Murder at the Mill

by M. B. Shaw

  It was awful, the distance that had grown between Jenna and Marcus since they left the Mill. Not that things had been peachy before. But it was ironic how Jenna’s instincts being proved right, and Dom’s death now being treated as murder, had made everything a thousand times worse. Ever since then Marcus had been behaving in an inexplicably childish and hurtful way, ignoring poor Jenna completely, shrugging off her every attempt to talk or bridge the gulf between them, almost as if he blamed her for Dom’s murder. As if Jenna suspecting his father had been killed had somehow magically made that happen. As if she’d betrayed him.

  Looking up at him now, his back ramrod straight, staring straight ahead as he belted out ‘Jerusalem’, Jenna thought bitterly that it was he, Marcus, who was the betrayer. Even now, after everything that had happened, he couldn’t stop himself putting on an act. The Wetherby family is fine. United. There’s nothing to see here, folks. The show must go on. He’d shown an astonishing, and to Jenna’s mind borderline psychotic, lack of interest in who may have killed his father or why, instead focusing wholly on ‘protecting’ the family and ‘moving on’. Whatever that meant.

  Across the aisle, Jenna noticed, Ariadne was doing the exact same thing, singing, rigid and dry-eyed, immaculately turned out in a black Dior wool dress and lace mantilla veil. Image, apparently, was everything. Only Billy spoiled the illusion, off message as usual in a crumpled shirt and jeans, resolutely closed-lipped, his expression making it plain that he would rather have been anywhere than here.

  Because you killed him, Jenna thought, furiously. You killed him and you got away with it, and now all you want to do is run off and spend his money.

  As the hymn finished and the congregation took their seats, Jenna witnessed a flash of what could only be described as white-hot rage pass across Marcus’s features. For once, however, it wasn’t directed at her. Leaning forwards, Jenna’s stomach lurched when she saw who the recipient was: Rachel Truebridge, who met Marcus’s death stare with a defiant scowl of her own.

  What the hell’s going on between those two? They barely know each other.

  Jenna gripped the pew for support as it all came flooding back to her. The unexplained scratch on Marcus’s face before Christmas, conveniently ‘dropped’ as a subject in the wake of Dom’s murder. His horrified reaction when Rachel turned up drunk at the Christmas Eve drinks, and again today.

  Were they having an affair? Was that the real reason for Marcus’s distance, for this sudden, terrible change in him? Suddenly Jenna found it hard to breathe.

  * * *

  ‘Jenna doesn’t look well,’ Graham Feeney leaned over and whispered in Iris’s ear.

  Iris glanced across the aisle. ‘God, no. She doesn’t,’ she whispered back. Catching Jenna’s eye, she smiled encouragingly, receiving a weak nod in return. She’d promised to chat to Jenna later, privately, about the latest developments, but perhaps their first conversation should be about the obviously dire state of affairs between her and Marcus.

  No one understood better than Iris the strain that a disintegrating marriage could put on the body, not to mention the soul. She had received a bitter letter from Ian in the post this morning, ironically enough, in response to receiving the divorce papers from her. Only a few short weeks ago that would have been enough to plunge Iris into a barely functioning state of despair. Yet now, thanks in part to the distraction provided by trying to solve Dom’s murder – and perhaps thanks also to Graham Feeney – she felt bizarrely yet blissfully isolated from the pain. Almost as if Ian, her husband and partner for so many years, had become a fictional character, a figment of Iris’s imagination. Whereas Graham, with whom she had still not slept or even kissed properly again since that first time, had become hyper-real, a constant, vivid, worryingly important presence in this new life Iris seemed to be embarking on.

  A few days ago, when Graham was still up in Scotland, Iris had once again had the strong sensation that she was being followed. Twice it had happened in the village, when she was out shopping or running errands. Nothing tangible, just shadows and noises. And once at home, when Iris could have sworn she heard a door open and close downstairs while she was in the shower. She had no hard evidence for any of these incidents, other than a disturbing and increasingly pronounced sixth sense. Not like December, when someone had broken into Mill Cottage and left her that creepy ‘gift’, but still, it had bothered her enough to call Graham.

