A Finer End

by Deborah Crombie

  David Sanborne grinned. “Sixth-formers shaping up this year, are they?”

  “As well as they ever do, meaning it would take a miracle to make historians out of them.” He gave Jack a malevolent glance. “Montfort here is an amateur historian of a sort—why don’t you tell them about your interest in the history of the Abbey?”

  The bastard, thought Jack, groping for an acceptable answer. “Just a bit of local genealogy, really. It’s odd, but with both my parents gone, I suddenly realized I wanted to know more about my family. I’ve been able to trace Montforts in Glastonbury as far back as the twelve hundreds, but earlier than that it gets fuzzy.”

  “Montfort’s a French name, surely,” said Fiona, who had been quiet since her husband’s dig about her painting. “If your ancestors didn’t arrive until after the Conquest, that would explain why the trail disappears.”

  “Any relation to Simon de Montfort, the reformer?” asked Bram.

  “An interesting idea,” Andrew mused, “but that de Montfort came to a very bad end. His revolutionary zeal got him gutted on the battlefield, I believe.”

  “Simon Fitzstephen’s been remarkably helpful,” Jack said as he saw Winnie blanch. “I’m sure if there was a connection, he would have found it.”

  “Yes, but would he have told you?” murmured Suzanne. Then, seeing all eyes turned on her expectantly, she shook her head slightly. “Oh, that was out of turn. Too much wine, I expect. It’s just that Simon’s been known to withhold information when it suited him. Church politics can be surprisingly vicious, and Simon was a master player.”

  David Sanborne stood. “I think I’d better take you home, my dear, before you become indiscreet. And I’ve got early surgery tomorrow—you know what they say, farmers and doctors never get a lie-in.”

  “We’d better be going too,” said Bram Allen. “Fiona needs her rest. It’s been an interesting evening, Winnie. Unparalleled, you might say.”

  As they made their farewells, Fiona took Jack’s hand. With a glance at her husband, she said softly, “I am glad to meet you.”

  It was a fine, crisp night, with stars hard and bright in a clear sky, and when the two couples had left, Andrew remained on the porch, shifting from one foot to the other. Winnie moved closer to Jack, slipping an arm round his waist.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two young lovers to it, shall I?” Andrew spat, then turned on his heel, and strode away. A moment later his car sped out of the drive.

  Guiding Winnie by the shoulder, Jack stepped inside and shut the door. In the brighter light of the hall, he could see that her eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

  “He was beastly,” she said. “Absolutely beastly.”

  “I’m sorry, love. It’s my fault for getting you into this—”

  “If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine, for not seeing this coming—but there’s no excuse for his behavior.”

  “Winnie, he’s jealous! And I think he’s terrified of losing you.”

  “No, there’s something wrong, really wrong, but he won’t talk to me. We were best friends for most of our lives, and now I seem to have become the enemy.”

  “Let’s not think about Andrew right now.” He pulled her to him and stroked her hair. “You’re cold. Come in by the fire—I’ve something to tell you.”

  Pushing the chair back, Gemma stretched, yawning, then sipped at the dregs of cold tea in her mug. The clock on the cooker in her tiny kitchen alcove read half past eleven, and if she didn’t get to bed she’d be struggling at work tomorrow. Giving the papers on the tabletop a halfhearted shuffle to straighten them, she stood and padded into Toby’s room in her stocking feet.

  Although it was one of the first cold nights of the autumn, he’d kicked off his small duvet and lay spread-eagled on his stomach. It wouldn’t be long before he outgrew his junior bed: how would they fit anything larger into what was essentially a boxroom?

  Giving the covers a last pat, she turned away with a sigh. They would just have to manage. She wasn’t willing to contemplate leaving the garage flat just now—one change at a time was enough.

