The Running Grave, page 65
There were several screams: Robin heard a girl shout, ‘No, no, no!’
The water was sinking again, and with it, the dreadful figure, and after a few seconds the greenish water was flat again, though glowing brighter still, so that the figures of Jonathan and Mazu, who were standing on the edge of the pool in their long white robes, were illuminated from beneath.
Now Mazu spoke.
‘I, who birthed the Drowned Prophet, have dedicated my life to honouring her sacrifice. When she left this world to join the Blessed Divinity, she conferred gifts upon those of us destined to carry on the fight against evil on earth. I have been granted the gift of divine sight by the grace of my daughter, and her Manifestation confirms me in my duty. There are those among us whom Daiyu will test tonight. They have nothing to fear if their hearts, like hers, are pure…
‘I call to the pool Rowena Ellis.’
Gasps and whispers issued from among the kneeling crowd. Robin had known it was going to happen, but nevertheless, her legs could barely support her weight as she got to her feet and walked forwards.
‘You entered the pool once before, Rowena,’ said Mazu, looking down at her. ‘Tonight, you join Daiyu in these holy waters. May she give you her blessing.’
Robin climbed up the steps to stand on the edge of the illuminated pool. Looking down, she could see nothing in it except the dark bottom. Knowing that resistance or refusal would be taken as infallible signs of guilt, she stepped over the edge and allowed herself to drop down under the surface of the cold water.
The light in the water dimmed. Robin expected her feet to touch the bottom, but they met no resistance: the bottom of the pool had disappeared. She tried to swim for the surface but then, to her terror, felt something like smooth cord twist around her ankles. In panic she fought, trying to kick herself free, but whatever had hold of her dragged her downwards. In darkness she flailed and kicked, trying to rise, but whatever was holding her back was more powerful, and she saw splinters of memories – her parents, her childhood home, Strike in the Land Rover – and the cold water seemed to be crushing her, pressing on her very brain, it was impossible to breathe, she opened her mouth in a silent scream and sucked in water…
82
The trigrams Li, clarity, and Chên, shock, terror, give the prerequisites for a clearing of the atmosphere by the thunderstorm of a criminal trial.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Hands were pressing hard on her ribcage. Robin vomited.
She was lying in the pitch black on the cold temple floor. A nightmarish face loomed over her wearing something like skiing goggles. Gasping for air, Robin tried to get up and was forced flat again by the one who’d just been pressing on her chest. She could hear frightened voices in the darkness, and see shadowy figures moving around by the greenish light in the pool.
‘Taio, remove Rowena from the temple,’ said Mazu calmly.
Shivering, soaked to her skin, Robin was dragged to her feet. She retched again, then vomited more water and fell back to her knees. Taio, who she now realised was wearing night vision goggles, pulled her roughly upright again, then marched her through the dark temple, Robin’s legs almost giving way at each step. The doors opened automatically and she saw the starlit courtyard, and felt the freezing night air against her soaking skin. Taio led her roughly past the dragon-carved doors of the farmhouse and then to the side entrance which opened onto the stairs to the basement.
They proceeded through the deserted underground lecture theatre in silence. Taio unlocked the second door leading off the screen room, through which Robin had never gone before. The room beyond was empty except for a small table at which stood two metal-legged plastic chairs.
‘Sit there,’ said Taio, pointing at one of the chairs, ‘and wait.’
Robin sat. Taio walked out, locking the door behind him.
Terrified, Robin fought with herself not to cry, but lost. Leaning forwards on the table, she hid her bruised face in her arms and sobbed. Why hadn’t she left with Barclay a week ago? Why had she stayed?
She didn’t know how long she cried before pulling herself together, attempting to breathe slowly and deeply. The horror of her near drowning was now eclipsed by terror of what would come next. She stood up and tried the door, even though she knew it was locked, then turned to look at the room to see nothing but blank walls: no air vent, no window, no hatch, but one very small round black camera in a corner of the ceiling.
Robin knew she must think, to prepare for whatever was coming, but she felt so weak after the twenty-four-hour fast she couldn’t make her brain work. The minutes dragged by, Robin shivering in her wet robe, and she wondered what was taking so long. Perhaps other people were being subjected to near drowning in the pool? Doubtless other misdemeanours had been committed at Chapman Farm, by people to whom she’d never spoken.
At long last, the key turned in the lock, and four robed people entered the room: Jonathan, Mazu, Taio and Becca. Wace took the chair opposite Robin. The other three lined up against the wall, watching.
‘Why d’you think Daiyu’s so angry with you, Rowena?’ asked Wace quietly and reasonably, like a disappointed headmaster.
‘I don’t know,’ whispered Robin.
She’d have given anything to be able to look inside Wace’s mind and see what he already knew.
‘I think you do,’ said Wace gently.
There was a minute’s silence. At last, Robin said,
‘I’ve been thinking… of leaving.’
‘But that wouldn’t make Daiyu angry,’ said Wace, with a little laugh. ‘Church members are free to leave. We compel nobody. You know that, surely?’
Robin thought he was playing to the camera in the corner, which presumably also picked up sound.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose so.’
