Murder at the Mill

by M. B. Shaw

  Iris agreed that it was, accepting a vodka and tonic in the hopes that Phil would keep drinking and talking.

  He did.

  ‘There was no note or anything,’ he told Iris. ‘But he’d been on pills for over a year, according to his GP. I remember his doctor saying that Feeney suffered from “feelings of failure”. A good-looking, charming young bloke with a first from bloody Oxford! I mean, I ask you. What does that make the rest of us?’

  ‘I suppose it’s all relative,’ said Iris.

  ‘It’s these clever blokes,’ the old policeman opined. ‘All they do is worry. I wouldn’t want a mind like that for a million quid.’

  Iris asked him about the woman mentioned in the police report. ‘Someone heard laughter coming from Marcus’s flat, right before it happened. Can you tell me anything about that?’

  Steckenberger rolled his eyes. ‘Oh yeah. That was the hippy. Matthew something. He lived across the hall from Feeney. I say “hippy”, but he was worse than that, really. He was a sad addict, and he wanted his fifteen minutes of fame, or at least attention. He was there when I arrived at the scene. Told me he heard Feeney with a woman, talking and laughing. He goes to take a shower, and when he comes out, people are screaming and Feeney’s all over the … Well, you know,’ he checked himself.

  ‘You didn’t believe him?’ asked Iris.

  ‘Well, he kept changing his story, didn’t he? So first he said he heard a woman. And then later he comes by the station and says he saw someone leaving Feeney’s flat, after. Running down the stairwell. He gave a detailed description. But why wouldn’t he have mentioned that before? When I met him at the scene, he was all over the place, high as a kite and hysterical. Then again, it was pretty gruesome.’

  ‘Did anyone else see this woman?’

  ‘Nope.’ Phil shook his head. ‘This Matthew made the whole thing up.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember his description?’

  ‘Not all of it.’ The old man frowned, trying to dredge up long-buried memories. ‘Young. Pretty. Blonde. Fancily dressed, you know. A date.’ He shrugged. ‘You’d have to read the report to get the full picture. But I wouldn’t waste your time, love. There was no woman.’

  Iris finished her drink and thanked him. ‘If you remember anything else, I’ll be at the Randolph till tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘My last name is Grey.’

  ‘Sorry not to be of more help.’ Phil helped her down from the bar stool, enjoying the admiring glances of his friends a few tables away. ‘Ooh, I do remember one thing,’ he said, as Iris headed for the door. ‘Again, you should take everything Matthew said with a pinch of salt. But according to him, this mystery woman had a tattoo on her arm, like a bracelet. God knows why that stuck with me.’

  Iris froze, searching her own memory banks. When she spoke, her voice sounded high and strange, even to herself. ‘What was the design?’

  Phil Steckenberger smiled, proud to have remembered such a tiny detail.

  ‘Roses. It was roses and thorns.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Ariadne Wetherby set the heavy basket of cut flowers down on the kitchen table next to a large Doulton jug she’d just filled with water. Slowly and methodically she began to separate and sort through the stems, trimming leaves here and there as she worked. It was so thoughtful of Harry to have brought her flowers, albeit in his usual embarrassed, half-apologetic way.

  ‘You’d be doing me a favour by taking them,’ the piano teacher had insisted, blushing, handing over the laden wicker trug on Mill House’s doorstep. ‘My garden’s suddenly exploded with this hot weather. It’s like The Day of the Triffids at my cottage.’

  Ariadne was grateful for Harry’s kindness and gratified by his attention, although she found his mealy-mouthed obsequiousness cringe-making at times. The truth was, a man like Harry Masters could never hope to fill the void left by Dom. Ariadne still felt Dom’s absence every day. Her strong, masculine, alpha husband. More than she missed Dom himself, she missed being able to see herself through his eyes. It was Dom’s strength that had made Ariadne feel soft and gentle, his masculinity that had transformed her into the ultimate woman. Mother. Wife. Helpmeet. Forgiver. Ariadne had been saint to Dom’s sinner. Without him she felt … not empty exactly. But different. Less.

  Life would always be less, thanks to that snake Graham Feeney.

  May he rot in jail, and then in hell.

  ‘Careful.’

  Billy’s voice startled her. She hadn’t heard him come in.

