The Running Grave

Chien/Obstruction

OBSTRUCTION means difficulty.

The danger is ahead.

To see the danger and to know how to stand still, that is wisdom.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

37

Through resoluteness one is certain to encounter something.

Hence there follows the hexagram of COMING TO MEET.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

If the receipt of Robin’s letter from Chapman Farm didn’t have quite the same effect on Strike as his had on her, the absence of a note for Ryan Murphy cheered him enormously, a fact he concealed from Dev Shah when the latter confirmed that there’d been only one letter inside the plastic rock when he’d checked before dawn.

‘Well, good to know she’s OK,’ was Strike’s only comment, after reading Robin’s message at the partners’ desk. ‘And that’s a pretty bloody big piece of information she’s got already. If Will Edensor’s fathered a kid in there, we’ve got a partial explanation of why he’s not leaving.’

‘Yeah,’ said Dev. ‘Fear of prosecution. Statutory rape, isn’t it? Gonna tell Sir Colin?’

Strike hesitated, frowning as he rubbed his chin.

‘If the kid’s definitely Will’s he’ll have to know eventually, but I’d rather get a bit more information first.’

‘Underage is underage,’ said Dev.

Strike had never seen Shah look that uncompromising before.

‘I agree. But I’m not sure you can judge what goes on in there by normal standards.’

‘Fuck normal standards,’ said Dev. ‘Keep your dick in your pants around kids.’

There was a short, charged silence, following which Dev announced that he needed to get some sleep, having been up all night in the car, and departed.

‘What’s upset him?’ enquired Pat, as the glass door closed rather harder than necessary and Strike emerged from the inner office with an empty mug in his hand.

‘Sex with underage girls,’ said Strike, moving towards the sink to wash up the mug before heading out for more surveillance on Bigfoot. ‘Not Dev,’ he added.

‘Well, I knew that,’ said Pat.

How Pat could know that, Strike didn’t ask. Dev was easily the most handsome subcontractor employed by the agency and Strike knew from experience that their office manager’s sympathies were most readily engaged by good-looking men. An association of ideas led him to say,

‘Incidentally, if Ryan Murphy calls, tell him there’s no note for him from Robin this week.’

Something in Pat’s sharp glance made Strike say,

‘There wasn’t one in the rock.’

‘All right, I’m not accusing you of burning it,’ snapped Pat, turning back to her typing.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Strike. While he doubted anyone had ever compared Pat to a ray of eternal sunshine, he couldn’t offhand remember her being this tetchy without provocation.

‘Fine,’ said Pat, e-cigarette waggling as she scowled at her monitor.

Strike decided the politic course was to wash his mug in silence.

‘Well, that’s me off to watch Bigfoot,’ he said. As he turned to get his coat, his eye fell on a small pile of receipts on Pat’s desk.

‘Those Littlejohn’s?’

‘Yeah,’ said Pat, her fingers moving rapidly over the keys.

‘Mind if I have a quick look?’

He shuffled through them. There was nothing unusual or extravagant in there; indeed, if anything, they were on the sketchy side.

‘What d’you think of Littlejohn?’ Strike asked Pat, setting the receipts back down beside her.

‘What d’you mean, what do I think of him?’ she said, glaring up at him.

‘Exactly what I said.’

‘He’s all right,’ said Pat, after a moment or two. ‘He’s fine.’

‘Robin told me you don’t like him.’

‘I thought he was a bit quiet when he started, that’s all.’

‘Got chattier, has he?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Pat. ‘Well – no – but he’s always polite.’

‘You’ve never noticed him doing anything odd? Behaving strangely? Lying about anything?’

‘No. Why’re you asking me this?’ said Pat.

‘Because if you had, you wouldn’t be the only one,’ said Strike. He was now intrigued: Pat had never before shown the slightest inclination to pull her punches when judging anyone: client, employee or, indeed, Strike himself.

‘He’s fine. Doing the job OK, isn’t he?’

Before Strike could answer, the phone on Pat’s desk rang.

‘Oh, hello Ryan,’ she said, her tone far warmer.

Strike decided it was time to leave, and did so, closing the glass door quietly behind him.

The next few days yielded little progress in the UHC case. There was no word from Shanker on a possible interview with Jordan Reaney. Cherie Gittins remained unfindable on every database Strike consulted. Of the witnesses to Cherie and Daiyu’s early morning swim, the café owner who’d seen Cherie taking the child down to the beach while carrying towels had died five years previously. He’d tried to contact Mr and Mrs Heaton, who’d seen the hysterical Cherie running up the beach after Daiyu disappeared beneath the waves, and who were still living at an address in Cromer, but nobody ever answered their landline, no matter what time of day Strike tried it. He toyed with the idea of driving on to Cromer after visiting Garvestone Hall, but as the agency was already stretched with its current cases, and he was already planning to go down to Cornwall later in the week, he decided against sacrificing another few hours on the road merely to find an unoccupied house.

His drive to Norfolk on a sunny Tuesday morning was uneventful until, on a flat, straight stretch of the A11, Midge called him about the most recently acquired case on the agency’s books, a case of presumed marital infidelity in which the husband wanted the wife watched. The client had been taken on so recently that no nickname had been assigned to either client or target, although Strike understood who Midge was talking about when she said without preamble,

‘I’ve caught Mrs What’s-Her-Name in the act.’

‘Already?’

‘Yeah. Got pictures of her coming out of the lover’s flat this morning. Visiting her mother, my arse. Maybe I should’ve strung it out a bit. We’re not going to make much out of this one.’

‘Good word of mouth, though,’ said Strike.

‘Shall I get Pat to notify the next on the waiting list?’

‘Let’s give it a week,’ said Strike, after a sight hesitation. ‘The Frank job needs twice the manpower now we know it’s both of them. Listen, Midge, while I’ve got you – is there anything up with Pat and Littlejohn?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘There hasn’t been a row or anything?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘She was a bit odd when I asked her what she thought of him, this morning.’

‘Well, she doesn’t like him,’ said Midge. ‘None of us do,’ she added, with her usual candour.

‘I’m putting out feelers for a replacement,’ said Strike, which was true: he’d emailed several contacts in both the police and the army for possible candidates the previous evening. ‘OK, good work on Mrs Thing. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He drove on through the relentlessly flat landscape, which was having its usual lowering effect on his mood. The Aylmerton Community had forever tainted Norfolk in his mind; he found no beauty in the seeming immensity of the sky pressing down upon the level earth, nor for its occasional windmills and marshy wetlands.

His satnav guided him along a series of narrow, winding country lanes, until he finally saw his first signpost to Garvestone. Three hours after he’d left London, he entered the tiny village, passing a square-towered church, school and village hall in rapid succession and finding himself out the other side barely three minutes later. A quarter of a mile beyond Garvestone he spotted a wooden sign directing him up a track to his right to the hall. Shortly thereafter, he was driving through the open gates towards what had once been home to the Stolen Prophet.

38

Six at the top…

Not light but darkness.

First he climbed up to heaven,

Then he plunged into the depths of the earth.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The drive was bordered with high hedges, so Strike saw little of the surrounding gardens until he reached the gravel forecourt in front of the hall, which was an irregular but impressive building of grey-blue stone, with Gothic windows and a front door of solid oak reached by a flight of stone steps. He paused for a few seconds after leaving the car to take in the immaculate green lawns, the topiary lions and the water garden glimmering in the distance. Then a door creaked and a croaky but powerful male voice said,

‘Hello thah!’

An elderly man had come out of the house and now stood leaning on a mahogany stick at the top of the stone steps to the front door. He was wearing a shirt under his tweed blazer, and the blue and maroon regimental tie of the Grenadier Guards. Beside him stood an immensely fat yellow Labrador, wagging its tail but evidently deciding to wait for the newcomer to climb the steps rather than descend to greet him.

‘Can’t get down the damn steps any more without help, sorry!’

‘No problem,’ Strike said, the gravel crunching beneath his feet as he approached the front door. ‘Colonel Graves, I presume?’

‘How d’yeh do?’ said Graves, shaking hands. He had a thick white moustache and a slight overbite, faintly reminiscent of a rabbit or, if you were being unkind, of the standard impersonation of an upper-class twit. The eyes blinking behind the lenses of his steel-rimmed glasses were milky with cataracts, and a large, flesh-coloured hearing aid protruded from one ear.

‘Come in, come in – here, Gunga Din,’ he added. Strike took the last exhortation to be an invitation to the fat Labrador now sniffing at the hems of his trousers, rather than himself.

Colonel Graves shuffled along ahead of Strike into a large hall, cane thudding loudly on the dark polished floorboards, the panting Labrador bringing up the rear. Victorian oil portraits of what Strike didn’t doubt were ancestors looked down upon the two men and the dog. The place had an aged, serene beauty enhanced by the light flooding through a large leaded window over the stairs.

‘Beautiful house,’ said Strike.

‘M’grandfather bought it. Beerocracy. Brewery’s long gone, though. Graves Stout, ever heard of it?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘Went out of business in 1953. Still got a couple of bottles in the cellar. Nasty stuff. M’father made us drink it. Foundation of the family’s fortune and what have yah. Hyar we are,’ said the colonel, by now panting as loudly as his dog as he pushed open a door.

They entered a large drawing room of homely upper-class comfort, with deep sofas and armchairs of faded chintz, more leaded windows looking out onto the splendid gardens and a dog’s bed made of tweed, into which the Labrador flopped with an air of having had more than his day’s worth of exercise.

Three people were sitting around a low table laden with tea things and what looked like a home-baked Victoria sponge. In an armchair sat an elderly woman with thin white hair, who was dressed in navy blue and pearls. Her hands were trembling so much that Strike wondered whether she had Parkinson’s disease. A couple in their late forties were sitting side by side on the sofa. The balding man’s heavy eyebrows and prominent Roman nose gave him the look of an eagle. His tie, unless he was pretending to be something he wasn’t, which Strike thought unlikely in this context, proclaimed that he’d once been a Royal Marine. His wife, who was plump and blonde, was wearing a pink cashmere sweater and a tweed skirt. Her bobbed hair was tied back in a velvet bow, a style Strike hadn’t seen since the eighties, while her ruddy, broken-veined cheeks suggested a life led largely out of doors.

‘M’wife, Barbara,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘our daughter, Phillipa, and her husband, Nicholas.’

‘Good morning,’ said Strike.

‘Hello,’ said Mrs Graves. Phillipa merely nodded at Strike, unsmiling. Nicholas made no sound or gesture of welcome.

‘Siddown,’ said the colonel, gesturing Strike to an armchair opposite the sofa. He himself lowered himself slowly into a high-backed chair with a grunt of relief.

‘How d’you take your tea?’ Mrs Graves asked.

‘Strong, please.’

‘Good man,’ barked the colonel. ‘Can’t stand weak tea.’

‘I’ll do it, Mummy,’ said Phillipa, and indeed, Mrs Graves’ hands were trembling so much, Strike thought it advisable she didn’t handle boiling water.

‘Cake?’ the unsmiling Phillipa asked him, once she’d passed his tea.

‘I’d love some,’ said Strike. Sod the diet.

Once everyone had been served, and Phillipa had sat down again, Strike said,

‘Well, I’m very grateful for this chance to talk to you. I understand this can’t be easy.’

‘We’ve been assured you’re not a sleaze hound,’ said Nicholas.

‘Good to know,’ said Strike drily.

‘No offence,’ said Nicholas, though his manner was that of a man who didn’t particularly mind being offensive and might even pride herself on it, ‘but we thought it important to check you out.’

‘Do we have your assurance we’re not going to be dragged into the tabloids?’ said Phillipa.

‘You do seem to make a habit of popping up there,’ said Nicholas.

Strike could have pointed out that he’d never given the press an interview, that most of the journalistic interest he’d aroused had been due to solving criminal cases, and that it was hardly within his control whether the press became interested in his investigation. Instead he said,

‘At the moment, the risk of press interest is slight to non-existent.’

‘But you think it might all be dragged up?’ Phillipa pressed him. ‘Because our children don’t know anything about all this. They think their uncle died of natural causes.’

‘It was so long ago now, Pips,’ said Mrs Graves. Strike thought she seemed a little nervous of her daughter and son-in-law. ‘It’s been twenty-three years. Allie would have been fifty-two now,’ she added quietly, to nobody.

‘If we can stop another family going through what we did,’ said Colonel Graves loudly, ‘we’ll be delighted. One has an obligation,’ he said, with a look at his son-in-law that, in spite of his cloudy eyes, was pointed. Turning stiffly in his chair to address Strike he said, ‘What d’yeh want to know?’

‘Well,’ said Strike, ‘I’d like to start with Alexander, if that’s all right.’

‘We always called him Allie, in the family,’ said the colonel.

‘How did he become interested in the church?’

‘Long story,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘He was ill, yeh see – but we didn’t realise f’ra long time. What did they call it?’ he asked his wife, but it was his daughter who answered.

‘Manic depression, but they’ve probably got another fancy word for it, these days.’

Phillipa’s tone suggested scepticism of the psychiatric profession and all its ways.

‘When he was younger,’ said Mrs Graves tremulously, ‘we just thought he was naughty.’

‘Problems all through school,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding ruminatively. ‘Expelled from Rugby, in the end.’

‘Why was that?’ asked Strike.

‘Drugs,’ said Colonel Graves gloomily. ‘I was stationed out in Germany at the time. We brought him out to join us. Put him into the international school to do his A-levels, but he didn’t like it. Huge rows. Missed his friends. “Why’s Pips allowed to stay in England?” I said, “Pips hasn’t been caught smoking marriage-huana in her dorm, that’s why.” I was hopin’,’ said the colonel, ‘bein’ around the military, y’know – might show him another way. I’d always hoped… but there y’are.’

‘His granny volunteered to have Allie stay with her, in Kent,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘She always loved Allie. He was to finish his A-levels at the local college, but next thing we heard, he’d taken orf. Granny was out of her mind with worry. I flew back to England to help look for him and found him staying with one of his old schoolfriends, in London.’

‘Tom Bantling,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding lugubriously. ‘Both of ’em holed up in a basement, doin’ drugs all day. Tom sorted himself out in the end, mind you,’ he added with a sigh. ‘OBE now… trouble was, y’see, by the time Baba found him, Allie had turned eighteen. One couldn’t make him come home, or do anything he didn’t want to.’

‘How was he supporting himself?’ asked Strike.

‘He had some money his other grandmother left him,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘She left some to you, too, didn’t she, darling?’ she added to Phillipa. ‘You used yours to buy Bugle Boy, didn’t you?’

Mrs Graves gestured towards a bow-fronted cabinet on which many silver-framed photographs stood. After a second’s confusion Strike realised his attention was being directed to one of the largest pictures, which featured a stout, beaming teenaged Phillipa in full hunting garb, sitting on top of a gigantic grey horse, presumably Bugle Boy, hounds milling behind them. Her hair, which was dark in the photograph, was tied back in what looked like the same velvet bow she was wearing today.

‘So Allie had enough money to live on without working?’ Strike said.

‘Yerse, until he burned through it all,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘which he did in about twelve months. Then he signed on for the whatchamacallit – dole. I decided to leave th’army. Didn’t want to leave Baba hyar on her own, tryin’ to sort him out. It was startin’ to be obvious there was something very wrong.’

‘He was showing definite signs of mental illness by then, was he?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘he was getting very paranoid and strange. Funny ideas about the government. But the awful thing is, one didn’t really think of it as mental illness at the time, because he’d always been a bit—’

‘Told us he was getting messages from God,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Thought it was the drugs. We thought, if only he’d just stop smoking that bloody marriage-huana… he fell out with Tom Bantling, and after that he stayed on other people’s sofas until they got annoyed and kicked him out. Tried to keep tabs on him, but sometimes we didn’t know where he was.’

‘Then he got himself into awful trouble, in a pub. Nick was with him, weren’t you?’ Mrs Graves said to her son-in-law. ‘They were at school together,’ she explained to Strike.

‘I was trying to talk sense into him,’ said Nicholas, ‘when some fella bumped inter him, an’ he lashed out with a beer glass. Cut the chap’s face. Stitches. He was charged.’

‘Quite right, too,’ barked the colonel. ‘Couldn’t argue with that. We got him a lawyer, personal friend of ours, and Danvers fixed up a psychiatrist.’

‘Allie only agreed because he was terrified of prison,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘That was a real fear of his, being locked up. I think that’s why he never liked boarding school.’

Phillipa gave the slightest of eye rolls, unnoticed by her parents, though not by Strike.

‘So the psychiatrist fella diagnosed this manic what-have-you,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘and put him on pills.’

‘And he said Allie mustn’t smoke pot any more,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘We got Allie cleaned up for court, got him a haircut and so on, and he looked marvellous in his suit. And the judge was really very nice and basically said he thought Allie would do best with community service. And at the time,’ sighed Mrs Graves, ‘we thought him getting arrested was a blessing in disguise, didn’t we, Archie? Not that we wanted some poor chap to be hurt, of course.’

‘And he came back here to live, did he?’ Strike asked.

‘’Sright,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘And his mental state improved?’

‘Yes, it was much better,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘And you loved having him home, didn’t you, Pips?’

‘Hm,’ said Phillipa.

‘It was like having him back to how he was when he was a little boy,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘He was really awfully sweet and funny…’

Tears swam in her eyes.

‘’Pologise,’ she whispered, fumbling in her sleeve for a handkerchief.

Colonel Graves assumed the stolid, wooden expression of the average upper-class Englishman when confronted with a show of open emotion. Nicholas took refuge in sweeping cake crumbs off his jeans. Phillipa merely stared stonily at the teapot.

‘What community service was Allie given?’ asked Strike.

‘Well, that’s where she got her claws into him, y’see,’ said Colonel Graves heavily. ‘Community project fifty minutes up the road, in Aylmerton. Cleanin’ up litter and so on. There were a couple of people there from Chapman Farm, and she was one of ’em. Mazu.’

The name changed the atmosphere in the room. Though the sunshine continued to flood in through the leaded windows, it seemed, somehow, to darken.

‘He didn’t tell us he’d met a gel at first,’ said the colonel.

‘But he was spending longer than he needed to in Aylmerton,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Coming home very late. We could smell alcohol on his breath again, and we knew he wasn’t supposed to be drinking on his medication.’

‘So there was another row,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘and he blurted out that he’d met someone, but he said he knew we wouldn’t like her, and that’s why he took her to the pub instead of comin’ hyar. And I said, “Watcha talkin’ about, we wouldn’t like her? How d’yeh know? Bring her over to meet us. Bring her for tea!” Tryin’ to make him happy, y’know. So he did. He brought her hyar…

‘He’d made it sound as though Mazu was a farmer’s daughter, before he brought her t’meet us. Nothin’ wrong with that. But I could tell she wasn’t a farmer’s daughter, moment I laid eyes on her.’

‘We’d never met any of his gelfriends before,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Bit of a shock.’

‘Why was that?’ asked Strike.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘she was very young and—’

‘Filthy,’ said Phillipa.

‘—bit grubby,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Long black hair. Skinny, with dirty jeans and a sort of smock.’

‘Didn’t talk,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘Not a word,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Just sat next to Allie, where Nick and Pips are sitting now, clinging to his arm. We tried to be nice, didn’t we?’ she said plaintively to her husband, ‘But she just stared at us through her hair. And Allie could tell we didn’t like her.’

‘Nobody could’ve bloody liked her,’ said Nicholas.

‘You met her too?’ asked Strike.

