The Running Grave — страница 154 из 179

Incredibly, at least to Strike, who found it difficult to cry in extremity, let alone on cue, Wace’s eyes now welled with tears.

‘Do I regret that Abigail left the church?’ he said. ‘Of course – but for her sake, not mine. If you are indeed in contact with her,’ said Wace, now placing a hand over his heart, ‘tell her, from me, “Popsicle misses you”. It’s what she used to call me.’

‘Touching,’ said Strike indifferently. ‘Moving on: you remember Rosie Fernsby, I presume? Well-developed fifteen-year-old you were going to take up to Birmingham, on the morning Daiyu died?’

Wace, who was wiping his eyes on the crumpled towel, didn’t answer.

‘You were going to “show her something”,’ Strike went on. ‘What kinds of things does he show young girls in Birmingham?’ he asked Becca. ‘You must have seen some of them, if you were there three years?’

‘Jonathan,’ said Mazu again, more insistently. Her husband ignored her.

‘You talk about “spoiling”,’ said Strike, looking back at Wace. ‘There’s a word with a double meaning, if ever there was one… which brings us to pig masks.’

‘Cormoran,’ said Wace, his tone world-weary, ‘I think I’ve heard enough to realise that you’re determined to write some lurid exposé, full of innuendo, short on facts and embellished with whatever fictional details you and Miss Ellacott can dream up together. I regret to say we’ll have to proceed with our action against Miss Ellacott for child abuse. It would be best if you communicate henceforth through my lawyers.’

‘That’s a shame. We were getting on so well. To return to the pig masks—’

‘I’ve made my position clear, Mr Strike.’

Wace’s charm and ease of manner, his smile, his warmth, had vanished. Once before, Strike had faced a killer whose eyes, under the stress and excitement of hearing their crimes described, had become as black and blank as those of a shark, and now he saw the phenomenon again: Wace’s eyes might have turned into empty boreholes.

‘Abigail and others were made to wear pig masks and crawl through the dirt to do their chores, at the command of your charming wife,’ said Strike.

‘That never happened,’ said Mazu contemptuously. ‘Never. Jonathan—’

‘Unfortunately for you, Mrs Wace, I have concrete evidence of those masks being worn at Chapman Farm,’ said Strike, ‘although it’d be in your own interests to deny you knew all the ways in which they were used. Perhaps Mr Jackson could enlighten you?’

Jackson glanced at Wace, then said, in his strange hybrid drawl,

‘You’re off on some kinda fantastical kick, Mr Strike.’

‘Then let me do a bit more plain speaking before I go. The police don’t like too many coincidences. Twice in the last couple of months, phone calls from unknown numbers had been followed by suicide attempts, one of them successful. I don’t think anyone but my agency has connected them yet, but that can soon change.

‘Late last year, Kevin Pirbright was caught on tape saying he had an appointment with someone from the church. Five days later, he was murdered. That’s two unnatural deaths and one close shave for three of the people who were at Chapman Farm when Daiyu drowned – assuming, of course, she ever drowned at all.’

Becca’s mouth fell open. Mazu began to shout, but unfortunately for her, so did both Taio and Noli Seymour who, both being in the room, easily obliterated the oaths now pouring from Mazu’s thin lips.

‘You bastard—’

‘You vile, evil, disgusting man, how dare you say these things about a dead child, have you no conscience—’

Strike raised his voice over the tumult.

‘There are witnesses to the fact that Rosie Fernsby was at Chapman Farm when certain Polaroids were taken. Rosie was identified by Cherie Gittins as one of the subjects of those photos. I know you’re trying to find her, so I’m warning you,’ he said, pointing directly into the face of Jonathan Wace, ‘if she’s found dead, whether by her own hand, or by accident, or by murder, rest assured, I’ll be showing those Polaroids to the police, drawing their attention to the fact that we’ve now got four unnatural deaths of ex-UHC members within a ten-month period, urging them to recheck certain phone records and making sure my journalistic contact makes as much of a noise about it all as possible.

‘To tell you the truth, I’m not as humble as you are, Jonathan,’ said Strike, getting to his feet. ‘I don’t need to ask myself whether I’m up to the job, because I know I’m fucking great at it, so be warned: if you do anything to hurt either my partner or Rosie Fernsby, I will burn your church to the fucking ground.’

113

… one may spend a full cycle of time with a friend of kindred spirit without fear of making a mistake.