  ‘You’ll crush them if you squeeze like that.’ Cautiously, he removed a gladioli stem from her hand, cupping it tenderly in his own before sliding it into the jug. Then he turned to look at her with that queer mixture of detachment and an odd sort of forced affection that had become his ‘resting face’ since emerging from rehab. Certainly this ‘new Billy’ was a lot more pleasant to be around than the old version. And yet the old version had at least felt authentic. There was something disconcertingly artificial about the adult son who hovered about her now, Ariadne thought, all tact and deference. It was as if he’d been emotionally embalmed.

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ Ariadne smiled, resuming her own ‘resting face’ of calm femininity. ‘I’m afraid I was miles away. What have you been up to this morning?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’ Billy arranged the flowers one by one in the jug as his mother handed them to him. ‘Writing a little. Doing my breathing exercises. I’m going out this afternoon.’ He avoided her eye as he threw in this last part. ‘There’s a job going at the bookshop in the village. I thought I might apply. I need … something to do.’

  Ariadne looked at him, closing her hand over his.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ she said tenderly.

  Hope, and something close to real happiness lit up in Billy’s eyes.

  ‘But are you sure that’s wise?’ said Ariadne, her expression unwavering. ‘I mean, do you think you’re ready?’

  Like a switch flicking off, the hope died.

  ‘Well, I … I…’

  ‘I’d hate to see you set back, emotionally,’ Ariadne continued, her eyes still fixed on Billy’s, and the blank stare that had replaced his momentary happiness. ‘After all your hard work.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He exhaled, finishing the flowers and moving the jug to one side. ‘It was a silly idea.’

  * * *

  Upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms, Jenna paced the room uncomfortably. It felt wrong and frightening, spying on her mother-in-law like this. If Marcus were to walk in and find her, watching Ariadne on the baby’s video monitor, she could kiss her marriage goodbye. She felt a knot of tension like an iron ball in the pit of her stomach.

  What the hell am I doing?

  The irony was that it was Jenna who’d suggested the plan. After Iris called her from Oxford and told her her theory, Jenna had instantly thought of Oscar’s baby monitor.

  ‘I could set it up in the kitchen the night before, or early in the morning. It’s not the kind of thing Ariadne would notice. There’s a “record” button I can press from upstairs, on my iPad.’

  It had all seemed so feasible on the telephone, so rational. But now that it was actually happening, it felt awful, deceitful and terrifying. Iris wasn’t right about Ariadne. She couldn’t be.

  On the other hand, the interaction Jenna had just witnessed had turned her already-churning stomach. Poor Billy! Watching him reach out for a shred of encouragement and support, only to be slapped down so cruelly. And all the while that saintly smile fixed on Ariadne’s face, as if everything she was saying were for his own good. Part of Jenna wished Marcus had been here to see that. But another part knew that, even if he had, he’d have found a way to interpret it differently.

  Love sees what it wants to see.

  Hatred, too.

  ‘Iris! What a lovely surprise.’

  Ariadne’s voice jolted Jenna out of her reverie. She stopped pacing and sat down on the bed, the iPad propped on the pillow beside her
. It was an effort to breathe. She watched Iris smile and hug Ariadne, accepting an offer of tea, the two women’s grey forms like ghosts on the black-and-white monitor feed.

  Let her be wrong, she found herself praying. For Marcus’s sake.

  For mine.

  * * *

  Ariadne was pouring the tea through a strainer into two pretty bone-china cups. With Billy’s jug of flowers beside them and sunshine streaming through the kitchen windows, it was an idyllic scene in the Mill kitchen. The perfect place to bid goodbye to Iris Grey and end another chapter in one of the most tumultuous times in her life.

  ‘You’re off on Friday, then? Are you packed?’

  ‘Yes.’ Iris sipped her tea. ‘It’s strange to think that this time next week I’ll be up in the wilds of Scotland. But I’m ready for the change. It’s time.’

  ‘And your divorce? I don’t like to ask, but is that all…?’

  ‘It’s done,’ said Iris.

  ‘So a fresh start in every way, then?’ Ariadne asked, smiling.

  Iris smiled back. ‘That’s right.’

  It was as good a time as any. Ariadne was relaxed and unsuspecting. Casually extending a hand, Iris touched the scar on her wrist.