‘Met her later,’ said Nicholas. ‘Made my bloody flesh crawl.’

‘It wasn’t shyness,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘I could’ve understood shyness, but that’s not why she didn’t say anything. One had a sense, of real… badness. And Allie got defensive – didn’t he, Archie? – “You think I like her because I’m mental.” Well, of course we didn’t think that, but we could tell she was encouraging the – the unstable part of him.’

‘It was obvious she was the stronger personality,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding.

‘She can’t have been more than sixteen, and Allie was twenty-three when he met her,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘It’s very hard to explain. From the outside, it looked… I mean, we thought she was too young for him, but Allie was…’

Her voice trailed away.

‘Bloody hell, Gunga,’ said Nicholas angrily.

The stench of the old dog’s fart had just reached Strike’s nostrils.

‘The hell are you feeding him?’ Phillipa demanded of her parents.

‘He had some of our rabbit last night,’ said Mrs Graves apologetically.

‘You spoil him, Mummy,’ snapped Phillipa. ‘You’re too soft on him.’

Strike had the feeling this disproportionate anger wasn’t really about the dog.

‘When did Allie move to the farm?’ he asked.

‘Quite soon after we had them over for tea,’ said Mrs Graves.

‘And he was still on the dole at this point?’

‘Yerse,’ said the colonel, ‘but there’s a family trust. He’d been able to apply for funds from it, since he’d turned eighteen.’

Strike now took out his notebook and pen. Phillipa’s and Nicholas’ eyes followed these movements closely.

‘He started applying for money the moment he moved in with Mazu, but the trustees weren’t going to give him money just to fritter away,’ said the colonel. ‘Then Allie turned up here one day out of the blue to tell us Mazu was pregnant.’

‘He said he wanted money to get baby things, and make Mazu comfortable,’ said Mrs Graves.

‘Daiyu was born in May 1988, right?’ asked Strike.

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Graves. The tremor in her hands was making every sip of tea risky. ‘Born at the farm. Allie rang us up, and we drove over right away, to see the baby. Mazu was lying in a filthy bed, nursing Daiyu, and Allie was very thin and jittery.’

‘As bad as he’d been before he was arrested,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Orf his medication. Told us he didn’t need it.’

‘We’d taken presents for Daiyu, and Mazu didn’t even thank us,’ said his wife. ‘But we kept visiting. We were worried about Allie, and about the baby, too, because the living conditions were quite unsanitary. Daiyu was very sweet, though. Looked just like Allie.’

‘Spittin’ image,’ said the colonel.

‘Except dark, and Allie was fair,’ said Mrs Graves.

‘Would you happen to have a picture of Allie?’ asked Strike.

‘Nick, could you—?’ asked Mrs Graves.

Nicholas reached behind him and extracted a framed photo from behind the one of Phillipa sitting on the large grey horse.

‘That’s Allie’s twenty-second,’ said Mrs Graves, as Nicholas passed the picture over the tea things. ‘When he was all right, before…’

The picture showed a group, at the centre of which stood a young man with a narrow head, blond hair and a distinctly rabbity face, though his lopsided grin was endearing. He greatly resembled the colonel.

‘Yes, Daiyu was very like him,’ said Strike.

‘How would you know?’ said Phillipa coldly.

‘I saw a photo of her in an old news report,’ Strike explained.

‘I always thought she was just like her mother, personally,’ said Phillipa.

Strike was scanning the rest of the group in the photograph. Phillipa was there, dark haired and stocky as she was in the hunting photograph, and beside her stood Nick, his hair military short, with his right arm in a sling.

‘Injured on exercises?’ Strike asked Nicholas, passing the photograph back.

‘What? Oh, no. Just a stupid accident.’

Nicholas took the photograph back from Strike and replaced it carefully, hiding it again behind the one of his wife on her magnificent hunter.

‘D’you remember Jonathan Wace coming to live at the farm?’ asked Strike.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Graves, quietly. ‘We were completely taken in. Thought he was the best thing about the place, didn’t we, Archie? And you liked him, didn’t you, Pips?’ she said timidly. ‘At first?’

‘He was politer than Mazu, that’s all,’ said the unsmiling Phillipa.

‘Fella seemed intelligent,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘One realised later it was all an act, but he was charmin’ when you first met him. Talked about the sustainable farming they were going to do. Made it sound quite worthy.’

‘I looked him up,’ said Nicholas. ‘He wasn’t lying. He had been to Harrow. Big in the drama society, apparently.’

‘He told us he was keeping an eye on Allie, Mazu and the baby,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Making sure they were all right. We thought he was a good thing, at the time.’

‘Then the religious stuff started creepin’ in,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Lectures on Eastern philosophy and what have yeh. Thought it was harmless at first. We were far more concerned about Allie’s mental state. The letters to the trustees kept comin’, clearly dictated by someone else. Passin’ himself orf as a partner in the farming business, y’know. Balderdash, but hard to disprove. They got a fair bit out of the trust, one way or another.’

‘Every time we visited the farm, Allie was worse,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘and we could tell there was something between Mazu and Jonathan.’

‘Only time she ever cracked a smile was when Wace was around,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘And she’d started treating Allie awf’ly,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Spiteful, y’know. “Stop babbling.” “Stop making a fool of yourself.”’ And Allie was chanting and fasting and whatever else Jonathan was making him do.’

‘We wanted Allie to see another doctor, but he said medicines were poison, and he’d be fine as long as kept his spirit pure,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Then, one day, Baba visited – you two were with her, werencha?’

‘Yes,’ said Phillipa stiffly. ‘We’d just got back from our honeymoon. We took photos of the wedding with us. I don’t know why. It’s not as though Allie was interested. And there was a row.

‘They claimed to be offended we hadn’t asked Daiyu to be a flower girl,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘Such nonsense. We’d sent Allie and Mazu invitations, but we knew they wouldn’t come. Jonathan wouldn’t let Allie leave the farm by then, except to collect money on the street. The flower girl thing was just an excuse to wind Allie up and make him think we all hated him and his child.’

‘Not that we wanted her as a flower girl,’ said Nicholas. ‘She was—’

His wife shot him a look and he fell silent.

‘Allie was making no sense at all that day,’ said Mrs Graves desperately. ‘I said to Mazu, “He’s got to see someone. He’s got to see a doctor.”’

‘Wace told us Allie just needed to clear his ego, and balls like that,’ said Nicholas. ‘And I bloody well let him have it. Told him, if he wanted to live like a pig that was his business, and if he wanted to spout crap at credulous morons who’d pay for the pleasure, fine, but the family had bloody well had enough of it. And I said to Allie, “If you can’t see this for the bollocks it is, then you’re even more of a fool than I thought you were, you need your head sorted out, now get in the bloody car—”’

‘But he wouldn’t come,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘and then Mazu said she was going to take out a restraining order against us. She was pleased there’d been a row. It’s what she wanted.’

‘That’s when we decided somethin’ had to be done,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘I hired O’Connor, the detective chappie I told you about on th’phone. Brief was to dig inter Mazu and Wace’s backgrounds, get somethin’ we could use against them.’

‘Did he get anything?’ asked Strike, his pen poised.

‘Got a bit on the gel. Found out she was born at Chapman Farm. He thought she was one of the Crowthers’ children – yeh know about that business? Mother was dead. She’d left the gel at the farm and gawn orf to work as a prostitute in London. Drug overdose. Pauper’s grave.

‘Wace was clearly a wastrel, but no criminal convictions. Parents were in South Africa. His first wife’s death seemed to have been a pure accident. So we thought: desperate times call for desperate measures. We had O’Connor watchin’ the farm. We knew Allie sometimes went inter Norwich to collect money.

‘We grabbed him orf the street, me, m’brother-in-law and Nick,’ Colonel Graves continued. ‘Bundled him into the back of the car and drove him back hyar. He was goin’ berserk. We dragged him inside, into this room, and kept him here all afternoon and most of the night, tryin’ to talk some sense into him.’

‘He just kept chanting and telling us he had to go back to temple,’ said Mrs Graves hopelessly.

‘We called the local GP,’ said the colonel. ‘He didn’t come until late the next day. Young fella, new at the practice. Moment he walked in, Allie pulled himself together enough to say we’d kidnapped him and were forcin’ him to stay here. Said he wanted to go back to Chapman Farm and begged the chap to get the police.

‘Moment the doctor left, Allie started screamin’ and throwing around furniture – if that bloody GP could’ve seen him like that – and while he was chucking things around, his shirt came untucked and we saw marks on his back. Bruising and welts.’

‘I said to him, “What have they done to you, Allie?”’ said Mrs Graves tearfully, ‘But he wouldn’t answer.’

‘We got him upstairs again, into his old room,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘and he locked the door on us. I was worried he was goin’ to climb out of the window so I went out onto the lawn to keep watch. Worried he’d jump, y’see, tryin’ to get back to Chapman Farm. I was there all night.

‘Early next mornin’, two police officers came round. Tipped orf by the GP we were holdin’ a man against his will. We explained what was goin’ on. We wanted emergency services out to see him. The police said they needed to meet him first, so I went upstairs to get him. Knocked. No answer. Got worried. Nick and I broke down the door.’

Colonel Graves swallowed, then said quietly,

‘He was dead. Hanged himself with a belt, orf a hook on the back of the door.’

There was a brief silence, broken only by the fat Labrador’s snores.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike. ‘Appalling for you all.’

Mrs Graves, who was now wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief, whispered,

‘Excuse me.’

She got to her feet and shuffled out of the room. Looking cross, Phillipa followed.

‘One looks back,’ said the old man quietly, once his daughter had closed the door behind her, ‘and thinks “What could we’ve done diff’rently?” If I had to do it all again, I think I’d still’ve forced him into that car, but driven him straight to a hospital. Got him sectioned. But he was terrified of being locked up. I thought he’d never forgive us.’

‘And it might have ended the same way,’ said Strike.

‘Yerse,’ said Colonel Graves, looking directly at the detective. ‘I’ve thought that since, too. Out of his mind. We were too late, by the time we got hold of him. Should’ve acted years before.’

‘There was a post-mortem, I take it?’

Colonel Graves nodded.

‘No surprises on cause of death, but we wanted a professional view on the marks on his back. The police went to th’farm. Wace and Mazu claimed he’d done it to himself, and other church members backed them up.’

‘They claimed he whipped himself?’

‘Said he felt sinful and was mortifyin’ his own flesh… couldn’t pour me another cup of tea, couldja, Nick?’

Strike watched Nicholas fiddling with the hot water and tea-strainer and wondered why some people resisted teabags. Once the colonel was provided with a refilled cup, Strike asked,

‘Can you remember the names of these people who saw Allie whipping himself?’

‘Not any more. Load of shysters. Coroner’s report was inconclusive. They thought it was possible Allie’d done it to himself. Hard t’get past eyewitnesses.’

Strike made a note, then said,

‘I’ve heard Allie made a will.’

‘Right after Daiyu was born,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding. ‘They used a solicitor in Norwich, not the firm th’family’s always used.’

The old man glanced at the door through which his wife and daughter had disappeared, then said in a lower voice,

‘In it, Allie stipulated that, if he died, he wanted to be buried at Chapman Farm. Made me think Mazu already expected him to die young. Wanted control of him, even in death. Damn’ near broke m’wife’s heart. They shut us out of the funeral. Didn’t even tell us when it was happenin’. No goodbye, nothin’.’

‘And how was Allie’s estate left?’

‘Everythin’ went to Daiyu,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘There wasn’t much to leave, presumably, as he’d got through his inheritance?’

‘Well, no,’ said Colonel Graves with a sigh, ‘as a matter of fact, he had some stocks and shares, rather valuable ones, left to him by m’uncle, who never married. Allie was named after him, so he, ah –’ Colonel Graves glanced at Nicholas ‘– yerse, well, he left it all to Allie. We think Allie either forgot he had the shares, or was too unwell to know how to turn them into cash. We weren’t in any hurry to remind him about them. Not that we were stintin’ Mazu and the baby! The family trust was always there for anythin’ the child needed. But yerse, Allie had a lot of investments he hadn’t touched, and they were steadily accruin’ in value.’

‘Can I ask what they were worth?’

‘Quarter of a million,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Those went straight to Daiyu when Allie died – and she was also in line to inherit this place,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘Really?’

‘Yerse,’ said Colonel Graves, with a hollow laugh. ‘None of us saw that comin’. Lawyers wanted to go through everything after Allie died, and they dug out the entail. I’m certain m’grandfather meant the house was t’go to the eldest son in every generation. That’s what was usual at the time, y’know – the place has come down from m’grandfather to m’father and then to me – nobody had checked the paperwork in decades, never needed to. But when Allie died, we dug the papers out, and blow me down, it said “eldest child”. ’Course, over generations, the first child had always been a son. Maybe m’grandfather didn’t imagine a gel coming first.’

The sitting room door opened and Mrs Graves and Phillipa returned to the room. Phillipa assisted her mother to resume her seat while Strike was still writing down the details of Daiyu’s considerable inheritance.

‘I understand you tried to get custody of Daiyu, after Allie died?’ he asked, looking up again.

‘’S’right,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Mazu was refusin’ to let us see her. Then she married Wace. Well, I was damned if Allie’s daughter was goin’ to grow up there to be whipped and abused and all the rest of it. So, we initiated custody proceedin’s. We got O’Connor back on the case and he tracked down a couple of people who’d been for meditation sessions at the farm, who said the children at the farm were bein’ neglected, underweight and runnin’ round in inadequate clothin’, no schoolin’ and so on.’

‘Is this when Mazu started claiming Wace was Daiyu’s real father?’ said Strike.

‘Know that already, do yeh?’ said the colonel approvingly. ‘Huh. Trust a Red Cap. Trust th’army!’ he said, with a smirk at his son-in-law, who looked ostentatiously bored. ‘Yerse, they started claiming she hadn’t been Allie’s child at all. If we got her back, they lost control of those shares, y’see? So we thought, “Fine, let’s prove who the father was,” and pressed for a DNA sample. We were still tryin’ to get the DNA when the call came through. It was Mazu. She said, “She’s dead.”’ Colonel Graves mimed putting down an invisible telephone receiver. ‘Click… We thought she was being malicious. Thought maybe she’d taken Daiyu somewhere and hidden her – playin’ a game, d’yeh see? But next day we saw it in the newspapers. Drowned. No body. Just swept out to sea.’

‘Did you attend the inquest?’ asked Strike.

‘Damn right we did,’ said Colonel Graves loudly. ‘They couldn’t stop us goin’ to the coroner’s court.’

‘Were you there for the whole thing?’

‘All of it,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding. ‘All of them arrivin’ to watch, in their robes and what have you. Wace and Mazu turned up in a brand-new Mercedes. Coroner was concerned about the lack of a body. She would be, of course. Hardly usual. It was the coroner’s neck on the block if she got it wrong. But the coastguard confirmed they’d had a strong rip tide around there for a few days.

‘They brought in an expert witness chap, search and rescue type, who said bodies can sink in cold water and not come up for a long time, or get caught up in somethin’ on the seabed. Yeh could see the coroner was relieved. Made it all nice and easy. And witnesses had seen the gel, Cherie, takin’ her down onto the beach. The retarded boy—’

‘It’s “learning disability” these days, Archie,’ said Nicholas, who seemed to enjoy correcting his father-in-law, after his crack about the army’s superiority to the navy. ‘Can’t say things like that.’

‘Comes t’the same thing, doesn’t it?’ said Colonel Graves irritably.

‘You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with the bloody education system any more,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’d be in a lot of trouble there for callin’ a spade a spade.’

‘Was the witness called Paul Draper?’ asked Strike.

‘Can’t remember the name. Short boy. Vacant look. Seemed scared. Thought he was in trouble, y’know, because he’d seen the gel Cherie drivin’ Daiyu out of the farm.’

‘The people who saw the van leaving the farm did get in trouble,’ said Strike. ‘They were punished for not stopping it.’

‘Well, that’ll all have been part of the Waces’ act, won’t it?’ said the colonel, frowning at Strike. ‘Probably told the gel to make sure people saw them leavin’, so they could give the witnesses hell afterwards. Pretend they weren’t behind it.’

‘You think the Waces ordered Cherie to drown her?’

‘Oh, yerse,’ said the old soldier. ‘Yerse, I do. She was worth a quarter of a million, dead. And they didn’t give up hope of gettin’ their hands on this house, either, until we’d spent more money on lawyers to shake ’em orf.’

‘Tell me about Cherie,’ said Strike.

‘Feather-brained,’ said Colonel Graves at once. ‘Blubbed a lot in the witness box. Guilty conscience. Clear as day. I don’t say the gel ackshly pushed Daiyu under. Just took her there in the dark, where they knew there was a strong current, and let nature take its course. Wouldn’t be difficult. Why were they swimmin’ at all, that time in the mornin’?’

‘Did you by any chance put O’Connor onto Cherie Gittins?’

‘Oh yerse. He tracked her down to a cousin’s house in Dulwich. “Cherie Gittins” wasn’t her real name – she was a runaway. Real name was Carine Makepeace.’

‘That,’ said Strike, making another note, ‘is extremely useful information.’

‘Goin’ t’find her?’ said the colonel.

‘If I can,’ said Strike.

‘Good,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘She got the wind up when O’Connor approached her. Took off next day and he wasn’t able to find her again – but she’s the one who really knows what happened. She’s the key.’

‘Well,’ said Strike, looking over his notes, ‘I think that’s everything I had to ask. I’m very grateful for your time. This has been extremely helpful.’

‘I’ll see you out,’ said Phillipa, getting unexpectedly to her feet.

‘G’bye,’ said the colonel, holding out his hand to Strike. ‘Keep us posted if you turn up anythin’, what?’

‘I will,’ Strike assured him. ‘Thanks very much for the tea and cake, Mrs Graves.’

‘I do hope you find something,’ said Allie’s mother earnestly.

The elderly Labrador woke up at the sound of footsteps and lolloped after Strike and Phillipa as they left the room. The latter maintained her silence until they’d descended the steps onto the gravel forecourt. The dog waddled past them until he reached an immaculate stretch of lawn, upon which he crouched and set about producing a turd remarkable for its size.

‘I want to say something to you,’ said Phillipa.

Strike turned to look at her. Wearing the same kind of flat pumps favoured by the late Princess Diana, Phillipa was a full eight inches shorter than he was, and had to throw her head back to look at him with her chilly blue eyes.

‘Nothing good,’ said Phillipa Graves, ‘can come of you digging around into Daiyu’s death. Nothing.’

Strike had met other people during his detective career who’d expressed similar sentiments, but he’d never managed to muster any sympathy for them. Truth, to Strike, was sacrosanct. Justice was the only other value he held as high.

‘What makes you say that?’ he asked, as politely as he could manage.

‘Obviously, the Waces did it,’ said Phillipa. ‘We know that. We’ve always known it.’

He looked down at her, as baffled as he’d have been on meeting an entirely new species.

‘And you don’t want to see them in court?’

‘No,’ said Phillipa defiantly. ‘I simply don’t care. All I want is to forget about the whole bloody thing. My whole childhood – my whole life, before he killed himself – was Allie, Allie, Allie. Allie’s naughty, Allie’s ill, where’s Allie, what shall we do about Allie, Allie’s had a baby, what shall we do about Allie’s baby, let’s throw more money at him, now it’s Allie and Daiyu, you will invite them to your wedding, won’t you, darling, poor Allie, crazy Allie, dead Allie.’

