A Finer End

“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 someone to fetch you?”

“Yes,” she lied outright this time, forcing a smile. “I’ll wait outside.”

She slipped on her cardigan and went out into the light drizzle that had kept the climbers away. There was nothing for it but to walk, so she turned resolutely uphill and began.

The pavement grew slicker and the rain heavier as she climbed. By the time she reached the farmhouse she was gasping, and a dull, heavy pain had taken root at the base of her spine. But she had done it! No one had passed her on her way up the hill, but still she looked round furtively as she ducked under the blue-and-white crime-scene tape that had been stretched across the gate.

She picked her way across the yard and unlocked the back door with her key. All three cats trotted hopefully out from the shelter of the barn and she stooped to stroke them as they rubbed about her ankles, purring. “Are you hungry, poor dears?” she said, and sang the silly little dinner song she had made up for them as she let them in the house.

Every surface in the kitchen was covered with a fine black dust, and the room looked as if a hurricane had raged through it, littered throughout with the objects from the shelves and cabinets. Faith grimaced as she lit the lamp and put food in the cats’ bowls, trying to touch as little as possible. The sight of the casserole Garnet had made the day she died almost undid her.

The evidence of the police search was even more overwhelming in Garnet’s office. There was fingerprint powder everywhere, and the room was a sea of papers. The drawers of Garnet’s desk had been pried open, and all but one drawer was empty.

Lighting the lamp on the desk, she looked at the contents of the drawer they had left intact. It held a half-dozen spiral notebooks, and as Faith opened them, she saw that each was filled with technical notes on tile making. No wonder the police hadn’t found them useful.

Garnet had been secretive to the point of paranoia concerning the recipes she used in the glazes on her tiles. She’d insisted that they were what made her work unique, and her restoration techniques possible. In a talkative mood, she had once told Faith that she used only natural materials available to medieval craftsmen, creating the authentic colors that made her tiles so prized.

But it seemed Garnet’s secrets had not died with her. The journals held not only extensive notes, but accounts of formulas and experiments, failures and successes.

Faith was so fascinated that she forgot the time, until a glance at the darkening window reminded her that she must keep on. She had meant to be finished and back at the café when Duncan came to collect her, although what she would tell Buddy she had yet to figure out.

She put the journals back and thought for a moment. The office was a dead end. If there had been anything useful the police would have found it. Slowly, she returned to the kitchen. This was the heart of the house, where Garnet had spent her time when she was not working. Here she had sung while she cooked, she had read, she had rocked in the well-worn rocking chair.