A Finer End

by Deborah Crombie

  How had she managed to survive such grief whole? he wondered. He whispered to her, rubbing her hand between his, telling her he loved her, that she was strong and that he would let nothing—nothing—take her away from him.

  Maggie reappeared at his side with a soft touch on his shoulder. “You’ll have to go now, I’m afraid, but you can come back in a couple of hours.” As Jack stood, regretfully letting go Winnie’s hand, she added, “Did I hear someone say that Winifred was a vicar?”

  “Of St. Mary’s, in Compton Grenville.”

  “If she likes music, you might bring something for her to listen to. Music can be a very strong trigger for some people, especially if it’s an important part of their daily lives.”

  “Can I leave this with you?” Jack held out the prayer book. “In case you have a chance to read to her? Or if she wakes …” He looked up, desperately meeting Maggie’s hazel eyes. “What if she wakes up while I’m gone? Or …”

  Maggie dug a piece of paper and a pen from her pocket. “You have a mobile phone?” Jack nodded. “Give me your number, and I’ll ring you if there’s any change at all.”

  Jack thanked her and, with a last look at Winnie, went out into the waiting area. It was then that he sank into the nearest chair, shaken by the realization that he could not bear to lose her, could not bear to go back to the desert that had been his life after Emily’s death.

  Nor could he bear to sit idly by, waiting. There were too many unanswered questions. What would Winnie tell them when—he refused to consider the possibility that it might be if—she woke? Why had she been going to see her friend Fiona at that time of evening? Where had she been before that? Why hadn’t she rung him? And what had she seen before the car struck her?

  There must be something he could do. The police had certainly not shown much interest in investigating the accident. Winnie was much too levelheaded to have cycled blindly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. But how else could this have happened, unless someone had deliberately hurt her? And that was unimaginable.

  He would go see Fiona. Perhaps Winnie had rung her, told her something that would explain her unlikely appearance in Bulwarks Lane.

  And there was one other person he could call; someone he could trust to tell him if he was completely mad.

  Kincaid returned the phone to its cradle on his desk just as his sergeant came into his office with a sheaf of papers in a folder.

  “Report from forensics,” Douglas Cullen said, sliding the folder across the desk and pulling up a chair.

  “Any joy?”

  Cullen shook his head regretfully. “No, sir. Nothing, zilch, nada.”

  Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “I see you’ve been watching American telly again.” He suspected that Cullen liked to imagine himself a tough, NYPD Blue-type detective—a harmless enough fantasy as long as it didn’t get in the way of his work—but surely no one could look a less likely candidate. With his fair hair, spectacles, and rosy-cheeked, schoolboy complexion, Cullen was the very image of the traditional English bobby.

  For the past two weeks, they’d been working a case that looked disturbingly as if it might be the beginning venture of a serial killer. The victim, the owner of an antiques stall in Camden Passage, had been found on her own premises, and so far they had not turned up a smidgen of useful evidence. Kincaid had begun to think that the killer had worn a hermetically sealed suit, and been invisible to boot.

  As he opened the folder, his mind wandered to his recent—and unexpected—phone call from his cousin Jack Montfort and the dilemma it had presented him.

  How long had it been since he’d seen Jack? He had been away on a case when Emily and the baby died … it would have been his aunt’s funeral, then, but he had done little more than shake Jack’s hand and offer his condolences before rushing back to London.

  If there was anyone who’d had more than his share of tragedy, it was his cousin. But now it seemed Jack’s new love was lying in hospital and he seemed distraught, fearing that the hit-and-run might not have been an accident. Hesitantly, Jack had urged, “You could come for the weekend, just see what you think.”

  “But I’d have no jurisdiction,” Kincaid had protested.

  “It doesn’t matter. I just … It would be good to see you.”

  His mother and Jack’s had been close, and the families had spent extended time together in the summers when the children were small. Jack had been a rather solemn but likable boy, always ready for an adventure, and he had grown into an engaging and generous man. Kincaid’s memories of the holiday Jack had given him in his Yorkshire time-share had been marred by Emily’s death so shortly afterwards, but the thoughtfulness of the offer had been typical of Jack.

  “I’ll let you know if I can work something out,” Kincaid answered, ringing off. As much as he regretted letting Jack down, he had no real intention of driving to Somerset for the weekend.

  There was no way he could leave London; something might break on the case, and Doug Cullen wasn’t experienced enough to handle it alone. And he and Gemma had managed little enough time together lately—he’d been hoping to make the most of Kit’s plans to spend the weekend with friends.

  He shuffled papers resolutely, determined to focus on the matter at hand. But as he read through the disappointingly negative report, he couldn’t quite forget the desperation he’d heard in Jack’s final words. His cousin needed his support, and Kincaid suspected how dearly it had cost Jack to ask for it.

  “Sir?”

  “Oh, sorry, Cullen. Afraid I was wool-gathering.”

  “You’ve not heard a word I’ve said.” Cullen sounded a bit injured.

  Kincaid gazed at his sergeant speculatively. He was a sound lad; perhaps it was time he had a chance to sink or swim. And Gemma … If her touchiness the past few weeks was anything to go by, Gemma badly needed a holiday. The question was whether he could convince her to take it.

