Matthew asked. ‘When I was a kid we always had a guy.’

The boys sniggered and did not reply. Matthew reminded himself that they were only young – perhaps no older than eleven or twelve – unsure of themselves as newcomers in the comprehensive school.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘Aye sir. We made one earlier.’ The one who spoke was braver than the rest and the others collapsed again in giggles.

‘Well,’ Matthew said again. ‘Where is it?’

They looked at each other. This obviously had not been part of the plan. The silence of their hesitation was broken by the sound of people walking down the footpath from the village, of laughter and children’s voices.

‘Come on!’ Matthew said, becoming increasingly impatient. ‘People are coming. We want the guy on the top of the bonfire before everyone gets here.’ But he realized that he was already too late for that. Family parties were starting to congregate on the edge of the field. The organizers were beginning to set out their stalls for hot dogs and drinks. In a roped-off corner of the field rockets were being set into bottles.

The boys, looking sheepish, realized that the game was over. They disappeared and returned some minutes later pushing a pram with a guy propped inside. The head and body were made in the conventional way – a pillowcase was stuffed with newspaper and old stockings and tied with string to make the neck – but it was dressed in a black pointed hat made of cardboard and wrapped around with a long black cloak. One of the boys’ mothers had obviously been to the school’s Hallowe’en party.

‘What’s the meaning of the costume?’ Matthew demanded. He felt embarrassed. A crowd was already gathering around them. He knew the point the boys were trying to make, but to recognize it would give the idea some credibility. It would be to admit that he too thought Kitty Medburn was a witch.

‘It’s a witch,’ the smallest boy said;

‘I can see that.’

‘They used to burn witches,’ another said.

‘Not on bonfire night.’

‘After what was in the paper,’ the same boy said. He was more cocky and articulate than the others. ‘We thought it would be…’ he hesitated to find the right word ‘… topical.’

‘Well I call it stupid. Take the costume off and let’s get the guy to the top of the bonfire. Which of you is going to climb up?’

Matthew could tell that the crowd around him had heard the exchange with the boys and he felt threatened by its response. He felt a suppressed tension and hostility in the watching people. Was it because he had allowed the prank to develop in the first place? Or because he had prevented its conclusion and so deprived the onlookers of the ritual spectacle of the witch’s burning. He could not tell. He put the cloak and hat into the pram and moved it away from the fire, then lifted the smallest boy up so that he could wedge the guy at the top of the woodpile.

Jack Robson had been expected for tea at Patty’s house, and when he had failed to arrive she became concerned and drove over to see him. She found him still in the chair by the fire where he had sat to reconsider Kitty’s letter after seeing Ramsay into the street. He seemed not to have heard her come in. He was feeling as lost and unsure of himself as he had in the empty dramatic countryside near Miss Hunt’s bungalow.

‘Dad,’ she said. She bounded into the room and squatted on the floor beside him, looking more like a friendly, badly-trained dog than ever. ‘Aren’t you coming to the bonfire?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘ I don’t think I’ll come.’

‘But you must. The bairns are expecting you.’

‘All right,’ he said, too tired even to stand up to her. The argument with Ramsay had taken all the fight from him. ‘I’ll be ready in five minutes.’

‘There’s no hurry,’ she said. ‘Tell me what happened at Miss Hunt’s.’

He looked up from Kitty’s letter. A lot seemed to have happened since his encounter with Irene Hunt.

‘She was being blackmailed by Medburn,’ he said flatly. ‘It was as we thought. The woman in the church was an illegitimate daughter. Medburn had threatened to tell the woman’s husband, who hadn’t wanted her to look for her mother.’

‘There you are then!’ Patty was enthusiastic and seemed not to recognize how hurt her father was. ‘ Miss Hunt had motive, opportunity. All we have to do is tell Ramsay.’

‘No,’ he said bending to lace up his shining black boots, looking up at her as he pulled hard on the laces to tighten them before fastening the knot. ‘ Miss Hunt’s daughter has recently separated from her husband. Miss Hunt herself is about to retire. She had nothing more to fear from Medburn. She had no reason to kill him.’

