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.