Page 300 of The Running Grave

‘Sure you do,’ said Robin furiously, unable to control herself, ‘toddlers wandering around in nappies at night—’

‘—never had any instances of sexual abuse at Chapman Farm—’

‘Strange words,’ shouted Robin, to the onscreen Becca, ‘from a woman who said her brother sexually abused her there!’

Murphy paused the video again.

‘You all right?’ he said gently, putting a hand on Robin’s shoulder.

‘Yes – no – well, obviously, I’m not,’ said Robin, standing up and running her hands through her hair. ‘It’s bullshit, it’s all bullshit, and she—’

She pointed at the onscreen Becca, who was frozen with her mouth open, but Robin couldn’t find words to adequately express her contempt.

‘Shall we watch the rest after—?’ Murphy began.

‘No,’ said Robin, dropping back down into her seat, ‘sorry, I’m just so bloody angry. The boy she’s talking about isn’t Jacob! Where’s the real one? Is he dead? Is he starving away in the b-base—?’

Robin began to cry.

‘Shit,’ said Murphy, moving his chair so he could put his arms around her. ‘Robin, I shouldn’t’ve shown you this crap, I should’ve just told you they’re speaking a load of bollocks and you’ve got nothing to worry about.’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ Robin said, pulling herself together. ‘I want to watch it… she might say something useful… the woman with the fake name…’

‘Cherie?’ said Murphy.

Robin pulled free of his hug.

‘She names her?’

‘Yeah, towards the end. That’s where it all goes a bit…’

Robin got up and strode to her bag to fetch her notebook and pen.

‘Cherie’s the woman Strike and I interviewed today.’

‘OK,’ said Murphy uncertainly. ‘Let’s fast-forward, watch the Cherie bit and forget the rest of it.’

‘Fine,’ said Robin, sitting back down with her notebook. ‘Sorry,’ she added, wiping her eyes again, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

‘Yeah, it’s like you’ve just escaped from a cult or something.’

But Robin couldn’t adequately explain to Murphy how it felt to listen to these naked lies covering up terrible neglect, or the fabricated story of sexual abuse, when all she’d done was to care for and try to save a dying child; the gulf between what the UHC pretended to be, and what it really was, had never been more starkly apparent to her, and a small part of her would have liked to scream and throw Murphy’s laptop across the room, but instead she pressed out the nib of her pen, and waited.

Murphy fast-forwarded, and together they watched Becca gesticulating, shaking her head and nodding at double time.

‘Too far,’ muttered Murphy, ‘she brushed her hair off her face before…’

He rewound and finally pressed play.

‘… other woman with a false name?’ said the female police officer.

‘Oh,’ said Becca, sweeping her shining hair off her face, ‘yes. I mention her because she was an actual instrument of the divine.’

Robin could almost feel the two police officers resisting the urge to look at each other. The male policeman cleared his throat.

‘What d’you mean by that?’

‘Cherie was a messenger of the Blessed Divinity, sent to take Daiyu, our prophet, to the sea. Cherie confided her purpose to me—’