Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘If you let me go, I swear on my life I’ll tell the police that you weren’t the man who attacked me. There’s no way you’d be convicted of anything.’

‘Hm.’ He rubs his chin thoughtfully. ‘What about Sergeant Charlie? What have you already said to her? I know women and their big mouths. Intimately, remember?’

My brain is buzzing with the strain of trying to think faster than I can. He can’t have spoken to Steph or else he would know that Charlie knows a lot more about his involvement in the rapes than I could have told her. ‘She trusts you,’ I say. ‘She thinks you’re her boyfriend.’

‘Sweet. But like all great romances, ours can’t last. It’s only a matter of time before Charlie finds out Robert’s real name and works out that I’m his brother. And then she’ll wonder why I haven’t told her. I thought the game was up when you let yourself in, actually. I assumed you were Charlie, and hid behind the lounge door. It was only when you started creeping around and I snuck a peek that I realised it was you. If the Boob Tube had found me in her house when I wasn’t supposed to be there, I dare say we’d have had a big bust-up.’

‘What were you doing? Why were you here when Charlie wasn’t?’

‘I wanted to see if she’d brought any work home with her, anything to do with the attempted murder of my little brother. I want to know who to blame.’

I cannot feel my feet at all anymore, can’t ignore the shooting pains in my legs and back. ‘Look, if I say you weren’t the man who raped me, the police can’t touch you.’

Angilley frowns. ‘Raped? Isn’t that putting it a bit strongly?’

‘Will you untie me? Please?’

‘What about Sandy Freeguard?’

‘She doesn’t know who you are, and I won’t tell her. Untie me.’

‘I might. If you tell me why Juliet tried to kill Robert.’

I hesitate. Eventually, I say, ‘He told her he was leaving her for me.’ I do not need to go into detail about how you told Juliet, the precise words you chose. It must have taken you a long time to explain everything. The abbreviated version’s good enough for your brother. ‘Now you tell me about Prue Kelvey,’ I say.

‘What about her? She was one of my leading ladies, like you.’ He picks up the scissors again and cuts the last two buttons off my shirt. It falls open. ‘You can’t go to the hospital like that, with your boobs hanging out. Most unseemly.’ His voice hardens. ‘How do you know about Prue Kelvey?’ Slowly, he closes the scissors around my bra strap, cutting it on one side.

‘You didn’t have sex with her. Robert did. Why? Did you make him?’

‘“Made” is putting it a bit strongly. I encouraged him. Or rather, I asked my wife to pass on a message of encouragement. Robert and I weren’t speaking, and I wanted to put things right. Prue Kelvey was my peace offering. Robert accepted, and I was thrilled. I thought he’d enjoy it. Sadly, he didn’t, and I ended up regretting my generosity. And things were made worse instead of put right.’ Angilley sighs. ‘Robert’s my kid brother. I wanted him to be part of things, properly involved. He was there at the beginning, on my stag night, when I first had the idea for the business. We went to Wales for the weekend, to Cardiff, just me and Robert. We ended up pissed in a grotty little Indian restaurant, which was a bit of an anticlimax. Until I had the inspired idea of giving the mousy waitress a night to remember. It was just us and her, I was drunk—it seemed the obvious thing to do. I made sure Robert also had his turn with her. And from that acorn of experience grew the great oak of a very successful business. I’ve single-handedly revolutionised stag nights in this country.’

‘Stag nights,’ I repeat vaguely, feeling cold and numb. The word ‘acorn’ rings in my head. I close my eyes and see bedposts with wooden acorns at the top. I feel light-headed, as if I might faint.

‘I knew you’d understand,’ says the man. ‘You’ve got a business head on your shoulders, just like I have, just like my dear mama had. She made a fortune simply by being her slutty self—the woman was quite brilliant. I do admire successful women.’ He begins to cut my trousers, starting with a hole at the knee. ‘Peekaboo,’ he says, grinning at me. ‘Hello, Mr Knee.’

‘You’ve got to untie me,’ I tell him. ‘I feel as if my back’s going to break.’

‘My mum was the one who told me your big secret.’

‘What secret?’

‘Yours plural, not singular. Women. You all have forced-sex fantasies. I enable you to act out those fantasies. I give you what you daren’t admit to wanting. Not that I’m any kind of altruist; I won’t pretend I am. I’m lucky. Not many people enjoy their work like I do. Though it’s been a hard slog too, mainly thanks to Robert. After our Welsh waitress, when it came to setting up on a more professional basis, it was hard to persuade him to pull his weight. I became the male lead, permanently. It’s a bugger persuading my brother to do something if his heart’s not in it. He’s forever getting on his high horse about one thing or another. All he’d agree to do was give our leading ladies a lift home after they’d performed. He drove you home.’ Watching my face, he begins to smile. ‘You didn’t know that, did you? Yes, it was Robert who drove you safely back to your car. Course, you wouldn’t have seen him because you had a mask over your eyes.’

‘You wanted him to play more of a role, so you forced him to rape Prue Kelvey. Did you blackmail him, was that it?’

Angilley smiles, shaking his head. ‘You seem to have me down as some kind of tyrant,’ he says. ‘I’m a mild old soul, me. Robert didn’t enjoy his night with Ms Kelvey, and I regretted facilitating it. Since that night, he and I haven’t exchanged a word.’ He shakes his head. ‘Robert insisted on Prue-dential wearing her eye mask throughout the performance, which was no good for the punters. Some of them complained, including the groom-to-be, and I had to give them some money back. They all like to see the eyes—windows to the soul and all that.’

‘Why did he make her keep the mask on?’ I ask, testing him.

‘Who the fuck knows?’ He cuts a larger hole in the other leg of my trousers, at the knee. ‘That’s usually the answer where Robert’s concerned. Scared of her recognising him, maybe? Robert’s a pessimist. He might have panicked about bumping into her again one day.’

I nod, satisfied that your brother knows nothing. ‘Why choose women with websites? Why not take random women off the street?’

‘Because, my dear nosey Naomi, it’s so much more frightening for the women if they feel they’ve been chosen. Didn’t you wonder why you? And how I knew all those things about you? Sinister; much worse than being plucked off the street, anonymous. No, it’s the personal angle that puts the fear in the eyes, and the fear in the eyes, as my punters constantly tell me, is crucial.’

I smile coldly at him. ‘The personal angle. Sounds good. And you’re right, it does make it worse. I bet you wish you’d thought of it yourself, don’t you?’

Angilley stiffens. ‘Enough talking,’ he says. He crouches down by the side of my chair and begins to cut the leg of my trousers, from the bottom up.

‘Bit low, isn’t it? To plagiarise other people’s ideas and pass them off as your own?’

‘If you say so. Now, we mustn’t forget the long conical object you so kindly brought, and all its possible uses . . . There!’ One leg of my trousers has gone, is in pieces on the floor. Sharp fear silences me. I can’t breathe.

‘Whatever Robert’s told you, he doesn’t love you or care about you.’ Angilley looks pleased with himself. ‘I’m the one he cares about. Why do you think he goes out of his way to meet my leading ladies after the show and make them fall in love with him?’