Deadfall

by Lyndon Stacey

  Among other things, Linc's business in Blandford involved a meeting with his bank manager about further funding for the mill project, which was completed in half the time he'd expected. He had just emerged on to the high street and was regretting having told Nikki he'd meet her in an hour and a half when he was hailed by a friendly voice. He turned to see a corpulent, suited man in his late-fifties, and recognised Mike Farquharson, his father's wine merchant.

  'Hello, Mike. How are you?'

  'Fine. Fine. I haven't seen you for ages,' Farquharson said as they shook hands. 'Your father told me you were home, of course; said you were doing old Clive whatsisname's job, but I haven't seen you around.'

  'Don't come into Blandford much,' Linc told him. 'But I had to see the bank manager today.'

  Farquharson grimaced. 'Just on my way to the bank myself. Shan't be long though. How d'you fancy a quick drink?'

  Linc raised his eyebrows and looked at his watch.

  'Yes, I know. Better be coffee, I suppose,' the merchant acknowledged wistfully. 'Mind you, Hopgoods down the road there do a very good Irish coffee . . .'

  Ten minutes later, settled in a comfortable chair in a corner of Hopgoods restaurant-cum-coffee bar with a cappuccino in front of him, Linc brought Farquharson up to date with his activities over the last few years. He finished by telling the older man all about Noddy and his dream of eventing glory.

  'Ah, now I knew you were still riding. My niece saw you at an event a few weeks ago and I made the mistake of mentioning it to your father.'

  'Ah.'

  'Yes. Ah,' Farquharson said heavily. 'I didn't realise he still felt so strongly about the whole business. While you've been away the subject just hasn't come up, I suppose. I used to ask what you were doing and he'd say, "I've no idea, he doesn't tell me." '

  'Mmm. That sounds about right,' Linc agreed. 'And he never asked.'

  'Well, I'm afraid I might have put my foot in it,' the vintner confessed. 'Before I discovered how the land lay, I blundered in and suggested that the company might sponsor you. I honestly thought he'd be pleased . . .'

  'Sponsorship?' Hope rose and then just as quickly waned. 'Oh, dear. I imagine you got a frosty reception.'

  'You could say that. He didn't answer directly, but he reminded me of all the years of custom Farthingscourt has given Farquharson's, and said how much he hated change . . . It was sort of left in the air but I had no doubt as to what he meant.'

  'He threatened you?' Linc demanded furiously. Farquharson's Wines & Spirits had been vintners to the Farthingscourt Estate for the best part of two hundred years, Mike Farquharson taking over the reins on his father's retirement some ten years before, and Linc knew his own father regarded both of them as friends as well as suppliers. The knowledge that he would go so far as to use intimidating tactics to bend them to his will shocked Linc.

  'I probably shouldn't have mentioned it to you,' Mike put in hastily. 'We more or less let the subject drop and he seemed okay when I left. Best not stir it up, d'you think?'

  Linc's own inclination at that moment was to face the Viscount with it as soon as he got home, but the anxiety in the wine merchant's face made him think again. He could be pretty sure his father wouldn't be swayed on the matter, and Linc's letting on that he knew might well spell trouble for Mike.

  'I can only apologise. I'm afraid my riding is a taboo subject at home, but I'm very grateful for the offer anyway.'

  'Yes, well, maybe one day . . .'

  Linc smiled and shook his head. 'I can't see it, Mike, really. But, thanks. So how are things with you?'

  The conversation turned and Linc took care not to let his lingering annoyance show. It was bad enough that his father should turn Mike's offer down without consulting Linc, but to do it in such a way was unforgivable.

  As a consequence of stopping for a chat with Mike Farquharson, Linc actually got back to the car ten minutes later than he had told Nikki but even so, he was fractionally before her. She appeared, laden with carrier bags, as he set off along the second row of vehicles, looking for the Morgan. One of the disadvantages of driving such a low-slung car was the difficulty involved in finding it in a car park, if you hadn't made a precise note of which row you'd left it in. Sometimes, from a distance, the Morgan's position looked like a vacant space.

  Nearly all the cars in the park bore leaflets fluttering under their windscreen wipers, as did Linc's when he eventually tracked it down.

  'What's that? Buy one – get one free at the local tandoori?' Nikki asked as she came up. 'Or cut-price double glazing if you allow three lots of people to come and view the results? Hey, that would shake 'em, if you asked for a quote for Farthingscourt!'

  Linc laughed, but the smile died on his lips as he removed the leaflet and found a fold of newsprint tucked behind it.

  'What's the matter?' Nikki was watching him.

  'Er, nothing really.' Linc palmed the paper and read the leaflet. ' "Flower and Vegetable Show. Special prizes for first-time exhibitors". There you are, you could enter one of your flower arrangements.'

