‘That’s me,’ he said.
To his right, American Sanchia hastily averted her face.
‘Papa J would be so pleased if you felt like coming backstage.’
‘Not as pleased as I am,’ said Strike.
He pushed himself carefully into a standing position, stretching his numb stump until the feeling returned, and followed her through the mass of departing people. Cheery young people in UHC tracksuits were rattling collecting buckets on either side of the exit. Most who passed dropped in a handful of change, or even a note, doubtless convinced that the church did wonderful charitable work, perhaps even trying to appease a vague sense of guilt because they were leaving in dry clothes, unbaptised.
Once they’d left the main hall, Strike’s companion led him off along a corridor into which she was allowed admission, by virtue of the badge on a lanyard around her neck.
‘How did you enjoy the service?’ she asked Strike brightly.
‘Very interesting,’ said Strike. ‘What happens to the people who’ve just joined? Straight onto a bus to Chapman Farm?’
‘Only if they’d like to come,’ she said, smiling. ‘We aren’t tyrants, you know.’
‘No,’ said Strike, also smiling. ‘I didn’t know.’
She sped up, walking slightly ahead of him, so that she didn’t see Strike taking out his mobile, setting it to record, and replacing it in his pocket.
As they neared what Strike assumed would be the green room, they came across two of the burly young men in UHC tracksuits who’d been standing outside earlier. A tall, rangy-looking, long-jawed man was admonishing them.
‘… shouldn’t even have gotten near Papa J.’
‘She didn’t, we told her there was no—’
‘But the fact she even got as far as this corrid—’
‘Mr Jackson!’ said Strike, coming to a halt. ‘I thought you were based in San Francisco these days?’
Joe Jackson turned, frowning, tall enough to look straight into Strike’s eyes.
‘Do we know each other?’
His voice was a strange compound of Midlands, overlain with west coast American. His eyes were a light grey.
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘I recognised you from your pictures.’
‘Please,’ said the disconcerted redhead, ‘come, if you’d like to speak to Papa J.’
Judging that his odds of getting a truthful answer from Joe Jackson to the question ‘Got any tattoos?’ were minimal under these circumstances, Strike walked on.
They arrived at last at a closed door, from beyond which came a buzz of talk. The girl knocked, opened the door and stood back to allow Strike to enter.
There were at least twenty people inside, all of them wearing blue. Jonathan Wace was sitting in a chair in the middle of the group, a glass of clear liquid in his hand, a crumpled towel in his lap, with a cluster of young people in tracksuits around him. Most of the robed church Principals were also present.
Silence crept over the room like a rapidly moving frost as those nearest the door became aware that Strike had arrived. It reached Giles Harmon last. He was talking to a couple of young women in a distant corner.
‘… said to him, “What you fail to appreciate is the heterodox—”’
Apparently realising his voice was ringing alone through the room, Harmon broke off mid-sentence.
‘Evening,’ said Strike, moving further into the room.
If Jonathan Wace had meant to intimidate Strike by receiving him amid a crowd, he’d greatly mistaken his opponent. Strike found it positively stimulating to come face to face with the kind of people he most despised: fanatics and hypocrites, as he mentally dubbed all of them, each of them undoubtedly convinced of their own critical importance to Wace’s grandiose mission, blind to their own motives and indifferent to the sometimes irreversible damage done by the man to whom they’d sworn allegiance.
Wace rose, let the towel in his lap fall onto the arm of his chair and walked towards Strike, glass in hand. His smile was as charming and self-deprecating as it had been when he’d first mounted the pentagonal stage.
‘I’m glad – genuinely glad – you’re here.’
He held out his hand, and Strike shook it, looking down at him.
‘Don’t stand behind Mr Strike,’ said Wace, to the ordinary members who’d moved to surround the pair. ‘It’s bad manners. Or,’ he looked back at Strike, ‘may I call you Cormoran?’
‘Call me whatever you like,’ said Strike.
‘I think we’re a little crowded,’ said Wace, and Strike had to give him this much credit: he’d intuited in a few seconds that the detective was indifferent to the numbers in the room. ‘Principals, remain please. The rest of you, I know you won’t mind leaving us… Lindsey, if Joe’s still outside, tell him to join us.’
Most of the attractive young women filed out of the room.
‘Got a bathroom?’ asked Strike. ‘I could do with a pee.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Wace. He pointed to a white door. ‘Over there.’
Strike was mildly amused to find, on washing his hands, that Wace appeared to have brought his own toiletries with him, because he doubted very much that Olympia routinely provided soaps from Hermès or bathrobes from Armani. Strike slipped his hand into the pockets of the latter, but they were empty.
