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They had a medieval kind of kit in the bathroom, with a leather strap thing for Wan to bite on and rusty forceps. Wan wasn’t supposed to make any noise. It was my night for coming to the plastic rock but I couldn’t leave the dormitory because all the women were awake.
Wan was in labour for thirty-six hours. It was absolutely awful and the closest I’ve come to wanting to reveal who I really am and telling them I’m going to the police. I don’t know what’s normal for a birth but she seemed to lose a huge amount of blood. I was present when the baby was actually born because one of the birthing team couldn’t cope any more and I volunteered to take her place. The baby was breech and I was convinced she was going to be born dead. She looked blue at first, but Sita revived her. After all that, Wan wouldn’t look at the baby. All she said was, ‘Give it to Mazu.’ I haven’t seen the baby since. Wan’s still in bed in the women’s dormitory. Sita says she’s going to be OK and I hope to God that’s true but she looks terrible.
2. Sita
The women who stayed up two nights with Wan were allowed to catch up on sleep today. I managed to get talking to Sita in the dormitory once we’d all woken up and I sat beside her at din
‘Shit,’ Robin muttered, shaking the ballpoint. As she’d feared, it seemed to be running out of ink.
Then Robin froze. In the absence of the scratching of pen on paper, she’d heard something else: footsteps and a female voice quietly and relentlessly chanting.
‘Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu… Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhav—’
The chanting stopped. Robin extinguished the pencil torch she was holding in her mouth and flung herself flat among the nettles again, but too late: she knew the chanter had seen the light.
‘Who’s there? Who’s there? I c-c-can see you!’
Robin slowly sat up, shoving the torch, pen and paper behind her as she did so.
‘Lin,’ said Robin. ‘Hi.’
The girl was alone this time. A car swished past, and as the beam of its headlights slid over Lin Robin saw that her pale face was streaked with tears and her hands full of plants she’d tugged up by the roots. For what felt like a long time, though was really a few seconds, the two stared at each other.
‘Wh-wh-why are you here?’
‘I needed some fresh air,’ said Robin, cringing inwardly at the inadequacy of the lie, ‘and then – then I felt a bit dizzy, so I sat down. It’s been an intense few days, hasn’t it? With Wan and – and everything.’
By the faint moonlight, Robin saw the young girl glance up at the trees, in the direction of the closest security camera.
‘What m-m-made you come here, though?’
‘I got a bit lost,’ Robin lied, ‘but then I saw the light from the road and came here so I could get my bearings. What are you up to?’
‘D-d-don’t t-t-tell anyone you saw me,’ said Lin. Her large eyes shone weirdly in the shadowed face. ‘If you t-t-tell anyone, I’ll say you were out of b-b-b-b-b—’
‘I won’t tell—’
‘—bed and that I saw you and f-f-f-ollowed—’
‘—I promise,’ said Robin urgently. ‘I won’t tell.’
Lin turned and hurried away into the trees, still clutching her uprooted plants. Robin listened until Lin’s footsteps died away completely, leaving a silence broken only by the usual nocturnal rustlings of the woods.
Waves of panic broke over Robin as she sat very still, contemplating the possible repercussions of this unexpected meeting. She turned her head to look at the wall behind her.
Shah was in the vicinity. Perhaps it would be better to climb onto the road now and wait for him to come back and check the rock? If Lin talked, if Lin told the church leaders she’d found Robin at the blind spot of the perimeter with a torch she definitely shouldn’t possess…
For several minutes, Robin sat very still, thinking, barely conscious of the cold earth beneath her and the breeze lifting the hair from her nettle-stung neck. Then, reaching a decision, she groped around to find her unfinished letter, pen and torch, re-read what she’d communicated so far, then continued writing.
She looks as though she’s over 70 and has been here since the earliest days of the church. She came here at Wace’s invitation to teach yoga and told me she soon realised Papa J was ‘a very great swami’, so she stayed.
I got her talking about Becca quite easily, because Sita doesn’t like her (hardly anyone does). When I mentioned Becca knowing the Drowned Prophet, she told me Becca was really jealous of Daiyu when they were kids. She said all the little girls loved Cherie, and Becca was really envious of Daiyu getting special attention from her.
Robin stopped writing again, wondering whether to tell Strike about her encounter with Lin. She could imagine what he’d say: get out now, you’re compromised, you can’t trust a brainwashed teenager. However, after a further minute’s deliberation, she signed the letter without mentioning Lin, took up a fresh piece of paper and turned instead to the task of explaining to Murphy why she still wasn’t ready to leave Chapman Farm.
61
Nine in the third place.
