A Finer End

And now what’s going to happen to Faith, with Garnet gone? I’ll keep her on here, after the kid’s born, but she’s got no place to live.’
    ‘Have you any idea why Garnet was so concerned about Faith’s welfare?’
    ‘She talked about the Tor, and about Faith being a magnet for the old powers, but there was nothing concrete. Garnet always had a bee in her bonnet about that stuff.’
    ‘You knew her for a long time, Faith said.’
    His weathered face creased in a smile. ‘We were going to change the world, you know? Who’d have thought we’d end up old hippies, stuck to the side of Glastonbury Tor like burrs. Although I guess you could say Bram and Fiona made something of themselves, but they couldn’t leave Glastonbury either.’
    ‘You all knew each other?’ Kincaid asked, surprised. ‘Oh, we were tight, the four of us. Fiona and me, Bram and Garnet. But then things changed. They always do, don’t they? Bram set his sights on Fiona, and Garnet and I... Well, we made the best of things. Garnet bought the old Kinnersley place for a song, and I suppose I thought we’d just go on for ever...’ He lapsed into silence.
    ‘Why did Garnet never have the old farmhouse modernized?’
    ‘Habit, mostly,’ Buddy said fondly. ‘At first she couldn’t afford it, then she just got used to it, I reckon. And I think she liked the reputation it earned her.’
    ‘It can’t have been easy for her, living there alone.’
    ‘Not as hard as you might think. She had indoor plumbing, fed from the spring above the house, and the woodstove heated the water. And I don’t think she missed things like television all that much. Garnet never had any trouble keeping herself occupied.’
    So Garnet could have drowned in water from her own taps, Kincaid thought, but he said merely, ‘But she was lonely, I expect, until Faith came along.’
    ‘I expect she was.’ Buddy said it quietly. His glance in Faith’s direction made it clear that the girl’s presence had filled more than one void.
     
    *
     
    There was no sign of Nick’s motorbike outside his caravan, and no answer to Kincaid’s knock.
    Making the return journey to Glastonbury, Kincaid found a parking spot on the High Street. He and Gemma had lunched in the Café Galatea the previous day, and the pretty dark-haired waitress smiled in recognition as he came in.
    He waited until she’d finished serving the nearest table, then asked her quietly if she knew Nick Carlisle.
    ‘Nick who works in the bookshop down Magdalene Street? Yeah, sure.’
    ‘Has he been in today?’
    ‘No. Yesterday, though. Late. Moped over his coffee like he’d just lost his best friend,’ she added, with an air of disappointment.
    Thanking her, Kincaid crossed the street and ducked into the stone passageway that led to the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms. The doors stood open and he climbed the stairs to the café on the first floor. It was only semi-partitioned from the corridor and the meeting room, but it was an inviting, comfortable-looking space, if a wee bit scruffy. Ella Fitzgerald crooned Cole Porter over the sound system, and several tables were occupied by customers bent over books or newspapers, enjoying the Sunday afternoon lull. He went through the buffet queue and, when he reached the cash register, struck up a conversation with the cashier, a pleasant woman wearing a baseball cap. When they’d discussed the cake and the weather, he asked her if she knew Nick. ‘Tall, slender chap, with dark curly hair?’
    ‘Who could forget Nick?’ she said, laughing. ‘Comes in all the time.’
    ‘Has he been in today?’
    ‘As a matter of fact, he has.’
    Kincaid pounced on the slight hesitation. ‘Was there something odd today?’
    ‘Nick usually comes in on his own, has a meal or a coffee — always chats me up — but today he was deep into it with a strange bunch, at the table in the corner there.’ She nodded towards a table beside the worn sofa.
    ‘Strange, how?’
    The woman shrugged. ‘Well, you know Glastonbury — you see all kinds. I’ve been here twenty years and nothing surprises me. But this bunch, they’re serious pagans. Moonlight rituals on the Tor, that sort of thing. Gives me the willies, and I wouldn’t have thought that was Nick’s style.’ She eyed him more critically. ‘Is there some reason you’re looking for Nick?’
    ‘Just a friend passing through, wanted to say hello. He’s not on the telephone, so he can be the devil to get in touch