The Mill on the Shore

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• Ann Cleeves
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  

Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s VERA and BBC One’s SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over one million copies worldwide.

Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for
Raven Black
, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside.

There was no funeral, because there was no body. The disposal of James Morrissey’s remains had turned into a farce, as Ruth had suspected it might. James’s attitude to the Established Church had been sneering, even blasphemous, and Meg had taken it into her head that a humanist should lead the ceremony. But outside London, it seemed, humanist funerals were unknown, certainly out here in the sticks. Then they had discovered that James had arranged for his remains to be donated for medical research and after the post mortem had been shipped discreetly to the nearest university in a van. To be giggled over, Ruth supposed, by medical students.

Ruth had thought that would settle the matter, but Meg wanted a show, a formal gathering and had decided on a memorial service in the church nearest the Mill. So they had turned to the parish priest after all and although he did his best he seemed overawed by the event. He had never seen the church so full. In his address he said he had not realized James Morrissey was such a celebrity. He spoke with disappointment as if at an opportunity missed, giving the impression that he wished he had cultivated James’ friendship before it was too late.

Ruth wore black to the service because she always wore black, not as an expression of grief. She was surprised to find she felt so little sadness. She was irritated by the trivial inconveniences caused by James’ death – the disruption to her studies, the endless phone calls of condolence – but that hardly counted as grief. Perhaps, she thought, as the vicar stumbled nervously through his speech, she was so detached because of the special circumstances of the family. If James had been her natural father she might feel differently. As it was, throughout the service she looked around her with curiosity, admiring the women’s stylish hats, seeing how many people she recognized, unmoved by emotion.

The contingent from the Mill sat together, near the front, with Meg and the children in one pew and the rest behind them. They were unfamiliar in their funeral clothes, and Ruth, sitting next to the aisle, twisting her head slightly to look at them, saw them as if for the first time. We live on top of each other, she thought, but we’re not close at all. I know nothing about them, about Rosie and Jane, the Cairns, even Aidan. The idea was a shock, a revelation and she put it down to the unaccustomed surroundings. Perhaps she should come to church more often. As she turned back to face the altar the vicar ran out of platitudes and sat down gratefully. There was a rustle of coats as they stood to sing the twenty-third psalm and then it was all over.

They stood outside in the narrow lane waiting for someone to take a lead, self-consciously aware of the cameras from the local television station. It was January, cold and dull with spikes of hail in the easterly wind. The church was on a small hill with a view over flat fields to the sea, very exposed, apparently miles from anywhere. The village was a mile further inland sheltered by a belt of Scots pine. A sudden gust lifted one of the hats which Ruth had admired – a flat wide-brimmed straw – from its owner’s head and sent it spinning like a frisbee down the lane. They all watched, glad of the distraction, until it was caught in the hawthorn hedge and retrieved by a young man who presented a natural history quiz on Radio 4. The younger children, who had behaved immaculately throughout the service, began to laugh.

Ruth hesitated just inside the church gate and watched the scene from a distance, still intrigued by the idea that they were all strangers. She was eighteen, naive, and the obvious psychological insight seemed now the most important thing to have come from James’ death. She looked around her for examples and saw Cathy Cairns. She had always thought Mrs Cairns a well-groomed and sophisticated woman but saw now that she had something of the air of a water rat, with big front teeth, a faint moustache and fair tufts of hair escaping from her hat. No wonder James ditched her, Ruth thought, though she had always liked Cathy before, felt very close to her and turned back to the church to wait for her mother who was, even now after four children, still beautiful.

Meg, her mother, was the last person out of the church. She stood for a moment to compose herself and then took charge, shepherding the guests to their cars, flattering the vicar with her thanks. Meg was magnificent, Ruth thought, but then she had known that all along. Meg was always magnificent.

