A Finer End

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 not 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?

“I was just telling Faith we’ve missed you both.” Winnie tried to mask her concern. “Why don’t you come to Jack’s with me? We could catch up on our visiting while we wait for him to get back from Bath.”

“I—” Garnet seemed to hesitate, then shook her head—“I wish we could, but I’ve an appointment—a delivery. Soon, though, we’ll all get together.” She put a hand on Faith’s shoulder. “But just now I’d better run Faith home. It’s too hard a climb up the hill for her these days.”

“And I’ve got to lock up,” said Faith, rising awkwardly. “Then I’ve some studying to do.” Faith cleared their tea things without meeting Winnie’s eyes, and Winnie knew then the rapport of moments ago had shattered.

Shrugging, she said, “Right. Soon, then.” At the door, however, she turned back. “You will take care, won’t you? Both of you?”

Once outside, she stood her bike upright, then paused. There was a sharpness to the air that matched the clarity of the magenta sky above the Tor, and from somewhere she could have sworn she heard the faint thread of pipes. She felt again the temporal dislocation that Glastonbury sometimes engendered, as if the centuries had eased their boundaries and bled into one another.

Then the sensation passed, and the images of the morning rushed back into her mind with such force that she felt breathless. She must talk to someone about what she had experienced. With sudden resolution, she began pushing her bike up the lane towards Fiona’s house.

Nick Carlisle struggled to conceal his impatience with the elderly woman who couldn’t make up her mind between a book on the Glastonbury Zodiac and one proclaiming the Return of the Goddess. In the end, having spent half an hour dithering, she put down both books and smiled beatifically at him, saying, “I think I’ll come back another day, dear.”

Nick summoned a smile and locked the door after her. It was already well past closing. He might have sold her the Goddess book if he’d pushed a bit, but he had no stomach for such things these days.

He wandered towards the back of the shop, checking the tables for out-of-place material, stopping only when he reached the small nook that held Dion Fortune’s books. Running his fingertip along the spines, he frowned.

Fortune had acknowledged the old gods, but she had understood the need for balance between the Christian and the pagan, the Abbey and the Tor. What would she have thought of the pagan revival creeping through Glastonbury like a stain?

Lately, there was a darkness in the more bizarre fringe in Glastonbury, an underlying rumble of destructiveness that made him apprehensive. It didn’t do to place too much credence in rumors in Glastonbury, but there had been hints of rituals, a whisper of sacrifice, and of a growing desire to unleash old energies long held in check. If this was the Old Religion Garnet Todd was teaching Faith, the latter could be in grave danger.

It had been weeks since he’d seen Faith. Garnet kept her sequestered in that old wreck of a farmhouse, and when he had tried to see her at the café, Garnet had turned up as if she had radar. Or second sight.

He’d thought of going to the police, but Faith was legally an adult, living with Garnet by choice, and if he told them he thought she was being hypnotized, or coerced by dark magic, he’d merely make himself look barmy.

Although Winnie Catesby had refused to give him Faith’s parents’ address, he’d found it easily enough on his own. One day in the café, when Faith had been talking to Buddy in the shop, Nick had peeked at the ID card in her wallet.

He had traced her family to Street; he had even sat at the top of the close, watching the house, looking for some trace of Faith in that sterile cul-de-sac. He could go to her parents now, tell them where Faith was, but they had no power to make her come home. And Faith would know he had betrayed her. That would surely end any hope he might have of continuing as her friend.

Nothing in the past few months had turned out the way he’d imagined—not with Faith, nor with Jack.

Simon Fitzstephen seemed to take up all Jack’s free time—and what had Nick Carlisle to offer Jack compared to the renowned Fitzstephen? The bitterness of it burned in Nick’s throat, but he knew there was more to his unease than that. The excitement of discovering Jack’s gift, the sense of adventure, of mission, had given way to a tension, a foreboding, that made him feel almost physically ill.

He’d thought about chucking it all, leaving Glastonbury, getting a proper job. Once he’d got so far as stuffing his meager belongings into a duffel bag … and once, on a very bad day, he’d even thought about going home to Northumberland and facing the music.

Lifting the Dion Fortune book to slot it back into the shelf, he glanced at her photo on the dust jacket. She had understood the power of evil, and had faced it with strength and good sense. If only there were someone like Fortune he could talk to, someone who would not instantly dismiss what he sensed about Garnet, or attribute it to a maladjusted childhood. A priest, perhaps—

Winnie Catesby, of course! It had been right under his nose all along, but somehow he’d never thought of Winnie in her professional capacity. How could he have been so blind?

He would talk to Winnie, tell her the suspicions he had hardly dared to formulate. Then together they could confront Faith, get her to agree to leave Garnet before the baby came. She wouldn’t have to go back to her parents; he and Winnie could find a safe place for her.

Locking the shop behind him, he retrieved his motorbike and headed south through the dusk towards Compton Grenville. His heart lifted when he saw Winnie’s small car parked in the gravel drive of the Vicarage.

But there was no answer at the front door, nor did his knocking at the kitchen door bring any response. The house remained dark and silent, and he shivered with more than the chill of evening. He knew, with a sickening sense of urgency he could not explain, that he must find Winnie Catesby, and soon.

“You all right, Fi?” Bram Allen looked up from the remains of his supper.

“Bit of a headache,” she said. He had always seemed to know, with some uncanny sixth sense. “I think I may be … painting … when you get back from your council meeting.” She did not acknowledge her hope that this time it might be different. A few days ago, she had asked him to hang some of the recent canvases in the gallery. He had done so under protest, and the resulting awkwardness between them had not been improved by his comments at Winnie’s the previous evening.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked.

“No. I’ll be fine.” They both knew that the onset of her visions could be unpredictable, but even as a child Fiona had taken up crayons, then paints, as a means of dealing with it. If she transferred what she saw to paper, the visions no longer terrified her.

Fiona wandered down the corridor to her studio. Bram had built it for her, a glass-walled room on the back of the house, overlooking the deep hollow of Bushy Coombe. Fiona turned on the small lamp that lit only her blank canvas and her palette. She opened her paints and took up a brush.

The voices were clamoring now in her head, and when she looked up the shapes were thronging outside the glass—luminous, winged, half-human creatures; they beckoned to her, and the night sky beyond the glass had become a deep and iridescent blue.

Images began to take shape on the canvas, faces impossibly radiant and severe, and in their midst, the child. At some point Fiona sensed Bram’s presence as he stood watching from the doorway, but he did not disturb her, and when she looked round he had gone.

Then all her awareness of things beyond brush and canvas vanished. The tumult of sound had become more distinct, as if someone had fine-tuned a radio, and she realized the voices were singing, singing to her, and the clear melody soared and leapt inside her until she feared her head would burst.

The last color faded from the sky and wisps of fog began to form in the dips and hollows beneath the Tor. A dilapidated white van hurtled by Winnie—Garnet’s, with Faith in the passenger seat, heading up the hill towards the farmhouse.

Rather than allaying her worry, Winnie’s visit with the girl had only increased her concern. She would have to manage a word with Garnet in the next few days about Faith’s health; perhaps Garnet could shed some light on her emotional state.

And why had Faith seemed suddenly to shut her out, back in the café, refusing even to meet her gaze? Was it something she’d said?

As Winnie went back over their conversation, something odd struck her. Faith had said she’d done archaeology at Somerfield, which meant she must have been one of Andrew’s students. But in that case, why had he never mentioned her? Surely the disappearance of a bright student, a girl in her final year and destined to go on to greater things, would have concerned him? But then lately he had seemed to scorn all his pupils—what had happened to his love of teaching?

Reaching the entrance to Lypatt Lane, Winnie pushed the bike into the narrow opening. The lane would take her into Bulwarks Lane, which overlooked the steep fall of Bushy Coombe, and at its end lay Fiona Allen’s house. The sky made a paler channel between the hedges rising high on either side of the lane. A bit of azure lingered in the west, but above her the first brittle stars had appeared. She switched on her bicycle lamp, but it flickered wanly, then went out.

As she picked up her pace, Winnie continued to puzzle over Andrew’s odd behavior. It occurred to her for the first time that perhaps she didn’t know her brother at all. The thought alarmed her, and she suddenly longed for Jack’s company, for his calm and commonsense response. Surely he would be home by the time she reached Fiona’s; she’d ring him from there and ask him to come and collect her.

She reached the little jog where the footpath that ran round the back side of Chalice Hill met Lypatt Lane. Beyond the jog the track became Bulwarks Lane, and she felt an unexpected stirring of relief that she had almost reached her destination.

Pausing, she checked automatically for oncoming traffic, even though she could not have failed to hear a car on such a still night. The lane was dark as a tunnel now, visible only by the layer of mist that had settled near the ground.

She stepped out, pushing the bike, and a light came out of nowhere, dazzling her, blinding her. Throwing up her arms as she heard the roar of an engine, she sensed a rush of movement towards her.

Just before impact, some tiny fragment of her consciousness noted that there had been no squeal of brakes.

PART II

CHAPTER EIGHT

… it yet raises the little limited self to the consciousness of a possibility, awful and beautiful, of a contact with something greater than itself, and yet akin; and to the dignity of a mystical fellowship in which isolation ends, and Past and Present are seen as parts of a living whole; points in the circumference of a circle whose radius is Life beyond these limitations.

—FREDERICK BLIGH BOND,

FROM THE GATE OF REMEMBRANCE

THE MUSIC CHANGED, slowly; the joyous melody faded, softening, until it became a lament. Fiona sensed an immense sorrow for a passing, an ending, of something precious beyond human understanding, but more than that she could not tell.

At last there was only a hollowness in her head, and beyond the glass there was nothing but darkness and the faint lights of the town across the Coombe. She put down her brush, exhausted. She had no idea of the time—she never kept a clock in the studio—but she could tell by the cramp in her hand and the ache in her back that she’d been painting several hours.

Stepping back, Fiona surveyed the canvas. She, herself, never named the creatures that came to her, but the critics referred to them as sprites, spirits, or sometimes, angels. Tonight, to her surprise, she had painted them within a framework of greensward and ruined stone walls—the gates of the Abbey itself—and for the first time, the spirits seemed to hold the now-familiar little girl within their protection.

It was only blocked in, of course. She would finish it tomorrow, if there were no more visions. Now she needed rest; but first, a walk, to clear her head.

The house was quiet, breathing in its midnight rhythm, and when she peeked into the bedroom she saw the humped shape of Bram’s body under the duvet.

Grabbing an old Barbour off a peg, she let herself out the front door and stood for a moment, breathing the frosty air. To her left lay Wick Hollow; to the right Bulwarks Lane gave an open view of the Coombe to the west. Threading her way through the garden, she turned to the right, and when she had passed the house a break in the canopy of leaves above her gave a view of the stars.

As she walked, she became aware of movement in the woods, an agitation more intense than the usual nocturnal shufflings of badgers and rabbits. Fiona stopped, listening, wondering what could be disturbing the woodland creatures on such a calm and beautiful night. “What is it?” she whispered, but there was no response. Feeling uneasy, she continued onwards, but more cautiously.

When a tendril of wind moved down the lane, disturbing a bit of rubbish, she started, then chided herself. It was only a supermarket carrier bag, and as she watched it blew a few more feet, lodging against something larger in the road, a dark shape, perhaps a fallen branch, and beside it a longer, more solid object. Drawing closer, she saw that the more solid shape was oddly human. Another trick of perception, she decided. Her steps slowed until she came to a halt beside the thing.

Not until she knelt and touched the form was she convinced that what she saw was real. It was a woman, her upturned face a pale smudge, and beside her not a branch, but a fallen bicycle. Fiona pulled her small torch from the pocket of her jacket, then gasped as it lit the woman’s face.

Jack Montfort came to a halt a yard inside the intensive-care unit, overwhelmed by the sight of the machines and tubes surrounding Winnie’s slight, still form. Why hadn’t they told him she would look like this—alien, and frail beyond hope? A tube ran into her nose, another into her mouth, and on a shaved strip of her scalp the angry edges of a wound were held closed with clips.

“You’re here to see Winifred, aren’t you, dear?” a soft Irish voice said beside him.

Jack turned, barely registering scrubs, a friendly smile, and a name badge that read “Maggie.” He nodded, not trusting his voice.

“You’re her ‘friend,’ I take it? Her brother came in a bit ago. Took one look, turned green, and bolted, poor man.”

“Did he?” Jack’s resolve not to do the same strengthened, as he suspected she had intended.

“It’s all these high-tech doodads give folks the willies. But don’t let them frighten you. They’re just keeping her comfortable, and letting us know how she’s doing.”

“How—how is she?”

“We’ve got her warm and toasty now, and resting quite comfortably. She was hypothermic when they brought her in, and her heart was a bit dicky, but she’s stable now—”

“Heart?” A fresh jolt of fear shot through him.

“A bit of cardiac arrhythmia, due to the warming process. All perfectly normal. She’s a lucky girl, your Winifred. Do you know where she was found exactly?”

“In Bulwarks Lane, below Glastonbury Tor.”

“On the tarmac itself? Probably saved her life, then. The tarmac would have held the day’s heat. A few feet either way into the grass or the ditch …” Maggie shook her head ominously.

It had been Suzanne Sanborne who had rung Jack in the early hours of the morning. He had been increasingly uneasy about Winnie—it wasn’t like her not to let him know her whereabouts—but he had told himself that she must have had an emergency. He had, in fact, imagined her sitting at the bedside of an ill or dying parishioner. That was an irony too painful now to contemplate.

In a daze, he had driven the thirty miles to the hospital in Taunton. While Andrew Catesby acknowledged him with a tight-lipped nod, Suzanne told him that the police believed Winnie must have been on her way to visit her friend Fiona Allen when she had been struck by a hit-and-run motorist. It had been Fiona who had found her, rung for police and medical aid. Fiona had then rung Andrew, who in turn had called Suzanne. How like Andrew, thought Jack, not to have rung him.

By daybreak, they had still not been allowed to see Winnie and Suzanne had been unable to stay longer. Left alone with Andrew Catesby, who glared at him from across the waiting room, Jack had left the hospital and driven to police headquarters in Yeovil. There he had seen Detective Inspector Alfred Greely, the officer who had taken the call on Winnie’s accident. Greely, a phlegmatic man with a farmer’s face and a West Country burr, held out little hope that the driver of the car could be traced. There were no witnesses, and little, if any, possibility of forensic evidence on the bike—their only avenue lay with Winnie herself, if she should awaken and remember something vital.

Now, looking down at her smooth face, calm in a repose more profound than sleep, Jack asked Maggie, “Can I speak to her? Will she know me?”

“Of course, you can, dear, and the more the better. And it’s a good bet that when she wakes up, not only will she remember that you’ve been here, she’ll remember everything you’ve said to her.” Maggie fetched a hospital-issue chair that looked too insubstantial to support Jack’s large frame and placed it next to the bed. “She’ll need you to anchor her, give her consciousness a focal point. Talk to her, touch her, hold her hand. Tell her what’s happened to her.”

When Jack took Winnie’s hand between both of his, it felt cool and unresponsive. “Winnie, it’s me, Jack,” he began awkwardly. “You’ve had a bit of a bump on the head, but you’re going to be fine, love.”

“You just keep talking to her,” Maggie instructed when he paused, “and I’ll give you a few more minutes.” She moved away to attend another patient, her face impassive.

Jack fumbled in his pocket for the prayer book the hospital staff had found in Winnie’s handbag and began to read, hoping the familiar and comforting words would somehow reach her. “O Lord our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who has safely brought us to the beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance.…” His voice broke; he bowed his head and closed the small leather-bound book with its gilt-edged pages. It was Winnie’s, a gift from her parents upon her confirmation, she had told him once. They had been killed in a boating accident shortly afterwards, and the book had become one of her treasures.

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 she 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.

Faith’s voice filled the room. “Jack, I heard about Winnie. Ring me at the café, please. Please.” She sounded frantic, in tears.

Concerned, Jack rang the café, but when a harried Buddy answered, he said he’d sent Faith home after lunch, as she wasn’t feeling well.

As soon as Jack disconnected, the phone rang. He snatched it from its cradle, fearing bad news. “Jack, Nick rang me about Winifred,” Simon Fitzstephen said. “I’m so sorry. How is she?”

“No change as far as I know. I’m just on my way to hospital again now. Simon, could you do something for me? I’m worried about Faith. She left a message for me, but I can’t reach her at the farmhouse, and I haven’t time to go up there now.”

“Blast Garnet for not having a telephone,” said Simon. “But I’ll check on the girl. Don’t worry.”

Jack hesitated, torn between the desire to make a stop at the farmhouse himself and his need to get away to Taunton, then said, “Right.” He would let Simon take care of it.

Having found the café closed, Nick put his motorbike into first gear for the climb up the steep incline of Wellhouse Lane. If Faith wouldn’t look at Garnet’s fender, he’d do it himself, and then he’d show her what he found. He’d make her see the truth.