  ‘You think I’m being silly, don’t you?’ said Iris, embarrassed by the silence on the other end of the line.

  But Graham had insisted otherwise. ‘You should be careful. If you’re going to go out hunting a killer, then you’re putting yourself at risk. Even innocent people don’t appreciate having their skeletons rattled.’

  Thinking of secrets, Iris had spent the last ten minutes watching Ariadne’s elderly father, Clive, at the end of the family pew. If anything, he looked even frailer than Iris remembered him, a tiny, stooped, shrunken person whose every breath seemed to shake him from within like a mini earthquake. Was there any truth to what Harry Masters had implied about Clive mistreating Ariadne as a child? Again it was hard to picture, although Iris could think of no reason for Harry to lie. Watching Clive throw occasional sidelong glances at Ariadne, and Ariadne do the same to Billy, who looked skittish and possibly even high beside the rigid-backed Marcus, it struck Iris what a strange triangle they made. The perfect mother, the age-ravaged father and the fallen son. Something’s binding them, she thought. Some tie, some current flows through the three of them that the rest of the family can’t see.

  The vicar had started his eulogy. Iris was too busy people-watching to listen properly, but the regular ripples of laughter suggested the speech must be good. About six rows behind her, Iris saw Harry Masters, also watching, his eyes mostly glued to Ariadne but occasionally turning round to check out DI Cant, who stood at the back looking awkward and vaguely sinister, despite his chubby cheeks and freckles.

  A few rows in front of Cant, sitting next to the London lawyer who was handling Dom’s will, a slim, bald man in a cheap-looking suit suddenly began waving at Iris, discreetly at first, but becoming more and more animated as she failed to respond in kind. ‘Do you know who that is?’ She nudged Graham, who turned to look. ‘I think he must have mistaken me for someone else. I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

  ‘Good God.’ The colour drained from Graham’s face.

  ‘You know him?’ said Iris.

  ‘Yes, I … yes,’ Graham stammered, waving back briefly before turning to face the front. His throat felt tight and constricted all of a sudden, as if he’d swallowed a bee. He was having a tough time focusing and stared at the embroidered cross draped over Dom’s coffin in a conscious attempt to steady himself.

  ‘He … His name’s Jago. He was … He knew my brother,’ he explained disjointedly to Iris.

  Calm down, Graham told himself. Get a grip. He didn’t want Iris to see him upset like this. Didn’t want anyone to see how much seeing Jago Dalziel had affected him, but especially not Iris.

  He should have thought of this. Realised that some of Dom’s old Oxford friends were bound to attend the funeral. But stupidly, it had never occurred to him. He’d been too excited about seeing Iris, and being back at the Mill, and too consumed with the prospect of representing Billy against the Hampshire Police.

  But now here they were, here Jago was anyway, no doubt wanting to reminisce about Marcus and Dom, and what terrific friends they’d been, and how devastating to think that they were both now gone.

  Graham felt panic rise up within him like a storm surge. He could not have that conversation. He physically could not have it.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Iris touched his hand lightly and he jumped as if he’d been stung.

  ‘I’m fine.’ He smiled, convincingly he hoped. ‘Surprised to see him, that’s all. It’s been a very long time.’

  Iris squeezed his hand. Graham returned the pressure gratefully. She really was the most
wonderful woman. Just don’t mess it up.

