Page 123 of The Running Grave

‘And it might have ended the same way,’ said Strike.

‘Yerse,’ said Colonel Graves, looking directly at the detective. ‘I’ve thought that since, too. Out of his mind. We were too late, by the time we got hold of him. Should’ve acted years before.’

‘There was a post-mortem, I take it?’

Colonel Graves nodded.

‘No surprises on cause of death, but we wanted a professional view on the marks on his back. The police went to th’farm. Wace and Mazu claimed he’d done it to himself, and other church members backed them up.’

‘They claimed he whipped himself?’

‘Said he felt sinful and was mortifyin’ his own flesh… couldn’t pour me another cup of tea, couldja, Nick?’

Strike watched Nicholas fiddling with the hot water and tea-strainer and wondered why some people resisted teabags. Once the colonel was provided with a refilled cup, Strike asked,

‘Can you remember the names of these people who saw Allie whipping himself?’

‘Not any more. Load of shysters. Coroner’s report was inconclusive. They thought it was possible Allie’d done it to himself. Hard t’get past eyewitnesses.’

Strike made a note, then said,

‘I’ve heard Allie made a will.’

‘Right after Daiyu was born,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding. ‘They used a solicitor in Norwich, not the firm th’family’s always used.’

The old man glanced at the door through which his wife and daughter had disappeared, then said in a lower voice,

‘In it, Allie stipulated that, if he died, he wanted to be buried at Chapman Farm. Made me think Mazu already expected him to die young. Wanted control of him, even in death. Damn’ near broke m’wife’s heart. They shut us out of the funeral. Didn’t even tell us when it was happenin’. No goodbye, nothin’.’

‘And how was Allie’s estate left?’

‘Everythin’ went to Daiyu,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘There wasn’t much to leave, presumably, as he’d got through his inheritance?’

‘Well, no,’ said Colonel Graves with a sigh, ‘as a matter of fact, he had some stocks and shares, rather valuable ones, left to him by m’uncle, who never married. Allie was named after him, so he, ah –’ Colonel Graves glanced at Nicholas ‘– yerse, well, he left it all to Allie. We think Allie either forgot he had the shares, or was too unwell to know how to turn them into cash. We weren’t in any hurry to remind him about them. Not that we were stintin’ Mazu and the baby! The family trust was always there for anythin’ the child needed. But yerse, Allie had a lot of investments he hadn’t touched, and they were steadily accruin’ in value.’

‘Can I ask what they were worth?’

‘Quarter of a million,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Those went straight to Daiyu when Allie died – and she was also in line to inherit this place,’ said Colonel Graves.

‘Really?’

‘Yerse,’ said Colonel Graves, with a hollow laugh. ‘None of us saw that comin’. Lawyers wanted to go through everything after Allie died, and they dug out the entail. I’m certain m’grandfather meant the house was t’go to the eldest son in every generation. That’s what was usual at the time, y’know – the place has come down from m’grandfather to m’father and then to me – nobody had checked the paperwork in decades, never needed to. But when Allie died, we dug the papers out, and blow me down, it said “eldest child”. ’Course, over generations, the first child had always been a son. Maybe m’grandfather didn’t imagine a gel coming first.’

The sitting room door opened and Mrs Graves and Phillipa returned to the room. Phillipa assisted her mother to resume her seat while Strike was still writing down the details of Daiyu’s considerable inheritance.

‘I understand you tried to get custody of Daiyu, after Allie died?’ he asked, looking up again.

‘’S’right,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Mazu was refusin’ to let us see her. Then she married Wace. Well, I was damned if Allie’s daughter was goin’ to grow up there to be whipped and abused and all the rest of it. So, we initiated custody proceedin’s. We got O’Connor back on the case and he tracked down a couple of people who’d been for meditation sessions at the farm, who said the children at the farm were bein’ neglected, underweight and runnin’ round in inadequate clothin’, no schoolin’ and so on.’

‘Is this when Mazu started claiming Wace was Daiyu’s real father?’ said Strike.

‘Know that already, do yeh?’ said the colonel approvingly. ‘Huh. Trust a Red Cap. Trust th’army!’ he said, with a smirk at his son-in-law, who looked ostentatiously bored. ‘Yerse, they started claiming she hadn’t been Allie’s child at all. If we got her back, they lost control of those shares, y’see? So we thought, “Fine, let’s prove who the father was,” and pressed for a DNA sample. We were still tryin’ to get the DNA when the call came through. It was Mazu. She said, “She’s dead.”’ Colonel Graves mimed putting down an invisible telephone receiver. ‘Click… We thought she was being malicious. Thought maybe she’d taken Daiyu somewhere and hidden her – playin’ a game, d’yeh see? But next day we saw it in the newspapers. Drowned. No body. Just swept out to sea.’

‘Did you attend the inquest?’ asked Strike.

‘Damn right we did,’ said Colonel Graves loudly. ‘They couldn’t stop us goin’ to the coroner’s court.’