But to his dismay, when he reached the farmhouse the yard was already in deep shadow. Garnet’s van was parked with its nose inside the gloom of her shop; there was no way he could examine the fender without a torch. Well, then, he would talk to Faith again, convince her to see reason.

When the sputter of the bike’s engine died away, the yard was hushed except for the squeaking of a flock of blackbirds passing overhead. A butter-colored cat lay curled against the doorsill, as if it had given up seeking entrance. As Nick climbed the steps and rapped on the door, the cat gave him a baleful glance and slunk away.

There was no response, but he could see the glow of an oil lamp through the curtained kitchen window. He knocked again.

The door swung open and Garnet Todd stared at him without speaking.

“I want to see Faith,” Nick said.

“She’s not here.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m telling you, she’s not here.” Garnet started to close the door.

Nick stepped forward, jamming it with his shoulder. “Where else would she be? The café’s closed, and she never goes anywhere else, does she? You can’t stop me seeing her.”

“You’re trespassing. This is my house,” protested Garnet, but gave way a step.

Nick’s anger surged with his small victory. Why had he let this witch bully him—and Faith—for so long? “What are you going to do, ring the police? You don’t have a telephone.” Another step and he was in the house, shutting the door behind him. He looked round the kitchen for some sign of Faith, then called out her name.

“I’ve told you, she’s not here.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don’t know!” There was an edge of panic in Garnet’s voice. “When I went to fetch her from work she was gone, and she hasn’t come home.”

“You’re sure she’s not in the house?”

“Why don’t you look, then, if you don’t trust my word.”

Nick turned away without replying and left the kitchen, but once in the corridor he realized the folly of his gesture. There was no electricity, and dusk had invaded the house. Well, he bloody well wasn’t going back to ask Garnet for a candle or a lantern—he’d just have to navigate the shadows as best he could.

Downstairs, first. He went through the dark corridor into the parlor at the front of the house, a musty, disused room, filled with tatty furniture. There was no sign that it had been recently disturbed.

Next, the room that served Garnet as an office, with its rolltop desk and ancient wooden file cabinets. A glass-fronted case against the far wall held a collection of dusty bird’s nests and shells … relics of Garnet’s childhood hobbies, perhaps, now long forgotten.

Returning to the corridor, he found the cold and primitive bath beneath the stairs. In the dim light, he made out a bottle of shampoo on the shelf beside the tub—Faith’s. When he opened it, the pear scent evoked her so strongly that she might have been standing beside him.

What if she had come home and confronted Garnet over Winnie’s accident? Would Garnet have silenced her?

But he’d sensed a real fear behind Garnet’s assertion that Faith hadn’t returned to the farmhouse—and if that were true, where could she possibly have gone?

Home to her parents in Street? Not likely. Or—and this was the thorn that Nick never quite managed to dislodge—had she gone to the baby’s mysterious father? For all Faith had given away about him in the past months, the child might as well be the result of immaculate conception. But could Faith have been driven to seek the father out?

Suspicions roiling, Nick climbed the straight flight of stairs. First, he tried the bedroom on the left, immediately recognizable as Garnet’s. An open wardrobe held her gypsy clothes; a dressing table, a collection of combs, brushes, hair slides, and a pretty etched-glass oil lamp. With the matches he kept in his pocket for lighting candles in the bookshop, Nick lit the lamp. Shadows danced on the walls and ceiling as the light illuminated a carved, four-poster bed draped with a lace coverlet. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if Garnet had ever shared it with anyone.

He took the lamp into the bedroom on the right. This room held little other than a narrow iron bedstead, and beside it a plain deal table. Pegs on the wall organized Faith’s few clothes. A white nightdress and a worn plush rabbit were arranged tidily against the pillow. On the bedside table lay the copy of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King he had brought her. There was nothing to indicate where she might have gone.

Returning the lamp to the bedroom, he went back downstairs to the kitchen. Garnet sat in the chair by the woodstove, rocking slowly, but her knuckles were white where she gripped the chair arms.

“Satisfied?” she demanded.

“I’ll find her. And if anything’s happened to her—”

Leaving the threat unspoken, Nick let himself out the door.

The night creatures had begun to venture out of their burrows, but Faith lay still, curled in a nest of leaves beneath the hedge. At last, a bird shrieked nearby and she woke, conscious at first only of the cold and of the stiffness of her limbs. As she moved, a branch scratched her face and awareness seeped back.

At Buddy’s insistence, she’d left work early. A customer had given her a lift up the hill and dropped her at the farmhouse gate. Immediately, Faith saw that Garnet was home—the van stood in the yard, its wheels mud caked.

She hadn’t meant to look. But she couldn’t avoid passing the van on her way to the house, and before she could stop herself she’d swiveled round and stared. The fender was smudged and smeared, with one wide swipe that could have been made by an impact with a large, solid object—a body?

Oh, God. She felt a surge of nausea. Nick couldn’t be right—he just couldn’t. But why had Garnet been so strange when she’d come back last night? And all that time Winnie had been lying nearby, injured and unconscious.…

Faith blinked back tears. Garnet had done so much for her … How could she even think her capable of such a terrible thing? But what if—what if Nick were right? Fear clutched at her. She couldn’t go into the house—couldn’t face Garnet. Not yet. She had to think.

Turning away, she walked out of the yard, into the lane. The pull of the Tor drove her up the hill. As she climbed, tendrils of pain began to radiate from her pelvis round her abdomen, but she picked up her pace, ignoring them. The sun had formed an enormous red ball hovering on the horizon—if she didn’t hurry she’d have to climb in the dark. Her sense of urgency increased. She knew she must get to the top of the Tor, although she couldn’t quite formulate why. Then, as she came in sight of the entrance to the north path, a cramp caught her, doubling her over in pain and surprise.

She stopped, panting, took another step, stopped again. The pain worsened, squeezing at her. She had to get off her feet, just for a little while, make it stop. Then she would go on.

Looking round, she had seen the gap in the hedge, just big enough for her body, and when she’d crawled inside, she’d fallen instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Now, fully awake, she cupped her hands round her abdomen, felt the gentle flutter of the baby turning. The pain had gone, and she realized that whatever had driven her had dissipated as well. Although it still tugged faintly at the edges of her consciousness, it was not as powerful as her desire to go home. She knew now what she had to do.

She could not betray Garnet without giving her a chance to explain herself.

Easing herself from the hedge, she looked up, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. The sky was overcast, starless, and her only orientation was the deeper blackness of the hedges. Slowly, she made her way down the hill, watching for the glow of oil lamps that would mark the farmhouse.

But it was the white shape of the gate she saw first. Only then was she able to make out the house, a darker shadow against the Tor’s flank. There was no sign of Garnet’s van in the yard, and when Faith let herself in the unlocked back door, only the cats came to greet her.

It was fully dark by the time Jack reached the hospital. He hurried through the car park, head down against the damp, chill wind, assuring himself that no news from Maggie meant that Winnie’s condition remained stable.

But the first person he saw when he entered the ICU waiting area was Andrew Catesby, sitting with his head in his hands.

“Andrew,” he said sharply. “What’s wrong? How is she?”

Andrew looked up, dropping his hands from his face with apparent reluctance. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything.”

Jack swallowed, making an effort to keep his panic in check. “Have you seen her?”

“No. I—” Andrew shook his head. “I couldn’t bear it.” He stood, so that their eyes were on a level, and Jack saw that his face looked sallow and pinched, as if he were utterly exhausted. No trace remained of the boyish charm Jack had seen him display with Suzanne and Fiona.

“I’ve been here for hours,” Andrew continued. “Suzanne came, and Simon Fitzstephen, and the bishop. They all wanted to know where you were, as if her life depended on your presence. But I know the truth.” He jabbed an accusing finger at Jack. “She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. You and your daft ideas, and your daft friends—you’ve done this to her. We were happy on our own before you came. We had a good life. And now—now nothing will ever be the same. Maybe she’d be better off dead.”

“Andrew! You can’t mean that!”

“Can’t I?” Andrew turned and disappeared through the swinging doors.

Jack stared after him. The man was utterly mad.

Shaken, he rang the bell for admittance to the ICU. It was not Maggie who answered his summons, but an older, heavyset nurse whose name badge read “Joan.”

“You’re here to see Winifred?” she asked.

“How is she?”

“Her heart’s still playing up a bit, and that’s causing her blood pressure to drop.”

“But she’ll be all right? Can I see her?”

“We seem to have got her settled down again for the time being.” Joan glanced at her watch, then said kindly, “Fifteen minutes. Then I’ll throw you out on your ear.”

Jack eased himself into the chair by Winnie’s bed and took her hand. It seemed to him that it felt cooler than it had that morning. He spoke to her quietly, stroking the soft skin on the inside of her wrist, telling her about his day and his visit to Fiona. “You’ve had a good many visitors,” he continued, “and Andrew was here when I—”

Was it his imagination, or had her fingers moved? He gripped her hand more tightly and gazed at her face. There! Surely her eyelids flickered, surely he felt an infinitesimal change in her breathing. “Nurse!” he called, and Joan came immediately from the next cubicle.

“I was talking to her—I think she moved her hand, and blinked.”

“Good, that’s very good,” said Joan, checking the monitors. “She knows you’re here, and she wants to respond. She’s just not quite there yet.” The nurse scrutinized Jack with a professional eye. “And I’d say you’re about done in. Why don’t you go get yourself a bite to eat in the canteen, then come back for another little visit? Are those her things you’ve brought?” She nodded towards the carrier bag beside Jack’s chair.

Joan helped him set up the small CD player beside the bed, and as he left he heard the opening bars of the da Palestrina Agnus Dei he had chosen—one of Winnie’s favorite pieces.

In the canteen, he ate his sandwich mechanically. He couldn’t get Andrew Catesby’s words out of his mind. Why would Andrew think that someone Winnie had met through Jack would want to hurt her? And how could he possibly say that Winnie would be better off dead than with him? Were Andrew’s feelings for his sister even more twisted than he had suspected?

A horrifying thought struck him. Had it been not his voice that had triggered Winnie’s brief response a few moments ago, but his mention of Andrew’s name?

Jack … Jack’s voice … deep, smooth, a river of sound.… Telling her—No, she had lost it. She tried to speak, to tell him she heard, but she seemed to be at the bottom of a well.… Couldn’t reach the surface. Her heavy limbs wouldn’t respond. Or did they belong to someone else? There was a light.… Somehow she knew that. Was she dead?

But there was pain. Hers, she was sure, although it was distant, quite separate from her. Not dead, then.

But where? And how had she got here?

Andrew—it had to do with Andrew. Something bad about Andrew. Something she must do …

Weary … too weary … Jack’s voice faded to nothingness, and she drifted away once again, untethered … except that she heard, as if from a great distance, the sound of singing.

By the time he left the lights of Taunton behind, Jack knew he was too exhausted to drive safely. He should have taken a hotel room near the hospital, stayed the night, but he couldn’t summon the energy to turn round.

All his senses seemed heightened, raw, and the headlamps of the oncoming cars seemed unnaturally bright. He found himself squinting—once even closing his eyes, which terrified him so much he spent the remainder of the journey wide-eyed, gripping the wheel.

As he turned into his drive, his lights caught a flash of something white within the shelter of the porch. It took a moment to register that it had been a human face. He got out of the car with some apprehension, calling out “Hello?”

He heard a thread of sound in reply, perhaps a whimper. His alarm increasing, he went forward. He had to kneel to be sure of the identity of the huddled shape against his door.

“Faith?”

“I didn’t tell,” she whispered urgently through chattering teeth. “But she left—left me … shouldn’t have.… I wouldn’t have told.”

Jack touched her cheek. The girl was burning with fever.

“Who left?”

“She never goes out, not that time of night, not in the van.… I didn’t tell, did I?” She peered beseechingly up at him.

He lifted her to her feet and held her, shivering, against his chest. “Of course you didn’t. We’ve got to get you inside, ring for the doctor—”

Faith tugged away. “You’ve got to find her, before it’s too late—”

“Find who, Faith?”

“Garnet. They’ve taken her away.”

“Who has?”

Making an obvious effort, she looked round, as if afraid someone might overhear. Then she rested her cheek against his chest and whispered, “The Old Ones. But it was me they wanted.”

CHAPTER TEN

… to the great Spirit and Fountain of life, all things, in both space and time, must be present … action, once begun, never ceases … thus the past is always present, although, for the purpose of fitting us for this mortal life, our ordinary senses are so constituted as to be unperceptive of these phenomena.

—CATHERINE CROWE,

FROM THE NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE

THE MILES FELL away under a leaden sky. Traffic had been fairly light on the M4 since they’d left Reading, allowing Gemma to relax enough to enjoy driving. Beside her, Kincaid dozed, head tilted back against the headrest. They had departed London before seven, hoping to avoid the worst of the morning rush hour.

He’d rung her the previous afternoon with the invitation to spend a long weekend in Glastonbury. Her first response had been an adamant no, she had too much pending at work. Kincaid had patiently reminded her that she had the authority to delegate, and that she hadn’t taken a full weekend off since she’d started the new job.

Bristling, she’d pled a meeting and hung up. But afterwards, sitting at her desk in the brief after-lunch lull, she wondered if Kincaid were right. When she’d first been promoted, he’d warned her that the biggest danger in command was thinking oneself indispensable—had she unsuspectingly fallen victim to that delusion? Her team was competent, and although they were working a number of ongoing cases—a string of petty burglaries in the Portobello Road; a serial rapist who posed as a Good Samaritan—there was nothing they couldn’t manage on their own for a few days.

And staring into the cold cup of coffee that had made up her lunch, she had to admit she was exhausted. She wasn’t eating right, nor sleeping well. Maybe a weekend away would give her a chance to recoup.

She’d rung Kincaid back and accepted. Before he could respond, she’d added, “I’ll drive. You’re daft if you think I’m riding all the way to Somerset in your rattletrap of a car.”

Now, as she glanced at his relaxed form beside her, she realized that perhaps there had been more than duty involved in her overwork the past few weeks—she’d been avoiding spending time with Duncan as well.

What a coward she was! To confirm what she suspected she had only to go in the nearest chemist and buy a test. But then she would have to deal with her choices—and with Kincaid’s reaction, should she decide to go through with the pregnancy.

Would he be pleased? Horrified? Although they had smoothed over the rift caused by her leaving Scotland Yard, she knew the hurt was still there, beneath the surface, and it had left their relationship on shaky ground. Not to mention the fact that he had just begun to adjust to the acquisition of a twelve-year-old son. How would he cope finding himself abruptly saddled with her, Toby, and another child on the way? Not that she couldn’t manage on her own, she’d proved that, but just now the thought of it seemed overwhelming.

Oh, Lord, how could she have been so careless, with so much at stake on the job? She was at a point in her career when a maternity leave was the last thing she needed. And how would her new superiors respond to a pregnant and unmarried detective inspector?

Blinking back tears, she concentrated on overtaking a lorry, then slid the Escort back into the center lane. She’d done too much of that lately: crying at the drop of a hat. A bad sign. Out-of-control hormones mixed with a healthy dose of self-pity. She snorted at the irony of the whole situation, and beside her Kincaid blinked and stretched.

“Sorry. Was I snoring?”

“Actually, you were sleeping quite gracefully. I could use a map check, though. I think our exit’s coming up soon.”

He retrieved the large-scale AA map book from the rear seat and glanced at the open page. “Exit seventeen, towards Chippenham, Bridgwater, and Taunton.”

“We passed sixteen a few miles back.” Rain spattered against the windscreen and Gemma turned the wipers on. “It’s getting darker by the minute.”

“Not a bad omen for the weekend, I hope,” Kincaid said, grinning. “Want me to drive the last leg?”

“I’m fine.”

“You just don’t want to give up possession.” Kincaid patted the car’s dash. “Now aren’t you glad I gave you an excuse to take it out on the motorway?”

“I’m looking forward to meeting your cousin,” she quipped back. “So he can fill me in on all your embarrassing childhood exploits. Seriously, though,” she continued, glancing at him, “it sounds as if he’s a bit paranoid, thinking someone may have run his girlfriend down deliberately. I hope you’re not getting into something awkward.”

“Jack’s the last person I’d have described as nervy. But I haven’t seen him since Emily’s death. He may have changed.”

His wife and baby, Kincaid had said. Gemma shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking of. “How long since they died?” she asked.

“A couple of years now. It was just about the time we started working together.”

How green she had been, thought Gemma. And how little she’d anticipated what had developed between them.

“Will we stay with him?” she asked.

“He didn’t say. As I remember it, the house is a great Victorian pile of brick, built right against the side of the Tor.”

“The Tor?”

“You’ll see,” he answered cryptically. “When I was a kid I found it fascinating and a bit frightening, but Jack seemed oblivious. Home ground, I suppose.”

