The Running Grave, page 64
Farah’s voice came over more clearly than Kevin’s, presumably because the Dictaphone had lain closer to her. From what Strike could make out, she’d suggested twice they leave for somewhere quieter in the first five minutes, but Kevin, pathetically, said they should stay, because he knew it was her favourite bar. Apparently Kevin had been thoroughly convinced the good-looking Navabi was interested in him sexually.
Strike turned the volume up to maximum and listened closely, trying to make out what was being said. Farah kept asking Kevin to speak up or repeat things, and Strike was forced to rewind and relisten multiple times, pen in hand, trying to transcribe anything that was audible.
Initially, as far as Strike could make out, their chat had nothing to do with the UHC. For ten minutes, Farah talked indistinctly about her supposed job as an air stewardess. At last, the church was mentioned.
Farah:… ways been interested in the UH…
Kevin:… on’t do it… isters… still in b… aybe leave one d…
Somewhere close to where Farah and Kevin were sitting, a rowdy song broke out which, typically, was as clear as a bell.
And we were singing hymns and arias,
‘Land of my Fathers’, ‘Ar hyd y nos’.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ muttered Strike. The group of what Strike assumed were elderly Welshmen, because he wasn’t sure who else would be singing a Max Boyce song, struggled for the next ten minutes to remember all the lyrics, breaking out intermittently into fragments of verses that petered out again, rendering Kevin and Farah’s conversation completely inaudible. At last, the Welshmen reverted to merely talking loudly, and Strike was able to pick up the faint thread of what Farah and Kevin were saying again.
Kevin:… vil people. Evil.
Farah: How were they ev…?
Kevin:… ean, cruel… hypocr… ’m writing a b…
Farah: Oh wow that’s gr…
One of the Welshmen broke into song again.
But Will is very happy though his money all has gone:
He swapped five photos of his wife for one of Barry John.
Cheers greeted these remembered lines and when the yelling had subsided, Strike heard Kevin again: ‘… orry, need a…’
From the lack of chat from Farah, Strike surmised that Kevin had gone to the bathroom.
The next fifty minutes of recording were worthless. Not only had the noise in the pub become ever louder, but Kevin’s voice grew progressively more indistinct. Strike could have told Farah that offering unlimited drink to a young man who’d grown up never touching alcohol was a mistake, and soon Kevin was slurring and rambling, Farah trying very hard to keep track of what he was saying.
Kevin:… ’n she drown… said sh’drowned…
Farah: (loudly)… talking about Dai…?
Kevin:… unny thing zappenin… ings I keep… emembrin… or of ’em…
Farah: (loudly) Four? Did you say f…?
Kevin:… more ’n jus’ Shree… nice to kids, an’ she… Bec made Em l… visible… ullshit…
Farah: (loudly)… ecca made Em lie, did you s…?
Kevin:… drugged… sh’wuz allowed out… sh’could get things… smuggle it’n… let her ’way with stu… didn’ care ’bout ’er real… sh’ad chocolate once n’I stole some… bully though…
Farah: (loudly)… oo wa… ully?
Kevin:… ake ’lowances… gonna talk t’er… z’gonna meet m…
Farah: (very loudly) Is someone from the church going meet you, Kev…?
Kevin:… ’n’answer f’r it…
Strike slammed his hand onto pause, rewound and listened again.
Kevin:… gonna talk t’er… z’gonna meet m…
Farah: (very loudly) Is someone from the church going meet you, Kev…?
Kevin:… ’n’answer f’r it… opey… part’f…
Farah: (insistent) Are you going to meet someone from…?
Kevin:… sh’ad ’ard ti… ’n th’pigs…
Farah: (exasperated) Forget the pigs…
‘Let him talk about the fucking pigs,’ growled Strike at the recorder.
Kevin:… e liked pigs… ew what t’d… ’cos why… ’n I wuz in th’woo… ’n Bec… old me off cuz… ace’s daught… m’sn’t snitch…
Farah:… Daiyu in the woods?
