‘Yeah,’ said Robin. ‘Thank God.’
Vivienne turned away to serve a mother whose small child had dragged her over to look at the plush turtles. When they’d departed, the little boy clutching his new turtle, Vivienne turned back to Robin.
‘You know Papa J’s been in LA?’ Her voice softened as she said ‘Papa J’; clearly, Robin’s companion was now as thoroughly smitten with the church’s founder as most of the women at Chapman Farm, and indeed some of the men. ‘Well, he’s coming back next week.’
‘Really?’ said Robin.
‘Yeah. He always comes back for the Manifestation of the Drowned Prophet… Have you spirit bonded with him?’
‘No,’ said Robin. ‘Have you?’
‘No,’ sighed Vivienne, her longing quite evident.
Taio came back several times over the next couple of hours to check how much money was in the strongbox underneath the table. On one of these occasions, he arrived chewing, and brushed flakes of what looked like pastry from around his mouth. He neither suggested that the other two eat anything, nor brought them any food.
Hours passed, and Robin started to feel light-headed by what she knew, from the position of the sun, must be mid-afternoon. Inured though she was to hunger and tiredness at the farm, it was a new challenge to stand on one spot for so long, having to smile, make cheerful conversation and proselytise for the church while the sun beat down on you, and without even the usual meal of sloppy noodles and overcooked vegetables to sustain her.
‘Robin!’
‘Yes?’
She turned automatically towards the person who’d spoken her name, and one second of icy horror later, realised what she’d done. A little boy who was holding a plush, red-breasted bird in one hand, and introducing it to the turtle his father had just bought him. Vivienne was looking at Robin strangely.
‘It’s my nickname,’ Robin told Vivienne, forcing a laugh, as the father and son walked away. ‘It’s what my sis—I mean, one of my flesh objects calls me, sometimes.’
‘Oh,’ said Vivienne. ‘Why’s she call you Robin?’
‘She had a book about Robin Hood,’ Robin invented wildly. ‘It was her favourite, before I was born. She wanted my parents to call me Rob—’
She broke off. Taio was running down the street towards them, red-faced and sweaty: heads turned as he galumphed past shoppers in his white tracksuit, his face both angry and panicked.
‘Problem,’ he panted, on arriving at the stall. ‘Emily’s gone.’
‘What?’ gasped Vivienne.
‘Fucking Jiang,’ said Taio. ‘Give me the strongbox and pack up the merchandise. We’ve got to find her.’
66
DECREASE combined with sincerity…
It furthers one to undertake something.
How is this to be carried out?
One may use two small bowls for the sacrifice.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
When Taio had run off clutching the strongbox, Robin and Vivienne stripped the stall, leaving the metal frame standing.
‘Just leave all that,’ said Vivienne in panic, as Robin stuffed the last of the turtles and corn dollies back into their boxes. ‘Oh my God. What if she’s gone DV?’
The collecting box rattled in Robin’s hands as she and Vivienne set off at a jog up Castle Street. Robin wondered at Vivienne’s total, unquestioning acceptance of the fact that a grown woman choosing to break away from the group was dangerous. Did nothing about Vivienne’s own panic make her ask why such strict control was necessary? Apparently not: Vivienne was darting into every shop they passed, as alarmed as a mother might be on finding out her toddler had gone missing. In their matching white tracksuits, with the noisy collecting box clutched to Robin’s chest, the pair drew more startled looks from passers-by.
‘Is that her?’ gasped Vivienne.
Robin saw the flash of white Vivienne had spotted, but it turned out to be a shaven-headed youth in an England football strip.
‘Wait,’ panted Robin, jogging to a halt. ‘Vivienne, wait! We should split up, we’ll cover more ground. You check down there –’ Robin pointed at Davey Place ‘– and I’ll keep going this way. We’ll meet back at the stall if we haven’t found her in an hour, OK?’
‘How will we know—?’
‘Just ask someone the time!’
‘All right,’ said Vivienne, although she looked scared at being left on her own, ‘I suppose that makes sense.’
Fearing that Vivienne might change her mind if given time to think about it, Robin set off at a run again and, glancing over her shoulder, was relieved to see Vivienne disappear into Davey Place.
Robin immediately turned left up a side road, emerging onto a wide street, which ran past a huge grassy mound on top of which stood Norwich Castle, an enormous and imposing crenellated cube of stone.
