Page 34

Chapter 33

Rory trailed Mr Comerford across the sawmill site, the January frost crunching beneath his boots and his pulse hammering in his throat. A ghostly mist hovered over the river, dampening the voices of the millworkers who called to each other as they went about their morning’s labours. Try as he might, Rory couldn’t prevent his gaze from straying towards the skeletal shape of the millwheel looming out of the mist. It still remained stationary, the bracing beams holding it in place as they had all winter.

But for how much longer?

Forcing himself to look away, he caught up to Mr Comerford, who was surveying their surroundings with the keen eye of a man already composing a report in his head. As Rory drew his coat tighter against the chill, Lord Sinclair’s land agent, Mr Longridge, emerged from the large doorway of the mill’s main building and approached them, rubbing his gloved hands together.

‘Quite a nip in the air, isn’t there?’ he remarked.

Never one for idle chat, Mr Comerford only grunted in response. Feeling obliged to fill the silence, Rory said, ‘For sure. It’s the sort of morning that wakes you up whether you like it or not.’

He thought it came out rather awkwardly, but Mr Longridge gave an amused chuckle.

‘At least the water isn’t frozen,’ he said, gesturing towards the river. ‘That would have wholly impeded today’s inspection.’

Rory went stock-still. ‘I thought we were meeting to discuss the budget for supplies?’ he managed to utter, barely keeping his voice from sounding strangled.

‘We’ll get to that too,’ Mr Longridge said, nodding. ‘But the foreman came to me as soon as I arrived on the site and proposed testing the wheel today. I agree—it’s time. There’s no sense in putting it off any longer, and we want to make certain it’s fully operational before being brought into service.’

Mr Comerford had been the one to suggest delaying the launch from December until January, citing the need for a few extra weeks to better acquaint the men with the general workings of the mill, and thus minimising the risk of accident during the wheel’s initial rotation. However, Rory knew it had been Cormac who had quietly sown the seed of that idea. It had been a clever ploy…but it had only postponed the inevitable.

‘Fine with me,’ Mr Comerford said. ‘Today’s the day.’

Rory tried to school his countenance into a neutral expression, even as his mouth went dry. Christ, he wasn’t ready for this.

His feet felt like lead as Mr Longridge led them towards the riverbank, where they met the foreman, a thickset fellow with a tattered scarf knotted at his neck.

‘Morning, sirs,’ the man said, grinning. ‘Ready to get started? We’re all keen to see her come to life at last.’

He gestured to the other workers who were beginning to gather around, their faces alight with anticipation. Rory’s breakfast churned in his stomach.

Mr Longridge motioned to the foreman. ‘Let’s proceed.’

Rory swallowed hard as the foreman gave a sharp whistle, prompting a flurry of activity. The workers swarmed around the millwheel and proceeded to loosen the iron chains that had kept the wooden beams wedged between the paddles for so long. The foreman shouted orders, coordinating the men’s movements, and the chains fell away with a clang of metal. Then the workers extricated the beams, tossing them onto the bank before jumping out of the way themselves. The wheel gave a groan like a waking beast. Rory’s heart lurched.

Water flowed through the paddles and the wheel began to turn without impediment, slowly at first, and then more surely, its great arms creaking. Cheers went up from the nearby men and Mr Longridge clapped his gloved hands, while Mr Comerford grunted with approval. Rory tried to paste a pleased smile onto his face.

That was when the wheel faltered, not with a harsh jolt but with a dull, dragging sound. It struggled to rotate, as though invisible hands were holding it back. The cheering died away and a few voices uttered exclamations of confusion and disappointment.

In the next instant, the wheel jerked and moved again, wrenching free from the unseen obstruction below the surface. One of the workers resumed whooping but cut himself off as a dark mass emerged from the water and became visible even through the mist.

Rory’s breath caught.

In the crook of the paddles, a limp shape was tangled around the mossy frame. Limbs bent at unnatural angles. Clothing in tatters. Boots. Flesh.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ someone choked.

A horrified silence fell.

Mr Longridge was the first to pull himself together. ‘Stop the wheel,’ he barked. ‘Brace it now.’

White-faced, the foreman yelled a frantic command and several of the men leapt forwards to ram the wooden beams back into place. Others swung the iron chains back over and secured them. The wheel came to a stuttering halt, leaving the body in full view.

‘God above,’ Mr Comerford muttered, looking as pale as a sheet.

Mr Longridge turned and seized the shoulder of a young millworker standing immobile nearby, his mouth agape at the grisly sight.