As she walked towards the car Ruth allowed herself to look at Aidan Moore. She watched with disappointment as he climbed into the Cairns’ Land-Rover, without seeming to see her. She had planned to invite him to accompany her in Meg’s car, imagined them squeezed together in the back along with the children. It occurred to her that she might be in love with him and that was a revelation too.

They drove the three miles to Markham Mill in a convoy, which caused quite a stir in the hamlet of Markham Law. So many smart cars, all in a row. So many women in hats. The residents had heard about the memorial service from Florrie Duffy who cleaned at the Mill when her health allowed, and they were looking out. More like a wedding, one said, than a funeral. What a shame they’d had such a cold and rainy day!

When they arrived at the Mill the drive was already full and they had to park in the lane outside. This minor disruption to usual practice seemed to upset Meg, and Ruth saw that her mother’s composure was precarious and she was more distressed than she was letting on.

‘It’s too bad,’ she said. ‘ Too inconsiderate.’ And there were tears of frustration in her eyes. She slammed the car doors loudly, hardly giving the children time to scramble out. Ruth found the show of ill-temper disturbing. It was unlike her mother to lose control in such an obvious way.

In the late afternoon gloom the Mill still looked half derelict, a rickety wooden structure, far too big for its position here at the mouth of the bay. Ruth had always thought that the Mill was too romantic a name for it. The Mill conjured up wind sails, water-wheels. This building had been put up in the thirties for the preparation of animal feeds and the family business had struggled on until 1960 when it finally went bankrupt. Then it had stood empty for more than thirty years. There had been many schemes for its restoration. It had such potential for development, right on the shore, surrounded by unspoilt countryside. There were plans for a holiday complex, a hotel. But these involved the demolition of the Mill or a dramatic change to its structure and for some reason it had become a listed building. And Markham Bay was a wildlife sanctuary, internationally recognized. Prospective developers were put off by the possibility of objections by conservation groups. So the Mill had remained empty until Ruth’s mother, Meg Morrissey, had arrived to take it on, with her grand vision of a different sort of field centre, a college of the countryside. She had seemed to sweep them all along, even James, with her enthusiasm. They had uprooted from London, left friends behind, to make the project a reality. Now it was the family’s home and workplace and to Ruth it was unthinkable that they would live anywhere else.

Meg stood at the wide door to the big room, part lecture theatre, part common room, where all the indoor teaching took place. She seemed to have calmed her crossness at the lack of parking space and was greeting her guests affectionately, by name, as if their presence gave her enormous pleasure and consolation. Although many of the mourners must have been only distant acquaintances there was a lot of hugging and kissing. Ruth found such physical contact disconcerting and slipped past her mother while she was engaged in a particularly extravagant embrace. Then she stood in a corner and watched what was going on. This was her favourite room in the Mill and she resented its invasion by people she hardly knew. It was an impressive space on the second floor, stretching the width of the building. Once perhaps it had been a sort of storeroom. Three walls were wood panelled. The fourth, which faced the sea, was formed almost entirely of glass. The last of the daylight was reflected from the water and the view of the shore and the wide, darkening sky was uninterrupted.

‘Too distracting,’ James had said when he first saw it. ‘You’ll not get anyone to concentrate with a view like that. Especially not in Aidan’s classes. An artist needs a blank wall and an imagination.’

But in his last months he had spent a lot of his time there, sitting in a straight-backed chair with his binoculars on a table beside him, hunched over a notebook, writing frantically. Ruth suddenly missed him with a sharp and physical pain.

The room began to fill with people and they were all talking about James. All around her she heard scraps of conversation, recycled anecdotes and the stories turned her stepfather into someone she hardly recognized. He became a mythical character: Jimmy Morrissey the great naturalist, television presenter, writer. The person who first brought conservation to the people, who awakened the green conscience of the nation.

‘Do you remember filming in Burma?’ said a fat, grey-haired man with bulldog jowls and a mouth full of vol-au-vent. ‘I really thought the bloody elephant would get him that time.’