‘Spiteful,’ said a voice out of the darkness.
‘Shallow,’ said a second.
‘Bitch,’ said a third.
‘I’m sorry,’ Robin said hoarsely, ‘I honestly didn’t mean to—’
‘No, no, there’s no need to apologise to me,’ said Mazu softly. ‘I set no store on physical appearance. But it’s an indication, isn’t it, of what you think is important?’
‘Judge people’s looks a lot, do you?’ asked a female voice from behind Robin.
‘I – I suppose—’
“‘Suppose” is obfuscatory,’ snarled Kyle.
‘You either do or you don’t,’ said Amandeep.
‘Then – I did,’ said Robin. ‘When I worked in PR, there was a tendency—’
‘Never mind tendencies,’ boomed Walter. ‘Never mind PR! What did you do? What did you say?’
‘I remember saying a client looked too big for her dress,’ invented Robin, ‘and she heard me and I felt terrible about it.’
A storm of jeering broke over her. Taio, who was sitting beside his mother, was the only person remaining silent, but he was smiling as he watched Robin.
‘Did you feel terrible, Rowena?’ asked Mazu quietly. ‘Or are you just giving us token examples, to avoid admitting to real shame?’
‘I—’
‘Why was your wedding called off, Rowena?’
‘I – we were arguing a lot.’
‘Whose fault was that?’ demanded Vivienne.
‘Mine,’ said Robin desperately.
‘What did you argue about?’ asked Amandeep.
There shouldn’t be any points of resemblance between your own life and Rowena’s, Strike had said, but he wasn’t here, stupefied by tiredness and fear, forced to come up with a story on the spot.
‘I… thought my fiancé was kind of… he didn’t have a proper job, wasn’t earning much…’
She was reversing the truth: it was Matthew who’d complained about her poor salary when she’d started working for Strike, Matthew who’d thought private detection a joke of a career.
The rest of the group began to call her names, their voices echoing off the dark walls, and Robin could make out only a few individual words: mercenary fucking bitch, gold-digger, greedy slag. Taio’s smile was broadening.
‘Tell us specifically what you said to your fiancé,’ demanded Walter.
‘That his boss was taking advantage of him—’
‘The exact words.’
‘“She’s taking advantage of you”, “she’s only keeping you on because you’re cheap”—’
While they jeered at and insulted her, she dredged her memory for the things Matthew had said about Strike during their marriage.
‘—“she fancies you”, “it’s a matter of time before she makes a move”—’
Now the surrounding circle began to shout.
‘Controlling cow!’
‘Jealous, self-centred—’
‘Stuckup, selfish bitch!’
‘Go on,’ Mazu said to Robin.
‘—and he loved the job,’ said Robin, her mouth now so dry her lips were sticking to her teeth, ‘and I made it as hard as I could for him to continue with it—’
The shouts became louder, echoing off the temple walls. In the dim light she could see fingers pointing at her, flashes of teeth, and still Taio smiled. Robin knew she was supposed to cry, that mercy came only once the person in the middle of the circle had broken down, but even though she could now see little dots of light popping in front of her eyes, something stubborn in her resisted.
Now the circle demanded the excavation of intimate details and ugly scenes. Robin embellished scenes from her marriage, reversing her and Matthew’s positions: now it was she who’d thought her partner was taking too many risks.
‘What risks?’ demanded Amandeep. ‘What was his job?’
‘He was kind of—’
But Robin couldn’t think: what risky job could her imaginary partner have had?
‘—I don’t mean physical risks, it was more that he was sacrificing our financial security—’
‘Money’s very important to you, isn’t it, Rowena?’ called Mazu, over the continuing abuse of the circle.
‘I suppose it was before I came here—’
The slurs became more derisory: the group didn’t believe that she’d changed. Mazu let the insults roll over Robin for a full minute. Voices echoed off the dark walls, calling her worthless, pathetic, a craven snob, a narcissist, a materialist, contemptible—
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something white and glowing high above her on the balcony running round the temple. Vivienne screamed and rose from her seat, pointing.
‘Look! Look! Up there! A little girl, looking down at us! I saw her!’
‘That will be Daiyu,’ said Mazu calmly, glancing up at the now empty balcony. ‘She manifests sometimes when psychic energy is particularly strong. Or she may have come as a warning.’
Silence fell. The group was unsettled. Some continued to stare up at the balcony, others glanced over their shoulders, as though they feared the spirit would come closer. Robin seemed to feel the dull thud of her heart in her throat.
