Two and a half hours, three mugs of tea and a sandwich later, Strike came across a Facebook account set to private with the name Carrie Curtis Woods. He’d included ‘Carrie’ in his search as a shortened version of ‘Carine’. As the double surname was unhyphenated, he suspected the account owner would be American rather than English, but the photograph had caught his attention. The smiling woman had the same curly blonde hair and insipid prettiness of the first picture of Cherie he’d found. In the picture, she was cuddling two young girls Strike supposed were her daughters.
Strike had just sent a follow request to Curtis Woods when the music in the outer office ceased abruptly. He heard a male voice. After a moment or two, the phone on Strike’s desk rang.
‘What’s up?’
‘There’s a Barry Saxon here to see you.’
‘Never heard of him,’ said Strike.
‘He says he’s met you. Says he knows an Abigail Glover.’
‘Oh,’ said Strike, closing Facebook, as the memory of a glowering, bearded man presented itself: Baz, of the Forester pub. ‘OK. Give me a minute, then send him in.’
49
Nine in the third place means…
A goat butts against a hedge
And gets its horns entangled.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Strike rose and went to the noticeboard on the wall, where he’d pinned various items relating to the UHC case, and folded the wooden wings to conceal the Polaroids of teenagers in pig masks and the photo of Kevin Pirbright’s bedroom. He’d just sat down when the door opened, and Barry Saxon entered.
Strike judged him to be around forty. He had very small, deep-set hazel eyes with large pouches beneath them, and his hair and beard looked as though their owner spent a lot of time caring for them. He came to a halt before Strike, with his hands in his jeans pockets, feet planted wide apart.
‘You weren’ Terry, then,’ he said, squinting at the detective.
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘How did you find that out?’
‘Ab told Patrick, an’ ’e told me.’
With an effort, Strike recalled that Patrick was Abigail Glover’s lodger.
‘Does Abigail know you’re here?’
‘Not bloody likely,’ said Saxon, with a slight snort.
‘D’you want to sit down?’
Saxon cast a suspicious look at the chair where Robin usually sat, before taking his hands out of his pockets and doing as invited.
He and Saxon might only have been in direct contact for less than two minutes, but Strike thought he knew what kind of man was sitting opposite him. Saxon’s attempt to scupper what he’d thought was Abigail’s date with ‘Terry’, coupled with his present attitude of smouldering resentment, reminded Strike of an estranged husband who was one of the few clients he’d ever turned down. In that case, Strike had been convinced that if he located the man’s ex-wife, who he claimed was unreasonably resisting all contact in spite of the fact that there were unspecified things that needed ‘sorting out’, he’d have been enabling an act of revenge, and possibly violence. While that particular man had worn a Savile Row suit as opposed to a tight red checked shirt with buttons that strained across his torso, Strike thought he recognised in Saxon the same barely veiled thirst for vengeance.
‘How can I help?’ asked Strike.
‘I don’ wan’ help,’ said Saxon. ‘I’ve got fings to tell ya. You’re investigatin’ that church, incha? The one wiv Ab’s farver?’
‘I don’t discuss open investigations, I’m afraid,’ said Strike.
Saxon shifted irritably in the chair.
‘She covered fings up when she talked to you. She didn’t tell the troof. A man called Kevin somefing got shot, din’ ’e?’
As this information was in the public domain, Strike saw no reason to deny it.
‘An’ ’e was tryna expose the church, wannee?’
‘He was an ex-member,’ said Strike non-committally.
‘All righ’, well – Ab knows the church shot ’im. She knows the church ’ad ’im killed. An’ she killed someone ’erself, when she was in there! Never told you that, did she? An’ she’s freatened me. She’s tole me I’m next!’
Strike wasn’t quite as impressed by these dramatic statements as Saxon evidently wished him to be. Nevertheless, he drew his notebook towards him.
‘Shall we start at the beginning?’
Saxon’s expression became a degree less dissatisfied.
‘What d’you do for a living, Barry?’
‘Wha’ d’you wanna know tha’ for?’
‘Standard question,’ said Strike, ‘but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’
‘’M’a Tube driver. Same as Patrick,’ he added, as though there were safety in numbers.
‘How long have you known Abigail?’
‘Two years, so I know a lotta stuff about ’er.’
‘Met her through Patrick, did you?’
‘Yeah, a bunch of us wen’ ou’ drinkin’. She’s always go’ men around ’er, I soon found that out.’
‘And you and she went out together subsequently, alone?’ asked Strike.
‘Tol’ you tha’, did she?’ said Saxon, and it was hard to tell whether he was more aggrieved or gratified.
‘Yeah, after you came over to our table in the pub,’ said Strike.
‘Whaddid she say? ’Cause I bet she ain’ told you the troof.’
‘Just that you and she had been out for drinks together.’
‘It was more’n drinks, a lot more. She’s up for anyfing. Then I realised ’ow many other blokes she’s got on the go. I’m lucky I never caugh’ nuffing,’ said Saxon, with a little upwards jerk of his chin.
