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‘Not at all,’ said Strike.
‘Becca,’ said Wace, indicating a smart-looking laptop lying on a chair nearby, ‘could you get Mazu on FaceTime for me? Bless you. Water?’ Wace asked Strike.
‘That’d be great,’ said Strike.
Noli Seymour was glaring at Strike as though he’d just told her his hotel hadn’t received her booking. Becca Pirbright was busy with the laptop and not looking at Strike. The rest of the Principals were variously looking uneasy, contemptuous, studiously uninterested or, in the case of Joe Jackson, definitely tense.
‘How’s your partner?’ said Wace earnestly, settling back in his chair as Becca handed Strike a cold bottle of water.
‘Robin? A lot better for being outside the box,’ said Strike.
‘Box?’ said Wace. ‘What box?’
‘Do you remember the box you locked my partner in, Miss Pirbright?’ Strike asked.
Becca gave no sign she’d heard him.
‘Is Miss Ellacott a business partner, or something more, by the way?’ asked Wace.
‘Your sons not here?’ said Strike, looking around. ‘I saw the one who looks like Piltdown Man outside.’
‘Papa J,’ said Becca quietly, ‘Mazu.’
She adjusted the laptop so that Mazu could see her husband, and for the first time in thirty years, Strike looked into the face of the girl who’d led his sister away from the football game at Forgeman Farm, and shut her in with a paedophile. She was sitting in front of shelves cluttered with Chinese statuettes. Her long black hair fell in two wings over her face, emphasising the pale, pointed nose. Her eyes were in shadow.
‘It’s Cormoran Strike, my love,’ said Wace, to the face on the screen. ‘Our Miss Ellacott’s detective partner.’
Mazu said nothing.
‘Well, Cormoran,’ said Wace, smiling, ‘shall we speak plainly?’
‘I wasn’t intending to speak any other way, but go on.’
Wace laughed.
‘Very well: you aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, to investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church. Many have tried to uncover scandals and plots and wrongdoing, but none have succeeded, for the simple reason that we are exactly who we profess to be: people of faith, living as we believe the Blessed Divinity requires us to live, pursuing the ends They wish to see achieved, fighting against evil wherever we find it. That necessarily brings us into conflict with both the ignorant, who fear what they don’t understand, and the malevolent, who understand our purpose and wish to thwart us. Are you familiar with the work of Dr K. Sri Dhammananda? No? “Struggle must exist, for all life is a struggle of some kind. But make certain that you do not struggle in the interest of self against truth and justice.”’
‘I see we’ve got different definitions of “speaking plainly”,’ said Strike. ‘Tell me: is the boy Robin saw dying in the attic of the farmhouse still alive?’
A tiny noise, somewhere between a grunt and a gulp, escaped Giles Harmon.
‘Wind?’ enquired Strike of the novelist. ‘Or have you got something to say?’
‘Jonathan,’ said Harmon, ignoring the detective, ‘I should be going. I’m on a flight to Paris at eleven tomorrow. Need to pack.’
Wace rose to embrace Harmon.
‘You were marvellous tonight,’ he told the writer, releasing Harmon but holding him by the upper arms. ‘I believe we owe at least half the new recruits to you. I’ll call you later.’
Harmon stalked out past Strike without looking at him, giving the latter time to reflect on what a mistake it was for short men to wear robes.
Wace sat back down.
‘Your partner,’ he said quietly, ‘has invented a story to cover up the incriminating position she found herself in with Jacob, in the bathroom. She panicked, and she lied. We are all of us frail and subject to temptations, but I want to reassure you: in spite of appearances, I don’t really believe Miss Ellacott meant to assault little Jacob. Possibly she was trying to get information out of him. Much as I deplore trying to force falsehoods out of children, we’d be prepared to drop charges, subject to an apology and a donation to the church.’
Strike laughed as he stretched out his right leg, which was still sore. Wace’s earnest expression didn’t flicker.
‘Has it occurred to you,’ Wace said, ‘that your partner invented dying children and other such dramatic incidents, because she observed nothing of any note during our time with us, but had to justify the fees you charge your clients?’
