Water, water everywhere: Baptism, baths, rivers, rain and showers as unifying themes in The Running Grave.

One of the many connections The Running Grave has with Troubled Blood is the theme of water.  Troubled Blood, of course, centered around the real-life Cornish floods of 2014.  A Running Grave has its share of rain, including one real-life storm, but more of its water comes in the form of baptismal imagery, both traditional and macabre. How does this unite both the book and StrikeandRobin into a coherent whole? Find out after the jump.

After the opening prologue of letters and emails from the Edensor family, the main story opens with a scene of both rain and baptism: the backyard reception celebrating little Benjy Herbert's christening, during which Robin and Strike both served as godparents and renounced Satan on behalf of the child. Although we do not witness the ceremony itself, the description of the water being poured over the baby's head (and Bijou's tacky attempt to draw attention to herself during the key moment) is described, and the "heavy rain falling on the canvas above" along with the freely flowing champagne--which is perhaps flowing a bit too freely for the new grandmother--- echo the theme of watery cleansing. Certainly Strike seems to be on the road to self-purification, as he discerns the trouble that is Bijou and steers clear of her. That evening, in his attic flat, he is "slimmer, fitter, clearer of lung," as he prepares healthy food, agrees to help Shanker's stepdaughter find her father, and rejects both Charlotte's phone calls and the note Bijou slips in his pocket. 

The cleansing continues during the next instance of rain: the storm that is brewing as Strike heads to Lucy's and begins in earnest after he arrives. Though the storm clouds foreshadow that something dark is to be revealed, the rain ultimately signifies the cleansing of Strike and Lucy's relationship. After this encounter they will both see each other, as well as Leda, with clearer eyes. Strike starts off by doing what Lucy has always wanted: he visits her home, bringing presents for all three nephews, not just Jack. What Strike thought would be a relatively straightforward discussion about the potential for publicity relating to the Aylmerton Community as a result of Strike's UHC investigation turns into a much more serious revelation, as Lucy discloses her long-ago sexual abuse by Dr. Coates, and Mazu's role in it. As her two youngest boys, properly dressed in their raincoats and Wellies, play outside in the rain with their new toys, Lucy's tears rain down on Strike's shirt as she tells him the truth. The contrast between the protected environment that Lucy has created for her boys and Leda's negligence that led to the abuse in the commune could not be stronger.

The sitting room door opened. Strike was astonished by the abrupt change in Lucy, as she wiped her face and straighten her back in an instant, so when Jack entered, panting and wet-haired, she was smiling...

"Jack, go dry yourself off and then you can have some banana bread," said Lucy, for all the world as if she was perfectly happy, and for the first time in their adult lives, it occurred to Strike that his sister's determination to cling to stability and her notion of normality, her iron-clad refusal to dwell endlessly on the awful possibilities of human behavior, was a form of extraordinary courage. 

The siblings' better understanding of each other perseveres through the rest of the book, as Strike both steps up to share the responsibility for Uncle Ted, and keeps his promise to Lucy to "get that bitch Mazu."  In turn, she finally accepts his single status and unstable lifestyle, echoing Joan's dying words by saying, "You do wonderful things. You help people." 

The next instance of rain in the book is more destructive than cleansing. On Easter Monday, Robin braves Storm Katie to meet Strike at the office for the UHC case review. Although Robin describes the storm as "bracing," Strike is quick to point out the dangers of getting "smacked in the head by a flying bin."  The weather echoes the tension between the partners on the case, with Robin still eager for the undercover mission, but Strike growing increasingly concerned about the danger of coerced sex on the farm. Strike makes a couple of key mistakes regarding Robin's relationship with Ryan Murphy, first asking what he thinks of Robin going undercover and later slamming the inner office door on her when she takes a phone call from him. Between those actions and Clive Littlejohn's first suspicious behavior in the office, the atmosphere is definitely one of unrest. Strike complicates it further by not only failing to heed Ilsa's warning about Bijou, but becoming angry with both her and Robin for Ilsa's audacity in making it. Seemingly out of spite, Strike makes his worst mistake of the book, agreeing to a second date with Bijou. For the first time, he "screws someone he actively disliked." The consequences are bad, and could have been far worse for the agency.

