The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  It’s always worth fighting, no matter what the cost to yourself might be. This isn’t a popular view anymore. The world becomes more languidly callous by the day, and blanket condemnation of any and all wars, even wars of liberation, is the obvious symptom. Still, it’s what I believe, passionately.

  ‘How can you treat me like this?’ I yell at Sellers. ‘I’m a victim, not a criminal. I thought the police had polished up their act. I thought you were supposed to treat victims sensitively in this day and age!’

  ‘Of what are you a victim?’ he asks. ‘Of rape? Or of your lover disappearing?’

  ‘I’m the one who should be asking you: of what am I suspected?’

  ‘You’ve lied to us, by your own admission. You can’t expect us to trust you.’

  ‘Is Robert alive? Just tell me that.’ Three years ago I vowed that I would never beg again. Listen to me now.

  ‘Robert Haworth never raped you, did he, Miss Jenkins? Your statement was a lie.’ Sellers’ rubbery face is mottled and pink; it makes me want to be sick.

  ‘It was the truth,’ I insist. With my defences down and my energy reserves drained to beyond empty, I resort to what’s easiest: concealment.

  It was the first thing I thought of after the rape, the only thing that mattered to me once I was certain that the attack, in all its phases, was over and I’d survived: how to hide from the world what had been done to me. I knew I’d cope with a private trauma better than I could cope with the shame of people knowing.

  No one has ever felt sorry for me. I’m the most successful of all my friends, all my contemporaries. I’ve got a career that I love. I sold a typographical font to Adobe while I was still at university and used the money to set up a profitable business. To the world it must seem as if I have everything: rewarding, creative work, financial security, lots of friends, a great family, a beautiful house that I own outright. Until the attack, I had no shortage of boyfriends, and although I wasn’t cold-hearted or anything, they mostly seemed to love me more than I loved them. Everyone I know envies me. They tell me all the time how lucky I am, that I am one of the blessed few.

  That would all have changed if they’d found out what had happened to me. I’d have become Poor Naomi. I’d have been trapped for ever—in the thoughts of everyone I knew, everyone who mattered to me—in the state I was in when the man dumped me by the side of Thornton Road after he’d finished with me: naked apart from my coat and shoes, tears and snot all over my face, a stranger’s semen leaking from my body.

  No way was I going to let that happen. I pulled off the eye mask, checked no one was around. The road was empty. I told myself I was lucky that nobody had seen me. I walked briskly to my car and drove myself home. As I drove, I took control of the situation inside my head. I began to deliver a lecture to myself, thinking that it was important to impose some sort of order as quickly as possible. I told myself that it didn’t matter how I felt—I’d worry about that later. For the time being, I would simply not allow myself to feel anything. I tried to make myself think like a soldier or an assassin. All that mattered was behaving as if I was fine, doing everything I would normally have done so that no one suspected a thing. I turned myself into a glossy robot, externally identical to my old self.

  I did a brilliant job of it. Another achievement, something most people would never have been able to pull off. No one guessed, not even Yvon. The only part I couldn’t manage was the boyfriends. I told everyone I wanted to focus on my career for a while without distractions, until I met someone special. Until I met you.

  ‘Get dressed,’ says DC Sellers.

  My heart leaps up in my chest. ‘Are you taking me to see Robert?’

  ‘I’m taking you to the custody unit at Silsford Police Station. You can come voluntarily or I can arrest you. It’s up to you.’ Seeing my stricken expression, he adds, ‘Somebody tried to murder Mr Haworth.’

  ‘Tried? You mean failed?’ My eyes lock on his, demanding an answer. After what seems like an eternity, he relents, nods.

  Triumph surges through me. It’s because of my lie that your house was searched, because I accused you of a terrible crime you didn’t commit. I wonder what Yvon will say when I tell her I saved your life.

  11

  4/6/06

  CHARLIE SAT IN front of Graham’s computer, a trim Toshiba laptop, and typed the words ‘Speak Out and Survive’ into the Google search box on the screen. The first result that came up was the one she wanted—an organisation that offered practical and emotional support to women who had been raped. Once the website had loaded, Charlie clicked on ‘Survivors’ Stories’. They were listed by number. She clicked on number seventy-two.