  Nikki made a face. 'You'll have me joining the WI next,' she said.

  'Nothing wrong with the WI,' Linc told her, easing himself into the car.

  He waited until he'd dropped Nikki off before looking at the scrap of newspaper. The First Viscount Tremayne, with his taste for grandeur, had built Farthingscourt with four lodges; one roughly at each compass point, although they were all, for geographical reasons, slightly offset from the centre. Nikki and Crispin shared the cottage known as North Lodge, which in common with West Lodge guarded a gate currently kept shut and locked to minimise access to the estate.

  As Nikki let herself in through the pedestrian gate beside the thatched cottage, Linc took the newspaper from his pocket and unfolded it. As before, it was part of a single sheet with several words picked out in Day-Glo yellow. As before, it was short and to the point.

  You don't listen. Now you must watch your back.

  Linc regarded it gloomily. It was bad enough being warned off when he'd been actively snooping, but this time he had no idea what he was supposed to have done. As he stowed the newsprint in his wallet he couldn't resist a quick glance round, as if to check that the author of the note wasn't watching him at that moment. What he found additionally disturbing was that today he'd been driving the sports car for the first time since the night of the raid at the Vicarage. It had been too dark then to identify the Morgan, so either someone had been making enquiries about him or he had been followed when he left Farthingscourt earlier that morning. Neither option left him feeling especially comfortable.

  Estate commitments kept Linc busy over the next couple of days. A group of workers from the local branch of the conservation volunteers was due to arrive on the Friday night for a weekend doing path restoration and undergrowth clearance around the mill. Accommodation had been arranged for them on camp beds in the village hall complex at Farthing St Thomas, the next village north of Farthing St Anne, but there were a number of other matters to be taken care of. One of these was the organisation of a dance for them on the Saturday night in the main body of the hall. Thankfully, Nikki had offered to take that on.

  It was Thursday evening before Linc had a chance to see Josie again. They had decided to go out for another meal but she had also expressed a wish to see the mill, so he picked her up from the Vicarage in the early evening and headed back towards Farthingscourt.

  Passing Sykes's cottage at East Lodge, he continued along the lane towards Farthing St Thomas, pausing on top of the bridge over the millstream so she could see where it rushed down into Valley Wood. It ran in its own mini-gorge here, the banks dropping away steeply, each side of the bridge, to the streambed some fifteen feet below the level of the road.

  With the young leaves on the surrounding trees casting dappled shade on the water it was an idyllic spot, but some twenty years before it had been the talk of the villages when a local man, subsequently known as River Joe, had driven off
the road here on his way home from the pub. His pick-up truck had tipped over and come to rest on its roof in the stream, where it stayed undiscovered until some children found it the next morning. The driver, held just clear of the water by his seatbelt, had lived to tell the tale, and the story earned him a number of beers in the following weeks.

  'It's lovely, isn't it?' Josie said. 'We used to cycle along this road as kids and mess around on the bridge, but since I've been driving I've never even stopped to look. How far downstream is the mill?'

  'About a quarter of a mile and about forty feet lower down.'

  He put the Morgan in gear and drove on, turning into Mill Lane a hundred yards or so further down the road. Here, a decade's overgrowth of rhododendrons had been hacked ruthlessly back to allow access to the lane which had been gated and largely unused in all that time. The gravel lane, with Valley Wood on its left and a coppice known as Millersholt on its right, progressed roughly parallel with the stream before swinging downhill to pass close to the mill itself.

  Linc pulled into the car park and he and Josie got out and walked round the outside of the mill building and the pond, where he showed her the dam and the bypass pipe. Coming back, they inspected the headrace through which water from the pond would one day pour to activate the huge breast-shot wheel. For now the magnificent wheel hung idle on its axle, the wheel pit below it dry and scraped clear of the accumulated muck of ages.

  'It hits the wheel just above halfway up and the weight of the water turns it backwards, sloshing out at the bottom into what's called the tailrace, which takes it back to join the stream.' Linc paused. 'Am I telling you what you already know?'

  'No. Please, go on,' Josie said. 'How long will it be before you can get it going again?'

  'Actually the mechanism seems fine. We gave it a good greasing and tried it out, and basically it works. One or two of the gear wheels need some attention -new cogs and the like – and the stones need dressing, but it's more structural restoration that needs doing. The roof and the garner – that's the top floor where the grain is stored – are the worst. Saul, the millwright, reckons another month and we should be more or less there.'

  'I bet you can't wait,' Josie said, eyes shining. 'Do you think I could come and watch?'

  'Of course.' Her easy assumption that their relationship was to be long-term filled him with a warm glow of contentment. 'I'll reserve you the best seat in the house.'

  They continued the tour, going over as much of the inside of the mill as was safe and Josie seemed fascinated by all of it.

