Page 132 of The Running Grave

The air inside the barn was dank and musty, but there was more light inside than she’d expected, due to a gap in the roof through which moonlight was streaming. This illuminated an old tractor, broken farming tools, stacks of crates and bits of fencing. Something, doubtless a rat, scurried away from the intruder.

Lanterns were now passing outside the barn, casting slivers of gold through the gaps in the wooden plank walls. Voices close and distant were still shouting, ‘Bo? Bo!’

Robin remained where she was, scared of moving in case she knocked something over. Now she noticed a mound of personal belongings almost as tall as she was, heaped in a corner and covered in thick dust. There were clothes, handbags, wallets, shoes, cuddly toys and books, and Robin was horribly reminded of a picture she’d seen of the mound of shoes belonging to the gassed at Auschwitz.

The searchers outside had moved on. Full of curiosity about these old belongings, Robin climbed carefully over an upended wheelbarrow to examine them. After three weeks of seeing nothing but orange tracksuits and trainers, of reading nothing but church literature, it was strange to see different kinds of clothing and shoes, not to mention the old child’s picture book with its vivid colours.

There was something disturbing, even eerie, about the mound of old possessions, thrown away with what seemed like casual contempt. Robin noticed a single stack-heeled shoe which once, perhaps, a teenage girl had coveted and treasured, and a cuddly toy rabbit, its face covered in cobwebs. Where were their owners? After a minute or two, a possible explanation occurred to her: anyone leaving the farm by stealth, at night, would be forced to leave the belongings they’d left in the lockers.

She reached for an old handbag lying close to the top of the heap. A cloud of dust rose into the air as she opened it. There was nothing inside except an old white LRT bus ticket. She replaced the handbag and as she did so, noticed the rusty edge of a rectangular red biscuit tin with Barnum’s Animals printed on it. She’d loved those biscuits when she was little, but hadn’t thought about them for years. Seeing the packaging in this strange context reminded her poignantly of the safety of her family home.

‘BO!’ bellowed a voice just outside the barn, causing the unseen rat to scratch and scrabble in the shadows. Then, somewhere in the distance a female voice shrieked,

‘I’VE GOT HIM!’

Robin heard a confusion of voices, some expressing relief, others demanding to know how Bo had ‘got out’, and decided her best option was to emerge from the barn and present herself as having been looking for Bo all along.

She’d taken a couple of steps back towards the gap in the rear wall before she stopped dead, looking back at the dusty pile of old belongings, seized by the urge to look in that Barnum’s Animals biscuit tin. Chilly, nervous and exhausted as she was, it took several moments for her to work out why her subconscious was telling her the tin’s presence at the farm was strange. Then she realised: there was a total prohibition on sugar here, so why would anybody have brought biscuits to the place? In spite of the urgent need to join the searchers outside before her absence was noticed, Robin climbed quickly back over the wheelbarrow and pulled the tin out of the pile.

The lid showed the image of four caged circus animals and balloons, along with ‘85th Anniversary’ written inside a gold circle. She prised it off, expecting the tin to be empty because it was so light, but on the contrary: a number of faded Polaroids lay inside. Unable to see what they showed in the dim light, Robin took them out and stuffed them inside her bra, as she did daily with her date-marking pebbles. She then replaced the lid, re-inserted the tin where she’d found it, hurried to the gap in the rear wall of the barn and squeezed back outside.

Judging from the distant noise coming from the courtyard, almost everyone at the farm was now awake. Robin set off at a jog, passing the dining hall and temple, and joined the throng, who were mostly in pyjamas, at a moment when everyone’s attention was on Mazu Wace, who was standing between the tombs of the Stolen and Golden Prophets in her long orange robes. Beside her stood Louise Pirbright, who was holding a struggling toddler in a nappy, whom Robin guessed to be the errant Bo. Other than the child’s whimpers, there was complete silence. Mazu barely needed to raise her voice for everyone in the crowd to hear her.

‘Who was on child dorm duty?’

After a small hesitation, two teenage girls sidled to the front of the crowd, one with short fair hair, the other, long dark twists. The latter was crying. Robin, who was watching through the thicket of heads in front of her, saw both girls fall to their knees as though they’d rehearsed the movement and crawl towards Mazu’s feet.

‘Please, Mama…’

‘We’re so sorry, Mama!’

When they reached the hem of Mazu’s robes she lifted them slightly, and watched, her expression blank, as the two girls wept and kissed her feet.

Then she said sharply, ‘Taio.’

Her elder son pushed his way through the watching crowd.

‘Take them to the temple.’

‘Mama, please,’ wailed the fair-haired girl.

‘Come on,’ said Taio, grabbing the arms of the two girls and dragging them forcibly to their feet. Robin was most disturbed by the way the girl with the twists tried to cling on to Mazu’s leg, and the utter coldness of Mazu’s expression as she watched her son drag them away. Nobody asked what was going to happen to the girls; nobody spoke or even moved.

As Mazu turned back to the watching crowd, Louise said,

‘Shall I put Bo back to—?’ but Mazu said,

‘No. You – ’ she pointed at Penny Brown ‘– and you,’ she said to Emily Pirbright, ‘take him back to the dormitory and stay there.’

Penny went to lift the little boy out of Louise’s arms, but he clung to Louise. The latter prised him off and handed him over. His screams receded as Penny and Emily hurried away through the arch that led to the children’s dormitory.

‘You may go back to bed,’ said Mazu to the watching crowd. She turned and walked towards the temple.

None of the women looked at each other or spoke as they filed back into their dormitory. Robin grabbed her pyjamas off her bed, then hurried off into the bathroom and locked herself into a cubicle before pulling the Polaroids out of her bra to examine them.

All were faded, yet Robin could still just make out the images. The uppermost picture showed the figure of a naked, chubby dark-haired young woman – possibly a teenager – wearing a pig mask, her legs spread wide. The second showed a different, blonde young woman being penetrated from behind by a squat man, both in pig masks. The third showed a stringy-looking man with a skull tattooed on his bicep sodomising a smaller man. Robin rifled hastily through the pictures. In total, four naked people were pictured in various sexual combinations in a space Robin didn’t recognise, but which looked like an outhouse, possibly even the barn she’d just left. They wore pig masks in every image.

Robin shoved the pictures back inside her bra and left it on as she stripped off her tracksuit. She then left the cubicle, turned out the bathroom light and returned to her bed. As she settled down to sleep at last, a distant scream pierced the silence, emanating from the temple.