Hurting Distance aka The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  I go straight to my workshop, unlock the door and pick up the largest of my dummy mallets, weighing it in my palm. I stroke its gold head with my fingers. I’ve always found dummy mallets satisfying to hold; I like the absence of straight lines. They’re the same shape as the pestles some people use for grinding herbs into pastes, except they’re made of wood and bronze. With this one in my hand, I could do serious damage, which is what I want to do.

  I pick up a length of rope from the floor, under my work table, then some more. I have no idea how much is enough. I’m used to tying up wrapped sundials, not men. In the end, I decide to take all the rope I’ve got, and a large pair of scissors. I lock up the workshop, go back to my car and drive to Charlie’s house.

  No one could blame me for what I’m about to do. I’m performing a service, a necessary one. There’s no alternative. Graham Angilley attacked us all too long ago—Juliet, me, Sandy Freeguard. Simon Waterhouse told me on Wednesday that the conviction rate for years-old rapes is low, and Charlie said there’s no DNA evidence from Sandy Freeguard’s attack. Only Prue Kelvey’s, and Angilley didn’t touch her. It would be his word against mine.

  Charlie’s house is dark, as it was when Terry the lorry driver—your colleague, as I like to think of him—dropped me off outside it forty-five minutes ago, to collect my car. I wasn’t prepared to go inside then, unarmed.

  The building looks empty, radiates cold stillness. If your brother Graham is inside, he must be asleep. I take Charlie’s keys and, as quietly as I can, try them in the lock one by one. The third one works. I turn it very slowly, then, inch by inch, I push open the front door.

  Holding the dummy mallet in my hand, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they have, I begin to climb the stairs. One step creaks slightly, but not enough to wake someone who’s sleeping, oblivious. On the upstairs landing, there are three doors. I assume they lead to two bedrooms and a bathroom. I tiptoe into the bedrooms, one by one. Nobody. I check the bathroom: also empty.

  I’m not as frightened as I probably should be. I’ve slipped back into I-can-do-anything mode. Last time I felt like this, I went to the police station and told a detective that you’d raped me. Thank God I did. It’s thanks to me that Juliet’s attempt to kill you failed.

  I go back downstairs, holding the mallet level with my head in case I need to use it suddenly. I’ve got the rope over my arm and the strap of my bag round my neck. I open the only door in the hall and find a long, thin lounge with open glass doors in the middle, off which is a small, messy kitchen, with lots of washing-up heaped on one side of the sink.

  Satisfied that there’s no one in the house, I close the curtains in the lounge and pat the walls near the door until I find the light switch. If Graham Angilley comes back to the house and sees a light on, he’ll assume it’s Charlie. He’ll ring the bell. I’ll open the door, but not wide enough for him to see me. Then I’ll hide behind it, and when he pushes it all the way open and walks in, I’ll smash the dummy mallet down on his head.

  I blink, dazzled by the sudden bright glare in the room. I see a lamp and switch that on instead, turning the main light off again. There’s a note on the table, next to the base of the lamp. It says, ‘Where the hell are you? You didn’t leave a key. I’ve gone to get something to eat and a few stiff drinks. I’ll come back later. Ring me on my mobile when you get this message—I’m v. worried. Hope whatever you’re doing isn’t mad/life-threatening.’

  I drop the piece of paper as soon as I’ve read it. I don’t want to hold your brother’s handwriting, don’t want it to touch my skin. The message puzzles me. Why did Angilley need a key? He must already have been inside the house, in order to put the note on the table. Then it occurs to me that if he wanted to go out, he would need to be able to let himself back in. He is probably somewhere nearby, phoning every so often to see if Charlie has come back. No one’s rung since I’ve been here, though. Why isn’t he trying the landline?

  And the front door was locked when I arrived. Who locked it, if Angilley has no key?

  I pull Charlie’s mobile phone out of my handbag. It’s switched off. I turn it on, but don’t know her pin number, so I can’t access any messages Angilley might have left.

  I’m v. worried. Hope whatever you’re doing isn’t mad/life-threatening.

  He cares about her. Pain and bitterness rise inside me like a tidal wave. There’s nothing worse than to be confronted with evidence that a person who has nearly destroyed you is capable of being kind to somebody else.

