A Finer End

by Deborah Crombie

  “I was here.” She turned to the others. “On the day of the accident. I remember now. I saw everything, and I felt I would burst with the joy of it.”

  “And afterwards?” Duncan asked.

  She frowned. “I went—I think I went to the Galatea. Then I rode to Pilton to make a bereavement call—Suzanne told me that. And then”—the scene flashed before her … the green of shimmering leaves and the sparkle of water—“why, I stopped to visit Simon. We had tea in his cottage garden, by the river. But why didn’t he say, when I couldn’t remember?”

  “Simon lives by a river, and no one bothered to mention it?” Aghast, Gemma exchanged a look with Duncan.

  Nick said, “But Jack’s gone to see—”

  Duncan quelled him with a glance. “Let’s get back in the car, shall we?”

  He stepped away and made a call on his mobile phone. After a moment, he hung up with a mutter of frustration and climbed in with them. “There’s no answer at Jack’s. Winnie, give us directions to Simon Fitzstephen’s cottage.”

  Kincaid caught a glimpse of the tower of the medieval church as they passed, then Nick instructed him to make a left into a steep lane that dead-ended after a hundred yards. Jack’s blue Volvo was pulled up on the verge just past the cottage Nick and Winnie identified as Simon Fitzstephen’s.

  As Kincaid parked behind Jack’s car, he told himself Jack was in no real danger; it was Winnie who was at risk. He debated whether to insist she stay behind with Nick, or to keep her in his sight, and decided on the latter.

  The damp fronds of a willow brushed his face as he got out of the car, and in the darkness the rushing of the stream was as loud as a roar.

  Kincaid rang the bell, then immediately opened the door and called out, not wanting to give Fitzstephen a chance to do anything rash—although there was no reason for the man to get the wind up. He had, after all, been in and out of Jack’s house the last few days as calmly as you please: he had probably decided that Winnie was not going to recover any inconvenient memories.

  Fitzstephen appeared in the hall and, when he saw them all gathered on his doorstep, made a gesture of surprise. “What is this, a delegation? Jack, look who’s here.” His ascetic face seemed flushed, his hair more unruly than usual. “This is delightful. Come in, come in.”

  “Winnie! What are you doing here, darling?” Jack exclaimed.

  “Do sit down,” said Simon. “Jack and I were having a celebratory Scotch, if anyone would care to join us.”

  The chant manuscript lay open on the sitting-room table, their glasses beside it.

  “We haven’t come to celebrate, Simon. There are some things we need to talk about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Everyone has been very ready to blame both Winnie’s accident and Garnet Todd’s death on Andrew Catesby,” continued Kincaid. “A convenient solution, at least until he’s able to defend himself.”

  “If I know anything, it’s that Andrew would never have tried to hurt me,” said Winnie.

  “No,” Kincaid agreed. “I don’t believe he would have either. In fact, I don’t think your accident, or Garnet’s death, had anything to do with Andrew or Faith. I think it was something else entirely.”

  Simon sat down and reached for his glass. “Surely, Winifred’s accident was just that, an accident,” he said reasonably.

  “No. Jack’s suspicions were quite valid. Someone deliberately struck Winnie that night. It was a daring move, and a foolhardy one, but there were tremendous stakes. You see, Winnie had realized that this chant”—Kincaid gestured towards the manuscript—“was quite special indeed. And she had shared that knowledge with only one person.

  “Don’t you think it rather odd, Simon, that you neglected to mention to anyone that Winnie had come to see you that afternoon?”

  “Why should I have mentioned it?” Simon sounded bewildered. “She’d come to pay a visit in the neighborhood, and stopped in afterwards for a cup of tea. What was so odd about that?”

  “We talked about the chant, Simon.” Winnie stepped forward. “The twelve-part perpetual chant.”

