A Lesson in Dying (22 page)

‘Mr Robson,’ she said. ‘What a coincidence! Come in and I’ll give you a lift.’

He hesitated for a moment, but he was tired and not thinking clearly. Besides, it was one way of finding out if he were right. In his mood of exhilaration he thought he was invincible. It was only when he had lifted his suitcase on to the back seat and had sat comfortably on the passenger seat that he realized a shotgun was resting on her knee, the barrel pointing towards him. It was partly hidden by her long black cape.

‘I knew when to meet you,’ she said. ‘I received a telephone call at the school this morning. It was from my daughter.’ The mask of politeness slipped and her voice changed. ‘ The policeman was in the office when I took the phone call. I found that rather amusing.’ She began to laugh.

She drove out of the city and took the road north, so he knew she was taking him to her bungalow, not to Heppleburn. In his absence the fog had thickened and the police had lit burning braziers to mark the roundabouts. The cars crawled from one cat’s eye to the next and he had no idea where he was.

‘Where did you get the gun?’ he asked. The question had been troubling him during the drive through Newcastle. Her silence was unnerving him too and he wanted to get her to speak to him.

‘From my elderly neighbour,’ Irene Hunt said. ‘She keeps it to protect herself from imagined intruders. She’s so confused that she won’t notice that it’s gone. I took the Heminevrin from her too.

The doctor prescribed it for her months ago, but she’d forgotten all about it and there was nearly a bottle left.’

He realized that they must be in Nellington. The illuminated sign of the pub lurched crazily out of the fog above them. She turned off the main road towards the sea, though he did not see the junction or the signpost. It was so black that he did not know how she kept to the road.

‘When did you find out that Matthew was your grandson?’ he asked.

She smiled fondly but her voice was firm. ‘No more questions,’ she said. ‘Not until we get home. I don’t want to put the car in the ditch. You might run away. But don’t be anxious. I’ll satisfy your curiosity before I kill you.’

She had left the light on in the bungalow porch, so he knew they had arrived. There was no light in the farmhouse, though somewhere in the darkness he could hear the dogs howling as if they had been chained for the night.

‘It’s no good shouting,’ Irene Hunt said. ‘The old lady’s deaf and even if she were to hear you she’d take no notice.’ She got out of the car and locked the door meticulously behind her. ‘Come on,’ she said, suddenly irritated like a child denied a treat. ‘Come inside. I want to tell you all about it.’

Jack followed her. He left his suitcase inside the car and thought it unlikely that he would need it now. Inside, she drew all the curtains and put a light to the fire. It caught immediately and the flames were reflected on the walls of the room and her eager face.

‘Sit down,’ she said, as if he were some friend who had called in without invitation. ‘You must be tired.’

‘It never occurred to me,’ he said, ‘that Mrs Carpenter might phone you.’

‘We’re very close,’ she said proudly.

‘Yet she never told Matthew about you.’

‘That was her husband’s fault,’ she said. ‘When the children were young they were close to her adoptive parents. He’d never let her tell them the truth. He said it would confuse them. When he left her she didn’t want to admit that she’d lied. She did persuade Matthew to apply for the job at Heppleburn. That was kind. As it turned out it was just as well Matthew never knew I was his grandmother. It was difficult enough for him at Heppleburn without Medburn knowing he was a relative of mine.’

Jack sat in a large, comfortable armchair. He felt as if he were slipping into sleep. Miss Hunt held the gun lightly across her lap and he was almost too tired to care if she used it or not. But he did want to know what had happened and it occurred to him that the longer he could persuade her to keep talking, the more chance there was that he would survive.

‘Why did you kill Medburn?’ he asked.

‘Because of Matthew, of course,’ she said fiercely. ‘The headmaster had been tormenting me for years, but that was different. I love Matthew. He’s the only relative I’ve had to care for. He had to be protected.’

Her voice was high-pitched and wild and he wondered why none of them had realized before how desperate she was. He supposed they were so used to her that they took her for granted. They did not look behind the formal, authoritarian exterior. And she was convinced that her action was justified. She had no cause to show fear or remorse.

‘You killed Medburn because he was going to sack Matthew?’

She nodded.

