The Running Grave, page 17
Having bought himself what looked like a gin and tonic, Henry peered at Strike for a second or two, then approached his table.
‘Cormoran Strike?’ His voice was upper class and very slightly camp.
‘That’s me,’ said Strike, holding out a hand.
Henry slid onto the bench opposite the detective.
‘I thought you’d be, like, hiding behind a newspaper. Eyeholes cut out or something.’
‘I only do that when I’m following someone on foot,’ said Strike, and Henry laughed: a nervous laugh, which went on a little longer than the joke warranted.
‘Thanks for meeting me, Henry, I appreciate it.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Henry.
He took a sip of gin.
‘I mean, when I got your message, I was kind of freaked out, like, who is this guy? But I looked you up, and Charlotte told me you’re a good person, so I—’
‘Charlotte?’ repeated Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Henry. ‘Charlotte Ross? I know her from the antiques shop where I work – Arlington and Black? She’s redecorating her house, we’ve found a couple of really nice pieces for her. I knew from looking you up that you two used to – so I rang her – she’s lovely, she’s, like, one of my favourite clients – and I said, “Hey, Charlie, should I talk to this guy?” or whatever, and she said, “Yeah, definitely”, so – yeah – here I am.’
‘Great,’ said Strike, determinedly keeping both tone and expression as pleasant as he could make them. ‘Well, as I said in my message, I noticed you’ve been quite outspoken about the UHC on your Facebook page, so I—’
‘Yeah, so, OK,’ said Henry, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, ‘I need to say – I wanted to say, like, before we get into it – it’s kind of a condition, actually – you won’t go after Flora, will you? Because she’s still not right. I’m only talking to you so she doesn’t have to. Charlotte said you’d be OK with that.’
‘Well, it’s not really Charlotte’s call,’ said Strike, still forcing himself to sound pleasant, ‘but if Flora’s having mental health problems—’
‘She is, she’s never been right since she left the UHC. But I really feel, like – well, somebody needs to hold the UHC accountable,’ said Henry. ‘So I’m happy to talk, but only if you don’t go near Flora.’
‘Is she still in New Zealand?’
‘No, it didn’t work out, she’s back in London, but – seriously – you can’t talk to her. Because I think it might tip her over the edge. She can’t stand talking about it any more. Last time she told anyone what happened she tried to kill herself, afterwards.’
Notwithstanding Henry’s fondness for Charlotte (gay men, in Strike’s experience, were the most likely to see no flaw in his beautiful, funny and immaculately dressed ex), Strike had to respect Henry for his wish to protect his friend.
‘OK, agreed. So: have you ever had direct contact with the UHC yourself?’
‘Yeah, when I was eighteen. I met this guy in a bar, and he said I should come along to Chapman Farm, to do a course. Yoga and meditation and stuff. He was hot,’ Henry added, with yet another nervous laugh. ‘Good-looking older guy.’
‘Did he talk about religion at all?’
‘Not like – more like spirituality, you know? He made it sound interesting and cool. Like, he was talking about fighting, like, materialism and capitalism, but he also said you could learn – I know this sounds crazy, but kind of learn… not magic, but to make things happen with your own power, if you studied enough… I’d just finished school, so… I thought I’d go along and see what it was about and – yeah, I asked Flora to come with me. We were school friends, we were at Marlborough together. We were kind of like – we were both gay or whatever, and we were into stuff nobody else was, so I said to Flora, “Come with me, we’ll just do a week there, it’ll be a laugh.” It was just, like, something to do in the holidays, you know?’
‘Are you all right with me taking notes?’
‘Er… yeah, OK,’ said Henry. Strike took out his notebook and pen.
‘So, you were approached in a bar – where was this, London?’
‘Yeah. It isn’t there any more, the bar. It wasn’t far from here, actually.’
‘What was the man called who invited you, can you remember?’
‘Joe,’ said Henry.
‘Was this a gay bar?’
‘Not a gay bar,’ said Henry, ‘but the guy who ran it was gay, so, yeah… it was a cool place, so I thought, like, this guy, Joe, must be cool, too.’
‘And this was in 2000?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How did you and Flora travel to Chapman Farm?’
‘I drove, thank God,’ added Henry fervently, ‘because then I had the car there, so I could get away. Most of the other people had come on a minibus, so they had to wait for the minibus to take them back. I was really fucking glad I took my car.’
‘And what happened when you got there?’
‘Er – well, you had to check in all your stuff and they gave you these tracksuits to wear, and after we changed, they made us all sit down in this barn, or whatever, and Flora and I were looking sideways at each other, and we were, like, cracking up. We were thinking, “What the fuck have we done, coming here?”’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Then we went to this big communal meal, and before the food arrived, they played “Heroes”, by David Bowie. Over speakers. Yeah, and then… he came in. Papa J.’
‘Jonathan Wace?’
‘Yeah. And he talked to us.’
Strike waited.