Intrigued by this unfamiliar aspect of his childhood, Gemma said, “Did you visit them often?”

“Only a few times. Usually they came to us. I don’t think my aunt Olivia ever gave up being homesick for Cheshire.”

“Your mother inherited the family home, then?”

He laughed. “You make it sound like some sort of grand country estate. It’s just a rambling old farmhouse, a bit leaky round the edges. I’ll take you for a visit sometime. And Kit.”

“I’d like that,” Gemma said carefully, unwilling to pursue it further. Instead, she asked, “How did Kit mind our going away for the weekend?”

“He already had plans with the Millers. A dog show in Bedford.”

“Any word from Ian about the Canadian job?”

“No. He’s still hedging. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe he wants the job but feels guilty about taking it.”

“He’s got to make his mind up before the beginning of spring term.” Kincaid’s exasperation was evident. “I don’t want the transition to be any more difficult than necessary for Kit.”

“Aren’t you making rather a big leap, assuming Ian won’t insist on taking Kit to Canada with him? He does have the right.”

“Yes, but I can’t see him doing it. It would cramp his style too much. Right now he’s getting mileage with the ladies by playing the grieving widower with child, but in a new setting Kit might prove more hindrance than help.”

“Oh, that’s cold.”

“But true.”

Gemma had to agree, having heard enough snippets from Kit about Ian’s “tutorials” behind closed doors in what had been Vic’s office.

They fell silent as they reached their exit from the motorway, and soon they were heading due south, with the plains of Wiltshire on their left and the rising hills of Somerset on their right. At Trowbridge they picked up the A361 towards Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury, and the sky began to lighten in the west.

“It may clear up,” Kincaid said hopefully, and by the time they’d passed through the hillside village of Pilton, a few miles east of Glastonbury, his prediction proved correct. The heavy overcast had broken up, leaving the sky a milky blue streaked with wisps of cloud.

Concentrating on the road, Gemma caught a fleeting glimpse of a strange, cone-shaped hill before it disappeared round another bend. “What on earth was that?”

“Glastonbury Tor.”

The hill came into view again, this time staying on the horizon. It looked artificial, a man-made mound with the squat shape of a building perched on the summit like a Christmas cracker paper crown. “Did somebody make it?” Gemma asked.

“No. The hill itself is a geologic formation. The contouring of the sides could possibly be man-made, but if so, it’s so old that no one knows who did it, or why.”

“And the building on the top?”

“St. Michael’s Tower. All that’s left of a twelfth-century church, destroyed by an earthquake. The remains of the last Christian stance against the pagan, legend has it.”

“You don’t believe that?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been up there. The wind blows through the tower like a knife, and that stone is colder than death. I doubt anything Christian ever stood a chance on that hill.”

“Are you sure you won’t go in and sit with her for a few minutes?” Suzanne Sanborne asked. “I think it would help you—”

“No!” At the startled glances of the other visitors, Andrew lowered his voice to a snarl. “You don’t understand. Our parents—” He stopped, unable, even after so many years, to relate the horror of being made to stand at his unconscious mother’s bedside. She’d been in the water too long before they’d fished her body from the wreck of their sailboat off the Dorset coast. And now Winnie.…

“Then you’ve got to get some rest. You’re not doing Winnie any good by getting yourself in such a state.”

“I can’t sleep.” Andrew clasped his hands between his knees to stop their obvious trembling. They sat in the visitors’ area outside the ICU, waiting for the nurses to allow Suzanne another ten-minute stint by Winnie’s bedside.

“Then go by the surgery and have David prescribe you some tablets. I’ll stay here with Winnie until Jack comes. There’s no need for you to—”

“What right does he have to be here?” The rage that had been eating at him for months burned in his throat like acid. “Arranging your schedule, ordering the nursing staff about—”

“Jack’s here because Winnie would want him to be.” Again the light touch of Suzanne’s fingers on his arm, and the direct gaze he couldn’t meet. “Andrew, we’ve been friends for a long time. Jack’s a good man: he cares for your sister very deeply. What more could you want for her?”

“Someone who wasn’t a crank,” he replied bitterly. He had read the papers she left lying about the Vicarage, as if communications from a dead monk were nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, he knew all about their little Arthurian group, and it sickened him.

But that wasn’t the whole truth. He had never wanted to share his life with any woman other than his sister, and Jack Montfort had stolen that from him. The rhythm and pattern of their days together had provided him an anchor, a touchstone, and her absence had left him adrift.

And as if that weren’t enough, he thought as he took his leave of Suzanne, he knew now that Montfort had brought Winnie too close to things she had never been meant to know … things that must be kept from her, no matter the consequences.

After a morning spent at home, lingering over coffee and newspapers, Bram Allen could no longer put off going into the gallery, but he disliked leaving Fiona on her own.

If he’d been at home yesterday afternoon, he might have prevented Jack Montfort from stirring up the horror of Winnie Catesby’s accident all over again. Why did it have to be Fiona, of all people, who’d found Winnie lying in the road? And why had Winnie been coming to see Fiona—if indeed that were the case—without warning or invitation?

Frowning, he buttoned his crisply pressed shirt, chose a tie, and went to find his wife.

She was in her studio, sitting on her stool, but to his relief her easel was empty and her hands idle in her lap.

“All right, darling?” he asked, slipping his arms round her. He had thought, once, that he had the makings of an artist. Then he’d met Fiona, seen canvases come to glowing life beneath her brush, and he’d known that gift would never be his. So he’d nurtured her work as best he could, shielding her from life’s vicissitudes and taking vicarious pride in her achievements—until she’d begun to paint the one thing he couldn’t bear to see.

Fiona sank back against his chest. “It’s just … there’s this tension in things. I thought when I started painting it would dissipate; then when I found Winnie I felt sure it had been in anticipation of that. Precognition of a sort, perhaps. But the feeling’s still there.”

“Maybe it’s just stress, system overload. Try not to fret, darling.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” murmured Fiona, but he was not at all convinced she meant it.

Bram held her more tightly. “I love you, Fi. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. How could you think otherwise?” She patted his hand. “Go on. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

With that he had to be content.

Jack carefully cracked open the door to the spare bedroom and peered in. Faith lay on her side, her hands curled into fists under her chin. The innocence of her face, relaxed in sleep, tugged at his heart. She could be his child, he thought, his little Olivia, if she had lived to grow up.

Turning away, he closed the door quietly and returned to the kitchen. Not knowing who else to call, he had got David Sanborne out of bed the previous night to check on Faith. Exhaustion, stress, a chill from exposure, David had pronounced—nothing that a hot water bottle and plenty of rest wouldn’t cure, but the girl had better stop such silliness if she didn’t want to induce labor prematurely.

But once Jack had got a fairly coherent story from her, Faith had continued to fret about Garnet until he’d agreed to ring the police. The duty officer in Yeovil informed him that they couldn’t report Garnet Todd missing until at least twenty-four hours had passed. Jack had left a message for Detective Greely, and only then had Faith fallen into a fitful sleep.

After a few hours’ sleep himself, Jack had spent the morning fielding phone calls and checking with the hospital. Winnie’s condition remained stable, and Suzanne Sanborne had offered to spend the morning with her.

In the meantime, he waited for his cousin’s promised arrival. Duncan had rung the previous evening to say he would be coming for the weekend. Although relieved, Jack had begun to worry. How was he going to explain the events of the last few months? Would Duncan think him as mad as the police obviously did? It didn’t matter, he told himself. He must convince Duncan that Winnie was in danger; and now he’d begun to fear for Faith too.

How much of the girl’s rambling last night had been delirium? Nick had rung this morning, saying he believed Garnet had struck Winnie with her van—but why would Garnet Todd do such a thing? And if it were true, where was Garnet now?

Filling the kettle from the tap, Jack spooned loose tea into his mother’s old Brown Betty teapot. Hadn’t he read once that tea stimulated one’s mental processes? If that were the case, he should be competing with Sherlock Holmes after another cup, but he was no further along in finding answers.

He’d just poured boiling water over the fresh tea leaves when the doorbell rang. Jack hurried to the door and swung it wide.

As he grasped his cousin’s hand, he saw that Duncan had lost the hollow-eyed look he’d remarked on when he’d seen him last. But who was the pretty redhead with him?

She held out her hand and gave him a warm smile. “Jack, I’m Gemma James. I take it Duncan didn’t tell you I was coming?” The look she cast at his cousin was affectionately withering. “Your manners, love, leave something to be desired.”

They had got the awkwardness of their accommodation out of the way first. Jack had apologized profusely, explaining that he’d just put someone in the room fitted out for guests, but he’d move his things into his old room and give them the master bedroom. Encouraged by Gemma’s well-placed kick at his ankle under the kitchen table, Kincaid had demurred, saying they’d find a nearby B & B, and Jack had recommended an establishment near the Abbey.

Gemma had breathed an inward sigh of relief. She found the dark old house with its ugly Victorian furniture depressing, and the mass of Glastonbury Tor rising from the back garden made her feel unexpectedly claustrophobic. It was as if the hill might lean over and swallow the house at any moment.

Over cups of tea, Jack had haltingly recounted his experiences with the automatic writing, his meeting with Winnie Catesby, the gradual involvement of the others in the group, and the disappearance yesterday of Garnet Todd.

If Kincaid felt any surprise at his cousin’s story, he didn’t show it. His expression remained neutral and sympathetic, a demonstration of his listening skills, and Gemma realized how acutely she missed working with him.

“Can you do it on demand?” Kincaid asked when Jack paused. “The automatic writing.”

“I—I don’t know. I’ve done it often enough with Nick or with Simon Fitzstephen, but—”

Kincaid leaned forward, his eyes alight with interest. “What do you have to do?”

“Just have pen and paper, and empty my mind. Talk about something inconsequential, or listen to someone reading the paper, for instance. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Let’s give it a try, then. I’ll be your assistant.” The look Kincaid gave his cousin was challenging. What sort of mischief had he beguiled Jack into in those long Cheshire summers? Gemma wondered.

She watched them as they sat opposite her at the table in Jack’s cluttered kitchen, Kincaid reading an incomprehensible financial article aloud from the Guardian while Jack sat in a relaxed posture, pen and paper ready. Jack Montfort was larger, fairer, and more blunt featured than his cousin, but the resemblance was there if you looked. What was more readily apparent was the easiness between them, the sense of long-established trust and camaraderie. And the man certainly seemed rational and well balanced, in spite of his worries. Could this bizarre tale he’d told them possibly be true?

Lulled by Kincaid’s voice and her own drifting thoughts, Gemma started violently when Jack’s pen suddenly began to move across the paper. He wrote without pause, and without looking at the script. His eyes, half closed, seemed fixed somewhere in the distance.

He filled several pages, then set the pen down. “Success, I see,” he said, looking at the scattered pages.

“You mean you don’t know what you’ve written?” asked Gemma.

“I suppose I’m aware of it at some level, but I don’t process it—it’s like static on a radio.”

Kincaid touched a page. “What does it say?”

“I’ll have to translate, so if you’ll bear with me …

“O Lord, forgive me, for I have sinned grievously against Thee. Though my days of the flesh are but a distant memory, still I feel her skin, soft as goose down, and the round fullness of her breasts.…”

Frowning, Jack stopped and cleared his throat, and Gemma found it endearing that he had colored slightly.

“Sixteen and yet a woman, Alys she was called, the daughter of the stonemason come to repair the damage to the church. She found me comely and would wait for me when I went to the spring. There was little speech between us … we came together in need and pleasure as the beasts do.

“The work was finished when Alys found she was with child. She begged me for herbs.… To my shame I did her bidding … for my cowardice as well as my lust I have brought misery on us all.…

“From Brother Ambrose, who had befriended me, I stole the necessary potion. With it I gave her what was most precious to me … a bond between us stronger than death. Alys and her father left the Abbey then. Such sorrow I had never known, it tethers me to this place still.…”

Jack looked up, his eyes wide with surprise. “This woman—Alys—she meant to abort their baby. Don’t you think that’s what he means?”

Gemma, intensely moved by this recounting of the girl’s predicament, said, “I—I suppose it’s possible. They were very skilled in using herbs, and her position would have been untenable, wouldn’t it? Edmund couldn’t have married her.”

“I suspect it would have been thought she’d sinned against the Church, as well, in seducing Edmund, rather than the other way round,” Kincaid offered.

“But what if Alys changed her mind? Or the herbs didn’t work?” demanded Jack. “We’ve searched for months for a blood connection—perhaps a niece or nephew—as we suspected there might be a genetic component to the link.”

“An illegitimate child?” Kincaid mused. “In that case there wouldn’t have been any record.”

“I must tell Simon. This gives us a new angle”—Jack grimaced—“although I don’t know that trying to trace an eleventh-century itinerant stonemason’s daughter will get us much further forward.” Glancing at his watch, he added, “And in the meantime I’ve got to get to hospital. When I rang Nick this morning, he said he’d come midday and look after Faith. I didn’t like to leave her on her own, with Garnet still—”

“You’ve not found her, have you?”

Startled, they all turned towards the doorway. How long had the girl been there, listening? Gemma wondered. Her short hair stood on end, as if she had just slipped out of bed; her cheek still bore creases from the pillow. As she entered the room, Gemma saw that her slender body was made awkward by the weight of the child she carried.

Jack was the first to collect himself. “No, I’m afraid we haven’t. Faith, this is my cousin Duncan and his friend Gemma. They’ve come to help.”

“I don’t think anyone can,” Faith said softly, and her dark eyes held the glint of tears.

“Sit down,” soothed Jack, rising and arranging a chair for her, “and let’s get you a cup of tea. I’m sure Garnet’s fine—”

The doorbell rang. “That must be Nick, now,” Jack said hastily, and disappeared towards the front of the house.

But there was an unmistakable tone of the official in the low-voiced response to Jack’s greeting, although Gemma couldn’t quite make out the words. Kincaid had caught it as well—he was up and moving swiftly out of the room. With a quick look at Faith, who had sunk into the chair Jack provided, Gemma followed Duncan.

As she reached the door, Kincaid was showing his warrant card to a burly, tweed-jacketed man with thinning red hair. “Duncan Kincaid, Scotland Yard,” he said, shaking the man’s hand. Turning to Gemma, he added, “Inspector James.”

She saw Jack’s surprise as she in turn shook the man’s hand—earlier, she hadn’t introduced herself by rank.

“Alfred Greely, Somerset CID.” Greely’s voice was thick with a West Country burr, and his look was unabashedly appraising. “Is there somewhere we could have a chat?”

“We’ll go into the kitchen,” Jack replied. “Is this about Winnie—Miss Catesby?”

“I’m afraid not. Mr. Montfort, I understand you rang up last night and reported a Miss Garnet Todd missing.”

Once inside, Jack nodded towards Faith. “This young lady is staying with Miss Todd. She came to me last night when Garnet didn’t come home.”

When Greely switched his gaze to Faith, she seemed to wilt further into her chair. “I’m afraid we’ve found Miss Todd,” he said. “A gentleman taking his morning constitutional round the Tor thought a farmer’s gate an odd place to abandon a van and investigated.”

“Garnet’s?” Faith’s pallor was ghastly.

“I’m afraid so, miss. And her inside it.”

“Dead?”

“Yes. I am sorry.”

Faith’s eyes were enormous in her pale face. “She killed herself, then,” she said with what Gemma could have sworn was relief.

“Oh, no,” Greely replied, watching her intently. “I very much suspect Miss Todd was murdered.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

So it is, we are told, with the Company of Avalon, a group of souls who are impregnated with the devotional ideal which was translated into architectural symbol by the Benedictine brethren of old time.

—FREDERICK BLIGH BOND,

FROM THE COMPANY OF AVALON

KINCAID STOOD IN the thick, nettle-filled grass at the edge of Basketfield Lane, watching two crime-scene technicians dust the outside of Garnet Todd’s van for fingerprints.

When he’d asked DCI Greely if he could have a look at the scene, Greely had given him a sharp glance, saying, “You don’t get enough murders in London? Funny way to spend a holiday, if you ask me.” But he had not objected, and Kincaid had followed him in Gemma’s car, down the end of Ashwell Lane and up to the right. They were only a few hundred yards from Jack’s house, but the narrow, hedge-enclosed lane seemed a different world.

Through the low-lying trees Kincaid could just make out the steep eastern side of the Tor, and the snaking queue of climbers making their way up its zigzag path. As still as it seemed in the lane, he could see the wind whipping at the climbers’ clothes. It would be cold at the summit.

A few yards away, Greely slipped his mobile phone back into his jacket pocket, then came to join Kincaid. “The doc’s on his way now,” he said, adding, “Old Doc Lamb has a busy practice, so sometimes we have to wait a bit. But he’s the best there is—been at it since before I joined the force.”

