Hurting Distance aka The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘You raped Prue Kelvey, although you didn’t really want to. Graham wanted you to, so you did, but you didn’t enjoy it, did you? Not like Graham enjoyed raping women—he loved it. He said you weren’t interested in the waitress either, on his stag night, though you raped her too, egged on by your brother. It was a sort of experiment, wasn’t it—doing what Graham did, just from time to time? To prove to yourself that your way was superior, in a different league.’

  I am terrified of your eyes opening. I need to be able to finish, and I’m not sure I could with you looking at me. Answering me.

  ‘I know you made Prue Kelvey wear a mask over her eyes while you were forcing yourself on her. Graham thinks you did it because you were scared of her seeing your face, scared she might meet you again one day and recognise you. I knew he was wrong when he said that. But I was also wrong. Until I walked into this room and saw you today, I thought you’d made Prue Kelvey keep her mask on so that she didn’t see your face. So you could do to her what you did to Juliet and Sandy, and me: engineer a meeting, become her boyfriend, her saviour. And then wreck her life, bring it all crashing down.’

  I shake my head, wondering how I could have believed this. ‘Of course it wasn’t that. The order of events would have been all wrong. I know your tidy mind, Robert. You had to be the saviour first—really be a saviour—and then become the destroyer. That’s why Graham’s victims were perfect. It wouldn’t have worked at all for you, would it, with a woman you’d already raped yourself?’

  I swallow hard and continue. ‘You made Prue Kelvey wear a mask when you were raping her because you couldn’t bear to see the lack of recognition in her eyes. Her terror was nothing to do with you as an individual—you were just some nameless attacker. You couldn’t stand that thought, could you? You felt insignificant—as if you might as well have been anyone. She didn’t even know your name, though you and Graham knew hers, had chosen her specifically from all the women you might have picked. Which made her more special than you, and that drove you insane. You needed it to be more personal. You wanted to be important to the women, wanted it to matter to them that you were you. Not some anonymous rapist, interchangeable with your brother.’

  I stand up, get as far away from you as I can in this small room. When I next speak, my voice is hoarse, as if there’s sandpaper in my throat. ‘You and Graham aren’t interchangeable at all. You wanted to hurt women more than he did. Raping them was enough for him, but not for you. I’m not surprised you wanted people to notice how unique you are. There’s nobody in the world like you, Robert.

  ‘You told me about hurting distance, remember? There was a limit to how much you could hurt Prue Kelvey, and that waitress on Graham’s stag night, because they didn’t know you. Everyone knows there are brutal, violent people in the world, like there are hurricanes and earthquakes. If we don’t know these monsters personally, we can think of them as being almost like natural disasters—when they devastate our lives, we don’t take it personally. It’s just random. They haven’t known us and loved us, been close to us. We tell ourselves that they don’t know the good, sensitive, vulnerable people we truly are. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to hurt us in the way they have. The damage might be terrible, but it isn’t really about us. It could have happened to anyone. You told me all this yourself, and you were right.’

  My breath mists the windowpane. I draw a heart with my index finger, then rub it out. ‘I know from personal experience, Robert. It makes it so much easier if you can put some distance between you and your attacker. Your brother knew my name, when he forced me into his car at knifepoint, but he didn’t know me. I knew it wasn’t about me. That was a consolation.’ The inside of my mouth feels like leather. The air in your room is warm and dry. I can’t open the window. There’s a lock on it and it won’t budge.

  ‘Graham pretended it was his idea to choose women who had websites as your victims, so that you could taunt them with what you knew about them. The personal angle—more fear and hurt in their eyes, as they wondered why they, of all women, had been chosen. Graham told me all about it, and was happy to take all the credit. But it was your idea, wasn’t it, Robert? After Graham’s stag night, you were frustrated. Probably angry. You felt as if that waitress had got off scot-free, didn’t you? It felt like a wasted opportunity because, however much Graham had enjoyed himself, you knew the waitress would already have started to console herself with the idea that she was simply a victim of bad luck, in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  I wipe away tears. ‘You suggested an amendment to Graham’s business plan: instead of strangers, you suggested choosing particular women, letting them know you knew who they were and what they did. Letting them know they’d been hand-picked. Graham liked the idea, but he’s more easily satisfied than you. You still weren’t happy. It’s your name you want known; no one else’s is important. But you could hardly suggest to Graham that the two of you introduce yourselves to the women you planned to rape, build up a relationship with them and then rape them, could you? Graham didn’t want to be caught.’

