Robin’s gasp was so loud Jacob stirred in his sleep. With one hand pressed over her mouth, Robin read the article, the paper held inches from her eyes in the dying light. She’d just read how much alcohol and how many sleeping pills Charlotte had taken before slitting her wrists in the bath, when there was a soft knock on the attic door.
Robin threw the report about Charlotte back onto the floor and hastened back to her chair as the door opened to reveal Emily, whose head, like her mother’s, was freshly shaven.
Emily closed the door quietly. From what Robin could see of her through the rapidly darkening room, she looked apprehensive, almost tearful.
‘Rowena – I’m so sorry, I’m really, really sorry.’
‘What about?’
‘I told them you gave me money in Norwich. I didn’t want to, but they were threatening me with the box.’
‘Oh, that… it’s OK, I admitted it, too. It was stupid to expect them not to notice.’
‘You can go. Jiang’s waiting downstairs to escort you to the dormitory.’
Robin stood up and had taken a couple of steps towards the door when something strange happened.
She suddenly knew – didn’t guess, or hope, but knew – that Strike had just arrived beside the blind spot at the perimeter fence. The conviction was so strong that it stopped her in her tracks. Then she turned slowly to face Emily again.
‘Who are Jacob’s parents?’
‘I don’t – we don’t… you shouldn’t ask stuff like that.’
‘Tell me,’ said Robin.
Robin could just make out the whites of Emily’s eyes by the fading light from the window. After a few seconds Emily whispered,
‘Louise and Jiang.’
‘Lou—seriously?’
‘Yeah… Jiang isn’t allowed to go with the younger women. He’s an NIM.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Non-Increasing Male. Some of the men aren’t allowed to go with fertile women. I don’t think anyone thought Louise could still get pregnant, but… then Jacob came.’
‘What did you mean, when you told me Daiyu did forbidden things at the farm?’
‘Nothing,’ whispered Emily, now sounding panicky. ‘Forget I—’
‘Listen,’ said Robin (she knew Strike was there, she was certain of it), ‘you owe me.’
After a couple of seconds’ silence, Emily whispered,
‘Daiyu used to sneak off instead of doing lessons, that’s all.’
‘What was she doing, when she sneaked off?’
‘She went into the woods, and into barns. I asked her and she said she was doing magic with other people who were pure spirit. Sometimes she had sweets and little toys. She wouldn’t tell us where she’d got them, but she’d show us. She wasn’t what they say she was. She was spoiled. Mean. Becca saw it all, too. She pretends she didn’t—’
‘Why did you tell me Daiyu didn’t drown?’
‘I can’t—’
‘Tell me.’
‘You’ve got to go,’ whispered Emily frantically. ‘Jiang’s waiting for you.’
‘Then talk quickly,’ said Robin. ‘What made you say Daiyu didn’t drown?’
‘Because… it was just… Daiyu told me she was going to go away with this older girl and live with her.’ Emily’s voice was full of a strange longing.
‘D’you mean Cherie Gittins?’
‘How—?’
‘Was it Cherie?’
‘Yes… I was so jealous. We all really loved Cherie, she was like… like a real… like what they’d call a mother.’
‘Where does invisibility come in?’
‘How did you—?’
‘Tell me.’
‘It was the night before they went to the beach. Cherie gave us all special drinks, but I didn’t like the taste. I poured mine down the sink. When everyone else was asleep, I saw Cherie helping Daiyu out of the dormitory window. I knew she didn’t want anyone to see what she’d done, so I pretended to be asleep, and she went back to bed.’
‘She pushed Daiyu out of the window and then went back to bed herself?’
‘Yes, but she’ll just have been helping Daiyu do whatever she wanted to do. Daiyu could get people in trouble with Papa J and Mazu, if they didn’t do what she wanted.’
From downstairs came a shout:
‘Rowena?’
‘I’m in the bathroom,’ Robin shouted. Turning back to Emily, whom she could no longer see in the dark, she said,
‘Quickly – did you ever tell Kevin what you saw? Tell me, please.’
‘Yes,’ said Emily. ‘Later. Ages later. When I told Becca I’d seen Cherie helping Daiyu out of the window, she said, “You didn’t see that, you can’t have done. If you couldn’t see Daiyu in her bed, it was because she can turn invisible.” Becca loved Cherie too. Becca would’ve done anything for her. When Cherie left, I cried for days. It was like losing – oh God,’ said Emily, panicked.
Footsteps were coming along the corridor. The door opened and the light was slapped on. Jiang stood revealed in the doorway, wearing a blue tracksuit. Jacob’s eyes opened and he began to whimper. Scowling, Jiang averted his gaze from his son.