Strike wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was the first time Phillipa Graves had ever said these things. Her face had turned red and she was shaking slightly, not like her mother, but because every muscle was knotted with rage.

‘And no sooner has he gone than it’s Daiyu, Daiyu, Daiyu. They hardly noticed my first child being born, it was still Allie, all Allie – and Daiyu was a horrible child. We’re not supposed to say it, Nick and I, oh no, I was supposed to stand aside, all over again, for that vile woman’s child, and pretend I loved her and wanted her to come here, to our family home, and inherit it. You think you’re going to be doing something wonderful, don’t you, proving they did it? Well, I’ll tell you what that will achieve. Allie, Allie, Allie for the family, all over again, masses of publicity, my children asked at school all about their murdered cousin and their uncle the suicide – The Stolen Prophet and the Drowned Prophet, I know what they call them – it’ll be books, probably, if you prove they drowned her, not just the newspapers – and my children will have to have Allie hanging over them forever, too. And you think, if you prove they killed her, it’ll stop that damned church? Of course it won’t. The UHC isn’t going anywhere, whatever you might think. So idiots want to go there and be whipped by the Waces – well, it’s their choice, isn’t it? Who are you actually helping?’

The front door of Garvestone Hall opened again. Nick walked slowly down onto the gravel, frowning slightly. He was a fit-looking man, Strike saw now: almost as tall as the detective.

‘Ev’rythin’ all right, Pips?’

Phillipa turned to her husband.

‘I’m just telling him,’ she said furiously, ‘how we feel.’

‘You agree with your wife, do you, Mr – sorry, I don’t know your surname,’ said Strike.

‘Delaunay,’ said Nicholas coldly, placing a hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Yes, I do. The potential repercussions to our family could be severe. And after all,’ he said, ‘there no bringing Daiyu back, is there?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Strike. ‘My information is, the church brings her back regularly. Well, thanks for your time.’

He heard the slam of the oak front door over the sound of his starting engine. The Labrador, forgotten on the lawn, watched Strike reverse the car then pull away, its tail still vaguely wagging.

39

Six in the fourth place means:

The finest clothes turn to rags.

Be careful all day long.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin’s first five days as a fully committed member of the Universal Humanitarian Church had brought a couple of challenges.

The first was trying to disguise the dirty state of her tracksuit on the morning after her trip into the woods. By good fortune, she was sent with a few others to collect eggs before the sun rose and was able to fake a slip and fall in the chicken coop, which justified the stains. A couple of eagle-eyed church members asked her over breakfast about the nettle stings on her neck and cheek, and she’d told them she thought she might be allergic to something. The unsympathetic response was that ills of the material body reflected the state of the spirit within.

Shortly after breakfast that day, Jonathan Wace left the premises, taking with him several people, including Danny Brockles. All church Principals other than Mazu and Taio also departed. The church members staying behind gathered in the car park to bid Papa J farewell. Wace drove away in a silver Mercedes, while those accompanying him followed in a trail of lesser cars, the crowd behind them cheering and applauding.

That afternoon, two minibuses brought church members who’d been relocated from the Birmingham and Glasgow centres.

Robin was interested in these new arrivals, because Kevin Pirbright had said church members in need of re-indoctrination were sent back to Chapman Farm. Rebellious or dissatisfied people would surely be inclined to talk more freely about the church, so Robin intended to keep an eye on them with a view to inveigling them into conversation.

The newcomer who interested Robin most was the second shaven-headed person she’d seen at Chapman Farm: a sallow-skinned, virtually bald young woman who had very thick eyebrows. She looked grumpy and seemed disinclined to return greetings from people at Chapman Farm, to whom she seemed a familiar figure. Unfortunately, the shaven-headed woman and the other relocated church members were immediately assigned low-status jobs such as laundry and livestock care, whereas Robin was now being fast-tracked through increasingly demanding lectures on church doctrine.

Tuesday afternoon brought the second serious challenge Robin had faced, which made her realise her preparation for going undercover hadn’t been quite as complete as she’d thought.

All new members were collected together and taken once more into the basement room that ran beneath the farmhouse. Robin had started to dread this room, because she’d come to associate it with hours of particularly intense indoctrination. These sessions always seemed to happen in the late afternoon, when energy levels were lowest and hunger at its peak, and the windowless room became claustrophobic and hot. Agreeing with any proposition put to them was the easiest way for members to speed release from the hard floor and the insistent voice of whoever was lecturing them.

This afternoon it was the perennially cheerful Becca who stood waiting for them on the stage in front of the large screen, which was currently blank.

‘I thank you for your service,’ Becca said, putting her hands together and bowing.

‘And I for yours,’ chorused the seated church members, also bowing.

A young man then started handing out pens and paper, which was a most unusual occurrence. These basic means of self-expression were ruthlessly controlled at Chapman Farm, even down to the pencils tied firmly to the journals. The pens were numbered, as they’d been on the minibus.

‘This afternoon, you’ll be taking an important step in freeing yourselves from materialist possession,’ said Becca. ‘Most of you will have somebody back in the materialist world who’ll be expecting communication from you at this time.’

The screen behind Becca now lit up, showing printed words. Key Components of Materialist Possession.

• Assumed ownership based on biology.

• Abuse (physical, emotional, spiritual).

• Anger at actions/beliefs that challenge materialism.

• Attempts to disrupt spiritual development.

• Coercion disguised as concern.

• Demand for emotional service/labour.

• Desire to direct your life’s course.

‘I want each of you now to think of the person or people who most strongly demonstrate the seven key signs of materialist possession towards you. A good measure is to ask yourself who’ll be angriest that you’ve dedicated yourself to the Universal Humanitarian Church.

‘Vivienne,’ said Becca, pointing at the girl with the spiky black hair, who always determinedly tried to sound less middle class than she really was. ‘Who demonstrates the key signs most strongly in your life?’

‘My muvver and stepfather, definitely,’ said Vivienne at once. ‘All seven points.’

‘Walter?’ said Becca, pointing at him.

‘My son,’ said Walter promptly. ‘Most of those points would apply. My daughter would be far more understanding.’

‘Marion?’ said Becca, pointing to the ginger-haired middle-aged woman who always became pink and breathless at the mere mention of Jonathan Wace, and whose roots were slowly turning silver.

‘I suppose… my daughters,’ said Marion.

‘Materialist bonds are hard to sever,’ said Becca, now walking up and down on stage in her long orange robes and wearing her tight, cold smile, ‘but they’re the ties that bind you closest to the bubble world. It’s impossible to become pure spirit until you’ve dissolved these connections and rid yourself of the cravings of the false self.’

The image on the screen behind Becca changed to show a scribbled letter. All names had been blacked out.

‘This is an example of a case of extreme materialist possession, which was sent to one of our members by a supposedly loving family member, a few years ago.’

There was silence in the room as the group read the words onscreen.

███████████

We got your letter the same day. ██████ was admitted to hospital with a massive stroke, brought on by the stress she’s been under following ██████’s death, and by totally avoidable worry about you. Given the important work you’re doing saving the world from Satan, you probably don’t give a shit whether ██████ lives or dies, but I thought I’d just let you know the consequences of your actions. As for screwing any more money out of ██████, unfortunately for you I’ve now got Power of Attorney, so consider this letter an invitation for you and the UHC to go fuck yourselves.

███████████

‘It’s all in there, isn’t it?’ said Becca, looking up at the screen. ‘Emotional blackmail, materialist obsession with money, sneering at our mission, but most importantly, duplicity. The elderly family member in question hadn’t suffered a stroke at all and the writer of the letter was found to be embezzling money out of their account.’

A mingled groan and sigh issued from most of the people sitting on the hard, rush-covered floor. Some shook their heads.

‘I want you to think now of the person or people who are most likely to try these kinds of tactics on you. You’re going to write them a calm, compassionate letter clearly setting out why you’ve decided to join the church. Here,’ said Becca, as the image on the screen changed again, ‘are some of the phrases we find most effective in explaining the spiritual journey you’ve begun in ways that materialists can grasp. However, you should feel free to write the letter in any way that feels authentic to you.’

Panic now rose in Robin. Who the hell was she to send a letter to? She was afraid the UHC might check, to make sure both addressee and address were genuine. The recruits hadn’t been given envelopes: clearly, the letters would be read before being sent. Rowena’s fictional parents were the most obvious recipients for the letter, but their non-existence would surely be exposed instantly once she put down a traceable address.

‘Can I help?’ said a quiet voice beside Robin.

Becca had noticed that Robin wasn’t writing and had stepped through the people sitting on the floor to talk to her.

‘Well, I’d like to write to my parents,’ said Robin, ‘but they’re on a cruise. I can’t even remember the name of their ship.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Becca. ‘Well, you’ve got a sister, haven’t you? Why don’t you write to your parents, via her?’

‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ said Robin, who could feel sweat rising beneath her sweatshirt. ‘Thanks.’

Robin bent her head over the letter, wrote Dear Theresa, then looked back up at the screen, pretending to be looking for phrases to copy down, but actually trying to think of a solution to her dilemma. She’d unthinkingly given Theresa a job in publishing and now wished she’d made her a student, because a hall of residence might have been harder to check for her presence. Hoping to make it as hard as possible for the UHC to decide definitively that Theresa didn’t exist, Robin wrote:

I can’t remember when you said you were moving, but hopefully –

Robin thought rapidly. A nickname seemed safest, because it could apply to anyone who might be actually living at the random address she was about to write down. Her eyes fell on the back of Walter the professor’s balding head.

- Baldy will send this on if you’ve already left.

Robin looked back up at the screen. Most of a template letter was there, ready to be copied.

Letter of Declaration of UHC Membership

Dear X,

[As you know] I’ve just completed a week’s retreat at the Universal Humanitarian Church. I’ve [really enjoyed it/found it very inspiring/gained a huge amount] so I’ve decided to stay on and [pursue my spiritual growth/explore further self-development/help with the church’s charitable projects].

Robin dutifully copied out a version of this paragraph, then moved to the second.

Chapman Farm is a closed community and we don’t use electronic devices because we find them disruptive to a meditative spiritual environment. However, letters are passed on to members, so if you’d like to, write to me here at Chapman Farm, Lion’s Mouth, Aylmerton, Norfolk, NR11 8PC.

Robin copied this out, then looked up once more. There were a few final bits of advice about the letters’ contents, and how to terminate them.

Do not use phrases like ‘don’t worry about me’, which may lay you open to emotional blackmail.

When signing off, avoid pet familial terms such as ‘mum’ or ‘granny’, and terms such as ‘love’. Use your given name, no diminutives or nicknames, which demonstrate continuing acceptance of materialist possession.

Write the address to send the letter to on the back of the page.

Robin now wrote:

Please can you let our parents know I’m staying, because I know they’re on their cruise. It’s great to have a sense of purpose again and I’m learning so much. Rowena.

Turning the page over, she jotted down a street she knew from surveillance work existed in Clapham, picked a house number at random, then invented a postcode of which only SW11 was likely to be accurate.

Looking up, she saw that most people had finished writing. Putting up her hand, she passed her finished letter to the smiling Becca and waited for everybody else to complete the task. Finally, when all letters, paper and pens had been collected in, they were permitted to rise and file back upstairs.

As Robin stepped out into the courtyard, she saw Dr Andy Zhou hurrying towards the farmhouse’s carved double doors, carrying what looked like a medical case. He had an abstracted, anxious air that contrasted strongly with his usual suavity. As those who’d been writing their template letters crowded around the pool of the Drowned Prophet to pay their usual respects on passing, Robin hung back, watching Zhou. The doors to the farmhouse opened and she caught a glimpse of an elderly Indian woman. Zhou stepped over the threshold and vanished from sight, the doors closing behind him. Robin, who was living in daily expectation of hearing that the pregnant Wan had gone into labour, wondered whether that explained Zhou’s haste.

‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her,’ she muttered when her turn at the pool side came, dabbing cold water on her forehead as usual, before falling into step with Kyle, Amandeep and Vivienne. Vivienne was saying,

‘… probably be really angry, like I give a toss. Seriously, they could both be in a textbook under “false self”. It’s only since I’ve been in ’ere I’ve, like, started to fully process what they’ve done to me, y’know?’

‘Totally,’ said Kyle.

The letter writers were some of the earliest to arrive in the dining hall and consequently had a choice of seats. Robin, who saw every meal as an opportunity to collect information, because it was the one time all church members mingled, chose to sit down beside a knot of church members having a whispered conversation. They were so deeply engrossed, they didn’t immediately notice when Robin sat down beside them.

‘… says Jacob’s really bad, but I think Dr Zhou—’

The speaker, a young black man with short dreadlocks, broke off. To Robin’s exasperation, Amandeep, Kyle and Vivienne had followed her to the table. The last’s loud voice had alerted the whisperers to their presence.

‘—then they can go to ’ell, frankly,’ Vivienne was saying.

‘We don’t use that expression,’ said the man with dreadlocks sharply to Vivienne, who turned pink.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

‘We don’t wish hell on anyone,’ said the young man. ‘UHC members don’t want to swell the Adversary’s ranks.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Vivienne, now scarlet. ‘I’m really sorry. Actually, I need the bathroom…’

Barely a minute later, the shaven-headed, grumpy-looking young woman who’d been recently relocated from another UHC centre entered the rapidly filling hall. After glancing around, she headed for Vivienne’s vacated space. Robin thought she saw the idea of telling her the seat was already taken cross Kyle’s mind, but after opening his mouth he closed it again.

‘Hi,’ said the always talkative Amandeep, holding out a hand to the woman in glasses. ‘Amandeep Singh.’

‘Emily Pirbright,’ muttered the woman, returning his handshake.

‘Pirbright? Whoa – is Becca your sister?’ said Amandeep.

Robin understood Amandeep’s surprise, because the two young women didn’t resemble each other in the slightest. Aside from the contrast between Becca’s well-groomed, glossy bob and Emily’s almost bald head, the latter’s perpetual expression of bad temper formed a greater contrast to Becca’s apparently unquenchable cheeriness.

‘We don’t use words like “sister”,’ said Emily. ‘Haven’t you learned that yet?’

‘Oh, yeah, sorry,’ said Amandeep.

‘Becca and I used to be flesh objects to each other, if that’s what you mean,’ said Emily coldly.

The group of established church members who’d been whispering when Robin sat down had now subtly angled their bodies away from Emily. It was impossible not to draw the conclusion that Emily was in some form of disgrace and Robin’s interest in her doubled. Fortunately for her, Amandeep’s incorrigible sociability swiftly reasserted itself.

‘So you grew up here at the farm?’ he asked Emily.

‘Yeah,’ said Emily.

‘Is Becca older or—?’

‘Older.’

Robin thought Emily was conscious of her silent shunning by the group beside her.

‘That’s another old flesh object of mine, look,’ she said.

Robin, Amandeep and Kyle looked in the direction Emily was pointing and saw Louise wheeling the usual vat of noodles along, ladling them out onto plates at the next table. Louise glanced up, met Emily’s eyes, then returned stolidly to her work.

‘What, is she your—?’

Amandeep caught himself just in time.

A few minutes later, Louise reached their table. Emily waited until Louise was on the point of dropping a ladleful of noodles onto her plate before saying loudly,

‘And Kevin was younger than Becca and me.’

Louise’s hand shook: hot noodles slid off Emily’s plate into her lap.

‘Ouch!’

Expressionless, Louise moved on down the line.

Scowling, Emily picked the noodles out of her lap, put them back on her plate, then deliberately speared the only chunks of fresh vegetable out of what Robin was sure was tinned tomato, set them aside and began to eat the rest of her meal.

‘Don’t you like carrot?’ asked Robin. Meals were so scant at Chapman Farm, she’d never before seen anyone fail to clear their plate.

‘What’s it to you?’ said Emily aggressively.

Robin ate the rest of her meal in silence.

40

… the most sacred of human feelings, that of reverence for the ancestors.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike made the long trip to St Mawes on Thursday by train and ferry. His uncle was so surprised and delighted to see him that Strike knew Ted had forgotten he was coming, in spite of the fact that he’d called that morning to tell his uncle what time he’d be arriving.

The house where the fastidious Joan had once presided was dusty, although Strike was pleased to see the fridge was well stocked with food. Strike understood that Ted’s neighbours had been rallying around, making sure he had enough to eat and checking in with him regularly. This increased Strike’s guilt about not doing more to support Ted, whose conversation was rambling and repetitive.

The visit to the GP the following morning did nothing to allay Strike’s concerns.

‘He asked Ted what date it is and he didn’t know,’ Strike told Lucy by phone after lunch. Strike had left Ted with a mug of tea in the living room, then slipped out into the back garden on the pretext of vaping and was now pacing the small patch of lawn.

‘Well, that’s not too serious, is it?’ said Lucy.

‘Then he told Ted an address and made him say it back, which Ted did fine, and he told Ted he was going to ask him to repeat the address a few minutes later, but Ted couldn’t.’

‘Oh no,’ said Lucy.

‘He asked if Ted could remember a recent news story and Ted said “Brexit”, no problem. Then he told him to fill in the numbers on a picture of a clock. Ted did that OK, but then he had to mark in the hands to make it say ten to eleven, and Ted was lost. Couldn’t do it.’

‘Oh shit,’ Lucy whispered, disconsolate. ‘So what’s the diagnosis?’

‘Dementia,’ said Strike.

‘Was Ted upset?’

‘Hard to say. I’ve got the impression he knows something’s up. He told me yesterday he’s forgetting things a lot and it’s worrying him.’

‘Stick, what are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Strike. ‘I wouldn’t give good odds on him remembering to turn the cooker off at night. He left the hot tap running an hour ago, just walked away and forgot it. It might be time for sheltered housing.’

‘He won’t want that.’

‘I know,’ said Strike, who now paused in his pacing to contemplate the strip of sea just visible from Ted’s back garden. Joan’s ashes had been strewn there from Ted’s old sailing boat and some irrational part of him sought guidance from the distant, glittering ocean. ‘But I’m worried about him living alone if he goes downhill much further. The stairs are steep and he’s not too steady on his feet.’

The call ended with no definite plan for Ted’s future in place. Strike returned to the house to find his uncle fast asleep in an armchair, so removed himself quietly to the kitchen to look at emails on the laptop he’d brought down from London.

A message from Midge sat at the top of his inbox. She’d attached a scanned copy of the letter Robin had put in the plastic rock the previous evening.

The first paragraph dealt with the disgruntled Emily Pirbright’s return to the farm and Robin’s so far unrealised hope of getting information out of her. The second paragraph described the basement session in which the new recruits had to write to their families, and concluded,

… so can one of you please write a letter from Theresa, acknowledging the letter saying I’ve joined the church? Make her sound worried, they’ll expect that.

Other news: someone in the farmhouse might be ill, possibly called Jacob. Saw Dr Zhou hurrying in there looking worried. No further details as yet, will try and find out more.

This afternoon we had our first Revelation. We all sat in a circle in the temple. The last time we did that, it was to talk about how much we’d suffered in the outside world. This was very different. The people who were called on had to take a chair in the middle and confess things they were ashamed of. When they did, they got abused and shouted at. They all ended up in tears. I didn’t get called, so I’ll probably get it next time. Mazu led the Revelation session and was definitely enjoying herself.

Nothing new on Will Edensor. I see him from a distance sometimes but no conversation. Lin still around. There was talk of her going to Birmingham, can’t remember if I said.