  But he has been, and that’s partly thanks to me. I try to remember that I am not only a victim of you and your brother. I am also, or could also be, a winner. Depending on what I do now.

  I carry on talking to your closed eyes. ‘You didn’t worry about getting caught, did you? You were confident you could destroy your victims so completely that they’d pose no threat. You thought your method was foolproof. Shall I tell you about your method?’ I laugh, a hard, rusty cackle from the back of my throat. ‘First you get close to us, you get within hurting distance. You make us love you, and need you, so that our whole world is Robert, Robert, Robert. God, you’re brilliant at that part of it! So loving, so romantic. You’re the perfect husband or lover—whatever the role you’re playing, you put all your energy and enthusiasm into it. If we didn’t believe you were the perfect soul mate, it wouldn’t hurt as much when we found out the truth, would it?’

  I grab the edge of your top pillow and yank it out from under your head, holding it in both hands. ‘That’s the part you look forward to most. The hurting. The big shock when you reveal who you really are. You told me yourself.’

  I fall silent as I remember your exact words: I’ve thought about leaving her for so long. Planning it, looking forward to it. It’s turned into this . . . legendary thing in my mind. The grand finale.

  ‘Yvon was wrong to think you’d never leave Juliet for me,’ I say. ‘You would have done, eventually. That was always part of your plan. But you wanted to draw out the thrill of anticipation, extend it for as long as possible, before moving on to your next victim. We were Graham’s victims first, then yours. I bet you saw Graham as some kind of support act—you knew that you were the one who was really going to destroy us: Juliet, Sandy Freeguard. Though you saw that Sandy Freeguard would be very hard to destroy, so you moved on to another name on the list—mine.’

  I squeeze the pillow in my hands, digging my fingernails into it. The fabric springs back. I cannot leave a mark, however hard I press, cannot transmit my agony to this inanimate object.

  ‘You pride yourself on having nerves of steel,’ I say, ‘but deep down you’re a coward, and a hypocrite. Much as you despise your brother, you don’t cut all ties, do you? You still let him use your lorry for his rape nights. You even raped Prue Kelvey to keep him happy, keep him onside. Because there’s one thing Graham’s got that you desperately need—his list of victims’ names. So that you can make them your victims too.

  ‘All the time you were married to Juliet, you knew one day you’d hit her with the truth. The Wednesday before last—that was the day you chose. You were supposed to be meeting me the next day at the Traveltel. It would have been the thirtieth of March, the anniversary of the day your brother raped me. How perfect, from your point of view. You knew that if you told me you’d left Juliet to start a new life with me, I would think of that date as having been vindicated, cleansed. I’d have been even m
ore sure that we were destined to be together, that you were my saviour. Because there’s no such thing as a coincidence, right?

  ‘You didn’t turn up, but if you had, if your plan had worked, you’d have had a suitcase with you. You’d have told me you’d left Juliet and asked if you could come home with me. Can you guess what I would have said?’

  I laugh bitterly. Tears fall on my hand, on the pillow. I’m crying hard, but I’m not upset. I’m angry, so angry that the pressure in my head is squeezing moisture out of my eyes.

  ‘What did you say to Juliet? How did you break the news? If I’m right—and I’m sure I am—you probably waited until the two of you were in bed. Did you climb on top of her, ignoring her protests that she was tired? She must have been confused. You were always so gentle with her—what was going on? Suddenly you weren’t gentle anymore. She didn’t recognise you as the Robert she knew and loved, the man she’d married. You raped her, like you’d always known you would one day, like you’d always planned to. Except it was so much better than with Prue Kelvey, because you were within hurting distance. You saw the terrible pain in Juliet’s eyes and you knew it was all for you.

