The Running Grave

Shêng/Pushing Upward

Within the earth, wood grows:

The image of PUSHING UPWARD.

Thus the superior man of devoted character

Heaps up small things

In order to achieve something high and great.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

20

Over the earth, the lake:

The image of GATHERING TOGETHER.

Thus the superior man renews his weapons

In order to meet the unforeseen.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

‘Right then,’ said Midge, who’d been back from her holiday in California for a week, but whose dark tan, which emphasised her grey eyes, showed no sign of fading. She smoothed out a map on the partners’ desk. ‘Here it is. Chapman Farm.’

It was Wednesday morning, and Strike had lowered the blinds in the inner office, to block out the watery April sunshine, which dazzled without warming. A desk lamp shone onto the map, on which were marked many annotations in red ink.

Barclay, Midge and Dev had spent the previous seven days rotating between London and Norfolk, making a careful survey of the environs of the UHC’s base while ensuring that the cameras didn’t pick up any individual face too often. Midge had used a couple of different wigs. They’d also affixed false number plates on each of their vehicles to drive around the farm’s perimeter.

‘These,’ said Midge, pointing at a series of red crosses the three subcontractors had added to the periphery of Chapman Farm’s land, ‘are cameras. They’re serious about security. The whole perimeter’s under surveillance. But there –’ she pointed at a circled red mark, which was on the edge of a patch of woodland ‘– is the blind spot. Barclay found it.’

‘You’re sure?’ said Strike, looking around at the Scot, who was drinking tea out of a Celtic mug, in what was usually Strike’s chair.

‘Aye,’ said Barclay, leaning forwards to point. ‘The two cameras either side are fixed tae trees, an’ they’re a wee bit too far apart. They’ve noticed it’s nae properly covered, because they’ve fortified it. Extra barbed wire. The ground inside the fence was covered in nettles an’ brambles, as well.’

‘“Was”?’ said Robin.

‘Aye. I’ve cut a path through it. That’s how I confirmed they can’t see anything there: naebody came to tell me to get oot an’ I was there a couple of hours. I got in over the barbed wire, nearly fuckin’ castrated meself – ye’re welcome – an’ cut it all back. There’s a wee clearing there now, hard by the road. If I hadnae done it,’ Barclay told Robin, ‘ye’d have had to explain why you keep gettin’ covered in stings and lacerations.’

‘Bloody good going,’ said Strike.

‘Thanks, Sam,’ said Robin, warmly.

‘Last thing we did was check what happens when they do see someone coming in over the perimeter fence, on the security camera,’ said Midge, pointing to a circled blue cross. ‘I climbed over the fence here. Five minutes later, I had a guy running towards me holding a scythe. I acted dumb. A rambler who thought the farm might have a nice shop. He believed me. The farm’s up a track off a local walk, Lion’s Mouth. Beauty spot.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, now lifting a realistic-looking plastic rock off a chair onto the desk, ‘this is going to be at the blind spot, right by the perimeter fence.’

He opened it to show Robin the contents.

‘Pencil torch and pen and paper, just in case they don’t give you any inside. You write us a note, put it back in the rock and place it in the spot where the cameras can’t see you. We collect it every Thursday evening at nine, put in a return message you can read on the spot, then tear up.

‘If you skip a Thursday letter, one of us stays in the vicinity and keeps checking the rock. If we haven’t heard from you by Saturday evening, we come in the front.’

‘Too soon,’ said Robin. ‘Make it Sunday.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if I’m worried about hitting every Thursday deadline, I’m at risk of messing up. I just want a bigger margin.’

‘What instructions have they given you?’ Midge asked Robin.

‘No phones or any electronic devices. They say you can check them in when—’

‘Don’t take them,’ said Midge and Barclay simultaneously.

‘No, you definitely don’t want the UHC having possession of your phone,’ agreed Strike. ‘Leave it here, in the office safe. House keys, as well. Take nothing in there that ties you to your real life.’

‘And I’m to bring a waterproof coat,’ said Robin, ‘three changes of underwear, and that’s it. You’re given tracksuits to wear when you arrive, and you leave your daywear in a locker. No alcohol, sugar, cigarettes or drugs, prescription or otherwise—’

‘They make you leave medication?’ said Barclay.

‘The body will heal itself if the spirit is pure enough,’ said Robin, straight-faced.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ muttered Barclay.

‘Face it, the UHC doesn’t want people who need medication,’ said Strike. ‘No diabetic’s going to stand up to that starvation regime for long.’

‘And no toiletries. Those are all provided,’ said Robin.

‘You can’t even take your own deodorant?’ said Midge indignantly.

‘They don’t want you reminded of your life outside,’ said Robin. ‘They don’t want you thinking of yourself as an individual.’

A few seconds’ silence followed this remark.

‘You’re gonnae be all right, are ye?’ said Barclay.

‘Yes, I’ll be fine. But if anything goes wrong, I’ve got you lot, haven’t I? And my trusty rock.’

‘Dev’s going to drive up there tonight and put the rock in position,’ said Strike. ‘You might have to feel around a bit to find it. We want to make it look like it’s been there forever.’

‘Right,’ said Barclay, slapping his thighs before getting to his feet, ‘I’m off tae take over from Littlejohn. Frank One should be ready for a bit o’ light stalking once he’s had his lunch.’

‘Yeah, I should go relieve Dev,’ said Midge, checking her watch. ‘See what Bigfoot’s up to.’

‘Has he met anyone yet?’ said Robin, who’d been buried so deep in her preparation for Chapman Farm, and research on ex-UHC members, that she hadn’t had time to read the Bigfoot file.

‘He’s been to Stringfellows,’ said Midge dismissively, ‘but the wife’s not going to get half his business just because he had a lap dance… not that I’m really arsed about her getting it, snotty cow.’

‘We’re Team Client, even if they’re bastards,’ said Strike.

‘I know, I know,’ said Midge, heading for the outer office, where her leather jacket was hanging up, ‘but you get bored of helping out people who’ve never done a day’s bloody work in their lives.’

‘When I find a starving orphan who can afford to hire us, I’ll pass them straight to you,’ said Strike.

Midge returned a sardonic salute, then said to Robin,

‘If I don’t see you before you go in, good luck.’

‘Thanks, Midge,’ said Robin.

‘Aye, best o’ luck,’ said Barclay. ‘An’ if the worst comes tae the worst, an’ ye’re on the verge of gettin’ brainwashed, take a rusty nail and dig it intae the palm of your hand. Worked for Harry Palmer in the The Ipcress File.’

‘Good advice,’ said Robin. ‘I’ll try and smuggle one in.’

The two subcontractors left the office.

‘I had something else to tell you,’ Robin told Strike, now sitting down on her usual side of the partners’ desk. ‘I think I’ve found Jordan Reaney. The guy who was forced to whip himself across the face with the leather flail? He was using his middle name at Chapman Farm. His real name’s Kurt.’

She typed ‘Kurt Reaney’ and swung the screen of her PC round to face Strike, who was confronted with the mugshot of a heavily tattooed man. An ace of spades was inked onto his left cheek, and a tattooed tiger covered his throat.

‘He was sentenced to ten years for armed robbery and aggravated assault. Kurt Jordan Reaney,’ said Robin, rolling her chair around the desk to contemplate the mugshot alongside Strike. ‘He’ll have been in his late teens when Sheila knew him, which fits. I’ve trawled through all the usual online records, and got as many addresses for him as I can find. There’s a gap in online records from ’93 to ’96, then he reappears in a flat in Canning Town. We know the UHC Jordan was frightened of the police, because Kevin Pirbright said that’s what Mazu was threatening him with, while she was making him whip himself.’

‘Sounds like our guy,’ said Strike, ‘but you can’t just ring up a bloke in jail.’

‘Maybe a letter?’ said Robin, though without much conviction.

‘“Dear Mr Reaney, having seen your mugshot, you strike me as the kind of bloke who’d very much like to help a criminal investigation…”’

Robin laughed.

‘What about next of kin?’ said Strike.

‘Well, there’s a woman with the same surname living at his last address.’

‘I’ll try and get at him through her. What about the other kid who got beaten up?’ said Strike. ‘The one with the low IQ?’

‘Paul Draper? Haven’t found any trace of him yet. Cherie Gittins seems to have vanished off the face of the earth too.’

‘OK, I’ll keep digging on them while you’re at Chapman Farm. I’ve left a message at Abigail Glover’s fire station, as well.’

‘Wace’s daughter?’

‘Exactly.’

Strike now moved to the door separating the inner office from the outer, where Pat sat typing, and closed it.

‘Listen,’ he said.

Robin braced herself, trying not to look exasperated. Murphy had said ‘listen’ in exactly that tone on Friday night, five minutes after ejaculating, and immediately before embarking on his prepared speech about the risks of going under deep cover.

‘I wanted to tell you something, before you go in there.’

He looked serious, but hesitant, and Robin felt a tiny electric shock in the pit of her stomach, just as she had when Prudence said Robin was the most important person in Strike’s life.

‘There’s a slight chance – very slight, actually, but it’s still better you know – that someone in there might say something about me, so I wanted to forewarn you, so you don’t look shocked and give yourself away.’

Now Robin knew what was coming, but said nothing.

‘I was at the Aylmerton Community for six months, with my mum and Lucy, back in 1985. I’m not saying people will remember me, I was just a kid, but my mother was a minor celebrity. Well, she’d been in the papers, anyway.’

For a few seconds, Robin debated what best to say, and decided on honesty.

‘Actually, Sheila Kennett remembered you and your mum. I didn’t want to say anything,’ she added, ‘unless you told me yourself.’

‘Ah,’ said Strike. ‘Right.’

They looked at each other.

‘Fucking terrible place,’ said Strike bluntly, ‘but nothing happened to me in there.’

He’d unintentionally placed a slight emphasis on the word ‘me’.

‘I’ve got another reason for telling you this,’ said Strike. ‘That Mazu woman. Don’t trust her.’

‘I won’t, she sounds really—’

‘No, I mean, don’t assume there’s any sense of – ’ he groped for the right word ‘– you know – sisterhood there. Not when it comes to spirit bonding. If she wants to take you to some bloke—’

There came a knock on the door.

‘What?’ called Strike, with a trace of impatience.

Pat’s monkeyish face appeared, scowling. She said to Strike, in her deep, gravelly voice,

‘There’s a woman on the phone, wanting to talk to you. Name of Niamh Doherty.’

‘Put her through,’ said Strike at once.

He moved around to his side of the desk, and the phone began to ring within seconds.

‘Cormoran Strike.’

‘Hello,’ said a tentative woman’s voice. ‘Er – my name’s Niamh Doherty? You left a message with my husband, asking whether I’d answer some questions about the Universal Humanitarian Church?’

‘I did, yes,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks very much for getting back to me.’

‘That’s all right. Can I ask why you want to talk to me?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Strike, eyes on Robin’s. ‘My agency’s been hired to investigate claims about the church made by an ex-member. We’re after corroboration, if we can get it.’

‘Oh,’ said Niamh. ‘Right.’

‘This would be an off-the-record chat,’ Strike assured her. ‘Just for background. I understand you were pretty young when you were there?’

‘Yes, I was there from ages eight to eleven.’

There was a pause.

‘Have you tried my father?’ Niamh asked.

‘Yes,’ said Strike, ‘but he declined to talk.’

‘He would… I understand if you can’t say, but why are you trying to corroborate these claims? Are you working for a newspaper, or—?’

‘No, not a newspaper. Our client’s got a relative inside the church.’

‘Oh,’ said Niamh, ‘I see.’

Strike waited.

‘All right,’ said Niamh at last, ‘I don’t mind talking to you. Actually, if you could manage tomorrow, or Friday—’

‘Tomorrow would be no problem,’ said Strike, who had his own reasons for favouring Thursday.

‘Thank you, that’d be great, because I’m off work – we’ve just moved house. And, it’s a bit cheeky to ask this, but would you mind coming to me? I’m not far from London. Chalfont St Giles.’

‘No problem whatsoever,’ said Strike, reaching for a pen to take down her address.

When he’d hung up, Strike turned to Robin.

‘Fancy a trip to Chalfont St Giles with me tomorrow?’

‘She’s agreed to talk?’

‘Yep. Be good if you heard what she’s got to say, before you go in.’

‘Definitely,’ said Robin, getting to her feet. ‘Would you mind if I go home now, then? I’ve got a few things to sort out before I leave for Chapman Farm.’

‘Yeah, no problem.’

Once Robin had left, Strike sat down at his computer, his spirits rather higher than they’d been on waking up. He’d just scuppered the possibility of Robin spending the whole of her last free day before going undercover with Ryan Murphy. If his actions recalled, however faintly, Charlotte Ross’s machinations with regard to himself, his conscience remained surprisingly untroubled as he Googled pleasant places to have lunch in Chalfont St Giles.

21

The danger of heaven lies in the fact that one cannot climb it… The effects of the time of danger are truly great.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The village Strike and Robin entered the following morning, which lay an hour from London, had a sleepy English prettiness. As they drove past half-timbered buildings overlooking a village green, Strike, who’d accepted Robin’s offer to drive his BMW, looked out at the stone grey Norman tower of the parish church, and spotted a sign proclaiming that they were in Buckinghamshire’s best kept village.

‘None of this will come cheap,’ he commented, as they turned off the High Street into Bowstridge Lane.

‘We’re here,’ said Robin, coming to a halt beside a square, detached house of tawny brick. ‘We’re ten minutes early, should we wait or—?’

‘Wait,’ said Strike, who had no desire to hurry through the interview. The longer it took, the more likely Robin would want something to eat before returning to London. ‘You all packed and ready for tomorrow?’

‘I’ve put my waterproof coat and underwear in a holdall, if you can call that packing,’ said Robin.

What she didn’t tell Strike was that she’d realised for the first time yesterday that she wouldn’t be able to take contraceptive pills with her into Chapman Farm. Having checked the small print on the pamphlet she’d been given, they were specifically listed as banned medications. Nor was she about to tell Strike that she and Murphy had had something close to an argument the previous evening, when Murphy had announced that he’d taken the day off to spend it with her, as a surprise, and she’d told him she was driving off to Buckinghamshire with Strike.

Strike’s mobile rang. Caller ID was withheld.

‘Strike.’

‘Hi,’ said a female voice. ‘This is Abigail Glover.’

Strike mouthed ‘Jonathan Wace’s daughter’ at Robin before turning his mobile to speakerphone so that she could hear what was going on.

‘Ah, great,’ he said. ‘You got the message I left at the station?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Woss this about?’

‘About the Universal Humanitarian Church,’ said Strike.

Absolute silence followed these words.

‘Are you still there?’ asked Strike.

‘Yeah.’

‘I was wondering whether you might be willing to talk to me,’ said Strike.

More silence: Strike and Robin were looking at each other. At last a single monosyllable issued from the phone.

‘Why?’

‘I’m a private—’

‘I know ’oo you are.’

Unlike her father’s, Abigail’s accent was pure working-class London.

‘Well, I’m trying to investigate some claims made about the church.’

‘’Oose claims?’

‘A man called Kevin Pirbright,’ said Strike, ‘who’s now dead, unfortunately. Did he ever make contact with you? He was writing a book.’

There was another silence, the longest yet.

‘You working for a newspaper?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘No, for a private client. I wondered whether you’d be happy to talk to me. It can be off the record,’ Strike added.

Yet another lengthy silence followed.

‘Hello?’

‘I dunno,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll need to fink about it. I’ll call you back if I… I’ll call you later.’

The line went dead.

Robin, who realised she’d been holding her breath, exhaled.

‘Well… I can’t say I’m surprised. If I were Wace’s daughter, I wouldn’t want to be reminded of it, either.’

‘No,’ agreed Strike, ‘but she’d be very useful, if she was happy to talk… I left a message for Jordan Reaney’s wife yesterday, after you left, by the way. Tracked her down to her place of work. She’s a manicurist at a place called Kuti-cles with a K.’

He checked the time on the dashboard.

‘We should probably go in.’

When Strike pressed the doorbell they heard a dog barking, and when the door opened, a wire-haired fox terrier came flying out of the house so fast he flew right past Strike and Robin, skidded on the paved area in the front of the house, turned, ran back and began jumping up and down on its hind legs, barking hysterically.

‘Calm down, Basil!’ shouted Niamh. Robin was taken aback by her youth: she was in her mid-twenties, and for the second time lately, Robin found herself comparing her own flat to somebody else’s house. Niamh was short and plump, with shoulder-length black hair and very bright blue eyes, and was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a quotation by Charlotte Brontë printed on the front: I would always rather be happy than dignified.

‘Sorry,’ Niamh said to Strike and Robin, before saying, ‘Basil, for God’s sake,’ seizing the dog by its collar and dragging it back inside. ‘Come in. Sorry,’ she repeated over her shoulder, as she dragged the overexcited dog along the wooden floorboards towards a kitchen at the end of the hall, ‘we moved in last Sunday and he’s been hyper ever since… get out,’ she added, forcibly pushing the dog out into the garden through a back door, which she closed firmly on him.

The kitchen was farmhouse style, with a purple Aga and plates displayed on a dresser. A scrubbed wooden table was surrounded by purple-painted chairs, and the fridge door was covered in a child’s paintings, mostly blobs of paint and squiggles, which were held up with magnets. There was also – and this, Robin thought, explained how a twenty-five-year-old came to find herself living in such an expensive house – a picture of Niamh in a bikini, arm in arm with a man in swimming trunks, who looked at least forty. A smell of baking was making Strike salivate.

‘Thanks very much for seeing us, Mrs—’

‘Call me Niamh,’ said their hostess, who, now that she didn’t have a fox terrier to manage, looked nervous. ‘Please, sit down, I’ve just made biscuits.’

‘You’ve just moved in and you’re baking?’ said Robin, smiling.

‘Oh, I love baking, it calms me down,’ said Niamh, turning away to grab oven gloves. ‘Anyway, we’re pretty much straight now. I only took a couple of days off because I had leave owed to me.’

‘What d’you do for a living?’ asked Strike, who’d taken the chair nearest the back door, at which Basil was now whining and scratching, eager to get back in.

‘Accountant,’ said Niamh, now lifting cookies off the baking tray with a spatula. ‘Tea? Coffee?’

By the time the two detectives and Niamh had their mugs of tea, and the biscuits were sitting on a plate in the middle of the table, Basil’s whines had become so piteous that Niamh let him back into the room.

‘He’ll settle,’ she said, as the dog zoomed around the table, tail wagging furiously. ‘Eventually.’

Niamh sat down herself, making unnecessary adjustments to the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

‘Who’s the artwork by?’ Robin asked, pointing at the blobby creations on the fridge, and trying to put Niamh more at ease.

‘Oh, my little boy, Charlie,’ said Niamh. ‘He’s two. He’s with his dad this morning. Nigel thought it would be easier for me to talk to you without Charlie here.’

‘I take it that’s Nigel?’ asked Robin, smiling as she pointed at the beach picture.

‘Yes,’ said Niamh. She seemed to feel something needed explaining. ‘I met him at my first job. He was actually my boss.’

‘How lovely,’ said Robin, trying not to feel judgemental. Given Nigel’s hair loss, the couple looked more like father and daughter in the picture.

‘So,’ said Strike, ‘as I said on the phone, we’re after background on the Universal Humanitarian Church. Is it OK if I take notes?’

‘Yes, fine,’ said Niamh nervously.

‘Could we start with what year you and your family went to Chapman Farm?’ asked Strike, clicking out the nib of his pen.

‘1999,’ said Niamh.

‘And you were eight, right?’

‘Yes, and my brother Oisin was six and my sister Maeve was four.’

‘What made your parents join, do you know?’ asked Strike.

‘It was Dad, not Mum,’ said Niamh. ‘He was always a bit, um… it’s hard to describe. When we were little he was politically quite far left, but he’s about as far right as you can go these days. I actually haven’t spoken to him for three years… he just got worse and worse. Weird ranting phone calls, temper tantrums. Nigel thinks I’m better off without contact with him.’

‘Was your family religious?’ asked Strike.

‘Not before the UHC. No, I just remember Dad coming home one evening, incredibly excited, because he’d been to a meeting and got talking to Papa J, who converted him on the spot. It was like Dad had found the meaning of life. He was going on and on about a social revolution. He’d brought home a copy of Papa J’s book, The Answer. Mum just… went along with it,’ said Niamh sadly. ‘Maybe she thought everything would be better inside the church, I don’t know.

‘She told us it’d be fun. We cried about leaving home, and all our friends, she told us not to do it in front of Dad, because he’d be upset. Anything for an easy life, that was Mum… we hated it, though, from the moment we got there. No clothes of our own. No toys. I can remember Maeve sobbing for the cuddly bunny she used to take to bed every night. We’d taken it to the farm, but everything was locked up, the moment we arrived, including Maeve’s bunny.’

Niamh took a sip of tea, then said,

‘I don’t want to be hard on Mum. From what I can remember, she had a tough time with Dad’s mood swings and how erratic he was. She wasn’t very strong, either. She’d had some kind of heart condition since childhood. I remember her as very passive.’

‘Are you still in contact with her?’ asked Robin.

Niamh shook her head. Her eyes had become damp.

‘I haven’t seen her since we left her behind at Chapman Farm, in 2002. She stayed behind, with our younger sister. That’s actually part of the reason I said I’d see you,’ said Niamh. ‘I’d just like to know… if you happened to find out what happened to her… I wrote to the church a few years ago, trying to find out where she was, and I got a letter back saying she left in 2003. I don’t know whether it’s true. Maybe she couldn’t find us after we got out, because Dad took us to Whitby, where we’d never lived before, and he changed our surname. Maybe she didn’t want to find us, I don’t know, or possibly Dad told her to stay away. I think he might have heard from her, though, or from the UHC, after we left, because he got a few letters that made him really angry. Maybe they were forwarded from our old address. Anyway, he’d tear them up really small so we couldn’t read them. We were forbidden from ever mentioning Mum, after we left Chapman Farm.’

‘What made your father take you away, do you know?’ asked Strike.

‘I only know what he was saying as he dragged us out of there. It was night-time. We had to climb out over fences. We all wanted Mum to come with us – we were begging Dad to let us fetch her, and Maeve was calling for her, and Dad hit her. He told us Mum was a slut,’ said Niamh miserably, ‘which was just mad, because in the church, the women are supposed to… I mean, they’re shared, between all the men. But Dad must’ve thought Mum wasn’t joining in with all that, which just – it beggars belief, it really does, but it’s so typical of him. He thought he could join the church and just have the bits he liked, and leave the rest, which was idiotic: the church is completely anti-marriage. Everyone’s supposed to sleep around. From what I heard him telling our uncle afterwards, he didn’t believe Lin was his… I really hate saying all this, because from what I remember of Mum, she was quite – you know – prim. I don’t think she’d have wanted to sleep with people other than Dad. The whole thing’s so… so bizarre,’ said Niamh bleakly. ‘You can’t explain, to people who don’t understand about the UHC. I usually tell people my mum died when I was eleven. It’s just easier.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Robin, who really couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘Oh, I’m all right,’ said Niamh, who no longer looked young, but far older than her years. ‘Compared to Oisin and Maeve, I’ve done fine. They’ve never got over the UHC. Maeve’s always at the doctor’s, constantly signed off sick from work, on tons of different medication. She binge eats, she’s got really big and she’s never had a stable relationship. And Oisin drinks far too much. He’s had kids with two different girls already, and he’s only twenty-three. He works really menial jobs, just to get drinking money. I’ve tried to help, to look after both of them a bit, because I’m the only one who made it through the whole thing kind of intact, and I’ve always felt guilty about that. Both of them are angry at me. “It’s all right for you, you married a rich old man.” But I coped better, right from the moment we got out. I could remember our pre-church life, so the change wasn’t such a shock. I caught up at school quicker than the other two and I’d had Mum around longer… but to this day, I can’t stand David Bowie. The UHC used to play “Heroes” all the time, to get people revved up. It doesn’t even have to be that song. Just the sound of his voice… when Bowie died, and they were playing his music non-stop on the radio, I hated it…’

‘Would you happen to have any photographs of your mother?’ Strike asked.

‘Yes, but they’re very old.’

‘Doesn’t matter. We’re just trying to tie names to faces at the moment.’

‘They’re upstairs,’ said Niamh. ‘Shall I—?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Strike.

Niamh left the kitchen. Strike helped himself to a biscuit.

‘Bloody nice,’ he said, through a mouthful of chocolate chips.

‘Don’t give him any,’ said Robin, as Basil the dog placed his front paws on Strike’s leg. ‘Chocolate’s really bad for dogs.’

‘She says you can’t have any,’ Strike told the fox terrier, cramming the rest of the biscuit into his mouth. ‘It’s not my decision.’

They heard Niamh’s returning footsteps, and she reappeared.

‘That’s Mum,’ she said, passing a faded Polaroid to Strike.

He guessed it had been taken in the early nineties. Fair-haired Deirdre Doherty looked up at him, wearing a pair of square-framed glasses.

‘Thanks,’ said Strike, making a note. ‘Would you be all right with me taking a picture of this? I won’t take the original.’

Niamh nodded and Strike took a photograph on his mobile.

‘So you were at Chapman Farm for three years?’ Strike asked Niamh.

‘That’s right – not that I knew it until we got out, because there are no clocks or calendars in there.’

‘Really?’ said Robin, thinking of her Thursday night appointments with the plastic rock.

‘No, and they never celebrated birthdays or anything. I can remember walking through the woods and thinking, “Today could be my birthday. I don’t know.” But the people running the place must have known our dates of birth, because certain things happened when you reached different ages.’

‘What kind of things?’ asked Strike.

‘Well, up to the age of nine, you slept in a mixed dormitory. Then you went into a single-sex dormitory, and you had to start keeping a journal for the church elders to read. Obviously, you didn’t say what you were really thinking. I soon found out if I wrote one thing I’d learned and one thing I’d enjoyed, I’d be OK. “Today I learned more about what the false self is,”’ she said, adopting a flat voice, ‘“and ways of fighting my false self. I understand that the false self is the bad part of me that wants bad things. It is very important to defeat the false self. I enjoyed dinner tonight. We had chicken and rice and there were songs.”’

Beneath the table, Basil had finally settled down, his woolly head resting on Robin’s foot.

‘Then, when you turned thirteen, you moved into the adult dorms,’ Niamh continued, ‘and you started attending Manifestations and training to go pure spirit. The children who’d been raised in the church told me pure spirits get special powers. I remember fantasising at night that I’d go pure spirit really fast, and blast apart the walls of the dormitories and grab Mum, Oisin and Maeve and fly away with them… I don’t know whether I thought that was really possible… after you’d been in there a while, you did start to believe mad things.

‘But I can’t tell you how you go pure spirit,’ said Niamh, with a wry smile, ‘because I was only eleven when we left.’

‘So what was the routine, for younger kids?’ asked Strike.

‘Rote learning of church dogma, lots of colouring in, and sometimes going to the temple to chant,’ said Niamh. ‘It was incredibly boring and we were very heavily supervised. No proper teaching. Very occasionally we were allowed to go and play in the woods.

‘I remember this one day – ’ Niamh’s tone lightened a little, ‘– in the woods, Oisin and I found a hatchet. There was this big old tree with a hollow in it. If you climbed up high enough into its branches, you could see down into the hollow. One day Oisin got a long branch and started poking around inside the trunk, and he saw something at the bottom.

‘It was about that big,’ Niamh held her hands a foot apart, ‘and the blade was sort of rusty-looking. It’ll have been used for chopping wood, but Oisin was convinced it had blood on it. We couldn’t get it out, though. We couldn’t reach.

