The Running Grave, page 21
‘If,’ said Niamh tentatively, ‘you find out anything about Mum, will you let me know?’
‘Of course,’ said Strike.
‘Thank you. Since having Charlie, I think about Mum such a lot… Oisin and Maeve say they don’t care, but I think it would mean a lot to them, too, if we could find out what happened to her…’
Strike, Robin noticed, looked unusually severe as the three of them headed down the hall, even allowing for the natural surliness of his resting expression. At the front door, Robin thanked Niamh for her time and the biscuits. Basil stood panting beside them, tail wagging, evidently convinced he might yet wheedle fun and treats out of the strangers.
Strike now turned to his partner.
‘You go on. I’d like a private word with Niamh.’
Though surprised, Robin asked no questions, but left. When the sound of her footsteps had disappeared, Strike turned back to Niamh.
‘I’m sorry to ask this,’ he said quietly, looking down at her, ‘but has your younger sister ever talked to you about what Harold Coates did, to cure her rashes?’
‘I think he gave her some cream, that’s all,’ said Niamh, looking nonplussed.
‘She’s never talked about anything else that happened, when he was treating her?’
‘No,’ said Niamh, fear now dawning in her face.
‘How old’s your sister now – twenty-one?’
‘Yes,’ said Niamh.
‘Harold Coates was a paedophile,’ said Strike, and Niamh gasped and clapped her hands to her face. ‘I think you should ask her what happened. She’s probably in need of more help than anti-depressants, and it might be a relief to have someone else know.’
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Niamh through her fingers.
‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Strike. ‘It won’t be much consolation, I know, but Maeve was far from the only one.’
22
Nine at the top means:
Look to your conduct and weigh the favourable signs.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Fancy some lunch while we debrief?’ said Strike, once he was back in the car. ‘Niamh recommended a good place just round the corner,’ he lied. In fact, he’d found the Merlin’s Cave restaurant online, the previous day.
Robin hesitated. Having taken the day off, Murphy would be expecting her back as soon as possible, to spend their last few hours together. Yet their slightly tense phone conversation of the previous evening, in which Murphy had just refrained from becoming openly annoyed, had irked her. Her boyfriend, who supposedly wanted her as well prepared as possible before going undercover, had resented her speaking to a last witness before she went in, and his behaviour was all too reminiscent of her marriage.
‘Yes, OK,’ said Robin. ‘I can’t hang around too long, though, I – er – told Ryan I’d be back.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Strike, happy to have gained lunch. Hopefully, the service would be slow.
Merlin’s Cave, which stood on the village green, was a country pub with a timbered and red brick façade. Strike and Robin were shown to a table for two in a pleasant restaurant area, with glass windows overlooking a rear garden.
‘If I drive back,’ said Strike, as they sat down, ‘you can drink. Last chance for alcohol before Chapman Farm.’
‘I’m not bothered, I can have a drink later,’ said Robin.
‘Murphy’s OK with you drinking in front of him, is he?’
Robin looked up from the menu the waitress had just handed her. She didn’t remember ever telling Strike that Murphy was an alcoholic.
‘Yes, he’s fine with it. Did Ilsa—?’
‘Wardle,’ said Strike.
‘Oh,’ said Robin, looking back down at the menu.
Strike had no intention of relaying what Wardle had said about Murphy’s behaviour when still a drinker, largely because he knew how he’d make himself look to Robin, by saying it. Nevertheless, he said,
‘What made him give up?’
‘He says he just didn’t like himself, drunk,’ said Robin, preferring to keep looking at the menu, rather than Strike. She had a suspicion that Strike was looking for a way to impart information she probably wouldn’t want to hear. Given Strike’s recent irritation at what he considered Ilsa’s meddling, she thought it grossly hypocritical for him to start questioning her about Murphy’s past.
Sensing the slight increase in froideur from across the table, Strike probed no further. When both had ordered food, and Strike had asked for bread, he said,
‘So, what did you make of Niamh?’
