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‘We know Paul Draper was real, though.’
‘Yeah, but he’s dead, isn’t he? He can’t testify.’
‘But… in a way, he still can.’
‘You about to whip out a Ouija board?’
‘Ha ha. No. I’m saying, if Carrie knows Paul’s dead, she must also know how he died: kept as a slave and beaten to death.’
‘So?’
‘What happened to Draper at Chapman Farm makes those Polaroids more incriminating, not less. He’d been groomed to accept abuse in the church, and that made him vulnerable to that pair of sociopaths who killed him.’
‘Not sure Carrie’s bright enough to think that through,’ said Strike.
Both sat for a minute, eating and following their own trains of thought, until Strike said,
‘You didn’t see any pig masks while you were in there, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Hmm,’ said Strike. ‘Maybe they got bored of them once they discovered the virtues of the box. Or maybe what’s on those Polaroids was a secret, even from most people inside the church. Somebody was enjoying their fetish in private, knowing full well it couldn’t be given any kind of spiritual interpretation.’
‘And that person had the authority to compel the teenagers to do what they were told, and keep quiet about it afterwards.’
‘Pigs seem to have been Mazu’s particular preoccupation. Can you imagine Mazu telling teenagers to strip and abuse each other?’
Robin considered the question before saying slowly,
‘If you’d asked me before I went in there whether a woman could make kids do that, I’d have said it was impossible, but she’s not normal. I think she’s a true sadist.’
‘And Jonathan Wace?’
Robin felt as though Wace’s hands touched her again when Strike spoke his name. Gooseflesh rose once more over her torso.
‘I don’t know. Possibly.’
Strike pulled out his phone and brought up the photographs of the Polaroids again. Robin, who felt she’d looked at them quite enough, turned to look out of the window at the graveyard.
‘Well, we know one thing about Rose, if that’s her real name,’ said Strike, eyes on the chubby girl with the long black hair. ‘She hadn’t been at Chapman Farm very long before this happened. She’s too well nourished. All the others are very skinny. I could’ve sworn,’ said Strike, his gaze moving to the youth with the skull tattoo, ‘that guy was Reaney. His reaction when I showed him the – oh, shit. Hang on. Joe.’
Robin looked round again.
‘Henry Worthington-Fields,’ said Strike, ‘told me a man called Joe recruited him into the church, in a gay bar.’
‘Oh…’
‘So if that really is Joe, “Rose” looks much more credible as the name of the dark girl. Of course,’ said Strike thoughtfully, ‘there’s one person who’s got more to fear from these pictures than anyone in them.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘The photographer.’
‘Precisely. Judges don’t tend to look very kindly on people who photograph other people being raped.’
‘The photographer and the abuser must have been one and the same, surely?’
‘I wonder,’ said Strike.
‘What d’you mean?’
