The Mill on the Shore (11 page)

He nodded but did not believe she had known nothing of Jimmy’s book. There must have been talk of the autobiography at Salter’s Cottage. Everyone at the Mill had been aware of it.

‘Did you know the autobiography had been stolen?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘How could I know that? I didn’t know it existed.’

She seemed to lose patience with the questions. She stood up and moved restlessly round the kitchen, collecting coffee cups to set on the draining board, wringing a cloth to wipe stains from the table.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘is that all? Jimmy might have been a bastard but I don’t find this easy.’

‘He came here on the day he died,’ George said. ‘What did he want?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. The earlier tension had returned and her voice was angry and shrill. ‘I wasn’t here.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was in Mardon,’ she said. ‘For the January sales. If you like I can show you the coat that I bought. Not exactly the height of fashion but I don’t expect that any more.’

George ignored the challenge.

‘But he was here?’ he said. ‘Did he talk to Phil?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so. I think Phil mentioned it.’

‘What was the conversation about?’

‘How should I know?’ She was beginning to lose control. ‘I wasn’t here. I presume it was just a social call. Jimmy was always looking for an excuse to escape from the Mill. Why don’t you ask Phil if you’re so interested? He’ll remember every word the great man said.’

‘Of course,’ George said. ‘I intend to do that.’

He sat for a moment looking at her over the table. He knew she was keeping something from him. But she said nothing and he stood to go.

He returned to the Mill the same way as he had come and stood for a moment at the top of the steps in the rock to look over the bay. The tide was out and the low winter sunlight reflected on wet mud. Two figures were on the shore, quite separate and engrossed in their own activities. The boy, Timothy, was digging for lugworm, struggling with a spade which was too big for him. Aidan Moore sat on Salter’s Spit. Through binoculars George saw that he was still drawing. As he watched the man collected his gear and walked back to the Mill, presumably on his way to lunch.

What keeps him here? George thought. He seems a solitary chap who’d rather be on his own. The painting? He must have enough sketches now to complete the thing at home. Some imagined obligation to Meg, because Jimmy had been kind to him? Neither explanation seemed quite satisfactory. He watched Aidan progress over the shingle, his head bowed so he could see none of the splendour around him.

In the afternoon they drove into the town together. Molly had made an appointment to visit Grace Sharland at home. In a telephone call to the health centre Molly had found the nurse distant, obviously suspicious.

‘I’m looking into the death of one of your former patients on behalf of his widow,’ Molly had said. ‘James Morrissey. He died quite recently. There are some circumstances surrounding his suicide which she finds hard to accept.’ She hoped that she sounded like a social worker. After years of trying not to it came as a bit of a strain.

‘I don’t think I should talk to you,’ the woman said abruptly. ‘All that information is confidential. I’ve nothing to add to the evidence I gave at the inquest.’ The voice was young, rather county, the sort you’d expect to hear at a hunt ball.

‘I don’t expect to see any medical records,’ Molly had said. ‘ It’s a matter of your impressions, your judgement of his state of mind. I think it would help the widow to come to terms with her grief …’ She was rather proud of that. It was the sort of jargon workers in the caring professions liked. ‘ If you’re anxious about being put into an awkward position ethically I’d be quite happy for someone else to sit in on the interview – James’ GP perhaps. I could talk to him first if you’d prefer.’

‘No,’ the woman said immediately, ‘ that won’t be necessary.’ Then there was a silence. ‘Look,’ she said at last, ‘if you feel it will help Mrs Morrissey I’ll spare the time to talk to you, but I’d rather you didn’t disturb me at work. I suppose I can arrange to finish early today.’ She gave her address. ‘I’ll be there at three.’ There was another pause and she seemed to regret her earlier impulse. ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea,’ she said.

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 wife 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.’