Page 312 of The Running Grave

‘I’m not talking about it,’ said Will, turning red again. ‘You’re not the police, you can’t make me.’

‘Nobody’s going to make you do anything,’ said Robin, with a warning look at her partner, whose demeanour, even when trying to be sympathetic, was often more threatening than he realised. ‘We only want what you want, Will: to find Lin and make sure Qing’s OK.’

‘You’re doing more than that,’ said Will, with a nervous jab of the finger towards the covered board. ‘You’re trying to take the UHC on, aren’t you? That won’t work. It won’t, it definitely won’t. You’re messing with stuff you don’t understand. I know, if I tell the police everything, she’ll come for me. That’s a chance I’ll have to take. I don’t care if I die, as long as Lin and Qing are OK.’

‘You’re talking about the Drowned Prophet?’ Robin asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Will. ‘You don’t want her after you, as well. She protects the church.’

‘We won’t need to take on the UHC now,’ lied Robin. ‘All that stuff on the board – we were just trying to find ways to put pressure on the Waces, so your family could see you.’

‘But I don’t want to see them!’

‘No, I know,’ said Robin. ‘I’m just saying, there’s no point us going on with that part of the investigation –’ she pointed at the board ‘– now you’re out.’

‘But you’ll find Lin?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘What if she’s dead?’ Will burst out suddenly. ‘There was all that blood—’

‘I’m sure we’ll find her,’ said Robin.

‘It’ll be punishment on me, if she’s dead,’ said Will, ‘for what I did to my m-mum.’

He burst into tears.

Robin wheeled her chair out from behind the desk and drew nearer to Will, although she didn’t touch him. She guessed he’d seen his mother’s obituary online, in the internet café in Norwich. She said nothing, but waited for Will’s sobs to subside.

‘Will,’ she said, when at last she thought he was in a condition to take in what she was saying, ‘we’re only asking what you’ve done that might be criminal, because we need to know whether the church has got something on you that they could publish, before you’ve got a chance to talk to the police. If they do that, you could be arrested before we can find Lin, d’you see? And that would mean Qing being taken into care.’

Full of admiration for how Robin was handling this interview, Strike had to suppress a wholly inappropriate grin.

‘Oh,’ said Will, raising a grubby, tear-stained face. ‘Right. Well… they can’t publish it, without making themselves look really bad. It was either stuff we all had to do, or that I should’ve gone to the police about. They’re doing something really terrible in there. I didn’t realise how bad it was, ’til I had Qing.’

‘But you haven’t personally hurt anyone, have you?’

‘Yes, I have,’ he said miserably. ‘Lin. And – I’ll tell the police all of it, not you. Once we’ve got Lin, I’ll tell the police.’

Pat’s mobile rang and they heard her say,

‘Stay on the corner, I’ll come and get ’em off you.’ She appeared in the doorway. ‘Someone’ll have to look after Qing. That’s Kayleigh, with the clothes for her.’

‘That was—’ began Strike, but before he could say ‘quick’ for the second time that morning, Pat had disappeared. Qing now tottered into the inner office, in search of her father, demanding to go to the bathroom. By the time Will and Qing had returned from the landing, Pat had reappeared holding two bulging bags of second-hand children’s clothes, looking cross.

‘Bloody nosy, the lot of ’em,’ she complained, setting the bags on her desk.

‘Who?’ asked Robin, as Pat took out a small pair of dungarees, got awkwardly down on her knees and sized them up against a fascinated Qing.

‘My family,’ said Pat. ‘Always trying to find out what sort of office I work in. That was my granddaughter. Met her on the corner. No need for her to know what we do.’

‘You haven’t told any of them you work here?’

‘Signed an NDA, didn’t I?’

‘How did Kayleigh—?’

‘Her boyfriend brought ’em into town. She works up the road in TK Maxx. Told her it was urgent. Right, missus,’ she told Qing, ‘let’s get you into this clean stuff. You wanna do it,’ she asked Will, squinting up at him, ‘or shall I?’