  “What on earth is going on here?” Jack asked. “What are you all talking about? Winnie—”

  “I told Simon that I thought the chant was one of the rituals that makes up the Grail—”

  “But the Grail is a myth,” protested Jack. “And even if it were true, how could a chant be a cup?”

  “I don’t think the Grail was a cup. I think it was—is—a state of grace, and that this chant was one of the things used to create that state. When I asked Simon, as a fellow priest, what this meant for us, and for the Church, he said”—Winnie closed her eyes, as if trying to recall the exact words—“ ‘it wasn’t a valid construct, because our society was no longer theocentric.’ And then he suggested that I might be suffering from some sort of emotional hysteria as in, ‘middle-aged women in love have a tendency to become deranged.’ ”

  Watching Simon’s face, she added softly, “Oh, yes, I remember it all, now. You thought you could put me off it, but after I left, you must have realized that wasn’t enough. So you came after me. You waited for a chance to make sure I wouldn’t spread my theories any further.”

  Fitzstephen lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Winifred, I don’t know what to say. We did talk about the chant, yes, but I never dreamed it was any more than a flight of fancy on your part. I can’t imagine you think I’d—”

  “Did you think that if this came out it would ruin your reputation as a Grail scholar? Destroy all your well-researched theories? Or did you think you’d somehow manage to take credit for the discovery? You’ve always been unscrupulous, Simon, willing to use other people’s work as it suited you, but—”

  “Has everyone forgotten Garnet Todd?” Kincaid asked. “You and Garnet went back a long way, didn’t you, Simon? Friends—maybe even lovers at some time?”

  “What has my relationship with Garnet to do with this?”

  “I believe that Garnet knew—or at least suspected—that your motives might not be in line with the rest of the group. Perhaps she’d followed Winnie that night, wanting to talk to her about Faith, or perhaps she just happened to see you coming out of Lypatt Lane, and once she learned of Winnie’s accident she put two and two together.

  “Did she come to see you the next night, determined to confront you about the attempt on Winnie’s life? Did you have drinks in the garden? And when you realized what she knew, did you ask her to look at something in the stream? Did you—”

  “No, wait,” interrupted Jack. “I’ve just remembered! We were looking for Faith that evening. I rang you and asked you to check the farmhouse, as Garnet didn’t have a phone, and you said you would go.”

  “I did.” Simon had stiffened in his chair. “There was no one there, and I came home again. As for the evening of Winifred’s accident, I had a speaking engagement in Bristol, in front of two hundred people, if anyone bothered to check. I left shortly after Winifred’s visit and didn’t return until midnight. You are all mad, utterly mad.”

  “But—” Kincaid stared at him. “Simon, when you went to the farmhouse that evening, was Garnet’s van in the yard?”

  “Yes, but there was no one in the house. I knocked and called out.”

  “Bloody hell. I’ve been a fool. Simon, forgive me. Gemma—we’ve been blind. It was never Winnie who was in danger.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  On more than one occasion, we who live upon [the Tor’s] flank have been called upon to minister comfort and consolation to those who have actually seen what they went to look for.

  —DION FORTUNE,

  FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

  IT SEEMED TO Gemma that she had never been so tired. She had listened to Kincaid’s exchange with Simon Fitzstephen with a growing sense of unreality, as if she were becoming physically detached from her body. Now, as they sped back towards Glastonbury, she was having difficulty following Kincaid’s logic. “Are you saying you think
Fiona Allen’s husband might hurt her?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But I do think Bram fits into this and somehow that it’s connected to the death of little Sarah Kinnersley. When I saw her photo in that news clipping, I knew she seemed familiar—and then tonight at Simon’s it came back to me: it was the face of the child in Fiona’s painting.”

  “The painting … it seemed almost as if the beings—angels?—were protecting the child.…”

  “Bram and Garnet were lovers at the time Sarah was killed. The Kinnersleys were so devastated by their loss that they walked away from their property—Buddy mentioned Garnet bought it ‘for a song.’ Buddy also said that after little Sarah Kinnersley died, everything changed. Bram left Garnet. He married Fiona.”

