Sophie Hannah: Hurting Distance

‘Did Mrs Haworth know you and her husband were having an affair?’ Charlie interrupted.

‘I didn’t think so. He’s desperate to leave her, but until he does, he doesn’t want her to know anything about me. It’d make life too difficult . . .’ Creases appeared on Naomi’s forehead and her expression darkened. ‘But later, when I was trying to get away and she ran after me . . . But that was afterwards. You asked me what happened. It’s easier for me to tell it as it happened, in the right order, or else it’ll make no sense.’

‘Go ahead, Miss Jenkins,’ said Charlie gently, wondering if this ticking-off was a prelude to uncontrollable hysteria. She’d seen it happen before.

‘I’d rather you called me Naomi. “Miss” and “Ms” are both ridiculous in different ways. I was in the garden, heading for the front door. I . . . passed the lounge window, and I couldn’t resist looking in.’ She swallowed hard. Charlie waited. ‘I could see the room was empty, but I wanted to look at all Robert’s things.’ Her voice tailed off.

Charlie noticed Simon’s shoulders stiffen. Naomi Jenkins had just alientated half her audience.

‘Not in a sinister, stalker-ish way,’ she said indignantly. Apparently the woman was a mind-reader. ‘It’s well known that if the person you love has a completely other life that doesn’t involve you, you desperately miss those everyday details that couples who live together share. You start to crave them. I just . . . I’d imagined what his lounge might look like so often, and then there it was in front of me.’

Charlie wondered how many more times the word ‘desperately’ was going to make an appearance.

‘Look, I’m not scared of the police,’ said Naomi.

‘Why would you be?’ asked Simon.

She shook her head, as if he’d badly missed the point. ‘Once you start looking into it, you’ll find that Robert is missing. Or something else is very seriously wrong. I don’t want you to take my word for it, Sergeant Waterhouse. I want you to look into it and find out for yourself.’

‘DC Waterhouse,’ Charlie corrected her. ‘Detective Constable.’ She wondered how she’d feel if Simon were to take and pass his sergeant’s exams, if she were no longer higher than him in rank. It would happen eventually. It shouldn’t bother her, she decided. ‘Does Mr Haworth have a car? Might he have taken that to Kent?’

‘He’s a lorry driver. He needs his lorry for work, and he works every minute that he can when he’s not with me. He has to, because Juliet doesn’t earn anything—it’s all down to him.’

‘But does he also own a car?’

‘I don’t know.’ Naomi blushed. ‘I’ve never asked.’ Defensively, she added, ‘We hardly have any time together, and we don’t waste what little we have on trivialities.’

‘So, you were looking through Mr Haworth’s lounge window—’ Charlie began.

‘The Traveltel has a cancellation policy,’ Naomi talked over her. ‘If you cancel before noon on the day you’re due to arrive, they don’t charge you. I asked the receptionist and Robert hadn’t cancelled, which he definitely would have if he’d been planning to stand me up. He would never waste money like that.’ There was something hectoring—punitive, almost—about the way she spoke. You try to be tolerant and patient and look what happens, thought Charlie. She guessed Naomi Jenkins would remain in this mode for the rest of the interview.

‘But Mr Haworth didn’t turn up last Thursday,’ Simon pointed out, ‘so presumably you paid.’ Charlie had been about to make exactly the same objection. Once again Simon had echoed her thoughts in a way that no one else ever did.

Naomi’s face crumpled. ‘Yes,’ she admitted eventually. ‘I paid. It’s the only time I have. Robert’s quite romantic and old-fashioned in some ways. I’m sure I earn a lot more than him, but I’ve always pretended I earn hardly anything.’

‘Can’t he tell from your clothes, your house?’ asked Charlie, who had known as soon as she’d walked into the interview room that she was looking at a woman who spent considerably more on clothes than she did.

‘Robert’s not interested in clothes, and he’s never seen my house.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know!’ Naomi looked tearful. ‘It’s quite big. I didn’t want him to think . . . but mainly because of Yvon.’

‘Your lodger.’

‘She’s my best friend, and she’s lived with me for the past eighteen months. I knew she and Robert wouldn’t like each other from the second I met him, and I didn’t want to have to deal with them not getting on.’

Interesting, thought Charlie. You meet the man of your dreams and instantly know that your best friend would hate him.

‘Look, if Robert had decided to end our relationship, he would have turned up as planned and told me face to face,’ Naomi insisted. ‘We talk about getting married every time we meet. At the very least he’d have phoned. He’s the most reliable person I’ve ever known. It comes from a need to be in control. He’d have known that if he suddenly vanished, I’d look for him, that I’d go to his house. And then his two worlds would crash into one another, as they did this afternoon. There’s nothing Robert would hate more. He’d do anything to make sure his wife and his . . . girlfriend never met, never talked. With him not there, we might start comparing notes. Robert would rather die than allow that to happen.’

A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘He made me promise never to go to his house,’ she whispered. ‘He didn’t want me to see Juliet. He made her sound as if . . . as if there was something wrong with her, like she was mad or sick in some way, like an invalid. And then when I saw her, she seemed so confident—superior, even. She was wearing a black suit.’

‘Naomi, what happened at Mr Haworth’s house this afternoon?’ Charlie glanced at her watch. Olivia was sure to be back by now.

‘I think I saw something.’ Naomi sighed and rubbed her forehead. ‘I had a panic attack, the worst I’ve ever had. I lost my footing and fell down on the grass. I felt as if I was suffocating. I got up as soon as I could and tried to run away. Look, I’m sure I saw something, okay?’

‘Through the window?’ asked Simon.

‘Yes. I’m starting to feel clammy now just talking about it, even though Robert’s house is miles away.’

Charlie frowned, leaning forward in her chair. Had she missed something? ‘ What did you see?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know! All I know is, I panicked and had to escape. My whole reason for being there was . . . obliterated suddenly, and I had to get away as quickly as possible. I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near the house. I must have seen something. I was fine until that moment.’

It was all far too hazy for Charlie’s liking. People either saw things or they didn’t. ‘Did you see anything that led you to believe harm had come to Robert?’ she asked. ‘Any blood, anything broken, any evidence of a fight or struggle having taken place?’

‘I don’t know .’ Naomi’s voice was petulant. ‘I can tell you all the things I remember seeing: a red rug, a wood-laminate floor, loads of not very tasteful pottery houses in all shapes and sizes, a candle, a tape measure, a cabinet with glass doors, a television, a sofa, a chair—’

‘Naomi!’ Charlie interrupted the woman’s agitated chanting. ‘Do you think you might be assuming—mistakenly—that this sudden reaction must have been an immediate one to some mysterious, unidentified stimulus, something you saw through the window? Couldn’t it have been an eruption of stress that had been mounting for a while?’

‘No. I don’t think so,’ she said flatly. ‘Go to Robert’s house. You’ll find something. I know you will. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologise for wasting your time. But I’m not wrong.’