‘How soon after that meeting did you go to Chapman Farm?’ asked Strike.
‘I wen’ right after the meetin’ finished… they had a minibus outside.’
Her hands were clutching each other, the knuckles white. There was a henna tattoo drawn onto the back of one of them, doubtless done in Spain. Perhaps, Robin thought, her small daughters had also had flowers and curlicues drawn onto their hands.
‘What did you think of Chapman Farm, when you got there?’ asked Strike.
There was a long pause.
‘Well, it wuz… weird, wuzn’ it?’
‘Weird?’
‘Yeah… I liked some of it though. I liked bein’ with the kids.’
‘They liked you, too,’ said Robin. ‘I’ve heard some very nice things about you from a woman called Emily. She’d have been around seven or eight when you knew her. D’you remember her? Emily Pirbright?’
‘Emily?’ said Carrie distractedly. ‘Um – maybe. I’m not sure.’
‘She had a sister, Becca.’
‘Oh… yeah,’ said Carrie. ‘Have you – where’s Becca, now?’
‘Still in the church,’ said Robin. ‘Both sisters are. Emily told me she really loved you – that both of them did. She said all the kids felt that way about you.’
Carrie’s mouth made a tragi-comic downwards arc and she began to cry, noisily.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ said Robin hastily, as Carrie bent down to the shopper at her feet and extracted a packet of tissues from its interior. She mopped her eyes and blew her nose, saying through her sobs,
‘Sorry, sorry…’
‘No problem,’ said Strike. ‘We understand this must be difficult.’
‘Can I get you anything, Carrie?’ said Robin. ‘A glass of water?’
‘Y–y–yes please,’ wept Carrie.
Robin left the room for the kitchen, which lay off the dining area. Strike let Carrie cry without offering words of comfort. He judged her distress to be genuine, but it would set a bad precedent to make her think tears were the way to soften up her interviewers.
Robin, who was filling a glass with tap water in the small but spotless kitchen, noticed Carrie’s daughters’ paintings on the fridge door, all of which were signed either Poppy or Daisy. One was captioned Me and Mummy and showed two blonde figures hand in hand, both wearing princess dresses and crowns.
‘Thank you,’ whispered Carrie when Robin returned to the sitting room and handed her the glass. She took a sip, then looked up at Strike again.
‘OK to continue?’ he asked formally. Carrie nodded, her eyes now reddened and swollen, the mascara washed away onto her cheeks, leaving them grey. Strike thought she looked like a piglet, but Robin was reminded of the teenaged girls keeping vigil before the Manifestation of the Drowned Prophet.
‘So you met Daiyu for the first time at the farm?’ asked Strike.
Carrie nodded.
‘What did you think of her?’
‘Thought she wuz lovely,’ said Carrie.
‘Really? Because a few people have told us she was spoiled.’
‘Well… maybe a bit. She wuz still sweet.’
‘We’ve heard you spent a lot of time with her.’
‘Yeah,’ said Carrie, after another brief pause, ‘I s’pose I did.’
‘Emily told me,’ said Robin, ‘that Daiyu used to boast you and she were going to go away and set up house together. Is that true?’
‘No!’ said Carrie, sounding shocked.
‘Daiyu made that up, did she?’ said Strike.
‘If – if she said it, yeah.’
‘Why d’you think she’d claim she was going to leave to live with you?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Maybe to make the other children jealous?’ suggested Robin.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Carrie, ‘yeah.’
‘How did you like the Waces?’ asked Strike.
‘I… thought the same as everyone else.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’
‘Well, they wuz… they could be strict,’ said Carrie, ‘but it wuz for a good cause, I s’pose.’
‘You thought that, did you?’ said Strike. ‘That the church’s cause was good?’
‘It did good things. Some good things.’
‘Did you have any particular friends at Chapman Farm?’
‘No,’ said Carrie. ‘You weren’ supposed to have special friends.’
She was holding her water tightly. Its surface was shivering.
‘All right, let’s talk about the morning you took Daiyu to Cromer,’ said Strike. ‘How did that come about?’
Carrie cleared her throat.
‘She jus’ wan’ed to go with me to the beach.’
‘Had you ever taken any other children to the beach?’
‘No.’
‘But you said yes to Daiyu?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘Well – ’cause she wan’ed to go, and – she kept goin’ on about it – so I agreed.’
‘Weren’t you worried about what her parents would say?’ asked Robin.
‘A bit,’ said Carrie, ‘but I thought we’d get back before they wuz awake.’
‘Walk us through what happened,’ said Strike. ‘How did you wake yourself up so early? There aren’t clocks at Chapman Farm, are there?’
Cherie looked unhappy that he knew this, and he was reminded of Jordan Reaney’s clear displeasure that Strike had so much information.
‘If you wuz on the vegetable run, they gave you a little clock to wake yourself.’
‘You were sleeping in the children’s dormitory the night before the trip to the beach, right?’
‘Yeah,’ she said uneasily, ‘I wuz on child duty.’
‘And who was going to be looking after the kids, once you’d left on the vegetable run?’
After yet another pause, Carrie said,
‘Well… there’d still be someone there, after I’d gone. There wuz always two grown-ups or teenagers in with the children overnight.’
‘Who was the other person on duty that night?’
‘I… can’ remember.’
‘Are you sure someone else was there, Carrie?’ asked Robin. ‘Emily told me that there were usually two adults in the room, but that that night it was only you.’
‘She’s wrong,’ said Carrie. ‘There wuz always two.’
‘But you can’t remember who the other person was?’ said Strike.
Carrie shook her head.
‘So you were woken up by your alarm clock. Then what happened?’
‘Well, I – I woke Daiyu up, di’n’ I?’
‘Had Jordan Reaney been given an alarm clock, too?’
‘Wha’?’
‘He was supposed to be on the vegetable run, too, wasn’t he?’
Another pause.
‘He overslept.’
‘You wouldn’t have had room for Daiyu if he hadn’t overslept, would you?’
‘I can’ remember all the details now. I jus’ know I woke up Daiyu and we got dressed and went to the van.’
‘Did you have to load vegetables onto the truck?’ asked Strike.
‘No. Everythin’ was already in it. From the night before.’
‘So you and Daiyu got in, taking towels for your swim?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I ask something?’ said Robin. ‘Why was Daiyu wearing a dress, instead of a tracksuit, Carrie? Or didn’t church members wear tracksuits, in the nineties?’
‘No, we wore ’em… but she wan’ed to wear her dress.’
‘Were the other children allowed normal clothes?’ asked Strike.
‘No.’
‘Did Daiyu got special treatment, because she was the Waces’ child?’
‘I s’pose – a bit,’ said Carrie.
‘So you drove out of the farm. Did you pass anyone?’