The coroner’s van had already arrived. The driver had pulled it tightly into the nearest passing spot, and he and the attendant sat inside, eating sandwiches and sharing a newspaper.

“Funny your cousin’s young friend should assume the woman killed herself.” Greely chose a dry stem of grass, and breaking it off, chewed it meditatively.

Watching him, Kincaid wondered if city boys ever learned to chew grass in quite the same way. “You from around here?” he asked.

“Born in Dorset, just across the border. But I’ve lived within twenty miles of the Tor, near enough, since I was a lad.”

“Tell me what you’ve got so far, if you don’t mind.” Kincaid nodded at the van. “Why are you so sure she didn’t commit suicide?”

“Van was locked, no keys. Of course, she could have locked herself in, rolled down the window, and tossed them, but in that case she had a throwing arm like a cricket bowler. We’ve had a good look about and there’s no sign of keys. Doesn’t make sense anyway,” he mused, moving the grass stem to the other side of his mouth. “I can see locking herself in, but what good would it do to toss the keys?”

“And the cause of death?”

“Don’t know for certain yet. Nothing obvious. No slit wrists; no sign of the usual pill-induced vomiting; no exhaust hose run through the window. And she was in the back—looks as if she was dumped there. No attempt to make herself comfortable for her last few minutes on earth.”

“Mind if I have a look?” Kincaid asked, his curiosity growing.

Abandoning the grass stem, Greely gave a phlegmatic nod. “Suit yourself.”

Kincaid made his way to the van, careful to use the same path as the crime-scene technicians. The rear doors stood open. Flies buzzed in the van’s interior, and the familiar odor of death wafted out to meet him. The woman’s body lay wedged in a clear space to one side, and some smudged sections in the dust made him think she had been pushed into place among the odds and ends of tile and equipment on dusty rubber flooring. Her feet, clad in old-fashioned black boots, were towards him. She wore a wool cape that had fallen back to reveal a bright, multicolored skirt. Her thick dark hair had come loose from its plait; it covered her face like a curtain.

Kincaid borrowed a pair of gloves from one of the techs and inched inside the van for a better look at the body. Lividity was fairly pronounced, indicating she’d been dead some hours, and when he lifted her eyelid he saw the red spots in the eye indicative of asphyxiation. There was no noticeable bruising on throat or neck, however.

With a fingertip, he moved the thick hair away from her face. She had worn long, dangly earrings; the left one was missing.

Garnet Todd’s eccentricities had gone deeper than costume, according to the brief account Jack had given him, Kincaid mused as he crawled out into the welcome fresh air. But what cause had the woman given someone to murder her? If it had been she who struck Winnie Catesby, as the girl, Faith, suspected, her death made even less sense.

Greely had not managed to get much more out of Faith after his announcement that he believed Garnet Todd had been murdered. She had begun to cry—not a storm of sobs, which might have offered some possibility of consolation, but slow, despairing tears that ran down her face unchecked. Jack had protested then, and Gemma had shepherded the girl back upstairs to her room.

Gemma had offered to stay with her so that Jack could go on to the hospital, and he had accepted gratefully. Knowing Gemma’s aversion to being designated as handholder, Kincaid had given her a questioning glance, but she’d reassured him with a nod. Method? Or sympathy? he wondered—or perhaps a bit of both.

There came the sound of an automobile climbing the gradient, then the crunch of tires on gravel as an ancient Morris Minor appeared round the bend and rolled to a stop. A balding, bespectacled man climbed out, medical bag in hand. It seemed the police surgeon had arrived.

“I see you’ve made it a point to interrupt my lunch, Alf,” he said to Greely by way of greeting, but his jovial tone matched his pink, cherubic face.

“A lack I’m sure you’ll make up, Doc.” Greely gave a pointed glance at the doctor’s paunch, visible evidence of a weakness for good living.

“Too true. I shall have to take up slimming one of these days, if I can just convince Carole to give up cooking. What have we got here, Alf?”

“Woman found this morning locked in her van, keys missing. We were hoping you could tell us a bit more. This is Superintendent Kincaid, visiting from London.” Greely’s ironic emphasis on the verb was unmistakable.

Meeting the doctor’s eyes as they shook hands, Kincaid saw that, despite the jolly-elf exterior, it wouldn’t do to underestimate the man.

“All right, let’s have a look.” Lamb took off his jacket, handing it to Greely, then pulled a pair of gloves from his trouser pocket and slipped them on.

Greely stepped away and Kincaid followed suit as the doctor climbed into the van. “Sharp old bugger,” Greely said. “But he gets tetchy if you get in his way. Not that I’ve ever much enjoyed watching the poking and prodding part.”

They waited in silence while the doctor made his examination. Kincaid gradually became aware of the bustle of activity taking place in the hedgerow as the birds searched for tasty berries and insects, and of the inappropriate rumbling of his own stomach. He had forgotten all about lunch.

“One odd thing,” Greely offered meditatively, providing Kincaid a welcome distraction from his hunger. “The walker who discovered the body this morning was a bloke called Bram Allen—the husband of the lady who discovered Winifred Catesby in the lane.”

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “Coincidence?”

“He said he walks round the Tor every day—could be his wife’s experience made him nervy—that, and the flies buzzing round the van.”

“Did he know the victim?”

“According to Mr. Allen, everyone in Glastonbury knew Garnet Todd. Seems the woman was a genuine eccentric.”

Dr. Lamb reappeared, rear end first as he backed out of the van. He removed his gloves, brushed off his knees, and rolled down his shirtsleeves before accepting his jacket from Greely.

“All right, Doc, you’ve kept us in suspense long enough,” Greely said, and Kincaid suspected the pair had a well-developed routine.

“Well.” Lamb brushed a twig from his lapel. “I’d say she’s been dead at least twelve hours, maybe a good bit longer with last night’s drop in temperature. Lividity is well established, but there’s some slight staining in other areas that indicates she may have been moved after death. There’s no sign of sexual interference that I can see.”

Grudgingly, as if he knew it was expected of him, Greely asked, “Cause of death?”

“Well, now, that’s the most interesting thing. There are indications of asphyxiation, but no ligature marks or bruising on the throat or neck area. I have my suspicions, but I’m not going to say any more. You’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”

Greely groaned. “I can’t see that we’re much further along. Can we move the body, then?”

“Mmm.” The doctor nodded. “Ask the pathologist to give me a ring when he’s finished, would you? Satisfy my curiosity.” He turned to Kincaid. “Staying long, Superintendent? You might find this one interesting.”

“Just the weekend,” Kincaid answered. He shook the doctor’s hand and watched as he climbed back into his decrepit Morris and chugged down the hill.

Greely signaled to the mortuary attendants. They transferred the corpse onto a white sheet to preserve any trace evidence, then moved it from one van to the other. The doors clanged shut with metallic finality and the van pulled away. The crime-scene technicians were still busy at Garnet Todd’s vehicle, while two uniformed constables painstakingly searched the surrounding area.

Casually, Kincaid asked, “Any leads?”

“Absolutely sod all—except for the young lady your cousin, Mr. Montfort, seems to have taken in. We’ll have to interview her, you know, and the sooner, the better.”

“Did you find any evidence that Garnet Todd’s van was involved in Miss Catesby’s accident?”

“A few smudges on the front fender. Could have been caused by a close encounter with a hedge. There was not much vehicular damage to Miss Catesby’s bicycle, mostly scrapes and dings from the pavement. And there was no bleeding from Miss Catesby’s injuries—”

“So no hope of blood on the vehicle,” Kincaid said grimly. “What about fibers?”

“We’re checking now. But”—Greely shrugged—“it’s a snowball’s chance in hell, if you ask me, and we’ve nothing to link the two incidents other than the girl’s story.”

As he wondered if Gemma had managed to coax anything more from Faith, Kincaid realized how easily they, too, had fallen into their old routine.

As anxious as he was about Winnie, Jack felt he must take the time to let Simon Fitzstephen know about Garnet’s death—and not by telephone. Simon and Garnet had been friends too long for an impersonal notice.

At least he could feel sure that he’d left Faith in good hands. Duncan’s Gemma had a quiet authority that inspired confidence, and she had succeeded in calming Faith where he had failed.

So they were colleagues as well as lovers, he thought, wondering how long they’d been together, and if Duncan had finally managed to lay his troubled marriage to rest. Jack had been sorry to hear of Vic’s death the previous spring, but had done nothing more than send Duncan a brief note—such things still struck too close to home.

And now he found himself the apparent custodian of a pregnant young woman who might deliver her child at any moment. The prospect terrified him.

He found Simon on his knees in front of his perennial border, snipping the dead stalks from bloomed-out plants. “Dreary time of year, isn’t it?” Simon rose, wincing, and as he came across the lawn Jack saw that he was limping. “And digging in the dirt may be good for the soul, but it plays hell with my bad knee.”

“Old injury?” Jack asked.

“Climbing accident. Slipped in the scree years ago and tore a few ligaments. Just let me wash up and I’ll put the kettle on.”

“No, siorkginfarmhouse. Anlwonwmdone iffoumissielestood outsolistatiYeovilnwoutbikwouta.Warrishopn, Inctaoliwomabewn unmarcaLgaOhabitoligri, asmmataNooryabout. Ra>

He could tell Greely some of the things he’d begun to suspect about Garnet, but it would only make his motive look stronger.

But there must have been others who had felt as he did about Garnet—there must have been someone who had wanted her dead. And if he could find out who, he might have a hope of saving himself.

Kincaid and Gemma pulled into Jack’s drive just as he was getting out of his Volvo. They found Faith waiting for them in the kitchen, hands on her hips, furious spots of color on her cheeks.

“Something smells good.” Jack wrinkled his nose in appreciation. “We haven’t had a proper meal in—”

Turning on Kincaid, Faith spat, “How could you? You told Nick he should talk to the police, that it would be all right! So he did, and now they think he’s a murderer.”

“Faith, I told him it was the best course, and I still think that’s true. They’ve got Nick’s prints in the house and his bike tracks in the yard. He’d only make things worse for himself by lying.”

“But you’re a policeman. Can’t you tell Greely it’s not true, that Nick wouldn’t—”

“I don’t have any jurisdiction here. I can offer the Inspector my opinion, but I can’t tell him how to run his case.” Kincaid held up his hand before she could interrupt again. “I will tell you that I don’t think he’s got any solid evidence, so right now all he can do is try to get a response from Nick.”

“He thinks I helped. Did you know that?”

“Faith—”

“He said I needed legal advice.”

“Greely came here?”

Faith nodded.

“He interviewed you with no one else present?”

“There was a policewoman with him.”

Kincaid hesitated. It was a sticky situation, as Faith was legally an adult, but Greely could have found a better way to handle it. “If he comes again, tell him that you will only talk to him if Jack, or one of us, is present. If he won’t agree to that, tell him you insist on legal representation. That means he can’t talk to you without your lawyer present. Got that?”

“But I don’t have a lawyer!”

Kincaid turned to Jack. “Is there someone you can call?”

“An old school friend. She’s one of the best solicitors in the county.”

“Why don’t you do that, just alert her to the situation.”

As Jack went to make his phone call, Gemma guided Faith to the pot simmering on the cooker, and in a moment had the girl detailing the ingredients.

Crisis defused temporarily, Kincaid thought with relief, but what sort of idiotic thing had he just done? He had known even as he offered his support that he was placing himself in a precariously biased position. But something about this girl seemed to bring everyone’s protective instincts to the fore. Except DCI Greely’s, it seemed.

The doorbell rang. The murmur of Jack’s voice came from the next room, so Kincaid went to the door, girding himself to do discreet battle with DCI Greely.

But it was a man he hadn’t seen before, of middle age, dressed in cardigan and tweeds, with a rather unkempt mane of gray hair.

“Jack? Oh, sorry. Is Jack in?”

“I’m his cousin, Duncan Kincaid. Jack’s on the phone just now, but if you’ll come in, he’ll be free in a moment.”

“Simon Fitzstephen.”

Kincaid shook his hand with genuine pleasure. “Jack speaks very highly of you,” he said as he took Fitzstephen into the kitchen.

Faith looked up from her cooking and smiled. “Simon! I’ve made some soup, if you can stay for a meal.”

“Yes, I’d like that,” Fitzstephen said, pecking her cheek, then he greeted Gemma as Kincaid introduced her. “I’ve got some news for you all, when Jack’s free. Is Nick coming?”

“He hasn’t rung.” There was a quaver in Faith’s voice.

“The police have been questioning Nick,” Kincaid told Fitzstephen.

Fitzstephen glanced at Faith. “About Garnet?”

“I’m afraid so,” Kincaid replied. “But they released him this afternoon. Not enough evidence to bring a charge.”

“Simon! I thought I heard your voice. Good to see you.” Jack searched his friend’s face. “Are you all right?”

“A bit of company wouldn’t come amiss.” Fitzstephen’s smile seemed strained. “Faith’s asked me to stay for a meal. But that’s not the main reason I came. I’ve something to tell you. I wanted us all here, but I suppose we won’t wait for Nick, as we’ve no way to reach him. And Garnet—” He shook his head. “I’ve made some rather astounding progress in my research today. It seems that in 1082, Abbot Thurstan hired a mason called Hamlyn to do repairs to the Abbey church.” He had their complete attention. “Very iffy, yes? A mere possibility of a connection. But twenty years later, one Alys Montfort made a fine gift to the Abbey, with a stipulation that it be recorded using her maiden name as well, which was Hamlyn.”

“Edmund’s Alys?” breathed Jack.

“That would be my guess.”

“So there was a connection with my family—surely it was my family?”

“I think we can safely assume so,” agreed Simon. “Although I haven’t managed to trace all the links yet. And I think we can assume that Alys Montfort wanted someone at the Abbey to remember the girl she had been. What if we also assume that Edmund made a copy of his precious chant, and gave it to Alys for safekeeping?”

“You think the chant was passed down through my family,” Jack said softly.

“I think,” Simon answered gravely, “that the chant might be in this very house.”

Winnie awakened to find Fiona Allen sitting by her bedside, watching her intently.

“Fiona!”

“You can’t imagine how good it is to hear you speak. I couldn’t just take Jack’s word for it.”

“If it weren’t for you …”

“I only did what I was prompted to do. There’s no need for you to feel grateful to me.” Eyes twinkling, Fiona added, “Maybe your God had something to do with it.”

“How did you happen to find me?”

“I was painting. When I got to a stopping point, I went for a walk, and there you were in the road.” Fiona shrugged. “Simple enough, on the surface. But to tell the truth, it was a very odd night. I painted the Abbey, which I’ve never done in all the years I’ve been in Glastonbury. And when I went out, it was as if something were hanging in the balance.”

Winnie studied her friend. “Fiona—there was something else, wasn’t there?”

“I painted the child. Again. But it was different this time. She seemed protected, cradled by the Abbey itself. And,” Fiona went on, “I heard singing. You know what a visual person I am … I don’t hear things, I see them. But this—it’s so frustrating, because I’m not musical, and I can’t describe it. Even worse, I can’t hear it in my head. I just know it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced.”

“But Jack and I—we—”

“I know. Jack told me about your chant. What I don’t understand is how I fit into it—or why you were coming to see me that night.”

“I wish I could remember!”

“Winnie …” Fiona’s brow creased. “I’m sorry about Garnet. I know you were friends.”

“I can see how people might have thought her difficult. She was …”

“Strong in her opinions.”

“Yes. There was something elemental about her. But you and Bram knew her too. I’d forgotten.”

“Garnet was passionate about issues even in those days—but of course it was more fashionable then to be radical. I suppose we should give her credit for remaining true to her convictions, unlike most of us. Bram and I gave up our causes for middle-class comforts.”

“I saw her that afternoon. In the café, but I only know that because I’ve been told it. I feel as though I’ve been robbed.…”

“A last memory?”

Winnie could only nod.

“Let’s try something,” Fiona suggested briskly. “What’s the very last thing that’s clear in your mind before the accident?”

Winnie felt herself coloring.

“You can skip that part,” Fiona said, laughing. “Did Jack stay the night?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Did he usually?”

“No. Not at the Vicarage. I thought I had to maintain some sort of propriety. But now … I wouldn’t give a toss.”

“Well, we can ask him. He’ll remember. What about the next morning? Was it rainy or clear?”

“Clear,” Winnie said instantly, then stared at Fiona in surprise. “How did I—”

“What did you do when you got up?”

“Morning prayer. That’s easy.”

“Okay. Then what did you have for breakfast?”

“Toast and tea.”

“Then you got dressed. Why did you take your bike instead of your car?”

“Because I—because it was a beautiful day.”

“So you got on your bike and started off. It was still cool, and the morning sun felt good. Where did you go?”

“Glastonbury.” Winnie laughed. “This is amazing! I knew that without thinking.”

“From the Vicarage, you’d have come into the roundabout at the bottom of Wearyall Hill. Did you turn to the right, towards the Tor? Or did you continue on into town?”

