Page 262 of The Running Grave

‘But how do you cut out something that’s metastasised across continents?’

‘Well,’ said Strike, ‘there might be a way. Did Kevin ever talk to you in any depth about Daiyu?’

‘Daiyu?’ said Sir Colin, looking puzzled. ‘Oh, you mean the Drowned Prophet? No more than he put in the blog and emails I gave you. Why?’

‘Because the one sure-fire way of bringing down the church would be to dismantle the myth of the Drowned Prophet. If we could smash the central pillar of their whole belief system—’

‘That’s surely rather ambitious?’ said Sir Colin. As Strike had feared, he now looked slightly mistrustful.

‘I’ve been looking into what actually happened on that beach in Cromer and I’ve got a lot of questions. I’ve now tracked down the key witness: Cherie Gittins, the woman who took Daiyu to the beach where she drowned. I’m hoping to interview her shortly. And then we’ve got Kevin’s murder.’

At that moment, the waiter came to collect their plates and offer the pudding menu. Both men declined, but asked for coffee.

‘What about Kevin’s murder?’ said Sir Colin, when the waiter had gone.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Strike, ‘I think it far more likely that the UHC had Kevin killed, than that he was dealing drugs.’

‘But—’

‘Initially, I was of your opinion. I couldn’t see why they’d need to shoot him. They’ve got excellent lawyers and he was undoubtedly unstable and easy to discredit. But the longer the investigation’s gone on, the less I’ve bought the drug-dealing theory.’

‘Why? What have you found out?’

‘Most recently, I’ve heard an unsubstantiated allegation that there have been guns at Chapman Farm. The source was second-hand,’ Strike admitted, ‘and not particularly trustworthy, so I’ll have to try and confirm his account, but the fact remains I think it would be unwise to underestimate the kinds of contacts the UHC have made over the last thirty years. There were no guns found in the raid on the farm in eighty-six, but since then they’ve had at least one violent criminal living at the farm. All they needed was a recruit who knew where to lay hands on guns illegally – assuming Wace didn’t already have that knowledge.’

‘You really think they murdered Kevin because of his book?’ said Sir Colin, sounding sceptical.

‘I don’t think the book, in and of itself, was a problem, because a journalist I interviewed called Fergus Robertson had already accused the UHC of pretty much everything Kevin was alleging: physical assault, sexual abuse and supernatural mind games. The church went after Robertson hard with lawyers, but he’s still alive.’

Their coffees arrived.

‘So what was the motive, if not the book?’ said Sir Colin.

‘Kevin told you he was piecing things together during the last weeks of his life, didn’t he? Things he thought he’d suppressed?’

‘Yes – as I told you, he was becoming increasingly erratic and troubled. I deeply regret that I didn’t offer more support—’

‘I don’t think any amount of support could have stopped him being shot. I think Kevin pieced together something about Daiyu’s drowning. The church would’ve been able to bully a publisher into deleting unsubstantiated allegations, but they’d lost the power to bully Kevin into silence in his daily life. What if he blabbed his suspicions to the wrong person?’

‘But, as you say, this is guesswork.’

‘Were you aware Patterson didn’t hand over all their evidence when you fired them?’

‘No,’ said Sir Colin. ‘I wasn’t.’

‘Well, I’ve got hold of a taped interview with Kevin they’d recorded covertly, five days before he was shot. It’s a botched job: most of what he said isn’t audible, which is why they didn’t bother giving it to you. In that tape, Kevin told Patterson’s operative he was intending to meet somebody from the church to “answer for it”. What “it” is, I don’t know, but he was talking a lot about Daiyu during the conversation. And you never visited Kevin’s bedsit, did you?’

‘No – I wish I had.’

‘Well, he’d scribbled all over the walls – and somebody had gouged a few words out of the plaster. It might’ve been Kevin himself, of course, but there’s a possibility his killer did it.

‘Robin got some strange information about Daiyu’s movements the night before she supposedly drowned, from Kevin’s sister Emily. What Emily said tallied with something Kevin had written on his bedsit wall, about a plot. As a matter of fact,’ said Strike, picking up his coffee cup, ‘Emily doesn’t believe Daiyu’s dead.’

‘But,’ said Sir Colin, still frowning, ‘that’s incredibly unlikely, surely?’

‘Unlikely,’ said Strike, ‘but not impossible. As it happens, alive or dead, Daiyu was worth a lot of money. She was the sole beneficiary of her biological father’s will, and he had a lot to leave. Where there’s no body, there’s got to be a doubt – which is why I want to talk to Cherie Gittins.’

‘With respect,’ said Sir Colin, with the polite but firm air Strike imagined he’d once brought to discussions of hare-brained political projects during his professional life, ‘I’m more hopeful that your partner’s leads will achieve my immediate aim – that of getting Will out of Chapman Farm – than that anyone can bring the entire religion down.’