The Mill on the Shore by Ann Cleeves Page B

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.

Chapter Eight
    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