‘Please, sit down,’ Wace invited Strike, when he emerged. Somebody had pulled up a chair to face the church leader’s. As Strike did as he was bid, Joe Jackson entered the room and crossed to join the other Principals, who were either standing or sitting behind the church leader.
‘She’s gone,’ Jackson informed Wace. ‘She wanted you to have this note.’
‘I’ll read it later,’ said Wace lightly. ‘It’s Cormoran I’m interested in now. Would you mind,’ Wace asked the detective, ‘if my wife listened in to our talk? I know she’d love to hear from you.’
‘Not at all,’ said Strike.
‘Becca,’ said Wace, indicating a smart-looking laptop lying on a chair nearby, ‘could you get Mazu on FaceTime for me? Bless you. Water?’ Wace asked Strike.
‘That’d be great,’ said Strike.
Noli Seymour was glaring at Strike as though he’d just told her his hotel hadn’t received her booking. Becca Pirbright was busy with the laptop and not looking at Strike. The rest of the Principals were variously looking uneasy, contemptuous, studiously uninterested or, in the case of Joe Jackson, definitely tense.
‘How’s your partner?’ said Wace earnestly, settling back in his chair as Becca handed Strike a cold bottle of water.
‘Robin? A lot better for being outside the box,’ said Strike.
‘Box?’ said Wace. ‘What box?’
‘Do you remember the box you locked my partner in, Miss Pirbright?’ Strike asked.
Becca gave no sign she’d heard him.
‘Is Miss Ellacott a business partner, or something more, by the way?’ asked Wace.
‘Your sons not here?’ said Strike, looking around. ‘I saw the one who looks like Piltdown Man outside.’
‘Papa J,’ said Becca quietly, ‘Mazu.’
She adjusted the laptop so that Mazu could see her husband, and for the first time in thirty years, Strike looked into the face of the girl who’d led his sister away from the football game at Forgeman Farm, and shut her in with a paedophile. She was sitting in front of shelves cluttered with Chinese statuettes. Her long black hair fell in two wings over her face, emphasising the pale, pointed nose. Her eyes were in shadow.
‘It’s Cormoran Strike, my love,’ said Wace, to the face on the screen. ‘Our Miss Ellacott’s detective partner.’
Mazu said nothing.
‘Well, Cormoran,’ said Wace, smiling, ‘shall we speak plainly?’
‘I wasn’t intending to speak any other way, but go on.’
Wace laughed.
‘Very well: you aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, to investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church. Many have tried to uncover scandals and plots and wrongdoing, but none have succeeded, for the simple reason that we are exactly who we profess to be: people of faith, living as we believe the Blessed Divinity requires us to live, pursuing the ends They wish to see achieved, fighting against evil wherever we find it. That necessarily brings us into conflict with both the ignorant, who fear what they don’t understand, and the malevolent, who understand our purpose and wish to thwart us. Are you familiar with the work of Dr K. Sri Dhammananda? No? “Struggle must exist, for all life is a struggle of some kind. But make certain that you do not struggle in the interest of self against truth and justice.”’
‘I see we’ve got different definitions of “speaking plainly”,’ said Strike. ‘Tell me: is the boy Robin saw dying in the attic of the farmhouse still alive?’
A tiny noise, somewhere between a grunt and a gulp, escaped Giles Harmon.
‘Wind?’ enquired Strike of the novelist. ‘Or have you got something to say?’
‘Jonathan,’ said Harmon, ignoring the detective, ‘I should be going. I’m on a flight to Paris at eleven tomorrow. Need to pack.’
Wace rose to embrace Harmon.
‘You were marvellous tonight,’ he told the writer, releasing Harmon but holding him by the upper arms. ‘I believe we owe at least half the new recruits to you. I’ll call you later.’
Harmon stalked out past Strike without looking at him, giving the latter time to reflect on what a mistake it was for short men to wear robes.
Wace sat back down.
‘Your partner,’ he said quietly, ‘has invented a story to cover up the incriminating position she found herself in with Jacob, in the bathroom. She panicked, and she lied. We are all of us frail and subject to temptations, but I want to reassure you: in spite of appearances, I don’t really believe Miss Ellacott meant to assault little Jacob. Possibly she was trying to get information out of him. Much as I deplore trying to force falsehoods out of children, we’d be prepared to drop charges, subject to an apology and a donation to the church.’
Strike laughed as he stretched out his right leg, which was still sore. Wace’s earnest expression didn’t flicker.