Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Has your husband ever been violent towards you?’

She frowned at Sellers as if irritated by his intrusion. ‘Can you find me a hair bobble?’ She pointed to the back of her neck. ‘Otherwise it’ll come loose again.’

‘Was he habitually violent?’

Juliet laughed. ‘Do I look like a victim to you? A minute ago you had me stoving Robert’s head in with a rock. Make up your mind.’

‘Was your husband physically or psychologically abusive towards you, Juliet?’

‘You know what? I think it’ll make your job more exciting if I don’t tell you anything.’ She nodded at the file in Simon’s hands. ‘Have you got a spare bit of paper?’ she said in a softer voice. She was doing everything she could to make her preference clear. If she wanted Simon to play a more prominent role, he was determined to do as little as possible. Juliet didn’t seem to give a damn about what happened to her; the only leverage he had at the moment was that she appeared to want something from him.

Sellers pulled a torn envelope out of his pocket and passed it across the table to Juliet, rolling a pen after it.

She leaned forward, spent a few seconds writing, then pushed the envelope towards Simon with a smile. He did nothing. Sellers picked it up and glanced at it briefly before holding it out behind him for Simon to take. Damn. Now he had no choice. Juliet’s grin widened. Simon didn’t like the way she was trying to communicate with him privately in a way that both used and excluded Sellers. He considered leaving the room, leaving Sellers to it. How would she react to that?

She’d written four lines on the envelope, either a poem or part of one:

Human uncertainty is all

That makes the human reason strong.

We never know until we fall

That every word we speak is wrong.

‘What is this?’ asked Simon, annoyed that he didn’t know it. She couldn’t have made it up, not so quickly.

‘My thought for the day.’

‘Tell me about your sexual relationship with your husband,’ said Sellers.

‘I don’t think so.’ She sniggered. ‘Tell me about yours with your wife. I see you’re wearing a wedding ring. Men didn’t used to, did they?’ she said to Simon. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to remember that things were ever different from how they are now, don’t you think? The past vanishes, and it’s as if the present state of affairs has always existed. You have to make a real effort to remember how things used to be.’

‘Would you describe your sexual relationship as normal?’ Sellers persisted. ‘Do you still sleep together?’

‘At the moment Robert’s sleeping in the hospital. He may never wake up, according to DC Waterhouse.’ Her tone implied that Simon might have lied about this simply to be mischievous.

‘Before he was injured, would you say you and your husband had a normal sexual relationship?’ Sellers sounded a lot more patient than Simon felt.

‘I wouldn’t say anything on that subject, I don’t think,’ said Juliet.

‘If you had a lawyer here, or if you’d let us bring one in, he or she would advise you that if you don’t want to answer a question, you say “no comment”.’

‘If I wanted to say “no comment”, I’d have said it. My comment is that I’d prefer not to answer the question. Like Bartleby.’

‘Who?’

‘He’s a fictional character,’ Simon muttered. ‘Bartleby the Scrivener. Whatever he was asked to do, he said, “I would prefer not to.”’

‘Except he wasn’t being interviewed by the police,’ said Juliet. ‘He was just working in an office. Or, rather, not working. A bit like me. I suppose you know I’ve got no job, no career. And no kids. Just Robert. And now maybe not even him.’ She stuck out her bottom lip, parodying a sad expression.

‘Has your husband ever raped you?’

Juliet looked surprised, perhaps even a little bit angry. Then she laughed. ‘What?’

‘You heard the question.’

‘Haven’t you lot heard of Occam’s razor? The simplest explanation and all that? You should hear yourselves! Has Robert ever raped me? Has he ever been violent? Has he psychologically abused me? The poor man’s lying in hospital with a life-threatening injury, and you’re—’ She stopped suddenly.

‘What?’ said Sellers.

Her shrewd, knowing eyes had lost their sharpness. She appeared distracted as she said, ‘Until quite recently it was legal for a man to rape his wife. Imagine that now, it hardly seems possible. I remember when I was a kid, walking through town with my mum and dad, and we saw a poster that said, “Rape in marriage—make it a crime.” I had to ask my parents what it meant.’ She was speaking automatically, and not about what was really on her mind.

‘Juliet, if you didn’t try to kill Robert, why don’t you tell us who did?’ said Sellers.

Her expression cleared instantly. Her focus had returned, but Simon sensed a change of mood. The flippancy had gone. ‘Has Naomi told you that Robert raped her?’

Simon opened his mouth to answer, but he wasn’t quick enough.

Juliet’s eyes widened. ‘She has, hasn’t she? She’s unbelievable!’

‘You mean she’s lying?’ said Sellers.

‘Yes. She’s lying.’ Juliet sounded deadly serious for the first time since the interview began. ‘What exactly did she say he did?’

‘I’ll answer your questions when you answer mine,’ said Sellers. ‘Fair’s fair.’

‘There’s no fairness involved,’ said Juliet dismissively. ‘Let me guess. She said there were men watching, eating dinner. Did she say Robert raped her on a stage? Was she tied to a bed? Bedposts with acorns on the top, by any chance?’

Something in Simon’s head snapped. He was on his feet. ‘How the fuck do you know all that?’

‘I want to talk to Naomi,’ said Juliet. Her smile had returned.

‘You lied to us about your husband’s whereabouts. You spent six days living in the house with him upstairs, beaten nearly to death, unconscious, lying in his own filth, and you didn’t phone an ambulance. Your bloody fingerprints are on that doorstop, prints in Robert’s blood. We’ve got enough to convict you several times over. It doesn’t matter what you say to us or don’t say.’

Juliet’s face was impassive. Simon might as well have read her his shopping list instead, for all the difference it would have made. ‘I want to speak to Naomi,’ she repeated. ‘In private. Just the two of us, nice and cosy.’

‘Tough.’

‘You must know that’s a non-starter, so why bother asking?’ said Sellers.

‘You want to know what happened to Robert?’

‘I know you tried to kill him, which is all I need to know,’ said Simon. ‘We’re going to charge you with attempted murder, Juliet. Are you sure you don’t want that solicitor?’

‘Why would I try to kill my own husband?’

‘Even without a motive, we’ll get a conviction, which is all I care about.’

‘That might be true of your friend—’ Juliet nodded at Sellers ‘—but I don’t think it’s true of you. You want to know. And so does your boss. What’s her name? DS Zailer. She’s a woman, you see, and women like to have the whole story. Well, I’m the only person who knows it.’ The pride in her voice was unmistakable. ‘You tell your boss from me: if she doesn’t let me talk to that bitch-cunt Naomi Jenkins, I’m the only person who’ll ever know the truth. It’s up to you.’

‘We can’t,’ Simon said to Sellers as they walked back to the CID room. ‘Charlie’ll say it’s out of the question, and it is. Jenkins and Juliet Haworth alone together in an interview room? We’d have another attempted murder on our hands. At the very least, Haworth’d taunt Jenkins with the details of her rape. Imagine the headlines: “Police allow murderess to taunt rape victim.”’