A Lesson in Dying (20 page)

When Matthew opened the door he seemed flustered and nervous as if he had been startled from sleep. There was a narrow staircase which led over the shop to the flat. Ramsay went up first and walked into the living room. Matthew followed him and stood awkwardly in the middle. It was a very small flat. Through an open door Ramsay could see the kitchen and a mound of plates on the draining board. The room was furnished with shabby, elderly pieces donated perhaps by aunts or grandparents who wanted to contribute to his first home. It was warm, heated by an old-fashioned gas fire, which hissed and provided a comforting background for their words. A tabby kitten sat on the chair nearest to the fire. Matthew lifted it off carefully and held it. Like a child with a teddy bear, Ramsay thought derisively. Matthew moved away to offer the policeman the seat.

‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked, eager to please. ‘I was just going to make some.’ His head was bent over the kitten and he did not look at Ramsay.

‘No,’ Ramsay said briskly. ‘I’m too busy to drink tea.’ He had been drinking tea that afternoon, talking to his team in Otterbridge police station, but he wanted to intimidate Carpenter and show that he meant business. He was hoping that the teacher would lose his nerve. It had become clear to him that Carpenter dreaded the questions, hated the interviews. Ramsay thought that with sufficient gentle pressure he would be persuaded to confess.

‘Just a few more questions,’ Ramsay said easily. Matthew sat on the floor on the other side of the fire, his legs stretched before him, the kitten on his knee. Ramsay was disconcerted by the informality of the seating arrangement. He could only see the man’s forehead and his mop of curly hair. By choosing to sit on the floor Matthew seemed casual and relaxed. It indicated a greater confidence than Ramsay thought Carpenter possessed.

‘Do you own a car?’ he asked, though he knew the answer already.

‘No,’ Matthew said. ‘I can’t afford one yet. I’m saving up.’

‘But do you drive?’

‘Yes. I passed my test when I was eighteen before I went to college. It was a birthday present from my parents.’

‘Do you have access to a car?’

‘Only my mother’s when I go home.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Derbyshire.’

So, Ramsay thought, if Carpenter had murdered Wilcox he had followed him on foot or borrowed a car, or stolen one. He had decided to concentrate tonight on the Wilcox murder. It was more recent, less fraught with complication than that of Medburn, and the attempt to prove that Carpenter had stolen Heminevrin was getting nowhere. If he could find evidence that the teacher had been near to the old mill that day he would at least have grounds for bringing him in for interview. All day his men had been asking questions at the scattered farms and cottages along the lane from the old mill to the coast, but there had been no result.

‘What were you doing on Sunday?’ Ramsay asked, as if it were a casual question, of no real importance. He had asked the question before and Matthew seemed irritated by it.

‘I’ve already told you. I was here.’

‘You didn’t go out at all?’

Perhaps there was a slight hesitation, but without seeing Carpenter’s face it was hard to tell. ‘No,’ Carpenter said. ‘ Not at all.’

‘I remember now,’ Ramsay said. ‘ You spent the day with Miss Hunt.’ What was he doing with her? Ramsay thought. He’s young. Hasn’t he got a girlfriend? Someone he can talk to? Or perhaps he confided in the schoolmistress? He seemed to need someone to depend on.

‘Miss Hunt came to lunch,’ Matthew said defensively. ‘She’s been very kind to me since I started at the school. I would never have survived there without her. She lives on her own. I thought it would be a kind thing to do.’

He’s talking too much, Ramsay thought.

‘What time did she arrive?’ Wilcox had been murdered soon after mid-day. Matthew could have killed him and still be back for lunch-time.

Matthew shrugged and for the first time in the interview he looked directly at the policeman. He was slightly flushed. ‘I’m not sure. Late morning. I told her to come for coffee. It must have been about eleven thirty.’

‘And what time did she leave?’

‘Three thirty. We both had work to prepare for the next day.’

If Matthew had company for the whole of that time he could not possibly have been the murderer. Ramsay was still not convinced but changed the direction of the questions.

‘Have you got any walking boots?’

‘Yes.’ Matthew seemed shocked. ‘Why?’

‘There were prints in the mud near Paul Wilcox’s body. We want to compare them with the boots belonging to everyone involved in this case.’

‘But I’m not involved!’ Matthew said, his control suddenly slipping. ‘I’ve told you that.’

