For fuck’s sake.
‘When were you diagnosed?’ he asked her, to stop her crying.
She looked up at once, mopping her sparkling eyes.
‘Last week. Friday.’
‘How?’
‘I went for a routine check on Tuesday, and… yeah, so they phoned me on Friday, and told me they’d found something.’
‘And they already know it’s cancer?’
‘Yes,’ she said, too fast.
‘Well, as I say… I hope you’re OK.’
He made to get up, but she reached across the table and grabbed his wrist tightly.
‘Corm, please hear me out. Seriously. Please. Please. This is life and death. I mean, that makes a person… you remember,’ she whispered, staring into his eyes, ‘after you got your leg blown off… I mean, my God… it makes you realise what’s important. After that, you wanted me. Didn’t you? Wasn’t I the only person in the world you wanted, then?’
‘Did I?’ said Strike, looking into her beautiful face. ‘Or did I just take what was on offer, because it was easiest?’
She recoiled, letting go of his wrist.
All relationships have their own agreed mythology, and central to his and Charlotte’s had been their shared belief that at the lowest point of his life, when he was lying in a hospital bed with half his leg and his military career gone, her return had saved him, giving him something to hold on to, to live for. He knew he’d just shattered a sacred taboo, desecrating what was for her not only a source of pride, but the foundation of her certainty that, however much he might deny it, he continued to love the woman who’d been generous enough to love a mutilated man now career-less and broke.
‘I hope you’ll be OK.’
He got to his feet before she could recover herself enough to retaliate, and walked out, half expecting a beer glass to hit him on the back of the head. By a happy stroke of providence, a vacant black cab slid into view as he stepped out onto the pavement and, barely two minutes after he’d left her, he was speeding away, back towards Denmark Street.
19
Nine at the top means:
The standstill comes to an end.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘… a conspiracy so vast, it is literally unseeable, because we live within it, because it forms our sky and our earth, and so the only way – the only way – to escape, is to step, quite literally, into a different reality, the true reality.’
It was Saturday morning. Robin had been sitting in the Rupert Court Temple for three quarters of an hour. Today’s speaker was the man she’d seen lecturing Will Edensor in Berwick Street, who’d introduced himself as Papa J’s son, Taio. This had earned him a smattering of applause, in which Robin joined while recalling Kevin Pirbright’s description of Taio as the UHC’s ‘volatile enforcer’.
Taio, who wore his hair in a dark, straggly bob, had the same large blue eyes as his father, and might also have had Jonathan’s square jaw, had he not been carrying several stone of extra weight, which had added a second chin below the first. He put Robin in mind of an overfed rat: his nose was long and pointed and his mouth unusually small. Taio’s speech was forceful and didactic, and while there were occasional murmurs of agreement from the congregation as he talked, nobody wept and nobody laughed.
In the front row of the temple sat the well-known novelist Giles Harmon, who Robin had recognised when he passed her in the entrance. A short man who wore his silver hair dandyishly long, Harmon had fine, almost delicate features, and carried himself self-consciously, like a man expecting to be watched. He’d been accompanied into the temple by a striking man of around forty, who had black hair, Eurasian features and a deep scar running down from the side of his nose, which was slightly crooked, to his jaw. The pair had moved up the aisle slowly, waving to acquaintances and temple attendants. Unlike Noli Seymour, the two men made no show of humility, but smiled approvingly as temple-goers made way for them, and moved a row back.
Get on with it, Robin thought wearily, as Taio continued to talk. Ryan had stayed over the previous evening, and after sex there’d been a lot of talk, primarily about the risks of going undercover. Robin was neither ignorant nor arrogant enough to think she stood in no need of advice, but her last thought before falling asleep was, thank God I didn’t tell you about the spirit bonding.
At long last, Taio Wace wound up his talk. The applause, while respectable, wasn’t as enthusiastic as it had been for either his father or Becca Pirbright. The temple lights brightened, and David Bowie began to sing again. Robin was deliberately slow to rise from her seat, fumbling over her Gucci handbag, hoping the blonde attendant was going to approach her again. Giles Harmon passed, nodding grandly to the left and right. His taller companion remained near the stage, the centre of a knot of people.
Robin lingered in the aisle, smiling vaguely, looking up at the Prophets painted on the ceiling as though it was the first time she’d seen them. She was almost directly beneath the Drowned Prophet in her white robes, with her malevolent black eyes, when a familiar voice said,
‘Rowena?’
