Hurting Distance aka The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Naomi Jenkins is straightforward,’ said Sellers. ‘Born and grew up in Folkestone, Kent. Went to boarding school, did very well. Middle-class background, mother a history teacher, father an orthodontist. Studied typography and graphic communication at Reading University. Plenty of friends and boyfriends. Lively, an extrovert . . .’

  ‘Just like Juliet Haworth,’ said Simon. His stomach rumbled.

  ‘Why don’t you order something to eat?’ Gibbs suggested. ‘Is it some kind of Catholic guilt syndrome? Punish the flesh to purify the soul?’

  The old Simon would have wanted to floor him. But personality could change, in response to a traumatic or significant event. For ever after, you saw your life as divided into two distinct time zones, pre and post. At one time everyone, Gibbs included, was wary of Simon’s temper. Not any more. It had to be a good thing.

  Simon had decided not to phone Alice Fancourt. It was too much of a risk. He’d be crazy to allow his feelings for her to destabilise him again. Avoid complication and trouble—that was the rule he tried to live by. His decision had nothing to do with Charlie. What did Simon care if she was pissed off with him? It wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before.

  He saw a fleeting panic in Sellers’ eyes at the same time as he felt cold air on the back of his neck. He knew who had swung through the pub’s double doors before he heard the voice.

  ‘Steak pie and chips. Fish and chips. I remember what it felt like to be unconcerned about cholesterol.’

  ‘Sir, what are you doing here?’ Sellers pretended to be pleased to see him. ‘You hate pubs.’

  Simon turned round. Proust was staring at the food. ‘Sir, did you . . . ?’

  ‘I got your note, yes. Where’s Sergeant Zailer?’

  ‘On her way back from the hospital. I said so in the note,’ Simon told him.

  ‘I didn’t read it all,’ said Proust, as if this should have been obvious. He leaned his hands on the table, making it wobble. ‘It’s a shame the DNA from the lorry doesn’t match Haworth’s. It’s another shame that Naomi Jenkins and Sandy Freeguard are insisting Haworth didn’t rape them.’

  ‘Sir?’ Sellers provided the required prompt.

  ‘We have a new complication. I like life when it’s simple. And this isn’t.’ The inspector picked up one of Sellers’ chips and put it in his mouth. ‘Greasy,’ was his verdict. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘I’ve been answering your phones like a secretary while you lot have all been draped over a pub jukebox swilling ale. Yorkshire rang.’

  What, the whole county? Simon nearly said. The Snowman was scared of anything that constituted ‘up north’. He liked to keep it vague, general.

  ‘I don’t know how much you all remember from past interludes of sobriety,’ said Proust, ‘but their lab’s been comparing the DNA profile of Prue Kelvey’s rapist with Robert Haworth’s. Ring any bells?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Simon. Sometimes, he thought, pessimists were pleasantly surprised. ‘And?’

  Proust took another chip from Sellers’ plate. ‘It’s an exact match,’ he said in a heavy voice. ‘There’s no room for ambiguity or interpretation, I’m afraid. Robert Haworth raped Prue Kelvey.’

  ‘Will you ring Steph again if she doesn’t ring you back?’ asked Charlie.

  It was ten o’clock and she was in bed already. Having a much-needed early night. With Graham, and the bottle of red wine he’d brought all the way from Scotland. ‘We do have wine in England, you know,’ she’d teased him. ‘Even in a hick town like Spilling.’

  It had a been a long, hard, confusing day at work, and Charlie had been pleased to get home and find Graham on her doorstep. More than pleased. Thrilled. He’d come all this way to see her. It would never occur to most men—Simon, for example—to do something like that. ‘How did you know my address?’ she’d grilled him.

  ‘You booked one of my chalets, remember?’ Graham had smiled nervously, as if worried his gesture, his pilgrimage, might be interpreted as over the top. ‘You wrote it down for me then. Sorry. I know it’s a bit stalker-ish to turn up unannounced, but, firstly, I’ve always admired the diligence of the stalker, and secondly . . .’ He tilted his head forward, hiding his eyes behind a curtain of hair. Deliberately, Charlie suspected. ‘. . . I . . . er . . . well, I wanted to see you again, and I thought—’

  Charlie hadn’t let him say anything else before she’d clamped her mouth on to his and dragged him inside. That was hours ago.

