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 cafe 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!”
