The Running Grave, page 67
‘I’m in the bathroom,’ Robin shouted. Turning back to Emily, whom she could no longer see in the dark, she said,
‘Quickly – did you ever tell Kevin what you saw? Tell me, please.’
‘Yes,’ said Emily. ‘Later. Ages later. When I told Becca I’d seen Cherie helping Daiyu out of the window, she said, “You didn’t see that, you can’t have done. If you couldn’t see Daiyu in her bed, it was because she can turn invisible.” Becca loved Cherie too. Becca would’ve done anything for her. When Cherie left, I cried for days. It was like losing – oh God,’ said Emily, panicked.
Footsteps were coming along the corridor. The door opened and the light was slapped on. Jiang stood revealed in the doorway, wearing a blue tracksuit. Jacob’s eyes opened and he began to whimper. Scowling, Jiang averted his gaze from his son.
‘Sorry,’ Robin said to Jiang. ‘I needed the loo and then I had to tell Emily when I last gave him a drink and changed his—’
‘I don’t need the details,’ snapped Jiang. ‘Come on.’
87
Nine in the fourth place means:
Then the companion comes,
And him you can trust.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
As Jiang and Robin walked together down the stairs he said,
‘Stinks, that room.’
His eye was flickering worse than ever.
Robin said nothing. Perhaps it was her advanced state of exhaustion, but she seemed to have become a mass of nerves and hypersensitivities: just as surely as she’d known Strike had arrived at the perimeter, she had a sense that the longer she remained in the farmhouse, the worse it would be for her.
As they walked down the last flight of scarlet-carpeted stairs into the hall, Robin heard a gust of laughter, and Wace appeared from a side room, holding a glass of what looked like wine. He was now wearing a silk version of the blue tracksuit worn by ordinary members, his expensive leather slides on his feet.
‘Artemis!’ he said, smiling as though the previous night hadn’t happened, as though he didn’t know he’d ordered her to be locked in a box, or that she was now into her thirty-sixth hour without sleep. ‘Are we friends again?’
‘Yes, Papa J,’ said Robin, with what she hoped was adequate humility.
‘Good girl,’ said Wace. ‘One moment. Wait there.’
Oh God, no.
Robin and Jiang waited while Wace entered the study with the peacock blue walls. Robin heard more loud laughter.
‘Here we are,’ said the smiling Wace, reappearing with Taio. ‘Before you rest, Artemis, it would be a very beautiful act of contrition to reaffirm your commitment to our church by spirit bonding with one who has much to teach you.’
Robin’s heart began pumping so fast she thought she might pass out. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the hall for her lungs to inflate.
‘Yes,’ she heard herself say. ‘All right.’
‘Papa J!’ came a merry voice, and Noli Seymour came lurching out of the sitting room, flushed, no longer wearing a tracksuit but leather trousers and a tight white T-shirt. ‘Oh Lord, sorry,’ she giggled, seeing the group.
‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ said Wace, extending an arm and drawing Noli to his side. ‘We’re merely arranging a beautiful spirit bonding.’
‘Oooh, lucky you, you get Taio, Rowena?’ said Noli to Robin. ‘If I weren’t spirit married…’
Noli and Wace laughed. Taio allowed his lips to curl in a smirk. Jiang merely looked sulky.
‘Shall we, then?’ said Taio to Robin, taking her firmly by the hand. His was hot and damp.
‘Jiang,’ said Wace, ‘go with them, wait outside and escort Artemis to her dormitory afterwards.’
As Robin and the two Wace brothers walked towards the front door, Robin heard Noli say,
‘Why d’you call her Artemis?’
She missed Wace’s answer in another outburst of laughter from the sitting room.
The night was cool and cloudless, with many stars overhead and a thin, fingernail moon. Taio led Robin towards the pool of the Drowned Prophet and she knelt down between Daiyu’s two brothers.
‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’
‘I need the bathroom,’ Robin said, as she stood up again.
‘No you don’t,’ said Taio, pulling her on.
‘I do,’ said Robin. ‘I just want to pee.’
She was terrified Jiang was going to say ‘You were just in the bathroom.’ Instead, he said, scowling at his brother,
‘Let her bloody pee.’