‘I see.’ Her enthusiasm was momentarily dampened but her usual optimism soon returned. ‘All the same,’ she said, ‘at least it shows that Kitty Medburn wasn’t the only person who wanted Medburn dead. Don’t you think we should tell Ramsay?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘ I spoke to him this evening. I found out how Medburn died. He was drugged, then strangled. He was already dead before he was strung up on the hoop.’

‘But you didn’t tell him you’ve been talking to Paul Wilcox and Miss Hunt?’

‘No,’ He could think of nothing now but the cold rejection of Kitty’s letter. ‘We won’t do anything yet. It said in the paper it could be months before she comes to trial. There’s no hurry.’

She did not have his patience and wanted the thing decided, but knew it would do no good to argue. She took his arm and helped him to the car, then they walked with Jim and the children to the bonfire. Because Jack had delayed them they were late arriving and the bonfire was already lit; sparks flew high towards the moon and flames were licking around the bare-bodied guy.

When Angela Brayshaw collected her daughter from her mother she felt nothing. The meeting with Paul Wilcox had drained her. She was emotionally and physically exhausted. And then her mother had begun to talk again about money.

‘I must press you, dear,’ Mrs Mount said, ‘ for a starting date. We’re terribly short-handed. Shall we say next Monday?’

‘All right!’ Angela said crossly. ‘All right!’

The sense of expectation and optimism which had been with her since Medburn’s death had left her. If she were to benefit from his death she would surely have heard something by now. She had lost all hope. There was nothing left but the nursing home and a return to the dependence on her mother. She had forgotten all about the bonfire, and Claire’s excitement about the evening irritated her. She even tried to persuade the girl that they should stay at home but knew from the beginning that it would be no good. Claire could be as stubborn as her mother, and Angela was in no mood for dealing with tantrums. They walked down the footpath towards the field. Claire pulled her mother by the arm to hurry her and they were among the first to arrive. They stood on the frosty grass with the rest of the crowd and watched the boys’ confrontation with Matthew Carpenter.

‘Why is the guy dressed like a witch?’ Claire asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why is Mr Carpenter making them take off the costume?’

‘Stop asking so many foolish questions.’

Angela turned away. They would like to burn me as a witch, she thought, all these respectable, complacent, contented families. She had not read the papers. She did not know what the thing was all about. As she walked away from the fire she saw Irene Hunt watching her and the boys with disapproval. Stuck-up old cow! she thought, remembering the hints Harold Medburn had given her about Irene’s past. She pretends to be so superior and she’s no better than I am. What’s she doing here anyway? Keeping an eye on that young teacher to stop him getting drunk again, I suppose. Angela walked further on and saw the Wilcox family on their way down from the mill. Hannah was pushing the baby in a smart buggy and Paul was carrying the little boy on his shoulders. It was a picture of domestic idyll. She watched them with hatred and envy and wished they were all dead.

All evening Jack Robson watched the firework display without enthusiasm. What had Kitty been trying to tell him? That after all she had killed her husband? Or that even if she were released she would never return his affection? The display was halfway through. Andrew and Jennifer had badgered their mother to buy them baked potatoes and he was standing alone. He looked up the hill to the three silhouettes- the church, the school and the school house – which stood against the clear sky. Even from this distance it seemed that the light from the bonfire was being reflected in the windows of the buildings on the hill. Jack looked again, and realized that the light in the school house was not reflected flame. It came from inside and was the sharp spot of torchlight. He was tempted to do nothing, to turn his back on it and go to find his grandchildren. He would spend the evening watching their pleasure in the fireworks. He would forget about Kitty Medburn. He was a retired miner and a school caretaker and nothing else was his business.

But even as he was thinking that, he was pulling his scarf from his coat pocket and winding it around his neck, because it would be cold away from the fire, and he was wondering how long he could be away before Patty noticed he had gone. He walked quickly up the dark alley towards the school. Halfway up the hill he stopped and turned round, convinced for a moment that he was being followed. The path twisted and was in shadow and he could not see very far, but he told himself that it was his imagination. There was no sound of footsteps, no noise at all, except the machine-gun rattle of a rocket as it splintered into coloured stars in the sky.

