The Mill on the Shore (16 page)

‘What did he find out?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘ Jimmy wouldn’t tell me.’ Even after all those years George could tell that it still rankled. Perhaps that’s why she remembered the incident so well. ‘“ It’s not that I don’t trust you, Chrissie old girl,” he said, all flattery and trying to get round me, “but this is the big one, the scoop that goes down in the annals. I don’t want some Fleet Street hack getting wind of it before we’re ready to publish.” He was quite paranoid about it, talked even of government moles. Nothing was written down. Then there was a phone call for him. I took the message. The caller wanted another meeting, but with the big boss. He left his number. Jimmy rang back then left an editorial meeting halfway through. High as a kite, loving the drama. You know how he was. That meeting was in a pub too. Typical Jimmy.’

‘Where did he go?’ George asked. ‘Did he ask you to make the travel arrangements, book a hotel room?’

‘He drove himself,’ she said. ‘I asked him about a hotel room. It was the start of the holiday season. I thought he might have problems finding somewhere. But he said not to bother. He had somewhere to stay.’

‘You remember it all very well,’ George said.

‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘ I went over it all in my mind hundreds of times. That was the weekend of the accident, the weekend Hannah was killed. Nothing was the same again.’

‘Is that why the article was shelved?’ George asked. ‘ Because Jimmy was in hospital and he wasn’t able to put it together?’ Perhaps the explanation was that simple and this was a wild-goose chase.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not entirely. No one else could have put the story together of course. Jimmy was the only one with the facts. But it wasn’t as if we’d missed some deadline – it could have gone out at any time. None of our rivals had got hold of it so far as I could tell. I assumed that as soon as Jimmy got back to the office he’d start working on it.’

‘But he didn’t?’

‘Yes he did,’ she said. ‘He was obsessed with it. He wrote it and rewrote it, all in longhand. And he was still terribly secretive. None of us was allowed to see it. Not even Aidan Moore who’d been in on it from the beginning. But he couldn’t come to any decision about whether or not to publish.’ She paused. ‘It was so unlike him,’ she said. ‘He was always so
certain.
’

‘But he must have come to a decision in the end.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘And even then we had to have a Morrissey touch of drama. I had to watch him feed all his drafts through the shredder.’

‘Did he give any explanation for his change of heart?’

‘He said that he didn’t have a stomach for the fight. One person had died already. “It’s no good, Chrissie,” he said. “I’m not up to it. I’ll admit defeat now.”’

‘What did he mean that one person had died? Was he talking about Hannah? What did she have to do with the pollution case?’

‘I don’t know,’ Christabel said. ‘He was confused, under stress …’

George’s imagination was firing in all directions. Had Jimmy’s car been tampered with? Was he the intended victim? Was his death so many years later just a fulfilment of the earlier murder attempt? Would it be possible after all this time to find out? Christabel had continued speaking and he had to ask her to repeat what she’d said.

‘Soon after that he told me that he was resigning from the magazine,’ she said with some impatience.

‘Were you surprised?’

‘I was bloody angry,’ Christabel said, surprising him with her vehemence. ‘Meg had always resented the time he spent on
Green Scenes.
She wanted him home, playing the model father. Still in the public eye, of course. She liked the reflected glory. A few bits of telly that weren’t too demanding or controversial But not the commitment that
Green Scenes
involved. She got him to resign when he was at his most vulnerable. He regretted it almost immediately after but he’d given his word then and he felt he ought to go along with it. He was quite honourable, you know, in a silly upper-class way.’ She paused. ‘I still don’t know how she persuaded him to do it,’ she said bitterly. ‘She must be some sort of witch.’

‘And he never mentioned the article again,’ George said.

‘No, and after it went through the shredder, nor did I.’

‘What about Aidan Moore?’ George asked. ‘ He must have had some idea what it was about. Couldn’t you have asked him?’

‘I could have tried,’ she said, ‘though I’m not sure he would have told me. But it would have been a sneaky sort of thing to do. Jimmy didn’t want me to know and I suppose he had his reasons. Besides, Aidan wasn’t here much after that. At around that time he got his first big commission illustrating a prestigious new field guide. He never came back to
Green Scenes
to work again.’

