AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘That’s me,’ said Strike, holding out a hand.
Henry slid onto the bench opposite the detective.
‘I thought you’d be, like, hiding behind a newspaper. Eyeholes cut out or something.’
‘I only do that when I’m following someone on foot,’ said Strike, and Henry laughed: a nervous laugh, which went on a little longer than the joke warranted.
‘Thanks for meeting me, Henry, I appreciate it.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Henry.
He took a sip of gin.
‘I mean, when I got your message, I was kind of freaked out, like, who is this guy? But I looked you up, and Charlotte told me you’re a good person, so I—’
‘Charlotte?’ repeated Strike.
‘Yeah,’ said Henry. ‘Charlotte Ross? I know her from the antiques shop where I work – Arlington and Black? She’s redecorating her house, we’ve found a couple of really nice pieces for her. I knew from looking you up that you two used to – so I rang her – she’s lovely, she’s, like, one of my favourite clients – and I said, “Hey, Charlie, should I talk to this guy?” or whatever, and she said, “Yeah, definitely”, so – yeah – here I am.’
‘Great,’ said Strike, determinedly keeping both tone and expression as pleasant as he could make them. ‘Well, as I said in my message, I noticed you’ve been quite outspoken about the UHC on your Facebook page, so I—’
‘Yeah, so, OK,’ said Henry, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, ‘I need to say – I wanted to say, like, before we get into it – it’s kind of a condition, actually – you won’t go after Flora, will you? Because she’s still not right. I’m only talking to you so she doesn’t have to. Charlotte said you’d be OK with that.’
‘Well, it’s not really Charlotte’s call,’ said Strike, still forcing himself to sound pleasant, ‘but if Flora’s having mental health problems—’
‘She is, she’s never been right since she left the UHC. But I really feel, like – well, somebody needs to hold the UHC accountable,’ said Henry. ‘So I’m happy to talk, but only if you don’t go near Flora.’
‘Is she still in New Zealand?’
‘No, it didn’t work out, she’s back in London, but – seriously – you can’t talk to her. Because I think it might tip her over the edge. She can’t stand talking about it any more. Last time she told anyone what happened she tried to kill herself, afterwards.’
Notwithstanding Henry’s fondness for Charlotte (gay men, in Strike’s experience, were the most likely to see no flaw in his beautiful, funny and immaculately dressed ex), Strike had to respect Henry for his wish to protect his friend.
‘OK, agreed. So: have you ever had direct contact with the UHC yourself?’
‘Yeah, when I was eighteen. I met this guy in a bar, and he said I should come along to Chapman Farm, to do a course. Yoga and meditation and stuff. He was hot,’ Henry added, with yet another nervous laugh. ‘Good-looking older guy.’
‘Did he talk about religion at all?’
‘Not like – more like spirituality, you know? He made it sound interesting and cool. Like, he was talking about fighting, like, materialism and capitalism, but he also said you could learn – I know this sounds crazy, but kind of learn… not magic, but to make things happen with your own power, if you studied enough… I’d just finished school, so… I thought I’d go along and see what it was about and – yeah, I asked Flora to come with me. We were school friends, we were at Marlborough together. We were kind of like – we were both gay or whatever, and we were into stuff nobody else was, so I said to Flora, “Come with me, we’ll just do a week there, it’ll be a laugh.” It was just, like, something to do in the holidays, you know?’
‘Are you all right with me taking notes?’
‘Er… yeah, OK,’ said Henry. Strike took out his notebook and pen.
‘So, you were approached in a bar – where was this, London?’
‘Yeah. It isn’t there any more, the bar. It wasn’t far from here, actually.’
‘What was the man called who invited you, can you remember?’
‘Joe,’ said Henry.
‘Was this a gay bar?’
‘Not a gay bar,’ said Henry, ‘but the guy who ran it was gay, so, yeah… it was a cool place, so I thought, like, this guy, Joe, must be cool, too.’
‘And this was in 2000?’
