A Finer End

When Jack took Winnie’s hand between both of his, it felt cool and unresponsive. “Winnie, it’s me, Jack,” he began awkwardly. “You’ve had a bit of a bump on the head, but you’re going to be fine, love.”

“You just keep talking to her,” Maggie instructed when he paused, “and I’ll give you a few more minutes.” She moved away to attend another patient, her face impassive.

Jack fumbled in his pocket for the prayer book the hospital staff had found in Winnie’s handbag and began to read, hoping the familiar and comforting words would somehow reach her. “O Lord our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who has safely brought us to the beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance.…” His voice broke; he bowed his head and closed the small leather-bound book with its gilt-edged pages. It was Winnie’s, a gift from her parents upon her confirmation, she had told him once. They had been killed in a boating accident shortly afterwards, and the book had become one of her treasures.

How had she managed to survive such grief whole? he wondered. He whispered to her, rubbing her hand between his, telling her he loved her, that she was strong and that he would let nothing—nothing—take her away from him.

Maggie reappeared at his side with a soft touch on his shoulder. “You’ll have to go now, I’m afraid, but you can come back in a couple of hours.” As Jack stood, regretfully letting go Winnie’s hand, she added, “Did I hear someone say that Winifred was a vicar?”

“Of St. Mary’s, in Compton Grenville.”

“If she likes music, you might bring something for her to listen to. Music can be a very strong trigger for some people, especially if it’s an important part of their daily lives.”

“Can I leave this with you?” Jack held out the prayer book. “In case you have a chance to read to her? Or if she wakes …” He looked up, desperately meeting Maggie’s hazel eyes. “What if she wakes up while I’m gone? Or …”

Maggie dug a piece of paper and a pen from her pocket. “You have a mobile phone?” Jack nodded. “Give me your number, and I’ll ring you if there’s any change at all.”

Jack thanked her and, with a last look at Winnie, went out into the waiting area. It was then that he sank into the nearest chair, shaken by the realization that he could not bear to lose her, could not bear to go back to the desert that had been his life after Emily’s death.

Nor could he bear to sit idly by, waiting. There were too many unanswered questions. What would Winnie tell them when—he refused to consider the possibility that it might be if—she woke? Why had she been going to see her friend Fiona at that time of evening? Where had she been before that? Why hadn’t she rung him? And what had she seen before the car struck her?

There must be something he could do. The police had certainly not shown much interest in investigating the accident. Winnie was much too levelheaded to have cycled blindly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. But how else could this have happened, unless someone had deliberately hurt her? And that was unimaginable.

He would go see Fiona. Perhaps Winnie had rung her, told her something that would explain her unlikely appearance in Bulwarks Lane.

And there was one other person he could call; someone he could trust to tell him if he was completely mad.

Kincaid returned the phone to its cradle on his desk just as his sergeant came into his office with a sheaf of papers in a folder.

“Report from forensics,” Douglas Cullen said, sliding the folder across the desk and pulling up a chair.

“Any joy?”

Cullen shook his head regretfully. “No, sir. Nothing, zilch, nada.”

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “I see you’ve been watching American telly again.” He suspected that Cullen liked to imagine himself a tough, NYPD Blue-type detective—a harmless enough fantasy as long as it didn’t get in the way of his work—but surely no one could look a less likely candidate. With his fair hair, spectacles, and rosy-cheeked, schoolboy complexion, Cullen was the very image of the traditional English bobby.

For the past two weeks, they’d been working a case that looked disturbingly as if it might be the beginning venture of a serial killer. The victim, the owner of an antiques stall in Camden Passage, had been found on her own premises, and so far they had not turned up a smidgen of useful evidence. Kincaid had begun to think that the killer had worn a hermetically sealed suit, and been invisible to boot.