  It felt comfortable having Graham in her bed. She liked the smell of his body; it reminded her of chopped wood and grass and air. He had a first in classics from Oxford, yet he smelled of outside. Charlie could imagine going to a funfair with him, to a performance of Oedipus, to a bonfire. An all-rounder. What—who—could be better, she asked herself rhetorically, making no space in her mind for an answer.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to cast me aside again, ma’am,’ Graham had said, as they lay among their discarded clothes on Charlie’s lounge floor. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit like a male Madame Butterfly ever since you scarpered in the middle of the night. Mr Butterfly, that’s me. It was pretty scary, I’ll have you know, turning up here uninvited. I thought you’d be busy with work, and I’d end up feeling like one of those doe-eyed wives in Hollywood movies, the ones whose husbands have to drop everything to save the planet from immediate destruction by asteroid or meteorite or deadly virus.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that film.’ Charlie had grinned. ‘All five hundred versions of it.’

  ‘The wife, you’ll have noticed, is always played by Sissy Spacek. Why does she never understand?’ Graham had asked, twisting a strand of Charlie’s hair round his finger, staring at it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. ‘She always tries to persuade the hero to ignore the meteorite that threatens humanity in favour of the family picnic or the little league game. As forward planning goes, it’s short-sighted. No understanding whatsoever of the principle of deferred gratification . . . unlike me . . .’ Graham bent his head to kiss Charlie’s breasts. ‘What is little league, by the way?’

  ‘No idea,’ Charlie replied, closing her eyes. ‘Baseball?’ Graham chatted, she realised, in a way that Simon didn’t. Simon said things he thought were important or else he said nothing at all.

  Given what Graham had said about being ditched in favour of her work, Charlie had felt bad asking him the questions she needed to ask. She hadn’t told him she’d been planning to phone him solely for that reason, instead of to suggest that they arrange to meet. What was wrong with her? Why hadn’t she been bursting to see him again? He was sexy, funny, clever. Good in bed, albeit in a slightly overeager-to-please sort of way.

  When she’d finally plucked up the courage to ask him, Graham hadn’t minded at all. He’d phoned Steph straight away. They were now waiting for her to ring back. ‘You didn’t tell her I wanted to know, did you?’ asked Charlie. ‘If you did, she’ll never call.’

  ‘You know I didn’t. You were here when I rang her.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . . didn’t she know you were coming to see me?’

  Graham chuckled. ‘Course not. I never tell the dogsbody where I’m going.’

  ‘She said you tell her about all the women you sleep with, in graphic detail. She also said a lot of them start out as customers.’

  ‘The second part’s not true. She meant you, that’s all. She was trying to upset you. Most of my customers are fat middle-aged fishermen called Derek. Imagine the name Derek being moaned gently in the dark—it just doesn’t work, does it?’

  Charlie laughed. ‘And the first part?’ Did Graham think he could charm her into letting it drop?

  He sighed. ‘Once—and only because it was such an irresistible story—I told Steph about a woman I slept with. Static Sue.’

  ‘Static Sue?’ Charlie repeated slowly.

  ‘I’m not kidding, this woman didn’t move a muscle, just lay there, rigid, throughout. My stunning performance had no effect whatsoever. I kep
t wanting to stop and check her pulse, see if she was still with me.’

  ‘I take it you didn’t.’

  ‘No. It would have been too embarrassing, wouldn’t it? The funny thing was, the minute we disentangled ourselves, she started moving again, normally. She got up as if nothing had happened, smiled at me and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. I tell you, I had a few worries about my technique after that little episode!’

  Charlie smiled. ‘Stop fishing for compliments. So . . . why would Steph want to upset me? Just because I used your computer, or . . . ?’

  Graham gave her a wry look. ‘You want to know what’s going on with me and Steph, guv?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s going on with you and Simon Waterhouse.’

  ‘How . . . ?’