‘Sorry,’ Robin said to Jiang. ‘I needed the loo and then I had to tell Emily when I last gave him a drink and changed his—’
‘I don’t need the details,’ snapped Jiang. ‘Come on.’
87
Nine in the fourth place means:
Then the companion comes,
And him you can trust.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
As Jiang and Robin walked together down the stairs he said,
‘Stinks, that room.’
His eye was flickering worse than ever.
Robin said nothing. Perhaps it was her advanced state of exhaustion, but she seemed to have become a mass of nerves and hypersensitivities: just as surely as she’d known Strike had arrived at the perimeter, she had a sense that the longer she remained in the farmhouse, the worse it would be for her.
As they walked down the last flight of scarlet-carpeted stairs into the hall, Robin heard a gust of laughter, and Wace appeared from a side room, holding a glass of what looked like wine. He was now wearing a silk version of the blue tracksuit worn by ordinary members, his expensive leather slides on his feet.
‘Artemis!’ he said, smiling as though the previous night hadn’t happened, as though he didn’t know he’d ordered her to be locked in a box, or that she was now into her thirty-sixth hour without sleep. ‘Are we friends again?’
‘Yes, Papa J,’ said Robin, with what she hoped was adequate humility.
‘Good girl,’ said Wace. ‘One moment. Wait there.’
Oh God, no.
Robin and Jiang waited while Wace entered the study with the peacock blue walls. Robin heard more loud laughter.
‘Here we are,’ said the smiling Wace, reappearing with Taio. ‘Before you rest, Artemis, it would be a very beautiful act of contrition to reaffirm your commitment to our church by spirit bonding with one who has much to teach you.’
Robin’s heart began pumping so fast she thought she might pass out. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the hall for her lungs to inflate.
‘Yes,’ she heard herself say. ‘All right.’
‘Papa J!’ came a merry voice, and Noli Seymour came lurching out of the sitting room, flushed, no longer wearing a tracksuit but leather trousers and a tight white T-shirt. ‘Oh Lord, sorry,’ she giggled, seeing the group.
‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ said Wace, extending an arm and drawing Noli to his side. ‘We’re merely arranging a beautiful spirit bonding.’
‘Oooh, lucky you, you get Taio, Rowena?’ said Noli to Robin. ‘If I weren’t spirit married…’
Noli and Wace laughed. Taio allowed his lips to curl in a smirk. Jiang merely looked sulky.
‘Shall we, then?’ said Taio to Robin, taking her firmly by the hand. His was hot and damp.
‘Jiang,’ said Wace, ‘go with them, wait outside and escort Artemis to her dormitory afterwards.’
As Robin and the two Wace brothers walked towards the front door, Robin heard Noli say,
‘Why d’you call her Artemis?’
She missed Wace’s answer in another outburst of laughter from the sitting room.
The night was cool and cloudless, with many stars overhead and a thin, fingernail moon. Taio led Robin towards the pool of the Drowned Prophet and she knelt down between Daiyu’s two brothers.
‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’
‘I need the bathroom,’ Robin said, as she stood up again.
‘No you don’t,’ said Taio, pulling her on.
‘I do,’ said Robin. ‘I just want to pee.’
She was terrified Jiang was going to say ‘You were just in the bathroom.’ Instead, he said, scowling at his brother,
‘Let her bloody pee.’
‘Fine,’ said Taio. ‘Be quick.’
Robin hurried into the dormitory. Most of the women were getting ready for bed.
Robin pushed her way into the bathroom. Marion Huxley was bent over the sink, cleaning her teeth.
In one fluid movement, Robin had stepped up onto the sink beside Marion, and before Marion could shout in surprise, had forced the window open, heaved herself up on the high sill, swung one leg over and then, as Marion screamed, ‘What are you doing?’ let herself fall, hitting the ground on the other side so hard she fell over.
But she was up in an instant and running – her only advantage over the Wace brothers, given her present hunger and exhaustion, was how well she knew her way to the blind spot in the dark. Through the pounding in her ears she heard distant shouts. She was over the five-bar gate, and now she was sprinting across the wet field, her breath coming fast and ragged – she was wearing blue now, far harder to see in the dark than white – there was a stitch like a sword wound in her chest but she sped up – and now she could hear Taio and Jiang behind her.
‘Get her – GET HER!’
She crashed her way into the wood, following the familiar path, leaping over nettles and roots, passing familiar trees –
And in the BMW, Strike saw her coming. Throwing aside the night vision goggles and picking up the foot-long wire cutters, he left the car at a run. He’d got through three strands of barbed wire when Robin screamed,