The Running Grave, page 85
Sorry to disturb you after working hours Pat, but would it be ok for Strike and me to come over to your house tomorrow morning at 10am to talk to Will?
Pat, as was her invariable habit, called Robin back five minutes later, rather than texting.
‘You want to come and see him?’ she asked, in her usual baritone. ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’
‘How is he?’
‘Still chanting a bit. I tell him, “Stop doing that and give me a hand with the washing up,” and he does. I got him more clothes. He’s seemed happier, being out of that tracksuit. He’s playing chess with Dennis just now. I’ve just put Qing to bed. Right little chatterbox, all of a sudden. I read her the Hungry Caterpillar. She wanted it five times in a row.’
‘Pat, we really can’t thank you enough for this.’
‘No trouble. He’s well brought up, you can tell. He’ll be a nice enough boy, once he’s got all their rubbish out of his system.’
‘Has he mentioned the Drowned Prophet at all?’ asked Robin.
‘Yeah, last night,’ said Pat unemotionally. ‘Dennis said to him, “You don’t believe in ghosts, intelligent bloke like you?” Will said Dennis would, if he’d seen what Will’s seen. Said he’d seen people levitate. Dennis said, “How high did they go?” Few inches, said Will. So Dennis showed him how they fake it. Silly sod nearly fell over onto our gas fire.’
‘How does Dennis know how to fake levitation?’ asked Robin, diverted.
‘Mate of his, when he was young, used to do stuff like that to impress girls,’ said Pat laconically. ‘Some girls are bloody silly, let’s face it. When does anyone need a man who can rise two inches into the air?’
Robin laughed, thanked Pat again, and wished her a good evening. Having hung up, she found herself in a considerably improved state of mind. She now had both a new theory and a potentially crucial meeting to tell Strike about when he returned. She checked her watch. Strike would now have been in Wace’s meeting for over an hour, but Robin knew Papa J: he’d probably just be getting started. Perhaps she’d order some food, to be delivered to the office while reviewing the UHC file.
She got to her feet, mobile in hand, and moved to the window, wondering what kind of pizza she fancied. The sun was falling and Denmark Street was now in shadow. The shops were closed, many of their windows covered in metal blinds.
Robin had just decided she wanted something with capers on it, when she spotted somebody tall, bulky and dressed all in black walking along the street. Bizarrely, for a mild evening in August, they had their hood up. Robin raised her phone and switched it to camera mode, recording the figure as it walked down the steps in front of the music shop opposite, disappearing into the basement area below.
Perhaps they knew the shop owner? Maybe they’d been instructed to go to the door beneath street level?
Robin pressed pause on the camera and watched the few seconds of footage back. Then, with a return of her earlier feeling of foreboding, she returned to the UHC file and withdrew the still photographs of the masked intruder with the gun Strike had printed off from the camera footage.
It might be the same person, but equally, it might not. They were wearing similar black jackets, but the photographs from the dimly lit landing were too blurry to make an identification certain.
Should she call the police? But what would she say? That someone in a black jacket had their hood up in the vicinity of the office, and had walked down some steps? It was hardly criminal behaviour.
The person with the gun had waited until nightfall, and the extinguishment of all lights in the building, to act, Robin reminded herself. She now wondered whether a pizza delivery was such a good idea. She’d have to open the ground-floor door to let them in; what if the lurker in the black jacket forced entry, along with the delivery man, a gun pressed to their back? Or was she being absurdly paranoid?
No, said Strike’s voice in her head. You’re being smart. Keep an eye on them. Don’t leave the office until you’re certain they’ve gone.
Aware that her silhouette might be visible even through the Venetian blinds, Robin went to turn out the office lights. She then drew Strike’s chair to the window, the UHC file on her lap, glancing regularly down into the street. The black-clad figure remained out of sight.