  I shiver, telling myself it’s not possible. Charlie Zailer cannot be Graham Angilley’s lover. I could have spoken to any detective about your disappearance on Monday; I gave her the Silver Brae Chalets card by mistake. And she just happens to be sleeping with your brother?

  I don’t believe in coincidences.

  I hear a car door open and close in the street outside. Then it cuts out. It has to be him. I run to the hall, take up my position by the front door. Dropping the rope on the floor at my feet, I grab the handle, ready to twist it as soon as the bell rings. Just one, soft, small turn should do it.

  Then I hear the noise I imagine the door will make when I open it. Except I’m not imagining it; I’m really hearing it. Inside the house—the sound is coming from behind me, where there should be silence. In my shock, I loosen my grip on the dummy mallet and it drops to the floor. I swallow a scream, and bend to pick it up, but I can’t see it. My hands get tangled in the coils of rope.

  The hall is darker than it was only seconds ago. How can that be? Was the noise I heard the sound of a light bulb dying? No; the lounge door has swung almost shut. Get a grip, I tell myself, but my heartbeat races on, heedless. I need to get back in control.

  I hear footsteps, tapping up the path towards the door. I drop down on to my haunches, patting the floor to find the dummy mallet. ‘Where is it?’ I whisper, desperate. The bell rings. A female voice says, ‘Char? Charlie?’ I hold my breath. It’s not your brother. I haven’t a clue what to do now. Who else could it be? Who drops round at one in the morning?

  I hear the voice mutter, ‘What the fuck sort of welcome is this?’ but I don’t dare to open the door. My fingers close around the dummy mallet. Should I say something?

  ‘Charlie, open the door, for Christ’s sake.’

  The woman sounds frantic. She must be the one who wrote the note I found, not Graham Angilley. But the note was in the lounge, on the table. Not on the hall carpet near the letter box, where it should have been . . .

  The woman bangs her fists against the stained glass. I leave the mallet on the floor and crawl back into the lounge, pushing the door open with my head. That’s when I see him. He’s standing, feet wide apart, in the centre of the lounge. Smiling at me.

  ‘Naomi Jenkins, as I live and breathe,’ he says.

  Panic engulfs me. I try to stand up, but he pulls me towards him, clamping his hand over my mouth. He tastes of soap.

  ‘Ssh,’ he says. ‘Listen. Can you hear it? Footsteps. Quieter and quieter and . . . there we are! Charlie’s little sis is squeezing her fat bot back into her car.’

  I hear the engine again. His touch corrodes my skin. I am slipping away from myself.

  ‘There she goes. Bye-bye, Fat Bitch Slim.’ Still pressing his hand down over my mouth, he puts his lips against my ear. ‘Hello, you,’ he whispers.

  29

  4/9/06

  FOR THE FIRST time in his police career, Simon was pleased to see Proust. He was the one who’d called the inspector, told him to come in. Nearly begged him. Anything was better than being alone with his thoughts. There’s something wrong with my life if, in extremis, I turn to the Snowman, Simon thought. But who else was there? With Charlie gone, he could think of no one whose company would make him feel better. Ringing his folks was out of the question. The minute they got a whiff of any sort of problem, their voices filled with shrill alarm, and Simon had to put his own worries to one side in order to comfort them.

&nbs
p; He still thought of Charlie as gone, even though Sellers had phoned to update him. He knew where she was, that Gibbs was with her, that she was safe. He also knew she’d been to bed with Graham Angilley. A serial rapist. Without knowing what he was, who he was. The idea made Simon panic. How could Charlie ever be the same after an experience like that? What ought he to say next time he saw her?

  Assuming he ever saw her again. She’d run off without a word to him. Even now, knowing he knew where she was, she hadn’t called him. Her phone was in her bag, which Naomi Jenkins had taken, but she could have used Gibbs’.

  She’s spoken to Sellers and Gibbs. It’s only you she doesn’t want to speak to.

  Well, why the fuck should she? What use had Simon ever been to Charlie? A few months ago she’d drawn his attention to a song that was playing on his car radio, when they’d been driving to a meeting at Silsford nick. Simon still remembered the lyrics; they were about one person giving another nothing but pain. Charlie had said, ‘I didn’t know you were a Kaiser Chiefs fan. Or are you playing this song for some other reason?’ She’d looked scornful at first, then disappointed when Simon told her it was the radio, not a CD. He hadn’t chosen the song, didn’t even know it.

