Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Has Naomi ever been to Silver Brae Chalets?’ she asked. ‘She had one of their cards.’

Yvon shook her head. ‘I tried to persuade her, but . . . after she met Robert, she didn’t ever want to go away. I think she thought that if she couldn’t go with him, she’d rather not bother.’

Charlie was thinking fast. So that was why Naomi had the card. Graham knew Yvon Cotchin; now Charlie had no choice but to ring him. Naomi and Robert might have been to Silver Brae Chalets, whatever Yvon said.

‘What do you care about Miss Minty Fags and her hippie husband? ’ Gibbs snapped, once they were back in the car. ‘Arrogant cock-shite! There we were, staring at his bong collection on the windowsill, and he didn’t give a toss!’

‘I’m interested in other people’s relationships,’ Charlie told him.

‘Apart from mine. Boring old Chris Gibbs and his boring girlfriend.’

Charlie massaged her temples with the balls of her hands. ‘Gibbs, if you don’t want to get married, for God’s sake, don’t. Tell Debbie you’ve changed your mind.’

Gibbs studied the road ahead. ‘I bet you’d all like that, wouldn’t you?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Prue Kelvey. She was sitting on her hands, looking at an enlarged photograph of Robert Haworth. Sam Kombothekra thought he was doing an excellent job of concealing his disappointment. ‘When you first showed it to me, I was surprised—it’s not the face I’ve been seeing in my mind since . . . since it happened. But memory and . . . feelings distort things, don’t they? And this man is similar to the one in my head. It could be him. I just didn’t . . . I can’t say that I recognise him.’ There was a long pause. Then she asked, ‘Who is he?’

‘I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.’

Kelvey accepted this without an argument. Sam decided not to tell her that the DNA profile taken from her rape kit was in the process of being compared with that of a man from the Culver Valley who’d been accused of a very similar crime. He sensed that Prue Kelvey didn’t really want him to tell her anything; she was still reeling from the shock of finding Sam on her doorstep. He predicted it would be a few days before she got in touch to ask for more information.

She’d always been unsure of herself, tentative about everything she said apart from what was absolutely unequivocal. Sam hoped he’d have more luck with Sandy Freeguard. When he got up to leave, Prue Kelvey sagged with relief, and Sam felt awful when it occurred to him that, apart from her rapist’s face, his own must be the one she associated most closely with her horrific ordeal.

It was an hour’s drive, give or take, from Kelvey’s house to Freeguard’s. This wasn’t the first time Sam had driven from one woman’s house to the other’s. He didn’t mind the M62, unless it was nose to tail. The part he hated was the slog through Shipley and Bradford, past grimy, crumbling council flats and the shiny but equally depressing sprawl of the retail park and the new cinema with its multi-storey car park and chain restaurants. Big, grey, greedy blocks. Could architecture get any less imaginative?

The roads were mercifully empty, and Sam pulled up outside Sandy Freeguard’s house forty-five minutes after leaving Otley. Freeguard was, in many ways, Prue Kelvey’s polar opposite. She had made Sam feel at ease from the start, and he quickly stopped worrying about what he said to her. She always smiled when he turned up unannounced, always kept up a constant stream of comforting banter, barely allowing him to get a word in edgeways. If he lost concentration even for a moment, there was no hope of catching up. Sandy covered several dozen topics per minute. Sam liked her, and suspected her garrulousness was a deliberate strategy, to take the pressure off him. Did she guess how hard it was for him, dealing with women like herself, who had been through hell at the hands of men? It made him feel guilty and apprehensive. None of the men he knew were like that; the thought of knowing anyone who’d do what had been done to Prue Kelvey and to Sandy Freeguard made Sam want to be sick.

‘. . . but, of course, it could have been that Peter and Sue were the ones who’d got the wrong end of the stick, and that’s why Kavitha thought I’d mind.’

Sam hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. Peter, Sue and Kavitha were his colleagues. Sandy Freeguard was on first-name terms with the whole team. She had given them all hope, even when it had started to look as if they might not catch the man who’d attacked her. She refused to be downcast. Instead, she set up a local victim-support group, trained as a counsellor, did voluntary work for Rape Crisis and the Samaritans. Last time Sam had seen her, she’d been talking about writing a book. ‘Might as well,’ she’d said, smiling ruefully. ‘I’m a writer, after all, and this is a subject that isn’t going to leave me alone. At first I thought it’d be exploitative to write about my experience, but . . . sod it, the only person I’d be exploiting is me, so if I don’t mind, why should anyone else?’

Sam interrupted her chatter. ‘I’ve got a photograph to show you, Sandy,’ he said. ‘We think it might be him.’

She stopped, mouth open. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You mean, you might have him?’

Sam nodded.

‘Go on, then, show me,’ she said. Her eyes were already searching his clothing, looking at his hands to see if he was carrying anything. If he wasn’t quick about producing the picture, she might frisk him.

He pulled the photograph out of his trouser pocket and passed it to her. She took a quick look, then inspected Sam curiously. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ she said.

‘Of course not. It’s not him?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

‘I’m sorry . . .’ Guilt swarmed in, clogging Sam’s mind. He should have told her not to get her hopes up. He shouldn’t have brought out the picture so quickly, whatever Sandy thought she wanted. Maybe she wasn’t as tough as she seemed, maybe this would—

‘Sam, I know this man.’

‘What?’ He looked up, shocked. ‘But you said—’

‘I said he wasn’t the man who raped me.’ Sandy Freeguard laughed at his astonished expression. ‘This is Robert Haworth. What on earth made you think it was him?’

17

Friday, April 7

I AM HOLDING your hand. It’s hard to convey the power of this feeling to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. My body glows and crackles as you burn away the darkness inside me with a furious warmth. Something in me has been switched on by your touch and I feel the way I felt on that first day at the service station: alight, safe. I have scrambled back up on to the ledge. I was fading, and now, just in time, I have been plugged back into my source of life. Do you feel this too? I won’t bother to ask the nurses. They would talk about probabilities and statistics. They would say, ‘Studies have shown . . .’

I know you know I’m here. You don’t have to move, or say anything; I can feel the energy of recognition flowing from your hand into mine.

Sergeant Zailer stands in the corner of your room, watching us. On the way here, she warned me that I might find the sight of you distressing, but she saw how wrong she was when we arrived and I ran to your bed, as eager to touch you as I always have been. I see you, Robert, not the bandages, not the tubes. Only you, and the screen that shows that your heart is pumping, alive. I don’t need any doctors to tell me about your firm, steady heart.

Your bed has been adjusted so that the top part is at an angle, to support your back. You look comfortable, as if you’ve fallen asleep on a sunlounger, with a book on your lap. Peaceful.

‘This is the first time,’ I tell Sergeant Zailer. ‘The first and only time he’s managed to escape, in his whole life. That’s why he isn’t ready to wake up yet.’