Think that’s everything. I’m so tired. Hope all well with you x

Strike read the letter through twice, taking particular note of the ‘I’m so tired’ at the end. He had to admire Robin’s resourcefulness in thinking up a way of obfuscating her relatives’ whereabouts at short notice, but like her, felt he should have foreseen the necessity for a safe address for mail. Strike also wondered whether there’d been a letter for Murphy this week, but could think of no way of asking without arousing the suspicions of Pat and the other subcontractors. Instead, he texted Midge to ask her to write the letter from Theresa, as he feared his own handwriting looked too obviously masculine.

As Ted’s snores were still emanating from the sitting room, Strike opened his next email, which was from Dev Shah.

Having spent hours the previous day searching online records for Cherie Gittins under her birth name of Carine Makepeace, Strike had at last succeeded in finding her birth certificate and death certificates for both her father, who’d died when she was five, and the cousin in Dulwich with whom she’d stayed after fleeing Chapman Farm. However, Cherie’s mother, Maureen Agnes Makepeace, née Gittins, was still alive and living in Penge, so Strike had asked Shah to pay her a visit.

Visited Ivychurch Close this morning, Shah had written. Maureen Makepeace and her flat are both falling apart. She looks & talks like a heavy drinker, v aggressive. Neighbour called out to me as I was approaching the front door. He hoped I was from the council, because there’ve been arguments over bins, noise, etc. Maureen says she’s had no contact with her daughter since the latter ran away, aged 15.

Inured as he was to leads petering out in this way, Strike was nevertheless disappointed.

He made himself a mug of tea, resisted a chocolate biscuit, and sat back down in front of his laptop while Ted’s snores continued to rumble through the open door.

The difficulty he was having tracing Carine/Cherie was making Strike commensurately more interested in her. He now began Googling combinations and variations of the two names he knew for certain the girl had used. Only when he returned to the British Library’s newspaper archive did he finally get a hit on the name ‘Cherry Makepeace’ in a copy of the Manchester Evening News dated 1999.

‘Gotcha,’ he muttered, as two mugshots appeared onscreen, one showing a young man with long hair and extremely bad teeth, the other, a tousle-haired blonde who, beneath the heavy eyeliner, was clearly recognisable as Cherie Gittins of Chapman Farm.

The news story described a robbery and stabbing committed by Isaac Mills, which was the name of the young man with the bad teeth. He’d stolen morphine, temazepam, diazepam and cash from a pharmacy before knifing a customer who’d tried to intervene. The victim had survived, but Mills had still been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

The report concluded:

Cherry Makepeace, 21, also known as Cherry Curtis, drove Mills to the pharmacy on the day of the robbery and waited for him outside. Makepeace claimed she was unaware of Mills’ intention to rob the pharmacy and didn’t know he possessed a knife. She was convicted of aiding and abetting a criminal and received a six-month sentence, suspended for three years.

Strike jotted down the names Carine/Cherie/Cherry along with the surnames Gittins/Makepeace/Curtis. Where the last of these had come from, he had no idea; perhaps she’d simply pulled it out of thin air. The regular name changes suggested someone keen not to be found, but Strike tended to believe that Colonel Graves’ assessment of Cherie as ‘feather-brained’ and ‘easily influenced’ had been correct, given her dumbstruck look in the Manchester Evening News photo.

He now navigated to the Pinterest page of Torment Town, with its eerie drawings of Daiyu Wace and grotesque parodies of the UHC logo. Torment Town hadn’t responded to the message Strike had sent them, over which he’d taken more trouble than the few words might have suggested.

Amazing pictures. Do you draw from imagination?

A particularly loud snore from the sitting room made Strike turn off his laptop, feeling guilty. He’d soon need to make his way back to Falmouth for the overnight train. It was time to wake Ted so they could have a last chat before leaving him, once more, to his loneliness.

41

One is courageous and wishes to accomplish one’s task, no matter what happens.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The account of Revelation that Robin had sent Strike had been brief and to the point, partly because she’d had neither time nor energy to go into details while exhausted, crouching among nettles in the dark and pausing regularly to listen out for footsteps, but it had shaken her more than she’d liked to admit in her letter. Mazu had encouraged those in the circle to use the filthiest and most abusive words they could find when berating those confessing, and Robin thought she was unlikely ever to forget the sight of Kyle doubled over in his chair, sobbing, while others screamed ‘pervert’ and ‘faggot’ in response to his admission that he continued to feel shame about being gay.

When Kyle’s time in the hot seat had concluded, Mazu had told him calmly he’d be more resilient for having undergone Revelation, that he’d faced ‘externalisation of his inner shame’, and congratulated the group for doing what she knew had been difficult for them, too. Yet the facial expressions of those shouting abuse at Kyle were still seared on Robin’s memory: they’d been given permission to be as vile as they liked, irrespective of their true feelings about Kyle or homosexuality, and she was disturbed by the gusto with which they’d participated, even knowing that their own turn in the middle of the circle would come.

Robin was rapidly learning that at Chapman Farm, practices that in the outside world would be considered abusive or coercive were excused, justified and disguised by a huge amount of jargon. The use of slurs and offensive language during Revelation was justified as part of PRT, or Primal Response Therapy. Whenever a question was posed about contradictions or inconsistencies in church doctrine, the answer was almost always that they would be explained by an HLT (Higher-Level Truth), which would be revealed when they had progressed further along the path to pure spirit. A person putting their own needs above those of the group was deemed to be in the grip of EM (egomotivity), one who continued to prize worldly goods or status was a BP, or bubble person, and leaving the church was ‘going DV’, meaning, becoming a Deviate. Terms such as false self, flesh object and materialist possession were now employed casually among the new members, who’d begun to reframe all past and present experience in the church’s language. There was also much talk of the Adversary, who was not only Satan, but also all temporal power structures, which were populated by the Adversary’s agents.

The intensity of indoctrination crept up even further during Robin’s third week at the farm. New members were regularly bombarded with dreadful images and statistics about the outside world, sometimes for hours at a time. Even though Robin knew this was being done to create a sense of urgency with regard to the war the UHC was supposedly waging on the Adversary, and to bind recruits more closely to the church as the world’s only hope, she doubted anyone of normal empathy could fail to feel distressed and anxious after being forced to look at hundreds upon hundreds of images of starving and wounded children, or learning the statistics on people trafficking and world poverty, or hearing how the rainforest would be entirely destroyed within another two decades. It was difficult not to agree that the planet was on the brink of collapse, that humanity had taken terrible wrong turns and that it would face an awful reckoning unless it changed its ways. The anxiety induced by this constant bombardment of dreadful news was such that Robin welcomed the times recruits were led to the temple to chant on the hard floor, where she experienced the blessed relief of not thinking, of losing herself in the collective voice of the group. Once or twice, she found herself muttering Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu even when nobody around her was chanting.

Her only real bulwark against the onslaught of indoctrination was to remind herself, constantly, what she was at the farm to do. Unfortunately, her third week inside the church yielded very little in the way of useful information. Emily Pirbright and Will Edensor remained impossible to engage in conversation due to the unacknowledged system of segregation in place at the farm. In spite of Will’s wealth and Emily’s almost lifelong membership of the church, both were currently acting as farmhands and domestic servants, whereas Robin continued to spend most of her time in the temple or the lecture room. Nevertheless, she tried to keep a covert eye on both of them, and her observation led her to a couple of deductions.

The first was that Will Edensor was trying, as far as he dared, to maintain personal contact with the white-haired toddler Robin had previously seen him comforting. She was now almost certain that Qing was the daughter he’d had with Lin Pirbright, a conclusion reinforced when she spotted Lin cuddling the child in the shadow of some bushes near the farmhouse. Will and Lin were both in clear breach of the church’s teaching on materialist possession, and risking severe penalties if their ongoing quest to maintain a parental relationship with their daughter was made known to Mazu, Taio and Becca, who were currently reigning supreme at Chapman Farm in the absence of Jonathan Wace.

Still more intriguingly, Robin had noticed definite signs of tension and possibly dislike between the Pirbright sisters. She hadn’t forgotten that Becca and Emily had accused their dead brother of sexually abusing them, yet she’d seen no signs of solidarity between the pair. On the contrary, whenever they found themselves in close proximity, they made no eye contact and generally removed themselves from each other’s vicinity as quickly as possible. Given that church members usually made a point of greeting each other as they passed in the yard, and an elaborate courtesy was observed when it came to opening doors for each other, or ceding to each other when it came to vacant spaces in the dining hall, this behaviour definitely couldn’t be attributed to fear of succumbing to materialist possession. Robin wondered whether Becca was afraid of being tarnished by the faint aura of disgrace which hung over the shaven-headed Emily, or whether there was another, more personal, source of animosity. The sisters seemed united in one thing only: disdain for the woman who’d brought them into the world. Not once did Robin see any sign of warmth towards or even acknowledgement of Louise from either of her daughters.

Robin was still keeping track of the days with the tiny pebbles she picked up daily. The approach of her third Thursday at the farm brought the now familiar mixture of excitement and nerves, because while she craved communication from the outside world, the nocturnal journey to the plastic rock remained nerve-wracking.

When the lights went out, she dressed beneath the covers again, waited for the other women to fall silent, and for the usual snorers to prove they’d fallen asleep, then got quietly out of bed.

The night was cold and windy, a stiff breeze blowing across the dark field as Robin crossed it, and she entered the woods to the sound of trees creaking and rustling around her. To her relief, she found the plastic rock more easily than she’d done previously.

When Robin opened the rock she saw a letter from Strike, a note in Ryan’s handwriting, and, to her delight, a small bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Easing herself behind a tree, she ripped the wrapping off the chocolate and devoured it in a few bites, so hungry she couldn’t slow down to savour it. She then turned on the torch and opened Ryan’s letter.

Dear Robin,

It was great to hear from you, I was getting worried. The farm sounds bizarre, although being a country girl you’re probably not hating it as much as I would.

Not much news this end. Work’s busy. Currently on a new murder case but it lacks something without the involvement of a hot female private detective.

I had a long phone conversation with your mother last night. She’s worried about you, but I talked her down.

My sister in San Sebastian wants us to go over there in July because she’s gagging to meet you. There’d be worse ways of celebrating you getting out of that place.

Anyway, I’m really missing you, so please don’t join up and never come back.

Love, Ryan xxx

PS Your plants are still alive.

In spite of her recent ingestion of chocolate, this letter didn’t do much to lift Robin’s spirits. Hearing that Ryan and her mother were worried about her did nothing to calm the guilt and fear the UHC was busy inculcating in her. Nor could she think of things like summer holidays right now, when every day seemed to last a week.

She now turned to Strike’s note.

Thursday 28th April

Very good job on your quick thinking re: your sister. Midge has written a letter back to you from 14 Plympton Road NW6 2JJ (address will be on letter). It’s Pat’s sister’s place (she’s got a different surname from Pat, so no easily discoverable connection – could be Theresa’s landlady). She’ll alert us if you write back, we’ll collect the letter and Midge can respond again.

I’ve met the Graves family. Turns out Alex Graves had a quarter of a million to leave, which Mazu inherited when Daiyu died. Colonel Graves is convinced the Waces and Cherie were in cahoots over the drowning. I’ve had no luck tracing Cherie Gittins in spite of a couple of possible leads. Her life post-farm definitely suggests she had something to hide: several name changes and a brush with the law in the form of a pharmacy-robbing boyfriend.

Not much other news. The Franks have gone quiet. Still trying to find a replacement for Littlejohn. Wardle might know someone and I’m trying to fix up an interview.

Don’t forget: the moment you’ve had enough, say the word and we’ll come and get you out.

Sx

Unlike Ryan’s note, Strike’s brought a measure of comfort, because Robin had been fretting about what she was going to do to keep the fiction of Theresa alive. She tugged the top off the biro with her teeth and began to write back to Strike, apologising for the lack of concrete information but saying that she didn’t want to leave the farm until she had something Sir Colin could use against the church. Having finished her note with thanks for the chocolate, she dashed off a quick message for Ryan, enclosed both with the torch and the pen in the plastic rock, then tore up their letters and the chocolate wrapper. Instead of scattering the fragments in the wood, she slid a hand beneath the barbed wire and dropped them onto the road, where the breeze immediately carried them away. Robin watched the white specks disappearing into the darkness, and felt envious of them for escaping Chapman Farm.

She then made her way back through the whispering woods, shivering slightly in spite of the fact that she was wearing pyjamas under her tracksuit, and set back off across the field.

42

Nine in the fifth place means:

A melon covered with willow leaves.

Hidden lines…

The melon, like the fish, is a symbol of the principle of darkness.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin had almost reached the five-bar gate when she heard voices and saw lanterns swinging down the passage between the men’s and women’s dormitories. Terrified, she ducked down behind the hedge, certain that her empty bed had been discovered.

‘… check Lower Field and the woods,’ said a voice she thought she recognised as Taio’s.

‘He won’t’ve got that far,’ said a second male voice.

‘Do as you’re fucking told,’ said Taio. ‘You two do the Retreat Rooms, all of them.’

A man climbed over the five-bar gate, his lantern swinging, barely ten feet from where Robin was crouching. The lamplight darted towards and away from her as he set off, and she saw the short dreadlocks of the black man who’d told Vivienne off for using the phrase ‘go to hell’.

‘Bo!’ he bellowed, striding off towards the woods. ‘Bo, where are you?’

Such was Robin’s panic it took her a few seconds to compute that they weren’t looking for her after all, but her situation remained perilous. The women surely wouldn’t sleep through this shouting for long, and if the searchers entered her dormitory to look for the unknown Bo, they’d soon discover there were two people missing, not one. Waiting for the voices and lights of the search party to recede, Robin climbed quickly over the five-bar gate, then had to crouch down behind more bushes as Jiang emerged from the nearest Retreat Room, also holding a lantern. Once he’d stomped off into the darkness, she crept to the rear wall of the women’s dormitory before realising that more people with lanterns were hurrying across the courtyard, meaning she had no chance of entering through the door unseen.

She moved as quickly and quietly as possible through the trees and bushes at the rear of the dormitories, aiming for the older part of the farm, which offered many hiding places, and soon found herself at the rear of the dilapidated barn that was always locked. Her familiarity with old farm buildings made her feel her way along the rear until her fingers found exactly what she was hoping for: a gap where a plank of wood had rotted away and the one next to it could be pushed inwards sufficiently to make a gap large enough for her to squeeze inside, snagging her hair and scraping her body painfully.

The air inside the barn was dank and musty, but there was more light inside than she’d expected, due to a gap in the roof through which moonlight was streaming. This illuminated an old tractor, broken farming tools, stacks of crates and bits of fencing. Something, doubtless a rat, scurried away from the intruder.

Lanterns were now passing outside the barn, casting slivers of gold through the gaps in the wooden plank walls. Voices close and distant were still shouting, ‘Bo? Bo!’

Robin remained where she was, scared of moving in case she knocked something over. Now she noticed a mound of personal belongings almost as tall as she was, heaped in a corner and covered in thick dust. There were clothes, handbags, wallets, shoes, cuddly toys and books, and Robin was horribly reminded of a picture she’d seen of the mound of shoes belonging to the gassed at Auschwitz.

The searchers outside had moved on. Full of curiosity about these old belongings, Robin climbed carefully over an upended wheelbarrow to examine them. After three weeks of seeing nothing but orange tracksuits and trainers, of reading nothing but church literature, it was strange to see different kinds of clothing and shoes, not to mention the old child’s picture book with its vivid colours.

There was something disturbing, even eerie, about the mound of old possessions, thrown away with what seemed like casual contempt. Robin noticed a single stack-heeled shoe which once, perhaps, a teenage girl had coveted and treasured, and a cuddly toy rabbit, its face covered in cobwebs. Where were their owners? After a minute or two, a possible explanation occurred to her: anyone leaving the farm by stealth, at night, would be forced to leave the belongings they’d left in the lockers.

She reached for an old handbag lying close to the top of the heap. A cloud of dust rose into the air as she opened it. There was nothing inside except an old white LRT bus ticket. She replaced the handbag and as she did so, noticed the rusty edge of a rectangular red biscuit tin with Barnum’s Animals printed on it. She’d loved those biscuits when she was little, but hadn’t thought about them for years. Seeing the packaging in this strange context reminded her poignantly of the safety of her family home.

‘BO!’ bellowed a voice just outside the barn, causing the unseen rat to scratch and scrabble in the shadows. Then, somewhere in the distance a female voice shrieked,

‘I’VE GOT HIM!’

Robin heard a confusion of voices, some expressing relief, others demanding to know how Bo had ‘got out’, and decided her best option was to emerge from the barn and present herself as having been looking for Bo all along.

She’d taken a couple of steps back towards the gap in the rear wall before she stopped dead, looking back at the dusty pile of old belongings, seized by the urge to look in that Barnum’s Animals biscuit tin. Chilly, nervous and exhausted as she was, it took several moments for her to work out why her subconscious was telling her the tin’s presence at the farm was strange. Then she realised: there was a total prohibition on sugar here, so why would anybody have brought biscuits to the place? In spite of the urgent need to join the searchers outside before her absence was noticed, Robin climbed quickly back over the wheelbarrow and pulled the tin out of the pile.

The lid showed the image of four caged circus animals and balloons, along with ‘85th Anniversary’ written inside a gold circle. She prised it off, expecting the tin to be empty because it was so light, but on the contrary: a number of faded Polaroids lay inside. Unable to see what they showed in the dim light, Robin took them out and stuffed them inside her bra, as she did daily with her date-marking pebbles. She then replaced the lid, re-inserted the tin where she’d found it, hurried to the gap in the rear wall of the barn and squeezed back outside.

Judging from the distant noise coming from the courtyard, almost everyone at the farm was now awake. Robin set off at a jog, passing the dining hall and temple, and joined the throng, who were mostly in pyjamas, at a moment when everyone’s attention was on Mazu Wace, who was standing between the tombs of the Stolen and Golden Prophets in her long orange robes. Beside her stood Louise Pirbright, who was holding a struggling toddler in a nappy, whom Robin guessed to be the errant Bo. Other than the child’s whimpers, there was complete silence. Mazu barely needed to raise her voice for everyone in the crowd to hear her.

‘Who was on child dorm duty?’

After a small hesitation, two teenage girls sidled to the front of the crowd, one with short fair hair, the other, long dark twists. The latter was crying. Robin, who was watching through the thicket of heads in front of her, saw both girls fall to their knees as though they’d rehearsed the movement and crawl towards Mazu’s feet.

‘Please, Mama…’

‘We’re so sorry, Mama!’

When they reached the hem of Mazu’s robes she lifted them slightly, and watched, her expression blank, as the two girls wept and kissed her feet.

Then she said sharply, ‘Taio.’

Her elder son pushed his way through the watching crowd.

‘Take them to the temple.’

‘Mama, please,’ wailed the fair-haired girl.

‘Come on,’ said Taio, grabbing the arms of the two girls and dragging them forcibly to their feet. Robin was most disturbed by the way the girl with the twists tried to cling on to Mazu’s leg, and the utter coldness of Mazu’s expression as she watched her son drag them away. Nobody asked what was going to happen to the girls; nobody spoke or even moved.

As Mazu turned back to the watching crowd, Louise said,

‘Shall I put Bo back to—?’ but Mazu said,

‘No. You – ’ she pointed at Penny Brown ‘– and you,’ she said to Emily Pirbright, ‘take him back to the dormitory and stay there.’

