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‘In what way?’
‘Fuckin’ annoying. Talkin’ fuckin’ gibberish all the time. An’ ’e got in me face a lot. It got on me wick so one night, yeah, I smacked ’im. But we weren’ s’posed to get angry wiv each ovver in there. Bruvverly love,’ said Reaney, ‘an’ all that shit.’
‘You don’t strike me as a man who’d agree to whip himself.’
Reaney said nothing.
‘Is that scar on your face from the whipping?’
Still Reaney didn’t speak.
‘What was she threatening you with, to make you whip yourself?’ asked Strike. ‘The police? Did Mazu Wace know you had a criminal record?’
Again, those bright blue, thickly lashed eyes blinked, hard, but at last Reaney spoke.
‘Yeah.’
‘How did they know?’
‘You ’ad to confess stuff. In front of the group.’
‘And you told them you were on the run from the police?’
‘Said I’d ’ad some trouble. You got… sucked in,’ said Reaney. The tiger rippled again. ‘You can’ unnerstand, unless you was part of it. ’Oo else you spoken to, ’oo was in there?’
‘A few people,’ said Strike.
‘’Oo?’
‘Why d’you want to know?’
‘Wondered, tha’s all.’
‘Who would you say you were closest to, at Chapman Farm?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Because “the wanderer has few friends”?’
Possibly because no other form of retaliation to this mild sarcasm was possible, Reaney freed his right hand to pick his nose. After examining his fingertip, then flicking the result of this operation away onto the floor, he reinserted his hand back under his armpit and glared at Strike.
‘Me an’ Dopey was mates.’
‘He had a bad experience with some pigs, I heard. Let some out accidentally and got beaten for it.’
‘Don’ remember that.’
‘Really? It was going to be a whipping, but two girls stole the whip, so church members were instructed to beat him up instead.’
‘Don’ remember that,’ repeated Reaney.
‘My information is, the beating was so severe it might’ve left Draper with brain damage.’
Reaney chewed the inside of his cheek for a few seconds, then repeated,
‘You weren’ fuckin’ there.’
‘I know,’ said Strike, ‘which is why I’m asking you what happened.’
