The Running Grave

K’an/The Abysmal

Forward and backward, abyss on abyss.

In danger like this, pause at first and wait,

Otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss.

Do not act in this way.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

78

In the life of man… acting on the spur of every caprice is wrong and if continued leads to humiliation.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Had Strike known what had happened to his detective partner over the previous twenty-four hours, he’d have been driving full speed towards Norfolk. However, as he remained in ignorance of developments at Chapman Farm, he rose on Wednesday morning buoyed by the idea that he’d be picking Robin up the following evening, having informed his subcontractors he wanted to do this job himself.

His bathroom scales showed an unwelcome regain of five pounds, doubtless due to the recent reappearance of burgers, chips and bacon rolls in his diet. Strike therefore breakfasted on porridge made with water, resolving to be strict again. While eating, he checked Pinterest on his phone, to see whether Torment Town had yet answered his question about Deirdre Doherty. To his dismay, he found the entire page deleted. The many grotesque drawings, including the eyeless Daiyu and the fair-haired woman floating in the five-sided pool, were gone, leaving Strike none the wiser as to who’d drawn them, but with the strong suspicion that his question had triggered the deletion, which suggested the blonde in the pool had, indeed, represented Deirdre.

At the precise moment he’d muttered ‘Fuck’, the mobile in his hand rang and he saw, with foreboding, Lucy’s number.

‘What’s happened?’ he said. Lucy wouldn’t call at half past six in the morning for no good reason.

‘Stick, I’m sorry it’s so early,’ said Lucy, whose voice was thick with tears, ‘but I’ve just had Ted’s neighbour on the phone. They noticed his front door was wide open, they went over there and he’s gone, he’s not there.’

An icy fog seemed to descend on Strike.

‘They’ve called the police,’ said Lucy, ‘and I don’t know what to do, whether to go down there—’

‘Stay put for now. If they haven’t found him in a couple of hours, we’ll both go down.’

‘Can you get away?’

‘Of course,’ said Strike.

‘I feel so guilty,’ said Lucy, breaking into sobs. ‘We knew he was bad…’

‘If – when they find him,’ said Strike, ‘we’ll talk about what we’re going to do next. We’ll make a plan.’

He, too, felt inordinately guilty at the thought of his confused uncle setting off at dawn for some destination unknown. Remembering Ted’s old sailing boat, the Jowanet, and the sea into which Joan’s ashes had disappeared, Strike hoped to God he was being fanciful in thinking that was where the old man had gone.

His first appointment of the day wasn’t calculated to take his mind off his personal troubles and he resented having to do it at all. After several days of procrastination, Bijou’s lover, Andrew Honbold QC, had sent Strike a curt email inviting him to his flat to discuss ‘the matter under advisement’. Strike had agreed to this meeting because he wanted to shut down forever the complications in which his ill-considered liaison with Bijou had involved him, but he was in no very conciliatory mood as he approached Honbold’s duplex shortly before nine o’clock, his mind still on his uncle in Cornwall.

After ringing the bell of the barrister’s presumably recently rented residence, which lay a mere two minutes’ walk from Lavington Court Chambers, Strike had time to estimate that the place was probably costing Honbold upwards of ten thousand pounds a month. Bijou had had many lucrative reasons to be careless with her birth control.

The door was opened by a tall, supercilious-looking man with bloodhound-like jowls, a broken-veined complexion, a substantial paunch and pure white hair which had receded to show an age-spotted pate. Honbold led Strike into an open-plan living area decorated in expensive but bland taste which didn’t suit its occupant, whose Hogarthian appearance cried out for a backdrop of velvet drapes and polished mahogany.

‘So,’ said Honbold loudly, when the two men had sat down opposite each other, with the glass coffee table between them, ‘you have information for me.’

‘I do, yeah,’ said Strike, perfectly happy to dispense with the niceties. Taking out his phone, he laid it on the table with the photograph of Farah Navabi in Denmark Street displayed. ‘Recognise her?’

Honbold retrieved his gold-rimmed reading glasses from his shirt pocket, then picked up the phone and held it at various distances from his eyes, as though the picture might transform into a different woman if he found the right number of inches from which to view it.

‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘although she certainly wasn’t dressed like that when I met her. Her name’s Aisha Khan and she works for Tate and Brannigan, the reputation management people. Jeremy Tate phoned me to ask if I’d see her.’

‘Did you call him back?’

‘Did I what?’ boomed Honbold, throwing his voice as though trying to reach the back of a courtroom.

‘Did you call Tate and Brannigan back, to check it was genuinely Jeremy Tate who’d rung you?’

‘No,’ said Honbold, ‘but I looked her up. I don’t usually see people ad hoc like that, without the client. She was on their website. She’d just joined them.’

‘Was there a picture of her on the website?’

‘No,’ said Honbold, now looking uneasy.

‘Her real name,’ said Strike, ‘is Farah Navabi. She’s an undercover detective working for Patterson Inc.’

There was a second’s silence.

‘Bitch!’ Honbold exploded. ‘Working for some tabloid, is she? Or is it my bloody wife?’

‘Could be either,’ said Strike, ‘but Patterson had someone planted at my agency for the last few months. The aim could’ve been getting me in the dock for bugging you. Was Navabi alone in your office at any point?’

‘Yes,’ groaned Honbold, running a hand through his thinning hair. ‘I showed her in, but I needed a pee. She had a few minutes in there, alone. Shit,’ he exploded again. ‘She was bloody convincing!’

‘Acting’s clearly her strong suit, because she’s not much cop at undercover surveillance.’

‘Mitchell fucking Patterson… how he got off, after all the fucking phone hacking he did – I’ll have him banged up for this if it’s the last bloody thing I—’

Strike’s mobile rang.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, picking it up from the table. ‘Luce?’

‘They’ve found him.’

‘Oh, thank Christ,’ said Strike, feeling the relief wash over him like warm bath water. ‘Where was he?’

‘Down on the beach. They say he’s very confused. Stick, I’m going to go straight down there now and persuade him to come back with me, just for a visit, so we can talk to him about what he wants. He can’t go on like this.’

‘OK. D’you want me to—?’

‘No, I can manage alone, but will you come over to ours once I’ve got him here, to help me talk to him? Tomorrow night?’

‘I will, yeah, of course,’ said Strike, his spirits sinking slightly. Somebody else would have to pick up Robin from Chapman Farm.

He returned to the sitting room to find Honbold holding a coffee pot.

‘Want some?’ he barked at Strike.

‘That’d be great,’ said Strike, sitting down again.

Once both men were sitting again, a slightly awkward silence fell. Given that both of them had been having sex with the same woman over roughly the same time period, and that Bijou was now pregnant, Strike supposed this was inevitable, but he wasn’t going to be the one to bring up the subject.

‘Bijou told me you two had a couple of drinks,’ boomed the barrister. ‘Nothing more.’

‘That’s right,’ lied Strike.

‘Met at a christening, I understand? Isla Herbert’s child.’

‘Ilsa,’ Strike corrected him. ‘Yeah, Ilsa and her husband are old friends of mine.’

‘So Bijou didn’t—?’

‘She never mentioned you. I don’t discuss work outside the office and she never asked about it.’

This, at least, was true. Bijou had talked about nothing but herself. Honbold was now eyeing Strike thoughtfully. Having sipped his coffee, he said,

‘You’re very good at what you do, arentcha? I’ve heard glowing reports from clients.’

‘Nice to know,’ said Strike.

‘Wouldn’t fancy helping me get something on my wife, would you?’

‘Our client list’s full, I’m afraid,’ said Strike. He hadn’t extricated himself from the Bijou-Honbold mess to plunge straight back into it.

‘Pity. Matilda’s out for revenge. Revenge,’ boomed Honbold, and Strike could picture him in his barrister’s wig, throwing the word at a jury. Honbold began to enumerate the many outrageous ways in which his wife was currently behaving, one of which was refusing to give him access to his wine cellar.

Strike let the man talk, desirous only of defusing Honbold’s animosity to himself once and for all. Though the accent, the grievances and the objects of their ire might be very different, he was reminded of Barry Saxon as he listened to Honbold. Just like the Tube driver, the QC seemed perplexed and outraged that a woman he’d wronged might want to make things unpleasant for him in turn.

‘Well, thanks for the coffee,’ said Strike, when a convenient pause arose, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing Patterson in court.’

‘“So you shall,”’ quoted Honbold, also rising, and raising his already loud voice he declaimed, ‘“And where the offence is let the great axe fall.”’

79

Six in the third place means:

One is enriched through unfortunate events.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Relieved to have one problem crossed off his list, Strike returned to the office, eating and despising the carob bar he’d picked up en route in tribute to his renewed commitment to weight loss. He half hoped Littlejohn would have reneged on his promise to provide the Pirbright recording today, thereby giving Strike an opportunity to vent his tetchiness on a deserving target.

‘Littlejohn dropped this off,’ were Pat’s first words when he entered the office.

She indicated a plain brown envelope lying beside her, inside which was a small oblong object. Strike grunted, heading for the kettle.

‘And Midge has just been in,’ Pat continued. ‘She’s in a right mood. She says you insulted her.’

‘If she thinks her boss asking legitimate questions about her working practices is an insult, she’s led a very sheltered life,’ said Strike irritably, now adding an additional teabag to his mug, feeling he needed all the caffeine he could get.

In truth, his anger at Midge had abated somewhat during the last few days. Little though he wanted to admit it, he knew he’d overreacted about her getting caught on camera at Tasha Mayo’s house, because of his own anxiety about the fallout from Honbold’s divorce. He’d been toying with the idea of telling Midge she could go back on the Frank case as long as there was no more fraternising with the client, but the news that she’d been complaining to Pat aggravated him.

‘I knew another lesbian, once,’ said Pat.

‘Yeah?’ said Strike, as the kettle lid began to rattle. ‘Did she bitch behind her boss’s back, as well?’

‘No,’ said Pat. ‘She was the boss. Nice woman. People took her for hard as nails, but she was soft underneath. Very kind when I had my divorce.’

‘Is this a thinly veiled suggestion I should grovel for hurting Midge’s feelings?’

‘Nobody said anything about grovelling.’

‘Just as well, because that’s not going to happen,’ said Strike.

‘No need to be snappy,’ said Pat. ‘Anyway, Rhoda’s done what you asked.’

It took Strike a couple of seconds to remember that this was Pat’s daughter.

‘You’re kidding?’ he said, turning back towards her.

‘No,’ said Pat. ‘She’s got into that Carrie Curtis Woods’ Facebook page.’

