A Lesson in Dying (6 page)

‘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.’