Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘Stag nights,’ she said loudly, slapping her palms down flat on the desk.

Steph’s body seemed to contract. ‘How did you find out? Who told you that? Was it him?’ She jerked her head in Gibbs’ direction.

‘Is it true?’

‘No.’

‘You just asked how I found out. Nobody says “found out” about something that isn’t true. You’d say, “What makes you think that?” Or are you too dense to understand the difference?’

‘My husband only wanted to fuck you because of your job,’ said Steph, her voice full of venom. ‘He never fancied you. He gets a buzz from taking risks, that’s all. Like letting you use our computer the other night, even though he knew you were a cop. If you’d bothered to look, you’d have found all sorts. I told Graham he was daft letting you, but he can’t help himself. It’s a buzz—that’s what he said.’ Steph sniggered. ‘Do you know what he calls you? The Boob Tube. Because you’re skinny and your tits are too big.’

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about Graham. Or Simon.

‘What’s on the computer that your husband wouldn’t want me to find?’ asked Charlie. ‘I thought you said the women were all actresses, that it was all consensual and above board? If that were true, Graham would have nothing to fear from the police, would he? You’d better face it, Steph. You’re not intelligent enough to be able to lie to me convincingly. You’ve just contradicted yourself twice, in less than a minute. And I’m not the only person who’s considerably sharper than you and who might well want to shaft you. Think about Graham. Don’t you reckon he’d love to pin it all on you? Don’t you think he could string together a story that’s . . . oh, miles better than anything you could come up with? He’s got a first from Oxford. You’re just his dogsbody.’

Steph looked cornered. Her eyes were roaming uncomfortably, landing on objects around the room for no particular reason.

Her eyes. The skin around them wasn’t orange because Steph wore an eye mask when she went on the sunbed, like the masks the rape victims were made to wear. Unlike DS Sam Kombothekra, who claimed never to go to Boots, Steph would know where to buy eye masks in bulk. Did Graham send her on a shopping trip every now and then, to stock up? Charlie knocked the roll of toilet paper and the nail-varnish-remover on to the floor. ‘I’ll ask you once more,’ she said stonily. ‘Is it stag nights, your little business?’

‘Yeah,’ said Steph after a pause. ‘And Graham couldn’t pin it on me. I’m not a man. I can’t rape anybody, can I?’

‘He could say you were the brains behind the operation. He could even say you made him do it. He will say both those things. It’ll be your word against his. I bet you did all the admin, didn’t you, kept all the records, like you do for the chalets?’

‘But . . . it wouldn’t be fair for him to say that,’ Steph protested. Charlie had observed, during her years in the police, that everyone felt entitled to just treatment, even the most ruthless and depraved sociopaths. Like many criminals Charlie had met, Steph was horrified by the idea that she might not be dealt with fairly. It was so much easier to break the rules—ethical and legal—if other people continued to follow them.

‘So whose idea was it—the business? Live rape stag nights. Inspired, by the way. Well done. I imagine your little shows were popular.’

‘It was Graham’s idea, all of it.’

‘Not Robert Haworth’s?’ asked Gibbs.

Steph shook her head. ‘I never liked it,’ she said. ‘I knew it was wrong.’

‘So you knew the women weren’t actresses,’ said Charlie. ‘You knew they were being raped.’

‘No, I thought they were actresses.’

‘Then what was wrong?’

‘It was wrong anyway, even though the women wanted to do it.’

‘Oh, really? Why?’

Steph cast about for something to say. Charlie could almost see the cogs moving inside her head: slow, creaking rotations. ‘Those men who came along . . . they might have watched the shows we . . . the shows Graham put on and . . . got the wrong idea. They might have thought it was okay to do that to women.’

‘Tell me the fucking truth!’ Charlie yelled, grabbing Steph by the hair. ‘You knew, didn’t you, you shitty little bitch? You knew those women were being raped!’

‘ Ow! Let go of me, you’re—All right, I knew!’

Charlie felt the tightness slacken in her hand. She had pulled out a clump of Steph’s hair, leaving beads of blood on her scalp. Gibbs watched impassively; he might have been staring at an uneventful rugby match on a television screen for all the difference it would have made to his expression or manner.

Steph began to snivel. ‘I’m not part of this, I’m a victim too.’ She rubbed the side of her head. ‘I didn’t want to do it, Graham made me. He said he couldn’t risk taking women off the street too often, so I had to act the victim most of the time. Whatever he did to those other women once or twice, he did to me hundreds and thousands of times. Some days I’m so sore I can’t even sit down. You can’t imagine what that feels like, can you? You’ve no idea what it’s like to be me, so don’t—’

‘You described yourself as acting before,’ said Charlie. ‘Graham was your husband. You slept with him anyway. Why not do it in front of an audience and make a bit of cash? A lot of cash, probably.’

‘Graham raped me, just like he raped the others,’ Steph insisted.

‘Earlier, you described your role in the proceedings as “knackering”, ’ said Charlie. ‘Not traumatic, horrific, terrifying, humiliating. Knackering. A funny way to talk about being endlessly raped in front of live audiences, isn’t it? It sounds much more convincing as a description of taking part in live sex shows, willingly, night after night. That, I can imagine, would be knackering.’

‘I didn’t do it willingly. I hated it! I said to Graham, give me a bog to clean any day rather than make me do that. ’

‘Then why didn’t you ring the police? You could have put a stop to the whole thing with one phone call.’

Steph blinked several times at the outlandishness of this idea. ‘I didn’t want Graham to get into trouble.’

‘Really? Most women would be quite keen for a man who’s raped them only once to get into trouble, let alone hundreds of times.’

‘No they wouldn’t, not when it’s their husband!’ Steph wiped her wet face with the backs of her hands.

Charlie had to concede she had a point. Was it possible Steph was a reluctant participant? And Robert Haworth too? Could Graham have forced his brother to abduct and rape Prue Kelvey?

‘Graham’s not a bad person,’ said Steph. ‘He’s just . . . He sees the world in a different way, that’s all. In his own way. Women have rape fantasies all the time, don’t they? That’s what he says. And it’s not like he harms them physically.’

‘You don’t think rape counts as physical harm, you stupid bitch?’ said Gibbs.

‘No, I don’t,’ said Steph indignantly. ‘Not necessarily. It’s just sex, isn’t it? Graham would never beat anyone up or make them need to go to hospital.’ She looked up at Charlie resentfully. ‘Look, Graham had a really terrible childhood. His mum was a slut and a pisshead, and his dad didn’t give a toss. They were the poorest family in their village. But it was the making of Graham, he always says that. People who’ve never had anything bad happen to them, they’re the un lucky ones, not the lucky ones. They never get to learn what they’re made of, what they could do if they were really up against it.’

‘Are you quoting him?’ asked Charlie.