A Finer End

by Deborah Crombie

  “Jack,” Winnie interrupted from the sofa, “that’s not true. Faith had met Garnet before you came in contact with either of them, and Faith has always made her own decisions, whatever her reasons.”

  He knew she was trying to calm him—and perhaps herself—but he could tell from the pallor of her face how worried she was. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re right. She’s managed well enough on her own until now. I’m sure she’ll show up any minute wanting to know what all the fuss was a—”

  The doorbell cut him off. He and Winnie stared at one another, but before he could move they heard Nick Carlisle’s voice.

  “In here!” Jack called, and Nick appeared in the doorway, disheveled, his dark hair beaded with raindrops.

  “Has she come back?”

  “No. No word.”

  “They’ve got Wellhouse Lane blocked off. They wouldn’t let me through—”

  “Who has it blocked off?”

  “The bloody police. Something’s happened. I’m going to see if I can get round on foot—”

  “Nick. Duncan will ring if there’s news. It might not have anything to do with—”

  “That’s bullshit. It’s Faith, and you know it. I’m going up there. They can arrest me if they don’t bloody like it.” The front door slammed a moment later.

  Jack started after him, but Winnie put a restraining hand on his arm. “Let him go. He’s got to do something.”

  Sinking down on the ottoman, Jack felt as if his bones had dissolved. “Faith—” he began, but he couldn’t go on.

  Winnie had paled, but took his hand in a strong grip. “She’s fine, I’m sure of—”

  The bell rang again. This time Jack stood and left the room without speaking.

  He had feared the police, bearing bad news, but he was wrong. “Jack?” There was a concerned expression on Fiona Allen’s freckled face. “Is everything all right? I just saw a man run away from your house like the hounds of hell were after him.”

  Jack ushered her in, explaining what had happened.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Fiona murmured. “Listen, I can come back another—”

  “No, don’t go,” Jack and Winnie said in unison.

  “There was something I wanted to tell you both,” Fiona said urgently. “Last night, after I stopped painting, I had a dream.

  “I heard the same music I heard the night of Winnie’s accident, and I saw a painting of the Abbey. Seventeenth or eighteenth century, I’d guess, a watercolor. And the oddest thing was that there was a man in the painting who looked remarkably like you, Jack. And then there were Garnet’s tiles—”

  “A watercolor, did you say?”

  “Yes, of the Abbey ruins, with cows in the foreground. Very nicely done too.”

  Jack stood. “I’ll be back.”

  But where the hell was the painting Duncan had found, he tried to remember as he took the stairs two at a time. He had only glanced at the thing, and had no recollection of what Duncan had done with it.…

  It proved easy enough to find, however, set carefully off to one side with the portrait of the spaniel Duncan had wanted for Gemma. Breathing a sigh of relief, he carried both paintings back down the stairs.

  “That’s it! That’s exactly what I saw in my dream!” Fiona exclaimed as he held out the view of the Abbey.

  “That is remarkable.” Winnie examined the small figure in the foreground of the watercolor. “It could be you in farmer’s togs.”

  “Look—there.” Fiona reached out to touch the bottom corner. “Is that a signature? Have you a magnifying glass?”

  Jack fetched the old glass from his mother’s writing desk, and Winnie held it carefully over the small squiggle.

  “It is a signature. Matthew—is that Matthew?” Jack heard the quick intake of her breath. “Matthew Montfort. It says Matthew Montfort!”

  “But what does it mean?” Jack asked. “We’re looking for a manuscript, not a painting.”

  “May I?” Fiona asked, and Winnie handed her the watercolor.

  First, Fiona examined the front, and the frame, then she turned the painting over. The heavy paper neatly covering the back was discolored, and had a spattering of water or liquid stains, but otherwise it was intact. Fiona ran her fingertip round the edge, checking the seal, then she smoothed her palm across the paper.

  Once more, she repeated the motion, stopping at the same point. “Have you a penknife? I think there might be something under the backing.”

  Jack handed her his pocketknife, not trusting himself to speak.

