Strike now took out his notebook and pen. Phillipa’s and Nicholas’ eyes followed these movements closely.
‘He started applying for money the moment he moved in with Mazu, but the trustees weren’t going to give him money just to fritter away,’ said the colonel. ‘Then Allie turned up here one day out of the blue to tell us Mazu was pregnant.’
‘He said he wanted money to get baby things, and make Mazu comfortable,’ said Mrs Graves.
‘Daiyu was born in May 1988, right?’ asked Strike.
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Graves. The tremor in her hands was making every sip of tea risky. ‘Born at the farm. Allie rang us up, and we drove over right away, to see the baby. Mazu was lying in a filthy bed, nursing Daiyu, and Allie was very thin and jittery.’
‘As bad as he’d been before he was arrested,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Orf his medication. Told us he didn’t need it.’
‘We’d taken presents for Daiyu, and Mazu didn’t even thank us,’ said his wife. ‘But we kept visiting. We were worried about Allie, and about the baby, too, because the living conditions were quite unsanitary. Daiyu was very sweet, though. Looked just like Allie.’
‘Spittin’ image,’ said the colonel.
‘Except dark, and Allie was fair,’ said Mrs Graves.
‘Would you happen to have a picture of Allie?’ asked Strike.
‘Nick, could you—?’ asked Mrs Graves.
Nicholas reached behind him and extracted a framed photo from behind the one of Phillipa sitting on the large grey horse.
‘That’s Allie’s twenty-second,’ said Mrs Graves, as Nicholas passed the picture over the tea things. ‘When he was all right, before…’
The picture showed a group, at the centre of which stood a young man with a narrow head, blond hair and a distinctly rabbity face, though his lopsided grin was endearing. He greatly resembled the colonel.
‘Yes, Daiyu was very like him,’ said Strike.
‘How would you know?’ said Phillipa coldly.
‘I saw a photo of her in an old news report,’ Strike explained.
‘I always thought she was just like her mother, personally,’ said Phillipa.
Strike was scanning the rest of the group in the photograph. Phillipa was there, dark haired and stocky as she was in the hunting photograph, and beside her stood Nick, his hair military short, with his right arm in a sling.
‘Injured on exercises?’ Strike asked Nicholas, passing the photograph back.
‘What? Oh, no. Just a stupid accident.’
Nicholas took the photograph back from Strike and replaced it carefully, hiding it again behind the one of his wife on her magnificent hunter.
‘D’you remember Jonathan Wace coming to live at the farm?’ asked Strike.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Graves, quietly. ‘We were completely taken in. Thought he was the best thing about the place, didn’t we, Archie? And you liked him, didn’t you, Pips?’ she said timidly. ‘At first?’
‘He was politer than Mazu, that’s all,’ said the unsmiling Phillipa.
‘Fella seemed intelligent,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘One realised later it was all an act, but he was charmin’ when you first met him. Talked about the sustainable farming they were going to do. Made it sound quite worthy.’
‘I looked him up,’ said Nicholas. ‘He wasn’t lying. He had been to Harrow. Big in the drama society, apparently.’
‘He told us he was keeping an eye on Allie, Mazu and the baby,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Making sure they were all right. We thought he was a good thing, at the time.’
‘Then the religious stuff started creepin’ in,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Lectures on Eastern philosophy and what have yeh. Thought it was harmless at first. We were far more concerned about Allie’s mental state. The letters to the trustees kept comin’, clearly dictated by someone else. Passin’ himself orf as a partner in the farming business, y’know. Balderdash, but hard to disprove. They got a fair bit out of the trust, one way or another.’
‘Every time we visited the farm, Allie was worse,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘and we could tell there was something between Mazu and Jonathan.’
‘Only time she ever cracked a smile was when Wace was around,’ said Colonel Graves.
‘And she’d started treating Allie awf’ly,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Spiteful, y’know. “Stop babbling.” “Stop making a fool of yourself.”’ And Allie was chanting and fasting and whatever else Jonathan was making him do.’
‘We wanted Allie to see another doctor, but he said medicines were poison, and he’d be fine as long as kept his spirit pure,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Then, one day, Baba visited – you two were with her, werencha?’
‘Yes,’ said Phillipa stiffly. ‘We’d just got back from our honeymoon. We took photos of the wedding with us. I don’t know why. It’s not as though Allie was interested. And there was a row.
‘They claimed to be offended we hadn’t asked Daiyu to be a flower girl,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘Such nonsense. We’d sent Allie and Mazu invitations, but we knew they wouldn’t come. Jonathan wouldn’t let Allie leave the farm by then, except to collect money on the street. The flower girl thing was just an excuse to wind Allie up and make him think we all hated him and his child.’