Penny went to lift the little boy out of Louise’s arms, but he clung to Louise. The latter prised him off and handed him over. His screams receded as Penny and Emily hurried away through the arch that led to the children’s dormitory.

‘You may go back to bed,’ said Mazu to the watching crowd. She turned and walked towards the temple.

None of the women looked at each other or spoke as they filed back into their dormitory. Robin grabbed her pyjamas off her bed, then hurried off into the bathroom and locked herself into a cubicle before pulling the Polaroids out of her bra to examine them.

All were faded, yet Robin could still just make out the images. The uppermost picture showed the figure of a naked, chubby dark-haired young woman – possibly a teenager – wearing a pig mask, her legs spread wide. The second showed a different, blonde young woman being penetrated from behind by a squat man, both in pig masks. The third showed a stringy-looking man with a skull tattooed on his bicep sodomising a smaller man. Robin rifled hastily through the pictures. In total, four naked people were pictured in various sexual combinations in a space Robin didn’t recognise, but which looked like an outhouse, possibly even the barn she’d just left. They wore pig masks in every image.

Robin shoved the pictures back inside her bra and left it on as she stripped off her tracksuit. She then left the cubicle, turned out the bathroom light and returned to her bed. As she settled down to sleep at last, a distant scream pierced the silence, emanating from the temple.

‘Please no – please no, Mama – no, please, please!’

If anyone in the surrounding beds had also heard it, none of them made a sound.

43

Six in the fourth place means:

Entangled folly brings humiliation.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Six days after Robin, unbeknownst to Strike, had found the old Polaroids in the rusty biscuit tin, he held an afternoon team meeting attended by everyone at the detective agency apart from Littlejohn, who was on surveillance. Strike had opted to hold the meeting in the otherwise deserted basement room of his favourite local pub, which until recently had been called the Tottenham, but had now become the Flying Horse. As an Arsenal fan, Strike thoroughly approved of the rebrand. While waiting for his subcontractors to join him, he checked Pinterest to see whether Torment Town had responded to his message, but there was no change to the page.

‘I’m no’ complainin’, but why’re we doing this here?’ asked Barclay ten minutes later. The Glaswegian was the last to arrive in the red carpeted room and, as he had the evening off, had stopped at the upstairs bar to buy himself a pint.

‘In case Littlejohn decides to come back to the office,’ said Strike.

‘We’re gonnae be plottin’ his downfall, are we?’

‘He might not be working for us for much longer, so there’s no need for him to know any more of our business,’ said Strike. ‘I’m interviewing Wardle’s mate tomorrow and if that goes well, Littlejohn’s out.’

Shah, Midge and Barclay all said, ‘Good.’ Pat, Strike noticed, remained silent.

‘Where’s he now?’ asked Midge.

‘On the Franks,’ said Strike.

‘Speakin’ of which, I’ve got somethin’ on them,’ said Barclay, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for two sheets of paper which, when unfolded, proved to be photocopied news articles. ‘I’ve been wonderin’ whether we could get them on a benefits scam an’ I ended up findin’ this.’

He pushed the papers towards Strike. Both news items were small, though one featured a headshot of the older brother. The surname given wasn’t the one the Frank brothers were currently living under, though the forenames remained the same.

‘The younger one was done fer flashin’,’ Barclay told Shah and Midge, while Strike was reading. ‘Got a suspended sentence. The older one’s supposedly the younger one’s carer. No idea what’s s’posed to be wrong wi’ him.’

‘And the older one’s been done for stalking,’ said Strike, now reading the second article, ‘of another actress. Judge let him off with a suspended sentence, because he’s his brother’s carer.’

‘Typical,’ said Midge angrily, banging her glass down on the table to the slight consternation of Shah, who was sitting beside her. ‘If I saw that once, I saw it fifty fookin’ times when I was in the force. Men like them get cut too much fookin’ slack, and everyone’ll act surprised when one of the fookers is charged with rape.’

‘Good job finding this, Barclay,’ said Strike. ‘I think—’

Strike’s mobile rang and he saw Littlejohn’s number. He answered.

‘Just seen Frank One posting something in an envelope through the client’s front door,’ said Littlejohn. ‘I’ve sent you video.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Walking away.’

‘OK, I’ll call the client and warn her. Stay on him.’

‘Righto.’

Littlejohn hung up.

‘Frank One’s just posted something through the client’s letter box,’ Strike told the rest of the team.

‘More dead birds?’ asked Midge.

‘Not unless they’d fit in an envelope. I think we should tip off the police that the Franks have got form under previous names. A visit from Plod might make them back off. I’ll take care of that,’ Strike added, making a note. ‘What’s the latest on Bigfoot?’

‘He was back at Chelsea Cloisters yesterday,’ said Shah.

‘That young girl you photographed him with in the street isn’t going to give us anything,’ Midge told Strike. ‘I got talking to her in a sandwich place up the road. Thick East European accent, very nervous. They tell those girls they’re coming to London to get modelling contracts, don’t they? I was hoping she might fancy a nice press payday for selling him out, but I think she’d be too scared to talk.’

‘One of us needs tae get intae that place, posing as a punter,’ said Barclay.

‘I’d have thought the pictures of him going in and out of there would be enough for his wife,’ said Shah.

‘She thinks he’ll explain it away somehow,’ said Strike, who’d received a tetchy email that morning from the client. ‘She’s after something he can’t wriggle out of.’

‘Like wha’, a picture of him actually bein’ sucked off?’ said Barclay.

‘Couldn’t hurt. Might be better to get in the building as some kind of tradesman or safety inspector, instead of a punter,’ said Strike. ‘More freedom to move around and maybe catch him coming out of a room.’

There followed a discussion as to which detective should undertake the job, and possible covers. Shah, who’d successfully posed as an international art dealer during a previous case, was finally assigned the job.

‘Bit of a comedown, heating engineer,’ he said.

‘We’ll get you fake ID and documentation,’ said Strike.

‘So, are we going to take a new case from the waiting list yet?’ asked Midge.

‘Give it a bit longer,’ said Strike. ‘Let’s make sure we’ve got a replacement for Littlejohn first.’

‘Who’s off tae visit the plastic rock tomorrow?’ asked Barclay.

‘I am,’ said Strike.

‘She must be nearly ready to come out,’ said Midge. ‘It’s a month now.’

‘She hasn’t got anything Edensor can use against the church yet,’ said Strike. ‘You know Robin: no half measures. OK, I think that’s everything. I’ll let you know about the Littlejohn replacement as soon as I do.’

‘Can I have a word?’ Shah asked Strike, as the others headed for the door.

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike, sitting back down. To his surprise, the subcontractor now took a copy of Private Eye out of his back pocket.

‘Have you read this?’

‘No,’ said Strike.

Shah flicked through the magazine, then handed it across the table. Strike saw a column circled in pen.

Andrew ‘Honey Badger’ Honbold QC, UK slebs’ favourite defamation litigator and self-proclaimed moral arbiter, may soon be in desperate need of his own services. Honey Badger’s longstanding preference for pretty young juniors is, of course, entirely avuncular. However, a mole at Lavington Court Chambers informs the Eye that a curvaceous young brunette has been spreading tales of the Badger’s prowess and stamina in a context other than the courtroom. The legal lovely has even been heard predicting the imminent demise of the Badger’s marriage to the saintly Lady Matilda.

Stalwarts of the London charity circuit, the Honbolds have been married for 25 years and have four children. A recent Times profile emphasised the personal probity of the UK’s most prominent anti-sleaze brief.

‘I’ve seen close up the effect slurs and insinuations have on undeserving people,’ thundered the Honey Badger, ‘and I personally would strengthen the existing defamation laws to protect the innocent.’

The indiscreet lady in the case is now rumoured to be bestowing her favours upon one Cormoran Strike, the increasingly newsworthy private detective. Has she been getting tips on hidden cameras and microphones? If so, the Hon Honbold QC had better hope slurs and insinuations are all he has to deal with.

‘Fuck,’ said Strike. He looked up at Shah and could find nothing better to do than repeat ‘fuck’.

‘Thought you should know,’ said Shah.

‘It was a one-night – no, two-night stand. She never said a word to me about this Honbold.’

‘Right,’ said Shah. ‘Well, y’know – he’s not popular with the papers, so I think they might run with this story.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ said Strike. ‘She’s not dragging me into her mess.’

But he was well aware he’d already been dragged into Bijou’s mess, and Shah looked as though he was thinking exactly the same thing.

They parted outside the Flying Horse, Shah returning to the office to finish some paperwork, leaving Strike consumed with rage and self-recrimination outside the pub. He’d had enough experience of both kinds of misfortune to know that there was a vast difference between feeling yourself a victim of random strokes of fate and having to accept that your troubles had been brought about by your own folly. He’d been warned by Ilsa that Bijou was mouthy and indiscreet, and what had he done? Fucked her a second time. After avoiding the spotlight for years, giving testimony in court cases only in a full beard, refusing every offer of a press interview and ending a previous relationship with a woman who’d wanted him to pose with her at high-profile events, he’d knowingly bedded a loudmouth with, it turned out, a well-known married lover in the background.

He called Bijou’s number, but reached voicemail. After leaving a message telling her to ring him as soon as possible, he called Ilsa.

‘Hi,’ she said, sounding cold.

‘Calling to apologise,’ said Strike, which was only partially true. ‘I shouldn’t have bitten your head off. I know you were only trying to look out for me.’

‘Yes, I was,’ said Ilsa. ‘All right, apology accepted.’

‘Well, you’ve been proven right in spades,’ said Strike. ‘I’m in today’s Private Eye, linked to her and to her married boyfriend.’

‘Oh shit, not Andrew Honbold?’ said Ilsa.

‘You know him?’

‘Only slightly.’

‘The Eye’s implying that in addition to shagging her, I’ve been helping her bug Honbold’s bedroom.’

‘Corm, I’m sorry – she’s been trying to get him to leave his wife for ages. She’s completely open about it.’

‘I can’t see Honbold marrying her if he thinks she’s put a private detective on him. Where is she right now, d’you know?’

‘She’ll be at Lavington Court Chambers,’ said Ilsa.

‘OK, I’ll go and wait for her there,’ said Strike.

‘Is that wise?’

‘It’ll be easier to put the fear of God into her in person than over the phone,’ said Strike grimly, already heading towards the Tube station.

44

A man must part company with the inferior and superficial. The important thing is to remain firm.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

This, Strike thought, was the first time he’d been glad that Robin was currently at Chapman Farm. He’d done something bloody stupid, and while the consequences were likely to be more severe for himself than the agency as a whole, he preferred Robin to remain in ignorance of the mess he’d got himself into.

Having looked up the address, Strike made the short journey on the Central line, exiting the Tube at Holborn and heading for Lincoln’s Inn. He then took up a position behind a tree in the gardens from which he could watch the neo-classical façade of Lavington Court Chambers, and waited.

He’d been there for an hour, watching a few people enter, and more leave the building, when his mobile rang. Expecting to see Bijou’s number, he instead saw Shanker’s.

‘Wotcha, Bunsen, just callin’ to say you’re in, wiv Reaney. Twenny-eighth of May. Couldn’t do nuffin’ earlier.’

‘Cheers, Shanker, that’s great news,’ said Strike, still keeping his eyes trained on the entrance of Bijou’s building. ‘He knows I’m coming, right?’

‘Oh, yeah, ’e knows,’ said Shanker. ‘An’ you’ll ’ave a bit of security there, to make sure ’e’s cooperating.’

‘Even better,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Awright, ’appy ’untin’,’ said Shanker, and rang off.

Strike had just put his mobile back in his pocket when the door of Lavington Court Chambers opened and Bijou descended the steps wearing a bright red coat, setting off in the direction of the Tube station. Strike let her get a head start, then followed. As he walked, he took out his mobile and called her number again. She took her phone out of her bag, still walking, looked at it, then put it back in the bag without answering.

As he wanted to put some distance between himself and Lavington Court Chambers to reduce the possibility of being seen by Bijou’s work colleagues, Strike continued to walk fifty yards behind his quarry until she entered narrow Gate Street. Here, she slowed down, took out her mobile again, apparently to read a recently received text, and finally came to a halt to send a reply. Strike sped up, and when she’d again put her mobile back into her bag, called her name.

She looked round, and was clearly horrified to see who had called her.

‘I’d like a word, in there,’ he said grimly, pointing to a pub called the Ship, which was tucked away in a pedestrian-only alleyway visible between two buildings.

‘Why?’

‘Have you read today’s Private Eye?’

‘I – yes.’

‘Then you know why.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Want to be seen with me? Then you should’ve answered your phone.’

She looked as though she’d have liked to refuse to go with him, but let him lead her into the alleyway. When he held open the door of the Ship, she walked in past him, her expression cold.

‘I’d rather go upstairs,’ she said.

‘Fine by me,’ said Strike. ‘What d’you want to drink?’

‘I don’t care – red wine.’

Five minutes later he joined her upstairs in the low-ceilinged, dimly lit Oak Room. She’d taken off her coat to reveal a tight red dress, and was sitting in a corner with her back to the room. Strike set her wine on the table before sitting down opposite her, holding a double whisky. He didn’t intend to stay long enough for a pint.

‘You’ve been shooting your mouth off about me.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘“A mole at Lavington Court Chambers—”’

‘I know what it said!’

‘You need to make it very clear to this Honbold individual that I never gave you any advice on surveillance.’

‘I’ve already told him that!’

‘Seen the article, has he?’

‘Yes. And the Mail have been on to him. And the Sun. But he’s going to deny everything,’ she added, her bottom lip trembling.

‘I’ll bet he is.’

Strike watched unsympathetically as Bijou dug in her pockets for a tissue and blotted her eyes carefully so as not to disturb her make-up.

‘What are you going to do when journos turn up at your flat?’ he asked.

‘Tell them I never slept with him. It’s what Andrew wants.’

‘You’re going to deny you ever slept with me, as well.’

She said nothing. Suspecting he knew what lay behind her silence, he said,

‘I’m not going to be collateral damage in all this. We met at a christening, that’s all. If you still think Honbold’s going to be spurred into leaving his wife out of jealousy that we’re screwing, you’re deluded. I doubt he’d touch you with a bargepole after this.’

‘You bastard,’ she croaked, still mopping her eyes and nose. ‘I liked you.’

‘You were playing a little game that blew up in your face, but I’m not going to get caught in the crossfire, so understand now, there’ll be consequences if you try and save face by saying we’re having an affair.’

‘Are you threatening me?’ she whispered over the damp tissue.

‘It’s a warning,’ said Strike. ‘Delete the texts you sent me and take my number off your phone.’

‘Or?’

‘Or there’ll be consequences,’ he repeated. ‘I’m a private detective. I find out things about people, things they think they’ve hidden very effectively. Unless there’s nothing in your past you’d mind seeing printed in the Sun, I’d think long and hard about using me to try and leverage a proposal out of Honbold.’

She was no longer crying. Her expression had hardened, but he thought she’d gone slightly paler beneath her foundation. Finally she took out her mobile, deleted his contact details, the texts they’d exchanged and the photos she’d sent him. Strike then did the same on his own phone, downed his whisky in one and stood up again.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘blanket denials all round and this should blow over.’

He left the Ship feeling no qualms whatsoever about the tactics he’d just employed, but consumed with fury at her and himself. Time would tell whether he was going to find the Mail at his own door, but as he walked back towards Holborn Tube station, he vowed to himself that this would be the last time, ever, he risked his own privacy or career for a pointless affair undertaken to distract him from thoughts of Robin Ellacott.

45

But every relationship between individuals bears within it the danger that wrong turns may be taken…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin had had to carry around the Polaroids she’d found for a week before placing them in the plastic rock on Thursday night. She didn’t dare hide them anywhere in the dormitory, but the awareness of them close to her skin was an ever-present source of anxiety in case one slipped out from under her tracksuit top. Her fourth trip into the woods and back again was mercifully uneventful, and she returned safely to her bed undetected, deeply relieved to have got rid of the photographs.

The following evening, after a day of lectures and chanting, Robin returned to the dormitory with the other women to find scarlet tracksuits lying on their beds, instead of orange.

‘Why the colour change?’ said widowed Marion Huxley blankly. Marion, whose ginger hair had now grown out to reveal an inch of silver, often asked rather basic questions, or spoke when others might have remained silent.

‘’Aven’t you finished reading The Answer yet?’ snapped spiky-haired Vivienne. ‘We must’ve entered the Season of the Stolen Prophet. Red’s his colour.’

‘Very good, Vivienne,’ called Becca Pirbright, smiling from a few beds away, and Vivienne visibly preened herself.

But there was something else on Robin’s bed beside her folded scarlet tracksuit: a box of hair colour remover with a slip of paper lying on top of it, with what she recognised as a quotation from The Answer printed on it.

The False Self craves that which is artificial and unnatural.

The True Self craves that which is genuine and natural.

Robin glanced across the dormitory and saw green-haired Penny Brown also examining a box of hair colour remover. Their eyes met; Robin smiled and pointed towards the bathroom and Penny, smiling back, nodded.

To Robin’s surprise, Louise was standing at the sink, carefully shaving her head in the mirror. Their eyes met briefly. Louise dropped her gaze first. Having towelled off her now completely bald pate, she left the bathroom without speaking.

‘People were telling me,’ whispered Penny, ‘that she’s been shaved for, like, a year.’

‘Wow,’ said Robin. ‘D’you know why?’

Penny shook her head.

Tired as she was, and resentful that she had to give up valuable sleeping time to removing her blue hair dye, Robin was nevertheless glad for the opportunity to talk freely to another church member, especially one whose daily routine differed so markedly from her own.

‘How’re you doing? I’ve barely seen you since we were in Fire Group together.’

‘Great,’ said Penny. ‘Really great.’

Her round face was slimmer than it had been on arrival at the farm and there were shadows beneath her eyes. Side by side at the bathroom mirror, Robin and Penny opened the boxes and began to apply the product to their hair.

‘If this is the start of the Season of the Stolen Prophet,’ said Penny, ‘we’ll be seeing a proper Manifestation soon.’

She sounded both excited and frightened.

‘It was incredible, seeing the Drowned Prophet appear, wasn’t it?’ said Robin.

‘Yes,’ said Penny. ‘That’s what really – I mean, once you’ve seen that, there’s no going back to normal life, is there? Like, the proof.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Robin. ‘I felt the same.’

Penny looked disconsolately at her reflection, with her green hair now covered in a thick white paste.

‘It was growing out anyway,’ she said, with an air of trying to convince herself she was happy to be doing what she was doing.

‘So what have you been up to?’ asked Robin.

‘Um, loads of stuff,’ said Penny. ‘Cooking, working on the vegetable patch. I’ve been helping with Jacob as well. And we had a really good talk this morning, on spirit bonding.’

‘Really?’ said Robin. ‘I haven’t had that yet… how’s Jacob doing?’

‘He’s definitely getting better,’ said Penny, evidently under the impression that Robin knew all about Jacob.

‘Oh, good,’ said Robin. ‘I heard he wasn’t too well.’

‘I mean, he hasn’t been, obviously,’ said Penny. Her manner was somewhere between anxious and cagey. ‘It’s like, difficult, isn’t it? Because someone like that, they can’t understand about the false self and the pure spirit, and that’s why they can’t heal themselves.’

‘Right,’ said Robin, nodding, ‘but you think he’s getting better?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Penny. ‘Definitely.’

‘It’s nice of Mazu to have him in the farmhouse,’ said Robin, subtly probing.

