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‘This your woman from the Connaught? I got a few.’
Strike swiped through the pictures. All showed different angles of the same dark woman, who was wearing a beanie hat and baggy jeans, and standing on the corner of Denmark Street nearest the office.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘looks like her. When did you take these?’
‘Yesterday evening. She was there when I came out of the office.’
‘Was she working for Patterson Inc when you were there?’
‘Definitely not. She’d have stuck in my mind.’
‘OK, do me a favour and forward these to Midge and Barclay.’
‘What d’you reckon she’s after?’
‘If she’s another Patterson operative, she could be checking out what clients we’ve got, to try and scare them off. Or she might be trying to identify people working for the agency, to see if she can get anything on them.’
‘I’ll hold off on starting that heroin habit, then.’
By the time Strike had briefed Shah, then driven back into central London, he was both tired and irritable, and his mood wasn’t improved when, waiting at some traffic lights, he spotted a gigantic poster he’d ordinarily have overlooked. It showed Jonathan Wace against a deep blue, star-flecked background, dressed in white robes, his arms outstretched, a smile on the handsome face that was tilted heavenwards. The legend read: ‘SUPERSERVICE 2016! Interested in the Universal Humanitarian Church? Meet PAPA J at Olympia on Friday 12th August, 2016!’
‘Charlotte Ross’s sister’s called again,’ were Pat’s first, unwelcome words when an unshaven Strike appeared at half past nine, clutching a bacon roll he’d purchased on his way to the office: diet be damned.
‘Yeah? Any message?’ asked Strike.
‘She said she’s going to the country for a month, but she’d like to meet you when she gets back.’
‘Is she expecting an answer?’ asked Strike.
‘No, that’s all she said.’
Strike grunted and headed for the kettle.
‘And you’ve had a call from a Jacob Messenger.’
‘What?’ said Strike, surprised.
‘He says his half-brother told him you were after him. Says you can call him any time this morning.’
‘Do me a favour,’ said Strike, stirring sweetener into his coffee, ‘and ring him back and ask him if he’s happy to FaceTime. I want to make sure it’s really him.’
Strike headed into the inner office, still thinking about the beautiful woman who was apparently keeping the office under surveillance. If he could only clear up the Patterson mess his life would be considerably less complicated, not to mention less expensive.
‘He’s fine to FaceTime,’ Pat announced five minutes later, entering Strike’s office carrying a Post-it note with Messenger’s number on it. Once she’d gone, Strike opened FaceTime on his computer and tapped in Jacob Messenger’s number.
The call was answered almost immediately by the same very tanned young man who beamed out of the picture on Strike’s noticeboard. With his white-toothed smile, slicked dark hair and overplucked eyebrows, he looked excited to be speaking to Strike, whereas the detective’s primary emotion was frustration. Whoever was critically ill or dying at Chapman Farm, it clearly wasn’t Jacob Messenger.
A couple of minutes later, Strike had learned that Messenger’s interest in the church had been ignited when his agent received a request for Jacob to attend one of the UHC’s charity projects, continued through a photoshoot in which Jacob had worn a UHC sweatshirt, lingered through a short press interview in which he spoke of his new interest in spirituality and charity work, only to wither away when invited on a week-long retreat at a farm, with no media presence.
‘I wan’t gonna go to no bloody farm,’ said Jacob, blindingly white teeth fully on display as he laughed. ‘What would I wanna do that for?’
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, this has been very—’
‘Listen, though,’ said Jacob, ‘’ave you ever fort of doing a show?’
‘Have I what?’
‘Like, fly on the wall, follow you investigating stuff. I looked you up. Seriously, I reckon my agent would be interested. I was finking, if you and me teamed up, and you could be, like, showing me the ropes and stuff, wiv a camera crew—’
