The Running Grave — страница 58 из 179

‘Lin—’

‘If you’re not g-g-going to make m-m-me increase—’

The voices became indistinguishable. Robin continued to lie still in her hiding place, heart thumping, ears straining to hear what was going on. The couple were still arguing, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying any more. How long she lay and listened, she didn’t know. Another car swished past. At last, the voices and footsteps died away.

Robin lay where she was for a further five minutes, scared the couple was going to return, then gingerly sat back up again.

Strike’s note was still crumpled up in her hand. She took a few deep breaths, then turned the torch back on, smoothed out the letter and read it.

Thursday 14th April

Hope all’s going well in there. Dev’s going to drop this off and he’ll be in the vicinity until Saturday, checking on the rock until you’ve put a note in. If nothing arrives, we’ll see you Sunday.

I’ve met Abigail Glover, Jonathan Wace’s daughter. Some very interesting stuff. She claims Daiyu wasn’t Wace’s daughter, but Alexander Graves’. Apparently when she died, there was a custody battle for her going on between the Waces and Graves’ parents. Abigail witnessed and suffered plenty of violence in there, and was personally shut in the pigsty, naked, for three nights after Daiyu drowned, but isn’t keen on testifying, unfortunately.

On Tuesday I’m meeting Alexander Graves’ parents. Will let you know how that goes.

Still trying to trace Cherie Gittins, the girl who took Daiyu swimming. I’ve been looking into Daiyu’s death and I’ve got questions. Anything you can find out in there would be helpful.

Might also have found a way of persuading Jordan Reaney to talk to me – Shanker’s got mates inside with him.

Littlejohn is worrying me. He didn’t tell me he worked for Patterson for 3 months before coming to us. Trying to find a replacement.

The Franks remain freaks and might be planning a kidnapping.

Look after yourself. Any time you want to come out, say the word. We’ll batter down the door if necessary.

Sx

Robin wasn’t sure why the note had made her cry, but a tear now dropped down onto the paper. The connection with her outside life had affected her like medicine, fortifying her, and the offer to batter down the door and the single kiss beside Strike’s initial felt like a hug.

Now she took out the pen, propped the small pile of paper on her knee and began to write, clumsily, with the torch held in her left hand.

All going well. Tonight I joined the church. Total submersion in the pool in the temple.

Will Edensor’s here and I’ve just overheard a conversation between him and Lin, Deirdre Doherty’s daughter. She was begging him to make her ‘increase’ again, to stave off having to sleep with ‘him’. No idea who ‘him’ is. Lin even suggested leaving but Will sounds completely indoctrinated, says it would mean damnation. I can’t be certain, but if she’s already had a child in here it might be Will’s. If so, I’m sure she’ll have been underage when she gave birth, because she doesn’t look very old now.

No violence witnessed as yet but the sleep deprivation and underfeeding is real.

Tonight I saw the spirit of Daiyu materialise out of thin air, moving and waving at us all. Jonathan W conjured her. No idea how it was done but I have to say it was effective and I think it convinced nearly everyone.

Robin paused, trying to remember anything else Strike might think significant. She was now shivering with cold and so tired she could barely think.

I think that’s everything, sorry there isn’t more. Hopefully now I’m a real church member I’ll start seeing the bad stuff.

Sounds like a good idea to get rid of Littlejohn when you can.

Robin x

She folded up her note, put it inside the safe rock and replaced the rock where she’d found it. Then, with a heavy heart, she tore Strike’s note into tiny pieces, and began to make her way back through the trees towards the distant farm, strewing pieces of the note into different patches of nettles as she went.

However, she was so tired she’d lost her sense of direction. Soon she found herself in a dense clump of trees she definitely didn’t remember coming through. Panic started to rise in her again. Finally she forced her way between two trunks tangled with creepers, took a few steps across a small clearing and then, with a shriek she couldn’t prevent, fell over something hard and sharp.

‘Shit,’ Robin moaned, feeling for her lower leg. She’d cut herself, though thankfully there was no tear in her trousers. Groping around, she found the thing she’d tripped over: it appeared to be a broken stump or post in the ground. She stood up, and as she did so, she saw by the moonlight that there were several broken posts set in a rough circle. They were definitely manmade and looked unnervingly ritualistic, set amid the surrounding wilderness. Robin remembered Kevin Pirbright’s story of being tied to a tree overnight as punishment when he was twelve. Had there once been posts here, to which an entire group of children could be tied? If so, they appeared to be no longer in use, because they were rotting quietly away in the depths of the wood.

