It was a risk. He didn’t care. He would take it. It was six o’clock when he pulled in front of the house in York.
“I’ll just be a moment,” he said to the others in the car and reached for his door handle.
Sergeant Havers touched his shoulder. “Let me, sir. Please.”
He hesitated. She watched him.
“Please,” she repeated.
He glanced at the closed front door of the house, knowing that he couldn’t possibly face the responsibility of putting the matter into Havers’s incapable hands. Not here. Not now. Not with so much at stake.
“Havers—”
“I can do it,” she replied. “Please. Believe me.”
He saw then that she was giving him the final say over her future, that she was allowing him to be the one to decide whether she would stay in CID or return once and for all to the street. It was represented in the matter before them.
“Sir?”
He wanted desperately to refuse her permission, to tell her to stay where she was in the car, to condemn her to the pavements she had walked in uniform. But none of that had been Webberly’s plan. He understood that now, and as he looked at her trusting, resolute face, he saw that Havers—reading his intention in their destination—had built the funeral pyre herself and was perfectly determined to strike the match that would put to the test the promise of the phoenix.
“All right,” he finally replied.
“Thank you, sir.” She got out of the car and went to the front door. It was opened. She stepped inside the house. And the waiting began.
He had never thought of himself much as a praying man, but as he sat in the car in the growing darkness and the minutes passed, he knew what it was to pray. It was to will goodness out of evil, hope out of despair, life out of death. It was to will dreams into existence and spectres into reality. It was to will an end to anguish and a beginning to joy.
Gillian stirred in the back seat. “Whose house—” Her voice died as the door flew open and Tessa ran outside, hesitating on the front path, peering towards the car. “Mummy.” Gillian said it on a breath. She said nothing else. She got out of the car slowly and stared at the woman as if she were an apparition, clinging to the door for support. “Mummy?”
“Gilly! Oh my God, Gilly!” Tessa cried and began coming towards her.
It was all Gillian needed. She ran up the slope into her mother’s arms, and they entered the house together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIZABETH GEORGE is the author of thirteen award-winning and internationally bestselling novels, including A Great Deliverance, Payment in Blood, and A Traitor to Memory. Most of her novels have been filmed for television by the BBC and broadcast in the United States on PBS’s Mystery!
She lives in Seattle and London.
ALSO BY ELIZABETH GEORGE
Payment in Blood
Well-Schooled in Murder
A Suitable Vengeance
For the Sake of Elena
Missing Joseph
Playing for the Ashes
In the Presence of the Enemy
Deception on His Mind
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner
A Traitor to Memory
I, Richard
A Place of Hiding
A GREAT DELIVERANCE
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published June 1988
Bantam mass market edition / June 1989
Bantam movie tie-in / August 2002
Bantam reissue / August 2003
Bantam trade paperback edition / May 2007
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1988 by Susan Elizabeth George
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-47906
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Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-553-90484-0
v3.0
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