The intensity of indoctrination crept up even further during Robin’s third week at the farm. New members were regularly bombarded with dreadful images and statistics about the outside world, sometimes for hours at a time. Even though Robin knew this was being done to create a sense of urgency with regard to the war the UHC was supposedly waging on the Adversary, and to bind recruits more closely to the church as the world’s only hope, she doubted anyone of normal empathy could fail to feel distressed and anxious after being forced to look at hundreds upon hundreds of images of starving and wounded children, or learning the statistics on people trafficking and world poverty, or hearing how the rainforest would be entirely destroyed within another two decades. It was difficult not to agree that the planet was on the brink of collapse, that humanity had taken terrible wrong turns and that it would face an awful reckoning unless it changed its ways. The anxiety induced by this constant bombardment of dreadful news was such that Robin welcomed the times recruits were led to the temple to chant on the hard floor, where she experienced the blessed relief of not thinking, of losing herself in the collective voice of the group. Once or twice, she found herself muttering Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu even when nobody around her was chanting.
Her only real bulwark against the onslaught of indoctrination was to remind herself, constantly, what she was at the farm to do. Unfortunately, her third week inside the church yielded very little in the way of useful information. Emily Pirbright and Will Edensor remained impossible to engage in conversation due to the unacknowledged system of segregation in place at the farm. In spite of Will’s wealth and Emily’s almost lifelong membership of the church, both were currently acting as farmhands and domestic servants, whereas Robin continued to spend most of her time in the temple or the lecture room. Nevertheless, she tried to keep a covert eye on both of them, and her observation led her to a couple of deductions.
The first was that Will Edensor was trying, as far as he dared, to maintain personal contact with the white-haired toddler Robin had previously seen him comforting. She was now almost certain that Qing was the daughter he’d had with Lin Pirbright, a conclusion reinforced when she spotted Lin cuddling the child in the shadow of some bushes near the farmhouse. Will and Lin were both in clear breach of the church’s teaching on materialist possession, and risking severe penalties if their ongoing quest to maintain a parental relationship with their daughter was made known to Mazu, Taio and Becca, who were currently reigning supreme at Chapman Farm in the absence of Jonathan Wace.
Still more intriguingly, Robin had noticed definite signs of tension and possibly dislike between the Pirbright sisters. She hadn’t forgotten that Becca and Emily had accused their dead brother of sexually abusing them, yet she’d seen no signs of solidarity between the pair. On the contrary, whenever they found themselves in close proximity, they made no eye contact and generally removed themselves from each other’s vicinity as quickly as possible. Given that church members usually made a point of greeting each other as they passed in the yard, and an elaborate courtesy was observed when it came to opening doors for each other, or ceding to each other when it came to vacant spaces in the dining hall, this behaviour definitely couldn’t be attributed to fear of succumbing to materialist possession. Robin wondered whether Becca was afraid of being tarnished by the faint aura of disgrace which hung over the shaven-headed Emily, or whether there was another, more personal, source of animosity. The sisters seemed united in one thing only: disdain for the woman who’d brought them into the world. Not once did Robin see any sign of warmth towards or even acknowledgement of Louise from either of her daughters.
Robin was still keeping track of the days with the tiny pebbles she picked up daily. The approach of her third Thursday at the farm brought the now familiar mixture of excitement and nerves, because while she craved communication from the outside world, the nocturnal journey to the plastic rock remained nerve-wracking.
When the lights went out, she dressed beneath the covers again, waited for the other women to fall silent, and for the usual snorers to prove they’d fallen asleep, then got quietly out of bed.
The night was cold and windy, a stiff breeze blowing across the dark field as Robin crossed it, and she entered the woods to the sound of trees creaking and rustling around her. To her relief, she found the plastic rock more easily than she’d done previously.
When Robin opened the rock she saw a letter from Strike, a note in Ryan’s handwriting, and, to her delight, a small bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Easing herself behind a tree, she ripped the wrapping off the chocolate and devoured it in a few bites, so hungry she couldn’t slow down to savour it. She then turned on the torch and opened Ryan’s letter.