“I went straight on, into Magdalene Street. The Abbey! I went to the Abbey. I—I—I can’t bloody remember! There’s just a blank after that.”

“Shhh. Don’t force it. We’ve made some progress.”

Winnie sank back into the pillow. “Why would I have gone to the Abbey?”

“Maybe we should back up again. What about the dinner party—”

“Andrew! You know how beastly Andrew was to Jack!” Winnie felt a cold weight in the pit of her stomach as the scene came flooding back. “He’s been behaving so oddly. He hasn’t even been to see me since I got out of intensive care. And when he came before, when I was unconscious, he wouldn’t come in. The nurses told me. He’s changed, Fi.”

“Has he? Or could it be that you’re just seeing things you’ve managed to ignore until now?”

“I—I don’t know. I suppose he’s always been a bit too attached to me, and easily hurt.… When our mum and dad died, we went to live with my father’s parents. But they were elderly—my father was a late only child—and they were so overwhelmed by their own grief they had no emotional room for us. I became mother and sister to Andrew. He was so lost.” How he had clung to her, begging for reassurance when he woke from the nightmares that plagued him for years—

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen. Andrew was eleven. After that, he was so terrified of losing anything he cared about—I suppose that’s what sparked his interest in the past. It couldn’t be taken from him.”

“You formed a very special bond,” Fiona mused. “And neither of you married.”

“I never thought—We were such good companions, I never felt the need. I didn’t know—I never expected Jack to come into my life. Oh, Fi! I’ve been so wrapped up in myself these past few months, with what I was feeling. And if I’ve given Andrew any real thought, it’s been in a he’ll-get-over-it way. But it goes much deeper than that, and I should have known it.”

“Winnie, you can’t blame yourself for Andrew’s shortcomings.”

“I thought I knew him, but I’m beginning to doubt even that. He went to Garnet’s house the day after she died. Why would he do such a thing?”

“She was well known for her archaeological work—”

“He said he wanted to commission tile work for his kitchen. Andrew!” Winnie shook her head. “It makes me wonder …”

“Wonder what?” Fiona prompted when her friend didn’t continue.

“I’ve noticed things the past few months, around the Vicarage. Papers moved about, things missing. What if—what if Andrew’s been … spying on me?” Reluctantly, Winnie met Fiona’s gaze. “Oh, Fi. What certainty is there in anything, if you can’t trust those you love best?”

The rain that threatened all day had not materialized, but as night came on the air developed a soft fuzziness, hovering on the verge of fog. By the time Gemma and Kincaid arrived back at the B & B, the streetlamps and car lights were haloed with moisture.

As Gemma got out of the car, she was possessed by a sudden restlessness. “Let’s not go in just yet. It’s such a beautiful night.”

“Shall we walk, then? See the sights of Glastonbury by starlight?” Kincaid suggested. “Unless you’d rather go down the pub for a pint.”

She laughed. “You’re such a romantic. A walk would be fine, and we’ll see what strikes us.”

They let themselves out the gate, and when they reached Magdalene Street, Gemma hooked her arm through his. “I keep trying to imagine what it must have been like, eight hundred years ago. It seems such a long time, and yet people’s emotions haven’t changed that much.”

“Alys and Edmund?”

“Yes. And we don’t even know if they were real.”

“You could get into all sorts of philosophical difficulties with that statement. There’s the subjective approach: ‘Are they real if we believe in them?’ But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are worse dangers lurking. ‘Do we have souls? Is there life after death?’ ”

“How can you be so flippant?” Gemma scolded, pinching his arm.

“A defense mechanism, love. Those are places I’m afraid to go, even with my proper Anglican upbringing.”

She glanced up at him, unsure if he was still teasing. He never talked much about such things, but when she’d asked him once, point-blank, what he believed, he’d said he couldn’t imagine a god that would let happen the things he saw every day on the job.

“What about this murder, then? Have you changed your mind about Nick since Greely seems so positive?”

Kincaid kept walking for a moment, then said, “I just can’t quite see Nick, or Nick and Faith, committing a deliberate murder. And in this case I think it would have been a bit hard to drown Garnet in a moment of fear or passion.” They had reached the Abbey car park. “Is that Nick’s bookshop?” he asked, pointing across the street. “Jack mentioned his office was upstairs on the corner.”

“It overlooks the Market Square, then. Let’s cross over. Earlier I saw a big used-book shop down the way.” Continuing the thread of their conversation, Gemma asked, “What about Andrew Catesby?”

Kincaid frowned. “No motive. What possible reason could he have for killing Todd, a woman he apparently scarcely knew—”

“Unless he somehow got the idea that she was responsible for his sister’s injuries. But he seemed genuinely shocked by the idea that someone might deliberately have hurt Winnie.”

“Maybe he’s a better actor than we think, and he’s the one who struck Winnie, out of some sort of warped jealousy. Then Garnet found out somehow, and he killed her to shut her up.”

“You’re reaching on that one,” said Gemma. Then she went on more thoughtfully, “When you were asking Winnie about Faith’s parents today, there is a possibility you neglected to mention. Has it occurred to you that the reason Faith won’t name the baby’s father is that—”

“She was abused by her own father? That would certainly explain why she refuses to go home.”

“And it might explain why she’s so set against seeing a doctor. Maybe she’s afraid the baby may have genetic complications.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to have a talk with her parents,” Kincaid agreed. “I’ll run it by Greely, make sure he doesn’t object, and get their name and address. You can be sure he’ll have got that out of Faith today.”

“If Faith was so secretive about her family, how did Nick get her address? Remember, he said he’d even gone looking for her at her parents’ house in Street.” Then, in disappointment, Gemma added, “Oh, the bookshop’s closed.”

“A good thing. You have no room for more books in your flat. You’re right about Nick, though—makes me wonder what else he hasn’t told us.” He stopped and gave an exaggerated sniff. “Is that fish and chips I smell?”

“Don’t tell me you’re hungry again?”

“It was only soup, and that was hours ago.”

“Two, maybe three,” Gemma corrected, smiling. Faith had done her best with Jack’s meager resources, but her pot of soup had not made a particularly generous meal for five people.

They had left Jack contemplating the ramifications of Simon’s hypothesis. If there were even a possibility that a copy of the ancient manuscript might have been passed down through Jack’s family, he would be faced with the enormous task of searching through the accumulated clutter in his parents’ house.

The chippie was a bit further down, where the Market Square became a pedestrian mall. The shop’s door stood open, serving as an enticement. It was a clean, well-lit establishment, with a proper restaurant in the back.

“Do you want to sit down?” Gemma asked.

“No. Let’s keep walking. Somehow fish and chips never taste the same without the newspaper.”

Back in the street, with their steaming newspaper parcels in hand, Kincaid turned back the way they’d come. “Let’s walk up the High.”

They peered through the leaded glass windows of the ancient George & Pilgrims inn. The bar was full, the hum of conversation audible even through the glass. The building looked very old indeed, with its authentic black-and-white timbering and worn, blackened beams.

“Would Edmund have known this place?” Gemma asked.

“A century or so after his time, I think. Not that he’d have been allowed to frequent the inn. It was built to accommodate the pilgrims, and the abbot’s high-ranking overflow.”

They walked on, past the Café Galatea and New Age shops, until Gemma stopped, transfixed, before a gallery window. A single painting, lit by a soft spotlight, stood against a black velvet backdrop. Luminous, winged creatures hovered over a moonlit city in which tiny humans went about their business, unaware. The vision was stunningly beautiful, the colors glowing like living jewels, but the creatures’ faces were fierce and otherworldly. It made her a little uneasy. “Are they protecting the people?” she asked softly. “Or do they have their own agenda?”

“Fiona Finn Allen.” Kincaid was reading the artist’s signature over her shoulder. “That’s Winnie’s friend, the woman who found her after the accident.” He stepped back so that he could read the marquee above the window. “Allen Galleries.” Walking on, he remarked, “I suppose it shows our self-absorption that we even think those spirits should be concerned with us. What if there are layers of reality we can’t see that have nothing to do with human needs and desires?”

Gemma gave him a surprised glance. “Now I think Glastonbury’s getting to you too. Oh, look,” she added, stopping again to gaze through a bakery window at the empty trays, waiting for their early-morning baked goods. She felt a pang of longing for Toby, who was spending the weekend with her parents, “helping,” as he called it, in their bakery. Turning to Kincaid, she said, “You know I’ll have to go back tomorrow.”

“And I don’t see how I can leave Jack in the lurch, at this point. I hope Doug Cullen can manage a bit longer on his own.”

“What will the Guv say?” asked Gemma, referring to Chief Superintendent Denis Childs.

“I’ll give him a ring at home tomorrow, explain the situation. Then you could drop me in Bath, and I’ll hire a car.”

“No,” Gemma said, thinking it out. “I won’t need the car the next few days. After we’ve paid a visit to Faith’s parents, you can run me to Bath, put me on the train, and keep the car.”

When he started to protest, she insisted. “No, really. I want to take the train. I won’t have to fight the Sunday trippers’ traffic coming back into London.” That was true, and a valid enough argument to silence Kincaid, but it was the thought of those few hours on the train when she would have absolutely no demands that had decided her.

“You could do some background checks.”

“Along with three thousand other things on Monday morning. But make me a list tonight.”

They walked the rest of the way up the High in companionable silence. The New Age shops gave way to more pedestrian businesses: a launderette, a grocer’s, a chemist, estate agents’ offices.

When they reached the top, they turned and surveyed the street sloping gently down the hill before them. “The mundane and the sublime, side by side,” Kincaid remarked.

“I’ll miss you,” Gemma said impulsively, prompted by something deeper than thought.

Kincaid put a hand on her shoulder as they started back down the hill, matching strides. “Glastonbury must have a salutary effect on you. I should bring you more often.”

Now, thought Gemma. She had the perfect opportunity. Just a sentence or two, and she would have put it behind her.

But she still wasn’t one hundred percent sure, not until she did a test, and she absolutely would pick one up at the chemist when she got back to London.

It had been so good between them this weekend, away from their responsibilities in London, working together on a case again, however unofficial. Why should she break the spell?

Especially when they had one more night alone together, under the rose-colored canopy in the Acacia Room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Abbey did not languish and die from internal corruption; it fell as a great ship founders, at one moment going on its way, at the next plunging to destruction with all hands.… Therefore it is that in the Abbey we have so clear a sense of our spiritual past, uncorrupted by decay. The spirit of the Abbey lives on, as it is said that the spirit of a man lives on who has died by violence before his time.

—DION FORTUNE,

FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

GEMMA STUDIED THE man sitting across from them in the tidy sitting room. Gary Wills looked to be in his early forties, trim, an executive with an electronics firm in Street. Add a wife with her own career, bright children, a well-located suburban home, and you had all the hallmarks of success. Why, then, had this family fractured so grievously?

Maureen Wills sat near her husband, without touching him. When she had reached out a hand towards him—to comfort or be comforted, Gemma couldn’t tell—Wills had shrugged it off.

“We did everything for her,” he was saying. “School fees, sports, singing lessons, piano.” The piano sat against the far wall of the sitting room, its keyboard cover closed. “How could she be such an ungrateful little tart—”

“Gary, please,” his wife entreated, with a pointed glance at the frightened faces of the two younger children, peering round the corner.

“You two.” Wills pointed at them. “Go to your rooms. Now.” The boy and girl disappeared, but Gemma suspected they’d not gone far.

“She had a chance at the best universities,” their father continued. “An abortion would have been the sensible solution, but, no, she wouldn’t hear of it. So I told her the boy and his family would have to do their part—why should we take on full responsibility for the little bastard? But she wouldn’t tell us who it was!”

“So you suggested that she leave?” Kincaid asked, as if it were a perfectly sensible action.

“I only meant to make her see reason. I never thought she’d actually go.…”

“You should have,” said his wife, as if their presence had given her the courage to speak up. “You should have thought. You know how stubborn Faith is—” Maureen turned to Gemma and Kincaid. “Since she was a toddler, she’s been that way. And she was a hard delivery. I used to tell her she was stubborn even then … determined to come into the world on her own time.”

“But surely you must have had some idea who the boy was,” suggested Gemma. “A regular boyfriend, or some gossip among her friends at school.”

“She didn’t date.” Maureen said it firmly. “Faith always looked down on girls who giggled and had crushes; she was far too serious for that. And her friends—”

“They didn’t want to talk to us,” Wills interrupted bitterly. “You’d have thought we’d done something terrible to her. And why should we go begging to anyone for information our own daughter wouldn’t give us? If Faith is so determined to get on in the world without our help, she’s bloody well welcome to it.”

“You!” Furiously, Maureen Wills turned on her husband. “Why don’t you admit all the hours you’ve spent driving round, looking for her? Or all the nights you’ve sat up in the kitchen until dawn? I’ve seen you—you can’t deny it!”

Gary Wills gaped at her.

Maureen looked back at them, her face tear streaked but resolute. “I’d do anything to have Faith back. I don’t care who the baby’s father is, as long as our Faith is safe and well. You will tell us, won’t you, where she is?”

“Mrs. Wills,” Kincaid said gently, “Faith didn’t give us permission to do that. She—”

“But the child must be due any day! You say the woman who was looking after her is dead—someone’s got to take care of her. Please—”

Gary Wills broke in again. “I suppose Maureen’s right. Faith needs to come home. Let bygones be bygones.”

“We’ll talk to Faith,” Gemma promised. “If she knows that you’ll accept her without question, perhaps she’ll agree.”

“You’ll let us know about the baby, at least?” pleaded Maureen, and Kincaid assured them he would.

At the door, Gemma turned back to the couple. “I know it must be hard to let your child go—they always seem to grow up before you’re ready—but Faith has proved she has courage and determination. You should be very proud of her.”

When they reached the car, Gemma said, “Do you think her father’s capitulation will last if she comes home?”

Kincaid shrugged. “Human nature being what it is, I rather doubt it. But I also doubt he’d have insisted on knowing the baby’s parentage if he were responsible. I just hope I make a better job of it in the father department.”

Gemma glanced at him and said not a word.

“Have we time for another stop before your train?” Kincaid asked as they returned to Glastonbury. “I’d like to see the scene of Winnie’s accident.”

Gemma glanced at her watch. “We should be all right. Let’s leave the car at the café, shall we? I’d like to take the same route Winnie must have used that evening.”

They walked up Wellhouse Lane, its incline steep and slick, not suitable for any but the most expensive of mountain bikes, and Jack had told them that Winnie’s was an old clunker. “Faith said Winnie was pushing her bike—I can see why,” Kincaid grunted as they reach the turning into Lypatt Lane.

The smaller track was claustrophobic even at midday—how much more so had it seemed at dusk? But Winnie could have squeezed the bike against the hedge if she’d heard a car approaching. Soon they reached the jog where the lane connected with the footpath.

“If someone struck Winnie deliberately, they waited here,” Gemma mused. “But how could anyone have known she would be in this place at that time—unless she had had an appointment!”

“But that brings us back to square one,” Kincaid objected. “If Winnie agreed to meet someone here, she has no memory of it. And unfortunately, an assignation in a dark lane isn’t something she’s likely to have put in her appointment book—”

“Hullo!” A woman had appeared in the lane and was gazing at them curiously. “I’m sorry, but you looked a bit lost,” she added. A slight woman with untidy brown hair and brown eyes, she frowned as she studied Kincaid. “You remind me a bit of someone I know.”

“Jack Montfort, by any chance? I’m his cousin, Duncan Kincaid. And this is Gemma James.”

“Fiona Allen.” Her smile faded as she realized just what they must have been doing. “You’re looking at the scene of Winnie’s accident, aren’t you?”

“You found her, I understand? And you live just up the lane?”

“The far end. Why don’t you two come along for a coffee?”

As they followed her, Kincaid looked down into Bushy Coombe. “I remember this from when I was boy. Jack and I used to climb in the Coombe, pretending to be monks—or cowboys.”

“An interesting juxtaposition,” Fiona commented with a chuckle.

“Both unwashed, and familiar with livestock?” Gemma murmured.

He gave her a quelling glance. “We made believe we were fetching water from the spring, although I suppose the logical route from the Abbey would have been by Chilkwell Street.”

“Jack must have been interested in the Abbey as a child, then,” Fiona said as they reached an unremarkable stone house with a superbly tended garden. The interior of the house was clean and spare, and Kincaid imagined it must make a restful contrast to the garden’s summer profusion. A small fire glowed in the sitting-room grate.

“I love this time of year,” Fiona explained. “Any excuse for a fire.”

She seated them on the sofa and returned shortly with mugs of coffee on a tray. “How is Winnie today, have you heard?”

Gemma accepted a cup. “Jack went to fetch her home this morning—”

“She’s not going back to the Vicarage, alone?”