  Carefully, Fiona ran the tip of the knife under two of the edges. “Yes, there is something. I can see it.” She loosened the third side and lifted the flap of paper away.

  A sheet of paper covered in a graceful, but old-fashioned hand lay beneath the watercolor’s backing.

  “Jack, I think this belongs to you,” Fiona said, awe in her voice as she transferred the painting to him.

  He lifted the sheet, his heart thudding with excitement. Beneath it lay a flat, paper-wrapped package, tied with a faded silk ribbon. “This appears to be a letter,” he said, struggling to decipher the handwriting. He read aloud haltingly:

  “These papers have been passed from father to son in my family for seven hundred years, and we have preserved them to … our ability. But sadly, the original wrappings have disintegrated beyond my power to restore. I have devised a new place of safekeeping, as I have been instructed, in the hopes that this gift from Our Lord may be treasured and kept as it deserves.

  “It is said that this is the Holy Chant of Glastonbury, brought by Joseph of Arimathea and his followers from the Holy Land in the First Century after the Crucifixion of Our Lord, perpetuated by twelve anointed choristers, as it had been since the days of the Faithful in Egypt. Thus when the Norman, Abbot Thurstan, sought to impose the form of worship practiced in France upon the monks of our Abbey, they rose in protest against him and he shed their blood upon the Altar of the Great Church. So it is that this most holy of praises to Our Lord vanished from the sight and hearing of mankind, but was not lost.

  “This I entrust to the care of”—Jack squinted at the script—“descendants—I think he says descendants, and may the Blessings of Our Lord Jesus Christ be always upon you.

  Matthew Montfort, 1759.”

  Jack looked up; Winnie’s face was rapt. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “So it was true. I didn’t really believe it.…”

  “I can’t bear it,” Winnie breathed. “Go on. Open the package.” When he hesitated still, she said gently, “It’s your right, Jack. This is what Edmund wanted.”

  Fingers trembling, he untied the ribbon and folded back the wrapping from the tissue-thin folio beneath.

  The path that had begun with such deceptive gentleness now switched back and forth up the steep north side of the Tor. The drop-off was sheer, the clay between the viciously sharp stones was slick as glass, and there was no railing.

  Gemma made the mistake at first of trying to use her torch, but she found that while the circle of light lit the terrain immediately beneath her feet, it blinded her to the turns of the path and the nearness of the precipice.

  She fell once, hard, cutting her hands and knees. She lay there a long minute, feeling the cold dampness seep through her clothing, letting her heart slow. It didn’t matter that she was afraid of heights, she told herself, as she couldn’t tell how far up she’d climbed.

  After that, she used her hands as much as her feet, trying always to feel the rising ground on her right.

  Still, she misjudged a turn in the path: her left foot slid over the edge, sending pebbles echoing down the hillside. She stood gasping, gathering her courage, but the prospect of the return journey was so terrifying she knew that even if it weren’t for Faith, she could only continue upwards.

  At last, her right hand reached into space, and as she moved gingerly in that direction she felt the ground level out beneath her feet. She had reached the summit. For an instan
t moonlight rent the clouds, illuminating the tower before her. Then the clouds blotted out the moon again, but the dark, squat shape remained imprinted on her brain.

  How had she ever thought to find Faith in this desolate place?

  She used the torch now as she inched forward, but it lit only the sparse turf, and once a startled sheep. When she called out Faith’s name, the wind snatched the word from her mouth. She halted a few yards from the tower, unwilling to go any closer. Despair washed through her.

  Then, in a lull in the wind, she thought she heard a cry.

  “Faith!”

  This time she was certain she heard a response—a moan? Or a sob?—and it came from the far side of the tower. Gemma hurried forward, stumbling.

  As she rounded the tower, she saw a shape crouched against the base.

  “Faith!” she called again, and heard something between a groan and a scream in reply. Gemma knew that sound, and the primal pain that prompted it. Faith was in labor.

  The girl sat with her back pressed against the side of the tower, her feet spread apart, her knees up. Gemma knelt beside her and touched her cheek.

