The Mill on the Shore Read online

  ‘There’s a note here from Phil Cairns about the decline of roseate terns in the country,’ George said. ‘But I don’t see how that could be relevant to Jimmy’s autobiography.’

  On the inside cover of the May magazine there was a full page colour advertisement for the Mardon Wools’ SAVE THE PLANET sweaters. ‘A percentage of all profits goes to Nature Conservation,’ said the text. Then: ‘individually designed by Catherine Morrissey’.

  ‘Those were pushed very heavily at one time,’ Molly said. ‘ I’ve not seen them around for a while.’

  ‘Perhaps the International Wildlife Fund saw sense and stopped taking commercial sponsorship,’ George said. He continued turning the pages slowly.

  On the inside cover of the last page there were more advertisements, including one for future issues of the magazine. ‘In Green Scenes next month,’ it said, ‘“The Reintroduction of the Sea Eagle in Scotland – an evaluation of the project to date.” Coming later in the year: “An investigation into the newly privatized water companies and their regulatory body. Can they really be expected to put pollution control before profit?”

  ‘No,’ George said out loud in response to that question. ‘Of course not.’ And he turned to the remaining copies of the year’s Green Scenes with interest, wondering what Jimmy Morrissey had done with the topic. He scoured the magazines with the same intensity as before, even studying the Wanted ads for back copies of British Birds and requests for ‘Single vegetarian guy with a love of the Countryside’, to get in touch with Donna from Peckham.

  ‘It’s not here,’ he said at last.

  ‘What’s not there?’ Molly had already lost interest in the venture. She wanted a drink and was wondering whether the Lord Nelson would still be open when she finally dragged George away from the magazines.

  ‘The piece on the water companies and the regulatory body – the National Rivers Authority.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ she asked. She looked at her watch. ‘ What connection could it have with the Mill? No one here works for the NRA.’

  ‘It might matter,’ he said, ‘if Jimmy was put under pressure to drop it. That article would have been written just after the water authorities were privatized. There was lots of publicity about it. If he had evidence of corruption, or the NRA not properly carrying out its function, all the national newspapers would have picked it up. And if he’d decided to tell the story in his autobiography it would still cause embarrassment …’

  ‘How would you find out?’ Molly asked. ‘If the article was written would there be some record of it at Green Scenes’ headquarters in London?’

  George thought of the disorganized office, the piles of paper, important messages taken on the back of envelopes and immediately lost.

  ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘But Aidan Moore was working there then.’

  ‘Why not ask him now?’ Molly said, looking at her watch again.

  They might just make it to the Lord Nelson before closing time. And surely most country pubs had flexible opening hours anyway. In the village where they lived even the local policeman drank after hours as long as the curtains were drawn and the door was shut. ‘Let’s take him to the pub and talk to him there.’

  But when they knocked at his door there was no reply and the next day, when they asked for Aidan at breakfast, they were told that he had decided to leave. He must have arranged for a taxi to take him to the station for the early London train. Only Molly noticed that Ruth, who was passing on this information, seemed disproportionately upset.

  Chapter Eleven

  Timothy woke early. Since his father’s death his sleep had been disturbed, not by morbid thoughts but by memories. In the month before he died his father had seemed suddenly to recognize his presence, to see him in some way as a kindred spirit. Timothy had been aware that his father had been pleased with his interests, without quite understanding why. ‘You’ll carry on the Morrissey name,’ the man had said as they worked together at the makeshift lab in the schoolroom. ‘What will you be, do you think? Marine biologist, chemist?’ Timothy had never known what to answer. ‘ I want to be like you,’ he had said, thinking his father would like that. ‘Oh no,’ James said. ‘You don’t want to be like me.’

  Timothy woke suddenly with the memory of his father’s words in his mind. It was just getting light, still very cold, but overcast. The weather forecast had predicted snow. The tide was out and from his window he saw the grey expanse of mud, merging on the horizon with the grey sky. He lay still for a moment thinking he might go back to sleep but his brain was too active, analysing already the results of the day before’s experiments, and he got out of bed and began absent-mindedly to dress. His mother would ask if he had washed but he was finding it increasingly easy to lie to his mother. Standing at the window, watching the lightening sky, feeling the child’s excitement at the prospect of snow, he suddenly saw a white shape on the mud where the River Marr entered the bay.

  That’s strange, he thought. He knew the shore so well that anything new was of interest.

  ‘Investigation,’ he heard his father say in his head. ‘That’s the basis of all good science. If there’s something you can’t explain investigate it.’

  He pulled on an extra jersey and a thick pair of socks and padded quietly out of the flat and down the wooden stairs. At the kitchen door he paused – even scientists had to eat and Rosie was grilling bacon.

  ‘Can I have breakfast now?’ he asked. ‘I want to go out on to the shore.’ Then, thinking that it wasn’t quite a lie, ‘Mother doesn’t mind.’

  ‘What about a bacon butty to take out?’ she said. ‘Like in a transport caff.’

  ‘What’s a transport caff?’ he was going to ask, but he was in too much of a hurry so he took the doorstep sandwich and went outside, expecting all the time to hear his mother call him back.

