The Mill on the Shore (22 page)

‘It’s worth a try,’ she said.

‘It’s a long shot,’ he said, ‘after all this time.’

‘Surely it’s worth asking though. Jimmy would have been a celebrity. His programmes were on the television then. Someone might remember who he was with. The regulars in that place can’t have changed for twenty years.’

‘Yes,’ he said again slowly, repeating her words. ‘It’s worth a try.’ He was not really persuaded but anything was better than waiting here, hiding from Porter in his room. He looked at his watch.

‘It’s not eleven yet,’ he said. ‘It won’t be open.’

‘We can walk,’ she said. ‘Slowly.’

The hamlet of Markham Law was a gathering of unimposing buildings on the crossroads between the main road to Mardon and the lane to the Mill. On the lane there was a terrace of single-storey cottages with long front gardens separated from the road by a white-washed wall, and nearer the coast two pairs of shabby semi-detached houses. But for the unkempt gardens and the peeling paintwork they would not have been out of place in a suburban street. The Dead Dog was on the main road opposite a big farmhouse with gaping empty barns and an overgrown farmyard.

As George and Molly approached the crossroad an elderly man came out of one of the cottages and walked slowly but purposefully ahead of them, unbothered by the snow still lying on the road. He knocked on the door of the pub with his walking stick and yelled angrily through the letter box that it was bloody cold here and why couldn’t Cedric pull his finger out. When they caught up with him there was the sound of bolts being pulled back and the door was opened.

Inside it seemed dark and warm. Instead of the calor heater there was a fire banked up in a small grate. The old man sat in the chair nearest to it and shouted to Cedric to be served. He glared at the Palmer-Jones as if challenging them to complain about his taking first turn.

‘I’ll pay for that,’ George said. Molly had sat on a stool near the bar. The man turned to him, his eyes glittering greedily. Usually you only got fools like that in the summer, fools who’d stand the drinks all night for what they’d call local colour. He’d give this chap all the local colour he wanted so long as the beer kept coming. Cedric poured a pint of mild which George delivered to the old man by the fire. He nodded and gave an unpleasant grimace which was the nearest he could come to a smile.

‘Staying at the Mill, are you?’ he said. Most of the fools who bought him drinks stayed there.

George nodded, took a chair beside the old man.

‘I’d get out of that place while you can!’ the old man said, licking the froth from his lips. ‘ I heard they lost another one, washed up by the tide. There must be something about it that makes folks feel like topping theirselves.’

‘He was drowned,’ George said. ‘They think it was an accident. He was cut off on Salter’s Spit.’

‘Is that what Reg Porter says?’

George nodded.

‘Well, what could you expect from a bloke like that?’

‘You don’t think it’s likely then?’

‘Not unless the chap who drowned was a fool.’

George was pleased that someone else shared his theory that Aidan’s death wasn’t an accident but this was hardly conclusive. The old man would say anything just to be contrary.

‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.

The old man shook his head as if it were obvious to anyone but a lunatic. For a moment George thought he would refuse to answer. ‘Smallest tide of the year this week,’ he said at last. ‘Even if you got cut off you’d be able to walk back. If you wanted, like.’

There was a silence while he drank his beer. All the whorls and lines which formed his fingerprints were stained brown and his nails were filthy. He smelled faintly of manure and tobacco.

‘But if he’d slipped,’ George said, ‘the currents could have taken him out.’

‘Oh aye,’ the old man spoke dismissively. ‘Like I said, if he was a fool anything could have happened.’ He drained his glass noisily.

‘Did you know Mr Morrissey?’

The old man gave a reluctant nod of his head. He thought he had done enough now to pay for one pint of beer. ‘Aye,’ he said pointedly. ‘He was always one to stand his round.’

‘Did he come here often?’

The old man gave a loud cackle. ‘ When his old lady would let him out. Or when he ran away from her. She came in here one dinner-time spitting blood and dragged him back as if he were a lad. Don’t know why he put up with it.’ He looked slyly to the bar where Molly was drinking her beer. ‘Never married myself,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t see the point.’

‘It must have been a shock when he bought the Mill,’ George persisted. ‘It must have caused a bit of a stir locally.’

The man sniggered as if to admit surprise was a weakness.
Nothing
could shock him.

‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘It had the old biddies round here chattering like a flock of hens on lay. They’d all seen him on the telly. You’d a thought he was royalty when he first came in.’

‘When was that?’ George asked.

‘What?’ He was concentrating on his empty glass as if will power alone could refill it. He looked at George dolefully then returned his stare to the glass. George got to his feet and went to the bar. Cedric poured another pint of mild without a word.

‘When did James Morrissey first come to Markham Law?’ George asked again.

‘I don’t know,’ the old man said unhelpfully. ‘When he first moved to the Mill I suppose. When was that, Ced? Easter ’92?’

‘No,’ Cedric said, then realized he had interrupted and began to blush. ‘I saw him before that.’

‘Oh?’ George said casually. ‘Was he a regular visitor to the area then? Is that how he came to buy the Mill?’

‘Not regular,’ Cedric said. ‘ You wouldn’t call it regular.’ There was a pleasure in being taken seriously by this gentleman with the cultivated voice. ‘He came in once with Phil Cairns.’

‘Oh?’ George said again, trying to sound interested. Phil Cairns couldn’t have been the anonymous correspondent. What would have been the point? Jimmy could have recognized him as soon as they met.

‘Yes,’ said Cedric with his precise, rather fussy voice. ‘Mr Morrissey was married to Mrs Cairns years ago and he came up to see Hannah, his daughter. He and Phil always seemed friendly enough.’

‘Really?’ George said, as if it were news. ‘Was that the only time he came in before he bought the Mill?’

‘No,’ Cedric said definitely. ‘He came in one other time. I remember because it was the weekend his lass died, the lass from Salter’s Cottage.’ His expression became mournful again. Before Caitlin had become the object of his dreams, Hannah had starred in his fantasies. He still remembered her in her school uniform climbing out of the bus which dropped her outside the pub.

‘Was she with him that weekend?’ Molly asked sympathetically. ‘Did he bring her here? You must have been one of the last people to see her?’

‘No,’ Cedric said, sad that he could not claim that distinction. ‘She never came in here. Her mother didn’t like it. She was still under age, you see.’

‘Right.’ There was a silence while Molly tried to think of some pretext for asking if Jimmy had been with anyone else on that occasion. Cedric interrupted her deliberations.

‘He was with some other chap,’ he said. ‘I’d never seen him before.’

‘That’s some memory you’ve got!’ Molly said. He glowed with the unaccustomed praise. He could not resist the temptation to show off.

‘Mr Morrissey was here first,’ he said. ‘ You could tell he was waiting for someone. He was sitting where he could see the door and looked up every time someone came in.’

‘Almost photographic!’ she said admiringly. ‘ I bet you can tell me exactly what the man looked like.’

Cedric screwed up his face in concentration.

‘He was middle-aged,’ he said. ‘Fifty odd. Big build. Sandy hair.’

‘What was he wearing?’ Molly asked.

‘Suit and tie,’ Cedric said immediately. ‘As if he’d dressed up specially for meeting Mr Morrissey. Though I must say the suit looked as if it had seen better days. Not the height of fashion if you know what I mean. What I’d call a wedding and funeral outfit.’

‘So he wasn’t the sort of person who’d normally wear a suit,’ Molly said. ‘He wouldn’t wear one for work, for example.’

‘No,’ he said, pleased that she’d understood. ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

‘Well!’ she said. ‘ To come up with all that detail after such a long time. I am impressed.’

‘I probably wouldn’t have remembered,’ he said modestly, ‘if it wasn’t the weekend Hannah died.’

Molly pushed forward her empty glass and he filled it. His face lit up.

‘I can remember something else!’ he said. ‘ The man was carrying a copy of
Green Scenes
, you know, the conservation magazine. I was interested in horticulture then and I used to take it myself …’ His voice faded as he recalled a more optimistic time. There was a pause and he continued. ‘Mr Morrissey ran the magazine,’ he said. ‘It seemed a peculiar coincidence.’

‘Yes,’ Molly said cheerfully. ‘I can see that it would. Have one yourself,’ she said, handing him a five-pound note. She watched carefully as he poured orange juice into a glass. ‘ I don’t suppose you’ve seen that chap again?’

This time he was less certain. ‘I don’t know, I’m not sure.’ He wanted to impress her again. ‘ You know, I think I might have seen him,’ he said. ‘Someone came in quite recently and I thought their face was familiar. But I can’t for the life of me think who it might have been.’ He looked at her pitifully, sorry to disappoint her.

