He managed to get to his feet and half crawled, half stumbled towards the outside tap. He reached it just before he lost consciousness and the last thing he heard was the hiss as the stream of water quenched his burning clothes.
A minute later he opened his eyes. The stones were hard against his burnt back and when he tried to move the spasm of agony made him cry aloud. He had never known such pain. But a face, pale as the moon, was bending over him and he recognized Meg Dennison. He thought of that blackened thing by the window and managed to say: 'Don't look. Don't look.'
But she answered gently: 'She's dead. And it's all right, I had to look.'
And then he ceased to know her. His mind, disorientated, was in another place, another time. And suddenly, among the crowd of gaping spectators, the soldiers with their pikes guarding the scaffold, there was Rickards saying: 'But she isn't a thing, Mr Dalgliesh. She's a woman.' He closed his eyes. Meg's arms enclosed him. He turned his face and pressed it into her jacket, biting the wool so that he would not disgrace himself by groaning aloud. And then he felt her cool hands on his face.
She said: 'The ambulance is coming. I can hear it. Lie still, my dear. It's going to be all right.'
The last sound he heard was the clanging of the fire engine's bell as he let himself slide again into unconsciousness.
EPILOGUE. Wednesday 18 January
It was mid-January before Adam Dalgliesh came again to Larksoken Mill, a sunny day of such warmth that the headland lay bathed in the bright translucence of a premature spring. Meg had arranged to meet him at the mill in the afternoon to say goodbye and, passing through the rear garden gate to walk across the headland, she saw that the first snowdrops were already in bloom and squatted to gaze with pure pleasure at their delicate green and white heads trembling in the breeze. The turf of the headland was springy to her feet and, in the far distance, a flock of seagulls wheeled and swooped like a shower of white petals.
The Jaguar stood outside the mill and through the open door a swathe of sunlight lay over the denuded room. Dalgliesh was on his knees packing the last of his aunt's books into tea chests. The pictures, already wrapped, were propped against the wall. Meg knelt beside him and began to help by passing him the corded volumes. She said: 'How are your legs and back?'
'A little stiff and the scars still itch occasionally. But they seem fine.'
'No more pain?'
'No more pain.'
They worked for a few minutes in companionable silence. Then Meg said: 'I know you don't want to be told this, but we're all grateful for what you are doing for the Blaneys. The rent you're charging for the mill is derisory and Ryan knows it.'
Dalgliesh said: 'I'm doing him no favours. I wanted a local family to live here and he was the obvious choice. It isn't everyone's house, after all. If he's worried about the size of the rent he can regard himself as a caretaker. You could argue that I should be paying him.'
'Not many men looking for a caretaker would choose an eccentric artist with four children. But this place will be just right for them; two bathrooms, a proper kitchen and the tower for Ryan to paint in. Theresa is transformed. She's been so much stronger since her operation and now she looks radiant with happiness. She called in at the Old Rectory yesterday to tell us all about it and how she's been measuring up the rooms and planning where they'll put the furniture. It's much more suitable for them than Scudder's Cottage even if Alex hadn't wanted to sell and get rid of it for good. I can't blame him. Did you know that he's selling Martyr's Cottage, too? Now that he's so busy with the new job I think he wants to cut himself off from the headland and its memories. I suppose that's natural. And I don't think you know about Jonathan Reeves. He's engaged to a young girl from the power station, Shirley Coles. And Mrs Jago has had a letter from Neil Pascoe. After a couple of false starts he's got a temporary job as a social worker in Camden. She says he seems happy enough. And there's good news about Timmy, at least I suppose it's good news. The police have traced Amy's mother. She and her common-law husband don't want Timmy so he's being placed for adoption. He'll go to a couple who'll give him love and security.'
And then she stopped, afraid that she was prattling on, that he might not be interested in all this local gossip. But there was one question that had been in her mind for the last three months which she needed to ask, and which only he could answer. She watched for a moment in silence as the long sensitive hands fitted the corded books expertly into the case, then said: 'Does Alex accept that his sister killed Hilary? I've never liked to ask Inspector Rickards and he wouldn't tell me if I did. And I can't possibly ask Alex. We've never discussed Alice or the murder since her death. At the funeral we hardly spoke.'
But she knew that Rickards would have confided in Adam Dalgliesh. He said: 'I don't think Alex Mair is a man to deceive himself about uncomfortable facts. He must know the truth. But that doesn't mean that he'll admit it to the police. Officially he accepts their view that the murderess is dead but that it's now impossible to prove whether that murderess was Amy Camm, Caroline Amphlett or Alice Mair. The difficulty is that there still isn't a single piece of concrete evidence to connect Miss Mair with Hilary Robarts's death and certainly not enough circumstantial evidence posthumously to brand her as the killer. If she had lived and withdrawn her confession to you I doubt whether Rickards would have been justified even in making an arrest. The open verdict at the inquest means that even the suicide theory is unproved. The fire investigator's report confirms that the fire was caused by the overturn of a pan of boiling fat, probably while she was cooking, perhaps trying out a new recipe.'
Meg said bitterly: 'And it all rests on my story, doesn't it? The not-very-likely tale told by a woman who has made trouble before and who has a history of mental breakdown. That came out clearly when I was being questioned. Inspector Rickards seemed obsessed with the relationship, whether I had a grudge against Alice, whether we had quarrelled. By the time he had finished I didn't know whether he saw me as a malicious liar or her accomplice.'
Even three and a half months after the death it was difficult to think of those long interrogations without the familiar destructive mixture of pain, fear and anger. She had been made to tell her story over and over again under those sharp and sceptical eyes. And she could understand why he had been so reluctant to believe her. She had never found it easy to lie convincingly and he had known that she was lying. But why? he had asked. What reason did Alice Mair give for the murder? What was her motive? Her brother couldn't be forced to marry Hilary Robarts. And it's not as if he hadn't been married before. His ex-wife is alive and well, so what made this marriage so impossible for her? And she hadn't told him, except to reiterate obstinately that Alice had wanted to prevent it. She had promised not to tell, and she never would, not even to Adam Dalgliesh, who was the only man who might possibly have been able to make her. She guessed that he knew that too, but that he would never ask. Once when she was visiting him in hospital she had suddenly said: 'You know, don't you?'