‘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.
And, at long last, it came. She heard the key turn in the lock of the door. The light was switched on. A pair of trainer-clad feet approached the box, and the lid was opened.
‘Out,’ said a female voice.
Robin initially found it almost impossible to unfold herself, but by pushing herself upwards with her hands, she forced herself into a standing position, her legs numb and weak. The now dry robe was sticking to her knees, which had bled during the night.
Hattie, the black woman with long braids who’d checked in her possessions when she’d arrived, pointed her silently back to a seat at the table, then left the room to pick up a tray, which she set down in front of Robin. There was a serving of porridge and a glass of water on it.
‘When you’ve eaten, I’ll escort you to the dormitory. You’re permitted to shower before starting your daily tasks.’
‘Thank you,’ said Robin weakly. Her gratitude for being released was unbounded; she wanted the stony-faced woman to like her, to see she’d changed.
Nobody looked at Robin as she and her companion crossed the courtyard, pausing as usual at Daiyu’s fountain. Robin noticed that everyone was now wearing blue tracksuits. Evidently the season of the Drowned Prophet had ended: the season of the Healer Prophet had begun.
Her escort stayed outside the shower cubicle while Robin was washing herself with the thin liquid soap provided. Her knees were scraped and raw, as was a patch of her spine. She wrapped herself in a towel and followed her companion back into the empty dormitory, where Robin found a fresh blue tracksuit and underwear laid out on her bed. When she’d changed, watched by the other woman, the latter said,
‘You’re going to be looking after Jacob today.’
‘OK,’ said Robin.
She yearned to lie down upon the bed and sleep, because she was almost delirious with tiredness, but she followed Hattie meekly out of the dormitory. Nothing mattered to her now except the approval of the church Principals. Terror of the box would be with her forever; all she wanted was not to be punished. She was now scared of somebody from the agency arriving to get her out, because if they did so, Robin might be shut up in the box again and hidden away. She wanted to be left where she was; she dreaded the agency endangering her safety further. Perhaps some time in the future, when she’d recovered her nerve and round-the-clock surveillance had been lifted from her she might find a way to break free, but she couldn’t think that far ahead today. She must comply. Compliance was the only safety.
Hattie led Robin back to the farmhouse, through the dragon-carved doors and up the scarlet-carpeted stairs. They walked along a corridor with more shiny black doors and then up a second staircase, this one narrow and uncarpeted, which led to a corridor with a sloping roof. At the end of this was a plain wooden door, which her companion opened.
Robin was hit by an unpleasant smell of human urine and faeces as she entered the small attic room. Louise was sitting beside a cot. There were various cardboard boxes sitting higgledy-piggledy on the floor, which was covered in sheets of old newspaper, along with a black bin liner that was partially full.
‘Tell Rowena what to do, Louise,’ said the woman who’d escorted Robin, ‘then you can go and sleep.’
She left.
Robin stared at the occupant of the cot, horrified. Jacob was perhaps three feet long, but even though he was naked except for a nappy, he didn’t look like a toddler. His face was sunken, the fine skin stretched over the bones and torso; his arms and legs were atrophied and Robin could see bruises and what she assumed to be pressure sores on his very white skin. He appeared to be sleeping, his breathing guttural. Robin didn’t know whether illness, disability or persistent neglect had placed Jacob in this pitiable state.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ she whispered.
To Robin’s horror, the only answer from Louise was a strange keening noise.