Strike took a few satisfying bites of his first pie before saying,
‘So: Carrie.’
‘Well,’ said Robin, who was eating a cheese sandwich, ‘there’s something off, isn’t there? Very off.’
‘Where d’you want to start?’
‘The dormitory,’ said Robin. ‘She was very worried talking about all of that: Daiyu going out of the window, the fact that there should have been two adults in the room, the special drinks. Whereas when she got to the drowning—’
‘Yeah, that all came out very fluently. ’Course, she’s told that story multiple times; practice makes perfect…’
The pair sat in silence for a moment or two, before Strike said,
‘“The night before”.’
‘What?’
‘Kevin Pirbright wrote it on his bedroom walclass="underline" the night before.’
‘Oh… well, yes. Why did all this stuff happen, the night before?’
‘And you know what else needs explaining? Reaney oversleeping. There’s something very fishy there. How did Carrie know he wasn’t going to turn up?’
‘Maybe she gave him a special drink, too? Or special food?’
‘Very good point,’ said Strike, reaching for his notebook.
‘But where did she get stuff in enough quantities to drug all these people, when she never went shopping and didn’t have access to cash?’
‘Someone must’ve been going out shopping, unless the church farms its own bog rolls and washing powder,’ Strike pointed out. ‘Delivery services weren’t nearly as common in ninety-five.’
‘True, but – oh, hang on,’ said Robin, struck by a sudden idea. ‘She might not have needed to buy drugs. What if whatever she used was grown there?’
‘Herbs, you mean?’
‘Valerian’s a sleep aid, isn’t it?’
‘You’d need a bit of expertise if you’re messing around with plants.’
‘True,’ said Robin, remembering the blood in the bathroom, and Lin’s rash.
There was another brief silence, both of them thinking.
‘Carrie was defensive about Daiyu not getting out of the van at those two different grocers, as well,’ said Strike.
‘Daiyu might not have wanted to get out. There’s no reason she should have.’
‘What if Carrie gave Daiyu a “special drink” somewhere between waving goodbye to the early duty lot and carrying her down to the sea? Maybe Daiyu was too sleepy to get out of the van, even if she’d wanted to.’
‘So you think Carrie killed her?’
‘Don’t you?’
Robin ate more sandwich before answering.
‘I can’t see it,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t imagine her doing it.’
She waited for Strike’s agreement, but none came.
‘D’you honestly think the woman we just met could hold that child underwater until she was dead?’ Robin asked him. ‘Or drag her out into the deep, knowing she couldn’t swim?’
‘I think,’ said Strike, ‘the proportion of people who could be persuaded to commit terrible acts, given the right circumstances, is higher than most of us would like to think. You know the Milgram experiment?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Participants were instructed to administer increasingly strong electric shocks to another person, every time that person answered a question wrongly. And sixty-five per cent continued turning up the dial until they were administering what they thought was a dangerously high level of electricity.’
‘Exactly,’ said Strike. ‘Sixty-five per cent.’
‘All the participants in that experiment were male.’
‘You don’t think women would have complied?’
‘Just pointing it out,’ said Robin.
‘Because if you don’t think young women are capable of committing atrocities, I’d refer you to Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins and – whatever the others were called.’
‘Who?’ said Robin, perplexed.
‘I’m talking about the Manson Family, which differed from the UHC only in laying slightly more emphasis on murder and a lot less on generating revenue, although by all accounts Charles Manson would’ve been happy to get cash as well. They committed nine murders in all, one of them of a pregnant actress, and those young women were right in the thick of the action, ignoring the victims’ pleas for mercy, dipping their fingers in the victims’ blood to scrawl – Jesus,’ said Strike, with a startled laugh, as he remembered a detail he’d forgotten, ‘they wrote “pigs” on the wall as well. In blood.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Yeah. “Death to pigs”.’
Having finished two pork pies, Strike rummaged in the bag for a Yorkie bar, and the apple he’d bought as an afterthought.
‘How’re we feeling about “Joe” and “Rose”?’ he asked, as he unwrapped the chocolate.
‘You sound sceptical.’
‘Can’t help thinking “Rose” might’ve been a name she thought of on the spur of the moment, given that she named her kids Poppy and Daisy.’
‘If she was going to lie, wouldn’t she deny her own involvement?’
‘It would’ve been too late. Her reaction when she saw the pictures gave her away.’
‘We know Paul Draper was real, though.’
‘Yeah, but he’s dead, isn’t he? He can’t testify.’
‘But… in a way, he still can.’
‘You about to whip out a Ouija board?’
‘Ha ha. No. I’m saying, if Carrie knows Paul’s dead, she must also know how he died: kept as a slave and beaten to death.’
‘So?’
‘What happened to Draper at Chapman Farm makes those Polaroids more incriminating, not less. He’d been groomed to accept abuse in the church, and that made him vulnerable to that pair of sociopaths who killed him.’
‘Not sure Carrie’s bright enough to think that through,’ said Strike.
Both sat for a minute, eating and following their own trains of thought, until Strike said,
‘You didn’t see any pig masks while you were in there, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Hmm,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe they got bored of them once they discovered the virtues of the box. Or maybe what’s on those Polaroids was a secret, even from most people inside the church. Somebody was enjoying their fetish in private, knowing full well it couldn’t be given any kind of spiritual interpretation.’
‘And that person had the authority to compel the teenagers to do what they were told, and keep quiet about it afterwards.’
‘Pigs seem to have been Mazu’s particular preoccupation. Can you imagine Mazu telling teenagers to strip and abuse each other?’
Robin considered the question before saying slowly,
‘If you’d asked me before I went in there whether a woman could make kids do that, I’d have said it was impossible, but she’s not normal. I think she’s a true sadist.’
‘And Jonathan Wace?’
Robin felt as though Wace’s hands touched her again when Strike spoke his name. Gooseflesh rose once more over her torso.
‘I don’t know. Possibly.’
Strike pulled out his phone and brought up the photographs of the Polaroids again. Robin, who felt she’d looked at them quite enough, turned to look out of the window at the graveyard.
‘Well, we know one thing about Rose, if that’s her real name,’ said Strike, eyes on the chubby girl with the long black hair. ‘She hadn’t been at Chapman Farm very long before this happened. She’s too well nourished. All the others are very skinny. I could’ve sworn,’ said Strike, his gaze moving to the youth with the skull tattoo, ‘that guy was Reaney. His reaction when I showed him the – oh, shit. Hang on. Joe.’