‘What community service was Allie given?’ asked Strike.
‘Well, that’s where she got her claws into him, y’see,’ said Colonel Graves heavily. ‘Community project fifty minutes up the road, in Aylmerton. Cleanin’ up litter and so on. There were a couple of people there from Chapman Farm, and she was one of ’em. Mazu.’
The name changed the atmosphere in the room. Though the sunshine continued to flood in through the leaded windows, it seemed, somehow, to darken.
‘He didn’t tell us he’d met a gel at first,’ said the colonel.
‘But he was spending longer than he needed to in Aylmerton,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Coming home very late. We could smell alcohol on his breath again, and we knew he wasn’t supposed to be drinking on his medication.’
‘So there was another row,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘and he blurted out that he’d met someone, but he said he knew we wouldn’t like her, and that’s why he took her to the pub instead of comin’ hyar. And I said, “Watcha talkin’ about, we wouldn’t like her? How d’yeh know? Bring her over to meet us. Bring her for tea!” Tryin’ to make him happy, y’know. So he did. He brought her hyar…
‘He’d made it sound as though Mazu was a farmer’s daughter, before he brought her t’meet us. Nothin’ wrong with that. But I could tell she wasn’t a farmer’s daughter, moment I laid eyes on her.’
‘We’d never met any of his gelfriends before,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Bit of a shock.’
‘Why was that?’ asked Strike.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Graves, ‘she was very young and—’
‘Filthy,’ said Phillipa.
‘—bit grubby,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Long black hair. Skinny, with dirty jeans and a sort of smock.’
‘Didn’t talk,’ said Colonel Graves.
‘Not a word,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Just sat next to Allie, where Nick and Pips are sitting now, clinging to his arm. We tried to be nice, didn’t we?’ she said plaintively to her husband, ‘But she just stared at us through her hair. And Allie could tell we didn’t like her.’
‘Nobody could’ve bloody liked her,’ said Nicholas.
‘You met her too?’ asked Strike.
‘Met her later,’ said Nicholas. ‘Made my bloody flesh crawl.’
‘It wasn’t shyness,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘I could’ve understood shyness, but that’s not why she didn’t say anything. One had a sense, of real… badness. And Allie got defensive – didn’t he, Archie? – “You think I like her because I’m mental.” Well, of course we didn’t think that, but we could tell she was encouraging the – the unstable part of him.’
‘It was obvious she was the stronger personality,’ said Colonel Graves, nodding.
‘She can’t have been more than sixteen, and Allie was twenty-three when he met her,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘It’s very hard to explain. From the outside, it looked… I mean, we thought she was too young for him, but Allie was…’
Her voice trailed away.
‘Bloody hell, Gunga,’ said Nicholas angrily.
The stench of the old dog’s fart had just reached Strike’s nostrils.
‘The hell are you feeding him?’ Phillipa demanded of her parents.
‘He had some of our rabbit last night,’ said Mrs Graves apologetically.
‘You spoil him, Mummy,’ snapped Phillipa. ‘You’re too soft on him.’
Strike had the feeling this disproportionate anger wasn’t really about the dog.
‘When did Allie move to the farm?’ he asked.
‘Quite soon after we had them over for tea,’ said Mrs Graves.
‘And he was still on the dole at this point?’
‘Yerse,’ said the colonel, ‘but there’s a family trust. He’d been able to apply for funds from it, since he’d turned eighteen.’
Strike now took out his notebook and pen. Phillipa’s and Nicholas’ eyes followed these movements closely.
‘He started applying for money the moment he moved in with Mazu, but the trustees weren’t going to give him money just to fritter away,’ said the colonel. ‘Then Allie turned up here one day out of the blue to tell us Mazu was pregnant.’
‘He said he wanted money to get baby things, and make Mazu comfortable,’ said Mrs Graves.
‘Daiyu was born in May 1988, right?’ asked Strike.
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Graves. The tremor in her hands was making every sip of tea risky. ‘Born at the farm. Allie rang us up, and we drove over right away, to see the baby. Mazu was lying in a filthy bed, nursing Daiyu, and Allie was very thin and jittery.’
‘As bad as he’d been before he was arrested,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Orf his medication. Told us he didn’t need it.’
‘We’d taken presents for Daiyu, and Mazu didn’t even thank us,’ said his wife. ‘But we kept visiting. We were worried about Allie, and about the baby, too, because the living conditions were quite unsanitary. Daiyu was very sweet, though. Looked just like Allie.’
‘Spittin’ image,’ said the colonel.
‘Except dark, and Allie was fair,’ said Mrs Graves.
‘Would you happen to have a picture of Allie?’ asked Strike.
‘Nick, could you—?’ asked Mrs Graves.
Nicholas reached behind him and extracted a framed photo from behind the one of Phillipa sitting on the large grey horse.
‘That’s Allie’s twenty-second,’ said Mrs Graves, as Nicholas passed the picture over the tea things. ‘When he was all right, before…’
The picture showed a group, at the centre of which stood a young man with a narrow head, blond hair and a distinctly rabbity face, though his lopsided grin was endearing. He greatly resembled the colonel.
‘Yes, Daiyu was very like him,’ said Strike.
‘How would you know?’ said Phillipa coldly.
‘I saw a photo of her in an old news report,’ Strike explained.
‘I always thought she was just like her mother, personally,’ said Phillipa.
Strike was scanning the rest of the group in the photograph. Phillipa was there, dark haired and stocky as she was in the hunting photograph, and beside her stood Nick, his hair military short, with his right arm in a sling.
‘Injured on exercises?’ Strike asked Nicholas, passing the photograph back.
‘What? Oh, no. Just a stupid accident.’
Nicholas took the photograph back from Strike and replaced it carefully, hiding it again behind the one of his wife on her magnificent hunter.
‘D’you remember Jonathan Wace coming to live at the farm?’ asked Strike.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Graves, quietly. ‘We were completely taken in. Thought he was the best thing about the place, didn’t we, Archie? And you liked him, didn’t you, Pips?’ she said timidly. ‘At first?’
‘He was politer than Mazu, that’s all,’ said the unsmiling Phillipa.
‘Fella seemed intelligent,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘One realised later it was all an act, but he was charmin’ when you first met him. Talked about the sustainable farming they were going to do. Made it sound quite worthy.’
‘I looked him up,’ said Nicholas. ‘He wasn’t lying. He had been to Harrow. Big in the drama society, apparently.’
‘He told us he was keeping an eye on Allie, Mazu and the baby,’ said Mrs Graves. ‘Making sure they were all right. We thought he was a good thing, at the time.’
‘Then the religious stuff started creepin’ in,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘Lectures on Eastern philosophy and what have yeh. Thought it was harmless at first. We were far more concerned about Allie’s mental state. The letters to the trustees kept comin’, clearly dictated by someone else. Passin’ himself orf as a partner in the farming business, y’know. Balderdash, but hard to disprove. They got a fair bit out of the trust, one way or another.’