The Running Grave полностью

‘OK, this next one’s odd. Kevin thought Daiyu could turn herself invisible – or said that one of his sisters believed she could.’

‘What?’ said Abigail, half-laughing.

‘I know,’ said Strike, ‘but he seemed to attach significance to this. I wondered whether she went missing at any point, prior to her death.’

‘Not that I remember… but I wouldn’t’ve put it past ’er to claim she could be invisible. Make ’erself out t’be magic, like ’er muvver.’

‘OK, this next question’s also odd, but I wanted to ask you about pigs.’

‘Pigs?’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘It might mean nothing, but they keep cropping up.’

‘’Ow?’

‘Sheila Kennett says Paul Draper got beaten for letting some escape, and Jordan Reaney’s wife says he used to have nightmares about pigs.’

‘’Oo’s Jordan Reaney?’

‘You can’t remember him?’

‘I… oh, maybe,’ she said slowly. ‘Was ’e the tall one who overslept, who should’ve been on the truck?’

‘What truck?’

‘If ’e’s the one I’m thinkin’ of, he should’ve been with Cheryl – Cherie – on the vegetable run, the morning Daiyu drowned. If ’e’d gone, there wouldn’ of been room for Daiyu. It was a small flatbed truck. On’y room for two up front.’

‘I don’t know whether he was supposed to be on the vegetable run,’ said Strike, ‘but according to Pirbright, Reaney was forced to whip himself across the face with a leather flail by Mazu, for some unspecified crime she seemed to think merited the police.’

‘I toldja, that sorta fing ’appened all the time. An’ why’s Reaney’s wife talkin’ for ’im? Is ’e dead?’

‘No, in jail for armed robbery.’

‘Waste of a gun,’ muttered Abigail. ‘’E knows where Mazu is.’

‘Kevin Pirbright also wrote the word “pigs” on his bedroom wall.’

‘Sure ’e wasn’ talkin’ abou’ the police?’

‘He might’ve been, but “pigs” might also have been a reminder to himself, about something he wanted to include in his book.’

Abigail looked down at her empty glass.

‘Another one?’ suggested Strike.

‘Tryna get me drunk?’

‘Repaying you for giving me your time.’

‘Charmer. Yeah, fanks,’ she said.

When Strike returned with her fourth drink, Abigail took a gulp, then sat in silence for nearly a minute. Strike, who suspected she wanted to talk more than perhaps she realised, waited.

‘All righ’,’ she said suddenly, ‘’ere it is: if you wanna know the troof. If people ’oo were at Chapman Farm in the nineties are ’aving nightmares about pigs, it won’ be because fuckin’ farm animals got out.’

‘Why, then?’

‘“The pig acts in the abysmal.”’

‘Sorry?’

‘’S from the I Ching. Know what that is?’

‘Er – a book of divination, right?’

‘Mazu said it was an orac – whass the word?’

‘Oracle?’

‘Yeah. That. But I found out, after I left, she wasn’ usin’ it properly.’

Given that he wasn’t talking to Robin, who was familiar with his views on fortune telling, Strike decided not to debate whether it was possible to use an oracle properly.

‘What d’you mean by—?’

‘It’s s’posed to be, like, used by the person ’oo’s after – y’know – guidance, or wisdom, or shit. You count out yarrow stalks, then you look up the meaning of the ’exa-fing you’ve made, in the I Ching. Mazu likes anyfing Chinese. She pretends to be ’alf Chinese. My arse, she is. Anyway, she wouldn’ let anyone else touch the stalk fings. She gave readings, an’ she rigged it.’

‘How?’

‘She used it to decide punishments an’ stuff. She’d say she’d consult the I Ching to find out ’oo was tellin’ the truth. See, if you’re pure spirit, the divine vibration’ (Abigail’s voice was full of scorn) ‘works froo you, so if you do somefing like the I Ching – or cards, or crystals, or wha’ever – they’ll work, but not fr’anyone ’oo’s not as pure.’

‘And where do pigs come in?’

‘’Exa-fing – gram – twenny-nine,’ said Abigail. ‘The Abyss. It’s one o’ the worst ’exagrams to get. “Water is the image associated with the Abysmal; of the domestic animals, the pig is the one that lives in mud and water.” I still know it off by fuckin’ ’eart, I ’eard it so often. So if ’exagram twenny-nine came up – an’ it came up far more often than it should’ve done, because there are sixty-fuckin’-four diff’rent ’exagrams – you was a filfy liar: you was a pig. An’ Mazu made you crawl around on all fours, until she said it was time to get up again.’

‘This happened to you?’

‘Oh, yeah. Bleedin’ ’ands and knees. Crawlin’ through mud… on the night after Daiyu drowned,’ said Abigail, her eyes glassy, ‘Mazu made me, old Brian Kennett, Paul Draper, that Jordan guy an’ Cherie strip naked an’ crawl round the yard in fuckin’ pig masks, wiv everyone watching. For free days an’ free nights, we ’ad to stay naked and on all fours, an’ we ’ad to sleep in the pigsty wiv the real pigs.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Strike.

‘So now you fuckin’ know,’ said Abigail, who seemed half-furious, half-shaken, ‘an’ you can put it in a fuckin’ book an’ make a ton of money out of it.’

‘I’ve already told you,’ said Strike, ‘that isn’t going to happen.’