Robin lowered her menu.
‘Well, apart from feeling really sorry for her, I thought she gave us a few interesting things. Especially that photograph of her mother. From Henry Worthington-Fields’ description of the pregnant woman he saw collapsing, while ploughing—’
‘Yeah, I think that was Deirdre Doherty,’ said Strike, ‘and now we know she had a heart condition which, along with hard manual labour and a fourth pregnancy, would seem ample grounds for fainting, or whatever she did.’
‘But we know she survived the fainting fit, got through the birth OK and lived for another two years, at least,’ said Robin.
The waitress now set down Robin’s water, Strike’s zero-alcohol beer and a basket of bread. Strike took a roll (the diet could be resumed once Robin was at Chapman Farm) and waited until the waitress was out of earshot, before saying,
‘You think Deirdre’s dead?’
‘I don’t want to think so,’ said Robin, ‘but it’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it?’
‘And the letters her husband kept tearing up?’
‘They might not have had anything to do with Deirdre at all. I can’t believe it would have been that hard to track her family down, if she really did leave Chapman Farm in 2003. And don’t you find it fishy that she left her youngest daughter behind when she was so-called expelled?’
‘If Kevin Pirbright was right, and Lin was Jonathan Wace’s daughter, Wace might not have been prepared to give her up.’
‘If Kevin Pirbright was right,’ said Robin, ‘Lin was a product of rape, and if Deirdre was prepared to write it in her journal that Wace had raped her, she was a real danger to him and to the church.’
‘You think Wace murdered her, buried her at Chapman Farm and then told everyone he’d expelled her in the night, to avoid a DNA test? Because all Wace had to do was say the sex was consensual, get a few cult members to state on the record that Deirdre walked happily into his bedroom of her own free will, and it’d be very hard to get a conviction. As you’ve just pointed out, Deirdre stayed at Chapman Farm, even after the rest of her family took off. That wouldn’t look great in court. Nor would the fact that her husband thought she was a slut and didn’t want anything more to do with her.’
Catching the expression on Robin’s face, Strike added,
‘I’m not saying I think any of those arguments would be fair or valid. I’m just being realistic about Deirdre’s odds of convincing a jury.’
‘Why did she write about the rape in her journal at all?’ asked Robin. ‘She knew the journal would be read by a higher-up, which doesn’t really tally with the way Niamh described her mother. It doesn’t feel like the act of a passive woman.’
‘Maybe she was desperate,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe she hoped the journal was going to be read by someone she thought would help her.’ He took a bite of bread, then said, ‘I’ll keep trying to track Deirdre down while you’re at the farm. She’d be a bloody good witness, if we can find her.’
‘Of course, she needn’t have been murdered,’ said Robin, still following her own train of thought. ‘If she had a weak heart before going to Chapman Farm and was made to work without adequate food, she could have died of natural causes.’
‘If that happened, and they didn’t register the death, we’ve got a crime. Trouble is, to prove it, we need a body.’
‘It’s farmland,’ said Robin. ‘She could have been buried anywhere, over acres.’
‘And we’re not going to get the authority to dig up all the fields on an evidence-free hunch.’
‘I know,’ said Robin. ‘There’s also that thing about no calendars and watches—’
‘Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that,’ said Strike.
‘Even if we manage to find people who’re prepared to talk, they’re going to have credibility problems,’ Robin continued. ‘“When did this happen?” “I have literally no idea.” It’d make faking alibis a piece of cake. Only the people at the top know what time of day it is – literally.’
‘Yeah, but the more immediate problem is, you’re going to have to find a way of keeping track of the days without anyone knowing you’re doing it.’
‘I’ll think of something,’ said Robin, ‘but if you could put dates and days of the week on your notes to me, that’ll help keep me orientated.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Strike, pulling out his notebook and making a note to this effect.
‘And,’ said Robin, feeling slightly awkward about asking this, ‘if I put the odd note for Ryan in the rock, along with my report for you, would you mind passing it on?’
