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‘I certainly didn’t. As far as I’m aware, Rosie didn’t, either.’
‘You said your father returned to Chapman Farm in 2007?’
‘Correct,’ said Rufus, now speaking as though Robin was at last showing some intellectual promise in remembering this fact from a couple of minutes previously. ‘He’d moved university, but he was bickering with his colleagues again and feeling hard done by, so he resigned again and went back into the UHC.’
Robin, who was doing some rapid mental calculation, deduced that Jiang would have been in his mid-teens on Walter’s second appearance at Chapman Farm and therefore, surely, old enough to remember him.
‘Why did he leave so quickly that time?’
‘Rosie got meningitis.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Robin.
‘She survived,’ said Rufus, ‘but my mother had to track him down all over again, to let him know.’
‘This is all very helpful,’ said Robin.
‘I don’t see why,’ said Rufus. ‘Surely plenty of people have joined and left that place by now? I dare say our story’s quite common.’
Deciding not to argue the point, Robin said,
‘Would you have any idea where Rosie is now? Even a town? Is she going under a married name?’
‘She’s never married,’ said Rufus, ‘but she goes by Bhakta Dasa now.’
‘She – what, sorry?’
‘Converted to Hinduism. She’s probably in India,’ said Rufus, sneering again. ‘She’s like my father: silly crazes. Bikram yoga. Incense.’
‘Would your mother know where she is?’ said Robin.
‘Possibly,’ said Rufus, ‘but she’s currently in Canada, visiting her sister.’
‘Ah,’ said Robin. This explained why Mrs Fernsby never picked up her phone.
‘Well,’ said Rufus, looking at his watch, ‘that’s really all I can tell you, and as I’ve got a lot of work on—’
‘Just one last question, if you don’t mind,’ said Robin, her heart beginning to race again as she took her mobile out of her bag. ‘Can you remember anyone at the farm having a Polaroid camera?’
‘No. You weren’t supposed to take anything like that in there. Luckily, I left my Nintendo in my father’s car,’ Rufus said, with a satisfied smirk. ‘Rosie tried to take hers in with her and it was confiscated. Probably still there.’
‘This might seem an odd question,’ said Robin, ‘but was Rosie ever punished at the farm?’
‘Punished? Not that I’m aware of,’ said Rufus.
‘And she definitely seemed distressed at leaving? Not glad to go?’
‘Yes, I’ve told you that.’
‘And – this is an even weirder question, I know – did she ever mention wearing a pig mask?’
‘A pig mask?’ repeated Rufus Fernsby, frowning. ‘No.’
‘I want to show you a picture,’ said Robin, thinking, even as she said it, how untrue the statement was. ‘It’s – distressing, especially for a relative, but I wondered whether you could tell me if the dark girl in this picture is Rosie.’
She brought up one of the pig mask pictures, in which the dark-haired girl sat alone, naked, with her legs wide open, and passed it across the table.
Fernsby’s reaction was instantaneous.
