The Running Grave — страница 155 из 179

‘I actually had a couple of thoughts myself last night, going through the UHC file.’

Robin outlined her theory that Rosie Fernsby had been the other teenager in the dormitory, the night before Daiyu had drowned. Strike drove for a minute, thinking.

‘I quite like it—’

‘Only quite?’

‘I can’t see Cherie not checking Rosie’s bed, not if she wanted to be sure everyone was out for the count before she gave all the kids their special drinks, then shunted Daiyu out of the window.’

‘Maybe she did check, and it suited her that Rosie wasn’t there?’

‘But how would she know Rosie wouldn’t come back later? The pillows could’ve been there so Rosie could, I dunno, have an assignation in a Retreat Room or go into the woods to smoke a joint.’

‘If you’d been at Chapman Farm, you’d know the only permissible reason for alone time is going to the bathroom. If Rosie was supposed to be on child duty, that’s exactly where she should have been… What if Rosie told Cherie she and her father and brother were leaving that night?’

‘She’d only been at Chapman Farm a week or so. She’d’ve been putting a hell of a lot of trust in Cherie, telling her they were escaping.’

‘Maybe Rosie and Cherie had been through something together that would have bonded them quite quickly?’

‘Ah,’ said Strike, remembering the Polaroids. ‘Yeah. There’s that, of course… and yet Rosie was sorry to leave the farm, according to her brother.’

‘Teenage girls can be weird,’ said Robin quietly. ‘They rationalise things… tell themselves it wasn’t as bad as they know, deep down, it was… She had a big crush on Jonathan Wace, remember. Maybe she walked willingly into the barn, not knowing what was about to happen. Afterwards, if Wace is telling her how wonderful she is, how beautiful and brave and free spirited… telling her she’s proved herself somehow… But I know it’s all speculation until we find her, which is the other thing I was going to tell you. There’s a chance – only a chance, don’t get too excited – that I have found her.’

‘You’re kidding me?’

‘I had an idea in the early hours of the morning. Well, two ideas, actually, but this one first. I’ve drawn a total blank on property records, but then I thought, dating apps. I had to join about half a dozen to get access. Anyway, on mingleguru.co.uk—’

‘Mingle Guru?’

‘Yes, Mingle Guru – is one Bhakta Dasha, age thirty-six, so the right age for Rosie, and very much not Asian, unlike everyone else on the site.’

As Strike pulled up at a red light, she held up a profile picture for him to see.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Strike.

The woman was pretty, round-faced and dimpled, wearing a stuck-on bindi and with very orange skin. As the lights changed and they moved off again, Strike said,

‘That should be brought to the attention of the Advertising Standards Authority.’

‘She’s a practising Hindu,’ said Robin, reading Bhakta’s details, ‘who loves India, has travelled extensively there, would very much like to meet someone who shares her outlook and religion, and gives her current location as London. I wondered whether—’

‘Dev,’ said Strike.

‘Exactly, unless he’s getting tired of being the resident good-looking man we always send to sweet talk women.’

‘There are worse problems to have,’ said Strike. ‘Starting to think you should sleep on the sofa more often. It seems to bring something out in you.’

‘You haven’t heard my second idea yet. I was trying to get to sleep and thinking about Cherie, and then I thought, Isaac Mills.’

‘Who?’

‘Isaac Mills. Her boyfriend after Chapman Farm. The one who robbed the pharmacy.’

‘Oh, yeah. The junkie with the teeth.’

‘I thought, what if she told Isaac what had happened at Chapman Farm?’ said Robin. ‘What if she confided in him? It was all very recent when she met him.’

‘That,’ said Strike, ‘is a very sound bit of reasoning and I’m pissed off I didn’t think of it myself.’

‘So you think it’s worth looking for him?’ said Robin, pleased that this theory, at least, wasn’t getting short shrift.

‘Definitely. Just hope he’s still alive. He didn’t have the look of a man who gets a lot of fresh air and vitamins – shit, I forgot to tell you something else, from last night.’

‘What?’

‘I might be wrong,’ said Strike, ‘but I could’ve sworn I saw Phillipa Delaunay in the audience at Wace’s meeting. Daiyu’s aunt – brother of the Stolen Prophet.’

‘Why on earth would she be there?’

‘Good question. Mind you, as I say, I could be wrong. Hearty blondes in pearls all blur into one to me. Dunno how their husbands tell them apart.’

‘Pheromones?’ suggested Robin.

‘Maybe. Or some kind of special call. Like penguins.’

Robin laughed.

114

What has been spoiled through man’s fault can be made good again through man’s work.

The I Ching or Book of Changes




As they admitted to each other afterwards, for the first hour Strike and Robin spent talking to Will in Pat’s house in Kilburn, each privately thought their mission was doomed. He was implacably opposed to meeting Flora Brewster and insisted he didn’t want immunity from prosecution, because he deserved jail. All he wanted was for Lin to be found, so she could look after Qing once he’d handed himself over to the police.

