Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘I didn’t know then that Charlie had taken Naomi Jenkins to Scotland with her.’

Proust frowned. ‘Why not?’

‘I . . . I mustn’t have been listening when she told me.’

‘Hmm. Hear that, Waterhouse? The sound of thinly veiled scepticism? You and Sergeant Zailer are like Siamese twins. You always know where she is, who she’s with, what she had for breakfast. Why not this time?’

Simon said nothing. Oddly, he felt better now that the Snowman was berating him; he felt as if he’d handed something over, something he was glad to be shot of.

‘So, let’s get this right: the first you knew about Sergeant Zailer taking Jenkins to Scotland with her was Sellers’ phone call, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And when did you receive this call?’

‘Mid-evening.’

‘Why not tell me then? You could have saved me the trouble of getting into my pyjamas.’

Simon examined his shoes. At that stage, he’d thought he could ride it out. He’d grown more edgy as the night went on, when Charlie failed to contact him. He’d been expecting her to ring ever since Sellers had, to tell Simon what she wanted him to do. She hadn’t, though, and it had suddenly struck him as entirely possible that she never would. In which case, Simon needed to tell Proust enough of the truth to cover himself.

The inspector’s eyes narrowed, ready to scrutinise each new lie as it emerged. ‘If the sergeant went to this chalet place to arrest the owner and his wife, why didn’t she take you with her, and some uniforms? Why take Naomi Jenkins, who is at best a witness and at worst a suspect?’

‘Maybe she wanted Jenkins to identify Angilley as the man who assaulted her.’

‘Well, that’s not the way to do it!’ said Proust angrily. ‘That’s the way to get your car stolen, and your bag. As has become apparent. Why would Sergeant Zailer be so stupid? She put herself and Jenkins at risk, all our hard work—’

‘I’ve just had a call from the police in Scotland,’ Simon interrupted him.

‘I find that harder to believe than anything I’ve heard so far. That lot are useless.’

‘They’ve found Charlie’s car.’

‘Where?’

‘Not far from Silver Brae Chalets. About four miles down the road. The handbag was gone, though.’

Proust sighed heavily, rubbing his chin. ‘There are so many dubious aspects to this, I hardly know where to begin, Watérhouse. Why would Naomi Jenkins, having gone to Scotland to identify her rapist, suddenly take it into her head to steal a car and run away—start behaving like a criminal, effectively?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ Simon lied. He couldn’t tell the inspector what Sellers had told him: that Naomi didn’t trust Charlie anymore, that she knew about Charlie’s involvement with Graham Angilley because of something Steph had said.

‘Speak to Sergeant Zailer,’ said Proust impatiently. ‘Something must have happened, mustn’t it? At the chalets. Sergeant Zailer must know what it is, and so should you, by now. When did you last speak to her?’

‘Not since before she left,’ Simon admitted.

‘What aren’t you telling me, Waterhouse?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘If Sergeant Zailer went to Silver Brae Chalets to arrest the Angilleys, why did Sellers and Gibbs also go there, separately? Does it take three of them? One detective with uniform back-up would have been adequate.’

‘I’m not sure, sir.’

Proust walked a small circle round Simon. ‘Waterhouse, you know me pretty well by now. Wouldn’t you say? You must know that if there’s one thing I hate more than being lied to, it’s being lied to in the middle of the night.’

Silence was the best Simon could do. He wondered if, on one level, he wanted Proust to break him down, force the full story out of him. Charlie and Graham Angilley. Could the Snowman say anything that would make him feel better about that?

‘Maybe I ought to ask Naomi Jenkins. She’s unlikely to be less helpful than you. What’s being done about finding her?’

At last, a question Simon could answer truthfully. ‘Some uniforms are at the hospital. Sellers said Charlie’s certain that’s where Jenkins’ll go, to see Robert Haworth.’

‘So you and the sergeant are communicating via Sellers. Interesting. ’ The inspector walked another slow circle round Simon. ‘Why does Jenkins want to see Robert Haworth? She knows he raped Prudence Kelvey, doesn’t she? Sergeant Zailer told her?’

‘Yes. I don’t know why she wants to see him, but apparently she does. A lot.’

‘Waterhouse, it’s two in the perishing morning!’ Proust tapped his watch. ‘She’d be there by now, if that was where she was going. Sergeant Zailer must be wrong. Have we got anyone outside Jenkins’ house?’

Shit. ‘No, sir.’

‘Of course we haven’t. Silly of me.’ The voice had thinned; the words were projected at Simon like lead pellets. ‘Get someone there as soon as possible. If she’s not there, try Yvon Cotchin’s ex-husband’s house. Then Jenkins’ parents’. I’m astonished to hear myself saying all this, Waterhouse.’ As if afraid he’d been too subtle in his disapproval, Proust yelled, ‘What’s the matter with you? You shouldn’t need a sleep-befuddled old man like me to tell you the basics!’

‘I’ve been busy, sir.’ Everyone else is in fucking Scotland. Sir. ‘Charlie said Jenkins’d go straight to the hospital. Since she was the last of us to speak to her, I assumed she knew what she was talking about.’

‘Find Jenkins and find her quickly! I want to know why she absconded. I was never happy with her alibi for the period during which Robert Haworth must have been attacked. Her best friend’s word is all we’ve got, and that same friend designed Graham Angilley’s website!’

‘You never said you had a problem with the alibi, sir,’ Simon muttered.

‘I’m saying so now, aren’t I? I’ve got a problem with this whole confounded mess, Waterhouse! Circles within circles, that’s what it is. We’re chasing our tails! Look at that big, black blob.’ He pointed at the whiteboard on the wall of the CID room, on which Charlie had written, in black marker pen, the names of everybody involved in the case, with arrows between them wherever there was a connection. Proust was right; there were more connections than one might expect. Charlie’s diagram now resembled a morbidly obese spider—a huge black mass of lines, arrows, circles, loops. The shape of chaos. ‘Have you ever seen anything so unsatisfactory?’ Proust demanded. ‘Because I haven’t!’

Speaking of unsatisfactory, thought Simon. ‘Juliet Haworth’s stopped talking, sir.’

‘Did she ever start?’

‘No, I mean stopped altogether. I’ve tried twice, and both times she was completely silent. I knew it’d happen. The closer she thinks we are to the truth, the less she’s going to say. There’s enough evidence to convict her, but . . .’

‘But it’s not good enough,’ Proust finished Simon’s sentence. ‘Much as I’d like a conviction here to satisfy the higher-ups, I want to know what went on. I want to see a clear picture, Waterhouse.’

‘Me too, sir. It’s getting clearer. We know Angilley selected his victims from websites, at least two from sites designed by Yvon Cotchin.’

‘What about Tanya, the waitress from Cardiff who killed herself, the one who couldn’t spell? Did she have a website?’

‘She’s the exception,’ Simon conceded. ‘We can explain the audiences at the rapes—Angilley was selling hard-core stag nights. I’ve found references to his operation in Internet chatrooms already. That’s what I’ve been doing . . .’

‘Instead of talking to your sergeant, or trying to find Naomi Jenkins,’ Proust said pointedly. ‘Or telling me the truth about what’s really going on in your peculiar mind and your even more peculiar life, Waterhouse. If you’ll pardon my bluntness.’