A Lesson in Dying (7 page)

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

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

The next day the school was closed, not as a mark of respect for Harold Medburn, but because the police needed more time there. Irene Hunt was asked to work as usual. She was deputy head and the Education Department at County Hall wanted her to be at the school, though there was little she could do. She would have preferred to be at home. It seemed unfair that she would not benefit from the additional holiday.

Miss Hunt liked to be at home. She lived in a small bungalow twenty miles north of Heppleburn on the coast. She had bought it the year before in preparation for her retirement. Everyone who saw it, and many who had never been near the place, said it was quite unsuitable for an elderly lady. It was build next to a farm at the top of a low cliff. The nearest village was two miles away at the end of a lane. She had views of Coquet Island, of ruined castles and bare hillsides, but it was cold and in a wind the draughts rattled under the doors, flapping rugs and curtains. Towards the sea there was an exposed garden, terraced and held back from the cliff by low stone walls. It was too big, her critics said, to be managed by one person. Miss Hunt had great plans for the garden. The bungalow suited her very well. For too long she had worried about what other people thought of her. Now for her last years she deserved to be allowed to live as she pleased.

Harold Medburn had been one of the fiercest opponents of her move from the convenient new house at Heppleburn to the bungalow on the cliff.

‘It’s too far away,’ he had grumbled when she mentioned the move one day in the staff room. ‘You’ll be late and in winter you’ll never get here. You should think again about it.’

She had given up arguing with him years before and ignored him then. When finally she announced that the move had taken place he was astounded. He had been certain that she would take his advice.

Miss Hunt liked the bungalow because of its privacy. She had been entranced by the large windows and the clarity of the light. She had enjoyed painting in watercolour since she was a student and hoped with more time to develop her skill. She would be sensible, of course, about the house – it was no romantic dream. She would have double glazing fitted with the lump sum she received on her retirement. But she was quite passionate about the house. She was determined to end her days there on her own. If ever the time came when she was unable to look after herself, she would take her own life. She knew what it was like to be in another person’s power and refused to contemplate that happening again, even if that power were the institutional kindness of a geriatric hospital or old people’s home.

The police arrived at the bungalow to interview her on the Sunday morning, and early on the same afternoon Matthew came to see her.

He had woken early. It was still dark and he felt ill. He switched on the bedside lamp to see what time it was, but the sudden light hurt his head and he had to shut his eyes. When he opened them again, slowly, he saw his clothes scattered over the bedroom floor and an empty beer can propped on the window sill. He could not remember getting home. His memory of the evening before returned gradually, and with a growing horror he recalled what had happened. Perhaps he was still drunk, because he fell again into a heavy sleep and when he woke up it was light and the milkman was whistling along the pavement outside his window.

He got out of bed and felt sick again. Before dressing, before even making tea, he picked all the clothes from the bedroom floor and stuffed them into the washing machine in the kitchen. It was as if he wanted to clear away all traces of the previous evening. He wanted to pretend that it had never happened. The washing machine was an old one of his mother’s, a present when he had first moved to Heppleburn.

‘I can go to the launderette,’ he had said. ‘I managed before.’ A washing machine seemed a frightening symbol of domesticity.

‘You’re not a student now,’ she said. ‘Besides, I need a new one.’

His mother had been thrilled when he had been appointed to Heppleburn school. It had been her idea that he should apply. She had seen the advertisement in
The Teacher
and pointed it out to him. ‘Northumberland,’ she said, ‘it’s the most beautiful county in England. If you got that I could come up and stay with you in the holidays.’ Now that seemed a long time ago.

As he remembered his mother, he thought he should write to her. He always wrote to her on Sunday mornings. It seemed important to maintain the usual routine, though he felt so ill. He made tea and toast and sat at the small table in the kitchen while the washing machine churned. He wrote: ‘ There was a Hallowe’en party at the school last night. I think everyone enjoyed it.’ Except me, he thought. I didn’t enjoy it at all.