‘What finally made your fiancé end the relationship, Rowena?’ asked Mazu.
Robin opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, use Matthew as her model here. She refused to pretend she’d slept with someone else.
‘Come on!’ barked Walter. ‘Out with it!’
‘She’s trying to invent something,’ sneered Vivienne.
‘Tell us the truth!’ said Amandeep, his eyes shining through his glasses, ‘Nothing but the truth!’
‘I lied to him,’ said Robin hoarsely. ‘His mother died, and I lied about being able to get back in time to help with the funeral, because there was something I wanted to do at work.’
‘You selfish, self-centred bitch,’ spat Kyle.
‘You piece of shit,’ said Vivienne.
Hot tears burst from Robin’s eyes. She doubled over, feigning nothing. Her shame was real: she really had lied to Matthew as she’d described, and she’d felt guilty about it for months afterwards. The cacophony of insults and taunts of the group continued until Robin heard, with a thrill of terror, a high-pitched childish voice joining in, louder than all of the others.
‘You’re nasty. You’re a nasty person.’
The stage tilted. With a shriek, Robin fell sideways off her chair as it tipped over. The rest of the circle were also thrown off balance: they, too, fell off their lurching chairs, Walter crashing to the ground with a yell of pain. Kyle’s chair leg caught Robin on the shoulder as she slid across the smooth surface of the tipping lid, preventing herself from falling into the sliver of black water revealed beneath only by throwing out her arm and pushing against the rim of the pool.
‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ whimpered Vivienne, scrambling to reach the foot-wide rim of the stage, where Mazu and Taio stood, untroubled.
Everyone was fighting to make their way off the slippery, tilted surface: all seemed to have a horror of slipping into the dark water, welcoming as it had seemed during their baptisms. Most of the group helped each other, but no hands were offered to Robin, who had to heave herself onto the ledge of the pool alone, her shoulder smarting where Kyle’s chair had hit it. When everyone had got off the tilted stage, Mazu waved her hand. The lid covering the water moved gently back into place and the temple lights went up.
‘Daiyu’s very sensitive to certain kinds of wickedness,’ said Mazu, her dark eyes on Robin, who stood tear stained and breathless. ‘She had no funeral herself, and so she’s particularly sensitive about the sanctity of rituals surrounding death.’
Though most of Robin’s group mates looked merely frightened, and continued to peer around them for a further sign of Daiyu, a few were looking accusingly at Robin. She couldn’t find her voice to say that she had, in fact, attended Matthew’s mother’s funeral. She was certain any attempt at self-defence would make things worse.
‘We’ll end Revelation here,’ said Mazu. ‘When Daiyu manifests in the temple, things can become dangerous. You may leave for lunch.’
Robin turned to leave, but before she’d taken a step towards the temple doors, a hand closed around her upper arm.
54
Six in the second place
Difficulties pile up…
He wants to woo when the time comes.
The maiden is chaste,
She does not pledge herself.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘You’re all right now,’ said a low voice in Robin’s ear, as Mazu swept past. ‘It’s over. You did well.’
Robin turned, realised it was Taio Wace who’d taken hold of her, and wrenched her arm free. His expression darkened.
‘Sorry,’ said Robin, mopping her tearstained face on her sleeve. ‘I – thank you—’
‘That’s better.’
Taio replaced his hand around her upper arm, the knuckles pressing into her breast, and this time, Robin didn’t resist.
‘Revelation’s always difficult, the first time you do it,’ said Taio.
Robin permitted him to lead her out of the temple, trying to stem the streaming of her nose with her free forearm. Mazu had disappeared, but the rest of the group was now heading for Daiyu’s pool. They threw furtive glances at Taio and Robin as they crossed the courtyard without stopping.
It wasn’t until he led her down the passage between the men’s and women’s dormitories, which was so familiar to her from her nocturnal journeys into the woods, that Robin realised where he was leading her. Sure enough, moments later they were pushing through the bushes that screened the Retreat Rooms. Robin had a split second to decide what to do: she was certain there’d be no going back if she pulled away from Taio, that her status would plummet to a point from which there’d be no recovery. She also knew Strike would advise freeing herself and leaving immediately; she could see her partner’s expression now, hear his anger that she hadn’t taken his warnings, and she remembered assuring him that the UHC only used emotional coercion, that there was no possibility of rape.