Murder at the Mill

by M. B. Shaw

  ‘I wasn’t stalking Iris. I was watching her.’

  ‘In secret, without her knowledge or consent, following her around in the dark? Breaking into her house? That’s stalking, Mr McBride.’

  ‘She’s my wife!’

  ‘So what? So you own her? She belongs to you?’

  ‘Mr McBride never said that,’ the solicitor jumped in, placing a restraining hand on Ian’s shoulder, apparently aware that his client was close to breaking point.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Cant waved a hand dismissively. ‘This isn’t about what he did to his wife. It’s about him threatening Dom Wetherby, following Dom Wetherby, becoming violent with Dom Wetherby. Do you realise that the next time anybody saw Mr Wetherby after your encounter in the field, he was floating in the river, dead?’

  ‘There’s no way my client could possibly know that,’ said the solicitor, but not even Ian was listening to him.

  ‘I think you drugged him during that encounter, Mr McBride. Either you injected him or you gave him the chloroform dissolved in a drink. I think you came prepared.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘You went back to your car to let the chloroform take its effect. You knew he’d be unconscious in seconds, a minute at most. You checked the coast was clear and you went back up to that field.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You carried him back to your car. Then you drove to the Mill, parked near the woods and waited for darkness to fall. Maybe you gave him a second dose, to keep him out, I don’t know.’

  ‘This never happened!’ protested Ian.

  ‘Is there a question here?’ asked James, the solicitor.

  Cant steamrollered over both of them. ‘You dragged Dom Wetherby to the river, weighted him down and dropped him in there to drown. Then you waited a bit longer, to make sure he was dead, that he wasn’t coming back up.’

  Ian shook his head vehemently.

  ‘You covered your tracks and you drove off. Got the car cleaned. Dropped it back. Hightailed it to London so you could establish an alibi. You planned every inch of it, didn’t you, Mr McBride?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ Cant scoffed. ‘You even hired the exact make and model of car that Marcus Wetherby drives! So if anybody saw that Volvo, they wouldn’t think twice. You blamed Dominic Wetherby for your wife leaving you and you killed him!’ He jabbed an accusatory finger in Ian’s direction.

  A knock broke the almost unbearable tension. A young WPC put her head round the door.

  ‘What?’ Cant yelled at her furiously.

  ‘S-someone’s here for you, sir,’ the girl stammered. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Who?’ roared Cant.

  The PC shook her head helplessly. Evidently she couldn’t say the name in front of McBride and his lawyer.

  ‘Fine. Interview suspended.’ Cant flipped off the tape and beckoned to his mute sergeant to follow him. The solicitor heard him mutter, ‘This had better be good,’ to the PC as the three officers left the room.

  As soon as they’d gone, he turned to Ian.

  ‘We may not have much time.’

  Ian was rocking from side to side, his head in his hands. ‘This is awful. This is a nightmare. How did they know about the emails? The emails make me look so bad.’

  ‘Forget the emails. What about the car?’ Thomas James dragged him back to their biggest problem. ‘Is there any possibility that they will find DNA evidence linking you to Dom Wetherby in that car? Think carefully before you answer.’

  Ian’s eyes widened with fear. ‘No. Of course there isn’t.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘I’m asking if you’re sure,’ James answered, in an impressive display of lawyerly obtuseness. ‘That’s my job. What about drugs?’

  ‘Drugs?’ Ian looked confused. The stress and exhaustion were clearly getting to him.

  ‘Will they find any drugs in that car?’ James spelled it out.

  ‘No. At least, not from me,’ said Ian. ‘I mean, it’s a rental car. People have used it since I did. And before I did. Oh God!’

  ‘Don’t panic.’ The solicitor patted his hand. ‘And don’t say anything else for the time being. They can only hold you for three more hours without charging you. Unless they’ve applied for an extension, but we should have been notified if they’ve done that.’

  ‘What sort of extension?’ Ian gnawed at his nails.

  ‘They could ask for thirty-six hours instead of twenty-four, and they usually get that,’ said James. ‘Technically, they can ask for up to ninety-six hours.’