Like her godson Benjamin Herbert's, "Rowena's" baptism into the UHC occurs on a rainy day. Thunder rumbles ominously as she makes her way from the farmhouse to the temple, and what started as sprinkles becomes full rain during the after-baptism dinner and party. Robin listens to the rainfall as she waits in bed for an opportunity to slip out of the dormitory for her first check of the messenger rock. Unable to wear her waterproof coat, rain soaks her and beats on the forest canopy as she makes her way to the meeting place. The raindrops echo the tear the drips on the paper as she reads the first note from Strike. 

A light rain is also falling in chapter 69, as the UHC members search for Mazu's allegedly lost fish pendant. However, it stops and a "watery sunshine" lights up the wildflowers as Robin walk with Jiang from the woods back to the main compound. This is a good omen; not only does Robin thwart Becca's attempt to frame her for theft, she manages to flatter and slightly befriend Jiang, at a time when, as she puts it, she "needs all the allies she can get." This small connection pays off when, on the night of her escape, Jiang convinces Taio to let Robin make a visit to the women's dormitory bathroom, a small act of compassion, but one that makes her escape possible. 

Baptismal imagery is common on Chapman Farm, but typically takes the form of something dark and sinister rather than spiritual and cleansing. One of the first acts of cruelty described at the farm is that of the teenage Jordan being forced to whip himself on the face. Jordan's name is explicitly connected to the traditional Biblical baptismal river by Jonathan Wace, who apparently used to sing the spiritual "Roll, Jordan, Roll" whenever he met the young man. It is ironic that Wace would use a spiritual beloved by enslaved people seeking freedom to humiliate a youth who is a de facto slave on the farm. 

UHC members are required to anoint themselves with water from Daiyu's s memorial fountain every time they pass it, while reciting, "The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her." Yet, the Drowned Prophet is more often associated with horror and vengance than blessings. Mazu's prayer, "Bless me, my child, and may your righteous punishment fall upon all who stray from the Way" is a more authentic summary of church philosophy and practice. Jonathan and Mazu Wace, and the rest of the Principals are the ones blessed by the UHC; the rest of the membership live to suffer.

Robin encounters the pentagon-shaped baptismal pool in the temple three times. Its waters are pitch black and reflective, rather than clear and transparent as a baptistry should be. Robin thinks, at her initial baptism, that the water looks inviting, not because immersion will cleanse her false self or rebirth her as a UHC member, but because she could experience "a few moments of solitude and peace" away from the cult. Her time underwater is described as "glorious silence" that is "shattered" when she resurfaces. Amandeep's words, "I've joined the damn cult!" are more true than he realizes; all he needs is to add an "-ed" to the adjective.

Robin's second encounter comes at her Revelation, when the stage tips and she slides, " across the smooth surface of the tipping lid, preventing herself from falling into the sliver of black water only by throwing out her arm and pushing against the rim of the pool." The cult members all scramble to escape, filled with "a horror of slipping into the dark water, welcoming as it had seemed during their baptisms." This incident is a harbinger of evil; it is right afterwards that Taio attempts to force Robin into "spirit-bonding."

The third encounter happens the evening of the Drowned Prophet's Manifestation. In the initial part of the ceremony, the glowing green waters are more reminiscent of the potion in the graveyard stone caldron of Goblet of Fire than they are the clear frozen pond in the Forest of Dean. As in the graveyard, a frightening figure rises from the watery depths.

Now the glowing water rose upwards in the smooth shape of a bell jar, and revolving slowly inside it was the figure of a limp, eyeless girl in a white dress. There were several screams: Robin heard a girl shout, "No, no, no!"

After this appearance, Robin is targeted as an evil within the UHC and "called to the pool" for a second immersion, one that will both mimc and invert Harry's baptismal plunge into the frozen pond of Deathly Hallows. 

Knowing that resistance or refusal would be taken as infallible signs of guilt, she stepped over the edge and allowed herself to drop under the surface of the cold water.... Robin expected her feet to touch the bottom, but they met no resistance; the bottom of the pool had disappeared. She tried to swim for the surface, but then, to her terror, she felt something like a smooth cord twist around her ankles. In panic she fought to kick herself free, but whatever had hold of her dragged her downwards. In darkness she flailed and kicked, trying to rise, but whatever was holding her back was more powerful, and she saw splinters of memories--her parents, her childhood home, Strike in the Land Rover-- and the cold waters seemed to be crushing her, pressing on her very brain, it was impossible to breathe, she opened her mouth in a silent scream and sucked in water...

Note the similar language in the Forest of Dean scene, complete with a series of short clauses connected by commas to convey the panic of drowning. 

