A Lesson in Dying (14 page)

‘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.

The remand centre car park was full. Sunday afternoon must have been a busy time for visiting. There was even a bus. In the queue at the gate into the prison there were babies clutching bottles and young women with picnic baskets. There was the feeling of a family day out. Inside the remand centre Jack Robson was separated from the other visitors. They were taken into a large noisy room, filled with smoke, where bored children roamed in packs. There was a tea bar at one end and the prison officers looked on with benign indifference.

‘That won’t do for you,’ Ramsay said with a wink. ‘You’ll want a bit of privacy.’

Jack was whisked away. He followed a pretty young woman in a blue uniform down a series of identical corridors. Ramsay suddenly disappeared.

Kitty Medburn was wearing her own clothes – a thin wool jersey and a green plaid skirt. She was in a drab tiny interview room with her hands clasped on the table. Jack was not sure what he had expected. He had seen films where prisoners and visitors were separated by glass screens but there was none of that here. With sufficient courage he could have reached across the table immediately and taken her hands.

‘Here you are, Mrs Medburn,’ the officer said brightly as she opened the door. She might have been a nurse. ‘I told you there was a visitor for you. I’ll see if I can find you some tea.’

Then they were left alone.

Kitty had not moved as they came into the room. ‘ Jack,’ she said, looking at her hands. ‘It was good of you to come to see me but there was no need.’

He felt that after all there was a glass screen between them. Her politeness and formality were a barrier which he was unable to break through.

‘I had to come,’ he said. ‘ I wanted to see you.’

‘There was no need,’ she said again, ‘everyone here has been very thoughtful.’

‘I didn’t bring anything,’ he said, wondering if he should have brought a present as if he were visiting someone sick in hospital. ‘I didn’t know what was allowed.’

She did not answer and there was an awkward, impenetrable silence.

‘Kitty!’ His voice was loud and cracked, and shattered the impression that there was nothing wrong. It was impossible to believe that she was an invalid in some exclusive clinic. ‘Kitty, did you kill Harold?’

She looked at him directly for the first time with a peculiar cool disapproval.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

He was so relieved that he did not notice that she disapproved of his lack of control. ‘I knew it,’ he said, words bubbling from him like laughter. ‘I told Ramsay that you’d never do anything like that.’ He leaned forward over the table towards her. ‘I’ve been carrying out my own investigation,’ he said, ‘talking to people. I’m already starting to get results. Patty’s helping me.’

He saw suddenly that she was crying. There was no sound, no movement, but tears were rolling down her cheeks. They seemed to Jack as smooth and as pale as the face of the dressmaker’s dummy.

‘Dear Jack,’ she said. ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

‘Haven’t I?’ he said. He thought it was a compliment. ‘I still care about you, Kitty. When you get out of here you’ll see …’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. There was panic in her voice but he was so desperate to make her realize that he was on her side that he did not recognize it.

‘I’ll have to ask you some questions,’ Jack said. ‘You won’t mind, will you? It’ll get you out of here more quickly. Ramsay’s already started to reconsider the case, you know.’ He sat back with pride. ‘I’ve found new evidence, just by talking to people.’

She seemed confused. ‘I didn’t realize you were taking such an interest,’ she said.

‘You didn’t think I’d do nothing!’

‘I didn’t realize,’ she repeated.

‘Did you know that Harold was a blackmailer?’ He wished he had a notebook. She might take him more seriously if he had a notebook.

‘No,’ she said.

‘You must have known that he was making money.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He always refused to discuss money with me. It was an obsession with him. He had several different bank accounts and he was always transferring money from one to another. He was secretive about it, but he always had been. We lived mostly on my wages.’

‘Didn’t you mind that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘There are different kinds of meanness.’

‘Did it not occur to you that people were frightened of him?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I was never scared of him. I knew he wasn’t well liked.’

‘Harold was drugged with Heminevrin before he was strangled,’ Jack said. ‘Did the police tell you that?’

She nodded. ‘ They asked me where I got it.’

‘Have you collected a prescription for Heminevrin for a patient recently?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but I had access to it. I helped out at Mrs Mount’s nursing home the weekend before Harold died and they have it there to calm some of the old people.’

‘Did you tell the police that?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten. But I’ll tell them when they come again. I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘Have you no idea who phoned him on the night of the murder?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I presumed it was his mistress. I didn’t ask.’

She looked at him with affection and amusement. He felt so happy he could sing. ‘I’m not a lot of help, am I?’ she said.

‘Why did you marry him?’ he asked suddenly. It had nothing to do with the investigation. He was desperate to know.

‘I thought it would work,’ she said. ‘I thought we would suit each other. It did work in a way. He gave me privacy. That was important. And security.’

‘I would have married you,’ he cried. ‘ You know I would have married you.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I knew that.’

‘I’ve so many dreams,’ he said. ‘Just wait until you come home. We’re so lucky to have found each other after all these years …’

She might have answered but the prison officer came in carrying two thick white cups three-quarters full of dark brown tea.

‘I’ve put sugar in,’ the young woman said. ‘ I thought you’d take sugar.’

She set the cups on the table and turned away, a dark plait swinging behind her, keys clanking at her side. The interruption threw Jack. The intimacy was suddenly lost. Perhaps he had presumed too much. The awkwardness between them had returned. Kitty seemed to withdraw into her own thoughts. She drank tea in silence. Her tears had dried on her cheeks. He coughed and she looked up sharply as if she had forgotten that he was still there.

‘I think you should go,’ she said. ‘There are rules about visiting.’

‘Of course,’ he said. He stood up. He did not know if the door would be locked and what he should do to attract the prison officer’s attention. ‘Shall I come and see you again?’ he asked.

‘Not here,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re quite right. This isn’t a good place to talk. We need time together. You’ll be home soon.’