‘She’s in on it, as well!’ Will said, now pointing at Prudence. ‘This place –’ He looked from the Chinese puzzle ball to the antique rug, ‘it’s just like Zhou’s office!’
‘Will,’ said Robin, getting to her feet, too, ‘why on earth would I have gone undercover at Chapman Farm to get you out, only to lead you straight back to them?’
‘They fooled you! Or, it’s all been a test. You’re an agent of the church too!’
‘You found the plastic rock,’ said Robin calmly. ‘You saw the torch and the traces of my notes. If I were a church agent, why would I have been writing to outsiders? And how would I have known you’d find the rock at all?’
‘I want to go back to Pat’s,’ said Will desperately. ‘I want to go back.’
He was almost at the door when Robin said,
‘Will, your mother’s dead. You know that, don’t you?’
Will turned back, glaring at her, his thin chest rising and falling rapidly. Robin felt she had no choice but to resort to dirty tactics, but it wrung her heart, nonetheless.
‘You looked it up online, didn’t you? Didn’t you?’
Will nodded.
‘You know how much I risked at Chapman Farm, by telling you that. You heard them talking about me after I left, and you found out my real name, and tracked me down to exactly where I should have been, at our office. I’m not lying to you. Flora was a church member, but she got out. Please, just sit down and talk to her for a bit. I’ll drive you back to Pat’s afterwards.’
After almost a full minute of deliberation, Will returned reluctantly to his chair.
‘I know how you feel, Will,’ said Flora unexpectedly, in a timid voice. ‘I do, honestly.’
‘Why are you still alive?’ said Will brutally.
‘I wonder myself, sometimes,’ said Flora with a shaky little laugh.
Robin was starting to fear this meeting was going to do both parties more harm than good. She looked at Prudence for help, and the latter said,
‘Are you wondering why the Drowned Prophet hasn’t come for Flora, Will?’
‘Yes, obviously,’ said Will, refusing to look at Prudence, whose offences of possessing snuff bottles and antique rugs were apparently too severe for him to overlook.
‘The Drowned Prophet kind of did come for me. I’m not supposed to drink on my meds,’ said Flora, with a guilty glance at Prudence, ‘and I’m try not to, but if I do, I start feeling like the prophet’s watching me again, and I can hear her telling me I’m not fit to live. But nowadays I know the voice isn’t real.’
‘How?’ demanded Will.
‘Because she hates all the things I hate about myself,’ said Flora, in a voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘I know it’s me doing it, not her.’
‘How did you get out?’
‘I wasn’t very well.’
‘I don’t believe you. ‘They wouldn’t have let you go just for that. They’d have treated you.’
‘They did treat me, kind of. They made me chant in the temple, and gave me some herbs, and Papa J –’ A look of disgust flickered across Flora’s half-concealed face ‘– but none of it worked. I was seeing things and hearing voices. In the end, they contacted my dad and he came and picked me up.’
‘You’re lying. They wouldn’t do that. They’d never contact a flesh object.’
‘They didn’t know what else to do with me, I don’t think,’ said Flora. ‘My dad was really angry. He said it was all my own fault for running away and causing a load of trouble and not answering letters. Once we got home, he was really pissed off with me chanting and doing the joyful meditation. He thought it was me trying to stay in the religion… he didn’t understand that I couldn’t stop… I could see the Drowned Prophet standing behind doors and sometimes I’d see her reflection in the bathroom mirror, right behind me, and I’d turn around but she’d be gone. I didn’t tell Dad or my stepmum, because the Drowned Prophet told me not to – I mean, I thought she told me not to…’
‘How d’you know it wasn’t the Drowned Prophet?’ said Will.
Robin was starting to feel that this had all been a terrible mistake. She hadn’t dreamed that Will would attempt to re-indoctrinate Flora, and she turned to look at Prudence, hoping she’d shut this conversation down, but Prudence was merely listening with a neutral expression on her face.
‘Because she stopped appearing, after I got treatment, but it was ages before I saw a doctor, because my dad and my stepmum kept saying I had to either reapply to uni or get a job, so I was supposed to be filling out application forms and things, but I couldn’t concentrate… and there were things I couldn’t tell them…
‘I had a baby there and she died. She was born dead. The cord was wrapped around her neck.’
‘Oh God,’ said Robin, unable to contain herself. She was back in the dormitory, blood everywhere, helping to deliver Wan’s breech baby.