He addressed the envelope and propped the letter on the mantelpiece, because he could not buy a stamp until the next day. I’ll take it to school, he thought, and buy a stamp there. He decided to visit Miss Hunt on impulse, because he needed to be out of the house, because she had helped him at the party and because he wanted to find out how the evening had ended. He lived in a flat over a chemist’s shop and his head thumped as he clattered down the concrete steps to the pavement.

Miss Hunt saw him coming from a long way off. She watched him leave the main road and cycle down the lane. It took him longer than it normally would have done, because he was cycling against the wind. She was ridiculously pleased to see him. She watched him from the bedroom window with the pair of binoculars she kept for looking at boats in the bay. His hair was blown away from his face. He was wearing old clothes – a navy jersey and denim jeans with a red patch on the knee. He looked much younger and happier than when he was teaching. Perhaps he would be happy more often now. When he rode into the farmyard, moving quickly because be was sheltered by the buildings from the pressure of the wind, she already had the bungalow door open to greet him. She was holding a black tom cat.

Matthew’s face was red from the exertion of cycling. The farm dogs raced up to him, barking furiously, then started to jump up at him, so his jersey was muddy and even more disreputable than ever.

‘Come in,’ she said warmly.

She was as tall as he was. Her hair was short and well cut. She had style, he thought, despite her age. He propped his bicycle against the low wall which surrounded her front garden and followed her towards the house. The dogs bounced after him to the gate, still barking. His arms seemed very long and bony, bare wrists stretched out of the sleeves of his jersey. He sat on the door mat in the wood-frame porch and took off the suede desert boots with broken laces which she had never seen before. Then he walked into the house. He was wearing odd socks.

Irene Hunt felt very fond of him. He reminded her of the only man she had ever loved.

‘I came to thank you,’ he said, ‘for making sure I got home last night. I’m afraid I made a fool of myself.’

She looked at him sharply.

‘Haven’t the police been to see you?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t do anything illegal did I?’ he asked. ‘I was very drunk. I can’t remember everything, but I don’t think anyone called the police. You persuaded me to leave before I made too much of a fool of myself.’

She was thrown by this. It had not occurred to her that he would not have heard that Medburn had been killed. He had left the party long before Robson found the headmaster’s body in the small playground, but surely someone would have told him.

‘The headmaster is dead,’ she said, watching him closely. ‘He was murdered. Robson found his body. At first we thought it was suicide but the police say that’s impossible.’

He said nothing for a while. The colour drained from his face. She led him into the kitchen and sat him on a rocking chair by the boiler. She made him tea.

‘I could have killed him,’ Matthew said. ‘I was mad enough. He called me in to see him on Friday night. I’d never been to his home before. He was more friendly than he’d ever been and even offered me a drink. I didn’t know what to expect.’ He hesitated and then the words came out in a rush. ‘ He said I’d never make a teacher and he didn’t think I should complete the probationary year. It would be more dignified, he said, to resign and if I wasn’t prepared to do that he’d try to get me sacked.’ He looked at her. ‘I wanted to kill him.’

‘Is that why you drank so much on Saturday night?’

He nodded. ‘ It didn’t help,’ he said. ‘ But I felt so helpless. Do the police know who killed him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘They were here this morning, but it’s impossible to tell what they’re thinking. They were asking a lot of questions about his wife.’

She opened the kitchen door onto the paved area at the back of the house, to let out the black cat which had been moaning at her leg. She looked down over the terraced garden to the cliff edge. A salt breeze blew in and they might have been in the open air.

‘I wouldn’t kill him,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t jeopardize all this for that man. He wasn’t worth it.’

She shut the door and the noise of the sea, which had invaded the kitchen, faded.

‘I understand that the police have taken Kitty Medburn into custody for questioning,’ Irene Hunt said suddenly. She was unsure how much she should tell Matthew, but it was comforting to have someone to talk to. ‘Apparently he was having an affair with another woman. The police asked me if I knew anything about it.’