  “Left Garnet because she knew the truth? Was Garnet an accessory in Sarah’s death?”

  “In the notes she left in the kitchen, she wrote that Faith was her redemption, and that bringing Faith’s baby into the world would be a child’s life for a child’s life. But I think she came to feel that wasn’t enough, that in order to counteract what was happening to Faith she needed to take some kind of direct action.”

  “She confronted Bram—”

  “I’d guess she told him she wouldn’t keep his secret any longer, that it was time for him to make retribution by telling the truth.”

  “And Winnie?”

  “Garnet told Faith she had an appointment that evening. I think she’d set a meeting with Bram, perhaps at the very spot where Winnie was struck.”

  “And at the last minute Garnet found she couldn’t go through with it—and Winnie just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Gemma finished. “The next day, when Garnet learned of the accident, she guessed who had been responsible.”

  “Then did she go to him? Or did he come after her? Simon said that when he went to Garnet’s that evening, her van was still in the yard. I’m guessing that Bram went to the farmhouse sometime after Nick left.”

  “You think he drowned her in the house? But there was no sign.”

  “No.… Do something for me, would you? Ring directory inquiries, get the number for Buddy—Charles Barnes.”

  Gemma complied and, when the number began to ring, handed the phone to Kincaid.

  “Buddy? It’s Duncan Kincaid. You know the spring on Garnet’s property? Is there any standing water? A pool above the house. Right. Oh, and Buddy, one more thing: On the night Sarah Kinnersley was killed, do you know where Garnet was? Did she have a car?” He listened a moment longer, then said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll explain later,” and disconnected.

  “She was with Bram Allen,” stated Gemma.

  “And he would have been driving. Garnet had no car at the time.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re worried about Fiona …”

  “Because I think that, like Andrew with his sister, there’s one person Bram would do anything to protect from the knowledge of his crime.”

  The lights still shone in the Allens’ house, and when Kincaid rang the bell, Fiona opened the door immediately. “Bram,” she said, “—have you seen him?”

  “He’s not here?”

  Fiona shook her head. “When I came back from Jack’s, I found him in the studio. He was—I’ve never seen him like that. My painting—he had my painting, the one of the Abbey, with the child. He’d cut it with his knife. And then he—he—”

  “Slow down,” Kincaid said gently. “What happened then?”

  “He said things I didn’t understand, something about stopping it once and for all, and he took the painting.”

  “Bram left with the painting?”

  Fiona nodded. “Stop what? What did he mean? Where has he gone? Bram—”

  Kincaid took the north path. More treacherous, yes, but faster, and if Gemma had done it, so could he. The setting moon provided enough illumination that he climbed without mishap, driven by fear of what he would find at the top.

  Once at the summit he stopped, letting his breathing ease. Then he went forward quietly, scanning the silvered turf for a shadow of movement.

  He found Bram Allen on the far side of St. Michael’s Tower, in the spot where Faith had lain. Bram sat huddled against the wall, Fiona’s painting clutched to his chest, the knife in his right hand visible against the canvas.

  “Bram,” Kincaid called softly, coming to a halt a few feet away.

  Bram stood, looking at him without surprise. “I’ll give them blood, if that’s what they want,” he said clearly. “But not that girl and her baby. Not again.”

  “Who wants blood?” Kincaid stood motionless.

  “Old Ones. Garnet knew. Garnet always knew about them. That night we danced, here, in the grass. It was Samhain, the time when the veil is thinnest. We called them and they came. We were wild with it, invincible, we possessed the world. But they wanted more—a life—and we were just the instruments.”

  “Sarah.”

  “I saw her face, for only an instant, above the windscreen. I’ve seen it every day of my life since. How did Fiona know?”

  “The child in the painting.” Kincaid inched closer, aware of the glimmer of the knife.

  “Why? Why did she come to Fiona?”

