The Mill on the Shore Read online

  Molly pretended she had not heard and hung up.

  George had decided to drive with Molly into the town because he wanted to make a surprise visit to Phil Cairns at work. He wanted to talk to Phil before Cathy could tell him about George’s visit to Salter’s Cottage, before they could concoct a story between them. There was a possibility of course that Cathy had telephoned the factory – she had been sufficiently shaken by the visit – but still, George thought, he would get more out of Phil if he saw him alone.

  The town was lit by a red sun already low over the wooded hills to the west. As they approached it from the river it seemed a grey place, fortified, with blank stone walls and steep slate roofs. It was famous because of its connection with the woollen industry – Mardon Wool sweaters were recognized in expensive stores from New York to Tokyo and the history of the town featured heavily in the marketing. The town had been founded on wool, said the publicity leaflet attached to each garment, settled first by the Romans and becoming a thriving centre of trade throughout the Middle Ages. In the sixteenth century boats had sailed up the river to dock at the town’s quay and wool from the area had been shipped out to the rest of Europe. The industrial revolution had almost passed it by – the River Marr was too shallow for the new steam boats and there was no coal for mass production. It could not compete with the mills and factories in Lancashire and Yorkshire. So it had always specialized in a high-quality, hand-finished product. Now, said the leaflet, Mardon Wools was the only firm left in the town to carry on that tradition. In the days of the green consumer they believed small was beautiful. They were still committed to the town and as a symbol of that relationship had chosen one of the famous Mardon swans for their logo.

  Molly and George had never visited the town before, had only heard of it in connection with Mardon Wools. Molly remembered a television advertisement of the products which involved a misty aerial shot of the town, set amid rolling hills with the river winding from it to the sea, but there had been no close-ups. The reality shocked them. Because of the quality image of the clothes they had expected Mardon to be smarter, more up-market. They had not expected the shabbiness, the air of decline, the boarded-up shops in the High Street and the unemployed teenagers squatting in groups on the pavement. The town centre was dominated not by a woollen mill but the prison-like bulk of the tannery.

  ‘I suppose the recession has hit the luxury market too,’ George said. ‘There must have been redundancies, suppliers not paid on time …’

  ‘I think it’s rather reassuring,’ Molly said. ‘It makes me feel almost at home. I’d expected county ladies in cashmere sweaters on their way to the tennis club or a game of golf.’

  They drove slowly through the town centre looking for someone to direct them to Grace Sharland’s address. The streets were narrow and already in shadows. It was very cold; people wrapped in coats and hoods hurried past, ignoring George’s request for help. They stopped outside a small café with steamed-up windows. A young mother was manoeuvring a pushchair and a bag of shopping through the narrow door. Molly got out of the car and the cold with its sharp, metallic smell of ice took her breath away.

  ‘I wonder if you can help me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Penn Walk.’

  ‘On the other side of the river,’ the girl said. ‘It’s that posh new development they put up where the infants’ school used to be. You can’t miss it. Estate agents’ notices all over the houses. Don’t know how they have the nerve to ask those prices. Not at times like this.’ She looked at Molly’s scruffy and dishevelled clothes with sympathy. ‘If you’re looking for somewhere to buy,’ she said, ‘there are lots of places on the market much cheaper than that. My husband says you’re only paying for the fancy name and who wants a view of a load of stinking mud when the tide’s out anyway?’ She lifted the plastic carrier bag of shopping on to the pushchair behind the baby and walked on down the street.

  Molly returned to the car. ‘I can walk from here,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you in the café later. We can compare notes then.’

  Penn Walk had only recently been completed. A large notice described the development as architect designed, ‘old-fashioned quality combined with modern comfort’. It was a terrace of three-storey houses, faced with local stone. There were landscaped lawns stretching down to the river, fake concrete cobbles and mock Victorian lamps. Most of the houses were still for sale. The prices on the large noticeboard seemed astronomical and Molly wondered how a health service worker could afford to live there. Perhaps she had a well-paid husband. She sensed that her progress along the Walk was being watched. The occupied houses had fancy net curtains or vertical blinds and she imagined the inhabitants’ disapproval. In her schoolboy’s parka and disintegrating sand shoes she did not fit in.

