Inevitably, the police search for Maria and Jim Robards included Twygrist. Donna had told them about their mother’s interest in the place; there had been no reason not to tell them. Her parents liked local history, she said, determinedly speaking in the present tense; they often had a project like this when they were on holiday. They had stayed at Charity Cottage for several summers, so they were sufficiently at home to enjoy delving around in the area’s past.
The police had searched the inside of the mill, as well as combing the surrounding hillsides. They did not tell Miss Robards or her brother that they were now hesitating worriedly over the reservoir, created over two hundred years ago to power the mill’s unwieldy mechanism. They had not yet reached the stage of dragging it, and they were hoping not to do so–dragging any expanse of water was a messy, long-winded procedure never mind being unreliable, and it was more than seventy years since Twygrist’s sluice gates had been raised. The mechanism was likely to be rusted beyond use.
On the morning of the fourth day, the inspector who had been called in to head the search decided to go back inside Twygrist with more powerful lights and with the dogs. It was such a labyrinth when you actually got inside, he said, it was possible they had missed something.
Donna went with them. She could not bear it any longer, she said to the inspector. Please let her come along, if only for a couple of hours. She would feel so much better knowing she was joining in the search and in any case, they could hardly prevent her from driving out there herself, even if they would not actually let her into Twygrist. The inspector was not very keen but eventually agreed, stipulating that she was not to get in the way or try to climb into any of the inaccessible parts of the mill. It had been derelict for years and parts of it were probably dangerous. She was to regard herself as under police orders, was that clear?
‘Perfectly clear,’ said Donna politely.
Whoever had built Twygrist, had taken advantage of the natural slope of the land, and it was set into the hillside with a good part of it below the ground. Donna did not know if this was because the mill had sunk over the centuries, or if it had been built like that in the first place so as to get the full weight of the water from the reservoir directly behind the mill, a little way up the hillside. The roof was a long steep structure, its eaves so low that at the front they were only a few feet from the ground. Tiny slatted windows were set into the roof, but most of the slats had rotted away so the windows resembled empty eye sockets.
On the side was the over-elaborate clock her mother had said was to commemorate someone. There was some sort of local fund to pay for the regular winding and cleaning of it–the office of Clock-Winder was passed down in one of the local families, father to son or nephew, apparently. Maria was hoping to discover the identity of the family, and talk to them. It was very rustic, wasn’t it? She thought it perfectly charming.