Kevin:… unno… was sh..… ink there was a plot… in it t’gether… alwuz t’geth… f’I’m right… bution… ’n woods… wasn’t a… gale blowing on… ire but too wet… weird’n I… eatened me… an out’f the… ought it was for pun’shmen… ecca tole me… sorry, gotta…
Strike heard a loud clunk, as though a chair had fallen. He had a feeling Kevin might have set off clumsily for the bathroom, possibly to vomit. He kept listening, but nothing whatsoever happened for a further twenty-five minutes except that the Welshmen became ever more rambunctious. At last he heard Farah say,
‘Excuse me… f you’re going… n the loo? He’s wearing a blue…’
Five minutes later, a loud Welsh voice said,
‘’E’s in an ’orrible state, love. You might ’ave to carry ’im ’ome.’
‘Oh, for God’s s… anks for checking, any…’
There was a rustle, the sound of breathing, and the recording ended.
80
External conditions hinder the advance, just as loss of the wheel spokes stops the progress of a wagon.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Shah departed for Norfolk at midday on Thursday, bearing a letter from Strike instructing Robin to stay beside the plastic rock after reading it, because Shah would be waiting in the vicinity with his car lights off and cutters at the ready to ensure safe passage through the barbed wire. Strike set off for dinner at Lucy’s that evening feeling surprisingly cheerful given that he’d be up at six the following morning to drive to Gloucestershire, and wasn’t looking forward to the evening ahead.
Although Ted was pleased to see his nephew, it was immediately clear to Strike that his uncle had deteriorated even in the few weeks since he’d last seen him. There was a vagueness, a sense of disconnection, that hadn’t been there before. Ted smiled and nodded, but Strike wasn’t convinced he was following the conversation. His uncle watched Lucy’s three sons bustle in and out of the kitchen with an air of bemusement and treated them with a formal courtesy that suggested he wasn’t sure who they were.
Strike and Lucy’s attempts to draw Ted out about where and how he wanted to live went nowhere, because Ted tended to agree with every proposition put to him, even if they were contradictory. He agreed that he wanted to stay in Cornwall, that it might be better to move to London, that he needed a bit more help, then, with a sudden flicker of the old Ted, stated spontaneously that he was managing just fine and nobody ought to be worrying about him. All through dinner, Strike sensed tension between his sister and brother-in-law, and sure enough, once Ted was settled in the sitting room in front of the television with a cup of decaffeinated coffee, there was an uncomfortable three-way conversation in which Greg made plain his sense of ill-usage.
‘She wants him to live with us,’ he told Strike, scowling.
‘I said, if we sell the house in Cornwall, we could build an extension on the back,’ Lucy told her brother.
‘And lose half the garden,’ said Greg.
‘I don’t want him going into a home,’ said Lucy tearfully. ‘Joan would’ve hated the idea of him in a home.’
‘What’re you going to do, give up work?’ Greg demanded of his wife. ‘Because he’s going to be a full-time job if he gets much worse.’
‘I think,’ said Strike, ‘we need to get him a full medical assessment before we decide anything.’
‘That’s just kicking the can down the road,’ said Greg, whose irritation was undoubtedly informed by the fact that Strike was unlikely to be discommoded by any change in Ted’s living arrangements.
‘There are homes and homes,’ Strike told Lucy, ignoring Greg. ‘If we got him into somewhere decent in London, we could make sure we’re seeing him regularly. Take him for days out—’
‘Then Lucy’ll be running round after him like he’s living here,’ said Greg, his clear implication that Strike wouldn’t be doing any running round at all. ‘He wants to stay in Cornwall, he’s just said so.’
‘He doesn’t know what he wants,’ said Lucy shrilly. ‘What happened on Tuesday was a warning. He isn’t safe to live alone any more, anything could have happened to him – what if he’d tried to take his boat out?’
‘That’s what I was worried about,’ admitted Strike.
‘So sell the boat,’ said Greg angrily.
The conversation ended, as Strike could have predicted from the first, with no decision in place other than getting Ted seen by a specialist in London. As Ted was exhausted after his unexpected journey to London he turned in at nine, and Strike left shortly afterwards, hoping to maximise his sleep before getting up to drive to Thornbury.