There were no cars in the playground. The school house door was firmly locked. There was no light now inside the house, but it has been impossible to walk quietly over the yard and whoever was inside would have been warned that he was there. Again Jack felt the sensation of being followed but when he looked round there was nothing except the moonlight shining through the wire mesh fence which surrounded the playing field, making a lacy pattern of shadow on the grass. There were lights in the vicarage windows and from an upstairs window the sound of a crying baby. The sound was comforting.

Jack walked slowly round the house to the back where there was a small gloomy garden, a sagging, washing line and an outside toilet. The kitchen window was wide open. Surely the police would never have left it like that, gaping, an invitation to burglars. At one time he would have climbed in through there – the window was big enough and the sill was only three feet from the ground – but he was too old and sensible for that kind of escapade now. He felt in his coat pocket for a bunch of school keys. He was sure he had a spare house key as part of the set. He walked slowly back to the front door.

He put the key in the lock and it turned stiffly. Inside the hall he hesitated. There seemed, no reason why he should not put on the electric light. The intruder, if there was an intruder, would know by now that he was there. All the same he was reluctant to touch the switch as if he was frightened by what the sudden light would reveal. In the event when he touched the switch nothing happened. He presumed that the electricity board had been informed that the house was empty and had switched the power off at the mains. He had no torch and had to depend on the faint gleam from outside and the sudden coloured glare of fireworks. He went first into the small back room where he had taken Kitty on the night of the murder. It already smelled musty, as if the damp which had been held at bay with coal fires and open windows had taken over. Beyond was the kitchen, which was old-fashioned, even primitive, like the kitchen Joan had had when they were first married. There was lino on the floor and a square table with an oil cloth cover. A wooden airer which could be let down from the ceiling with a rope and pulley still held a thin tea towel. What a mean bastard Medburn had been! Jack thought. He had spent nothing on the house. Instead he must have saved all his money for his fancy woman.

Anger began to dispel his fear and he walked into the front room, where an upright piano stood against one wall, the lid up, the keys gleaming and chilly like teeth. On top of the piano was a wedding photograph. Jack took it to the window and held it towards the light so he could see the detail. Medburn looked as smug as if he had won the pools. Kitty was poised and still and stared fixedly at the camera. He replaced the photograph. In a corner of the room was a dressmaker’s dummy, wearing the body of a blouse, stuck with pins. This must have been Kitty’s room, he thought. She came here to sew in peace. He felt her presence as strongly as if she were in the room with him.

There was a noise from upstairs, a faint nervous noise of a throat being cleared.

‘Who’s there?’ Jack shouted. ‘Who are you? Is it the police?’

There was no reply and Jack went up the stairs. He was halfway up when the front door, which he had left wide open, to let light into the house, banged shut. As he climbed the stairs Jack remembered suddenly his first day down the pit. His dad had told him what it would be like – the men squashed into the cage, the heat, the dark, the speed of descent, but he had been too dull then, too cocky, to have any imagination and the thing itself had come as a complete shock. He had come through it without showing fear and the memory that he had not let himself down in front of the other lads kept him going as he came to the top of the stairs and walked onto the landing. He was as proud and foolhardy as he had been as a boy.

He stood on the landing and pushed open the first door he came to with his boot. The moon was shining right into the room and it was light enough to see every detail, to see even to read. There were no curtains at the window. It had never been used as a bedroom. It had been, Jack thought, some kind of study. There was a big, old-fashioned desk under the window with papers scattered all over it. Jack approached the desk to see more clearly. First he picked up a small scrap of paper with Irene Hunt’s name and address written on it. It caught his attention because the address was not local and he put it into his pocket to look at later. The paper was so small that it would not be missed. He was about to sort through the larger items, which he could tell now were letters, when he heard a noise behind him and he was hit on the head. He fell unconscious to the floor.

He woke to bright torchlight and the sound of his name being called.

‘Dear me, Mr Robson,’ Ramsay said. ‘You’ll really have to take more care of yourself.’

Jack tried to sit up and was sick. Even then, through the giddiness, he saw that the desk was empty and that all the letters had disappeared.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. The loss of dignity annoyed him. He felt that the policeman was in some way to blame for his humiliation.