Harry put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and shaking, until he told himself it must be done, gathered all his courage and dived....  then something closed tight around his neck...the chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe. Harry kicked out wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely propelled himself into the rocky side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chin, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he could do, and the arms that closed about his chest were surely Death's...

Robin and Harry both regain consciousness once pulled out of the water. Harry comes to face down, and hears the voice of his best mate, Ron. The scene is followed by their joyous reconciliation and the triumphal destruction of the locket Horcrux. Robin, unfortunately, has an opposite experience; she wakes on the temple floor to see the goggled face of her enemy and would-be rapist, Taio, and is taken from the temple to the farmhouse basement and the torture of "the box."

There is one other image of the UHC baptismal pool, that drawn by "Torment Town," who we will eventually know as Flora Brewster. Flora's drawings artistically render the darkness and death associated with the UHC pool and its prophet, prompting Strike to say they belong in a horror comic:

This showed Daiyu as she'd looked in life, although in a far more sinister form. The accomplished pencil and charcoal drawing had turned the rabbity face skeletal. Where there should have been eyes, there were empty sockets....Daiyu appeared repeatedly, sometimes only her face, sometimes full length, in a white dress that dripped water onto the floor around her bare feet. The eyeless, rabbity face stared in through windows, the dripping corpse floated across ceilings and peered out from between dark trees. 

Appropriately, while reviewing the pictures, Strike is interrupted by a classic omen of death, a raven crashing into his window. He makes eye contact with the bird, before it flies away, then returns to his work to uncover the picture that will prove a crucial clue into the disappearance of Deidre Doherty. 

He paused on the most complex picture yet: a meticulously rendered depiction of a group standing around a black five-sided pool. The figures around the pool were hooded, their faces in shadow, but Jonathan Wace's face was illuminated. 

Over the water hovered the spectral Daiyu, looking down at the water below, a sinister smile on her face. Where Daiyu's reflection should have been, there was a different woman, floating on the surface of the water, She was fair-haired and wore square-framed glasses, but like Daiyu she had no eyes, only empty sockets. 

It is little wonder that Flora is "tormented" by such memories. The UHC sets up a contrast between normal and perverted baptisms: one a cleansing ceremony where family and friends cheerfully renounce the Satan in which they probably don't genuinely believe, then celebrate with cake and champagne; the other a dark, morbid rite presided over by the all-too-real and Satan-like Jonathan Wace and depicting the deaths of innocents. Interestingly, the only other time the word  "torment" is used outside of the "Torment Town" handle is in reference to Lady Sally Edensor, who was "tormented" by the idea of dying without seeing Will again, a fear that comes to pass thanks to the Waces.

The only other significant mention of rain comes on the night where Robin is imprisoned in the box, and Strike is keeping his all-night vigil for her. At the bewitching hour of midnight, the weather is described as "raining heavily" as Strike scans the "rain-flecked trees" with night vision goggles, searching for her. In the absence of magical tools like Deluminators and the Doe Patronus, it will take much more effort, and courage, on Robin's part, for them to find each other. 

Strike also witnesses baptisms during Wace's "superservice" in London, but, observed through the eyes of an outsider who refuses to "admit the possibility" of anything spiritual, let alone supernatural, in the UHC, the imagery becomes more comic than sinister. Strike notes the unbaptized attendees dropping money in collection buckets, "perhaps trying to appease a vague sense of guilt that they were leaving in dry clothes." Perhaps dry tracksuits will be made available to those willing to immediately get on the minibus for Chapman Farm, but readers are left to visualize the rest as making their way home from the Olympia center auditorium, dripping wet. 

There is one final depiction of a perverse and morbid mock baptism that has nothing to do with UHC: the suicide of Charlotte Campbell in her bathtub. This event is foreshadowed by the description of Flora Brewster's long-ago, identical and thankfully unsuccessful attempt. As Fergus Robertson tells us:

Two days after she talked to me, she saw the Drowned Prophet floating outside her window. She rang me, hysterical, saying she'd said too much and the Drowned Prophet had come to get her, but I should still print the story...Got off the phone, locked herself in her parents' bathroom and slit her wrists in the bath. She survived--just.

Like Flora, Charlotte made some hysterical phone calls prior to her attempt. Even the peace Strike made with her spirit in the church does not protect him from the horrific image:

Strike knew that Charlotte had taken a cocktail of drink and antidepressants before slitting her wrists and bleeding out in a bath...Much as he'd have preferred it not to, Strike's imagination insisted on showing him a vivid picture of Charlotte submerged in her own blood, her black hair floating on the clotted surface. 

