A Finer End

covers a last pat, she turned away with a sigh. They would just have to manage. She wasn’t willing to contemplate leaving the garage flat just now — one change at a time was enough.
    The adjustment to the new job had been more difficult than she’d expected. Although she’d been a rookie at Notting Hill, she’d just had her own bit of turf to worry about in those days. In the past two months she’d discovered that the reality of command was a different beast altogether, and with it came a mountain of paperwork that was never finished — hence her midnight stint at the table with cold tea. Added to that was the lingering sexism demonstrated by both her chief inspector and some of the male officers under her command. Only now did she realize how much she had taken her working relationship with Kincaid for granted, and how much it had insulated her from active prejudice.
    These problems were complicated by her enforced separation from Kincaid; between their schedules they were lucky to snatch a few hours together in a week. She told herself daily that she had made the right decision, that things would get easier, that she wouldn’t let herself whinge over changes that had been her own choice. But more and more often she found herself awake and restless long past a sensible hour, wondering just exactly what it was she wanted from her life.
    She poured the remains of her tea down the sink and rinsed the cup, then wandered round the room, turning down the bed and picking up stray toys and books. She found the routine comforting, for although she was physically tired, she didn’t feel ready to sleep.
    Rummaging in the trunk that served her as a wardrobe, she found the ancient flannelette nightdress she hadn’t worn since the previous winter. For a moment, she held the fabric to her face, feeling the softness against her skin and inhaling the scent of her mother’s rose sachet. The nightdress had been a much-coveted Christmas gift from her parents while she was still at school. She had never quite managed to part with it, even during her marriage to Rob, although he’d hated it with a passion he usually reserved for rival football teams.
    She slipped out of her clothes and put the nightdress on, then found a pair of heavy socks. Armed against the chill, she went into the bathroom and brushed her hair until it crackled, then washed her face and cleaned her teeth. She saved using the loo until last, as a good-luck charm of sorts, but when she checked the loo paper, there was no trace of pink.
    The panic that welled up in her left her shaking, nauseated. But there was really no need to worry, she told herself — she was only a few days late — and there was certainly no need to tell Kincaid. Not yet.
     

Chapter Seven
     
So many holy men have prayed and died at Glastonbury that the spiritual atmosphere is alive and aglow.
Their dust, mingling with the earth, sanctifies the very ground beneath our feet.
Dion Fortune, from
Glastonbury: Avalon of the Heart
     
    It rained heavily during the night. After Jack left, Winnie had tossed and turned, drifting in and out of a fitful sleep in which the sound of water falling was ever present. But the day dawned clear and freshly washed, and she woke feeling surprisingly lucid and serene, considering her interrupted night and the task she had set herself that day.
    She had put off too long her visit to Simon, and what Jack had told her last night made it imperative that she talk to him. But first, she said her Morning Office; then, when she had dressed and breakfasted, she wheeled her old bike from the garden shed and cycled the two miles into Glastonbury. She reached the Abbey at half past nine, just as the gates were opening. Here she would be able to collect herself, to work out just what she meant to say.
    Stowing her bike in the rack, she paid her admission and pushed through the turnstile. The museum exhibits were artfully done and informative, but she passed them by and exited through the glass doors that led to the Abbey grounds.
    There, she stood on the step, transfixed. The sky was a perfect robin’s-egg blue, the emerald grass sparkled with moisture from the night’s rain, and the stone walls of the Abbey ruins shone golden in the morning sun.
    This was why she had come. Once she was inside the Abbey precinct, the very air and light seemed different. It was as if she had stepped into an illuminated page of a manuscript, and the sweet, unlikely scent of apple