The Running Grave — страница 112 из 179

amas. The subtle spotlights in the temple ceiling illuminated him as he walked towards them, smiling.

‘I thank you for your service, Becca,’ he said, pressing his hands together and bowing.

‘And I for yours,’ said Becca, now wearing a transported smile as she, too, bowed.

‘Good evening, Artemis the chaste… but what’s happened here?’ said Wace, placing a finger underneath Robin’s chin and tilting it to the light. ‘Have you had an accident?’

With no more idea whether he was playing a game with her than she’d had in the farmhouse, Robin said through clenched teeth,

‘Yes. I slipped over.’

‘In the Retreat Room,’ said Becca, whose smile had vanished at the words ‘Artemis the chaste’.

‘Really?’ said Wace, running his finger lightly over the bruised swelling. ‘Well, this represents a turning point, doesn’t it, Artemis? And who did you choose to bond with?’

‘Will Edensor,’ said Becca, before Robin could answer.

‘Goodness,’ said Wace quietly. ‘That’s an interesting choice, after what I told you about him during our last encounter.’

Robin wasn’t sure she could have spoken, even if she’d wanted to. Her mouth had become very dry again, and Wace was still tilting her face backwards, which was causing her pain.

‘Well, run along to dinner,’ said Wace, releasing her after another searching look. ‘I’ve got things to discuss with Becca.’

Robin forced herself to say, ‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you, Papa J,’ said Becca.

‘Thank you, Papa J,’ mumbled Robin.

She walked away as fast as she could. On reaching the temple steps she saw two of her usual escorts waiting for her, so was forced to walk with them to the dining hall.

Tonight, she told herself, you go tonight.

That, of course, was assuming she wasn’t about to be summoned back to the farmhouse to account for herself. Every second, as she ate her noodles, Robin expected a tap on the shoulder, but none came. Her now swollen and bruised face was attracting a few glances, but nobody asked what had happened to her, which was a relief, because talking hurt and she preferred to be left in peace.

When dinner ended, Robin walked with the rest of the women towards the dormitory. As they entered the courtyard, some of those ahead of her uttered exclamations of surprise.

Sixteen teenaged girls, all dressed in long white robes and holding flaming torches, were ascending the temple steps in the twilight. As the onlookers paused to watch, the girls positioned themselves in pairs on the eight stone steps leading to the temple doors, turned to face the courtyard, then stood in silence, their faces illuminated by the fire. Each girl’s eyes had been painted with dark shadow to mimic running make-up, which gave them a very eerie appearance.

‘Countdown to the Manifestation,’ Robin heard a woman behind her say.

‘How long do they stand there?’ said a voice Robin recognised as Penny’s.

‘Just tonight. It’s the boys’ turn tomorrow. Then the Principals.’

Robin walked into the dormitory, appalled. If church members would be keeping watch on the temple steps for the following three nights, she’d have no chance whatsoever of slipping out of the dormitory unseen. Grabbing her pyjamas, Robin headed for the bathroom, locked herself in the same cubicle where she’d found Lin bleeding, sat down on the toilet lid and fought the urge to break down and cry. The uncertainty of what was going to happen next was terrifying her.

The bathroom door outside her cubicle banged open and Robin heard the sounds of teeth-cleaning and running taps. Knowing the stall would be needed by somebody else, Robin got up, unlocked the door, went through to the dormitory and began changing into her pyjamas.

‘Oh my God, look!’

The cry came from the other side of the dormitory: a group of women had hurried to the window. Some were gasping, others clapping hands to their mouths.

‘What is it?’ said Marion Huxley, rushing to look. ‘Is it her?’

‘Yes – yes – look!’

Robin climbed up onto her bed, so she could see over their heads.

A small, luminous figure was standing motionless in the middle of the field Robin had so often crossed by night, wearing a limp white dress. She shone brightly for a few more seconds, then vanished.

The women at the window turned away, talking in frightened, awestruck whispers. Some looked scared, others enthralled. Marion Huxley headed back across the dormitory smiling, and on reaching her bed, threw Robin a look of malicious triumph.

PART SIX



K’an/The Abysmal

Forward and backward, abyss on abyss.

In danger like this, pause at first and wait,

Otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss.

Do not act in this way.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

78

In the life of man… acting on the spur of every caprice is wrong and if continued leads to humiliation.

