A Finer End

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER TWENTY

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

—DION FORTUNE,

FROM GLASTONBURY: AVALON OF THE HEART

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She confronted Bram—”

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

“And Winnie?”

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

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

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

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

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