‘Fine,’ said Taio. ‘Be quick.’
Robin hurried into the dormitory. Most of the women were getting ready for bed.
Robin pushed her way into the bathroom. Marion Huxley was bent over the sink, cleaning her teeth.
In one fluid movement, Robin had stepped up onto the sink beside Marion, and before Marion could shout in surprise, had forced the window open, heaved herself up on the high sill, swung one leg over and then, as Marion screamed, ‘What are you doing?’ let herself fall, hitting the ground on the other side so hard she fell over.
But she was up in an instant and running – her only advantage over the Wace brothers, given her present hunger and exhaustion, was how well she knew her way to the blind spot in the dark. Through the pounding in her ears she heard distant shouts. She was over the five-bar gate, and now she was sprinting across the wet field, her breath coming fast and ragged – she was wearing blue now, far harder to see in the dark than white – there was a stitch like a sword wound in her chest but she sped up – and now she could hear Taio and Jiang behind her.
‘Get her – GET HER!’
She crashed her way into the wood, following the familiar path, leaping over nettles and roots, passing familiar trees –
And in the BMW, Strike saw her coming. Throwing aside the night vision goggles and picking up the foot-long wire cutters, he left the car at a run. He’d got through three strands of barbed wire when Robin screamed,
‘They’re coming, they’re coming, help me—’
He reached over the wall and dragged her with him; her tracksuit bottoms tore on the remaining wire, but she was out onto the road.
Strike could hear the sound of running men.
‘How many?
‘Two – let’s go, please—’
‘Get in,’ he said, pushing her away, ‘just get in the car – GO!’ he bellowed, as Taio Wace came bursting through a thicket of trees and ran for the figure silhouetted ahead.
As Taio launched himself at the detective, Strike swung back the heavy metal wire cutters and smashed them into the side of Taio’s head. Taio crumpled and the figure behind him skidded to a halt. Before either man could return the attack, Strike was heading for the car. Robin had already started the engine; she saw Taio rise again, but Strike was inside the car; he slammed his foot on the accelerator, and in an exhilarating burst of speed they were driving away, Strike having found a glorious release for his days of anxiety, Robin shaking and sobbing in relief.
88
KEEPING STILL means stopping.
When it is time to stop, then stop.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Drive, drive, drive,’ said Robin frantically. ‘They’ll see the number plates on the cameras—’
‘Doesn’t matter if they do, they’re fake,’ said Strike.
He glanced at her and even in the dim light was appalled at what he saw. She looked a good couple of stone lighter and her swollen face was covered either in dirt or bruises.
‘We’ve got to call the police,’ said Robin, ‘there’s a child dying in there – Jacob, that’s who Jacob is, and they’ve stopped feeding him. I’ve been with him all day. We’ve got to get the police.’
‘We’ll call them when we stop. We’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘Where?’ said Robin, alarmed.
She’d imagined travelling straight to London; she wanted to put as many miles as possible between herself and Chapman Farm, wanted to get back to London, to sanity and safety.
‘I’ve got a room in a hotel up the road,’ said Strike. ‘It’ll be the local force we need, if you want police.’
‘What if they come after us?’ said Robin, looking over her shoulder. ‘What if they come looking?’
‘Let them come,’ growled Strike. ‘Nothing would give me greater fucking pleasure than to belt some more of them.’
But when he glanced at her again, he saw naked fear.
‘They’re not going to come,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘They’ve got no authority outside the farm. They can’t take you back.’
‘No,’ she said, more to herself than to him. ‘No, I… I s’pose not…’
Her sudden re-emergence into freedom was too massive for Robin to absorb in a few seconds. Waves of panic kept hitting her: she was imagining what was happening back at Chapman Farm, wondering how soon Jonathan Wace would know she’d gone. She found it almost impossible to grasp that his jurisdiction didn’t extend to this dark, narrow road bordered with trees, or even to the interior of the car. Strike was beside her, large and solid and real, and only now did it occur to her what would have become of her had he not been there, in spite of her absolute certainty that he was waiting.
‘This is it,’ said Strike five minutes later, as he pulled up in a dark car park.
