A Finer End

cooked, even though she knew Faith loathed them; she had read tattered copies of National Geographic in the loo; she had kept a doll collection wrapped in tissue paper in a box in her bedroom cupboard.
    And now she was not.
    She spent the first hour after Jack’s departure watching some mindless comedy on the old telly in the sitting room, but when the snow on the screen began to give her a headache she gave it up. She had asked Jack once why he hadn’t kept any of his own things when he came back to Glastonbury, and he’d replied that they’d absorbed too many memories, like emulsion on film. He’d sold everything in a job lot.
    Would Garnet’s possessions bear her imprint? Faith had watched her in her workshop, handling her tools with such delicacy. Those she had loved, and her books, and her cape and colourful clothes.
    Faith wandered about the house, running her fingertip through the layer of dust on the furniture, her thoughts skittering. She felt as if someone had taken her apart and put the pieces back in the wrong order.
    Without conscious decision, she climbed the stairs, slowly, one hand supporting the weight of her belly. She had not been in any of the upstairs rooms except the one Jack had put her in. Now she opened each door along the corridor, peering inside. Hers came first, then a tiny room that bore traces of boyhood occupation. The large room near hers had a high four-poster bed and smelled of Jack and, faintly, Winnie. The other two rooms were filled with boxes, stacks of books and papers, and odd bits of furniture.
    What had it been like to grow up in this house? she wondered, recalling her parents’ cheerful suburban semi. That brought a pang of intense homesickness, immediately quashed, as was the thought of what she would do once her baby was born. How could she think past this day?
    Closing the doors again, she went back down the stairs. She would do something useful, have a meal ready for them, whenever they came back. Scrounging in the pantry, she found some canned chicken stock, a packet of dried peas, rice, and some spices: probably all well past their prime, but she might concoct a passable pot of soup.
    She had put the peas on to soak when the doorbell rang. It must be Nick, she thought, and waddled — you could hardly call it walking any more — as quickly as she could to the front door. She swung it open anxiously, to find not Nick, but Inspector Greely and a woman in plain clothes.
    ‘We’d hoped we might find you at home, miss.’
    ‘Jack’s not here.’ Faith started to close the door.
    ‘No, no, it’s you we’ve come to see. Can we come in?’
    When Faith hesitated, not sure if she could refuse, Greely said, ‘Unless you would prefer us to interview you in the presence of your parents, of course.’
    ‘I’m seventeen,’ she retorted, bristling, i can speak for myself.’
    ‘Then we’ll have our little chat now.’ The Inspector stepped inside, and Faith realized with a sinking heart that she’d backed herself into a corner.
    She took them into the sitting room, and let them seat themselves on the worn velvet upholstery, surrounded by silver-framed photos of Jack’s relatives.
    ‘This is Detective Constable O’ibole.’ Greely nodded towards the woman, who smiled brightly and didn’t meet Faith’s eyes. She had lacquered blonde hair and an abundance of make-up to match her false smile.
    ‘And you are?’ Greely continued, ’I’m afraid we can’t go on just calling you miss! His companion slipped a notebook and pen from her handbag.
    ‘Faith.’
    ‘We’ll have to have your surname, for the record. Unless, of course, you’d rather we had this little conversation at the police station.’
    ‘Wills. It’s Wills.’
    ‘And your home address? That will be where you’re registered with social security, that sort of thing.’
    When Faith had reluctantly given them her parents’ address, Greely settled back on the sofa and laced his fingers over his stomach. ‘There, now that we have that out of the way, Miss Wills, we’d like to talk to you about your friend Nick Carlisle. He says that on the afternoon of the day Miss Todd died, he went to her house looking for you, but you weren’t there. Is that right?’
    Faith nodded warily.
    ‘Now, that’s all very well and good, except for one small thing. No one seems to have provided a satisfactory explanation as to where you were from, say, five o’clock, until you showed up on Mr Montfort’s front