The White Lady of the Shrieking Pits: Is a Ghost Haunting Chapman Farm?

 Despite Cormoran Strike's firm "team rational" position, spectral spirits seem to haunt his detective novels. For evidence, see these other posts on Charlie Bristow of Cuckoo's Calling, Freddie Chiswell of Lethal White, and Margot Bamborough of Troubed Blood. Is a similar ghost haunting Chapman Farm, without the aid of the Wace's smoke and mirrors?  I am going to argue that there is a genuine ghost among the fake ones, one whose story could be considered a re-telling of a local Aylmerton ghost story, much like Jasper Chiswell's story is a re-telling of the Francis Rattenbury murder. 

For background on Norfolk folklore, I recommend two excellent articles by Beatrice Groves (both written pre-TRG, so no spoilers): here and here.  In particular, the story of the Shrieking Pits is most relevant. 

Three miles from Cromer, five such pits are visible in Aylmerton in the wooded slopes close to the Gresham Cross, close to the pilgrims' path which heads towards the holy shrines at Walsingham– these are known locally as the Shrieking Pits.

Folklore tells of a ghostly figure wearing white that haunts the pits, weeping and wailing as she walks between each pit, endlessly searching the depressions in the ground, looking for her baby. The child was killed by her husband who was convinced the baby wasn't his and, after he had buried the infant in the pit west of Aylmerton church, he went back and killed his wife.

Tall and willowy, the woman is seen wringing her hands and uttering piercing cries as she searches the pits: she has been seen during the day, at dusk and at night time and those that encounter her remark on her heartbreaking cries for her lost child. 

 Which UHC resident connects to the White Lady?  Find out after the jump. Spoiler warning. 

Deidre Doherty died thirteen years before The Running Grave takes place, but her presence looms over the book through the mysterious Torment Town artwork. Solving the mystery of Deidre's disappearance and death is a crucial step in resolving the full case, and bringing an end to Jonathan Wace's criminal enterprise. As was the case with Jasper Chiswell and Francis Rattenbury, elements of Deidre's story connect to that the the White Lady's legend. In 2002, Ralph Doherty abandoned Deidre, leaving her to the mercies of the UHC cult, when he escaped one night, taking his three children with him. Ralph believed, probably correctly, that Deidre's youngest child, Lin was not his, but Jonathan Wace's, In this way, Ralph resembles the White Lady's husband, whose murder of his wife and baby were motivated by his belief that the child was not is. Ralph refused to believe his "prim" wife's sexual encounters with Jonathan Wace were against her will; his self-centeredness and lack of compassion led, indirectly to her death. 

Deidre's "spirit husband," Jonathan Wace, was directly responsible for Deidre's demise. Like Robin, Deidre was pulled underwater during the Drowned Prophet Manifestation ceremony; unlike Robin, she did not survive the experience.. We do not know if Deidre's death was deliberate murder, with Wace choosing to drown her to permanently silence her rape accusations, or if the attack was, like Robin's, intended "only" to punish her and bring her under full control of the UHC leadership.  No matter whether the stress of the near-drowning made Deidre succumb to her heart condition, or whether she was intentionally drowned, the UHC bears criminal responsibility for her death. 

Deidre's death left  baby Lin with no protector within the cult, to be raised in the loveless communal environment and to be specifically tormented by Mazu for her stammer. Like other UHC girls, Lin would be groomed for "spirit-bonding" at a young age, resulting in her giving birth around age fourteen. Deidre was, as best we can tell, a loving mother pre-cult, despite her passivity in front of Ralph, who appears to have been at best, mentally ill, at worst, emotionally abusive.  Her daughter Niamh, who had not seen Deidre since age eleven and who spent her adolescent years hearing her father's constant bad-mouthing of her mother, still cared enough to want to know what happened to Deidre and to ask the detectives to let her know if they found her. Indeed, Nimmh credits her better mental health, relative to her siblings, to the fact that she, "had Mum around longer." 

It is therefore easy to imagine Deidre, whose first name means "brokenhearted" and whose last name means "unlucky," grieving both before and after her death, not only for the children Ralph had taken, but also for Lin's fate once alone in the UHC, in the same way that the White Lady grieved for her murdered baby. But, instead of searching the Aylmerton pits for her youngest child, Deidre would be expected to haunt Chapman Farm, with a particular eye on Lin and the ones who could potentially help her. 

The first person Deidre seems to have influenced was the 13-year-old Kevin Pirbright, who, when Deidre was allegedly expelled, found it concerning that she had not taken Lin with her. Kevin alone seemed curious as to why Deidre was expelled and, once he heard about the rape allegations, eventually seemed to believe them. As he states in his letter to Sir Colin, his secret distress over Lin's apparent abandonment was the "first serious crack" in the cult's brainwashing. The crack would widen and spread over the next ten years, and ended with his decision to leave. 