As Strike turned off the engine, Robin undid her seat belt, half rose from her seat, threw her arms around him, buried her face in his shoulder and burst into tears.
‘Thank you.’
‘’S all right,’ said Strike, putting his arms around her and speaking into her hair. ‘My job, innit… you’re out,’ he added quietly, ‘you’re OK now…’
‘I know,’ sobbed Robin. ‘Sorry… sorry…’
Both were in very inconvenient positions in which to hug, especially as Strike still had his seat belt on, but neither let go for several long minutes. Strike gently rubbed Robin’s back, and she held him in a tight grip, occasionally apologising while his shirt collar grew wet. Instead of recoiling when he pressed his lips to the top of her head, she tightened her hold on him.
‘It’s all right,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s OK.’
‘You don’t know,’ sobbed Robin, ‘you don’t know…’
‘You can tell me later,’ said Strike. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
He didn’t want to let her go, but he’d dealt with enough traumatised people in the army – had indeed been one of those people himself, after the car in which he’d been travelling had been blown up, taking half his leg with it – to know that being asked to re-live calamity in its immediate aftermath, when what was really needed was physical comfort and kindness, meant a debrief ought to wait.
They walked together across the lawn towards the low guest house, one of three in a row, Strike’s arm around Robin’s shoulders. When he unlocked the door and stood back to let her in, she passed across the threshold in a state of disbelief, her eyes roving from the four-poster to the multitude of cushions Strike had found excessive, from the kettle standing on a chest of drawers to the television in the corner. The room seemed unimaginably luxurious: to be able to make yourself a hot drink, to have access to news, to have control of your own light switch…
She turned to look at her partner as he closed the door.
‘Strike,’ she said, with a shaky laugh, ‘you’re so thin.’
‘I’m fucking thin?’
‘D’you think I could eat something?’ she said timidly, as though asking for something unreasonable.
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike, moving to the phone. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Anything,’ said Robin. ‘A sandwich… anything…’
She moved restlessly around the room as he dialled the number of the main hotel, trying to convince herself she was genuinely here, touching surfaces, gazing around at the leaf-strewn wallpaper and the ceramic deer head. Then, out of one of the windows, she spotted the hot tub, the water looking black by night and reflecting the trees behind it, and she seemed to see the eyeless child rising again from the depths of the baptismal pool. Strike, who was watching her, saw her flinch and turn away.
‘Food’s on its way,’ he told her, having hung up. ‘There are biscuits by the kettle.’
He closed the curtains as she picked up two plastic-wrapped biscuits and ripped them open. Having devoured them in a few mouthfuls, she said,
‘I should phone the police.’
The call, as Strike could have predicted, wasn’t straightforward. While Robin sat on the edge of the bed, explaining to the emergency operator why she was calling and describing the condition and location of the boy called Jacob, Strike scribbled ‘We’re here: Felbrigg Lodge, Bramble guest house’ onto a bit of paper and passed it to her. Robin duly read out this address when asked for her location. While she was still talking, Strike texted Midge, Barclay, Shah and Pat.
Got her. She’s OK.
He wasn’t convinced the second sentence was true, except in the very broadest sense of lacking a disabling physical injury.
‘They’re going to send someone out to talk to me,’ Robin told Strike at last, having hung up. ‘They said it might be an hour.’
‘Gives you time to eat,’ said Strike. ‘I’ve just been telling the others you’re out. They’ve been crapping themselves about you.’
Robin started crying again.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped, for what felt like the hundredth time.
‘Who hit you?’ he asked, looking at the yellowish purple marks on the left side of her face.
‘What?’ she said, trying to stem the flood of tears. ‘Oh… Will Edensor…’
‘Wh—?’
‘I told him his mother was dead,’ said Robin wretchedly. ‘It was a mistake… or… I don’t know if it was a mistake… I was trying to get through to him… that was a couple of days ago… it was that or have sex with him… sorry,’ she said again, ‘so much has happened these last few days… it’s been—’
She gasped.
‘Strike, I’m so sorry about Charlotte.’
‘How the hell did you know about that?’ he said, amazed.
‘I saw it in an old newspaper this afternoon… it’s awful…’
‘It’s what it is,’ he said, far less interested in Charlotte at this moment than in Robin. His mobile buzzed.