‘Yeah,’ said Penny again, ‘but he couldn’t be in the dormitory with all his problems.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Robin, carefully feeling her way. ‘Dr Zhou seems so nice.’

‘Yeah, it’s really lucky Jacob’s got Dr Zhou, because it’d be a nightmare if he was on the outside,’ said Penny. ‘They euthanise people like Jacob out there.’

‘D’you think so?’ asked Robin.

‘Of course they do,’ said Penny, in disbelief at Robin’s naivety. ‘The state doesn’t want to look after them, so they’re just quietly done away with by the NHS – the Nazi Hate Squad, Dr Zhou calls it,’ she added, before looking anxiously in the mirror at her hair and saying, ‘How long d’you think it’s been on? It’s hard to know, without a watch or anything…’

‘Maybe five minutes?’ said Robin. Seeking to capitalise on Penny’s mention of the lack of watches, and encourage the girl to share anything negative she might have noticed about the UHC, she said lightly,

‘Funny, having to get our dye out. Mazu’s hair can’t be naturally that black, can it? She’s in her forties and she hasn’t got a single bit of grey.’

Penny’s demeanour changed instantly.

‘Critiquing people’s looks is pure materialist judgement.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Flesh is unimportant. Spirit is all-important.’

Her tone was didactic, but her eyes were fearful.

‘I know, but if it doesn’t matter what we look like, why have we got to take out our hair dye?’ said Robin reasonably.

‘Because – it was on the bit of paper on the box. The true self is natural.’

Now looking alarmed, Penny scurried away into a shower cubicle and closed the door behind her.

When she estimated that twenty minutes had passed, Robin stripped off her tracksuit, showered the product out of her hair, dried herself, checked in the mirror that all traces of blue dye were gone, then returned to the dark dormitory in her pyjamas.

Penny remained hidden in her shower cubicle throughout.

46

An individual finds himself in an evil environment to which he is committed by external ties.

But he has an inner relationship with a superior man…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The routine of the higher-level recruits changed with the arrival of the Season of the Stolen Prophet. They were no longer spending entire mornings watching footage of war atrocities and famine in the farmhouse basement but were given more lectures on the nine steps to pure spirit: admission, service, divestment, union, renunciation, acceptance, purification, mortification and sacrifice. They were given practical advice on how to achieve steps one to six, which could be worked on concurrently, but the rest were shrouded in mystery, and only those who were judged to have successfully mastered the first half dozen were deemed worthy to learn how to achieve the last three.

Robin also had to endure a second Revelation session. For the second time, she escaped sitting in the hot seat in the middle of the circle, although Vivienne and the elderly Walter were less fortunate. Vivienne was attacked for her habit of changing her accent to disguise her moneyed background and accused of arrogance, self-centredness and hypocrisy until she was reduced to heaving sobs, while Walter, who’d admitted to a long-running feud with an ex-colleague at his old university, was berated for egomotivity and materialist judgement. Alone of those who’d so far been subjected to Primal Response Therapy, Walter didn’t cry. He turned white, but nodded rhythmically, almost eagerly, as the circle threw insults and accusations at him.

‘Yes,’ he muttered, blinking furiously behind his glasses, ‘yes… that’s true… it’s all true… very bad… yes, indeed… false self…’

Meanwhile the bottoms of the medium-sized tracksuits Robin was given once a week kept sliding down from her waist, because she’d lost so much weight. Other than the irritation of having to constantly pull them up again, this didn’t trouble her nearly as much as the awareness that she was slowly becoming institutionalised.

When she’d first arrived at Chapman Farm, she’d registered her own tiredness and hunger as abnormal, and noticed the effects of claustrophobia and group pressure during lectures in the basement. Gradually, though, she’d stopped noticing her exhaustion, and had adapted to making do with less food. She was alarmed to find the unconscious habit of chanting under her breath becoming more frequent and she’d even caught herself thinking in the church’s language. Pondering the question of why the unknown Jacob, who was clearly too ill to be useful to the church, was being kept at Chapman Farm, she found herself framing the possibility of his departure as a ‘return to the materialist world’.

Unnerved by what she was still objective enough to recognise as partial indoctrination, Robin tried a new strategy to maintain her objectivity: trying to analyse the methods the church was using to force acceptance of its world view.

She noted the way duress and leniency were applied to church members. Recruits were so grateful for any let-up in the constant pressure to listen, learn, work or chant that they showed disproportionate gratitude for the smallest rewards. When older children were permitted to run into the woods at the perimeter for unsupervised leisure time, they took off with the kind of glee Robin imagined children in the outside world might have displayed on being told they were going to Disneyland. A kind word from Mazu, Taio or Becca, five minutes of unsupervised time, an extra scoop of noodles at dinner: these triggered feelings of warmth and delight that showed just how normalised enforced obedience and deprivation had already become. Robin was aware that she, too, was beginning to crave the approval of church elders, and that this craving was rooted in an animalistic urge for self-protection. The regular re-sorting of the groups and the ever-present threat of ostracism prevented any feeling of real solidarity developing between members. Those giving lectures had impressed upon all of them that the pure spirit saw no human being as better or more loveable than any other. Loyalty was supposed to flow upwards, towards the divine and the heads of the church, but never sideways.

Yet her strategy of objectively analysing the church’s means of indoctrination was only partially successful. Kept in a permanent state of tiredness, it was a constant effort to reflect on how obedience was compelled, rather than simply complying. Finally, Robin hit upon the trick of imagining herself telling Strike what she was up to. This forced her to discard all church jargon, because he wouldn’t understand or, more likely, would mock it. The idea of Strike laughing at what she was having to do – though she did him the credit of doubting he’d find Revelation amusing – was a better means of keeping a foothold in the reality that lay outside Chapman Farm, and even broke the chanting habit, because she trained herself to imagine Strike grinning at her when she found herself doing it. Not once did it occur to Robin that she might have imagined talking to Murphy, or any of her female friends, rather than Strike. She was desperately looking forward to his next letter, partly because she wanted to hear his opinion on the Polaroids she’d placed in the plastic rock the previous Thursday, but also because the sight of his handwriting proved he was real, not just a useful figment of her imagination.

The journey across the dark field and through the woods the following Thursday was her easiest so far, because the route through the trees was becoming familiar. When she opened the plastic rock and turned on the torch, she saw the longest letter from Strike yet, and two Cadbury’s Flakes. Only as she began unwrapping one of these and easing herself into position behind a tree, to make sure her torchlight wasn’t visible to anyone who might be looking through the woods from the farm, did she realise there was no note from Ryan. Too nervous and ravenous to worry about that now, she began gobbling down the chocolate while reading Strike’s letter.

Hi,

Your last was very interesting indeed. The tin you described dates from 1987. Assuming the person who took the Polaroids owned the tin, and assuming the tin was taken to the farm when new, it got there before the church started, which might suggest our amateur pornographer was there in the commune days, even if his models arrived later. Could be the Crowthers, Coates, Wace himself, Rust Andersen, or someone we don’t know about. I’m inclined to discount the Crowthers or Coates, because they specialised in pre-pubescents. The blonde girl’s hair looks like Cherie Gittins’, though obviously there could have been more than one blonde, curly haired girl there. I also wondered about the boy with the tattoo on his arm. Shanker’s got me a date with Jordan Reaney, so I’ll ask him if he’s got any skulls up his sleeve.

Other news: Frank One posted a birthday card through the client’s door. Hard to prosecute over that, but Barclay’s found out one brother’s a flasher and the other one’s got previous for stalking. I called Wardle and I think/hope the police are going to pay them a visit.

We’re still lumbered with Littlejohn, unfortunately. Wardle recommended an ex-copper and I interviewed him, but he’s taken a job with Patterson instead. Says the pay’s better. News to me, Dev says they pay less than we do. Maybe he just thought I was a dick.

Pat’s in a bad mood.

Murphy apologises for the lack of letter, he’s had to go up north. Sends his best.

Take care of yourself in there and any time you want to leave, we’re ready.

S x

Robin now unwrapped the second chocolate bar, propped the pile of blank paper on her knee and began to write back, pausing regularly to take more bites of Flake and try and recall everything she needed to tell Strike.

Having apologised for not having anything new on Will Edensor, she continued:

I told you about the two girls who let the little boy escape. Both have had their heads shaved. It’s clearly a punishment, which means Louise and Emily Pirbright have been punished, too, but I don’t yet know why. I haven’t been able to talk to Emily Pirbright again. Two nights ago I also saw the back of the black girl, whose bed’s a couple away from mine. It had weird marks on it as if she’d been dragged along the floor. I haven’t had any opportunity to talk to her. The trouble is, everyone in here shuns/avoids people who’ve been told off or punished, so it’s very obvious if you make overtures to them.

I’ve heard more about Jacob from a girl who’s been helping look after him. She says he’s getting better (not sure that’s true) and that people ‘like him’ are euthanised in the materialist –

Catching herself, Robin crossed the word out.

– materialist outside world. She also said people like Jacob don’t really understand about the false self and the pure spirit so they can’t heal themselves. Will keep an ear out for more.

We’re now in the middle of a lot of lectures on how you become pure spirit. There are nine steps and the third is when you start committing a lot of money to the church, to divest yourself of materialism. I’m a bit worried about what’s going to happen when they expect me to start setting up bank transfers, given that they think I can afford £1k handbags.

I don’t want to come out yet –

Robin paused here, listening to the rustling leaves, her back sore from leaning against the knobbly bark of the tree, her backside and thighs damp from the wet grass. What she’d written was a lie: she very much wanted to leave. The thought of her flat, her comfortable bed and a return to the office were incredibly tempting, but she was certain staying would provide opportunities to find something incriminating against the church that would be impossible from the outside.

– because I haven’t really got anything Colin Edensor can use. Hopefully I’ll get something this week. I swear I’m trying.

Still haven’t had to do Revelation. I’ll feel happier once I’ve got that out of the way.

R x

PS Please keep the chocolate coming.

47

Nine at the beginning means:

When ribbon grass is pulled up, the sod comes with it.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike waited to read Robin’s most recent dispatch from Chapman Farm before finishing an interim report for Sir Colin Edensor. The question that was vexing him most was whether or not to reveal the possibility that Will had fathered a child with an underage girl at Chapman Farm. The overheard conversation Robin had mentioned didn’t, in Strike’s view, rise to the standard of proof, and he was wary of increasing Sir Colin’s anxiety without being certain of his facts. He therefore omitted mention of Will’s alleged paternity, and concluded:

Proposed Next Steps

We now have RE’s eyewitness account of physical coercion and injuries, plus her first-hand experience of underfeeding, enforced lack of sleep and a ‘therapeutic’ technique I think legitimate psychologists would agree is abusive. RE believes she may yet uncover evidence of more serious/criminal activity at Chapman Farm. Given that none of the church members RE and I have interviewed so far are willing to testify against the church, or likely to be credible witnesses given the length of time they’ve been out, I recommend RE staying undercover for the present.

I’ll be interviewing another ex-member of the UHC on the twenty-eighth of May and am actively searching for more. Identifying the subjects of the photographs RE found is a priority, as they suggest sexual abuse has been used as a form of discipline.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

Having emailed the password-protected report to Sir Colin, Strike drank the last of his mug of tea, then sat for a few moments staring out of the window of his attic kitchen, contemplating several of his current dilemmas.

As he’d foreseen, the Private Eye article had led to phone calls from three different journalists, all of whose publications had tangled with Andrew Honbold QC in court and were consequently eager to wring as much newsprint as possible out of his extra-marital affair. On Strike’s instructions, Pat had responded with a one-line statement denying any involvement with Honbold or anyone associated with him. Honbold himself had issued a statement vehemently denying the Eye story and threatening legal action. Bijou’s name hadn’t appeared in the press, but Strike had a nasty feeling that there might yet be further repercussions from his ill-advised dalliance, and was keeping a weather-eye out for any opportunistic journalist who might be watching the office.

Meanwhile he still hadn’t managed to track down any of the former church members he was most eager to talk to, remained saddled with Littlejohn and was plagued by worries about his Uncle Ted, whom he’d called the previous evening and who appeared to have forgotten that he’d seen his nephew recently.

Strike turned his attention back to the laptop lying open on his kitchen table. More in hope than in expectation, he navigated to Torment Town’s Pinterest page, but there were no additional pictures, nor was there any response to his enquiry as to whether the artist drew from imagination.

He’d just got to his feet to wash up his mug when his mobile rang with a call transferred from the office. He picked up and had barely got his name out when a furious, high-pitched voice said,

‘I’ve had a fucking live snake posted through my front door!’

‘What?’ said Strike, completely nonplussed.

‘A fucking SNAKE! One of those total fuckers has put a fucking snake through my letter box!’

In rapid succession Strike realised that he was talking to the actress the Franks were stalking, that he’d momentarily forgotten her name, and that his team must have fucked up very badly indeed.

‘Did this happen this morning?’ he said, dropping back into his kitchen chair and opening the rota on his laptop to see who was on the Franks.

‘I don’t know, I’ve only just fucking found it in my sitting room, it could’ve been here for days!’

‘Have you called the police?’

‘What’s the point in calling the police? This is what I’m paying you to stop!’

‘I appreciate that,’ said Strike, ‘but the immediate problem is the snake.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said, thankfully no longer shouting. ‘I’ve put it in the bath. It’s only a corn snake. I used to have one, I’m not scared of them. Well,’ she added heatedly, ‘I’m not scared of them until I see them slithering out from beneath the sofa when I didn’t know they were there.’

‘Don’t blame you,’ said Strike, who’d just found out that Barclay and Midge were currently on the Franks. ‘It’d be good to get an approximate idea of when you think it might have arrived, because we’re keeping the brothers under constant surveillance and they haven’t been anywhere near your front door since the older one dropped your birthday card in. I’ve seen the video and there definitely wasn’t a snake in his hand.’

‘So you’re telling me I’ve got a third nutter after me?’

‘Not necessarily. Were you in last night?’

‘Yes, but—’

She broke off.

‘Oh. Actually, I do remember hearing the letter flap last night.’

‘What time?’

‘Must’ve been around ten. I was having a bath.’

‘Did you check to see whether anything had been put through the door?’

‘No. I kind of registered there was nothing there when I went downstairs to get a drink. I thought I must have mistaken a noise outside for the letter box.’

‘D’you need help getting rid of the snake?’ asked Strike, who felt this was the least he could do.

‘No,’ she sighed, ‘I’ll call the RSPCA or something.’

‘All right, I’ll contact the people I’ve got tailing the brothers, find out where they were last night at ten and get back to you. Glad to hear you’re not too shaken up, Tasha,’ he added, her name having just come back to him.

‘Thank you,’ she said, mollified. ‘OK, I’ll wait to hear back.’

When she’d hung up, Strike called Barclay.

‘You were on Frank One overnight, right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Barclay.

‘Where was he around ten?’

‘At home.’

‘You sure?’

‘Aye, and so was his brother. Frank Two hasn’t been oot at all these last few days. Mebbe he’s ill.’

‘Neither of them been near what’s-her-name’s house lately?’

‘Frank One took a stroll round there on Monday. Midge was on him.’

‘Right, I’ll call her. Thanks.’

Strike rang off and phoned Midge.

‘He definitely didn’t post anything through the front door,’ said Midge, when Strike explained why he was calling. ‘Just lurked on the opposite pavement, watching her windows. He’s been at home the last few days and so’s his brother.’

‘So Barclay said.’

‘She can’t have another stalker, can she?’

‘That’s exactly what she just asked me,’ said Strike. ‘Could be some deluded fan’s idea of a surprise gift, I s’pose. Apparently she used to own a corn snake.’

‘I don’t care how many snakes you’ve owned, you don’t want one posted through your bloody door at night,’ said Midge.

‘I agree. Have you seen any coppers visiting the Franks yet?’

‘Nope,’ said Midge.

‘OK, I’ll get back to the client. This might mean keeping someone on her house for a bit, as well as the Franks.’

‘Bloody hell. Who’d have thought this pair of freaks would turn out to be so labour intensive?’

‘Not me,’ admitted Strike.

After he’d hung up the phone he reached for his vape pen, frowning slightly as he inhaled nicotine, lost in thought for a minute. He then turned his attention back to the weekly rota.

Littlejohn and Shah had both had the previous evening off. Bigfoot’s extramarital activities were confined to daylight hours and he went home nightly to his suspicious, irritable wife. Strike was still asking himself whether the idea he’d just had was ludicrous, when his mobile rang again, forwarded from the office as before. Expecting his actress client, he realised too late that he was talking to Charlotte Campbell.

‘It’s me. Don’t hang up,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s in your best interests to hear what I’ve got to say.’

‘Say it, then,’ said Strike irritably.

‘A journalist from the Mail called me. They’re trying to run some sleazy profile of you, saying you sleep with female clients. Like father, like son, that kind of thing.’

Strike could feel the tension gripping every part of his body.

‘I told her I didn’t believe you’d ever sleep with a client, that you’re very honourable and that you’ve got strict ethics about that kind of thing. And I said you’re nothing like your father.’

Strike couldn’t have said what he was feeling, except a dim surprise mixed with some ghostly vestige of what he’d once felt for her, resurrected by the sorrowful voice he’d sometimes heard at the end of their worst fights, when even Charlotte’s ineradicable love of conflict left her spent and atypically honest.

‘I know they’ve been to a few of your exes as well,’ said Charlotte.

‘Who?’ said Strike.

‘Madeline, Ciara and Elin,’ said Charlotte. ‘Madeline and Elin have both said they’ve never hired a private detective and refused to give any other comment. Ciara says she just laughed when the Mail called her, then hung up.’

‘How the hell did they know I was with Elin?’ said Strike, more to himself than Charlotte. That affair, which had ended acrimoniously, had been conducted with what he’d thought was complete discretion on both their parts.

‘Darling, people talk,’ sighed Charlotte. ‘You should know that, seeing as it’s your job to make them. But I just wanted you to know, nobody’s cooperating and I’ve done what I could. You and I were together longest, so – so that should count for something.’

Strike tried to find something to say and finally mustered a ‘Well – thanks.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Charlotte. ‘I know you think I want to ruin your life, but I don’t. I don’t.’

‘I never thought you wanted to ruin my life,’ said Strike, now rubbing his face with his hand. ‘I just thought you didn’t mind messing with it a bit.’

‘What d’you—?’

‘Shit-stirring,’ said Strike. ‘With Madeline.’

‘Oh,’ said Charlotte. ‘Yeah… I did do that, a bit.’

The answer forced a reluctant laugh out of Strike.

‘How are you?’ he said. ‘How’s your health?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I mean, they’ve caught it early.’

‘OK, well, thanks for doing what you could with the Mail. I’ll just have to hope they haven’t got enough to run with.’

‘Bluey,’ she said urgently, and his heart sank.

‘What?’

‘Could we have a drink? Just a drink. To talk.’

‘No,’ he said wearily.

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ he said, ‘it’s over. I’ve told you this, repeatedly. We’re through.’

‘And we can’t even stay friends?’

‘Jesus Christ, Charlotte, we were never friends. That was the whole trouble. We were never fucking friends.’

‘How can you say—?’

‘Because it’s true,’ he said forcefully. ‘Friends don’t do to each other what we did. Friends have each other’s backs. They want each other to be OK. They don’t rip each other apart every time there’s a problem.’

Her breathing was ragged in his ear.

‘You’re with Robin, aren’t you?’

‘My love life’s none of your business any more,’ said Strike. ‘I said it in the pub the other week, I wish you well, but I don’t—’

Charlotte hung up.

