On the way back to the school across the short space of the playground he was as confused and excited as a boy. There had been, between him and Kitty, an intimacy which he would never have thought possible. He was thrilled because she had not treated him as a stranger – she had chosen to tell him about Harold Medburn’s affair when there had been no need to. At the same time he felt guilty, as if this excitement were a betrayal of his affection for Joan, his wife, a rejection of the calm support she had given him throughout their marriage.
At the door into the school he paused. He wanted more time to savour the memory of the conversation with Kitty, to assess for himself if the significance he had given to it was real. He needed to be alone, away from the noise of the party. There was a small walled playground at the side of the school, used exclusively by the younger children, so they would not be frightened by the rowdiness of the older boys. It was as bleak and sunless, he always thought, as the exercise yard of a prison, a depressing place for the infants to play, but he knew he would be private there. The wooden door set in the wall opened by a latch. He was surprised by how silently and smoothly it opened, and walked through.
Set in the wall at one end of the yard was a rusting netball hoop. It had been there as long as he could remember, and when the school had taken pupils until the age of fourteen it had been used by the older girls. It was too high for the younger children. As he walked into the yard, trying again to conjure Kitty’s face, her voice, her presence, the moon was directly above him and filled the walls with its white light. It left little shadow. The only shadow was on the concrete under the netball hoop and it moved as the figure above it, which hung from the loop and threw the shadow, swung very gently.
At first Jack thought it was some tattered remnant of the party, a giant bat with folded wings, discarded as being too grotesque even for Hallowe’en. Then, as the figure turned on its axis, he saw it was Harold Medburn, wrapped in his academic gown, hanging from a noose made of white pieces of cloth. The contrast of black and white and the gloss of the moonlight turned the picture into a strip of negative film, just pulled from the photographer’s fluid. He shut the door on it and stood for a moment in the playground.
The party was over. There were loud shouts of farewell and the noise of banging car doors and engines.
At least Medburn didn’t spoil Patty’s evening, he thought, before he even wondered why the headmaster had hanged himself or realized that now Kitty would be free.
It was only much later, when the police came with their questions and cars and spotlights, that he was told that Medburn had been murdered.
Chapter Three
Saturday night was a bad time for murder, especially in Northumberland, where serious crime was rare. The divisional commander was at a dinner dance but was so shocked by the news of the murder that he sobered immediately. Ramsay was the only detective inspector the Otterbridge Communications Centre could contact, and he was in bed. No one knew where to find the portable generators to power the spotlights and when they were tracked down it took some time to find the keys to the storeroom. Detective Sergeant Hunter, who was supposed to be on duty, was not answering the radio. As the unfamiliar first steps of a murder inquiry were taken, Medburn’s body swung from the netball hoop, waiting for the photographer, and for the senior policemen to come to a decision about how the investigation should progress.
The commander, the superintendent from Otter-bridge and Ramsay stood in the moonlight on the frosty playground, unwilling participants in the Hallowe’en drama. The commander had been moved from the city centre division to wind down before retirement. He had been a good policeman in his day, everyone admitted, but was more adept at public relations now than catching criminals. The superintendent was a fat and idle man whose limited energies were devoted to his hobby of amateur dramatics. In the end they left it all to Ramsay. He would carry out the investigation after all.
‘Delegation,’ the superintendent muttered to himself as he walked back to his car. ‘That’s the secret of good management.’
More importantly Ramsay was unpopular and if anyone was to make a mistake it would better be him.
The inspector watched them make their excuses and scurry away. He knew better than to expect their support. He had no illusions about his work.
The commander went home to bed, to sleep off the effect of too much food and whisky, and Ramsay was left alone with the uniformed policeman who was guarding the gate to the playground. Ramsay was a tall, angular figure in a long overcoat and he waited without moving.
Later the young constable told his friends that he was more spooked by the motionless, silent figure of the inspector than by the body still wrapped in the bat-like gown. It was dawn before the civilian scene-of-crime officer arrived and Ramsay finally allowed the the body to be removed. It was dawn before Gordon Hunter, cocksure and unrepentant, turned up in a taxi.
If Kitty Medburn had not been given sedation, Ramsay would have spoken to her first and the relationship with Patty Atkins might not have become so central to the case. In the event Patty was first alphabetically on the list of suspects, and Ramsay was aware, almost immediately, that she could be useful to him. She was bright, curious, involved in the community. She spoke without thinking and wanted to please them. At first he set Gordon Hunter to charm her. Hunter was young, attractive in a brash way, appealing, Ramsay thought, to women. But as they sat in her living room, with Hunter asking the questions, Ramsay came to realize that she was performing for him. Hunter was asking the questions but when she came to answer she faced the corner where Ramsay was sitting. This came as a shock to the inspector. Since his wife had left him some months before he had avoided the company of women. He had no intention of making a fool of himself again. Yet even on that first meeting there was an understanding between the bored, disorganized housewife and the aloof, rather arrogant policeman, which would dictate the course of the investigation. They liked each other from the beginning.
‘Come on, love,’ Hunter said, smiling, showing no indication that he had spent the night drinking. ‘You knew Harold Medburn. Tell us about him. Anything would be useful.’
She had hesitated and glanced towards Ramsay who nodded in encouragement. Later her father was to ask her what she saw in Ramsay and she did not know what to say. He was middle-aged, dark, so tall he seemed to have an habitual stoop. Yet she felt from the beginning that his approval was worth having. He was a man of judgement. If he showed that he had confidence in her she would have confidence in herself. So, quite quietly, with none of her usual melodrama, she told the policemen about Medburn’s affair with Angela Brayshaw. She was rewarded by Ramsay’s smile.
She only learned later, from her father, that Kitty Medburn had been taken into custody.
Jack Robson was beside himself with fury.
In the afternoon he walked with Patty on the empty sandy beach at the end of the valley. Jim had taken the children to his mother’s and Patty had insisted that she needed fresh air.
‘I want to talk to you,’ Jack said angrily. As soon as he heard of Kitty’s arrest he had stormed to her house and banged on the door, ignoring the enjoyment of the neighbours.
‘You can talk just as well outside.’
She had not slept and her eyes felt tight with tiredness. The sea was grey despite the sunshine, and a strong east wind blew sand around their ankles and flattened the marram grass against the dunes. They walked from the car park through the dunes to the flat hard shore.
‘What did you do it for?’ he demanded. ‘Why did you have to tell the police?’