Page 378 of The Running Grave

‘Wha’?’ said Abigail, frowning again. ‘You fink ’e pretended ’e was going to Birmingham, ordered Cherie to drown Daiyu, then gone jogging on the beach to check wevver she was doin’ it?’

‘No,’ said Strike, smiling, ‘but I wondered whether Cherie or anyone else at the farm ever mentioned the presence of the jogger on the beach when Daiyu disappeared.’

Abigail frowned at him for a moment, chewing her gum, then said,

‘Why d’you keep doin’ that?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Sayin’ Daiyu “disappeared”, not “drowned”.’

‘Well, her body was never found, was it?’ said Strike.

She looked at him, her jaws still working on her gum. Then, unexpectedly, she slipped her hand into the pocket of her work trousers and pulled out her mobile.

‘Not ordering a cab, are you?’ said Strike, watching her type.

‘No,’ said Abigail, ‘I’m tellin’ Darryl I might be a bit late.’

130

… flowing water, which is not afraid of any dangerous place but plunges over cliffs and fills up the pits that lie in its course…

The I Ching or Book of Changes

Robin was standing very still in the dimly lit upper floor of the temple. She’d been there for nearly five minutes. As far as she could tell, the baby, which was now silent, had been crying in a room at the very end of the corridor, which would look onto Rupert Court. Shortly after the baby’s wails had ceased, she’d heard what she thought was a television being turned on. Somebody was listening to a news report about the goings on at Chapman Farm.

‘… can see from the aerial picture, John, a forensic team is at work inside a tent in the field behind the temple and other buildings. As we reported earlier—’

‘Sorry to interrupt you, Angela, but this just in: a statement has been issued to the press on behalf of the head of the UHC, Jonathan Wace, who’s currently in Los Angeles.

‘“Today, the Universal Humanitarian Church has been subject to an unprecedented and unprovoked police action which has caused alarm and distress to church members living peacefully in our communities in the UK. The church denies any and all criminal wrongdoing and strongly deplores the tactics used by the police against unarmed, innocent people of faith. The UHC is currently taking legal advice to protect itself and its members from further violations of their right to religious freedom, as guaranteed by Article 18 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There will be no further statement at this time.”’

As far as Robin could tell, the room with the television was the only one that was occupied. Its door stood ajar, and the light from the screen spilled out into the corridor. She began to move carefully towards it, the sound of her footsteps masked by the voice of the journalists.

‘… started here in the UK, didn’t it?’

‘That’s right, John, in the late eighties. Now, of course, it’s spread to the Continent and North America…’

Robin had crept to the door of the inhabited room. Hidden in shadow, she peered through the gap.

The room would have been entirely dark but for the television and the moon-like lamp outside the window, which hung from the ceiling of Rupert Court. Robin could see the corner of what looked like a carry cot, in which the baby was presumably now lying, the end of a bed with a blue counterpane, a baby’s bottle on the floor and the edge of what looked like a hastily packed holdall, from which some white fabric protruded. However, her attention was fixed upon a woman who was kneeling on the floor with her back to the door.

She had dark hair, tied back in a bun, and wore a sweatshirt and jeans. Her hands were busy with something. When Robin looked at the woman’s reflection in the window, she saw that she had a book open in front of her and was rapidly counting out yarrow stalks. A white object hung on a black cord around her neck. Only when Robin focused on the reflected face did her heart begin to pound violently in her chest. With the familiar fear and repugnance she’d have felt on seeing a tarantula creeping across the floor, she recognised the long, pointed nose and dark, crooked eyes of Mazu Wace.

131

As water pours down from heaven, so fire flames up from the earth.

The I Ching or Book of Changes

The room had become steadily darker as Strike and Abigail talked. Now she got to her feet, flicked on a light, then returned to the detective and sat back down.

‘’Ow can she still be alive? That’s crazy.’

‘Just for the sake of argument,’ said Strike, ‘let’s say your father and Mazu wanted to put Daiyu beyond the reach of the Graves family, to prevent them getting a DNA sample from her and proving she was Alexander’s daughter, rather than your father’s. Aside from the fact that Mazu wanted to keep her daughter, the quarter of a million would have reverted to the Graves’ control if they got custody.

‘What if your father and Mazu faked Daiyu’s death, with Cherie as a willing accomplice? Let’s say, instead of drowning, Daiyu was removed from the farm long enough to have credibly changed her appearance. She then came back three years later under a different name, as a child who’d supposedly gone to Birmingham to be trained up as a future church leader. Memories grow vague. Teeth can be fixed. Nobody’s sure quite how old anyone is, in there. What if your father and Mazu passed Daiyu off as Becca Pirbright?’