Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

Sellers, the fat one, is angry. ‘What are you playing at?’ he says. ‘Just buggering off without a word to anyone. What were we supposed to tell Proust?’

Charlie doesn’t respond.

‘Switch your bloody phone on and ring Waterhouse,’ says Sellers. ‘He’s not all right. He’s more worried about you than about lying to the Snowman. I’ve seen men with wives missing in less of a state. If he doesn’t hear from you soon, God knows what he might do.’

A small gasp comes from Charlie, as if his words have shocked or upset her.

‘Where’s Angilley?’ says Gibbs.

Charlie looks at me, then back at her two colleagues. ‘We’d better talk in private. Naomi, wait here. We’ll go outside.’ Halfway to the door, she stops. ‘Unless you’d rather wait outside,’ she says.

I feel three pairs of eyes on me. I don’t want to stay here in this place where I was tortured, especially not on my own, but outside I will be unprotected if Graham Angilley suddenly returns. I might be the first person he sees. But Steph said she thought he was at Charlie’s house . . . ‘Why would Graham Angilley be at your house?’ I ask her.

Suspicion begins to swell inside me when I see Gibbs and Sellers looking as embarrassed as Charlie. They know something. ‘What’s going on?’ I try not to sound as if I’m pleading for information, begging to be allowed in. ‘Are you and Graham . . . Have you been seeing each other? Are you having sex with him?’ As crazy as it sounds, I can’t think of any other explanation.

‘How?’ I yell at her. ‘How could you be? Did you know him before you met me? When I gave you that card—’

‘This’ll have to wait,’ Sellers interrupts. ‘We need a chat, Sarge.’

Charlie rakes her short hair with her fingers. ‘Give us five minutes, Naomi. Please. We’ll talk later, okay.’

None of the detectives moves, and I realise that I am being sent outside. As quickly as I can, I walk to the door, which seems a million miles away. I close it behind me. Trying to eavesdrop proves pointless: the walls are too thick, the building too well made. It’s like a sealed container; nothing escapes.

It’s dark now, but there is a floodlight attached to the wall of one of the chalets. I feel as if I’m right in its beam, attracting the full glare. If Graham Angilley drives up in his car, he will see me immediately. I crouch down, hugging my knees, feeling like a hunted animal.

My breath starts to come in short, sharp bursts. There are too many connections, too many links that are wrong, that shouldn’t be there. You shouldn’t be the brother of the man who raped me. Yvon should not have had his business card, or designed a website for him. Charlie shouldn’t be sleeping with him, but she is, she must be.

Sellers and Gibbs didn’t know she was in Scotland. They didn’t know she brought me with her. Why did she run off without telling anyone? Why did she bring me? As some sort of bait? There was shock on Sellers’ face when he looked at her before. Horror, almost. As if he’d never have thought her capable of whatever it is she’s done.

It could happen again.

Here I am, in the place where I was once raped, with a woman who has blithely lied to me and to her colleagues. What the hell am I doing? I spring to my feet. I need to move, to replace thought with action before my suspicions turn into full-blown terror.

Charlie’s handbag is on the driver’s seat of her car. The door is closed, but not locked. I pull it open and unzip the bag, looking for keys. If I were brave, I’d escape on foot, but I’m not much of a runner and this place is miles from anywhere.

No keys inside the purse, in the zipped compartment, anywhere in the bag. Damn. In desperation, I bend down to look in the ignition, knowing I’m not the sort of person who has that kind of good luck. I blink several times, to check it isn’t a stress-induced hallucination: the keys are there, a whole bunch. Home, work, car. Perhaps one to a neighbour’s house as well. I stare at the dangling bundle of metal, wondering why it doesn’t annoy Charlie to have it hanging there as she drives. If it were me, I’d take the car key off the ring and keep it separately.

I throw the handbag on to the passenger seat, climb into the car and start it. The engine is quiet. I drive over the grass to the edge of the field and bump on to the gravel. Within seconds I am driving along the narrow lane away from Silver Brae Chalets. It’s a good feeling. Better than standing under Graham Angilley’s spotlight, on his property, waiting for him to come and find me.

Which didn’t happen because he’s at Charlie’s house. I’ve got her keys. I could go and find him. He doesn’t know I know where he is, or who he is.

I gasp at the idea that, finally, I have the advantage over him. I don’t want to lose it. I won’t, can’t. I’ve lost enough already. Now would be a good time to try to remember, in detail, all those revenge fantasies that used to play in my head all day every day until I met you. Which one did I like best: stabbing, shooting, poisoning? Tying the man up and doing to him what he did to me?

I need to ditch Charlie’s car as soon as possible, leave it by the side of the road, as soon as I get to a proper road, and hitch a lift. Otherwise it won’t be long before I’m stopped by a police car. Believe me, Robert, nothing is going to stop me this time. With or without Charlie, I am coming to that hospital, and if you tell me again to go away and leave you alone, I won’t care.

Because I understand now. I know why you said it. You thought I’d been talking to Juliet, didn’t you? You assumed it. Or, rather, that she’d been talking to me. Giving me her version of events, ruining everything, telling me all the things you couldn’t bear for me to know. And so you gave up.

I told you I loved you, at the hospital. You must have been able to see that I meant it, how much I meant it, from my eyes and from my voice, yet you still gave up. And expected me to do the same, to walk away. Until I can get to the hospital again, you will be certain that I am never coming back.

How could you think that, Robert? Don’t you know me at all?

27

4/8/06

‘SHE’S TAKEN MY fucking car!’ Charlie yelled into the darkness.

‘You didn’t leave the keys in it, did you?’ said Sellers, running up behind her.

‘Keys, handbag, phone, credit cards. Jesus! Don’t say it, I don’t want to hear it. Don’t either of you tell me I shouldn’t have brought her with me, or left the car unlocked with my bag inside, all right? In fact, can we steer clear of any discussion of what I should and shouldn’t have done? I’m still your sergeant, remember.’ Charlie wanted to ask them how much Proust knew, but was unwilling to show weakness. Extreme situations called for a return to the crude playground tactics that had got her through at school: never show you care.

‘Sellers, get on your mobile. I want my car back.’

‘You’ll be lucky, Sarge. You know what Scottish police are like.’

‘She won’t be in Scotland for long. She’s heading for Culver Valley General Hospital and her beloved psychopath, Robert Haworth. Get some uniforms to meet her in the car park. Gibbs, you and me’ll talk to Mrs Graham Angilley.’ The arrival of Sellers and Gibbs had given Charlie a jolt, and now she felt a bit more like her old self. Enough to do a passable impression, at any rate.

Steph was in the lodge, sitting behind one of the desks, with a roll of pink toilet paper and a bottle of nail-varnish-remover in front of her, rubbing at the nail of her index finger with the tissue. The skin around her neck was red. She made a point of not looking up. Her face—like her arse, if her husband’s word could be relied upon—was sunbed orange, apart from just above and below her eyes, where paler patches of skin remained. She looks like a fucking owl, thought Charlie.