A Finer End

badly as I have could possibly be a priest, but Winnie says you can’t understand other people’s mistakes if you haven’t made some yourself. Seasoning, she called it.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t look so shocked. It’s what I’ve always wanted; it just took me a while to figure it out.’
    ‘But... Father Nick?’ She studied him as if seeing him for the first time. Nick, a vicar like Winnie? ‘Well...’ she said slowly, ‘I suppose I could get used to it.’
     
    Gemma and Kincaid had turned over all their information on the murder of Garnet Todd and Bram Allen’s death to DI Greely. His team had already found Garnet’s missing earring near the pool above her house, and a strand of Garnet’s long salt-and-pepper hair snagged on a button on the jacket Bram Allen had worn the night she died.
    Now, they sat in front of the fire in Jack’s parlour, drinking tea and sorting through the events of the past days. Andrew’s dog Phoebe, brought temporarily from the house on Hillhead, had curled herself up against Gemma’s feet.
    ‘Will Fiona be all right?’ asked Kincaid.
    ‘She’s very strong,’ answered Winnie. ‘But this... I don’t know. I’ve seldom seen two people love each other more.’
    ‘Even though Bram wasn’t what she thought?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ Winnie said slowly, ‘that it matters. And are any of us ever entirely honest about ourselves?’
    Gemma thought of her own failure to communicate with Duncan about what lay closest to her heart. ‘What about Edmund? Do you think he knows now that his and Alys’s child survived?’
    ‘I hope so,’ answered Jack. ‘He deserves peace, after eight hundred years.’
    ‘As does little Sarah Kinnersley,’ Winnie said softly. ‘What will you do with the manuscript?’ Kincaid asked.
    ‘Study, first,’ Jack replied instantly. ‘Consult with some of the experts on chant, and with conservators. The manuscript itself is remarkably well preserved, and we want to keep it that way.’
    ‘You won’t try to keep it hidden any longer?’
    ‘I think almost a millennium is long enough, don’t you? People should hear this — who knows what good might come of it?’
    ‘It’s quite a responsibility, isn’t it, though?’ mused Gemma. ‘If it’s what you suspect it is.’
    ‘But there have always been caretakers in Glastonbury,’ Winnie pointed out. ‘Think of the monks, and Bligh Bond, and the Chalice Well Trust... We’ll be following a well-established tradition. I think Edmund would have wanted that.’
    ‘What about Simon?’ Kincaid asked. ‘I’m afraid we did him a disservice, regardless of any past indiscretions.’
    ‘Perhaps...’ Winnie smiled faintly. ‘Although I did learn he’d contacted someone about publishing Edmund’s communications, without consulting Jack.’
    ‘So there’s still a wolf under the sheep’s clothing, after all.’
    ‘I’m sure he meant to tell me,’ Jack replied stubbornly, making it clear that he and Winnie would have enough differences of opinion to make life interesting.
    ‘London is going to seem extremely dull compared to Glastonbury,’ Kincaid said with a grin, ‘but I suppose we’d better be getting back.’
    ‘Wait.’ Jack rose. ‘I have something for Gemma.’ He left the room, returning with a flat, paper-wrapped package.
    ‘For me?’ Gemma took it, curious. When she undid the twine and pulled back the paper, she found herself looking at an oil portrait of a hunting spaniel, who gazed back at her with eyes as soulful as Phoebe’s. ‘Oh...’ she breathed. ‘It’s lovely.’
    ‘See, I didn’t forget,’ Jack told his cousin.
    ‘But he’s not half as lovely as you, is he, darling?’ whispered Gemma, who had leaned over to stroke Phoebe’s silky ears. She thought of her flat, not big enough to swing a cat in, much less a dog. Owning a dog had seemed an impossible proposition, in spite of Toby’s constant pleading. But now she faced challenges much more daunting than that, and she felt suddenly liberated, as if anything were possible, alight with excitement at the prospect of the inevitable changes to come. What had happened to her?
    Could it be, she wondered, that Glastonbury worked its magic in more ways than they had imagined?
     
    *
     
    They stood beneath the great stone transepts of the Abbey Church. It was a perfect November afternoon, but the sun was sinking and the first hint of evening’s chill had crept into the air. It was near closing and the precinct