  “That must have been terrible for you, when Fiona began to paint little Sarah.”

  “Fiona didn’t understand why I couldn’t bear the sight of them. Then when she wanted to hang them in the gallery, I couldn’t refuse.”

  “But why kill Garnet, Bram?”

  “It was building again, the old power. Garnet believed she could stop it—that we could stop it if I told. She came into the gallery. When she saw Fiona’s paintings she said it was a divine judgment, that Fiona was my retribution. Fiona.…” The despair in his voice chilled Kincaid to the heart. “All these years I thought I could make amends by loving her, being part of her goodness. The only thing I couldn’t do was give her a child.… I hoped that grief might be punishment enough.”

  “Did you agree to meet Garnet that night in the lane?”

  “A customer came into the gallery. I had to get rid of her somehow. And then, waiting in the darkness, I thought how easy it would be.… I didn’t know it was Winnie until it was too late.”

  And he had left her to die, Kincaid thought, when he could so easily have called for help.

  “But Garnet knew, didn’t she? So the next night you went to her house, and you convinced her to walk up to the spring.”

  “I think she knew what was going to happen, at the last. Perhaps she thought her life would finish it. But it wasn’t enough.”

  “Bram, let’s go home. It’s over now. Your wife is frantic with worry about you.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I know that Fiona will love you no matter what you’ve done—”

  “No. I won’t have her stained with this … this evil—” His gesture with the knife took in the Tor. “Can’t you feel it? Once it begins, only blood will satisfy their hunger.”

  “Bram, there’s nothing here. Let’s go home to your wife. We’ll get warm. Have a drink. In the morning, nothing will seem so terrible.” He shifted his weight, judged his distance from the weapon.

  “I can’t. Fiona—”

  “Garnet was right, Bram. The only way to end this is to tell the truth. Give Fiona the chance to forgive you. She loves you—you owe her that.”

  “I—”

  “Give me the knife, Bram.” He stepped closer, held out his hand.

  “But they—”

  “It’s over, Bram, the cycle’s finished. They don’t need your life.” Kincaid tensed, ready to lunge for the weapon.

  “I—” Bram put his hands to his face and sagged against the wall. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Kincaid took the knife from his unresisting fingers. “Let’s go home.”

  He guided Bram away from the tower, leaving Fiona’s mutilated painting abandoned against the cold stone.

  They began the descent, Kincai
d staying as close to Bram as the narrow path allowed. To one side was a sheer drop; mud and loose stones made the footing treacherous. The wind tore at them, tugging at their clothing like invisible hands.

  At the first hairpin bend, Bram turned back. He spoke, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth. Then a shower of stones fell from above, striking him. Jerking away from the blows, Bram lost his footing and plunged over the edge.

  “Bram!” Kincaid shouted, reaching for him, but his fingers grasped only air. He called out again and again, but no reply came from the impenetrable darkness below.

  At last, exhausted, he continued downwards, towards the help he knew would be futile.

  It seemed that Bram had been right, after all. The Old Gods had been satisfied with no less than payment in blood.

  All the way to Wells, huddled in the back of the car, Gemma could only think of how it had felt to hold Faith’s baby in her arms. And she found herself making a mute entreaty, again and again, that she would not lose what she had been given.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  … I often wonder whether the life of Avalon will ever stir again, or whether we shall be no more than a tourist show and a market town. Will these dead bones come together, bone to bone, as they did at Buckfastleigh? There is talk of a great new abbey to rise under the shadow of the old … and I … impenitent heathen though I am, [hope] that I shall hear Angelus from my high veranda.

  —DION FORTUNE,

  FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

  KINCAID WAITED ALONE outside the cubicle in the emergency ward for news of Gemma. When the doctor emerged at last, he stood. “Is she—”

  “She’s fine,” the doctor informed him with abstracted cheerfulness.

  “But what happened? Is she ill?”

  “Um, not exactly. Why don’t you go in and see her yourself.”