  ‘Four days? They can keep me here for four days?’

  The solicitor shook his head. ‘It won’t come to that. I think you’ll be out by tonight, but do not rise to the DI’s bait, and do not offer up any more information.’

  ‘OK.’ Ian nodded.

  ‘And don’t lie,’ James added. ‘If you feel the need to lie, say nothing. Just look over at me and I’ll handle it.’

  Ian nodded again, terrified and clinging on to his solicitor’s words for dear life.

  ‘You’ll be out by tonight.’

  Please, God, let that be true. Whether he deserved his freedom or not, he hadn’t realised till now quite how deeply he cherished it.

  How had everything unravelled so fast?

  * * *

  Iris had already been ushered into Cant’s office and offered a cup of tea by the time the DI himself burst in, radiating a combination of self-importance and irritation.

  ‘What can I do for you, Ms Grey?’ He took a seat on his own side of the desk and stretched out his legs in front of him, a picture of confidence.

  ‘What do you mean, what can you do for me?’ Iris’s own irritated tone punctured his ego bubble. ‘Your sergeant called me to tell me Ian was in custody. I was asked to get here as soon as I could.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Cant frowned dismissively, as if Iris having been summoned was by the by. In fact, he’d forgotten that he’d asked Trotter to bring her in. In all the excitement yesterday after his team found the rental car, it had seemed important to talk to Iris. To let her know that, far from being the lazy, stupid policeman of her imagination, Roger Cant had in fact been following new leads and was on the brink of cracking open the Wetherby murder case like a soft-boiled egg. The fact that it now looked like Iris’s own husband had killed Dom – that for all her artist’s intuition, or whatever the hell she considered to be her crime-solving ‘gifts’, she’d somehow managed to miss a murderer in her own family – only made Cant’s triumph all the sweeter.

  Today, though, Iris’s presence was a distraction. He’d been close to breaking McBride earlier, and he highly doubted that Iris was going to be able to add much to his efforts to secure a conviction.

  ‘I don’t know where all this came from, or what evidence you have against him,’ Iris began, filling the rather hostile silence between them, ‘but you’re making a mistake. Ian didn’t kill Dom. My husband may be many things, but he isn’t a murderer.’

  ‘That’s what your intuition tells you, is it?’ Cant sneered.

  ‘It’s what twenty years with the man tells me,’ said Iris hotly.

  Cant rolled his eyes. ‘You and the wives of just about every convicted killer since Jack the Ripper,’ he said. ‘Were you aware your husband was threatening Dom Wetherby? That he bombarded him with aggressive emails for weeks before his death?’

  Iris did a double-take. ‘No, I wasn’t. Why would Ian do that?’

  ‘Evidently he suspected some sort of romantic relationship between you and Wetherby.’

  ‘Between me and Dom?’ Iris’s eyes widened.

  Cant nodded smugly. He appeared to be enjoying himself. ‘Did your husband have any grounds for those suspicions, Ms Grey?’

  ‘No!’ said Iris. ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘I’m assuming you also weren’t aware that Mr McBride was staying in Hazelford over Christmas? He’s been
staying here regularly, in fact, both before and after Mr Wetherby was murdered. Over at Whitman’s Farm. Turns out the mysterious “stalker” you’ve been complaining about was your own husband.’

  He said this triumphantly, as if it vindicated his dismissiveness of Iris’s complaints and his own inaction.

  ‘Funny, you not picking up on that. What with your sixth sense and everything.’

  ‘I’ve never claimed to have a sixth sense, DI Cant,’ Iris snapped, losing her temper. ‘Only to make good use of the five God gave me. If you’d done the same, you might have learned weeks ago that I was indeed being followed, as I told you. I also told you that you were mistaken in focusing your inquiry on Billy Wetherby, something else you now seem to have accepted. Of course, you persist in barking up the wrong tree with Ian. But who knows, maybe you’ll figure that out more quickly this time. I suppose we can only live in hope.’

  Cant’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. He looked at Iris with something closely approaching hatred.

  ‘Was your husband ever violent towards you, Ms Grey?’ With a superhuman effort, he managed to keep his tone professional.