‘All we ask is that church members don’t try and manipulate others, or act cruelly towards them,’ said Wace.
‘I don’t think I’ve done that,’ said Robin.
‘No?’ said Wace. ‘What about Will Edensor?’
‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ lied Robin.
‘After his trip to the Retreat Room with you,’ said Wace, ‘he asked for writing materials, to contact the person he used to call his mother.’
It took everything Robin had to feign perplexity.
‘Why?’ she said.
‘That’s what we want you to—’ began Taio harshly, but his father raised a hand to silence him.
‘Taio… let her answer.’
‘Oh,’ said Robin slowly, as though she’d just remembered something. ‘I did tell him… oh God,’ she said, playing for time. ‘I told him I thought… you’re going to be angry,’ she said, allowing herself to cry again.
‘I’m only angered by injustice, Rowena,’ said Wace quietly. ‘If you’ve been unjust – to us, or to Will – there will be a sanction, but it will fit the transgression. As the I Ching tells us, penalties must not be imposed unfairly. They should be restricted to an objective guarding against unjustified excesses.’
‘I told Will,’ said Robin, ‘that I wondered whether all our letters were being passed on.’
Mazu let out a soft hiss. Becca was shaking her head.
‘Were you aware that Will has signed a non-contact declaration regarding his family?’ asked Wace.
‘No,’ said Robin.
‘Some church members, like Will, voluntarily sign a declaration that they no longer wish to receive letters from former flesh objects. Step five: renunciation. In such cases, the church carefully preserves the correspondence, which can be viewed at any time, should the member ever wish to see it. Will has never made such a request, and so his letters are kept safely filed away.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Robin.
‘So why should he suddenly wish to write to his mother, after almost four years without contact?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Robin.
She was shivering, very aware of the wet robe’s transparency. Was it possible that Will had kept most of their conversation secret? He’d certainly had reason to suppress Robin’s possession of a torch, because of potential punishment for not having revealed it sooner. Perhaps he’d also omitted mention of her testing of his faith?
‘Are you sure you didn’t say anything to Will in the Retreat Room that would make him anxious about the woman he used to call mother?’
‘Why would I talk about his mother?’ asked Robin desperately. ‘I – I told him I didn’t think the letter from my sister had been passed on as soon as it arrived. I’m sorry,’ said Robin, allowing herself to cry again, ‘I didn’t know about non-contact declarations. That explains why there were so many letters in Mazu’s cabinet. I’m sorry, I really am.’
‘That injury to your face,’ said Wace. ‘How did it really happen?’
‘Will pushed past me,’ said Robin. ‘And I fell over.’
‘That sounds as though Will was angry. Why should he be angry with you?’
‘He didn’t like me talking about the letters,’ said Robin. ‘He seemed to take it really personally.’
There was a short silence in which Jonathan’s eyes met Mazu’s. Robin didn’t dare look at the latter. She felt as though she’d read her ultimate fate in Mazu’s crooked eyes.
Jonathan turned back to Robin.
‘Did you, at any time, mention the death of family members?’
‘Not death,’ lied Robin. ‘I might’ve said, “What if something happened to one of them?”’
‘So you continue to see relationships in materialist terms?’ said Wace.
‘I’m trying not to,’ said Robin, ‘but it’s hard.’
‘Did Emily really earn all the money that was in her collection box at the end of your trip to Norwich?’ asked Wace.
‘No,’ said Robin, after a pause of several seconds. ‘I gave her some from the stall box.’
‘Why?’
‘I felt sorry for her, because she hadn’t got much on her own. She wasn’t very well,’ Robin said desperately.
‘So you lied to Taio? You misrepresented what had really happened?’
‘I didn’t… I suppose so, yes,’ said Robin hopelessly.
‘How are we supposed to believe anything you say, now we know you’re prepared to lie to church Principals?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Robin, again allowing herself to cry. ‘I didn’t see it as being a bad thing, helping her out… I’m sorry…’
‘Small evils mount up, Rowena,’ said Wace. ‘You may say to yourself, “What does it matter, a little lie here, a little lie there?” But the pure spirit knows there can be no lies, big or small. To promulgate falsehoods is to embrace evil.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Robin again.
Wace contemplated Robin for a moment, then said,
‘Becca, fill in a PA form and bring it back to me, with a blank.’
‘Yes, Papa J,’ said Becca, and she strode out of the room. When the door had closed, Jonathan leaned forwards and said quietly,
‘Do you want to leave us, Rowena? Because, if so, you’re completely free to do so.’
Robin looked into those opaque dark blue eyes and remembered the stories of Kevin Pirbright and Niamh Doherty, of Sheila Kennett and Flora Brewster, all of which had taught her that if there were any safe, easy route out of Chapman Farm, it wouldn’t have taken bereavement, mental collapse or night-time escapes through barbed wire to free them. She no longer believed the Waces would stop short of murder to protect themselves or their lucrative fiefdom. Wace’s offer was for the camera, to prove Robin had been given a free choice that was, in reality, no choice at all.
‘No,’ Robin said. ‘I want to stay. I want to learn, I want to do better.’
‘That will mean performing penance,’ said Wace. ‘You understand that?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘I do.’