‘He told me on the day of the Harvest Festival,’ she said. ‘Do you remember? It was the day of the Parents’Association committee meeting when your daughter suggested that we had the Hallowe’en party. I thought: if only I were a witch. I’d shape a spell and make him disappear for ever. Then I decided I’d kill him anyway. It wasn’t as if he was worth anything. He had no intrinsic value. He was an ugly little man. I couldn’t see anything wrong in it.’

She was rambling and Jack looked at the gun, wondering whether she might forget it and allow it to slip from her knee to the floor.

‘I enjoyed getting the details right,’ she said. ‘I told you, didn’t I, that I had ambitions to be a theatre designer until my parents sent me north in disgrace? I designed it like a stage act. Anne’s father was an actor …’ She stopped, lost in thought, then continued. ‘It took me longer than I expected to carry Medburn to the small playground. He was heavier than he looked.’ She seemed lost in memory and the gun began to slide between her knees towards the floor, but she caught it and held it firmly. She leaned forward and talked earnestly. ‘I had to plan it all,’ she said, ‘in every detail. It wasn’t easy, you know.’

She looked up at him as if she expected approval.

‘I knew about the Heminevrin,’ she went on, ‘ because the old lady’s daughter complained to me once that she couldn’t get her to take it. “ The doctor says it’ll stop her wandering around at night,” she said, “but she just spits it out because it tastes so bad. You’d think they could put something in it to make it taste better.” I didn’t think that would matter with Medburn because everyone knew he had no sense of taste, but even he noticed it. “This coffee isn’t up to your normal standard, Miss Hunt,” he said, being as pompous as ever, but he drank it all the same.’

‘You must have phoned him,’ Jack said, determined to maintain the conversation. ‘I suppose you asked him to come back to school. How did you manage that?’

‘I said I had a message from Angela Brayshaw,’ she said. ‘He thought he’d kept that affair secret, but everyone could tell how infatuated he was with her. He came rushing round to school like a little boy in love. I had the coffee ready, with the drug in his mug. I told him that Angela had arranged to come back to school early, so they could have some time together before the party started. He looked so pleased with himself, so smug. I pretended to leave and sat in my classroom to wait. When I went back to the hall a quarter of an hour later he was unconscious. I strangled him, then dragged him into the small playground and strung him up on the netball hoop. I had the noose ready. I was pleased with the result. He looked very … ? dramatic hanging there. It was most appropriate for Hallowe’en. All the time I was working I was conscious that someone might come and surprise me.’ She stopped and looked directly at him. ‘ It was exciting,’ she said. ‘I have never been so excited in my life. I wanted to humiliate him as he had humiliated me.’

‘You were clever,’ Jack said. ‘ I would have said that you were as surprised as the rest of us when I found his body.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I would never have thought myself capable of it. I was pleased with myself. My boyfriend would have been proud of me.’

‘It must have been a bit of a shock when I turned up to talk to you,’ Jack said. He felt he was entitled to be proud of himself too.

‘It was,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think anyone would find out about Anne, but I still thought I was safe …’

She stood up suddenly, in a jerk, as if she had heard a noise outside, and walked to the window. She peered through the curtains then returned to her chair.

‘Why did you kill Paul Wilcox then?’ he asked. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. It seemed unimportant now that he might offend her. ‘If you thought you were safe.’

She obviously disliked the implied criticism.

‘Perhaps I was too clever when I followed you to the school house on the night of the bonfire,’ she admitted. ‘ I felt helpless. I didn’t know how far you’d got with your investigation. I hoped to frighten you.’

‘You just made me more determined,’ he said.

‘Yes. I realize that.’

‘Paul Wilcox was already in the school house looking for some letters he’d sent to Angela Brayshaw. He saw you, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was looking out of the upstairs window and he saw me in the moonlight. He seemed too frightened then to realize the implication of it, but I was worried he’d see how important it was later. I never planned to kill him. It was quite spontaneous. I was on my way to Matthew’s and I saw Wilcox come out of the old mill and walk up the lane. I turned the car round and followed him. Just as I reached him it started to rain very heavily. I saw that as fate. I stopped the car beside him. “ Get in,” I said. “ I’ll give you a lift home.” He didn’t suspect anything. I always thought he was a fool. Then I saw him sitting there, starting to wonder. “What were you doing at the school house on the night of the bonfire?” he asked. “It was you I saw in the playground.” So I had to kill him. I took my scarf and twisted it round his neck as he was turning to get out of the car. It was easy then to tip him into the ditch.’