  The adjustment to the new job had been more difficult than she’d expected. Although she’d been a rookie at Notting Hill, she’d just had her own bit of turf to worry about in those days. In the past two months she’d discovered that the reality of command was a different beast altogether, and with it came a mountain of paperwork that was never finished—hence her midnight stint at the table with cold tea. Added to that was the lingering sexism demonstrated by both her chief inspector and some of the male officers under her command. Only now did she realize how much she had taken her working relationship with Kincaid for granted, and how much it had insulated her from active prejudice.

  These problems were complicated by her enforced separation from Kincaid: between their schedules they were lucky to snatch a few hours together in a week. She told herself daily that she had made the right decision, that things would get easier, that she wouldn’t let herself whinge over changes that had been her own choice. But more and more often she found herself awake and restless long past a sensible hour, wondering just exactly what it was she wanted from her life.

  She poured the remains of her tea down the sink and rinsed the cup, then wandered round the room, turning down the bed and picking up stray toys and books. She found the routine comforting, for although she was physically tired, she didn’t feel ready to sleep.

  Rummaging in the trunk that served her as a wardrobe, she found the ancient flannelette nightdress she hadn’t worn since the previous winter. For a moment, she held the fabric to her face, feeling the softness against her skin and inhaling the scent of her mother’s rose sachet. The nightdress had been a much-coveted Christmas gift from her parents while she was still at school. She had never quite managed to part with it, even during her marriage to Rob, although he’d hated it with a passion he usually reserved for rival football teams.

  She slipped out of her clothes and put the nightdress on, then found a pair of heavy socks. Armed against the chill, she went into the bathroom and brushed her hair until it crackled, then washed her face and cleaned her teeth. She saved using the loo for last, as a good-luck charm of sorts, but when she checked the loo paper, there was no trace of pink.

  The panic that welled up in her left her shaking, nauseated. But there was really no need to worry, she told herself—she was only a few days late—and there was certainly no need to tell Kincaid. Not yet.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  So many holy men have prayed and died at Glastonbury that the spiritual atmosphere is alive and aglow. Their dust, mingling with the earth, sanctifies the very ground beneath our feet.

  —DION FORTUNE,

  FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

  IT RAINED HEAVILY during the night. After Jack left, Winnie had tossed and turned, drifting in and out of a fitful sleep in which the sound of water falling was ever present. But the day dawned clear and freshly washed, and she woke feeling surprisingly lucid and serene, considering her interrupted night and the task she had set herself that day.

  She had put off too long her visit to Simon, and what Jack had told her last night made it imperative that she talk with him. But first, she said her Morning Office; then, when she had dressed and breakfasted, she wheeled her old bike from the garden shed and cycled the two miles into Glastonbury. She reached the Abbey at half past nine, just as the gates were opening. Here she would be able to collect herself, to work out just what she meant to say.

  Stowing her bike in the rack, she paid her admission and pushed through the turnstile. The museum exhibits were artfully done and informative, but she passed them by and exited through the glass doors that led to the Abbey grounds.

  There, she stood on the step, transfixed. The sky was a perfect robin’s-egg blue, the emerald grass sparkled with moisture from the night’s rain, and the stone walls of the Abbey ruins shone golden in the morning sun.

  This was why she had come. Once she was
inside the Abbey precinct, the very air and light seemed different. It was as if she had stepped into an illuminated page of a manuscript, and the sweet, unlikely scent of apple blossoms filled the air. It came to her that for a short while, she might, if she chose, transcend time and season.

  Winnie stepped down into the grass, unmindful of the damp that immediately began to soak into her shoes. Before her lay the exquisite Lady Chapel, its moss-grown walls casting lengthy black shadows on the grass.

  But that was not what she had come to see. The Lady Chapel dated from just after Edmund’s time, and she was searching for a physical, concrete link to Edmund. She turned to the east, with the orchard on her right. There, ridges in the grass marked the monks’ kitchen; a fragment of a wall, the refectory. In her mind, Winnie began to restore it. Stone by stone, the walls went up, the long oak tables filled with brothers in their coarse brown robes. They ate in silence. From a raised lectern at one end of the hall, a monk read to them, so that their minds might be nourished as well as their bodies.

