The Mill on the Shore Read online

  ‘Go on, Malcolm,’ she said. ‘ Buy me a drink.’

  He stared in front of him, hardly seeming to notice she was there.

  ‘Can’t,’ he said at last. ‘You’re under age.’

  ‘Cedric won’t mind, will you, Cedric?’ she said and pranced towards the bar. ‘You don’t know how old I am, do you, Cedric? You could always say I look eighteen.’

  Cedric was the only son of the owners of the Dog, an overweight and pimply man with a nervous disposition. In the village he was considered rather odd. Partly it was his name which had made him a figure of fun since he started infants’ school, partly it was his sheltered upbringing. He had gone away once to college to study horticulture and landscape design, but there had been some crisis or breakdown in the first month and his doting parents had brought him home. They had vowed never to subject him to such stress again. He worked for them in the pub but only doing the light work. There would be no lifting of barrels for Cedric.

  Caitlin teased him dreadfully because he was an easy target. She pointed out that his hands were shaking when he pulled the pints and commented on his acne. Yet she held a fearful fascination for him. He knew she would torment him but he looked forward to her occasional visits to the Dog with a mixture of fear and erotic excitement.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said now in answer to her question. Then, bravely: ‘I don’t suppose anyone need know. What do you want?’

  ‘An orange juice,’ said Rosie firmly. ‘You know what your mother’s like, Cat. If she thinks you’ve been drinking she won’t let you out with us again. And I’m not prepared to get into bother by lying on your behalf.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Caitlin said, giving in gracefully. ‘An orange juice then, Cedric. And a bag of crisps. I know how to live dangerously.’

  She smiled at him sexily and waited for him to blush.

  The five of them sat at the table by the door. Ruth wondered why Aidan had come – he looked tense and ill at ease. Her only experience of romantic love came from nineteenth-century novels and she hoped for some dramatic declaration of affection from him. She had no idea how to go about the business of showing him that she was interested in him.

  ‘Well,’ Rosie said, breaking in on her thoughts, ‘ what do you think of Sherlock and Watson? I must admit that they’re not quite what I expected. They hardly inspire confidence, do they?’

  ‘You shouldn’t underestimate George,’ Aidan said. ‘He might have retired but he’s no fool. There was a case in Norfolk a few years ago when a young birder died … The police didn’t have a clue but he sorted out what happened.’

  ‘So he really is a great detective?’ Rosie said. ‘Well, I’ll take your word for it but I’m not convinced.’

  In the awkward silence that followed the bikers got up as a group and clattered out. There was a clanking of chains and a pounding of steel-capped boots then the roar of their motorbikes as they sped away to find fun elsewhere.

  ‘I think Mum’s off her head,’ Caitlin said. ‘She’s done some pretty weird things in her time but this beats them all.’ She turned to Ruth for support. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you think the idea that James was murdered is preposterous? He could be a moody bastard but you can’t imagine that anyone would want to kill him.’

  ‘No,’ Ruth said. ‘Of course not.’ But she wondered immediately if that were true. There had certainly been times when she had wished him out of her life.

  ‘Why don’t we change the subject?’ It was tactful Jane who hated a fuss. Caitlin took no notice.

  ‘But I want to discuss it,’ she said. ‘It’s so bloody frustrating being kept in the dark. Mother won’t tell us anything. She says there’s nothing to tell until Mr Palmer-Jones has made his report. If that’s true why did she ask him here in the first place? What made her suspicious?’

  Rosie and Jane looked at each other. Ruth caught the look and envied their friendship. She had never been that close to anyone of her own age. Meg’s philosophy of educating her children at home had made that sort of easy relationship impossible. There had been Hannah of course. Ruth had always thought of Hannah as a kindred spirit, but they hadn’t seen each other that often, only during the school holidays. And she was almost a relative so it hardly seemed to count. Rosie and Jane had quite different backgrounds: Rosie had a mother she described as ‘barking mad’ and had been in and out of children’s homes during her teens, Jane came from a wealthy family and a posh school. Yet now they were so close that they communicated without speaking. Ruth looked across the table at Aidan and wondered if they would ever be that intimate but he seemed preoccupied and took no notice of her.

