‘That’s surely rather ambitious?’ said Sir Colin. As Strike had feared, he now looked slightly mistrustful.
‘I’ve been looking into what actually happened on that beach in Cromer and I’ve got a lot of questions. I’ve now tracked down the key witness: Cherie Gittins, the woman who took Daiyu to the beach where she drowned. I’m hoping to interview her shortly. And then we’ve got Kevin’s murder.’
At that moment, the waiter came to collect their plates and offer the pudding menu. Both men declined, but asked for coffee.
‘What about Kevin’s murder?’ said Sir Colin, when the waiter had gone.
‘I’m afraid,’ said Strike, ‘I think it far more likely that the UHC had Kevin killed, than that he was dealing drugs.’
‘But—’
‘Initially, I was of your opinion. I couldn’t see why they’d need to shoot him. They’ve got excellent lawyers and he was undoubtedly unstable and easy to discredit. But the longer the investigation’s gone on, the less I’ve bought the drug-dealing theory.’
‘Why? What have you found out?’
‘Most recently, I’ve heard an unsubstantiated allegation that there have been guns at Chapman Farm. The source was second-hand,’ Strike admitted, ‘and not particularly trustworthy, so I’ll have to try and confirm his account, but the fact remains I think it would be unwise to underestimate the kinds of contacts the UHC have made over the last thirty years. There were no guns found in the raid on the farm in eighty-six, but since then they’ve had at least one violent criminal living at the farm. All they needed was a recruit who knew where to lay hands on guns illegally – assuming Wace didn’t already have that knowledge.’
‘You really think they murdered Kevin because of his book?’ said Sir Colin, sounding sceptical.
‘I don’t think the book, in and of itself, was a problem, because a journalist I interviewed called Fergus Robertson had already accused the UHC of pretty much everything Kevin was alleging: physical assault, sexual abuse and supernatural mind games. The church went after Robertson hard with lawyers, but he’s still alive.’
Their coffees arrived.
‘So what was the motive, if not the book?’ said Sir Colin.
‘Kevin told you he was piecing things together during the last weeks of his life, didn’t he? Things he thought he’d suppressed?’
‘Yes – as I told you, he was becoming increasingly erratic and troubled. I deeply regret that I didn’t offer more support—’
‘I don’t think any amount of support could have stopped him being shot. I think Kevin pieced together something about Daiyu’s drowning. The church would’ve been able to bully a publisher into deleting unsubstantiated allegations, but they’d lost the power to bully Kevin into silence in his daily life. What if he blabbed his suspicions to the wrong person?’
‘But, as you say, this is guesswork.’
‘Were you aware Patterson didn’t hand over all their evidence when you fired them?’
‘No,’ said Sir Colin. ‘I wasn’t.’
‘Well, I’ve got hold of a taped interview with Kevin they’d recorded covertly, five days before he was shot. It’s a botched job: most of what he said isn’t audible, which is why they didn’t bother giving it to you. In that tape, Kevin told Patterson’s operative he was intending to meet somebody from the church to “answer for it”. What “it” is, I don’t know, but he was talking a lot about Daiyu during the conversation. And you never visited Kevin’s bedsit, did you?’
‘No – I wish I had.’
‘Well, he’d scribbled all over the walls – and somebody had gouged a few words out of the plaster. It might’ve been Kevin himself, of course, but there’s a possibility his killer did it.
‘Robin got some strange information about Daiyu’s movements the night before she supposedly drowned, from Kevin’s sister Emily. What Emily said tallied with something Kevin had written on his bedsit wall, about a plot. As a matter of fact,’ said Strike, picking up his coffee cup, ‘Emily doesn’t believe Daiyu’s dead.’
‘But,’ said Sir Colin, still frowning, ‘that’s incredibly unlikely, surely?’
‘Unlikely,’ said Strike, ‘but not impossible. As it happens, alive or dead, Daiyu was worth a lot of money. She was the sole beneficiary of her biological father’s will, and he had a lot to leave. Where there’s no body, there’s got to be a doubt – which is why I want to talk to Cherie Gittins.’
‘With respect,’ said Sir Colin, with the polite but firm air Strike imagined he’d once brought to discussions of hare-brained political projects during his professional life, ‘I’m more hopeful that your partner’s leads will achieve my immediate aim – that of getting Will out of Chapman Farm – than that anyone can bring the entire religion down.’
‘But you don’t object to me interviewing Cherie Gittins?’