‘And, I mean, you can see how people fall for it,’ said Henry uneasily. ‘While he was talking, it was like, he was saying, people chase things, all their lives, that never make them happy. People die miserable, and frustrated, and they never, kind of, realise it was all there for them to find. Like, the true way, or whatever. But he said, people get, like, buried in all this materialistic bullshit… and he was really… he’s got something,’ said Henry. ‘He wasn’t, like, some big shouty guy – he wasn’t what you’d think. Flora and I felt like – we discussed it, afterwards – he was, like, one of us.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’
‘Like, he got what it’s like, to be… what it feels like, not to be… like, to be different, you know? Or maybe you don’t, I don’t know,’ Henry added, with a laugh and a shrug. ‘But Flora and I weren’t taking the piss any more, we kind of… yeah, anyway, we went off to our dormitories. Separate, obviously. They put men and women in different dorms. It was kind of like being back in boarding school, actually,’ said Henry, with another little laugh.
‘Next day, they woke us up at, like, 5 a.m. or something, and we had to go and do meditation before breakfast. Then, after we’d eaten, we got split into separate groups. I wasn’t with Flora. They split up people who knew each other.
‘And after that it was, like, really intense. You hardly had a minute to think and you were never alone. There were always UHC people with you, talking to you. You were either in a lecture, or you were chanting in the temple, or you were helping work the land, or feeding the livestock, or making stuff to sell on the street, or cooking, and people were constantly reading UHC literature to you… oh yeah, and there were discussion groups, where you all sat around and listened to one of the UHC people talk and you asked questions. You had activities until, like, 11 o’clock at night, and you were so tired at the end of the day, you could hardly think, and then it all started at 5 a.m. again.
‘And they taught you these techniques that – like, if you had a negative thought, like, about the church, or about anything, really, you had to chant. They called it killing the false self, because, like, the false self is going to struggle against the good, because it’s been indoctrinated by society to think certain things are true, when they’re not, and you’ve got to fight your false self constantly to keep your mind open enough to accept the truth.
‘It was just a couple of days, but it felt like a month. I was so tired, and really hungry most of the time. They told us that was deliberate, that fasting sharpens perception.’
‘And how did you feel about the church, while all this was going on?’
Henry drank more gin and tonic before saying,
‘For the first couple of days, I was thinking, I can’t wait for this to fucking end. But there were a couple of guys in there, proper members, who were really friendly and helped me do stuff, and they seemed really happy – and it was, like – it was a different world, you kind of lost – lost your bearings, I s’pose. Like, they’re constantly telling you how great you are, and you started wanting their approval,’ said Henry uncomfortably. ‘You couldn’t help it. And all this talk about pure spirit – they made it sound like you’d be a superhero or something, once you were pure spirit. I know that sounds insane, but – if you’d been there – it didn’t sound insane, the way they were talking.
‘On the third day, Papa J gave another big speech in the temple – it wasn’t the kind of temple like they’ve got now, because this was before the really big money started coming in. The farm temple was just another barn, then, but they’d made it the nicest building and painted the inside with all these different symbols across religions, and put an old bit of carpet down where we all sat.
‘Papa J talked about what will happen if the world doesn’t wake up, and basically the message was: normal religions divide, but the UHC unites, and when people unite across cultures, and when they become the highest version of themselves, they’ll be an unstoppable force and they can change the world. And there were loads of black and brown people at Chapman Farm, as well as white people, so that seemed, like, proof of what he was saying. And I – you just believed him. It sounded – there was nothing there you could, like, disagree with – ending poverty and all that, and becoming your highest self – and Papa J was just, like, someone you’d want to hang out with. Like, he was really warm and he seemed – he was, like, the dad you’d have if you could choose, you know?’
‘So what changed your mind? Why did you leave, at the end of the week?’
The smile faded off Henry’s face.
‘Something happened and it kind of… kind of altered how I felt about them all.
‘There was this really heavily pregnant woman at the farm. I can’t remember her name. Anyway, she was with our group one afternoon when we were ploughing, with Shire horses, and it was bloody hard work, and I kept looking at her and thinking, should she be doing this? But, you know, I was eighteen, so what did I know?
‘And we’d just finished up the last bit we were supposed to be doing, and she kind of doubled over. She was kneeling in the earth in her tracksuit, and clutching her belly. I was terrified, I thought she was going to, like, give birth there and then.
‘And one of the other members knelt down beside her, but he didn’t help her or anything, he just started chanting loudly in her face. And then the others started chanting. And I was watching this, and I was thinking, “Why aren’t they helping her up?” But I was kind of… paralysed,’ said Henry, looking shamefaced. ‘It was, like – this is how they do things here and maybe… maybe it’ll work? So I didn’t – but she was looking really ill, and finally one of them ran off towards the farmhouse, while everyone else was still chanting at her.
‘And the guy who’d gone to get help came back with Wace’s wife.’
For the first time, Henry hesitated.
‘She’s… she was creepy. I liked Wace at the time, but there was something about her… I couldn’t see why they were together. Anyway, when she reached us, everyone stopped chanting, and Mazu stood over this woman and just… stared at her. She didn’t even speak. And the pregnant woman just looked terrified and she kind of struggled up, and she still looked like she was in a load of pain or was going to pass out, but she staggered off with Mazu.