He’d decided against giving Cherie, or Carrie, as she was now, prior notice of his arrival, due to her well-established pattern of flight and reinvention: he had a feeling that if he called her first, she’d make sure she was unavailable. Strike doubted the woman who posted endless pictures on Facebook of her family’s outings to Longleat and Paultons Park, of her contributions to school bake sales and of the fancy dress costumes she’d made her little girls was going to enjoy being reminded of her unsavoury past.
Strike had been travelling along the motorway for two hours when he received a phone call from Tasha Mayo, asking why Midge wasn’t looking after her any more, and requesting that Midge be reassigned to her case. The phrase ‘looking after’ did nothing to allay Strike’s faint suspicion that Midge had become over-friendly with the actress, and he didn’t much appreciate their client dictating to him which personnel they wanted assigned to them.
‘It’s just more natural for me to be seen walking around with another woman,’ Mayo told him.
‘If what my agency provided was private security, and we wanted to keep it discreet, I’d agree,’ said Strike, ‘but there shouldn’t be any walking around together, given that what we’re providing is surveillance—’
To his consternation, he then realised Tasha was crying. His heart sank: he seemed to have had to deal with an endless train of crying people lately.
‘Look,’ she sobbed, ‘I can’t afford you and private security, and I like her, she makes me feel safe, and I’d rather have someone around I can have a laugh with—’
‘All right, all right,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll put Midge back on the job.’
Little though Strike liked what he thought of as mission creep, he couldn’t pretend it was unreasonable of Mayo to want a bodyguard.
‘Take care of yourself,’ he finished lamely, and Tasha rang off.
Having contacted a frosty Midge to give her the news, Strike continued driving.
Twenty minutes later, Shah called.
‘Have you got her?’ said Strike, smiling in anticipation of hearing Robin’s voice.
‘No,’ said Shah. ‘She didn’t turn up and the rock’s gone.’
For the second time in two weeks, Strike felt as though dry ice had slid down through his guts.
‘What?’
‘The plastic rock’s gone. No sign of it.’
‘Fuck. Stay there. I’m on the M4. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
81
The upper trigram K’an stands for the Abysmal, the dangerous. Its motion is downward…
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Three nights of vigil had now been held on the temple steps, making it impossible for Robin to leave her bed. On Wednesday, teenaged boys in long white robes had replaced the girls, and on Thursday night, the church Principals took up their positions at the temple entrance, the flickering flames of their torches illuminating the painted faces of Jonathan and Mazu Wace, Becca Pirbright, Taio Wace, Giles Harmon, Noli Seymour and others, all of them wearing black smeared around their eyes. Daiyu had appeared twice more by night, her luminous figure visible from afar from the rear windows of the dormitories.
The ghost, the watchful figures on the temple steps, the constant dread, the impossibility of escaping or calling for help: all made Robin feel as though she was inhabiting a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. Nobody had confronted her about her real identity, nobody had spoken to her about what had happened in the Retreat Room with Will or challenged her explanation of why her face was swollen and bruised, and she found all of this ominous rather than reassuring. She felt certain that a reckoning was coming at a time of the church’s choosing, and afraid that the Manifestation would be the moment it happened. The Drowned Prophet will sort you out.
She saw Will from a distance, moving blank-faced about his daily tasks, and occasionally she saw his lips moving silently, and knew he was chanting. Once, she spotted him sitting on his haunches to talk to little Qing, before hurrying away as Mazu swept through the courtyard, cradling baby Yixin in her arms. Robin was still being accompanied everywhere she went.
The day of the Manifestation was marked by a fast for all church members, who were once again served hot water with lemon for breakfast. The church Principals, who were presumably catching up on their sleep in the farmhouse after their overnight vigil, remained out of sight. Exhausted, hungry and scared, Robin fed chickens, cleaned the dormitories and spent a few hours in the craft room, stuffing more plush turtles for sale in Norwich. She kept remembering her blithe request of an extra day’s grace from Strike, should she be late putting a letter in the plastic rock. Had she not overruled him, someone from the agency would be coming to get her the following day, although she now knew enough about Chapman Farm to be certain anyone who tried to gain entry at the front gate would be turned away.