‘I see,’ George said. ‘ Well, thanks very much for your help.’ He was about to replace the receiver when he had a sudden thought. ‘Did Jimmy shred the original letter? The one that started all the excitement, giving information on the pollution incident and arranging the meeting in the pub?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t shred that.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve still got it in your magnificent filing system?’

‘Flattery won’t do you any good, George,’ she said. ‘I had kept the letter. But Jimmy sent for it when he first started writing his autobiography. And there was no copy.’

‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, I see.’

He found Meg in the schoolroom. She was reading Gerard Manley Hopkins to the children.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt you,’ he said when she had finished. ‘ I was hoping for a word …’

‘Of course,’ she said graciously. She turned back to the children. ‘Why don’t you try something of your own? In a similar style? There’s inspiration enough here. You only have to look out of the window to understand what the poet felt about nature.’

Caitlin raised her eyes to the ceiling implying that she could think of nothing more tedious. Meg judicially ignored her and swept from the room.

‘We’ll talk in the flat,’ she said. ‘We’ll be more comfortable there.’

In the flat she offered him tea, made sure he had the best seat by the fire, gave him her full attention.

‘I need to ask you about the weekend of James’ accident,’ he said. ‘Can you remember the circumstances surrounding the car crash?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It was a nightmare. Though I don’t know what it can have had to do with his death.’

‘Please bear with me,’ he said. ‘I do think it’s important.’

She nodded indulgently. He sensed she was definitely more well disposed to him without Molly.

‘What would you like to know?’

‘What was James working on at the time?’

‘Oh,’ she said dismissively, ‘ as to that I don’t know. How would I? I was never involved in his work.’

‘He never discussed it with you?’

‘He may have discussed it,’ she said. ‘And of course I listened. But it didn’t mean very much to me.’ She watched his reaction closely. She wants to see if I believe her, he thought in astonishment But why should she lie?

‘If work took him away from home you must have asked where he was going and how long he would be away.’

‘Of course,’ she said. Then tartly: ‘But he didn’t always tell me. “I’ll go where the story takes me,” he would say. It was rather inconsiderate.’ She paused. ‘ I suppose brilliant men often are.’

‘Had he been working away from home before collecting Hannah on that Friday night?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I rather think he had.’ She appeared to give the matter further thought. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘ He left home on the Wednesday. He never phoned if he was away and I was worried that he would become so engrossed in whatever he was working on that he would forget to pick her up.’

‘Had Hannah’s visit been arranged a long time in advance?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘ Just the day he went away. It was James’ idea to invite her. He said it would tie in very nicely with his plans. He did love his children, George, but only when it was convenient.’

‘So you had the impression that he was working here in this area, and he would be able to collect Hannah easily?’

‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘I didn’t say that at all.’ Then: ‘I don’t mean to be rude, George, but I don’t think this is relevant to your enquiry. If I were you I would leave it alone.’

He had the feeling that he was being warned off but he persisted.

‘Did he ever give you the impression that the car crash might not have been an accident?’

‘Whatever do you mean, George?’

‘That there had been some deliberate attempt to cause the crash, that the car had been tampered with in some way?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s impossible. Who would do such a thing?’

But as she spoke he suspected that she was considering the matter and that she found the idea interesting.

‘No,’ she said again, less certainly. ‘ I’m sure there was nothing like that.’

While George was with Meg, Molly sought out Rosie and Jane. She had been intrigued by the phone call to Christabel Burns but was still interested in the emotional relationships in the case. She especially wanted to find out more about Grace Sharland. The girls seemed to have opinions about everyone connected with the Mill. What had they made of the nurse and her visits to Jimmy Morrissey?

The housekeepers accepted Molly into their realm behind the dining-room door and treated her as if she were a favourite eccentric aunt. They thought she was escaping from Meg and the family and that amused them. Most of their jokes were at Meg’s expense.

When Molly found them they were in the laundry which backed on to the kitchen. They were working together as if performing some elaborate dance, pulling bedspreads out of a large tumble-dryer then facing each other to stretch and fold them ready for ironing.