  Simon had described Naomi Jenkins’ letter as acerbic. He believed Jenkins had written it, but wanted to know what Charlie thought. He’s missing me, she thought. A mixture of pride and happiness swelled inside her. Did it matter if he was planning to meet up with Alice Fancourt? Charlie was the one he phoned in the middle of the night, when he was worried about something important.

  She nodded as she read the letter ‘N.J.’ had sent to the website; it sounded like Naomi, from what little Charlie knew of the woman. Someone who objected to being called both ‘Miss’ and ‘Ms’ might well object to being labelled a rape ‘survivor’. Charlie thought she made a good point about that, actually, but she was less impressed with Naomi’s scorn for other rape victims—or survivors—and the way they expressed themselves. Charlie had only ever read official rape statements, which were always written very plainly; they had to be. Nothing at all like the lyrics of a bad heavy-metal album, which was the accusation Naomi made in her letter against the survivors’ stories on the Speak Out and Survive website. Still, perhaps she had a point. A first-person account of a rape that was intended to be therapeutic would be very different from a police statement; the emphasis would presumably be on feelings as much as on facts, on sharing one’s pain with others who had experienced something similar.

  Charlie massaged her throbbing forehead. The positive effects of the four bottles of wine she’d drunk with Graham and Olivia the previous evening were starting to wear off, and a same-day hangover had lodged itself between her eyebrows, low down in the front of her head. Technically, it was a new day—Thursday morning—but it felt like the frayed end of a long, thin, washed-out Wednesday. Charlie was disgusted with herself. She’d been the one who kept insisting they needed more wine. She’d flirted brazenly with Graham, invited him back to the chalet, effectively forced her sister out. Nice one, Charlie. She’d driven the night forward relentlessly, cracking a whip behind it in her determination to have the best of all possible good times. I’m the saddest of sad cows, she thought.

  Graham had been a sweetie. Understanding that it was urgent, he’d stopped making jokes, dressed quickly and unlocked the lodge so that Charlie could use his computer. His office was a small, chilly hut, just big enough for the two large desks that filled it. Behind each was a chair. At one end of the room was a dartboard, at the other a large water-cooler. Charlie had mentioned her headache, and Graham had rushed off to find painkillers. ‘If Steph comes back and finds you in here, she’ll give you a hard time,’ he’d said. ‘Just ignore her. Or threaten her with me.’

  ‘Why would she mind?’ Charlie had asked. ‘You’re the boss, aren’t you?’

  Graham had looked sheepish. ‘Yes, but . . . the situation between me and Steph is complicated.’

  Charlie knew all about complicated situations, after years of working with Simon. Never mix business with sex. Was that what Graham and Steph had done? Had it gone horribly wrong? At least Charlie and Simon still had a strong working relationship.

  She thought back over what he’d told her on the phone. Naomi Jenkins had been proved right. Something bad had happened to Robert Haworth. Very bad; probably fatal. How had Naomi known? Was it a lover’s intuition, Charlie wondered, or a would-be murderer’s certain knowledge? If the latter, it was hard to imagine what Juliet Haworth’s role m
ight have been. She, after all, had been living in the same house as the blood-soaked, unconscious Haworth for nearly a week.

  According to Simon, Haworth had been to the Star Inn in Spilling last Wednesday evening as usual. He didn’t turn up to meet Naomi at the Traveltel on the Thursday, so he was probably attacked either on Wednesday after he got home from the pub, sometime during the night, or on Thursday morning, before whatever time he would have left the house to begin his day’s work.

  Simon had been at Culver Valley General Hospital when Charlie had called him back. Haworth was alive but unconscious, in intensive care. One more day without help and he’d have been dead, no question. The consultant was surprised he’d lasted as long as he had, given the severity of the trauma to his head. A series of heavy blows, Simon had explained, resulting in an acute subdural haemorrhage, a subarachnoid haemorrhage and cerebral contusions. Haworth had had immediate surgery, had the haemorrhages drained to relieve the pressure on his brain, but the doctors weren’t optimistic. Neither was Simon. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be looking at an attempted murder for long,’ he’d said.

  ‘Any sign of what caused the head injuries?’ Charlie had asked.

