‘Mazu used to tell us stories about her. She was supposed to have been this perfect little girl who never did anything wrong and was marked for this important destiny. We were taught that she’d drowned on purpose, to prove that spirit is stronger than flesh, but that she came back to Chapman Farm in the white dress she drowned in, and appeared in the woods where she used to play – and we saw her,’ said Niamh quietly. ‘A couple of times at night I saw her, standing in the trees, staring towards our dormitory.’
Niamh shuddered.
‘I know it must have been a trick, but I had nightmares about it for years afterwards. I’d see her outside my bedroom window in Whitby, soaking wet in her white dress, with long black hair like Mazu’s, staring in at me, because we’d all been bad and left Chapman Farm. All the kids at Chapman Farm were petrified of the Drowned Prophet. “She’s listening. She’ll know if you’re lying. She’ll come and find you, in the dark.” That was enough to scare us all into good behaviour.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ said Robin.
Strike now reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded list.
‘Could I go through some names with you, and see whether you remember any of these people?’ he asked Niamh, who nodded. However, she showed no sign of recognition of the first half-dozen names Strike read out.
‘Sorry, it’s so long ago, and unless they were in our dormitory…’
The first name Niamh recognised was that of Kevin Pirbright, and Robin could tell from her reaction that she didn’t know he was dead.
‘Kevin Pirbright, yes! I remember him and his sister, Emily. They were nice. And they had an older sister, Becca, who came back not long after we’d arrived.’
‘What d’you mean, “came back”?’ asked Strike, his pen at the ready.
‘She’d been at the Birmingham centre for three years. She’d been kind of fast-tracked by Papa J, as a future church leader. She was really bossy. A big favourite of Papa J’s and Mazu’s. I didn’t like her much.’
Strike kept reading out names, but Niamh kept shaking her head until Strike said ‘Flora Brewster’.
‘Oh, yes, I think I remember her. She was a teenager, right? I helped her make her first corn dolly – they make them a lot, at Chapman Farm, to sell in Norwich.’
Strike continued working his way down the list of names.
‘Paul Draper? He’d have been older than you. A teenager, as well.’
‘No, can’t remember a Paul.’
‘Jordan Reaney? Also a teenager.’
‘No, sorry.’
‘Cherie Gittins?’
‘No. I mean, they
‘Margaret Cathcart-Bryce?’
‘Oh God, yes, I remember her,’ said Niamh at once. ‘She was really strange and stretched-looking, she’d had so much work done on her face. She was one of the rich women who used to visit the farm all the time. There was another one who liked grooming the horses, and some of the others took “yoga” with Papa J, but Margaret was the richest of the lot.’
Strike kept reading out names, but the only one Niamh recognised was that of Harold Coates.
‘He was a doctor, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s right,’ said Strike. ‘Did you used to see much of him?’
‘I didn’t, but Maeve did. She kept getting nervous rashes. He used to treat her.’
Strike made a note of this, his face expressionless.
‘D’you remember Jonathan Wace’s daughter?’ asked Robin.
‘Well, no,’ said Niamh, looking confused. ‘She was dead.’
‘Sorry, not Daiyu – I mean his elder daughter, Abigail.’
‘Oh, did he have another one?’ said Niamh, surprised. ‘No, I never met her.’
‘OK,’ said Strike, having made a final note, ‘that’s been helpful, thank you. We’re trying to establish a timeline, find out who was there, and when.’
‘I’m sorry I don’t remember more,’ said Niamh.
Cups of tea finished, they all rose from the table, Robin disengaging her foot carefully from Basil.
‘If,’ said Niamh tentatively, ‘you find out anything about Mum, will you let me know?’
‘Of course,’ said Strike.
‘Thank you. Since having Charlie, I think about Mum such a lot… Oisin and Maeve say they don’t care, but I think it would mean a lot to them, too, if we could find out what happened to her…’
Strike, Robin noticed, looked unusually severe as the three of them headed down the hall, even allowing for the natural surliness of his resting expression. At the front door, Robin thanked Niamh for her time and the biscuits. Basil stood panting beside them, tail wagging, evidently convinced he might yet wheedle fun and treats out of the strangers.
Strike now turned to his partner.
‘You go on. I’d like a private word with Niamh.’
Though surprised, Robin asked no questions, but left. When the sound of her footsteps had disappeared, Strike turned back to Niamh.
‘I’m sorry to ask this,’ he said quietly, looking down at her, ‘but has your younger sister ever talked to you about what Harold Coates did, to cure her rashes?’
‘I think he gave her some cream, that’s all,’ said Niamh, looking nonplussed.
‘She’s never talked about anything else that happened, when he was treating her?’
‘No,’ said Niamh, fear now dawning in her face.