‘Wilcox had a wife and two children,’ Jack said.

‘He was weak and silly,’ she said quickly. ‘I couldn’t let him get in the way.’

She’s like a selfish child, he thought, determined to get her own way at any price.

‘And what about me?’ he cried. ‘ What excuse do you have for getting rid of me.’

‘You were warned,’ she said. ‘ It was your choice.’ She looked quite different, hunched over the gun, her knees wide apart like one of the incontinent old ladies at Burnside. She had lost her control and dignity. Her protective passion for Matthew had destroyed her.

‘Don’t you think they’ll realize you’re the murderer if they find my body here?’

‘Do you think I’m a fool?’ The words exploded from her and she was so angry and unbalanced that he was afraid she would shoot him immediately. ‘No one knows where you are. They think you’ve run away because you were depressed by Kitty’s death. So depressed that you might commit suicide yourself.’

‘I’d never kill myself. I’m no coward.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but if they find your body that’s what they’ll think. The bottle of Heminevrin’s still nearly full. I’m stronger than you and I’ve got a gun. I’ll take you to your home and eventually someone will find your body there. Poor Jack, they’ll say, her death turned his mind. He was crazy with love.’

‘I’m
not crazy,’ he said before he could stop himself.

‘Are you suggesting that I am?’ she spat at him. ‘Because I was looking after the only person I had the opportunity of loving?’

‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘You had plenty of opportunity, a fine young woman like you. Perhaps you were crazy even then, brooding about that man who got you in trouble.’

He had provoked her too far. She stood up and pointed the gun towards him. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. She swung round, confused and bewildered as if the noise had emptied her mind of all thought.

‘Keep away!’ she shouted. ‘ Keep away or I’ll kill him.’

There was another knock. She prowled towards the window and looked out but the porch light was off and there was nothing to see. Jack sat quietly, unmoving.

‘Who is it?’ she shouted. ‘Who’s there?’

The unknown person knocked on the door again. The noise and the lack of response seemed to irritate her. She edged towards the door.

Suddenly there was the sound of breaking glass as the back door into the kitchen was broken. The room seemed full of policemen. Ramsay was there and Irene Hunt had collapsed on the floor, an old and ugly woman, her face wrinkled and running with tears.

‘She must be mad,’ Jack said. He felt he had to make an excuse for her. He hoped they would treat her gently.

‘She would have killed you,’ the policeman said. ‘You’d better come home. I promised Patty I’d get you back safely.’

As they walked up the lane to where the cars had been parked out of earshot of the bungalow, Jack found that the fog was lifting in patches and he could see stars above his head.

Patty’s small living room seemed full of people. Ramsay was there, quite at home in Jim’s chair, his legs stretched out in front of the fire. Hannah Wilcox had turned up on the doorstep without warning. She had heard about Jack’s disappearance, she said, and wondered if she could do anything, to help. This unexpected gesture of friendship and support pleased Patty almost more than the safe arrival of her father. She pulled Hannah in and persuaded her to stay, although she said it was a family affair and they would want to be left alone. Now Hannah sat on the floor in a corner, trying unsuccessfully to be inconspicuous, because whenever she spoke or moved she demanded attention. Jim, solid and relieved, wished the visitors would go away so life could return to normal. He drank beer and handed a can to Jack, and after some hesitation to Ramsay. Now he would never have to see the policeman again he was prepared to be friendly. The room was very hot. Patty remembered what Hannah had said about shock making you feel cold and had turned the heating on full.

‘How did you find me then?’ Jack asked. He was more relaxed than anyone.

‘It was Inspector Ramsay,’ Patty said. Jim recognized the admiration in her voice and seemed to shrink.

‘It was easy enough to find out which coach you took,’ Ramsay said. ‘That was routine police work. Matthew Carpenter had told me that he came from there. The local police sent someone round to interview his mother. She said you’d been to see her and admitted that she’d phoned Miss Hunt. She didn’t know Miss Hunt was involved with the murders, of course. She just thought you were going to make trouble for her, as Medburn had done. Then it was obvious to go to the bungalow. When we saw your suitcase in her car, we knew you must be inside.’