  Winnie moved on, into the square depression in the grass that had been the cloisters. There, the monks were busy at their tasks, and on the north side, where the light was best, the copyists and illuminators worked in their carrels. And there, that was Edmund, bent over a page of vellum, inking the glowing design of a capital with a fine and steady hand. Had he been tall and fair, like Jack? Had his hands ached from cramp and cold as he worked through the brief winter days? For a moment, she imagined that he might look up and meet her eyes, and know her, but the image faded and she saw only the windswept grass.

  From the cloisters she entered the nave of the Great Church, drawn, as she’d known she would be, towards the Choir. Passing through the ruined and jagged buttresses of the north and south transepts, she saw it as it had been. Here it was that a great scissor arch had thrust skyward, supporting the vault. The weathered stone of the remaining walls gleamed with gilt, the gaping windows glittered with the jewel colors of glass, stalls of rich, dark oak filled the empty greensward. And in the stalls, monks, possessors of a chant kept secret through centuries.

  It was their voices she could hear, lifted in praise, weaving a tapestry of joy more real than the stones that surrounded them.

  In that instant, she knew the chant for what it was. She knew why the monks had been willing to die for it, and she knew, too, why Edmund and those like him had reached out across the centuries in an effort to restore it.

  For centuries people had searched for a thing, a cup—had even claimed to have found it here in Glastonbury, secreted away in the holiest eyrth in England—not realizing that the Grail was only a symbol of something too immense to contain in a physical vessel.

  Winnie sat in the Café Galatea, her icy hands wrapped round a mug of steaming tea. She had no recollection of leaving the Abbey, but she must have, for here she was, and with her old bike propped against the front window. She felt oddly detached from herself, as if she had been ill for a long time and forgotten how to use her limbs. Her vision had already begun to fade and she wanted desperately to hold on to it as tightly as she clutched the cup in her hands, but at some level she knew this was not possible. It was too much for an ordinary person to bear for any length of time—after all, hadn’t Galahad died from the rapture of it? And he had been prepared for miracles.

  She had an image of herself glowing so fiercely from the inside that any sudden movement might split a seam and release the radiance within. This made her laugh aloud, and the waiter—a man with a ponytail and a round, freckled face—looked at her and smiled. He probably thought she was tipsy, and as if to prove it, she hiccuped. Smiling back at him, she rose and left coins on the table to cover tea and tip.

  Jack! She must tell Jack what she had seen. But he had gone to Bath that morning on a commission for a client. She would have to wait, then, and in the meantime she had pastoral calls to make, and it was more important than ever that she should see Simon Fitzstephen.

  Simon’s visit the previous evening had been both unexpected and perturbing. There had been a time when Garnet would have welcomed the attention, would have been excited—aroused even—by the chance to learn from him. But she had soon discovered that the knowledge Simon possessed was all intellectual, not instinctive—and if there was any passion in it, it was for his reputation alone. How could someone who had studied the Grail so thoroughly not be moved by the power and wonder of the tales, or sense the awesome truth behind the legends?

  And what had he wanted of her?

  She slid the flat end of the long wooden paddle beneath the row of newly fired tiles in the kiln. Carefully, she lifted the paddle and stepped back, until the tiles were free of the confines of the oven. But as she turned to place the tiles on her worktable, her grip on the paddle faltered and it tilted, sending the row crashing to the barn floor.

  Garnet stared down at the wreckage in horror. How could she have done something so clumsy? Now hours’ worth of work were gone to waste, and she was already behind schedule on this commission.

  Hands trembling, she set the paddle aside and sank onto her stool. The dreams—it must be the dreams.… They had begun again in the past few months, haunting her with faces she’d thought long forgotten, tormenting her with a sense of urgency she only vaguely understood. Added to that was her worry over Faith and the rapidly approaching birth of Faith’s baby, and the growing fear that the two things were somehow connected.

  Believing knowledge to be the best weapon against powers that affect the mind, she had tried to teach Faith how to defend herself without frightening her, and without communicating her own unease.