‘We didn’t tell anyone. You learned never to tell anyone anything, even if it was innocent, but we made up this whole story in secret about how Mazu had taken a naughty child into the woods and killed them there. We half-believed it, I think. We were all terrified of Mazu.’

‘You were?’ said Robin.

‘God, yes,’ said Niamh. ‘She was… like nobody I’ve ever met, before or since.’

‘In what way?’ asked Strike.

Niamh gave an unexpected shudder, then a half-ashamed laugh.

‘She… I always thought of her as, like, a really big spider. You don’t want to know what it might do to you, you just know you don’t want to be near it. That’s how I felt about Mazu.’

‘We’ve heard,’ said Strike, ‘that there were beatings and whippings.’

‘They kept the children away from anything like that,’ said Niamh, ‘but sometimes you’d see grown-ups with bruises or cuts. You learned never to ask about it.’

‘And we know one boy was tied to a tree in the dark overnight,’ said Robin.

‘Yes, that – that was quite a common punishment, for children, I think,’ said Niamh. ‘Kids weren’t supposed to talk about what had happened to them if they were taken away to be disciplined, but of course people whispered about it, in the dorms. I never got a bad punishment, personally,’ Niamh added. ‘I toed the line and I made sure Oisin and Maeve did, too. No, it wasn’t so much what actually happened to you, as what you were afraid might happen. There was always this feeling of lurking danger.

‘Mazu and Papa J could both do supernatural – I mean, obviously, they weren’t supernatural things, I know that now, but I believed it at the time. I thought they both had powers. Both of them could make objects move, just by pointing at them. I saw him levitate, as well. All the adults believed it was real, or they acted as if they did, so, of course, we did, too. But the worst thing for the children was the Drowned Prophet. You know about her?’

‘We know a bit,’ said Robin.

‘Mazu used to tell us stories about her. She was supposed to have been this perfect little girl who never did anything wrong and was marked for this important destiny. We were taught that she’d drowned on purpose, to prove that spirit is stronger than flesh, but that she came back to Chapman Farm in the white dress she drowned in, and appeared in the woods where she used to play – and we saw her,’ said Niamh quietly. ‘A couple of times at night I saw her, standing in the trees, staring towards our dormitory.’

Niamh shuddered.

‘I know it must have been a trick, but I had nightmares about it for years afterwards. I’d see her outside my bedroom window in Whitby, soaking wet in her white dress, with long black hair like Mazu’s, staring in at me, because we’d all been bad and left Chapman Farm. All the kids at Chapman Farm were petrified of the Drowned Prophet. “She’s listening. She’ll know if you’re lying. She’ll come and find you, in the dark.” That was enough to scare us all into good behaviour.’

‘I’m sure it was,’ said Robin.

Strike now reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded list.

‘Could I go through some names with you, and see whether you remember any of these people?’ he asked Niamh, who nodded. However, she showed no sign of recognition of the first half-dozen names Strike read out.

‘Sorry, it’s so long ago, and unless they were in our dormitory…’

The first name Niamh recognised was that of Kevin Pirbright, and Robin could tell from her reaction that she didn’t know he was dead.

‘Kevin Pirbright, yes! I remember him and his sister, Emily. They were nice. And they had an older sister, Becca, who came back not long after we’d arrived.’

‘What d’you mean, “came back”?’ asked Strike, his pen at the ready.

‘She’d been at the Birmingham centre for three years. She’d been kind of fast-tracked by Papa J, as a future church leader. She was really bossy. A big favourite of Papa J’s and Mazu’s. I didn’t like her much.’

Strike kept reading out names, but Niamh kept shaking her head until Strike said ‘Flora Brewster’.

‘Oh, yes, I think I remember her. She was a teenager, right? I helped her make her first corn dolly – they make them a lot, at Chapman Farm, to sell in Norwich.’

Strike continued working his way down the list of names.

‘Paul Draper? He’d have been older than you. A teenager, as well.’

‘No, can’t remember a Paul.’

‘Jordan Reaney? Also a teenager.’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Cherie Gittins?’

‘No. I mean, they might have been there, but I can’t remember them if they were.’

‘Margaret Cathcart-Bryce?’

‘Oh God, yes, I remember her,’ said Niamh at once. ‘She was really strange and stretched-looking, she’d had so much work done on her face. She was one of the rich women who used to visit the farm all the time. There was another one who liked grooming the horses, and some of the others took “yoga” with Papa J, but Margaret was the richest of the lot.’

Strike kept reading out names, but the only one Niamh recognised was that of Harold Coates.

‘He was a doctor, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s right,’ said Strike. ‘Did you used to see much of him?’

‘I didn’t, but Maeve did. She kept getting nervous rashes. He used to treat her.’

Strike made a note of this, his face expressionless.

‘D’you remember Jonathan Wace’s daughter?’ asked Robin.

‘Well, no,’ said Niamh, looking confused. ‘She was dead.’

‘Sorry, not Daiyu – I mean his elder daughter, Abigail.’

‘Oh, did he have another one?’ said Niamh, surprised. ‘No, I never met her.’

‘OK,’ said Strike, having made a final note, ‘that’s been helpful, thank you. We’re trying to establish a timeline, find out who was there, and when.’

‘I’m sorry I don’t remember more,’ said Niamh.

Cups of tea finished, they all rose from the table, Robin disengaging her foot carefully from Basil.

‘If,’ said Niamh tentatively, ‘you find out anything about Mum, will you let me know?’

‘Of course,’ said Strike.

‘Thank you. Since having Charlie, I think about Mum such a lot… Oisin and Maeve say they don’t care, but I think it would mean a lot to them, too, if we could find out what happened to her…’

Strike, Robin noticed, looked unusually severe as the three of them headed down the hall, even allowing for the natural surliness of his resting expression. At the front door, Robin thanked Niamh for her time and the biscuits. Basil stood panting beside them, tail wagging, evidently convinced he might yet wheedle fun and treats out of the strangers.

Strike now turned to his partner.

‘You go on. I’d like a private word with Niamh.’

Though surprised, Robin asked no questions, but left. When the sound of her footsteps had disappeared, Strike turned back to Niamh.

‘I’m sorry to ask this,’ he said quietly, looking down at her, ‘but has your younger sister ever talked to you about what Harold Coates did, to cure her rashes?’

‘I think he gave her some cream, that’s all,’ said Niamh, looking nonplussed.

‘She’s never talked about anything else that happened, when he was treating her?’

‘No,’ said Niamh, fear now dawning in her face.

‘How old’s your sister now – twenty-one?’

‘Yes,’ said Niamh.

‘Harold Coates was a paedophile,’ said Strike, and Niamh gasped and clapped her hands to her face. ‘I think you should ask her what happened. She’s probably in need of more help than anti-depressants, and it might be a relief to have someone else know.’

‘Oh my God,’ whispered Niamh through her fingers.

‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Strike. ‘It won’t be much consolation, I know, but Maeve was far from the only one.’

22

Nine at the top means:

Look to your conduct and weigh the favourable signs.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

‘Fancy some lunch while we debrief?’ said Strike, once he was back in the car. ‘Niamh recommended a good place just round the corner,’ he lied. In fact, he’d found the Merlin’s Cave restaurant online, the previous day.

Robin hesitated. Having taken the day off, Murphy would be expecting her back as soon as possible, to spend their last few hours together. Yet their slightly tense phone conversation of the previous evening, in which Murphy had just refrained from becoming openly annoyed, had irked her. Her boyfriend, who supposedly wanted her as well prepared as possible before going undercover, had resented her speaking to a last witness before she went in, and his behaviour was all too reminiscent of her marriage.

‘Yes, OK,’ said Robin. ‘I can’t hang around too long, though, I – er – told Ryan I’d be back.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Strike, happy to have gained lunch. Hopefully, the service would be slow.

Merlin’s Cave, which stood on the village green, was a country pub with a timbered and red brick façade. Strike and Robin were shown to a table for two in a pleasant restaurant area, with glass windows overlooking a rear garden.

‘If I drive back,’ said Strike, as they sat down, ‘you can drink. Last chance for alcohol before Chapman Farm.’

‘I’m not bothered, I can have a drink later,’ said Robin.

‘Murphy’s OK with you drinking in front of him, is he?’

Robin looked up from the menu the waitress had just handed her. She didn’t remember ever telling Strike that Murphy was an alcoholic.

‘Yes, he’s fine with it. Did Ilsa—?’

‘Wardle,’ said Strike.

‘Oh,’ said Robin, looking back down at the menu.

Strike had no intention of relaying what Wardle had said about Murphy’s behaviour when still a drinker, largely because he knew how he’d make himself look to Robin, by saying it. Nevertheless, he said,

‘What made him give up?’

‘He says he just didn’t like himself, drunk,’ said Robin, preferring to keep looking at the menu, rather than Strike. She had a suspicion that Strike was looking for a way to impart information she probably wouldn’t want to hear. Given Strike’s recent irritation at what he considered Ilsa’s meddling, she thought it grossly hypocritical for him to start questioning her about Murphy’s past.

Sensing the slight increase in froideur from across the table, Strike probed no further. When both had ordered food, and Strike had asked for bread, he said,

‘So, what did you make of Niamh?’

Robin lowered her menu.

‘Well, apart from feeling really sorry for her, I thought she gave us a few interesting things. Especially that photograph of her mother. From Henry Worthington-Fields’ description of the pregnant woman he saw collapsing, while ploughing—’

‘Yeah, I think that was Deirdre Doherty,’ said Strike, ‘and now we know she had a heart condition which, along with hard manual labour and a fourth pregnancy, would seem ample grounds for fainting, or whatever she did.’

‘But we know she survived the fainting fit, got through the birth OK and lived for another two years, at least,’ said Robin.

The waitress now set down Robin’s water, Strike’s zero-alcohol beer and a basket of bread. Strike took a roll (the diet could be resumed once Robin was at Chapman Farm) and waited until the waitress was out of earshot, before saying,

‘You think Deirdre’s dead?’

‘I don’t want to think so,’ said Robin, ‘but it’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it?’

‘And the letters her husband kept tearing up?’

‘They might not have had anything to do with Deirdre at all. I can’t believe it would have been that hard to track her family down, if she really did leave Chapman Farm in 2003. And don’t you find it fishy that she left her youngest daughter behind when she was so-called expelled?’

‘If Kevin Pirbright was right, and Lin was Jonathan Wace’s daughter, Wace might not have been prepared to give her up.’

‘If Kevin Pirbright was right,’ said Robin, ‘Lin was a product of rape, and if Deirdre was prepared to write it in her journal that Wace had raped her, she was a real danger to him and to the church.’

‘You think Wace murdered her, buried her at Chapman Farm and then told everyone he’d expelled her in the night, to avoid a DNA test? Because all Wace had to do was say the sex was consensual, get a few cult members to state on the record that Deirdre walked happily into his bedroom of her own free will, and it’d be very hard to get a conviction. As you’ve just pointed out, Deirdre stayed at Chapman Farm, even after the rest of her family took off. That wouldn’t look great in court. Nor would the fact that her husband thought she was a slut and didn’t want anything more to do with her.’

Catching the expression on Robin’s face, Strike added,

‘I’m not saying I think any of those arguments would be fair or valid. I’m just being realistic about Deirdre’s odds of convincing a jury.’

‘Why did she write about the rape in her journal at all?’ asked Robin. ‘She knew the journal would be read by a higher-up, which doesn’t really tally with the way Niamh described her mother. It doesn’t feel like the act of a passive woman.’

‘Maybe she was desperate,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe she hoped the journal was going to be read by someone she thought would help her.’ He took a bite of bread, then said, ‘I’ll keep trying to track Deirdre down while you’re at the farm. She’d be a bloody good witness, if we can find her.’

‘Of course, she needn’t have been murdered,’ said Robin, still following her own train of thought. ‘If she had a weak heart before going to Chapman Farm and was made to work without adequate food, she could have died of natural causes.’

‘If that happened, and they didn’t register the death, we’ve got a crime. Trouble is, to prove it, we need a body.’

‘It’s farmland,’ said Robin. ‘She could have been buried anywhere, over acres.’

‘And we’re not going to get the authority to dig up all the fields on an evidence-free hunch.’

‘I know,’ said Robin. ‘There’s also that thing about no calendars and watches—’

‘Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that,’ said Strike.

‘Even if we manage to find people who’re prepared to talk, they’re going to have credibility problems,’ Robin continued. ‘“When did this happen?” “I have literally no idea.” It’d make faking alibis a piece of cake. Only the people at the top know what time of day it is – literally.’

‘Yeah, but the more immediate problem is, you’re going to have to find a way of keeping track of the days without anyone knowing you’re doing it.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ said Robin, ‘but if you could put dates and days of the week on your notes to me, that’ll help keep me orientated.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Strike, pulling out his notebook and making a note to this effect.

‘And,’ said Robin, feeling slightly awkward about asking this, ‘if I put the odd note for Ryan in the rock, along with my report for you, would you mind passing it on?’

‘No problem,’ said Strike, making a further note, his expression impassive. ‘Do me a return favour, though: if you get a chance to get the blood-stained hatchet out of the hollow tree, be sure and take it.’

‘OK, I’ll try,’ said Robin, smiling.

‘Do your family know what you’re about to do, by the way?’

‘No details,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve just said I’ll be undercover for a bit. I haven’t told them where I’m going. Ryan’s going to call them with updates… I really hope Abigail Glover decides to talk to you,’ Robin added, again keen to get off the subject of Murphy, ‘because I’d love to hear some more background on her father. There isn’t much about Wace’s past out there, have you noticed?’

‘Yeah, I have, though I note he doesn’t mind people knowing he was educated at Harrow.’

‘No, but after that it all gets sketchy, doesn’t it? His father was a “businessman”, but no detail on what kind of business, and his first wife dies tragically, he finds religion and founds the UHC. That’s basically it.’

Their food arrived. Strike, who was still abstaining from chips, looked so enviously at Robin’s that she laughed.

‘Have some. I only ordered them because I’m going to be on starvation rations from tomorrow.’

‘No,’ said Strike gloomily, ‘I still need to get another stone off.’

He’d just cut into his chicken breast when his mobile rang again, this time, from an unknown London number. Setting down his knife and fork again, he answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Oh – ’iya,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Are you Cameron Strike?’

‘That’s me,’ said Strike, who rarely bothered to correct the mistake. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Ava Reaney. You left a message for me to call you?’

‘Yes,’ said Strike, scribbling Reaney wife on his notebook and turning it to face Robin. ‘I did. I was actually wondering whether you could get a message to your husband for me, Mrs Reaney.’

‘To Jordan? Wha’ for?’ said the voice suspiciously. There was a lot of background noise, including pop music. Strike assumed Ava Reaney was at her nail salon.

‘I’m trying to find as many people as I can who’ve lived at Chapman Farm,’ said Strike.

‘What – that cult place?’ asked Ava Reaney.

‘That’s the one. I think your husband was there in the nineties?’

‘’E was, yeah,’ she said.

‘So, could you—?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve split up.’

‘Oh. Sorry to hear that,’ said Strike.

‘’E’s inside,’ said Ava.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Strike, ‘which is why—’

‘’E’s a bastard. I’m divorcing ’im.’

‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, could anyone else take a message to him, to see whether he’d be prepared to talk to me about the UHC?’

‘I can ask ’is sister, if you want,’ said Ava. ‘She’s going up next week. Hey, are you that bloke what caught the Shacklewell Ripper?’

‘I am, yeah,’ said Strike.

‘It is ’im,’ Ava said loudly, apparently to somebody standing nearby, before saying, ‘So you’re after people from the UHT are you? No,’ she corrected herself, ‘that’s milk, innit?’

‘Did Jordan ever talk to you about his time in there?’ asked Strike.

‘Not much. ’E gets nightmares abou’ it, though,’ she added, with a certain malicious satisfaction.

‘Really?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah. Abou’ the pigs. ’E’s frightened of pigs.’

She laughed, and so did the unknown person standing near her.

‘OK, well, if you wouldn’t mind asking Jordan’s sister to give him my message – you’ve got my phone number, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah, I will. OK. See ya.’

Strike hung up.

‘Apparently Jordan Reaney has nightmares about pigs, dating from his time in Chapman Farm.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah… D’you know much about them?’

‘What, pigs? Not really.’

‘Shame. I look to you for farming expertise.’

‘The boars can be really aggressive,’ said Robin, ‘I know that. Our local vet got badly injured by one when I was at school. It slammed him up against metal railings – he had some nasty bites and broken ribs.’

Strike’s mobile now buzzed with the arrival of a text. Robin glimpsed a lot of emojis before her partner swiped the phone off the table and returned it to his pocket.

She deduced, correctly, that the text was from Bijou Watkins. For a moment or two, she considered passing on Ilsa’s warning about Bijou’s bedroom behaviour, but given Strike’s reaction the last time someone tried to interfere with his new relationship, she decided against it. After all, this was the last time she was going to see her business partner for a while, and she preferred not to part on bad terms.

23

Nine at the beginning means:

Fellowship with men at the gate.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

At half past nine the following day, Robin walked out of Victoria Station into the cool, overcast morning. For a moment, she stood with her half-empty holdall over her shoulder, looking around at taxis, swarming commuters and buses, and experienced a moment of panic: there was no minibus, and she groped in her pocket for the UHC pamphlet, to check she had the right station and time, even though she knew perfectly well she did. However, just as she found the pamphlet, she spotted an orange-tabarded woman holding up a sign with the church’s heart-hands logo on it, and recognised Becca Pirbright, Kevin’s older sister, who’d led the second temple service Robin had attended.

Though Robin had previously compared Becca to a motivational speaker, it now struck her that she was more like an idealised notion of a Girl Guide: pretty and neat, with thick-lashed dark eyes, glossy brown hair and a creamy-skinned, oval face, which dimpled when she smiled. Beckoning hesitant arrivals to gather around her, she projected a cheery natural authority.

Beside Becca stood a short, heavy-set young man who had a low forehead, dark eyes, fuzzy dark hair and an underbite. As Robin looked at him, she noticed a slight tic in his right eye; it began to wink, apparently uncontrollably, and he hastily raised a hand to cover it. He too was wearing an orange tabard, and held a clipboard. Seven or eight people with backpacks and bags had already congregated around the pair by the time Robin joined the group.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hello!’ said Becca. ‘Are you one of us?’

‘I think so,’ said Robin. ‘Rowena Ellis?’

The young man with the clipboard marked off the name.

‘Great! I’m Becca, and this is Jiang. He’s going to be our driver.’

‘Hi,’ said Robin, smiling at Jiang, who merely grunted.

The name ‘Jiang’ made Robin wonder whether the young man was another son of Jonathan Wace’s, although he didn’t resemble the church leader in the slightest.

Robin’s fellow initiates were an eclectic bunch. She recognised the young, brown-skinned man in glasses who’d worn a Spiderman T-shirt in the temple, but the others were unfamiliar. They included a pink-faced man who looked to be in his late sixties and had the air of a professor, with his tweed jacket and wispy white hair; two teenaged girls who seemed inclined to giggle, one of whom was plump, with bright green hair, the other pale, blonde and much-pierced. An atmosphere of nervous tension hung over the group, which suggested people waiting to turn over their papers in an important exam.

By five to ten, the group had swelled to twenty people and everybody’s name had been checked off. Becca led the group across the busy road and up a side street, to a smart white minibus with the UHC logo on its side. Robin found herself a window seat directly behind the two teenaged girls. The spectacled young man sat beside her.

‘Hi, I’m Amandeep,’ he said.

‘Rowena,’ said Robin, smiling.

As the minibus pulled away from the pavement, Becca picked up a microphone and turned, kneeling on a front seat, to address the newcomers.

‘So, good morning! I’m Becca Pirbright, and I’ve been blessed to be a member of the Universal Humanitarian Church since I was eight years old. I’m going to be giving you a brief rundown on what you can expect during your week’s retreat, and then I’ll be happy to answer any questions you’ve got! Let’s just get out of London, so I’m not arrested for not wearing my seat belt!’ she said, and there was a little titter of laughter as she turned to take her seat again.

As they drove through London, quiet conversations broke out inside the minibus, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that these should be kept respectfully low, as though they were already inside a religious space. Amandeep told Robin he was doing a PhD in engineering, Robin told him about her cancelled wedding and her imaginary career in PR, and most of the bus heard the sixty-something man announce that he was a professor of anthropological philosophy called Walter Fernsby. Becca, Robin noticed, was observing the passengers in a mirror positioned directly over the windscreen, which was angled to watch the seats rather than the road. The slight movement of Becca’s right shoulder suggested that she was making notes.

When the minibus reached the M11, Becca turned on her microphone again and, speaking to the passengers in the angled mirror, she said,

‘Hi! So, now we’re fully on our way, I’ll give you some idea what to expect when we reach Chapman Farm, which has a really important place in our church’s history. Have any of you read Papa J’s book The Answer?’

Most passengers raised their hands. Robin deliberately hadn’t read Jonathan Wace’s book prior to entry into the church, because she wanted both a pretext for questions, and to present herself as someone who still needed to be convinced of the church’s truths.

‘Well, as those who’ve read The Answer will know, we follow the teachings of the five prophets, who are all buried or memorialised at Chapman Farm.

‘Your stay at the farm will focus on what we like to call the three “S”s: study, service and spiritual practice. You’ll be undertaking a wide range of activities, some of them practical tasks out in the fresh air, others focusing on your spiritual needs. We find that people learn a lot about themselves, perhaps even more than they learn about us, during these retreats.

‘To get you started, I’m going to pass back some questionnaires. Please fill them in as best you can – I’m passing out pens, too. We’re coming up to a nice straight bit of motorway, so hopefully nobody will get motion sickness!’

There was another ripple of nervous laughter. Becca passed a pile of stapled questionnaires to one of the people behind her, and a handful of pens, which were then passed around the passengers, who took one of each.

Robin noticed as she took a pen that it had been numbered. She glanced down the list of questions on the paper. She’d half-expected a medical questionnaire, but instead saw what she quickly realised was a kind of personality test. The person answering was supposed to mark a series of statements ‘strongly agree’, ‘somewhat agree’, ‘somewhat disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’, and to write their name at the top of the page.

1 Once I make up my mind, I seldom change it.

2 I prefer to work at my own pace.

3 I have many friends and acquaintances.

4 People like to come to me with their problems.

5 I gain satisfaction from achieving my goals.

The questionnaire ran over ten sides of paper. Many of the statements were reworded versions of those that had gone before. Robin set to work, answering in the persona of Rowena, who was both more gregarious and more concerned about other people’s approval than her creator. The two teenaged girls in the seat in front were giggling as they compared answers.

It took forty minutes for the first completed questionnaire to be passed back to Becca. Robin handed in her own shortly afterwards, but deliberately kept hold of her pen, to see what happened. When at last all the questionnaires had been handed in, Becca took to the microphone again.

‘I’m missing pens ten and fourteen!’ she said gaily, and Robin made a show of realising she’d absent-mindedly put pen ten into her pocket. Pen fourteen was located rolling under a seat.

‘We’re going to have a quick bathroom break here,’ said Becca over the microphone, as the minibus turned into a Shell service station. ‘You’ve got thirty minutes. Don’t be late back to the minibus, please!’

As Robin descended the minibus steps, she saw Becca was flicking through the questionnaires.

Having visited the bathroom, Robin walked back towards the car park. Knowing what lay ahead, she felt a strong desire to buy chocolate, even though she wasn’t hungry. Instead, she examined the front pages of newspapers in the shop. The ever-nearing Brexit referendum dominated them.

‘Well, I hope you’re all feeling relieved!’ said Becca merrily into the microphone, after everyone had got back onto the bus, eliciting another little laugh from her passengers. ‘We’ve got just over an hour left until we arrive at Chapman Farm, so I’m going to say a little bit more about what you should expect there, and then give you the opportunity to ask any questions.

‘As you probably know, one of the UHC’s priorities is to effect meaningful change in the materialist world.’

‘Amen to that!’ said Walter Fernsby, the professor of philosophy, which made many of his companions laugh again.

‘Our main charitable concerns,’ continued the smiling Becca, ‘are homelessness, addiction, climate change and social deprivation. All these issues are, of course, inter-related, and are ills generated by a capitalist, materialistic society. This week, you’ll be joining us in our efforts to, quite literally, change the world. You might think your contribution too small to matter, but our teaching is that every single act of mercy or generosity, every minute of time given to better the world, or to help another human being, has its own spiritual power which, if harnessed, can bring about almost miraculous transformations.

‘And this change won’t merely be external. An internal change takes place when we commit to lives of service. We become more than we’ve ever dreamed we could be. I’ve personally witnessed people coming into their full spiritual power, shedding all materialism, becoming capable of extraordinary acts.

‘On arrival at Chapman Farm you’ll be divided into small groups. I can promise you, you won’t be bored! Groups rotate through different activities. You’ll attend temple and lectures, but you’ll also be crafting objects that we sell for charity and looking after the animals we keep at the farm, who are part of our commitment to ethical farming and a life in harmony with nature. You may even be asked to do some cooking and cleaning: acts of simple caretaking which prove commitment to our community and care of our brothers and sisters within the church.

‘Now, does anyone have any questions for me?’

Half a dozen hands shot into the air.

‘Yes?’ said Becca, smiling at the plump, green-haired girl.

‘Hi – um – how quickly do most people go pure spirit?’

‘I get asked that question every single time!’ said Becca, and the passengers laughed along with her. ‘OK, so – the answer is, there is no answer. I’m not going to lie to you: for most people, it takes a while, but there are definitely individuals for whom it happens fast. The founder of the church, whom we call Papa J – but he’s exceptional – he was showing signs of being pure spirit aged thirteen or fourteen, although if you read The Answer, you’ll know he didn’t yet realise why he could do things most people can’t. Yes?’ she said, to the blonde teenager sitting beside the first questioner.

‘Do we get to choose our groups?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Becca kindly. ‘We want you all to have the best possible individual experience during the retreat, which means we tend to put people who know each other into different groups.’

Robin saw the teenaged girls glance at each other, crestfallen, as Becca went on,

‘Don’t worry, you’ll still see each other! You’ll be sharing a dormitory at night. But we want you to have an individual experience that you can process in your own, unique way… yes?’ she said, to Walter the professor.

‘If we have a specific skill set that might be useful to the church, should we declare it? So we can be of more use?’

‘That’s a great question,’ said Becca. ‘We have some very gifted individuals within the church – I’m talking about artists, doctors, scientists – who initially undertake what, in the materialist world, would be considered quite menial tasks, knowing that this is a step towards enlightenment. That said, we do assess individual members once they’ve completed what we call Service, so as to place them where they can best serve the church and its broader mission.

‘Yes, the gentleman in the glasses?’

‘What do you say to people who claim the UHC is actually a cult?’ asked Amandeep.

Becca laughed. Robin didn’t see even a split second of consternation.

‘I’d say the church definitely attracts slurs and negative attention. The question we should be asking is, why? We’re arguing for equality across races, we want redistribution of wealth. I’ll just say, judge for yourselves, after a week. Keep an open mind, and don’t let the mainstream media, or people with a vested interest in the status quo, tell you what truth is. You’re on the threshold of seeing truths that, honestly, will amaze you. I’ve seen it hundreds of times now. Sceptics come along out of curiosity. Some of them are actively hostile, but they can’t believe it, when they see what we’re really about… yes?’

‘Will Papa J be at Chapman Farm, when we’re there?’

