A finer end - Deborah Crombie [113]
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.”
“Have you called