112
Nine in the fourth place means:
He treads on the tail of the tiger.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Jonathan Wace had already explained how the UHC found commonality in all faiths, uniting and fusing them into a single, all-encompassing belief system. He’d quoted Jesus Christ, the Buddha, the Talmud and, mostly, himself. He’d called Giles Harmon and Noli Seymour separately onto the stage, where each had paid heartfelt tributes to the inspirational genius of Papa J, Harmon with an intellectual gravitas that earned a round of applause, Seymour with an effusive girlishness that the crowd appreciated even more.
The sky visible through the glass panes in the vaulted ceiling deepened gradually to dark blue, and Strike’s one and a half legs, cramped in the second row of seats, had developed pins and needles. Wace had moved on to denouncing world leaders, while the screens above him showed images of war, famine and environmental devastation. The crowd was punctuating his shorter sentences with whoops and cheers, greeting his oratorical flourishes with applause, and roaring their approval of every castigation and accusation he flung at the elites and the warmongers. Surely, Strike thought, checking his watch, they were nearly done? But another twenty minutes passed, and Strike, who now needed a piss, was becoming uncomfortable as well as bored.
‘So which of you will help us?’ shouted Wace at long last, his voice cracking with emotion as he stood alone in the spotlight, all else in shadow. ‘Who will join? Who’ll stand with me, to transform this broken world?’
As he spoke, the pentagonal stage began to transform, to further screams and applause. Five panels lifted like rigid petals to reveal a pentagonal baptismal pool, their undersides ridged in steps that would afford easy access to the water. Wace was left standing on a small circular platform in the middle. He now invited all those who felt they’d like to be received into the UHC to join him, and be reborn into the church.
The lights came up and some of the audience began to make their way towards the exits, including the elderly toffee-chewer to Strike’s left. She’d seemed impressed by Wace’s charisma and stirred by his righteous anger, but evidently felt a dip in the baptismal pool would be taking things too far. Some of the other departing audience members were carrying sleepy children; others were stretching stiff limbs after the long period of enforced sitting. No doubt many would enrich the UHC further, by purchasing a copy of The Answer or a hat, T-shirt or keyring before leaving the building.
Meanwhile, trickles of people were descending down the aisle to be baptised by Papa J. The cheers of existing members continued to ring off the metal supports of the Great Hall as one by one the new members were submerged, then rose, gasping and usually laughing, to be wrapped in towels by a couple of pretty girls on the other side of the pool.
Strike watched the baptisms, until the sky was black and his right leg had gone to sleep. At last, there were no more volunteers for baptism. Jonathan Wace pressed his hand to his heart, bowed, and the stage area went dark to a final burst of applause.
‘Excuse me?’ said a soft voice in Strike’s ear. He turned to see a young redhead in a UHC tracksuit. ‘Are you Cormoran Strike?’
‘That’s me,’ he said.
To his right, American Sanchia hastily averted her face.
‘Papa J would be so pleased if you felt like coming backstage.’
‘Not as pleased as I am,’ said Strike.
He pushed himself carefully into a standing position, stretching his numb stump until the feeling returned, and followed her through the mass of departing people. Cheery young people in UHC tracksuits were rattling collecting buckets on either side of the exit. Most who passed dropped in a handful of change, or even a note, doubtless convinced that the church did wonderful charitable work, perhaps even trying to appease a vague sense of guilt because they were leaving in dry clothes, unbaptised.
Once they’d left the main hall, Strike’s companion led him off along a corridor into which she was allowed admission, by virtue of the badge on a lanyard around her neck.
‘How did you enjoy the service?’ she asked Strike brightly.
‘Very interesting,’ said Strike. ‘What happens to the people who’ve just joined? Straight onto a bus to Chapman Farm?’
‘Only if they’d like to come,’ she said, smiling. ‘We aren’t tyrants, you know.’
‘No,’ said Strike, also smiling. ‘I didn’t know.’
She sped up, walking slightly ahead of him, so that she didn’t see Strike taking out his mobile, setting it to record, and replacing it in his pocket.
As they neared what Strike assumed would be the green room, they came across two of the burly young men in UHC tracksuits who’d been standing outside earlier. A tall, rangy-looking, long-jawed man was admonishing them.
‘… shouldn’t even have gotten near Papa J.’