  Proust’s arrival stopped him from thinking about which song he’d choose now. The inspector was pink-eyed and unshaven. ‘It’s two in the morning, Waterhouse,’ he said. ‘You interrupted a dream. Now I’ll never know how it ends.’

  ‘A good one or a bad one?’ Simon was playing for time. Delay the bollocking for as long as possible.

  ‘I don’t know. Lizzie and I had just bought a new house and moved into it. It was much bigger than our present one. We arrived tired, and went straight to sleep. I got no further, thanks to you.’

  ‘A bad dream,’ said Simon. ‘I know how it ends. You realise you’ve made a terrible mistake buying the new house. But the old one’s already sold, to people who love it and are determined to stay. There’s no way of getting it back. A nightmare of eternal regret.’

  ‘Charming.’ Proust looked cross. ‘Thank you so much for that. Since you’re feeling chatty, perhaps you could explain why you’ve woken me up to give me information you could just as easily have given me this afternoon.’

  ‘I didn’t know then that Charlie had taken Naomi Jenkins to Scotland with her.’

  Proust frowned. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I . . . I mustn’t have been listening when she told me.’

  ‘Hmm. Hear that, Waterhouse? The sound of thinly veiled scepticism? You and Sergeant Zailer are like Siamese twins. You always know where she is, who she’s with, what she had for breakfast. Why not this time?’

  Simon said nothing. Oddly, he felt better now that the Snowman was berating him; he felt as if he’d handed something over, something he was glad to be shot of.

  ‘So, let’s get this right: the first you knew about Sergeant Zailer taking Jenkins to Scotland with her was Sellers’ phone call, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And when did you receive this call?’

  ‘Mid-evening.’

  ‘Why not tell me then? You could have saved me the trouble of getting into my pyjamas.’

  Simon examined his shoes. At that stage, he’d thought he could ride it out. He’d grown more edgy as the night went on, when Charlie failed to contact him. He’d been expecting her to ring ever since Sellers had, to tell Simon what she wanted him to do. She hadn’t, though, and it had suddenly struck him as entirely possible that she never would. In which case, Simon needed to tell Proust enough of the truth to cover himself.

  The inspector’s eyes narrowed, ready to scrutinise each new lie as it emerged. ‘If the sergeant went to this chalet place to arrest the owner and his wife, why didn’t she take you with her, and some uniforms? Why take Naomi Jenkins, who is at best a witness and at worst a suspect?’

  ‘Maybe she wanted Jenkins to identify Angilley as the man who assaulted her.’

  ‘Well, that’s not the way to do it!’ said Proust angrily. ‘That’s the way to get your car stolen, and your bag. As has become apparent. Why would Sergeant Zailer be so stupid? She put herself and Jenkins at risk, all our hard work—’

  ‘I’ve just had a call from the police in Scotland,’ Simon interrupted him.

  ‘I find that harder to believe than anything I’ve heard so far. That lot are useless.’

  ‘They’ve found Charlie’s car.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not far from Silver Brae Chalets. About four miles down the road. The handbag was gone, though.’

  Proust sighed heavily, rubbing his chin. ‘There are so many dubious aspects to this, I hardly know where to begin, Watérhouse. Why would Naomi Jenkins, having gone to Scotland to identify her rapist, suddenly take it into her head to steal a car and run away—start behaving like a criminal, effectively?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ Simon lied. He couldn’t tell the inspector what Sellers had told him: that Naomi didn’t trust Charlie anymore, that she knew about Charlie’s involvement with Graham Angilley because of something Steph had said.

  ‘Speak to Sergeant Zailer,’ said Proust impatiently. ‘Something must have happened, mustn’t it? At the chalets. Sergeant Zailer must know what it is, and so should you, by now. When did you last speak to her?’

  ‘Not since before she left,’ Simon admitted.

  ‘What aren’t you telling me, Waterhouse?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘If Sergeant Zailer went to Silver Brae Chalets to arrest the Angilleys, why did Sellers and Gibbs also go there, separately? Does it take three of them? One detective with uniform back-up would have been adequate.’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir.’