  Iris was about to say no, then hesitated. Ian had never hit her, but he’d certainly behaved in a threatening manner, especially when he was drunk. More than once he’d broken her things, lashing out in rage, or intimidated her to the degree where she felt she needed to leave the flat.

  ‘He lost his temper at times,’ she answered cautiously. ‘But he never physically injured me, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  Despite his dislike of her, Cant read between the lines.

  ‘Were you afraid of him?’ he asked, less aggressively.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Iris admitted.

  Then, to Cant’s surprise, she asked, ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘No,’ he answered on autopilot. ‘He’s still being interviewed.’

  ‘On suspicion of Dom’s murder?’ Iris asked.

  Cant nodded, and she shook her head vehemently. Clearly, Iris Grey was convinced her husband hadn’t done it. Even though she’d left him, and he’d intimidated her and stalked her and God knows what else, McBride’s wife still didn’t see him as a killer. Despite himself, Cant felt the first seeds of doubt starting to stir. He didn’t want Iris to be right about McBride. He didn’t want her to be right about anything, at this point.

  ‘Let me talk to him,’ she pleaded. ‘You never know, he might open up to me more than he would to you. It can’t hurt, Detective Inspector.’

  Could it hurt? Cant wasn’t sure. McBride was already in a highly emotional state. Seeing his wife might push him over the edge. But in this case, that could be a good thing. It was just possible he would blurt out the truth to Iris. Without the tape and the lawyer …

  ‘All right,’ he said eventually, to Iris’s frank amazement. ‘I’ll give you ten minutes.’

  ‘Really?’

  He nodded gracelessly. ‘Just get on with it, Ms Grey. Before I change my mind.’

  * * *

  Thomas James left the interview room looking deeply unhappy.

  ‘I’d rather stay with my client,’ he told DI Cant.

  ‘And I’d rather be married to Margot Robbie,’ Cant quipped, ‘but that’s life, Mr James. Your client would like some time alone with his wife.’

  The solicitor looked pleadingly at Ian, but it was no use. He’d clearly already made up his mind.

  A few minutes later the door to the interview room opened and Iris walked in. Ian looked up and their eyes met. For a moment they both fought back tears.

  ‘Hello,’ Ian said gruffly.

  ‘Hi,’ said Iris, sitting down. ‘They only gave me ten minutes.’

  Ian nodded but remained silent, waiting for her to start. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat and said awkwardly, ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Iris.

  Ian’s shoulders slumped visibly with relief. Simply to be believed was something.

  ‘You look beautiful.’ His voice started to falter.

  Iris stopped him. ‘Don’t.’ It was impossible not to pity him, seeing him sitting there looking so small and defeated and frightened. But pity only went so far. She was angry too. ‘For one thing, we both know I look awful. I barely slept last night after I heard you’d been arrested. What the hell happened, Ian? You sent Dom threatening emails?’

  Ian groaned.

  ‘You followed him? You followed me? Have you any idea how terrified I was? I spoke to the police about it. I thought someone was trying to kill me!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ian muttered. ‘I thought you were having an affair. I would have hired a private detective, but I couldn’t afford one, not with the divorce looming and my play cancelled. And I wanted to see for myself.’

  ‘See what?’ Iris sounded exasperated. ‘There was nothing to see!’

  ‘Not with you and Dom, as it turned out,’ Ian admitted, adding bitterly, ‘although I’m not sure you get to play the innocent, Iris, seeing as you are having an affair.’

  ‘You mean Graham?’ Iris stiffened.

  ‘Why? Are there others?’ Ian shot back, instantly regretting it. ‘Look, I’m sorry, OK? It just … it hurts. You moving on so quickly.’

  This was the first honest, vulnerable thing he’d said to her in months. Iris found her anger evaporating. For a rare moment the two of them were still, floating on calm water.

  ‘Are they going to charge you?’ Iris asked. ‘What evidence do they have, other than those emails?’