The questioner was a middle-aged woman with what looked like home-dyed ginger hair and large, round glasses.

‘You’re Marion, aren’t you?’ said Becca, and the questioner nodded. ‘Papa J moves between our temples and centres, but I believe he’s going to be dropping into Chapman Farm this week, yes.’

‘Oh!’ sighed Marion, beaming as she pressed her hands together, as though in prayer.

24

The dark force possesses beauty but veils it. So must a man be when entering the service of a king.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The minibus had driven through Norwich and arrived in countryside. After half an hour’s travel along lanes bordered by hedgerows, Robin finally saw the sign for Lion’s Mouth, a narrow, tree-lined road. Robin, who’d memorised the map with the subcontractors’ annotations, spotted cameras placed discreetly in trees to the right.

Not long after entering Lion’s Mouth, they turned up a well-maintained track. Electric gates opened at the minibus’s approach. The bus drove up a short driveway until it reached a car park, in which two identical minibuses were already parked. Ahead lay a long, one-storey edifice of light brick which, in spite of its Gothic windows, appeared recently built, and far away, on the horizon beyond the farm, Robin spotted a tall, circular tower that looked like the rook of a chess-playing giant.

The passengers disembarked, carrying their holdalls and rucksacks. Becca led them inside, where they found a room that resembled the changing room of an upmarket gym. Opposite the door was a wall of lockers. To the right was a counter, behind which stood a smiling black woman with long braids, wearing an orange tracksuit. On the left-hand side were a series of changing cubicles.

‘All right, everyone!’ said Becca. ‘Line up here to receive your tracksuits from Hattie!’

‘OK, everyone, listen, please!’ said the attendant, clapping her hands. ‘When I’ve given you a tracksuit, footwear, pyjamas, bag and locker key, you change in the cubicle. Put your waterproof coat, underwear and pyjamas in your UHC bag. Then put your day clothes, jewellery, phones, money, credit cards, etc into the bag you’ve brought with you, and put it in the locker! I’ll ask you to sign a chit, to show which locker’s yours, and you’ll hand me back the key.’

Robin joined the line and soon, equipped with white cotton pyjamas, a slightly worn pair of trainers, a size medium orange tracksuit and a bag made of hessian with the church’s logo stamped on it, proceeded into a cubicle and changed.

Having put on her tracksuit and trainers, and stuffed her pyjamas, underwear and coat into the hessian bag, Robin placed her holdall into the locker – she’d brought no credit cards, as they were all in Robin Ellacott’s name, only a purse containing cash – handed her key back to the woman with braids and signed a chit to say her possessions were in locker 29.

‘Just a quick check,’ said the attendant, and she rifled through Robin’s hessian bag to check the contents, then directed her with a nod to sit on a bench with the others who’d already changed.

The blonde teenager was now tearfully demanding why Hattie wanted her to remove the many studs and hoops from her ears and nose.

‘This was clearly stated in your pamphlet,’ said the attendant calmly, ‘no jewellery. It’s all down there in black and white, honey. Just put it in the locker.’

The girl looked around for support, but none came. Eventually she began tugging out the bits of metal, eyes full of tears. Her green-haired friend watched, and Robin thought she seemed torn between sympathy and a desire to blend in with the silent watchers on the bench.

‘Wonderful!’ said Becca, once everyone was clad in their orange tracksuits, and had their hessian bags over their shoulders. ‘OK, everyone, follow us!’

The group rose, bags over their shoulders, and followed Becca and Jiang through a second door, which opened onto a path leading between square buildings of pale brick. Multicoloured pictures of children’s handprints had been stuck to the windows of the building to the left.

‘Some of our classrooms!’ Becca called over her shoulder, ‘and the children’s dormitories!’

At that moment, a procession of small children, all dressed in miniature orange tracksuits, appeared out of one of the classrooms, led by two women. The new recruits paused to let the children pass into the opposite building, and the children gazed at them, round-eyed. Robin noticed that all of their hair had been cropped close to their heads.

‘Aww,’ said the green-haired teenager, as the children disappeared. ‘Suh-weet!’

As the group passed through the archway at the end of the path, Robin heard gasps from those directly ahead of her, and when she, too, emerged into the paved courtyard beyond the arch, she understood why.

They were facing an enormous five-sided building built of ruddy stone. White marble columns stood either side of a flight of broad white marble steps, which led up to a pair of golden doors, currently closed, but which had a similar, ornate scarlet and gold carved surround to the entrance to the temple in Rupert Court, featuring the same animals, but on a far larger scale.

In front of the temple, in the centre of the courtyard, were four plain stone sarcophagi, which had been positioned around a central fountain and pool, like rays of the sun. In the middle of the pool stood the statue of a little girl, whose long hair swirled around her, as though in water, whose face was tilted to look upwards and whose right arm was raised to the skies. The fountain spouting behind her made the surface of the surrounding pool dimple and sparkle.

‘Our temple,’ said Becca, smiling at the looks of surprise and awe on the newcomers’ faces, ‘and our prophets.’

She led them now towards the pool, where both she and Jiang knelt quickly, dipped a finger into the water and dabbed it onto their foreheads. Together they said,

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

Robin didn’t look to see how her fellow initiates reacted to this unusual behaviour, because she was primarily interested in memorising the layout of the buildings. The building on the left-hand side of the courtyard looked like the original farmhouse. Originally a plain, undistinguished house with walls covered in rounded flints, it had clearly been enlarged and substantially renovated, with extra wings and a reworked entrance with double doors, on which a pair of dragons had been carved.

Facing the farmhouse on the other side of the courtyard were four much plainer buildings that Robin thought looked like more dormitories.

‘All right,’ said Becca, ‘the women are going to follow me and the men, follow Jiang. We’ll reconvene by the pool.’

Becca led the women into the dormitory on the centre right.

The interior reminded Robin of a large, old-fashioned sanatorium. Rows of metal-framed beds stood upon shining tiled floors. The walls were painted a stark white. A large copper bell hung from the middle of the ceiling, which was connected to a thick rope whose end dangled beside the entrance.

‘Choose any bed that doesn’t already have pyjamas on it,’ said Becca, ‘and put your bags into the boxes under your beds. You’ll find journals on your pillows!’ she called after the women who were already striding away from her, to find their sleeping places. ‘We ask you to record your thoughts and impressions daily! This is a way of measuring spiritual progress, and also a means of helping the Principals guide you better on your journey with us. Your journals will be collected in and read every morning! Please write your name clearly on the front of the journal, and please do not tear out pages.’

Most of the women had gravitated naturally towards the far end of the dormitory, where there were windows overlooking woods, but Robin, who wanted a bed as close as possible to the door, spotted one by the wall and, by dint of walking faster than anyone else, managed to secure it by placing her pyjamas on the pillow. Her blank journal had a pencil tied to it with a length of string. Glancing around, she saw three or four small wooden tables supporting the kind of sturdy, crank-turned, desktop pencil sharpeners she’d used at primary school. Having put her hessian bag into the wicker box under the bed, she wrote the name Rowena Ellis on the front of her journal.

‘If anyone needs the loo,’ called Becca, pointing through a door leading to a communal bathroom, ‘it’s right through there!’

Though she felt in no need of the toilet, Robin took the opportunity to examine the communal bathroom, which had a row of toilets and a row of showers. Tampons and sanitary towels lay in packets in open baskets. Windows were set high over the handbasins.

When all the women who wished to do so had used the bathroom, Becca led the group back into the courtyard, where they were reunited with the men.

‘This way,’ said Becca, leading the group on.

As they walked around the temple, they passed a few church members walking in the opposite direction, all of whom beamed and said hello. Among them was a teenaged girl, sixteen at most, who had long, fine mousey hair, sun-bleached at the ends, and enormous dark blue eyes in a thin, anxious face. She smiled automatically at the sight of the newcomers, but Robin, glancing back, saw the smile disappear from the girl’s face as though a switch had been flicked.

Behind the temple was a smaller courtyard. To the left lay what appeared to be a small library built of the same red stone as the temple, its doors standing open, a couple of people in orange tracksuits sitting at tables inside, reading. There were also older buildings, including barns and sheds which looked as though they’d been there for decades. A newer building lay ahead, which, while not as grand as the temple, must still have cost a huge amount of money. It was long and broad, made of brick and timber, and when Becca led them inside, it proved to be a spacious dining hall with a beamed ceiling, and many trestle tables standing on a flagged stone floor. At one end was a stage, with what Robin supposed would be called a high table standing on it. Sounds of clanging, and a faint, depressing smell of cooking vegetables, proclaimed the close proximity of a kitchen.

Around forty orange-tracksuited people were already sitting at a trestle table, and Robin, remembering that minibuses had also brought recruits from cities other than London, supposed she was looking at more newcomers. Sure enough, Becca told her own group to join those already seated, then moved aside to have a quiet conversation with a few of her fellow members.

Now Robin spotted Will Edensor, who was so tall and thin that his tracksuit hung off him. A few inches of hairy ankle were visible between the top of his trainer and the hem of the trousers. He wore a fixed smile as he stood in silence, apparently waiting for instructions. Beside Will stood pointy-nosed, straggly haired Taio Wace, who was far fatter than all the other church members. Becca and Jiang were consulting clipboards and notes, and talking quietly among themselves.

‘Walter Fernsby,’ said a loud voice in Robin’s ear, which made her jump. ‘We haven’t met yet.’

‘Rowena Ellis,’ said Robin, shaking the professor’s hand.

‘And you?’ Fernsby said to the plump green-haired girl.

‘Penny Brown,’ said the girl.

‘All right, everyone, if I could have your attention!’ said a loud voice, and silence fell as Taio Wace stepped forwards. ‘For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Taio, son of Jonathan Wace.’

‘Oooh,’ said Marion, the ginger-haired, middle-aged woman. ‘He’s his son?’

‘You’re going to be split into five groups,’ said Taio, ‘which may change as your stay progresses, but for now, these will be your workmates as you begin your Week of Service.

‘The first group will be Wood.’

Taio began to call out names. As first the Wood Group, and then the Metal Group, were formed and led away by a church member, Robin noticed that those in charge were not only dividing people who evidently knew each other, but also mixing together the occupants of the three minibuses. Will Edensor departed the dining hall at the head of the Water Group.

‘Fire group,’ said Taio. ‘Rowena Ellis—’

Robin stood up and took her place beside Taio, who smiled.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You came.’

Robin forced herself to smile back at him. His pale, pointed nose and small mouth reminded her more than ever of an albino rat.

Taio continued reading out names until Robin was standing with eleven others, including the ginger-haired, bespectacled Marion Huxley, and Penny Brown, the teenager with short green hair.

‘Fire Group,’ said Taio, handing his clipboard to Becca, ‘you’ll come with me.’

From the slight flicker of surprise on Becca’s face, Robin had the feeling this hadn’t been the plan, and she hoped very much that Taio’s decision to lead Fire Group had nothing to do with her.

Taio led his group out of the dining hall and turned right.

‘Laundry,’ he said, pointing at the brick building behind the dining hall.

Ahead was open farmland. Orange figures dotted the fields, which stretched as far as the eye could see, and Robin saw two Shire horses in the distance, ploughing.

‘Chickens,’ said Taio dismissively, as they turned left along a track bordered by cow parsley and passed a gigantic coop in which both speckled and brown hens were strutting and scratching. ‘Back there,’ he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, ‘we’ve got pigs and beehives. These,’ he added, pointing ahead at a collection of smaller brick buildings, ‘are the crafting workshops.’

‘Oooh, fun,’ said green-haired Penny happily.

Taio opened the door of the second building. The noise of sewing machines met them.

Two young women and a man were sitting at the far end of the room, using the machines to make what looked like small, floppy pouches, until Robin realised that the small group of people sitting at the nearer table were filling them with stuffing and turning them into small, cuddly turtles. The workers looked around at the opening of the door, smiling. They were sitting a chair apart, leaving space for each of the newcomers to sit between two church members.

‘Fire Group, called to service,’ said Taio.

A friendly looking man in his early forties got to his feet, holding a half-stuffed turtle.

‘Wonderful!’ he said. ‘Take a seat, everyone!’

Robin found herself a space between a very pretty girl who looked Chinese, and was sitting a little further from the table than everyone else, due to the fact that she was in late pregnancy, and a middle-aged white woman whose head was entirely shaven, only a tiny amount of grey stubble poking through. Her eyebags were purple, and the joints of her hands were, Robin noticed, very swollen.

‘I’ll see you all at dinner,’ said Taio. His eyes lingered on Robin as he shut the door.

‘Welcome!’ said the activity leader brightly, looking round at the newcomers. ‘We’re making these for street sales. All proceeds will be going to our Homes for Humanity project. As you’re probably aware…’

As he began talking about homelessness statistics, and the ways in which the church was trying to alleviate the problem, Robin took covert stock of the room. Large, framed signs hung on the walls, each containing a short declarative sentence: I Admit the Possibility; I Am Called to Service; I Live to Love and Give; I Am Master of My Soul; I Live Beyond Mere Matter.

‘… delighted to say our London hostels have now taken nearly a thousand people off the street.’

‘Wow!’ said green-haired Penny.

‘And in fact, we have a beneficiary of the scheme here with us,’ said the activity leader, indicating the pregnant Chinese girl. ‘Wan was in a very bad situation, but she found our hostel, and now she’s a valued member of the Universal Humanitarian family.’

Wan nodded, smiling.

‘All right, so, you’ll find stuffing and empty skins beside you. Once your box is full, carry it back to our machinists and they’ll seal up our turtles for us.’

Robin reached into the box between herself and Wan, and set to work.

‘What’s your name?’ the shaven-headed woman asked Robin in a quiet voice.

‘Rowena,’ said Robin.

‘I’m Louise,’ said the woman, and Robin remembered that Kevin Pirbright’s mother had been called Louise.

She wondered why Louise’s head was shaved. In the outside world, she’d have assumed she’d been through chemotherapy, but the UHC’s spiritual beliefs made that unlikely. Louise’s skin was weathered and chapped; she looked as though she spent most of her life out of doors.

‘You’re fast,’ she added, watching Robin begin to stuff the toy turtle. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Primrose Hill, in London,’ said Robin. ‘Where do you—?’

‘That’s a nice area. Have you got family?’

‘A younger sister,’ said Robin.

‘Are both your parents alive?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘What do they do?’

‘My dad’s a hedge fund manager. My mum’s got her own business.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘She provides external HR support to companies,’ said Robin.

Louise was working slowly, due to the stiffness of her hands. Her fingernails, Robin noticed, were all broken off. All around the table, the church members were talking to the newcomer to their right, and from what Robin could hear of the conversations, they were running very much along the lines of hers and Louise’s: quick-fire questions intended to elicit a lot of personal information. In very brief pauses in Louise’s questioning, she overheard Marion Huxley telling her neighbour that she was a widow, who’d run an undertakers with her husband.

‘You’re not married?’ Louise asked Robin.

‘No… I was going to be, but we called it off,’ said Robin.

‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ said Louise. ‘What made you interested in the UHC?’

‘It was actually a friend of mine,’ said Robin. ‘She wanted to go, but then she let me down and I ended up attending the temple on my own.’

‘That wasn’t a coincidence,’ said Louise, just as the blonde had said, on Robin’s first visit to the temple. ‘Most pure spirits were called like that, by what feels like chance. Do you know the fable of the blind turtle? The blind turtle who lives in the depths of the ocean and surfaces once every hundred years? The Buddha said, imagine there was a yoke floating on the ocean, and he asked what the chances that the old, blind turtle would surface at exactly the point that meant his neck would pass through the yoke. That’s how hard it is to find enlightenment for most people… you’re a good worker,’ Louise said again, as Robin completed her fourth stuffed turtle. ‘I think you’ll go pure spirit really fast.’

On Robin’s other side, Wan had begun to tell her neighbour the parable of the blind turtle, too. She wondered whether she dared ask Louise why her head was shaved, but decided it might be too personal a question to start with, so instead she said,

‘How long have you—?’

But Louise spoke across her, as though she hadn’t heard.

‘Did you have to take time off your job to come to Chapman Farm?’

‘No,’ said Robin, smiling. ‘I’m not actually working at the moment.’

25

The correct place of the woman is within;

the correct place of the man is without.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The late afternoon sun pierced Strike’s retinas through the sides of his sunglasses as he walked along Sloane Avenue, ready to take over surveillance of Bigfoot. His thoughts were entirely with Robin as he wondered what was happening right now at Chapman Farm, how she was finding her new environment and whether she’d be able to find the plastic rock hidden just inside the perimeter fence.

As Strike approached his destination, Shah, who’d been watching the large hotel called the Chelsea Cloisters, walked away, which was usual procedure for a handover when facing a many-windowed building, from which people might be watching the street. However, a minute later, Strike received a call from the now out-of-sight subcontractor.

‘Hi, what’s up?’

‘He’s been in there an hour and a half,’ said Shah. ‘It’s chock-full of sex workers. Eastern European, mainly. I wanted a word about Littlejohn, though.’

‘Go on.’

‘Did he tell you he worked at Pattersons for a couple of months, before coming to us?’

‘No,’ said Strike, frowning. ‘He didn’t.’

‘A guy I used to know there, who’s now head of security at a City bank, told me yesterday Littlejohn was working for them. The guy resigned before Littlejohn left. He heard he was sacked. No details.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Dev. ‘He’s definitely ex-army, is he?’

‘Yeah, ex-SIB, I checked his references,’ said Strike. ‘His story was he hadn’t worked for a couple of months before he came to us. OK, thanks. I’ll talk to him.’

Strike was on the point of slipping his mobile back into his pocket when it vibrated, and he saw another emoji-strewn text from Bijou.

Hey strong and silent international man of mystery Fancy a “get together” some time this week? Just bought a new bra and suspender belt and nobody to show them to Can send pics if you like

‘Christ,’ muttered Strike, returning his mobile to his pocket and taking out his vape pen instead. This would be the second text from Bijou he’d ignored. Two shags did not, in Strike’s view, necessitate a formal notice of termination, although he suspected most of the women he knew would have disagreed.

Across the street, a couple of teenaged girls emerged from the Chelsea Cloisters, wearing what looked like pyjamas with their trainers. Talking together, they passed out of sight, returning half an hour later with chocolate bars and bottles of water, and disappeared back inside the large brick and stone building.

Afternoon had shaded slowly into early evening before Strike’s target emerged from the building, unknowingly filmed by Strike. As hairy and unkempt as ever, Bigfoot walked off along the street, apparently texting someone. Evidently one of the advantages of owning your own software company was both the time and means to spend hours of a workday at a hotel. As Strike followed Bigfoot back towards Sloane Square, the detective’s mobile rang again.

‘Strike.’

‘Hi,’ said a female voice. ‘It’s Abigail Glover again. We spoke yesterday.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Strike, surprised, ‘thanks for getting back to me.’

‘I just wanna bit more info,’ said Abigail. ‘I’m not agreeing to anyfing.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Strike.

‘Who are you working for?’

‘Can’t disclose that, I’m afraid,’ said Strike. ‘Client confidentiality.’

‘You mentioned that guy Pirbright.’

‘Yes. As I said, I’ve been hired to investigate claims Kevin was making about the church.’

Bigfoot had slowed down and now withdrew into a doorway to read another text. Pretended to be equally absorbed in his own phone conversation, Strike also stopped walking, and feigned interest in passing traffic.

‘Pirbright was writing a book, wasn’ ’e?’ said Abigail.

‘How d’you know that?’

‘He told me, when he phoned me at work.’

Strike had a hunch he knew exactly what was bothering Abigail.

‘I haven’t been hired to help finish Pirbright’s book.’

When she didn’t respond, he said,

‘Our client’s trying to get a relative out of the UHC. Pirbright told the client about certain incidents he witnessed while in the church, and the client wants to find out how much truth, or otherwise, there was in Pirbright’s claims.’

‘Oh,’ said Abigail. ‘I see.’

Bigfoot had set off again. Strike followed, mobile still clamped to his ear.

‘I’m not looking to identify ex-church members, or expose their identities,’ he reassured Abigail. ‘It’ll be down to individual witnesses to decide whether they want to go on the record—’

‘I don’t,’ said Abigail quickly.

‘I understand,’ said Strike, ‘but I’d still like to talk to you.’

Up ahead, Bigfoot had stopped again, this time to talk to a slim, dark teenage girl who was heading in the direction of the hotel he’d just left. Strike hastily turned his mobile to camera and took a couple of pictures. When he’d placed the phone back to his ear, Abigail was talking.

‘… weekend?’

‘Great,’ said Strike, hoping she’d just agreed to meet him. ‘Where would you—?’

‘Not at my flat, my lodger’s bloody nosy. I’ll meet you at seven on Sunday in the Forester on Seaford Road.’

26

The Joyous is the lake… it is a sorceress; it is mouth and tongue.

It means smashing and breaking apart…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin had no idea how long she’d stuffed toy turtles, but at a guess, it was a couple of hours. During that time her fake identity had been so thoroughly tested that she could only be glad she’d devoted so many hours to bringing Rowena to life. When Louise asked, Robin was able to give the names of both her imaginary parents’ imaginary cats.

She might have worried that Louise’s meticulous questioning of her indicated suspicion of her bona fides, except for the fact that all the new recruits, as far as she could hear, were being subjected to similar interrogations. It was as though the established members had been given a rota of questions to ask, and Robin had a feeling that the most important parts of what she’d told Louise would have been memorised, and passed in due course to somebody else.

The room in which Fire Group was making the toys became progressively stuffier as they worked, and the relentless questioning had left so little time to think, that Robin was relieved when Becca came to the door, smiling and letting in a cool breeze.

‘Thank you for your service,’ she told the group, pressing her hands together as though in prayer, and bowing. ‘Now, please follow me!’

Everyone trooped after Becca, back past the chicken coop, inside which Wood Group was ushering the hens back into their shed. Seeing the low-hanging sun, Robin realised she must have spent longer with the toy turtles than she’d imagined. There were no longer people in orange dotted over the fields, nor could she see the two Shire horses.

Becca now led them to what Robin guessed was the oldest part of the farm. Ahead lay an old stone sty, and beyond it, a muddy acre of field, where pigs were roaming. Robin could see a couple of teenagers in bee-keeping hats and gloves, tending to the hives. Tethered at a wall nearby stood the two massive horses, still wearing harnesses, their bodies steaming in the cooling air.

‘As I explained to some of you on the minibus,’ said Becca, ‘this is still a working farm. One of our central tenets is to live in harmony with nature, and commit to ethical food production and sustainability. I’m going to hand you over to Jiang now, who’ll instruct you.’

Jiang, the minibus driver, now moved forwards.

‘OK, you – you – you – you,’ muttered Jiang, pointing at four people at random, ‘you find wellingtons in the shed, you get the buckets of swill, you get the pigs back in the sty.’

Robin noticed as he spoke that Jiang had several missing teeth. Like Louise, his skin was coarse and chapped, giving him the appearance of being outside in all weathers. As he began to give instructions, his tic recurred; as his right eye began its uncontrollable winking again, he clapped his hand over it and pretended to be rubbing it.

‘You four,’ said Jiang, pointing at Robin and three others, ‘you get the harness off the horses, then you rub them down and brush their feathers. The rest will clean the harness when it comes off.’

Jiang gave the grooming group brushes and combs and left them to their job, disappearing into the stable, while behind them, those trying to entice the pigs into the sty called and cajoled, shaking their buckets of food.

‘Did he say feathers?’ asked green-haired Penny, puzzled.

‘He means the hair over their hooves,’ Robin explained.

A yell from the field made them all look round: widowed Marion Huxley had slipped in the mud and fallen. The pigs had charged those holding the buckets: country-born Robin, whose uncle was a farmer, could have told them they should have put the food in the trough and opened the gate between sty and field, rather than trying to lead the pigs in, Pied Piper style.

There was pleasure in doing a physical task, and not being bombarded with questions. The harness they removed from the horses was very heavy; Robin and Penny struggled to take it into the stable where some of their group sat waiting to clean it. The Shire horses stood over eighteen hands each, and took a lot of grooming; Robin had to stand on a crate to reach their broad backs and their ears. She was becoming increasingly hungry. She’d wrongly assumed they’d be given something to eat upon arrival.

By the time the inept pig-wranglers had succeeded in persuading their temporary charges back into their sty and both the horses and their harness had been cleaned to Jiang’s satisfaction, the red sun was sinking slowly over the fields. Becca now returned. Robin hoped she was about to announce dinner; she felt hollow with hunger.

‘Thank you for your service,’ said the smiling Becca, putting her hands together and bowing as before. ‘Now follow me to temple, please!’

Becca led them back past the dining hall, the laundry and the library, then into the central courtyard, where the Drowned Prophet’s fountain was glinting red and orange in the sunset. Fire Group followed Becca up the marble steps and through doors that now stood open.

The interior of the temple was every bit as impressive as the outside. Its inner walls were of muted gold, with many scarlet creatures – phoenixes, dragons, horses, roosters and tigers – cavorting together as unlikely playmates. The floor was of shining black marble and the benches, which were cushioned in red and appeared to be of black lacquer, were arranged around a central, raised pentagon-shaped stage.

Robin’s eyes travelled naturally upwards, towards the high ceiling. Halfway up the high walls, the space narrowed, because a balcony ran all the way around the temple, behind which were regularly spaced, shadowy arched recesses, which reminded Robin of boxes at a theatre. The five painted prophets in their respective robes of orange, scarlet, blue, yellow and white stared down at worshippers from the ceiling.

A woman in long, amber-beaded orange robes was standing on the raised stage, waiting for them. Her eyes were shadowed by the long curtains of black hair that fell to below her waist; only the long, pointed nose was clearly visible. Only as Robin drew nearer did she see that one of the woman’s very dark, narrow eyes was set noticeably higher than the other, giving her a strange lopsided stare, and for reasons Robin couldn’t have explained, a tremor passed through her, such as she might have experienced on glimpsing something pale and slimy watching her from the depths of a rockpool.

‘N ho,’ she said, in a deep voice. ‘Welcome.’

She made a wordless gesture of dismissal at Becca, who left, closing the temple doors quietly behind her.

‘Please, sit down,’ said the woman to Fire Group, indicating benches directly in front of her. When all the recruits had taken their seats, she said,

‘My name is Mazu Wace, but church members call me Mama Mazu. My husband is Jonathan Wace—’

Marion Huxley let out a tiny sigh.

‘—founder of the Universal Humanitarian Church. You have already rendered us service – for which I thank you.’

Mazu pressed her hands together, prayer style, and bowed as they’d just seen Becca do. The crookedly set, shadowed eyes were darting from face to face.

‘I’m about to introduce you to one of the meditation techniques we use here to strengthen the spiritual self, because we cannot fight the ills of the world until we are able to control our false selves, which can be as destructive as anything we may encounter outside.’

Mazu began to pace in front of them, her robes fanning out behind her, glittering in the light from hanging lanterns. Around her neck, on a black cord, she wore a flat mother-of-pearl fish.

‘Who here has sometimes been prey to shame, or guilt?’

Everyone raised their hands.

‘Who here sometimes feels anxious and overwhelmed?’

All put their hands up again.

‘Who sometimes feels hopeless in the face of world issues like climate change, wars and rising inequality?’

The entire group raised their hands for a third time.

‘It’s perfectly natural to feel those things,’ said Mazu, ‘but such emotions hamper our spiritual growth and our ability to effect change.

‘I’m now going to teach you a simple meditation exercise,’ said Mazu. ‘Here in the church, we call it the joyful meditation. I want you all to stand up…’

They did so.