‘Meg thought we needed something to do,’ Jane said. ‘ She came into the kitchen first thing: “ I know it’s a bit early for spring-cleaning, girls, but as it’s quiet we might as well get on with some of those jobs that usually get left until the end of the season.”’ She mimicked the voice with surprising accuracy, catching the pretension, the hint of Welsh. ‘ So we’re washing all the curtains and bedspreads from the dormitories. As if we hadn’t got anything better to do. No peace for the wicked, I suppose.’

‘I think she’s got worse since James died,’ Rosie said, bending to pull another quilt from the dryer. ‘I can’t stand being bossed around. It reminds me of being in care, in that bloody children’s home. That nearly drove me round the bloody bend. I’m not getting screwed up like that again just for Meg Morrissey.’

‘I don’t know,’ Jane said. ‘It probably wasn’t much worse than that ghastly school I went to.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Rosie said bitterly. ‘A building like a workhouse run by sadists …’

‘Like I said, just the same as my school.’

‘At least you got to go home at night.’ But some of the bitterness had dissipated and as she leaned forward to take the bedspread from Jane she added: ‘They taught me to cook so I suppose they were doing me a favour. They thought they were fitting us best for adult life by giving us domestic skills. But since then I haven’t been able to stand being pushed around.’

‘I didn’t mean to laugh,’ Jane said. ‘I hadn’t realized it was so bad.’

‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘Well. I try not to let it get in the way. It’s only at times like this when Meg decides to play the high-and-mighty lady that it bugs me. And then she gives us all that crap about struggling to keep the family together. It’s easy enough for her, isn’t it? Even with James gone. She’s got money, a bloody lovely house and folks like us to do the skivvying for her.’ She slammed the dryer door shut. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I must be having a bad day. Let’s forget about the wonder mother and get the kettle on.’

‘You should talk about it more often,’ Jane said. ‘ Not keep it all bottled up.’

‘Nah! Who’d want to hear about it?’

‘I would,’ Jane said gently. ‘I would.’ She lifted the laundry into a basket and set it on the floor. ‘ No one ever talked to me at home. They were all too busy with their careers and their smart friends. You shouldn’t be jealous of the Morrisseys. Would you like Meg as a mother?’ She grinned and mimicked her again. ‘“We have great
expectations
of you all.”’

‘I suppose so,’ Rosie said smiling. ‘You’re right. It can’t be a bundle of laughs living with that.’

She led them into the kitchen, made tea and set out chocolate biscuits. ‘Come on then, Molly,’ she said when they were settled at the table. ‘Tell us how the investigation’s going. Do you have any idea yet whodunnit?’

‘Not yet,’ Molly said, ignoring the flippant tone. ‘George thinks it might have something to do with a story Jimmy was working on at
Green Scenes
just before he retired. He never mentioned anything like that to you?’

‘We’re only the hired hands,’ Rosie said with a return of the old bitterness. ‘Why should he talk to us about his work?’ She paused. ‘Have you found the autobiography yet?’

Molly shook her head.

‘And you?’ Jane asked her quietly. ‘What do you think?’

‘Oh,’ Molly said. ‘I rather think it might be something more
personal
, you know. Murder’s seldom a calculated crime.’ She paused. ‘I met Grace Sharland yesterday …’ An unspoken question hung in the air.

‘And you think she might be the personal element in the investigation?’ Jane seemed glad of the change of subject. Perhaps she thought the gossip would distract Rosie and cheer her up.

‘She’s a very attractive young woman,’ Molly said. ‘I wondered if there was ever any talk …’

‘About her and James?’

Molly nodded. ‘He was obviously close to her.’

‘He fancied her like crazy,’ Jane said. She looked at Rosie, hoping to involve her in the scandal and lift her gloom. ‘Didn’t he, Rosie? Anyone could see that.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said, but she still seemed preoccupied.

‘Of course he did. Don’t you remember that time when he went for a walk on the beach with her? Everyone else was out but us and they must have thought we couldn’t see them. But there’s a pair of binoculars in the common room and we watched them through those. They were walking side by side like an old married couple.’