‘Let her bloody pee.’
‘Fine,’ said Taio. ‘Be quick.’
Robin hurried into the dormitory. Most of the women were getting ready for bed.
Robin pushed her way into the bathroom. Marion Huxley was bent over the sink, cleaning her teeth.
In one fluid movement, Robin had stepped up onto the sink beside Marion, and before Marion could shout in surprise, had forced the window open, heaved herself up on the high sill, swung one leg over and then, as Marion screamed, ‘What are you doing?’ let herself fall, hitting the ground on the other side so hard she fell over.
But she was up in an instant and running – her only advantage over the Wace brothers, given her present hunger and exhaustion, was how well she knew her way to the blind spot in the dark. Through the pounding in her ears she heard distant shouts. She was over the five-bar gate, and now she was sprinting across the wet field, her breath coming fast and ragged – she was wearing blue now, far harder to see in the dark than white – there was a stitch like a sword wound in her chest but she sped up – and now she could hear Taio and Jiang behind her.
‘Get her – GET HER!’
She crashed her way into the wood, following the familiar path, leaping over nettles and roots, passing familiar trees –
And in the BMW, Strike saw her coming. Throwing aside the night vision goggles and picking up the foot-long wire cutters, he left the car at a run. He’d got through three strands of barbed wire when Robin screamed,
‘They’re coming, they’re coming, help me—’
He reached over the wall and dragged her with him; her tracksuit bottoms tore on the remaining wire, but she was out onto the road.
Strike could hear the sound of running men.
‘How many?
‘Two – let’s go, please—’
‘Get in,’ he said, pushing her away, ‘just get in the car – GO!’ he bellowed, as Taio Wace came bursting through a thicket of trees and ran for the figure silhouetted ahead.
As Taio launched himself at the detective, Strike swung back the heavy metal wire cutters and smashed them into the side of Taio’s head. Taio crumpled and the figure behind him skidded to a halt. Before either man could return the attack, Strike was heading for the car. Robin had already started the engine; she saw Taio rise again, but Strike was inside the car; he slammed his foot on the accelerator, and in an exhilarating burst of speed they were driving away, Strike having found a glorious release for his days of anxiety, Robin shaking and sobbing in relief.
88
KEEPING STILL means stopping.
When it is time to stop, then stop.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Drive, drive, drive,’ said Robin frantically. ‘They’ll see the number plates on the cameras—’
‘Doesn’t matter if they do, they’re fake,’ said Strike.
He glanced at her and even in the dim light was appalled at what he saw. She looked a good couple of stone lighter and her swollen face was covered either in dirt or bruises.
‘We’ve got to call the police,’ said Robin, ‘there’s a child dying in there – Jacob, that’s who Jacob is, and they’ve stopped feeding him. I’ve been with him all day. We’ve got to get the police.’
‘We’ll call them when we stop. We’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘Where?’ said Robin, alarmed.
She’d imagined travelling straight to London; she wanted to put as many miles as possible between herself and Chapman Farm, wanted to get back to London, to sanity and safety.
‘I’ve got a room in a hotel up the road,’ said Strike. ‘It’ll be the local force we need, if you want police.’
‘What if they come after us?’ said Robin, looking over her shoulder. ‘What if they come looking?’
‘Let them come,’ growled Strike. ‘Nothing would give me greater fucking pleasure than to belt some more of them.’
But when he glanced at her again, he saw naked fear.
‘They’re not going to come,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘They’ve got no authority outside the farm. They can’t take you back.’
‘No,’ she said, more to herself than to him. ‘No, I… I s’pose not…’
Her sudden re-emergence into freedom was too massive for Robin to absorb in a few seconds. Waves of panic kept hitting her: she was imagining what was happening back at Chapman Farm, wondering how soon Jonathan Wace would know she’d gone. She found it almost impossible to grasp that his jurisdiction didn’t extend to this dark, narrow road bordered with trees, or even to the interior of the car. Strike was beside her, large and solid and real, and only now did it occur to her what would have become of her had he not been there, in spite of her absolute certainty that he was waiting.
‘This is it,’ said Strike five minutes later, as he pulled up in a dark car park.
As Strike turned off the engine, Robin undid her seat belt, half rose from her seat, threw her arms around him, buried her face in his shoulder and burst into tears.
‘Thank you.’
‘’S all right,’ said Strike, putting his arms around her and speaking into her hair. ‘My job, innit… you’re out,’ he added quietly, ‘you’re OK now…’
‘I know,’ sobbed Robin. ‘Sorry… sorry…’
Both were in very inconvenient positions in which to hug, especially as Strike still had his seat belt on, but neither let go for several long minutes. Strike gently rubbed Robin’s back, and she held him in a tight grip, occasionally apologising while his shirt collar grew wet. Instead of recoiling when he pressed his lips to the top of her head, she tightened her hold on him.
‘It’s all right,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s OK.’
‘You don’t know,’ sobbed Robin, ‘you don’t know…’
‘You can tell me later,’ said Strike. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
He didn’t want to let her go, but he’d dealt with enough traumatised people in the army – had indeed been one of those people himself, after the car in which he’d been travelling had been blown up, taking half his leg with it – to know that being asked to re-live calamity in its immediate aftermath, when what was really needed was physical comfort and kindness, meant a debrief ought to wait.
They walked together across the lawn towards the low guest house, one of three in a row, Strike’s arm around Robin’s shoulders. When he unlocked the door and stood back to let her in, she passed across the threshold in a state of disbelief, her eyes roving from the four-poster to the multitude of cushions Strike had found excessive, from the kettle standing on a chest of drawers to the television in the corner. The room seemed unimaginably luxurious: to be able to make yourself a hot drink, to have access to news, to have control of your own light switch…
She turned to look at her partner as he closed the door.
‘Strike,’ she said, with a shaky laugh, ‘you’re so thin.’
‘I’m fucking thin?’
‘D’you think I could eat something?’ she said timidly, as though asking for something unreasonable.
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Strike, moving to the phone. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Anything,’ said Robin. ‘A sandwich… anything…’
She moved restlessly around the room as he dialled the number of the main hotel, trying to convince herself she was genuinely here, touching surfaces, gazing around at the leaf-strewn wallpaper and the ceramic deer head. Then, out of one of the windows, she spotted the hot tub, the water looking black by night and reflecting the trees behind it, and she seemed to see the eyeless child rising again from the depths of the baptismal pool. Strike, who was watching her, saw her flinch and turn away.