A Finer End

isn’t it?’
    For a moment she thought he would deny it, then he met her eyes. ‘Glastonbury is a small town, Winnie. People talk. I went to a council meeting last night, and you and Jack Montfort were a great source of speculation. Montfort may have some justification for going off the deep end, but I can’t see that you have any excuse for plunging in with him. I’m surprised that your bishop hasn’t had a discreet word with you about associating yourself with blatant spiritualism—’
    ‘That’s enough!’ She pushed back her chair and stood, her bewilderment turning to icy fury. ‘You’re being bloody offensive, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you’d better go home.’ Andrew stood too, a little unsteadily, and leaned towards her. ‘How do you think I feel, being gossiped about? I’ve worked for years to build my reputation in this town — you know how hard it is to get project funding — and now people snigger when they see me and make comments about my sister’s raging hormones causing her to take leave of her senses. They all want to know if you’re sleeping with him — are you sleeping with him, Winnie?’
    For the first time since she was nine years old, Winnie raised her hand and slapped her brother across the face as hard as she could.
     
    ‘Inspector James...’
    Gemma said the words aloud as she drove, trying out the sound on her tongue. Heady things, titles. They tempted you to think you were a different person, when in reality the changes were more like the layers of accretion on a pearl. A little more irritation gained you a little more lustre, another layer of knowledge, of experience.
    Or perhaps she’d wanted the title to make her into a different person — one whose sense of accomplishment wasn’t tempered by her sense of loss. She’d been so busy worrying about how Kincaid would deal with her decision that she’d failed to take her own response to their separation into account. And in spite of her excitement, and the intensity of her focus on her training, she’d felt a constant ache that seemed only to grow more profound with time. She’d come to think of it as the equivalent of the phantom-limb syndrome — she found herself carrying on imaginary conversations with him throughout the day. It was as if their thought processes had become permanently intertwined. Even when they’d been apart in the course of a job, investigating different avenues on a case, she’d been constantly filing away mental references to share with him.
    Kincaid had reacted the way she’d expected, his initial dismay turning quickly to angry bewilderment. ‘Doesn’t our partnership mean anything to you?’ he had asked, and her justifications had sounded weak in her own ears. He’d pulled himself together, of course, had even tried to be understanding and supportive — but he had withdrawn from her. During her last weeks of training in Hampshire, she’d rung him a few times and their conversations had consisted of pleasantly distant chat. Returning to London yesterday, she’d found her new duty assignment awaiting her, and she knew she must tell him about it in person.
    He’d been away from the Yard on a case, so she’d gone home, fed Toby his supper, then tucked him up at Hazel’s and headed for Kincaid’s Hampstead flat. She should have rung — he might still be out, he might have other plans, he might not want to see her — and perhaps it was fear of the last that had prompted her to go unannounced.
    The traffic was light as she drove through Camden Town, the September evening warm enough to allow her to drive her new car with the windows down. The Ford Escort, whose colour went by the romantic and improbable name of Wild Orchid, had been a much-needed gift to herself on her promotion. The increase in her salary had made it feasible, but more than that she had needed some sort of visible symbol of her achievement. And Kincaid had not seen the car yet, which gave her an excuse for showing up on his doorstep.
    When she reached Hampstead the glitterati were out in force, strolling and positioning themselves to see and be seen in the pavement cafés, mobile phones permanently attached to their ears.
    Turning into Carlingford Road, she saw Kincaid’s old MG Midget parked in front of his building, covered with its tarpaulin, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was at home. The Major’s ground-floor flat was quiet, as was the stairwell of the building,