A Finer End

dad would hurt her?’
    ‘I don’t know. She’s never said so, not flat out. But there’s something not right in that family.’
    ‘Anybody laid a hand on that girl’d have me to answer to, dad or not.’ Buddy bristled.
    ‘You’re a good man, Buddy, not like some. But it’s not as simple as that.’ Garnet tried to gather into words what she felt with such certainty. ‘Faith is a pivot, a magnet, for forces much more powerful than her father. She and her baby are in dire peril — I’m more sure of that than anything I’ve ever known. Faith has to stay with me — it’s the only way I can protect her.’
    ‘And the boy you’re so riled up about — Nick? Is he Part of this danger?’
    ‘I don’t know. But he is a distraction, and that’s something Faith can’t afford right now.’
    Buddy fidgeted with his mug, then reluctantly met her eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re not... overreacting?’
    ‘I don’t want to be proved right, Buddy. And I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m not willing to risk Faith if I can help it. Are you?’
    ‘No... I... well, I’ve gotten used to having her around, if you want to know the truth. If anything happened to her...’
    What a pair they were, thought Garnet. Childless, never married, no family. And this slip of a girl had come into their lives and pierced them like an arrow.
    ‘Just look after her, Buddy, when she’s with you. Promise me that.’
    It was the best she could do... But she was terribly afraid it would not be enough.
     
    Faith’s family lived in the town of Street, just two miles from Glastonbury across the sluggish trickle of the River Brue. Whenever Winnie drove across the bridge, she found it hard to imagine that it was here King Arthur was said to have seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin; perhaps in those days it had been a more prepossessing spot.
    Street was home to the Clark Shoe Company. One of the more enlightened of Victorian employers, Clark’s had provided good working conditions and comfortable housing for their factory workers, and the town had carried that air of forward-looking prosperity into the present. It was quite a contrast to Glastonbury’s ragtag appeal, but it was Glastonbury that Winnie preferred.
    Faith had admitted reluctantly that her name was Wills, and had given Winnie an address in a comfortable housing estate near the Street police station. At half past five Winnie stopped her car in front of the Wills house. It sat at the end of a quiet close of similar brick, semi-detached homes that looked as if their owners had participated in a ‘tidy garden’ contest. There was neither an untrimmed shrub nor a weed to be seen, and Winnie found it vaguely depressing. Nor was there any sign of life: no bicycles, no roller skates, no one digging in a well-manicured flower bed.
    As she neared the front door, however, she saw signs of neglect that had not been visible from the street — weeds sprouting in the beds, parched petunias and begonias that had been allowed to wither. Winnie rang the bell, and after a moment a woman of about her own age opened the door. The woman wore smart business clothes, and would have been pretty had she not looked drawn with worry or exhaustion.
    ‘Mrs Wills? Could I speak to you for a moment?’
    ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve already donated at our church.’ She started to close the door.
    ‘Mrs Wills, it’s about your daughter.’
    The woman stared at her, her hand flying to her throat in the classic gesture of shock that Winnie had seen too often.
    ‘She’s all right, Mrs Wills,’ Winnie hastened to reassure her. ‘May I come in, please?’
    Mrs Wills moved back like a sleepwalker, then sank onto a sofa in the small, formal front room. There was a faint smell of cooking potatoes in the air. ‘Is she... is the baby—’
    ‘Faith is as healthy as a horse, and hasn’t had any difficulties or complications with the pregnancy.’ Minnie sat in a nearby chair. ‘My name’s Winifred Catesby, Mrs Wills, and Faith asked me to come and see you.’ That might be stretching the truth a bit, but Winnie didn’t see any harm.
    ‘Where — where is she?’ Mrs Wills started to rise, as if to go to her daughter that instant.
    ‘It’s Maureen, isn’t it?’ said Winnie as she laid a gently restraining hand on her arm. ‘Maureen, Faith wanted you to know that she was safe and well.’
    ‘But she’s coming home? She is coming home, isn’t she?’
    Winnie had known this would be