‘It won’t ’ave bloody ’elped,’ said Abigail in a clipped voice. ‘Sheila told your partner what ’appened to us, did she?’
‘No,’ said Strike, who judged it better not to lie.
‘Well, if Sheila’s not talkin’, I’m not,’ said Abigail. ‘That’s the sorta fing that Pirbright bloke wanted off me. Find out all the sala – salaysh – all the dirty fuckin’ details. I’m not diggin’ it all up again, so people can picture me on my fuckin’ – forget that.’
Abigail’s voice was very slightly slurred now. Strike, who wasn’t entirely without hope that he might yet get details of the punishment she’d suffered, turned a fresh page in his notebook and said,
‘I’ve heard Cherie spent a lot of time with Daiyu.’
‘Mazu palmed Daiyu off on older girls a lot, yeah.’
‘Did you attend the inquest into Daiyu’s death?’
‘Yeah. Brian ’ad died by then, poor bastard, but me an’ Paul ’ad to give evidence, because of seeing ’em pass in the van. I ’eard Cheryl did a runner after it was over – don’t blame ’er. Mazu o’ny let ’er stay alive that long ’cause of the inquest. Once that was over, she was on borrowed time.’
‘D’you mean that as a figure of speech?’
‘No, I mean it for real. Mazu would’ve killed ’er. Or made ’er kill ’erself.’
‘How would she do that?’
‘You’d understand if you’d met ’er,’ muttered Abigail.
‘Did she make you do things? I mean, things to hurt yourself?’
‘All the fuckin’ time.’
‘Didn’t your father intervene?’
‘I stopped goin’ to ’im or talkin’ to ’im abou’ any of it. No point. There was one time, in Revelation—’
‘What’s that?’
‘You ’ad to say things you were ashamed of an’ get purified. So, this one girl said she masturbated an’ I laughed. I was prob’ly twelve or somethin’. Mazu made me smack my head off the temple wall until I was near enough concussed.’
‘What would have happened if you’d refused?’
‘Somefing worse,’ said Abigail. ‘It was always best to take the first offer.’
She looked at Strike with an odd mixture of defiance and defensiveness.
‘Thass the sorta fing Patrick wants me to put in my book. Tell the ’ole world I was treated like shit, so people like fuckin’ Baz can throw it back in my face.’
‘I’m not going to publicise any of this,’ Strike reassured her. ‘I’m just looking for confirmation – or not – of things Pirbright told my client.’
‘Go on, then. What else did ’e say?’
‘He claimed there was a night when all the children were given drugged drinks. He was younger than you, but I wondered whether you ever heard of anyone being drugged?’
Abigail snorted, twirling her empty glass between her fingers.
‘You weren’ allowed coffee, or sugar, or booze – nuffin’. You weren’ even given paracetamol. ’E was babbling to me on the phone abou’ people flyin’. ’E’d probably rather fink it was drugs they slipped ’im, than ’e was tricked by some of Mazu’s bullshit magic tricks, or ’e was crackin’ up.’
Strike made a note.
‘OK, this next one’s odd. Kevin thought Daiyu could turn herself invisible – or said that one of his sisters believed she could.’
‘What?’ said Abigail, half-laughing.
‘I know,’ said Strike, ‘but he seemed to attach significance to this. I wondered whether she went missing at any point, prior to her death.’
‘Not that I remember… but I wouldn’t’ve put it past ’er to claim she could be invisible. Make ’erself out t’be magic, like ’er muvver.’
‘OK, this next question’s also odd, but I wanted to ask you about pigs.’
‘Pigs?’
‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘It might mean nothing, but they keep cropping up.’
‘’Ow?’
‘Sheila Kennett says Paul Draper got beaten for letting some escape, and Jordan Reaney’s wife says he used to have nightmares about pigs.’
‘’Oo’s Jordan Reaney?’
‘You can’t remember him?’
‘I… oh, maybe,’ she said slowly. ‘Was ’e the tall one who overslept, who should’ve been on the truck?’
‘What truck?’
‘If ’e’s the one I’m thinkin’ of, he should’ve been with Cheryl – Cherie – on the vegetable run, the morning Daiyu drowned. If ’e’d gone, there wouldn’ of been room for Daiyu. It was a small flatbed truck. On’y room for two up front.’
‘I don’t know whether he was supposed to be on the vegetable run,’ said Strike, ‘but according to Pirbright, Reaney was forced to whip himself across the face with a leather flail by Mazu, for some unspecified crime she seemed to think merited the police.’
‘I toldja, that sorta fing ’appened all the time. An’ why’s Reaney’s wife talkin’ for ’im? Is ’e dead?’
‘No, in jail for armed robbery.’
‘Waste of a gun,’ muttered Abigail. ‘’E knows where Mazu is.’
‘Kevin Pirbright also wrote the word “pigs” on his bedroom wall.’
‘Sure ’e wasn’ talkin’ abou’ the police?’
‘He might’ve been, but “pigs” might also have been a reminder to himself, about something he wanted to include in his book.’
Abigail looked down at her empty glass.
‘Another one?’ suggested Strike.
‘Tryna get me drunk?’
‘Repaying you for giving me your time.’
‘Charmer. Yeah, fanks,’ she said.
When Strike returned with her fourth drink, Abigail took a gulp, then sat in silence for nearly a minute. Strike, who suspected she wanted to talk more than perhaps she realised, waited.
‘All righ’,’ she said suddenly, ‘’ere it is: if you wanna know the troof. If people ’oo were at Chapman Farm in the nineties are ’aving nightmares about pigs, it won’ be because fuckin’ farm animals got out.’
‘Why, then?’
‘“The pig acts in the abysmal.”’
‘Sorry?’
‘’S from the I Ching. Know what that is?’
‘Er – a book of divination, right?’
‘Mazu said it was an orac – whass the word?’
‘Oracle?’
‘Yeah. That. But I found out, after I left, she wasn’ usin’ it properly.’
Given that he wasn’t talking to Robin, who was familiar with his views on fortune telling, Strike decided not to debate whether it was possible to use an oracle properly.
‘What d’you mean by—?’
‘It’s s’posed to be, like, used by the person ’oo’s after – y’know – guidance, or wisdom, or shit. You count out yarrow stalks, then you look up the meaning of the ’exa-fing you’ve made, in the I Ching. Mazu likes anyfing Chinese. She pretends to be ’alf Chinese. My arse, she is. Anyway, she wouldn’ let anyone else touch the stalk fings. She gave readings, an’ she rigged it.’
‘How?’
‘She used it to decide punishments an’ stuff. She’d say she’d consult the I Ching to find out ’oo was tellin’ the truth. See, if you’re pure spirit, the divine vibration’ (Abigail’s voice was full of scorn) ‘works froo you, so if you do somefing like the I Ching – or cards, or crystals, or wha’ever – they’ll work, but not fr’anyone ’oo’s not as pure.’
‘And where do pigs come in?’
‘’Exa-fing – gram – twenny-nine,’ said Abigail. ‘The Abyss. It’s one o’ the worst ’exagrams to get. “Water is the image associated with the Abysmal; of the domestic animals, the pig is the one that lives in mud and water.” I still know it off by fuckin’ ’eart, I ’eard it so often. So if ’exagram twenny-nine came up – an’ it came up far more often than it should’ve done, because there are sixty-fuckin’-four diff’rent ’exagrams – you was a filfy liar: you was a pig. An’ Mazu made you crawl around on all fours, until she said it was time to get up again.’