Dear Robin,
It was great to hear from you, I was getting worried. The farm sounds bizarre, although being a country girl you’re probably not hating it as much as I would.
Not much news this end. Work’s busy. Currently on a new murder case but it lacks something without the involvement of a hot female private detective.
I had a long phone conversation with your mother last night. She’s worried about you, but I talked her down.
My sister in San Sebastian wants us to go over there in July because she’s gagging to meet you. There’d be worse ways of celebrating you getting out of that place.
Anyway, I’m really missing you, so please don’t join up and never come back.
Love, Ryan xxx
PS Your plants are still alive.
In spite of her recent ingestion of chocolate, this letter didn’t do much to lift Robin’s spirits. Hearing that Ryan and her mother were worried about her did nothing to calm the guilt and fear the UHC was busy inculcating in her. Nor could she think of things like summer holidays right now, when every day seemed to last a week.
She now turned to Strike’s note.
Thursday 28th April
Very good job on your quick thinking re: your sister. Midge has written a letter back to you from 14 Plympton Road NW6 2JJ (address will be on letter). It’s Pat’s sister’s place (she’s got a different surname from Pat, so no easily discoverable connection – could be Theresa’s landlady). She’ll alert us if you write back, we’ll collect the letter and Midge can respond again.
I’ve met the Graves family. Turns out Alex Graves had a quarter of a million to leave, which Mazu inherited when Daiyu died. Colonel Graves is convinced the Waces and Cherie were in cahoots over the drowning. I’ve had no luck tracing Cherie Gittins in spite of a couple of possible leads. Her life post-farm definitely suggests she had something to hide: several name changes and a brush with the law in the form of a pharmacy-robbing boyfriend.
Not much other news. The Franks have gone quiet. Still trying to find a replacement for Littlejohn. Wardle might know someone and I’m trying to fix up an interview.
Don’t forget: the moment you’ve had enough, say the word and we’ll come and get you out.
Sx
Unlike Ryan’s note, Strike’s brought a measure of comfort, because Robin had been fretting about what she was going to do to keep the fiction of Theresa alive. She tugged the top off the biro with her teeth and began to write back to Strike, apologising for the lack of concrete information but saying that she didn’t want to leave the farm until she had something Sir Colin could use against the church. Having finished her note with thanks for the chocolate, she dashed off a quick message for Ryan, enclosed both with the torch and the pen in the plastic rock, then tore up their letters and the chocolate wrapper. Instead of scattering the fragments in the wood, she slid a hand beneath the barbed wire and dropped them onto the road, where the breeze immediately carried them away. Robin watched the white specks disappearing into the darkness, and felt envious of them for escaping Chapman Farm.
She then made her way back through the whispering woods, shivering slightly in spite of the fact that she was wearing pyjamas under her tracksuit, and set back off across the field.
42
Nine in the fifth place means:
A melon covered with willow leaves.
Hidden lines…
The melon, like the fish, is a symbol of the principle of darkness.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Robin had almost reached the five-bar gate when she heard voices and saw lanterns swinging down the passage between the men’s and women’s dormitories. Terrified, she ducked down behind the hedge, certain that her empty bed had been discovered.
‘… check Lower Field and the woods,’ said a voice she thought she recognised as Taio’s.
‘He won’t’ve got that far,’ said a second male voice.
‘Do as you’re fucking told,’ said Taio. ‘You two do the Retreat Rooms, all of them.’
A man climbed over the five-bar gate, his lantern swinging, barely ten feet from where Robin was crouching. The lamplight darted towards and away from her as he set off, and she saw the short dreadlocks of the black man who’d told Vivienne off for using the phrase ‘go to hell’.
‘Bo!’ he bellowed, striding off towards the woods. ‘Bo, where are you?’
Such was Robin’s panic it took her a few seconds to compute that they weren’t looking for her after all, but her situation remained perilous. The women surely wouldn’t sleep through this shouting for long, and if the searchers entered her dormitory to look for the unknown Bo, they’d soon discover there were two people missing, not one. Waiting for the voices and lights of the search party to recede, Robin climbed quickly over the five-bar gate, then had to crouch down behind more bushes as Jiang emerged f