“No, she’s agreed to stay with Jack for a few days. You sound as if you’re worried about her.”

“I am, a bit,” Fiona admitted. “Although I’m not sure I can tell you why.”

“Something you saw or heard that night, perhaps?” Kincaid asked.

Fiona frowned. “No, nothing that concrete. But I do know Winnie feels more uneasy about her brother than she may admit.”

“Do you know of any connection between Andrew Catesby and Garnet Todd?”

“No. It’s odd, though … that two people so dedicated to preserving the past should be at such opposite ends of the pole. I don’t think they could have liked one another.”

“Gemma found Catesby poking about Todd’s house the day after she died.”

“Winnie mentioned that. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Andrew to have learned of the connection between Garnet and Winnie, although Winnie didn’t share much with him about her involvement with Jack’s …”

“Experiment?” Kincaid supplied helpfully. “But even if that were the case, what could Andrew have thought he’d find at Ms. Todd’s? It might help us if Winnie could remember what she did the day of her accident, or why she was coming to see you.”

“Oh!” Fiona brightened. “When I visited Winnie yesterday, she remembered that she went to the Abbey that morning. But that’s as far as we got, I’m afraid.”

“Jack said you painted the Abbey, the night Winnie was struck,” said Gemma. “Was that unusual? I’d think you’d use Glastonbury scenes as a matter of course.”

“But I don’t choose the things I paint. I suppose I could say they choose me. I just see them, and paint them, and that was the first time I’ve ever painted the Abbey.”

“We saw one of your works in town, last night, beautifully displayed. Allen Galleries—is that your husband’s gallery?”

Nodding, Fiona explained, “Bram’s there today, hanging some new pieces. It’s difficult to change the displays when the gallery’s open.”

“What are they—the creatures you paint?”

“I really don’t know. It’s like the settings—I just paint them. I suppose it’s quite similar to what happens to Jack, with his messages from Edmund.”

“Might we see what you painted the night of Winnie’s accident?” asked Kincaid.

“Of course.”

They followed her down a corridor and into her glasswalled studio. She lifted a canvas from a stack against the wall and set it on an easel. In this painting, the creatures thronged round a human child cupped in a luminous bowl, within the great arch of the Abbey’s ruined transepts. Unlike the work they’d seen in the gallery window, here the child seemed to be the focus of the creatures’ attention, perhaps even their compassion.

“Edmund and Alys’s child?” Kincaid murmured.

“Edmund’s?”

Before Kincaid could explain, a man’s voice called out, “Darling?”

“In here,” Fiona answered. As her husband entered the room, she said, “Bram, this is Duncan Kincaid, Jack Montfort’s cousin, and his friend, Gemma James.”

“And how is Winnie?” Bram Allen asked.

“Jack is bringing her home from hospital today.”

“We’ll pay her a visit then, in a day or two, when she’s had a little time to recuperate.” Allen put his arm round his wife’s shoulders and shepherded her back into the sitting room. “Fiona’s been working too hard,” he told Gemma and Kincaid. “She had strict instructions to stay put in front of the fire this afternoon.”

“I only went out for a walk,” countered Fiona, “and found our guests wandering about in the lane. I promise I haven’t lifted a brush.”

Although Allen was pleasant enough, Kincaid sensed that Fiona’s husband was uneasy, and his interest sharpened. “Mr. Allen, I understand it was you who found Garnet Todd’s body.”

Giving his wife an anxious look, Allen replied, “I’m just glad it wasn’t Fiona. Her experience with Winnie was pretty dreadful—but then you’d know that.”

“Rather an odd coincidence, though, wasn’t it? Mrs. Allen finding Winnie and you discovering Ms. Todd?”

“Winnie was only a few hundred yards from our house, and I walk round the Tor every morning,” Allen said with the air of a man keeping his impatience in check. “Unfortunate, perhaps, but I wouldn’t say odd.”

“Did you recognize Ms. Todd’s van?”

“No. To be honest, I’d had a bit too much coffee.… I thought the van would make a good shield if anyone came along.… I suppose I assumed someone had had a breakdown and left it to be collected later—until I looked inside.”

“Did you recognize Ms. Todd, then?”

Allen paled. “No. I’m afraid I wasn’t … thinking very logically at that point.”

Kincaid remembered that they had found only Garnet Todd’s and Faith’s prints on the exterior of the van. “You didn’t try to get in? To see if she needed help?”

“It was obvious she was past that.” Again, Allen gave his wife a concerned glance. “I came home and rang the police.”

“But you knew Ms. Todd?” pressed Kincaid.

“She was unique … one of Glastonbury’s true eccentrics. The town won’t be the same without her. I—Fiona?”

Fiona Allen stood and moved towards her studio. “I’m sorry.” Feverish spots had appeared on her cheeks, and she seemed to have difficulty focusing on them. “I’m sorry—I have to paint now. It’s—”

“It’s all right, darling,” her husband soothed. “You go ahead. I’ll see Mr. Kincaid and Miss James out.”

With a last apologetic glance, Fiona disappeared into the corridor.

“Does it always happen like that?” asked Gemma as Bram walked them to the door. “It was almost as if she had no choice.”

“She doesn’t,” Bram answered curtly. “She becomes ill if she’s kept from painting. And now I’d better check on her, if you don’t mind.”

They said good-bye, and as they retraced their way through the garden, Gemma shivered. “Has it struck you? Jack can’t help writing; Fiona Allen can’t help painting; and Faith says she had no choice but to climb the Tor. What is it about this place?” She looked up. The Tor seemed to hang above the treetops, a massive presence that dwarfed all other elements in the landscape. “And what else might someone feel compelled to do?”

“You’re sure about this?” Kincaid asked as he took Gemma’s bag from the boot in front of Bath Railway Station.

“Positive.” She kissed him, adding, “You will talk to Faith about seeing her parents, won’t you? I’ll ring you tomorrow.” With a wave, she walked away.

He watched her until she disappeared into the interior of the station, then climbed back into the car and set about maneuvering his way out of the city. As a child, he had loved their summer visits to Bath, but these days it was so chockablock with tourists you could scarcely move.

Eventually, he found his way back to the A37 going south, towards Glastonbury. He took his time, enjoying the drive through the eastern edge of the Mendips. Gemma was right, it was lovely country, and he smiled, remembering how much she had disliked their trips out of London when they had first started working together.

Born and raised in busy North London, Gemma had been more than a bit agoraphobic. But she had changed, had adapted herself to new circumstances and surroundings. Her ability to do so was one of the things that made her a good copper, and would go a long way towards ensuring her success at her new job. Still, it was a hard transition, and he wished there were something he could do to make the process easier for her.

Of course, if he were totally honest, he’d have to admit he’d been more wrapped up in dealing with his own adjustment to working without her than with hers to her new posting. Even without the personal component of their relationship he’d have found replacing her difficult.

But he had been right to entice Gemma away for the weekend. She’d been more relaxed than he’d seen her in months, and he realized how much he missed that easiness between them. He would have to see what he could do to improve things in the future, but just now he had better turn his attention to Jack’s predicament.

They didn’t seem to be making much progress towards solving either Winnie’s accident or the Todd homicide. Not that he would expect such a quick resolution on an ordinary case, but he was frustrated both by his limited time and his lack of control over the investigation. Greely’s tactics were common enough—find the most likely suspect and bully him or her until you got a confession—but they certainly left much fertile ground unturned.

And to complicate matters further, Jack was bringing Winnie home from hospital today. If she were still in danger, how much more vulnerable would she be now?

He kept running aground on the same questions. Why had Andrew Catesby gone to see Garnet Todd? Why would someone other than Garnet have wanted to hurt—or kill—Winifred Catesby? If Garnet had not struck Winnie, where had she gone in the van that evening? And what had Winnie done in the hours she couldn’t remember?

Some of the answers were undoubtedly locked within Winnie’s mind and could not be forced. And some of the questions were undoubtedly connected, if only he had some clue as to which ones they might be.

Kincaid arrived at Jack’s to find Winnie installed on the sitting-room sofa, her lap filled with a jumble of papers.

“That doesn’t look a proper convalescent project,” Kincaid commented.

Winnie smiled up at him. “I convinced Jack to start searching for the manuscript.”

“He told you about Simon’s theory?”

Nodding, she said, “And I think on this point Simon’s judgment should be trusted. Unfortunately, I’m not much help yet.” She gestured at the papers in her lap. “This is the best I could do. But it would be easier if I knew exactly what I was looking for.”

“How about a perfectly illuminated sheet of musical notation on parchment, with The Lost Chant at the top in Latin?”

“And why don’t we have it rolled and tied with a red ribbon while we’re at it? Seriously, though, if we’re not all completely mad, and if Edmund did make a copy of such a thing, it would have been on parchment. And how likely is it that something like that would have survived all those centuries without special care and handling?”

“Simon seemed to think it was possible, and he’s the expert. Where’s Jack, then?”

“Up in the attic, covered with dust and cobwebs. And swearing a blue streak, is my guess.”

Kincaid grinned. “I expect you’re right. Why don’t you have a rest, and I’ll bring you a cuppa in a bit. How’s Faith?”

“Holding up, but terribly worried about Nick. No one’s heard a word from him.”

“I’ll go and have a chat with her.”

He found Faith in the kitchen.

“I see you managed to conjure up something to feed the masses,” he told her, and was rewarded by a smile.

“I made Jack run me to the supermarket this morning, before he went to collect Winnie. There’s fresh bread and roast beef, if you’d like a sandwich.”

“I stopped on the way back from Bath, thanks.” He pulled out a chair. “Are you not joining in the Great Treasure Hunt?”

“I’m going in to the café until closing time. Buddy rang—he’s desperate for help. Sunday’s a big day, with all the weekend climbers.” She watched him, her chin up, as if bracing to counter a negative reaction.

“Are you sure you feel up to it?” Kincaid asked gently.

“I’m fine. And it’s only for a couple of hours.”

“I’ll run you up to the café, then, and pick you up at closing—”

“I can walk,” she said acidly. “I’m pregnant, not crippled.”

“Faith, it’s your safety I’m thinking about. Until we know more about what happened to Garnet—and to Winnie—I’d just as soon you didn’t go out on your own if it can be helped.”

“Don’t tell me you think Nick—”

“I didn’t say a word about Nick, and, no, I don’t think it’s likely that Nick had anything to do with Garnet’s death. But why do you suppose he hasn’t rung or come by the house?”

Faith grasped the back of a chair. “I don’t know. That day, when he came into the café and said I should check Garnet’s fender … I was so furious. I told him to get out. But we’ve had rows before.…”

“You don’t think he’s still angry with you—”

“And now, because of me, the police think he … I’d say he’s got good reason to be narked with me.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case. But if you like, I’ll have a look for him after I drop you at the café.”

“Could you?”

“Any suggestions as to where, other than the caravan?”

“He likes to go to the Galatea, on the High Street. And the Assembly Rooms café.”

“Do you know anything about Nick, where he comes from, for instance?”

“Somewhere in Northumberland. He’s got a first from Durham in philosophy or something. And I think his mum is well off.”

“So why is he working as a clerk in a bookshop?”

“I don’t know. He’s always on at me about finishing my education, but I can’t see that it’s done much for him.”

“What about Garnet? Do you know anything about her background?”

“Not much,” Faith replied. “Her parents died when she was fairly young, and she didn’t have any other family. She came to Glastonbury for the first Pilton Festival, in ’71, and stayed. What do you suppose will happen to her house?”

“Did she leave a will?”

“She never mentioned one.”

“If she died intestate it will be a complicated process, but I’d imagine the property would eventually go to the county. Unless, of course, some long-lost relative comes out of the woodwork.” It was a remote possibility that some distant cousin had decided the property might be worth murdering Garnet, but one they should check. “Do you know anything about Garnet’s friends?”

“She knew people in the Archaeological Society, because of her restoration work. And then there’s Buddy, of course. They’ve been friends for ages.”

“Buddy’s your boss?”

“Yes. And he’ll be run off his feet if I don’t get to work.”

Kincaid fished his car keys from his pocket. “Faith, on the night of Winnie’s accident, what exactly did Garnet say when she left the house?”

Faith snatched a shapeless cardigan from the peg on the kitchen door as they passed. “She said … ‘I have to go. I’m late for an appointment.’ ”

“And you assumed it was a delivery?”

“She’d said so in the café, when Winnie invited us to Jack’s.”

A peek into the sitting room showed Winnie not waiting for the tea he’d promised, but fast asleep on the sofa.

When they reached the Escort, Faith said, “I like your car. It’s purple.”

“Wild Orchid, actually. But it’s not mine. It’s Gemma’s.”

Faith gave him a sideways glance as she stretched the seat belt around her stomach. “She’s nice.”

“Very nice,” Kincaid agreed.

“She said she has a little boy, and she’s raised him by herself since he was born.”

“That’s right.” Kincaid answered cautiously, wondering where this was going. “It hasn’t always been easy, but she’s done a terrific job.”

“What about his father?”

“He and Gemma divorced just after Toby was born, and he disappeared not too long afterwards. Didn’t want to pay his child support.”

Faith digested this in silence as they drove to the café.

“Not all men are like that, you know,” Kincaid offered. “Are you wondering if your baby’s father will help you?”

“I don’t need his help.” Her voice had grown steely.

“Faith, Gemma and I went to see your parents this morning.”

“But I—You didn’t tell them—”

“No, we didn’t tell them where you were. But we did promise we’d tell you how much they want you to come home.”

“That’s the last thing my father would want!”

“I think your dad misses you. It’s just hard for him to say so. Sometimes love and anger and worry get all tangled up, and the wrong thing somehow spills out.”

Faith was out of her seat belt as he came to a stop in front of the café, but not before he’d seen the tears in her eyes.

“I’ve got to go. You can pick me up at five if you want.”

“I think I’ll come in for a cup of tea,” Kincaid decided abruptly. “I’d like to meet Buddy.”

“Charles Barnes,” said the café’s proprietor, gripping Kincaid’s hand. “But most folks call me Buddy. What can I do for you?”

“Just a few minutes of your time, if you can spare it.”

“Sure, I can. Any friend of Jack Montfort’s is a friend of mine.” Buddy motioned Kincaid to a seat at a nearby table. “He’s been good to Faith. Garnet would have”—he cleared his throat—“Garnet would have appreciated that.”

“Garnet was fond of Faith, I take it.”

“More than fond,” Buddy replied. Glancing at Faith, busy in the kitchen, he lowered his voice. “There were times I wished I’d never told her about Faith, thinking to do a favor for them both. Garnet worried about her so, you’d have thought she’d brought that girl into the world herself. And now what’s going to happen to Faith, with Garnet gone? I’ll keep her on here, after the kid’s born, but she’s got no place to live.”

“Have you any idea why Garnet was so concerned about Faith’s welfare?”

“She talked about the Tor, and about Faith being a magnet for the old powers, but there was nothing concrete. Garnet always had a bee in her bonnet about that stuff.”

“You knew her for a long time, Faith said.”

His weathered face creased in a smile. “We were going to change the world, you know? Who’d have thought we’d end up old hippies, stuck to the side of Glastonbury Tor like burrs. Although I guess you could say Bram and Fiona made something of themselves, but they couldn’t leave Glastonbury either.”

“You all knew each other?” Kincaid asked, surprised.

“Oh, we were tight, the four of us. Fiona and me, Bram and Garnet. But then things changed. They always do, don’t they? Bram set his sights on Fiona, and Garnet and I … Well, we made the best of things. Garnet bought the old Kinnersley place for a song, and I suppose I thought we’d just go on forever.…” He lapsed into silence.

“Why did Garnet never have the old farmhouse modernized?”

“Habit, mostly,” Buddy said fondly. “At first she couldn’t afford it, then she just got used to it, I reckon. And I think she liked the reputation it earned her.”

“It can’t have been easy for her, living there alone.”

“Not as hard as you might think. She had indoor plumbing, fed from the spring above the house, and the woodstove heated the water. And I don’t think she missed things like television all that much. Garnet never had any trouble keeping herself occupied.”

So Garnet could have drowned in water from her own taps, Kincaid thought, but he said merely, “But she was lonely, I expect, until Faith came along.”

“I expect she was.” Buddy said it quietly. His glance in Faith’s direction made it clear that the girl’s presence had filled more than one void.

There was no sign of Nick’s motorbike outside his caravan, and no answer to Kincaid’s knock.

Making the return journey to Glastonbury, Kincaid found a parking spot on the High Street. He and Gemma had lunched in the Café Galatea the previous day, and the pretty dark-haired waitress smiled in recognition as he came in.

He waited until she’d finished serving the nearest table, then asked her quietly if she knew Nick Carlisle.

“Nick who works in the bookshop down Magdalene Street? Yeah, sure.”

“Has he been in today?”

“No. Yesterday, though. Late. Moped over his coffee like he’d just lost his best friend,” she added, with an air of disappointment.