‘Best news I’ve had all day,’ said Strike. ‘Want a cuppa?’

Once both had tea, Pat logged onto Facebook with her daughter’s details, and navigated to the account of the woman Strike hoped had been Cherie Gittins twenty-one years previously. Turning the monitor so Strike could view it, Pat puffed on her e-cigarette, watching him peruse the page.

Strike scrolled slowly downwards, carefully examining the many pictures of Carrie Curtis Woods’ two little blonde girls. The pictures of Carrie herself showed a woman who was heavier than in her profile picture. There was no indication of her having a job, though plenty of mention of her volunteering at her daughters’ school. Then—

‘It’s her,’ Strike said.

The picture, which had been posted to mark Carrie Curtis Woods’ anniversary, showed her wedding day, when she’d been at least two dress sizes smaller. There, unmistakeably, was the blonde with the simpering smile who’d once been an inmate of Chapman Farm: older, wearing less eyeliner, cinched into a tight lace dress, her curly blonde hair pulled up into a bun, beside a thickset man with heavy eyebrows. A little further down the page was a phone number: Carrie Curtis Woods was offering swimming lessons to toddlers.

‘Pat, you’ve played a blinder.’

‘It was Rhoda, not me,’ said Pat gruffly.

‘What does she drink?’

‘Gin.’

‘I’ll get her a bottle or two.’

A further five minutes’ scrolling helped Strike identify Carrie Curtis Woods’ husband, Nathan Woods, who was an electrician, and her home town.

‘Where the hell’s Thornbury?’ he muttered, switching to Google maps.

‘Gloucestershire,’ said Pat, who was now washing up mugs in the sink. ‘My Dennis’ cousin lives over that way.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike, now reading Carrie Curtis Woods’ most recent posts. ‘They’re off to Andalusia on Saturday.’

Having checked the weekly rota, Strike called Shah to ask him to pick up Robin from Chapman Farm the following night.

‘I think,’ said Strike, having hung up, ‘I’ll go down to Thornbury on Friday. Catch Carrie before she goes on holiday. Robin’ll be knackered, she’s not going to be up for a trip to Gloucestershire right after getting out.’

Privately, he was thinking that if he could manage the trip in a day, he’d have an excuse to go over to Robin’s that evening for a full debrief, a very cheering thought, given that he knew Murphy was still in Spain. Feeling slightly happier, Strike logged out of Facebook, picked up his tea and headed into his own office carrying the brown envelope left by Littlejohn.

Inside was a tiny Dictaphone tape, wrapped in a sheet of paper with a scrawled date on it. The recording had been made nearly a month after Sir Colin and Kevin had fallen out over the latter’s heckling at Giles Harmon’s book reading and five days before Kevin’s murder. Strike took a Dictaphone out his desk drawer, inserted the tape and pressed play.

He understood at once why Patterson hadn’t handed over the tape to Sir Colin Edensor: because it would have been hard to imagine a poorer advertisement for his agency’s surveillance skills. For a start, there were far better devices for this kind of work than a Dictaphone, which had to be concealed. The recording was of extremely poor quality: whichever pub Farah had taken Kevin to had been crowded and noisy, a rookie error for which Strike would have severely reprimanded any of his own subcontractors. It was, he thought, the kind of thing his now departed, unlamented hireling Nutley would have done.

Farah’s voice came over more clearly than Kevin’s, presumably because the Dictaphone had lain closer to her. From what Strike could make out, she’d suggested twice they leave for somewhere quieter in the first five minutes, but Kevin, pathetically, said they should stay, because he knew it was her favourite bar. Apparently Kevin had been thoroughly convinced the good-looking Navabi was interested in him sexually.

Strike turned the volume up to maximum and listened closely, trying to make out what was being said. Farah kept asking Kevin to speak up or repeat things, and Strike was forced to rewind and relisten multiple times, pen in hand, trying to transcribe anything that was audible.

Initially, as far as Strike could make out, their chat had nothing to do with the UHC. For ten minutes, Farah talked indistinctly about her supposed job as an air stewardess. At last, the church was mentioned.

Farah:… ways been interested in the UH…

Kevin:… on’t do it… isters… still in b… aybe leave one d…

Somewhere close to where Farah and Kevin were sitting, a rowdy song broke out which, typically, was as clear as a bell.

And we were singing hymns and arias,

‘Land of my Fathers’, ‘Ar hyd y nos’.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ muttered Strike. The group of what Strike assumed were elderly Welshmen, because he wasn’t sure who else would be singing a Max Boyce song, struggled for the next ten minutes to remember all the lyrics, breaking out intermittently into fragments of verses that petered out again, rendering Kevin and Farah’s conversation completely inaudible. At last, the Welshmen reverted to merely talking loudly, and Strike was able to pick up the faint thread of what Farah and Kevin were saying again.

Kevin:… vil people. Evil.

Farah: How were they ev…?

Kevin:… ean, cruel… hypocr… ’m writing a b…

Farah: Oh wow that’s gr…

One of the Welshmen broke into song again.

But Will is very happy though his money all has gone:

He swapped five photos of his wife for one of Barry John.

Cheers greeted these remembered lines and when the yelling had subsided, Strike heard Kevin again: ‘… orry, need a…’

From the lack of chat from Farah, Strike surmised that Kevin had gone to the bathroom.

The next fifty minutes of recording were worthless. Not only had the noise in the pub become ever louder, but Kevin’s voice grew progressively more indistinct. Strike could have told Farah that offering unlimited drink to a young man who’d grown up never touching alcohol was a mistake, and soon Kevin was slurring and rambling, Farah trying very hard to keep track of what he was saying.

Kevin:… ’n she drown… said sh’drowned…

Farah: (loudly)… talking about Dai…?

Kevin:… unny thing zappenin… ings I keep… emembrin… or of ’em…

Farah: (loudly) Four? Did you say f…?

Kevin:… more ’n jus’ Shree… nice to kids, an’ she… Bec made Em l… visible… ullshit…

Farah: (loudly)… ecca made Em lie, did you s…?

Kevin:… drugged… sh’wuz allowed out… sh’could get things… smuggle it’n… let her ’way with stu… didn’ care ’bout ’er real… sh’ad chocolate once n’I stole some… bully though…

Farah: (loudly)… oo wa… ully?

Kevin:… ake ’lowances… gonna talk t’er… z’gonna meet m…

Farah: (very loudly) Is someone from the church going meet you, Kev…?

Kevin:… ’n’answer f’r it…

Strike slammed his hand onto pause, rewound and listened again.

Kevin:… gonna talk t’er… z’gonna meet m…

Farah: (very loudly) Is someone from the church going meet you, Kev…?

Kevin:… ’n’answer f’r it… opey… part’f…

Farah: (insistent) Are you going to meet someone from…?

Kevin:… sh’ad ’ard ti… ’n th’pigs…

Farah: (exasperated) Forget the pigs…

‘Let him talk about the fucking pigs,’ growled Strike at the recorder.

Kevin:… e liked pigs… ew what t’d… ’cos why… ’n I wuz in th’woo… ’n Bec… old me off cuz… ace’s daught… m’sn’t snitch…

Farah:… Daiyu in the woods?

Kevin:… unno… was sh..… ink there was a plot… in it t’gether… alwuz t’geth… f’I’m right… bution… ’n woods… wasn’t a… gale blowing on… ire but too wet… weird’n I… eatened me… an out’f the… ought it was for pun’shmen… ecca tole me… sorry, gotta…

Strike heard a loud clunk, as though a chair had fallen. He had a feeling Kevin might have set off clumsily for the bathroom, possibly to vomit. He kept listening, but nothing whatsoever happened for a further twenty-five minutes except that the Welshmen became ever more rambunctious. At last he heard Farah say,

‘Excuse me… f you’re going… n the loo? He’s wearing a blue…’

Five minutes later, a loud Welsh voice said,

‘’E’s in an ’orrible state, love. You might ’ave to carry ’im ’ome.’

‘Oh, for God’s s… anks for checking, any…’

There was a rustle, the sound of breathing, and the recording ended.

80

External conditions hinder the advance, just as loss of the wheel spokes stops the progress of a wagon.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Shah departed for Norfolk at midday on Thursday, bearing a letter from Strike instructing Robin to stay beside the plastic rock after reading it, because Shah would be waiting in the vicinity with his car lights off and cutters at the ready to ensure safe passage through the barbed wire. Strike set off for dinner at Lucy’s that evening feeling surprisingly cheerful given that he’d be up at six the following morning to drive to Gloucestershire, and wasn’t looking forward to the evening ahead.

Although Ted was pleased to see his nephew, it was immediately clear to Strike that his uncle had deteriorated even in the few weeks since he’d last seen him. There was a vagueness, a sense of disconnection, that hadn’t been there before. Ted smiled and nodded, but Strike wasn’t convinced he was following the conversation. His uncle watched Lucy’s three sons bustle in and out of the kitchen with an air of bemusement and treated them with a formal courtesy that suggested he wasn’t sure who they were.

Strike and Lucy’s attempts to draw Ted out about where and how he wanted to live went nowhere, because Ted tended to agree with every proposition put to him, even if they were contradictory. He agreed that he wanted to stay in Cornwall, that it might be better to move to London, that he needed a bit more help, then, with a sudden flicker of the old Ted, stated spontaneously that he was managing just fine and nobody ought to be worrying about him. All through dinner, Strike sensed tension between his sister and brother-in-law, and sure enough, once Ted was settled in the sitting room in front of the television with a cup of decaffeinated coffee, there was an uncomfortable three-way conversation in which Greg made plain his sense of ill-usage.

‘She wants him to live with us,’ he told Strike, scowling.

‘I said, if we sell the house in Cornwall, we could build an extension on the back,’ Lucy told her brother.

‘And lose half the garden,’ said Greg.

‘I don’t want him going into a home,’ said Lucy tearfully. ‘Joan would’ve hated the idea of him in a home.’

‘What’re you going to do, give up work?’ Greg demanded of his wife. ‘Because he’s going to be a full-time job if he gets much worse.’

‘I think,’ said Strike, ‘we need to get him a full medical assessment before we decide anything.’

‘That’s just kicking the can down the road,’ said Greg, whose irritation was undoubtedly informed by the fact that Strike was unlikely to be discommoded by any change in Ted’s living arrangements.

‘There are homes and homes,’ Strike told Lucy, ignoring Greg. ‘If we got him into somewhere decent in London, we could make sure we’re seeing him regularly. Take him for days out—’

‘Then Lucy’ll be running round after him like he’s living here,’ said Greg, his clear implication that Strike wouldn’t be doing any running round at all. ‘He wants to stay in Cornwall, he’s just said so.’