Strike replaced the mobile on his kitchen table and reached for his vape again. Several minutes passed before he was able to subdue his disordered thoughts. Finally, he returned his attention to the rota on the screen in front of him, his eyes fixed on the name Littlejohn, and after some further rumination, picked up his mobile again, and once again called Shanker.

48

… the inferior man’s wickedness is visited upon himself. His house is split apart. A law of nature is at work here.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Shortly after midday on Tuesday, Strike was to be found rising up the escalator at Sloane Square station, prepared to take over surveillance on Bigfoot, who was once again indulging in his favourite pastime at the large hotel full of sex workers. Among the small, framed posters on the escalator walls, many of which were advertising West End shows and grooming products, Strike noticed several featuring a flattering headshot of ‘Papa J’, the UHC’s heart-shaped logo and the legend Do you admit the possibility?

The detective had just emerged from the station into the rainy street when his mobile rang and he heard Shah’s voice, which was oddly thickened.

‘I’b god hib.’

‘You’ve what?’

‘God hib on cambra, coming ouddob a room, girl behind hib in stoggings and nudding else – fug, sorry, I’b bleeding.’

‘What’s happened?’ said Strike, though he thought he knew.

‘He punjed be in da fugging face.’

Five minutes later, Strike entered the Rose and Crown on Lower Sloane Street to find his best-looking subcontractor sitting in a corner with a split lip, a puffy left eye and a swollen nose, a pint on the table in front of him.

‘Id fine, id nod broggen,’ said Shah, gesturing to his nose and forestalling Strike’s first question.

‘Ice,’ was Strike’s one word response, and he headed for the bar, returning with a zero-alcohol beer for himself, a glass of ice and a clean beer towel he’d cadged from the curious barmaid. Shah tipped the ice onto the towel, wrapped it up and pressed the bundle to his face.

‘Cheerd. Der you go,’ Shah said, pushing his mobile across the table. The screen was smashed, but the picture of Bigfoot was sharp and clear behind the broken glass. He was caught in the act of yelling, mouth wide open, fist raised, a near-naked girl looking terrified behind him.

‘Now, that,’ said Strike, ‘is what I call evidence. Excellent work. Heating engineer ruse worked, then?’

‘Didn’ deed id. Followed a fat bloke inside, ride after Bigfood. Hug around in de corridor. Caud hib coming out. He’d quig on hid feet for a big lad.’

‘Bloody well done,’ said Strike. ‘Sure you don’t want to see a doctor?’

‘Doe, I’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll be happy to see the back of this case,’ said Strike. ‘Midge is right, the client’s a pain in the arse. S’pose she’ll get her multi-million settlement now.’

‘Yeah,’ said Shah. ‘New case, den? Ob the waiting list?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike.

‘Even wid the Franks being a three-perdon job now?’

‘Heard about the snake, did you?’

‘Yeah, Barglay dold be.’

‘Well, they’re not a three-person job any more. Back to two.’

‘How gum?’

‘Because I’m having the third party watched by a couple of cash-in-hand blokes,’ said Strike. ‘They don’t often play on the side of the angels, but they’re experienced at surveillance – usually casing places to rob. It’s costing me a fortune, but I want to prove Patterson’s behind it. That fucker will rue the day he tried this on me.’

‘Wadz hid problem wid you, anyway?’

‘It pisses him off I’m better than him,’ said Strike.

Dev laughed but stopped abruptly, wincing.

‘I owe you a new phone,’ said Strike. ‘Give me the receipt and I’ll reimburse you. You should get home and rest up. Send me that picture and I’ll call Bigfoot’s wife when I get back to the office.’

A sudden thought now occurred to Strike.

‘How old’s your wife?’

‘Wad?’ said Shah, looking up.

‘I’ve been trying to track down a thirty-eight-year-old woman, for the UHC case,’ said Strike. ‘She’s used at least three aliases that I know of. Where do women that age hang out online, d’you know?’

‘Bubsned, probably,’ said Shah.

‘What?’

‘Bub – fuggit – Mumsnet,’ said Dev, enunciating with difficulty. ‘Aisha’d alwayd on dere. Or Fadeboog.’

‘Mumsnet and Facebook,’ said Strike. ‘Yeah, good thinking. I’ll try them.’

He arrived back at the office half an hour later to find Pat there alone, restocking the fridge with milk, the radio playing hits of the sixties.

‘Dev’s just got punched in the face by Bigfoot,’ said Strike, hanging up his coat.

‘What?’ croaked Pat, glaring at Strike as though he was personally responsible.

‘He’s fine,’ Strike added, moving past her to the kettle. ‘Going home to ice his nose. Who’s next on the waiting list?’

‘That weirdo with the mother.’

‘They all have mothers, don’t they?’ said Strike, dropping a teabag into a mug.

‘This one wants his mother watched,’ said Pat. ‘Thinks she’s frittering away his inheritance on a toyboy.’

‘Ah, right. If you pull the file for me, I’ll give him a ring. Has Littlejohn showed his face in here today?’

‘No,’ said Pat, stiffening.

‘Has he called?’

‘No.’

‘Let me know if he does either. I’ll be through here. Don’t worry about interrupting me, I’ll just be trying to find a needle in a haystack on Facebook and Mumsnet.’

Once settled at his desk, Strike made his two phone calls. Bigfoot’s wife was gratifyingly ecstatic to see concrete evidence of her wealthy husband’s infidelity. The man who wanted his mother’s movement’s watched, and who had an upper-class accent so pronounced Strike found it hard to believe he wasn’t putting it on, was also delighted to hear from the detective.

‘Ay was thinkin’ of gettin’ in touch with Patters’ns if I didn’t hyar from yeh soon.’

‘You don’t want to use them, they’re shit,’ said Strike, and was rewarded with a surprised guffaw.

Having asked Pat to email the newest client a contract, Strike returned to his desk, opened the notebook in which he’d written every possible combination of the first names and surnames he knew Cherie Gittins had used in youth, logged into Facebook using a fake profile, and began his methodical search.

As he’d expected, the problem wasn’t too few results, but too many. There were multiple results for every name he tried, not only in Britain, but also in Australia, New Zealand and America. Wishing he could hire people to do this donkey work for him, rather than pay two of Shanker’s criminal mates to watch Littlejohn, he followed – or, in the case of private accounts, sent follower requests to – every woman whose photo might plausibly be that of a thirty-eight-year-old Cherie Gittins.

Two and a half hours, three mugs of tea and a sandwich later, Strike came across a Facebook account set to private with the name Carrie Curtis Woods. He’d included ‘Carrie’ in his search as a shortened version of ‘Carine’. As the double surname was unhyphenated, he suspected the account owner would be American rather than English, but the photograph had caught his attention. The smiling woman had the same curly blonde hair and insipid prettiness of the first picture of Cherie he’d found. In the picture, she was cuddling two young girls Strike supposed were her daughters.

Strike had just sent a follow request to Curtis Woods when the music in the outer office ceased abruptly. He heard a male voice. After a moment or two, the phone on Strike’s desk rang.

‘What’s up?’

‘There’s a Barry Saxon here to see you.’

‘Never heard of him,’ said Strike.

‘He says he’s met you. Says he knows an Abigail Glover.’

‘Oh,’ said Strike, closing Facebook, as the memory of a glowering, bearded man presented itself: Baz, of the Forester pub. ‘OK. Give me a minute, then send him in.’

49

Nine in the third place means…

A goat butts against a hedge

And gets its horns entangled.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Strike rose and went to the noticeboard on the wall, where he’d pinned various items relating to the UHC case, and folded the wooden wings to conceal the Polaroids of teenagers in pig masks and the photo of Kevin Pirbright’s bedroom. He’d just sat down when the door opened, and Barry Saxon entered.

Strike judged him to be around forty. He had very small, deep-set hazel eyes with large pouches beneath them, and his hair and beard looked as though their owner spent a lot of time caring for them. He came to a halt before Strike, with his hands in his jeans pockets, feet planted wide apart.

‘You weren’ Terry, then,’ he said, squinting at the detective.

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘How did you find that out?’

‘Ab told Patrick, an’ ’e told me.’

With an effort, Strike recalled that Patrick was Abigail Glover’s lodger.

‘Does Abigail know you’re here?’

‘Not bloody likely,’ said Saxon, with a slight snort.

‘D’you want to sit down?’

Saxon cast a suspicious look at the chair where Robin usually sat, before taking his hands out of his pockets and doing as invited.

He and Saxon might only have been in direct contact for less than two minutes, but Strike thought he knew what kind of man was sitting opposite him. Saxon’s attempt to scupper what he’d thought was Abigail’s date with ‘Terry’, coupled with his present attitude of smouldering resentment, reminded Strike of an estranged husband who was one of the few clients he’d ever turned down. In that case, Strike had been convinced that if he located the man’s ex-wife, who he claimed was unreasonably resisting all contact in spite of the fact that there were unspecified things that needed ‘sorting out’, he’d have been enabling an act of revenge, and possibly violence. While that particular man had worn a Savile Row suit as opposed to a tight red checked shirt with buttons that strained across his torso, Strike thought he recognised in Saxon the same barely veiled thirst for vengeance.

‘How can I help?’ asked Strike.

‘I don’ wan’ help,’ said Saxon. ‘I’ve got fings to tell ya. You’re investigatin’ that church, incha? The one wiv Ab’s farver?’

‘I don’t discuss open investigations, I’m afraid,’ said Strike.

Saxon shifted irritably in the chair.

‘She covered fings up when she talked to you. She didn’t tell the troof. A man called Kevin somefing got shot, din’ ’e?’

As this information was in the public domain, Strike saw no reason to deny it.

‘An’ ’e was tryna expose the church, wannee?’

‘He was an ex-member,’ said Strike non-committally.

‘All righ’, well – Ab knows the church shot ’im. She knows the church ’ad ’im killed. An’ she killed someone ’erself, when she was in there! Never told you that, did she? An’ she’s freatened me. She’s tole me I’m next!’

Strike wasn’t quite as impressed by these dramatic statements as Saxon evidently wished him to be. Nevertheless, he drew his notebook towards him.

‘Shall we start at the beginning?’

Saxon’s expression became a degree less dissatisfied.

‘What d’you do for a living, Barry?’

‘Wha’ d’you wanna know tha’ for?’

‘Standard question,’ said Strike, ‘but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’

‘’M’a Tube driver. Same as Patrick,’ he added, as though there were safety in numbers.

‘How long have you known Abigail?’

‘Two years, so I know a lotta stuff about ’er.’

‘Met her through Patrick, did you?’

‘Yeah, a bunch of us wen’ ou’ drinkin’. She’s always go’ men around ’er, I soon found that out.’

‘And you and she went out together subsequently, alone?’ asked Strike.

‘Tol’ you tha’, did she?’ said Saxon, and it was hard to tell whether he was more aggrieved or gratified.

‘Yeah, after you came over to our table in the pub,’ said Strike.

‘Whaddid she say? ’Cause I bet she ain’ told you the troof.’

‘Just that you and she had been out for drinks together.’

‘It was more’n drinks, a lot more. She’s up for anyfing. Then I realised ’ow many other blokes she’s got on the go. I’m lucky I never caugh’ nuffing,’ said Saxon, with a little upwards jerk of his chin.

Familiar with the commonplace male disdain for women who enjoyed an adventurous sex life that either excluded or no longer included them, Strike continued asking questions that were designed purely to assess how much credence should be given to any information Saxon had to offer. He had a feeling the answer might be zero.

‘So you ended the relationship, did you?’

‘Yeah, I ain’ puttin’ up wiv that,’ said Saxon, with another little jerk of the chin, ‘but then she gets pissy abou’ me goin’ up the gym an’ the Forester’s an’ goin’ round ’er flat to see Patrick. Accuses me of fuckin’ stalkin’ ’er. Don’ flatter yourself, sweet’eart. I know a lotta stuff abou’ ’er,’ repeated Saxon. ‘So she shouldn’ be fuckin’ freatenin’ me!’

‘You said she killed someone, while in the church,’ said Strike, his pen poised.

‘Yeah – well – good as,’ said Saxon. ‘Because, right, Patrick ’eard ’er ’aving a nightmare, an’ she’s yelling “Cut it up smaller, cut it up smaller!” An’ ’e goes an’ bangs on ’er door – he said she was makin’ fuckin’ ’orrible noises – this is after she met you. She told Patrick it brought stuff up for ’er, what you two talked about.’

Strike was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Abigail and her upbringing were a source of prurient interest for her lodger and his friend that amounted almost to an unhealthy hobby. Aloud, he said,

‘How did she kill this person?’

‘I’m tellin’ ya. She told Patrick there was this kid at the farm ’oo was, you know,’ Saxon tapped his temple, ‘bit simple an’ ’e’d done somefing wrong an’ ’e was gonna be whipped. So she an’ this ovver girl, they felt sorry for ’im, so they runs off an’ ’gets the whip an’ ’ides it.

‘So then, when ’er stepmuvver can’t find it, she tells a group of ’em to beat the shit out of the kid instead, an’ Ab joined in, kickin’ and punchin’ ’im. An’ after the stepmuvver decides the kid’s ’ad enough, she says she’s gonna search the farm for the whip an’ ’ooever’s taken it’s gonna be in trouble. So Ab an’ ’er friend goes runnin’ off to the kitchen where they ’id it an’ they was tryna cut it up wiv scissors when the stepmuvver comes in an’ finds ’em, an’ then they was whipped wiv it themselves.’

There was a faint trace of salacious pleasure in Saxon’s voice as he said this.

‘An’ the simple kid died,’ he concluded.

‘After the beating?’

‘No,’ said Saxon, ‘few years later, after ’e left the farm. But it was ’er fault, ’er and the rest of ’em beating ’im up, ’cause she told Patrick’e was never right after they all kicked the shit out of ’im, like maybe brain damage or somefing. An’ she saw in the paper ’e’d died, an’ she reckoned it was ’cause of what they’d done to ’im.’

‘Why was his death in the paper?’

‘’Cause ’e got ’imself into a bad situation, which he wouldna done if ’e ‘adn’t ’ad brain damage, so she killed ’im, good as. She said it ’erself. Beatin’ an’ kickin’ him. She did that.’

‘She was forced to do it,’ Strike corrected Saxon.

‘Still GBH,’ said Saxon. ‘She still done it.’

‘She was a child, or a teenager, in a very abusive envi—’

‘Ah, righ’, you fallen for the act as well, ’ave ya?’ said Saxon with a sneer. ‘Got you twisted round ’er little finger? You ain’ never seen ’er pissed an’ angry. Little church girl? She’s got a scary fuckin’ temper on ’er—’

‘If that was a crime, I’d be inside myself,’ said Strike. ‘What did she say about Kevin Pirbright?’

‘Well, this is when she freatened me,’ said Saxon, rallying again.

‘When was this?’

‘Two days ago, in the Grosvenor—’

‘What’s that, a bar?’

‘Pub. Yeah, so, she wen’ off on one ’cause I was in there. It’s a free fuckin’ country. Not up to ’er where I drink. She was wiv some dick from the gym. All I done was give ’im a friendly warnin’—’

‘Like the one you gave me?’

‘Yeah,’ said Saxon, with another little upwards jerk of the chin, ‘’cause men need to know wha’ she’s like. I come out the bog an’ she’s waitin’ for me. She’d ’ad a few, she drinks like a fuckin’ fish, an’ she’s tellin’ me to stop followin’ ’er round, an’ I says, “You fink you’re your fuckin’ farver dontcha? Tellin’ everyone where they’re allowed to fuckin’ go,” an’ she says, “You wanna bring my farver into this, I could ’ave you taken out, I’ll tell ’im you go walkin’ round slaggin’ off the church, you don’ know ’oo you’re messin’ wiv,” an’ I told ’er she was talkin’ bollocks an’ she started fuckin’ jabbin’ me on the shoulder,’ Saxon unconsciously raised his hand to touch the spot where Abigail had presumably hit him, ‘an’ she says, “They got guns—”’

‘She said the church has got guns?’

‘Yeah, an’ she says, “They jus’ killed a guy for talkin’ shit about ’em, so you need to stop fuckin’ pissin’ me off”, an’ I says, “’ow’s the fire service gonna like it when I go to the police abou’ you freatenin’ me?” I got a lotta dirt on ’er, if she wants to play that fuckin’ game,’ said Saxon, barely drawing breath, ‘an’ y’know wha’ they do in tha’ church, do ya? All fuckin’ each other all the time? That’s ’ow she was brung up, but if she di’nt like it, why’s she still fuckin’ a diff’rent guy every night? Two at a time, some—’

‘Did she say she’d seen guns at Chapman Farm?’

‘Yeah, so she’s seen the fuckin’ murder weapon, an’ she’s never reported—’

‘She can’t have seen the gun that killed Kevin Pirbright. He was killed by a model that didn’t exist then.’

Temporarily stymied, Saxon said,

‘She still freatened to ’ave me fuckin’ shot!’

‘Well, if you think that was a credible threat, by all means go to the police. Sounds to me like a woman trying to scare off a guy who can’t take no for an answer, but maybe they’ll see it differently.’

Strike thought he knew what was going on behind Saxon’s tiny hazel eyes. Occasionally, when people in the grip of obsessive resentment were pouring out their ire and grievances, something in them, some small trace of self-awareness, heard themselves as others might, and was surprised to find they didn’t sound quite as blameless, or even as rational, as they’d imagined themselves to be.

‘Maybe I will go the fuckin’ police,’ said Saxon, heaving himself to his feet.

‘Good luck with that,’ said Strike, also getting up. ‘In the meantime, I might ring Abigail and recommend she finds a lodger who doesn’t tell his mate every time she screams in her sleep.’

Perhaps because Strike was six inches taller than him, Saxon contented himself with snarling,

‘If that’s your fuckin’ attitude—’

‘Thanks for coming in,’ said Strike, moving to open the door onto the outer office.

Saxon strode out past Pat and slammed the glass door behind him.

‘I never trust men with those piggy little eyes,’ croaked the office manager.

‘You’d be right not to trust him,’ said Strike, ‘but not because of his piggy little eyes.’

‘What did ’e want?’

‘Revenge,’ said Strike succinctly.

He returned to the inner office, sat back down at the partners’ desk and read the sparse notes he’d made while Saxon was talking.

Paul Draper brain damage? Death in newspaper? Guns at Chapman Farm?

With reluctance, but knowing it was the only sure way to get fast results, he picked up his mobile and pressed Ryan Murphy’s number.

50

Six at the beginning means:

When there is hoarfrost underfoot,

Solid ice is not far off.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Several things had happened lately at Chapman Farm to leave anxiety squirming in Robin’s guts like a parasite.

It had been one thing to tell Strike in the safety of the office that she wasn’t worried about being coerced into unprotected sex with male church members, quite another to sit through a two-hour lecture about spirit bonding in the farmhouse basement and watch all the women around her earnestly nodding as they were told ‘flesh is unimportant, spirit is all-important’ (Robin knew, now, where Penny Brown had got that line).

‘What we stand against,’ Taio said from the stage, ‘is materialist possession. No human being owns another or should create any kind of framework to control or limit them. This is inevitable in carnal relationships – what we call CRs – which are based upon the possession instinct. CRs are inherently materialist. They venerate physical appearance and they inevitably stunt the natures of those in them, yet the bubble world exalts them, especially when they come draped in materialist trappings of property, weddings and the so-called nuclear family.

