The Mill on the Shore Read online

  He would have liked to get back to the Mill immediately. He wanted to change out of the uncomfortable clothes, the black tie lent him for the occasion by Phil Cairns, and get out on to the shore. But Cathy had been accosted by old acquaintances, people she had known in London when she was married to James, and he had to wait.

  Through the crowd he saw Grace Sharland, the community nurse who had come occasionally to visit James. She had taken off a small round hat and shaken out the hair which had been piled inside. It was the copper colour of the hair which had caught his attention. He had not noticed her in the church and he wondered why she was there. It was beyond the call of duty surely to attend the memorial service of a patient. She stood alone, as awkwardly as him, and on impulse he began to push past the other mourners to speak to her. She turned and saw him approaching. For a moment she hesitated and he thought she would join him, but she turned away abruptly and hurried down the lane to where the cars were parked. He could not chase after her without appearing ridiculous.

  Phil Cairns bounded excitedly beside him. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Wax-wings!’ And Aidan was immediately distracted by the shape of the sturdy, thick-billed birds which clustered on the bare oak beside the church. He concentrated on the delicate shading, the splash of colour on their wings, the background of fine, intertwined branches. He would do a painting, he thought. It would be more of a memorial to James than that vicar’s speech.

  ‘We’re not going back to the Mill,’ Phil said. ‘ Cathy doesn’t fancy it.’ He was disappointed, Aidan could see. He would have liked to mix with all the famous people. ‘She thinks it might be a bit awkward for Meg. I suppose you can understand why. But we’ll drop you off of course on our way home.’

  At the Mill Aidan avoided the smart people crowded in the lobby and slipped away to his room. He had done his duty by attending the service but could not face the prospect of standing in the common room making small talk and drinking tepid wine. Besides, his feelings about James were too confused. He changed into jeans and stood at his window, looking down at the garden, waiting for a time when he could leave the building without being seen. At last all the cars seemed to have arrived and he padded down the stairs, his thick woollen socks making no sound on the bare wood. In the porch he stopped to pull on wellingtons and then he went out.

  There was no way directly from the Mill on to the marsh. At one time there had been wide doors so the grain could be unloaded directly from the boats for storage, but they let in the east wind and the high tides and the whole of the front of the building had been made weatherproof. Now the only entrance was at the back of the house which faced the road. It opened on to a garden which had been specially planted to attract migrant birds with hardy bushes, stunted trees and a pond. Phil Cairns must have been ringing that morning because mist nets were still strung between bamboo poles but furled, and tied. Aidan walked around the building and on to the marsh.

  James had recently commissioned Aidan to design the cover for his latest book, an autobiography. James had wanted a picture of the Mill. ‘My last resting place after all, I suppose’ he had said, grinning bitterly. Aidan had thought the autobiography a bad idea. He suspected it would only cause mischief. But as usual he had been unable to refuse a request from James and despite himself he had become engrossed in the painting. He thought that the Mill should be seen in perspective on the design, as one feature of the bay, not dominating it. So he had begun to sketch it from the shingle spit, with the mud and the staithes in the foreground as part of the landscape. This late afternoon winter light was perfect. The mud and the Mill and the woodland behind it all seemed different shades of the same colour. Aidan was not sure what would happen to James’ autobiography now – but he had been obsessed all week by the idea of the picture and knew he would have to finish it whether he got paid for it or not.

  His boots on the shingle startled the waders and sent them wheeling and calling into the air. He sat with his back to the marker buoy and looked across the bay to Markham Mill. The light in the common room had already been switched on and he imagined he heard voices and laughter coming over the water. Further south at the opposite end of the inlet to the spit stood the Cairns’ cottage, its white-washed walls standing out against the prevailing grey, a light from the uncurtained window reflected on the wet mud.

  He stayed out on the saltmarsh until it was quite dark. When he arrived back at the Mill he was surprised to find that all the cars had gone and the common room was empty.

  For Rosie and Jane the gathering in the Mill after the memorial service represented hard work. It wasn’t much fun preparing food for that crowd and there were only the two of them to do all the serving. Florrie Duffy would come in later to help with the clearing up but, as Rosie said, since her operation she’d been neither use nor ornament.

  Rosie had been up since dawn and Jane had had to drag her out of the kitchen for the service, and then they’d almost been late. Rosie wouldn’t trust Jane with the cooking. She might have been to a smart girls’ school and have A levels but her pastry turned out like lead.

  Yet, she thought, as she stood in the huge room surrounded by famous people, pouring wine, refilling plates, it had been worth the effort. She could be proud of the spread she’d laid on. She wished she could tell her dad about it. He’d been a great James Morrissey fan. There’d always had to be silence in their house when Morrissey on Mammals came on the telly. It was one of her earliest childhood memories. But her dad was dead and would never know how involved she had become with his great hero. There was only Jane to share her excitement and even she couldn’t understand how important it was to have everything perfect. It was her own memorial to a dead man.

