Page 43 of The Running Grave

‘What’s Murphy’s view on this?’

‘What the hell’s it got to do with Ryan?’ said Robin, with an edge to her voice.

Recognising his strategic error, Strike said, ‘Nothing.’

There was a brief silence, in which rain pounded against the window and wind whistled through the guttering.

‘All right, well, I thought we should divide up these ex-members so we can work our way through them, see if any will talk,’ said Strike, breaking eye contact to open a file on his computer. ‘I’ve sent you the census names already. Robertson sent me his list last night. There was only one name I didn’t already have: Cherie Gittins. He never managed to trace her, but I found out a bit about her online. She was the girl who took Daiyu Wace swimming on the day she drowned, but I can’t find any trace of her after 1995.’

‘Want me to have a look?’ said Robin, flipping open her notebook.

‘Couldn’t hurt. In better news, I’ve found the Doherty family – the dad who left with three of the kids, and the mother who was expelled later.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, but I’ve had a hard “no” to an interview from the father and two of the kids. The father was bloody aggressive about it. The other kid – I say kid, they’re all adults now – hasn’t got back to me yet. That’s Niamh, the eldest. I can’t find any trace of the mother, Deirdre, and I’m wondering whether she’s changed her name or gone abroad. No death certificate that I can find. I haven’t had much luck with Jordan, either – that’s the bloke Kevin Pirbright claims was whipped across the face with a leather flail. He’s not on any of the census reports, so he must’ve come and gone between censuses.

‘But I might have found Jonathan Wace’s older daughter, Abigail. If I’m right, she switched to using her mother’s maiden name, Glover, after she left the church, and she’s a firefighter.’

‘A literal—?’

‘Hose, siren, the works, if I’ve got the right woman. Unmarried, no kids that I can see, and she’s living in Ealing. I also think I’ve identified the gay girl who joined up in her teens, the one Robertson spoke to for his article.’

‘Already?’

‘Yeah. She’s on the census for 2001 and her name’s Flora Brewster. Age and dates tally. Her Facebook page is full of pictures of New Zealand and she comes from a very wealthy family. Her grandfather started a massive construction company: Howson Homes.’

‘“You’ll-Be-Oh-So-Happy-in-a-Howson-Home”?’ said Robin, as the jingle from a nineties advert she didn’t know she’d remembered came back to her.

‘Until the dividing walls fall down, yeah. Not famous for being well built, Howson Homes.’

‘Have you contacted her?’

‘No, because her Facebook account’s inactive; she hasn’t posted anything there for over a year, but I have found a guy called Henry Worthington-Fields, who’s a Facebook friend of hers living in London. I think it’s possible he’s the guy who got her into it, who only stayed a week. He talks about having an old friend the church nearly destroyed. Very angry, very bitter, dark hints about criminality. I’ve sent him a message, but nothing back so far. If he’s willing to talk, I might be able to find out what lay behind Flora’s comment to Fergus Robertson, “There’s something you don’t know.”’

‘I was thinking about that girl – Flora – after I read your email,’ said Robin. ‘That makes two people who killed themselves, or tried to, right after leaving the church. It’s as though they leave with invisible suicide vests on them. Then the Drowned Prophet shows up and makes them detonate it.’

‘Fanciful way of putting it,’ said Strike, ‘but yeah, I know what you mean.’

‘Did I tell you Alexander Graves is painted on the temple ceiling with a noose around his neck?’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘It’s sick, isn’t it? They’re close to glorifying suicide, putting that on the ceiling. Equating it to martyrdom for the church.’

‘I’d imagine it suits the UHC fine to have quitters finish themselves off. Self-solving problem.’

‘But it adds weight to what Prudence said, doesn’t it? About not taking Will Edensor out too quickly, not expecting him to just snap back to—’

At that moment, they heard a jingle on the landing, and the door to the outer office opened. Strike and Robin both looked round, surprised: nobody else should have been there, given that that Midge was on holiday and all other subcontractors on jobs.

There in the doorway stood Clive Littlejohn, stocky and solid in his rain-speckled coat, his crewcut unchanged by the high winds. His heavy-lidded eyes blinked at the partners visible through the open inner door. Otherwise, he remained expressionless and stationary.

‘Morning,’ said Strike. ‘Thought you were on the new client’s husband?’

‘Ill,’ said Littlejohn.

‘Is he?’