  ‘Yeah, a bloody great stone. It was right there, on the floor by the bed, no attempt made to hide it. It was covered in hair and blood. Juliet Haworth said she and her husband used it as a doorstop.’ He broke off. ‘She gives me the creeps. She told me Haworth nicked the stone from the River Culver one day when they were out walking. As soon as I’d found Haworth, she came over all chatty. Almost as if she was relieved, though she didn’t really seem to care one way or the other. She said that the previous owners of their house had all the doors replaced with fire doors, which wouldn’t stay open . . .’

  ‘Hence the need for a doorstop.’

  ‘Yeah, there’s one in every room, all big stones like the one that caved in Haworth’s head, but all from different rivers. Haworth was keen on this idea, apparently. She trotted out these little stories, all this irrelevant information—she even listed the bloody rivers! But when I asked her if she’d attacked her husband, she just grinned at me. Wouldn’t say a word.’

  ‘Grinned?’

  ‘She’s refusing a lawyer. Doesn’t seem to care what we do with her. She gives a good impression of being determined to enjoy it, whatever we do.’

  ‘Do you think she tried to kill Haworth?’

  ‘I’m sure she did. Or I would be, if it wasn’t for Naomi Jenkins, who’s also lied. We’ve brought her in too . . .’

  ‘Have forensics finished with the house? What about cross-contamination? ’

  ‘No, Jenkins is at the custody unit at Silsford.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘She also doesn’t want a lawyer. Do you think the two of them could be together on this?’

  Charlie didn’t, and she’d told Simon why not: it sounded too much like a Thelma-and-Louise-style feminist fantasy. In reality, the two women who loved an unfaithful man usually blamed and hated each other, while the two-timer emerged unscathed with both of them still wanting him.

  Having read Naomi Jenkins’ survivor’s story, Charlie was curious about the others. While she waited for Graham to return with her painkillers, she thought she might as well look at a few of them. She clicked on numbers seventy-three, seventy-four and seventy-five in that order, and skim-read them. They were all descriptions of incestuous rapes. Number seventy-six was a stranger rape, but it was so lewdly described that Charlie was sure a male pervert had written it. Could Naomi Jenkins be a pervert? she wondered. That might explain why she’d lied about Haworth having raped her; Charlie was certain she had lied. But Naomi’s letter to the website had contained no lurid details. She could easily have included some; there was no shortage of them in her statement, from what Simon had said, so if she was a fantasist, why not write up the full fantasy for inclusion on the website? Charlie wished she was at Silsford nick, able to ask Naomi Jenkins all these questions and watch her face as she replied.

  The lodge door opened and Steph walked in. She was wearing a different outfit from the one Charlie had last seen her in, but this one also involved a pair of trousers, black ones this time, that stopped just below her jutting hipbones. How did she keep them from sliding down her legs? It was a mystery. The jeans she’d been wearing yesterday morning were the same. You can practically see her pubic hair, thought Charlie. Then she amended the thought: a woman like Steph wouldn’t have any, or if she did, it would be shaved into a heart shape or something gross like that.

  Up close, Steph’s multicoloured highlighted hair looked ridiculous—as if several birds, each one with a different stomach complaint, had emptied their bowels on her head at the same time. Her hair stuck out in strange, stiff tufts and irregular, gelled spikes, a style that was too much for any ordinary situation. It was the sort of thing you’d only really expect to see at a fashion show. And then it would be done much better.

  Thick foundation covered what Charlie suspected was a poor complexion. Steph’s lips, like her hair, were painted several different colours: pink and glossy in the middle with a thin red border inside an even thinner black line. As she walked into the lodge, she made a jangling noise, and Charlie noticed the gold bangles on her arms.

  ‘That’s our computer,’ said Steph, immediately irate. ‘You can’t use it.’

  ‘Graham said I could.’

  Steph pouted. Charlie watched her glossy lips pull up and in. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s gone to find me some painkillers. I’ve got a headache. Look, a work emergency came up and Graham said it was fine for me to—’

  ‘Well, it’s not. Guests aren’t allowed to use it.’

  ‘Where did you take my sister?’ asked Charlie. ‘To a hotel?’

