A finer end - Deborah Crombie [78]
“Tall, slender, glasses, dark hair. Mid-thirties. Nice-looking in a bookish sort of way. He was driving a silver Volkswagen sedan.”
Jack had paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. “How very odd. That sounds like Andrew Catesby, but I can’t imagine what he’d be doing at Garnet Todd’s.”
“Poor Jack,” said Gemma as she slid behind the wheel of her car. “I don’t think he was prepared for the idea that someone he knew and liked might be involved in Winnie’s accident—or Garnet Todd’s murder.”
Kincaid buckled up and opened a guide to Glastonbury that Jack had provided. “Go west, then bear left at the first roundabout,” he instructed, then added, “And I don’t think he’s realized that Faith has no alibi after she left work yesterday afternoon. What did she tell you?”
“She said she couldn’t stop herself looking at the van’s fender, then she felt so ashamed of her suspicions that she couldn’t face Garnet. She tried to climb the Tor, but when she started to have pains, she curled up in a hedge and went to sleep.”
Kincaid’s raised eyebrow shouted his skepticism. Irritated, Gemma said, “So what are you proposing? That this nine-month-pregnant girl went home, had an argument with Garnet, killed her somehow or other, then dragged her body to the van?”
“Asphyxiated, it looks like,” Kincaid said placidly. “Although the doctor was a bit cagey about the method.”
“Even if Faith were physically capable of strangling or suffocating Garnet, why would she do such a thing? Maybe someone killed Garnet to keep her from hurting Faith.”
“Nick, for instance?” Checking the map again, Kincaid directed, “Right at the next roundabout. The B and B should be just along Magdalene Street.”
Gemma made the turn and slowed, searching for the B & B’s sign. “I’d like to know what Winnie Catesby’s brother was doing poking about Garnet Todd’s place.”
“I suppose we could have a chat with Mr. Catesby as well. There!”
Gemma swung the car too sharply into the gravel drive of a square, well-kept Georgian house, red brick with white trim. Kincaid got out and rang the bell, and soon returned with a pleasant young man who opened the security gate for them and directed Gemma where to park.
The young man informed them that their room was in the coach house, and while the men removed the bags from the boot, Gemma looked round with pleasure. The coach house stood at the end of the drive, separated from the main house by a formally landscaped garden, and protected from the noise and traffic of the busy street.
Inside proved as delightful as the exterior, and as Gemma followed the men up a graceful staircase, she was thankful not to be spending the night in Jack’s dark house beneath the Tor. “The Acacia Room,” the young man told them when they’d reached their room, and Gemma’s first thought was that “Rose” would have been more appropriate, for it was done in soft shades of that color. A bay window on the front looked over the drive.
As Kincaid thanked the young man and closed the door, Gemma went to the north window and pulled aside the lace curtain. Below her was a square pool with a fountain, canopied by a tree with the most beautiful bark she had ever seen. Patterned in shades from the palest green to deepest russet, it reminded her of an abstract painting.
“The tree—what is it?” she asked as Kincaid came to stand behind her.
“An acacia. Lovely, isn’t it?” He put his hands on her shoulders and she leaned back against him. Her gaze traveled upward, over the garden wall, and she gave an involuntary gasp of surprise. “What is that?” She pointed at the view of rolling, emerald-green grounds and, just visible through the trees, a round stone building.
“It’s the Abbey,” he replied, sounding amused. “You didn’t know?”
“Right in the center of the town?”
“Mm-hmm. The Abbey came first, and the town grew up around it.”
“And that?” She gestured at the round structure.
“The Abbot’s Kitchen. It’s the only intact building in the precinct, saved—if I remember correctly—because after the dissolution the Quakers used it for a meetinghouse. See the four chimneys,