Two men in suits came into the lounge then with a lot of noise, banging the door, shouting to each other in loud Midlands accents. Molly guessed they were reps, early perhaps for a meeting in Mardon. Cedric went through to serve them and across the bar Molly heard them order whisky ‘to keep out the cold’. She set down her empty glass and climbed off the stool. She wanted to leave while Cedric was distracted. She thought he was so lonely that he would want to prolong the conversation, might even invent stories about Jimmy Morrissey to gain their attention. As it was she was convinced he had told them the truth. George stopped at the door and looked at the old man by the hearth, intending to say goodbye to him, but he turned his back to them deliberately and spat into the fire.

There had been no fresh snow overnight but it was still too cold for a thaw and in the lane where there had been little traffic it still lay on the road. Everywhere was unnaturally quiet. There was no birdsong, no distant sound of cars or machinery, only the dense thud of their feet compacting the frozen snow. George walked quickly, already making plans for the afternoon.

‘Well?’ Molly said, scampering to keep up with him. She was annoyed because he did not seem more pleased. ‘Didn’t I say it was worth a try? At least we’ve got one fact now. We know that Jimmy did meet his anonymous correspondent in the pub and we know what he looked like.’

‘It doesn’t help much though, does it?’ George said. ‘The description doesn’t tie in with anyone at the Mill.’ He must have realized how churlish he sounded because he added: ‘ Look, it was a good idea and you handled that barman splendidly, but I don’t see that it takes us very far forward.’

He half expected her then to accuse him of being patronizing but she said nothing. She was thinking that somewhere, recently, she had seen someone who fitted Cedric’s description of the stranger in the Dead Dog. But like Cedric she could not quite place him. She was to worry at it for the rest of the day but the elusive memory which had seemed so within her grasp on the walk back from the pub would escape her completely so she had to give up the struggle.

In the garden of the Mill Timothy in wellingtons and duffel coat was aimlessly shying snowballs at a small, round snowman. Molly thought that he must have been waiting for them. As they approached he continued the repeated action of stooping to collect the snow, crushing it between red chilled fingers and flinging the ball away from him, but he watched them intently from the corner of his eye, waiting, she thought, for the right time to make his move. He waited until they were in the porch, taking off their boots, then he wiped his wet hands on his trousers and joined them too.

‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he blurted out to George. He had his hand on the man’s elbow to make sure of his attention. ‘There’s something you should see.’

George was mentally preparing his questions for the afternoon’s interviews and was irritated by the interruption.

‘I’ve seen your snowman,’ he said, trying to sound kind. ‘It’s very nice.’

‘No!’ Timothy said. ‘It’s not that. Em made that. It’s in the schoolroom. Come and see.’

George sighed unobtrusively. He supposed he would have to go along to see the model or the painting, whatever masterpiece the boy thought he had created. Molly would only make a fuss if he refused. He was saved, however, by the lunch bell, a large ship’s bell which hung in the lobby and which Jane was ringing by the string attached to its clapper.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘ Remind me to look at it later.’

But after lunch he was worried that they would miss the appointment at the local newspaper office and he put the boy off again.

The offices of the
Mardon Guardian
were dusty and old-fashioned. The editor seemed to have an aversion to all modern technology and past editions of the newspaper were kept not on micro-film but in files on shelves in a long, windowless room. There was one large desk of the sort found in reference libraries and the whole procedure was supervised by a strict woman with horn-rimmed spectacles and a peculiar bouffant hair-style which might have been fashionable in the nineteen-fifties. There had always been stories, Molly remembered, of insects breeding inside the lacquered thatch, and while George read steadily through the newspapers she looked with fascination at the construction which seemed to stay in place without pins or clips, imagining an ants’ nest underneath.

The newspaper was weekly and the story of the swans took the front page headlines on and off over a period of a couple of months during the spring before Hannah’s death. ‘Massacre’ said one and even allowing for a small newspaper’s natural hype George thought the incident must have been more serious than Cathy Cairns had led him to believe. There was more here, surely, than a couple of swans with plumage damaged by cooking oil. The columns which followed were high on melodrama but short on fact. There were no numbers of casualties though there was one reference to the danger that ‘ the whole of the River Marr’s famous swan population could be wiped out’.