  It was a mute swan and it had been washed down the river and left stranded by the tide on the mud. It was waterlogged, bedraggled and spattered with wet sand. When Timothy approached it he thought that the creature was unable to move, that he could scoop it up in his arms and despite its weight carry it back to the Mill. But when he reached out to pick it up it turned on him and struck out with its beak and scratched him with its sharp claws.

  ‘You frightened him off,’ George said in a low voice. ‘He’s run away.’ He was talking about Aidan Moore. Molly was stung by the unfairness of the accusation. Last night he had said that she could have done no harm.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he just got fed up with the place and went home.’

  ‘Like this?’ he demanded. ‘Without telling anyone or saying goodbye?’

  They were sitting at the breakfast table. Everyone else seemed preoccupied and drained. The meal was over – there were sad scraps of toast, dregs of coffee – but no one made the effort to leave. Opposite to George Ruth sat with her elbows on the table. Since telling them flatly that Aidan had decided to leave she had been silent.

  ‘Where was Aidan going?’ George asked conversationally.

  She shook her head. ‘Home, I suppose,’ she said. ‘He’s got a flat in Deal. He moved out of London when he started making a living from his illustrations.’

  ‘Have you got his phone number?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said listlessly. ‘Somewhere.’

  ‘Did he tell you why he was going so suddenly?’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘When did he tell you?’

  ‘We went out for a drink together,’ she said. ‘To the Dead Dog in the village.’ Ruth blushed as she remembered her excitement. He had asked her to go with him. Not the gang. Not Rosie and Jane and Caitlin. Just her. They had walked there in the moonlight down the deserted lanes, and when occasionally a car went past he had pulled her with him into the hedge, putting his arm around her to keep her safe. And then, almost as soon as they had arrived, after they had ordered their drinks from Cedric and taken them to the small table in the corner, he had droppe
d the bombshell. He had come to a decision, he said. There was something he had to see to. He couldn’t afford to spend any more time at the Mill.

  ‘Were you there all evening?’ George asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We had a couple of drinks and then came home. Aidan was restless. He said he had a lot to do before he left.’

  ‘What did he mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said resentfully. ‘Packing, I suppose. He certainly didn’t tell Mother he was going. She was really cross when she found out about it this morning.’

  Meg’s crossness had been apparent as she raised her voice, interrupting their conversation from the end of the table.

  ‘Where’s Timothy?’ she demanded. ‘I haven’t seen him this morning. Has he been in to breakfast? Rosie, have you seen Timothy?’

  Rosie appeared from the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee.

  ‘He came down early,’ she said, ‘while I was laying up. I gave him a sandwich then he went out. He was in a terrible hurry. I think he’d seen something on the marsh which had excited him. I thought he’d cleared it with you.’

  ‘No,’ Meg said, with ill-disguised fury. ‘I haven’t seen him. Where is the boy?’

  Almost on cue he appeared at the door. His hands and his arms were smeared with blood and there was a cut on his forehead. He was crying and the tears ran through the dirt on his face.

  ‘You’ve got to come,’ he cried. ‘ Quick. Before it’s too late.’

  But by the time George followed the boy out on to the marsh the swan was already dead and seemed nothing but a pile of rubbish washed up by the tide.

  The boy was hysterical. He screamed in a way that he had not done when he heard of his father’s death. George stood awkwardly and waited for the noise to stop.

  ‘Look,’ he said at last. ‘There was nothing you could do.’

  But Timothy was remembering again what his father had told him. The swan and his father had somehow become confused in his mind and he felt equally guilty at the death of both.

  George tried to phone Aidan Moore all morning but there was no reply from his flat. This only confirmed George’s feeling that the man had for some reason gone into hiding. At last he gave up and on impulse phoned Green Scenes. He asked to speak to Christabel Burns who had been Jimmy’s secretary for years. He presumed the magazine’s new proprietors would have kept her on. Her knowledge and skill would be invaluable to them. Jimmy had always said, without exaggeration, that she really ran the publication. She had been an unlikely employee of Green Scenes: smart, respectable and middle-aged, she had started there first as a temp when her children had become independent. Before caring for them she had had some high-powered job in insurance but when she tried to return to a similar post she found that she was considered too old, out of touch. She made no compromises to Green Scenes. The other staff and volunteers might wear jeans, sweaters with holes in the elbows, but she was always immaculately made up and turned out.

  ‘Do you know,’ Jimmy had once said to George in awe, ‘ I think she even votes Tory.’

  George was put through to Christabel immediately. George had always been a favourite. She had seen him as an ally, a supporter of her sanity amid the chaos of the magazine.

  ‘George,’ she said. Her voice was Essex flat, modulated by years of impressing clients and employers. ‘What can I do for you?’

  He knew that he would have to be straight with her. She was as perceptive as they came, had been able to detect a fraudulent insurance claim after two minutes on the phone.

  ‘I’m investigating Jimmy’s death,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that, George? I thought you’d retired from that sort of thing years ago.’

  ‘Meg doesn’t think he committed suicide. She’s asked me to look into it. It’s nothing to do with the police.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Meg.’ She invested the word with all the disapproval she could muster.

