‘You won’t get anything out of interviewing him! He’ll just lie and—’
‘You’re presuming I want information.’
‘What’s the point in interviewing him, if you don’t want information?’
‘Has it occurred to you,’ said Strike, ‘that I was in two minds whether to let you go and see Rufus Fernsby on your own today, in case something happened to you? Do you realise how easy it would be to make your killing look like suicide? “She threw herself off the bridge – or stepped into moving traffic, or hanged herself, or slit her wrists – because she couldn’t face the child abuse charge.” You wouldn’t be much of a match for the guy who was watching our office last night, not if he decided to drag you into a car. I let you interview Fernsby because his office is in central London and it’d be pure insanity to risk a kidnapping there, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a risk – so going forwards, I want you to stick to taxis, no public transport, and I’d rather you weren’t out on jobs on your own.’
‘Strike—’
‘You can’t have it both bloody ways! You can’t tell me they’re evil and dangerous, and then prance around London—’
‘You know what,’ said Robin furiously, ‘I’d really appreciate it if, every time we have a discussion like this, you don’t use words like “prance” for how I get around.’
‘Fine, you don’t prance,’ said the exasperated Strike. ‘Fuck’s sake, how complicated is this? We’re dealing with a bunch of people we believe are capable of murder, and the two people who are most dangerous to them right now are you and Rosie Fernsby, and if anything happens to either of you, it’ll be on me.’
‘What are you talking about? How’s it on you?’
‘I was the one who put you into Chapman Farm.’
‘Again,’ said Robin, infuriated, ‘you didn’t put me anywhere. I’m not a bloody pot plant, I wanted the job, I volunteered for the job, and I seem to remember getting there by minibus, not being carried there by you.’
‘All right, great: if you end up dead in a ditch it won’t be my fault. Cheers. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Rosie, or Bhakta, or whoever the fuck she is now.’
‘How on earth could that be your fault?’
‘Because I fucked up, didn’t I? Think! Why’s the church so interested in the whereabouts of a girl who was only at Chapman Farm for ten days, twenty-one years ago?’
‘Because of the Polaroids.’
‘Yeah, but how does the church know we’ve got the Polaroids? Because,’ said Strike, answering his own question, ‘I showed them to the wrong fucking person, who reported back. I strongly suspect that person of being Jordan Reaney. He told whoever it was who phoned him after our interview, posing as his wife.
‘From Reaney’s reaction, he knew exactly who was behind those pig masks. I’m not interested right now in whether he was present when they were taken. The point is that the person on the other end of the phone found out I had evidence that could see the church buried in a tsunami of filth. Pig masks, teenagers sodomising each other? That’s the front page of every tabloid guaranteed, and all the old Aylmerton Community stuff’ll be dragged up again. They’ll want to close the mouths of everyone who was in those pictures, because if one of the subjects testifies, the church is properly fucked. I’ve put Rosie Fernsby in danger, and that’s why I want to meet Jonathan Wace.’
110
Nine in the fifth place means:
Flying dragon in the heavens.
It furthers one to see the great man.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Strike had known before arriving at Olympia late on Friday afternoon that the Universal Humanitarian Church had spread internationally and that the church had tens of thousands of members. He was also well aware, having watched a couple of YouTube videos of Jonathan Wace preaching, that the man was possessed of undeniable charisma. Nevertheless, he found himself taken aback by the sheer numbers of people heading for the Victorian façade of the enormous events centre. All ages were represented in the crowd, including families with children.
About a fifth of the crowd were already wearing UHC tracksuits of royal blue. These church members were wholesome-looking people in the main, though noticeably thinner than those who wore civilian clothes. They wore no jewellery, didn’t dye their hair and had no visible tattoos, nor were there any family groups among the tracksuit-wearers. If they were grouped at all, it was by age, and as he drew nearer to the entrance, he found himself following in the wake of a bunch of twenty-somethings talking excitedly in German, a language of which Strike knew just enough (having been stationed in Germany during his military career) to understand that one of their number had never yet heard Papa J speak in person.
