‘No – I wish I had.’
‘Well, he’d scribbled all over the walls – and somebody had gouged a few words out of the plaster. It might’ve been Kevin himself, of course, but there’s a possibility his killer did it.
‘Robin got some strange information about Daiyu’s movements the night before she supposedly drowned, from Kevin’s sister Emily. What Emily said tallied with something Kevin had written on his bedsit wall, about a plot. As a matter of fact,’ said Strike, picking up his coffee cup, ‘Emily doesn’t believe Daiyu’s dead.’
‘But,’ said Sir Colin, still frowning, ‘that’s incredibly unlikely, surely?’
‘Unlikely,’ said Strike, ‘but not impossible. As it happens, alive or dead, Daiyu was worth a lot of money. She was the sole beneficiary of her biological father’s will, and he had a lot to leave. Where there’s no body, there’s got to be a doubt – which is why I want to talk to Cherie Gittins.’
‘With respect,’ said Sir Colin, with the polite but firm air Strike imagined he’d once brought to discussions of hare-brained political projects during his professional life, ‘I’m more hopeful that your partner’s leads will achieve my immediate aim – that of getting Will out of Chapman Farm – than that anyone can bring the entire religion down.’
‘But you don’t object to me interviewing Cherie Gittins?’
‘No,’ said Sir Colin slowly, ‘but I wouldn’t want this investigation to devolve into a probe into Daiyu Wace’s death. After all, it was ruled an accident, and you’ve no proof it wasn’t, have you?’
Strike, who couldn’t blame his client for this scepticism, reassured Sir Colin that the agency’s aim remained extracting his son from the UHC. The lunch concluded amicably, with Strike promising to pass on any new developments promptly, particularly as regarded the police investigation into the mistreatment of Jacob.
Nevertheless, it was the deaths of Daiyu Wace and Kevin Pirbright about which Strike was thinking as he set off back to Denmark Street. Sir Colin Edensor was correct in saying that Strike still had no concrete evidence to support his suspicions. It might indeed be overambitious to think that he’d be able to destroy the myth of the Drowned Prophet, which had survived uncontested for twenty-one years. But after all, thought the detective, still hungry after his meagre meal of fish, yet noticing how much more easily he was walking without the several stone he’d already shed, it was sometimes surprising what concerted effort in pursuit of a worthwhile goal could achieve.
91
Nine in the fourth place means:
Joyousness that is weighed is not at peace.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
While Strike was having coffee with Sir Colin Edensor, Robin was drinking a mug of tea at the table in her sitting room, her laptop and notebook open in front of her, hard at work and savouring the temporary peace. The man upstairs, whose music was usually audible, was at work, and she’d managed to get her parents out of the flat by asking them to do some food shopping.
Robin’s adjustment from life at Chapman Farm to her flat in London was proving far more difficult than she’d anticipated. She felt agitated, disorientated and overwhelmed, not only by her freedom, but also by her mother’s constant vigilance which, while kindly meant, was aggravating Robin, because it reminded her of the unrelenting surveillance she’d just escaped. She realised now, when it was too late, that what she’d really needed on returning to London was silence, space and solitude in which to reground herself in the outside world, and to concentrate on the long report for Strike in which she was tabulating everything she hadn’t yet told him about life at Chapman Farm. Guilt about her parents’ four months of anxiety on her behalf had made her agree to their visit but, much as she loved them, all she wanted now was their return to Yorkshire. Unfortunately, they were threatening to stay another week, ‘to keep you company’ and ‘to look after you’.
With a sinking heart, she now heard the lift doors out on the landing. As she got up to let her parents back in, the mobile on the table behind her started to ring.
‘Sorry,’ she said to her mother, who was laden with heavy Waitrose bags, ‘I need to get that, it might be Strike.’
‘You’re supposed to be taking time off!’ said Linda, a comment Robin ignored. Sure enough, on returning to her phone she saw her partner’s number, and answered.
‘Hi,’ said Robin, as Linda said, deliberately loudly,
‘Don’t be long, we’ve bought cakes. You should be eating and putting your feet up.’
‘Bad time?’ said Strike.
‘No,’ said Robin, ‘but could you give me two minutes? I’ll ring you back.’
She hung up and headed to the doorway of the cramped kitchen, where her parents were putting the shopping away.
‘I’m just going to nip out and get some fresh air,’ said Robin.
‘What aren’t we allowed to hear?’ said Linda.
‘Nothing, he’s just giving me an update I asked for,’ said Robin, keeping her tone light with some difficulty. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
She hurried out of the flat, keys in hand. Having reached Blackhorse Road, which offered exhaust fumes rather than clean air, she called Strike back.
‘Everything OK?’
‘It’s fine, I’m fine,’ said Robin feverishly. ‘My mother’s just driving me up the wall.’
‘Ah,’ said Strike.
‘I’ve told her about a hundred times it was my choice to go Chapman Farm, and my choice to stay in that long, but—’
Robin bit back the end of the sentence, but Strike knew perfectly well what she’d been about to say.
‘She thinks it’s all on me?’
‘Well,’ said Robin, who hadn’t wanted to say it, but was yearning to unburden herself, ‘yes. I’ve told her I had to argue you into letting me do the job, and that you wanted me to come out earlier, I’ve even told her she should be bloody grateful you were there when I ran for it, but she… God, she’s infuriating.’
‘You can’t blame her,’ said Strike reasonably, remembering how appalled he’d been at Robin’s appearance when he’d first seen her. ‘It’s your parents, of course they’re going to be worried. How much have you told them?’
‘That’s the joke! I haven’t told them a tenth of it! I had to say I didn’t get enough food, because that’s obvious, and they know I’m not sleeping very well –’ Robin wasn’t about to admit she’d woken herself up the previous evening by yelping loudly in her sleep ‘– but given what I could have said – and I think Ryan’s been winding them up, telling them how worried he was, all the time I was in there. He’s trying to get an earlier flight home from Spain, but honestly, the last thing I need is for him and my mother to get together… oh, and they’ve put up a huge poster of Jonathan Wace on the side of a building just up the road.’
‘Advertising his Super Service at Olympia? Yeah, it’s everywhere.’
‘I feel like I can’t get away from… sorry, I know I’m ranting,’ said Robin, exhaling as she leaned up against a convenient wall and watched the passing traffic. At least she couldn’t see Wace’s face from here. ‘Tell me about Colin Edensor. How did he take it all?’
‘About as well as could be expected,’ said Strike. ‘Full of praise for you and all the leads you got. He’s approved funds to try and find Lin and get Emily out, but he’s far less enthused by the idea of debunking Daiyu’s myth. Can’t say that was a surprise. I know full well it’s a long shot.’