Once they got their hands on all of Margaret’s money, they built a pool with a statue of Daiyu in the middle of it, in the new courtyard. Then they dug up the four bodies that were already buried there, and reburied them in tombs around the pool. The new graves didn’t have their real names, only their prophet names. There was no tomb for Daiyu, because they never recovered her body. The inquest found she hit a rip tide near the shore and just got sucked straight out to sea. So the statue in the pool is her memorial.
All five of the prophets were incorporated into the religion, but Daiyu/The Drowned Prophet was always the most important one. She was the one who could bless you, but she’d curse you if you strayed.
This next bit is difficult for people who haven’t seen the proof to understand.
Spirits are real. There is an otherworld. I know that for a fact. The UHC is evil and corrupt, but that doesn’t mean some of what they believe isn’t true. I’ve seen supernatural happenings that have no ‘rational’ explanation. Jonathan and Mazu are bad people and I still question whether what they were summoning were spirits or demons, but I saw them do it. Glasses shattering that nobody had touched. Objects levitating. I saw Jonathan chant, then lift a truck unaided, right off the ground. They warned us wrongdoing would result in the Adversary sending demons to the farm, and I think I saw them, once: human forms with heads of pigs.
The day of each prophet’s death is marked by their Manifestation. You’re not allowed to attend a Manifestation until you’ve turned 13, and talking about it to outsiders is absolutely forbidden. I’m not comfortable writing down details of the Manifestations. I can only tell you that I’ve seen absolute proof that the dead can come back. That doesn’t mean I think the prophets themselves were truly holy. I only know they come back on the anniversaries of their deaths. The Manifestation of the Stolen Prophet is always pretty frightening but the Manifestation of the Drowned Prophet is the worst by far. Even knowing it’s coming up changes the atmosphere at Chapman Farm.
I don’t know whether the Drowned Prophet can materialise anywhere other than the farm, but I do know she and the others still exist in the otherworld and I’m afraid of calling her forth by breaking confidence around the Manifestations.
Maybe you think I’m crazy, but I’m telling the truth. The UHC is evil and dangerous, but there is another world and they’ve found a way into it.
Kevin
8
Nine in the fifth place means…
It furthers one to make offerings and libations.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
Two days after they’d taken on the Edensor case, and having given a lot of thought to how best to proceed, Strike called Robin from the office. Robin, who was having a day off, had just arrived at the hairdressers. Having apologised to the stylist, who’d only just picked up her scissors, Robin answered.
‘Hi. What’s up?’
‘Have you been through all the Edensor documents I sent you?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it and a good first step would be getting hold of census records, to find out who’s been living at Chapman Farm in the last twenty years. If we can track down ex-UHC members, we might be able to confirm some of the claims Pirbright made about what’s going on in there.’
‘You can only access census records up to 1921,’ said Robin.
‘I know,’ said Strike, who’d been perusing the National Archives online, ‘which is why I’m buying Wardle a curry tonight. Want to come? I tipped him off about that tosser who’s paying for everything with fake tenners, and he agreed to try and get hold of the full police report into Pirbright’s shooting in return. I’m buying him curry to soften him up, because I want to persuade him to get us the census records, as well.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t come,’ said Robin, ‘Ryan’s got theatre tickets.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike, reaching for his vape pen. ‘OK, just thought I’d ask.’
‘Sorry,’ said Robin.
‘No problem, it’s your day off,’ said Strike.
‘I’m actually about to have my hair cut,’ said Robin, out of a desire to show that she was still working on the case, even if she couldn’t meet Strike’s police contact that evening.
‘Yeah? What colour have you decided on?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve only just sat down.’
‘OK, well, I was also going to ask whether you could come over to Prudence’s tomorrow evening. She’s happy to lend you some clothes.’
Unless Murphy’s got tickets for the fucking opera, of course.
‘That’d be great,’ said Robin. ‘Where does she live?’
‘Strawberry Hill. I’ll text you the address. We’ll have to meet there, I’m tailing Bigfoot until five.’
This plan agreed, Strike hung up and sat scowling, while taking deep drags on his vape. The idea of Murphy buying theatre tickets aggravated him; it suggested a dangerous degree of effort. Eight months into the relationship, the policeman should surely have stopped pretending he’d rather watch a play than have a decent meal followed by sex. Pushing himself up from the partners’ desk, Strike moved into the outer room, where the office manager, Pat, was typing away at her desk. Evidently she’d heard part of his conversation with Robin through the open door, because she asked, electronic cigarette clamped, as usual, between her teeth,
‘Why d’you call him Bigfoot?’
‘Because he looks like Bigfoot,’ said Strike, as he filled the kettle.
The man in question was the wealthy owner of a software company, whose wife believed him to be visiting sex workers. Having been forced to share a crowded lift with him during his last bout of surveillance, Strike could testify to the fact that the target was not only extremely tall, hairy and unkempt, but smelled as though his last shower was a distant memory.
‘Funny how beards come and go,’ said Pat, still typing.
‘It’s called shaving,’ said Strike, reaching for mugs.
‘Ha ha,’ said Pat. ‘I mean fashions. Sideburns and that.’
An unwelcome memory of Malcolm Crowther sitting by the campfire at Forgeman Farm surfaced in Strike’s mind: Crowther had a small girl and was encouraging her to stroke his handlebar moustache.
‘Want a cup of tea?’ Strike said, dismissing the mental image.
‘Go on, then,’ Pat replied, in the deep, gravelly voice that often caused callers to mistake her for Strike. ‘That Hargreaves woman still hasn’t paid her invoice, by the way.’
‘Call her,’ said Strike, ‘and tell her we need her to settle up by the end of the month.’
‘That’s Monday.’
‘And she’s got millions.’
‘Richer they are, slower they pay.’
‘Some truth in that,’ admitted Strike, setting down Pat’s mug on her desk before returning to the inner office and closing the door.
He spent the next three hours trying to track down the absent father of Shanker’s common-law stepdaughter. The man had had multiple addresses over the past five years, but Strike’s research finally led him to conclude the man was now going by his middle name, probably to avoid being tracked down for child maintenance, and living in Hackney. If he was indeed the right person, he was working as a long-distance haulage driver, which doubtless suited a man keen to evade his parental responsibilities.