‘He doesn’t know what he wants,’ said Lucy shrilly. ‘What happened on Tuesday was a warning. He isn’t safe to live alone any more, anything could have happened to him – what if he’d tried to take his boat out?’

‘That’s what I was worried about,’ admitted Strike.

‘So sell the boat,’ said Greg angrily.

The conversation ended, as Strike could have predicted from the first, with no decision in place other than getting Ted seen by a specialist in London. As Ted was exhausted after his unexpected journey to London he turned in at nine, and Strike left shortly afterwards, hoping to maximise his sleep before getting up to drive to Thornbury.

He’d decided against giving Cherie, or Carrie, as she was now, prior notice of his arrival, due to her well-established pattern of flight and reinvention: he had a feeling that if he called her first, she’d make sure she was unavailable. Strike doubted the woman who posted endless pictures on Facebook of her family’s outings to Longleat and Paultons Park, of her contributions to school bake sales and of the fancy dress costumes she’d made her little girls was going to enjoy being reminded of her unsavoury past.

Strike had been travelling along the motorway for two hours when he received a phone call from Tasha Mayo, asking why Midge wasn’t looking after her any more, and requesting that Midge be reassigned to her case. The phrase ‘looking after’ did nothing to allay Strike’s faint suspicion that Midge had become over-friendly with the actress, and he didn’t much appreciate their client dictating to him which personnel they wanted assigned to them.

‘It’s just more natural for me to be seen walking around with another woman,’ Mayo told him.

‘If what my agency provided was private security, and we wanted to keep it discreet, I’d agree,’ said Strike, ‘but there shouldn’t be any walking around together, given that what we’re providing is surveillance—’

To his consternation, he then realised Tasha was crying. His heart sank: he seemed to have had to deal with an endless train of crying people lately.

‘Look,’ she sobbed, ‘I can’t afford you and private security, and I like her, she makes me feel safe, and I’d rather have someone around I can have a laugh with—’

‘All right, all right,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll put Midge back on the job.’

Little though Strike liked what he thought of as mission creep, he couldn’t pretend it was unreasonable of Mayo to want a bodyguard.

‘Take care of yourself,’ he finished lamely, and Tasha rang off.

Having contacted a frosty Midge to give her the news, Strike continued driving.

Twenty minutes later, Shah called.

‘Have you got her?’ said Strike, smiling in anticipation of hearing Robin’s voice.

‘No,’ said Shah. ‘She didn’t turn up and the rock’s gone.’

For the second time in two weeks, Strike felt as though dry ice had slid down through his guts.

‘What?’

‘The plastic rock’s gone. No sign of it.’

‘Fuck. Stay there. I’m on the M4. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

81

The upper trigram K’an stands for the Abysmal, the dangerous. Its motion is downward…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Three nights of vigil had now been held on the temple steps, making it impossible for Robin to leave her bed. On Wednesday, teenaged boys in long white robes had replaced the girls, and on Thursday night, the church Principals took up their positions at the temple entrance, the flickering flames of their torches illuminating the painted faces of Jonathan and Mazu Wace, Becca Pirbright, Taio Wace, Giles Harmon, Noli Seymour and others, all of them wearing black smeared around their eyes. Daiyu had appeared twice more by night, her luminous figure visible from afar from the rear windows of the dormitories.

The ghost, the watchful figures on the temple steps, the constant dread, the impossibility of escaping or calling for help: all made Robin feel as though she was inhabiting a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. Nobody had confronted her about her real identity, nobody had spoken to her about what had happened in the Retreat Room with Will or challenged her explanation of why her face was swollen and bruised, and she found all of this ominous rather than reassuring. She felt certain that a reckoning was coming at a time of the church’s choosing, and afraid that the Manifestation would be the moment it happened. The Drowned Prophet will sort you out.

She saw Will from a distance, moving blank-faced about his daily tasks, and occasionally she saw his lips moving silently, and knew he was chanting. Once, she spotted him sitting on his haunches to talk to little Qing, before hurrying away as Mazu swept through the courtyard, cradling baby Yixin in her arms. Robin was still being accompanied everywhere she went.

The day of the Manifestation was marked by a fast for all church members, who were once again served hot water with lemon for breakfast. The church Principals, who were presumably catching up on their sleep in the farmhouse after their overnight vigil, remained out of sight. Exhausted, hungry and scared, Robin fed chickens, cleaned the dormitories and spent a few hours in the craft room, stuffing more plush turtles for sale in Norwich. She kept remembering her blithe request of an extra day’s grace from Strike, should she be late putting a letter in the plastic rock. Had she not overruled him, someone from the agency would be coming to get her the following day, although she now knew enough about Chapman Farm to be certain anyone who tried to gain entry at the front gate would be turned away.

If I get through the Manifestation, she thought, I’ll get out tomorrow night. Then she tried to mock herself for thinking she might not get through the Manifestation. What d’you think’s going to happen, ritual sacrifice?

After an evening meal of more hot water with lemon, all church members over the age of thirteen were instructed to return to their dormitories and put on the outfits laid out for them on their beds. These proved to be long white robes made of worn and much-washed cotton that might once have been old bed sheets. The loss of her tracksuit made Robin feel still more vulnerable. The now-robed women talked in hushed voices, waiting to be summoned to the temple. Robin spoke to nobody, wishing she could somehow psychically summon those who cared about her in the outside world.

When the sun had at last fallen, Becca Pirbright reappeared in the women’s dormitory, also wearing robes, though hers, like Mazu’s, were made of silk, and beaded.

‘Everyone, take off your shoes,’ Becca instructed the waiting women. ‘You’ll walk barefoot, as the Prophet walked into the sea, in pairs across the courtyard, in silence. The temple will be dark. Assistants will guide you to your places.’

They lined up obediently. Robin found herself walking next to Penny Brown, whose once-round face was now hollow and anxious. They crossed the courtyard beneath a clear, starry sky, chilly in their thin cotton robes and bare feet, and two by two entered the temple, which was indeed pitch black.

Robin felt a hand take her by the arm and was led, she assumed, past the pentagonal stage, then pushed down into a kneeling position on the floor. She no longer knew who was beside her, although she could hear rustling and breathing, nor did she know how those assisting people to their places were able to see what they were doing.

After a while, the temple doors closed with a bang. Then Jonathan Wace’s voice spoke through the darkness.

‘Together: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… ’

The members took up the chant. The darkness seemed to intensify the rumble and rhythm of the words, but Robin, who’d once felt relief in dissolving her voice into the mass, experienced neither euphoria nor relief; fear continued to burn like a coal lodged beneath her diaphragm.

‘… and finish,’ called Wace.

Silence fell again. Then Wace spoke:

‘Daiyu, beloved Prophet, speaker of truths, bringer of justice, come to us now in holiness. Bless us with your presence. Light the way for us, that we may see clearly into the next world.’

There was another silence in which nobody stirred. Then, clearly and loudly, came a small girl’s giggle.

‘Hello, Papa.’

Robin, who’d been kneeling with her eyes tight shut, opened them. All was dark: there was no sign of Daiyu.

‘Will you manifest for us, my child?’ said Wace’s voice.

Another pause. Then –

‘Papa, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re afraid, my child?’ said Wace. ‘You? The bravest of us, and the best?’

‘Things are wrong, Papa. Bad people have come.’

‘We know there is wickedness in the world, little one. That’s why we fight.’

‘Inside and outside,’ said the child’s voice. ‘Fight inside and outside.’

‘What does that mean, Daiyu?’

‘Clever Papa knows.’

Another silence.

‘Daiyu, do you speak of malign influences within our church?’

There was no answer.

‘Daiyu, help me. What does it mean, to fight inside and out?’

The childish voice began to wail in distress, its cries and sobs echoing off the temple walls.

‘Daiyu! Daiyu, Blessed One, don’t cry!’ said Wace, with the familiar catch in his voice. ‘Little one, I will fight for you!’

The sobs quietened. Silence fell again.

‘Come to us, Daiyu,’ said Wace, pleading now. ‘Show us you live. Help us root out evil, inside and out.’

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then a very faint glow appeared a few feet off the floor in front of Robin, and she realised she was kneeling in the front row of the crowd surrounding the pentagonal baptismal pool, from which the greenish light was emanating.

Now the glowing water rose upwards in the smooth shape of a bell jar, and revolving slowly inside it was the figure of a limp, eyeless child in a white dress.

There were several screams: Robin heard a girl shout, ‘No, no, no!’

The water was sinking again, and with it, the dreadful figure, and after a few seconds the greenish water was flat again, though glowing brighter still, so that the figures of Jonathan and Mazu, who were standing on the edge of the pool in their long white robes, were illuminated from beneath.

Now Mazu spoke.

‘I, who birthed the Drowned Prophet, have dedicated my life to honouring her sacrifice. When she left this world to join the Blessed Divinity, she conferred gifts upon those of us destined to carry on the fight against evil on earth. I have been granted the gift of divine sight by the grace of my daughter, and her Manifestation confirms me in my duty. There are those among us whom Daiyu will test tonight. They have nothing to fear if their hearts, like hers, are pure…

‘I call to the pool Rowena Ellis.’

Gasps and whispers issued from among the kneeling crowd. Robin had known it was going to happen, but nevertheless, her legs could barely support her weight as she got to her feet and walked forwards.

‘You entered the pool once before, Rowena,’ said Mazu, looking down at her. ‘Tonight, you join Daiyu in these holy waters. May she give you her blessing.’

Robin climbed up the steps to stand on the edge of the illuminated pool. Looking down, she could see nothing in it except the dark bottom. Knowing that resistance or refusal would be taken as infallible signs of guilt, she stepped over the edge and allowed herself to drop down under the surface of the cold water.

The light in the water dimmed. Robin expected her feet to touch the bottom, but they met no resistance: the bottom of the pool had disappeared. She tried to swim for the surface but then, to her terror, felt something like smooth cord twist around her ankles. In panic she fought, trying to kick herself free, but whatever had hold of her dragged her downwards. In darkness she flailed and kicked, trying to rise, but whatever was holding her back was more powerful, and she saw splinters of memories – her parents, her childhood home, Strike in the Land Rover – and the cold water seemed to be crushing her, pressing on her very brain, it was impossible to breathe, she opened her mouth in a silent scream and sucked in water…

82

The trigrams Li, clarity, and Chên, shock, terror, give the prerequisites for a clearing of the atmosphere by the thunderstorm of a criminal trial.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Hands were pressing hard on her ribcage. Robin vomited.