  ‘You didn’t get on?’ It was hardly relevant but George was intrigued.

  ‘I only met the woman once. Didn’t think she was right for Jimmy.’

  Had Christabel been jealous? George wondered. She had always treated Jimmy with affectionate irritation, but perhaps he had worked his charm on her too.

  ‘I can’t explain now why it’s important,’ George said, ‘ but I’m interested in a story he was working on just after water privatization. Probably something about the new NRA. He’d obviously reached some conclusions about it because it was advertised for publication later in the year, but I couldn’t find any record of it. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you remember it after all this time?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. George imagined her removing her spectacles from her nose, letting them hang by the chain round her neck, then shutting her eyes and waiting until the computer efficiency of her memory began to work. ‘ Yes, I remember. It raised a great deal of excitement. The magazine was dead against water privatization. We’d campaigned against it for months. You know that, George. Jimmy thought that the regulatory body would end up in the pocket of the private water companies and he was looking for a story to prove that he was right. It was the big subject of the moment.’

  She paused as someone obviously came into the office with a query.

  ‘Sorry about that, George,’ she said. ‘This place is still run by children straight from college. They can’t find a thing without asking me first.’

  ‘What happened?’ George asked. ‘Did he get the evidence he was hoping for?’

  ‘I don’t know about evidence,’ she said. ‘But there was a letter, all very mysterious, alleging corruption between a polluting business, the NRA and the water company.’

  ‘Who was it from?’

  ‘Don’t know. It was anonymous. I wouldn’t have taken it seriously. It was obviously from some crank, all very John le Carré. A meeting was arranged in some pub and he even suggested that he’d be carrying a copy of Green Scenes under his arm.’

  ‘He?’ George said ‘ Was it a man?’

  There was a pause while she considered. ‘I’m really not sure,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I just made that assumption.’

  ‘Where was the pub?’ George asked. ‘London?’

  ‘No, not London. Somewhere in the wilds, up the Al, Yorkshire? Humberside?’ She had a southerner’s ignorance of the north. It was all the same to her. ‘Jimmy couldn’t make the meeting. He was filming for the BBC. He even wanted to cry off, plead illness but I made him see that wouldn’t do. So he sent young Aidan, Aidan Moore. Anyone less suited to be a spy it would be hard to imagine.’

  ‘What did he find out?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘ Jimmy wouldn’t tell me.’ Even after all those years George could tell that it still rankled. Perhaps that’s why she remembered the incident so well. ‘“ It’s not that I don’t trust you, Chrissie old girl,” he said, all flattery and trying to get round me, “but this is the big one, the scoop that goes down in the annals. I don’t want some Fleet Street hack getting wind of it before we’re ready to publish.” He was quite paranoid about it, talked even of government moles. Nothing was written down. Then there was a phone call for him. I took the message. The caller wanted another meeting, but with the big boss. He left his number. Jimmy rang back then left an editorial meeting halfway through. High as a kite, loving the drama. You know how he was. That meeting was in a pub too. Typical Jimmy.’

  ‘Where did he go?’ George asked. ‘Did he ask you to make the travel arrangements, book a hotel room?’

  ‘He drove himself,’ she said. ‘I asked him about a hotel room. It was the start of the holiday season. I thought he might have problems finding somewhere. But he said not to bother. He had somewhere to stay.’

  ‘You remember it all very well,’ George said.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘ I went over it all in my mind hundreds of times. That was the weekend of the accident, the weekend Hannah was killed. Nothing was the same again.’

 
‘Is that why the article was shelved?’ George asked. ‘ Because Jimmy was in hospital and he wasn’t able to put it together?’ Perhaps the explanation was that simple and this was a wild-goose chase.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not entirely. No one else could have put the story together of course. Jimmy was the only one with the facts. But it wasn’t as if we’d missed some deadline – it could have gone out at any time. None of our rivals had got hold of it so far as I could tell. I assumed that as soon as Jimmy got back to the office he’d start working on it.’

  ‘But he didn’t?’

  ‘Yes he did,’ she said. ‘He was obsessed with it. He wrote it and rewrote it, all in longhand. And he was still terribly secretive. None of us was allowed to see it. Not even Aidan Moore who’d been in on it from the beginning. But he couldn’t come to any decision about whether or not to publish.’ She paused. ‘It was so unlike him,’ she said. ‘He was always so certain.’

  ‘But he must have come to a decision in the end.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘And even then we had to have a Morrissey touch of drama. I had to watch him feed all his drafts through the shredder.’

  ‘Did he give any explanation for his change of heart?’

  ‘He said that he didn’t have a stomach for the fight. One person had died already. “It’s no good, Chrissie,” he said. “I’m not up to it. I’ll admit defeat now.”’

  ‘What did he mean that one person had died? Was he talking about Hannah? What did she have to do with the pollution case?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Christabel said. ‘He was confused, under stress …’

  George’s imagination was firing in all directions. Had Jimmy’s car been tampered with? Was he the intended victim? Was his death so many years later just a fulfilment of the earlier murder attempt? Would it be possible after all this time to find out? Christabel had continued speaking and he had to ask her to repeat what she’d said.