Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘You didn’t leave your desk at all? To grab a sandwich or use the bathroom?’

‘Well . . . yes, of course, but . . .’

‘Can you see the drive from the basement window?’ asked Charlie.

‘Yes,’ said Cotchin, with a trace of impatience in her voice. ‘Ask him, he’s been to the house.’ She nodded at Gibbs. ‘If you look up, you can see the drive, and the road. I’d have noticed if Naomi went out. And she didn’t.’

‘But she can’t vouch for you in the same way, can she?’ said Gibbs. ‘If she was in that shed she works in, that’s round the back of the house. She wouldn’t have seen you if you’d gone out, would she?’

Cotchin turned to Charlie, an appeal in her eyes. ‘Why would I want to attack Robert? I don’t know him.’

‘You disapprove of him,’ said Charlie. ‘Your marriage was destroyed—if only temporarily—by infidelity.’ Cotchin blushed at the barbed aside. ‘Robert Haworth was cheating on his wife with your best friend for a year. You must have disapproved.’

‘Naomi gave me a home when Ben and I finally split up,’ said Cotchin angrily. ‘I couldn’t abandon her just because she was doing something I disagreed with.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, as time went on, my disapproval got weaker and weaker.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Naomi adored Robert. She was so happy. I don’t know how to describe it. It was like she was sort of lit up from the inside. And she said he felt the same. I thought, Maybe it’s the real thing, they’re destined to be together. I do believe in that, you know,’ she said defensively. ‘I saw that it was nothing like my situation with Ben. Ben’s unfaithfulness wasn’t about not loving me, or loving someone else more. I’m the person he’s always wanted to be with, he was just too stupid and self-indulgent to treat me properly. He’s changed now, though. He’s given up booze, almost completely.’

And taken up drugs, thought Charlie, glancing at the paraphernalia on the windowsill. ‘If Robert loved Naomi, why didn’t he leave his wife to be with her?’

‘Good question. I think he was stringing Naomi along, though she claimed he wasn’t. He made out he couldn’t leave Juliet, as if she was some sort of needy underdog type, but I always thought that was probably crap. If he was as unhappy with her as he told Naomi he was, he’d have left her. Men don’t stay out of duty, not when they’ve got somewhere better to go. Only women are stupid enough to do that. And when Naomi went to Robert’s house to look for him on Monday, she met Juliet and said herself that she was nothing like Robert had made out.’

The lounge door opened and a man Charlie assumed was Ben Cotchin came in wearing only a pair of long red-and-navy checked boxer shorts. He was tall, thin and unshaven, with long dark hair in a ponytail. Exactly like Yvon’s hair, thought Charlie—same colour, same style. ‘Anyone fancy a cuppa?’ he said.

‘No, thanks.’ Charlie answered on behalf of herself, Gibbs and Yvon. If drinks were made, Ben would have to come back in and hand them out. Time would be wasted. As it was, Charlie had woken up this morning feeling crushed by the thought of everything she had to do before she would be able to climb back into bed tonight.

‘Robert and Naomi only had one topic of conversation,’ said Yvon, once her ex-husband had left the room. ‘How much they loved each other and how unfair and sad it was that they couldn’t be together. They created an alternative reality together that only existed for three hours a week, in one room. Why didn’t he ever take her away for the weekend? He said he couldn’t leave Juliet for that long . . .’

‘What do you think the reason was?’ asked Charlie.

‘Robert’s a control freak. He wanted Juliet and Naomi, and he wanted to keep Naomi inside a very definite box: four to seven on a Thursday. She can’t see it. It’s so frustrating. It’s like she knows things about him that she doesn’t know she knows, if that makes any sense. I mean, I only know he’s a control freak from things she’s told me. But I can see those things for what they are, and she can’t.’

‘What sort of things?’

The way Yvon rolled her eyes suggested she was spoilt for choice. ‘He always brings a bottle of wine, when they meet. Once he knocked the bottle over while he was getting into bed. It was nearly full and most of the wine spilled on the carpet. Naomi said she’d go out and get another bottle, but he wouldn’t let her. He got really upset when she suggested it.’

‘If they only had three hours together—’ Charlie began, but Yvon was shaking her head.

‘No, it wasn’t that. He explained it to Naomi. He was offended by her taking for granted that if you spill wine, you can just buy more to replace it. As far as he was concerned, it was his carelessness that had led to the wine being spilled, so he thought he should make do with no wine as a sort of penance. He didn’t call it a penance, but that’s what he meant. Naomi said he felt bad about knocking the bottle over and didn’t want to let himself off the hook. “Casual vandalism”, he called it. He came out with all sorts of rubbish, all the time, can’t handle it at all if anything unexpected happens. I think he’s a bit mental, actually. Screwed up.’

She turned to Gibbs. ‘When am I going to get my computer back?’

‘It’s back,’ he said. ‘At Naomi Jenkins’ house.’

‘But . . . I’m staying here now. I need it to work.’

‘I’m not a removals man. You’ll have to fetch it yourself.’

Charlie decided it was time to air her theory. ‘Yvon, is there any chance that it was you who was raped three years ago? Was that why you were in a state, and why your marriage started to fall apart? Did Naomi write to the Speak Out and Survive website on your behalf, and sign it with her initials to preserve your anonymity?’

It took a while for the suggestion to sink in. Yvon looked as if she was trying to assemble something inside her head, a machine with many complicated parts. Once she’d succeeded in doing so, she looked horrified. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. What a terrible thing to say! How can you wish that on me?’

Charlie had little patience for emotional blackmail. ‘All right,’ she said, standing up. ‘That’ll do for now, but we’ll probably want to talk to you again. You’re not planning on going anywhere, are you?’

‘I might be, yes,’ said Yvon, like a child who’d been caught out.

‘Where?’

‘A place in Scotland. Ben said I need a break, and he’s right.’

‘He going too?’

‘Yes. As a friend. I don’t know why you’re so interested in me and Ben.’

‘I’m an all-rounder,’ Charlie told her.

‘We’ve nothing to do with this.’

‘We’ll need an address.’

Yvon reached for her small black handbag, which was beside the sofa, among the mugs and the newspapers. A few moments later she handed Charlie a card she recognised.

‘Silver Brae Chalets?’ Charlie kept her voice steady. ‘You’re going here? Why here?’

‘I get a big discount, if you must know. I designed their website.’

‘How did you come to do that?’

Yvon looked baffled by Charlie’s interest. ‘Graham, the owner, he’s a friend of my dad’s. Dad was his tutor at uni.’

‘Which university?’

‘Oxford. Graham got the highest first in classics in his year. My dad was disappointed that he didn’t become a don. Why do you want to know all this?’

There was a question to avoid. Graham, a classics don. He’d teased Charlie for mentioning a book she’d read: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Very posh, guv. He was probably embarrassed by his cleverness. Modest. Stop it, Charlie told herself. You’re not fond of him. You just fancied him in a fleeting, temporary sort of way. That’s all.