  ‘She told me not to tell you.’ Steph picked her teeth with a long fingernail that had what looked like a small diamond at its centre. ‘Has Graham already fucked you, or what?’ she said. ‘You were all over each other earlier, in the bar.’

  Charlie was too stunned to reply.

  ‘He wouldn’t have let you in here unless he’d fucked you or was planning to. Just to warn you: if he has, or if he does, he’ll tell me all about it. Everything. He always does. You’re not the first guest he’s fucked, not by a long shot. There’ve been loads. He does impressions of the noises they make in bed. They’re really funny!’ Steph sniggered, hiding her mouth behind her hand.

  If Graham hadn’t reappeared at that moment, Charlie would have crossed the room and punched her in the face.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked Charlie. He had a packet of Nurofen in his hand. ‘What’s she said to you?’

  ‘I just said she can’t use the computer,’ Steph answered before Charlie could.

  ‘Yes, she can. Fuck off and get some sleep,’ said Graham amiably. ‘You’ve got a full day’s skivvying tomorrow. Starting with breakfast in bed for me and the sarge, here. Full English. Her bed, that is. That’s where we’ll both be. Isn’t that right, Sarge?’

  Charlie stared at the computer screen, cringing.

  Steph pushed past Graham. ‘I’m going,’ she said.

  As she headed for the door, he started to sing loudly. ‘White lines, going through my mind . . .’ He clearly wanted Steph to hear. Charlie recognised the song as one that had been in the charts in the 1980s. She thought it was by Grandmaster Flash.

  The lodge door banged shut.

  ‘Sorry.’ Graham looked shamefaced. ‘She winds me up like you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Oh, I’d believe it,’ said Charlie, still shocked by what Steph had said.

  ‘Doesn’t she know what a cliché she is? The stereotypical evil servant, like Mrs Danvers in Rebecca—have you seen it?’

  ‘Read it.’

  ‘Oh, very posh, guv!’ Graham kissed Charlie’s hair.

  ‘Is Steph a coke-head?’

  ‘No. Why, does she look like one?’

  ‘You were singing “White Lines” at her—a s
ong about drug abuse.’

  Graham laughed. ‘Private joke,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get our breakfast, you’ll see. She’s an obedient old mongrel.’

  ‘Graham . . .’

  ‘Now, a glass of water, so you can take your pills.’ He turned to the water-cooler. ‘No cups. Great. I’ll have to get some from the storeroom. Won’t be a sec. If the dogsbody comes back again, you know what song to sing.’ He winked, then vanished, leaving the door wide open.

  Charlie sighed. There was no way she was going to sleep with Graham now, and risk him sharing the details with his staff. She turned back to the Speak Out and Survive website. She would read Naomi Jenkins’ letter once more, she decided, and then she’d go back to her chalet and collapse in bed. Alone.

  Yawning loudly, she reached for the mouse. Her hand slipped, and instead of clicking on survivor story number seventy-two, she hit number thirty-one by mistake. ‘Damn,’ she muttered. She tried to go back to the previous screen, but Graham’s computer had frozen. She pressed control, alt and delete, but nothing happened. Time to give up, she thought wearily. Graham could sort out the computer when he got back; she would leave it as it was—paralysed.

  She was about to get up when she noticed something. A word, on the screen in front of her: ‘theatre’. It took a while to reach her fuzzy brain. When it did, she jerked upright, inhaling sharply. She blinked a few times to check she wasn’t hallucinating. No, it was really there, in survivor story number thirty-one. A little theatre. A stage. And a few lines further down, the word ‘table’. It leaped off the screen, its black lines vibrating in front of Charlie’s eyes. An audience eating dinner. They were all there, all the details from Naomi Jenkins’ rape statement that Simon had mentioned on the phone. Charlie looked at the date—3 July 2001. At the bottom, it said, ‘Name and e-mail address withheld.’

  She phoned Simon’s mobile and got the engaged signal. Damn. She rang the CID room. Please, please, somebody be there.

  After fourteen rings—she counted them—Gibbs answered. Charlie didn’t bother with pleasantries, since he seemed to be a stranger to them these days. ‘Get on to the National Crime Faculty at Bramshill,’ she told him. ‘Fax through Naomi Jenkins’ rape statement and see if they’ve got any matches, anywhere in the UK.’