‘No,’ said Strike.
‘The UHC are child trafficking.’
Strike’s jaws stopped moving.
‘What?’
‘Superfluous babies, mostly boys, are taken to the Birmingham centre where they’re warehoused until they’re sold. It’s an illegal adoption service: babies for cash. Most of them go to America. Your friend Joe Jackson is in charge, apparently. From what Flora said, hundreds of babies must have passed out of the UHC by now.’
‘Holy—’
‘I should’ve realised there was something up, given how much unprotected sex they’re having at Chapman Farm, because there are relatively few kids there, and nearly all of them looked as though they’d been fathered by Jonathan or Taio. Wace keeps his own bloodline and, of course, enough non-related girls to keep providing the church with future generations.’
Momentarily lost for words, Strike swallowed his apple pie and reached for the beer he’d got out of the office fridge.
‘Will knew, because of Lin,’ Robin said. ‘When she got pregnant she was terrified Qing would be sent to Birmingham. Neither of them could understand why she was allowed to stay, so I have to assume Lin doesn’t realise Wace is her father… Strike, I’m really worried about Lin.’
‘Me too,’ said Strike, ‘but Midge couldn’t tail that bloody van through the night, and definitely not with her girlfriend coming along for the jolly.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said Robin. ‘You used to – I mean, obviously, I wasn’t your girlfriend, but you let me do stuff in the early days when, technically, I was your temp. Tasha’s worried about Lin too.’
‘Investigation isn’t a bloody team sport. So is it an open secret, this baby trade?’
‘I don’t know. Flora only found out when she was pregnant. One of the other women told her her baby was going to be sold for lots of cash for the glorious mission, but the baby died at birth. Flora was punished for that,’ said Robin.
‘Shit,’ said Strike.
Whether or not Robin had intended her information to have that effect, Strike now felt guilty that he’d judged Flora Brewster so harshly.
‘Robin, this is fucking massive, and you did it.’
‘Except,’ said Robin, who didn’t sound particularly pleased, ‘it’s still hearsay, isn’t it? Flora, Will and Lin have never been to the Birmingham centre. We haven’t got a shred of concrete proof of the trafficking.’
‘Emily Pirbright was relocated from Birmingham, right?’
‘Yes, but given that she hasn’t been allowed to leave Chapman Farm since I escaped, we might be waiting a long time for her testimony.’
‘Abigail Glover was sent to Birmingham after Daiyu died, as well, but she never said a word about a glut of babies being kept there.’
‘If Abigail wasn’t ever pregnant, she probably thought all the kids belonged to people living at the Birmingham centre. Women seem to find out about it only once they’re expecting… we’ve got to get police in there,’ said Robin, ‘and not when the church is expecting it.’
‘Agreed,’ said Strike, now taking out his notebook. ‘Fuck it, we’ve got the contacts, it’s time to stop being so bloody polite. I say we try and get them all together, Wardle, Layborn, Ekwensi – Murphy,’ he added, after a slight hesitation – needs must, he supposed – ‘and lay it all on the line, preferably with Will and Flora present. D’you think they’d talk?’
‘I’m ninety per cent certain Flora would, after tonight. Will… I think he’s still determined only to speak to the police once Lin’s out.’
‘Maybe bullets sailing a foot over his head will have sharpened his ideas up,’ said Strike. ‘I’ll make those calls tomorrow… later today, I mean.’
Strike ate a solitary cold chip lingering at the bottom of a greasy bag. Robin was again looking at the board on the wall. Her eyes travelled from the photo of rabbity-faced Daiyu to Flora Brewster’s drawing of the girl without eyes; from the mugshot of twenty-something Carrie Curtis Woods to Jennifer Wace, with her eighties perm; from the pig-mask Polaroids to Paul Draper’s timid moon face, and lastly to the note to himself Strike had written, which read, JOGGER ON THE BEACH?
‘Strike,’ said Robin, ‘what the hell’s going on?’
121
Six in the third place means:
Whoever hunts deer without the forester
Only loses his way in the forest.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Enough to bring down the UHC, if we’re lucky,’ said Strike.
‘No, I mean the things that have been happening since I got out. Why are they simultaneously so slick, so hard to catch in the act, but also so incompetent?’
‘Go on,’ said Strike, because she was articulating something he himself had been wondering about.
‘That couple in the red Corsa: were they genuinely tailing us? If so, they were lousy at it, whereas the Ford Focus – I know I messed up, not spotting them sooner—’
‘No, whoever was driving that car was very good, and they also came bloody close to killing one or both of us.’