‘Spread out a little – you should be at least an arm’s length apart…’

There was some shuffling.

‘We begin with arms hanging loose by your sides… now, slowly… slowly… raise your arms, and as you do so, take in a deep breath and hold it, while your hands join over your head.’

When everyone had clasped their hands over their heads, Mazu said,

‘And exhale, slowly lowering your arms… and now smile. Massage your jaw as you do so. Feel the muscles’ tightness. Keep smiling!’

A tiny gust of nervous laughter passed through the group.

‘That’s good,’ said Mazu, staring down at them all, and she smiled again, as humourlessly as before. Her skin was so pale, her teeth looked yellow by contrast. ‘And now… I want you to laugh.’

Another ripple of laughter ran through the group.

‘That’s it!’ said Mazu. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re faking at first. Just laugh. Come on, now!’

A couple of recruits forced faked laughs, which elicited real ones from their companions. Robin could hear her own fake laughter over the apparently sincere giggles of green-haired Penny.

‘Come on now,’ said Mazu, looking down at Robin. ‘Laugh for me.’

Robin laughed more loudly, and catching the eye of a mousey-haired youth who was determinedly, though very insincerely, guffawing, found herself amused and broke into real laughter. The infectious sound made her neighbours join in, and soon, Robin doubted whether there was a single person not genuinely laughing.

‘Keep it up!’ said Mazu, waving her hand around at them, as though conducting an orchestra. ‘Keep laughing!’

For how long the group laughed, Robin didn’t know; perhaps only five minutes, perhaps ten. Every time she found her face aching, and reverted to forced chuckles, she found genuine laughter overtaking her once more.

At last, Mazu raised a single finger to her lips and the laughing stopped. The group stood, slightly breathless, still grinning.

‘You feel that?’ said Mazu. ‘You have control over your own moods and your own state of mind. Grasp that, and you have placed your foot on the path that leads to pure spirit. Once there, you’ll unlock power you never knew you had…

‘And now we kneel.’

The command took everyone by surprise, but all obeyed and instinctively closed their eyes.

‘Blessed Divinity,’ intoned Mazu, ‘we thank you for the wellspring of joy you have placed in all of us, which the materialist world tries so hard to extinguish. As we explore our own power, we honour yours, which lies forever beyond our full understanding. Each of us is spirit before flesh, containing a fragment of the force that animates the universe. We thank you for today’s lesson and for this moment of gladness.

‘And now, rise,’ said Mazu.

Robin got to her feet with the others. Mazu descended from the stage, the train of her robes rippling over the black marble steps, and led them towards the closed temple doors. As she approached them, she pointed a pale finger at the handles. They turned of their own accord and the doors slowly opened. Robin assumed someone else had opened them from outside, but there was nobody there.

27

Thunder comes resounding out of the earth:

The image of ENTHUSIASM.

Thus the ancient kings made music

In order to honour merit,

And offered it with splendour

To the Supreme Deity…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

‘Did you see that?’ breathed Penny in Robin’s ear, as they descended the temple steps. ‘She opened the doors without touching them!’

‘I know,’ said Robin, carefully astonished. ‘What was that?’

She was certain the door opening must have been a trick, using some kind of a hidden mechanism, but the thing had looked unnervingly convincing.

Ahead, in the otherwise deserted courtyard, stood Becca Pirbright. Glancing back, Robin saw that Mazu had retreated inside the temple again.

‘How was the Joyful Meditation?’ Becca asked.

There was a small chorus of ‘it was great’s and ‘amazing’s.

‘Before we go to dinner – ’ thank God, thought Robin, ‘– I’d like to just say a word about another of our spiritual practices at the UHC.

‘This,’ said Becca, gesturing towards the statue in the pool, ‘is the Drowned Prophet, who in life was called Daiyu Wace. I actually had the privilege of knowing her, and I witnessed her performing extraordinary spiritual feats.

‘Each of our prophets, when alive, exemplified a principle of our church. The Drowned Prophet teaches us, firstly, that death may come to any of us, at any time, so we should hold ourselves always in spiritual readiness to rejoin the spirit world. Secondly, her self-sacrifice shows us the importance of obedience to the Blessed Divinity. Thirdly, she proves the reality of life after death, because she continues to move between the earthly and spiritual planes.

‘Whenever we pass her pool, we kneel, anoint ourselves with her water, and acknowledge her teachings by saying, “The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.” By which we do not mean that Daiyu is a goddess. She merely embodies the pure spirit and the higher realm. I invite you now to kneel at the pool and anoint yourselves before dinner.’

Tired and hungry as they were, nobody refused.

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

‘All right, Fire Group, follow me!’ Becca said, smiling, when all had made the tribute to the Drowned Prophet, and she led them back towards the dining hall, Robin aware of the cool spot of water on her forehead as the breeze hit it.

Fire Group was the last to enter the room. Robin estimated that a hundred people were already sitting at the tables, although there was no sign of any small children, who presumably had been fed earlier. Free spaces were dotted about, so the members of her group were forced to split up and find places wherever they could. Robin scanned the room for Will Edensor, finally spotting him at a crowded table which had no free spaces, so she took a seat between two strangers instead.

‘Here for your Week of Service?’ said a smiling young man with wavy blond hair.

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘I thank you for your service,’ he said immediately, pressing his hands together and performing a little bow.

‘I – don’t know what to say back to that,’ said Robin, and he laughed.

‘The response is, “And I for yours.”’

‘With the bow?’ asked Robin, and he laughed again.

‘With the bow.’

Robin pressed her hands together, bowed and said,

‘And I for yours.’

Before either could speak again, music started from hidden speakers: David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. The blond-haired man whooped and got to his feet, as did nearly everyone else. Cheers broke out, as Jonathan and Mazu Wace entered the room, hand in hand. Robin spotted Marion Huxley, the undertaker’s widow, pressing her hands to her face as though she’d just seen a rock star. Jonathan waved at the excited church members, while Mazu wore a gracious smile, the train of her robes sliding over the paved floor. There were many cries of ‘Papa J!’ as the pair climbed up to the top table, where Taio Wace and Becca Pirbright were already sitting. Glancing around, Robin saw Jiang sitting in front of his clean tin plate among the ordinary members. The similarity of Jiang’s and Mazu’s narrow, dark eyes made Robin suspect that he was, at the very least, Taio’s half-brother. As she watched, Jiang’s eye began to twitch uncontrollably again, and he concealed it swiftly with his hand.

Mazu took her seat at the top table, but Jonathan walked in front of it, hands raised, gesturing for the church members to settle down. Robin was once again struck by his striking good looks, and how little he looked like a man in his mid-sixties.

‘Thank you,’ he said with his self-deprecating smile, wearing a wireless microphone that amplified his voice over hidden speakers. ‘Thank you… it’s good to be home.’

Will Edensor, who was easy to spot given his height, was smiling and cheering with the rest of the room, and for a moment, remembering Will’s dying mother, she found herself completely in sympathy with James Edensor, who’d called Will an idiot.

‘We shall replenish our material bodies, and then we’ll talk!’ said Jonathan.

More cheers and more applause followed. Jonathan took his seat between Mazu and Becca Pirbright.

Kitchen workers now appeared from a side door, wheeling along large metal vats, from which they ladled food onto the tin plates. The four at the top table, Robin noticed, were being brought china plates already full of food.

When her turn came, Robin received a dollop of brown sludge that seemed to comprise overcooked vegetables, followed by a ladleful of noodles. The vegetables had been flavoured with too much turmeric and the noodles had an overcooked, gluey consistency. Robin ate as slowly as she could, trying to fool her stomach into believing it had consumed more calories than it had, because she knew the nutritional value of what they were eating was very low.

Robin’s two young male neighbours kept up a steady stream of chat, asking her name, where she was from and what had attracted her to the church. She soon found out that the young man with wavy blond hair had been at the University of East Anglia, which had hosted one of Papa J’s meetings. The other, who was wearing a buzz cut, had been to one of the church-run addiction centres and been recruited there.

‘Have you seen anything, yet?’ the latter asked Robin.

‘You mean the tour of the—?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I mean – you know. Pure spirit.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, cottoning on. ‘I saw Mazu make the temple doors open, just by pointing at them.’

‘Did you think it was a trick?’

‘Well,’ said Robin cautiously, ‘I don’t know. I mean, it could have—’

‘It’s not a trick,’ said the young man. ‘You think it is at first, then you realise it’s real. You should see the things Papa J can do. You wait. You think at first it must all be a load of bull, then you start seeing what it means, being pure spirit. It blows your effing mind. Have you read The Answer?’

‘No,’ said Robin, ‘I—’

‘She hasn’t read The Answer,’ said the man with the buzz cut, leaning forwards to address Robin’s other neighbour.

‘Oh, dude, you’ve got to read The Answer,’ said the blond man, laughing. ‘Wow.’

‘I’ll lend you my copy,’ said the man with the buzz cut. ‘Only I want it back, because Papa J’s written something in there for me, OK?’

‘OK, thanks very much,’ said Robin.

‘Wow,’ he said, shaking his head and laughing, ‘Can’t believe you haven’t read The Answer. Like, it gives you the tools and it explains – I can’t do it as well as Papa J, you need to read his actual words. But I can tell you first-hand, there’s life after death, and a spiritual war raging here on earth, and if we can win—’

‘Yeah,’ said the wavy blond young man, who now looked serious. ‘If we win.’

‘We have to,’ said the other intensely. ‘We have to.’

Through a gap between the two diners opposite her, Robin spotted the shaven-headed Louise, who was eating very slowly, and kept glancing up at the top table, ignoring the chatter of those on either side of her. There were many other middle-aged women dotted around the hall, Robin saw, and most of them looked like Louise, as though they’d long since abandoned any interest in their appearance, their faces deeply lined and their hair cropped short, though none of them were entirely shaven-headed like Louise. Watching her, Robin remembered what Kevin had said about his mother being in love with Jonathan Wace. Had the feeling survived all these years of servitude? Had it been worth the loss of her son?

One of the people who came to clear away the plates was the teenaged girl Robin had noticed earlier, with the long, mousey, sun-bleached hair and large, anxious eyes. When the plates had been cleared away, more kitchen workers appeared with stacks of metal bowls on their trolleys. These proved to be full of stewed apple, which Robin found very bitter, doubtless because refined sugar was forbidden by the church. Nevertheless, she ate it all, while her neighbours talked across her of holy war.

Robin had no idea what time it was. The sky outside the window was black, and it had taken a long time to dish out food for a hundred people. Finally the bowls, too, were cleared away, and somebody dimmed the overhead lights, though leaving the top table spot lit.

At once, those at the trestle tables began clapping and cheering again, some of them even banging their tin water mugs on the table. Jonathan Wace stood up, walked around the table, his microphone switched back on, and once again calmed the crowd by making a dampening motion with his hands.

‘Thank you, my friends. Thank you… I stand before you tonight with both hope and fear in my heart. Hope and fear,’ he added, looking solemnly around.

‘I want to tell you, firstly, that this church, this community of souls, which now stretches across two continents—’

There were a few more whoops and cheers.

‘—represents the single biggest spiritual challenge to the Adversary that the world has ever seen.’

The room applauded.

‘I feel its power,’ said Jonathan, holding his clenched fist to his heart. ‘I feel it when I speak to our American brothers and sisters, I feel it in when I spoke earlier this week at our Munich temple, I felt it today when I re-entered this place, and when I went to temple to purify. And I want to single out some individuals this evening, who give me hope. With individuals like these on our side, the Adversary should rightly tremble…’

Wace, who was carrying no notes, now called out several names, and as each person was identified, they either screamed or shouted, bounding to their feet while those sitting around them cheered and clapped.

‘… and last, but never least,’ said Wace, ‘Danny Brockles.’

The young man with the buzz cut beside Robin jumped to his feet so fast he hit her hard on the elbow.

‘Oh my God,’ he was saying, over and over again, and Robin saw that he was crying. ‘Oh my God.’

‘Come up here, all of you,’ said Jonathan Wace. ‘Come on… everyone, show your appreciation for these people…’

The dining hall rang with further cheers and shouts. All those called had burst into tears and seemed overcome to have been recognised by Wace.

Wace began talking about each member’s achievements. One of the girls had collected more money on the street than anyone else, over a four-week period. Another girl had recruited a dozen new members to the Week of Service. When finally Jonathan Wace reached Danny Brockles, the younger man was sobbing so hard that Wace walked to him and embraced him, while Brockles cried into the church leader’s shoulder. The watchers, by now cheering wildly, got to their feet to give Danny and Wace a standing ovation.

‘Tell us what you did this week, Danny,’ said Wace. ‘Tell everyone why I’m so proud of you.’

‘I c-c-can’t,’ sobbed Danny, completely overcome.

‘Then I’ll tell them,’ said Wace, turning to face the crowd. ‘Our addiction services centre in Northampton was threatened with closure by agents of the Adversary.’

A storm of booing broke out. The news about the addiction centre seemed to have been unknown to everyone but the top table.

‘Wait – wait – wait,’ said Jonathan, making his usual calming gestures with his left hand, while holding Danny’s arm with his right. ‘Becca took Danny along, to explain how much it had helped him. Danny stood up in front of those materialists and spoke so eloquently, so powerfully, that he ensured the service’s continuation. He did that. Danny did that.’

Wace raised Danny’s arm into the air. A storm of cheers ensued.

‘With people like Danny with us, should the Adversary be afraid?’ shouted Jonathan, and the screams and applause grew even louder. Jonathan was crying now, tears flooding down his face. This show of emotion caused a level of hysteria in the hall that Robin started to find almost unnerving, and it continued even after the six selected people had resumed their seats, until at last, mopping his eyes and making his calming gesture, Jonathan managed to make himself heard again, his voice now slightly hoarse.

‘And now… with regret… I must bring you bulletins from the materialist world…’

A hush fell over the hall as Jonathan began to speak.

He told of the continuing war in Syria, and described the atrocities there, then spoke of massive corruption among the world’s political and financial elites. He spoke of the outbreak of Zika in Brazil, which was causing so many babies to be miscarried or born severely disabled. He described individual instances of appalling poverty and despair he’d witnessed while attending church-run projects in both the UK and America, and as he told of these injustices and disasters, he might have been describing things that had befallen his own family, so deeply did they seem to touch him. Robin remembered Sheila Kennett’s words: he had a way of making you want to make everything all right, for him… you wanted to look after him… he seemed to feel it worse than all the rest of us.

‘That, then, is the materialist world,’ Jonathan said at last. ‘And if our task seems overwhelming, it is because the Adversary’s forces are powerful… desperately powerful. The inevitable End Game approaches, which is why we fight to hasten the coming of the Lotus Way. Now, I ask you all to join me in meditation. For those who have not yet learned our mantra, the words are printed here.’

Two girls in orange tracksuits mounted the stage, holding large white boards, on which were printed: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

‘A deep breath, raising the arms,’ said Jonathan, and though the benches at the tables were cramped, every arm was slowly raised, and there was a universal intake of breath. ‘And exhale,’ said Jonathan quietly, and the room breathed out again.

‘And now: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu…’

Robin caught the pronunciation of the mantra from her neighbours. A hundred people chanted, and chanted, and chanted some more, and Robin began to feel a strange calm creeping over her. The rhythm seemed to vibrate inside her, hypnotic and soothing, with Jonathan’s the only distinguishable voice among the many, and soon she didn’t need to read the words off the board, but was able to repeat them automatically.

At last, the first bars of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ blended with the voices of the crowd, at which point the chants became cheers, and everyone jumped to their feet, and began embracing. Robin was pulled into a hug with the elated Danny, then by her blond neighbour. The two young men embraced each other, and now the entire crowd was singing along to Bowie’s song and clapping in time. Tired and hungry though she was, Robin smiled as she clapped and sang along with the rest.

28

This hexagram is composed of the trigram Li above, i.e., flame, which burns upward, and Tui below, i.e., the lake, which seeps downward…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike had to change the rota to accommodate his interview with Abigail Glover on Sunday evening. Only then did he see that Clive Littlejohn was off work for four days. As Strike wanted to see Littlejohn’s reaction in person when he asked why he hadn’t disclosed his previous employment at Patterson Inc, he decided to postpone their chat until it could be done face to face.

Strike spent Saturday afternoon at Lucy’s, because she’d persuaded their Uncle Ted to come for a short visit. There was no doubt that Ted had aged considerably since their aunt’s death. He seemed to have shrunk, and several times lost the thread of conversation. Twice, he called Lucy ‘Joan’.

‘What d’you think?’ Lucy whispered to Strike in the kitchen, where he’d gone to help her with coffee.

‘Well, I don’t think he thinks you are Joan,’ said Strike quietly. ‘But yeah… I think we should get him looked at by someone. Someone who can assess him for dementia.’

‘It’d be his GP, wouldn’t it?’ said Lucy. ‘First?’

‘Probably,’ said Strike.

‘I’ll ring and see if I can make an appointment for him,’ said Lucy. ‘I know he’ll never leave Cornwall, but it’d be so much easier to look after him here.’

Guilt, which wasn’t entirely due to the fact that Lucy did considerably more looking after Ted than he did, prompted Strike to say, ‘If you make the appointment, I’ll go down to Cornwall and go with him. Report back.’

‘Stick, are you serious?’ said Lucy, astonished. ‘Oh my God, that would be ideal. You’re about the only person who could stop him cancelling.’

Strike travelled back to Denmark Street that evening with the now familiar faint depression dogging him. Talking to Robin, even on work matters, tended to lift his mood, but that option wasn’t open to him and might not be possible for weeks. Another text from Bijou, which arrived while he was making himself an omelette, caused him nothing but irritation.

So are you undercover somewhere you can’t get texts or am I being ghosted?

He ate his omelette at the kitchen table. Once finished, he picked up his mobile with a view to dealing with at least one problem quickly and cleanly. After thinking for a few moments, and dismissing any idea of ending what, in his view, had never started, he typed:

Busy, no time for meet ups for foreseeable future

If she had any pride, he thought, that would be the end of the matter.

He spent most of a chilly Sunday on surveillance, handing over to Midge at four o’clock, then drove out to Ealing for his meeting with Abigail Glover.

The Forester on Seaford Road was a large pub with an exterior featuring wooden columns, window baskets and green tiled walls, its sign showing a stump with an axe sticking out of it. Strike ordered himself the usual zero-alcohol beer and took a corner table for two beside the wood-panelled wall.

Twenty minutes passed, and Strike had started to wonder whether Abigail had changed her mind about meeting him, when a tall and striking woman entered the bar, wearing gym gear with a coat hastily slung over it. The only picture he’d found of Abigail online had been small and she’d been wearing overalls, surrounded by fellow fire fighters who were all male. What hadn’t been captured by the photograph was how good looking she was. She’d inherited her father’s large, dark blue eyes and firm, dimpled chin, but her mouth was fuller than Wace’s, her pale skin flawless and her high cheekbones could have been those of a model. He knew her to be in her mid-thirties, but her hair, which was tied back in a ponytail, was already grey. Strangely, it not only suited her, it made her look younger, her skin being fine and unlined. She nodded greetings to a couple of men at the bar, then spotted him and strode, long-legged, towards his table.

‘Abigail?’ he said, getting to his feet to shake hands.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘Timekeeping’s not me strong point. They call me “the late Abigail Glover” at work. I was in the gym, I lost track of time. ’S my stress buster.’

‘No problem, I’m grateful you agreed to—’

‘D’you wanna drink?’

‘Let m—’

‘’S’OK, I’ll get me own.’

She shrugged off her coat, revealing a Lycra top and leggings. One of the men she’d already greeted at the bar wolf-whistled. Abigail gave him the finger with one hand, which elicited gales of laughter, while rummaging in her gym bag for her purse.

Strike watched her buying a drink. Her rear view showed a lot of muscle, which made him reflect that his own daily exercises weren’t having nearly such a dramatic effect. She was almost as broad across the back as the man nearest her, who evidently found her very attractive, though she didn’t seem to return his interest. He wondered whether she was gay, then wondered whether wondering this was offensive.

Having secured her drink, Abigail returned to Strike’s table, sat down opposite him and took a large gulp of white wine. One of her knees was jogging up and down.

‘Sorry we couldn’t do this at me flat. Patrick, my lodger, ’e’s a pain in the arse about the UHC. ’E’d get overexcited if he knew you was investigatin’ ’em.’

‘Has he been your lodger long?’ asked Strike, purely to make conversation.

‘Free years. ’E’s all right, really. ’E got divorced an’ needed a room an’ I needed rent. On’y, ever since I told ’im where I grew up ’e’s been bangin’ on, “you should write a book abou’ your child’ood, make some proper money.” Wish I’d never said nuffing to ’im about it. I just ’ad too much wine one night. I’d been out to a bloody terrible ’ouse fire where a woman an’ two kids died.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Strike.

‘’S the job,’ said Abigail, with a slight shrug, ‘but sometimes it gets to you. That one did – arson – the farver did it ’imself, tryna work an insurance scam on ’is shop, downstairs. ’E got out all right, bastard… I ’ate it when there’s kids involved. We got the younger one out alive, but it was too late. Smoke in’alation done for ’im.’

‘What made you join the fire service?’

‘Adrenaline junkie,’ she said with a fleeting grin, her knee still bouncing up and down. She took another gulp of wine. ‘I got outta Chapman Farm an’ I just wan’ed to fuckin’ live, wan’ed to see some action and do somefing wiv a point to it, instead of makin’ effing corn dollies to sell for starvin’ kids in Africa – if that’s where the money even wen’. Doubt it. But I never ’ad much education. I ’ad to study for GCSEs when I got out. Scraped free of ’em. Older’n all the other kids in the class. Still, I was one o’ the lucky ones. Least I know ’ow to read.’

As she picked up her glass again, a bearded man passed their table.

‘Been on Tinder, ’ave you, Ab?’

‘Fuck off,’ said Abigail coldly.

The man smirked, but didn’t move away.

‘Baz,’ he said, holding out his hand to Strike.

‘Terry,’ said Strike, shaking it.

‘Well, you watch yourself, Terry,’ said Baz. ‘She goes froo men like diarrhoea.’

He swaggered away.

‘Bastard,’ muttered Abigail, looking over her shoulder. ‘Wouldna come in ’ere if I’d known ’e’d be ’ere.’

‘Work mate?’

‘No, ’e’s a friend of Patrick’s. I wen’ out for a drink wiv ’im a coupla times an’ then I told ’im I didn’ wanna see ’im again, an’ ’e was pissed off. Then Patrick gets drunk wiv ’im and blabs stuff abou’ what I told ’im abou’ the UHC, and now, whenever that arsehole sees me, ’e uses it to… s’my fault,’ she said angrily. ‘I should’ve kep’ me mouf shut. When men ’ear…’

Her voice trailed away and she took another gulp of wine. Strike, who assumed Baz had been told about the church’s spirit bonding practices, wondered for the first time how young girls were when they were expected to join in.

‘Well, as I said on the phone, this talk’s strictly off the record,’ said the detective. ‘Nothing’s going to be published.’

‘Unless you bring the church down,’ said Abigail.

‘You might be overestimating my capabilities.’

She was rapidly emptying her wine glass. After considering him for a moment or two out of her dark blue eyes she said, a little aggressively,

‘Fink I’m a coward, do yah?’

‘Probably the last thing I was thinking,’ said Strike. ‘Why?’

‘Don’ you fink I should try’na to expose ’em? Write one of them bloody misery books? Well,’ she said, before Strike could respond, ‘they’ve got far better lawyers than I can afford on a fire fighter’s salary, an’ I get enough grief about the UHC, just from people like that arsehole knowing.’

She jabbed an angry finger at Baz, who was now standing alone at the bar.

‘I won’t be publicising anything,’ Strike assured her. ‘I only want to—’

‘Yeah, you said on the phone,’ she interrupted, ‘an’ I wanna say somefing about that Kevin Pirbright bloke what rang me. There was this one fing ’e said an’ it really bloody upset me.’

‘What was that?’

‘It was abou’ me mum,’ said Abigail, ‘an’ ’ow she died.’

‘How did she die, if you don’t mind me asking?’ said Strike, though he already knew.

‘She drowned, off Cromer beach. She was epileptic. She ’ad a fit. We was swimming back to the beach, racin’ each other. I looked round when it was shallow enough, and I fort I’d won, but… she’d disappeared.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike, ‘that sounds extremely traumatic. How old were you?’

‘Seven. But that bloody Kevin guy, on the phone…’e wanted me to say my father drowned ’er.’

Abigail drained her glass before saying forcefully,

‘’S not true. My farver wasn’ even in the water when it ’appened, ’e was buying ice cream. He come sprintin’ back when ’e ’eard me screamin’. ’E an’ anuvver man dragged Mum back onto the sand. Dad tried to give her mouf-to-mouf, but it was too late.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike again.

‘When Pirbright said Dad killed ’er… it was like ’e was taking somefing… it’s about the only good fing I’ve ever ’ad to ’old onto, from before Chapman Farm, that they loved each ovver, an’ if I ’aven’t got that, then it’s all shit, you know?’

‘Yes,’ said Strike, who’d had to work so hard to hold onto the good in his memories of his own mother, ‘I do.’

‘Pirbright kept sayin’, “’E killed her, didn’ ’e? ’E did, didn’ ’e?” An’ I was saying, “No, ’e fuckin’ didn’” an’ I ended up telling ’im to fuck off and I ’ung up. It shook me right up, ’im finding me and ringing me at work,’ said Abigail, with an air of faint surprise at her own reaction. ‘I ’ad a couple of really bad days, after.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Strike.

‘’E said ’e’d been dropped by ’is publisher. Seemed to fink, if I give ’im enough gory details, ’e’d be able to get another deal. You’ve read ’is book, ’ave you?’

‘There isn’t one,’ said Strike.

‘What?’ said Abigail, frowning. ‘Was ’e lying?’

‘No, but his laptop was stolen, presumably by his killer.’

‘Oh… yeah. I ’ad the police call me, after ’e got shot. They’d found the station number in ’is room. I didn’ understand at first. I fort ’e’d shot ’imself. ’E sounded weird on the phone. Unstable. Then I seen in the paper ’e was dealing drugs.’

‘That’s what the police think,’ said Strike.

‘It’s ev’rywhere,’ said Abigail. ‘That’s the on’y fing the UHC gets right, no drugs. I’ve dragged enough junkies outta shitholes they set on fire by accident, I should know.’

She glanced around. Baz was still standing at the bar.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Strike.

‘Oh. Cheers,’ she said, surprised.

When Strike returned with a fresh glass of wine, she thanked him, then said,

‘So ’ow d’you know abou’ these allegations ’e made about the church, if there was no book?’

‘Pirbright was emailing our client. D’you mind if I take notes?’

‘No,’ she said, but she looked edgy as he drew out his notebook.

‘I just want to make one thing clear,’ said Strike. ‘I believe your mother’s death was an accident. I’m only asking the following questions to make sure I’ve covered everything. Was there a life insurance policy on her?’

‘No. We was broke after she died. She was always the one wiv the steady job.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Anyfing – worked in shops, did a bit of cleaning. We moved around a lot.’

‘Did your parents own property?’

‘No, we always rented.’

‘Couldn’t either of your parents’ families have helped out, financially?’ asked Strike, remembering the old Harrovian background.

‘My farver’s parents emigrated to Souf Africa. ’E didn’ get on wiv ’em. Probably ’cause they sent ’im to ’Arrow, but ’e turned out a grifter. I fink ’e used to weasel bits of money out of ’em, but they got sick of ’im.’