‘She didn’t, we told her there was no—’
‘But the fact she even got as far as this corrid—’
‘Mr Jackson!’ said Strike, coming to a halt. ‘I thought you were based in San Francisco these days?’
Joe Jackson turned, frowning, tall enough to look straight into Strike’s eyes.
‘Do we know each other?’
His voice was a strange compound of Midlands, overlain with west coast American. His eyes were a light grey.
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘I recognised you from your pictures.’
‘Please,’ said the disconcerted redhead, ‘come, if you’d like to speak to Papa J.’
Judging that his odds of getting a truthful answer from Joe Jackson to the question ‘Got any tattoos?’ were minimal under these circumstances, Strike walked on.
They arrived at last at a closed door, from beyond which came a buzz of talk. The girl knocked, opened the door and stood back to allow Strike to enter.
There were at least twenty people inside, all of them wearing blue. Jonathan Wace was sitting in a chair in the middle of the group, a glass of clear liquid in his hand, a crumpled towel in his lap, with a cluster of young people in tracksuits around him. Most of the robed church Principals were also present.
Silence crept over the room like a rapidly moving frost as those nearest the door became aware that Strike had arrived. It reached Giles Harmon last. He was talking to a couple of young women in a distant corner.
‘… said to him, “What you fail to appreciate is the heterodox—”’
Apparently realising his voice was ringing alone through the room, Harmon broke off mid-sentence.
‘Evening,’ said Strike, moving further into the room.
If Jonathan Wace had meant to intimidate Strike by receiving him amid a crowd, he’d greatly mistaken his opponent. Strike found it positively stimulating to come face to face with the kind of people he most despised: fanatics and hypocrites, as he mentally dubbed all of them, each of them undoubtedly convinced of their own critical importance to Wace’s grandiose mission, blind to their own motives and indifferent to the sometimes irreversible damage done by the man to whom they’d sworn allegiance.
Wace rose, let the towel in his lap fall onto the arm of his chair and walked towards Strike, glass in hand. His smile was as charming and self-deprecating as it had been when he’d first mounted the pentagonal stage.
‘I’m glad – genuinely glad – you’re here.’
He held out his hand, and Strike shook it, looking down at him.
‘Don’t stand behind Mr Strike,’ said Wace, to the ordinary members who’d moved to surround the pair. ‘It’s bad manners. Or,’ he looked back at Strike, ‘may I call you Cormoran?’
‘Call me whatever you like,’ said Strike.
‘I think we’re a little crowded,’ said Wace, and Strike had to give him this much credit: he’d intuited in a few seconds that the detective was indifferent to the numbers in the room. ‘Principals, remain please. The rest of you, I know you won’t mind leaving us… Lindsey, if Joe’s still outside, tell him to join us.’
Most of the attractive young women filed out of the room.
‘Got a bathroom?’ asked Strike. ‘I could do with a pee.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Wace. He pointed to a white door. ‘Over there.’
Strike was mildly amused to find, on washing his hands, that Wace appeared to have brought his own toiletries with him, because he doubted very much that Olympia routinely provided soaps from Hermès or bathrobes from Armani. Strike slipped his hand into the pockets of the latter, but they were empty.
‘Please, sit down,’ Wace invited Strike, when he emerged. Somebody had pulled up a chair to face the church leader’s. As Strike did as he was bid, Joe Jackson entered the room and crossed to join the other Principals, who were either standing or sitting behind the church leader.
‘She’s gone,’ Jackson informed Wace. ‘She wanted you to have this note.’
‘I’ll read it later,’ said Wace lightly. ‘It’s Cormoran I’m interested in now. Would you mind,’ Wace asked the detective, ‘if my wife listened in to our talk? I know she’d love to hear from you.’
‘Not at all,’ said Strike.
‘Becca,’ said Wace, indicating a smart-looking laptop lying on a chair nearby, ‘could you get Mazu on FaceTime for me? Bless you. Water?’ Wace asked Strike.
‘That’d be great,’ said Strike.