  * * *

  DI Roger Cant stood on the edge of the crowd gathered round the graveside for Dom’s internment. There were enough people present for the vicar’s voice to be a distant hum, the familiar words merging one into another like a windswept mantra: ‘Let us commend Dominic’s body to the mercy of God…’

  Whoever had ‘commended’ Dom Wetherby’s body to the Itchen had done so without mercy and while Dom was still alive. The water flooding his lungs left no doubt that the cause of death was drowning. Unfortunately, seven weeks after Wetherby’s murder, this one bald fact was just about the only certainty DI Cant had. The loathsome Dr Drew was ‘quite sure’ the victim had been heavily drugged, based on the toxicology report, and ‘ninety-nine per cent sure’ that the toxin of choice was chloroform. Apparently the body broke chloroform down so quickly into its component chemicals that there could never be an absolute guarantee. Worse, fatal or near-fatal doses of chloroform could be administered in a variety of ways, including ingestion via food or drink, injection into the bloodstream, inhalation through a mask such as the one Ariadne Wetherby used on her animal subjects or even in some cases through the skin. Cant had had high hopes that a thorough examination of Ariadne’s sculpting shed would turn up a wealth of evidence. His working theory was that Billy had lured his dad there, somehow managed to drug him with his mother’s supply of chloroform and then carried him, unconscious, to the riverbank under cover of darkness.

  As it turned out, however, there was no sign of any struggle having taken place in the shed, nor was there any compelling evidence that large amounts of chloroform had in fact been taken from Mrs Wetherby’s supply. All Cant had to show for his efforts was a bunch of family fingerprints, but as all the Wetherbys had been in and out of the shed multiple times over the years, that was hardly remarkable.

  Cant’s attempts to ‘squeeze’ Billy into a confession based on such flimsy evidence had ended predictably in failure, and he still had no witnesses placing Billy in or near Hazelford for those crucial hours, never mind in the shed or along the riverbank. Yet Cant remained stubbornly sure that Billy Wetherby was the killer. Just watching him twitch and smirk through the service, at one point actually winking at the detective on his way out, strengthened his conviction still further. Someone here today must have seen something, or heard something, or must know something that could firmly tie Billy to the murder. Out of all these hundreds of mourners, surely someone had cared enough about Dom Wetherby to want to tell the truth? So Cant had come to the funeral and watched and waited.

  The service seemed to go on for ever, and by the end St Anne’s had felt like a furnace, a combination of a slightly dodgy old heating system and hundreds of human bodies pressed together in a confined space. It had been a relief to step outside into the cool, crisp air of the churchyard, and enlightening to watch people’s reactions as Dom’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Most people stood and watched silently, even the flashy TV types who’d turned up in jeans and been so chatty during the funeral service, as if this were a wedding or a cocktail party. Iris Grey was there, the meddlesome portrait painter from Mill Cottage who’d taken it upon herself to ride roughshod over Cant’s case, impersonating parole officers and God knows what else. She too looked sombre, although Cant was more interested by the fact that she’d clearly become very buddy-buddy with Graham Feeney, the Wetherbys’ ubiquitous lawyer friend. That, in Cant’s view, was a dangerous combination. Barristers always thought themselves above the police. The last thing Ms Grey needed was any more encouragement in that department.

  Most interesting to Cant, however, was the family itself. Billy stood aside from his mother and brothers, having attached himself like a louche limpet to the lawyer in charge of Dom’s estate. Meanwhile Marcus Wetherby looked grim and frozen beside his mother, as stiff and rigid in his formal suit as any corpse. Ariadne let out a single, stifled sob as the coffin sank from view, her only display of emotion so far. But standing on her other side, it was poor Lorcan Wetherby who lost it completely.

  ‘No!’ he screamed, as handfuls of earth were thrown and the vicar started reciting the ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ part. ‘Daddy! No!’ He lunged forwards, and it was only thanks to lightning-quick reactions on Marcus’s part that he didn’t fall head first on top of the coffin. Grabbing him by the shirt, Marcus pulled his brother back and tried to restrain him, but Lorcan struggled frantically. ‘Ghost!’ he screamed hysterically, his voice becoming louder and louder. ‘White ghost did it! I saw him. I saw! No one believes me.’