‘Was he ever employed?’

‘Not properly. There was a few dodgy schemes, get-rich-quick stuff. It was all gettin’ by on the accent and the charm. I remember a luxury car business what went bust.’

‘And your mother’s family?’

‘Workin’ class. Skint. My muvver was very pretty but I fink my farver’s family fort she was rough – probably annuver reason they didn’ approve. She was a dancer when they met.’

Well aware that the word ‘dancer’ might not necessarily imply the Royal Ballet, Strike chose not to enquire further.

‘How soon after your mother died did your father take you to Chapman Farm?’

‘Coupla monfs, I fink.’

‘What made him move there, d’you know?’

‘Cheap place to live.’ Abigail swigged more wine. ‘Off the grid. ’Ide from ’is debts. An’ it was a group wiv a power whatsit at the top… vacuum… you know abou’ that? Abou’ the people ’oo was at Chapman Farm, before the church started?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, ‘I do.’

‘I only found ou’ after I left. There was still a few of ’em there, when we arrived. My farver got rid of anyone ’e didn’t want, but ’e kept people ’oo’d be useful.’

‘Took charge immediately, did he?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Abigail, unsmiling. ‘If ’e’d been a businessman or somefing… but that was too ordinary for ’im. But ’e knew ’ow to make people wanna do fings, an’ ’e was good at spotting talent. ’E kept the creepy old guy ’oo said ’e was a doctor, an’ this couple ’oo knew ’ow to run the farm, an’ there was this guy called Alex Graves, ’oo my farver kept because ’is family was rich. An’ Mazu, of course,’ said Abigail, with contempt. ‘’E kept ’er. The police shouldn’ of let any of ’em stay behind,’ she added fiercely, before taking another large gulp of wine. ‘It’s like cancer. You’ve gotta cut the ’ole fing out, or you’ll jus’ be back where you started. Sometimes, you get sumfing worse.’

She’d already drunk most of her second glass of wine.

‘Mazu’s Malcolm Crowther’s daughter,’ she added. ‘She’s the spit of ’im.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. When I got out, I looked ’em up. An’ I found out what the ovver bruvver did, too, an’ I fort, “Ah, thass where she learned it all. ’Er uncle.”’

‘What d’you mean “learned it all”?’ asked Strike.

‘Gerald was a kids’ magician before ’e wen’ to live at the farm.’

Another memory came back to Strike at that moment, of the fatter of the two Crowther brothers showing little girls card tricks by firelight, and in that moment he felt nothing but sympathy for Abigail’s comparison of the community to cancer.

‘When you say “that’s where she learned it all”—?’

‘Slate – no, sleight, is it? – of ’and? She was good at it,’ said Abigail. ‘I’d seen magicians on the telly, I knew what she mus’ be up to, but the ovver kids fort she could really do magic. They didn’ call it magic, though. Pure spirit,’ said Abigail, her lip curling.

She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Baz leaving the pub.

‘Good,’ she said, getting up immediately. ‘Wan’ anuvver beer?’

‘No, you’re all right,’ said Strike.

When Abigail had returned with her third wine and sat down again, Strike asked,

‘How soon after you moved into Chapman Farm was your sister born?’

‘She was never born.’

Strike thought she must have misunderstood him.

‘I’m talking about when Daiyu—’

‘She wasn’ my sister,’ said Abigail. ‘She was already there when we arrived. Mazu ’ad ’er wiv Alex Graves.’

‘I thought—?’

‘I know what you fort. After Alex died, Mazu pretended Daiyu was my farver’s.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Alex’s family tried to get custody of ’er, after ’e killed ’imself. Mazu didn’ wanna give Daiyu up, so she an’ my farver cooked up the story that Daiyu was really ’is. Alex’s family took it to court. I remember Mazu going berserk when she gotta legal letter sayin’ she ’ad to provide Daiyu’s DNA samples.’

‘This is interesting,’ said Strike, who was now taking rapid notes. ‘Were the samples ever taken?’

‘No,’ said Abigail, ‘’cause she drowned.’

‘Right,’ said Strike, looking up. ‘But Alex Graves thought Daiyu was his?’

‘Oh, yeah. ’E made a will and named Daiyu as the sole bene – ben – what’s it?’

‘Beneficiary?’

‘Yeah… tole you I never ’ad no education,’ Abigail muttered. ‘Should read more, prob’ly. Sometimes I fink abou’ tryin’ to do a course, or somefing.’

‘Never too late,’ said Strike. ‘So there was a will, and Daiyu stood to get everything Graves had to leave?’

‘Yeah. I ’eard Mazu an’ my farver talkin’ abou’ it.’

‘Did he have much to give?’

‘Dunno. ’E looked like an ’obo, but ’is family was wealfy. They used to come an’ see ’im at the farm sometimes. The UHC weren’ as strict abou’ visitors then, people could still jus’ drive in. The Graves was posh. My farver ’ad Graves’ sister eatin’ out of ’is ’and. Chubby girl. My farver’d try an’ get in wiv anyone ’oo ’ad money.’

‘So after Daiyu died, your stepmother—’

‘Don’ call her that,’ said Abigail sharply. ‘I never use the word “muvver” for that bitch, not even wiv “step” in front of it.’

‘Sorry,’ said Strike. ‘Mazu, then – she presumably inherited all Graves had left?’

‘I s’pose,’ said Abigail, with a shrug. ‘I was shunted off to the Birming’am centre not long after Daiyu died. Mazu always ’ated the bloody sight of me, she wasn’ gonna let me stay if ’er daughter was dead. I ran away from the street in Birming’am when I was out collectin’ for the church. The day’s takings paid for a coach ticket to London an’ my mum’s mum. It’s ’er flat I live in now. She left it to me, bless ’er.’

‘How old were you when you left the church?’

‘Sixteen,’ said Abigail.

‘Have you had any contact with your father since?’

‘None,’ said Abigail, ‘which is jus’ the way I like it.’

‘He never tried to find you or contact you?’

‘No. I was a Deviate, wasn’ I? Thass what they call people that leave. He couldn’ ’ave a daughter ’oo was a Deviate, not the ’Ead of the Church. ’E was probably as ’appy to see the back of me as I was of ’im.’

Abigail drank more wine. Her pale cheeks were becoming pink.

‘Y’know,’ she said abruptly, ‘before the church, I liked ’im. Prob’ly loved ’im. I always liked being one of the lads, an’ ’e’d mess around wiv me, an’ chuck a ball around and whatever. ’E was cool wiv me being a tomboy and everyfing, but after Mazu, ’e changed. She’s a fuckin’ sociopath,’ said Abigail viciously, ‘an’ she changed ’im.’

Strike chose not to respond to this comment. He knew, of course, that alchemical changes of personality were possible under a strong influence, especially in those whose characters weren’t fully formed. However, by Abigail’s own account, Wace had been a charismatic, amoral chancer even when married to his first wife; his second, by the sounds of it, had merely been the ideal accomplice in his ascent to the status of Messiah.

‘’E started telling me off for all the stuff Mazu didn’ like about me,’ Abigail went on. ‘She told ’im I was boy mad. I was on’y eight. I just liked playing football… and then ’e told me I couldn’t call ’im “Dad” any more, I ’ad to say Papa J, like everyone else.

‘It’s a man’s world,’ said Abigail Glover, throwing back her head, ‘an’ women like Mazu, they know where the power is, an’ they play the game, they wanna make sure the men are ’appy, an’ then the men’ll let ’em ’ave a bit of power themselves. She made all the girls do… stuff she didn’t ’ave to do. She didn’ do it. She was up there’ Abigail raised one hand horizontally, as high as it would go, ‘an’ we were down there,’ she said, pointing at the floor. ‘She trod on all of us so she could be the fuckin’ queen.’

‘She felt differently about her own daughter, though?’ said Strike.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Abigail, taking another glug of wine. ‘Daiyu was a spoiled brat – but that don’ mean… what ’appened to ’er… it was bloody terrible. She was annoyin’, but – I was upset, too. Mazu didn’ fink I cared, but I did. It brought it all back, what ’appened to Mum, an’ all. I fuckin’ ’ate the sea,’ Abigail muttered. ‘Can’t even watch Pirates of the fuckin’ Caribbean.’

‘Would it be OK to go back over what happened to Daiyu?’ asked Strike. ‘I’ll understand if you’d rather not.’

‘We can, if you wan’,’ said Abigail, ‘but I was at the farm when it ’appened, so I can’ tell you much.’

Her tongue was much looser now. Strike guessed she hadn’t eaten anything between gym and pub: the wine was having a definite effect, large framed though she was.

‘Do you remember the girl who took Daiyu to the beach that morning?’

‘I remember she was blonde, an’ a bit older than me, but I couldn’ pick ’er out of a line-up now. You didn’ ’ave friends, you weren’ s’posed to get close to people. They used to call it material possession or somefing. Sometimes I’d get people tryna smarm up to me because I was my farver’s daughter, but they soon realised that didn’ count for nuffin. If I’d put in a good word for anyone, Mazu’d prob’ly make sure they were punished.’

‘So you’ve got no idea where Cherie Gittins is now?’

‘That was ’er name, was it? I fort it was Cheryl. No, I dunno where any of ’em are.’

‘I’ve heard,’ said Strike, ‘that Cherie drove the truck out of Chapman Farm past you and two other people, on the morning Daiyu drowned.’

‘The ’ell d’you know that?’ said Abigail, seeming more unnerved than impressed.

‘My partner interviewed Sheila Kennett.’

‘Bloody ’ell, is old Sheila still alive? I’d’ve fort she was long gone. Yeah, me an’ this lad called Paul an’ Sheila’s ’usband was all on early duty – you ’ad to feed the livestock an’ collect eggs an’ start breakfast. That girl Cherie an’ Daiyu come past us in the van, off to do the vegetable run. Daiyu waved at us. We was surprised, but we fort she ’ad permission to go. She got to do a ton of stuff the rest of the kids didn’.’

‘And when did you find out she’d drowned?’

‘Near lunchtime. Mazu ’ad already gone fuckin’ berserk, findin’ out Daiyu ’ad gone off wiv Cherie, an’ we was in the shit, the ones ’oo’d seen ’em go by an’ not stopped ’em.’

‘Was your father upset?’

‘Oh, yeah. I remember ’im cryin’. ’Uggin’ Mazu.’

‘Cried, did he?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Abigail dourly. ‘’E can turn on the waterworks like no man you ever met… but I don’t fink ’e liked Daiyu much, really. She wasn’ ’is, an’ men don’ never feel the same abou’ kids that aren’ theirs, do they? We’ve got a guy at work, the way ’e talks abou’ ’is stepson…’

‘I’ve heard you were all punished – Cherie, and the three of you who saw the truck go past?’

‘Yeah,’ said Abigail. ‘We were.’

‘Sheila’s still very upset about her husband being punished. She thinks whatever was done to him contributed to his poor health.’

‘It won’t ’ave bloody ’elped,’ said Abigail in a clipped voice. ‘Sheila told your partner what ’appened to us, did she?’

‘No,’ said Strike, who judged it better not to lie.

‘Well, if Sheila’s not talkin’, I’m not,’ said Abigail. ‘That’s the sorta fing that Pirbright bloke wanted off me. Find out all the sala – salaysh – all the dirty fuckin’ details. I’m not diggin’ it all up again, so people can picture me on my fuckin’ – forget that.’

Abigail’s voice was very slightly slurred now. Strike, who wasn’t entirely without hope that he might yet get details of the punishment she’d suffered, turned a fresh page in his notebook and said,

‘I’ve heard Cherie spent a lot of time with Daiyu.’

‘Mazu palmed Daiyu off on older girls a lot, yeah.’

‘Did you attend the inquest into Daiyu’s death?’

‘Yeah. Brian ’ad died by then, poor bastard, but me an’ Paul ’ad to give evidence, because of seeing ’em pass in the van. I ’eard Cheryl did a runner after it was over – don’t blame ’er. Mazu o’ny let ’er stay alive that long ’cause of the inquest. Once that was over, she was on borrowed time.’

‘D’you mean that as a figure of speech?’

‘No, I mean it for real. Mazu would’ve killed ’er. Or made ’er kill ’erself.’

‘How would she do that?’

‘You’d understand if you’d met ’er,’ muttered Abigail.

‘Did she make you do things? I mean, things to hurt yourself?’

‘All the fuckin’ time.’

‘Didn’t your father intervene?’

‘I stopped goin’ to ’im or talkin’ to ’im abou’ any of it. No point. There was one time, in Revelation—’

‘What’s that?’

‘You ’ad to say things you were ashamed of an’ get purified. So, this one girl said she masturbated an’ I laughed. I was prob’ly twelve or somethin’. Mazu made me smack my head off the temple wall until I was near enough concussed.’

‘What would have happened if you’d refused?’

‘Somefing worse,’ said Abigail. ‘It was always best to take the first offer.’

She looked at Strike with an odd mixture of defiance and defensiveness.

‘Thass the sorta fing Patrick wants me to put in my book. Tell the ’ole world I was treated like shit, so people like fuckin’ Baz can throw it back in my face.’

‘I’m not going to publicise any of this,’ Strike reassured her. ‘I’m just looking for confirmation – or not – of things Pirbright told my client.’

‘Go on, then. What else did ’e say?’

‘He claimed there was a night when all the children were given drugged drinks. He was younger than you, but I wondered whether you ever heard of anyone being drugged?’

Abigail snorted, twirling her empty glass between her fingers.

‘You weren’ allowed coffee, or sugar, or booze – nuffin’. You weren’ even given paracetamol. ’E was babbling to me on the phone abou’ people flyin’. ’E’d probably rather fink it was drugs they slipped ’im, than ’e was tricked by some of Mazu’s bullshit magic tricks, or ’e was crackin’ up.’

Strike made a note.

‘OK, this next one’s odd. Kevin thought Daiyu could turn herself invisible – or said that one of his sisters believed she could.’

‘What?’ said Abigail, half-laughing.

‘I know,’ said Strike, ‘but he seemed to attach significance to this. I wondered whether she went missing at any point, prior to her death.’

‘Not that I remember… but I wouldn’t’ve put it past ’er to claim she could be invisible. Make ’erself out t’be magic, like ’er muvver.’

‘OK, this next question’s also odd, but I wanted to ask you about pigs.’

‘Pigs?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘It might mean nothing, but they keep cropping up.’

‘’Ow?’

‘Sheila Kennett says Paul Draper got beaten for letting some escape, and Jordan Reaney’s wife says he used to have nightmares about pigs.’

‘’Oo’s Jordan Reaney?’

‘You can’t remember him?’

‘I… oh, maybe,’ she said slowly. ‘Was ’e the tall one who overslept, who should’ve been on the truck?’

‘What truck?’

‘If ’e’s the one I’m thinkin’ of, he should’ve been with Cheryl – Cherie – on the vegetable run, the morning Daiyu drowned. If ’e’d gone, there wouldn’ of been room for Daiyu. It was a small flatbed truck. On’y room for two up front.’

‘I don’t know whether he was supposed to be on the vegetable run,’ said Strike, ‘but according to Pirbright, Reaney was forced to whip himself across the face with a leather flail by Mazu, for some unspecified crime she seemed to think merited the police.’

‘I toldja, that sorta fing ’appened all the time. An’ why’s Reaney’s wife talkin’ for ’im? Is ’e dead?’

‘No, in jail for armed robbery.’

‘Waste of a gun,’ muttered Abigail. ‘’E knows where Mazu is.’

‘Kevin Pirbright also wrote the word “pigs” on his bedroom wall.’

‘Sure ’e wasn’ talkin’ abou’ the police?’

‘He might’ve been, but “pigs” might also have been a reminder to himself, about something he wanted to include in his book.’

Abigail looked down at her empty glass.

‘Another one?’ suggested Strike.

‘Tryna get me drunk?’

‘Repaying you for giving me your time.’

‘Charmer. Yeah, fanks,’ she said.

When Strike returned with her fourth drink, Abigail took a gulp, then sat in silence for nearly a minute. Strike, who suspected she wanted to talk more than perhaps she realised, waited.

‘All righ’,’ she said suddenly, ‘’ere it is: if you wanna know the troof. If people ’oo were at Chapman Farm in the nineties are ’aving nightmares about pigs, it won’ be because fuckin’ farm animals got out.’

‘Why, then?’

‘“The pig acts in the abysmal.”’

‘Sorry?’

‘’S from the I Ching. Know what that is?’

‘Er – a book of divination, right?’

‘Mazu said it was an orac – whass the word?’

‘Oracle?’

‘Yeah. That. But I found out, after I left, she wasn’ usin’ it properly.’

Given that he wasn’t talking to Robin, who was familiar with his views on fortune telling, Strike decided not to debate whether it was possible to use an oracle properly.

‘What d’you mean by—?’

‘It’s s’posed to be, like, used by the person ’oo’s after – y’know – guidance, or wisdom, or shit. You count out yarrow stalks, then you look up the meaning of the ’exa-fing you’ve made, in the I Ching. Mazu likes anyfing Chinese. She pretends to be ’alf Chinese. My arse, she is. Anyway, she wouldn’ let anyone else touch the stalk fings. She gave readings, an’ she rigged it.’

‘How?’

‘She used it to decide punishments an’ stuff. She’d say she’d consult the I Ching to find out ’oo was tellin’ the truth. See, if you’re pure spirit, the divine vibration’ (Abigail’s voice was full of scorn) ‘works froo you, so if you do somefing like the I Ching – or cards, or crystals, or wha’ever – they’ll work, but not fr’anyone ’oo’s not as pure.’

‘And where do pigs come in?’

‘’Exa-fing – gram – twenny-nine,’ said Abigail. ‘The Abyss. It’s one o’ the worst ’exagrams to get. “Water is the image associated with the Abysmal; of the domestic animals, the pig is the one that lives in mud and water.” I still know it off by fuckin’ ’eart, I ’eard it so often. So if ’exagram twenny-nine came up – an’ it came up far more often than it should’ve done, because there are sixty-fuckin’-four diff’rent ’exagrams – you was a filfy liar: you was a pig. An’ Mazu made you crawl around on all fours, until she said it was time to get up again.’

‘This happened to you?’

‘Oh, yeah. Bleedin’ ’ands and knees. Crawlin’ through mud… on the night after Daiyu drowned,’ said Abigail, her eyes glassy, ‘Mazu made me, old Brian Kennett, Paul Draper, that Jordan guy an’ Cherie strip naked an’ crawl round the yard in fuckin’ pig masks, wiv everyone watching. For free days an’ free nights, we ’ad to stay naked and on all fours, an’ we ’ad to sleep in the pigsty wiv the real pigs.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Strike.

‘So now you fuckin’ know,’ said Abigail, who seemed half-furious, half-shaken, ‘an’ you can put it in a fuckin’ book an’ make a ton of money out of it.’

‘I’ve already told you,’ said Strike, ‘that isn’t going to happen.’

Abigail dashed angry tears out of her eyes. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes until, abruptly, Abigail threw back the last of her fourth glass of wine and said,

‘Come ou’side wiv me, I wanna fag.’

They left the pub together, Abigail’s gym bag and coat slung over her shoulder. It was cold outside, with a stiff breeze blowing. Abigail drew her coat more closely around herself, leaned up against the brick wall, lit a Marlboro Light, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke up at the stars. She seemed to regain her composure as she smoked. When Strike said,

‘I had you figured as a keep-fit buff,’ she answered dreamily, eyes on the sky,

‘I am. When I’m workin’ ou’, I’m workin’ out. An’ when I’m partyin’, I’m partyin’ ’ard. An’ when I’m workin’, I’m fuckin’ good at it… There isn’ enough time in the world,’ she said, looking sideways at him, ‘to not be at Chapman Farm. Y’know what I mean?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I think I do.’

She looked at him, a little blearily, and she was so tall they were almost eye to eye.

‘You’re kinda sexy.’

‘And you’re definitely drunk.’

She laughed and pushed herself off the wall.

‘Should’ve eaten after the gym… shoulda drunk some water. See ya, Crameron – Cormarion – wha’ever your fucking name is.’

And with a gesture of farewell, she walked away.

29

Thus in all his transactions the superior man

Carefully considers the beginning.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike arrived back in Denmark Street a little after ten, having done some food shopping on the way. After a joyless dinner of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables, he decided to move down into the deserted office to pursue the train of thought engendered by his interview with Abigail Glover. He told himself this was because it was easier to work at the PC than at his laptop, but was dimly aware of a desire to sit at the partners’ desk, where he and Robin often faced each other.

The familiar sounds of traffic grumbling past on Charing Cross Road mingled with occasional shouts and laughter from passers-by as Strike opened the folder on his computer in which he’d already saved the account of Daiyu Wace’s drowning he’d found in the British Library archives, which gave him access to decades’ worth of press reports, including those in local papers.

The child’s death had merited only brief mentions in the nationals, though not all of them had carried the story. However, north Norfolk papers the Lynn Advertiser and the Diss Express had printed fuller reports. Strike now re-read them.

Daiyu Wace had drowned early in the morning of 29 July 1995, during what was described as an impromptu swim with a seventeen-year-old girl described as her babysitter.

The Lynne Advertiser’s article carried pictures of the two girls. Even allowing for the blurry effect of newsprint, Daiyu was distinctly rabbity in appearance, with an overbite emphasised by a missing tooth, dark, narrow eyes and long, shining hair. Cherie Gittins’ picture showed a teenaged girl with crimped blonde curls and what looked like an affected smile.

The facts given in both papers were identical. Cherie and Daiyu had decided to take a swim, Daiyu had got into difficulties, Cherie had tried to reach her, but the child had been pulled out of reach by a powerful current. Cherie had then exited the water and tried to raise the alarm. She’d hailed passers-by Mr and Mrs Heaton of Garden Street, Cromer, and Mr Heaton had hurried off to alert the coastguard while Mrs Heaton remained with Cherie. Mr Heaton was quoted as saying that he and his wife had seen ‘a hysterical young woman running towards us in her underwear’ and that they’d realised something was very amiss upon spotting the pile of discarded child’s clothing lying on the pebbles a short distance away.

Strike, who was Cornish-born, with an uncle in the coastguard, knew more about tides and drowning than the average person. A rip current such as Daiyu appeared to have swum into could have carried away a seven-year-old child with ease, especially as she’d have had neither the strength nor, presumably, the knowledge that she should swim parallel to the shore to escape the danger, rather than trying to fight a force that would challenge even a powerful and experienced sea bather. The article in the Diss Express concluded by quoting a lifeguard who gave precisely that advice to those unlucky enough to find themselves in a similar situation. Strike also knew that the gases that cause bodies to rise to the surface form far more slowly in cold water. Even in late July, the early morning North Sea would have been very chilly, and if the small body had been dragged out into deep water and sank to the sea bed, it might soon have been stripped by crustaceans, fish and sea lice. Strike had heard such stories as a child from his uncle.

Nevertheless, Strike found certain incongruities in the story. While neither local journalist made an issue of this, it seemed odd, to say the least, that the two girls had visited the beach before sunrise. Of course, there might have been an innocent, undisclosed reason, such as a dare or a bet. Sheila Kennett had suggested that Daiyu had the whip hand in the relationship with the older girl. Perhaps Cherie Gittins had been too weak-willed to resist the pressure of the cult leaders’ child, who’d been determined to paddle no matter the hour and the temperature. Cherie’s simpering smile didn’t suggest a strong personality.

While the sky darkened outside the office window, Strike made a fresh search of the newspaper archives, this time looking for reports into Daiyu’s inquest. He found one dated September 1995 in the Daily Mirror. Certain features of the case had clearly piqued the national newspaper’s interest.

CHILD RULED ‘LOST AT SEA’

A verdict of ‘lost at sea’ was delivered today at the Norwich Coroner’s Office, where an inquest was held into the drowning of 7-year-old Daiyu Wace of Chapman Farm, Felbrigg.

Unusually, the inquest was held in the absence of a body.

Head of the local coastguard, Graham Burgess, told the court that in spite of an extensive search, it had proved impossible to find the little girl’s remains.

‘There was a powerful current near the beach that morning, which could have carried a small child a long distance,’ Burgess told the court. ‘Most drowning victims rise to the surface or wash ashore eventually, but sadly a minority remain unrecoverable. I’d like to offer the service’s sincere condolences to the family.’

17-year-old Cherie Gittins (pictured), a friend of Daiyu’s family, took the primary schooler for an early morning swim on 29^th July, after the pair had delivered farm vegetables to a local shop.

‘Daiyu was always nagging me to take her to the beach,’ a visibly distressed Gittins told the coroner, Jacqueline Porteous. ‘I thought she just wanted a paddle. The water was really cold, but she just dived right in. She was always really brave and adventurous. I was worried, so I went after her. One minute she was laughing, then she disappeared – went under and didn’t come up.

‘I couldn’t reach her, I couldn’t even see where she was. The light was bad because it was so early. I went back to the beach and I was screaming and shouting for help. I saw Mr and Mrs Heaton walking their dog. Mr Heaton went to phone the police and the coastguard.

‘I never wanted any harm to come to Daiyu. This has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and I’ll never get over it. I just want to apologise to Daiyu’s parents. I’m so, so sorry. I’d give absolutely anything if I could bring Daiyu back.’

Giving evidence, Muriel Carter, owner of a beachside café, said she saw Gittins taking the child down to the beach, shortly before sunrise.

‘They had towels with them and I thought it was a silly time to be going swimming, that’s why it stuck in my mind.’

Interviewed after the inquest, bereaved mother Mrs Mazu Wace (24) said:

‘I never dreamed anyone would take my child without permission, let alone take her swimming in the sea, in the dark. I’m still praying we’ll find her and be able to give her a decent burial.’

Mr Jonathan Wace (44), father of the dead girl, said:

‘This has been an appalling time and of course, it’s been made far worse by the uncertainty, but the inquest has given us some sense of closure. My wife and I are sustained by our religious faith and I’d like to thank the local community for their kindness.’

Strike reached for the notebook that was still in his pocket from his interview with Abigail Glover, re-read the Mirror article and made a note of a couple of points that struck him as interesting, along with the names of the witnesses mentioned. He also scrutinised the new picture of Cherie Gittins, which seemed to have been taken outside the coroner’s court. She looked much older here, her eyelids heavier, the previously babyish contours of her face more defined.

Strike sat in thought for a few more minutes, vaping, then made another search of the newspaper archives, now looking for information relating to Alex Graves, the man who, if Abigail was to be believed, was Daiyu’s biological father.

It took twenty minutes, but Strike finally found Graves’ obituary notice in a copy of The Times.

Graves, Alexander Edward Thawley, passed away at home, Garvestone Hall, Norfolk, on 15th June 1993, after a long illness. Beloved son of Colonel and Mrs Edward Graves, and dearly missed brother of Phillipa. Private funeral. No flowers. Donations if wished to The Mental Health Foundation. ‘Say not the struggle naught availeth.’

As Strike would have expected, the carefully worded obituary concealed more than it revealed. The ‘long illness’ surely referred to mental health problems given the suggestion for donations, while the ‘private funeral’, for which no date was given, had presumably been held at Chapman Farm, where Graves had been buried according to the wish he’d stated in his will. Nevertheless, the obituary-writer had been determined to state that Garvestone Hall was ‘home’.

Strike Googled Garvestone Hall. Although it was a private residence, there were numerous pictures of the house online, due to its medieval origins. The stone mansion had hexagonal towers, rectangular leaded windows and spectacular gardens, which featured topiary, statuary, intricately laid-out flowerbeds and a small lake. The grounds, Strike read, were occasionally opened to the public to raise money for charity.