  He smiled at Doug Cullen. “Think you could manage on your own for a few days, Sergeant?”

  When Jack rang him at the bookshop with news of Winnie’s accident, Nick felt a sharp jolt of relief. Cold, hunger, and common sense had driven him back to his caravan the previous evening, but he’d not been able to rid himself of a gnawing feeling of foreboding.

  “How—How is she?” Nick asked.

  “Unconscious, but stable. They’ll let me in to see her again soon,” Jack told him.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Let the others know, if you can. I’ll ring you if there’s any … change.” Jack’s voice had wavered and Nick sensed the control it took him to keep it steady.

  “Right. I—I’m sorry, Jack.” Unable to find anything more adequate to say, Nick hung up. He stood, then flipped the sign on the shop door and locked it as he left. He would tell Faith, but not on the telephone.

  He found her ladling pumpkin soup into bowls, the scent of cinnamon and spices combating the dankness in the café. Next door in the shop, Buddy was on the phone, the murmur of his voice an underlying accompaniment to the Gregorian chant playing over the sound system.

  When Faith had served her customers, Nick leaned over the bar and whispered urgently, “Have you heard about Winnie?”

  For the first time since he’d entered, Faith looked at him directly. Color drained from her already wan face. “Winnie?”

  “She was on her bike last night, in Bulwarks Lane. Someone hit her. She’s in hospital, unconscious.”

  “Wh-what?” Gripping the serving bar, Faith gave a dazed little shake of her head. “That’s not possible. She was here—Oh!” Her eyes widened. “We saw her, after. I could’ve sworn she said she was going to Jack’s, but she was pushing her bike up the lane.”

  “We?”

  “Garnet and I. On our way home. Winnie was turning into Lypatt Lane—”

  “It must have happened right afterwards, then. You didn’t see anything—or anyone else, did you?”

  “No,” whispered Faith. “But Garnet—Garnet
went out again, in the van. Maybe she … when she came back … she was …”

  “She was what?”

  “I don’t know. Odd. She didn’t want to talk to me, or help me study. She went into her office and closed the door.”

  Nick’s heart began to race. “Faith.” He leaned over the bar until his face was inches from hers. “Go home as soon as you can. Check the fender on the van. But don’t let Garnet see you do it.”

  “What are you talking about? Why should I—” She stared at him, two bright spots of color flaming on her pale cheeks. “You don’t think Garnet had something to do with Winnie’s accident? You’re crazy, Nick! I won’t! I won’t even think such a thing!”

  Several customers looked up from their meals at the sound of rising hysteria in her voice.

  “It’s only taking logical precautions,” he whispered. “You must see that. What can it—”

  “Get out, Nick!” she shouted at him. “I’m not listening to you, so just get the bloody hell out!”

  Flushing under the fascinated stares of the café’s diners, Nick had no choice but to leave.

  Garnet heard about Winnie from a customer, the vicar of the church on the edge of Salisbury Plain. The ecclesiastical community was a small one, and news traveled fast. She had finished installing her tiles, then driven back to Glastonbury and the sanctuary of her workshop, her mind working furiously all the while.

  Winnie was lying in hospital, more likely to die than live, if the vicar’s information were correct.

  In spite of the heat radiating from the wood-fired kiln Garnet was shivering with cold, and the midday sun falling in a bright block across the threshold of the barn door beckoned. Taking her stool, she moved it into the sun and sat gratefully.

  The weight of regrets, past and present, lay heavily upon her. There were so many things she had meant to do, so many things she had hoped to accomplish; now suddenly she saw the years remaining to her dwindling to a pinpoint, then blinking futilely out—as had a child’s life, so many years ago.

  But Faith—and Faith’s child—had given her an unlooked-for chance at redemption.

  By her calculations, Faith would give birth on Samhain, the thirty-first of October, All Hallows’ Eve, the day when the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest. The Tor had drawn the girl from the beginning—that was why she had come to the café, and to Garnet. Such a birth in such a place would open a gateway, unleash ancient powers that could wreak havoc beyond imagining. Once, Garnet had thought she could use that force, control it, but cruel experience had taught her otherwise. The Old Ones had never been gentle gods, and they had never been concerned with human welfare.

  The path was set, the signs unmistakable; Faith could no more turn from it than she could will herself to stop breathing.

  Garnet knew that only she had the knowledge necessary to halt the gathering storm. And if last night she had failed in the task she had set herself, she must bear that burden as well.

  But she would not fail again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Glastonbury is the gateway to the unseen.… The long road from London spans the breadth of England and leads from one world to another.

  —DION FORTUNE,

  FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

  “JACK!” FIONA ALLEN opened her door wide. “Is Winnie all right?”

  “She’s still unconscious. But they let me see her for a bit, and the nurse says she’s doing well.”

  Motioning him inside, she said, “Sit down, please, and let me get you something to drink.”

  Jack sank into a chair and rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “No, I’m fine, really.” He found himself grateful for a few moments’ respite, and Fiona Allen’s very ordinariness was a comfort.

