She also knew that she could never explain her conviction to Kincaid, and that he would forbid her to make that climb alone in the dark. But they couldn’t both leave Catesby. “Right,” she replied. “You have a look.”
It would take Kincaid a very short time to search the small house, and Andrew Catesby’s breathing had not worsened. When Kincaid disappeared down the corridor, she slipped quietly out the back door.
The rain had diminished to a fine mist, a soft touch against her face. “Bloody hell,” she muttered, realizing Kincaid must have the car keys. Looking up at the Tor’s black bulk rising behind the house, she considered going straight up the hill, then dismissed the plan as more foolhardy than the one she was already contemplating. The lane it must be, then.
She jogged until cramp seized her, but pressed on to the Tor’s north entrance. The path was undemanding at first, a fairly straight and gentle incline across a field, leading to a few stone steps and a narrow way through a copse of trees. Gemma breathed a sigh of relief as she came out the other side. Then she saw what lay ahead.
Jack prowled restlessly over the worn Aubusson carpet. “Why would she do such a thing? I just don’t understand it.” He stopped in front of the fire and warmed his hands automatically, not feeling the heat. “If anything happens to that girl … I got her into this whole bloody mess—”
“Jack,” Winnie interrupted from the sofa, “that’s not true. Faith had met Garnet before you came in contact with either of them, and Faith has always made her own decisions, whatever her reasons.”
He knew she was trying to calm him—and perhaps herself—but he could tell from the pallor of her face how worried she was. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re right. She’s managed well enough on her own until now. I’m sure she’ll show up any minute wanting to know what all the fuss was a—”
The doorbell cut him off. He and Winnie stared at one another, but before he could move they heard Nick Carlisle’s voice.
“In here!” Jack called, and Nick appeared in the doorway, disheveled, his dark hair beaded with raindrops.
“Has she come back?”
“No. No word.”
“They’ve got Wellhouse Lane blocked off. They wouldn’t let me through—”
“Who has it blocked off?”
“The bloody police. Something’s happened. I’m going to see if I can get round on foot—”
“Nick. Duncan will ring if there’s news. It might not have anything to do with—”
“That’s bullshit. It’s Faith, and you know it. I’m going up there. They can arrest me if they don’t bloody like it.” The front door slammed a moment later.
Jack started after him, but Winnie put a restraining hand on his arm. “Let him go. He’s got to do something.”
Sinking down on the ottoman, Jack felt as if his bones had dissolved. “Faith—” he began, but he couldn’t go on.
Winnie had paled, but took his hand in a strong grip. “She’s fine, I’m sure of—”
The bell rang again. This time Jack stood and left the room without speaking.
He had feared the police, bearing bad news, but he was wrong. “Jack?” There was a concerned expression on Fiona Allen’s freckled face. “Is everything all right? I just saw a man run away from your house like the hounds of hell were after him.”
Jack ushered her in, explaining what had happened.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Fiona murmured. “Listen, I can come back another—”
“No, don’t go,” Jack and Winnie said in unison.
“There was something I wanted to tell you both,” Fiona said urgently. “Last night, after I stopped painting, I had a dream.
“I heard the same music I heard the night of Winnie’s accident, and I saw a painting of the Abbey. Seventeenth or eighteenth century, I’d guess, a watercolor. And the oddest thing was that there was a man in the painting who looked remarkably like you, Jack. And then there were Garnet’s tiles—”
“A watercolor, did you say?”
“Yes, of the Abbey ruins, with cows in the foreground. Very nicely done too.”
Jack stood. “I’ll be back.”
But where the hell was the painting Duncan had found, he tried to remember as he took the stairs two at a time. He had only glanced at the thing, and had no recollection of what Duncan had done with it.…
It proved easy enough to find, however, set carefully off to one side with the portrait of the spaniel Duncan had wanted for Gemma. Breathing a sigh of relief, he carried both paintings back down the stairs.
“That’s it! That’s exactly what I saw in my dream!” Fiona exclaimed as he held out the view of the Abbey.
“That is remarkable.” Winnie examined the small figure in the foreground of the watercolor. “It could be you in farmer’s togs.”
“Look—there.” Fiona reached out to touch the bottom corner. “Is that a signature? Have you a magnifying glass?”
Jack fetched the old glass from his mother’s writing desk, and Winnie held it carefully over the small squiggle.
“It is a signature. Matthew—is that Matthew?” Jack heard the quick intake of her breath. “Matthew Montfort. It says Matthew Montfort!”
“But what does it mean?” Jack asked. “We’re looking for a manuscript, not a painting.”
“May I?” Fiona asked, and Winnie handed her the watercolor.
First, Fiona examined the front, and the frame, then she turned the painting over. The heavy paper neatly covering the back was discolored, and had a spattering of water or liquid stains, but otherwise it was intact. Fiona ran her fingertip round the edge, checking the seal, then she smoothed her palm across the paper.
Once more, she repeated the motion, stopping at the same point. “Have you a penknife? I think there might be something under the backing.”
Jack handed her his pocketknife, not trusting himself to speak.
Carefully, Fiona ran the tip of the knife under two of the edges. “Yes, there is something. I can see it.” She loosened the third side and lifted the flap of paper away.
A sheet of paper covered in a graceful, but old-fashioned hand lay beneath the watercolor’s backing.
“Jack, I think this belongs to you,” Fiona said, awe in her voice as she transferred the painting to him.
He lifted the sheet, his heart thudding with excitement. Beneath it lay a flat, paper-wrapped package, tied with a faded silk ribbon. “This appears to be a letter,” he said, struggling to decipher the handwriting. He read aloud haltingly:
“These papers have been passed from father to son in my family for seven hundred years, and we have preserved them to … our ability. But sadly, the original wrappings have disintegrated beyond my power to restore. I have devised a new place of safekeeping, as I have been instructed, in the hopes that this gift from Our Lord may be treasured and kept as it deserves.
“It is said that this is the Holy Chant of Glastonbury, brought by Joseph of Arimathea and his followers from the Holy Land in the First Century after the Crucifixion of Our Lord, perpetuated by twelve anointed choristers, as it had been since the days of the Faithful in Egypt. Thus when the Norman, Abbot Thurstan, sought to impose the form of worship practiced in France upon the monks of our Abbey, they rose in protest against him and he shed their blood upon the Altar of the Great Church. So it is that this most holy of praises to Our Lord vanished from the sight and hearing of mankind, but was not lost.
“This I entrust to the care of”—Jack squinted at the script—“descendants—I think he says descendants, and may the Blessings of Our Lord Jesus Christ be always upon you.
Matthew Montfort, 1759.”
Jack looked up; Winnie’s face was rapt. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “So it was true. I didn’t really believe it.…”