  Ian told her the circumstantial case against him. The secret trips to Hazelford, renting the car and returning it in the dead of night, lying about his whereabouts, the witnesses to his Christmas Day argument with Dom. ‘My solicitor thinks they won’t have a case without some sort of forensic link. They’re going over the car now, but there’s nothing to find, obviously.’

  It’s obvious to us, thought Iris. But she wouldn’t put it past Cant and his men to plant evidence, if they were truly convinced Ian did it. What he really needed, what they all needed, was some link to the real killer.

  ‘Did you find anything out about Dom?’ she asked. ‘When you thought we might be sleeping together, all that snooping around you did. Did anything else come up that might be relevant?’

  Ian smiled thinly. ‘Well, he was an interesting guy. There were a string of mistresses, going way back, but that was an open secret. He had a lot of friends, but he had plenty of enemies too. Wronged husbands, disgruntled employees at the publisher and at ITV. And then there were his creditors. He was a gambler, your friend Dom Wetherby, in more ways than one. He owed a lot of money to a lot of people, some of them pretty unpleasant.’

  ‘He had unpaid gambling debts?’ Iris sounded sceptical. ‘That doesn’t make sense. According to his will, he was flush with savings. If he owed money, he could have paid it.’

  ‘I’m not saying he couldn’t,’ said Ian. ‘Only that he didn’t. There were plenty of disgruntled poker players out there, fed up with Wetherby’s welching. Apparently his nickname on the poker circuit was “Crime”.’

  Iris looked puzzled.

  ‘As in “crime doesn’t pay”?’ Ian clarified.

  Iris winced at the dreadful pun. ‘That’s awful!’

  ‘I know.’ Ian chuckled. ‘And look, I’m not saying his creditors killed him, but some of those guys are serious players. They don’t mess around.’

  Iris suddenly thought back to her meeting with Harry Masters at the piano teacher’s house. What had Harry said about the Russian property developer who hated Dom? And come to think of it, hadn’t Dom himself said something to her once about Russians? Not trusting them, or words to that effect. None of it had seemed important at the time, perhaps because the manner of Dom’s death – how and when and where it was done – seemed more intimate than anything related to a business dispute. Dom was drugged and drowned in the grounds of his own beloved home, a place he felt safe, the weight round his legs an echo of a game he once played
with his children. On Christmas Day, a time of joy and peace, a time for family.

  Family.

  But perhaps there was more to it than that. Perhaps Dom’s death had had nothing to do with family and everything to do with money, betrayal and revenge. Had Iris been guilty of the very thing of which she’d accused DI Cant? Lazy narrow-mindedness? Refusing to look at evidence that didn’t fit her preconceived notions of what might have happened to Dom on that fateful Christmas afternoon?

  ‘Have you told the police about this?’ she asked Ian.

  He shook his head. ‘They haven’t asked. My lawyer reckons I should stop talking to them altogether for the moment. What do you think?’

  Iris hesitated. ‘I think if they ask you a question, you should answer it,’ she said eventually. ‘Cant will dig his heels in even harder if he feels he’s being stonewalled. But I wouldn’t offer anything up that you don’t have to. Is your lawyer good?’

  Ian smiled. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Because, if you needed it, I know Graham would—’

  ‘No, thanks,’ he cut her off, his smile evaporating. ‘I’d rather be done for murder, if it’s all the same to you.’

  Iris looked him in the eye. ‘He’s a good man, you know. He’s kind to me.’

  ‘I’m happy to hear it,’ said Ian. ‘Truly. But I can’t forgive him, Iris. In my heart, you’ll always be my wife.’

  He means it, thought Iris. For the second time, she felt herself tearing up.

  ‘I did love you,’ she blurted.

  ‘I know you did.’

  ‘I did try.’

  ‘So did I.’ Ian looked away. Her face, twisted in misery, was too painful to look at. ‘Thanks for coming to see me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Iris stood up, pushing out her chair with a clatter.

  ‘Good luck at your portrait unveiling on Thursday,’ Ian said graciously as she turned to leave. ‘That’s quite an achievement.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Iris. She could barely remember the last time Ian had paid her a sincere compliment about her work. ‘I’m excited, actually. Nervous and excited.’

  ‘Are you happy with the painting?’