Exhaling nicotine vapour in the silent office, Strike wondered again how much money Graves, who according to Abigail had looked like a hobo, had left the girl he believed was his daughter.

The sky outside the office window was a deep, velvety black. Almost absent-mindedly, Strike Googled ‘drowned prophet UHC’.

The top hit led to the website of the UHC, but a number of idealised pictures of Daiyu Wace also appeared. Strike clicked on ‘images’ and scrolled slowly down through many identical pictures of Daiyu as she appeared in the Rupert Court Temple, with her white robes and her flying black hair, stylised waves trailing behind her.

Towards the bottom of the page, however, Strike saw a picture that caught his attention. This showed Daiyu as she’d looked in life, although in far more sinister form. The accomplished pencil and charcoal drawing had turned the rabbity face skeletal. Where there should have been eyes, there were empty sockets. The picture was taken from Pinterest. Strike clicked on the link.

The drawing had been posted by a user calling themselves Torment Town. The page had only twelve followers, which didn’t surprise Strike in the slightest. All Torment Town had posted were drawings that had the same nightmarish quality as the first.

A small, long-haired, naked child lay in the foetal position on the ground, face hidden, with two cloven feet standing either side. The image was surrounded by two hairy, clawed hands making a heart, a clear parody of the UHC symbol.

The same hairy hands formed their heart around a drawing of a naked man’s lower body, although the erect penis had been replaced by a spiked club.

A gagged woman was depicted with one of the clawed hands throttling her, the letters UHC drawn onto both dilated pupils.

Daiyu appeared repeatedly, sometimes only her face, sometimes full length, in a white dress that dripped water onto the floor around her bare feet. The eyeless, rabbity face stared in through windows, the dripping corpse floated across ceilings and peered out from between dark trees.

A loud bang made Strike start. A bird had hit the office window. For two seconds, he and the raven blinked at each other and then, in a blur of black feathers, it had gone.

Heart rate now slightly elevated, Strike returned his attention to the images on Torment Town’s page. He paused on the most complex picture yet: a meticulously rendered depiction of a group standing around a black five-sided pool. The figures around the pool were hooded, their faces in shadow, but Jonathan Wace’s face was illuminated.

Over the water hovered the spectral Daiyu, looking down at the water below, a sinister smile on her face. Where Daiyu’s reflection should have been, there was a different woman, floating on the surface of the water. She was fair haired and wore square-framed glasses, but like Daiyu she had no eyes, only empty sockets.

30

… a princess leads her maids-in-waiting like a shoal of fishes to her husband and thus gains his favour.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The women in the dormitory were woken at 5 a.m. as usual by the ringing of the large copper bell on Robin’s fourth morning at Chapman Farm. After the same scant breakfast of watery porridge they’d eaten every day so far, new recruits were asked to remain in the dining hall, because their groups were to be reconfigured.

Every member of Fire Group other than Robin left to join other groups. Her new companions included the professor, Walter Fernsby, Amandeep Singh, who’d worn the Spiderman T-shirt in temple, and a young woman with short, spiky black hair called Vivienne.

‘’Owzit going?’ she said, on joining the others.

In spite of her best efforts to drop her aitches, Robin noticed, as Vivienne exchanged remarks with the others, that her accent was really irremediably upper middle class.

Robin was almost certain the newly formed groups were no longer randomly selected. Fire Group now seemed to consist only of university-educated people, most of whom clearly had money or came from well-off families. Metal Group, by contrast, contained some of the people who’d had most difficulty with daily tasks, including bespectacled, ginger-haired widow Marion Huxley, and a couple of recruits whom Robin had already heard complain of fatigue and hunger, like green-haired Penny Brown.

After the re-sorting of the groups, the day proceeded in the same way as the previous ones. Robin and the rest of Fire Group were ushered through a mixture of tasks, some physical, some spiritual. After feeding the pigs and putting fresh straw in the chickens’ nesting boxes, they were taken to their third lecture on church doctrine, which was conducted by Taio Wace, then had a chanting session in the temple, during which Robin, already tired, entered a pleasant, trance-like state which left her with a feeling of increased well-being. She could now recite Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu without needing to check the words or pronunciation.

After temple, they were led to a new crafting workshop.

‘Fire Group, called to service,’ said Becca Pirbright as they entered a slightly larger space than that in which the toy turtles had been made. The walls were hung with many different kinds of woven and plaited corn dollies: stars, crosses, hearts, spirals and figures, many of them finished with ribbons. In a far corner of the room, two church members – Robin recognised the woman who’d stood at the reception desk when they arrived, and the pregnant Wan – were working on a large straw sculpture. Piles of straw also lay on a long central table, in front of every seat. At the head of the table stood Mazu Wace in her long orange robes, with the mother-of-pearl fish around her neck, holding a leatherbound book.

‘N ho,’ she said, gesturing for Fire Group to take their seats.

There were fewer permanent church members seated at the table than at the turtle-making session. Among them was the teenage girl with long, fine mousey hair and large blue eyes whom Robin had already noticed. Robin deliberately selected a seat beside her.

‘As you know,’ said Mazu, ‘we sell our handiwork to raise funds for the church’s charitable projects. We have a long tradition of making corn dollies at Chapman Farm and grow our own straw specifically for this purpose. Today you’ll be making some simple Glory Plaits,’ said Mazu, walking to the wall and pointing at a flat, plaited corn dolly with wheat heads fanning out of the bottom. ‘Regular members will help, and once you’re working properly, I’ll read you today’s lesson.’

‘Hi,’ Robin said to the teenage girl beside her, as Mazu began leafing through the book, ‘I’m Rowena.’

‘I’m L-L-Lin,’ stammered the girl.

Robin knew at once that the girl must be the daughter of Deirdre Doherty, who’d been (if Kevin Pirbright was to be believed) the product of Jonathan Wace’s rape.

‘That looks hard,’ Robin said, watching Lin’s thin fingers working the straw.

‘It isn’t r-r-really,’ said Lin.

Robin noticed Mazu glance up irritably from her book at the sound of Lin’s voice. Although Lin hadn’t looked at Mazu, Robin was certain she’d registered her reaction, because she began showing Robin what to do without words. Robin remembered Kevin Pirbright writing in his email to Sir Colin that Mazu had mocked Lin for her stammer since childhood.

Once everyone had set to work in earnest, Mazu said,

‘I’m going to talk to you this morning about the Golden Prophet, whose life was a beautiful lesson. The Golden Prophet’s mantra is I Live to Love and Give. The following words were written by Papa J himself.’

She dropped her gaze to the open book in her hands and now Robin saw The Answer, by Jonathan Wace printed on its spine in gold leaf.

‘“There was once a worldly, materialistic woman who married with the sole aim of living what the bubble world considers a fulfilled, successful li—”’

‘Are we allowed to ask questions?’ interrupted Amandeep Singh.

Robin sensed an immediate tension among the regular church members.

‘I usually take questions at the end of the reading,’ said Mazu coolly. ‘Were you going to ask what the “bubble world” is?’

‘Yeah,’ said Amandeep.

‘That’s about to be explained,’ said Mazu, with a tight, cold smile. Looking back at her book, she continued reading.

‘“We sometimes call the materialist world the ‘bubble world’ because its inhabitants live inside a consumer-driven, status-obsessed and ego-saturated bubble. Possession is key to the bubble world: possession of things and possessiveness of other human beings, who are reduced to flesh objects. Those who can see beyond the gaudy, multicoloured walls of the bubble are deemed strange, deluded – even mad. Yet the bubble world’s walls are fragile. It takes just one glimpse of Truth for them to burst, and so it was with Margaret Cathcart-Bryce.

‘“She was a rich woman, vain and selfish. She had doctors operate upon her body, the better to ape the youth so venerated within the bubble world, which lives in terror of death and decay. She had no children by choice, for fear that it would spoil her perfect figure, and she amassed great wealth without giving away a penny, content to live a life of material ease that other bubble-dwellers envied for its trappings.”’

Robin was carefully folding the hollow straws under Lin’s silent direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pregnant Wan massaging one side of her swollen belly.

‘“Margaret’s sickness was one of false self,”’ read Mazu. ‘“This is the self that craves external validation. Her spiritual self had been untended and neglected for a very long time. Her awakening came after her husband’s death by what the world calls chance, but which the Universal Humanitarian Church recognises as part of the eternal design.

‘“Margaret came to hear one of my talks. She told me, later, that she’d attended because she had nothing better to do. Of course, I was well aware that people often attended my meetings purely to have something new to talk about at fashionable dinner parties. Yet I’ve never scorned the company of the rich. That in itself is a form of prejudice. All judgement based on a person’s wealth is bubble thinking.

‘“So I spoke at the dinner and the attendees nodded and smiled. I didn’t doubt that some would write me cheques to support our charitable work at the end of the evening. It would cost them little and perhaps give them a sense of their own goodness.

‘“But when I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed upon me, I knew that she was what I sometimes call a sleepwalker: one who has great unawakened spiritual capacity. I hurried through my talk, eager to speak to this woman. I approached her at the conclusion of our talk and with a few short sentences, I’d fallen as deeply in love as I’d ever done in my life.”’

Robin wasn’t the only person who glanced up at Mazu at these words.

‘“Some will be shocked to hear me talk of love. Margaret was seventy-two years old, but when two sympathetic spirits meet, so-called physical reality dissolves into irrelevance. I loved Margaret instantly, because her true self called to me from behind the masklike face, pleading for liberation. I had already undertaken sufficient spiritual training to see with a clarity physical eyes cannot. Beauty that is of the flesh will always wither, whereas beauty of the spirit is eternal and unchange—”’

The door of the workshop opened. Mazu looked up. Jiang Wace entered, squat and sullen in his orange tracksuit. At the sight of Mazu, his right eye began to flicker and he hastily covered it.

‘Doctor Zhou wants to see Rowena Ellis,’ he muttered.

‘That’s me,’ said Robin, holding up her hand.

‘All right,’ said Mazu, ‘go with Jiang, Rowena. I thank you for your service.’

‘And I for yours,’ said Robin, putting her hands together and bowing her head towards Mazu, which earned her another cold, tight smile.

31

Nine in the fifth place…

One should not try an unknown medicine.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

‘You catch on quick,’ said Jiang, as he and Robin walked back past the chicken coop.

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Robin.

‘Knowing the right responses,’ said Jiang, again rubbing the eye with the tic, and Robin thought she detected a hint of resentment. ‘Already.’

To their left lay the open fields. Marion Huxley and Penny Brown were staggering over the deeply rutted earth, leading the Shire horses in their endless ploughing, a pointless exercise, given that the field was already ploughed.

‘Metal Group,’ said Jiang with a snigger. Confirmed in her impression that this morning’s group reconfiguration had been a ranking exercise, Robin merely asked,

‘Why does Dr Zhou want to see me?’

‘Medical,’ said Jiang. ‘Check you’re ready to fast.’

They passed the laundry and dining hall, and then the older barns, one of which had a cobwebbed padlock on the door.

‘What do you keep in there?’ Robin asked.

‘Junk,’ said Jiang. Then, making Robin jump, he bellowed,

‘Oi!’

Jiang was pointing at Will Edensor, who was crouching in the shade of a tree off the path and appeared to be comforting a child of maybe two, who was crying. Will Edensor jumped up as though he’d been scalded. The little girl, whose white hair hadn’t been shaved like that of the other children, but stood out around her head like a dandelion clock, raised her arms, imploring Will to pick her up. A group of nursery age were toddling about behind him among more trees, under the supervision of shaven-headed Louise Pirbright.

‘Are you on child duty?’ Jiang shouted at Will.

‘No,’ said Will. ‘She just fell over, so I—’

‘You’re committing materialist possession,’ shouted Jiang, and specks of spittle issued from his mouth. Robin was sure her presence was making Jiang more aggressive, that he was enjoying asserting his authority in front of her.

‘It was only because she fell over,’ said Will. ‘I was going to the laundry and—’

‘Then go to the laundry!’

Will hurried off on his long legs. The little girl attempted to follow him, tripped, fell and cried harder than ever. Within a few seconds, Louise had scooped the child up and retreated with her into the trees where the rest of the little ones were roaming.

‘He’s been warned,’ said Jiang, heading off again. ‘I’m going to have to report that.’

He seemed to take pleasure in the prospect.

‘Why isn’t he allowed near children?’ asked Robin, hurrying to keep up with Jiang as they rounded the side of the temple.

‘Nothing like that,’ said Jiang quickly, answering an unspoken question. ‘But we’ve got to be careful about who works with the little ones.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Robin.

‘Not because of – it’s spiritual,’ growled Jiang. ‘People get ego hits from materialist possession. It interferes with spiritual growth.’

‘I see,’ said Robin.

‘You’ve got to kill the false self,’ said Jiang. ‘He hasn’t killed his false self yet.’

They were now crossing the courtyard. When they crouched down at the pool of the Drowned Prophet between the tombs of the Stolen and Golden Prophets, Robin picked up a tiny pebble lying on the ground and hid it in her left hand before dipping the forefinger of her right into the water, anointing her forehead and intoning ‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’

‘You know who she was?’ Jiang asked Robin, as he stood up and pointed at the statue of Daiyu.

‘Er – her name was Daiyu, wasn’t it?’ said Robin, still with the tiny pebble held in her closed hand.

‘Yeah, but d’you know who she was? To me?’

‘Oh,’ said Robin. She’d already learned that the naming of family relationships was frowned upon at Chapman Farm, because it suggested a continuing allegiance to materialist values. ‘No.’

‘My sister,’ said Jiang in a low voice, smirking.

‘Can you remember her?’ said Robin, careful to sound awed.

‘Yeah,’ said Jiang. ‘She used to play with me.’

They proceeded towards the entrance of the farmhouse. As Jiang drew a little ahead of her to push open the dragon-ornamented doors of the farmhouse, Robin stowed the tiny pebble out of sight down the front of her sweatshirt, inside her bra.

There was a motto inlaid in Latin in the stone floor just inside the doors of the farmhouse: STET FORTUNA DOMUS. The hallway was wide, pristinely clean and immaculately decorated, the white walls covered in Chinese art, including framed silk panels and carved wooden masks. A scarlet-carpeted stairway curved up to the first floor. A number of closed doors, all painted in glossy black, led off the hall, but Jiang led Robin past all of these and turned right, into a corridor that led into one of the new wings.

At the very end of the corridor, he rapped on another glossy black door and opened it.

Robin heard a woman’s laughter, and as the door opened she saw actress Noli Seymour leaning up against an ebony desk and apparently lost in merriment about something Dr Zhou had just said to her. She was a dark, elfin young woman with cropped hair, wearing what Robin recognised as head-to-toe Chanel.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said through her laughter. Robin had the impression Noli vaguely recognised Jiang, but couldn’t remember his name. Jiang’s hand had again leapt to his winking eye. ‘Andy’s just making me roar… I had to come down here to get my treatments,’ she pouted slightly, ‘seeing as he’s abandoned us in London.’

‘Abandoned you? Never,’ said Zhou, in his deep voice. ‘Now, you’ll stay for the night? Papa J’s back.’

‘Is he?’ squealed Noli, clapping her hands to her face in delight. ‘Oh my God, I haven’t seen him in weeks!’

‘He says you can take your usual room,’ said Zhou, pointing upstairs. ‘The membership will be delighted to see you. Now, I have to assess this young lady,’ he said, pointing at Robin.

‘All right, darling,’ said Noli, offering her face to be kissed. Zhou clasped her hands, pecked her on each cheek, and Noli walked out past Robin in a cloud of tuberose, winking as she passed and saying:

‘You’re in very safe hands.’

The door closed on Noli and Jiang, leaving Robin and Dr Zhou alone.

The luxurious, meticulously tidy room smelled of sandalwood. A red and gold art deco rug lay on the dark polished floorboards. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of the same ebony as the rest of the furniture carried leatherbound books and also what Robin recognised as hundreds of journals of the kind lying on her bed, their spines labelled with the names of their owners. Behind the desk were more shelves carrying hundreds of tiny brown bottles arranged with precision and labelled in minuscule handwriting, a collection of antique Chinese snuff bottles and a fat golden Buddha, sitting cross-legged on a wooden plinth. A black leather examination couch stood beneath one of the windows, which looked out onto a part of the property screened from the courtyard by trees and bushes. Here, Robin saw three identical cabins built of timber, each of which had sliding glass doors, and which hadn’t been shown to any of the new recruits as yet.

‘Please, sit down,’ said Zhou, smiling as he gestured Robin to the chair opposite his desk, which like the desk was made of ebony, and upholstered in red silk. Robin registered how comfortable it was as she sank into it: the chairs in the workshop were of hard plastic and wood, and the mattress of her narrow bed very firm.

Zhou was wearing a dark suit and tie and a pristine white shirt. Pearls shone discreetly in the buttonholes of his cuffs. Robin assumed he was biracial because he was well over six feet tall – the Chinese men she was used to seeing in Chinatown, near the office, were generally much shorter – and he was undeniably handsome, with his slicked-back black hair and high cheekbones. The scar running down from nose to jaw hinted at mystery and danger. She could understand why Dr Zhou attracted television viewers, even though she personally found the sleekness and slight but detectable aura of self-importance unappealing.

Zhou flipped open a folder on his desk and Robin saw several sheets of paper, with the questionnaire she’d completed on the bus lying on top.

‘So,’ said Zhou, smiling, ‘how are you finding life in the church so far?’

‘Really interesting,’ said Robin, ‘and I’m finding the meditation techniques incredible.’

‘You suffer from a little anxiety, yes?’ said Zhou, smiling at her.

‘Sometimes,’ said Robin, smiling back.

‘Low self-esteem?’

‘Occasionally,’ said Robin, with a little shrug.

‘I think you’ve recently had an emotional blow?’

Robin wasn’t sure whether he was pretending to intuit this about her, or admitting that some of the hidden sheets of paper contained the biographical details she’d confided in church members.

‘Um… yes,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘My wedding got called off.’

‘Was that your decision?’

‘No,’ said Robin, no longer smiling. ‘His.’

‘Family disappointed?’

‘My mum’s quite… yes, they weren’t happy.’

‘I promise, you’ll live to be very glad you didn’t go through with it,’ said Zhou. ‘Much societal unhappiness stems from the unnaturalness of the married state. Have you read The Answer?’

‘Not yet,’ said Robin, ‘although one of the church members offered to lend me his copy, and Mazu was just…’

Zhou opened one of the desk drawers and took out a pristine paperback copy of Jonathan Wace’s book. The image on the front was of a bursting bubble, with two hands making the heart shape around it.

‘Here,’ said Zhou. ‘Your own copy.’

‘Thank you so much!’ said Robin, feigning delight while wondering when on earth she was supposed to have time to read, in between the lectures, the work and the temple.

‘Read the chapter on materialist possession and egomotivity,’ Zhou instructed her. ‘Now…’

He extracted a second questionnaire, this one blank, and took a lacquered fountain pen out of his pocket.

‘I’m going to assess your fitness to fast – what we call purification.’

He took down Robin’s age, asked her to step onto scales, noted down her weight, then invited her to sit down again so he could take her blood pressure.

‘A little low,’ said Zhou, looking at the figures, ‘but it’s nearly lunchtime… nothing to worry about. I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs.’

While Zhou pressed the cold head of the stethoscope to her back, Robin could feel the tiny pebble she’d tucked inside her bra sticking into her.

‘Very good,’ said Zhou, putting the stethoscope away, sitting and making a note on the questionnaire before continuing his questions on pre-existing health conditions.

‘And where did you get that scar on your forearm?’ he asked.

Robin knew at once that the eight-inch scar, which was currently covered by the long sleeves of her sweatshirt, must have been reported by one of the women in the dormitory where she undressed at night.

‘I fell through a glass door,’ she said.

‘Really?’ said Zhou, for the first time showing some disbelief.

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘It wasn’t a suicide attempt?’

‘God, no,’ said Robin, with an incredulous laugh. ‘I tripped down some stairs and put my hand right through a glass panel in a door.’

‘Ah, I see… you were having regular sex with your fiancé?’

‘I – yes,’ said Robin.

‘Were you using birth control?’

‘Yes. The pill.’

‘But you’ve come off it?’

‘Yes, the instructions said—’

‘Good,’ said Zhou, still writing. ‘Synthetic hormones are exceptionally unhealthy. You should put nothing unnatural in your body, ever. The same goes for condoms, caps… all disrupt the flow of your qi. You understand qi?’

‘In our lecture, Taio said it’s a sort of life force?’

‘The vital energy, composed of Yin and Yang,’ said Zhou, nodding. ‘You have a slight imbalance already. Don’t worry,’ he said smoothly, still writing, ‘we’ll address it. Have you ever had an STD?’

‘No,’ lied Robin.

In fact, the rapist who’d ended her university career had given her chlamydia, for which she’d been given antibiotics.

‘Do you orgasm during sex?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. She could feel a blush rising in her face.

‘Every time?’

‘Pretty much,’ said Robin.

‘Your typology test places you in the decant Fire-Earth, which is to say, Gift-Bearer-Warrior,’ went on Zhou, looking up at her. ‘That’s a very auspicious nature.’

Robin didn’t feel particularly flattered by this assessment, not least because she’d answered as the fictional Rowena, rather than herself. She also had a feeling ‘Gift-Bearer’ might be a synonym for financial target. However, she said with enthusiasm,

‘That’s so interesting.’

‘I devised the typology test myself,’ said Zhou, with a smile. ‘We find it very accurate.’

‘What type are you?’ asked Robin.

‘Healer-Mystic,’ said Zhou, evidently pleased to be asked, as had been Robin’s intention. ‘Each quintant corresponds to one of our prophets and one of the five Chinese elements. You may have noticed that we name our groups for the elements. However,’ said Zhou seriously, now sitting back in his chair, ‘you mustn’t think I subscribe to any one rigid tradition. I favour a synthesis of the best of world medicine. Ayurvedic practices have much to recommend them, but as you’ve seen, I don’t disdain the stethoscope or blood pressure gauge. However, I have no truck with Big Pharma. A global protection racket. Not a single cure to their names.’

Rather than challenging this statement, Robin settled for looking mildly confused.

‘True healing is only possible from the spirit,’ said Zhou, placing a hand on his chest. ‘There’s ample evidence of the fact, but of course, if the whole world subscribed to the UHC healing philosophy, those companies would lose billions in revenue.

‘Are your parents still together?’ he asked, with another swift change of subject.

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘You have siblings?’

‘Yes, a sister.’

‘Do they know you’re here?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘Are they supportive? Happy for you to explore your spiritual growth?’

‘Er – they’re a bit – I think,’ said Robin, with another little laugh, ‘they think I’m doing it because I’m depressed. Because of the wedding being cancelled. My sister thinks it’s a bit weird.’

‘And you, do you think it’s weird?’

‘Not at all,’ said Robin defiantly.

‘Good,’ said Zhou. ‘Your parents and sister currently regard you as their flesh object. It will take time to reorientate yourself to a healthier pattern of bonding.

‘Now,’ he said briskly, ‘you are fit to undergo a twenty-four-hour fast, but we need to address this qi imbalance. These tinctures,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘are very effective. All natural. I mix them myself.’

He chose three small brown bottles from the shelf, poured Robin a glass of water, added two drops from each bottle, swilled the glass then handed it over to her. Wondering whether it was reckless to drink something of which she didn’t know the ingredients, though reassured by the tiny quantities, Robin finished it all.

‘Good,’ said Zhou, smiling down at her. ‘Now, if you have negative thoughts, you know what to do, yes? You have your chanting meditation and your joyful meditation.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin, smiling as she set the empty glass back on the desk.

‘All right then, you’re fit to fast,’ he said, in a tone that was a clear dismissal.

‘Thanks so much,’ said Robin, getting up. ‘Can I ask –’ she pointed at the timber cabins visible through the study window ‘– what are those? We didn’t see them on our tour.’

‘Retreat Rooms,’ said Zhou. ‘But they’re for use only by full church members.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Robin.

Zhou showed her to the door. Robin was unsurprised to find Jiang waiting for her in the corridor. She’d already learned that the only permissible reason to be left unattended was to visit the bathroom.

‘It’s lunchtime,’ said Jiang, as they walked back through the farmhouse.

‘Good,’ said Robin. ‘I’m fasting tomorrow, better build up my strength.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Jiang severely. ‘You shouldn’t prepare for fasting, except spiritually.’

‘Sorry,’ said Robin, intentionally sounding cowed. ‘I didn’t mean – I’m still learning.’

When they stepped out into the courtyard they found it full of church members heading towards the dining hall. There was something of a crowd around the pool of the Drowned Prophet as people waited to ask for her blessing.

‘Actually,’ Robin said to Jiang, ‘I might just nip to the bathroom before lunch.’

She left before he could protest, heading into the women’s dormitory, which was deserted. Having used the bathroom, she hurried to her bed. To her surprise, a second object lay on her pillow beside her nightly journal: a very old, dog-eared copy of the same paperback she held in her hands. Opening it, she saw a flamboyant handwritten inscription inside.

To Danny, Martyr-Mystic,

my hope, my inspiration, my son.

With love always, Papa J

Robin remembered Danny Brockles’ insistence that she return the book to him, so she placed her own copy of The Answer on the bed and picked up his to take it to lunch. She then dropped to her knees, extracted the tiny pebble from the yard from her bra and placed it carefully beside three others, which she’d hidden between the bedframe and mattress. She’d have known it was Tuesday without this method of counting the passing days, but she also knew that if her fatigue and hunger worsened, checking the number of pebbles she’d collected might be her only recourse for keeping track of the passing days.

32

The superior man is on his guard against what is not yet in sight and on the alert for what is not yet within hearing…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Clive Littlejohn returned to work on Wednesday. Strike texted him at nine to say he wanted a face-to-face talk at one o’clock at the office, once both had handed over their separate surveillance jobs to other subcontractors.

Unfortunately, this plan went awry. At ten past nine, shortly after Strike had taken up position outside the Frank brothers’ block of flats in Bexleyheath, Barclay called him.

‘Ye on the Franks?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘Aye, well, I thought ye should know: it’s both o’ them,’ said Barclay. ‘Not jus’ the younger one. I’ve been looking at the pictures I took outside her house last night an’ it was the older one who was skulkin’ around there at midnight. They’re in it taegether. Pair o’ fuckin’ freaks.’

‘Shit,’ said Strike.

They’d just taken on another case of possible marital infidelity, so the news that they’d need double the manpower on the Franks was unwelcome.

‘You’re off today, right?’ said Strike.

‘Aye,’ said Barclay. ‘Dev’s on the new cheatin’ wife an’ Midge is tryin’ tae talk tae that sex worker you photographed talking tae Bigfoot.’

‘All right,’ said Strike, briefly considering but rejecting the idea of asking Barclay to forgo his day off, ‘thanks for letting me know. I’ll look at the rota, see how we can keep both under surveillance going forwards.’

Immediately after Barclay had hung up, Strike received a text from Littlejohn, saying that Bigfoot, who rarely went into his office, had chosen today to drive out to the company in Bishop’s Stortford, which lay forty miles away from where Strike was currently standing. Much as Strike had wanted to look Littlejohn in the face when asking him about the omission of Patterson Inc from his CV, he now decided it would be quickest and cleanest to do the job by phone, so called Littlejohn back.

‘Hi,’ said Littlejohn, on answering.

‘Forget the meeting at one,’ Strike told him. ‘We can talk now. Wanted to ask you why you didn’t tell me you worked for Mitch Patterson for three months, before coming to me.’