The I Ching or Book of Changes




Had Strike known what had happened to his detective partner over the previous twenty-four hours, he’d have been driving full speed towards Norfolk. However, as he remained in ignorance of developments at Chapman Farm, he rose on Wednesday morning buoyed by the idea that he’d be picking Robin up the following evening, having informed his subcontractors he wanted to do this job himself.

His bathroom scales showed an unwelcome regain of five pounds, doubtless due to the recent reappearance of burgers, chips and bacon rolls in his diet. Strike therefore breakfasted on porridge made with water, resolving to be strict again. While eating, he checked Pinterest on his phone, to see whether Torment Town had yet answered his question about Deirdre Doherty. To his dismay, he found the entire page deleted. The many grotesque drawings, including the eyeless Daiyu and the fair-haired woman floating in the five-sided pool, were gone, leaving Strike none the wiser as to who’d drawn them, but with the strong suspicion that his question had triggered the deletion, which suggested the blonde in the pool had, indeed, represented Deirdre.

At the precise moment he’d muttered ‘Fuck’, the mobile in his hand rang and he saw, with foreboding, Lucy’s number.

‘What’s happened?’ he said. Lucy wouldn’t call at half past six in the morning for no good reason.

‘Stick, I’m sorry it’s so early,’ said Lucy, whose voice was thick with tears, ‘but I’ve just had Ted’s neighbour on the phone. They noticed his front door was wide open, they went over there and he’s gone, he’s not there.’

An icy fog seemed to descend on Strike.

‘They’ve called the police,’ said Lucy, ‘and I don’t know what to do, whether to go down there—’

‘Stay put for now. If they haven’t found him in a couple of hours, we’ll both go down.’

‘Can you get away?’

‘Of course,’ said Strike.

‘I feel so guilty,’ said Lucy, breaking into sobs. ‘We knew he was bad…’

‘If – when they find him,’ said Strike, ‘we’ll talk about what we’re going to do next. We’ll make a plan.’

He, too, felt inordinately guilty at the thought of his confused uncle setting off at dawn for some destination unknown. Remembering Ted’s old sailing boat, the Jowanet, and the sea into which Joan’s ashes had disappeared, Strike hoped to God he was being fanciful in thinking that was where the old man had gone.

His first appointment of the day wasn’t calculated to take his mind off his personal troubles and he resented having to do it at all. After several days of procrastination, Bijou’s lover, Andrew Honbold QC, had sent Strike a curt email inviting him to his flat to discuss ‘the matter under advisement’. Strike had agreed to this meeting because he wanted to shut down forever the complications in which his ill-considered liaison with Bijou had involved him, but he was in no very conciliatory mood as he approached Honbold’s duplex shortly before nine o’clock, his mind still on his uncle in Cornwall.

After ringing the bell of the barrister’s presumably recently rented residence, which lay a mere two minutes’ walk from Lavington Court Chambers, Strike had time to estimate that the place was probably costing Honbold upwards of ten thousand pounds a month. Bijou had had many lucrative reasons to be careless with her birth control.

The door was opened by a tall, supercilious-looking man with bloodhound-like jowls, a broken-veined complexion, a substantial paunch and pure white hair which had receded to show an age-spotted pate. Honbold led Strike into an open-plan living area decorated in expensive but bland taste which didn’t suit its occupant, whose Hogarthian appearance cried out for a backdrop of velvet drapes and polished mahogany.

‘So,’ said Honbold loudly, when the two men had sat down opposite each other, with the glass coffee table between them, ‘you have information for me.’

‘I do, yeah,’ said Strike, perfectly happy to dispense with the niceties. Taking out his phone, he laid it on the table with the photograph of Farah Navabi in Denmark Street displayed. ‘Recognise her?’

Honbold retrieved his gold-rimmed reading glasses from his shirt pocket, then picked up the phone and held it at various distances from his eyes, as though the picture might transform into a different woman if he found the right number of inches from which to view it.

‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘although she certainly wasn’t dressed like that when I met her. Her name’s Aisha Khan and she works for Tate and Brannigan, the reputation management people. Jeremy Tate phoned me to ask if I’d see her.’

‘Did you call him back?’

‘Did I what?’ boomed Honbold, throwing his voice as though trying to reach the back of a courtroom.

‘Did you call Tate and Brannigan back, to check it was genuinely Jeremy Tate who’d rung you?’