  ‘Well?’ Caitlin demanded again. ‘Is anyone going to tell me what it’s all about?’

  ‘The autobiography has disappeared,’ Rosie said. ‘Meg didn’t tell you that?’

  Caitlin shook her head.

  ‘She thinks it’s a peculiar coincidence,’ Rosie went on. ‘You can understand her point of view.’

  ‘Who’d want to read James’ boring autobiography?’ Caitlin said extravagantly. ‘It was all trips down the Amazon and how I saved the rain forest for mankind.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Aidan Moore asked. ‘ Did you get to read it?’

  His voice was light but Ruth was struck by the notion that the question was desperately important to him. Caitlin could not have noticed his anxiety or she would have strung the story out. She just shrugged.

  ‘I didn’t read all of it,’ she said. ‘ I couldn’t have coped. Did you see how long it was? But he showed me bits he was specially proud of. Or he read them out loud to me.’

  ‘What else was there?’ Aidan asked carefully. ‘ Besides the piece on the rain forest?’

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There was a chapter on the setting up of Green Scenes called something pompous like “The Moral Dilemma – private interest or public good”. He gave me that the day before he died but it was so tedious that I put it back in the study without reading it. I hoped he wouldn’t ask me questions on it and catch me out. He would have been livid. But in the end he didn’t have the chance, did he?’

  Ruth, who had been watching Aidan’s reactions carefully, saw that he was still troubled.

  ‘How do you know that the book’s disappeared?’ she asked.

  ‘Your mother asked Jane if she’d seen it,’ Rosie said. ‘ We helped her to look for it in the study and the flat but we couldn’t find it.’

  ‘Why did Mother want it anyway?’ Caitlin demanded. ‘She’s never been interested in James’ work.’

  The question went unanswered.

  ‘Meg didn’t tell me about the autobiography,’ Aidan said. ‘ I’ve been working on the jacket. You’d have thought she’d have let me know.’

  Of course, Ruth thought. That’s why he was so interested in James’ book. He’s been working on the jacket design ever since he arrived. ‘What will happen to your drawing now?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll finish it anyway,’ he said. ‘ It’ll make a reasonable painting. I could give it to Meg as a present. Besides, the book might turn up. James was never very organized.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s at the Mill,’ Rosie said. ‘Meg made us look everywhere. She wanted to be sure it had gone, you see, before she brought in Mr Palmer-Jones.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see.’ He felt absent-mindedly in his pocket for his wallet and went to the bar to buy another round of drinks. When he returned with a tray they were still talking about the autobiography.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ Caitlin was saying, ‘what the book going missing has to do with James dying. Why did Mum think she had to rush out and hire private detectives? It’s completely bizarre.’ She looked around the group for a response. ‘Or am I just being dense?’

  Jane answered gently. ‘Perhaps he was prepared to dish the dirt in his book. He must have come across information during his career which would have been embarrassing …’

  ‘Like politicians, you mea
n? Or film stars?’ Caitlin was intrigued by the notion.

  ‘Yes,’ Jane said. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And he was killed to stop him revealing all?’ She was incredulous.

  ‘I think that might be the way Meg’s mind is working.’

  ‘Well,’ Caitlin said. ‘I wish I’d taken more notice of the bloody book now.’

  ‘It seems very unlikely to me,’ Aidan said diffidently. ‘Any embarrassment caused by the book would have been to large corporations or government departments, bodies whose inefficiency or greed had a cost in conservation terms. For example, he might have been interested in following up a lead on the company which owned the Braer, the tanker that went aground on Shetland. But he’d hardly have given out embarrassing information about individuals.’