‘Its a routine matter,’ Ramsay said. ‘They’ll have to go for forensic tests. Police work’s all routine.’ And bluff, he thought. What prints they’d found near the body had been churned by tractor tyres and covered by Patty Atkins’s big feet. Still he had achieved his objective. The teacher seemed suitably shaken.

‘I’ll fetch them,’ he said. He went out through the kitchen door and returned with a pair of brown boots.

Ramsay held them together by the open ends and looked at the soles.

‘They’re remarkably clean for boots,’ he said. ‘Cleaned them recently, have you?’

Matthew shook his head. ‘I haven’t used them since I moved here.’

There was a pause. Matthew was obviously hoping the policeman would leave, but Ramsay made no move.

‘I’ll have to check with Miss Hunt that the times you gave me for Sunday are correct,’ he said. ‘You do realize that?’

‘Of course,’ Matthew said. ‘Of course.’

As Ramsay drove north out of Heppleburn the fog cleared, except for swirls of mist which blew from the hedge over the road. He decided that there was something peculiar about the lunch-time meeting of Irene Hunt and Matthew Carpenter. She had told him about it in previous questions but had been reticent about the details. His conviction that Matthew was a murderer made that suspicious. He turned off the main road towards the coast and the fog was thicker as he approached the sea, so he had to concerntrate on driving. The light in the farmhouse window appeared suddenly out of the fog before he realized he had reached the end of the lane. He parked by the bungalow.

Miss Hunt came quickly to the door. She must have heard the car in the lane.

‘Inspector Ramsay?’ she said. She sounded frightened. ‘Has anything happened?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘ I just want to ask a few more questions.’

‘Oh. Yes, of course. Come in.’ She was courteous and distant as always. Her southern accent sounded dated, trapped in the time when she had first come north. It was untainted by Geordie. She was like a Victorian lady explorer determined to maintain standards even in the jungle.

There was a fire in the room that looked over the sea. The curtains were drawn and there was a soft, low light. The walls were covered with her watercolours.

‘Would you like a drink?’ she said. ‘Sherry?’

‘That would be very pleasant.’ It was a peaceful room. Away from the school he found her less frightening. He thought she might help him.

‘I’d like to confirm your movements for Sunday, Miss Hunt.’ He tried to sound formal and businesslike. ‘I understand you had lunch with Mr Carpenter.’

‘Yes,’ she said. She handed him a glass and sat on the other side of the fire. She seemed not to realize how important it was to him. ‘It was very pleasant. How encouraging it is to find that men are so much more practical than they were in my youth! It was a splendid meal.’

‘What time did you arrive at his home?’ Ramsay asked, and held his breath as she paused to think.

‘Between quarter past and half past eleven,’ she said at last and he could have wept with disappointment.

‘And what time did you leave?’

‘Mid-afternoon. At about half past three. Matthew offered me tea but I felt I’d imposed long enough.’

‘You didn’t leave the house during that time?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We contemplated taking a walk but the weather was very disappointing. We stayed in and had a long, leisurely lunch. As I’ve explained he was really a very good cook.’

‘Thank you,’ Ramsay said. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’ It occurred to him for a moment that she was lying to protect the boy, but she was like a Victorian lady and the idea was unthinkable.

Jim was reluctant to let Patty out again that evening. He sat at the supper table and looked at her over his spectacles like a fat, tousled owl. His jersey had frayed sleeves and there was an old darn at the elbow. He shouldn’t go to school looking like that, she thought. Perhaps she should go through his clothes and throw some of the jumble away. Or perhaps, she thought again, he could do it himself.

‘You can’t go out on your own,’ he said. ‘I’d worry about you. And I can’t come with you. There’s no one else to mind the bairns.’

She was grateful that he took her seriously. He even seemed to want to be involved. Recently he seemed to have been irritated by her enthusiasms, dismissive of her interests. This concern and attention were unusual, but he had surprised her before. When she first met him he was at university. Her mam and dad had been impressed by that. She had expected him to be different from the other lads in the village, to talk about books or politics, but he spent all his spare time in the bar, and when he moved his mouth away from the glass he talked about Newcastle United. Their dates were at football matches, clubs and rock concerts. He had surprised her with his proposal of marriage after all his talk of independence and freedom and his jeers at the weddings of his friends. He had also surprised her by ‘his decision to become a teacher – she had thought him too selfish – but he enjoyed it and with his own children he was patient and amusing. Now, suddenly, he seemed to understand that she was facing some sort of crisis. She had never realized that he was so perceptive.