Familiar with the commonplace male disdain for women who enjoyed an adventurous sex life that either excluded or no longer included them, Strike continued asking questions that were designed purely to assess how much credence should be given to any information Saxon had to offer. He had a feeling the answer might be zero.
‘So you ended the relationship, did you?’
‘Yeah, I ain’ puttin’ up wiv that,’ said Saxon, with another little jerk of the chin, ‘but then she gets pissy abou’ me goin’ up the gym an’ the Forester’s an’ goin’ round ’er flat to see Patrick. Accuses me of fuckin’ stalkin’ ’er. Don’ flatter yourself, sweet’eart. I know a lotta stuff abou’ ’er,’ repeated Saxon. ‘So she shouldn’ be fuckin’ freatenin’ me!’
‘You said she killed someone, while in the church,’ said Strike, his pen poised.
‘Yeah – well – good as,’ said Saxon. ‘Because, right, Patrick ’eard ’er ’aving a nightmare, an’ she’s yelling “Cut it up smaller, cut it up smaller!” An’ ’e goes an’ bangs on ’er door – he said she was makin’ fuckin’ ’orrible noises – this is after she met you. She told Patrick it brought stuff up for ’er, what you two talked about.’
Strike was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Abigail and her upbringing were a source of prurient interest for her lodger and his friend that amounted almost to an unhealthy hobby. Aloud, he said,
‘How did she kill this person?’
‘I’m tellin’ ya. She told Patrick there was this kid at the farm ’oo was, you know,’ Saxon tapped his temple, ‘bit simple an’ ’e’d done somefing wrong an’ ’e was gonna be whipped. So she an’ this ovver girl, they felt sorry for ’im, so they runs off an’ ’gets the whip an’ ’ides it.
‘So then, when ’er stepmuvver can’t find it, she tells a group of ’em to beat the shit out of the kid instead, an’ Ab joined in, kickin’ and punchin’ ’im. An’ after the stepmuvver decides the kid’s ’ad enough, she says she’s gonna search the farm for the whip an’ ’ooever’s taken it’s gonna be in trouble. So Ab an’ ’er friend goes runnin’ off to the kitchen where they ’id it an’ they was tryna cut it up wiv scissors when the stepmuvver comes in an’ finds ’em, an’ then they was whipped wiv it themselves.’
There was a faint trace of salacious pleasure in Saxon’s voice as he said this.
‘An’ the simple kid died,’ he concluded.
‘After the beating?’
‘No,’ said Saxon, ‘few years later, after ’e left the farm. But it was ’er fault, ’er and the rest of ’em beating ’im up, ’cause she told Patrick’e was never right after they all kicked the shit out of ’im, like maybe brain damage or somefing. An’ she saw in the paper ’e’d died, an’ she reckoned it was ’cause of what they’d done to ’im.’
‘Why was his death in the paper?’
‘’Cause ’e got ’imself into a bad situation, which he wouldna done if ’e ‘adn’t ’ad brain damage, so she killed ’im, good as. She said it ’erself. Beatin’ an’ kickin’ him. She did that.’
‘She was forced to do it,’ Strike corrected Saxon.
‘Still GBH,’ said Saxon. ‘She still done it.’
‘She was a child, or a teenager, in a very abusive envi—’
‘Ah, righ’, you fallen for the act as well, ’ave ya?’ said Saxon with a sneer. ‘Got you twisted round ’er little finger? You ain’ never seen ’er pissed an’ angry. Little church girl? She’s got a scary fuckin’ temper on ’er—’
‘If that was a crime, I’d be inside myself,’ said Strike. ‘What did she say about Kevin Pirbright?’
‘Well, this is when she freatened me,’ said Saxon, rallying again.
‘When was this?’
‘Two days ago, in the Grosvenor—’
‘What’s that, a bar?’
‘Pub. Yeah, so, she wen’ off on one ’cause I was in there. It’s a free fuckin’ country. Not up to ’er where I drink. She was wiv some dick from the gym. All I done was give ’im a friendly warnin’—’
‘Like the one you gave me?’
‘Yeah,’ said Saxon, with another little upwards jerk of the chin, ‘’cause men need to know wha’ she’s like. I come out the bog an’ she’s waitin’ for me. She’d ’ad a few, she drinks like a fuckin’ fish, an’ she’s tellin’ me to stop followin’ ’er round, an’ I says, “You fink you’re your fuckin’ farver dontcha? Tellin’ everyone where they’re allowed to fuckin’ go,” an’ she says, “You wanna bring my farver into this, I could ’ave you taken out, I’ll tell ’im you go walkin’ round slaggin’ off the church, you don’ know ’oo you’re messin’ wiv,” an’ I told ’er she was talkin’ bollocks an’ she started fuckin’ jabbin’ me on the shoulder,’ Saxon unconsciously raised his hand to touch the spot where Abigail had presumably hit him, ‘an’ she says, “They got guns—”’