If I get through the Manifestation, she thought, I’ll get out tomorrow night. Then she tried to mock herself for thinking she might not get through the Manifestation. What d’you think’s going to happen, ritual sacrifice?
After an evening meal of more hot water with lemon, all church members over the age of thirteen were instructed to return to their dormitories and put on the outfits laid out for them on their beds. These proved to be long white robes made of worn and much-washed cotton that might once have been old bed sheets. The loss of her tracksuit made Robin feel still more vulnerable. The now-robed women talked in hushed voices, waiting to be summoned to the temple. Robin spoke to nobody, wishing she could somehow psychically summon those who cared about her in the outside world.
When the sun had at last fallen, Becca Pirbright reappeared in the women’s dormitory, also wearing robes, though hers, like Mazu’s, were made of silk, and beaded.
‘Everyone, take off your shoes,’ Becca instructed the waiting women. ‘You’ll walk barefoot, as the Prophet walked into the sea, in pairs across the courtyard, in silence. The temple will be dark. Assistants will guide you to your places.’
They lined up obediently. Robin found herself walking next to Penny Brown, whose once-round face was now hollow and anxious. They crossed the courtyard beneath a clear, starry sky, chilly in their thin cotton robes and bare feet, and two by two entered the temple, which was indeed pitch black.
Robin felt a hand take her by the arm and was led, she assumed, past the pentagonal stage, then pushed down into a kneeling position on the floor. She no longer knew who was beside her, although she could hear rustling and breathing, nor did she know how those assisting people to their places were able to see what they were doing.
After a while, the temple doors closed with a bang. Then Jonathan Wace’s voice spoke through the darkness.
‘Together: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… ’
The members took up the chant. The darkness seemed to intensify the rumble and rhythm of the words, but Robin, who’d once felt relief in dissolving her voice into the mass, experienced neither euphoria nor relief; fear continued to burn like a coal lodged beneath her diaphragm.
‘… and finish,’ called Wace.
Silence fell again. Then Wace spoke:
‘Daiyu, beloved Prophet, speaker of truths, bringer of justice, come to us now in holiness. Bless us with your presence. Light the way for us, that we may see clearly into the next world.’
There was another silence in which nobody stirred. Then, clearly and loudly, came a small girl’s giggle.
‘Hello, Papa.’
Robin, who’d been kneeling with her eyes tight shut, opened them. All was dark: there was no sign of Daiyu.
‘Will you manifest for us, my child?’ said Wace’s voice.
Another pause. Then –
‘Papa, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re afraid, my child?’ said Wace. ‘You? The bravest of us, and the best?’
‘Things are wrong, Papa. Bad people have come.’
‘We know there is wickedness in the world, little one. That’s why we fight.’
‘Inside and outside,’ said the child’s voice. ‘Fight inside and outside.’
‘What does that mean, Daiyu?’
‘Clever Papa knows.’
Another silence.
‘Daiyu, do you speak of malign influences within our church?’
There was no answer.
‘Daiyu, help me. What does it mean, to fight inside and out?’
The childish voice began to wail in distress, its cries and sobs echoing off the temple walls.
‘Daiyu! Daiyu, Blessed One, don’t cry!’ said Wace, with the familiar catch in his voice. ‘Little one, I will fight for you!’
The sobs quietened. Silence fell again.
‘Come to us, Daiyu,’ said Wace, pleading now. ‘Show us you live. Help us root out evil, inside and out.’
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then a very faint glow appeared a few feet off the floor in front of Robin, and she realised she was kneeling in the front row of the crowd surrounding the pentagonal baptismal pool, from which the greenish light was emanating.
Now the glowing water rose upwards in the smooth shape of a bell jar, and revolving slowly inside it was the figure of a limp, eyeless child in a white dress.
