A Finer End

There had been a few charmed weeks of regular visits, of feeling so grown-up, sleek with her secret and her superiority to the other girls in her class.

Then reality had struck—a missed period, the worry, the sickness, the inevitable acknowledgment of the truth. When she’d told him she was pregnant, he had wept in her arms like a terrified child, and she’d sworn to him she would never tell anyone the truth. And she’d believed that, once the baby was born and she was on her own, perhaps they could be together again.

Now she saw that she had been mad to think she had meant anything to him—or that she had ever been more than a dreadful mistake in his eyes.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“This can’t go on, you know,” said Andrew, coming a step closer. “This wondering, waiting for the ax to fall. I can’t bear it anymore.”

“I haven’t told anyone!”

“Not Garnet?”

“No. I swear.” But she had confessed to Garnet, when Winnie had urged her to see her mum—and learned to her horror that Winnie was Andrew’s sister! She had been introduced to Winnie only by her Christian name, and so had never made the connection.

“And you haven’t told my sister?”

“I wouldn’t tell Winnie!”

“I never expected that,” Andrew said dispassionately. “That you would make friends with my sister. Did you think it would give you some hold over me?” He shook his head. “You should have known that was the one thing I would never tolerate.”

Too late, Faith realized her mistake. But if she had lied and told him Winnie knew, would it have made a difference? “I’ve protected you. All these months. I had to leave home, because my dad would have killed you if he’d found out.”

“That doesn’t matter now. But my sister … You have to understand. Winnie mustn’t ever know. I can’t take any more chances. I’m sorry.”

He was on her before she could move, his hands round her throat.

Faith felt the searing pressure of his thumbs, heard the rasp of his breath in her ear. She struggled, trying to pull his hands away, but she couldn’t loosen his grip.

Even through the suffocating fog of her fear, she knew that if she lost consciousness she would be finished. She kicked at his ankles, but he merely tightened his grip on her throat. His face was contorted with purpose, unrecognizable. He pushed her backwards until she felt the cooker press against the small of her back.

Her vision blurred, sparking with luminous blue spots. In a last effort, she stopped scrabbling at his hands and reached behind her, groping for something, anything, that might hold him off.

Her fingers closed on the handle of Garnet’s cast-iron frying pan. She lifted it, vaguely aware of a tearing in her wrist from its weight, then swung it with all her strength.

The blow caught Andrew in the temple.

She saw the flare of astonishment in his eyes, then his hold on her throat gave way and he crumpled, toppling back against the table. He grasped at it, pulling himself up; Faith swung the frying pan again.

Andrew slumped to the floor.

Faith stood over him, panting and trembling. There was no blood. If she moved, would he come at her again?

Then she gasped as pain gripped her, doubling her over, squeezing at her, and a gush of warm liquid ran down her legs. When she could stand upright again, she inched round Andrew’s still form, whimpering in terror.

She had to get out, away from the house. Away from him.

Stumbling out the door and down the steps, she ran through the downpour across the mud-slick yard to the back gate, and, once through it, onto the rocky slope of the Tor.

Up. She must go up. Blinded by the rain, sliding and falling, then picking herself up again, she began to climb straight up the side of the hill, towards the ancient contours cut into the rock, the maze that led to the summit of the Tor.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

History may tell us that Christianity came to these islands from Ireland, but legend, which enshrines the spiritual heart of history, declares that the Light of the West came to us straight from the place of its rising, and that we were indebted to no intermediaries for its transmission.

—DION FORTUNE,

FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

“HULLO, LOVE. GOOD journey?” Kincaid eased the car into the traffic exiting Bath station as rain began to spatter on the windscreen.

“Any luck with your search this morning?” Gemma asked.

“This has been a wild-goose chase if I ever saw one. We’ve not turned up anything remotely resembling a lost Gregorian chant. I’m beginning to think we’ve all gone a bit soft in the head.”

“You won’t be able to stay much longer.”

“No.” He concentrated on his driving for a few moments, then said, “DCI Greely is still sifting through the material from Garnet’s house, but there are no phone records, no computer, no Caller ID—there aren’t even any personal letters that he’s been able to find, just business records.”

“And no help from those?”

“Only in the negative sense. He’s checked with those customers who had tile-work commissions pending, but she made no deliveries on the night of Winnie’s hit-and-run.”

“What about forensics?”