Now limping slightly, Robin set off again and at long last, with the aid of a fleeting spell of moonlight, found the edge of the wood.

Only as she was walking back across the dark, damp field towards the farm did she remember that she hadn’t written a note for Murphy. Far too tired and shaken to go back now, she decided she’d write him an apology next week. Fifteen minutes later, she was climbing the five-bar gate. She passed the now dark and silent Retreat Rooms and, with profound relief, slipped back inside the dormitory undetected.

PART THREE



Chien/Obstruction

OBSTRUCTION means difficulty.

The danger is ahead.

To see the danger and to know how to stand still, that is wisdom.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

37

Through resoluteness one is certain to encounter something.

Hence there follows the hexagram of COMING TO MEET.

The I Ching or Book of Changes




If the receipt of Robin’s letter from Chapman Farm didn’t have quite the same effect on Strike as his had on her, the absence of a note for Ryan Murphy cheered him enormously, a fact he concealed from Dev Shah when the latter confirmed that there’d been only one letter inside the plastic rock when he’d checked before dawn.

‘Well, good to know she’s OK,’ was Strike’s only comment, after reading Robin’s message at the partners’ desk. ‘And that’s a pretty bloody big piece of information she’s got already. If Will Edensor’s fathered a kid in there, we’ve got a partial explanation of why he’s not leaving.’

‘Yeah,’ said Dev. ‘Fear of prosecution. Statutory rape, isn’t it? Gonna tell Sir Colin?’

Strike hesitated, frowning as he rubbed his chin.

‘If the kid’s definitely Will’s he’ll have to know eventually, but I’d rather get a bit more information first.’

‘Underage is underage,’ said Dev.

Strike had never seen Shah look that uncompromising before.

‘I agree. But I’m not sure you can judge what goes on in there by normal standards.’

‘Fuck normal standards,’ said Dev. ‘Keep your dick in your pants around kids.’

There was a short, charged silence, following which Dev announced that he needed to get some sleep, having been up all night in the car, and departed.

‘What’s upset him?’ enquired Pat, as the glass door closed rather harder than necessary and Strike emerged from the inner office with an empty mug in his hand.

‘Sex with underage girls,’ said Strike, moving towards the sink to wash up the mug before heading out for more surveillance on Bigfoot. ‘Not Dev,’ he added.

‘Well, I knew that,’ said Pat.

How Pat could know that, Strike didn’t ask. Dev was easily the most handsome subcontractor employed by the agency and Strike knew from experience that their office manager’s sympathies were most readily engaged by good-looking men. An association of ideas led him to say,

‘Incidentally, if Ryan Murphy calls, tell him there’s no note for him from Robin this week.’

Something in Pat’s sharp glance made Strike say,

‘There wasn’t one in the rock.’

‘All right, I’m not accusing you of burning it,’ snapped Pat, turning back to her typing.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Strike. While he doubted anyone had ever compared Pat to a ray of eternal sunshine, he couldn’t offhand remember her being this tetchy without provocation.

‘Fine,’ said Pat, e-cigarette waggling as she scowled at her monitor.

Strike decided the politic course was to wash his mug in silence.

‘Well, that’s me off to watch Bigfoot,’ he said. As he turned to get his coat, his eye fell on a small pile of receipts on Pat’s desk.

‘Those Littlejohn’s?’

‘Yeah,’ said Pat, her fingers moving rapidly over the keys.

‘Mind if I have a quick look?’

He shuffled through them. There was nothing unusual or extravagant in there; indeed, if anything, they were on the sketchy side.

‘What d’you think of Littlejohn?’ Strike asked Pat, setting the receipts back down beside her.

‘What d’you mean, what do I think of him?’ she said, glaring up at him.

‘Exactly what I said.’

‘He’s all right,’ said Pat, after a moment or two. ‘He’s fine.’

‘Robin told me you don’t like him.’

‘I thought he was a bit quiet when he started, that’s all.’

‘Got chattier, has he?’ said Strike.

‘Yeah,’ said Pat. ‘Well – no – but he’s always polite.’

‘You’ve never noticed him doing anything odd? Behaving strangely? Lying about anything?’

‘No. Why’re you asking me this?’ said Pat.