Strike may not be able to draw, but his mind torments him with images as horrific as those of Flora Brewster. Robin learns the same information; she is reading the article with the "Socialite Died in Bath" headline when Emily comes to relieve her in Jacob's room. While we don't get to see Robin's thoughts on the story's content, only her shocked gasp, it is likely that the knowledge that Charlotte is gone for good helps facilitate her sudden knowledge that Strike is by the farm wall, waiting for her. Something similar happened to Jane Eyre after she learned Rochester's insane first wife was dead.

After Robin escapes the cult, virtually all mention of rain stops. The word "rain" appears 26 times in Chapters 1-86, but only twice in the remainder of the book: once used figuratively, when shouts of "no!" rain down upon Jonathan Wace at the superservice and once as Strike is describing a past event, asking Abigail whether the failure to burn the pigpen was because of rain. What replaces rain (and bloody baths) are images of showers and rivers. Twice Robin takes a shower with Strike nearby; the first time in Fellbrig Lodge, the second in Strike's attic flat. The first time, while Robin is thinking only of washing the stain of Chapman Farm off of her, Strike is in the bedroom trying desperately not to think about Robin naked. In the second, Robin gets her turn trying not to imagine Strike's regular nudity in the place she is standing. Strike also thinks of Robin, and their other visits to seaside towns, while showering in the Hotel de Paris in Cromer. 

Although they are separate in all their water showers, Strike and Robin undergo a figurative joint "baptism by fire" when their car comes under gunfire.

The rear window and windscreen shattered. The bullet had passed so close to Strike's head that he felt its heat: with blank whiteness where there had been glass, Robin was driving blind. 

"Punch it out!" she shouted at Strike, who took off his seat belt to oblige... Strike was thumping broken glass out of the windscreen to give Robin visibility, fragments showered down on both of them. 

Strike, who had finally "opened his f*cking eyes" regarding Robin, is now risking his life to help her see. Perhaps better than any time in their partnership, the pair is working together, each using their strengths to save not only their own lives, but that of their passenger, Will. 

The River Thames is seen on two occasions when the detectives visit the Edensor home, with its "long lawn running in a gentle slope down to the river." The final scene with the Edensors is an echo of the book's opening baptismal celebration, celebrating the reunion of the family and the re-christening of little Qing.

The long lawn sloping down beyond Sir Colin Edensor's house had gained a number of brightly colored objects since the last time Strike and Robin had seen it...a blow-up paddling pool decorated with tropical fish and...a battery-powered bubble machine. It was this that was attracting the attention of the white-haired toddler who was now answering to the name Sally rather than Qing, and two dark-haired little boys of about the same age. Their shrieks, shouts and laughter carried into the kitchen as they attempted to catch and pop the stream of bubbles issuing from the purple box on the grass. Four adults were supervising the toddlers, to make sure they didn't stray too close to the river at the foot of the garden. 

A brightly colored, safe and cheerful pool is present, in contrast to the dark baptistry of the UHC temple, while the flowing river in the background recalls the River Jordan, and the soap bubbles add another image of cleansing. If anything, this scene is cheerier than the Herberts' reception; there is no rain and certainly no one as annoying as Bijou trying to butt in. The white-haired girl who had most often been seen crying and isolated from other children at Chapman Farm is now happily playing with her newfound cousins. Loving adults are looking out for her, assuring she will not meet the same horrible fate of drowning associated with the UHC, and which befell little Robbie Whedon of A Casual Vacancy. Having been allowed to re-join the bubble world, Qing can look forward to a happy and safe life as Sally, blessed with the name of her late grandmother and as a treasured part of a reunited family. If Lady Sally's spirit is still present with her husband and sons, we can assume her torment is eased. 

The Running Grave is bookended with uplifting baptismal imagery, with sinister perversions of the practice seen in the middle of the book, most notably at Chapman Farm, but also with the death of Charlotte Campbell. Rain can either serve a cleansing function, as it does during Strike's visit with Lucy, or indicate trouble, as with Storm Katie. Finally, images of Strike and Robin thinking of each other as they shower contrast with Charlotte's lonely death in a bloody bath, and signify their increasing intimacy. While the showering of broken windshield glass signifies and cements their professional partnership, the other shower imagery indicates a washing away of past unhealthy romances, which we can expect to clear the way for the detectives' personal relationship to move forward. The water imagery in The Running Grave is, in addition to a major literary device in the book, an outpouring of blessings for Strellacott shippers.