Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

Simon froze. This was among the more hurtful things he’d had said to him over the years. Charlie would have said, ‘Peculiar, as far as the Snowman’s concerned, is any man who doesn’t have a bread-baking, sock-darning wifie at home.’ Simon could hear her voice clearly in his mind, but it wasn’t the same as having her with him.

His life was peculiar. He didn’t have a girlfriend, had no real friends apart from Charlie.

‘Sellers has picked up a stack of evidence from Silver Brae Chalets,’ he went on. ‘Angilley had it all neatly filed, as if it were completely legitimate: contact numbers for dozens of men, and a list of twenty-three women’s names—past victims and future ones, by the look of it. Some names with dates and ticks beside them, some without. Sellers has Googled all the women—they’ve all either got their own websites or a page on a company one. They’re all professional—’

The telephone in front of Simon began to ring. He picked it up. ‘DC Waterhouse, CID,’ he said automatically. It wasn’t going to be Charlie: she’d have rung his mobile.

‘Simon? Thank fucking God!’

His heart soared. It wasn’t Charlie. But it sounded a bit like her. ‘Olivia?’

‘I lost your mobile number and I’ve spent the past hour being pissed around, first by an electronic imbecile and then by a human one. Never mind. Look, I’m worried about Charlie. Can you send a police car round to her house?’

Simon’s nerves buzzed as he said to Proust, ‘Get some uniforms to blue-light it round to Charlie’s place.’ He’d never given the Snowman an order before.

Proust picked up a phone on the adjacent desk.

‘What’s happened?’ Simon asked Olivia.

‘Charlie left a message for me today—well, yesterday, I suppose, except I haven’t been to sleep yet. She told me to go round to her house. She said the key’d be in its usual place, and to let myself in if she wasn’t back yet.’

‘And?’ Simon knew about the key Charlie left underneath her wheelie-bin. She’d left it there for him on the odd occasion. He’d remonstrated with her; what was the point of being a detective if you left your key in the first place any burglar would look? ‘I haven’t got the mental energy to think of a better hiding place,’ she’d said wearily.

‘I got there at about eight,’ said Olivia. ‘Charlie wasn’t there, and neither was the key. I stuck a note through the letter box, telling her to ring me. I went to the pub, had something to eat and a couple of drinks, read my book, didn’t hear anything. Eventually I got really worried and went back to the house. She still wasn’t back. I sat in my car and waited for her, basically. Normally I’d have sacked it and gone home, but the message she’d left me . . . she sounded really upset. She as good as told me something bad had happened.’

‘And?’ Simon tried hard to keep his voice steady. Get to the fucking point.

‘I fell asleep in my car. When I woke up, a light was on in Charlie’s lounge and the curtains were closed. Before, they’d been open. I assumed she was back, so I went and rang the bell, ready to have a go at her for not phoning me as soon as she got in and saw my note. But no one answered the door. I know someone was in there, I saw movements in the hall. In fact, I’m sure it was two people. One of them must have been Charlie, but then why didn’t she let me in? You’ll probably think I’m being neurotic, but I know something’s not right.’

‘Charlie’s in Scotland,’ Simon told her. And Graham Angilley isn’t. ‘She can’t be in her house.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. It was a last-minute thing.’

‘Has she gone back to Silver Brae Chalets?’ asked Olivia, sounding more like the journalist that she was. ‘You rang and asked me all those questions about Graham Angilley . . . Why the fuck didn’t Charlie tell me, if she was going to see him again, instead of letting me turn up at her house like an idiot?’ There was a pause. ‘Do you know what she’s so upset about?’

‘I’ve got to go, Olivia.’ Simon wanted to get off the phone, wanted to get round to Charlie’s house himself. Proust already had his coat on.

‘Simon? Don’t put the phone down! If it’s not Charlie in the house, then who is it?’

‘Olivia—’

‘I could drive back there, smash a window and find out for myself! I’m only five minutes away.’

‘Don’t do that. Olivia, do you hear me? I can’t explain now, but I think there’s a dangerous, violent man in Charlie’s house. Keep well away. Promise me.’ His failure to protect Charlie made him all the more determined to protect her sister. ‘Promise me, Olivia.’

She sighed. ‘All right, then. But ring me as soon as you can. I want to know what’s going on.’

So did Proust. He raised an eyebrow as Simon put the phone down. ‘A dangerous, violent man?’

Simon nodded, feeling his skin heat up. ‘Graham Angilley.’ He was already heading for the door, patting his jacket in search of his car keys. Proust followed; Simon was surprised to discover that the inspector—normally so slow and deliberate—could run faster than he could.

Both men were thinking the same thing: Naomi Jenkins had Charlie’s handbag, had the keys to her house. If Olivia was right about having seen two people, Naomi could be inside the house with Angilley. They had to get there, fast.

The Snowman waited until they were in the car, driving at double the speed limit, before saying, ‘It’s just a small thing, a tiny detail, but why is Graham Angilley in Sergeant Zailer’s house? How does he know where she lives?’

Simon kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t answer.

When Proust next spoke, his tone was quietly courteous, his lips thin and white. ‘I wonder how many people are going to be getting their marching orders, once all this is over,’ he mused.

Simon clung to the steering wheel as if it were all he had in the world.

30

Sunday, April 9

GRAHAM ANGILLEY STANDS over me, holding the scissors I brought with me from home. He cuts at the air in front of my face. The blades make a metallic slicing sound. In his other hand, he holds my dummy mallet.

‘How considerate of you to come well equipped,’ he says.

There is only one thought running through my head: he cannot win. That can’t be how the story ends, with me being stupid enough to come here, knowing there was a good chance he’d be here, carrying with me everything he needs to humiliate and defeat me. I try not to think about my own recklessness. I must have been crazy to think I could overpower him. But I can’t dwell on that. Three years ago I allowed myself to feel powerless in his presence and that’s what I was: utterly helpless. This time I must do everything differently.

Starting with showing no fear. I will not cower or beg. I haven’t so far, not when he held the scissors to my throat and not while he tied me to one of the two straight-backed wooden chairs in Charlie’s kitchen. I was silent, and tried to keep my face blank, free of expression.

‘It’s just like old times, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Except you’ve got your clothes on. For the moment.’

My hands are bound together behind the chair, and each of my feet is tied to one of the back legs. The strain on my thigh muscles is becoming worse than uncomfortable. Angilley closes the scissors and puts them down on the kitchen table. He rolls the dummy mallet in both hands.

‘Well, well,’ he says. ‘What have we here? A long conical object with a blunt, round end. I give up. Is it some sort of sex toy? A big bronze dildo?’

‘Why don’t you sit on it and find out?’ I say, hoping he’ll think I’m not scared.