She was lying in the pitch black on the cold temple floor. A nightmarish face loomed over her wearing something like skiing goggles. Gasping for air, Robin tried to get up and was forced flat again by the one who’d just been pressing on her chest. She could hear frightened voices in the darkness, and see shadowy figures moving around by the greenish light in the pool.

‘Taio, remove Rowena from the temple,’ said Mazu calmly.

Shivering, soaked to her skin, Robin was dragged to her feet. She retched again, then vomited more water and fell back to her knees. Taio, who she now realised was wearing night vision goggles, pulled her roughly upright again, then marched her through the dark temple, Robin’s legs almost giving way at each step. The doors opened automatically and she saw the starlit courtyard, and felt the freezing night air against her soaking skin. Taio led her roughly past the dragon-carved doors of the farmhouse and then to the side entrance which opened onto the stairs to the basement.

They proceeded through the deserted underground lecture theatre in silence. Taio unlocked the second door leading off the screen room, through which Robin had never gone before. The room beyond was empty except for a small table at which stood two metal-legged plastic chairs.

‘Sit there,’ said Taio, pointing at one of the chairs, ‘and wait.’

Robin sat. Taio walked out, locking the door behind him.

Terrified, Robin fought with herself not to cry, but lost. Leaning forwards on the table, she hid her bruised face in her arms and sobbed. Why hadn’t she left with Barclay a week ago? Why had she stayed?

She didn’t know how long she cried before pulling herself together, attempting to breathe slowly and deeply. The horror of her near drowning was now eclipsed by terror of what would come next. She stood up and tried the door, even though she knew it was locked, then turned to look at the room to see nothing but blank walls: no air vent, no window, no hatch, but one very small round black camera in a corner of the ceiling.

Robin knew she must think, to prepare for whatever was coming, but she felt so weak after the twenty-four-hour fast she couldn’t make her brain work. The minutes dragged by, Robin shivering in her wet robe, and she wondered what was taking so long. Perhaps other people were being subjected to near drowning in the pool? Doubtless other misdemeanours had been committed at Chapman Farm, by people to whom she’d never spoken.

At long last, the key turned in the lock, and four robed people entered the room: Jonathan, Mazu, Taio and Becca. Wace took the chair opposite Robin. The other three lined up against the wall, watching.

‘Why d’you think Daiyu’s so angry with you, Rowena?’ asked Wace quietly and reasonably, like a disappointed headmaster.

‘I don’t know,’ whispered Robin.

She’d have given anything to be able to look inside Wace’s mind and see what he already knew.

‘I think you do,’ said Wace gently.

There was a minute’s silence. At last, Robin said,

‘I’ve been thinking… of leaving.’

‘But that wouldn’t make Daiyu angry,’ said Wace, with a little laugh. ‘Church members are free to leave. We compel nobody. You know that, surely?’

Robin thought he was playing to the camera in the corner, which presumably also picked up sound.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose so.’

‘All we ask is that church members don’t try and manipulate others, or act cruelly towards them,’ said Wace.

‘I don’t think I’ve done that,’ said Robin.

‘No?’ said Wace. ‘What about Will Edensor?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ lied Robin.

‘After his trip to the Retreat Room with you,’ said Wace, ‘he asked for writing materials, to contact the person he used to call his mother.’

It took everything Robin had to feign perplexity.

‘Why?’ she said.

‘That’s what we want you to—’ began Taio harshly, but his father raised a hand to silence him.

‘Taio… let her answer.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin slowly, as though she’d just remembered something. ‘I did tell him… oh God,’ she said, playing for time. ‘I told him I thought… you’re going to be angry,’ she said, allowing herself to cry again.

‘I’m only angered by injustice, Rowena,’ said Wace quietly. ‘If you’ve been unjust – to us, or to Will – there will be a sanction, but it will fit the transgression. As the I Ching tells us, penalties must not be imposed unfairly. They should be restricted to an objective guarding against unjustified excesses.’

‘I told Will,’ said Robin, ‘that I wondered whether all our letters were being passed on.’

Mazu let out a soft hiss. Becca was shaking her head.

‘Were you aware that Will has signed a non-contact declaration regarding his family?’ asked Wace.

‘No,’ said Robin.

‘Some church members, like Will, voluntarily sign a declaration that they no longer wish to receive letters from former flesh objects. Step five: renunciation. In such cases, the church carefully preserves the correspondence, which can be viewed at any time, should the member ever wish to see it. Will has never made such a request, and so his letters are kept safely filed away.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Robin.

‘So why should he suddenly wish to write to his mother, after almost four years without contact?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Robin.

She was shivering, very aware of the wet robe’s transparency. Was it possible that Will had kept most of their conversation secret? He’d certainly had reason to suppress Robin’s possession of a torch, because of potential punishment for not having revealed it sooner. Perhaps he’d also omitted mention of her testing of his faith?

‘Are you sure you didn’t say anything to Will in the Retreat Room that would make him anxious about the woman he used to call mother?’

‘Why would I talk about his mother?’ asked Robin desperately. ‘I – I told him I didn’t think the letter from my sister had been passed on as soon as it arrived. I’m sorry,’ said Robin, allowing herself to cry again, ‘I didn’t know about non-contact declarations. That explains why there were so many letters in Mazu’s cabinet. I’m sorry, I really am.’

‘That injury to your face,’ said Wace. ‘How did it really happen?’

‘Will pushed past me,’ said Robin. ‘And I fell over.’

‘That sounds as though Will was angry. Why should he be angry with you?’

‘He didn’t like me talking about the letters,’ said Robin. ‘He seemed to take it really personally.’

There was a short silence in which Jonathan’s eyes met Mazu’s. Robin didn’t dare look at the latter. She felt as though she’d read her ultimate fate in Mazu’s crooked eyes.

Jonathan turned back to Robin.

‘Did you, at any time, mention the death of family members?’

‘Not death,’ lied Robin. ‘I might’ve said, “What if something happened to one of them?”’

‘So you continue to see relationships in materialist terms?’ said Wace.

‘I’m trying not to,’ said Robin, ‘but it’s hard.’

‘Did Emily really earn all the money that was in her collection box at the end of your trip to Norwich?’ asked Wace.

‘No,’ said Robin, after a pause of several seconds. ‘I gave her some from the stall box.’

‘Why?’

‘I felt sorry for her, because she hadn’t got much on her own. She wasn’t very well,’ Robin said desperately.

‘So you lied to Taio? You misrepresented what had really happened?’

‘I didn’t… I suppose so, yes,’ said Robin hopelessly.

‘How are we supposed to believe anything you say, now we know you’re prepared to lie to church Principals?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Robin, again allowing herself to cry. ‘I didn’t see it as being a bad thing, helping her out… I’m sorry…’

‘Small evils mount up, Rowena,’ said Wace. ‘You may say to yourself, “What does it matter, a little lie here, a little lie there?” But the pure spirit knows there can be no lies, big or small. To promulgate falsehoods is to embrace evil.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Robin again.

Wace contemplated Robin for a moment, then said,

‘Becca, fill in a PA form and bring it back to me, with a blank.’

‘Yes, Papa J,’ said Becca, and she strode out of the room. When the door had closed, Jonathan leaned forwards and said quietly,

‘Do you want to leave us, Rowena? Because, if so, you’re completely free to do so.’

Robin looked into those opaque dark blue eyes and remembered the stories of Kevin Pirbright and Niamh Doherty, of Sheila Kennett and Flora Brewster, all of which had taught her that if there were any safe, easy route out of Chapman Farm, it wouldn’t have taken bereavement, mental collapse or night-time escapes through barbed wire to free them. She no longer believed the Waces would stop short of murder to protect themselves or their lucrative fiefdom. Wace’s offer was for the camera, to prove Robin had been given a free choice that was, in reality, no choice at all.

‘No,’ Robin said. ‘I want to stay. I want to learn, I want to do better.’

‘That will mean performing penance,’ said Wace. ‘You understand that?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘I do.’

‘And do you agree that any penance should be proportionate to your own self-confessed behaviour?’

She nodded.

‘Say it,’ said Wace.

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘I agree.’

The door behind Wace opened. Becca had returned holding two pieces of paper and a pen. She was also holding a razor and a can of shaving foam.

‘I want you to read what Becca’s written for you,’ said Wace, as Becca laid the two forms and the pen before Robin on the table, ‘and, if you agree, copy the words out onto the blank form, then sign it.’

Robin read what had been written in Becca’s neat, rounded handwriting.

I have been duplicitous.

I have spoken falsehoods.

I have manipulated a fellow church member and undermined his trust in the church.

I have manipulated and encouraged a fellow church member to lie.

I have acted and spoken in direct contravention of the church’s teachings on kindness and fellowship.

By my own thought, word and deed, I have damaged the bond of trust between myself and the church.

I accept a proportionate punishment as penance for my behaviour.

Robin picked up the pen and her four accusers watched as she copied out the words, then signed as Rowena Ellis.

‘Becca’s going to shave your head now,’ said Wace, ‘as a mark—’

Taio made a slight movement. His father looked up at him for a moment, then smiled.

‘Very well, we’ll forgo the shaving. Taio, go with Becca and fetch the box.’

The pair left the room, leaving Wace and Mazu to watch Robin in silence. Robin heard scuffing footsteps, and then the door opened once more to reveal Taio and Becca carrying a heavy wooden box, the size of a large travel trunk, with an envelope-sized rectangular hole at one end and a hinged, lockable lid.

‘I’m going to leave you now, Artemis,’ said Wace, getting to his feet, and his eyes were wet again. ‘Even where the sin has been great, I hate the necessity for punishment. I wish,’ he pressed his hand to his heart, ‘it weren’t necessary. Be well, Rowena, I’ll see you on the other side, purified, I hope, by suffering. Don’t think I don’t recognise your gifts of intelligence and generosity. I’m very happy,’ he said, making her a little bow, ‘in spite of everything, that you chose to stay with us. Eight hours,’ he added to Taio.

He left the room.

Taio now threw back the lid of the box.

‘You face this way,’ he told Robin, pointing at the rectangular hole. You kneel and bend over in an attitude of penance. Then we close the lid.’

Shaking uncontrollably, Robin stood up. She climbed into the box, facing the rectangular hole, then knelt down and curled up. The floor of the box hadn’t been sanded: she felt the splintered surface digging into her knees through the thin, wet robe. Then the lid banged down on her spine.

