Robin looked up from the menu the waitress had just handed her. She didn’t remember ever telling Strike that Murphy was an alcoholic.
‘Yes, he’s fine with it. Did Ilsa—?’
‘Wardle,’ said Strike.
‘Oh,’ said Robin, looking back down at the menu.
Strike had no intention of relaying what Wardle had said about Murphy’s behaviour when still a drinker, largely because he knew how he’d make himself look to Robin, by saying it. Nevertheless, he said,
‘What made him give up?’
‘He says he just didn’t like himself, drunk,’ said Robin, preferring to keep looking at the menu, rather than Strike. She had a suspicion that Strike was looking for a way to impart information she probably wouldn’t want to hear. Given Strike’s recent irritation at what he considered Ilsa’s meddling, she thought it grossly hypocritical for him to start questioning her about Murphy’s past.
Sensing the slight increase in froideur from across the table, Strike probed no further. When both had ordered food, and Strike had asked for bread, he said,
‘So, what did you make of Niamh?’
Robin lowered her menu.
‘Well, apart from feeling really sorry for her, I thought she gave us a few interesting things. Especially that photograph of her mother. From Henry Worthington-Fields’ description of the pregnant woman he saw collapsing, while ploughing—’
‘Yeah, I think that was Deirdre Doherty,’ said Strike, ‘and now we know she had a heart condition which, along with hard manual labour and a fourth pregnancy, would seem ample grounds for fainting, or whatever she did.’
‘But we know she survived the fainting fit, got through the birth OK and lived for another two years, at least,’ said Robin.
The waitress now set down Robin’s water, Strike’s zero-alcohol beer and a basket of bread. Strike took a roll (the diet could be resumed once Robin was at Chapman Farm) and waited until the waitress was out of earshot, before saying,
‘You think Deirdre’s dead?’
‘I don’t want to think so,’ said Robin, ‘but it’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it?’
‘And the letters her husband kept tearing up?’
‘They might not have had anything to do with Deirdre at all. I can’t believe it would have been that hard to track her family down, if she really did leave Chapman Farm in 2003. And don’t you find it fishy that she left her youngest daughter behind when she was so-called expelled?’
‘If Kevin Pirbright was right, and Lin was Jonathan Wace’s daughter, Wace might not have been prepared to give her up.’
‘If Kevin Pirbright was right,’ said Robin, ‘Lin was a product of rape, and if Deirdre was prepared to write it in her journal that Wace had raped her, she was a real danger to him and to the church.’
‘You think Wace murdered her, buried her at Chapman Farm and then told everyone he’d expelled her in the night, to avoid a DNA test? Because all Wace had to do was say the sex was consensual, get a few cult members to state on the record that Deirdre walked happily into his bedroom of her own free will, and it’d be very hard to get a conviction. As you’ve just pointed out, Deirdre stayed at Chapman Farm, even after the rest of her family took off. That wouldn’t look great in court. Nor would the fact that her husband thought she was a slut and didn’t want anything more to do with her.’
Catching the expression on Robin’s face, Strike added,
‘I’m not saying I think any of those arguments would be fair or valid. I’m just being realistic about Deirdre’s odds of convincing a jury.’
‘Why did she write about the rape in her journal at all?’ asked Robin. ‘She knew the journal would be read by a higher-up, which doesn’t really tally with the way Niamh described her mother. It doesn’t feel like the act of a passive woman.’
‘Maybe she was desperate,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe she hoped the journal was going to be read by someone she thought would help her.’ He took a bite of bread, then said, ‘I’ll keep trying to track Deirdre down while you’re at the farm. She’d be a bloody good witness, if we can find her.’
‘Of course, she needn’t have been murdered,’ said Robin, still following her own train of thought. ‘If she had a weak heart before going to Chapman Farm and was made to work without adequate food, she could have died of natural causes.’
‘If that happened, and they didn’t register the death, we’ve got a crime. Trouble is, to prove it, we need a body.’
‘It’s farmland,’ said Robin. ‘She could have been buried anywhere, over acres.’
‘And we’re not going to get the authority to dig up all the fields on an evidence-free hunch.’
‘I know,’ said Robin. ‘There’s also that thing about no calendars and watches—’
‘Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that,’ said Strike.
‘Even if we manage to find people who’re prepared to talk, they’re going to have credibility problems,’ Robin continued. ‘“When did this happen?” “I have literally no idea.” It’d make faking alibis a piece of cake. Only the people at the top know what time of day it is – literally.’
‘Yeah, but the more immediate problem is, you’re going to have to find a way of keeping track of the days without anyone knowing you’re doing it.’