  Ruth, who had experience of her stepfather’s capacity for mischief, wasn’t so sure. What did he say about us? she wondered. Or Mother? She certainly wasn’t sorry that the notebooks had gone missing.

  ‘Meg didn’t want to believe James had killed himself,’ Jane said. ‘The disappearance of the autobiography just confirmed her view. It didn’t have a lot to do with logic.’

  Rosie nodded in agreement. ‘The inquest verdict was suicide,’ she said. ‘If Mr Palmer-Jones is as perceptive as Aidan says he’ll soon realize that it was right. The problem will be to convince Meg of that.’

  They stayed in the pub until closing time and then drove back to the Mill, crammed inside Jane’s Mini.

  ‘You should let me drive,’ Caitlin said. ‘I’m the only one who’s not been drinking.’

  ‘You must be joking,’ Rosie said. ‘Jane could find her way from the Dog to the Mill blindfold. Come to that the car could probably drive itself.’

  Ruth, in the back of the car, found herself sitting next to Aidan. As the car hurtled round the sharp bends in the road she was thrown against him. She could smell the wool of his jersey. She wished she had the courage to reach out and take his hand but even the drinks in the Dead Dog had not made her sufficiently brave for that.

  Molly would have liked to go to the pub after they had finished with Meg Morrissey. She was already finding the atmosphere of the Mill oppressive and would have liked to get away for a couple of hours, a beer, some normal conversation. But when she suggested it to George he shook his head disapprovingly.

  ‘Meg already thinks we’re treating this like a holiday camp,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not Colditz,’ she retorted. ‘She’ll let us out occasionally.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘ Really. I think we have things to discuss. Where we won’t be overheard.’

  She shrugged and followed George to their room. The bedrooms at Markham had nothing in common with Colditz. They would not have been out of place in a smart hotel and were nothing like the field centre rooms where George had stayed in the past, and where rows of beds and moth-eaten blankets had reminded him of the deprivations of National Service. There were dormitories at Markham Mill, discreetly hidden away at the end of corridors, where for a discount school and college groups could stay, but the emphasis here was on style and comfort. There was a wide double-glazed window with a view over the bay, Scandinavian furniture, an oatmeal-coloured carpet and a folk-weave bedspread. On a low pine table there was a tray with kettle, earthenware mugs decorated with hand-painted oystercatchers, sachets of instant coffee, teabags on strings and plastic pots of vile UHT milk. Molly made tea – without milk – and they sat by the window and watched the flashing marker buoy on the end of Salter’s Spit.

  ‘Even if this place was nearly derelict and cheap to buy it must have cost a fortune to do it up,’ Molly said. ‘Where do you think they got the money?’

  George seemed mesmerized by the flashing light and Molly had to wait for an answer. ‘James sold his controlling interest in Green Scenes when he retired,’ he said. ‘One of the conglomerate publishers which prints everything from the Methodist Times to Angling Today took it on. They’d been interested in buying him out for some time and would have paid well for it. Then there was a big house in Putney where the family was living before they moved. James inherited that from his parents and they sold just before the property market crashed. That must have given them sufficient working capital to get started. And now the Mill is curiously successful despite the recession. It fills a gap in the market. There are lots of people who want the atmosphere but not the discomfort of a traditional field centre and who are prepared to pay.’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘ I suppose so.’ But Markham Mill seemed to her less a successful business than a monstrous white elephant, created simply to provide Meg with the lifestyle she had wanted for her children. The place might have space, stimulating company, security – everything Meg wanted for her family – but what had it provided for Jimmy Morrissey and why had he gone along with her plans?

  ‘I wish I’d seen him more recently,’ George said suddenly, his train of thought following hers. ‘I wish I’d come here when he was still alive …’

  ‘Do you really think he came here of his own free will?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve never known Jimmy do anything for any other reason,’ he said. ‘He was the most selfish man I’ve ever met. Charming of course but quite selfish. I can’t believe that he’d respond to the sort of emotional blackmail Meg may have tried about the move being best for the children. Not unless the accident changed him dramatically.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Molly said sceptically. ‘The accident. I don’t believe anyone changes that much. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ George said. ‘The last time I met him he was certainly different, less sure of himself’

  ‘But not so insecure, surely, that he would volunteer to move here, to become a glorified hotelier, just because Meg wanted him to?’