  ‘Your sister mentioned him, remember? Olivia. No nicknames from now on, I promise.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Charlie had done her best to forget that awful moment: Olivia’s outburst from the literal and moral highground of her mezzanine bedroom.

  ‘Have you two patched things up yet?’ Graham leaned on one elbow. ‘She came back, you know.’

  ‘She what?’ He’d sounded a little too offhand for Charlie’s liking. Anger rose inside her. If he meant what she thought he meant . . .

  ‘To the chalet. The next day, after you’d gone. She seemed disappointed not to find you. I told her something important had come up at work . . . Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘You should have told me this straight away!’

  ‘That’s not fair, guv. You’ve only just given me my mouth back. We’ve been busy, remember? It’s not as if I’ve been twiddling my thumbs. Or, if I have, it was with the best possible intentions . . .’

  ‘Graham, I’m serious.’

  He shot her a knowing look. ‘You haven’t kissed and made up, have you? You thought your sis was still sulking, so you left her to it. Now you feel guilty and you’re trying to pin it on me. An innocent bystander!’ He stuck out his lower lip, curling it over in mock unhappiness.

  Charlie was unwilling to acknowledge how right he was. ‘You should have phoned me straight away. You’ve got my number. I gave it to Steph when I booked.’

  Graham groaned and covered his eyes with his hands. ‘Look, most people don’t appreciate it when the proprietors of their holiday accommodation take an active interest in their family feuds. I know we almost—’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘—but we didn’t, did we? So I was playing hard to get. Briefly, yes—I admit it, Officer—but at least I had a go. Anyway, I thought she’d phone you. She didn’t seem annoyed anymore. She apologised to me.’

  Charlie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure? Are you sure this was my sister, not just someone who looked like her?’

  ‘It was Fat Girl Slim as I live and breathe.’ Graham rolled away so that she couldn’t hit him. ‘We had quite a nice chat, actually. She seemed to have revised her opinion of me.’

  ‘Don’t assume that, just because she wasn’t laying into you.’

  ‘I didn’t. No initiative or guesswork was required. She told me. Said I’d be much better for you than Simon Waterhouse. Which reminds me: you didn’t answer my question.’

  Charlie was furious with her sister for interfering. She wondered if Olivia’s new approach was a more subtle way of trying to ensure that Charlie and Graham didn’t start a relationship. Was she relying on Charlie’s rebellious streak to kick in?

  ‘Nothing’s going on with me and Simon,’ she said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  Graham looked worried. ‘Except you’re in love with him.’

  I could easily deny it, thought Charlie. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He bounced back quicker than most men would have. ‘I’ll grow on you, you’ll see,’ he said, chirpy again. Charlie thought he might be right. She could make him right if she tried, surely. She didn’t have to be another Naomi Jenkins, falling apart because some bastard told her to leave him alone. A bigger bastard than Simon Waterhouse; Charlie was doing better than Naomi on every front. Robert Haworth. A rapist. Prue Kelvey’s rapist. Charlie was still struggling to take in the implications.

  Against Simon’s advice, she’d given Naomi a full update on the phone this afternoon. She couldn’t exactly say she’d grown to like the woman, and she certainly didn’t trust her, but she thought she understood how Naomi’s mind worked. A bit too well. An otherwise intelligent woman made foolish by the strength of her feelings.

  Naomi had taken the news about the DNA match better than Charlie had expected her to. She’d gone silent for a while, but when she spoke, she sounded calm. She’d told Charlie that the only way she could deal with any of this was by finding out the truth, all of it. There wouldn’t be any more lies from Naomi Jenkins—Charlie was convinced of that.

  Naomi was due to talk to Juliet Haworth again tomorrow. If Juliet was involved in some kind of sick money-making scheme with the man who’d raped Naomi and Sandy Freeguard, Naomi was possibly the only person who could provoke her into letting something slip. For some reason that Charlie couldn’t discern, Naomi was important to Juliet. Nobody else was, certainly not her husband—Juliet had made that abundantly clear. ‘I’ll make her tell me,’ Naomi had said shakily on the phone. Charlie admired her determination, but warned her not to underestimate Juliet’s.