‘Ride to Bedford,’ the agent ordered. ‘We need to fetch a constable.’ He shook the man’s shoulder. ‘Immediately!’

The young man blinked and straightened before sprinting away. Mr Longridge swivelled back to the foreman.

‘We have to remove it,’ he said, his voice calm and firm. ‘Carefully. Use planks and ropes. Get the timber shed’s door off its hinges—it can serve as a stretcher.’

The foreman relayed his instructions and the workers obeyed without question, moving silently, the cheerful atmosphere from earlier completely eradicated. Rory watched numbly as a number of the men hurried away from the riverbank, while those who remained set about extracting the body from the wheel with palpable reluctance. When one of them balanced himself on a broad paddle and reached forwards to take hold of an arm, the sodden sleeve slipped off with a sickening squelch, dragging a layer of skin with it. He jerked his hand back in dismay, but the damage was done – beneath the torn cloth, pale flesh sloughed away like wet parchment. The unfortunate fellow turned his head away and retched into the water below. After that, the men carried out their abhorrent task with exceedingly slow and deliberate movements. Guilt flooded Rory; when he and Cormac had disposed of the body, they had not given enough thought to the horror they would inflict on these unsuspecting souls.

With the help of a length of rope, the men manoeuvred the body off the spokes of the wheel and onto a floating plank to bring it across the water. As they hoisted it up onto the grass beside the riverbank, the stench hit Rory like a punch to his gut. It was all he could do not to gag. The foreman pulled his tattered scarf over his nose and mouth before stepping closer to peer down at the waterlogged corpse.

‘Who were you, you poor devil?’ he muttered.

Rory clenched his fists as hard as he could in an effort to remain blank-faced. He was the only person on the site who shouldered the burden of that knowledge.

The other men returned a few minutes later, carrying a shed door between them, its edges ragged where they had hastily detached it from its hinges. They set it down and managed to heave the body onto it without any further gruesome slippage of skin.

‘Take it to the timber shed,’ Mr Longridge said grimly.

Led by the foreman, they bore their ghastly load away, but the smell lingered behind, a rotten tang that clung to Rory’s tongue and clogged the back of his throat.

‘You all right?’ Mr Comerford asked him gruffly.

Rory just nodded, not trusting himself to speak in case vomit or a confession came pouring out.

Mr Longridge approached and leaned in to speak to them in a low voice. ‘We’ll need to report this at once to Lord Sinclair and Mr McGovern. I wonder how long he’s been underwater.’

‘God knows,’ Mr Comerford said with a grimace. ‘Weeks, or even months, by the state of him.’

Mr Longridge looked a little green. ‘This is extremely serious. It could well be an accident, but…’

His words trailed away and Rory’s pulse skittered.

‘Hmm,’ said Mr Comerford. ‘Do you suspect foul play?’

Mr Longridge frowned. ‘It’s too hard to tell at this stage. There’ll need to be an inquest to try to determine what happened to the fellow. The constable will know who should take charge of the matter. We’d better keep everyone else away until he comes.’

He strode off after the workers, and Rory and Mr Comerford followed. When they reached the timber shed, they found that the men had already deposited the body within and were now hovering uncertainly around the open doorway. Mr Longridge beckoned to them and they clustered in front of him.

‘Thank you for carrying out such an immensely difficult task,’ he said gravely. ‘As you no doubt understand, no further work will take place on the site today. You may all return to your homes.’

As the men pivoted towards their foreman with worried demands about that day’s pay, Rory sidled past the group and up to the shed. Two hinges dangled off the door jamb. Against his better judgement, he edged over the threshold.

Inside the dim building, the fetid stink intensified, and he pressed the back of his wrist to his mouth as he stared down at the body laid out on the shed door. There he was. Tommy Jones.

Or what was left of him.

The remains of his coat clung to the grey, swollen mass of him. His features were bloated and distorted, and his hair had slid away in patches. His shirt had torn at the belly but there was no obvious wound beneath the rot and filth, just a mess of putrid flesh.

Rory closed his eyes. The gash from the poker was gone – that was a mercy. Still, the presence of the body raised many questions. Soon, people would begin to ask them. They weren’t safe yet.

Mr Longridge’s voice drifted into the shed from outside as he assured the men that they wouldn’t be penalised for the regrettable event that had occurred that morning. Before his absence became too prolonged, Rory stepped back out into the daylight, the cold air a relief after the stench within.

Across the sawmill site, the mist was lifting from the river, revealing the millwheel more clearly. It stood still once more, its secret now dragged into the open.