‘That’s Barclay,’ he said, reading the text. ‘He says “thank fuck.”’
‘Oh, Sam,’ sobbed Robin, ‘I saw him a week ago… was it a week ago? I watched him, in the woods… I should’ve gone then, but I didn’t think I had enough to leave… sorry, I don’t know why I keep c-crying…’
Strike sat down next to her on the bed and put his arm around her again.
‘Sorry,’ she said, sobbing as she leaned into him, ‘I’m really sorry—’
‘Stop apologising.’
‘It’s just… relief… they locked me up in a b-box… and Jacob… and the Manifestation was—’ Robin gasped again, ‘Lin, what about Lin, did you find her?’
‘She’s not in any of the hospitals Pat called,’ said Strike, ‘unless she was admitted under another name, but—’
His mobile buzzed again.
‘That’s Midge,’ he said, and he read the text aloud. ‘“Thank fuck for that.”’
The phone buzzed a third time.
‘Shah. “Thank fuck.” What d’you say we get them all thesauruses for Christmas?’
Robin started to laugh, and found she couldn’t stop, though tears were still dribbling out of her eyes.
‘Hang on,’ said Strike, as his phone buzzed yet again. ‘We’ve got an outlier. Pat says, “Is she really OK?”’
‘Oh… I love Pat,’ said Robin, her laughter turning immediately to sobs again.
‘She’s sixty-seven,’ said Strike.
‘Sixty-seven what?’
‘That’s exactly what I said when she told me. Sixty-seven years old.’
‘S-seriously?’ said Robin.
‘Yeah. I haven’t sacked her, though. Thought you’d be pissed off at me.’
There was a knock on the door, and Robin jumped as violently as if she’d heard gunshots.
‘It’s only your brandy,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.
When he’d taken the glass from the helpful woman from the hotel, handed it to his partner and sat back down on the bed beside her, Strike said,
‘In other news: Littlejohn was a plant. From Patterson Inc.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Robin, who’d just gulped down some brandy.
‘Yeah. But the good news is, he’d rather work for us, and he assures me he’s very trustworthy and loyal.’
Robin laughed harder, though she didn’t seem able to stop her eyes streaming. Strike, who was deliberately talking about life outside Chapman Farm rather than interrogating her on what had happened inside it, laughed too, but he’d silently registered everything Robin had so far told him about her last few days: they locked me in a box. It was that or have sex with him. And the Manifestation was…
‘And Midge has been fucked off at me because I thought she and Tasha Mayo might be getting overfamiliar.’
‘Strike!’
‘Don’t bother, Pat’s already told me off. She knew another lesbian once, so it’s very much her area of expertise.’
There might be an edge of hysteria to Robin’s laughter, but Strike, who knew the value of humour in the wake of horror, and the necessity of emphasising that Robin had rejoined the outside world, continued to fill her in on what had been happening with the agency while she’d been away, until the woman from the hotel knocked on the door again, this time carrying soup and sandwiches.
Robin drank a few mouthfuls of soup as though she hadn’t seen food for days, but after a couple of minutes she laid down her spoon and pushed the bowl onto the bedside table.
‘Is it all right if I just…?’
Drawing her legs up onto the bed, she fell sideways onto the pillow and was instantly asleep.
Strike got carefully off the bed so as not to wake her and moved to an armchair, no longer grinning. He was worried: Robin seemed far more fragile than any of her letters had suggested and through the ripped portion of her tracksuit trousers he could see raw skin on her right knee, which looked as though she’d been walking on it. He supposed he should have anticipated the dramatic weight loss and the profound exhaustion, but the hysteria, the unbridled fear, the strange reaction to the view of the hot tub, the ominous fragments of information, all added up to something more serious than he’d expected. What the fuck was ‘the box’ she’d been locked in? And why did she say the only alternative to getting punched in the face had been coerced sex with their client’s son? He knew his partner to be physically brave; indeed, there’d been more than one occasion on which he’d have called her recklessly so. Had he not had confidence in her, he’d never have let her go undercover at Chapman Farm, but now he felt he should have put one of the men in there instead, should have overruled Robin’s request to do the job.
