Page 350 of The Running Grave

Flora’s voice trailed away.

‘And you never saw the prophet again?’ said Will.

Angry at him for maintaining his inquisitorial tone after everything Flora had just told them, Robin muttered ‘Will!’ but Flora answered.

‘No, I did. I mean, it wasn’t really her – it was my fault. I was smoking a lot of weed in New Zealand and it all started up again. I ended up in another psychiatric hospital for months, and after that my aunt and uncle put me back on a plane to London. They’d had enough of me. They didn’t want the responsibility.

‘But I’ve never seen her again, since New Zealand,’ said Flora. ‘Except, like I say, sometimes if I drink I think I can hear her again… but I know she’s not real.’

‘If you really thought she wasn’t real, you’d have been to the police.’

‘Will—’ said Robin, and was ignored.

‘I know she’s real, and she’s going to come for me,’ Will continued, with a kind of desperate bravado, ‘but I’m still going to turn myself in. So either you do believe in her, and you’re scared, or you don’t want the church exposed.’

‘I do want them exposed,’ said Flora vehemently. ‘That’s why I spoke to the journalist and why I said I’d meet you. You don’t understand,’ she said, starting to sob. ‘I feel guilty all the time. I know I’m a coward, but I’m afraid—’

‘Of the Drowned Prophet,’ said Will triumphantly. ‘There you are. You know she’s real.’

‘There are more things to be frightened of than the Drowned Prophet!’ said Flora shrilly.

‘What – like jail?’ said Will dismissively. ‘I know I’m going to jail, if she doesn’t kill me first. I don’t care, it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Will, I’ve already told you this: there’s no need for either of you to go to jail,’ said Robin. Turning to Flora, she said, ‘We believe immunity from prosecution could be arranged if you were prepared to testify against the church, Flora. Everything you’ve just described shows clearly how traumatised you were by what happened to you at Chapman Farm. You had good and valid reasons for not speaking.’

‘I tried to tell people,’ said Flora desperately. ‘I told my psychiatrists the worst thing and they said it was part of my psychosis, that I was imagining it, that it was all part of my hallucinations of the prophet. It’s so long ago, now… everyone will blame me, like him,’ she added hopelessly, jabbing a finger at Will. Now that she wasn’t holding her cuff over her hand, Robin glimpsed the ugly scars on her wrist where she’d tried to end her life.

‘What things did you tell your psychiatrists?’ said Will implacably. ‘The Divine Secrets?’

Robin now remembered Shawna talking about Divine Secrets. She’d never found out what they were.

‘No,’ admitted Flora.

‘So you weren’t really telling them anything,’ said Will scornfully. ‘If you were convinced there’s no Drowned Prophet, you’d have talked about all that.’

‘I told them the worst thing!’ said Flora wildly. ‘And when they didn’t believe that, I knew there’d be no point talking about the Divine Secrets!’

Robin could tell by the look on Prudence’s face that she didn’t know what these secrets were, either.

‘You don’t know everything I saw,’ Flora said to Will, and there was a trace of anger in her voice now. ‘You weren’t there. I drew it,’ she said, turning to Robin, ‘because there were other witnesses, too, and I thought, if any of them had left, they might see the picture and contact me. Then I’d know for sure it was real, but all I got—’

‘Was my partner,’ said Robin.

‘Yes,’ said Flora, ‘and I knew from the way he wrote he’d never been in the UHC. You wouldn’t talk like that, if you had. “You really don’t like the UHC, do you?” You wouldn’t be that… casual. Then I thought it might be someone from Deirdre’s family, trying to goad me, and I felt… so guilty… so scared, I deleted my account.’

‘Who’s Deirdre?’ said Will.

‘Lin’s mother,’ said Robin.

For the first time, Will looked taken aback.

‘Flora,’ Robin said, ‘can I tell you what I think you saw?’

Slowly and carefully, Robin described the scene in the temple she believed had taken place during the Manifestation of the Drowned Prophet, in which Deirdre had been taken out of the pool, dead. When she’d finished speaking, Flora, whose breathing was shallow and whose face was very white, whispered,

‘How do you know that?’

‘I worked it out,’ said Robin. ‘I was there for one of the Manifestations. They nearly drowned me. But how did they explain what had happened? How did they get away with telling everyone Deirdre had left?’