  The house, too, was welcoming, its interior a contrast from the unassuming stone facade and the proper cottage garden. Spare and open, the sitting room had polished oak floorboards and clean-lined furniture covered with batik prints. There were books, and a few strategically placed wooden carvings and masks, but not a painting anywhere in sight.

  Perching on a rattan ottoman, Fiona said, “I’ve rung the hospital a dozen times, but they won’t tell me much. Resting comfortably is a terrible euphemism.”

  “Head injuries are very unpredictable, apparently.” He tried to banish the image of Winnie, motionless in her hospital bed. “I wanted to see you, Fiona—see if there was anything you could tell me about last night. Do you have any idea what Winnie was doing in your lane?”

  “It does seem odd, doesn’t it? She must have been coming to see me. There’s no one else along here.”

  “If you hadn’t found her—” Jack stopped, embarrassed by the sudden sting of tears.

  “But that’s odd too,” Fiona said thoughtfully. “I don’t usually go for walks that time of night. But I’d been painting and I needed the air.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Probably. But—” Fiona gazed at him, then seemed to change the subject. “I want to show you something.” She stood and led the way towards the back of the house.

  Baffled, Jack followed her through the open sitting area and into a corridor, where she opened a door and entered a glass-walled studio.

  Beyond the glass the ground dropped away, so that the room seemed to hang in space, suspended over the Coombe with its white puffs of sheep in the green grass, like a child’s drawing of clouds in an emerald sky. Canvases were stacked neatly against the walls, but face-inwards, as was the canvas on the easel. “You don’t display your paintings?”

  “I don’t need to see them,” Fiona said baldly. “But this one … this one was different.” She turned the canvas on the easel round.

  Jack felt his mouth go dry. He’d seen the paintings in magazines, and occasionally in a gallery window in Glastonbury, but he hadn’t been prepared for the power and immediacy of such an intimate exposure. “They’re …”

  “Don’t you dare use the F word,” said Fiona, when he hesitated.

  “F word?”

  “Fairies.” She scowled. “Like Tinkerbell. Victorian. Silly, fluffy things.”

  Jack shook his head. “No. They … I was going to say they frighten me. They remind me of Blake’s visions. Beautiful. And terrible.”

  “Exactly.” Fiona met his eyes. “But this one—Oddly enough, in the twenty-some-odd years I’ve lived here in Glastonbury, I’ve never painted the Abbey before. So why paint it now, on this particular night?”

  The creatures, some winged, some not, with their severe asexual faces, thronged round the familiar silhouette of the ruined Great Church, hands extended in supplication. Behind them, the sky was a mottled bruise reflecting the setting sun, pierced by the dark shape of the Tor.

  Fiona turned back to the canvas. “And there was something else. They sang to me. I can’t describe it. It was”—she shrugged—“it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, and yet the saddest. I’d give anything if I could re-create it, even in my head, but I can’t. That’s not my gift.” Her voice was filled with regret.

  Slowly, Jack said, “Did Winnie ever speak to you about what we were doing?”

  “The automatic writing? A bit.”

  “You didn’t think it odd?”

  Fiona smiled. “What’s odd to me? I’ve lived with oddness since I was a child. Is your expression of a voice from the past any more strange than my ability to see things that other people can’t?”

  “I suppose not. We’ve guessed all along that Edmund communicated with me for a reason, but now we think it may have something to do with the sacred chant that was banished from the Abbey after the Conquest.” He gestured at her painting. “It seems more than coincidence that you should paint this, and hear singing, on a night that Winnie was coming unexpectedly to see you.”

  “If only she’d rung me first …”

  “Do you know of anything that might have been worrying her?”

  Frowning, Fiona ran a finger along the edge of her canvas. “I know sh
e was quite distressed by Andrew’s behavior. I suppose a rift was inevitable when Winnie formed a strong attachment to someone else—Andrew had taken her for granted for too many years—but I wouldn’t have expected him to go so far off the rails.”

  “Do you think he would hurt her?”

  “Hurt Winnie? I wouldn’t think so.” Fiona sounded less than confident. “But after the dinner party, I’d think you should watch your back.”

  “Did you see or hear anything—or anyone—unusual last night?”

  “I was painting. I didn’t even hear Bram come in. But … I’ve been thinking about it since.… There was something, before I found Winnie.… The woods seemed unsettled … as if there was violence lingering in the air.” She shot him a sharp glance, then turned away, gazing down into the Coombe, where the gathering clouds made flying shadows on the grass. “If someone did this to Winnie … has it occurred to you that, having failed, they might try again?”

  Surely Winnie was safe as long as she was in hospital, Jack told himself, but his foot seemed to press harder on the accelerator of its own accord.

  He was returning from Compton Grenville, where he’d scoured the Vicarage for things he hoped might comfort Winnie. Her favorite nightdress, her hairbrush, a small CD player, and discs of the music she loved most.

  In moments he’d reached Ashwell Lane. A quick wash, a change of clothes, and he would be on his way back to Taunton.

  Leaving the car in his drive, he nudged the accumulated leaves from the front doorsill with his foot and let himself in. The house felt cold, neglected, his only welcome the red light flashing on his answering machine. He switched on the kitchen lights and pressed the play button.