Strike wound down the window so he could continue vaping.
‘I don’t know whether you saw,’ he said, reluctant to introduce the subject but feeling it necessary, ‘but the UHC have been putting in more hours on Wikipedia. You’ve, ah, got your own page now.’
‘I know,’ said Robin. She’d found it the previous afternoon. It alleged she went to bed with any man from whom she wanted to elicit information, and that her husband had divorced her on account of these multiple infidelities. She hadn’t mentioned the existence of the Wikipedia page to Murphy. It might be irrational, but the baseless allegations had still made Robin feel grubby.
‘But I’m on it,’ said Strike. ‘Honbold’s been very helpful. He put me in touch with a lawyer who’s going to fire off some letters. I checked again this morning and Wikipedia’s already flagged both pages as unreliable. Just as well, because the UHC keeps adding more. Did you see the bit that went live last night, saying we team up with grifters and fantasists who’re after pay-offs?’
‘No,’ said Robin. This had evidently been added after Murphy arrived at her flat.
‘There are links to a couple of websites listing all the scumbags who’re helping to attack noble charitable enterprises. Kevin Pirbright, the Graves family, Sheila Kennett and all three Doherty siblings are listed. They say the Graves family neglected and mistreated Alexander, Sheila bullied her husband and that the Dohertys are drunks and layabouts. They also say Kevin Pirbright sexually abused his sisters.’
‘Why would they attack Kevin, now?’
‘Must be worried we talked to him before he died. They haven’t bothered smearing Jordan Reaney; s’pose he’s done a good enough job himself, and they haven’t gone after Abigail Glover, either. Presumably Wace would rather not draw the press’s attention to the fact his own daughter ran away from the church at sixteen – but the odds of press interest in all these ex-members just got a lot higher, so I thought I’d better call and warn them.’
‘How did they take it?’
‘Sheila was upset and I think Niamh’s regretting talking to us now.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Robin sadly.
‘She’s worried about the effect on her brother and sister. Colonel Graves told me he wanted to “let the damned UHC have it with both barrels”, but I told him retaliating through the press will just draw more attention to the online bullshit and that I’m on it, legally. He’s pleased we’re about to interview Cherie-slash-Carrie. And I don’t know how Abigail’s feeling, because she didn’t pick up.’
Strike’s mobile now rang. Pulling it out of his pocket, he saw an unknown number.
‘Hello?’
‘Nicholas Delaunay here,’ said a cool, upper-class voice.
‘Hi,’ said Strike, switching to speakerphone and mouthing ‘Graves’ son-in-law’ at Robin. ‘Apologies for the noise, we’re—’
‘On your way to interview Cherie Gittins,’ said Delaunay. ‘Yes. M’father-in-law told me. Evidently you didn’t listen to a damn word my wife said, at the Hall.’
‘I listened to all your wife’s words.’
‘But you’re still determined to wreak havoc?’
‘No, just determined to do my job.’
‘And bugger the consequences, is that it?’
‘As I can’t predict the consequences—’
‘The consequences, which were entirely predictable, are already on the bloody internet! You think I want my children to see what’s been written about their mother’s family, their family—?’
‘Do your children regularly Google my agency, or the UHC?’
‘You’ve already admitted that, entirely due to you, the press are likely to be on the prowl—’
‘It’s a possibility, not a likelihood.’
‘Every moment those defamatory bloody lies are up, there’s a risk journalists will see them!’
‘Mr Delaunay—’
‘It’s Lieutenant-Colonel Delaunay!’
‘Ah, my apologies, Lieutenant-Colonel, but your parents-in-law—’
‘They might’ve bloody well agreed to all this, but Phillipa and I didn’t!’
‘I’m surprised I have to say this to a man of your rank, but you don’t actually feature in this chain of command, Lieutenant-Colonel.’
‘I’m involved, my family’s involved, and I have a right—’
‘I answer to my client, and my client wants the truth.’
‘Whose truth? Whose truth?’
‘Is there more than one?’ said Strike. ‘Better update my library of philosophy.’
‘You jumped-up bloody monkey,’ shouted Delaunay, and he hung up. Grinning, Strike returned his phone to his pocket.
‘Why did he call you a monkey?’ said Robin, laughing.
‘Slang for military police,’ said Strike. ‘Still better than what we called the navy.’
‘What was that?’
‘Cunts,’ said Strike.
He glanced into the back seat and saw a carrier bag.
‘No biscuits,’ said Robin, ‘because you said you’re still dieting.’
Strike sighed as he hoisted the bag into the front to take out the flask of coffee.