The I Ching or Book of Changes




Spending the night curled up on what she’d previously found a fairly comfortable sofa, which revealed unexpected crevices and hard edges when asked to double as a bed, was bad enough. Insult was added to injury when, having finally achieved a couple of hours of deep sleep, Robin was woken rudely by a loud exclamation of ‘What the—?’ from a man in her immediate vicinity. For a fraction of a second she had no idea where she was: her flat, the dormitory at Chapman Farm, Ryan’s bedroom, all of which had doors in different relative positions. She sat up fast, disorientated; her coat slid off her onto the floor, and then she realised she was in the office, looking blearily up at Strike.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find a body.’

‘You nearly gave me a heart—’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I think our gunman came back last night,’ Robin said, bending down to retrieve her coat.

What?’

‘Black jacket, hood up – they lurked in those basement steps opposite for a bit and when the street was clear, they crossed the street and tried to get in through our front door, but this time, they couldn’t.’

‘Did you call the police?’

‘It happened too fast. They must have realised the lock had changed, because they left. I watched them to the end of Denmark Street, but I was afraid they might be waiting for me on Charing Cross Road. I didn’t fancy risking it, so I slept here.’

At this moment, the alarm on Robin’s mobile went off, making her jump again.

‘Good thinking,’ said Strike. ‘Very good thinking. Were the lights on when they arrived?’

‘Until I spotted the black jacket and the hood on the opposite pavement, then I turned them off. It’s possible they didn’t notice, and thought the office was empty, but they might have known someone was here and been determined to get in anyway. Don’t look like that,’ said Robin, ‘the lock worked, and I didn’t take any chances, did I?’

‘No. That’s good. Don’t suppose you got any pictures?’

‘I did,’ said Robin, bringing them up on her mobile and handing it to Strike. ‘It was a tricky angle, because they were directly beneath me, obviously, when they were trying to get in.’

‘Yeah, that looks like the same person… same jacket, anyway… face carefully hidden… I’ll pass these to the police, too. With luck, they took down their hood and were caught on CCTV once they were out of here.’

‘Did you get my text about Will, Flora and Prudence?’ said Robin, trying to detangle her hair with her fingers, without much success. ‘Pat’s fine with us going over there this morning, which is good of her, given it’s Saturday.’

‘I did, yeah,’ said Strike, moving to the kettle. ‘Excellent work that, Ellacott. Want a coffee? We’ve got time. I only came in here to put my notes in the file, from last night.’

‘Oh God, of course!’ said Robin, who in her exhaustion had briefly forgotten where Strike had been. ‘What happened?’

Strike gave Robin a full account of the UHC meeting and his subsequent interview with Wace while they drank their coffees. When he’d finished, Robin said,

‘You told him you’d “burn his church to the fucking ground”?’

‘Might’ve got a bit carried away there,’ admitted Strike. ‘I was on a roll.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a bit… declaration of all-out war?’

‘Not really. Come on, they already knew we’re investigating them. Why else does everyone we want to talk to get warning phone calls?’

‘We don’t know for sure the church is behind those calls.’

‘We don’t know for sure the people in pig masks lived at Chapman Farm, either, but I think it’s safe to hazard a guess. I’d’ve liked to say a damn sight more than I did, but Deirdre Doherty drowning drags in Flora Brewster, Daiyu going out of the window incriminates Emily Pirbright, and if I’d told Harmon I knew he was fucking underage girls, it would’ve put Lin in the firing line. No, the only new information they got from me last night was that we think Daiyu’s death is fishy, and I said that deliberately, to see the reactions.’

‘And?’

‘Shock, outrage; exactly what you’d expect. But I warned them what’s going to happen if Rosie Fernsby turns up dead, which was the main point of the exercise, and I’ve told them we know they’re keeping tabs on us, however ineptly, so as far as I’m concerned, job done. Er… if you want a shower or anything, you can go upstairs.’

‘That’d be great, thanks,’ said Robin. ‘I’ll be quick.’

Her reflection in Strike’s bathroom mirror looked just as bad as Robin felt: a large crease had been pressed into the side of her face and her eyes were puffy. Trying not to visualise Strike standing naked in exactly the same spot she was now occupying in the tiny bathroom, Robin showered, pinched some of his deodorant, put yesterday’s clothes back on, brushed her hair, applied lipstick to make herself look less washed out, wiped it off because she thought it made her look worse, and returned downstairs.

Robin usually drove when the two of them were out together, but today, in deference to her tiredness, Strike volunteered. The BMW, being automatic, wasn’t nearly as hard for a man with a prosthetic to drive as the Land Rover would have been. Robin waited until they were on their way to Kilburn before saying,