‘Did you get my text about Will, Flora and Prudence?’ said Robin, trying to detangle her hair with her fingers, without much success. ‘Pat’s fine with us going over there this morning, which is good of her, given it’s Saturday.’
‘I did, yeah,’ said Strike, moving to the kettle. ‘Excellent work that, Ellacott. Want a coffee? We’ve got time. I only came in here to put my notes in the file, from last night.’
‘Oh God, of course!’ said Robin, who in her exhaustion had briefly forgotten where Strike had been. ‘What happened?’
Strike gave Robin a full account of the UHC meeting and his subsequent interview with Wace while they drank their coffees. When he’d finished, Robin said,
‘You told him you’d “burn his church to the fucking ground”?’
‘Might’ve got a bit carried away there,’ admitted Strike. ‘I was on a roll.’
‘Don’t you think that’s a bit… declaration of all-out war?’
‘Not really. Come on, they already knew we’re investigating them. Why else does everyone we want to talk to get warning phone calls?’
‘We don’t know for sure the church is behind those calls.’
‘We don’t know for sure the people in pig masks lived at Chapman Farm, either, but I think it’s safe to hazard a guess. I’d’ve liked to say a damn sight more than I did, but Deirdre Doherty drowning drags in Flora Brewster, Daiyu going out of the window incriminates Emily Pirbright, and if I’d told Harmon I knew he was fucking underage girls, it would’ve put Lin in the firing line. No, the only new information they got from me last night was that we think Daiyu’s death is fishy, and I said that deliberately, to see the reactions.’
‘And?’
‘Shock, outrage; exactly what you’d expect. But I warned them what’s going to happen if Rosie Fernsby turns up dead, which was the main point of the exercise, and I’ve told them we know they’re keeping tabs on us, however ineptly, so as far as I’m concerned, job done. Er… if you want a shower or anything, you can go upstairs.’
‘That’d be great, thanks,’ said Robin. ‘I’ll be quick.’
Her reflection in Strike’s bathroom mirror looked just as bad as Robin felt: a large crease had been pressed into the side of her face and her eyes were puffy. Trying not to visualise Strike standing naked in exactly the same spot she was now occupying in the tiny bathroom, Robin showered, pinched some of his deodorant, put yesterday’s clothes back on, brushed her hair, applied lipstick to make herself look less washed out, wiped it off because she thought it made her look worse, and returned downstairs.
Robin usually drove when the two of them were out together, but today, in deference to her tiredness, Strike volunteered. The BMW, being automatic, wasn’t nearly as hard for a man with a prosthetic to drive as the Land Rover would have been. Robin waited until they were on their way to Kilburn before saying,
‘I actually had a couple of thoughts myself last night, going through the UHC file.’
Robin outlined her theory that Rosie Fernsby had been the other teenager in the dormitory, the night before Daiyu had drowned. Strike drove for a minute, thinking.
‘I quite like it—’
‘Only quite?’
‘I can’t see Cherie not checking Rosie’s bed, not if she wanted to be sure everyone was out for the count before she gave all the kids their special drinks, then shunted Daiyu out of the window.’
‘Maybe she did check, and it suited her that Rosie wasn’t there?’
‘But how would she know Rosie wouldn’t come back later? The pillows could’ve been there so Rosie could, I dunno, have an assignation in a Retreat Room or go into the woods to smoke a joint.’
‘If you’d been at Chapman Farm, you’d know the only permissible reason for alone time is going to the bathroom. If Rosie was supposed to be on child duty, that’s exactly where she should have been… What if Rosie told Cherie she and her father and brother were leaving that night?’
‘She’d only been at Chapman Farm a week or so. She’d’ve been putting a hell of a lot of trust in Cherie, telling her they were escaping.’
‘Maybe Rosie and Cherie had been through something together that would have bonded them quite quickly?’
‘Ah,’ said Strike, remembering the Polaroids. ‘Yeah. There’s that, of course… and yet Rosie was sorry to leave the farm, according to her brother.’
‘Teenage girls can be weird,’ said Robin quietly. ‘They rationalise things… tell themselves it wasn’t as bad as they know, deep down, it was… She had a big crush on Jonathan Wace, remember. Maybe she walked willingly into the barn, not knowing what was about to happen. Afterwards, if Wace is telling her how wonderful she is, how beautiful and brave and free spirited… telling her she’s proved herself somehow… But I know it’s all speculation until we find her, which is the other thing I was going to tell you. There’s a chance – only a chance, don’t get too excited – that I have found her.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I had an idea in the early hours of the morning. Well, two ideas, actually, but this one first. I’ve drawn a total blank on property records, but then I thought, dating apps. I had to join about half a dozen to get access. Anyway, on mingleguru.co.uk—’
‘Mingle Guru?’
‘Yes, Mingle Guru – is one Bhakta Dasha, age thirty-six, so the right age for Rosie, and very much not Asian, unlike everyone else on the site.’
As Strike pulled up at a red light, she held up a profile picture for him to see.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Strike.
The woman was pretty, round-faced and dimpled, wearing a stuck-on bindi and with very orange skin. As the lights changed and they moved off again, Strike said,
‘That should be brought to the attention of the Advertising Standards Authority.’
‘She’s a practising Hindu,’ said Robin, reading Bhakta’s details, ‘who loves India, has travelled extensively there, would very much like to meet someone who shares her outlook and religion, and gives her current location as London. I wondered whether—’
‘Dev,’ said Strike.
‘Exactly, unless he’s getting tired of being the resident good-looking man we always send to sweet talk women.’
‘There are worse problems to have,’ said Strike. ‘Starting to think you should sleep on the sofa more often. It seems to bring something out in you.’
‘You haven’t heard my second idea yet. I was trying to get to sleep and thinking about Cherie, and then I thought, Isaac Mills.’
‘Who?’
‘Isaac Mills. Her boyfriend after Chapman Farm. The one who robbed the pharmacy.’
‘Oh, yeah. The junkie with the teeth.’
‘I thought, what if she told Isaac what had happened at Chapman Farm?’ said Robin. ‘What if she confided in him? It was all very recent when she met him.’
‘That,’ said Strike, ‘is a very sound bit of reasoning and I’m pissed off I didn’t think of it myself.’
‘So you think it’s worth looking for him?’ said Robin, pleased that this theory, at least, wasn’t getting short shrift.
‘Definitely. Just hope he’s still alive. He didn’t have the look of a man who gets a lot of fresh air and vitamins – shit, I forgot to tell you something else, from last night.’
‘What?’
‘I might be wrong,’ said Strike, ‘but I could’ve sworn I saw Phillipa Delaunay in the audience at Wace’s meeting. Daiyu’s aunt – brother of the Stolen Prophet.’
‘Why on earth would she be there?’
‘Good question. Mind you, as I say, I could be wrong. Hearty blondes in pearls all blur into one to me. Dunno how their husbands tell them apart.’