‘They punished me for it,’ said Flora with a little sob. ‘They said it was my fault. They said I killed the baby, by being bad. I couldn’t tell Dad and my stepmum things like that. I never told anyone about the baby at all, until I started seeing Prudence. For a long time, I didn’t know if I’d really had a baby or not… but later… much later… I went to a doctor for an examination. And I said to her, “Have I given birth?” And she thought it was a very weird question, obviously, but she said yes. She could tell. By feeling.’
Flora swallowed, then continued,
‘I spoke to a journalist after I left, but I didn’t tell him about the baby, either. I knew the Drowned Prophet might kill me if I talked to him, but I was desperate and I wanted people to know how bad the church was. I thought, maybe if Dad and my stepmum read my interview in the papers, they’d understand better what I’d been through, and forgive me. So I met the journalist and told him some things, and that night the Drowned Prophet came, and she was floating outside my window, and she told me to kill myself, because I’d betrayed everyone in the church. So I called the journalist and told him she’d come for me, and to write the story, and then I slit my wrists in the bathroom.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Robin, but Flora gave no sign she’d heard her.
‘Then my dad broke down the bathroom door and I got taken to hospital and they diagnosed psychosis and I got admitted to a mental ward. I was in there for ages, and they gave me tons of meds and I had to see the psychiatrist, like, five times a week, but in the end I stopped seeing the Drowned Prophet.
‘After I got out of hospital, I went to New Zealand. My aunt and uncle are in business, in Wellington. They sort of made up a job for me…’
Flora’s voice trailed away.
‘And you never saw the prophet again?’ said Will.
Angry at him for maintaining his inquisitorial tone after everything Flora had just told them, Robin muttered ‘Will!’ but Flora answered.
‘No, I did. I mean, it wasn’t really her – it was my fault. I was smoking a lot of weed in New Zealand and it all started up again. I ended up in another psychiatric hospital for months, and after that my aunt and uncle put me back on a plane to London. They’d had enough of me. They didn’t want the responsibility.
‘But I’ve never seen her again, since New Zealand,’ said Flora. ‘Except, like I say, sometimes if I drink I think I can hear her again… but I know she’s not real.’
‘If you really thought she wasn’t real, you’d have been to the police.’
‘Will—’ said Robin, and was ignored.
‘I know she’s real, and she’s going to come for me,’ Will continued, with a kind of desperate bravado, ‘but I’m still going to turn myself in. So either you do believe in her, and you’re scared, or you don’t want the church exposed.’
‘I do want them exposed,’ said Flora vehemently. ‘That’s why I spoke to the journalist and why I said I’d meet you. You don’t understand,’ she said, starting to sob. ‘I feel guilty all the time. I know I’m a coward, but I’m afraid—’
‘Of the Drowned Prophet,’ said Will triumphantly. ‘There you are. You know she’s real.’
‘There are more things to be frightened of than the Drowned Prophet!’ said Flora shrilly.
‘What – like jail?’ said Will dismissively. ‘I know I’m going to jail, if she doesn’t kill me first. I don’t care, it’s the right thing to do.’
‘Will, I’ve already told you this: there’s no need for either of you to go to jail,’ said Robin. Turning to Flora, she said, ‘We believe immunity from prosecution could be arranged if you were prepared to testify against the church, Flora. Everything you’ve just described shows clearly how traumatised you were by what happened to you at Chapman Farm. You had good and valid reasons for not speaking.’
‘I tried to tell people,’ said Flora desperately. ‘I told my psychiatrists the worst thing and they said it was part of my psychosis, that I was imagining it, that it was all part of my hallucinations of the prophet. It’s so long ago, now… everyone will blame me, like him,’ she added hopelessly, jabbing a finger at Will. Now that she wasn’t holding her cuff over her hand, Robin glimpsed the ugly scars on her wrist where she’d tried to end her life.
‘What things did you tell your psychiatrists?’ said Will implacably. ‘The Divine Secrets?’
Robin now remembered Shawna talking about Divine Secrets. She’d never found out what they were.
‘No,’ admitted Flora.
‘So you weren’t really telling them anything,’ said Will scornfully. ‘If you were convinced there’s no Drowned Prophet, you’d have talked about all that.’
‘I told them the worst thing!’ said Flora wildly. ‘And when they didn’t believe that, I knew there’d be no point talking about the Divine Secrets!’
Robin could tell by the look on Prudence’s face that she didn’t know what these secrets were, either.
‘You don’t know everything I saw,’ Flora said to Will, and there was a trace of anger in her voice now. ‘You weren’t there. I drew it,’ she said, turning to Robin, ‘because there were other witnesses, too, and I thought, if any of them had left, they might see the picture and contact me. Then I’d know