‘I need to speak to Hannah Wilcox,’ she said. ‘She’s all alone in that great house. She needs the company.’

‘Will Ramsay be there?’

She looked at him sharply. ‘ No,’ she said. ‘No, of course not. Why should he be?’ He’s jealous, she thought, and was surprised again.

‘I don’t know,’ Jim said unhappily. ‘I thought he might have asked to meet you again. He seems to have confidence in you.’

‘He took me to the pub to ask some questions about Angela Brayshaw,’ she cried. ‘There was no more to it than that.’

‘I know.’ He was trying so hard to be understanding that he was pulling strange, strained faces, as the children did when they were constipated. She smiled and kissed him.

‘People are talking,’ he said, ‘ about you and Ramsay.’

‘Do you mind?’

Before he could answer the doorbell rang and there was Ramsay, his face gaunt and grooved through lack of sleep. Patty never found out if Jim believed that he was there by chance.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ the inspector said. ‘I was wondering if there was a chance of some coffee.’

‘I was just on my way out,’ Patty said, angry because he had put her in such an awkward position, ‘to visit Hannah Wilcox.’ Then because she wanted to boast about her initiative in applying for the job at Burnside: ‘I suppose it can wait until the morning, Jim wasn’t happy about me going out anyway.’

So Ramsay sat in the most comfortable chair in the room, with Jim glowering at him from the corner where he was marking a pile of dog-eared exercise books and Patty sitting on the floor in front of the fire.

The interviews with Matthew Carpenter and Irene Hunt had left Ramsay drained and disappointed. The hope that he would persuade Matthew to confess to the murders had left him, and he had no energy to start again. It was only as Patty told him the story of the visit to Burnside, with humour and much irrelevant detail, that his interest returned. He began to relax, to believe again that he might succeed before the pressure to remove him from the case grew too great for his superiors to resist. When he left the house it was very late and he felt refreshed as if he had slept for a long time.

Angela had enjoyed an afternoon’s window shopping in Newcastle. She had wandered through Eldon Square and down Northumberland Street and knew that the things she saw in the shop windows were within her grasp. There was no need to buy. There was pleasure enough in looking and planning and knowing the pressure of debt had been removed. Some of the stores had started to decorate the windows for Christmas and the streets were busy with well-organized women doing Christmas shopping. This year will be different, she thought. There’ll be no skimping this year, and she imagined the presents she would buy for Claire. She could afford the best food, the most expensive decorations. The day would be perfect, as the articles in the women’s magazines she read said it could be. David would be sorry he had ever left her.

She left before the shops shut. There was no hurry because Claire was going to a friend’s for tea, but Angela thought it was time to face her mother. She had parked on the quayside and sat in the car, watching the lights come on over the Tyne Bridge, thinking what she would say. The London train moved slowly across the river towards the station. She had already told her mother that she would not be working at Burnside because Medburn had left her enough money to repay the debt. She knew that she would receive a great deal. Beside his savings there was a house in Tynemouth he had bought years before in preparation for his retirement. But she had given her mother no details. She had not explained why Medburn had left her the money. Everyone else in Heppleburn knew and her mother would have heard the gossip by now. It was time to put her point of view. She drove over the cobbles through the darkening streets along the quay, past the multi-coloured brickwork of the Byker wall and along the coast towards Heppleburn.

Angela had guessed her mother might be angry about the rumours circulating in the village about herself and Medburn, but she had never seen the woman in such a state. For as long as Angela could remember, Mrs Mount had been composed and stately. There had been a few seemly tears at her husband’s funeral, the occasional outburst or irritation when one of the staff at Burnside had not followed her instructions precisely, but throughout these her control had remained intact. Now she was almost unrecognizable. She did not shout or cry, but the impression of strength and power had gone. She was vulnerable, small, weak. The whole place seemed to be in disorder. Usually tea had been served and cleared away by five o’clock, but when Angela arrived the residents were still at the table. There were remnants of the meal on plates in front of them sandwich crusts, half-eaten pieces of scone, the plain biscuits which no one had chosen – like the debris after a children’s tea party.