‘I’ve had a man keeping an eye on the place as part of his patrol. He saw that the front door was open.’ Ramsay helped Jack to his feet and into the bathroom. ‘I should ask you what you’re doing here,’ he said. ‘But that can wait for a while.’

Alone in the bathroom Jack was sick again, then washed his face and hands and felt better. Ramsay was waiting tactfully on the landing.

‘Someone hit me,’ Jack said. He was too angry to keep anything from the police now. Besides it would be impossible otherwise to explain what he was doing here. ‘Somebody bloody hit me.’

Ramsay took his arm and began to walk him slowly down the stairs.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said. ‘You can tell me about it then.’

He led Jack into the front room and sat him in a big armchair. Jack looked around him. The room seemed for some reason different. It was as if a great time had elapsed since he had been there. Only then did he realize that Ramsay must have switched on the electricity at the mains because the room was lit by a tall standard lamp with a pink shade, and the curtains were drawn.

‘I was looking at the letters on the desk upstairs,’ he said, ‘ and some bugger came up behind me and hit me on the head.’

‘Letters?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Are you sure? There are no letters on the desk now. When we searched the house after Medburn’s death there were a lot of papers in the drawers but nothing that was relevant to the inquiry. And there was nothing on top of the desk.’

‘Someone was in the house before me,’ Robson said impatiently. ‘I don’t suppose your policeman noticed that. They’d got in through the kitchen window. I opened the door with my spare key.’

‘Why didn’t you leave well alone and phone me?’ It was the policeman’s turn to sound angry. ‘Whatever possessed you to wander around playing detective?’

‘I’m the caretaker. It’s my job.’

‘Don’t be a fool, man. You must have realized it could be dangerous.’

Ramsay looked at the little man huddled in the big chair on the other side of the room and wondered if he was mad.

‘I love Kitty Medburn,’ Robson said.

The declaration sounded desperate, moving and a little ridiculous. Ramsay had the same reaction as he would have done hearing six-year-olds swearing undying love in a school playground.

‘And I don’t think she killed her husband.’

‘Why?’ Ramsay asked.

‘Because I know her. She would never do a thing like that.’ He realized that the emotional outburst would never convince the policeman and tried to calm himself. ‘Harold Medburn was a blackmailer,’ he said. ‘I know he was getting money out of Irene Hunt, and Paul Wilcox was frightened of him too. I heard Wilcox and Angela Brayshaw in the park this afternoon. Perhaps she had an affair with him before she moved on to Medburn.’ He felt suddenly weak. ‘I shouldn’t have told you about Miss Hunt,’ he said. ‘The information was given me in confidence.’

‘Away man!’ For the first time the policeman raised his voice. ‘You can’t go snooping round in a village like this without people getting hurt. If you’re right and Kitty Medburn isn’t a killer then there’s someone here who is. Do you want to protect them too?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jack Robson said. He was no longer sure of anything.

‘You’d better tell me everything you know.’

So Robson told the whole story, starting with his conversation with Kitty Medburn on the night of the party. He spoke slowly first, but then the words came easily. Ramsay was a good listener and it was a relief to tell it.

‘So your daughter’s involved in all this too?’

Jack nodded.

‘I would have thought she’d have better things to do.’

‘She wanted to come to you. I told her not to.’

‘You’d have saved yourself a bump on the head.’

‘Aye.’ Jack grinned suddenly. ‘ Perhaps it’s knocked some sense into me.’

‘I doubt it.’ It was hard not to like the man. Ramsay did not want to raise his expectations, then hurt him again. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s still most likely that Kitty killed her husband. Despite what happened tonight.’

‘Perhaps,’ Robson said. He looked directly at the policeman. ‘Did you read all those papers in the drawers upstairs?’

The policeman hesitated. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We were sure, you see, that Mrs Medburn had killed her husband.’ He paused again. ‘It was a mistake.’

‘Aye,’ Jack Robson said bitterly. ‘And now it’s too late. The letters have gone.’

There was a silence. It was the only form of apology he would receive.