Noli Seymour was glaring at Strike as though he’d just told her his hotel hadn’t received her booking. Becca Pirbright was busy with the laptop and not looking at Strike. The rest of the Principals were variously looking uneasy, contemptuous, studiously uninterested or, in the case of Joe Jackson, definitely tense.
‘How’s your partner?’ said Wace earnestly, settling back in his chair as Becca handed Strike a cold bottle of water.
‘Robin? A lot better for being outside the box,’ said Strike.
‘Box?’ said Wace. ‘What box?’
‘Do you remember the box you locked my partner in, Miss Pirbright?’ Strike asked.
Becca gave no sign she’d heard him.
‘Is Miss Ellacott a business partner, or something more, by the way?’ asked Wace.
‘Your sons not here?’ said Strike, looking around. ‘I saw the one who looks like Piltdown Man outside.’
‘Papa J,’ said Becca quietly, ‘Mazu.’
She adjusted the laptop so that Mazu could see her husband, and for the first time in thirty years, Strike looked into the face of the girl who’d led his sister away from the football game at Forgeman Farm, and shut her in with a paedophile. She was sitting in front of shelves cluttered with Chinese statuettes. Her long black hair fell in two wings over her face, emphasising the pale, pointed nose. Her eyes were in shadow.
‘It’s Cormoran Strike, my love,’ said Wace, to the face on the screen. ‘Our Miss Ellacott’s detective partner.’
Mazu said nothing.
‘Well, Cormoran,’ said Wace, smiling, ‘shall we speak plainly?’
‘I wasn’t intending to speak any other way, but go on.’
Wace laughed.
‘Very well: you aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, to investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church. Many have tried to uncover scandals and plots and wrongdoing, but none have succeeded, for the simple reason that we are exactly who we profess to be: people of faith, living as we believe the Blessed Divinity requires us to live, pursuing the ends They wish to see achieved, fighting against evil wherever we find it. That necessarily brings us into conflict with both the ignorant, who fear what they don’t understand, and the malevolent, who understand our purpose and wish to thwart us. Are you familiar with the work of Dr K. Sri Dhammananda? No? “Struggle must exist, for all life is a struggle of some kind. But make certain that you do not struggle in the interest of self against truth and justice.”’
‘I see we’ve got different definitions of “speaking plainly”,’ said Strike. ‘Tell me: is the boy Robin saw dying in the attic of the farmhouse still alive?’
A tiny noise, somewhere between a grunt and a gulp, escaped Giles Harmon.
‘Wind?’ enquired Strike of the novelist. ‘Or have you got something to say?’
‘Jonathan,’ said Harmon, ignoring the detective, ‘I should be going. I’m on a flight to Paris at eleven tomorrow. Need to pack.’
Wace rose to embrace Harmon.
‘You were marvellous tonight,’ he told the writer, releasing Harmon but holding him by the upper arms. ‘I believe we owe at least half the new recruits to you. I’ll call you later.’
Harmon stalked out past Strike without looking at him, giving the latter time to reflect on what a mistake it was for short men to wear robes.
Wace sat back down.
‘Your partner,’ he said quietly, ‘has invented a story to cover up the incriminating position she found herself in with Jacob, in the bathroom. She panicked, and she lied. We are all of us frail and subject to temptations, but I want to reassure you: in spite of appearances, I don’t really believe Miss Ellacott meant to assault little Jacob. Possibly she was trying to get information out of him. Much as I deplore trying to force falsehoods out of children, we’d be prepared to drop charges, subject to an apology and a donation to the church.’
Strike laughed as he stretched out his right leg, which was still sore. Wace’s earnest expression didn’t flicker.
‘Has it occurred to you,’ Wace said, ‘that your partner invented dying children and other such dramatic incidents, because she observed nothing of any note during our time with us, but had to justify the fees you charge your clients?’
‘You know,’ said Strike, ‘I always think it’s a mistake to diversify too far away from the core brand. I’m sure Dr Zhou would agree,’ he added, looking over at the doctor. ‘Just because a man knows how to market enemas to idiots, doesn’t mean he knows shit about pig farming – to take a random example.’