  'Once the water is flowing again, how do you stop all this working if you haven't any grain to mill?' she wanted to know. 'Is it just a case of shutting the sluice-gate?'

  'That's right. But if you just want to stop one pair of stones there's a thing called a jack ring that lifts the stone nut out of gear.' He showed her how a lever operated a metal collar under one of the smaller cogs. 'It's all so simple but it works.'

  He explained how the grain was fed into the eye of the runner stone by a wooden chute called a shoe, regulated by the rhythmic tapping of a metal bar known as the damsel.

  'As the stone rotates, the damsel gently taps the shoe to keep the grain running evenly. Millers say it got its name from the constant chattering it makes,' he said with a sidelong look at Josie. 'It's where the term "chatterbox" comes from.'

  'I shall ignore that remark as a piece of typical male chauvinism,' she informed him. 'But you've obviously done your homework – I'm impressed!'

  'Well, I've had this in mind for a long time. I visited several mills while I was working away and now I follow Saul round whenever I get the chance. There's nothing he doesn't know about the workings of a mill. I think it's fascinating. I've half a mind to give up estate management and become a miller myself.'

  'What would your dad say to that?' Josie quizzed him with amusement.

  'Well, I can't do anything right as it is,' Linc said, a touch of bitterness slipping past his guard. He regretted it instantly as the smile left Josie's eyes. 'Sorry. Family stuff. Anything else you want to know?'

  She studied his face for a moment as if she would say something, then turned and ran her hands over the wooden casing, or tun, that enclosed the stones.

  'How often do the stones need dressing – that's re-cutting the grooves, isn't it?'

  'Yes, that's right. It depends on the type of stone. These are French burr, Saul's going to do them next week and they'll grind for maybe three hundred hours before they need doing again.'

  They left the stone floor and came down the stairs and out of the building to stand in the evening sunshine on the narrow bridge downstream of the wheel.

  Josie sighed. 'I love these old places. I wish I had a machine that could let me turn time backwards fifty years at a time, just to see how things used to be.'

  'Pretty harsh, I'd say,' Linc commented. 'Hard work, poor conditions, cold, damp . . .'

  'I know. I didn't say I wanted to live in the past, just look at it. Anyway, people must have been happy then, too. After all, we think we've got it all these days but who's to say future generations won't feel sorry for us?'

  'True.' Linc hadn't thought of it like that.

  'So I shall continue to think of old Dusty Miller, carrying his candle across to start up the mill in the chill dark hours of the early-morning . . .'

  'Now I would feel sorry for him if he did that,' Linc exclaimed. 'Candles are the one thing you won't find inside a mill.'

  Josie looked puzzled.

  'The flour?' he prompted. 'Haven't you ever heard of the combustible properties of fine dust? The mill would have gone up like the Fourth of July! In fact, several did, according to Saul.'

  'Of course. You know, I never thought of that. Poor old Dusty Miller!'

  'Well, at least it would have warmed him up,' Linc remarked, as they made their way back to the car.

  Josie stopped and looked back at the beautiful old stone building. 'You know, I was just thinking this would make a terrific location for a fashion shoot. You could make a bit of extra money out of it. I know one company in particular who are always looking for places like this.'

  Linc was doubtful. 'Wouldn't it be a bit disruptive?'

  Josie shook her head. 'Take a day, maybe two. Easy money. D'you want me to suggest it? No obligation.'

  'Maybe. I'll think about it.'

  Although he hadn't mentioned it to his father, the business of the lost sponsorship still rankled with Linc and so when Nina Barclay phoned with the eleventh-hour offer of his partnering Hobo over a local hunter trial course on the Saturday, he accepted with little hesitation. It was in the back of his mind that, with the conservation working party visiting the mill and the house open to the public, he ought to stick around, but what the heck! Sykes was very capable of dealing with any issues that might arise and, after all, he wouldn't be gone more than a couple of hours.

  His father wasn't pleased when he found out, and to add to his displeasure, Nikki and her mother decided to go along and watch. Beverley had done a little eventing when she was a girl and had often groomed for her daughter in the days when she'd competed, but in view of her hostility towards him, Linc felt it was more likely boredom that had prompted this outing, rather than any wish to cheer him on. Perhaps, he thought uncharitably, she hoped to see him bite the dust.

  If that had indeed been her motivation then it was her lucky day. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and in spite of wearing large studs, Hobo marred a lovely round by sliding into a ditch and then falling sideways as he struggled out.

  Linc was tipped off unceremoniously but although the ground was pretty hard under the greasy surface he was unhurt and able to remount straight away. Had the event been affiliated, the rules would have forced him to retire but as it was he was able to continue his round, pulling up with an apology to Nina for the mistake, even though there was nothing he could have done. Beverley said little about it but wore an air of great contentment for the duration
of the journey home.