She watched through the rectangular hole as Mazu, Taio and Becca left the room, only the hems of their robes and their feet visible. Mazu, the last to leave, turned out the light, closed the door of the room and locked it.

83

Nine in the fifth place…

In the midst of the greatest obstructions,

Friends come.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike, who’d arrived in Lion’s Mouth at one o’clock that afternoon, was now sitting in the dark in his BMW at the blind spot in Chapman Farm’s perimeter with the car’s headlights off. Shah had given Strike the night vision binoculars and wire cutters, and he was using the former to stare at the woods for any sign of a human figure. He’d sent Shah back to London: there was no point two of them sitting here in the dark for hours.

It was nearly midnight, and raining heavily, when Strike’s mobile rang.

‘Any sign of her?’ said Midge anxiously.

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘She did miss a Thursday once before,’ said Midge.

‘I know,’ said Strike, peering through the rain-flecked window at the dark trees, ‘but why the fuck’s the rock gone?’

‘Could she have moved it herself?’

‘Possibly,’ said Strike, ‘but I can’t see why.’

‘You sure you don’t want company?’

‘No, I’m fine on my own,’ said Strike.

‘What if she doesn’t turn up tonight?’

‘We agreed I wouldn’t do anything until Sunday,’ said Strike, ‘so she’s got another night, assuming she doesn’t turn up in the next few hours.’

‘God, I hope she’s all right.’

‘Me too,’ said Strike. With the aim of maintaining these friendlier relations with Midge, even in the midst of his larger worries, he asked,

‘Tasha all right?’

‘Yeah, I think so,’ said Midge. ‘Barclay’s outside her house.’

‘Good,’ said Strike. ‘I might’ve overreacted about the photos. Didn’t want to give Patterson another stick to beat us with.’

‘I know,’ said Midge. ‘And I’m sorry for what I said about her with the fake tits.’

‘Apology accepted.’

When Midge had hung up, Strike continued to stare through the night vision binoculars at the woods.

Six hours later, Robin still hadn’t appeared.

84

Six in the fifth place…

Persistently ill, and still does not die.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Every attempt to relieve pressure or numbness in either of Robin’s smarting legs resulted in more pain. The rough lid of the box scraped her back as she tried to make minor readjustments of her position. Folded down upon herself in the pitch dark, too scared and in too much pain to escape the present by sleeping, she imagined dying, locked inside the box inside the locked room. She knew nobody would hear even if she screamed, but she cried intermittently. After what she thought must be two or three hours, she was forced to urinate inside the box. Her legs were burning with the weight they were supporting. She had nothing to hold on to except that Wace had said ‘eight hours’. There would be a release. It would come. She had to hold on to that.

And, at long last, it came. She heard the key turn in the lock of the door. The light was switched on. A pair of trainer-clad feet approached the box, and the lid was opened.

‘Out,’ said a female voice.

Robin initially found it almost impossible to unfold herself, but by pushing herself upwards with her hands, she forced herself into a standing position, her legs numb and weak. The now dry robe was sticking to her knees, which had bled during the night.

Hattie, the black woman with long braids who’d checked in her possessions when she’d arrived, pointed her silently back to a seat at the table, then left the room to pick up a tray, which she set down in front of Robin. There was a serving of porridge and a glass of water on it.

‘When you’ve eaten, I’ll escort you to the dormitory. You’re permitted to shower before starting your daily tasks.’

‘Thank you,’ said Robin weakly. Her gratitude for being released was unbounded; she wanted the stony-faced woman to like her, to see she’d changed.

Nobody looked at Robin as she and her companion crossed the courtyard, pausing as usual at Daiyu’s fountain. Robin noticed that everyone was now wearing blue tracksuits. Evidently the season of the Drowned Prophet had ended: the season of the Healer Prophet had begun.

Her escort stayed outside the shower cubicle while Robin was washing herself with the thin liquid soap provided. Her knees were scraped and raw, as was a patch of her spine. She wrapped herself in a towel and followed her companion back into the empty dormitory, where Robin found a fresh blue tracksuit and underwear laid out on her bed. When she’d changed, watched by the other woman, the latter said,

‘You’re going to be looking after Jacob today.’

‘OK,’ said Robin.

She yearned to lie down upon the bed and sleep, because she was almost delirious with tiredness, but she followed Hattie meekly out of the dormitory. Nothing mattered to her now except the approval of the church Principals. Terror of the box would be with her forever; all she wanted was not to be punished. She was now scared of somebody from the agency arriving to get her out, because if they did so, Robin might be shut up in the box again and hidden away. She wanted to be left where she was; she dreaded the agency endangering her safety further. Perhaps some time in the future, when she’d recovered her nerve and round-the-clock surveillance had been lifted from her she might find a way to break free, but she couldn’t think that far ahead today. She must comply. Compliance was the only safety.

Hattie led Robin back to the farmhouse, through the dragon-carved doors and up the scarlet-carpeted stairs. They walked along a corridor with more shiny black doors and then up a second staircase, this one narrow and uncarpeted, which led to a corridor with a sloping roof. At the end of this was a plain wooden door, which her companion opened.

Robin was hit by an unpleasant smell of human urine and faeces as she entered the small attic room. Louise was sitting beside a cot. There were various cardboard boxes sitting higgledy-piggledy on the floor, which was covered in sheets of old newspaper, along with a black bin liner that was partially full.

‘Tell Rowena what to do, Louise,’ said the woman who’d escorted Robin, ‘then you can go and sleep.’

She left.

Robin stared at the occupant of the cot, horrified. Jacob was perhaps three feet long, but even though he was naked except for a nappy, he didn’t look like a toddler. His face was sunken, the fine skin stretched over the bones and torso; his arms and legs were atrophied and Robin could see bruises and what she assumed to be pressure sores on his very white skin. He appeared to be sleeping, his breathing guttural. Robin didn’t know whether illness, disability or persistent neglect had placed Jacob in this pitiable state.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she whispered.

To Robin’s horror, the only answer from Louise was a strange keening noise.

‘Louise?’ said Robin, alarmed by the sound.

Louise doubled over, her bald head in her hands, and the noise became an animal screech.

‘Louise, don’t!’ said Robin frantically. ‘Please don’t!’

She grabbed Louise by the shoulders.

‘We’ll both be punished again,’ Robin said frantically, certain that screaming from the attic would be investigated by those downstairs, that their only safety was silence and obedience. ‘Stop it! Stop!’

The noise subsided. Louise merely rocked backwards and forwards on her chair, her face still hidden.

‘They’ll be expecting you to leave. Just tell me what to do for him,’ said Robin, her hands still on the older woman’s shoulders. ‘Tell me.’

Louise raised her head, her eyes bloodshot, her looks ruined, her bald head cut in a couple of places where, doubtless, she’d shaved it while exhausted, with her arthritic hands. Had she broken down at any other time, Robin would have felt more compassion than impatience, but all she cared about at this moment was to avoid any more scrutiny or punishment, and least of all did she want to be accused, again, of causing distress in another church member.

‘Tell me what to do,’ she repeated fiercely.

‘There are nappies in there,’ whispered Louise, tears still leaking out of her eyes as she pointed at one of the cardboard boxes, ‘and wipes over there. He won’t need food… give him water in a sippy cup.’ She pointed to one on the window sill. ‘Leave the newspaper down… he sometimes vomits. He has… he has fits sometimes, as well. Try and stop him banging himself on the bars. And there’s a bathroom opposite if you need it.’

Louise dragged herself to her feet and stood for a moment, looking down at the dying child. To Robin’s surprise, she pressed her fingers to her mouth, kissed them, then placed them gently on Jacob’s forehead. Then, in silence, she left the room.

Robin moved slowly towards the hard wooden chair Louise had vacated, her eyes on Jacob, and sat down.

The boy was clearly on the brink of death. This was the most monstrous thing she’d yet seen at Chapman Farm, and she didn’t understand why today, of all days, she’d been sent to care for him. Why order somebody in here who’d lied and broken church rules, and who’d admitted questioning their allegiance to the church?

Exhausted though she was, Robin thought she knew the answer. She was being made complicit in Jacob’s fate. Perhaps the Waces knew, in some long-repressed part of themselves, that hiding this child away, starving him and giving him no access to medical care except the ‘spirit work’ provided by Zhou would be considered criminal in the outside world. Those sent to watch over his steady decline, and who didn’t seek help for him, would surely be considered guilty by the authorities beyond Chapman Farm, if they ever found out what had happened. Robin was being further enfolded in self-silencing, damned by virtue of being in this room, and not seeking help for the child. He might die while she was watching over him, in which case the Waces would have something over her, forever. They’d say it was her fault, no matter the truth.

Quietly and completely unconsciously, Robin began to whisper.

‘Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu…’

With an effort, she stopped herself.

I mustn’t go mad. I mustn’t go mad.

85

Patience in the highest sense means putting brakes on strength.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Knowing he couldn’t remain in the vicinity of Chapman Farm by daylight without getting his car caught on camera, and certain Robin wouldn’t be able to reach the perimeter until night fell again, Strike had checked himself into one of the guest cabins of nearby Felbrigg Lodge, the only hotel for miles around. He’d intended to catch a few hours’ sleep, yet he, who was usually able to nap on any surface, including floors, found himself far too tightly wound to relax even when lying on the four-poster bed. It felt too incongruous to be lying in a comfortable, genteel room with leaf-patterned cream wallpaper, tartan curtains, a plethora of cushions and a ceramic stag head over the mantelpiece, when his thoughts were this agitated.

He’d talked blithely of ‘coming in the front’ if Robin was out of contact this long, but the absence of the plastic rock made him fear that she’d been identified as a private detective and had now been taken hostage. Taking out his phone, he looked up satellite pictures of Chapman Farm. There were a lot of buildings there, and Strike thought it odds on that some of them had basements or hidden rooms.

He could, of course, contact the police, but Robin had voluntarily entered the church and he might have to jump through a lot of procedural hoops to persuade them it was worth getting a warrant. Strike hadn’t forgotten that there were also UHC centres in Birmingham and Glasgow to which his partner might have been relocated. What if she became the new Deirdre Doherty, of whom no trace could be found, even though the church claimed she’d left thirteen years previously?

Strike’s mobile rang: Barclay.

‘What’s happening?’

‘She didn’t show up last night, either.’

‘Fuck,’ said Barclay. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘I’ll give it tonight, but if she doesn’t show, I’ll call the police.’

‘Aye,’ said Barclay, ‘ye’d better.’

