Jonathan Wace had already explained how the UHC found commonality in all faiths, uniting and fusing them into a single, all-encompassing belief system. He’d quoted Jesus Christ, the Buddha, the Talmud and, mostly, himself. He’d called Giles Harmon and Noli Seymour separately onto the stage, where each had paid heartfelt tributes to the inspirational genius of Papa J, Harmon with an intellectual gravitas that earned a round of applause, Seymour with an effusive girlishness that the crowd appreciated even more.
The sky visible through the glass panes in the vaulted ceiling deepened gradually to dark blue, and Strike’s one and a half legs, cramped in the second row of seats, had developed pins and needles. Wace had moved on to denouncing world leaders, while the screens above him showed images of war, famine and environmental devastation. The crowd was punctuating his shorter sentences with whoops and cheers, greeting his oratorical flourishes with applause, and roaring their approval of every castigation and accusation he flung at the elites and the warmongers. Surely, Strike thought, checking his watch, they were nearly done? But another twenty minutes passed, and Strike, who now needed a piss, was becoming uncomfortable as well as bored.
‘So which of you will help us?’ shouted Wace at long last, his voice cracking with emotion as he stood alone in the spotlight, all else in shadow. ‘Who will join? Who’ll stand with me, to transform this broken world?’
As he spoke, the pentagonal stage began to transform, to further screams and applause. Five panels lifted like rigid petals to reveal a pentagonal baptismal pool, their undersides ridged in steps that would afford easy access to the water. Wace was left standing on a small circular platform in the middle. He now invited all those who felt they’d like to be received into the UHC to join him, and be reborn into the church.
The lights came up and some of the audience began to make their way towards the exits, including the elderly toffee-chewer to Strike’s left. She’d seemed impressed by Wace’s charisma and stirred by his righteous anger, but evidently felt a dip in the baptismal pool would be taking things too far. Some of the other departing audience members were carrying sleepy children; others were stretching stiff limbs after the long period of enforced sitting. No doubt many would enrich the UHC further, by purchasing a copy of The Answer or a hat, T-shirt or keyring before leaving the building.
Meanwhile, trickles of people were descending down the aisle to be baptised by Papa J. The cheers of existing members continued to ring off the metal supports of the Great Hall as one by one the new members were submerged, then rose, gasping and usually laughing, to be wrapped in towels by a couple of pretty girls on the other side of the pool.
Strike watched the baptisms, until the sky was black and his right leg had gone to sleep. At last, there were no more volunteers for baptism. Jonathan Wace pressed his hand to his heart, bowed, and the stage area went dark to a final burst of applause.
‘Excuse me?’ said a soft voice in Strike’s ear. He turned to see a young redhead in a UHC tracksuit. ‘Are you Cormoran Strike?’
‘That’s me,’ he said.
To his right, American Sanchia hastily averted her face.
‘Papa J would be so pleased if you felt like coming backstage.’
‘Not as pleased as I am,’ said Strike.
He pushed himself carefully into a standing position, stretching his numb stump until the feeling returned, and followed her through the mass of departing people. Cheery young people in UHC tracksuits were rattling collecting buckets on either side of the exit. Most who passed dropped in a handful of change, or even a note, doubtless convinced that the church did wonderful charitable work, perhaps even trying to appease a vague sense of guilt because they were leaving in dry clothes, unbaptised.
Once they’d left the main hall, Strike’s companion led him off along a corridor into which she was allowed admission, by virtue of the badge on a lanyard around her neck.
‘How did you enjoy the service?’ she asked Strike brightly.
‘Very interesting,’ said Strike. ‘What happens to the people who’ve just joined? Straight onto a bus to Chapman Farm?’
‘Only if they’d like to come,’ she said, smiling. ‘We aren’t tyrants, you know.’
‘No,’ said Strike, also smiling. ‘I didn’t know.’
She sped up, walking slightly ahead of him, so that she didn’t see Strike taking out his mobile, setting it to record, and replacing it in his pocket.
As they neared what Strike assumed would be the green room, they came across two of the burly young men in UHC tracksuits who’d been standing outside earlier. A tall, rangy-looking, long-jawed man was admonishing them.
‘… shouldn’t even have gotten near Papa J.’
‘She didn’t, we told her there was no—’
‘But the fact she even got as far as this corrid—’
‘Mr Jackson!’ said Strike, coming to a halt. ‘I thought you were based in San Francisco these days?’
Joe Jackson turned, frowning, tall enough to look straight into Strike’s eyes.
‘Do we know each other?’
His voice was a strange compound of Midlands, overlain with west coast American. His eyes were a light grey.
‘No,’ said Strike. ‘I recognised you from your pictures.’
‘Please,’ said the disconcerted redhead, ‘come, if you’d like to speak to Papa J.’
Judging that his odds of getting a truthful answer from Joe Jackson to the question ‘Got any tattoos?’ were minimal under these circumstances, Strike walked on.
They arrived at last at a closed door, from beyond which came a buzz of talk. The girl knocked, opened the door and stood back to allow Strike to enter.
There were at least twenty people inside, all of them wearing blue. Jonathan Wace was sitting in a chair in the middle of the group, a glass of clear liquid in his hand, a crumpled towel in his lap, with a cluster of young people in tracksuits around him. Most of the robed church Principals were also present.
Silence crept over the room like a rapidly moving frost as those nearest the door became aware that Strike had arrived. It reached Giles Harmon last. He was talking to a couple of young women in a distant corner.
‘… said to him, “What you fail to appreciate is the heterodox—”’
Apparently realising his voice was ringing alone through the room, Harmon broke off mid-sentence.
‘Evening,’ said Strike, moving further into the room.
If Jonathan Wace had meant to intimidate Strike by receiving him amid a crowd, he’d greatly mistaken his opponent. Strike found it positively stimulating to come face to face with the kind of people he most despised: fanatics and hypocrites, as he mentally dubbed all of them, each of them undoubtedly convinced of their own critical importance to Wace’s grandiose mission, blind to their own motives and indifferent to the sometimes irreversible damage done by the man to whom they’d sworn allegiance.
Wace rose, let the towel in his lap fall onto the arm of his chair and walked towards Strike, glass in hand. His smile was as charming and self-deprecating as it had been when he’d first mounted the pentagonal stage.
‘I’m glad – genuinely glad – you’re here.’
He held out his hand, and Strike shook it, looking down at him.
‘Don’t stand behind Mr Strike,’ said Wace, to the ordinary members who’d moved to surround the pair. ‘It’s bad manners. Or,’ he looked back at Strike, ‘may I call you Cormoran?’
‘Call me whatever you like,’ said Strike.
‘I think we’re a little crowded,’ said Wace, and Strike had to give him this much credit: he’d intuited in a few seconds that the detective was indifferent to the numbers in the room. ‘Principals, remain please. The rest of you, I know you won’t mind leaving us… Lindsey, if Joe’s still outside, tell him to join us.’