‘Right, and whoever tried to break in here with the gun looked pretty efficient, and whoever murdered Kevin Pirbright has got clean away with it—’
‘Whereas our green-eyed friend couldn’t have been more obvious unless he’d held up a placard saying, “I am watching you”.’
‘And then you’ve got Reaney and Carrie, scared into suicide without even being face to face with the person… don’t you feel as though we’ve got two different sets of people after us, one of them kind of a clown show, and the other lot really dangerous?’
‘Personally,’ said Strike, ‘I think we’ve got someone after us who can’t be picky about their underlings. They have to go with what they’ve got at any given time.’
‘But that doesn’t fit Jonathan Wace. He’s got thousands of people who’re absolutely devoted to him at his disposal, and whatever else you might say about him, he’s got a real talent for putting people where they’re most useful. He’s never had a high-level defector.’
‘There’s that,’ said Strike, ‘and also the fact he’d have the ability to keep us under twenty-four-hour surveillance without ever repeating a face, whereas whoever’s behind this seems to be watching us and following us at what seem fairly random times. I get the sense that they’re only doing it when they can.
‘You know,’ said Strike, reaching for his beer, ‘Wace absolutely denied he was following or watching us when I met him at Olympia. He would, of course, but I s’pose there’s an outside chance he was telling the truth.’
‘What if,’ said Robin, thinking the thing out as she spoke, ‘someone in the church is scared we’ve found out something Wace never knew about? Something he’d be really angry about?’
Both of them now looked up at the noticeboard.
‘Going by who they’re trying to stop us talking to, it’s those Polaroids,’ said Strike, ‘because I doubt it’s escaped your notice that the bullets only started hitting us once it looked as though we were heading for Cedar Terrace and, I strongly suspect, Rosie Fernsby. They didn’t give a damn about Will, or they’d have tried to stop us earlier. It’s possible they’re banking on the fact he won’t talk while they’ve still got Lin, in case she’s the one who pays for it… in point of fact, she’s something of a trump card for the church, isn’t she? It’s in their best interests to keep her alive…
‘No,’ said Strike, reaching for his notebook and pen again, ‘I still think Rosie Fernsby’s the one in real danger. Someone’s got to go to Cedar Terrace and warn her, if she’s there.’
He made a note to this effect and set his pen down again.
Robin shivered. It was now approaching four in the morning, and while her brain was far too overwrought for sleep, her body felt differently. She was too busy staring at the picture of Daiyu on the noticeboard to register Strike taking off his jacket until he passed it to her.
‘Oh… are you sure?’
‘I’ve got about five stone of extra padding, compared to you.’
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ muttered Robin. ‘Thank you.’
She pulled the jacket on: it was comfortingly warm.
‘How did Wace react when you mentioned the pig-mask Polaroids?’
‘Incredulity, disbelief… exactly what you’d expect.’
Both sat in thought for a while, still gazing up at the board.
‘Strike, I don’t see why anyone would risk shooting us, purely because of those pictures,’ said Robin, breaking a lengthy silence. ‘They’re horrible, and they’d definitely get tabloid coverage, but honestly, compared with what the church could be facing if we can get Will and Flora and maybe others to testify, those pictures would surely pale into – not insignificance, but they’d be just one more sordid detail. Plus, there’s nothing in the pictures to show they were taken at Chapman Farm. It’s deniable.’
‘Not if Rosie Fernsby testifies, it isn’t.’
‘She hasn’t spoken up in twenty-one years. Her face is hidden in the pictures. If she wants to deny it’s her, we’ll never be able to prove it.’
‘So why’s someone so keen to stop us talking to her?’
‘I don’t know, except… I know you don’t like the theory, but she was there, the night before Daiyu died. What if she witnessed something, or heard something, as she was sneaking out of the women’s dormitory to join her father and brother?’
‘How far away from the kids’ dormitory is the women’s?’
‘A fair distance,’ admitted Robin, ‘but what if Daiyu came into the women’s dorm, after leaving the children’s one? Or maybe Rosie looked out of her dormitory window and saw Daiyu heading for the woods, or a Retreat Room?’
‘Then somebody else must have been with Daiyu, to know Rosie had spotted them.’
Another silence followed. Then Robin said,
‘Daiyu was getting food and toys from somewhere…’
‘Yeah, and you know what that smacks of? Grooming.’
‘But Carrie said it wasn’t her.’