‘I’ll think of something,’ said Robin, ‘but if you could put dates and days of the week on your notes to me, that’ll help keep me orientated.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Strike, pulling out his notebook and making a note to this effect.
‘And,’ said Robin, feeling slightly awkward about asking this, ‘if I put the odd note for Ryan in the rock, along with my report for you, would you mind passing it on?’
‘No problem,’ said Strike, making a further note, his expression impassive. ‘Do me a return favour, though: if you get a chance to get the blood-stained hatchet out of the hollow tree, be sure and take it.’
‘OK, I’ll try,’ said Robin, smiling.
‘Do your family know what you’re about to do, by the way?’
‘No details,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve just said I’ll be undercover for a bit. I haven’t told them where I’m going. Ryan’s going to call them with updates… I really hope Abigail Glover decides to talk to you,’ Robin added, again keen to get off the subject of Murphy, ‘because I’d love to hear some more background on her father. There isn’t much about Wace’s past out there, have you noticed?’
‘Yeah, I have, though I note he doesn’t mind people knowing he was educated at Harrow.’
‘No, but after that it all gets sketchy, doesn’t it? His father was a “businessman”, but no detail on what kind of business, and his first wife dies tragically, he finds religion and founds the UHC. That’s basically it.’
Their food arrived. Strike, who was still abstaining from chips, looked so enviously at Robin’s that she laughed.
‘Have some. I only ordered them because I’m going to be on starvation rations from tomorrow.’
‘No,’ said Strike gloomily, ‘I still need to get another stone off.’
He’d just cut into his chicken breast when his mobile rang again, this time, from an unknown London number. Setting down his knife and fork again, he answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh – ’iya,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Are you Cameron Strike?’
‘That’s me,’ said Strike, who rarely bothered to correct the mistake. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Ava Reaney. You left a message for me to call you?’
‘Yes,’ said Strike, scribbling Reaney wife on his notebook and turning it to face Robin. ‘I did. I was actually wondering whether you could get a message to your husband for me, Mrs Reaney.’
‘To Jordan? Wha’ for?’ said the voice suspiciously. There was a lot of background noise, including pop music. Strike assumed Ava Reaney was at her nail salon.
‘I’m trying to find as many people as I can who’ve lived at Chapman Farm,’ said Strike.
‘What – that cult place?’ asked Ava Reaney.
‘That’s the one. I think your husband was there in the nineties?’
‘’E was, yeah,’ she said.
‘So, could you—?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve split up.’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear that,’ said Strike.
‘’E’s inside,’ said Ava.
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Strike, ‘which is why—’
‘’E’s a bastard. I’m divorcing ’im.’
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, could anyone else take a message to him, to see whether he’d be prepared to talk to me about the UHC?’
‘I can ask ’is sister, if you want,’ said Ava. ‘She’s going up next week. Hey, are you that bloke what caught the Shacklewell Ripper?’
‘I am, yeah,’ said Strike.
‘It is ’im,’ Ava said loudly, apparently to somebody standing nearby, before saying, ‘So you’re after people from the UHT are you? No,’ she corrected herself, ‘that’s milk, innit?’
‘Did Jordan ever talk to you about his time in there?’ asked Strike.
‘Not much. ’E gets nightmares abou’ it, though,’ she added, with a certain malicious satisfaction.
‘Really?’ said Strike.
‘Yeah. Abou’ the pigs. ’E’s frightened of pigs.’
She laughed, and so did the unknown person standing near her.
‘OK, well, if you wouldn’t mind asking Jordan’s sister to give him my message – you’ve got my phone number, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah, I will. OK. See ya.’
Strike hung up.
‘Apparently Jordan Reaney has nightmares about pigs, dating from his time in Chapman Farm.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah… D’you know much about them?’
‘What, pigs? Not really.’
‘Shame. I look to you for farming expertise.’
‘The boars can be really aggressive,’ said Robin, ‘I know that. Our local vet got badly injured by one when I was at school. It slammed him up against metal railings – he had some nasty bites and broken ribs.’
Strike’s mobile now buzzed with the arrival of a text. Robin glimpsed a lot of emojis before her partner swiped the phone off the table and returned it to his pocket.
She deduced, correctly, that the text was from Bijou Watkins. For a moment or two, she considered passing on Ilsa’s warning about Bijou’s bedroom behaviour, but given Strike’s reaction the last time someone tried to interfere with his new relationship, she decided against it. After all, this was the last time she was going to see her business partner for a while, and she preferred not to part on bad terms.