The immediate response to these words was silence. Strike waited, watching the Franks’ windows.

‘Who told you that?’ said Littlejohn at last.

‘Never mind who told me. Is it true?’

More silence.

‘Yeah,’ said Littlejohn at last.

‘Mind telling me why you didn’t mention it?’

The third long pause didn’t improve Strike’s temper.

‘Listen—’

‘I got the heave ho,’ said Littlejohn.

‘Why?’

‘Patterson didn’t like me.’

‘Why didn’t he?’

‘Dunno,’ said Littlejohn.

‘Did you fuck up?’

‘No… personality clash,’ said Littlejohn.

You haven’t got a fucking personality, though.

‘There was a row, was there?’

‘No,’ said Littlejohn. ‘He just told me he didn’t need me any more.’

Strike was certain there was something he wasn’t being told.

‘There’s another thing,’ he said. ‘What were you doing at the office on Easter Monday?’

‘Receipts,’ said Littlejohn.

‘Pat was off. It was a bank holiday. Nobody should’ve been at the office.’

‘I forgot,’ said Littlejohn.

Strike stood with his phone pressed to his ear, thinking. His gut was issuing a warning, but his brain reminded him they wouldn’t be able to cover all present cases without Littlejohn.

‘I need this job,’ said Littlejohn, speaking unprompted for the first time. ‘The kids are getting settled. I’ve got a mortgage to pay.’

‘I don’t like dishonesty,’ said Strike, ‘and that includes lying by omission.’

‘I didn’t want you thinking I couldn’t handle the work.’

Still frowning, Strike said,

‘Consider this a verbal warning. Any more hiding anything from me, and you’re out.’

‘Understood,’ said Littlejohn. ‘I won’t.’

Strike hung up. Difficult as it was to find new subcontractors of the required quality, he thought he might need to start looking again. Whatever lay behind Littlejohn’s failure to mention his time at Patterson Inc, Strike’s experience in managing people, inside the army and out, had taught him that where there was one lie, there were almost certain to be more.

The phone in his hand now rang. Answering, he heard Pat’s deep, gravelly voice.

‘I’ve got a Colonel Edward Graves on the phone for you.’

‘Put him through,’ said Strike, who’d left a message for Alexander Graves’ parents on an old-fashioned answering machine on Monday morning.

‘Hello?’ said an elderly male voice.

‘Good morning, Colonel Graves,’ said Strike. ‘Cormoran Strike here. Thanks for calling me back.’

‘You’re the detective, yes?’

The voice, which was distinctly upper class, was also suspicious.

‘That’s right. I was hoping I could talk to you about the Universal Humanitarian Church and your son, Alexander.’

‘Yes, so you said in your message. Why?’

‘I’ve been hired by someone who’s trying to get a relative out of the church.’

‘Well, we can’t advise them,’ said the colonel bitterly.

Deciding not to tell Graves that he already knew how badly wrong the plan to extract Alexander had gone, Strike said,

‘I also wondered whether you’d be prepared to talk to me about your granddaughter, Daiyu.’

In the background, Strike heard an elderly female voice, though the words were indistinguishable. Colonel Graves said ‘Gimme a minute, Baba,’ before saying to Strike,

‘We hired a detective ourselves. Man called O’Connor. Do you know him?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Might have retired… all right. We’ll talk to you.’

Taken aback, Strike said,

‘That’s very good of you. I understand you’re in Norfolk?’

‘Garvestone Hall. You can find us on any map.’

‘Would next week suit you?’

Colonel Graves agreed that it would, and a meeting was arranged for the following Tuesday.

As Strike was putting his phone back into his pocket, he saw a sight he hadn’t expected. Both Frankenstein brothers had just emerged from their block of flats, as shabbily dressed as ever, wearing wigs that partially disguised their high foreheads, yet easily recognisable to Strike, who’d become familiar with both their limited stock of clothing and their slightly shambling walks. Intrigued by this paltry effort at disguise, Strike followed them to a bus stop, where after a ten-minute wait, the brothers boarded the number 301 bus. They ascended to the upper deck while Strike remained on the lower, texting Midge to say the Franks were on the move, and that he’d let her know where to meet him to take over surveillance.

Forty-five minutes later, the Franks disembarked at the Beresford Square stop in Woolwich, Strike in pursuit, his eyes on the backs of the badly fitting wigs. After walking for a while, the brothers paused to don gloves, then entered a Sports Direct. Strike had a hunch that the decision not to go to a sports shop nearer their home was part of the same misguided attempt at subterfuge that had made them don wigs, so after texting Midge their current location, he followed them into the shop.

While he hadn’t classified either of the brothers as geniuses, he was rapidly revising his estimate of their intelligence downwards. The younger brother kept glancing up at the security cameras. At one point his wig slipped and he straightened it. They ambled with studied nonchalance around the store, picking up random objects and showing them to each other, before making their way to the climbing section. Strike now started taking photos.

After a whispered conversation, the Franks selected a heavy length of rope. A muttered disagreement then ensued, apparently over the merits of two different mallets. Finally they selected a rubber one, then headed for the checkout, paid for the goods, then ambled out of the store, unwieldly packages under their arms, Strike in pursuit. Shortly afterwards, the brothers came to rest in a McDonald’s. Strike felt it inadvisable to follow them in there, so he skulked on the street watching the entrance. He’d just texted Midge to update her when his phone rang yet again, this time from an unknown number.

‘Cormoran Strike.’

‘Yeah,’ said an aggressive male voice. ‘What d’you want?’

‘Who’s this?’ Strike asked. He could hear background clanging and male voices.

‘Jordan Reaney. My sister says you’ve been pestering my fucking family.’

‘There’s been no pestering,’ said Strike. ‘I called your ex-wife to see wheth—’

‘She’s not my fucking ex, she’s me wife, so why’re you pestering her?’

‘There was no pestering,’ repeated Strike. ‘I was trying to get a message to you, because I wanted to talk to you about the UHC.’

‘The fuck for?’

‘Because I’m conducting an investi—’

‘You keep the fuck away from my wife and my sister, all right?’

‘I’ve got no intention of going near either of them. Would you be prepar—?’

‘I’ve got nuffing to fucking say about nuffing, all right?’ said Reaney, now almost shouting.

‘Not even pigs?’ asked Strike.

‘What the fuck – why pigs? Who’s talked about fucking pigs?’

‘Your wife told me you have nightmares about pigs.’

A presentiment made Strike move the mobile slightly away from his ear. Sure enough, Reaney began to bellow.

‘THE FUCK DID SHE TELL YOU THAT FOR? I’LL FUCKING BREAK YOUR LEGS IF YOU GO TALKING TO MY FUCKING WIFE AGAIN, YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKING—’

There ensued a series of loud bangs. Strike surmised that Reaney was bashing the handset of the prison phone against the wall. A second man yelled, ‘OI, REANEY!’ Scuffling noises followed. The line went dead.

Strike put his mobile back into his pocket. For a full ten minutes he stood vaping and thinking, watching the door of the McDonald’s. Finally, he pulled out his phone again and called his old friend Shanker.

‘Awright Bunsen?’ said the familiar voice, answering after a couple of rings.

‘How’s Angel?’ asked Strike.

‘Started treatment last week,’ said Shanker.

‘Did she get to see her dad?’

‘Yeah. He didn’t wanna – cunt – but I persuaded ’im.’

‘Good,’ said Strike. ‘Listen, I need a favour.’

‘Name it,’ said Shanker.

‘It’s about a guy called Kurt Jordan Reaney.’

‘And?’

‘I was hoping we could talk about that face to face,’ said Strike. ‘Would you be free later today? I can come to you.’

Shanker being amenable, they agreed to meet later that afternoon in an East End café well known to both of them, and Strike hung up.

33

Slight digressions from the good cannot be avoided…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Having handed over surveillance of the Franks to Midge, Strike took the Tube to Bethnal Green station. He’d gone barely ten yards along the road when his ever-busy phone vibrated in his pocket. Drawing aside to let other people pass, he saw yet another text from Bijou Watkins.

You less busy yet? Cos here’s what you’re missing.

She’d attached two photographs of herself in lingerie, taken with a mobile in the mirror. Strike gave these only a cursory glance before closing then deleting the message. He had no intention of ever meeting her again, but those photographs might tend to weaken his resolve, because she looked undeniably fabulous in a bright red bra, suspender belt and stockings.

Pellicci’s, which lay on Bethnal Green Road, was an East End institution: a small, century-old Italian-run café where the art deco wooden panels gave the incongruous feeling of eating chips in a compartment on the Orient Express. Strike chose a corner seat with his back to the wall, ordered coffee, then reached for an abandoned copy of the Daily Mail a previous diner had left lying on the table beside his.

Skipping the usual discussion of the Brexit referendum, he paused on page five, where there was a large picture of Charlotte with Landon Dormer, both of them holding glasses of champagne and laughing. The caption informed him that Charlotte and her boyfriend had attended a fundraising dinner for Dormer’s charitable foundation. The story below hinted at a possible engagement.

Strike studied this picture far longer than he’d looked at Bijou’s. Charlotte was wearing a long, clinging gold dress and looked entirely carefree, one thin arm resting on Dormer’s shoulder, her long black hair styled in waves. Had she lied about having cancer, or was she putting on a brave face? He scrutinised the lantern-jawed Dormer, who also looked untroubled. Strike was still examining the picture when a voice above him said,

‘Wotcha, Bunsen.’

‘Shanker,’ said Strike, tossing the paper back onto the neighbouring table and extending a hand, which Shanker shook before sitting down.

Gaunt and pale, Shanker had grown a beard since Strike had last seen him, which disguised most of the deep scar that gave him a permanent sneer. He was wearing ill-fitting jeans and a baggy grey sweatshirt. Tattoos covered his wrists, knuckles and neck.

‘You ill?’ he demanded of Strike.

‘No, why?’

‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘That’s intentional.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Shanker, now rapidly clicking his fingers, a tic he’d had as long as Strike had known him.

‘Want anything?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah, I could do a coffee,’ said Shanker. Once this had been ordered, Shanker asked, ‘What d’you want wiv Reaney, then?’

‘D’you know him personally?’

‘I know ’oo ’e is,’ said Shanker, whose extensive knowledge of organised crime in London would have shamed the Met. ‘Used to run wiv the Vincent firm. I ’eard about the job ’e got banged up for. Silly cunts nearly killed that bookie.’

‘Would you happen to know where he is?’

‘Yeah, HMP Bedford. Got a couple of mates in there right now, as it goes.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that. Reaney’s got information that might help one of our investigations, but he isn’t being cooperative.’

Shanker seemed unsurprised at the turn the conversation had taken. The waitress now set down Shanker’s coffee in front of him. Strike thanked her, as Shanker seemed to have no intention of doing it, then waited until she’d moved away before asking,

‘How much?’

‘Nah, you can ’ave this one on me. You ’elped me out wiv Angel’s fing.’

‘Cheers, Shanker. Appreciate it.’

‘That it?’

‘Yeah, but I wanted your opinion about something else.’

‘I want somefing to eat, then,’ said Shanker, looking around restlessly. ‘Wait there.’

‘The menu’s here,’ said Strike, pushing the card towards Shanker. He had longstanding knowledge of his companion’s usual way of getting what he wanted, which was to demand, then threaten, irrespective of whether his request was possible to fulfil. Shanker brushed the menu away.

‘Wanna bacon roll.’

Having ordered, Shanker turned back to Strike.

‘What else?’

‘There was a shooting last year in Canning Town. Guy by the name of Kevin Pirbright, shot through the head with the same make of gun used in two previous drug-related shootings. The police found drugs and cash in his flat. Their theory is, he ran afoul of a local dealer, but personally, I think they’re working backwards from the gun that was used.

‘The dead guy grew up in a church,’ Strike continued. ‘I doubt he’d know where to get his hands on drugs, let alone start dealing in quantities to disrupt local drug lords. I wondered what your take was – professionally speaking.’

‘What kinda gun?’

‘Beretta 9000.’

‘Popular shooter,’ said Shanker with a shrug.

‘It’s your manor, Canning Town. Have you heard anything about a young bloke getting shot in his flat?’

Shanker’s roll arrived. Once again, Strike thanked the waitress in the absence of any recognition from Shanker. The latter took a large mouthful of bacon roll, then said,

‘Nope.’

Strike knew perfectly well that if the hit on Pirbright had been carried out by a colleague of Shanker’s, the latter was hardly likely to admit it. On the other hand, he’d have expected some retaliatory aggression if Strike seemed to be prodding around in Shanker’s associates’ affairs, which wasn’t forthcoming.

‘So you think—?’

‘Frame-up, innit,’ said Shanker, still chewing. ‘Sure it’s not some bent pig?’

Strike, who was inured to Shanker’s tendency to attribute half the wrongdoing in London to corrupt police, said,

‘Can’t see why the force would want this particular bloke dead.’

‘Could’ve ’ad somefing on a pig, couldn’ ’e? Me auntie still finks it was a copper what shot Duwayne.’

Strike remembered Shanker’s cousin Duwayne who, like Pirbright, had been shot, his killer never caught. Doubtless it was easiest for Shanker’s aunt to lay one more death at the Met’s door, given that her other son had died in a high-speed chase with police. At least half of Shanker’s sprawling family were engaged in some level of criminal activity. As Duwayne had been in a gang from the age of thirteen, Strike thought there were plenty of people more likely to have executed him than the police, an opinion he was tactful enough not to express.

‘The people Pirbright had stuff on definitely weren’t police.’

He was trying to convince himself he didn’t want a bacon roll. Shanker’s smelled very good.

‘Reaney’s scared of pigs,’ Strike said. ‘The animal, I mean.’

‘Yeah?’ said Shanker, mildly interested. ‘Don’t fink we’re gonna be able to smuggle a pig into Bedford, Bunsen.’

As Strike laughed, his mobile rang yet again and he saw Lucy’s number.

‘Hi Luce, what’s up?’

‘Stick, Ted’s got a GP appointment for a week Friday.’

‘OK,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Really?’ said Lucy, and he heard her incredulity that, for once, he wasn’t saying he’d check his diary or being irritable about being asked to commit to a date.

‘Yeah, I told you, I’ll be there. What time?’

‘Ten o’clock.’

‘OK, I’ll get down there Thursday,’ said Strike, ‘and I’ll ring Ted and tell him I’m coming with him.’

‘This is so good of you, Stick.’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Strike, whose conscience continued to trouble him after Lucy’s recent revelations. ‘Least I can do. Listen, I’m in the middle of something. I’ll call you later, OK?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Lucy rang off.

‘Everyfing awright?’ asked Shanker.

‘Yeah,’ said Strike, slipping his phone back in his pocket. ‘Well, my uncle might have dementia, I don’t know. My mum’s brother,’ he added.

‘Yeah?’ said Shanker. ‘Sorry to ’ear that. Fuckin’ bitch, dementia. My old man ’ad it.’

‘Didn’t know that,’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Shanker. ‘Early onset. Last time I saw ’im, ’e never ’ad a clue ’oo I was. Mind you, ’e ’ad that many kids, he could ’ardly remember ’oo I was even when ’e weren’t senile, randy old fucker. Why ’aven’t you ’ad any kids?’ asked Shanker, as though the thought had only just occurred to him.

‘Don’t want them,’ said Strike.

‘You don’ wan’ kids?’ said Shanker, his tone suggesting this was akin to not wanting to breathe.

‘No,’ said Strike.

‘You miserable bastard,’ said Shanker, contemplating Strike with incredulity. ‘Kids is wha’ it’s all abou’. Fuckin’ ’ell, look at your mum. You free was everyfing to ’er.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike automatically. ‘Well—’

‘You should see fuckin’ Alyssa, wiv Angel bein’ ill. That’s fuckin’ love, man.’

‘Yeah – well, give her my best, OK? And Angel.’

Strike got to his feet, bill in his hand.

‘Cheers for this, Shanker. I’d better get going. Got a lot of work on.’

Having paid for the coffees and the bacon roll, Strike headed back up Bethnal Green Road, lost in not entirely productive thought.

You free was everyfing to ’er.

Strike never thought of Leda as having had three children, but his old friend had reminded him of the existence of somebody whom Strike probably thought about once a year at most: the much younger half-brother who’d been the product of his mother’s marriage to her killer. The boy, who’d been given the predictably eccentric name Switch by his parents, had been born shortly before Strike left for Oxford University. The latter had felt literally nothing for the squalling baby, even as a beaming Leda insisted her older son hold his brother. Strike’s most vivid memory of that time was his own feeling of dread at leaving Leda in the squat with her increasingly erratic and aggressive husband. The baby had been merely an additional complication, forever tainted in Strike’s eyes by being Whittaker’s son. His half-brother had just turned one when Leda died, and had then been adopted by his paternal grandparents.

He felt no curiosity about Switch’s current whereabouts and no desire to meet or know him. As far as he knew, Lucy felt the same way. But then Strike corrected himself: he didn’t know how Lucy felt. Perhaps Switch was one of the half-siblings with whom she maintained contact, hiding this from the elder brother who’d arrogantly assumed he knew everything about her.

Strike re-entered Bethnal Green station, burdened with guilt and unease. He’d have called Robin had she been available, not to bore her with his personal problems, but to let her know Shanker was prepared to help loosen Jordan Reaney’s tongue, that Shanker, too, thought the police were wrong about Pirbright’s murder, and that the Frank brothers had gone out in disguise to buy rope. Once again, the fact that she was unavailable, and likely to be so for the foreseeable future, made him realise just how much the sound of her voice generally raised his spirits. He was ever more conscious of how much he, the most self-sufficient of men, had come to rely on the fact that she was always there, and always on his side.

34

It is a question of a fierce battle to break and to discipline the Devil’s Country, the forces of decadence.

But the struggle also has its reward. Now is the time to lay the foundations of power and mastery for the future.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin was craving solitude, sleep and food, but the routine at Chapman Farm was designed to give as little of all three as possible, and some recruits were starting to show the strain. Robin had witnessed green-haired Penny Brown being berated by Taio Wace for dropping some of the large pile of clean folded sheets she’d been carrying across the courtyard. Becca Pirbright ushered Fire Group quickly onwards towards the pig pen, but not in time to prevent them seeing Penny break down in sobs.

In subtle and not so subtle ways, an apocalyptic note began to creep into the critiques of materialism and social inequality with which new recruits were being bombarded. The lack of contact with the outside world served to heighten the sense of being in a bunker, with church members delivering regular bulletins on the horrors of the Syrian war and the slow death of the planet. A sense of increasing urgency permeated these briefings: only the awoken could possibly head off global catastrophe, because the bubble people were continuing, selfishly and apathetically, to hasten humanity’s doom.

Papa J and the UHC were now openly described as the world’s best hope. Though Wace hadn’t appeared since the first dinner, Robin knew he was still present at the farm because church members made frequent mention of the fact in hushed, reverent voices. The infrequency of his appearances seemed to fuel rather than quench his followers’ adoration. Robin assumed he was holed up in the farmhouse, eating separately from the mass of members who, in spite of the church’s stated allegiance to organically produced and ethically sourced food, ate meals largely composed of cheap dehydrated noodles, with small amounts of protein coming in the form of processed meat and cheese.

On Wednesday morning, Mazu Wace, who unlike her husband was often to be seen gliding through the courtyard, conducted a joint session in the temple with Fire Group and Wood Group. A circle of lacquered chairs had been placed on the central pentagon-shaped stage, and when all had taken their seats, Mazu gave a brief speech about the need for spiritual death and rebirth which, she said, could only take place once past pain and delusion had been accepted, healed or renounced. She then invited the group members to share injustices or cruelties perpetuated on them by family members, partners or friends.

After some prompting, people began to volunteer their stories. A young member of Wood Group called Kyle, who was thin and nervy-looking, gave a detailed account of his father’s furious reaction on hearing that his son was gay. As he told the group how his mother had sided with her husband against him, he broke down and cried. The rest of the group murmured support and sympathy while Mazu sat in silence, and when Kyle had finished his story, she summarised it while eradicating any words relating to familial relationships, substituting the terms ‘flesh object’ and ‘materialist possession’, then said,

‘Thank you for being brave enough to share your story, Kyle. Pure spirits are untouchable by materialist harms. I wish you a hasty death of the false self. When that’s gone, your hurt and your suffering will depart, also.’

One by one, the other group members began to talk. Some were clearly struggling with profound hurt caused by outside relationships, or the lack of them, but Robin couldn’t avoid the suspicion that some were dredging up and even exaggerating trauma, so as to fit in better with the group. When invited by Mazu to contribute, Robin told the story of her cancelled wedding and her family’s disappointment, and admitted that her fiancé’s abandonment had left her bereft, particularly as she’d given up her job to go travelling with him once they were husband and wife.

Those in the circle, many of whom were already tearful after sharing their own stories, offered commiseration and sympathy, but Mazu told Robin that placing importance on professions was to connive at systems of control perpetuated within the bubble world.

‘A sense of identity based on jobs, or any of the trappings of the bubble world, is inherently materialist,’ she said. ‘When we firmly reject the cravings of the ego and begin nourishing the spirit, hurts disappear and the true self can emerge, a self that will no longer care if flesh objects pass out of its life.’

Mazu turned last to a skinny girl with a heart-shaped face who’d remained conspicuously silent. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest and her legs were crossed, the upper foot hooked behind her lower.

‘Would you like to share with the group how you’ve suffered through materialist possession?’

In a voice that shook slightly, the girl replied:

‘I haven’t suffered anything.’

Mazu’s dark, crooked eyes contemplated her.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No, nothing.’

Robin judged the girl to be in her late teens. Her face was reddening slightly under the censorious scrutiny of the circle.

‘My family’s never done me any harm,’ she said. ‘I know some people here have had really awful things happen to them, but I haven’t. I haven’t,’ she repeated, with a shrug of her stiff shoulders.

Robin could feel the group’s animosity towards the girl as surely as if they’d declared it openly, and willed her not to speak again, to no avail.

‘And I don’t think it’s right to call, like, parents loving their kids “materialist possession”,’ she blurted out. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think it is.’

Several group members, including Amandeep, now spoke up at once. Mazu intervened, and gestured to Amandeep to continue alone.

‘There’s a power dynamic in all conventional family structures,’ he said. ‘You can’t deny there isn’t coercion and control, even if it’s well intentioned.’

‘Well, little children need boundaries,’ said the girl.

Most of the group now spoke up simultaneously, some of them clearly angry. Vivienne, the girl with spiky black hair who was usually at pains to sound as working class as possible, spoke loudest, and others fell silent to let her carry on.

‘What you call “boundaries” is the justification for abuse, right, in my family’s case it was abuse, and when you say fings like that, you don’t just invalidate the experiences of people who’ve been ’armed, actively ’armed, by their parents’ desire to control them –’ Kyle was vigorously nodding ‘– you’re perpetuating and propping up the same damn systems of control that some of us are trying to escape, OK? So you ’aven’t suffered, well, bully for you, but maybe listen and learn from people who have, OK?’

There was much muttering in agreement. Mazu said nothing, letting the group deal with the dissident themselves. For the first time, Robin thought she saw a genuine smile on the woman’s face.

The girl with the heart-shaped face was openly ostracised that afternoon by other members of Fire Group. Robin, who wished she could have muttered some words of kindness or support, copied the majority and ignored her.

Their twenty-four-hour fast began on Wednesday evening. Robin received only a cup of hot water flavoured with lemon at dinner time. Looking around at the other recruits, she realised that only Fire, Wood and Earth groups were undertaking the fast; Metal and Water groups had been served the usual slop of boiled vegetables and noodles. Robin thought it unlikely that Metal and Water groups could have failed Dr Zhou’s physical assessment en masse. From muttered comments uttered by her fellow fasters, some of whom were sitting nearby, Robin gathered they saw themselves as worthier than those being fed, seeming to consider the forthcoming twenty-four hours of enforced starvation a badge of honour.

Robin woke next day, which was the last of her seven-day retreat, after a few hours’ sleep that had been disrupted by the gnawing hunger pains in her stomach. Tonight was the night she was supposed to find the plastic rock at the boundary of the farm, the thought of which made her feel simultaneously excited and scared. She hadn’t yet attempted to leave her dormitory by night, and was apprehensive not only about being intercepted on the way to the woods, but finding her way to the right spot in the dark.

After breakfast, which for the three fasting groups consisted of another cup of hot water with lemon, all recruits were reunited for the second time since being sorted into groups on arrival, then led by church members into the left wing of the farmhouse. Inside was an empty, stone-paved room, in the middle of which was a steep wooden staircase leading into the basement.

Below lay a wood-panelled room that Robin thought must run almost the length of the farmhouse above. Two doors on the left-hand side showed the basement space extended even further than was currently visible. There was a stage at the opposite end from the staircase, in front of a screen almost as large as the one in the Rupert Court Temple. Subdued lighting came from spotlights and the floor was covered in rush matting. The recruits were instructed to sit down on the floor facing the stage, and Robin was irresistibly reminded of being back at primary school. Some of the recruits had difficulty complying with the order, including Walter Fernsby, who nearly toppled over onto his neighbour as he lowered himself in stiff and ungainly fashion onto the floor.

Once everyone was seated, the lights overhead were extinguished, leaving the stage spot lit.

Into the spotlight onstage stepped Jonathan Wace, clad in his long orange robes, handsome, long-haired, dimple-chinned and blue-eyed. Spontaneous applause broke out, not just from the church attendants, but also among the recruits. Robin could see the thrilled, blushing face of widowed Marion Huxley, who had such an obvious crush on Wace, through a gap to her left. Amandeep was one of those applauding hardest.

Jonathan smiled his usual self-deprecating smile, gestured to settle the crowd down, then pressed his hands together, bowed and said,

‘I thank you for your service.’

‘And I for yours,’ chorused the recruits, bowing back.

‘That’s no mere form of words,’ said Wace, smiling around at them all. ‘I’m sincerely grateful for what you’ve given us this week. You’ve sacrificed your time, energy and muscle power to help us run our farm. You’ve helped raise funds for our charitable work and begun to explore your own spirituality. Even if you go no further with us, you will have done real and lasting good – for us, for yourselves and for victims of the materialist world.

‘And now,’ said Wace, his smile fading, ‘let’s talk about that world.’

Ominous organ music began to play over hidden speakers. The screen behind Wace came to life. The recruits saw moving clips of heads of state, wealthy celebrities and government officials pass in succession across the screen as Wace began talking about the recently leaked confidential documents from an offshore law firm: the Panama Papers, which Robin had seen in the news before coming to Chapman Farm.

‘Fraud… kleptocracy… tax evasion… violation of international sanctions…’ said Wace, who was wearing a microphone. ‘The world’s grubby materialist elite stands exposed in all their duplicity, hiding the wealth, a fraction of which could solve most of the world’s problems…’

Onscreen, incriminated kings, presidents and prime ministers smiled and waved from podia. Famous actors beamed from red carpets and stages. Smartly suited businessmen waved away questions from journalists.

Wace began to talk fluently and furiously of hypocrisy, narcissism and greed. He contrasted public pronouncements with private behaviour. The eyes of the hungry, exhausted audience followed him as he strode backwards and forwards onstage. The room was hot and the rush-covered floor uncomfortable.

Next, a melancholy piano played over footage of homeless people begging at the entrances to London’s most expensive stores, then of children swollen-bellied and dying in Yemen, or torn and maimed by Syrian bombs. The sight of a small boy covered in blood and dust, shocked into an almost cataleptic state as he was lifted into an ambulance, made Robin’s eyes fill with tears. Wace, too, was crying.

