A Finer End

that’s an enormous improvement over the last two they assigned me.’ He took a sip of his beer and studied her. ‘You’ll be bossing sweet young things about yourself, any day now. How does it feel?’
    She heard the distance in his tone and said awkwardly, ‘Don’t know yet, really.’ He’d given her an opening, and the longer she waited to take it, the more difficult it would be. Abruptly, she said, ‘I’ve got my duty assignment. Notting Hill.’
    For a moment he didn’t respond, then, without taking his gaze from the garden, he said softly, ‘Your old stomping ground. Good. That should make things easier for you. Congratulations,’ he added, but she could see it took an effort.
    ‘This has been harder than I expected.’
    ‘Gemma, I’ve no doubt you can do the job—’
    ‘No, that’s not what I meant. I feel so... displaced... without you. It’s like half of me’s missing. I never realized...’
    He stared at her, then said lightly, ‘And I thought you’d come to give me a "Dear Duncan" send-off in person. I met this terrific bloke on my Criminal Behaviour course. .
    ‘Fat chance, that!’ she exclaimed, laughing.
    He moved his bare foot along the railing until it touched hers. ‘I’ve missed you too.’
    The wave of desire that washed over her from that small contact was so intense it left her shaken. She closed her eyes and held quite still, struggling to convince herself that every nerve ending in her body hadn’t suddenly migrated to the left side of her left foot.
    When she opened her eyes, Kincaid was watching her. ‘Gemma? You okay?’
    Tentatively, she said, ‘Just exactly how much did you miss me?’
    He brushed her cheek with a fingertip. ‘Are you angling for a demonstration, Inspector?’
    Her pulse leapt. ‘Yes, sir, guv’nor, sir.’ The lights blinked on in the house opposite, as if to signal the coining of night. ‘You can’t make a case without evidence, you know.’
    ‘Oh, I think that could be obtained easily enough, don’t you?’ He stood, and she caught the flash of his grin as he held out his hand to her. She slipped her fingers into his, and willingly gave herself up.
     

Chapter Six
     
There are times in the history of races when the things of the inner life come to the surface and find, expression, and from these rendings of the veil the light of the sanctuary pours forth.
Dion Fortune, from
Glastonbury: Avalon of the Heart
     
    She lay beside him, listening to his soft breathing, with the slight whistle on the exhalation that might easily become a snore. That she found tolerable, much to her surprise, even though she had slept alone for so many years.
    Not that Winnie felt entirely comfortable with the fact that she was sleeping with Jack, and she knew the excuse that the transgressions of a number of Anglican priests far surpassed hers was no justification. But she also knew that it felt right, blessed, and she could not believe that God would find such joy offensive. God had more to worry him than a bit of out-of-wedlock love-making... as did she.
    Easing out of bed, she fumbled for slippers and dressing gown, then remembered that she had not meant to stay and that her clothes lay in a heap on the floor. That meant borrowing Jack’s dressing gown from the bedpost and slipping on thick socks.
    She had learned her way round this room, which had been Jack’s parents’, well enough to navigate in the dark. The first time she had stayed the night, Jack had admitted rather shamefacedly that he had been using the small single bed in his boyhood room, unable to bear the thought of taking over the mahogany four-poster in which his parents had slept for almost fifty years. But the single bed had not been big enough for two, and together they had made the transition to the larger bedroom.
    If she had thought the house cold on bright summer days, now that October had arrived it was frigid. Winnie sometimes fancied that it was the shadow of the Tor that kept it so, but that was absurd. It was merely, she told herself, shivering, that the house was old and the central heating inadequate.
    As she shuffled down the stairs, hugging the banister, she indulged a moment’s fantasy in which she and Jack were snuggled up cosily in her warm room at the Vicarage. But she knew that no matter how discreet they were, tongues would wag eventually, and she did not need more gossip just now. Her archdeacon, Suzanne Sanborne, had already expressed concern over rumours