Page 162 of The Running Grave

‘Then you should have asked. Non-materialists offer freely, they don’t wait for forms or invoices. They offer. Wipe your nose, for God’s sake.’

Robin deliberately smeared the snot across her face with her sleeve and gave a loud, wet sniff.

‘“I live to love and give”,’ quoted Taio. ‘You were Typed as a Gift-Bearer, like the Golden Prophet, but you’re hoarding your resources instead of sharing them.’

As he said it, his eyes rolled down her body to her breasts.

‘And I know you’ve got no physical hang-ups about sex,’ he added, with the ghost of a smirk. ‘Apparently, you orgasm every time.’

‘I think I should go to temple,’ said Robin a little wildly. ‘The Blessed Divinity’s telling me to chant, I can feel it.’

She knew she’d angered and offended him, and that he didn’t believe any divinity was speaking to her; but he was the one who’d conducted seminars in the basement room about opening the mind and heart to the divine force, and to contradict her was to undermine words he himself had spoken. Perhaps, too, his desire had been quenched by her deliberate smearing of snot over her face, because after a few seconds he got slowly to his feet.

‘I think you’d do better to perform penance to the community,’ he said. ‘Fetch cleaning products from the kitchen, fresh sheets from the laundry and muck out these three Retreat Rooms.’

He ripped back the curtain, slid back the glass door and left.

Weak with immediate relief, yet full of dread of what harm she might have done in refusing him, Robin leaned for a moment against the wall, cleaned her face as best she could with her sweatshirt, then glanced around.

A tap was fixed to the wall in a corner, with a short length of hose attached and a drain hole beneath it. A slimy bottle of liquid soap and a dirty wet flannel stood beside the hole on a patch of mildewed floorboard. Presumably people washed themselves before having sex. Trying to dismiss a horrible mental image of Taio lathering his erection before joining her on the bed, Robin set off to find a bucket and mop. However, as she emerged from the bushes screening the Retreat Rooms from the courtyard, she stumbled to a halt.

Emily Pirbright was standing alone in front of the Drowned Prophet’s fountain, on a wooden crate. Her head was bowed and she was holding a piece of cardboard on which words had been written.

Robin didn’t want to approach the pool with Emily standing there, but she feared being punished if she was seen failing to make her tribute to Daiyu. Pretending she couldn’t even see Emily, she advanced on the fountain, but almost against her will her eyes were drawn to the silent figure.

Emily’s face and hair had been smeared with earth, as had her scarlet tracksuit. She was staring at the ground, as determinedly insensible of Robin’s presence as the latter had meant to be of Emily’s.

The words scrawled on the cardboard sign held between Emily’s mud-stained hands read: I AM A DIRTY PIG.

55

Heaven and earth do not unite…

Thus the superior man falls back upon his inner worth

In order to escape the difficulties.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

… and Tao took me into one of the [illegible] rooms and wanted Spirit bonding but I managed to fend him off. Giles Harman had just been in there with Lin. She’s barely of age, might be underage, I don’t know.

Emily and [illegible] (can’t remember if I told you about her, she’s quite yung young) have been punished for disobedence. Emily had to stand on a crate with a sign saying she was a dirty pig but Shawna just [illegible] and came back 48 hours & looked terrible.

I found out why I’ve been [illegible] from top group. It’s because I haven’t given any money. I’ll have to go to Mazu and offer a donation, but how do we [illegible] this, can you think of anything because it’s the only way I’m going to be able to stay.

I was also in the little kids’ classroom for the first time and they’re not right, brainwashed and strange, it’s horrible.

Shawna says Becca Pirbright is lying about her [illegible] with Daiyu. I’m going to try and find out more. Think that’s everyting. Shawna also said [illegible] about Jacob being the reason Papa J won’t have kids with Becca. She also says Jacob’s [illegible] by the devil.

R x

I forgot, there’s a picture of a tree with axe in it on the kid’s [illegible], looks recent I’ll try and find it if I can but its hard to think up a reason to come into the woods by daylight.

Strike, who was sitting at the partners’ desk in the office, read Robin’s letter through twice, noting the deterioration of her handwriting and misspellings. This was the first of her reports to contain concrete leads, not to mention information the church definitely wouldn’t want made public, but his expression betrayed no pleasure; on the contrary, he was frowning as he re-read the line about spirit bonding. Hearing footsteps he said, eyes still on the page,

‘Bit worried about her.’

‘Why?’ asked Pat in her usual baritone, setting a mug down beside Strike.