‘Did you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He was a very secretive man. Clever and very secretive. I don’t blame Kitty for killing him. She’s had a lot to put up with. I don’t think anyone should be charged with his murder. We’re better off without him.’

If Matthew was shocked by her bitterness he did not comment on it. Perhaps he was more concerned by his own problems. He sat with his stockinged feet on the wooden rung of the rocking chair, his hands cupped around the mug of tea.

‘What should I do about the teaching?’ he asked abruptly.

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘Should I carry on with it?’

‘Of course you should,’ she said briskly, a teacher to her fingertips, urging a favourite child to have confidence in his own ability. ‘With a bit of support you’ll make an excellent teacher. Forget that the meeting with Medburn ever happened. There’s no need to tell the police about it. It’s no business of theirs, after all.’

Then she insisted on taking him for a walk along the cliff. Spikes of sunshine pierced the cloud, but it was still very cold. She pointed out her favourite features of the landscape and enjoyed his admiration of the view. Inland there was a subsidence lake, backed by a new conifer plantation. A skein of geese flew overhead, calling, then landed on the water. At the bottom of the cliff a girl on a chestnut horse galloped along the sandy beach, splashing through the pools. The drops of water glistened in the sunlight.

‘It’s lovely,’ he said. He had never been to her house before. ‘This is just the sort of house I’d live in. But don’t you find it lonely?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I get on well with my neighbour. She’s rather confused and eccentric at times, but we’ve become good friends. Her sons farm the land and live in a bungalow in the village. She doesn’t want to leave the house. I don’t blame her.’

Back in the house she made more tea and toast. There was a fire in the living room and she refused to put on the light. Then she might feel she should draw the curtains and shut out the sea. The room was hung with her paintings.

It was nearly dusk when he set off on his bike for his flat in Heppleburn. She had not wanted him to go. It had been one of the most pleasant afternoons Irene Hunt could remember and she felt relaxed and ready to return to school the next day. She had long ago given up any thought of a family life and had persuaded herself that she would not enjoy it anyway, but this afternoon she regretted that she had never married. When Matthew left she felt very alone.

She got to school at a quarter to nine on the Monday morning. The police were on the premises. There was still white tape around the small playground and a uniformed constable stood by the wooden door in the wall. She ignored the activity and went straight to her classroom, as she would have done if the children had been there. At the main door into the school a policeman stopped her and asked who she was, then let her through. To Miss Hunt the police were an anonymous body, like Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education or the Inland Revenue. She supposed that the men on their hands and knees in the playground had some specialized function, but she had no real interest. As her retirement came closer she was coming to feel that she was a stranger in the school. She was increasingly more detached from everything that went on there, even the horror of murder. She longed for her time as a teacher to be over, so she could spend her days in her bungalow with her paint and her cat and the noise of the waves.

At half past twelve when the children would usually have gone out to play before lunch she went to the staff room and made a cup of coffee. It was a luxury to have the place to herself. It was strangely tidy and uncluttered. She wondered if she should offer to make drinks for the policemen in the hall but decided not to disturb them. They might think she was prying like a common gossip. The kettle was just starting to boil when there was a knock on the door and a plain-clothed policeman came in, stooping slightly as if the door was too low. She recognized the inspector who had come to her bungalow the day before.

Ramsay had been at the school since early morning. After his wife had left him there was nothing to keep him at home and he was aware of the comments of his colleagues. Just because he couldn’t keep his wife, they said, he seems to think none of us want to spend time with our families. They said that he’d lost his sense of proportion, that there was more to life than work, after all. To Ramsay there was little more to life than work.

He had insisted that Medburn’s office, the staff room and all the corridors should be fingerprinted. When they told him it would take days, he shrugged. The murderer must have come into the school, he said, to get the black gown. No one had said that a long murder investigation was easy. Usually you found the culprit in the first hour. If not it was hard work. So he expected them to work hard. They knew who had killed Harold Medburn. They had to prove it.