  ‘When did you get the roses removed?’

  Ariadne hesitated, a flicker of a frown crossing her face. ‘How did you know about that?’

  ‘Dom told me, at one of our early sittings,’ said Iris. ‘I couldn’t imagine you as the tattooed type.’

  Ariadne laughed. ‘Oh, I wasn’t really! It was a teenage thing, the summer after sixth form. A moment of madness. Dom always hated it. He thought tattoos on women were terribly common. I’m afraid he could be a dreadful snob when he wanted to be.’

  Iris noticed the way her face still lit up talking about him.

  ‘So you had it removed for him?’

  Ariadne nodded. ‘I think I did everything for him back in those days,’ she sighed.

  ‘Including killing Marcus Feeney?’ Iris said it so quietly and calmly her words took a moment to register. When they did, Ariadne responded in kind, setting down her teacup softly and looking at Iris with an expression more curious than anything else.

  ‘You didn’t get rid of the tattoo for Dom,’ Iris continued, filling the silence. ‘You got rid of it because Marcus’s neighbour saw you leave his flat. After you pushed him to his death.’

  Ariadne said nothing. Instead, reaching for the teapot, she calmly refilled both her own cup and Iris’s.

  ‘You knew the tattoo was a distinguishing feature,’ said Iris, ‘so you erased it. The way you erased all the parts of your past you wanted to forget.’

  Upstairs, Jenna watched, spellbound, her heart in her mouth.

  ‘Of course, I can’t prove any of this,’ Iris said, sipping her own tea companionably.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Ariadne. They were the first words she’d spoken since Iris began, and she delivered them in a chillingly relaxed fashion. ‘If you could, you’d have gone to the police, I imagine.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Iris. ‘And of course, you don’t have to talk to me about it. But I’m curious.’

  ‘You really are, aren’t you?’ Ariadne sounded almost admiring. ‘It’s been quite astonishing, watching you squirrel away clue after clue following Dom’s murder. I daresay you never believed the trail would end with Graham.’

  ‘No,’ said Iris. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ said Ariadne truthfully. ‘He fooled us all. When I think of the way Dom befriended him, took him under his wing. Bastard.’ For the first time bitterness and a flash of rage forced their way through the smooth façade.

  ‘Did Dom know?’ Iris asked. ‘About Marcus, and what really happened?’

  Ariadne shook her head. ‘Never.’

  Upstairs, Jenna held her breath.

  ‘My husband was an incredible man,’ Ariadne told Iris. ‘A wonderful man, in many ways. But he did suffer from a profound need to be liked. By everyone. Friends, family, colleagues, strangers. He could be selfish, of course, and he made mistakes. But Dom could never bear to be the bad guy. That was always somebody else’s job.’

  ‘Yours?’ asked Iris.

  ‘Sometimes. When it came to Marcus Feeney, yes. I had to step in. Feeney was threatening to ruin Dom. To destroy his reputation, to sue for God knows how much money. To take this house.’ She quivered with anger at the memory. ‘Dom wrote that book, Iris, make no mistake. It might have been “their” idea, but it was Dom who made it reality. Dom’s work, his words, his voice. It was Dom who got the publishing deal, not Marcus bloody Feeney. And then when the whole thing took off, against everyone’s expectations, including Dom’s … well’ – she sneered – ‘Feeney decided he wanted his pound of flesh. And Dom was this close to letting him have it!’ She held up a thumb and forefinger indignantly. ‘Marcus was sending threatening letters to Dom about calling in lawyers. Dom tried to reason with him, but to no avail. He was too greedy, you see. Parasite. Anyway, I went up to Oxford myself to try to talk him out of it.’

  ‘And did you?’ Iris asked.

  Ariadne laughed. ‘You could say that! Oh, Feeney was happy enough to drop the lawsuit. He told me that over lunch at the Blue Boar. Just as long as we sold the Mill, wrote him a cheque for half and then kept on paying out. Indefinitely. He wanted fifty per cent – fifty! – of all Dom’s future Grimshaw earnings. These would be books, stories that Dom hadn’t even come up with yet, mind you! Marcus felt that Dom should do all the work, in return for which he would graciously agree to remain in the shadows – “unsung”, as he put it, while Dom had all the glory – and that we should pay him through the nose for the rest of our lives.

