Kissed a sad goodbye - Deborah Crombie [167]
“Uncomfortable?” Montfort snorted. “They fired him. He never worked successfully as an architect again, and if I remember rightly, died in poverty. If the man had had an ounce of bloody sense, he’d have kept his mouth shut.”
“He felt he had to share it, though, didn’t he? I’d say Bond was honest to a fault. And I don’t think he ever actually claimed he’d made contact with spirits. He thought he might have merely accessed some part of his own subconscious.”
“Do you believe it’s possible, whatever the source?”
“Bond’s not the only case. There have been well-documented instances where people have known things about the past that couldn’t be accounted for otherwise.” Glancing at the paper Montfort had partially covered with his hand, Nick felt a fizz of excitement. “But you’re not talking hypothetically, are you?”
“This is—” Montfort shook his head. “Daft. Too daft to tell anyone. But the coincidence, meeting you here … I—” He looked round, as if suddenly aware of the proximity of other customers, and lowered his voice.
“I was sitting at my desk tonight, and I wrote … something. In Latin I haven’t used since I was at school, and I had no memory of writing it. I tore the damned thing up.… then this …” He ran his fingertips across the scrawl on the sketchpad.
“Bugger,” Nick breathed, awed. “I’d swap my mum for a chance at something like that.”
“But why me? I didn’t ask for this,” Montfort retorted fiercely. “I’m an architect, but my knowledge of the Abbey is no more than you’d expect from anyone who grew up here. I’m not particularly religious. I’ve never had any interest in spiritualism—or other-worldly things of any sort, for that matter.”
Nick pondered this for a moment. “I doubt these things are random. Maybe you have some connection to the Abbey that you’re not consciously aware of.”
“That’s a big help,” Montfort said, but there was a gleam of humor in his bright blue eyes. “So how do I find out what it is, and why this is happening to me?”
“You know it wasn’t Bond who did the actual writing, but his friend, John Bartlett. Bond guided him by asking questions.”
“You want to play Bond to my Bartlett, then?” Montfort sounded amused.
“You said you came from Glastonbury. That seems as good a place to start as any.”
“My father’s family’s been in Glastonbury and round about for eons, I should think. He was a solicitor. A large, serious man, very sure of where he stood in the world.” Montfort took a sip of his beer and his voice softened as he continued. “Now, my mother, she was a different sort altogether. She loved stories, loved to play make-believe with us when we were children.”
“Us?”
Montfort was silent.
“Us?” Nick repeated.
“My cousins and I. Duncan and Juliet.” Montfort smiled. “My aunt and uncle had a penchant for Shakespeare. We always visited them in Cheshire on our holidays. It was a different world. The canals, and then the hills of Wales rising in the distance …”
He fell silent, his eyes half-closed. Nick was about to prompt him again, when, without warning, Montfort grasped the pen. His hand began to move steadily across the paper.
Nick translated the Latin as the words began to form … Deo juvante … with God’s help … you shall make it right.…
In that instant, Nick knew why he had come to Glastonbury, and he knew why he had stayed.
Faith Wills rested her forehead against the cool plastic of the toilet seat, panting, her eyes swimming with the tears brought on by retching. She had nothing left to throw up but the lining of her stomach, yet somehow she was going to have to pull herself together, go out and face the smell of her mother’s breakfast.
It was a bacon-and-egg morning—her mum believed all children should go off to school well fortified for the day. They alternated cooked eggs, or porridge, or brown toast and marmite; and on this Thursday morning in March, Faith had struck the worst possible option.
A whiff of bacon crept into the bathroom. Her stomach heaved treacherously just as her younger brother, Jonathan, pounded on the door. “You think you’re effing Madonna in there or