“Please,” she repeated.

He glanced at the closed front door of the house, knowing that he couldn’t possibly face the responsibility of putting the matter into Havers’s incapable hands. Not here. Not now. Not with so much at stake.

“Havers-”

“I can do it,” she replied. “Please. Believe me.”

He saw then that she was giving him the final say over her future, that she was allowing him to be the one to decide whether she would stay in CID or return once and for all to the street. It was represented in the matter before them.

“Sir?”

He wanted desperately to refuse her permission, to tell her to stay where she was in the car, to condemn her to the pavements she had walked in uniform. But none of that had been Webberly’s plan. He understood that now, and as he looked at her trusting, resolute face, he saw that Havers-reading his intention in their destination-had built the funeral pyre herself and was perfectly determined to strike the match that would put to the test the promise of the phoenix.

“All right,” he fi nally replied.

“Thank you, sir.” She got out of the car and went to the front door. It was opened. She stepped inside the house. And the waiting began.

He had never thought of himself much as a praying man, but as he sat in the car in the growing darkness and the minutes passed, he knew what it was to pray. It was to will goodness out of evil, hope out of despair, life out of death. It was to will dreams into existence and spectres into reality. It was to will an end to anguish and a beginning to joy.

Gillian stirred in the back seat. “Whose house-” Her voice died as the door fl ew open and Tessa ran outside, hesitating on the front path, peering towards the car. “Mummy.” Gillian said it on a breath. She said nothing else. She got out of the car slowly and stared at the woman as if she were an apparition, clinging to the door for support. “Mummy?”

“Gilly! Oh my God, Gilly!” Tessa cried and began coming towards her.

It was all Gillian needed. She ran up the slope into her mother’s arms, and they entered the house together.

Elizabeth George is the author of highly acclaimed novels of psychological suspense. Her first novel, A GREAT DELIVERANCE, was honoured with the Anthony and Agatha Best First Novel awards in America and received the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France; WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER was awarded the prestigious German prize for international mystery fiction, the MIMI '1990'. Her novels have now been adapted for television by the BBC as the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. An Edgar and Macavity Nominee as well as an international bestselling author, Elizabeth George lives on Whidbey Island in the state of Washington.