Around twenty young men in UHC tracksuits, all of whom appeared to have been selected for size, strength or both, were standing just outside the doors, their eyes swivelling constantly as they scanned the crowd. Remembering that Patterson’s operative had been turned away from the Rupert Court Temple on sight, Strike assumed they were looking out for known troublemakers. He therefore made sure to stand up a little straighter, separating himself as far as was possible from the German group, and deliberately caught the crooked eye of a short, heavy-set man with fuzzy hair, who recalled Robin’s description of Jiang Wace. Borne on by the crowd, he didn’t have time to see any reaction.
The venue’s security men were searching bags just inside the doors. Strike was funnelled towards the pre-bought ticket queue rather than the row of pretty young UHC women selling tickets to the less organised. He made sure to smile broadly at the young woman who checked his own ticket. She had short, spiky black hair, and he didn’t think he imagined the sudden widening of her eyes.
As he walked onwards, Strike heard the strains of a rock song he didn’t recognise, which grew steadily louder as he approached the Great Hall.
… another dissident,
Take back your evidence…
As he’d needed only one seat, Strike had managed to buy one in the second row of what was a rapidly filling hall. Edging with apologies past a line of young people in tracksuits, he finally reached the seat and sat down between a young blonde in a blue tracksuit, and an elderly woman chewing stoically on a toffee.
Seconds after he’d sat down, the girl on his right, who he guessed to be twenty at most, said, revealing herself to be American,
‘Hi, I’m Sanchia.’
‘Cormoran Strike.’
‘First time at a service?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Wow. You’ve chosen a really auspicious day to come. You wait.’
‘Sounds promising,’ said Strike.
‘What made you interested in the UHC, Cormoran?’
‘I’m a private detective,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve been hired to look into the church, particularly with regard to sexual abuse and suspicious deaths.’
It was as though he’d spat in her face. Mouth open, she stared at him unblinkingly for a few seconds, then looked quickly away.
The rock song was still playing loudly over speakers.
… sometimes it’s hard to breathe, Lord
at the bottom of the sea, yeah yeah…
In the centre of the floor, beneath a high curved ceiling of white-painted iron and glass, was a shining, black pentagonal stage. Above this were five enormous screens that would doubtless enable even those in the furthest seats to see Jonathan Wace close up. Higher still were five bright blue banners bearing the UHC’s heart-shaped logo.
After a bit of whispering to her companions, Sanchia vacated her seat.
The excitement in the hall mounted as it filled. Strike estimated that there were at least five thousand people here. A different song now began to play: REM’s ‘It’s The End of the World as We Know It’. With five minutes to go until the official start of the service, and almost every seat filled, the lights began to dim, and a premature wave of applause broke out, along with several screams of excitement. These re-erupted when the screens over the pentagonal stage came to life, so that everybody in the hall could watch a short procession of robed people walking in spotlights down an aisle, towards the front seats on the opposite side of the hall. Strike recognised Giles Harmon, who was comporting himself with the dignity and gravity appropriate to a man about to receive an honorary degree; Noli Seymour, whose robes had a discreet amount of glitter and looked as though they’d been tailored for her; the tall, handsome and scarred Dr Andy Zhou; a glossy-haired, wholesome-looking young woman with perfect teeth Strike recognised from the church website as Becca Pirbright, and several others, among them a frog-eyed MP whose name Strike wouldn’t have known, had Robin not put it in a letter from Chapman Farm, and a packaging multimillionaire, who was waving at the cheering crowds in a manner Strike would have categorised as gormless. These, he knew, were the church Principals, and he took a photograph on his phone, noting the absence of Mazu Wace, and also of the overweight, rat-faced Taio, who he’d smashed over the head with the wire-cutters at the perimeter of Chapman Farm.
Right behind Dr Zhou, and captured in the edge of the spotlight onscreen as the doctor sat down, was a middle-aged blonde whose hair was tied back in a velvet bow. As Strike was staring at this woman, the screen changed to black, projecting a written request to turn off all mobile phones. As Strike obeyed, his American neighbour came back down the row, retook her seat and bent away from him to whisper to some of her companions.
The lights dimmed still further, heightening the crowd’s anticipation. Now they began to clap rhythmically. Calls of ‘Papa J!’ filled the air and at last, as the opening bars of ‘Heroes’ began to play, the hall went black, and with screams echoing off the high metal ceiling, five thousand people (with the exception of Cormoran Strike) scrambled to their feet, whistling and applauding.