The Mill on the Shore by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online

new project,’ he said, ‘something to excite him?’
    She hesitated.
    ‘There was his autobiography,’ she said. ‘That was his latest enthusiasm.’ She spoke with a bitterness which surprised George. An autobiography seemed a tame enough project. It would at least keep him at home which, he suspected, was all Meg had wanted. He said nothing and allowed her to continue.
    ‘I wasn’t sure it was a good idea,’ she said at last. ‘To relive all those experiences of the past when he was so much more active. I thought it would only make him more depressed. But Grace encouraged him. I suppose she was right. He seemed very keen.’
    ‘Grace?’
    ‘Grace Sharland, a community nurse attached to our GP’s practice. She visited occasionally. She seemed to amuse James.’
    ‘How far had he got with the book?’ George asked.
    ‘It was nearly finished. He’d written it all out in long-hand. He’d never taken to computers. He wouldn’t let any of us see it. It would be a surprise to us all, he said. A revelation. I believe a number of publishers had expressed interest in it.’
    ‘You won’t have any objection to our looking at it?’ George said. ‘It might help in our enquiry …’
    He phrased the request carefully. He was reluctant to encourage Meg in the belief that James had been murdered.
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t have any objection. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to see it. James’ notebooks have all disappeared.’
    She spoke flatly, without any sense of making a dramatic revelation.
    ‘And that’s why you believe James was murdered?’ asked George. ‘Because of the theft?’ He thought she must realize the implication of the notebooks’ disappearance. Why else had she called them in?
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to think any more. But you must find the autobiography. That’s obvious, isn’t it.’
    Then she put her head in her hands as if the strain of the previous few days had been too much for her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘ I can’t think straight. It’s all been a nightmare.’
    George looked at her with sympathy. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
    But Molly, sitting at some distance from the woman, was not convinced by the grief. She thought, cynically, that Meg had simply decided she did not want to answer any more of George’s questions.

Chapter Four
    ‘He doesn’t look like a detective,’ Tim said. ‘He’s old.’
    ‘What’s his wife like?’ Emily looked up from a collage of a Viking boat. She was sticking milk-bottle tops along its side to make shields.
    ‘She’s old too. And scruffy. Very short hair and specs. Caitlin said that the detectives were coming today so it must be them.’
    ‘Schoolroom’ sounded quaint and Victorian which was what Meg intended, but this was filled with equipment many schools would have been proud of. There were two computer terminals and screens, an overhead projector and a flip chart. Each child had his or her own space marked out with the sort of screen you find in a high-tech open-plan office. Emily’s had a box of Lego and a construction kit, a shelf of Roald Dahls, a tray of felt pens and paints, mounds of coloured paper. Vikings figured largely – Meg tried to follow the National Curriculum, though not too closely, and the subject was a Year Four topic. There was a model helmet made of papier mâché and a street plan of Viking York.
    Tim’s space had a children’s series of natural history field guides, a lizard in an aquarium and a tank full of stick insects. There was a faintly reptilian smell. One shelf held a collection of bird skulls – mostly mute swan and oystercatcher.
    Caitlin’s project concerned a play she had written, a fantasy tale of knights and ladies. There were shoe boxes made into three-dimensional stage sets, a huge easel with the costume designs, scraps of fabric. Everything was piled into a chaotic heap. Meg nagged her routinely for being untidy.
    Ruth had