  ‘What are you saying then?’ George demanded. ‘That he had his own reasons for choosing to retire here? Or that he was put under so much pressure that he couldn’t refuse?’

  ‘The latter,’ Molly said quickly. ‘He must have seen that it would be like a prison for him. Even if he were depressed he wouldn’t have chosen that. So we’ll need to find out what Meg used to put pressure on him, why he couldn’t stand up to her or just run away.’

  ‘I can’t believe that Meg forced Jimmy into a situation when she knew he would be unhappy,’ George said. ‘She loved him. She must genuinely have thought he’d find it easier to get well here.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ Molly demanded.

  He thought romantically of the gentle woman sitting by the fire.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you’re more of a fool than I took you for,’ she said.

  Chapter Six

  They woke to another clear, freezing day. There was ice on the mudflats and a thick frost on the grass. The tension of the previous night remained between George and Molly though neither mentioned the disagreement. They treated each other politely, with detachment, and went to the dining room without discussing James Morrissey’s death.

  Aidan Moore sat alone at the large table, eating muesli in a preoccupied, mechanical way. When he saw them come in he stood awkwardly.

  ‘We didn’t have a chance to talk last night,’ George said. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you again even under these circumstances. Perhaps you don’t remember but we met a few times at Cley. Nancy introduced us.’ Nancy had run a small café patronized by birders.

  ‘Yes,’ Aidan said. ‘I remember.’ He returned to his breakfast. George helped himself to porridge from a heated dish.

  ‘We never bumped into each other at Green Scenes,’ George went on, ‘though Jimmy always showed me your latest contribution, and I’ve admired all your illustrations. The plates for the Estuaries book are my favourites. You must have taken some inspiration from the bay here. I hadn’t realized before of course. It’s a wonderful place for a field centre.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aidan said. ‘ It is.’

  ‘You’d normally
be teaching a course now?’ George persisted. He was surprised by the monosyllabic answers. He would have expected more co-operation. Aidan owed his career to Jimmy Morrissey.

  ‘Normally yes. When Jimmy died we sent all the students home but Meg asked me to stay. Perhaps now you’re here she won’t mind if I go …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘It couldn’t have been easy,’ George said, ‘teaching amateurs. Quite a different skill from the painting itself.’

  ‘It was dreadful!’ Aidan replied spontaneously at last. ‘ They expected me to talk, to explain, to criticize. As if that mattered. But they wouldn’t just stand still and look.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t very patient.’

  ‘Why did you agree to come,’ George asked cheerfully, ‘if it was such a trial? It can’t have been because you needed the money. Not now.’

  ‘It wasn’t for the money,’ Aidan said. ‘It was because Jimmy asked me. You know what he was like. I couldn’t refuse him anything.’

  ‘And I suppose while you were here you did get a chance to do your own work too?’

  Aidan nodded. ‘ It was only that which kept me sane.’

  ‘What are you working on now?’

  He hesitated. ‘The jacket for a book of Jimmy’s,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t seem likely now that it’ll be published but I’d like to finish it.’

  ‘He commissioned you to design the jacket for his autobiography?’

  ‘Yes, he wrote to me about it in the autumn.’

  ‘You know the book’s disappeared?’

  Aidan nodded.

  ‘Did he talk to you about the book at all?’

  Aidan looked up sharply. ‘No, not specifically. Why should he?’

  ‘If you were designing the jacket he might talk about the contents, even let you see a draft of the text …’

  ‘No,’ Aidan said vehemently. ‘There was no need for that. He wanted a picture of the Mill. That was clear from the beginning.’