When Barclay had hung up, Strike lay for a while, still telling himself he should sleep while he could, but after twenty minutes he gave up. Having made himself a cup of tea with the kettle provided, he stood for a few minutes looking out of one of the windows, through which he could see a wooden hot tub belonging to his cabin.

His mobile rang again: Shanker.

‘What’s up?’

‘You owe me a monkey.’

‘You’ve got intel on Reaney’s phone call?’

‘Yeah. It was made from a number wiv area code 01263. Woman contacted the prison, said she was ’is wife and it was urgent—’

‘It was definitely a woman?’ said Strike, scribbling down the number.

‘Screw says it sounded like one. They agreed a time for ’er to call ’im. Claimed she wasn’t at ’ome and didn’t want ’im ’aving ’er friend’s number. ’S’all I could get.’

‘All right, the monkey’s yours. Cheers.’

Shanker rang off. Glad to have something to do for a few minutes other than agonise about what had happened to Robin, Strike looked up the area code in question. It covered a large area including Cromer, Lion’s Mouth, Aylmerton, and even the lodge he was currently sitting in.

Having removed a few cushions, Strike sat down on the sofa, vaping, drinking tea and willing the hours to pass quickly, so he could return to Chapman Farm.

86

Six in the fourth place means:

Waiting in blood.

Get out of the pit.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin had been sitting with Jacob all day. He had, indeed, had a fit: she’d tried to stop him hurting himself against the cot bars, and finally he’d grown limp and she’d laid him gently back down. She’d changed his nappy three times, putting the soiled ones into the black bin bag sitting there for that purpose, and tried to give him water, but he seemed unable to swallow.

At midday she’d been brought food by one of the teenage girls who’d stood vigil outside the temple four nights previously. The girl said nothing to her, and kept her eyes averted from Jacob. Barring this one interruption, Robin was left entirely alone. She could hear people moving around in the farmhouse below, and knew she was only allowed this solitude because it would be impossible for her to creep back down the farmhouse stairs without being apprehended. Her fatigue kept threatening to overwhelm her; several times, she nodded off in the hard wooden chair and jerked awake as she slid sideways.

As the hours wore on, she took to reading pages of the newspaper spread over the floor in an attempt to stay awake. Thus she learned that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, had resigned after the country had voted to leave the EU, that Theresa May had now taken his place and that that Chilcot Inquiry had found that the UK had entered the Iraq War before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted.

The information Robin had been denied for so long, information unfiltered by Jonathan Wace’s interpretation, had a peculiar effect on her. It felt as though it came from a different galaxy, making her feel her isolation even more acutely, yet at the same time, it pulled her mentally back towards the outer world, the place where nobody knew what ‘flesh objects’ were, or dictated what you wore and ate, or attempted to regulate the language in which you thought and spoke.

Now two contradictory impulses battled inside her. The first was allied to her exhaustion; it urged caution and compliance and urged her to chant to drive everything else from her mind. It recalled the dreadful hours in the box and whispered that the Waces were capable of worse than that, if she broke any more rules. But the second asked her how she could return to her daily tasks knowing that a small boy was being slowly starved to death behind the farmhouse walls. It reminded her that she’d managed to slip out of the dormitory by night many times without being caught. It urged her to take the risk one more time, and escape.

She was brought a second bowl of noodles and a glass of water at dinner time, this time by a boy who also kept his gaze carefully averted from Jacob and looked repulsed by the smell in the room, to which Robin had become acclimatised.

Dusk arrived, and Robin had now read almost all of the newspapers lying on the floor. Not wanting to put on the electric light in case it disturbed the child in the cot, she got up and moved to the small dormer window to continue reading an article about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Having finished this, she turned the page over and saw the headline SOCIALITE DIED IN BATH, INQUEST TOLD, before realising that the picture below was of Charlotte Ross.

Robin’s gasp was so loud Jacob stirred in his sleep. With one hand pressed over her mouth, Robin read the article, the paper held inches from her eyes in the dying light. She’d just read how much alcohol and how many sleeping pills Charlotte had taken before slitting her wrists in the bath, when there was a soft knock on the attic door.

Robin threw the report about Charlotte back onto the floor and hastened back to her chair as the door opened to reveal Emily, whose head, like her mother’s, was freshly shaven.

Emily closed the door quietly. From what Robin could see of her through the rapidly darkening room, she looked apprehensive, almost tearful.

‘Rowena – I’m so sorry, I’m really, really sorry.’

‘What about?’

‘I told them you gave me money in Norwich. I didn’t want to, but they were threatening me with the box.’

‘Oh, that… it’s OK, I admitted it, too. It was stupid to expect them not to notice.’

‘You can go. Jiang’s waiting downstairs to escort you to the dormitory.’

Robin stood up and had taken a couple of steps towards the door when something strange happened.

She suddenly knew – didn’t guess, or hope, but knew – that Strike had just arrived beside the blind spot at the perimeter fence. The conviction was so strong that it stopped her in her tracks. Then she turned slowly to face Emily again.

‘Who are Jacob’s parents?’

‘I don’t – we don’t… you shouldn’t ask stuff like that.’

‘Tell me,’ said Robin.

Robin could just make out the whites of Emily’s eyes by the fading light from the window. After a few seconds Emily whispered,

‘Louise and Jiang.’

‘Lou—seriously?’

‘Yeah… Jiang isn’t allowed to go with the younger women. He’s an NIM.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Non-Increasing Male. Some of the men aren’t allowed to go with fertile women. I don’t think anyone thought Louise could still get pregnant, but… then Jacob came.’

‘What did you mean, when you told me Daiyu did forbidden things at the farm?’

‘Nothing,’ whispered Emily, now sounding panicky. ‘Forget I—’

‘Listen,’ said Robin (she knew Strike was there, she was certain of it), ‘you owe me.’

After a couple of seconds’ silence, Emily whispered,

‘Daiyu used to sneak off instead of doing lessons, that’s all.’

‘What was she doing, when she sneaked off?’

‘She went into the woods, and into barns. I asked her and she said she was doing magic with other people who were pure spirit. Sometimes she had sweets and little toys. She wouldn’t tell us where she’d got them, but she’d show us. She wasn’t what they say she was. She was spoiled. Mean. Becca saw it all, too. She pretends she didn’t—’

‘Why did you tell me Daiyu didn’t drown?’

‘I can’t—’

‘Tell me.’

‘You’ve got to go,’ whispered Emily frantically. ‘Jiang’s waiting for you.’

‘Then talk quickly,’ said Robin. ‘What made you say Daiyu didn’t drown?’

‘Because… it was just… Daiyu told me she was going to go away with this older girl and live with her.’ Emily’s voice was full of a strange longing.

‘D’you mean Cherie Gittins?’

‘How—?’

‘Was it Cherie?’

‘Yes… I was so jealous. We all really loved Cherie, she was like… like a real… like what they’d call a mother.’

‘Where does invisibility come in?’

‘How did you—?’

‘Tell me.’

‘It was the night before they went to the beach. Cherie gave us all special drinks, but I didn’t like the taste. I poured mine down the sink. When everyone else was asleep, I saw Cherie helping Daiyu out of the dormitory window. I knew she didn’t want anyone to see what she’d done, so I pretended to be asleep, and she went back to bed.’

‘She pushed Daiyu out of the window and then went back to bed herself?’

‘Yes, but she’ll just have been helping Daiyu do whatever she wanted to do. Daiyu could get people in trouble with Papa J and Mazu, if they didn’t do what she wanted.’

From downstairs came a shout:

‘Rowena?’

‘I’m in the bathroom,’ Robin shouted. Turning back to Emily, whom she could no longer see in the dark, she said,

‘Quickly – did you ever tell Kevin what you saw? Tell me, please.’

‘Yes,’ said Emily. ‘Later. Ages later. When I told Becca I’d seen Cherie helping Daiyu out of the window, she said, “You didn’t see that, you can’t have done. If you couldn’t see Daiyu in her bed, it was because she can turn invisible.” Becca loved Cherie too. Becca would’ve done anything for her. When Cherie left, I cried for days. It was like losing – oh God,’ said Emily, panicked.

Footsteps were coming along the corridor. The door opened and the light was slapped on. Jiang stood revealed in the doorway, wearing a blue tracksuit. Jacob’s eyes opened and he began to whimper. Scowling, Jiang averted his gaze from his son.

‘Sorry,’ Robin said to Jiang. ‘I needed the loo and then I had to tell Emily when I last gave him a drink and changed his—’

‘I don’t need the details,’ snapped Jiang. ‘Come on.’

87

Nine in the fourth place means:

Then the companion comes,

And him you can trust.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

As Jiang and Robin walked together down the stairs he said,

‘Stinks, that room.’

His eye was flickering worse than ever.

Robin said nothing. Perhaps it was her advanced state of exhaustion, but she seemed to have become a mass of nerves and hypersensitivities: just as surely as she’d known Strike had arrived at the perimeter, she had a sense that the longer she remained in the farmhouse, the worse it would be for her.

As they walked down the last flight of scarlet-carpeted stairs into the hall, Robin heard a gust of laughter, and Wace appeared from a side room, holding a glass of what looked like wine. He was now wearing a silk version of the blue tracksuit worn by ordinary members, his expensive leather slides on his feet.

‘Artemis!’ he said, smiling as though the previous night hadn’t happened, as though he didn’t know he’d ordered her to be locked in a box, or that she was now into her thirty-sixth hour without sleep. ‘Are we friends again?’

‘Yes, Papa J,’ said Robin, with what she hoped was adequate humility.

‘Good girl,’ said Wace. ‘One moment. Wait there.’

Oh God, no.

Robin and Jiang waited while Wace entered the study with the peacock blue walls. Robin heard more loud laughter.

‘Here we are,’ said the smiling Wace, reappearing with Taio. ‘Before you rest, Artemis, it would be a very beautiful act of contrition to reaffirm your commitment to our church by spirit bonding with one who has much to teach you.’

Robin’s heart began pumping so fast she thought she might pass out. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the hall for her lungs to inflate.

‘Yes,’ she heard herself say. ‘All right.’

‘Papa J!’ came a merry voice, and Noli Seymour came lurching out of the sitting room, flushed, no longer wearing a tracksuit but leather trousers and a tight white T-shirt. ‘Oh Lord, sorry,’ she giggled, seeing the group.

‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ said Wace, extending an arm and drawing Noli to his side. ‘We’re merely arranging a beautiful spirit bonding.’

