‘No,’ said Sir Colin faintly. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Well, that’s the last contact with Will Robin had before she escaped, but—’
‘What d’you mean, “escaped”?’
‘She found herself in a dangerous situation and had to run for it, by night.’
A waiter now appeared to take their food order. Strike waited until the man was out of earshot before saying,
‘In slightly better news, Will’s definitely having doubts about the church. Robin witnessed Will challenging a Principal on church doctrine, and Jonathan Wace personally informed Robin that Will keeps getting stuck on step six to pure spirit, which means accepting the church’s teaching, rather than understanding it.’
‘That’s the Will I know,’ said Sir Colin, looking slightly more encouraged.
‘Yeah, that’s obviously good,’ said Strike, wishing he didn’t have to immediately dash any faint hopes he’d raised, ‘but, ah, there’s something else Robin found out, which explains why Will hasn’t followed through on these doubts, and left. I wouldn’t tell you this if we didn’t have very strong reasons for believing it, but he appears to have fathered a child at Chapman Farm.’
‘Oh God,’ said Sir Colin, aghast.
‘Obviously, without a DNA test we can’t be absolutely sure,’ said Strike, ‘but Robin says the little girl looks like Will, and from observing his behaviour with the child and from conversations she overheard in there, she’s certain he’s the father.’
‘Who’s the mother?’
Wishing he had almost any other answer Strike said,
‘She’s called Lin.’
‘Lin… not the one Kevin wrote about? With the stammer?’
‘That’s the one, yes,’ said Strike.
Neither man spoke aloud what Strike was sure was uppermost in Sir Colin’s mind: that Lin was the product of Jonathan Wace’s rape of Deirdre Doherty. Strike now dropped his voice. Little though he wanted to alarm Edensor further, he felt it would be unethical to withhold the next bit of information.
‘I’m afraid it’s likely Lin was underage when she gave birth to Will’s daughter. According to Robin, Lin doesn’t look much older than fifteen or sixteen now, and as far as she could judge, the daughter’s around two years old.’
Strike couldn’t entirely blame Sir Colin for burying his face in his hands. He then took a deep breath, let his hands fall, straightened up in his seat and said quietly,
‘Well, I’m glad James isn’t here.’
Remembering Sir Colin’s eldest son’s rage at Will during their only previous meeting, Strike silently concurred.
‘I think it’s important to remember that it’s a punishable offence at Chapman Farm to refuse to “spirit bond” – in other words, to refuse sex. Will and Lin’s relationship has to be seen in that context. They’d both been groomed to believe spirit bonding wasn’t just acceptable, but righteous.’
‘Even so—’
‘The church doesn’t celebrate birthdays. Lin herself might not know how old she is. Will might have believed she was of age when it happened.’
‘Nevertheless—’
‘I don’t think Lin would want to press charges,’ said Strike, again lowering his voice as a portly middle-aged couple were led past their table. ‘Robin says Lin’s fond of Will and she loves the daughter they had together. Will seems to feel warmly towards Lin, too. Robin thinks that as Will’s doubts about the church have grown, his awareness of what’s considered immoral in the outside world has begun to reassert itself, because he’s now refusing to have sex with her.’
The waiter now arrived with their food. Strike glanced with some envy at Sir Colin’s steak and kidney pudding; he’d ordered sea bass, and he was becoming increasingly bored of fish.
Sir Colin ate a single mouthful, then put down his knife and fork again, looking queasy. Keen to cheer up a client for whom he felt a great deal more empathy than others who’d hired the agency, Strike said,
‘Robin’s got us a few solid leads, though, and I’m hopeful at least one of them will lead to building a case against the church. Firstly, there’s a small boy called Jacob.’
He outlined Jacob’s precarious state of health, the neglect and lack of medical treatment he was enduring, then described Robin’s interview with the police, hours after leaving the church compound.
‘If the authorities manage to gain entry to the farm and examine the boy, which they may already have done, we’ll have something very significant against the UHC. Robin’s expecting to hear back from the police any time now.’
‘Well, that’s certainly – not good news, not for the poor child,’ said Sir Colin, ‘but if we can only put the Waces on the back foot for a change—’
‘Exactly,’ said Strike. ‘And Jacob’s only one of the leads Robin got. The next is Lin herself. She was removed from the farm after having an adverse reaction to some plants she was eating in an attempt to give herself a miscarriage – this wasn’t Will’s child,’ Strike added. ‘As I told you, he’s been refusing to sleep with her now.’
‘What d’you mean by “removed”?’
‘She didn’t want to leave, doubtless because of her daughter, but they took her forcibly off the premises. We haven’t yet been able to trace her yet. No hospital’s admitting to having her. Of course, she might be at one of the other UHC centres, but I’ve done a bit of research and my hunch is that she’s at a residential clinic run by Dr Zhou in Borehamwood.’
‘I know about that place,’ said Sir Colin. ‘Pattersons got one of their people in there to have a look around, but it didn’t turn up anything of value. It seems to be a glorified spa, no obvious wrongdoing and nobody tried to recruit their detective to the UHC.’
‘Even so, it seems the most likely place for them to have hidden Lin. As I say, she was in need of urgent medical care and I don’t think they’d want her anywhere she couldn’t be watched over by a senior member of the church, because she’s a definite flight risk – Robin overheard her suggesting to Will that they do “what Kevin did”.
‘If we can trace Lin and get her out of their clutches, we’d have a very valuable witness. Robin thinks Lin would value getting custody of her daughter over her loyalty to the church, and if we can get the child out, Will might well follow. But I want to tread very carefully in trying to locate Lin, because we don’t want to spook the UHC into hiding her somewhere unreachable. If you’re happy to bear the expense, I’d like to get one of our own people into that clinic – not Robin, obviously, but possibly our other female detective.’
‘Yes, of course. I have a duty of care to the girl. She’s the mother of my granddaughter, after…’
His eyes brimmed with tears.
‘I do apologise… every time we meet I seem to…’
Their waiter now returned to the table to ask Sir Colin whether there was something wrong with his steak and kidney pudding.
‘No,’ said Sir Colin weakly, ‘it’s very good. Just not particularly hungry… so sorry,’ he added to Strike, wiping his eyes as the waiter retreated again. ‘Sally really craved a granddaughter, you know. We run to boys a lot in both our families… but for it to happen under these circumstances…’