A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(55)
“If the story is the motive for his murder.” St. James returned the paper to his jacket pocket.
“I’d say it’s more likely the other, payment for seducing another man’s wife.” Lady Helen pulled out onto the Lamorna Road. It rose in a gentle slope past tourist flats and cottages, veering east to display the bright sea. “It’s more workable as a motive, considering what we know about Mick. Because how would a man feel, coming upon evidence that he cannot deny, evidence that tells him the woman he loves is giving herself to another man.”
St. James turned away. He looked at the water. A fishing boat was chugging towards Nanrunnel, and even at this distance he could see the lobster baskets hanging from its sides. “He’d feel like killing, I expect,” he replied. He felt Lady Helen look towards him and knew she realised how he had taken her words. She would want to speak in order to ease the moment. He preferred to let it go and indicated that by saying to her, “As to the other, Helen. What you asked about us, about how I felt when you and I were lovers…Of course not. You know that. I hope you always have.”
“I’ve not been down here in several years,” Lynley said as he and St. James went through the gate in the Howenstow wall and began their descent into the woodland. “Who knows what condition we’ll find the place in, if it’s not a ruin altogether. You know how it is. A few seasons abandoned and roofs cave in, beams rot, floors disintegrate. I was surprised to hear it was still standing at all.”
He was making conversation and he knew it, in the hope that by doing so he could vanquish the legion of memories that were waiting on the plain of his consciousness, ready to assault him, memories that were intimately associated with the mill and tied to a portion of his life from which he had walked away, making an obstinate vow never to think of it again. Even now, as they approached the building and saw the tile of its roofline emerge through the trees, he could feel the first tentative foray of a recollection: just an image of his mother striding through the woods. But he knew that she was merely an illusion, trying her luck against his protective armour. He fought her off by pausing on the path, taking his time about lighting a cigarette.
“We came this way yesterday,” St. James was answering. He walked on ahead for a few paces, stopping when he glanced back and saw that Lynley had fallen behind. “The wheel’s overgrown. Did you know?”
“I’m not surprised. That was always a problem, as I recall.” Lynley smoked pensively, liking the concrete feel of the cigarette between his fingers. He savoured the sharp taste of the tobacco and the fact that the cigarette in his hand gave him something to which he might attend with more concentration than was necessary.
“And Jasper thinks someone’s using the mill? For what? Dossing?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
St. James nodded, looked thoughtful, walked on. No longer able to avoid it through idle conversation or cigarette smoking or any other form of temporising, Lynley followed.
Oddly enough, he found that the mill wasn’t very much changed since he had last been there, as if someone had been caring for it. The exterior needed paint—patches of whitewash had worn completely through to the stone—and much of its woodwork was splintered, but the roof was all of one piece, and aside from a pane of glass that was missing from the single window on the upper floor, the building looked sturdy enough to stand for another hundred years.
The two men climbed the old stone steps, their feet sliding into shallow grooves which spoke of the thousands of entries and exits made during the time that the mill was in operation. Its paint long ago faded and storm-washed to nothing, the door hung partially open. Its wood was swollen from seasons of rain, so the door no longer fit neatly into position. It gave way with a shriek at Lynley’s push.
They entered, paused, took stock of what they saw. The bottom floor was nearly empty, illuminated by streaky shafts of sunlight that gained access through gaps in the shuttered windows. Against a far wall, some sacking lay in a disintegrating heap next to a stack of wooden crates. Beneath one of the windows, a stone mortar and pestle were cobwebbed over, while nearby a coil of rope hung from a peg, looking as if it hadn’t been touched in half a century. A small stack of old newspapers stood in one corner of the room, and Lynley watched as St. James went to inspect them.
“The Spokesman,” he said, picking one up. “With some notations in the text. Corrections. Deletions. A new design for the masthead.” He tossed the paper down. “Did Mick Cambrey know about this place, Tommy?”
“We came here as boys. I expect he hadn’t forgotten it. But those papers look old. He can’t have been here recently.”
“Hmm. Yes. They’re from a year ago April. But someone’s been here more recently than that.” St. James indicated several sets of footprints on the dusty floor. They led to a wall ladder that gave access to the mill loft and the gears and shafts which drove its great grindstone. St. James examined the ladder rungs, pulled on three of them to test their safety, and began an awkward ascent.
Lynley watched him make his slow way to the top, knowing quite well that St. James would expect him to follow. He could not avoid doing so. Nor could he any longer avoid the force of reminiscence that the mill—and more so, the loft above him—provoked. For after ages of searching, she’d found him up there, where he had hidden from her and from the knowledge that he had come upon unexpectedly.