‘And do you agree that any penance should be proportionate to your own self-confessed behaviour?’
She nodded.
‘Say it,’ said Wace.
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘I agree.’
The door behind Wace opened. Becca had returned holding two pieces of paper and a pen. She was also holding a razor and a can of shaving foam.
‘I want you to read what Becca’s written for you,’ said Wace, as Becca laid the two forms and the pen before Robin on the table, ‘and, if you agree, copy the words out onto the blank form, then sign it.’
Robin read what had been written in Becca’s neat, rounded handwriting.
I have been duplicitous.
I have spoken falsehoods.
I have manipulated a fellow church member and undermined his trust in the church.
I have manipulated and encouraged a fellow church member to lie.
I have acted and spoken in direct contravention of the church’s teachings on kindness and fellowship.
By my own thought, word and deed, I have damaged the bond of trust between myself and the church.
I accept a proportionate punishment as penance for my behaviour.
Robin picked up the pen and her four accusers watched as she copied out the words, then signed as Rowena Ellis.
‘Becca’s going to shave your head now,’ said Wace, ‘as a mark—’
Taio made a slight movement. His father looked up at him for a moment, then smiled.
‘Very well, we’ll forgo the shaving. Taio, go with Becca and fetch the box.’
The pair left the room, leaving Wace and Mazu to watch Robin in silence. Robin heard scuffing footsteps, and then the door opened once more to reveal Taio and Becca carrying a heavy wooden box, the size of a large travel trunk, with an envelope-sized rectangular hole at one end and a hinged, lockable lid.
‘I’m going to leave you now, Artemis,’ said Wace, getting to his feet, and his eyes were wet again. ‘Even where the sin has been great, I hate the necessity for punishment. I wish,’ he pressed his hand to his heart, ‘it weren’t necessary. Be well, Rowena, I’ll see you on the other side, purified, I hope, by suffering. Don’t think I don’t recognise your gifts of intelligence and generosity. I’m very happy,’ he said, making her a little bow, ‘in spite of everything, that you chose to stay with us. Eight hours,’ he added to Taio.
He left the room.
Taio now threw back the lid of the box.
‘You face this way,’ he told Robin, pointing at the rectangular hole. You kneel and bend over in an attitude of penance. Then we close the lid.’
Shaking uncontrollably, Robin stood up. She climbed into the box, facing the rectangular hole, then knelt down and curled up. The floor of the box hadn’t been sanded: she felt the splintered surface digging into her knees through the thin, wet robe. Then the lid banged down on her spine.
She watched through the rectangular hole as Mazu, Taio and Becca left the room, only the hems of their robes and their feet visible. Mazu, the last to leave, turned out the light, closed the door of the room and locked it.
83
Nine in the fifth place…
In the midst of the greatest obstructions,
Friends come.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Strike, who’d arrived in Lion’s Mouth at one o’clock that afternoon, was now sitting in the dark in his BMW at the blind spot in Chapman Farm’s perimeter with the car’s headlights off. Shah had given Strike the night vision binoculars and wire cutters, and he was using the former to stare at the woods for any sign of a human figure. He’d sent Shah back to London: there was no point two of them sitting here in the dark for hours.
It was nearly midnight, and raining heavily, when Strike’s mobile rang.
‘Any sign of her?’ said Midge anxiously.
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘She did miss a Thursday once before,’ said Midge.
‘I know,’ said Strike, peering through the rain-flecked window at the dark trees, ‘but why the fuck’s the rock gone?’
‘Could she have moved it herself?’
‘Possibly,’ said Strike, ‘but I can’t see why.’
‘You sure you don’t want company?’
‘No, I’m fine on my own,’ said Strike.
‘What if she doesn’t turn up tonight?’
‘We agreed I wouldn’t do anything until Sunday,’ said Strike, ‘so she’s got another night, assuming she doesn’t turn up in the next few hours.’
‘God, I hope she’s all right.’
‘Me too,’ said Strike. With the aim of maintaining these friendlier relations with Midge, even in the midst of his larger worries, he asked,
‘Tasha all right?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ said Midge. ‘Barclay’s outside her house.’
‘Good,’ said Strike. ‘I might’ve overreacted about the photos. Didn’t want to give Patterson another stick to beat us with.’
‘I know,’ said Midge. ‘And I’m sorry for what I said about her with the fake tits.’
‘Apology accepted.’
When Midge had hung up, Strike continued to stare through the night vision binoculars at the woods.
Six hours later, Robin still hadn’t appeared.
84
Six in the fifth place…
Persistently ill, and still does not die.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Every attempt to relieve pressure or numbness in either of Robin’s smarting legs resulted in more pain. The rough lid of the box scraped her back as she tried to make minor readjustments of her position. Folded down upon herself in the pitch dark, too scared and in too much pain to escape the present by sleeping, she imagined dying, locked inside the box inside the locked room. She knew nobody would hear even if she screamed, but she cried intermittently. After what she thought must be two or three hours, she was forced to urinate inside the box. Her legs were burning with the weight they were supporting. She had nothing to hold on to except that Wace had said ‘eight hours’. There would be a release. It would come. She had to hold on to that.