‘No problem,’ said Strike, making a further note, his expression impassive. ‘Do me a return favour, though: if you get a chance to get the blood-stained hatchet out of the hollow tree, be sure and take it.’
‘OK, I’ll try,’ said Robin, smiling.
‘Do your family know what you’re about to do, by the way?’
‘No details,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve just said I’ll be undercover for a bit. I haven’t told them where I’m going. Ryan’s going to call them with updates… I really hope Abigail Glover decides to talk to you,’ Robin added, again keen to get off the subject of Murphy, ‘because I’d love to hear some more background on her father. There isn’t much about Wace’s past out there, have you noticed?’
‘Yeah, I have, though I note he doesn’t mind people knowing he was educated at Harrow.’
‘No, but after that it all gets sketchy, doesn’t it? His father was a “businessman”, but no detail on what kind of business, and his first wife dies tragically, he finds religion and founds the UHC. That’s basically it.’
Their food arrived. Strike, who was still abstaining from chips, looked so enviously at Robin’s that she laughed.
‘Have some. I only ordered them because I’m going to be on starvation rations from tomorrow.’
‘No,’ said Strike gloomily, ‘I still need to get another stone off.’
He’d just cut into his chicken breast when his mobile rang again, this time, from an unknown London number. Setting down his knife and fork again, he answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh – ’iya,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Are you Cameron Strike?’
‘That’s me,’ said Strike, who rarely bothered to correct the mistake. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Ava Reaney. You left a message for me to call you?’
‘Yes,’ said Strike, scribbling Reaney wife on his notebook and turning it to face Robin. ‘I did. I was actually wondering whether you could get a message to your husband for me, Mrs Reaney.’
‘To Jordan? Wha’ for?’ said the voice suspiciously. There was a lot of background noise, including pop music. Strike assumed Ava Reaney was at her nail salon.
‘I’m trying to find as many people as I can who’ve lived at Chapman Farm,’ said Strike.
‘What – that cult place?’ asked Ava Reaney.
‘That’s the one. I think your husband was there in the nineties?’
‘’E was, yeah,’ she said.
‘So, could you—?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve split up.’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear that,’ said Strike.
‘’E’s inside,’ said Ava.
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Strike, ‘which is why—’
‘’E’s a bastard. I’m divorcing ’im.’
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, could anyone else take a message to him, to see whether he’d be prepared to talk to me about the UHC?’
‘I can ask ’is sister, if you want,’ said Ava. ‘She’s going up next week. Hey, are you that bloke what caught the Shacklewell Ripper?’
‘I am, yeah,’ said Strike.
‘It is ’im,’ Ava said loudly, apparently to somebody standing nearby, before saying, ‘So you’re after people from the UHT are you? No,’ she corrected herself, ‘that’s milk, innit?’
‘Did Jordan ever talk to you about his time in there?’ asked Strike.
‘Not much. ’E gets nightmares abou’ it, though,’ she added, with a certain malicious satisfaction.
‘Really?’ said Strike.
‘Yeah. Abou’ the pigs. ’E’s frightened of pigs.’
She laughed, and so did the unknown person standing near her.
‘OK, well, if you wouldn’t mind asking Jordan’s sister to give him my message – you’ve got my phone number, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah, I will. OK. See ya.’
Strike hung up.
‘Apparently Jordan Reaney has nightmares about pigs, dating from his time in Chapman Farm.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah… D’you know much about them?’
‘What, pigs? Not really.’
‘Shame. I look to you for farming expertise.’
‘The boars can be really aggressive,’ said Robin, ‘I know that. Our local vet got badly injured by one when I was at school. It slammed him up against metal railings – he had some nasty bites and broken ribs.’
Strike’s mobile now buzzed with the arrival of a text. Robin glimpsed a lot of emojis before her partner swiped the phone off the table and returned it to his pocket.