‘Is Delaunay really this angry just because of his children?’ asked Robin.
‘No idea. Maybe. Can’t see why he and his wife haven’t just told them what happened. Lies like that always come back to bite you on the arse.’
They drove on in silence for a couple of minutes, until Robin said,
‘Have you talked to Midge yet, about going undercover in Zhou’s clinic?’
‘No,’ said Strike, who was now pouring himself coffee. ‘I wanted to discuss that with you, in the light of this Wikipedia stuff. I think we’ve got to assume the church will be trying to identify all our operatives, and have you looked at Zhou’s clinic’s website? Seen how much even a three-day stay costs?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin.
‘Well, even if they haven’t yet identified Midge as one of ours, I’m not sure she’d blend in that well. She doesn’t come across as the kind of woman who’s prepared to waste money on crackpot treatments.’
‘Which particular treatments are you calling crackpot?’
‘Reiki,’ said Strike. ‘Know what that is?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, smiling, because she knew her partner’s aversion to anything that smacked of mysticism. ‘The practitioner puts their hands on you, to heal your energy.’
‘Heal your energy,’ scoffed Strike.
‘An old schoolfriend of mine had it done. She said she could feel heat moving all over her body wherever the hands went and felt a real sense of peace afterwards.’
‘Tell her if she slings me five hundred quid, I’ll fill her a hot water bottle and pour her some gin.’
Robin laughed.
‘You’ll be telling me I’m not a Gift-Bearer-Warrior next.’
‘Not a what?’
‘That’s what Zhou told me I was,’ said Robin. ‘You had to fill in a questionnaire and you got typed according to your answers. The categories aligned with the prophets.’
‘Christ’s sake,’ muttered Strike. ‘No, what we need is someone who looks the part, designer clothes and the right moneyed attitude… Prudence would’ve been ideal, come to think of it, but as she’s seriously pissed off at me just now…’
‘Why’s she pissed off?’ said Robin, concerned.
‘Didn’t I—? Shit, I forgot to put Torment Town into your update.’
‘Torment – what?’
‘Torment Town. It’s – or it was – an anonymous account on Pinterest. I was looking for pictures of the Drowned Prophet and found a cache of horror-style drawings, all UHC-themed. A picture of Daiyu caught my eye, because it genuinely looked like her. I complimented the artist, who thanked me, then I said, “You aren’t keen on the UHC, are you?” or words to that effect, and they went quiet.
‘But there was this one picture Torment Town had drawn, of a woman floating in a dark pool, with Daiyu hovering over her. The woman was blonde, wearing glasses and looked a lot like that old picture of Deirdre Doherty we got from Niamh. Having had no response to my UHC question for days, I thought, fuck it, and asked the artist if they’d ever known a woman called Deirdre Doherty, at which point the whole account disappeared.
‘Fast-forward to the night you were taken in for questioning: I get a phone call from Prudence, accusing me of tracking down her client and threatening her.’
To Strike’s surprise, Robin said nothing at all. Glancing at her, he thought she looked even paler than she had on getting into the car.
‘You all right?’
‘What shape was the pool?’ said Robin.
‘What?’
‘The pool in Torment Town’s drawing. What shape?’
‘Er… a pentagon.’
‘Strike,’ said Robin, whose ears were ringing, ‘I think I know what happened to Deirdre Doherty.’
‘D’you want to pull over?’ Strike asked, because Robin had turned white.
‘No, I – actually,’ said Robin, who was feeling light-headed, ‘yes.’
Robin indicated and pulled over onto the hard shoulder. Once they were stationary, she turned a stricken face to Strike and said,
‘Deirdre drowned in the temple, during the Manifestation of the Drowned Prophet. The pool in the Chapman Farm temple’s five-sided. Deirdre had a weak heart. They must’ve wanted to punish her for what she’d written about Wace raping her, but it went too far. She either drowned, or had a heart attack.’
Strike sat in silence for a moment, considering the probabilities, but could find no flaw in Robin’s reasoning.
‘Shit.’
Robin’s head was swimming. She knew exactly what Deirdre Doherty’s last moments on earth must have felt like, because she’d been through exactly the same thing, in the very same pool. Deirdre, too, would have seen fragments of her life flicker before her – her children, the husband who’d abandoned her, perhaps snapshots of a long-gone childhood – and then the water would have crushed the air from her lungs, and she’d have drunk in fatal quantities, and suffocated in darkness…
‘What?’ she said numbly, because Strike was talking and she hadn’t heard a word.
‘I said: so we’ve got a witness to the church committing manslaughter, and possibly even murder, and they’re on the outside?’