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‘Me an’ anuvver kid was sleeping rough in Norwich an’ we met a couple of girls collecting for the UHC. They got us into it.’
‘Was the other kid Paul Draper?’
‘Yeah,’ said Reaney, again with displeasure that Strike knew so much.
‘What d’you think made the girls from the UHC so keen to recruit two men sleeping rough?’
‘Needed people to do the ’eavy stuff on the farm.’
‘You had to join the church, as a condition of living there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How long did you stay?’
‘Free years.’
‘Long time, at that age,’ said Strike.
‘I liked the animals,’ said Reaney.
‘But not the pigs, as we’ve already established.’
Reaney ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, blinked hard, then said,
‘No. They stink.’
‘Thought they were supposed to be clean?’
‘You fort wrong.’
‘D’you often have bad dreams about things, because they stink?’
‘I jus’ don’ like pigs.’
‘Nothing to do with the pig “acting in the abysmal”?’
‘Wha’?’ said Reaney.
‘I’ve been told the pig has a particular significance in the I Ching.’
‘In the wha’?’
‘The book where you got the hexagram tattooed on the back of your left hand. Can I have a look?’
Reaney complied, though unwillingly, pulling his hand out from under his armpit and extending it towards Strike.
‘Which hexagram’s that?’ asked Strike.
Reaney looked as though he’d rather not answer, but finally said,
‘Fifty-six.’
‘What does it mean?’
Reaney blinked hard twice before muttering.
‘The wanderer.’