Pat had taken Will’s daughter to the shops to allow them to talk in peace. The room in which they were sitting was small, neat, smelled strongly of stale Superkings and was cluttered with family photographs, although Pat also had an unsuspected weakness for crystal animal figurines. Will was wearing a new green sweater which, though it hung loosely on his still very thin frame, both suited and fitted him better than his filthy UHC tracksuit. His colour had improved, the shadows under his eyes had gone, and for a full sixty minutes, he made no mention of the Drowned Prophet.

However, when Strike, starting to lose patience, pushed Will on why he didn’t want to at least talk to another ex-member with a view to joining forces and freeing as many people as possible from the church, Will said,

‘You can’t free them all. She wants to keep them. She’ll let some go, like me, who aren’t any good—’

‘Who’s “she”?’ said Strike.

‘You know who,’ muttered Will.

They heard the front door open. Strike and Robin assumed Pat and Qing had returned, but instead a pudgy, bespectacled, fair-haired man of around seventy appeared. He was wearing a Queens Park Rangers football strip, brown trousers of the kind Strike was used to seeing on Ted, and had a copy of the Daily Mail under his arm.

‘Ah. You’ll be the detectives.’

‘That’s us,’ said Strike, standing up to shake hands.

‘Dennis Chauncey. Everyone all right for tea? I’m having some, it’s no trouble.’

Dennis disappeared into the kitchen. Robin noticed that he was limping slightly, possibly due to the fall he’d suffered while demonstrating levitation.

‘Look, Will—’ Strike began.

‘If I talk to Flora before the police, I’ll never get to the police,’ said Will, ‘because she’ll come for me before I can—’

‘Who’ll come for you?’ Dennis, who evidently had sharp hearing, had reappeared at the door of the sitting room, munching on a chocolate bourbon. ‘Drowned Prophet, is it?’

Will looked sheepish.

‘I’ve told you, son.’ Dennis tapped his temple. ‘It’s in your head. It’s all in your head.’

‘I’ve seen—’

‘You’ve seen tricks,’ said Dennis, not unkindly. ‘That’s all you’ve seen. Tricks. They’ve done a right number on you, but it’s tricks, that’s all.’

He disappeared again. Before Strike could say anything else, they heard the front door open for a second time. Shortly afterwards, Pat entered the room.

‘Walked her around and she fell asleep,’ she said in the growl that passed for her whisper. ‘I’ve left her in the hall.’

She wriggled out of her jacket, pulled a pack of Superkings out of its pocket, lit one, sat down in the armchair and said,

‘What’s going on?’

By the time Robin had explained about Flora Brewster’s wish to meet Will, Dennis had returned with a fresh pot of tea.

‘Sounds like a good idea,’ said Pat, peering beadily at Will. She took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘If you want the police to take you seriously,’ she said, exhaling, so that her face was momentarily obscured by a cloud of blue smoke, ‘you need corroboration.’

‘Exactly,’ said Strike. ‘Thank you, Pat.’

‘Mr Chauncey, you sit here,’ said Robin, getting up, as there were no other chairs.

‘No, you’re all right love, gotta do the pigeons,’ said Dennis. He poured himself a mug of tea, added three sugars and left again.

‘Racing pigeons,’ said Pat. ‘He keeps them out the back. Just don’t get him onto Fergus McLeod. I’ve had nothing else, morning, noon and night, for a month.’

‘Who’s Fergus McLeod?’ asked Robin.

‘He cheated,’ said Will unexpectedly. ‘With a microchip. The bird never left his loft. Dennis told me all about it.’

‘It’s been a bloody relief, having someone else around to listen to him bang on about it,’ said Pat, rolling her eyes.

Strike’s mobile now rang: Midge.

‘’S’cuse me,’ he said.

Not wanting to risk waking Qing, who was fast asleep in a pushchair just inside the front door, he moved through to the kitchen and let himself carefully into the small garden. Half of it was given over to the pigeons, and Dennis was visible at the window of the coop, apparently cleaning out cages.

‘Midge?’

‘Lin’s at the clinic,’ said Midge excitedly. ‘Tasha just called me. Zhou wasn’t around last night, so Tasha went creeping around that annexe. The doors were locked, but blinds have been down over one of the windows all the time she’s been there. She was trying to peer through a gap when, get this – a skinny blonde girl lifted it up and peered right back out at her. Tash says they were nearly nose to nose. She nearly fell over backwards onto her arse. Then Tasha thinks the girl realised she wasn’t in a staff uniform and she mouths “help me”. Tasha mimed at her to push up the window, but it’s bolted. Then Tash could hear someone coming, so she had to leg it, but she mouthed at Lin that she was going to come back.’