‘How old’s your sister now – twenty-one?’
‘Yes,’ said Niamh.
‘Harold Coates was a paedophile,’ said Strike, and Niamh gasped and clapped her hands to her face. ‘I think you should ask her what happened. She’s probably in need of more help than anti-depressants, and it might be a relief to have someone else know.’
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Niamh through her fingers.
‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Strike. ‘It won’t be much consolation, I know, but Maeve was far from the only one.’
‘Fancy some lunch while we debrief?’ said Strike, once he was back in the car. ‘Niamh recommended a good place just round the corner,’ he lied. In fact, he’d found the Merlin’s Cave restaurant online, the previous day.
Robin hesitated. Having taken the day off, Murphy would be expecting her back as soon as possible, to spend their last few hours together. Yet their slightly tense phone conversation of the previous evening, in which Murphy had just refrained from becoming openly annoyed, had irked her. Her boyfriend, who supposedly wanted her as well prepared as possible before going undercover, had resented her speaking to a last witness before she went in, and his behaviour was all too reminiscent of her marriage.
‘Yes, OK,’ said Robin. ‘I can’t hang around too long, though, I – er – told Ryan I’d be back.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Strike, happy to have gained lunch. Hopefully, the service would be slow.
Merlin’s Cave, which stood on the village green, was a country pub with a timbered and red brick façade. Strike and Robin were shown to a table for two in a pleasant restaurant area, with glass windows overlooking a rear garden.
‘If I drive back,’ said Strike, as they sat down, ‘you can drink. Last chance for alcohol before Chapman Farm.’
‘I’m not bothered, I can have a drink later,’ said Robin.
‘Murphy’s OK with you drinking in front of him, is he?’
Robin looked up from the menu the waitress had just handed her. She didn’t remember ever telling Strike that Murphy was an alcoholic.
‘Yes, he’s fine with it. Did Ilsa—?’
‘Wardle,’ said Strike.
‘Oh,’ said Robin, looking back down at the menu.
Strike had no intention of relaying what Wardle had said about Murphy’s behaviour when still a drinker, largely because he knew how he’d make himself look to Robin, by saying it. Nevertheless, he said,
‘What made him give up?’
‘He says he just didn’t like himself, drunk,’ said Robin, preferring to keep looking at the menu, rather than Strike. She had a suspicion that Strike was looking for a way to impart information she probably wouldn’t want to hear. Given Strike’s recent irritation at what he considered Ilsa’s meddling, she thought it grossly hypocritical for him to start questioning her about Murphy’s past.
Sensing the slight increase in froideur from across the table, Strike probed no further. When both had ordered food, and Strike had asked for bread, he said,
‘So, what did you make of Niamh?’
Robin lowered her menu.
‘Well, apart from feeling really sorry for her, I thought she gave us a few interesting things. Especially that photograph of her mother. From Henry Worthington-Fields’ description of the pregnant woman he saw collapsing, while ploughing—’
‘Yeah, I think that was Deirdre Doherty,’ said Strike, ‘and now we know she had a heart condition which, along with hard manual labour and a fourth pregnancy, would seem ample grounds for fainting, or whatever she did.’
‘But we know she survived the fainting fit, got through the birth OK and lived for another two years, at least,’ said Robin.
The waitress now set down Robin’s water, Strike’s zero-alcohol beer and a basket of bread. Strike took a roll (the diet could be resumed once Robin was at Chapman Farm) and waited until the waitress was out of earshot, before saying,
‘You think Deirdre’s dead?’
‘I don’t
‘And the letters her husband kept tearing up?’
‘They might not have had anything to do with Deirdre at all. I can’t believe it would have been
‘If Kevin Pirbright was right, and Lin was Jonathan Wace’s daughter, Wace might not have been prepared to give her up.’
‘If Kevin Pirbright was right,’ said Robin, ‘Lin was a product of rape, and if Deirdre was prepared to write it in her journal that Wace had raped her, she was a real danger to him and to the church.’
