Читаем A Finer End полностью

“How is she?” he asked, sitting across from her.

“Sleeping, I hope. What happened this morning, Buddy?”

“Hell if I know. She came in five minutes late—first time she’s ever done that—puffy-eyed and silent as a newt. Dropped things all morning like her fingers had been greased, then I found her crying in the soup.” He shook his head. “Anybody could see the poor girl wasn’t fit to work, so I sent her home. She didn’t like it, though.”

Garnet sighed. “I never thought I’d be looking after a teenager, and a pregnant one at that. She left the house early this morning; I just assumed she was coming in to help you.”

“Think she met someone? But who?”

“Nick Carlisle would be my guess, damn him. Although I’ve never seen Nick get her in such a state.”

“Maybe it was someone else. What about the baby’s father? Has she ever said anything to you?”

“Not even a hint. But I wonder … Faith told me last night that Winnie Catesby intends to talk to her parents. It may be that’s what has her so out of sorts.”

“The priest?”

“You make it sound like Winnie has a disease, Buddy.” Garnet laughed in spite of her worry. “She means well.”

“Then let her send the girl home to her mom. It’d be a burden off you.”

“I can’t.” Garnet said it flatly.

“And why the hell not? Sounds like the sensible solution to me.”

“It would be, except that it’s not safe.”

“Not safe?” Buddy frowned. “You think her dad would hurt her?”

“I don’t know. She’s never said so, not flat out. But there’s something not right in that family.”

“Anybody laid a hand on that girl’d have me to answer to, dad or not,” Buddy bristled.

“You’re a good man, Buddy, not like some. But it’s not as simple as that.” Garnet tried to gather into words what she felt with such certainty. “Faith is a pivot, a magnet, for forces much more powerful than her father. She and her baby are in dire peril—I’m more sure of that than anything I’ve ever known. Faith has to stay with me—it’s the only way I can protect her.”

“And the boy you’re so riled up about—Nick? Is he part of this danger?”

“I don’t know. But he is a distraction, and that’s something Faith can’t afford right now.”

Buddy fidgeted with his mug, then reluctantly met her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not … overreacting?”

“I don’t want to be proved right, Buddy. And I don’t carewhat anyone thinks. I’m not willing to risk Faith if I can help it. Are you?”

“No … I … well, I’ve gotten used to having her around, if you want to know the truth. If anything happened to her …”

What a pair they were, thought Garnet. Childless, never married, no family. And this slip of a girl had come into their lives and pierced them like an arrow.

“Just look after her, Buddy, when she’s with you. Promise me that.”

It was the best she could do.… But she was terribly afraid it would not be enough.

Faith’s family lived in the town of Street, just two miles from Glastonbury across the sluggish trickle of the River Brue. Whenever Winnie drove across the bridge, she found it hard to imagine that it was here King Arthur was said to have seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin; perhaps in those days it had been a more prepossessing spot.

Street was home to the Clark Shoe Company. One of the more enlightened of Victorian employers, Clark’s had provided good working conditions and comfortable housing for their factory workers, and the town had carried that air of forward-looking prosperity into the present. It was quite a contrast to Glastonbury’s ragtag appeal, but it was Glastonbury that Winnie preferred.

Faith had admitted reluctantly that her name was Wills, and had given Winnie an address in a comfortable housing estate near the Street police station. At half past five Winnie stopped her car in front of the Wills house. It sat at the end of a quiet close of similar brick, semidetached homes that looked as if their owners had participated in a “tidy garden” contest. There was neither an untrimmed shrub nor a weed to be seen, and Winnie found it vaguely depressing. Nor was there any sign of life: no bicycles, no roller skates, no one digging in a well-manicured flower bed.

As she neared the front door, however, she saw signs of neglect that had not been visible from the street—weeds sprouting in the beds, parched petunias and begonias that had been allowed to wither. Winnie rang the bell, and after a moment a woman of about her own age opened the door. The woman wore smart business clothes, and would have been pretty had she not looked drawn with worry or exhaustion.

“Mrs. Wills? Could I speak to you for a moment?”

“I’m sorry, but we’ve already donated at our church.” She started to close the door.

“Mrs. Wills, it’s about your daughter.”

The woman stared at her, her hand flying to her throat in the classic gesture of shock that Winnie had seen too often.

“She’s all right, Mrs. Wills,” Winnie hastened to reassure her. “May I come in, please?”