  It became clear, as soon as Molly entered the house, that Grace-Sharland did not fit in here either. For one thing she was young – in her early thirties. And she was obviously single. Amid all the clutter there would be no room for anyone else.

  She opened the door immediately and made a striking figure. The light in the house was on and she stood framed by the doorway, glowing like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She had a cloud of fine red hair and wore loose and richly coloured clothes which must have been chosen, Molly thought, to give just that effect. Over it all she had a Mardon Wool mohair cardigan draped across her shoulders like a cape. Molly recognized the swan logo on the collar, remembered again the television advertisement, and thought it had probably cost her more than a week’s salary.

  ‘Yes?’ The young woman looked out with curiosity but not disapproval.

  ‘Molly Palmer-Jones. We have an appointment.’

  ‘Oh yes of course!’ Molly was not what she was expecting but she was too polite to express surprise. ‘ Of course. Come in.’

  There was a small hall and then they stepped into a long, narrow room with doors at one end which led out on to the lawn and the river. The room was as highly decorated as she was. There were shawls thrown over chairs and hung on walls, rugs and cushions in gold and chestnut and red. In one corner stood a big bowl of dried flowers. Two cats slept on a velvet cushion next to the fire. Even they were orange and white and fitted in with the colour scheme. Grace Sharland did nothing in half measures.

  Molly’s response to the room was uncertain. What did it reveal about its owner? A romantic and extravagant nature perhaps. What had Jimmy Morrissey made of that?

  ‘I don’t know what you expect from me,’ Grace said.

  Molly looked through the double-glazed door across the river, where the light had almost gone. Six mute swans like white ghosts took off and flew away. She thought Grace Sharland was used to getting her own way but this encounter was making her nervous.

  ‘I don’t expect anything from you,’ she said mildly. ‘I just wanted the chance to talk to you about James Morrissey so I can persuade Meg that there was nothing suspicious about his death.’ She sat on a low sofa, felt her knees creak, thought she was getting old.

  ‘Does she believe there was?’

  Molly nodded. There was a silence.

  ‘That’s quite natural,’ the woman said eventually. ‘It’s normal in bereavement to need to blame someone for a loved one’s death. It’s a phase everyone goes through.’

  She squatted by the fire and stroked the cats. Molly thought the words lacked professional detachment. Had Jimmy Morrissey exerted his charm on Grace Sharland too?

  ‘Are you a friend of the family’s?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Molly said. It was almost true. ‘ I used to be a social worker so Meg thought I could help.’

  ‘Did she ask you to see me?’ The words came quickly and without thought.

  ‘Not exactly. She said that you and James had been close and that you’d visited him on the day that he died.’

  ‘I always had the feeling that she resented me,’ Grace Sharland said slowly. ‘I never meant that to happen.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been usual to include the wif
e in your work in a case like Mr Morrissey’s?’ Molly spoke carefully. She did not want to imply criticism of the woman’s methods. ‘If he were depressed wouldn’t he need the support of the whole family?’

  ‘Of course,’ Grace said, ‘if he were depressed …’ She leaned forward, eager to explain. ‘When I first visited I wanted to do joint interviews but James made it clear he didn’t want her there. “ If you see her you don’t see me,” he said. “She’s part of the bloody problem. She only makes things worse.” By then I was intrigued by his case. I really thought I could help. So I saw him alone.’

  ‘What do you mean: “ If he were depressed”?’ Molly said. ‘Weren’t you happy with the diagnosis?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘I’m only a nurse,’ she said. ‘I’m not competent to say.’

  ‘But you must have had an opinion?’

