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‘No,’ said Robin. ‘No, I don’t know why, but I just felt this pull to the woods. I thought maybe one of the children could have picked up the fish and brought it in here, then dropped it.’
The story sounded extremely thin, even to Robin.
‘This place is odd, isn’t it?’ she added, gesturing at the stumps of posts in their circle. ‘What d’you think this ring was for? It looks like a miniature Stonehenge.’
‘Like what?’ said Jiang irritably.
‘It’s a prehistoric monument,’ said Robin. ‘In Wiltshire.’
‘I know what you’re up to,’ said Jiang, advancing on her.
‘What?’ said Robin.
‘You were gonna meet Emily here.’
‘Wh—no, I wasn’t. Why would—?’
‘Friends, aren’t you?’
‘I barely know her.’
‘When we were up on the vegetable patch, you came interfering—’
‘I know. I thought you were going to hit her, with the hoe.’
Jiang advanced a few steps, dragging his feet through the overgrown weeds. The dense canopy overhead made dappled shadows move across his face. His eye was winking frantically. He raised his hand to hide it again.
‘Emily sneaks off, to fuck,’ he said.
It was the first time Robin had heard sex described as anything other than spirit bonding in the church.
‘I… don’t know anything about that.’
‘Were you a lesbian, outside?’
‘No,’ said Robin.
‘So how come you knew where Emily was, in Norwich?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Robin. ‘I just checked all the bathrooms I could find, and she was in one of them.’
‘Were you doing it with her, in that bathroom?’
‘No,’ said Robin.
‘Why’s she looking at you so much since Norwich, then?’
‘I haven’t noticed her looking at me,’ lied Robin.
She couldn’t tell whether Jiang’s grubby accusation was made to shock and offend, or because he really believed it: he’d never given her the impression of much intelligence, although he’d certainly just proved himself to be surprisingly observant. As though he’d read her thoughts, Jiang said,
‘I see more than the rest of ’em with my eyes shut.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ Robin said. She needed to placate him: he was potentially violent, and her interference on the vegetable patch, and her association with Emily, whose disappearance had caused him to be harangued by his brother on the way back from Norwich, had clearly left him with considerable animus towards her.
‘What?’
‘You’re obviously very high up in the church.’
