Page 332 of The Running Grave

At last, the crowd retook their seats, and Wace, who was wearing a headset microphone, began to walk slowly clockwise around the pentagonal stage, looking out into the crowd.

‘Thank you… thank you for that welcome,’ he said. ‘You know… before every super service, I ask myself… am I a worthy vehicle? No!’ he said seriously, because there were further screams of adoration. ‘I ask, because it’s no light matter, to put yourself forward as the Blessed Divinity’s vessel! Many men before me have proclaimed to the world that they’re conduits of light and love, have perhaps even believed it, but have been wrong…

‘How arrogant of any human to call themselves a holy man! Don’t you think so?’ He looked around, smiling, as a hail of ‘no’s rained down upon him.

‘You ARE a holy man!’ bellowed a man somewhere up in the higher seats, and the crowd laughed, as did Wace.

‘Thank you, my friend!’ he called back. ‘But this is the question that confronts every honest man when he ascends a stage like this. It’s a question certain members of the press –’ a storm of boos broke out ‘– ask of me often. No!’ he said, smiling and shaking his head, ‘don’t boo! They’re right to ask the question! In a world full of charlatans and conmen – although some of us might wish they’d focus a little more on our politicians and our captains of capitalism –’ a deafening round of applause ‘– it is perfectly fair to ask by what right I stand before you, saying that I have seen Divine Truth, and that I seek nothing more than to share it with all who are receptive.

‘So all I ask of you this evening – to those who’ve already joined the Universal Humanitarian Church, and to those who haven’t, to the sceptics and the non-believers – yes, perhaps especially to them,’ he said with a little laugh, which the crowd obligingly echoed ‘is to make one simple statement, if you feel you can. It commits you to nothing. It requires nothing but an open mind.

‘Do you think it possible that I’ve seen God, that I know God as well as I know my closest companions, and that I have proof of everlasting life? Is that possible? I ask no more than this – no belief, no blind acceptance. If you think you can say it, then I ask you to say the following to me now…’

The screens changed to black, with four words written on them in white.

‘Together!’ said Jonathan Wace, and the crowd roared the four words back at him:

‘I admit the possibility!’

Cormoran Strike, who was sitting with his arms folded and a look of profound boredom on his face, admitted nothing whatsoever.

111

… the second place may be that of the woman, active within the house, while the fifth place is that of the husband, active in the world without.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin was in the Denmark Street office. Pat had already left, and Robin had half a mind to stay until Strike returned from Wace’s meeting, because Murphy was working tonight.

Her anxiety made it hard to concentrate on anything. Wace’s meeting would be well underway by now. Robin was worried about Strike, picturing things she knew to be unlikely if not irrational: Strike being met by police, who’d been informed of some false charge against him, concocted by the church; Strike being dragged onto a UHC minibus, just as he’d suggested she might be kidnapped off the street, a few days ago.

You’re being completely ridiculous, she told herself, yet her nerves remained.

Even though there were two top-grade, skeleton-key-proof locks between her and the street, she felt far more frightened than at any time since she’d left Chapman Farm. Right now, she understood how those who’d been truly indoctrinated remained consumed by dread of the Drowned Prophet even after they’d recognised that the church’s other beliefs were fallacies. A nonsensical notion had her in its grip: that, merely by inserting himself boldly into the same physical space as Jonathan Wace, Strike would reap some kind of supernatural penalty. Intellectually, she knew Wace to be a crook and a conman, but her fear of his influence couldn’t be dismantled by her intellect alone.

Moreover, in her solitude, it was impossible to stop those memories she kept trying to suppress intruding into her thoughts. She seemed to feel Jonathan Wace’s hand between her legs again. She saw Will Edensor, penis in hand, advancing on her, and felt the punch. She remembered – and it was almost as shameful a recollection as the others – kneeling to kiss Mazu’s foot. Then she remembered Jacob, wasting away, untreated, in that filthy attic room, and that the police remained entirely silent about whether she was going to be charged for child sex abuse. Stop thinking about it all, she told herself firmly, heading for the kettle.

Having made herself what was probably her eighth or ninth coffee of the day, Robin took the mug through to the inner office, to stand in front of the noticeboard. Determined to do something productive rather than brood, she scrutinised the six Polaroids of naked teenagers she’d found in the biscuit tin at Chapman Farm far more closely than she’d done before. This was far easier to do without Strike present.

The dark, naked, chubby girl – Rosalind Fernsby, assuming their identification was correct – was the only person in the pictures who featured alone. Had it been the only photo, Robin might almost have believed Rosie had posed willingly, except for the deliberate degradation of the pig mask. Robin, of course, had a particular aversion to animal masks. Her rapist had worn a latex gorilla’s face to commit his serial crimes.

The next photo showed Carrie being penetrated from behind by Paul Draper, recognisable by his wispy hair.

In the third picture, Draper was being sodomised by Joe Jackson, assuming this identification, too, was correct. Jackson was dragging Draper’s head back by his hair, and the sinews were rigid in Draper’s neck, and Robin could almost see the grimace of pain on the moon face of the teenager pictured, looking timid, in the old newspaper article, at the top right of the board. The camera flash had illuminated the edge of something that looked like a vehicle in this picture. The UHC’s lawyers, of course, would probably argue that many vehicles were stored in many barns up and down the country.

The fourth Polaroid showed the dark girl being penetrated by Skull Tattoo from the front, her legs splayed, and now Robin noticed a deep graze on her left knee that hadn’t been there in the first picture. Either these Polaroids came from more than one photographic session, or she’d sustained the injury during it.

In the fifth picture, blonde Carrie had pushed up her mask far enough to give Draper oral sex while Skull Tattoo entered her from behind. The flash had illuminated the edge of something that looked like a wine bottle. Having read Strike’s notes on his interview with Henry Worthington-Fields, Robin knew Joe Jackson had later recruited Henry in a bar, in spite of the church’s prohibition on alcohol.

In the sixth and last picture, the dark girl was giving Skull Tattoo oral sex, and Draper was penetrating her vaginally. Now Robin noticed something she hadn’t seen before. What she’d thought was a shadow wasn’t: Skull Tattoo appeared to be wearing a black condom.

Self-disgust seized Robin, and she turned away from the pictures. They weren’t, after all, mere puzzle pieces. Joe Jackson, towards whom she could muster no pity, might now be flourishing in the church, but Carrie and Paul were both dead in dreadful circumstances and Rosie, though she almost certainly didn’t know it yet, was being hunted, all because she’d once been naive enough to trust whoever had lured her into the barn.

Robin sat back down in Strike’s chair, picturing the teenage Rosie creeping out of the farm with her father and brother, mere hours before the vegetable truck left Chapman Farm with Daiyu on board…

An idea came to Robin so suddenly she sat up straight in her chair as though called to attention. There should have been a second person in the children’s dormitory that night… could it have been Rosie? Had the girl performed the old trick of hiding pillows under her blankets, to convince Carrie she was present, before sneaking out of the farm forever? That would explain why Emily hadn’t seen a second supervisor, and it might also explain why Carrie had been curiously averse, before she saw the Polaroids and knew there was no hiding what had happened in the barn, to identifying the other person who ought to have been on duty, because if found, she might talk, not only about child duty, but pig masks and sodomy.

Robin returned to the outer office, unlocked the filing cabinet and took out the UHC case file. Back at the partners’ desk, she ran her eye back over the notes she’d made during her interview with Rufus, then checked the printouts of the housing records for the Fernsby family again. Walter no longer owned property. Rosie’s mother lived in Richmond, whereas Rufus and his wife lived in Enfield.