Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Sorry. I’m usually much more suave and cool than this.’ He put his hands in his pockets and smiled sheepishly. He also knows how to flirt, thought Charlie; she didn’t normally go for the shy, hapless approach.

Olivia said loudly, ‘Are there any good restaurants nearby?’

‘Well . . . Edinburgh’s within reach, if you don’t mind an hour or so’s drive,’ said Graham, ‘and there’s an excellent restaurant right here. Steph cooks for any guests who want top-notch home-cooked meals. All ingredients organic.’

‘Who’s Steph?’ Charlie asked as nonchalantly as possible. She felt unaccountably irritated.

‘Steph?’ Graham grinned at her, letting her know that he’d understood the implications of her question. ‘She’s all my staff rolled into one: cook, maid, secretary, receptionist—take your pick. My dogsbody. Though I shouldn’t malign our canine friends.’ He laughed. ‘No, to be fair, Steph’s perfectly attractive if you like peasant girls. And I’d be lost without her, she’s a darling. Shall I bring you over some menus later?’ He was looking only at Charlie.

‘That’d be great,’ she said, feeling slightly giddy.

‘And don’t forget to check out the spa, which is in the old barn building. We’ve just had a tepidarium put in. Perfect place to relax and pamper yourself.’

Once he’d gone, Olivia said, ‘That is a good sign. I’d choose a tepidarium over a sauna or sanarium any day.’

Charlie was mystified, but decided not to ask. She wondered if her sister ever did a full day’s work.

‘Not sure I want to risk Steph’s cooking, though. We need to arm ourselves as soon as possible with a local taxi number, so that if we’re starving and the food here is awful, we can get to Edinburgh before our ribs start to protrude.’

Charlie shook her head in mock despair. It would take months, possibly years, of deprivation before Olivia’s ribs protruded. ‘I assume you want the mezzanine?’ she said, hauling her suitcase over to the other bed.

‘Definitely. Otherwise I’ll feel as if I’m sleeping in the lounge. You will be sleeping in the lounge.’

‘It stops being the lounge there—’ Charlie pointed ‘—and becomes my bedroom.’

‘What’s wrong with walls, that’s what I want to know. What’s wrong with doors? I hate all this open-plan nonsense. What if you snore and keep me awake?’

Charlie began to unpack, wishing she’d been on a proper shopping trip and bought some new, sexy clothes. She looked out of the open window, at the steep bank of tall trees on the other side of the stream that flowed right outside their chalet. There was no noise in this place, if you didn’t include Olivia’s loud voice: no rumble of traffic, no general hum of the world going about its business. The occasional exclamation from a bird was the only thing that interrupted the stillness. And Charlie loved the crisp, fresh air. Thank God Spain was a disaster. People said things always worked out for the best, but Charlie had always thought that was preposterous, a downright insult to anyone who’d ever experienced something tragic or horrific.

‘Char? We are going to have a nice holiday, aren’t we?’ Olivia sounded uncharacteristically anxious. She was lying on her bed. Charlie looked up, saw her sister’s bare feet through the wooden railings. Unpacking was another thing Olivia dismissed as being too much effort. She treated her large suitcase as a small cupboard.

‘Of course.’ Charlie guessed what was coming next.

‘Promise you won’t let your Tyrannosaurus Sex alter ego take over and wreck everything? I’ve been really looking forward to this week. I’m not having it ruined because of some man.’

Tyrannosaurus Sex. Charlie tried to bat the words away, but they had already embedded themselves in her brain. Was that how Olivia saw her, as a huge, ugly monster, a rampant sexual predator? She felt as if a series of doors were slamming inside her, in a futile attempt to protect her ego against damage that had already been done.

‘Which man?’ she said in a clipped voice. ‘Angilley or Simon?’

Olivia sighed. ‘That you need to ask that question neatly illustrates the seriousness of the problem,’ she said.

‘In other words, a mess,’ said Inspector Giles Proust. ‘Is that a fair assessment of the situation, would you say, Waterhouse? I’d call it a mess. What would you call it?’

Simon was inside Proust’s transparent cubicle. The place not to be, unless you enjoyed feeling as if all your colleagues were watching you being ripped into ragged pieces by the small-framed, bald inspector: a silent but brutal movie, seen at a safe distance, through glass. Simon sat on a green armless chair that was spewing its stuffing, while the inspector stepped around him, occasionally spilling tea from the ‘World’s Greatest Granddad’ mug he held in his hand. Simon ducked every now and then to avoid being scalded. If this were a film, he thought, any minute now Proust would whip out a razor and start slashing. But a razor wasn’t Proust’s preferred weapon; he was happy to make do with his toxic tongue and his distorted view both of the world and his place in it.

Simon had taken the foolhardy step of entering the inspector’s lair without having been summoned. By choice, insofar as anyone in CID ever sought out the Snowman by choice. The nickname was a reference to Proust’s ability to transmit whatever mood he happened to be in—especially the bad ones—to rooms full of innocent bystanders. If he switched from relaxed to tense, from sociable to dour, the whole of the CID room froze mid-breath. Words turned to stone in every mouth, and actions became self-conscious and stilted. Simon didn’t know how Proust managed so wholly to cripple the general atmosphere. Was his skin porous? Did he have special psychic powers?

Just talk to him like he’s a normal bloke.

Simon had a lot he needed to say, and he knew there was no point stalling. ‘It’s certainly a difficult and worrying situation, sir.’ He would happily have agreed to ‘mess’ as a definition, were it not for the clear implication that he was in some way responsible. In some way? He chided himself for being naïve. Proust held him entirely responsible. What he couldn’t work out was why.

‘You should have been on to Kent police straight away, as soon as Mrs Haworth gave you an address. You should have faxed them the details and followed it up an hour later.’

Kent police would have loved that. Simon would have looked insane if he’d chased them after only an hour. ‘That would have been unwarranted, sir. I didn’t know then what I know now. Naomi Jenkins hadn’t accused Haworth of rape at that point.’

‘You’d know a damn sight more now if you’d contacted Kent police then. ’

‘Would you have done that, sir? In my position?’ A direct challenge was risky. Sod it. ‘Mrs Haworth told me she’d make sure Mr Haworth got in touch as soon as he got back. She said he was trying to end his relationship with Naomi Jenkins but Jenkins wasn’t having any of it. I left a message on his mobile and I was waiting for him to get back to me. It seemed straightforward.’

‘Straighforward,’ said Proust quietly. Almost wistfully. ‘Is that how you’d describe it?’

‘Not now, no. It’s not straighforward any more . . .’

‘Indeed.’

‘Sir, I followed correct procedure. I decided to put it to one side for the time being and chase it up early next week if I hadn’t heard anything.’

‘And what factors contributed to that decision?’ Proust flashed a frightful false smile in Simon’s direction.

‘I did a standard risk assessment. Haworth’s an adult, there’s no indication he’s unstable or suicidal . . .’