Thanking her, Kincaid crossed the street and ducked into the stone passageway that led to the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms. The doors stood open and he climbed the stairs to the café on the first floor. It was only semi-partitioned from the corridor and the meeting room, but it was an inviting, comfortable-looking space, if a wee bit scruffy. Ella Fitzgerald crooned Cole Porter over the sound system, and several tables were occupied by customers bent over books or newspapers, enjoying the Sunday-afternoon lull. He went through the buffet queue and, when he reached the register, struck up a conversation with the cashier, a pleasant woman wearing a baseball cap. When they’d discussed the cake and the weather, he asked her if she knew Nick. “Tall, slender chap, with dark curly hair?”

“Who could forget Nick?” she said, laughing. “Comes in all the time.”

“Has he been in today?”

“As a matter of fact, he has.”

Kincaid pounced on the slight hesitation. “Was there something odd today?”

“Nick usually comes in on his own, has a meal or a coffee—always chats me up—but today he was deep into it with a strange bunch, at the table in the corner there.” She nodded towards a table beside the worn sofa.

“Strange, how?”

The woman shrugged. “Well, you know Glastonbury—you see all kinds. I’ve been here twenty years and nothing surprises me. But this bunch, they’re serious pagans. Moonlight rituals on the Tor, that sort of thing. Gives me the willies, and I wouldn’t have thought that was Nick’s style.” She eyed him more critically. “Is there some reason you’re looking for Nick?”

“Just a friend passing through, wanted to say hello. He’s not on the telephone, so he can be the devil to get in touch with.” Giving her a reassuring smile, he took his coffee and gingerbread to a table beside the disused fireplace, mulling over this latest bit of information. Who were these people? Druids? Witches? And just what was handsome young Nick up to now?

“Any joy?” Kincaid asked, sitting down on a tufted ottoman.

Winnie looked up from a thick batch of papers. “No, but it’s interesting reading. These are estate documents—it seems the Montforts have owned property in this area practically forever.”

“I suppose that follows. But Uncle John never talked much about his family.”

“What was he like?” Winnie nodded towards the silver-framed photos on the bookcase. “I can see that Jack resembles him.”

“In looks, yes, but Jack’s much more like his mother in temperament. Uncle John was terribly reserved”—he pulled a long face—“and I always wondered how he and Aunt Olivia ended up together. When we went on holiday, he never joined any of our activities. He always had more important things to do.”

“Was it just you and Jack and your mothers, then?”

“And my pesky sister. And sometimes my dad, when he could get away.”

“It sounds lovely,” Winnie said a little wistfully, then looked back at the papers in her hand. “Do you think Jack’s father felt that family history and stories were frivolous?”

“A waste of valuable time, I’d guess. Uncle John read The Times from front to back every day of his life.” When Winnie laughed, he added, “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. My uncle was a kind man, of good character, and I’m sure he was well respected—although I never thought about those things as a child. But he wasn’t the sort to build stage sets in the back garden and help put on productions of Peter Pan.”

“And your dad was?”

“Always ready for an adventure, my dad. And speaking of adventures—I think it’s time I see what Jack’s got himself into in the attic. Can I get you anything else?”

Winnie demurred, and was already immersed in her papers as he left the room.

Climbing the stairs to the first floor, he thought about his family, so taken for granted in childhood. He had assumed that everyone’s parents were interested in their children’s doings, and that all fathers participated in their children’s lives.

The downside to possessing a creative and involved father, however, had been that his dad sometimes forgot to take care of mundane matters like the electricity bill, and he remembered more than one occasion when they had camped out in the house by candlelight until things could be put right. Fortunately, his mother had possessed a practical streak that he suspected his aunt Olivia had not shared, and she’d managed to keep things running smoothly most of the time.

It had been a while since he’d been home—he should take Kit to visit his grandparents, now that the boy had had a chance to get used to the idea. And he would ask Gemma and Toby too. They could make a proper holiday of it.

Jack had lowered the drop-down staircase at the end of the corridor. The creak of the springs as Kincaid climbed it brought back memories of childhood visits to the cavernous attic. As he emerged into the open space, he saw that Jack had rigged a work lamp on a flex cord, illuminating the space between the gray-filmed windows at either end.

Jack, on his knees in jeans and a very dirty sweatshirt, dug through a tin trunk. He looked up at Kincaid, wiping a hand across his forehead and leaving a large grimy smear. “This is a bloody nightmare. I can’t pass up anything, because I’ve no idea what might be important.”

Kincaid squatted and peered into the trunk. “Probably not Great-Aunt Sophie’s petticoats.”

“Did we have a Great-Aunt Sophie?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Jack grinned as he shook out the last bit of old-fashioned ladies’ underclothing. “Have you come to make yourself useful?”

“For an hour. Then I’ve promised to pick Faith up at the café.”

“Why don’t you start over there, then?” Jack directed him to the eastern end of the attic, just out of range of the pool of lamplight.

Somewhat daunted, Kincaid said, “Do we have some sort of system for separating the things that have been searched?”

“There.” Jack pointed to a section of boxes and oddments off to one side.

“Right.” Kincaid made his way gingerly along a pathway Jack had cleared across the attic floor, then whistled in dismay as he got a better look at the daunting task awaiting him. “I think a bulldozer might be more appropriate,” he muttered, but bent to it.

First he transferred the large items—a wooden child’s cradle; an ancient, rusted tricycle; a picnic hamper complete with dishes and accoutrements; a croquet set—to Jack’s segregated area. “All this stuff looks Victorian—it’s probably worth a fortune.”

“I’ll have to go on Antiques Roadshow,” Jack joked, without looking up from the pile he was sorting.

Kincaid moved a stack of framed pictures to one side and started on the boxes. To his delight, they held books. The volumes were dusty and musty, some with water stains or damaged covers, but nonetheless it was a treasure trove. After half an hour, he had come up with a handful of real finds.

“I’m no expert, but I think you’d do well to let my dad have a look at these.” He handed Jack copies of The Moonstone, The War of the Worlds, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. All were in good condition and, as far as he could tell, first editions.

Jack accepted the books with a discouraged sigh. “And I’ve found three hideous lamps, a recipe collection from the twenties, some moth-eaten flower arrangements, and a box of ladies’ hats.”

The first dozen of the framed pictures were obviously junk: cardboard reproductions of famous paintings in cheap frames. But there were three small landscape oils that Kincaid suspected might be valuable, as well as a nice watercolor of the Abbey ruins, and a larger oil portrait of a hunting spaniel that he thought Gemma might like, remembering her interest in Andrew Catesby’s dog.

“Take it,” Jack said of the spaniel portrait, when Kincaid presented his latest haul. “Give it to Gemma with my compliments.” He sat back on his heels and groaned. “The light’s going. We’ll have to give it up for the day. I didn’t expect the thing to jump out and bite me, but this really is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.”

“What about Edmund?” Kincaid asked, rubbing his dusty hands against his jeans.

“No help there. I’ve tried.”

“Then I suggest sherry in the drawing room, when I’ve collected Faith. Maybe among us we’ll come up with something.”

Faith stood watching for him outside the café, hands deep in the pockets of her cardigan. She waited until they had almost reached Jack’s before she asked Kincaid, “Any luck?”

“Some interesting things, but not what we’re looking for.”

“No. I meant Nick. Did you find him?”

“I tried the caravan, and the cafés you suggested. No joy, but the woman at the Assembly Rooms says he’d been in earlier. If he doesn’t show up this evening, I’ll run out to the—” The sight of the car in Jack’s drive instantly derailed his train of thought. A slightly battered white Vauxhall, unmarked. DCI Greely’s.

“Ah … perhaps we’d better see what’s up before we make plans. It looks as though Inspector Greely’s come to call.”

“They won’t put me in jail, will they?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Greely stood in front of the cold fireplace, hands behind his back as if warming them. Nodding, he said, “Superintendent. Miss Wills.”

Winnie was still ensconced on the sofa, with Jack standing protectively by her.

“Inspector Greely,” Kincaid replied pleasantly, but it occurred to him that he was getting a good taste of being on the receiving end of things. “What can we do for you today?”

“I just wanted to clarify a few things with Mr. Montfort here.” Greely’s smile was not reassuring.

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

Greely turned pointedly towards Jack, making it clear that he didn’t intend to let Kincaid serve as intermediary this time. “Mr. Montfort, what time did you say you left the hospital last Thursday night?”

“I think it was about half past ten, but I really wasn’t paying attention. Why?”

“The ICU nursing staff put it closer to ten o’clock. And it seems you told me it was near midnight when you arrived home and found Miss Wills on your doorstep. Is that right?”

“As far as I can remember. Look, what is all this about?”

“Well,” Greely drawled, “it occurred to me that two hours was a very generous amount of time to make the drive from Taunton to Glastonbury, late at night with no traffic. And it also occurred to me that it takes a very short amount of time to drown someone—say three or four minutes.”

Jack gaped at him. “Surely you’re not accusing me of murdering Garnet? Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

Winnie reached up and took Jack’s hand.

“Perhaps Miss Wills communicated her fears about Miss Catesby’s accident to you. At that time, I believe, Miss Catesby was still unconscious, her recovery quite uncertain. In such circumstances, you’d have wanted some answers very badly. Perhaps you merely meant to talk to Miss Todd, and it escalated into something much more serious—murder, in fact. And in that case, Miss Wills’s story of coming back from her ‘walk’ and finding the house empty is so much poppycock, and she either participated in the crime, or she acted as an accessory after the fact.”

Kincaid tried to catch Jack’s eye, to caution him to say nothing, but Jack’s gaze remained riveted on Greely.

“Number one,” his cousin shot back furiously, “the first time I knew anything about Faith’s suspicions was when she showed up on my doorstep around midnight. Second, the reason it took me longer than usual to drive from Taunton was that I was exhausted, and I had to stop several times in order to stay—”

“Give it up, Inspector,” Kincaid broke in. “You’re fishing. You’ve no evidence. And I’ve instructed my cousin to retain a lawyer.”

Greely rocked back and forth on his heels, placidly surveying them. “I thought you might be interested in hearing my ideas, but as it seems you’re not, I’ll let you folks get on with your evening. Oh, by the way, Miss Catesby—I’m glad to see you making such a speedy recovery.”

“Thank you, Inspector.” She gave him a forced smile.

Kincaid gestured towards the door. “I’ll see you out, shall I?”

Greely nodded his farewells, then followed Kincaid into the hall.

“Do I take it no new evidence has presented itself, Inspector? Hence the stirring-ants technique?”

For once, Greely’s smile looked genuine. “Well, you know, Superintendent, when you stir an anthill with a stick, you generally get results.”

Kincaid returned the smile as he opened the door. “Yes, Inspector, you do. But sometimes you get stung in the process.”

Andrew had rung the hospital, only to be told by a toffee-voiced receptionist that Winifred Catesby was no longer a patient there. After that he’d rung the Vicarage again and again, hanging up when the answering machine came on. He couldn’t bear to hear her voice, and yet every time he felt he must.

After a while he took out the car, but the house on the Butleigh Road was dark, lifeless.

She was at Montfort’s, then.

He knew Montfort’s house, of course, he’d looked up the address in the telephone directory months ago. Now he could find it in his sleep, so often had he driven slowly by. Well, he would wait, and watch—he was good at waiting, and at watching—until the time was right.

When his own phone rang, he sat and stared at it until the ringing stopped.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Tor is indeed the Hill of Vision for any whose eyes have the least inclination to open upon another world.… There are some who, visiting Glastonbury for the first time, are amazed to see before them a Hill of Dreams which they have already known in sleep.… Many times the tower is reported to have been seen rimmed in light; a warm glow, as of a furnace, beats up from the ground on wild winter nights, and the sound of chanting is heard from the depths of the hill.

—DION FORTUNE,

FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

ON THE TRAIN from Bath to London, Gemma fell instantly into a heavy sleep, in which she dreamed jumbled, disjointed dreams, threaded throughout with the clicking and clacking of the train. When she woke, groggily, she felt there had been something she must do, but she could not remember what it was.

The memory nagged at her as she took the tube from Paddington to Islington, and as she rang her parents from the flat and asked them to run Toby home in their car.

When her parents arrived an hour later, Toby scrambled out of the car in a pair of brand-new, bright green Wellies, shouting, “Mummy, Mummy! I made sausage rolls! And we made special cakes for Halloween!”

Gemma swooped him up in a bear hug. “You’re going to take after your granddad, are you?”

“I’m a baker,” he announced proudly, wriggling until she put him down. “Can I show Holly my boots?”

“All right. But knock first, okay?” She watched until he had closed behind him the gate that led to Hazel and Tim’s garden, then ushered her parents into the flat.

“Has he been going nonstop all weekend?”

“More or less,” her mum answered, laughing. “Cyn had her two over earlier, so he hasn’t really touched down from that.”

Gemma rolled her eyes. Her sister’s children were utterly undisciplined terrors, but if she complained, her mother would surely remind her of the things she and Cyn had got up to at that age. “Stay for tea?” she asked instead.

“We’d best be getting back. I had ours just about ready when you rang. You look better. You should get away more often. How’s Duncan?”

It was a loaded question. Her parents didn’t approve of her unmarried state—or her “pigheadedness” as they called it. Once, in a fit of temper, Gemma had retaliated, accusing them of not minding if she married an ax murderer, as long as they could tell their friends she was “settled.”

“Depends on whether or not he was a good-looking chap,” her mother had rejoined promptly.

Now, Gemma smiled and answered, “Duncan’s fine. And his cousin’s very nice.” She had told them only that they were making a social visit, and didn’t intend to elaborate.

“Well, bring Duncan to see us. And let us know if you need us to mind Toby.”

When they had kissed her and gone on their way, Gemma wandered over to Hazel’s, intending to practice her piano lesson while the children played. She filled Hazel and Tim in on the details of the weekend, then accepted a cup of tea and sat down at the piano and, with a sigh, attempted to concentrate on her music. But as she picked her way through Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the immersion she sought refused to come.

Instead, her mind held an image of the worn stones of the Abbey rising from the emerald grass of the precinct … and the rocky flank of the Tor behind Garnet Todd’s house on Wellhouse Lane, the broken tower on its summit like a finger stabbing at the sky.

Gemma sank back into her normal Monday-morning routine like a stone slipping into a pool, and yet there was an unreality to it, as if the hustle and bustle of her London life was merely surface noise. Wading through the accumulation of reports that had materialized on her desk over the weekend, she kept in mind the background checks she’d promised Kincaid, and when she had a free moment she put them in motion.

By late afternoon, information began to trickle in.

Garnet Todd had a record, for what it was worth. She had resisted arrest during an antiwar protest in London in the sixties and been found in possession of illegal hallucinogens. No surprise there. Garnet had always chosen the unconventional path.

Nick Carlisle, as Greely had mentioned, had been arrested and fingerprinted as a result of a pub brawl in Durham four years previously—a typical adolescent escapade. What surprised her was that his mother, into whose custody he had been released, was the famous North Country novelist Elizabeth Carlisle. Why would Elizabeth Carlisle’s son choose to live in relative squalor in a Somerset backwater, working for practically nothing, when his connections would have guaranteed him a prestigious starting job? Principle? Or some sort of family trouble?

She put in a call to Durham CID and requested the number of the constable in Elizabeth Carlisle’s small village. There was no answer when she rang, but she left her name and number on the constable’s answerphone.

Kincaid had rung last night and brought her up-to-date on the negative results of their search for the manuscript, as well as Nick’s apparent disappearance and DCI Greely’s sudden interest in Jack.

“What did the Super say when you rang him?” she’d asked.

“Officially, to keep my nose clean and be prepared to levitate back to London if anything breaks on this murder in Camden Passage. Unofficially, he was at school with the Chief Constable and will have my arse if Greely complains I’m interfering in his case.”

“Ouch.”

“I know. I hope I don’t bugger this up.” Then, as he rang off—“Oh, and by the way, I miss you.”

Gemma smiled at the memory, then went back to mulling over what he’d told her. It struck her that Faith had talked about Garnet’s knowledge of Goddess worship, and now Nick Carlisle was looking up friends of the dead woman who had the same interest. Was it possible that Garnet’s murder could be connected to her involvement in some sort of cult? Could her death have nothing to do with Winnie or Jack?

She typed “goddess worship” into the search engine on her computer. The results were overwhelming, but she started through them resolutely, scanning articles and pagan sites. A name caught her eye. She ran the cursor back, highlighting a monograph on “The History of the Goddess in Celtic Mythology,” by a Dr. Erika Rosenthal.

She had met an Erika Rosenthal a few weeks ago in the course of an investigation—surely the name was not that common. An elderly woman in Arundel Gardens had been burgled, and, concerned about the professional quality of the break-in, Gemma had gone herself to view the scene and interview the victim.

