‘I want to tell you, firstly, that this church, this community of souls, which now stretches across two continents—’
There were a few more whoops and cheers.
‘—represents the single biggest spiritual challenge to the Adversary that the world has ever seen.’
The room applauded.
‘I feel its power,’ said Jonathan, holding his clenched fist to his heart. ‘I feel it when I speak to our American brothers and sisters, I feel it in when I spoke earlier this week at our Munich temple, I felt it today when I re-entered this place, and when I went to temple to purify. And I want to single out some individuals this evening, who give me hope. With individuals like these on our side, the Adversary should rightly tremble…’
Wace, who was carrying no notes, now called out several names, and as each person was identified, they either screamed or shouted, bounding to their feet while those sitting around them cheered and clapped.
‘… and last, but never least,’ said Wace, ‘Danny Brockles.’
The young man with the buzz cut beside Robin jumped to his feet so fast he hit her hard on the elbow.
‘Oh my God,’ he was saying, over and over again, and Robin saw that he was crying. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Come up here, all of you,’ said Jonathan Wace. ‘Come on… everyone, show your appreciation for these people…’
The dining hall rang with further cheers and shouts. All those called had burst into tears and seemed overcome to have been recognised by Wace.
Wace began talking about each member’s achievements. One of the girls had collected more money on the street than anyone else, over a four-week period. Another girl had recruited a dozen new members to the Week of Service. When finally Jonathan Wace reached Danny Brockles, the younger man was sobbing so hard that Wace walked to him and embraced him, while Brockles cried into the church leader’s shoulder. The watchers, by now cheering wildly, got to their feet to give Danny and Wace a standing ovation.
‘Tell us what you did this week, Danny,’ said Wace. ‘Tell everyone why I’m so proud of you.’
‘I c-c-can’t,’ sobbed Danny, completely overcome.
‘Then I’ll tell them,’ said Wace, turning to face the crowd. ‘Our addiction services centre in Northampton was threatened with closure by agents of the Adversary.’
A storm of booing broke out. The news about the addiction centre seemed to have been unknown to everyone but the top table.
‘Wait – wait – wait,’ said Jonathan, making his usual calming gestures with his left hand, while holding Danny’s arm with his right. ‘Becca took Danny along, to explain how much it had helped him. Danny stood up in front of those materialists and spoke so eloquently, so powerfully, that he ensured the service’s continuation. He did that. Danny did that.’
Wace raised Danny’s arm into the air. A storm of cheers ensued.
‘With people like Danny with us, should the Adversary be afraid?’ shouted Jonathan, and the screams and applause grew even louder. Jonathan was crying now, tears flooding down his face. This show of emotion caused a level of hysteria in the hall that Robin started to find almost unnerving, and it continued even after the six selected people had resumed their seats, until at last, mopping his eyes and making his calming gesture, Jonathan managed to make himself heard again, his voice now slightly hoarse.
‘And now… with regret… I must bring you bulletins from the materialist world…’
A hush fell over the hall as Jonathan began to speak.
He told of the continuing war in Syria, and described the atrocities there, then spoke of massive corruption among the world’s political and financial elites. He spoke of the outbreak of Zika in Brazil, which was causing so many babies to be miscarried or born severely disabled. He described individual instances of appalling poverty and despair he’d witnessed while attending church-run projects in both the UK and America, and as he told of these injustices and disasters, he might have been describing things that had befallen his own family, so deeply did they seem to touch him. Robin remembered Sheila Kennett’s words: he had a way of making you want to make everything all right, for him… you wanted to look after him… he seemed to feel it worse than all the rest of us.
‘That, then, is the materialist world,’ Jonathan said at last. ‘And if our task seems overwhelming, it is because the Adversary’s forces are powerful… desperately powerful. The inevitable End Game approaches, which is why we fight to hasten the coming of the Lotus Way. Now, I ask you all to join me in meditation. For those who have not yet learned our mantra, the words are printed here.’
Two girls in orange tracksuits mounted the stage, holding large white boards, on which were printed: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.
‘A deep breath, raising the arms,’ said Jonathan, and though the benches at the tables were cramped, every arm was slowly raised, and there was a universal intake of breath. ‘And exhale,’ said Jonathan quietly, and the room breathed out again.