Robin leaned back against the wall of a shop to catch her breath. Aftershocks at having been so foolish as to respond to her real name were still ricocheting through her. Had her explanation been good enough? Might Vivienne forget the lapse, in the shock of hearing that Emily had disappeared? Looking up at the imposing façade of the castle, she heard Strike’s voice in her head:
You’re compromised. You’ve put your real identity within grasping distance of anyone who gets suspicious of you. Get out now. One more mistake and you’re toast.
And that, Robin thought guiltily, was without Strike knowing that Lin had caught her with the torch in the woods. She could just imagine what he’d say to that, too.
Just because she hasn’t talked yet doesn’t mean she won’t. All it needs is a few people to share their suspicions.
Robin imagined going to a telephone box now, just as Niamh Doherty’s father had done so many years ago, and making a reverse charge call to the office to tell Pat she needed to come out. The thought of hearing Pat’s gruff voice, of knowing she’d never have to return to Chapman Farm, of being safe forever against the threat of Taio and spirit bonding, was incredibly tempting.
But against all of that was the job still undone. She’d discovered nothing sufficiently damaging about the church to force a meeting between Will Edensor and his family. While she had a few titbits that might be compromising, such as Giles Harmon’s liaison with the possibly underage Lin, Robin doubted her word would stand up against the might of the UHC’s lawyers, especially as Lin, born and raised in the UHC, was highly unlikely to give evidence against a Principal of the church.
I’ve got to stay, she told the Strike in her head, and I know you would, too, if you were me.
Robin closed her eyes for a moment or two, exhausted and hungry, and among the disconnected thoughts sliding through her mind was, and there’s Ryan.
Ryan, whom she thought about far less than Strike these days… but that, surely, was because she was so focused on the job… it was natural, inevitable…
Robin took a deep breath and set off again, scanning the street for Emily, though she was certain the woman was long gone. She might have hitched a lift, or made a reverse charge call of her own to some relative who might be able to come and collect her. With luck, though, the agency would be able to trace Emily on the outside…
‘What?’ Robin exclaimed, coming to an abrupt halt, her eyes on a folded copy of The Times in a rack at the entrance to a newsagents. Evidently, Britain had voted to leave the EU.
She’d just lifted the paper out of the rack to read the story, when she saw a white-clad figure in the distance. Jiang was approaching from the opposite direction, his expression furious. Robin stuffed the paper hastily back into its slot, wheeled around and hurried back the way she’d come: she didn’t think Jiang had spotted her, and had no desire to meet him. Having hurried down a narrow, pedestrianised side street, she entered a covered arcade she hadn’t previously seen. Glancing behind her, she saw Jiang pass in front of the castle and disappear from view.
The arcade in which Robin now stood was old and rather beautiful, with a high vaulted glass ceiling, Art Nouveau tiles above the shopfronts and pendant lights like giant harebells. Desperate for further tidings of the outside world, Robin walked on, looking for a newsagents until, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a patch of white.
Through a gap between the colourful puppets displayed in a toy shop’s window she saw the bald Emily gazing blankly at shelves of toys as though hypnotised, her collecting box cradled to her chest.
After one astonished moment, Robin doubled back to enter the shop. Moving quietly in her trainers, she rounded the end of a row of shelves.
‘Emily?’
Emily jumped and stared at Robin as though she’d never seen her before.
‘Um… people are looking for you. Are you… what are you doing?’
The resentment bordering on occasional anger that Emily displayed at Chapman Farm had gone. She was chalk white and shaking.
‘It’s OK,’ said Robin, speaking as she might have spoken to somebody disorientated who’d just suffered a physical accident.
‘Is Taio angry?’ Emily whispered.
‘He’s worried,’ said Robin, not entirely untruthfully.
If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought Emily had taken some kind of stimulant. Her pupils were dilated and a muscle in her cheek was flickering.
‘I did that thing to him – you know – in the Retreat Room – that thing where you suck their—?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, very aware of children’s voices on the other side of the shelves.
‘—so he’d let me come to Norwich.’
‘Right,’ said Robin. Various courses of action were running through her mind. She could call Strike and see whether he’d pick Emily up, advise Emily to call a relative, if she had any outside the church, or tell Emily to turn herself in to the police, but all of these options would necessarily reveal Robin’s lack of allegiance to the UHC, and if Emily refused, Robin would have placed her own security in the hands of the woman now quivering uncontrollably in front of the shelves of Sylvanian Families.