Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

She slams the car door and opens the red wooden gate, not bothering to lock the Audi. I am in my car, in the middle of her street, only a few metres away from her, but she hasn’t noticed me. She doesn’t look as if she is aware of her surroundings at all.

Shit. I have no idea what to do now. If something bad’s happened, if there’s been some sort of family tragedy, she won’t want to talk to me. But who else can I go to? DC Waterhouse? I would not be able to persuade him to take me to the hospital again to see you, no matter what information I could give him in exchange. I feel his antipathy towards me every time I’m in a room with him.

I am being ridiculous. Sergeant Zailer, however upset she might be, and for whatever reason, is the officer in charge of your case. I have new information that I know she’ll want, whatever state she’s in.

I park in one of the few available spaces by the side of the road and walk back to her house. It’s smaller than mine, which makes me feel guilty in a peculiar sort of way. I’d assumed she must live somewhere much bigger and grander than where I live, because she’s a figure of authority. Not that I’ve always accepted her authority. I won’t accept it now, if she says she won’t take me to see you. I don’t change, Robert. All that matters to me is you, now as always.

I ring the bell and get no response. She doesn’t know who I am, doesn’t know I’ve seen her go in. I ring again, pressing for longer this time. ‘Go away!’ she shouts. ‘Leave me the fuck alone, whoever you are.’ I ring again. A few seconds later, through the stained-glass panel in the front door, I see the blurred shape of her walking towards me. She opens it and recoils. I’m the last person she wants to see. I don’t care. From now on, I don’t think I will let small things get to me. I will enjoy not caring. Like your wife. She and I have got more than you in common, haven’t we, Robert?

‘Naomi. What are you doing here?’ Charlie Zailer’s eyes are watery and puffy, her nose red and raw.

‘I was on my way to see you. You were driving away, so I followed you.’ I say nothing about her obvious distress, guessing that this is what she would prefer.

‘I’m not at work now,’ she says.

‘I can see that.’

‘No, I mean . . . I’m not working. So this’ll have to wait.’ She tries to close the door, but I push it open with my arm.

‘It can’t wait. It’s important.’

‘Then find DC Waterhouse and tell him.’ She puts her full weight behind the door and tries again to push it shut. I take a step forward so that I’m inside her hall. ‘Get out of my house, you crazy bitch,’ she says.

‘There are things I need to tell you. I know what I saw through Robert’s lounge window, why I had the panic attack—’

‘Tell Simon Waterhouse.’

‘I also know why Juliet’s acting the way she is. Why she’s not cooperating, and why she doesn’t care that you think she tried to murder Robert.’

‘Naomi . . .’ Sergeant Zailer lets go of the door. ‘When I go back to work, whenever that is, I’m not going to be working on Robert Haworth’s case. I’m really sorry, and I don’t want you to take this personally, but I don’t want to speak to you anymore. I don’t want to see you or speak to you again. Okay? Now, will you go?’

Dread tugs at my heart. ‘What’s happened? Is it Robert? Is he still alive?’

‘Yes. He’s the same. Please go. Simon Waterhouse’ll—’

‘Simon Waterhouse’ll look at me as if I’m a Martian, like he always does! If you send me away, I won’t tell him or anyone else anything. None of you will ever know the truth.’

Sergeant Zailer pushes me out on to the street and is about to slam the door in my face. ‘Juliet isn’t involved in the rapes,’ I shout from her front yard. ‘If it’s a business, she’s nothing to do with it. She never has been.’

She looks at me. Waits.

‘The theatre—there was a window,’ I say breathlessly, tripping over my words. ‘I could see it, when I was tied to the bed. I saw what was right outside. It was so close, not more than a few metres away. I only remembered because of a nightmare I had last night, that I’d seen something through that window. I mean, I always knew I’d seen the window, but that was all. I wasn’t aware I’d seen anything else, but I must have, it must have been in my subconscious . . .’

‘What did you see?’ Sergeant Zailer asks.

I want to howl with relief. ‘A little house. A bungalow.’ I stop to catch my breath.

‘There are thousands of bungalows,’ she says. ‘The theatre could be anywhere.’

‘Not like this one. It’s very distinctive. But that’s not the point.’ I can’t get the words out fast enough. ‘I’ve seen that little house again since then, since the night I was attacked. I saw it through Robert’s lounge window. One of Juliet’s pottery houses, in the cabinet with the glass doors. It’s the same one, the one I saw through the window while I was being raped. It’s made of bricks that look like stone, if that makes sense. They’re the same colour as stone—they’re probably reconstituted stone. And they’re not smooth. They look as if they’d feel abrasive if you touched them. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t seen it. Royal-blue paintwork, a blue front door with an arched top—’

‘—and three windows above the door, also with arched tops?’

I nod. I don’t bother asking, knowing she wouldn’t answer.

Charlie Zailer pulls her jacket off a peg in the hall and takes her car keys out of her pocket. ‘Let’s go,’ she says.

For a while we drive in silence, no questions and no answers. There is too much to say; where would we start? We are back on the High Street, turn left at the Old Chapel Brasserie, on to Chapel Lane.

I promise I will never come to your house.

This is not where I want to be. It’s not where you are.

‘I want you to take me to see Robert again, in hospital,’ I say.

‘Forget it,’ says Sergeant Zailer.

‘Did you get into trouble for taking me to see him? Is that why you’re upset? Are you in trouble at work?’

She laughs.

Three Chapel Lane still has its back turned to the road. I allow myself to entertain a strange fantasy—that only a few moments ago your house was facing forward, welcoming and open; it swivelled round only when it saw me coming. I know who you are. Leave me alone.

Sergeant Zailer parks badly, the tyres of her Audi scraping the kerb. ‘You need to show me this pottery house,’ she says. ‘We need to know if it’s really there or if you were imagining things. Are you likely to have another panic attack?’

‘No. I was afraid of realising what it was I’d seen—that was what my mind was resisting. I got the panic over with last night. You should have seen my bedsheets—you’d think they’d fallen in a swimming pool.’

‘Come on, then.’

We walk round the side of your house. Everything is the same as it was on Monday—the neglected rubbish dump of a garden, the impressive panoramic view. How often did you stand here, in the dead and dying grass, surrounded by the detritus of your life with Juliet, and wish you could escape to the beauty that was clearly visible but just out of reach?

I lead the way to the window. When Sergeant Zailer joins me, I point to the cabinet against the wall. The model of the bungalow with the blue arched door is there, on the second shelf down. ‘It’s the one next to the candle,’ I say, feeling as shocked as I would have felt if it had been absent. But I suppose it’s easy to mistake a sudden awareness that something significant has happened for surprise.

Charlie Zailer nods. She leans against your back wall, takes a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and lights one. Her cheeks and lips have turned pale. The pottery bungalow means something to her, but I’m not sure what, and am afraid to ask.