A couple of minutes later, Strike had learned that Messenger’s interest in the church had been ignited when his agent received a request for Jacob to attend one of the UHC’s charity projects, continued through a photoshoot in which Jacob had worn a UHC sweatshirt, lingered through a short press interview in which he spoke of his new interest in spirituality and charity work, only to wither away when invited on a week-long retreat at a farm, with no media presence.
‘I wan’t gonna go to no bloody farm,’ said Jacob, blindingly white teeth fully on display as he laughed. ‘What would I wanna do that for?’
‘Right,’ said Strike. ‘Well, this has been very—’
‘Listen, though,’ said Jacob, ‘’ave you ever fort of doing a show?’
‘Have I what?’
‘Like, fly on the wall, follow you investigating stuff. I looked you up. Seriously, I reckon my agent would be interested. I was finking, if you and me teamed up, and you could be, like, showing me the ropes and stuff, wiv a camera crew—’
‘I don’t—’
‘Could be good publicity for ya,’ said Messenger, while a blonde in a mini-dress drifted across the screen behind him, looking vague. ‘It’d raise your profile. I in’t boasting or nuffing but I’d def’nitely get us an audience—’
‘Yeah, that wouldn’t work,’ said Strike firmly. ‘Goodbye.’
He hung up while Messenger was still talking.
‘Stupid tit,’ Strike muttered, getting to his feet again to tug Messenger’s picture off the UHC noticeboard, rip it in half and put it in the bin. He then scribbled ‘WHO’S JACOB?’ on a piece of paper and pinned it where Messenger’s photo had been.
Taking a few steps backwards, Strike contemplated yet again the various photos of the dead, untraced and unknown people connected to the church. Other than the note about Jacob, the only other recent change to the board was another piece of paper, which he’d pinned up after his trip to Cromer. It read ‘JOGGER ON BEACH?’ and it, too, was in the ‘still to be found/identified’ column.
Frowning, Strike looked from picture to picture, coming to rest on that of Jennifer Wace, with her big hair and her frosted lipstick, frozen forever in the 1980s. Since his trip to Cromer, Strike had tried to find out all he could about the ways in which somebody might induce a seizure in an epileptic and as far as he could see, the only plausible possibility would be withdrawing medication or, perhaps, substituting genuine medication with some ineffective substance. But supposing Wace had indeed tampered with his first wife’s pills, how could he have known a seizure would occur at that specific moment, while Jennifer was in the water? As a murder method it was ludicrously chancy, though admittedly no less risky than taking a child swimming, and hoping the sea would hide her body forever.
Stroking his unshaven chin, the detective wondered whether he wasn’t becoming fixated on what might turn out to be a dead end. Maybe he was joining the ranks of conspiracy theorists, who saw hidden plots and stratagems where other, saner folk said, like Shelley Heaton, ‘
A strange mood seemed to have infected Chapman Farm ever since members’ tracksuits had changed to white. There was a jitteriness in the air, a sense of strain. Robin noticed an increased tendency on the part of church members to be even more performatively considerate in their treatment of each other, as though some hidden entity were constantly watching and judging.
This generalised anxiety heightened Robin’s own. While she hadn’t precisely lied in her last letter to Strike, she hadn’t told the whole truth, either.
When she and Emily had returned to the abandoned stall in Norwich and told their story of Emily coming over faint in a bathroom, Taio had seemed to accept their account at face value. Relieved as he was to get Emily back, most of his ire was directed at Jiang for losing sight of her and putting her at the mercy of the bubble people, and he spent much of the journey back to Chapman Farm muttering what looked like insults and imprecations at the back of his brother’s head. Jiang didn’t respond, but remained hunched and silent over the steering wheel.