‘It’s like the Heminevrin,’ Jack said suddenly. It had been on his mind, a growing grievance. ‘You’ve not bothered to find out who else could get it. You assumed it was Kitty.’

‘We’re still making inquiries,’ Ramsay said. ‘Really.’ He could not tell if Jack believed him, but it was true. Hunter had yet to find one of Kitty Medburn’s patients who was taking the syrup. ‘I’d like your help,’ he said. ‘I want you to go and see Kitty Medburn.’

‘I don’t know that she’ll see me,’ Jack said.

‘Surely she would if you’re such good friends… She must know you’re trying to help her.’

‘Why do you want me to see her?’

Ramsay chose his words carefully. ‘She’s a very self-contained woman,’ he said. ‘I find it hard to talk to her, to get through to her. Nothing seems to move her. If she did kill Harold Medburn it would be better for us all if she admitted it. It would certainly be better for her, and uncertainty places everyone under suspicion. That’s uncomfortable. It makes people frightened, as you found out tonight. She might talk more freely to you.’

‘You want me to make her confess,’ Jack said, fierce and uncompromising, for an instant the gallant knight again protecting his lady. ‘I’ll not do it.’

‘No!’ Ramsay was almost shouting in his attempt to make the man understand. ‘Talk to her. That’s all. If you tell me then that she’s innocent I’ll take more notice. I trust you, you see, to be honest with me. You’ve a reputation to maintain.’

‘I’m not sure she’ll see me,’ Jack muttered again, but he was thinking that he was not sure that he could face seeing her in that place. He thought she might blame him for the fact that she was there. He felt unreasonably that his show of affection on the night of the murder had in some way triggered the whole chain of events.

‘But you will try?’

‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘ I will try.’ Not to help the policeman, but because he wanted to see her and be in the same room as her. He wanted to tell her how much he cared about her. He felt then that the interview was over, and prepared to lift himself to his feet.

‘I’ll have to go,’ he said. ‘Patty will be wondering where I am.’

‘Just a few more minutes,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’ve already asked someone to tell your daughter’ you’re safe. There’s something else. I need to ask some more questions.’

‘I’m tired, man,’ Jack said. His head was thumping. He wanted to sleep. ‘Can’t you tell I’m tired?’

‘It’s important. There’s something I’ve not told you.’

‘Away then.’ He was too tired to argue. And it was restful there in the big chair. It seemed a terrible effort to move.

‘When you first came into the house,’ Ramsay asked, ‘did you look downstairs?’

Jack nodded.

‘In all the rooms?’

Jack nodded again. He seemed too exhausted to speak.

‘Did you notice anything unusual?’

Jack shook his head. ‘ No,’ he said. ‘This room seems different but I can’t think why.’

‘I want to show you something,’ Ramsay said. ‘ Can you walk with me into the kitchen?’

‘I’m not an invalid, man,’ Jack said with a flicker of the old spirit. ‘I’ve a few years left yet.’

But as he stood up his head began to swim and he thought he might faint. He followed the policeman through the damp and gloomy back room to the kitchen. There, hanging by a noose made of washing line, attached to the wooden strut of the airer and swinging gently, was a figure in a black cloak and black painted hat. The figure turned towards them and Jack could see the smooth face and blank eyes. He began to shake.

‘It’s the dummy,’ he said, desperately trying to keep control for it seemed to him that the policeman had intended to shock him into some indiscretion. ‘It’s the dressmaker’s dummy. When I came into the house it was in the front room.’

Jack felt only relief. In his dazed state, when he had first come into the kitchen he had thought the figure was Kitty, that she had hung herself because he had let her down.

‘There’s a message for you,’ Ramsay said, nodding in the direction of the window. There, on the glass, scrawled in lipstick in uneven capitals was written: ‘Mind your own business.’

‘The lipstick was Mrs Medburn’s,’ Ramsay said. ‘It had been taken from the dressing table upstairs. Perhaps you had better do as you’re told.’

He helped Jack to his car and as they drove away the picture of the figure remained with them. Neither could forget the smooth-skinned dummy dressed in the hat and cloak which had been removed from the bonfire guy earlier in the evening.