Flora Brewster also seems to have been haunted by Deidre Doherty, perhaps literally, or perhaps figuratively by the troubling memory of Deidre being pulled, dead, from the baptismal pool.  Like Billy Knight, Flora suffered from genuine psychosis, leaving her with a fragmented memory and unable to distinguish reality from the delusions and hallucinations of the mental illness. She was, for instance, uncertain about whether she had become pregnant or given birth until her doctor confirmed it. Yet, Flora retained a vivid memory of Deidre drowning, enough to produce the artwork she posted online and to hope that it would attract someone who could verify what she had seen. Strike, of course, is the one who views the page and responds to her, but Robin is the one that, after hearing Strike's description of the artwork, is able to divine what actually happened to Deidre. This deduction, and the detectives' ability to use it to help Will throw off the cult's control requires a remarkable set of coincidences:

• Robin and Deidre undergo the same experience at the Drowned Prophet's Manifestation, thirteen years apart.
• Flora Brewster, one of the few people who knew for certain that Deidre had drowned and that her death had been covered up, would eventually wind up as Strike's half-sister's patient.
• Strike and Prudence, after a literal lifetime of not knowing each other, should reconnect just in time for Prudence to be in position to connect Flora and Will. 

The coincidences become easier to explain if one thinks of Deidre's spirit literally haunting Flora and guiding her actions. Will's freedom from the Drowned Prophet's clutches will also mean freedom for Deidre's daughter Lin and her granddaughter, Qing (later Sally). 

Robin may have had help from Deidre during the moment in the Chapman Farm barn, when she is "seized by the urge to look in that Barnum's Animal Biscuits Tin."  She discovers the amateur pornography, which will prove a crucial cue to cracking the case. This sudden and inexplicable urge happens in the presence of a cobweb-covered stuffed rabbit that Robin notices in the pile of discarded possessions; this could well be the rabbit that 4-year-old Maeve Doherty cried for in her early days on Chapman Farm. Locating these Polaroids was undoubtedly the biggest stroke of luck Robin had at the farm, comparable to Strike correctly guessing Lady Bristow's safe combination. Just as the safe combination is better understood as a supernatural communication from Charlie Bristow to Strike, Robin's sudden urge to check the cookie tin is better understood if Ms. "Unlucky" is providing some supernatural guidance, in the presence of her daughter's long-lost toy. Maeve may never get her lost bunny back, and may never fully escape the trauma of her UHC years, but it does seem like she will get help for the sexual abuse she almost certainly experienced from Harold Coates, something that is a credit not only to Strike but to Lucy's courage in finally disclosing the abuse to her brother. 

However, the most "supernatural" moment Robin has is the "something strange" that happens in Jacob's attic room, when she is struck  by the sudden and certain knowledge that Strike has arrived at the blind spot on the road and is ready to pick her up. This conviction so strong that it "stopped her in her tracks." Many readers have compared this moment to a scene in Jane Eyre, when Jane supernaturally hears Rochester calling her across the moor. Deidre's daughter Niamh was wearing a Charlotte Bronte shirt when Strike and Robin visited her, which points to Diedre's involvement in the Jane Eyre moment. 

For Robin, the timing was critical; as she acknowledges, she would not have escaped the Wace brothers if Strike had been ten minutes later arriving. Robin also seems to know, at that moment, exactly which questions she needs to ask Emily, so that, in the final minutes before her departure, Robin gets the information about Daiyu's toys and treats, and the fact that she was handed out the window of the children's dormitory the night before she supposedly drowned. This information will later be part of what Strike needs to dismantle the myth of the Drowned Prophet. 

Robin makes a clear mental connection to Deidre when she recognizes that the that the Torment Town picture indicates that Deidre drowned in the baptismal pool. She is so overwhelmed by the realization that she has to pull over the Land Rover; this is only the second time we have seen her become that upset behind the wheel of the car. Robin recognizes the terror Deidre experienced in her last moments, and shares her anguish, as if they had forged a psychic connection. In a sense, Flora, Deidre and Robin are tied together by their shared torment. 

Like Anna Phipps. Niamh Doherty had spent her life not knowing whatever happened to her mother, and lived in fear that Deidre had simply abandoned her family. Although we never see the detectives follow up with Niamh, we can imagine a response similar to Anna's, with Niamh being comforted by the answered questions and by being able to see her mother not as someone who may have abandoned her husband and children, but as the victim of a terrible crime. Just a Troubled Blood ended with a sense of Margot's spirit finally being at rest, we can hope for the same for Deidre and her family. By story's end, there might be one fewer White Lady roaming Aylmerton, victimized by a merciless husband and weeping for her lost children.