She deduced, correctly, that the text was from Bijou Watkins. For a moment or two, she considered passing on Ilsa’s warning about Bijou’s bedroom behaviour, but given Strike’s reaction the last time someone tried to interfere with his new relationship, she decided against it. After all, this was the last time she was going to see her business partner for a while, and she preferred not to part on bad terms.
23
Nine at the beginning means:
Fellowship with men at the gate.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
At half past nine the following day, Robin walked out of Victoria Station into the cool, overcast morning. For a moment, she stood with her half-empty holdall over her shoulder, looking around at taxis, swarming commuters and buses, and experienced a moment of panic: there was no minibus, and she groped in her pocket for the UHC pamphlet, to check she had the right station and time, even though she knew perfectly well she did. However, just as she found the pamphlet, she spotted an orange-tabarded woman holding up a sign with the church’s heart-hands logo on it, and recognised Becca Pirbright, Kevin’s older sister, who’d led the second temple service Robin had attended.
Though Robin had previously compared Becca to a motivational speaker, it now struck her that she was more like an idealised notion of a Girl Guide: pretty and neat, with thick-lashed dark eyes, glossy brown hair and a creamy-skinned, oval face, which dimpled when she smiled. Beckoning hesitant arrivals to gather around her, she projected a cheery natural authority.
Beside Becca stood a short, heavy-set young man who had a low forehead, dark eyes, fuzzy dark hair and an underbite. As Robin looked at him, she noticed a slight tic in his right eye; it began to wink, apparently uncontrollably, and he hastily raised a hand to cover it. He too was wearing an orange tabard, and held a clipboard. Seven or eight people with backpacks and bags had already congregated around the pair by the time Robin joined the group.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hello!’ said Becca. ‘Are you one of us?’
‘I think so,’ said Robin. ‘Rowena Ellis?’
The young man with the clipboard marked off the name.
‘Great! I’m Becca, and this is Jiang. He’s going to be our driver.’
‘Hi,’ said Robin, smiling at Jiang, who merely grunted.
The name ‘Jiang’ made Robin wonder whether the young man was another son of Jonathan Wace’s, although he didn’t resemble the church leader in the slightest.
Robin’s fellow initiates were an eclectic bunch. She recognised the young, brown-skinned man in glasses who’d worn a Spiderman T-shirt in the temple, but the others were unfamiliar. They included a pink-faced man who looked to be in his late sixties and had the air of a professor, with his tweed jacket and wispy white hair; two teenaged girls who seemed inclined to giggle, one of whom was plump, with bright green hair, the other pale, blonde and much-pierced. An atmosphere of nervous tension hung over the group, which suggested people waiting to turn over their papers in an important exam.
By five to ten, the group had swelled to twenty people and everybody’s name had been checked off. Becca led the group across the busy road and up a side street, to a smart white minibus with the UHC logo on its side. Robin found herself a window seat directly behind the two teenaged girls. The spectacled young man sat beside her.
‘Hi, I’m Amandeep,’ he said.
‘Rowena,’ said Robin, smiling.
As the minibus pulled away from the pavement, Becca picked up a microphone and turned, kneeling on a front seat, to address the newcomers.
‘So, good morning! I’m Becca Pirbright, and I’ve been blessed to be a member of the Universal Humanitarian Church since I was eight years old. I’m going to be giving you a brief rundown on what you can expect during your week’s retreat, and then I’ll be happy to answer any questions you’ve got! Let’s just get out of London, so I’m not arrested for not wearing my seat belt!’ she said, and there was a little titter of laughter as she turned to take her seat again.
As they drove through London, quiet conversations broke out inside the minibus, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that these should be kept respectfully low, as though they were already inside a religious space. Amandeep told Robin he was doing a PhD in engineering, Robin told him about her cancelled wedding and her imaginary career in PR, and most of the bus heard the sixty-something man announce that he was a professor of anthropological philosophy called Walter Fernsby. Becca, Robin noticed, was observing the passengers in a mirror positioned directly over the windscreen, which was angled to watch the seats rather than the road. The slight movement of Becca’s right shoulder suggested that she was making notes.
