A Finer End

The memory nagged at her as she took the tube from Paddington to Islington, and as she rang her parents from the flat and asked them to run Toby home in their car.

When her parents arrived an hour later, Toby scrambled out of the car in a pair of brand-new, bright green Wellies, shouting, “Mummy, Mummy! I made sausage rolls! And we made special cakes for Halloween!”

Gemma swooped him up in a bear hug. “You’re going to take after your granddad, are you?”

“I’m a baker,” he announced proudly, wriggling until she put him down. “Can I show Holly my boots?”

“All right. But knock first, okay?” She watched until he had closed behind him the gate that led to Hazel and Tim’s garden, then ushered her parents into the flat.

“Has he been going nonstop all weekend?”

“More or less,” her mum answered, laughing. “Cyn had her two over earlier, so he hasn’t really touched down from that.”

Gemma rolled her eyes. Her sister’s children were utterly undisciplined terrors, but if she complained, her mother would surely remind her of the things she and Cyn had got up to at that age. “Stay for tea?” she asked instead.

“We’d best be getting back. I had ours just about ready when you rang. You look better. You should get away more often. How’s Duncan?”

It was a loaded question. Her parents didn’t approve of her unmarried state—or her “pigheadedness” as they called it. Once, in a fit of temper, Gemma had retaliated, accusing them of not minding if she married an ax murderer, as long as they could tell their friends she was “settled.”

“Depends on whether or not he was a good-looking chap,” her mother had rejoined promptly.

Now, Gemma smiled and answered, “Duncan’s fine. And his cousin’s very nice.” She had told them only that they were making a social visit, and didn’t intend to elaborate.

“Well, bring Duncan to see us. And let us know if you need us to mind Toby.”

When they had kissed her and gone on their way, Gemma wandered over to Hazel’s, intending to practice her piano lesson while the children played. She filled Hazel and Tim in on the details of the weekend, then accepted a cup of tea and sat down at the piano and, with a sigh, attempted to concentrate on her music. But as she picked her way through Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the immersion she sought refused to come.

Instead, her mind held an image of the worn stones of the Abbey rising from the emerald grass of the precinct … and the rocky flank of the Tor behind Garnet Todd’s house on Wellhouse Lane, the broken tower on its summit like a finger stabbing at the sky.

Gemma sank back into her normal Monday-morning routine like a stone slipping into a pool, and yet there was an unreality to it, as if the hustle and bustle of her London life was merely surface noise. Wading through the accumulation of reports that had materialized on her desk over the weekend, she kept in mind the background checks she’d promised Kincaid, and when she had a free moment she put them in motion.

By late afternoon, information began to trickle in.

Garnet Todd had a record, for what it was worth. She had resisted arrest during an antiwar protest in London in the sixties and been found in possession of illegal hallucinogens. No surprise there. Garnet had always chosen the unconventional path.

Nick Carlisle, as Greely had mentioned, had been arrested and fingerprinted as a result of a pub brawl in Durham four years previously—a typical adolescent escapade. What surprised her was that his mother, into whose custody he had been released, was the famous North Country novelist Elizabeth Carlisle. Why would Elizabeth Carlisle’s son choose to live in relative squalor in a Somerset backwater, working for practically nothing, when his connections would have guaranteed him a prestigious starting job? Principle? Or some sort of family trouble?

She put in a call to Durham CID and requested the number of the constable in Elizabeth Carlisle’s small village. There was no answer when she rang, but she left her name and number on the constable’s answerphone.

Kincaid had rung last night and brought her up-to-date on the negative results of their search for the manuscript, as well as Nick’s apparent disappearance and DCI Greely’s sudden interest in Jack.

“What did the Super say when you rang him?” she’d asked.

“Officially, to keep my nose clean and be prepared to levitate back to London if anything breaks on this murder in Camden Passage. Unofficially, he was at school with the Chief Constable and will have my arse if Greely complains I’m interfering in his case.”

“Ouch.”

“I know. I hope I don’t bugger this up.” Then, as he rang off—“Oh, and by the way, I miss you.”