  ‘And raping her in itself wouldn’t have been enough for you either—not when you could make it even worse for her. You wanted her to connect this ordeal with the other one, the night in Graham’s chalet.’ I shake the pillow in front of your inert features. ‘You see how much I know? Aren’t you impressed? It was important to you that Juliet should realise the full horror of what you’d done to her, how badly you’d betrayed and deceived her. So how did you do it? I bet you said what Graham said, didn’t you? “Do you want to warm up before the show?” Or something along those lines. That will have been the best moment for you, seeing her eyes widen in shock, seeing the incomprehension on her face. And what then? Apart from rape. Did you tell her you were leaving her for me, another of your brother’s victims? Did you tell her everything at that point, including that you planned to spend the next few years wrecking my life in exactly the way you’d wrecked hers: first marrying me and making me idyllically happy, then demolishing it all, once you’d lined up another of Graham’s casualties to take my place?’

  My whole body is shaking, sweating. I put my face close to yours. ‘I don’t think so,’ I answer my own question. ‘You’ll have wanted her to think she was the only one you’d done it to. You wouldn’t allow her the comfort of knowing she wasn’t alone in her victimhood. No, you just told her you were leaving her for another woman. That’s all you said about me. But you told Juliet everything else—that the man who raped her was your brother, and all about the family business. Every little detail made it worse for her and better for you.

  ‘Except you made a mistake, didn’t you? A fucking big one, as it turns out, because look at you now. You thought Juliet would crumble when she knew the truth. You thought you’d be able to walk out of that horrible house, leaving behind a quivering wreck of a wife, far too weak to go to the police or do anything about the new information you’d given her. She didn’t report the first rape, did she? Because she was too ashamed. You were counting on her being too ashamed to report the second. Who’d have believed her, anyway? Suddenly she’s claiming to have been raped not once but twice, the second time by her devoted husband? If she’d told anyone, you would have looked baffled and expressed concern about her sanity.’

  I walk up and down your room, folding and unfolding the pillow. ‘I know what it’s like to make plans and have them destroyed, Robert. I understand, I really do. I’m a planner too. And you’d been so thorough, thought of every detail. God, it must have been annoying when your revelation changed Juliet in a way you’d never anticipated. She became stronger, not weaker. She didn’t collapse in a helpless heap. She picked up a stone doorstop and bashed your head in with it. Didn’t even call an ambulance afterwards, just let you lie there bleeding. Dying. I can’t say I blame her.’

  My throat is burning. I can’t talk for much longer. I also can’t stop yet. This is what I’ve been looking forward to: telling you everything, getting it all out of me. ‘You’re too caught up in your own thoughts, in your own little world,’ I say. ‘Well, you’ve not got much choice now, I suppose. But I mean before. Because you’re such a narcissist, you miscalculated. Juliet had already fallen apart once. She’d had a nervous breakdown. She was insecure and timid for all the years you were married to her. The only way was up, Robert—why didn’t you see that? Why didn’t it occur to you that human beings are actually quite resilient, especially ones like Juliet, and me, who’ve come from loving families and secure backgrounds. When you showed Juliet the twisted creature you really are, it was a big enough shock to send everything flying in her brain. Everything rearranged itself. Seeing that her rescuer was actually her enemy made her fight back in a way that nothing else probably could have.’

  Your eyelids move.

  ‘Is that your way of asking me how I know all this? I know because the same happened to me. When I worked out the truth, put it all together, I realised how stupid I’d been to believe another person could save me. For the first time since your brother raped me, I wanted to fight back, on my own. Other people trick you and lie to you, and the ones who are supposed to love you do it the most—that’s what Juliet thinks now. That’s how she sees the world. You’ve turned her into a monster too, one who doesn’t care about anything anymore, not even herself.’