  It was awful to watch, tragic and embarrassing at the same time. Nobody knew where to look. In the end, Cant noticed, it was Jenna Wetherby who succeeded in calming Lorcan down, eventually managing to prise him away from Marcus and lead him gently back to the house, still crying and shaking and rambling about ghosts.

  Iris felt as dismayed as everyone else – poor, poor Lorcan – although clearly Graham felt worse, squeezing her hand so tightly during the whole episode Iris worried her fingers might crack. He’d obviously been shaken by his brother’s old friend from Oxford showing up today. Perhaps Dom’s funeral was stirring painful memories from that time. Or perhaps he’d been closer to Dom than Iris realised.

  Iris squeezed back, trying not to think about how fond she was becoming of this sweet but complicated man.

  * * *

  Iris was one of the last to arrive at Mill House for the wake, having nipped home first to change into more comfortable shoes and to pick up the videos and photographs of Dom that Ariadne had lent her. Dom’s portrait was almost finished now, and Iris wanted to return the prints before she accidentally spilled coffee on them, or singed them with a candle, or otherwise lost or ruined such precious mementos. Perhaps today wasn’t the right time to bother Ariadne, but she could always nip into Dom’s study and leave them on the desk.

  An added advantage of the trip home was that it allowed her to retouch her make-up, spray on some scent and generally freshen up – not that she was trying to impress anyone in particular. Not at all.

  Definitely not.

  As usual, Ariadne had laid on an impressive spread. The house looked as immaculate as ever, albeit quieter and less dazzling without Dom’s presence. Fresh vases of white lilies graced every table and mantelpiece, fires crackled away invitingly in all the downstairs rooms, and a simple but delicious feast of poached salmon, wild rice, salad and some sort of Moroccan chicken stew awaited the cold and hungry mourners on three vast trestle tables arranged along the hallway. A fourth table provided a full bar, already swamped by the time Iris arrived. The whole thing had been professionally staffed by a team of local caterers. I suppose this is how the rich do funerals, thought Iris. Effortlessly. Money might not be the answer to everything, but it was the answer to a lot.

  Glancing around in vain for Graham, Iris helped herself to a small plate of salmon and a glass of red, and headed towards Dom’s study. Pushing open the door, she set the padded envelope of photographs and home movies down on the desk and took a moment to look around her at the familiar oak-panelled walls. It was odd to think that only three months ago, she’d entered this room for the first time for her initial sitting with Dom. How utterly and profoundly everything had changed since then! Iris had always loved the room, loved its warmth and richness and history, all of which on some level reflected the nature of its occupant. Former occupant. Dom’s presence was still heavy here, tangible in the soft indent his body had made in the desk chair, and the lingering smell of cigar smoke and cologne that clung to the heavy velvet curtains. The shelves were full of his books, including Grimshaw’s Discovery, Grimshaw Moves On, Grimshaw’s Nemesis and his last novel, Grimshaw’s Goodbye. Pulling one of the books out – it turned out to be Dom’s debut, Inspector Grimshaw – Iris flipped open the cover curiously. The dedication read: ‘For Marcus, who’s always been behind me. With thanks.’

  He must have been referring to Graham’s brother, Marcus. Iris wa
s deeply curious about the legendary Marcus Feeney, adored brother, loyal friend, Oxford superstar by all accounts. And yet this beloved, blessed individual had taken his own life, and at such a hideously young age. All of that potential wasted. Lost for ever.

  Iris was still pondering this when something outside the window caught her eye. Two figures, both in black, stood very close together beneath the yew tree at the bottom of the kitchen garden. Iris recognised Ariadne at once, but it took her a moment to ascertain that the second figure, once again, was Harry Masters. That’s the second time in two weeks I’ve seen the two of them together. This time, however, they weren’t arguing. Instead, Ariadne was leaning into Harry, pressed against his shoulder. And he was bending down, apparently stooping to hear something she was saying. From this distance, it was hard to see accurately, but it looked very much to Iris as if Ariadne were whispering in Harry’s ear. And then his arm shot around her, and he was comforting her, holding her, saying something back.