Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

What, the whole county? Simon nearly said. The Snowman was scared of anything that constituted ‘up north’. He liked to keep it vague, general.

‘I don’t know how much you all remember from past interludes of sobriety,’ said Proust, ‘but their lab’s been comparing the DNA profile of Prue Kelvey’s rapist with Robert Haworth’s. Ring any bells?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Simon. Sometimes, he thought, pessimists were pleasantly surprised. ‘And?’

Proust took another chip from Sellers’ plate. ‘It’s an exact match,’ he said in a heavy voice. ‘There’s no room for ambiguity or interpretation, I’m afraid. Robert Haworth raped Prue Kelvey.’

‘Will you ring Steph again if she doesn’t ring you back?’ asked Charlie.

It was ten o’clock and she was in bed already. Having a much-needed early night. With Graham, and the bottle of red wine he’d brought all the way from Scotland. ‘We do have wine in England, you know,’ she’d teased him. ‘Even in a hick town like Spilling.’

It had a been a long, hard, confusing day at work, and Charlie had been pleased to get home and find Graham on her doorstep. More than pleased. Thrilled. He’d come all this way to see her. It would never occur to most men—Simon, for example—to do something like that. ‘How did you know my address?’ she’d grilled him.

‘You booked one of my chalets, remember?’ Graham had smiled nervously, as if worried his gesture, his pilgrimage, might be interpreted as over the top. ‘You wrote it down for me then. Sorry. I know it’s a bit stalker-ish to turn up unannounced, but, firstly, I’ve always admired the diligence of the stalker, and secondly . . .’ He tilted his head forward, hiding his eyes behind a curtain of hair. Deliberately, Charlie suspected. ‘. . . I . . . er . . . well, I wanted to see you again, and I thought—’

Charlie hadn’t let him say anything else before she’d clamped her mouth on to his and dragged him inside. That was hours ago.

It felt comfortable having Graham in her bed. She liked the smell of his body; it reminded her of chopped wood and grass and air. He had a first in classics from Oxford, yet he smelled of outside. Charlie could imagine going to a funfair with him, to a performance of Oedipus, to a bonfire. An all-rounder. What—who—could be better, she asked herself rhetorically, making no space in her mind for an answer.

‘I hope you’re not going to cast me aside again, ma’am,’ Graham had said, as they lay among their discarded clothes on Charlie’s lounge floor. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit like a male Madame Butterfly ever since you scarpered in the middle of the night. Mr Butterfly, that’s me. It was pretty scary, I’ll have you know, turning up here uninvited. I thought you’d be busy with work, and I’d end up feeling like one of those doe-eyed wives in Hollywood movies, the ones whose husbands have to drop everything to save the planet from immediate destruction by asteroid or meteorite or deadly virus.’

‘Yeah, I’ve seen that film.’ Charlie had grinned. ‘All five hundred versions of it.’

‘The wife, you’ll have noticed, is always played by Sissy Spacek. Why does she never understand?’ Graham had asked, twisting a strand of Charlie’s hair round his finger, staring at it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. ‘She always tries to persuade the hero to ignore the meteorite that threatens humanity in favour of the family picnic or the little league game. As forward planning goes, it’s short-sighted. No understanding whatsoever of the principle of deferred gratification . . . unlike me . . .’ Graham bent his head to kiss Charlie’s breasts. ‘What is little league, by the way?’

‘No idea,’ Charlie replied, closing her eyes. ‘Baseball?’ Graham chatted, she realised, in a way that Simon didn’t. Simon said things he thought were important or else he said nothing at all.

Given what Graham had said about being ditched in favour of her work, Charlie had felt bad asking him the questions she needed to ask. She hadn’t told him she’d been planning to phone him solely for that reason, instead of to suggest that they arrange to meet. What was wrong with her? Why hadn’t she been bursting to see him again? He was sexy, funny, clever. Good in bed, albeit in a slightly overeager-to-please sort of way.

When she’d finally plucked up the courage to ask him, Graham hadn’t minded at all. He’d phoned Steph straight away. They were now waiting for her to ring back. ‘You didn’t tell her I wanted to know, did you?’ asked Charlie. ‘If you did, she’ll never call.’

‘You know I didn’t. You were here when I rang her.’

‘Yeah, but . . . didn’t she know you were coming to see me?’

Graham chuckled. ‘Course not. I never tell the dogsbody where I’m going.’

‘She said you tell her about all the women you sleep with, in graphic detail. She also said a lot of them start out as customers.’

‘The second part’s not true. She meant you, that’s all. She was trying to upset you. Most of my customers are fat middle-aged fishermen called Derek. Imagine the name Derek being moaned gently in the dark—it just doesn’t work, does it?’

Charlie laughed. ‘And the first part?’ Did Graham think he could charm her into letting it drop?

He sighed. ‘Once—and only because it was such an irresistible story—I told Steph about a woman I slept with. Static Sue.’

‘Static Sue?’ Charlie repeated slowly.

‘I’m not kidding, this woman didn’t move a muscle, just lay there, rigid, throughout. My stunning performance had no effect whatsoever. I kept wanting to stop and check her pulse, see if she was still with me.’

‘I take it you didn’t.’

‘No. It would have been too embarrassing, wouldn’t it? The funny thing was, the minute we disentangled ourselves, she started moving again, normally. She got up as if nothing had happened, smiled at me and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. I tell you, I had a few worries about my technique after that little episode!’

Charlie smiled. ‘Stop fishing for compliments. So . . . why would Steph want to upset me? Just because I used your computer, or . . . ?’

Graham gave her a wry look. ‘You want to know what’s going on with me and Steph, guv?’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Charlie.

‘I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s going on with you and Simon Waterhouse.’

‘How . . . ?’

‘Your sister mentioned him, remember? Olivia. No nicknames from now on, I promise.’

‘Oh, right.’ Charlie had done her best to forget that awful moment: Olivia’s outburst from the literal and moral highground of her mezzanine bedroom.

‘Have you two patched things up yet?’ Graham leaned on one elbow. ‘She came back, you know.’

‘She what ?’ He’d sounded a little too offhand for Charlie’s liking. Anger rose inside her. If he meant what she thought he meant . . .

‘To the chalet. The next day, after you’d gone. She seemed disappointed not to find you. I told her something important had come up at work . . . Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘You should have told me this straight away!’

‘That’s not fair, guv. You’ve only just given me my mouth back. We’ve been busy, remember? It’s not as if I’ve been twiddling my thumbs. Or, if I have, it was with the best possible intentions . . .’

‘Graham, I’m serious.’

He shot her a knowing look. ‘You haven’t kissed and made up, have you? You thought your sis was still sulking, so you left her to it. Now you feel guilty and you’re trying to pin it on me. An innocent bystander!’ He stuck out his lower lip, curling it over in mock unhappiness.