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‘Yeah,’ said Murphy, extracting another piece of paper from the file, ‘he was pulled in and interviewed in ’86, same as all the other adults. His house – I say house, but it was more like a glorified shed – was clean. No sex tapes or toys.’
‘I don’t think he was ever part of the Aylmerton Community proper,’ said Strike, casting an eye down Rust Andersen’s witness statement.
‘That tallies with what’s in here,’ said Murphy, tapping the folder. ‘None of the kids implicated him in the abuse and a couple of them didn’t even know who he was.’
‘Born in Michigan,’ said Strike, skim-reading, ‘drafted into the army at eighteen…’
‘After he got out he went travelling in Europe and never returned to the States. But he can’t have brought guns into the UK with the IRA active at the time and tight security at airports. ’Course, there’s nothing to say someone at the farm didn’t have a permit for a hunting rifle.’
‘That occurred to me, too, although my information was “guns”, plural.’
‘Well, if they were there, they were bloody well hidden, because the Vice Squad virtually tore the place apart.’
‘I knew it was a pretty thin thread to hang a raid on,’ said Strike, handing Murphy back the papers. ‘The mention of guns could’ve been said for threatening effect.’
Both men drank some beer. A definite air of constraint hung over the table.
‘So how much longer d’you reckon you’ll need her in there?’ asked Murphy.
‘Not down to me,’ said Strike. ‘She can come out whenever she likes, but at the moment, she wants to stay in. Says she’s not coming out until she’s got something on the church. You know Robin.’
Though not as well as I do.
‘Yeah, she’s dedicated,’ said Murphy.
After a short pause he said,
‘Funny, you two going after the UHC. First time I heard of them was five years ago.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I was still in uniform. Bloke drove his car off the road, straight through the window of a Morrisons. Coked out of his head. Kept saying “D’you know who I am?” while I was arresting him. I didn’t have a clue. Turned out he’d been a contestant on some reality show I’d never watched. Jacob Messenger, his name was.’
‘Jacob?’ repeated Strike, slipping his hand into his pocket for his notebook.
‘Yeah. He was a real tit, all pecs and fake tan. He hit a woman shopping with her kid. The boy was OK, but the mother was a real mess. Messenger got a year, out in six months. Next I heard of him, he was in the paper because he’d joined the UHC. Trying to burnish up his reputation, you know. He’d seen the light and he was going to be a good boy from now on and here’s a picture of me with some disabled kids.’
‘Interesting,’ said Strike, who’d written much of this down. ‘Apparently there’s a Jacob at Chapman Farm who’s very ill. D’you know what this Messenger’s doing now?’
‘No idea,’ said Murphy. ‘So, what’s she getting up to in there? She doesn’t tell me a lot in her letters.’
‘No, well, she won’t have got time for duplicate reports, middle of the night in the woods,’ said Strike, privately enjoying the fact that Murphy had to ask. He’d resisted looking at the notes Robin had scribbled for Ryan, but been pleased to see they seemed far shorter than his own. ‘She’s doing well. Seems to have kept her incognito going, no problem. She’s already got us a couple of bits of decent information. Nothing we can credibly threaten the church with, though.’
‘Tall order, waiting for something criminal to happen right in front of her.’
‘If I know Robin,’ which I do, bloody well, ‘she won’t just be sitting around for something to happen.’
Both men drank more beer. Strike had an idea Murphy had something he wanted to say and was preparing various robust pushbacks, whether against the suggestion Strike had acted recklessly in sending Robin undercover, or that he’d done so with the intent of messing up her relationship.
‘Didn’t know you were a mate of Wardle’s,’ said Murphy. ‘He’s not a big fan of mine.’
Strike settled for looking non-committal.
‘I was a bit of an arsehole one night, in the pub. This is before I stopped drinking.’
Strike made an indeterminate noise somewhere between acknowledgement and agreement.
‘My marriage was going tits-up at the time,’ said Murphy.