‘And now: Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu…’
Robin caught the pronunciation of the mantra from her neighbours. A hundred people chanted, and chanted, and chanted some more, and Robin began to feel a strange calm creeping over her. The rhythm seemed to vibrate inside her, hypnotic and soothing, with Jonathan’s the only distinguishable voice among the many, and soon she didn’t need to read the words off the board, but was able to repeat them automatically.
At last, the first bars of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ blended with the voices of the crowd, at which point the chants became cheers, and everyone jumped to their feet, and began embracing. Robin was pulled into a hug with the elated Danny, then by her blond neighbour. The two young men embraced each other, and now the entire crowd was singing along to Bowie’s song and clapping in time. Tired and hungry though she was, Robin smiled as she clapped and sang along with the rest.
28
This hexagram is composed of the trigram Li above, i.e., flame, which burns upward, and Tui below, i.e., the lake, which seeps downward…
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Strike had to change the rota to accommodate his interview with Abigail Glover on Sunday evening. Only then did he see that Clive Littlejohn was off work for four days. As Strike wanted to see Littlejohn’s reaction in person when he asked why he hadn’t disclosed his previous employment at Patterson Inc, he decided to postpone their chat until it could be done face to face.
Strike spent Saturday afternoon at Lucy’s, because she’d persuaded their Uncle Ted to come for a short visit. There was no doubt that Ted had aged considerably since their aunt’s death. He seemed to have shrunk, and several times lost the thread of conversation. Twice, he called Lucy ‘Joan’.
‘What d’you think?’ Lucy whispered to Strike in the kitchen, where he’d gone to help her with coffee.
‘Well, I don’t think he thinks you are Joan,’ said Strike quietly. ‘But yeah… I think we should get him looked at by someone. Someone who can assess him for dementia.’
‘It’d be his GP, wouldn’t it?’ said Lucy. ‘First?’
‘Probably,’ said Strike.
‘I’ll ring and see if I can make an appointment for him,’ said Lucy. ‘I know he’ll never leave Cornwall, but it’d be so much easier to look after him here.’
Guilt, which wasn’t entirely due to the fact that Lucy did considerably more looking after Ted than he did, prompted Strike to say, ‘If you make the appointment, I’ll go down to Cornwall and go with him. Report back.’
‘Stick, are you serious?’ said Lucy, astonished. ‘Oh my God, that would be ideal. You’re about the only person who could stop him cancelling.’
Strike travelled back to Denmark Street that evening with the now familiar faint depression dogging him. Talking to Robin, even on work matters, tended to lift his mood, but that option wasn’t open to him and might not be possible for weeks. Another text from Bijou, which arrived while he was making himself an omelette, caused him nothing but irritation.
So are you undercover somewhere you can’t get texts or am I being ghosted?
He ate his omelette at the kitchen table. Once finished, he picked up his mobile with a view to dealing with at least one problem quickly and cleanly. After thinking for a few moments, and dismissing any idea of ending what, in his view, had never started, he typed:
Busy, no time for meet ups for foreseeable future
If she had any pride, he thought, that would be the end of the matter.
He spent most of a chilly Sunday on surveillance, handing over to Midge at four o’clock, then drove out to Ealing for his meeting with Abigail Glover.
The Forester on Seaford Road was a large pub with an exterior featuring wooden columns, window baskets and green tiled walls, its sign showing a stump with an axe sticking out of it. Strike ordered himself the usual zero-alcohol beer and took a corner table for two beside the wood-panelled wall.
Twenty minutes passed, and Strike had started to wonder whether Abigail had changed her mind about meeting him, when a tall and striking woman entered the bar, wearing gym gear with a coat hastily slung over it. The only picture he’d found of Abigail online had been small and she’d been wearing overalls, surrounded by fellow fire fighters who were all male. What hadn’t been captured by the photograph was how good looking she was. She’d inherited her father’s large, dark blue eyes and firm, dimpled chin, but her mouth was fuller than Wace’s, her pale skin flawless and her high cheekbones could have been those of a model. He knew her to be in her mid-thirties, but her hair, which was tied back in a ponytail, was already grey. Strangely, it not only suited her, it made her look younger, her skin being fine and unlined. She nodded greetings to a couple of men at the bar, then spotted him and strode, long-le