Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

Sergeant Zailer smiles. She pulls some more papers out of her handbag. ‘Have a look at these,’ she says.

My chest feels tight. I have started to sweat. I don’t want to take the pages from her hand, but she’s holding them out. They’re right under my chin. I have to take them.

I feel dizzy as I look down at the print. They are police statements, like the one I signed for DC Waterhouse on Tuesday. Rape statements, similar to mine in form and in content. In almost every ugly detail. There are two of them. Both were taken by a Detective Sergeant Sam Kombothekra from West Yorkshire CID. One is dated 2003, one 2004. If I weren’t such a coward, if I’d reported what happened to me, I might have prevented the attacks on Prudence Kelvey and Sandra Freeguard. I can’t help looking at the names, making it personal.

Two named women, one who chose to be anonymous, a waitress from Cardiff who gives only a first name—four other victims. At least.

I am not the only one.

For Sergeant Zailer, it’s business as usual. ‘How does Juliet Haworth know about what happened to you? She knows everything—all the things you claim you invented. Did Robert tell her? Did you tell him?’

I cannot answer. I am crying uncontrollably, like a pathetic baby. The ground is falling away and I am floating in the dark. ‘Nothing happened to me,’ I manage to say. ‘Nothing.’

‘Juliet wants to talk to you. She won’t tell us if she attacked Robert, or whether she wanted to kill him. She won’t say anything to us. You’re the only person she’ll talk to. What do you reckon?’

The words are recognisable as objects, but they make no sense to me.

‘Will you do it? You can ask her how she knows you were raped.’

‘You’re lying! If she knows, it’s because you told her.’ My thighs are wet with sweat. I feel faint, as if I might throw up. ‘I want to see Robert. I need to go to the hospital.’

Sergeant Zailer puts a photograph of you on the table in front of me. My heart jolts so violently it feels as I imagine whiplash would. I want to touch the picture. Your skin is grey. I cannot see your face because it’s turned away from the camera. Most of the photo is blood, red around the edges, black and globular in the middle.

I’m glad she’s shown it to me. Whatever’s happened to you, I don’t want to shy away from it. I want to be as close to you as I can be.

‘Robert,’ I whisper. Tears stream down my face. I have to get to that hospital. ‘Did Juliet do this?’

‘You tell me.’

I stare at Sergeant Zailer, wondering if we’re taking part in two different conversations, two different realities. I don’t know who did it. I have no idea. If I knew, I’d kill them. I can’t think of anyone who might have attacked you apart from your wife.

‘Perhaps it was you who hurt Robert. Did he tell you it was all over? Did he dare to fall out of love with you?’

This absurd proposition rouses me. ‘Are all the detectives around here as dense as you?’ I snap. ‘Isn’t there some kind of graduate-entry programme? I’m sure I read about one. Any chance I could talk to a graduate cop?’

‘You’re talking to a PhD.’

‘In what? Imbecility?’

‘We’ll need a DNA sample from you, to put against the forensic findings from the scene where Mr Haworth was attacked. If you did it, we’ll prove it.’

‘Good. In that case, you’ll soon know that I didn’t. I’m glad we’ve more to rely on than your intuition, because that seems to be about as accurate as a—’

‘Sundial in the dark?’ Sergeant Zailer suggests. She is mocking me. ‘Will you talk to Juliet Haworth? I’d be present throughout. There’d be no safety risk.’

‘If you take me to see Robert, I’ll speak to Juliet. If you don’t, forget it.’ I take a sip from my glass of water.

‘You’re something else,’ she says under her breath. But she doesn’t say no.

14

4/6/06

‘PRUE KELVEY AND Sandy Freeguard.’ Detective Sergeant Sam Kombothekra from West Yorkshire CID had brought photographs of both women with him, which were pinned to Charlie’s whiteboard, alongside pictures of Robert Haworth, Juliet Haworth and Naomi Jenkins. Charlie had asked Kombothekra to tell the rest of the team what he’d already told her on the phone. ‘Prue Kelvey was raped on the sixteenth of November 2003. Sandy Freeguard was raped nine months later, on the twentieth of August 2004. We took a full kit from Kelvey, but nothing from Freeguard, so no DNA there. She waited a week before reporting it, but the attack was identical to Kelvey’s, so we were pretty certain we were dealing with the same man.’

Kombothekra paused to clear his throat. He was tall and thin, with shiny black hair, olive skin and a prominent Adam’s apple that Charlie couldn’t help looking at. It leaped up and down as he spoke. ‘Both women were forced into a car at knifepoint by a man who knew their names and behaved as if he knew them until he got close enough to produce his weapon. Prue Kelvey just said a black car, but Sandy Freeguard was more specific: a hatchback, registration beginning with a ‘Y’. Freeguard describes a corduroy jacket that sounds like the one Naomi Jenkins described. In all three cases the man was tall, Caucasian, with short dark-brown hair. Kelvey and Freeguard were both made to sit in the front passenger seat, not the back seat, so that’s the first difference between our two cases and Naomi Jenkins’ statement.’

‘The first of many,’ Charlie chipped in.

‘That’s right,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Once in the car, both women had eye masks put over their eyes—another point of similarity—but unlike Naomi Jenkins, at that point they were ordered to remove all their clothes from the waist down. Both did as instructed, fearing for their lives.’

Proust was shaking his head. ‘So we’ve got three cases—three that we know of—of women being driven in broad daylight for, as far as we can tell, long distances, with masks over their eyes. Didn’t anybody see the car and think it was suspicious? You’d think somebody passing on the street would have seen a passenger wearing an eye mask.’

‘If I saw that, I’d assume they were trying to have a nap,’ said Simon. Sellers nodded his agreement.

‘Nobody came forward immediately,’ said Kombothekra. ‘After our television appeals, three witnesses made contact, but none of them could tell us much more than we already knew: a black hatchback, a passenger with something over their eyes, nothing at all about the driver.’

‘So, front passenger seat rather than back seat, clothing removed en route rather than at destination,’ Proust summarised.

‘Kelvey and Freeguard were both continually sexually assaulted during the drive. Both said the rapist drove with one hand and used the other to touch their private parts. Both said he wasn’t rough or violent. Sandy Freeguard said she thought he was doing it to show that he could more than anything else. It was about exercising power rather than inflicting pain. He made them sit with their legs wide apart. In both cases, he said something very similar to what Naomi Jenkins claims her attacker said: “Don’t you want to warm up before the show?”’ Kombothekra consulted his notes. ‘Kelvey’s version was “I always like to warm up before a show, don’t you?” She didn’t know what show he was talking about at that point, of course. Freeguard was told, “Think of this as a little warm-up before the big show.”’

‘So it’s the same man, no question,’ said Proust.

‘It seems very likely,’ said Charlie. ‘Although in each case, we’re pretty sure it’s a different audience, aren’t we?’

Kombothekra nodded. ‘We are. And a different audience again from survivor story number thirty-one on the Speak Out and Survive website. The writer of that described four men, two with beards, and three women. And she said they were middle-aged. Kelvey and Freeguard said their audiences were all young men.’