  I laugh. ‘You know, she could have told me everything she knew about you, but she didn’t. Instead, she used it to taunt me. Even though she knows what a grotesque, sick pervert you are, she still hates me for trying to steal her husband—the kind, sensitive one. You might find that weird. I don’t. Two Roberts exist in my head, just as they do in hers. That’s probably the worst thing you’ve done to us both. You’ve left us mourning the loss of a man who never existed. Even knowing that, we still love him.’

  I look down at the pillow in my hands. When I first reached for it, my intention was to smother you. To succeed where Juliet failed. I’m glad she didn’t kill you. Now I can. You deserve it. Anyone would agree you deserve to die, apart from the naïve and the misguided, those who believe killing is always wrong.

  But if I end your life now, your suffering is almost over. It will only last a few more seconds. Whereas if I don’t, if I walk out of this room and leave you alive, you’ll have to lie there and think about everything I’ve said, about how I won and you lost, in spite of your best efforts. That’ll be torture for you. Assuming you’ve heard everything I’ve said.

  The trouble, now as before, is that I have no way of knowing what you’re thinking, Robert. You can see how much you’ve hurt me. I’ve kind of given the game away on that front. Maybe that’s what you’ll concentrate on, if I leave you breathing in this room. Maybe you’re the winner, immune from punishment in your cocooned state, and I’m destroyed, utterly destroyed, even more so because I haven’t faced up to it yet.

  I want to say one last thing to you before I either end your life or allow it to continue, a few words I prepared in my head before I came here. I chose them as carefully as I choose the mottos for my sundials. I whisper them in your ear, like a blessing, or a magic spell: ‘You’re the worst person I’ve ever known, Robert. And the worst person I’ll ever know.’ Saying this aloud underlines something in my mind: that the worst is over.

  And now I need to decide.

  32

  4/13/06

  ‘I DON’T THINK he wants to give you a hard time,’ said Olivia. ‘I think he’s genuinely worried about you. You should ring him. You’ll have to speak to him eventually.’

  Bright sunlight glowed through the closed curtains. Charlie wished she’d bought thicker ones, wondered how much it would cost to have black-out lining added. She shook her head. Her plan—a far better one than Olivia’s—was to go nowhere near the phone. Simon had left lots of messages that she didn’t want to listen to. Besides, Olivia was wrong: Charlie would not necessarily have to speak to P
roust eventually. Or Simon. She could hand in her notice. Then she’d never need to face either of them again.

  Olivia sat down beside her on the sofa. ‘I can’t stay here forever, Char. I’ve got work to do and a life to get on with. And so have you. This is no good, lying around in your pyjamas, smoking all day. Why don’t you go and get dressed, have a nice hot bath? Brush your teeth.’

  The doorbell rang. Charlie huddled on the sofa, pulling her dressing gown tight around her body. ‘It’ll be Simon,’ she said. ‘Don’t let him in. Tell him I’m sleeping.’

  Olivia gave her a stern look and went to answer the door. She couldn’t understand why Charlie wasn’t happier about Simon’s relentless pursuit of her, why he had suddenly become the person she least wanted to see. Charlie was unwilling to demean herself by explaining. She knew she’d go to pieces as soon as he opened his mouth to speak. Whatever he said would be wrong. If his attempts to make her feel better were subtle and indirect, Charlie would put it down to embarrassment, which would add to her shame. If he was explicit, she would have to have a conversation with him—the man who’d been rejecting her love ever since they’d met—about Graham Angilley, the serial rapist she’d fallen for on the rebound . . . No, there was only so much degradation a person could take.

  Charlie heard the front door close. Olivia reappeared in the lounge. ‘It’s not Simon. Ah!’ She pointed an accusing finger at Charlie. ‘You’re disappointed, and don’t deny it. It’s Naomi Jenkins.’

  ‘No. Tell her no.’

  ‘She’s got something for you.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘I’ve told her you need five minutes to get ready. So why don’t you go and throw on some clothes, make yourself presentable? Otherwise I’ll just let her in and she can see you in your tea-stained dressing gown and shapeless pyjamas.’