Lucy was taken back to her cell. Half an hour later the heavy door swung open with a bang. Lucy was waved out by an impatient hand and taken to the Custody Sergeant’s desk. Father Conroy was still there, beside DI Armstrong, who said: ‘The Detective Superintendent says you can go home. You’re bailed for a week. When you come back there’ll be an interview After that you may be charged.’
Lucy collected her personal belongings, signed more forms and Father Conroy led her outside. On the street he said, ‘Come on, I’ll drive you home.’
As he pulled away into a stream of traffic, Lucy said evenly:
‘They both deserved to die.’
‘Say that to Father Anselm.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s always full of surprises.’
‘About what?’
‘Convincing appearances.
They did not speak for the rest of the journey Father Conroy dropped her in Acre Lane.’ near her flat. As Lucy stepped on to the pavement he said, ‘Nothing’s what it seems, you know Don’t worry.
Out in the cold she walked hurriedly to her door, fighting a growing sense of having stained herself by wanting to savour revenge, because she hoped Agnes had seen the news and felt the same: that she too had sought pleasure in watching the keeper of the flame extinguish himself.
Part Four
‘They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour…’
(Laurence Binyon, ‘The Burning of the Leaves’, 1942)
Fourth Prologue
Agnes could no longer lift her arms or head, but her fingers moved and she could still use the alphabet card if everything was held in place. There were still some things that had to be said.
She was fed by drip now, procured by Freddie when he insisted that his mother would not die in a hospital bed but in her own home. Everyone diligently fussed over her needs, not realising that Agnes didn’t care, knowing nothing of the carnival that raged out of sight.
For within her the heavens were lit by repeated explosions of fireworks, with every shade of blue and green and yellow and red, splintering into trillions of gleaming particles against a vast stream of silver, dancing stars. They fell as a shower upon her raised head, on to her lashes, balancing precariously on each curved, counted hair before tumbling joyously over into the abyss beneath, where she would soon follow after the reunion with Robert that would surely come. She had entered upon a timeless, enduring, secret benediction.