  ‘Of course, it was outrageous.’ Ariadne’s fury was building, lost in the moment and the memory. ‘But I could see right away that there would be no reasoning with him. I knew from that moment that the only way out was to get rid of him.

  ‘So yes, we came to an “agreement” on his terms. And I laughed and smiled and said that this had all been terribly silly and unnecessary, that of course Dom would be happy to cut him in, that he had always meant to, blah, blah, blah. Clearly I was quite convincing as Marcus invited me over to his flat that evening to celebrate. I went, naturally, dressed to the nines, as befitting a celebration of this magnitude. I even wore evening gloves, an elegant pair of kids that had belonged to my mother.’ Ariadne cast a sidelong glance of triumph at Iris, delighted by her own cleverness. ‘I remember Marcus complimented me on them.’

  ‘No prints,’ muttered Iris.

  ‘Indeed.’ Ariadne drained her tea. ‘Marcus opened champagne. Before he got the glasses out, I asked to go onto the terrace. To look out over the spires of the city, where we’d all been so happy. The city where Grimshaw was conceived, where Dom and I met, and where Marcus dreamed of spending the rest of his life. You could say I made his dreams come true.’ The spite in her voice was unmistakable.

  Upstairs, glued to the screen, Jenna began to shake.

  ‘I had my hand on his back and he was leaning forward,’ Ariadne continued, ‘pointing out some church or other, telling a story about Dom and one of the pranks they’d got up to together there. And I just … pushed.’

  Extending a finger, she nudged the sugar bowl gently towards Iris.

  ‘It was so easy. Instant. The wrought-iron barriers on those balconies were so low. He lost his balance and tipped over in an instant. I don’t even remember him screaming. He was in the middle of a sentence and then – poof – gone!’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Iris asked, somehow managing to conceal her own feelings of horror. The conceit of the ‘friendly chat’ was what seemed to have enabled Ariadne to open up and tell the truth thus far. It was vital to maintain it.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ariadne said brightly. ‘I left.’

  ‘You just left?’

  ‘Yes. I made my way out of the building by the fire stairs and back to my rooms on St Aldate’s, where I packed, and caught the last train
home to Hampshire. Of course, by then people were screaming and running all over the shop, commuters on their way home, students, tourists. It was easy to slip away in all the commotion. I do remember the neighbour seeing me, but I wasn’t unduly worried. I was in the hallway, taking off my gloves and preparing to leave, when suddenly there he was, mooning around awkwardly. But I didn’t think much of it. I knew I’d left no trace in the flat, and besides, he was one of those long-haired, greasy, drug-addict types that police never consider reliable.

  ‘But even so, I decided to have my tattoo removed, just in case. Imagine you noting that, Iris. You are clever.’

  Upstairs, Jenna kept watching.

  ‘When I got home, I told Dom that when I got to Marcus Feeney’s apartment, there were already police everywhere. A bystander told me what had happened – that he’d jumped. I told Dom I panicked and came straight home. After all, there was nothing we could do to help Marcus now, and it made no sense to have our names linked with the tragedy, or to dredge up private disputes over Grimshaw that didn’t matter anymore.’

  ‘And he believed you?’ Iris leaned back in her chair, revolted by Ariadne’s self-righteousness and utter lack of remorse, yet at the same time fascinated by it, and by the myriad contradictions that made up this woman, at once hypnotically calm and violently angry.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he? Dom was the master at seeing only what he wanted to see. Besides, he trusted me. I can be very convincing when I need to be, Iris.’ A shadow fell over Ariadne’s face suddenly. ‘I daresay you think I’m a monster. But I was only protecting my family. I did what needed to be done.’

  ‘You weren’t protecting your family. You were protecting your wealth and Dom’s reputation,’ said Iris scathingly.

  ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’ Ariadne shot back.

  ‘You murdered a man so you could keep this house!’

  ‘I silenced a blackmailer.’ Ariadne’s voice hardened. ‘I loved this house. I still love it. It was the first real home I ever had, the first place I felt safe. I wasn’t going to let Feeney destroy that. My own childhood—’ She stopped and shook her head, trying to rid herself of painful memories like a dog shaking water droplets out of its pelt. ‘My father made home an unsafe place for me.’