Erika Rosenthal had turned out to be in her nineties, sharp as a tack, and highly incensed at the theft of several valuable antiques. Gemma had been immediately taken with her—and with her home, a lovely place, filled with books and beautiful paintings and, most temptingly, a baby grand piano.

Today Gemma only had time to skim part of Dr. Rosen-thal’s article before she was interrupted, and it was half past five by the time she cleared her desk for the day. On an impulse, she stuffed the report in her briefcase and rang Hazel, telling her she might be a bit late.

There was a fine mist in the still air and the wet pavement gleamed. She loved this weather, as she loved autumn in all its guises, and she took greedy breaths of the cool dampness as she walked to Arundel Gardens.

Erika Rosenthal’s house wore its age gracefully. Its pale-gray stucco was comfortably faded and it did not boast satellite dish or alarm system … though it was probably the lack of the latter that had contributed to Mrs. Rosenthal’s loss.

The old woman answered Gemma’s ring, her face lighting up in recognition.

“Inspector James. You’ve found my things.” She was a tiny woman, with white hair swept into a smooth twist and bright shoe-button eyes in her finely wrinkled face.

“No, I’m sorry to say we haven’t. I’ve come about something else entirely, Mrs. Rosenthal, if you have a minute.”

“Of course. Come in, dear, and warm yourself by the fire.”

Gemma stood in front of the electric fire and looked round with pleasure. She resisted the temptation to go over to the piano, but for a moment she let herself imagine living in such a house. Then she chided herself for being unrealistic, and said, “Thank you, that’s lovely,” as she accepted a glass of sherry.

“Now, what can I do for you?” asked Mrs. Rosenthal, lowering herself into an armchair. There was a book open on the table beside her chair, an account of Mallory and Irvine’s ill-fated expedition to Everest. Seeing Gemma’s interest, she added, “I’ve become an armchair adventurer, now that I no longer feel guilty for not attempting such things myself.”

“Are you the Dr. Erika Rosenthal who wrote a monograph on pagan Goddess worship?”

Mrs. Rosenthal chuckled. “That I am. But why on earth would you want to know about that?”

Gemma noticed, as she had not on their first meeting, that Dr. Rosenthal had the faintest trace of an accent—German or Eastern European. “I’ve been, um … assisting in an investigation of a murder in Glastonbury. The victim seems to have had some knowledge of Goddess worship, and we’re not certain whether this has any bearing on the case.”

“So you started researching and ran across my name. Clever girl. Or young woman, I should say,” the doctor apologized with a twinkle. “But from my perspective, anyone under seventy is a girl.”

“I had the impression from your article that you were quite a respected authority on paganism,” Gemma said.

“I’m an historian, my dear, and I’m not sure that anyone is ever entirely respected in academe. But, yes, I have devoted a good deal of my life to the subject.”

“It seemed to me, from the things I read this afternoon, that for the most part Goddess worship is a fairly harmless—even positive—thing. All that getting-back-in-touch-with-the-earth stuff. And I can’t say that men have done a terribly good job of running the world, so maybe the matriarchal society is not a bad idea either.” Gemma left the fire and sat in a small chair across from Dr. Rosenthal. “What I don’t understand is why those beliefs could have motivated someone to kill this woman.”

“Ah, well, even the most benign aspects would provide motive enough. ‘Getting in touch with the earth,’ as you put it, usually evolves into actively opposing those who abuse our natural resources for their own ends, and there you encounter great greed. And there are men—and a few women—who cannot abide the idea of women in power. But I’m certain you know that from your own experience.” Dr. Rosenthal studied her shrewdly. “Paganism, like any system of belief that is world shaping, can easily inspire fanaticism. You could say that Christianity is a basically benign belief, and yet it has been responsible over the centuries for enormous suffering in the world.

“But the worship of the Old Gods can go further. It has a dark side to it, an element of chaos, and there are those who aspire to tap that, to release it again into the world. And there are those who are caught up in it unawares. You say this murder happened in Glastonbury?”

“Yes, very near the Tor.”

Dr. Rosenthal frowned. “Glastonbury has always been a pivotal point, an energy focus. Dion Fortune understood that. Have you read her books? You should. Fortune was a practical woman with the soul of a poet, and she understood that the balance between the old forces and the new was quite a delicate thing. Some believe that the old powers give the earth its vitality, but that those powers must be kept in check, or chaos would overwhelm us.”

“But if that were true, why would anyone want to upset the balance?”

“Just as there are children who cannot keep their hands from the hot stove, there are always those who court the flames. It may be that your victim was one of them.”

Gemma thought of what Faith had told her about Garnet—and of the power she herself had sensed in the Tor. “Do you believe such things are possible, then?”

“I am a Jew, my dear. During the war, I lost every member of my family to the camps. If you ask me what I believe, I can tell you that those atrocities were an incontrovertible example of the power of chaos, magnifying and abetting a very human evil.”

Kincaid was waiting outside the bookshop a half hour before opening time on Monday morning, having dropped Faith at the café on his way.

After ten minutes of watching the passersby, he saw Nick go past on his motorbike, then turn the corner into Benedict Street. A moment later, Nick came round the corner on foot, walking fast, but when he glimpsed Kincaid, his stride broke for an instant. Recovering, he came on, a determined expression on his handsome face.

Kincaid pushed away from the wall when Nick reached him. “We need to talk.”

“I have to open the shop.”

“Then I’ll come in with you.”

Nick hesitated, then shrugged and unlocked the door. Kincaid followed him in and Nick turned the “Open” sign face-out.

“Jack and Faith have been worried about you.” Kincaid picked up a book on the Glastonbury Zodiac from the front table.

“I couldn’t … after the police … I was bloody humiliated, if you want to know the truth.”

“Well, it seems you’ve lost first place on the suspect list, if that makes you feel any better. DCI Greely has now moved Jack up in the running, but he still likes Faith as accessory.”

“You’re joking!”

“I’m not. Perhaps if we all cooperated, we’d make some progress finding out who did kill Garnet, instead of working at cross-purposes. If you tell me, for instance, what you found out about Garnet yesterday, I might be able to put it together with something else. That’s the beauty of an investigation.”

“How did you—”

“Faith had me look for you. I had a chat with the nice lady at the Assembly Rooms café.”

“Oh … Janet. I never thought …”

“It sounds to me as if you put your contacts and your knowledge of the town to admirable use.”

“It seemed a good idea.”

“Tell me why.”

Nick moved round the table, absently straightening books. “I’d been worried for a long time that Garnet’s intentions towards Faith weren’t as altruistic as everyone seemed to think. But I knew anything I said, especially to Faith, would just be put down as jealousy.”

“So you kept quiet, and watched.”

“Listened would be more like it. I hear things in here.” Nick gestured around the shop. “Gossip. Rumors. Bits of conversation. All pointing in the same direction—that this year is a window of power, a time when the forces of the Old Religion are near the surface.”

“Millennial hysteria?”

“Maybe. But I think Garnet meant to use Faith somehow.”

“And the people you talked to yesterday—did they corroborate that?”

“They wouldn’t go that far, no. But they did mutter rather furtively about Samhain.” When Kincaid raised an eyebrow, Nick explained. “That’s the Celtic name for All Souls’ Day, or Halloween.”

“And it’s just a few days away,” Kincaid said thoughtfully. “When you say you think Miss Todd meant to ‘use’ Faith, are you talking about a sacrifice of some sort?”

“I—I don’t know. But it can’t matter now, can it?”

“I don’t see how. But I wouldn’t go broadcasting these theories to Inspector Greely.”

“Because he’ll think I’m crazy?”

“Because it gives you a stronger motive to murder Garnet. You have to admit you’ve made no secret of your desire to protect Faith. Who else would go to such lengths—” Kincaid broke off abruptly, realizing that he knew.

“The Archdeacon is coming to lunch,” Winnie informed him when he returned to Jack’s. “She says the Vicarage is going to overflow with covered dishes if we don’t eat some of them. But I thought I could at least set the table.” She gestured at the clutter covering the oak surface.

“You direct; I’ll clear,” Kincaid offered. “Where’s Jack?”

“He had to give some attention to his practice, poor man. He’s done nothing for almost a week but run back and forth to hospital and wait on me.”

“No luck in the attic this morning?”

“No, but Simon stopped by to see how we were doing. What about you? Did you find Nick?”

“Yes. He’s fine, just doing a bit of investigating on his own.” He had no intention of sharing Nick’s suspicions about Garnet.

Seeing Winnie grasp a chairback as if for support, he suspected she was still more wobbly than she liked to admit.

“Okay, you sit,” he ordered. “Now, where are the knives and forks?”

Suzanne Sanborne was an attractive, intelligent-looking woman, slender, with silver-threaded, curly hair. “So you’re the famous cousin from Scotland Yard,” she said, when she had hugged Winnie.

“Archdeacon.”

“Call me Suzanne, please. And help me with these casseroles.”

They were soon settled round the table for a convivial lunch, aided by the bottle of Bordeaux Kincaid had discovered in Jack’s pantry. Winnie was anxious about her parish obligations, but the Archdeacon was quick to reassure her.

“The last thing you need to do just now is worry. I’ve asked Miles Fleming to fill in when he can, and I’ll take some of your duties myself.”

“But I could at least—”

“Next week we’ll talk about your taking the services,” Suzanne interrupted in a tone that brooked no argument. “But you’re going to have to be patient with yourself.”

“Suzanne,” Winnie said hesitantly. “I know this sounds a stupid question, but have you any idea what I did on Wednesday? I had Jack bring my diary from the Vicarage last night, and I’d written in two sick visits for the morning, and a Deanery Chapter meeting after lunch. This morning I rang everyone up. It seems I kept the morning appointments, but I missed the Chapter meeting altogether.”

“Of course I know what you did!” Suzanne answered with a chuckle. “Why didn’t someone ask me sooner? I asked you to take a bereavement visit.”

“You did?” Winnie said blankly.

“In Pilton. You know the vicar was on holiday last week.” Turning to Kincaid, she explained, “I’d have gone myself but I had a Diocesan meeting, so at Winnie’s party I asked her to take it for me.”

Winnie moaned. “This is dreadful. Why can’t I remember?”

“I’m sure you will,” Suzanne reassured her. “My prescription for you is a rest. It looks to me as if you’ve done far too much today.” Glancing at her watch, she added, “I’ve a meeting, but I can help get you settled, then Duncan can see me out.”

Very smoothly done, Kincaid thought as they escorted Winnie into the sitting room. When she was comfortably situated on the sofa, Suzanne gave her a last admonition. “Now, don’t you worry. Your parish will tick along without you for a few more days.”

“But I’ve a wedding—”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Get some rest.”

“But …” Winnie’s protest trailed off as her eyelids started to droop. The wine and pasta had done their work well.

Kincaid and Suzanne stole quietly out and he walked her to her car.

“She really is doing remarkably well,” Suzanne said.

“Yes, but that’s not what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“You don’t miss a trick, Superintendent.” She gave him a quick smile, then sighed. “I hate to be alarmist, but I’m quite worried about Andrew, Winnie’s brother. He hasn’t been to see Winnie since she left hospital, has he?”

“Not since she regained consciousness, as far as I know.”

“He refused to go into the ICU—were you aware of that? And every time I saw him in the waiting area, he seemed progressively overwrought. I’m afraid that his silence doesn’t bode well.”

“You may be right. Can you see him? Have you any influence?”

“When I tried to reason with him in hospital, he only became more agitated. But we’ve been friends for a long time. Perhaps David and I should both talk to him.”

“I take it you’re worried about more than Catesby’s mental health. Do you think he would hurt Winnie?”

“Andrew cares for Winnie so much, I can’t imagine … but sometimes love can get twisted.” Suzanne met Kincaid’s eyes. “Until we’ve at least tried to sort things out with Andrew, I’d feel better if you kept a close eye on Winnie and Jack.”

As soon as Fiona finished one canvas, another image coalesced in her mind, giving her no peace until she brought it to life.

She thought she had never worked so well, with such richness of color or delicacy of detail, and for the first time in months the child had not appeared. But she was bone-weary, and when she’d put the final touches on the latest effort, she cleaned her brushes and left her studio.

Bram looked up from the book he was reading, his relief obvious. “Finished, darling?”

Fiona stretched out on the sofa beside him. “I’m knackered.”

“I wish I could help.” He stroked her forehead with his thumb.

“You do, just by understanding.” As a child, she had drawn on walls if no paper was available when the urge came on her—and had not understood when she’d been punished for it. At one point her baffled parents had tried to keep her from drawing altogether, and she had sunk into a state of depression so deep it bordered on catatonia.

“But I feel empty tonight,” she added, yawning and snuggling a little more firmly into his lap. “This may be it for now.”

“Are they good?”

“Brilliant. You’ll like them.” She smiled up at him. “I think I’ll go see Winnie tomorrow, if she feels up to a bit of company.”

“Shall I read to you?”

“What are you reading?”

“William of Malmsbury’s account of his visit to the Abbey in the 1120s. Listen to this. He’s talking about the Old Church. ‘… one can observe all over the floor stones, artfully interlaced in the forms of triangles or squares and sealed with lead; I do no harm to religion if I believe some sacred mystery is contained beneath them.…’ ”

Was that what Garnet had known? Fiona wondered sleepily, meaning to ask Bram, but the words began to stretch out like shining beads on a string, until they shimmered and faded away.

• • •

She woke on the sofa in a darkened room, with a blanket tucked round her and a cushion placed carefully under her head. It was late—or very early—she sensed that by the quality of the light filtering in through the blinds. She sat up, intending to go to bed for what was left of the night, and her dream came back to her in a rush.

The music—she had heard the singing again. Now it dissolved and slipped once more from her grasp.

And she had seen the Abbey, washed in a clear, pale light. But the heavily overgrown ruins had stood in an open, pastoral landscape, rather than their modern-day walled setting. A few thin cows grazed in the foreground, watched over by a man in old-fashioned dress who leaned picturesquely on a shepherd’s staff.

Fiona lay back and pulled the blanket up to her chin, trying to make sense of the disparate elements floating about in her head: the music, Garnet, the beautifully colored tiles in the Old Church, the odd view of the Abbey …

Her last thought, as she drifted off to sleep once more, was that the man with the shepherd’s crook had looked remarkably like Jack Montfort.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

But even St. Michael was helpless against the Powers of Darkness, concentrated by ritual, and in the earthquake of A.D. 1000 the body of the church [on the Tor] fell down, leaving only the tower standing. Thus was the Christian symbol of a cruciform church changed into the pagan symbol of an upstanding tower, and the Old Gods held their own.

—DION FORTUNE,

FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

FAITH FELT VERY odd from the moment she woke on Tuesday morning. She wondered if any of the others sensed the heaviness, the oppression, in the air. She felt an urgency, as well, a sense that her time to take care of unfinished business was swiftly running out. And the baby, so violently active the past few days, was suddenly quiet, giving her only the occasional gentle nudge.

She felt her abdomen carefully, the way Garnet had taught her, but she couldn’t be sure that the baby had dropped. Why wasn’t Garnet here when she needed her? And how was she going to manage without her?

Fighting back tears of anger and frustration, she finished getting ready for work, then went looking for Duncan. She found him in the last bedroom, surrounded by opened boxes, his face already dirty and set in a scowl of discouragement.

Last night Nick had turned up at last, with a curt apology for his absence. He and Simon had joined in the attic search, carrying the smaller items down to Faith and Winnie in the sitting room. After a long evening’s work, they had all declared the attic thoroughly sorted, with a disheartening lack of results. Now Jack and Duncan had begun working their way through the remainder of the house.

“Anything?” Faith asked Duncan, knowing what the answer would be.

“An old album with some photos of my mother as a child. But other than that, no. Are you ready for me to run you to the café?”

They had developed a comfortable routine in just a few short days, and Faith realized with a pang that she would be sorry to see it end. Nor did she like the idea of the deception she meant to practice today, but she could see no alternative. She must find proof that someone besides Nick had had reason to harm Garnet. And Duncan had told her that the police had sealed the farmhouse, so she couldn’t very well ask him to take her to root through Garnet’s things.

“I’ll see you at five,” he said as she climbed out of the car at the café, and she lifted her hand in a wave as he drove away in Gemma’s purple car.

It was a slow morning, much to her relief, because she grew progressively more uncomfortable as the day wore on. Her legs ached, and her pelvis felt as if her ligaments had turned to jelly. Buddy fussed over her, coming in from the shop to give her a hand as often as he could.

After lunch she waited, tidying and watching the clock. When the hands crept round to two, she gave the counter a last wipe and went into the shop.

Buddy looked up from his jewelry counter. His face creased instantly with concern. “Are you okay, kiddo?”

“I’m not feeling very well. Would you mind if I left early today?” It isn’t a lie, she told herself. Just bending the truth a bit.

“Is it the baby?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said uncertainly. “But I think maybe I should take it easy.”