Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Let’s talk outside,’ Yvon says. ‘I don’t like this place at all. It’s too close to the river, the water’s too loud. Even inside there’s a damp, waterlogged atmosphere. I’m starting to feel like a creature from Wind In the Willows .’ She stands up, pulls her purple shawl around her shoulders.

‘I don’t want to talk. I just need a lift. You don’t have to come in with me, you can drop me off and go home. I’ll make my own way back.’ I start to march towards the car park.

‘Naomi, wait!’ Yvon runs after me. ‘What’s going on?’

Saying nothing is not so hard after all. This isn’t the first secret I’ve kept from her. I’ve had three years to practise.

Yvon waves her car keys in the air, leaning against her red Fiat Punto. ‘Tell me or I’m not driving you anywhere.’

‘You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe that Juliet’s done something to Robert. You think he’s dumped me and hasn’t got the guts to tell me.’

There is an echoey squawk of birds above our heads. It’s as if they’re trying to join in our conversation. I look up at the grey sky, half expecting to see a committee of gulls staring down at me. But they are oblivious, going about their business as usual.

Yvon groans. ‘Can I refer you to my forty-seven previous answers to the same question? I don’t know where Robert is, or why he hasn’t been in touch. And neither do you. It’s very, very unlikely that Juliet’s chopped him into small pieces and buried him under the floorboards, okay?’

‘She knew my name. She’d found out about the affair.’

‘It’s still unlikely.’ Yvon relents and unlocks the car. I am disappointed. She could have persuaded me to tell her, if she’d pushed a bit harder. Most people are not as persistent as I am. ‘Naomi, I’m worried about you.’

‘It’s Robert you should worry about. Something’s happened to him. He’s in trouble.’ I wonder why I am the only person to whom this is obvious.

‘When did you last eat?’ Yvon asks, once we’re in the car. ‘When did you last get a good night’s sleep?’ Every question she asks me I think of in relation to you. Are you hungry and tired somewhere, gradually giving up hope, wondering why I’m not trying harder to find you? Yvon thinks I’m being melodramatic, but I know you. Only something that paralysed or confined you, or took away your memory, would prevent you from making contact with me. A lot of tragedies are unlikely, but they still happen. Most people do not fall off bridges, or die in house fires, but some do.

I want to say to Yvon that statistics are irrelevant and unhelpful, but I can’t spare the words. I need all my energy to steel myself for my next step. It’s obvious, anyway. Even if the odds are one in a million, that one could be you. It has to be somebody, doesn’t it?

Yvon is on Juliet’s side; she too believes I’m better off without you. She thinks you’re repressed and sexist, and that the way you talk is grandiose and pretentious, that you say lots of things that sound deep and meaningful but are actually meaningless and trite. You present clichés as if they are profound, newly discovered truths, she says. Once, she accused me of trying to mould my personality to suit what I imagine you want, although she took that back the following morning. I could tell from the look on her face that she had meant it, but thought she’d gone too far.

I wasn’t offended. Meeting you did change me. That was the best thing about it. Knowing I had a future with you helped me to bury everything I hated about the past. How I wish I could leave it buried.

We drive up the steep tree-lined road, the sound of the river fading behind us. There are no leaves yet on these trees, which throw their bare arms up towards the sky.

Yvon doesn’t ask again why I want to go to the police station. She tries a new tactic. ‘Are you sure I wouldn’t be better off driving you to Robert’s house? If you’re so sure you saw something through the window . . .’

‘No.’ The dread I feel at the mention of it is like a hand closing round my throat.

‘It’s one mystery we could easily get to the bottom of,’ Yvon points out. I understand why she thinks it’s a reasonable suggestion. ‘All you need to do is go and look again. I’ll come with you.’

‘No.’ The police will go, as soon as they’ve heard what I’m about to tell them. If there’s something to be found, they’ll find it.

‘What could you possibly have seen, for God’s sake? It can’t have been Robert, handcuffed to a radiator and covered in bruises. I mean, you’d remember that, wouldn’t you?’

‘Don’t joke about it.’

‘What do you remember seeing in the room? You still haven’t told me.’

I haven’t because I can’t. Describing your lounge to DS Zailer and DC Waterhouse was bad enough; some reflex in my brain kept springing back, away from the image.

Yvon sighs when I fail to answer. She turns on her car radio and jabs one button after another, finding nothing she wants to listen to. In the end she chooses the station that’s playing one of Madonna’s old songs, and turns the volume down so that it’s barely audible.

‘You thought Sean and Tony were Robert’s best mates, didn’t you? That’s how he talked about them. He misled you. They’re just two guys who work behind the bar at his local pub.’

‘Which is how they met Robert. Obviously they became friends.’

‘They don’t even know his real name. And how come he’s in the Star every night? How come he’s in Spilling every night? I thought he was a lorry driver.’

‘He doesn’t do overnights any more.’

‘So what does he do? Who does he work for?’

She is picking up speed, and I raise both my hands to stop the flow. ‘Give me a chance,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing mysterious about it. He’s self-employed, but mainly he works for supermarkets—Asda, Sainsbury’s. Tesco.’

‘I understand the concept of supermarkets,’ Yvon mutters. ‘You don’t have to list them all.’

‘He stopped doing overnights because Juliet didn’t like being left on her own. So most days he loads up out of Spilling, drives to Tilbury, where he loads up again. Or sometimes he loads up out of Dartford . . .’

‘Listen to yourself,’ says Yvon, shooting a puzzled look at me. ‘You’re talking like him. “He loads up out of Dartford”! Do you even know what that means?’

This is becoming irritating. I say sharply, ‘I assume it means that, in Dartford, he puts some things in his lorry which he then transports back to Spilling.’

Yvon shakes her head. ‘You don’t get it. I knew you wouldn’t. It’s like he’s taken you over, and what have you got in exchange? He gives you nothing but empty promises. Why can’t he ever stay the night with you? Why can’t Juliet be left on her own?’

I stare at the road ahead.

‘You don’t know, do you? Have you ever said to him, “What exactly is wrong with your wife?”’

‘If he wants to tell me, that’s up to him. I don’t want to interrogate him. He’d feel disloyal discussing her problems with me.’

‘Very noble of him. Funny, he doesn’t feel disloyal fucking you.’ Yvon sighs. ‘Sorry.’ I hear a trace of something in her voice: scorn, perhaps, or a weary kindness. ‘Look, you saw Juliet yesterday. She appeared to be a self-sufficient, able-bodied grown-up. Not at all the poor, frail thing Robert’s described . . .’

‘He hasn’t described her. He’s never said anything specific.’ I am starting to feel a little bit angry. I need all my energy to look for you, to stay positive, to stop myself going crazy with worry and fear. It is too much to have to defend you at the same time. Too preposterous, as well, when the attack comes from someone who’s never met you.