  Faith turned her head towards Gemma’s hand like a blind thing and whispered, “Garnet?”

  “No, love, it’s Gemma. I’ve come to help you. Let’s get you up and I’ll take you down the hill.” But as she tried to raise the girl, Faith screamed again.

  Panic bubbled in Gemma’s throat. It had been less than a minute since the last contraction. They weren’t going anywhere. Faith was going to have her baby right here, and soon. She was panting now.

  “Breathe with it. Breathe with the pain,” Gemma urged. “Remember what Garnet taught you.”

  For a moment, she thought Faith hadn’t heard her, then the girl obeyed.

  “Good girl. Now just relax. Breathe again. That’s brilliant.”

  As the contraction eased, Faith whispered. “I can’t—without Garnet—They mean to take my baby.… the Old Ones … I can’t … I can’t stop them by myself.”

  “No one is going to take your baby. I’m here, and I’m going to help you. We’re going to have this baby together. And the first thing we’ve got to do is get you out of these trousers.” The girl’s clothes were sodden and she was shaking with chill—their removal could scarcely make her colder.

  A litany of lack ran through Gemma’s mind as she scooted Faith up the wall into a standing position. No towels, no gloves, no knife to cut the cord … and as her hand brushed against the tower she felt a numbing cold. She bit her lip to stop her teeth from chattering as the vicious wind scoured her back.

  But there was no alternative, and at least she had done a brief midwifery course as part of her training.

  She had the trousers down to Faith’s ankles when the next contraction began and Faith slid into a squat, pressing against the wall.

  “That’s good, now. Breathe,” Gemma coached as she scrabbled for her temporarily forgotten torch. But it was useless and Gemma flicked it off with a mutter of frustration. She was going to have to do this by touch alone.

  She reached down, feeling Faith flinch as her hand made contact. “It’s all right,” she soothed. “I’m just checking the baby’s progress. I won’t hurt you.” Oh, God, was that the baby’s head she felt, crowning already? Then the contraction eased. The baby receded, withdrawing into the safety of its mother’s warmth.

  Faith sagged against the wall, eyes closed.

  “All right, love. You’re almost there. Next time I want you to push, bear down with the contraction as hard as you can.” She pressed her palm flat against Faith’s abdomen, breathing with her, and she felt the ripple of the muscles even before Faith moaned.

  “Okay, here we go. Wait for the crest, then push.” She felt for the baby’s head again as Faith bore down. There it was, the crown, then the entire head emerged as the contraction slacked off. “Breathe,” she urged Faith. “That’s a good girl. The next one will do it.”

  Gemma felt the groan resonating through the girl’s body as the next contraction began. She tried to ease the baby’s passage, but still Faith yelped at the unexpected pain of the baby’s shoulders—and then Gemma held the infant in her hands.

  It was wet, and warm … and still. “Oh, dear God …” Desperately, she cleared the mucus from the tiny nose, then used the tip of her little finger to clear the child’s mouth.

  Silence.

  Oh, God, please, Gemma prayed. What else had they taught her to do? Stimulate the baby’s reflexes—that was it. She scraped her fingernail across the sole of the tiny foot. And again—

  A cry split the air. Weak with relief, Gemma clasped the tiny form to her as a second wail followed the first.

  “It’s a girl. Oh, Faith, you have a little girl.”

  “Let me—I want to hold her,” Faith whispered.

  As Gemma inched forward, transferring the infant to her mother’s arms, she felt a warm patch beneath her knee. She touched her fingertip to the spot, felt the dark pool in the grass. Faith was hemorrhaging.

  She would not, could not, panic now. “Faith,” she said quietly, “you’ve got to get the baby inside your blouse, for warmth. Put her to your breast, let her suckle. And I need you to lie down, love. Now, put your knees up. There. Like that. Good girl.” Taking off her jacket, she covered mother and baby.

  She had read somewhere that the mother’s uterus would contract in response to the baby’s nursing, a natural reaction that might slow the bleeding. She had no other recourse, and no means to warm them other than her own body.