  ‘He’d been prescribed anti-depressants by his doctor in London,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what he was like then. When the GP I work for asked me to see him he was apathetic, miserable, slightly doped up, but I wouldn’t have said he was clinically depressed.’

  ‘Yet you continued to see him?’

  She nodded. ‘I saw it as a preventative measure. It was interesting. Most of our work is reactive after the crisis has occurred and then drugs really are the only answer. I thought if we could discover what lay behind the unhappiness we could prevent him becoming seriously ill.’

  ‘And did you discover what lay behind the unhappiness?’ Molly asked, cynically. Grace was young and idealistic. In her experience things had never been that simple.

  ‘There was the death of his daughter of course,’ Grace said. ‘At first I thought that was the trigger. He obviously felt responsible …’

  ‘Meg saw that as the cause of his illness,’ Molly said.

  ‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘I know, but in the end I wasn’t convinced.’ She looked up at Molly. ‘Meg didn’t help, you know. She enjoyed having him dependent.’

  ‘What was it then?’ Molly asked impatiently. ‘What was making him so miserable?’

  She saw at once that she should have been more careful. Grace shook her head angrily.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That’s confidential information. Between the patient and me.’

  ‘He’s dead!’ Molly said. ‘It can hardly matter to him now.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘ It matters to me.’

  There was a pause. Molly tried again.

  ‘You encouraged him to write his autobiography,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman said, strangely self-mocking. ‘That was my doing.’

  ‘How did you think that would help?’

  She did not answer directly. ‘Do you know,’ she asked, ‘what Mrs Morrissey intends to do with that? Will she still publish?’

  ‘She can’t,’ Molly said flatly. ‘It’s disappeared.’

  ‘Did Jimmy destroy it before he killed himself?’ The notion seemed to excite, even to please her. Molly thought again that she might have been more involved with the man than she was letting on.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s a possibility. That had never occurred to us.’ She looked at Grace Sharland and asked again: ‘How did you think the autobiography would help?’

  This time the nurse seemed more willing to answer. She seemed to have forgotten about her commitment to confidentiality.

  ‘Soon after meeting James I thought it more likely that his sudden lack of self-confidence and self-esteem had to do with his professional rather than his private life,’ she said. ‘Work always mattered to him more than personal relationships. He defined himself by his work. For some reason he thought that he’d failed. I saw the autobiography as a way of remembering all the successes.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’d failed? Was there some specific incident?’

  She was cautious again. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe that there was.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you about it?’

  There was a silence. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He told me I could read about it in the autobiography.’ Molly did not quite believe her.

  ‘You must have been surprised when he committed suicide,’ she said at last, ‘if you didn’t consider he was clinically depressed.’

  ‘Of course I was surprised,’ she said. ‘It was dreadful. I’d been so wrong about him …’

  She turned away from Molly and looked into the fire.

  ‘You went to his memorial service,’ Molly said. ‘ Why did you do that?’

  ‘To say goodbye, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you get so involved with all your patients?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She looked up sharply, blushing.

  ‘Jimmy had something of a reputation with women, you know,’ Molly said gently.

  ‘Did he?’ she said sadly. ‘I suppose he must have done.’

  ‘What happened?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Nothing happened!’ She was shocked. ‘He was a patient!’

  ‘I suppose he fell in love with you,’ Molly said matter-of-factly. ‘He was always doing that. And it’s not unusual, is it, for a patient to form a romantic attachment with someone caring for them. A sort of gratitude.’

  Grace smiled gratefully. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not unusual.’

  ‘What about you?’ Molly said. ‘ Did you fall for him?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ Molly went on. ‘He was charming, a celebrity. At the very least it must have been flattering to receive his attentions.’

  ‘I never encouraged them!’ she said defensively.

  ‘Of course not,’ Molly said.