‘Oooh, lucky you, you get Taio, Rowena?’ said Noli to Robin. ‘If I weren’t spirit married…’

Noli and Wace laughed. Taio allowed his lips to curl in a smirk. Jiang merely looked sulky.

‘Shall we, then?’ said Taio to Robin, taking her firmly by the hand. His was hot and damp.

‘Jiang,’ said Wace, ‘go with them, wait outside and escort Artemis to her dormitory afterwards.’

As Robin and the two Wace brothers walked towards the front door, Robin heard Noli say,

‘Why d’you call her Artemis?’

She missed Wace’s answer in another outburst of laughter from the sitting room.

The night was cool and cloudless, with many stars overhead and a thin, fingernail moon. Taio led Robin towards the pool of the Drowned Prophet and she knelt down between Daiyu’s two brothers.

‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’

‘I need the bathroom,’ Robin said, as she stood up again.

‘No you don’t,’ said Taio, pulling her on.

‘I do,’ said Robin. ‘I just want to pee.’

She was terrified Jiang was going to say ‘You were just in the bathroom.’ Instead, he said, scowling at his brother,

‘Let her bloody pee.’

‘Fine,’ said Taio. ‘Be quick.’

Robin hurried into the dormitory. Most of the women were getting ready for bed.

Robin pushed her way into the bathroom. Marion Huxley was bent over the sink, cleaning her teeth.

In one fluid movement, Robin had stepped up onto the sink beside Marion, and before Marion could shout in surprise, had forced the window open, heaved herself up on the high sill, swung one leg over and then, as Marion screamed, ‘What are you doing?’ let herself fall, hitting the ground on the other side so hard she fell over.

But she was up in an instant and running – her only advantage over the Wace brothers, given her present hunger and exhaustion, was how well she knew her way to the blind spot in the dark. Through the pounding in her ears she heard distant shouts. She was over the five-bar gate, and now she was sprinting across the wet field, her breath coming fast and ragged – she was wearing blue now, far harder to see in the dark than white – there was a stitch like a sword wound in her chest but she sped up – and now she could hear Taio and Jiang behind her.

‘Get her – GET HER!’

She crashed her way into the wood, following the familiar path, leaping over nettles and roots, passing familiar trees –

And in the BMW, Strike saw her coming. Throwing aside the night vision goggles and picking up the foot-long wire cutters, he left the car at a run. He’d got through three strands of barbed wire when Robin screamed,

‘They’re coming, they’re coming, help me—’

He reached over the wall and dragged her with him; her tracksuit bottoms tore on the remaining wire, but she was out onto the road.

Strike could hear the sound of running men.

‘How many?

‘Two – let’s go, please—’

‘Get in,’ he said, pushing her away, ‘just get in the car – GO!’ he bellowed, as Taio Wace came bursting through a thicket of trees and ran for the figure silhouetted ahead.

As Taio launched himself at the detective, Strike swung back the heavy metal wire cutters and smashed them into the side of Taio’s head. Taio crumpled and the figure behind him skidded to a halt. Before either man could return the attack, Strike was heading for the car. Robin had already started the engine; she saw Taio rise again, but Strike was inside the car; he slammed his foot on the accelerator, and in an exhilarating burst of speed they were driving away, Strike having found a glorious release for his days of anxiety, Robin shaking and sobbing in relief.

88

KEEPING STILL means stopping.

When it is time to stop, then stop.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

‘Drive, drive, drive,’ said Robin frantically. ‘They’ll see the number plates on the cameras—’

‘Doesn’t matter if they do, they’re fake,’ said Strike.

He glanced at her and even in the dim light was appalled at what he saw. She looked a good couple of stone lighter and her swollen face was covered either in dirt or bruises.

‘We’ve got to call the police,’ said Robin, ‘there’s a child dying in there – Jacob, that’s who Jacob is, and they’ve stopped feeding him. I’ve been with him all day. We’ve got to get the police.’

‘We’ll call them when we stop. We’ll be there in five minutes.’

‘Where?’ said Robin, alarmed.

She’d imagined travelling straight to London; she wanted to put as many miles as possible between herself and Chapman Farm, wanted to get back to London, to sanity and safety.

‘I’ve got a room in a hotel up the road,’ said Strike. ‘It’ll be the local force we need, if you want police.’

‘What if they come after us?’ said Robin, looking over her shoulder. ‘What if they come looking?’

‘Let them come,’ growled Strike. ‘Nothing would give me greater fucking pleasure than to belt some more of them.’

But when he glanced at her again, he saw naked fear.

‘They’re not going to come,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘They’ve got no authority outside the farm. They can’t take you back.’

‘No,’ she said, more to herself than to him. ‘No, I… I s’pose not…’

Her sudden re-emergence into freedom was too massive for Robin to absorb in a few seconds. Waves of panic kept hitting her: she was imagining what was happening back at Chapman Farm, wondering how soon Jonathan Wace would know she’d gone. She found it almost impossible to grasp that his jurisdiction didn’t extend to this dark, narrow road bordered with trees, or even to the interior of the car. Strike was beside her, large and solid and real, and only now did it occur to her what would have become of her had he not been there, in spite of her absolute certainty that he was waiting.

‘This is it,’ said Strike five minutes later, as he pulled up in a dark car park.

As Strike turned off the engine, Robin undid her seat belt, half rose from her seat, threw her arms around him, buried her face in his shoulder and burst into tears.

‘Thank you.’

‘’S all right,’ said Strike, putting his arms around her and speaking into her hair. ‘My job, innit… you’re out,’ he added quietly, ‘you’re OK now…’

‘I know,’ sobbed Robin. ‘Sorry… sorry…’

Both were in very inconvenient positions in which to hug, especially as Strike still had his seat belt on, but neither let go for several long minutes. Strike gently rubbed Robin’s back, and she held him in a tight grip, occasionally apologising while his shirt collar grew wet. Instead of recoiling when he pressed his lips to the top of her head, she tightened her hold on him.

‘It’s all right,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s OK.’

‘You don’t know,’ sobbed Robin, ‘you don’t know…’

‘You can tell me later,’ said Strike. ‘There’s plenty of time.’

He didn’t want to let her go, but he’d dealt with enough traumatised people in the army – had indeed been one of those people himself, after the car in which he’d been travelling had been blown up, taking half his leg with it – to know that being asked to re-live calamity in its immediate aftermath, when what was really needed was physical comfort and kindness, meant a debrief ought to wait.

They walked together across the lawn towards the low guest house, one of three in a row, Strike’s arm around Robin’s shoulders. When he unlocked the door and stood back to let her in, she passed across the threshold in a state of disbelief, her eyes roving from the four-poster to the multitude of cushions Strike had found excessive, from the kettle standing on a chest of drawers to the television in the corner. The room seemed unimaginably luxurious: to be able to make yourself a hot drink, to have access to news, to have control of your own light switch…

She turned to look at her partner as he closed the door.

‘Strike,’ she said, with a shaky laugh, ‘you’re so thin.’

‘I’m fucking thin?’

‘D’you think I could eat something?’ she said timidly, as though asking for something unreasonable.

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike, moving to the phone. ‘What d’you want?’

‘Anything,’ said Robin. ‘A sandwich… anything…’

She moved restlessly around the room as he dialled the number of the main hotel, trying to convince herself she was genuinely here, touching surfaces, gazing around at the leaf-strewn wallpaper and the ceramic deer head. Then, out of one of the windows, she spotted the hot tub, the water looking black by night and reflecting the trees behind it, and she seemed to see the eyeless child rising again from the depths of the baptismal pool. Strike, who was watching her, saw her flinch and turn away.

‘Food’s on its way,’ he told her, having hung up. ‘There are biscuits by the kettle.’

He closed the curtains as she picked up two plastic-wrapped biscuits and ripped them open. Having devoured them in a few mouthfuls, she said,

‘I should phone the police.’

The call, as Strike could have predicted, wasn’t straightforward. While Robin sat on the edge of the bed, explaining to the emergency operator why she was calling and describing the condition and location of the boy called Jacob, Strike scribbled ‘We’re here: Felbrigg Lodge, Bramble guest house’ onto a bit of paper and passed it to her. Robin duly read out this address when asked for her location. While she was still talking, Strike texted Midge, Barclay, Shah and Pat.

Got her. She’s OK.

He wasn’t convinced the second sentence was true, except in the very broadest sense of lacking a disabling physical injury.

‘They’re going to send someone out to talk to me,’ Robin told Strike at last, having hung up. ‘They said it might be an hour.’

‘Gives you time to eat,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve just been telling the others you’re out. They’ve been crapping themselves about you.’

Robin started crying again.

‘Sorry,’ she gasped, for what felt like the hundredth time.

‘Who hit you?’ he asked, looking at the yellowish purple marks on the left side of her face.

‘What?’ she said, trying to stem the flood of tears. ‘Oh… Will Edensor…’

‘Wh—?’

‘I told him his mother was dead,’ said Robin wretchedly. ‘It was a mistake… or… I don’t know if it was a mistake… I was trying to get through to him… that was a couple of days ago… it was that or have sex with him… sorry,’ she said again, ‘so much has happened these last few days… it’s been—’

She gasped.

‘Strike, I’m so sorry about Charlotte.’

‘How the hell did you know about that?’ he said, amazed.

‘I saw it in an old newspaper this afternoon… it’s awful…’

‘It’s what it is,’ he said, far less interested in Charlotte at this moment than in Robin. His mobile buzzed.

‘That’s Barclay,’ he said, reading the text. ‘He says “thank fuck.”’

‘Oh, Sam,’ sobbed Robin, ‘I saw him a week ago… was it a week ago? I watched him, in the woods… I should’ve gone then, but I didn’t think I had enough to leave… sorry, I don’t know why I keep c-crying…’

Strike sat down next to her on the bed and put his arm around her again.

‘Sorry,’ she said, sobbing as she leaned into him, ‘I’m really sorry—’

‘Stop apologising.’

‘It’s just… relief… they locked me up in a b-box… and Jacob… and the Manifestation was—’ Robin gasped again, ‘Lin, what about Lin, did you find her?’

‘She’s not in any of the hospitals Pat called,’ said Strike, ‘unless she was admitted under another name, but—’

His mobile buzzed again.

‘That’s Midge,’ he said, and he read the text aloud. ‘“Thank fuck for that.”’

The phone buzzed a third time.

‘Shah. “Thank fuck.” What d’you say we get them all thesauruses for Christmas?’

Robin started to laugh, and found she couldn’t stop, though tears were still dribbling out of her eyes.