  Grace Sharland made tea in her house in the small grey town which straddled the River Marr. She was disappointed by her lack of control at the memorial service. What had possessed her to run away? What, if it came to that, had possessed her to go to the church in the first place? She drew the heavy curtains against the windy afternoon and lit the fire. It seemed to her friends that she gathered round her the clutter of a middle-aged spinster, though she was only in her mid-thirties, hardly old at all these days when menopausal film stars were having first babies. The room was already warm, lit by a standard lamp with a heavy fringe. There were paintings, a chintz sofa, bowls of dried flowers. James had asked once if it was all an elaborate joke. Surely this mock Edwardian nonsense didn’t really reflect her taste. She wondered what she had replied and found she could no longer remember.

  She carried the tea from the kitchen to the living room on a pretty enamelled tray and poured it not into a mug as her friends would have done, but into a white fluted cup made of china so fine that it was almost transparent.

  After the turbulence of the previous months there was something pleasant about being here, alone, with no prospect of further excitement or disorder. She finished her tea, let in her cats and felt a surprised relief that the business with James Morrissey was over.

  Chapter Three

  George Palmer-Jones read James Morrissey’s obituary in The Times. It listed his achievements, gave a glowing account of his contribution to natural history, yet it left George disappointed. George had known James Morrissey well over the years. They had been of the same generation, the first conservationists to care more about the behaviour and habitat of living creatures than dead specimens in a museum or collections of birds’ eggs.

  George folded the newspaper tidily and thought of the Jimmy Morrissey he had known: gaunt, hollow-eyed, with a smoker’s cough and a wild, spontaneous laugh which racked his whole body. George had been one of the ornithological consultants for Green Scenes and he went to the office in London occasionally for editorial meetings. The meetings were always occasions of drama, wreathed in cigarette smoke despite the muttered complaints of Morrissey’s environmentally conscious colleagues. James would prowl around the room, drinking cup after cup of strong black coffee, firing ideas into the air, demanding an immediate and int
elligent response. It was all very different from the calm reserve of Whitehall where George worked and he would leave the meetings excited, his head full of new ideas, thinking that perhaps he was in the wrong job.

  He had been surprised when James retired from Green Scenes. The resignation seemed to come out of the blue. There was the accident of course but James seemed to have recovered from that. He wasn’t the sort to brood. George had learned of his decision to leave the last time they had met. Jimmy had turned up in the doorway of George’s office looking sheepish.

  ‘I thought you might be knocking off soon,’ he had said, ‘ and might fancy a drink.’

  It was obviously more than a courtesy call. He had never been to the office before.

  George had taken him into a dark, unfashionable pub, which was almost empty. The barmaid had recognized James from a repeat of his television series and brought drinks to the table, flushed from her contact with someone famous. James still limped and walked with a stick.

  ‘I haven’t got the heart for it since the accident,’ he had said. ‘And the doctor thinks I should slow down a bit.’ He had leaned across the table willing George to believe him. In the past George had heard him dismiss the opinions of doctors with unrepeatable oaths and wondered what lay behind the move. Reserve and a misguided notion of good manners had prevented him from asking.

  ‘Meg’s seen this place,’ Jimmy went on, ‘at Markham Bay, near Cathy’s cottage actually. It’s an old mill. She thinks it would make a good field centre. Somewhere decent for the children to grow up. She’s never liked them living in London.’

  And he had stared sadly into his beer.

  ‘I’ll miss the old Green Scenes,’ he said. ‘But there you are. Nothing I can do about it. Have to accept, I suppose, that I’m getting old.’

  He looked up at George plaintively. Perhaps he was hoping for contradiction but George could only murmur polite regret. When he went out, jauntily waving his stick at the barmaid, George was left with the impression that he could have said more if he had been pressed, that he could have been persuaded to pass on some confidence. He had been too scared of intruding. Molly would have handled it better.

  The letter from Meg arrived two days after the memorial service. He and Molly were in the kitchen enjoying a leisurely breakfast. Since Christmas business had been quiet. Soon he would experience the panic which was the inevitable result of boredom, but these few weeks of long meals and empty afternoons had been relaxing, an indulgence. Outside it was cold and blustery, just light. George had seen the service advertised in the press but had decided not to go. It was a long trek to Markham Mill, especially in the winter and he did not need to attend a service to remember James.

  Meg’s letter was formal and brief:

  ‘Dear Mr Palmer-Jones,’ it said. ‘I should like to hire you to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of my husband James. I know that you were friends and your involvement with conservation makes you, of all private detectives, most suited for this commission. You will stay of course at the Mill and I will pay your normal daily fee plus expenses. I will be available to receive you on Friday January 29th and if I don’t hear from you I shall expect you then. I enclose a map for your convenience.’ The letter was signed ‘Margaret Morrissey’.

  George disliked the term ‘private detective’ but that, in effect, was what he had become. He had spent his career as a civil servant, working for the Home Office, liaising between the police and bureaucrats. He had expected to enjoy retirement. It would give him the opportunity to devote all his energies to birdwatching. He was an obsessive birder, a twitcher, and he hoped to extend his list of species seen, even to reach his target of two thousand for the world. But soon he found that he was becoming restless and dissatisfied. Birdwatching was a compulsive hobby but it did not fill the gap of work. So in partnership with his wife Molly he had founded an enquiry agency. They had thought it would be an outlet for both their skills – Molly had been a social worker for forty years. They seemed to work well enough together though Molly was becoming increasingly sensitive about her role in the business. It seemed to her sometimes, she said, that she was a glorified personal assistant, not a partner at all. Conscious of past complaints about heavy-handedness and a failure to consult, he handed the letter to her.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘ Should we go?’