  ‘Well, I’m not in love with the dogsbody, you’ll be glad to hear,’ said Graham, yawning. ‘Though I have . . . taken a dip, shall we say. Every now and then. But she’s nothing compared to you, Sarge, however corny that sounds. I’ve had more than enough of her. You’re the one I want, with your tyrannical charm and your impossibly high standards.’

  ‘They are not!’

  Graham snorted with laughter, folded his arms behind his head. ‘Sarge, I can’t even begin to understand what you require of me, let alone deliver it.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Don’t give up too easily.’ Charlie feigned sulkiness. Graham had slept with Steph. Taken a dip. She could hardly complain, given what she’d just told him.

  ‘Aha! I can prove that Steph means nothing to me. Wait till you hear this.’ His eyes twinkled.

  ‘You’re a ruthless gossip, Graham Angilley!’

  ‘Remember the song? Grandmaster Flash?’ He began to sing. ‘White lines, going through my mind . . .’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Steph, the dogsbod, has got a white line dividing her bum in half. Next time you come to the chalets, I’ll get her to show you.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘It looks as ridiculous as it sounds. Now, you know I could never be serious about a woman like that.’

  ‘A white line?’

  ‘Yeah. She spends hours on sunbeds, and as a result her arse is bright orange.’ Graham smiled. ‘But if you were to—how shall I put this?—separate one buttock from the other—’

  ‘All right, I get the gist!’

  ‘—you’d see a clear white stripe. You can see it a little bit even when she’s just walking around.’

  ‘Does she often walk around naked?’

  ‘Actually, yes,’ said Graham. ‘She’s got a bit of a thing for me.’

  ‘Which you’ve done nothing to encourage, of course.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Graham faked outrage.

  His mobile phone began to ring and he picked it up. ‘Yup.’ He mouthed, ‘White line,’ at Charlie, so that she didn’t have to wonder who he was speaking to. ‘Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. Great. Well done, mate. You’ve earned your stripes, as they say.’ He nudged Charlie.

  She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Well?’

  ‘No Naomi Jenkins. Never been to the chalets.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But she checked for any Naomis, being the thorough little terrier that she is. There was a Naomi Haworth—H, a, w, o, r, t, h—booked a chalet for a weekend last September. Naomi and Robert Haworth, but Steph said the wife made the booking. Is that any use to you?’r />
  ‘Yes.’ Charlie sat up, pushing Graham’s hand off her. She needed to concentrate.

  ‘Before you get your hopes up . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She cancelled. The Haworths never turned up. Steph remembers her cancelling and says she sounded upset. Sounded like she was crying, in fact. Steph wondered if the husband had dumped her or died or something, and that was why she was having to cancel.’

  ‘Right.’ Charlie nodded. ‘Right. That’s . . . great, that’s really helpful.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me now what it’s all about?’ Graham tickled her.

  ‘Stop it! No, I can’t.’

  ‘I bet you’d tell this Simon Waterhouse character all the details.’

  ‘He already knows as much as I do.’ Charlie grinned at his hurt look. ‘He’s one of my detectives.’

  ‘So you see him every day?’ Graham sighed, falling back on the bed. ‘Just my luck.’

  19

  Friday, April 7

  YVON SITS BESIDE me on the sofa and places a small cake plate between us. There’s a sandwich on it. She doesn’t look at it, doesn’t want to draw it to my attention in case that inspires me to reject it.

  I stare at the television’s blank grey screen. To embark upon eating anything, even this soft white bread, would be too much of an undertaking. Like setting off to run a marathon while you’re still recovering from a general anaesthetic.

  ‘You haven’t eaten all day,’ says Yvon.

  ‘You haven’t been with me all day.’

  ‘You’ve eaten?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. I don’t know how much of the day is left. It’s dark outside, that’s all I know. What does it matter? If Yvon hadn’t turned up, I wouldn’t have left my bedroom. There is only space in my head for you at the moment, nothing else. Thinking about what you said and what it meant. Hearing the coldness and the distance in your voice over and over. In a year, in ten years, I’ll still be able to play it in my mind.

  ‘Shall I turn on the TV?’ Yvon asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘There might be something light, something—’