‘No,’ said Sir Colin slowly, ‘but I wouldn’t want this investigation to devolve into a probe into Daiyu Wace’s death. After all, it was ruled an accident, and you’ve no proof it wasn’t, have you?’
Strike, who couldn’t blame his client for this scepticism, reassured Sir Colin that the agency’s aim remained extracting his son from the UHC. The lunch concluded amicably, with Strike promising to pass on any new developments promptly, particularly as regarded the police investigation into the mistreatment of Jacob.
Nevertheless, it was the deaths of Daiyu Wace and Kevin Pirbright about which Strike was thinking as he set off back to Denmark Street. Sir Colin Edensor was correct in saying that Strike still had no concrete evidence to support his suspicions. It might indeed be overambitious to think that he’d be able to destroy the myth of the Drowned Prophet, which had survived uncontested for twenty-one years. But after all, thought the detective, still hungry after his meagre meal of fish, yet noticing how much more easily he was walking without the several stone he’d already shed, it was sometimes surprising what concerted effort in pursuit of a worthwhile goal could achieve.
91
Nine in the fourth place means:
Joyousness that is weighed is not at peace.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
While Strike was having coffee with Sir Colin Edensor, Robin was drinking a mug of tea at the table in her sitting room, her laptop and notebook open in front of her, hard at work and savouring the temporary peace. The man upstairs, whose music was usually audible, was at work, and she’d managed to get her parents out of the flat by asking them to do some food shopping.
Robin’s adjustment from life at Chapman Farm to her flat in London was proving far more difficult than she’d anticipated. She felt agitated, disorientated and overwhelmed, not only by her freedom, but also by her mother’s constant vigilance which, while kindly meant, was aggravating Robin, because it reminded her of the unrelenting surveillance she’d just escaped. She realised now, when it was too late, that what she’d really needed on returning to London was silence, space and solitude in which to reground herself in the outside world, and to concentrate on the long report for Strike in which she was tabulating everything she hadn’t yet told him about life at Chapman Farm. Guilt about her parents’ four months of anxiety on her behalf had made her agree to their visit but, much as she loved them, all she wanted now was their return to Yorkshire. Unfortunately, they were threatening to stay another week, ‘to keep you company’ and ‘to look after you’.
With a sinking heart, she now heard the lift doors out on the landing. As she got up to let her parents back in, the mobile on the table behind her started to ring.
‘Sorry,’ she said to her mother, who was laden with heavy Waitrose bags, ‘I need to get that, it might be Strike.’
‘You’re supposed to be taking time off!’ said Linda, a comment Robin ignored. Sure enough, on returning to her phone she saw her partner’s number, and answered.
‘Hi,’ said Robin, as Linda said, deliberately loudly,
‘Don’t be long, we’ve bought cakes. You should be eating and putting your feet up.’
‘Bad time?’ said Strike.
‘No,’ said Robin, ‘but could you give me two minutes? I’ll ring you back.’
She hung up and headed to the doorway of the cramped kitchen, where her parents were putting the shopping away.
‘I’m just going to nip out and get some fresh air,’ said Robin.
‘What aren’t we allowed to hear?’ said Linda.
‘Nothing, he’s just giving me an update I asked for,’ said Robin, keeping her tone light with some difficulty. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
She hurried out of the flat, keys in hand. Having reached Blackhorse Road, which offered exhaust fumes rather than clean air, she called Strike back.
‘Everything OK?’
‘It’s fine, I’m fine,’ said Robin feverishly. ‘My mother’s just driving me up the wall.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike.
‘I’ve told her about a hundred times it was my choice to go Chapman Farm, and my choice to stay in that long, but—’
Robin bit back the end of the sentence, but Strike knew perfectly well what she’d been about to say.
‘She thinks it’s all on me?’
‘Well,’ said Robin, who hadn’t wanted to say it, but was yearning to unburden herself, ‘yes. I’ve told her I had to argue you into letting me do the job, and that you wanted me to come out earlier, I’ve even told her she should be bloody grateful you were there when I ran for it, but she… God, she’s infuriating.’
‘You can’t blame her,’ said Strike reasonably, remembering how appalled he’d been at Robin’s appearance when he’d first seen her. ‘It’s your parents, of course they’re going to be worried. How much have you told them?’
‘That’s the joke! I haven’t told them a tenth of it! I had to say I didn’t get enough food, because that’s obvious, and they know I’m not sleeping very well –’ Robin wasn’t about to admit she’d woken herself up the previous evening by yelping loudly in her sleep ‘– but given what I