Choral voices and kettle drums accompanied catastrophic footage of climate change and pollution: glaciers crumbling, polar bears struggling between melting ice floes, aerial views of the decimation of the rainforest, and now these images were intercut with flashbacks of the plutocrats in their cars and their boardrooms. Maimed children being carried from collapsed buildings were contrasted with images of celebrity weddings costing millions; selfies from private planes were followed by heartrending images of Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami. The shadowy faces around Robin were stupefied and in many cases tearful, and Wace was no longer the mild-spoken, self-deprecating man they’d first met, but was shouting in fury, raging at the screen and the world’s venality.

‘And all of this, all of it, could be stopped if only enough people could be woken from the slumber in which they are walking to their doom!’ he bellowed. ‘The Adversary and his agents stalk the world, which must awake from its slumber or perish! And who will wake them, if we don’t?’

The music slowly died away. The images faded from the screen. Now Wace stood breathless, apparently spent by his long speech, his face tearstained, his voice hoarse.

‘You,’ he said weakly, stretching out his hands to those seated on the floor in front of him, ‘were called. You were chosen. And today you have a choice. Rejoin the system, or stand apart. Stand apart and fight.

‘There will now be a short break,’ said Wace, as the lights began to brighten. ‘No – no,’ he said, as a smattering of applause broke out. ‘There’s nothing to be happy about in what I’ve just shown you. Nothing.’

Cowed, the applauders desisted. Robin was desperate for a breath of fresh air, but as Wace disappeared, church attendants opened a door on the left onto a second panelled, windowless room, in which cold food had been laid out.

The new space was comparatively cramped. The door onto the lecture room had been closed, increasing the feeling of claustrophobia. Fasters were directed to a table bearing flasks of hot water and lemon slices. Some recruits chose to sit down with their backs against the wall while eating their sandwiches or sipping their hot water. Queues formed for two more doors leading to toilets. Robin was certain they’d been in the lecture room for the entire morning. The girl with the heart-shaped face, who’d challenged Mazu the previous day in the temple, was sitting in a corner with her head in her arms. Robin was concerned about Walter, the philosophy professor, who appeared unsteady on his feet, his face white and sweaty.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked him quietly as he leaned up against the wall.

‘Fine, fine,’ he said, smiling while clutching his mug. ‘The spirit remains strong!’

Eventually, the door to the lecture room was opened again. It was already dark, and people stumbled and whispered apologies as they tried to find a free place to sit.

When at last all were settled back on the floor, Jonathan Wace stepped out into the spotlight once more. Robin was glad to see him smiling. She really didn’t want to be harangued any further.

‘You’ve earned a reprieve,’ said Wace, to a ripple of relieved laughter from his audience. ‘It’s time to meditate and chant. Take up a comfortable position. A deep breath. Raise your arms over your head on an in breath… lower them slowly… release the breath. And: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu…’

Thought was impossible while chanting; Robin’s feelings of fear, guilt and horror gradually subsided; she felt herself dissolving into the deafening chant, which echoed off the wooden walls, taking on its own power, existing independently of the chanters, a disembodied force that vibrated within the walls and within her own body.

The chanting went on longer than they’d ever chanted before. She could feel her mouth becoming dry and was dimly aware that she felt close to fainting, but somehow the chant sustained her, holding her up, enabling her to bear the hunger and the pain.

At long last Wace called a halt, smiling down at them all, and Robin, though weak, and uncomfortably hot, was left with the feeling of well-being and euphoria chanting always gave her.

‘You,’ said Wace quietly, his voice now more hoarse and cracked than ever, ‘are remarkable.’

And in spite of herself, Robin felt an irrational pride in Wace’s approval.

‘Extraordinary people,’ said Wace, walking up and down in front of them again. ‘And you have no idea of it, do you?’ he said, smiling down into the upturned faces. ‘You don’t realise what you are. A truly remarkable group of recruits. We’ve noticed it from the moment you arrived. Church members have told me, “These are special. These might be the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

‘The world teeters on a precipice. It’s ten to midnight and Armageddon beckons. The Adversary may be winning, but the Blessed Divinity hasn’t given up on us yet. The proof? They sent you to us – and with you, we might have a chance.

‘They have spoken to you already, by the means at Their disposal, through the noise of the materialist world. That’s why you’re here.

‘But you’ve breathed pure air this week. The clatter has died away and you see and hear more clearly than you have. Now is the time for a sign from the Divinity. Now is the moment for you to truly see. To truly understand.’

Wace dropped to his knees. He closed his eyes. As the recruits watched, transfixed, he said in a ringing voice,

‘Blessed Divinity, if it pleases You, send us Your messenger. Let the Drowned Prophet come to us, here, and prove there is life after death, that the pure spirit lives independently of the material body, that the reward for a life of service is life eternal. Blessed Divinity, I believe these people are worthy. Send Daiyu to us now.’

The silence in the dark, hot room was total. Wace’s eyes were still closed.

‘Blessed Divinity,’ he whispered, ‘let her come.’

A collective gasp issued from the watchers.

The transparent head of a girl had appeared out of thin air on stage. She was smiling.

Alarmed, Robin looked over her shoulder, looking for a projector, but there was no beam of light and the wall was solid. She faced the front again, her heart beating rapidly.

The smiling spectral figure was growing a body. She had long black hair and wore a long white dress. She raised a hand and waved childishly at the crowd. A few people waved back. Most looked terrified.

Wace opened his eyes.

‘You came to us,’ he said.

Daiyu turned slowly to face him. They could see right through her, to Wace kneeling behind her, smiling through his tears.

‘Thank you,’ Wace told her, through a sob. ‘I don’t call you back for selfish reasons, you know that… although seeing you…’

He swallowed.

‘Daiyu,’ he whispered, ‘are they ready?’

Daiyu turned slowly back to face the crowd. Her eyes travelled over the recruits. She smiled and nodded.

‘I thought so,’ said Wace. ‘Go well, little one.’

Daiyu raised a hand to her mouth and appeared to blow a kiss to the recruits. Slowly, she began to fade from sight, until for a brief moment only her face shone in the darkness. Then she vanished.

The watchers were utterly still. Nobody spoke, nobody turned to their neighbour to talk of what they’d just seen. Wace got to his feet, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his robe.

‘She returns from Paradise when she knows we need her. She humours her foolish Papa J. She realises you’re too special to let slip away. Now,’ said Wace quietly, ‘please follow me to temple.’

35

Nine at the top…

One attains the way of heaven.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The recruits got to their feet as the lights went up. Wace descended and walked through them, pausing here and there to greet certain people by name, even though he’d never been introduced to them. Those who were so honoured looked stunned.

‘Rowena,’ he said, smiling at Robin. ‘I’ve heard wonderful things about you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Robin weakly, letting him clasp both her hands in his.

People around Robin looked at her with envy and increased respect as Wace walked on, leading the way back up the stairs into the farmhouse.

The recruits followed him. As Robin neared the top of the stairs, she saw sunset through the windows: they’d spent the entire day in the dark, stuffy room. She was aching with hunger, and her body was sore from physical labour and from sitting on the uncomfortable floor.

Then the sound of loud rock music reached her ears, blasting out of speakers in the courtyard. Church members had formed two lines, making a path between farmhouse and temple, and were singing and clapping along with the song. As Robin emerged into the damp evening air the chorus began.

I don’t need no one to tell me ’bout heaven

I look at my daughter, and I believe…

Robin walked with her fellow recruits between the rows of singing church members. Spots of rain hit her and she heard thunder rumbling over the music.

Sometimes it’s hard to breathe, Lord,

At the bottom of the sea, yeah yeah…

Wace led the recruits up the steps into the temple, which was now illuminated by many lamps and candles.

The central pentagonal stage had become a five-sided pool. Robin realised that the pool had been there all along, beneath a heavy black lid. The water beneath looked jet black due to the dark sides. Mazu stood facing them, reflected as though in a dark mirror. She was no longer wearing orange, but a long white robe matching that of her daughter on the ceiling above. Now Wace climbed the steps to stand beside her.

The rock song finished after everyone, church members as well as recruits, had entered the temple. The doors closed with a loud bang. Those who’d led the recruits into the farmhouse instructed them in whispers to remain standing facing the pool, then filed into the surrounding seats.

Hollow with hunger, aching, sweaty and emotionally wrung out, Robin could only think that the cool water looked inviting. It would be wonderful to sink beneath the surface, to experience a few moments of solitude and peace.

‘Tonight,’ said Jonathan Wace, ‘you have a free choice. Remain with us, or rejoin the materialist world. Which of you will step forwards and enter the pool? Be reborn tonight. Cleanse yourself of the false self. Step out of the purifying water as your true self. Which of you is prepared to take this first, essential step towards pure spirit?’

Nobody moved for a second or two. Then Amandeep pushed past Robin.

‘I will.’

The watching church members exploded into cheers and applause. Jonathan and Mazu held out their arms, beaming. Amandeep walked forwards, ascended the steps at the side of the pool, and Jonathan and Mazu gave him unheard instructions. He took off his trainers and socks, then stepped forwards into the pool, sank briefly beneath the surface before reappearing, his glasses askew, but laughing. The cheers and applause of the church members echoed around the temple as Jonathan and Mazu helped the sodden Amandeep climb out on the other side, his tracksuit now heavy with water. He collected his trainers and socks and was led away by a pair of church members through a door at the back of the temple.

Kyle was the next into the pool. He received the same rapturous reaction when he re-emerged from the pool.

Robin decided she didn’t want to wait any longer, and sidled through the other recruits to reach the front of the group.

‘I want to join,’ she said, to a further eruption of cheers.

She walked forwards, climbed the steps and took off her socks and trainers. At a sign from Jonathan, she stepped into the surprisingly deep pool and let herself sink into the cold water. Her feet found the bottom and she pushed upwards again, and the glorious silence was shattered as she broke the surface to loud clapping and shouts of approval.

Jonathan Wace helped her out. Now weighed down in her soaking wet tracksuit, hair in her eyes, Robin was handed her socks and trainers by a smiling Taio Wace, who escorted her personally to the back of the temple and through a door into an anteroom where Amandeep and Kyle were already dressed in clean, dry tracksuits and towelling off their hair, both evidently elated. More clean, folded tracksuits lay waiting on wooden benches that ran around the walls. Opposite lay a door that Robin knew must lead outside.

‘Here,’ said the smiling Taio, handing Robin a towel. ‘Take a tracksuit and change.’

Amandeep and Kyle both looked courteously away as Robin peeled off her top, very conscious that her underwear, too, was soaking wet, but Taio watched openly, smirking.

‘How many more d’you think will join?’ Amandeep asked Taio.

‘We’ll see,’ said Taio, not taking his eyes off Robin as she sat down, trying to remove her wet tracksuit bottoms and pull on dry ones without anyone seeing how translucent her pants had become. ‘We need all the people we can get. This is a fight of good against evil, pure and simple… better get back,’ Taio added, as Robin, now dressed, began pulling on her socks.

‘I can’t believe this,’ said the breathless Amandeep, as the door closed behind Taio. ‘I came here thinking, “This place is crazy. It’s a cult.” I was gonna write an article for my student paper. And now… I’ve joined the damn cult.’

He began to laugh uncontrollably and so did Kyle and Robin.

Over the next half hour, more and more people entered the room in a similar condition of near hysterical laughter. Walter Fernsby came in, a little tottery and shaken, followed immediately by Penny Brown, whose green hair was plastered around her face like algae. Marion Huxley appeared, shivering, apparently disorientated, but also inclined to giggle. Soon the changing room was packed with people excitedly discussing the materialisation of Daiyu in the basement, and their own pride at having joined the church.

Then came ten minutes when nobody else appeared. After taking a quick, silent headcount, Robin estimated that there were half a dozen hold-outs, including the girl with the heart-shaped face who’d refused to criticise her family to Fire Group, and Penny’s blonde friend. Indeed, Penny was looking around anxiously, no longer laughing. A further ten minutes passed, and then a door to the outside was opened by Will Edensor.

‘This way,’ he said, and he led the new church members out of the temple and towards the dining hall.

It was dark now and gooseflesh crept up Robin’s body and under her still-wet hair. Penny Brown was still looking around anxiously for the friend who’d come with her to Chapman Farm.

The newly joined church members entered the dining room to a standing ovation from the church members who’d left the temple ahead of them. Evidently there’d been a lot of activity during the hours the recruits had been shut way in the basement beneath the farmhouse, because scarlet and gold paper lanterns of the kind that swung in the breeze in Wardour Street had been strung from the rafters and an appetising smell of cooked meat filled the air. Kitchen workers were already moving between the tables, wheeling their enormous metal vats.

Robin dropped into the nearest free seat and gulped down some of the tap water already poured in a plastic cup in front of her.

‘Congratulations,’ said a quiet voice behind her, and she saw shaven-headed Louise, who was pushing along a vat of what smelled like chicken curry, which she now ladled onto Robin’s tin plate, adding a couple of spoonfuls of rice.

‘Thank you,’ said Robin gratefully. Louise smiled weakly, then moved away.

Although it wasn’t the best curry in the world, this was certainly the most appetising and filling meal Robin had been given since her arrival at Chapman Farm, and contained by far the most protein. She was eating fast, so desperate for calories she couldn’t pace herself. Once the curry was finished she was given a bowl of yoghurt mixed with honey, which was the best thing she’d tasted all week.

An air of festivity filled the hall. There was far more laughter than usual and Robin guessed that this comparative feast was the reason. Robin now noticed that Noli Seymour had joined the top table, dressed in orange robes, and for the first time Robin realised that the actress must be a church Principal. Beside Noli sat two middle-aged men, also in orange robes. Upon enquiry, the young man sitting beside Robin told her that one was a multi-millionaire who’d made his fortune in packaging, and the other was an MP. Robin stored up both men’s names for her letter to Strike.

Jonathan and Mazu Wace entered the dining hall to renewed cheers after most people had finished eating. There was no sign of the girl with the heart-shaped face, or the other recruits who hadn’t entered the pool, and Robin wondered where they’d gone, whether they were being held somewhere without food, and whether the Waces’ prolonged absence had been due to a last attempt at persuasion.

She dreaded the prospect of another Wace speech, but instead music started up out of loudspeakers again as the Waces took their seats, and with a wave of his hand, Wace seemed to indicate that informality was now permitted, that the party should begin. An old REM song blasted across the dining hall, and some church members, now full of meat for the first time in who knew how long, got up to dance.

It’s the end of the world as we know it

And I feel fine…

36

Nine in the third place means:

A halted retreat

Is nerve-wracking and dangerous.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The party had been going on for at least two hours. Jonathan Wace had descended from the top table to screams of excitement, and begun to dance with some of the teenage girls. The packaging millionaire also got up to dance, moving like somebody whose joints needed oiling, and inserting himself into the group around Wace. Robin remained sitting on her wooden bench, forcing a smile but wanting nothing more than to get back to the dormitory. The ingestion of a proper meal after her fast, the loud music, the ache of her muscles after a long day sitting on the hard floor: all were exacerbating her exhaustion.

At last she heard the opening bars of ‘Heroes’ and knew the evening was about to end, as surely as if she’d heard the start of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. She was careful to sing along and look happy, and was rewarded when at last everyone began to file back to the dormitories through the rain that had begun to fall while they were eating, except for the drudges like Louise who were left behind to clean up the tables.

In spite of her bone-deep tiredness, that part of Robin’s mind that kept reminding her why she was there told her that tonight would be her best opportunity to find the plastic stone. Everyone at the farm had just enjoyed an atypically filling meal and would be more likely to fall asleep quickly. Sure enough, the women around her undressed quickly, pulling on pyjamas, scribbling in their journals, then falling into bed.

Robin made a brief entry in her own journal then put on her pyjamas too, leaving on the underwear that was still slightly damp. Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, she got into bed with her socks and trainers still on, hiding her tracksuit under the covers. After ten minutes, the lights, which were controlled by a master switch somewhere, finally went out.

Robin lay in the darkness, listening to the rain, forcing herself to stay awake even though her eyelids kept drooping. Soon snores and slow, heavy breathing could be heard over the patter on the windows. She daren’t wait too long, nor did she dare try and extricate her waterproof jacket from under her bed. Trying not to rustle her sheets, she succeeded in pulling her tracksuit back on over her pyjamas. Then, slowly and carefully, she slid out of bed and crept towards the dormitory door, ready to tell anyone who woke that she was on her way to the bathroom.

She opened the door cautiously. There were no electric lights in the deserted courtyard, although Daiyu’s pool and fountain glinted in the moonlight and a single lit window shone from the upper floor of the farmhouse.

Robin felt her way around the side of the building and along the strip of ground between the women’s and men’s dormitories, her hair becoming rapidly wetter in the rain. By the time she reached the end of the passage her eyes had somewhat acclimatised to the darkness. Her objective was the patch of dense woodland visible from the dormitory’s window, which lay beyond a small field which none of the recruits had yet entered.

Trees and shrubs had been planted at the end of the passageway between the dormitories, which screened the field from view. As she made her way carefully through this thicket, trying not to trip over roots, she saw light and paused between bushes.

She’d found more Retreat Rooms, such as she’d seen from Dr Zhou’s office, screened from the dormitories by careful planting. Through the bushes, she could see light shining from behind curtains which had been pulled across the sliding glass doors of one of them. Robin feared that someone might be about to walk out of it, or peer outside. She waited for a minute, pondering her options, then decided to risk it. Leaving the shelter of the trees, she crept on, passing within ten yards of the cabin.

It was then that she realised there was no danger of anyone leaving the Retreat Room immediately. Rhythmic thumps and grunts were issuing from it, along with small squeals that might have been pleasure or pain. Robin hurried on.

A five-bar gate separated the field from the planted area where the Retreat Rooms stood. Robin decided to climb this rather than attempt to open it. Once she’d reached the other side she set off at a jog, the wet ground squelching beneath her feet, consumed by barely controlled panic. If there were night vision cameras covering the farm, she’d be detected any moment; the agency might have taken a careful survey of the perimeter, but they’d had no way of knowing what surveillance technology was used inside. Her rational self kept telling her she’d seen no sign of cameras anywhere, yet the fear dogged her she hurried towards the deeper darkness that was the wood.

Reaching the shelter of the trees was a relief, but now another kind of fear gripped her. She seemed to see again the smiling, transparent form of Daiyu as she’d appeared in the basement a few hours previously.

It was a trick, she told herself. You know it was a trick.

But she didn’t understand how it had been done, and it was only too easy to believe in ghosts when struggling blindly through overgrown woodland, nettles and over more twisted roots, with the crack of twigs underfoot sounding as loud as gunshots in the still of the night and rain beating down on the tree canopy overhead.

Robin couldn’t tell whether she was going in the right direction, because in the absence of any passing cars couldn’t be sure where the road was. She blundered on for ten minutes until, with a whoosh and a sweep of light, a car did indeed pass on the road to her right and she realised she was some twenty yards from the perimeter.

It took her nearly half an hour to find the small clearing Barclay had cut just inside the perimeter wall, with its heavy reinforcement of barbed wire. Crouching down, she groped around on the ground and at long last her fingers felt something unnaturally warm and smooth. She lifted the plastic rock out of the patch of weeds where it had lain and pulled the two halves apart with shaking hands.

Turning on the pencil torch, she saw the pen, paper and a note in Strike’s familiar handwriting, and her heart leapt as though she’d seen him in person. She’d just removed his message when she heard voices in the wood behind her.

Terrified, Robin turned off the torch and flung herself flat to the ground in the nearest patch of nettles, shielding her face as best she could with her arms, certain the pounding of her heart would be audible to whoever had followed her. Expecting a shout or a demand to show herself, she heard nothing at all except footsteps. Then a girl spoke.

‘I th-th-thought I saw a light just then.’

Robin lay very still and closed her eyes, as though that would somehow make her less visible.

‘Moonlight on the wire, probably,’ said a male voice. ‘Go on. What did you want to—?’

‘I n-n-need you to m-m-make me increase again.’

‘Lin… I can’t.’

‘You’ve g-g-got to,’ said the girl, who sounded on the verge of tears. ‘Or I-I-I’ll have t-t-t-t-to go with him again. I c-c-can’t, Will. I c-c-c-c—’

She started to cry.

‘Shh!’ said Will frantically.

Robin heard a rustle of fabric and murmuring. She guessed that Will had put his arms around Lin, whose sobs now sounded muffled.

‘Why c-c-c—’

‘You know why,’ he whispered.

‘They’re g-g-g-going to send me t-t-to Birmingham if I d-d-don’t go with him and I c-c-can’t leave Qing, I w-w-won’t—’

‘Who says you’re going to Birmingham?’ said Will.

‘M-M-M-M-Mazu, if I d-d-d-don’t go with h-h-h—’

‘When did she tell you that?’

‘Y-y-y-yesterday, but if I’m increasing m-m-maybe she w-w-won’t m-m-m—’

‘Oh God,’ said Will, and Robin had never heard the two syllables more freighted with despair.

There was more silence and faint sounds of movement.

Please don’t be having sex, Robin thought, eyes tightly closed as she lay among the nettles. Please, please don’t.

‘Or c-c-c-could d-d-do w-w-what Kevin d-d-did,’ said Lin, her voice thick with tears.

‘Are you insane?’ said Will harshly. ‘Be damned forever, annihilate our spirits?’

‘I w-w-won’t leave Qing!’ wailed Lin. Again Will frantically hushed her. There was another lull, in which Robin thought she could hear kissing of a comforting rather than passionate nature.

She should have foreseen that somebody other than the Strike and Ellacott Detective Agency might be aware of the blind spot on the cameras and the useful cover of the woods. She was now dependent for her own safe return to the dormitory on whatever the couple decided to do next. Petrified that one of them might stray closer to the spot where she lay, because another passing car would undoubtedly reveal her bright orange tracksuit, she had no choice but to remain curled up among the nettles. How she was going to explain the mud and grass stains on her clean tracksuit was a problem she’d worry about if she ever got safely out of the woods.

‘Can’t you tell Mazu you’ve got something – what’s that thing you had?’

‘Cystitis,’ sobbed Lin. ‘She w-w-won’t believe m-m-me.’

‘OK,’ said Will, ‘then – then – you’ll have to pretend to be ill with something else. Ask to see Dr Zhou.’

‘B-b-but I’ll have to g–g-get better in the end – I can’t leave Qing!’ wailed the girl again, and Will, now clearly scared out of his wits, said,

‘For God’s sake don’t shout!’

‘Why won’t you just m-m-make me increase again?’

‘I can’t, you don’t understand, I can’t—’

‘You’re sc-sc-scared!’

Robin heard rapidly receding footsteps and was certain the girl was running away, Will in pursuit, because his voice sounded further away when he spoke again.

‘Lin—’

‘If you’re not g-g-going to make m-m-me increase—’

The voices became indistinguishable. Robin continued to lie still in her hiding place, heart thumping, ears straining to hear what was going on. The couple were still arguing, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying any more. How long she lay and listened, she didn’t know. Another car swished past. At last, the voices and footsteps died away.

Robin lay where she was for a further five minutes, scared the couple was going to return, then gingerly sat back up again.

Strike’s note was still crumpled up in her hand. She took a few deep breaths, then turned the torch back on, smoothed out the letter and read it.

Thursday 14th April

Hope all’s going well in there. Dev’s going to drop this off and he’ll be in the vicinity until Saturday, checking on the rock until you’ve put a note in. If nothing arrives, we’ll see you Sunday.

I’ve met Abigail Glover, Jonathan Wace’s daughter. Some very interesting stuff. She claims Daiyu wasn’t Wace’s daughter, but Alexander Graves’. Apparently when she died, there was a custody battle for her going on between the Waces and Graves’ parents. Abigail witnessed and suffered plenty of violence in there, and was personally shut in the pigsty, naked, for three nights after Daiyu drowned, but isn’t keen on testifying, unfortunately.

On Tuesday I’m meeting Alexander Graves’ parents. Will let you know how that goes.

Still trying to trace Cherie Gittins, the girl who took Daiyu swimming. I’ve been looking into Daiyu’s death and I’ve got questions. Anything you can find out in there would be helpful.

Might also have found a way of persuading Jordan Reaney to talk to me – Shanker’s got mates inside with him.

Littlejohn is worrying me. He didn’t tell me he worked for Patterson for 3 months before coming to us. Trying to find a replacement.

The Franks remain freaks and might be planning a kidnapping.

Look after yourself. Any time you want to come out, say the word. We’ll batter down the door if necessary.

Sx

Robin wasn’t sure why the note had made her cry, but a tear now dropped down onto the paper. The connection with her outside life had affected her like medicine, fortifying her, and the offer to batter down the door and the single kiss beside Strike’s initial felt like a hug.

Now she took out the pen, propped the small pile of paper on her knee and began to write, clumsily, with the torch held in her left hand.

All going well. Tonight I joined the church. Total submersion in the pool in the temple.

Will Edensor’s here and I’ve just overheard a conversation between him and Lin, Deirdre Doherty’s daughter. She was begging him to make her ‘increase’ again, to stave off having to sleep with ‘him’. No idea who ‘him’ is. Lin even suggested leaving but Will sounds completely indoctrinated, says it would mean damnation. I can’t be certain, but if she’s already had a child in here it might be Will’s. If so, I’m sure she’ll have been underage when she gave birth, because she doesn’t look very old now.

No violence witnessed as yet but the sleep deprivation and underfeeding is real.

Tonight I saw the spirit of Daiyu materialise out of thin air, moving and waving at us all. Jonathan W conjured her. No idea how it was done but I have to say it was effective and I think it convinced nearly everyone.

Robin paused, trying to remember anything else Strike might think significant. She was now shivering with cold and so tired she could barely think.

I think that’s everything, sorry there isn’t more. Hopefully now I’m a real church member I’ll start seeing the bad stuff.

Sounds like a good idea to get rid of Littlejohn when you can.

Robin x

She folded up her note, put it inside the safe rock and replaced the rock where she’d found it. Then, with a heavy heart, she tore Strike’s note into tiny pieces, and began to make her way back through the trees towards the distant farm, strewing pieces of the note into different patches of nettles as she went.

However, she was so tired she’d lost her sense of direction. Soon she found herself in a dense clump of trees she definitely didn’t remember coming through. Panic started to rise in her again. Finally she forced her way between two trunks tangled with creepers, took a few steps across a small clearing and then, with a shriek she couldn’t prevent, fell over something hard and sharp.

‘Shit,’ Robin moaned, feeling for her lower leg. She’d cut herself, though thankfully there was no tear in her trousers. Groping around, she found the thing she’d tripped over: it appeared to be a broken stump or post in the ground. She stood up, and as she did so, she saw by the moonlight that there were several broken posts set in a rough circle. They were definitely manmade and looked unnervingly ritualistic, set amid the surrounding wilderness. Robin remembered Kevin Pirbright’s story of being tied to a tree overnight as punishment when he was twelve. Had there once been posts here, to which an entire group of children could be tied? If so, they appeared to be no longer in use, because they were rotting quietly away in the depths of the wood.

Now limping slightly, Robin set off again and at long last, with the aid of a fleeting spell of moonlight, found the edge of the wood.

Only as she was walking back across the dark, damp field towards the farm did she remember that she hadn’t written a note for Murphy. Far too tired and shaken to go back now, she decided she’d write him an apology next week. Fifteen minutes later, she was climbing the five-bar gate. She passed the now dark and silent Retreat Rooms and, with profound relief, slipped back inside the dormitory undetected.