  But more and more often she found herself snapping at the girl, even when she knew the real target of her anger was her own sense of inadequacy. She’d stopped Faith climbing the hillside above the farmhouse; between them she and Buddy kept an eye on her as best they could; and yet every day Faith seemed to feel the pull of the Tor more strongly.

  What else could she do to protect this child who had come to mean so much to her? She had thought about enlisting Winnie Catesby, but no—that way was closed to her now. If Winnie knew the truth about the child, she could not be trusted, and if not, Garnet could not tell her.

  That left her one option: she must try to set right the sins that had haunted her for so long. Perhaps that would stop the buildup of forces whose unleashing could only result in another tragedy.

  Her ruined tiles forgotten, Garnet gathered her cloak from its hook and set off to pay a call on an old friend, knowing that her visit would not be welcome.

  Winnie wheeled the bike to a stop in front of Jack’s house and gazed down the drive. His Volvo was nowhere in sight. She felt an instant’s rush of disappointment, then chided herself. Surely he would be back soon—it was almost five o’clock. She’d get herself some tea and have a word with Faith while she waited.

  Hopping back on the bike, she cycled round the corner into Wellhouse Lane. She left the bike against the ribbon-decorated tree in the café’s forecourt and went inside. There were no other customers, and for a moment she thought the small kitchen empty as well. Then Faith’s shorn head appeared above the serving bar as she said, “Sorry. Can I—Winnie!”

  “How are you, dear? Can a person get a cup of tea in this place?” Winnie asked cheerfully, hoping she hadn’t let her shock show. Gone was the rosy bloom Faith had exhibited through most of her pregnancy. The girl looked utterly exhausted, and her skin had an unhealthy pallor. “Why don’t you make yourself a cuppa and sit down with me? Where’s Buddy this afternoon?”

  “Gone to the superstore for groceries. He didn’t like to leave me—you’d think I couldn’t manage the place by myself.” Faith turned and busied herself with kettle and mugs. When she had the tea ready, she came round the bar and set their mugs down at the table. The girl looked ungainly now, Winnie saw, her arms and legs too thin in contrast to her distended abdomen.

  “Are you feeling all right, Faith?”

  “I’m n
ot sleeping too well these days.” Faith attempted a smile. “The baby presses on my diaphragm when I lie down—makes me feel I can’t breathe.”

  “Have you been to the clinic, had a checkup?”

  The girl shook her head adamantly. “Garnet says it’s perfectly normal. And I’ve only a few weeks to go now.”

  “But—” Winnie saw Faith raise her chin in the familiar stubborn gesture, and subsided into silence. She took a sip of her tea, then tried again. “We’ve missed you. You haven’t come to see us lately.”

  “Is there anything new … with Edmund?” Faith asked eagerly, her eyes alight.

  “Oh, yes. We’ve made progress at last. Yesterday, Jack and Simon learned that Edmund was there when Thurstan, the first Norman abbot, had some of the monks murdered in the church itself. The one place they were assured sanctuary, and their own abbot …” She shuddered. “I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been.”

  “We learned about that when I did archaeology at school,” Faith said, frowning. “It’s the only time blood was shed in the history of the Abbey—unless you count Richard Whiting. But then Whiting was executed on the Tor, wasn’t he?” For a moment the girl seemed far away, wrapped in something Winnie couldn’t see, then she looked up and met Winnie’s gaze again. “But I can’t remember why Abbot Thurstan had the monks killed.”

  “It was the chant. The monks refused to give up their sacred chant. We think—”

  The bells hung on the café door chimed as it swung open, and Faith sloshed her tea, startled. Garnet Todd stood in the doorway, wrapped in a long cloak.

  “Hullo, Winnie,” Garnet said with a pleased smile; then it seemed to Winnie that a shadow fell across her face. She stepped down and strode across the damp flagged floor, her cape streaming behind her. She, too, looked drawn and tired—what on earth was wrong here?