‘There should be no shame attached to sexual desire. It is a natural, healthy need. We agree with the Hindus that one of the aims of a well-lived life is Kama, or sensual pleasure. Yet the purer the spirit, the less likely it is to crave what is superficially attractive over what is spiritually good and true. Where two spirits are in harmony – when each feels the divine vibration working in and through them – spirit bonding occurs naturally and beautifully. The body, which is subservient to the spirit, physically demonstrates and channels the spiritual connection felt by those who have transcended materialist ties.’

While she’d found it impossible to disagree that the outside world was full of cruelty and apathy while she was being bombarded with images of bombed and starving children, Robin had no difficulty whatsoever in disengaging from her environment this time and analysing Taio’s argument as he spoke. If you cut through all the UHC jargon, she thought, he was arguing that spiritual purity meant agreeing to sex with anyone who wanted it, no matter how unattractive you might find them. Sleeping only with people you actually desired made you a shallow agent of the Adversary, whereas sex with Taio – and the very thought gave Robin an inner shudder – proved your innate goodness.

However, she seemed to be alone in this viewpoint, because all around her, men and women were nodding their agreement: yes, possessiveness and jealousy were bad, yes, it was wrong to control people, yes, there was nothing wrong with sex, it was pure and beautiful when done in the context of a spiritual relationship, and Robin wondered why they couldn’t hear what she was hearing.

Robin wondered whether she was imagining Taio’s lopsided blue eyes travelling to her more often than to any of the other listeners, or the slight smirk twisting his small mouth whenever he looked in her direction. Probably she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t entirely convince herself she was imagining it. The spotlight didn’t flatter Taio: his thick, greasy hair hung about his face like a wig, threw his long, pale, rat-like nose into sharp relief and emphasised his second chin.

Something in Taio’s self-assured manner reminded Robin of her middle-aged rapist standing in court, neat in his suit and tie, giving a little laugh as he told the jury he’d been very surprised a young student like Robin had invited him into her hall of residence for sex. He’d explained that he was merely obliging her in strangling her, because she’d said she ‘liked it rough’. His words had flowed easily; he was reasonable and rational, and she was the one, he intimated calmly, who’d regretted her unfettered carnality, and decided to put him through the dreadful ordeal of a court case to cover up her own shame. He’d had no problem looking at her in court; he’d glanced at her frequently while giving testimony, a slight smile playing on his lips.

At the end of the session, Taio treated them to an exhibition of the kind of power the pure spirit possessed: he turned his back on them and levitated inches off the stage. Robin saw it with her own eyes, saw his feet leave the floor, his arms rising heavenwards, and then, after ten seconds, saw him fall back to earth with a bang. There were gasps and applause, and Taio grinned at them all, his eyes flickering once more towards Robin.

She wanted to leave the basement as quickly as possible after that, but as she made her way towards the wooden stairs, Taio called her back by name.

‘I was watching you,’ he said, smirking again as he descended from the stage. ‘You didn’t like what I was saying.’

‘No, I thought it was really interesting,’ said Robin, trying to sound cheerful.

‘You didn’t agree,’ said Taio. He was now standing so close to her that she could smell his pungent body odour. ‘I think you’re finding it hard to let go of the materialist framing of sex. You were engaged, weren’t you? And your marriage was called off?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘So until recently, materialist possession was very attractive to you.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Robin, ‘but I do agree with what you said about control and limiting people—’

Taio now reached out and stroked her cheek. Robin had to resist the impulse to knock his hand away. Smiling, he said,

‘I knew you were a Receptive the first time I saw you, in the Rupert Court Temple. “The Receptive is the most devoted of all things in the world.” That’s from the I Ching. Have you read it?’

‘No,’ said Robin.

‘Some women – the Receptive is female, the Creative male – are constitutionally prone to devoting themselves to one man. That’s their nature. Those women can be very valuable church members, but to become pure spirit, they must lose their attachment to material status or any notion of possession. It’s not unacceptable to prefer only one man, as long as they’re not trying to limit or control him. So there’s a way forward for you, but you need to be aware of that tendency in yourself.’

‘I will,’ said Robin, trying to sound grateful for his input.

Another group of church members came down the stairs, ready for their lecture, and Robin was permitted to leave, but she’d seen the line between Taio’s heavy brows deepen as she turned away, and feared her agreement had been insufficiently enthusiastic or, worse, that she ought to have responded physically to his caress.

Others, as she swiftly realised, had already begun to demonstrate their willingness to rise above the material and embrace the spiritual. Several times over the next few days Robin noticed young women, spiky-haired Vivienne included, dropping out of scheduled activities, then reappearing from the direction of the Retreat Rooms, sometimes in the company of a man. She was certain it was a matter of time before she, too, was pressured to join in.

The next destabilising occurrence was Robin’s own fault: she went to the plastic rock a night early – at least, Robin thought she’d been a night early, but she had no means of knowing how many extra pebbles she’d picked up, forgetting that she’d already done so earlier in the day. She might, in fact, be as much as forty-eight hours out. Her disappointment at finding no letter from Strike and no chocolate had been severe. Someone from the agency would now have picked up her disappointingly news-less letter, but she didn’t dare make another night-time trip before it was absolutely necessary, because of what happened the morning after her premature trip.

She’d been silently overjoyed to hear that her group would be going into Norwich for the first time to collect money for the UHC’s many charitable enterprises. This would give her an opportunity to check the date on a newspaper and restart her pebble collecting again from the right day. However, shortly after breakfast, Robin was called aside by a stern-faced woman who’d never spoken to her before.

‘Mazu wants you to stay at the farm today,’ she said. ‘You’re to go up to the vegetable patch and help the workers there.’

‘Oh,’ said Robin, as Becca Pirbright led the rest of her group out of the dining hall, some of them looking curiously back at Robin. ‘Er – all right. Should I go there now?’

‘Yes,’ said the woman curtly, and walked away.

Robin had been at Chapman Farm long enough to recognise the subtle signs that somebody was in disgrace. There were still a few people sitting along the breakfast table from her, and when she glanced towards them, all looked swiftly away. Feeling self-conscious, she got to her feet and carried her empty porridge bowl and glass over to a trolley by the wall.

As she left the dining hall and made her way towards the large vegetable patch, which she’d never worked on before, Robin wondered nervously what she’d done to be demoted from the high-level recruits. Was it her insufficiently enthusiastic response to the concept of spirit bonding? Had Taio been displeased with her reaction to their conversation and reported her to his mother? Or had one of the women in her dormitory reported seeing her leave it by night?

She found several adults planting carrot seeds on the vegetable patch, including the now very heavily pregnant Wan. A number of pre-school children were also there, in their miniature scarlet tracksuits. One of these was the white-headed Qing, who was easy to recognise because of her dandelion clock hair. Only when the man nearest Qing straightened up to his full height did Robin recognise Will Edensor.

‘I’ve been told to come and help,’ said Robin.

‘Oh,’ said Will. ‘Right. Well, there are seeds here…’

He showed her what to do then returned to his own planting.

Robin wondered whether the silence of the other adults was due to her presence. None of them were talking except to the children, who were more hindrance than help, more interested in scooping up the seeds and digging their fingers into the earth than in planting anything.

A strong smell wafted over the vegetable patch, which lay downwind of the pigsty. Robin had been working for a few minutes when Qing toddled over to her. The child had a crudely made toy spade of wood, which she banged on the earth.

‘Qing, come here,’ said Will. ‘Come and help me plant.’

The child struggled away across the damp soil.

As Robin scattered seeds in their furrow, bent double and moving slowly, she watched Will Edensor out of the corner of her eye. This was the first chance she’d had of getting close to him, barring the night-time conversation between him and Lin he didn’t know she’d overheard. Young though he was, his hair was already receding, heightening a look of fragility and illness. By speeding up her sowing, she managed, apparently naturally, to reach a spot beside Will as he worked an adjacent furrow with Qing.

‘She’s yours, isn’t she?’ she said to Will, smiling. ‘She looks like you.’

He threw Robin an irritated glance and muttered,

‘There’s no “mine”. That’s materialist possession.’

‘Oh, sorry, of course,’ said Robin.

‘You should’ve internalised that by now,’ said Will sententiously. ‘That’s kind of basic.’

‘Sorry,’ said Robin again. ‘I keep getting into trouble accidentally.’

‘There’s no “in trouble”,’ said Will, in the same critical tone. ‘Spiritual demarcation is strengthening.’

‘What’s spiritual demarcation?’ said Robin.

‘The Answer, chapter fourteen, paragraph nine,’ said Will. ‘That’s kind of basic, too.’

He wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down. Robin could tell the other gardeners were listening. One young woman in glasses, who had long, dirty hair and a prominent mole on her chin, was wearing a faint smile.

‘If you don’t understand why spiritual demarcation’s occurred,’ Will said, unasked, ‘you need to chant or medit—Qing, don’t do that,’ he said, because the little girl was now digging her wooden spade where he’d just patted down the earth over the seeds. ‘Come and get more seeds,’ said Will, standing up and leading Qing, hand in hand, towards the box where the packets were sitting.

Robin kept working, wondering at the difference in Will when church elders were present, when he looked hangdog and defeated, and Will here among the farmhands, where he seemed self-assured and dogmatic. She was also quietly reflecting on the young man’s hypocrisy. Robin had seen clear signs that Will and Lin were trying to sustain a parental relationship with Qing in defiance of the church’s teaching, and the conversation she’d overheard him having with Lin in the woods had proven he was trying to help her avoid spirit bonding with some other man. Robin wondered whether Will was oblivious to the fact that he was transgressing against the precepts of the UHC, or whether the lecturing tone was for the benefit of their listeners.

Almost as though the girl in glasses had read Robin’s mind, she said with a strong Norfolk accent,

‘You won’t win agin Will on church doctrine. ’E knows it insoid out.’

‘I wasn’t trying to win anything,’ said Robin mildly.

Will returned, Qing in tow. Determined to keep him talking, Robin said,

‘This is a wonderful place for kids to grow up, isn’t it?’

Will merely grunted.

‘They’ll know the right way from the start – unlike me.’

Will glanced at Robin again, then said,

‘It’s never too late. The Golden Prophet was seventy-two when she found The Way.’

‘I know,’ said Robin, ‘that sort of gives me comfort. I’ll get it if I keep working—’

‘It isn’t working, it’s freeing yourself to discover,’ Will corrected her. ‘The Answer, chapter three, paragraph six.’

Robin was starting to understand why Will’s brother James found him infuriating.

‘Well, that’s what I’m trying—’

‘You shouldn’t be trying. It’s a process of allowing.’

‘I know, that’s what I’m saying,’ said Robin, as each of them scattered seeds and patted down the earth, Qing now poking idly at a weed. ‘Your little – I mean, that little girl – is her name Qing?’

‘Yes,’ said Will.

‘She won’t make my mistakes, because she’ll be taught to open herself up properly, won’t she?’

Will looked up. Their eyes met, Robin’s expression deliberately innocent, and Will’s face turned slowly scarlet. Pretending she hadn’t noticed, Robin returned to her work, saying,

‘We had a really good lecture on spirit bonding the other—’

Will got up abruptly and walked back towards the seeds. For the rest of the two hours Robin spent on the vegetable patch, he came nowhere near her.

That night was the first at Chapman Farm in which Robin found it difficult to fall asleep. Recent events had forced her up against one incontrovertible fact: doing what she was in here to do – find out things to the church’s discredit, and persuade Will Edensor to reconsider his allegiance – necessarily meant pushing at boundaries. The tactics that had seen her accepted as a full church member had to be abandoned: doglike obedience and apparent indoctrination wouldn’t further her aims.

Yet she was scared. She doubted she’d ever be able to communicate to Strike – her touchstone, the person who was keeping her sane – just how intimidating the atmosphere was at Chapman Farm, how frightening it was to know you were surrounded by willing accomplices, or how unnerved she now felt at the prospect of the Retreat Rooms.

51

Nine at the top…

There is drinking of wine

In genuine confidence.

No blame.

But if one wets his head,

He loses it, in truth.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Little though Strike wanted to meet Ryan Murphy for a drink, the Met’s lack of action on the matter of the Franks’ stalking had underlined the usefulness of personal contacts if you wanted swift action taken on a matter the overstretched police might not consider of immediate importance. As nobody on the force was likely to have a greater interest in establishing whether or not there were guns at Chapman Farm than Murphy, Strike had swallowed his increasing antipathy towards the man. A few days after first contacting him, Strike arrived at St Stephen’s Tavern in Westminster to hear what the CID officer had managed to find out.

The last time Strike had entered this particular pub had been with Robin, and as Murphy hadn’t yet arrived, he took his pint to the same corner table he and his detective partner had previously sat at, half-aware of a vaguely territorial instinct. The green leather benches echoed those in the House of Commons a short distance away and Strike sat down beneath one of the etched mirrors, resisting the urge to read the menu, because his target weight remained unreached and pub food was one of the things he’d reluctantly decided to forgo.

If he wasn’t particularly pleased to see the handsome Murphy, he was glad to see a folder under the man’s arm, because this suggested he had research to share that Strike himself was unable to undertake.

‘Evening,’ said Murphy, having procured for himself a pint of what the eagle-eyed Strike noted with disappointment was alcohol-free beer. The policeman sat down opposite Strike, laid the folder on the table between them and said,

‘Had to make quite a few phone calls to get hold of this lot.’

‘Norfolk constabulary handled it, presumably?’ said Strike, who was only too happy to dispense with personal chat.

‘Initially, but Vice Squad got called in once they realised what they were dealing with. It was the biggest paedophile ring broken up in the UK at that point. There were men from up and down the country visiting.’

Murphy extracted a few pages of photocopied photos and handed them to Strike.

‘As you can see there, they found plenty of nasty stuff: restraints, gags, sex toys, whips, paddles…’

These objects would all have been present, Strike thought, when he, Lucy and Leda had been at the farm, and against his will, a series of fragmented memories forced themselves upon him as he turned the pages: Leda, enthralled by firelight as Malcom Crowther talked of social revolution; the woods where the children ran free, sometimes with the portly Gerald chasing them, sweating and laughing, tickling them until they couldn’t breathe if he caught them; and – oh fuck – that small girl curled up and sobbing in the long grass while other, older children asked her what was wrong, and she refused to say… he’d been bored by her… he just wanted to leave the squalid, creepy place…

‘… look at page five, though.’

Strike did as he was told and found himself looking at a picture of a black gun.

‘Looks like it shoots out a banner saying “Bang”.’

‘It did,’ said Murphy. ‘It was in with a load of magic props one of the Crowther brothers had his house.’

‘That’ll be Gerald,’ said Strike. ‘He worked as a kids’ entertainer before committing full time to paedophilia.’

‘Right. Well, they bagged up everything he had in his house to test it for kids’ fingerprints, because he was claiming he’d never had children in there with him.’

‘I don’t think my source could’ve confused a prop for the real thing,’ said Strike, looking down at the picture of the unconvincing plastic gun. ‘She knew Gerald Crowther did magic tricks. What about Rust Andersen, did you get anything on him?’

‘Yeah,’ said Murphy, extracting another piece of paper from the file, ‘he was pulled in and interviewed in ’86, same as all the other adults. His house – I say house, but it was more like a glorified shed – was clean. No sex tapes or toys.’

‘I don’t think he was ever part of the Aylmerton Community proper,’ said Strike, casting an eye down Rust Andersen’s witness statement.

‘That tallies with what’s in here,’ said Murphy, tapping the folder. ‘None of the kids implicated him in the abuse and a couple of them didn’t even know who he was.’

‘Born in Michigan,’ said Strike, skim-reading, ‘drafted into the army at eighteen…’

‘After he got out he went travelling in Europe and never returned to the States. But he can’t have brought guns into the UK with the IRA active at the time and tight security at airports. ’Course, there’s nothing to say someone at the farm didn’t have a permit for a hunting rifle.’

‘That occurred to me, too, although my information was “guns”, plural.’

‘Well, if they were there, they were bloody well hidden, because the Vice Squad virtually tore the place apart.’

‘I knew it was a pretty thin thread to hang a raid on,’ said Strike, handing Murphy back the papers. ‘The mention of guns could’ve been said for threatening effect.’

Both men drank some beer. A definite air of constraint hung over the table.

‘So how much longer d’you reckon you’ll need her in there?’ asked Murphy.

‘Not down to me,’ said Strike. ‘She can come out whenever she likes, but at the moment, she wants to stay in. Says she’s not coming out until she’s got something on the church. You know Robin.’

Though not as well as I do.

‘Yeah, she’s dedicated,’ said Murphy.

After a short pause he said,

‘Funny, you two going after the UHC. First time I heard of them was five years ago.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. I was still in uniform. Bloke drove his car off the road, straight through the window of a Morrisons. Coked out of his head. Kept saying “D’you know who I am?” while I was arresting him. I didn’t have a clue. Turned out he’d been a contestant on some reality show I’d never watched. Jacob Messenger, his name was.’

‘Jacob?’ repeated Strike, slipping his hand into his pocket for his notebook.

‘Yeah. He was a real tit, all pecs and fake tan. He hit a woman shopping with her kid. The boy was OK, but the mother was a real mess. Messenger got a year, out in six months. Next I heard of him, he was in the paper because he’d joined the UHC. Trying to burnish up his reputation, you know. He’d seen the light and he was going to be a good boy from now on and here’s a picture of me with some disabled kids.’

‘Interesting,’ said Strike, who’d written much of this down. ‘Apparently there’s a Jacob at Chapman Farm who’s very ill. D’you know what this Messenger’s doing now?’

‘No idea,’ said Murphy. ‘So, what’s she getting up to in there? She doesn’t tell me a lot in her letters.’

‘No, well, she won’t have got time for duplicate reports, middle of the night in the woods,’ said Strike, privately enjoying the fact that Murphy had to ask. He’d resisted looking at the notes Robin had scribbled for Ryan, but been pleased to see they seemed far shorter than his own. ‘She’s doing well. Seems to have kept her incognito going, no problem. She’s already got us a couple of bits of decent information. Nothing we can credibly threaten the church with, though.’

‘Tall order, waiting for something criminal to happen right in front of her.’

‘If I know Robin,’ which I do, bloody well, ‘she won’t just be sitting around for something to happen.’

Both men drank more beer. Strike had an idea Murphy had something he wanted to say and was preparing various robust pushbacks, whether against the suggestion Strike had acted recklessly in sending Robin undercover, or that he’d done so with the intent of messing up her relationship.

‘Didn’t know you were a mate of Wardle’s,’ said Murphy. ‘He’s not a big fan of mine.’

Strike settled for looking non-committal.

‘I was a bit of an arsehole one night, in the pub. This is before I stopped drinking.’

Strike made an indeterminate noise somewhere between acknowledgement and agreement.

‘My marriage was going tits-up at the time,’ said Murphy.

Strike could tell Murphy wanted to know what Wardle had told him, and was enjoying being as inscrutable as possible.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ asked Murphy, when the continuing silence had told him plainly Strike wasn’t going to disclose whatever he knew to Murphy’s discredit. ‘Tell Robin to go looking for guns?’

‘I’ll tell her to keep an eye out, certainly,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for this, though. Very helpful.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve got a vested interest in my girlfriend not getting shot,’ said Murphy.

Strike noted the nettled tone, smiled, checked his watch and announced that he’d better get going.

He might not have learned much about guns at Chapman Farm, but he felt it had been twenty minutes well spent, nonetheless.