Page 55 of The Running Grave

‘She’s… she was creepy. I liked Wace at the time, but there was something about her… I couldn’t see why they were together. Anyway, when she reached us, everyone stopped chanting, and Mazu stood over this woman and just… stared at her. She didn’t even speak. And the pregnant woman just looked terrified and she kind of struggled up, and she still looked like she was in a load of pain or was going to pass out, but she staggered off with Mazu.

‘And none of the others would look me in the eye. They acted like nothing had happened. I looked for the pregnant woman at dinner that evening, but she wasn’t there. I didn’t actually see her again, before I left.

‘I wanted to talk to Flora about what had happened, but I couldn’t get near enough and obviously she was in a different dormitory at night.

‘Then, on the last night, we had another talk from Papa J, in the temple. They turned out all the lights and he stood in front of this big water trough, which was lit up inside, like, with underwater lights, and he made the water do stuff. Like, it rose up when he commanded it to, and made spiral shapes, and then he parted it and made it come back together…

‘It spooked me,’ said Henry. ‘I kept thinking, “It’s got to be a trick,” but I couldn’t see how he was doing it. Then he made the water make a face, a human face. One girl screamed. And then all the water settled down again and they put on the temple lights, and Papa J said, “We had a spirit visitor at the end, there. They come, sometimes, especially if there are many Receptives gathered together.” And he said he thought the new intake must be particularly receptive for that to happen.

‘And then we were asked whether we were ready to reborn. And people walked forwards one by one and got into the trough, went under the water and were pulled out again, and everyone was clapping and cheering, and Papa J hugged them, and they went to stand beside the wall with the other members.

‘I was shitting myself,’ said Henry. ‘I can’t even explain – it was, like, the pressure to join, and to have all these people approve of you, was really intense, and everyone was watching, and I didn’t know what was going to happen if I said no.

‘And then they called Flora forwards, and she just walked straight to the trough, got in, went under, was pulled out and she went to stand against the wall, beaming.

‘And I swear, I didn’t know if I was going to have the strength to say no, but thank God there was this girl ahead of me, a black girl with a tattoo of the Buddha on the back of her neck, and I’ve never forgotten her, because if she hadn’t been there… so, they called her name, and she said, “No, I don’t want to join.” Like, really loud and clear. And the atmosphere just turned to ice. Everyone was, like, glaring at her. And Papa J was the only one who was still smiling, and he gave her this whole spiel about how he knew the material world had a strong allure, and basically, he was implying she wanted to go and work for Big Oil or something, instead of saving the world. But she didn’t budge, even though she got kind of tearful.

‘And then they called my name, and I said, “I don’t want to join, either.” And I saw Flora’s face. It was like I’d slapped her.

‘Then they called the last two people forwards, and they both joined.

‘Then, while everyone’s cheering and clapping all the new members, Mazu came up to me and the girl who’d said no and said, “You two come with me,” and I said, “I want to speak to Flora first, I came with her,” and Mazu said, “She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Flora was already being led off with all the members. She didn’t even look back.

‘Mazu took us back to the farmhouse and said, “The minibus won’t be leaving until tomorrow, so you’ll have to stay here in the meantime,” and she showed us this little room with no beds, and bars over the window. And I said, “I came in a car,” and I said to the girl, “D’you want a lift back to London?” and she agreed, so we went…

‘Sorry, I really need another drink,’ said Henry weakly.

‘It’s on me,’ said Strike, getting to his feet.

When he’d returned to the table with a fresh gin and tonic for Henry, he found the younger man wiping the lenses of his glasses with his silk tie, looking shaken.

‘Thanks,’ he said, putting his glasses back on, accepting the glass and taking a large swig. ‘God, just talking about it… and I was only there a week.’

Strike, who’d made extensive notes on everything Henry had just said, now flipped back a couple of pages.

‘This pregnant woman who collapsed – you never saw her again?’

‘No,’ said Henry.

‘What did she look like?’ asked Strike, picking up his pen again.

‘Er… blonde, glasses… I can’t really remember.’

‘Did you ever see violence used against anyone at Chapman Farm?’

‘No,’ said Henry, ‘but Flora definitely did. She told me, when she got out.’

‘Which was when?’

‘Five years later. I heard she was home, and I called her. We met up for a drink, and I was really shocked at how she looked. She was so thin. She looked really ill. And she wasn’t right. In the head.’

‘In what way?’

‘God, just in – in every way. She’d talk kind of normally for a bit, then she’d start laughing at nothing. Like, this really artificial laugh. Then she’d try and stop, and she said to me “That’s me putting on my happy face”, and – I don’t know if it was something they were forced to do, like, laugh if they felt sad or whatever, but it was fucking freaky. And she kept chanting. It was like she had no control over herself.

‘I asked her why she’d left and she told me bad things had gone down, but she didn’t want to talk about them, but after she’d had two drinks she, like, started spilling all this stuff. She said she’d been flogged, with a belt, and she told me about the sex stuff, like, she had to sleep with whoever they told her to, and she kept laughing and trying to stop herself – it was horrible, seeing her like that. And after a third drink,’ said Henry, dropping his voice, ‘she said she’d seen the Drowned Prophet kill somebody.’

Strike looked up from his notebook.