  ‘She hasn’t asked me,’ Molly said. ‘Only you.’

  ‘I’ll phone her,’ he said. ‘ Explain that we only work as a team.’

  She looked at him suspiciously, fearing mockery, but he seemed perfectly serious.

  ‘Meg Morrissey,’ she said. ‘She became famous for being a sort of professional mother, didn’t she? Belongs to the “mothers’ place is in the home” school. Writes articles and appears on TV talking about it. Nice work if you can get it. Shame some of us had to go out to earn a living.’

  George listened patiently. The venom was directed as much at him as at Meg, though he had always approved of Molly’s decision to work.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘She’s educated all four children at home. I’ve met her several times. Actually, I found her charming.’

  Molly sniffed. She knew she was being deliberately provoked, teased because her reaction to the woman was so predictable.

  ‘What does she mean, “investigate the circumstances of his death”?’ she demanded. ‘He committed suicide, didn’t he? Didn’t you say he took an overdose of those old-fashioned antidepressants sensible GPs stopped prescribing years ago. Does she want us to find out what particular event triggered the decision to take his own life? That might not be easy. If he were particularly low it could have been something quite trivial …’

  ‘I don’t know …’ George found it hard to imagine James giving in to that sort of despair. At their last meeting in the pub he had been subdued but quite rational. He picked up the letter and read it again. ‘Perhaps she doesn’t believe he committed suicide at all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Molly looked up at him sharply.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He knew his judgement was suspect. He had been enormously attracted by James and didn’t want to believe him capable of cowardice. But he could understand Meg’s unease. ‘ If he was going to commit suicide I would have thought he would make an event of it. Taking an overdose doesn’t seem his style at all …’

  There was a silence. Molly stood up and poured coffee from the filter machine.

  ‘I think we should go,’ she said.

  He said nothing. She would give her reasons in her own time. He was learning to treat her more carefully.

  ‘Not because I don’t believe he committed suicide,’ she said. ‘But because Meg’s mixed up and can’t accept what happened.’ She realized suddenly that she sounded patronizing, the bloody superior social worker, and added: ‘If she knows the facts she might find it easier.’

  And you, she thought. You might find it easier too.

  ‘So it’s social work,’ he said. ‘Not detection.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said grinning. ‘And I think that makes me senior partner on this case.’

  They arrived at the Mill at dusk. The wind of the previous week had dropped and everywhere was icy and still. There was frost under the hedges where the sun had not reached it and when they got out of the car their breath came in white clouds. From the top floor suddenly came the clear notes of a flute, first a series of scales then an Irish folk tune. They stood for a moment entranced until the music stopped then they heard the beating of wings overhead as a skein of geese flew in to roost.

  There was a wild garden, then a large wooden porch where all the outdoor coats and boots were kept. The door to that was open. While they were still hesitating, unsure how to attract the attention of the occupants, a boy walked round the side of the building through the garden and joined them. He was wearing a long brown duffel coat which reached the top of his wellingtons and in one hand he carried a large bucket and a trowel. He sto
pped on the drive and considered them seriously.

  ‘Are you visitors?’ he said. ‘There isn’t a course this weekend. It’s been cancelled.’

  ‘We’re visitors,’ George said, ‘but we’re not here on a course. We’ve come to see Mrs Morrissey. She’s expecting us.’

  ‘You’d better come in then.’ He showed no curiosity but opened the door to the porch and sat on a square of coconut matting to pull off his wellingtons. When he took down the hood of his duffel coat they saw that he had large, jug-handle ears and a shock of brown hair.

  ‘What’s in the bucket?’ George asked to make conversation.

  ‘Lugworms.’

  ‘Going fishing?’

  ‘Of course not.’ The boy was disapproving. ‘It’s part of my study of the shore. I’m doing a real survey. It’s all marked out in quadrats. I’ve taken a sample to see how big they are but I’ll put them back.’

  ‘Very impressive,’ George said.

  Precocious brat, Molly thought. That’s what home education does for you.

  ‘Mum’ll be in the flat,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll show you.’ He covered the bucket with a plastic lid and led them into the Mill. They stood in a large hall the height of the building, lit by a slanting skylight in the roof. On each of the three floors a balcony looked into the space. From the balconies, presumably, would lead bedrooms, dormitories, laboratories. A huge oil painting of barnacle geese hung on the ground floor opposite them.

  ‘That’s an Aidan Moore,’ the boy said. Perhaps he was used to giving conducted tours. ‘He’s staying here too.’ He pushed through some swing doors to a staircase. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘ The flat’s on the top.’

  As he climbed the stairs behind the boy George hoped that Meg and Molly would get on, would at least find something in common apart from the suspicion which, he had discovered, was mutual. When he had phoned Meg to arrange the visit and had said that Molly would be with him she was less than welcoming.