  Proust walked a small circle round Simon. ‘Waterhouse, you know me pretty well by now. Wouldn’t you say? You must know that if there’s one thing I hate more than being lied to, it’s being lied to in the middle of the night.’

  Silence was the best Simon could do. He wondered if, on one level, he wanted Proust to break him down, force the full story out of him. Charlie and Graham Angilley. Could the Snowman say anything that would make him feel better about that?

  ‘Maybe I ought to ask Naomi Jenkins. She’s unlikely to be less helpful than you. What’s being done about finding her?’

  At last, a question Simon could answer truthfully. ‘Some uniforms are at the hospital. Sellers said Charlie’s certain that’s where Jenkins’ll go, to see Robert Haworth.’

  ‘So you and the sergeant are communicating via Sellers. Interesting. ’ The inspector walked another slow circle round Simon. ‘Why does Jenkins want to see Robert Haworth? She knows he raped Prudence Kelvey, doesn’t she? Sergeant Zailer told her?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know why she wants to see him, but apparently she does. A lot.’

  ‘Waterhouse, it’s two in the perishing morning!’ Proust tapped his watch. ‘She’d be there by now, if that was where she was going. Sergeant Zailer must be wrong. Have we got anyone outside Jenkins’ house?’

  Shit. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Of course we haven’t. Silly of me.’ The voice had thinned; the words were projected at Simon like lead pellets. ‘Get someone there as soon as possible. If she’s not there, try Yvon Cotchin’s ex-husband’s house. Then Jenkins’ parents’. I’m astonished to hear myself saying all this, Waterhouse.’ As if afraid he’d been too subtle in his disapproval, Proust yelled, ‘What’s the matter with you? You shouldn’t need a sleep-befuddled old man like me to tell you the basics!’

  ‘I’ve been busy, sir.’ Everyone else is in fucking Scotland. Sir. ‘Charlie said Jenkins’d go straight to the hospital. Since she was the last of us to speak to her, I assumed she knew what she was talking about.’

  ‘Find Jenkins and find her quickly! I want to know why she absconded. I was never happy with her alibi for the period during which Robert Haworth must have been attacked. Her best friend’s word is all we’ve got, and that same friend designed Graha
m Angilley’s website!’

  ‘You never said you had a problem with the alibi, sir,’ Simon muttered.

  ‘I’m saying so now, aren’t I? I’ve got a problem with this whole confounded mess, Waterhouse! Circles within circles, that’s what it is. We’re chasing our tails! Look at that big, black blob.’ He pointed at the whiteboard on the wall of the CID room, on which Charlie had written, in black marker pen, the names of everybody involved in the case, with arrows between them wherever there was a connection. Proust was right; there were more connections than one might expect. Charlie’s diagram now resembled a morbidly obese spider—a huge black mass of lines, arrows, circles, loops. The shape of chaos. ‘Have you ever seen anything so unsatisfactory?’ Proust demanded. ‘Because I haven’t!’

  Speaking of unsatisfactory, thought Simon. ‘Juliet Haworth’s stopped talking, sir.’

  ‘Did she ever start?’

  ‘No, I mean stopped altogether. I’ve tried twice, and both times she was completely silent. I knew it’d happen. The closer she thinks we are to the truth, the less she’s going to say. There’s enough evidence to convict her, but . . .’

  ‘But it’s not good enough,’ Proust finished Simon’s sentence. ‘Much as I’d like a conviction here to satisfy the higher-ups, I want to know what went on. I want to see a clear picture, Waterhouse.’

  ‘Me too, sir. It’s getting clearer. We know Angilley selected his victims from websites, at least two from sites designed by Yvon Cotchin.’

  ‘What about Tanya, the waitress from Cardiff who killed herself, the one who couldn’t spell? Did she have a website?’

  ‘She’s the exception,’ Simon conceded. ‘We can explain the audiences at the rapes—Angilley was selling hard-core stag nights. I’ve found references to his operation in Internet chatrooms already. That’s what I’ve been doing . . .’

  ‘Instead of talking to your sergeant, or trying to find Naomi Jenkins,’ Proust said pointedly. ‘Or telling me the truth about what’s really going on in your peculiar mind and your even more peculiar life, Waterhouse. If you’ll pardon my bluntness.’