‘Hang on,’ said Strike, as his phone buzzed yet again. ‘We’ve got an outlier. Pat says, “Is she really OK?”’

‘Oh… I love Pat,’ said Robin, her laughter turning immediately to sobs again.

‘She’s sixty-seven,’ said Strike.

‘Sixty-seven what?’

‘That’s exactly what I said when she told me. Sixty-seven years old.’

‘S-seriously?’ said Robin.

‘Yeah. I haven’t sacked her, though. Thought you’d be pissed off at me.’

There was a knock on the door, and Robin jumped as violently as if she’d heard gunshots.

‘It’s only your brandy,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.

When he’d taken the glass from the helpful woman from the hotel, handed it to his partner and sat back down on the bed beside her, Strike said,

‘In other news: Littlejohn was a plant. From Patterson Inc.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Robin, who’d just gulped down some brandy.

‘Yeah. But the good news is, he’d rather work for us, and he assures me he’s very trustworthy and loyal.’

Robin laughed harder, though she didn’t seem able to stop her eyes streaming. Strike, who was deliberately talking about life outside Chapman Farm rather than interrogating her on what had happened inside it, laughed too, but he’d silently registered everything Robin had so far told him about her last few days: they locked me in a box. It was that or have sex with him. And the Manifestation was…

‘And Midge has been fucked off at me because I thought she and Tasha Mayo might be getting overfamiliar.’

‘Strike!’

‘Don’t bother, Pat’s already told me off. She knew another lesbian once, so it’s very much her area of expertise.’

There might be an edge of hysteria to Robin’s laughter, but Strike, who knew the value of humour in the wake of horror, and the necessity of emphasising that Robin had rejoined the outside world, continued to fill her in on what had been happening with the agency while she’d been away, until the woman from the hotel knocked on the door again, this time carrying soup and sandwiches.

Robin drank a few mouthfuls of soup as though she hadn’t seen food for days, but after a couple of minutes she laid down her spoon and pushed the bowl onto the bedside table.

‘Is it all right if I just…?’

Drawing her legs up onto the bed, she fell sideways onto the pillow and was instantly asleep.

Strike got carefully off the bed so as not to wake her and moved to an armchair, no longer grinning. He was worried: Robin seemed far more fragile than any of her letters had suggested and through the ripped portion of her tracksuit trousers he could see raw skin on her right knee, which looked as though she’d been walking on it. He supposed he should have anticipated the dramatic weight loss and the profound exhaustion, but the hysteria, the unbridled fear, the strange reaction to the view of the hot tub, the ominous fragments of information, all added up to something more serious than he’d expected. What the fuck was ‘the box’ she’d been locked in? And why did she say the only alternative to getting punched in the face had been coerced sex with their client’s son? He knew his partner to be physically brave; indeed, there’d been more than one occasion on which he’d have called her recklessly so. Had he not had confidence in her, he’d never have let her go undercover at Chapman Farm, but now he felt he should have put one of the men in there instead, should have overruled Robin’s request to do the job.

The sound of a car made Strike get to his feet and peer through the curtains.

‘Robin,’ he said quietly, moving back to the bed, ‘the police are here.’

She remained asleep, so he tentatively shook her shoulder, at which she woke with a start and looked wildly at him, as though he was a stranger.

‘Police,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘right… OK…’

She struggled back into a sitting position. Strike went to open the door.

89

Six in the fourth place means:

Grace or simplicity?

A white horse comes as if on wings.

He is not a robber,

He will woo at the right time.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The two Norfolk officers were both male: one older, balding and stolid, the other young, skinny and watchful, and they spent a full eighty minutes taking Robin’s statement. Strike couldn’t blame them for wanting as full an account as possible of what Robin was alleging, given that pursuing an investigation would mean securing a warrant to gain entry to a compound owned by a wealthy, highly litigious organisation. Nevertheless, and even though he himself would have acted similarly under the circumstances, he was irritated by the slow, methodical questioning and the painstaking clarification of every minute detail.

‘Yes, on the top floor,’ said Robin, for the third time. ‘End of the corridor.’

‘And what’s Jacob’s surname?’

‘It should be either Wace or Birpright… Pirbright, sorry,’ said Robin, who was struggling to remain alert. ‘I don’t know which – but those are his parents’ surnames.’

Strike could see the men’s eyes travelling from her ripped tracksuit with its UHC logo to the bruising on her face. Doubtless her story seemed very strange to them: she’d admitted being punched in the jaw, but said she didn’t want to press charges, had brushed off enquiries about the injury to her knee, kept insisting that she simply wanted them to rescue the child who was dying in an upstairs room, behind double doors carved with dragons. They’d cast suspicious looks in Strike’s direction: was the large man watching the interview in silence responsible for the bruising? Robin’s explanation that she was a private detective from the Strike and Ellacott agency in London had been treated, if not with overt suspicion, then with a certain reserve: the impression given was that this would all need verifying, and that what might be accepted without question in the capital would by no means be taken at face value in Norfolk.

At last, the officers appeared to feel there was no more to be gleaned tonight, and took their leave. Having seen them out into the car park, Strike returned to the room to find Robin eating the sandwich she’d temporarily abandoned.

‘Listen,’ said Strike, ‘this was the only free room. You can have the bed, I’ll put two chairs together or something.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Robin. ‘I’m with Ryan, you’re with… whassername?… Bougie…’

‘True,’ said Strike, after a slight hesitation.

‘So we can share the bed,’ said Robin.

‘Murphy’s in Spain,’ said Strike, slightly resentful he had to mention the man.

‘I know,’ said Robin. ‘He said in his last l…’ She yawned ‘… letter.’

After finishing her sandwich, she said,

‘You haven’t got anything I can sleep in, have you?’

‘Got a T-shirt,’ said Strike, pulling it out of his kit bag.

‘Thanks… I really want a shower.’

Robin got to her feet and headed into the bathroom, taking Strike’s T-shirt with her.

He sat back down in the armchair in which he’d listened to Robin’s police interview, prey to a number of conflicting emotions. Robin seemed less disorientated for having eaten, had a cat nap and spoken to the police, which was a relief, though he couldn’t help wondering whether a dispassionate observer would still think he was taking advantage of the situation if he did, indeed, share a bed with Robin. He couldn’t imagine Murphy being happy about it – not that keeping Murphy happy was any concern of his.

The sound of the shower now running in the bathroom gave rise to thoughts he knew he oughtn’t to be thinking. Getting to his feet again, he cleared away Robin’s used crockery and cutlery, noisily clinking both together as he placed them back on their tray, which he placed outside the door for collection. He then did some wholly unnecessary rearranging of his personal effects, put his phone on to charge and hung up his jacket, taking care to clatter the hangers together as he did so: nobody could accuse him of sitting in a chair, listening to the shower and picturing his business partner naked.

Robin, meanwhile, was soaping her scraped knees, breathing in the smell of the unfamiliar shower gel, and beginning to grasp that she really wasn’t in Chapman Farm any more. Onerous as the police interview had been, it had somehow grounded her. Standing under the hot water, grateful for the privacy, the lockable door and the thought of Strike outside, she reflected that there were worse things than what she’d been through: there was being a child who wasn’t strong enough to run, who had no friends to rescue him and was therefore utterly at the mercy of the regime at Chapman Farm. In spite of her bodily fatigue, she now felt nervily awake again.

Having towelled herself dry, she took a squeeze of Strike’s toothpaste, cleaned her teeth as best she could with the corner of a flannel and put on Strike’s T-shirt, which was the length of a mini dress on her. Then, wishing she could burn them immediately, she took the folded UHC tracksuit and trainers back into the bedroom, put them down on an armchair and, without noticing that Strike was avoiding looking at her, got into bed. The glass of brandy he’d ordered was still sitting on the bedside table. She reached for it and took another large gulp: it contrasted unpleasantly with the taste of toothpaste, but she liked the way it burned her throat.

‘You all right?’ said Strike.

‘Yes,’ said Robin, sitting back on the pillows. ‘God, it’s so… so good to be out.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Strike heartily, still avoiding looking at her.

‘They’re evil,’ said Robin, after taking another swig of brandy, ‘evil. I thought I knew what that was… we’ve seen stuff, you and me… but the UHC is something else.’

Strike sensed her need to talk, but he was worried about tipping her back into the state of distress she’d been in before talking to the police.

‘You don’t have to tell me now,’ he said, ‘but I’m taking it this last week was bad?’

‘Bad,’ said Robin, whose colour had come back after a few gulps of brandy, ‘is’n understatement.’

Strike sat back down in the armchair, and Robin began to relate the events of the last ten days. She didn’t dwell on how scared she’d been, and she omitted certain details – Strike didn’t need to know she’d peed herself in the box, didn’t have to hear that mere hours ago she’d been convinced she was about to face rape, for the second time in her life, didn’t need to know exactly where Jonathan Wace had put his hands, the night they’d been alone together, in the peacock blue study – but the bald facts were sufficient to confirm some of her partner’s worst fears.

‘Fuck,’ was his first word, when she’d finished talking. ‘Robin, if I’d—’

‘It had to be me,’ she said, correctly anticipating what he was about to say. ‘If you’d put Barclay in there, or Shah, they’d never have got as much. You’d have to be a woman to see everything I did.’

‘That box – that’s a fucking torture technique.’

‘It’s a good one,’ said Robin, with a small laugh, now flushed from the brandy.

‘If—’

‘I chose to go in. This isn’t on you. I wanted it.’

‘But—’

‘At least we know, now.’

‘Know what?’

‘The lengths they’re prepared to go to. I can imagine Wace crying as he pressed the trigger of a gun. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”’

‘You think they killed Kevin Pirbright?’

‘I do, yes.’

Strike decided not to debate the point, tempting though it was. Letting Robin vent was one thing, theorising about murder was a step too far at nearly midnight, when she was pink-cheeked from alcohol but hollow-eyed with exhaustion.

‘You’re sure about sharing the—?’

‘Yez, no problem,’ said Robin, now slurring slightly.

So Strike repaired to the bathroom himself, emerging ten minutes later in boxer shorts and the T-shirt he’d worn all day. Robin appeared to have fallen asleep where she sat.

Strike turned off all the lights and eased himself into bed, trying not to wake her, but when he’d finally settled his full weight onto the mattress, Robin stirred, and groped in the darkness for his hand. Finding it, she squeezed.

‘I knew you were there,’ she murmured drowsily, half-asleep. ‘I knew you were there.’

Strike said nothing, but continued to hold her hand until, five minutes later, she gave a long sigh, released him, and rolled over onto her side.