  Nor did she have any way to call for help, she realized as the dreadful enormity of her folly sank in. She had left her phone in her handbag, in the car.

  Huddling against Faith to protect mother and infant as best she could from the wind, Gemma pointed her torch at the sky and began to flick it on and off.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Some of those who make the Glastonbury pilgrimage come to do reverence to the dust of saints in the serene green nave of the Abbey; some come to open their souls to the fiery forces going up like dark flames from the Tor. Who shall judge between them?

  —DION FORTUNE,

  FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

  WHEN KINCAID FIRST returned to Garnet’s kitchen and found it empty, he assumed that Gemma had gone out to meet the ambulance. A look out the door, however, showed the yard deserted and quiet, the only vehicle Gemma’s Escort parked in the lane. He crossed the yard and pulled open the gate, tearing the crime-scene tape loose.

  But a look down the lane revealed no sign of activity. He went back into the house and knelt by Andrew Catesby. The man’s skin had taken on an unhealthy tinge. Swearing, Kincaid rang 999 again and was assured by the dispatcher that help was on the way.

  Standing, he called out for Gemma. There was no response. He checked the loo and the other downstairs rooms, fetching a rug from the sitting-room settee in passing. As he covered Andrew Catesby, he saw a scattering of papers on the floor beneath the table.

  Gathering the sheets, he lifted them into the light of the oil lamp. He read Garnet’s notes, then the book pages, with growing fascination. When he reached the newspaper clipping, he paused. Kinnersley … Where had he heard that name, and recently? It had been Buddy who’d mentioned that Garnet had bought the old Kinnersley place. The accident had happened here, then, outside this house. He read on.… Sarah Kinnersley’s body was discovered by a neighbor, Charles Barnes, who informed her parents before ringing the police. No trace of the child’s assailant has been found.

  Charles Barnes? Buddy, of course. Buddy … Garnet … two hit-and-run accidents, all connected somehow, if he could only see it. That didn’t rule out the possibility that Garnet had seen Andrew strike Winnie with his car, but he was beginning to think that Andrew and Faith had played out a separate drama.

  He was still puzzling over it when he heard the pulse of sirens.

  • • •

  “You didn’t by any chance see Gemma dow
n the way?” Kincaid asked, as he and DCI Greely watched the paramedics load Andrew Catesby into the ambulance. He was now seriously worried.

  “What, have you lost her, then?” Greely sounded amused.

  “I thought she might have gone down to guide the ambulance,” Kincaid answered curtly.

  “And you say the girl is missing as well? It would be my guess your partner saw, or heard, something, and went to have a look.”

  “I’m very much afraid you’re right.” With dismay Kincaid glanced round at the impenetrable darkness outside the farmyard. “But how—”

  A shout came from the officers in the lane; a moment later they appeared at the gate with a struggling and swearing figure between them.

  “Let him go,” Greely ordered. “How’d you get up here, lad?”

  Nick Carlisle shook himself free and snarled, “Across the foot of the Tor. Is she here? Is she all right?”

  “Faith’s not here, Nick,” Kincaid replied. “But we found Andrew badly injured. And now Gemma’s disappeared too.”

  “I saw a light at the summit of the Tor, just one flash as I came across the field—”

  “You think they’ve both gone up the blasted Tor, in the dark, in this weather?” Greely shook his head.

  “Gemma had her torch,” Kincaid remembered. “We’ve got to go after them. Have you a trained rescue unit? Faith may be hurt—”

  “The baby,” interrupted Nick. “It was due any day. She couldn’t make that climb—”

  “But if she did, it’s very likely we’ve got another complication to consider. What about a stretcher?”

  It seemed an eternity before Greely was running them down the hill in his own car, followed by his men in a panda. Leaving the cars near the bottom of the lane, they took the path that led up the southern face of the Tor, Greely having vetoed the north side as insane in the dark. The DCI dispatched officers to search the lane leading to the north entrance and instructed them to go as far along the path as they deemed safe, and he had sent one constable to Chalice Well.