‘And none of the others would look me in the eye. They acted like nothing had happened. I looked for the pregnant woman at dinner that evening, but she wasn’t there. I didn’t actually see her again, before I left.
‘I wanted to talk to Flora about what had happened, but I couldn’t get near enough and obviously she was in a different dormitory at night.
‘Then, on the last night, we had another talk from Papa J, in the temple. They turned out all the lights and he stood in front of this big water trough, which was lit up inside, like, with underwater lights, and he made the water do stuff. Like, it rose up when he commanded it to, and made spiral shapes, and then he parted it and made it come back together…
‘It spooked me,’ said Henry. ‘I kept thinking, “It’s got to be a trick,” but I couldn’t see how he was doing it. Then he made the water make a face, a human face. One girl screamed. And then all the water settled down again and they put on the temple lights, and Papa J said, “We had a spirit visitor at the end, there. They come, sometimes, especially if there are many Receptives gathered together.” And he said he thought the new intake must be particularly receptive for that to happen.
‘And then we were asked whether we were ready to reborn. And people walked forwards one by one and got into the trough, went under the water and were pulled out again, and everyone was clapping and cheering, and Papa J hugged them, and they went to stand beside the wall with the other members.
‘I was shitting myself,’ said Henry. ‘I can’t even explain – it was, like, the pressure to join, and to have all these people approve of you, was really intense, and everyone was watching, and I didn’t know what was going to happen if I said no.
‘And then they called Flora forwards, and she just walked straight to the trough, got in, went under, was pulled out and she went to stand against the wall, beaming.
‘And I swear, I didn’t know if I was going to have the strength to say no, but thank God there was this girl ahead of me, a black girl with a tattoo of the Buddha on the back of her neck, and I’ve never forgotten her, because if she hadn’t been there… so, they called her name, and she said, “No, I don’t want to join.” Like, really loud and clear. And the atmosphere just turned to ice. Everyone was, like, glaring at her. And Papa J was the only one who was still smiling, and he gave her this whole spiel about how he knew the material world had a strong allure, and basically, he was implying she wanted to go and work for Big Oil or something, instead of saving the world. But she didn’t budge, even though she got kind of tearful.
‘And then they called my name, and I said, “I don’t want to join, either.” And I saw Flora’s face. It was like I’d slapped her.
‘Then they called the last two people forwards, and they both joined.
‘Then, while everyone’s cheering and clapping all the new members, Mazu came up to me and the girl who’d said no and said, “You two come with me,” and I said, “I want to speak to Flora first, I came with her,” and Mazu said, “She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Flora was already being led off with all the members. She didn’t even look back.
‘Mazu took us back to the farmhouse and said, “The minibus won’t be leaving until tomorrow, so you’ll have to stay here in the meantime,” and she showed us this little room with no beds, and bars over the window. And I said, “I came in a car,” and I said to the girl, “D’you want a lift back to London?” and she agreed, so we went…
‘Sorry, I really need another drink,’ said Henry weakly.
‘It’s on me,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.
When he’d returned to the table with a fresh gin and tonic for Henry, he found the younger man wiping the lenses of his glasses with his silk tie, looking shaken.
‘Thanks,’ he said, putting his glasses back on, accepting the glass and taking a large swig. ‘God, just talking about it… and I was only there a week.’
Strike, who’d made extensive notes on everything Henry had just said, now flipped back a couple of pages.
‘This pregnant woman who collapsed – you never saw her again?’
‘No,’ said Henry.
‘What did she look like?’ asked Strike, picking up his pen again.
‘Er… blonde, glasses… I can’t really remember.’
‘Did you ever see violence used against anyone at Chapman Farm?’
‘No,’ said Henry, ‘but Flora definitely did. She told me, when she got out.’
‘Which was when?’
‘Five years later. I heard she was home, and I called her. We met up for a drink, and I was really shocked at how she looked. She was so thin. She looked really ill. And she wasn’t right. In the head.’
‘In what way?’
‘God, just in – in every way. She’d talk kind of normally for a bit, then she’d start laughing at nothing. Like, this really artificial laugh. Then she’d try and stop, and she said to me “That’s me putting on my happy face”, and – I don’t know if it was something they were forced to do, like, laugh if they felt sad or whatever, but it was fucking freaky. And she kept chanting. It was like she had no control over herself.
‘I asked her why she’d left and she told me bad things had gone down, but she didn’t want to talk about them, but after she’d had two drinks she, like, started spilling all this stuff. She said she’d been flogged, with a belt, and she told me about the sex stuff, like, she had to sleep with whoever they told her to, and she kept laughing and trying to stop herself – it was horrible, seeing her like that. And after a third drink,’ said Henry, dropping his voice, ‘she said she’d seen the Drowned Prophet kill somebody.’
Strike looked up from his notebook.
‘But she wouldn’t say – like, she didn’t give me details,’ said Henry quickly. ‘It might’ve been something she – not imagined, but – I mean, she wasn’t right. She was fucking terrified after she’d said it, though. She was drunk,’ said Henry, ‘she’d got rat-arsed on three drinks. She hadn’t had alcohol for five years, so obviously…’