‘Not that we wanted her as a flower girl,’ said Nicholas. ‘She was—’
His wife shot him a look and he fell silent.
‘Allie was making no sense at all that day,’ said Mrs Graves desperately. ‘I said to Mazu, “He’s got to see someone. He’s got to see a doctor.”’
‘Wace told us Allie just needed to clear his ego, and balls like that,’ said Nicholas. ‘And I bloody well let him have it. Told him, if he wanted to live like a pig that was his business, and if he wanted to spout crap at credulous morons who’d pay for the pleasure, fine, but the family had bloody well had enough of it. And I said to Allie, “If you can’t see this for the bollocks it is, then you’re even more of a fool than I thought you were, you need your head sorted out, now get in the bloody car—”’
‘But he wouldn’t come,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘and then Mazu said she was going to take out a restraining order against us. She was pleased there’d been a row. It’s what she wanted.’
‘That’s when we decided somethin’ had to be done,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘I hired O’Connor, the detective chappie I told you about on th’phone. Brief was to dig inter Mazu and Wace’s backgrounds, get somethin’ we could use against them.’
‘Did he get anything?’ asked Strike, his pen poised.
‘Got a bit on the gel. Found out she was born at Chapman Farm. He thought she was one of the Crowthers’ children – yeh know about that business? Mother was dead. She’d left the gel at the farm and gawn orf to work as a prostitute in London. Drug overdose. Pauper’s grave.
‘Wace was clearly a wastrel, but no criminal convictions. Parents were in South Africa. His first wife’s death seemed to have been a pure accident. So we thought: desperate times call for desperate measures. We had O’Connor watchin’ the farm. We knew Allie sometimes went inter Norwich to collect money.
‘We grabbed him orf the street, me, m’brother-in-law and Nick,’ Colonel Graves continued. ‘Bundled him into the back of the car and drove him back hyar. He was goin’ berserk. We dragged him inside, into this room, and kept him here all afternoon and most of the night, tryin’ to talk some sense into him.’
‘He just kept chanting and telling us he had to go back to temple,’ said Mrs Graves hopelessly.
‘We called the local GP,’ said the colonel. ‘He didn’t come until late the next day. Young fella, new at the practice. Moment he walked in, Allie pulled himself together enough to say we’d kidnapped him and were forcin’ him to stay here. Said he wanted to go back to Chapman Farm and begged the chap to get the police.
‘Moment the doctor left, Allie started screamin’ and throwing around furniture – if that bloody GP could’ve seen him like that – and while he was chucking things around, his shirt came untucked and we saw marks on his back. Bruising and welts.’
‘I said to him, “What have they done to you, Allie?”’ said Mrs Graves tearfully, ‘But he wouldn’t answer.’
‘We got him upstairs again, into his old room,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘and he locked the door on us. I was worried he was goin’ to climb out of the window so I went out onto the lawn to keep watch. Worried he’d jump, y’see, tryin’ to get back to Chapman Farm. I was there all night.
‘Early next mornin’, two police officers came round. Tipped orf by the GP we were holdin’ a man against his will. We explained what was goin’ on. We wanted emergency services out to see him. The police said they needed to meet him first, so I went upstairs to get him. Knocked. No answer. Got worried. Nick and I broke down the door.’
Colonel Graves swallowed, then said quietly,
‘He was dead. Hanged himself with a belt, orf a hook on the back of the door.’
There was a brief silence, broken only by the fat Labrador’s snores.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Strike. ‘Appalling for you all.’
Mrs Graves, who was now wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief, whispered,
‘Excuse me.’
She got to her feet and shuffled out of the room. Looking cross, Phillipa followed.
‘One looks back,’ said the old man quietly, once his daughter had closed the door behind her, ‘and thinks “What could we’ve done diff’rently?” If I had to do it all again, I think I’d still’ve forced him into that car, but driven him straight to a hospital. Got him sectioned. But he was terrified of being locked up. I thought he’d never forgive us.’
‘And it might have ended the same way,’ said Strike.
‘Yerse,’ said Colonel Graves, looking directly at the detective. ‘I’ve thought that since, too. Out of his mind. We were too late, by the time we got hold of him. Should’ve acted years before.’
‘There was a post-mortem, I take it?’
Colonel Graves nodded.
‘No surprises on cause of death, but we wanted a professional view on the marks on his back. The police went to th’farm. Wace and Mazu claimed he’d done it to himself, and other church members backed them up.’