‘Hi!’ said Robin. The blonde who’d previously approached her had appeared, beaming as before and holding a pile of pamphlets that were thicker than those that usually lay on the shelves on the backs of the pews. ‘It’s so great you’re here again!’
‘I know,’ said Robin, smiling back, ‘I don’t seem to be able to stay away, do I?’
As the blonde laughed, Robin became aware of someone standing immediately behind her. Turning, she found herself almost eye to eye with Taio Wace, and experienced a spasm of dislike. She couldn’t remember ever having felt such a strong, immediate antipathy to a man, and it took every ounce of her self-discipline to smile back at him, wide-eyed and friendly, and say,
‘That was so inspiring. Your talk, I mean. I really loved it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, smiling complacently as he placed a hand lightly on her back. ‘Very glad you enjoyed it.’
‘This is Rowena, Taio,’ said the blonde. ‘I feel like she’s—’
‘Very much a Receptive,’ said Taio Wace, his hand still resting lightly on Robin’s bra strap. ‘Yes, that’s obvious.’
Robin felt a strong impulse to hit his arm away, but stood her ground, smiling.
‘Would you be interested in coming to one of our retreats?’ Taio asked.
‘That’s exactly what I was going to say!’ said the blonde, beaming.
‘What would that involve?’ said Robin, every nerve protesting against the continuing pressure of Taio Wace’s hand on her back.
‘A week of your time,’ he said, gazing into her eyes. ‘At Chapman Farm. To explore things a little more deeply.’
‘Oh, wow,’ said Robin, ‘that sounds interesting…’
‘I think you’d find it very stimulating,’ said Taio.
‘It’s really great,’ the blonde assured Robin. ‘Just to be with nature, and explore ideas and meditate…’
‘Wow,’ said Robin, again.
‘Could you get time off work?’ asked Taio, his hand still on Robin’s back.
‘I’m actually kind of between jobs at the moment,’ said Robin.
‘Perfect timing!’ trilled the blonde.
‘When would this be?’ asked Robin.
‘We’ve got a minibus leaving from outside Victoria Station at 10 a.m. next Friday,’ said the blonde. ‘We’ve actually got three groups coming to Chapman Farm that day. Here…’
She offered Robin one of the pamphlets in her hands.
‘That’s all the information you’ll need, what to bring…’
‘Thanks so much,’ said Robin, smiling. ‘Yes, I’d love to come!’
Taio Wace’s slid his hand down to the small of Robin’s back before breaking contact.
‘We’ll see you on Friday, then,’ he said, and moved away.
‘This is so great,’ said the blonde, embracing Robin, who laughed in surprise. ‘You wait. Honestly, I’ve just got a feeling about you. You’re going to go pure spirit really fast.’
Robin headed for the exit. Another female temple attendant was pressing one of the pamphlets on a thin, brown-skinned young man in glasses and a Spiderman T-shirt. The tall, handsome man with the scarred face was now chatting to one of the charity collectors on the door. As Robin made to pass him, his eyes flickered from her face to the pamphlet in her hand, and he smiled.
‘Looking forward to seeing you at the farm,’ he said, holding out a large, dry hand. ‘Dr Zhou,’ he added, in a tone that said but of course, you knew that.
‘Oh, yes, I can’t wait,’ said Robin, smiling at him.
She was back on Wardour Street before she let her face relax from its fixed smile. After glancing over her shoulder to make sure there were no temple attendants in her vicinity, Robin pulled her mobile out of her handbag and called Strike.
‘Third time lucky… I’m in.’
PART TWO
Shêng/Pushing Upward
Within the earth, wood grows:
The image of PUSHING UPWARD.
Thus the superior man of devoted character
Heaps up small things
In order to achieve something high and great.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
20
Over the earth, the lake:
The image of GATHERING TOGETHER.
Thus the superior man renews his weapons
In order to meet the unforeseen.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Right then,’ said Midge, who’d been back from her holiday in California for a week, but whose dark tan, which emphasised her grey eyes, showed no sign of fading. She smoothed out a map on the partners’ desk. ‘Here it is. Chapman Farm.’
It was Wednesday morning, and Strike had lowered the blinds in the inner office, to block out the watery April sunshine, which dazzled without warming. A desk lamp shone onto the map, on which were marked many annotations in red ink.