  ‘I’d never met anyone like him,’ she went on. ‘Even when he first arrived and he was so morose you couldn’t help being impressed by him. He was so intelligent. And then, as you say, when his mood improved I felt that I’d really achieved something. It gave me such a buzz! And I was flattered by his admiration. It was only later that I saw he was using me …’

  ‘In what way?’

  But she shook her head and would not answer.

  ‘Tell me what happened on the day he died.’

  ‘He phoned me and asked me to visit,’ she said. ‘I’d only seen him the week before and I said I wasn’t sure I could fit him in. He insisted. During the previous meeting we’d had a …

  misunderstanding. I thought perhaps he wanted to apologize so I agreed to go.’

  ‘What sort of misunderstanding?’

  Again she refused to answer, and Molly continued: ‘And did he want to apologize?’

  ‘Of course not!’ She laughed. ‘I should have known him better than that. He wanted to let off steam, that was all. Meg had done something to annoy him. He didn’t say what it was. I expect it was something trivial. He said he couldn’t stand it at the Mill any longer. He’d had enough.’ She smiled again. ‘He even suggested moving in with me. Can you imagine him in here? He said if I’d just get rid of my hang-ups we could make it work. He claimed he was desperate but I didn’t take him seriously. He was always saying that he had to get out of the Mill, leave Meg and the bloody circus behind. But for some reason he never did.’

  ‘Why do you think that was?’

  Grace Sharland shrugged. ‘ Perhaps he still didn’t have the confidence to break out on his own. Perhaps it was the kids. He was fond of them in his own way. Especially Caitlin.’

  ‘How did he take it when you refused to let him move in with you?’

  ‘I don’t think he ever thought I would agree. He was trying it on. He said: “ Well sod off then, Sharland. If you won’t help me I’ll find my own way out.”’ She paused and stared blankly into the fire. ‘I thought he intended to go off on his own, down to London perhaps. If he found the courage to leave at all. It never crossed my mind that he meant to kill himself.’

  Molly made no attempt to comfort her. The only way to relieve her sense of guilt would be to prove that Jimmy Morrissey hadn’t taken his own life.

&n
bsp; ‘You didn’t mention all this at the inquest?’ she said.

  Grace Sharland shook her head. ‘What would be the point? Meg had enough to cope with without having to face the fact that her husband was chasing another woman.’

  She stood up and her voice was calm and unemotional. ‘I’ve told you all I can,’ she said. ‘ Perhaps you’d leave now.’

  ‘Of course,’ Molly said. ‘But there is one thing … When you visited James that afternoon did you see him in his office?’

  The woman nodded.

  ‘Was he working on his autobiography?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘ When I arrived he was writing frantically. When he saw me he shut the notebook. He was always very secretive. He never showed me anything he wrote.’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly said, ‘I see.’

  On the doorstep they paused. Outside it was quite dark and very cold.

  ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ Molly said.

  ‘That’s all right.’ Grace seemed reluctant now to let her go. ‘It was good to have someone to talk to. It was hardly the sort of thing I could discuss with my friends.’ She shivered, but still she did not shut the door.

  ‘I’m staying at the Mill,’ Molly said. ‘ If you think of something else, perhaps you’d ring.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said gratefully. ‘I will.’

  Molly turned and walked back towards the town.

  Chapter Nine

  Mardon Wools had a square brick and glass factory on a trading estate inland from the town. It was larger and more solid than the other units on the estate but George was disappointed. He had expected something massive and gothic: a dark satanic mill. That was ridiculous of course. They wouldn’t be spinning or weaving at Mardon now, just putting together the finished garments and machine knitting. He parked neatly in a space marked VISITORS and got out of the car. It was almost dark. As he approached the main entrance to the factory one of the shifts must have ended because a group of women still wearing overalls under their outdoor clothes spilled out of a small door at the back, almost falling over each other in their eagerness to leave. A bus drove slowly down the hill on its way to town and they ran, giggling, towards the stop, waving their arms and shouting for it to wait. They climbed aboard, the bus drove off and the estate seemed suddenly quiet and deserted.