Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance

‘What happened after the panic attack?’ asked Charlie. ‘You say you tried to run away . . .’

‘Juliet came after me. She called me by my name. She knew my surname as well. How did she know?’ Naomi looked utterly bewildered for a moment, like a lost child. ‘Robert made sure to keep his two lives absolutely separate.’

Women are such idiots, Charlie thought, including herself in the insult. ‘Perhaps she found out. Wives often do.’

‘She said to me “You’re better off without him. I’ve done you a favour.” Or words to that effect. That’s as good as admitting that she’s done something to him, isn’t it?’

‘Not really,’ said Simon. ‘She could have meant that she’s persuaded him to end his relationship with you.’

Naomi flattened her lips into a line. ‘You didn’t hear her tone. She wanted me to think she’d done something much worse than that. She wanted me to fear the worst.’

‘Maybe she did,’ Charlie reasoned aloud, ‘but that doesn’t mean the worst has happened. She’s bound to be angry with you, isn’t she?’

Naomi looked offended. Or perhaps disgusted. ‘Doesn’t either of you know anybody who always turns up half an hour early for everything because they think the world will end if they’re a second late?’ she demanded. ‘Someone who phones if they’re only going to be five minutes early to apologise for being “almost late”?’

Simon’s mother, thought Charlie. She could tell from the way he hunched over his notes that he was thinking the same thing.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Naomi. ‘Imagine one day you go to meet them and they don’t turn up. And they don’t phone. You’d know, wouldn’t you, as soon as they were five minutes late, even one minute late, that something bad had happened? Well? Wouldn’t you?’

‘Leave it with us,’ said Charlie, standing up. Robert Haworth was probably sleeping on a mate’s floor, moaning over a pint at this very moment about how he couldn’t believe he’d been rumbled, the latest in a long line of men to leave his credit-card bill lying around for his wife to find.

‘Is that it?’ Naomi snapped. ‘Is that all you can say?’

‘Leave it with us,’ Charlie repeated firmly. ‘You’ve been very informative, and we’ll certainly follow it up. As soon as there’s some news, we’ll be in touch. How can we contact you?’

Naomi tutted, fumbling with her handbag. Her hair fell in front of her eyes and she yanked it behind one ear, hissing an obscenity under her breath. Charlie was impressed: most middle-class people tried not to swear in front of the police, and if they slipped up, they quickly said sorry. Ironic, since most cops swore all the time. Detective Inspector Giles Proust was the only one Charlie knew who didn’t.

Naomi threw down a business card on the table, as well as a photograph of herself and a man with dark-brown hair and frameless glasses. The lenses were thin rectangles that barely covered his eyes. He was handsome, in a chunky sort of way, and looked as if he was trying to outstare the camera. ‘There! And if you’re not in touch very soon, I will be. What am I supposed to do, sit and twiddle my thumbs, not knowing if Robert’s dead or alive?’

‘Assume he’s alive until you’ve good reason to think he isn’t,’ said Charlie dryly. God, this woman was a drama queen. She picked up the business card and frowned. ‘“Silver Brae Luxury Chalets? Proprietor: G. Angilley”?’

Naomi winced and drew back slightly, shaking her head.

‘I thought you made sundials.’

‘I gave you the wrong card. Just . . . just . . .’ Naomi rummaged in her bag again, red in the face.

‘Did you go to one of these chalets with Mr Haworth?’ Charlie was curious. Nosey, really.

‘I told you where I went with Robert, to the Traveltel. Here!’ The card she thrust at Charlie this time was the correct one. There was a colour picture on it of a sundial—a tilted half-sphere of greenish stone with gold Roman numerals and a large gold butterfly wing protruding from the middle. There was a Latin phrase too, in gold letters, but only part of it was visible: ‘ Horas non ’.

Charlie was impressed. ‘This one of yours?’ she asked.

‘No. I wanted my business card to advertise my competitors’ merchandise. ’ Naomi glared at her.

Okay, so it had been a daft question. Competitors? How many sundial-makers could there be? ‘What’s “ Horas non ”?’

Naomi sighed, put out by the question. ‘ Horas non numero nisi aestivas . I only count the sunny hours.’ She spoke quickly, as if she wanted to get it over with. Sunny hours made Charlie think of her holiday, and Olivia. She nodded at Simon to wind things up and left the interview room, letting the door bang shut behind her.

In the corridor, she switched on her phone and pressed the redial button. Thankfully, her sister answered after the second ring.

‘Well?’ Olivia said, her mouth full of food. Smoked-salmon and cream-cheese parcels, Charlie guessed. Or a chocolate-filled brioche —something that could be taken out of the packet and eaten without any preparation. Charlie heard no suspense in her sister’s voice as she asked, ‘What new and unsurprising feat of idiocy do you have to report?’

Charlie laughed convincingly, filing away the unflattering implications of Olivia’s question for inspection at some later date, and launched into her confession.

‘Gnomons,’ said Simon. ‘Interesting word.’ He had the home page of Naomi Jenkins’ website up on the screen in front of him. The CID room had an abandoned air: papers scattered over unpopulated desks, broken Styrofoam cups on the floor, quiet apart from the faint hum of computers and striplights. There was no sign of Sellers, or Gibbs, the arsehole. DI Proust’s glass cubicle in the corner was empty.

Charlie read over Simon’s shoulder. ‘“A gnomon is a shadow-caster.” Isn’t that how sundials work? The way the shadow falls tells you what time it is? Oh, look, it says she does miniature ones too. I could get one for my windowsill.’

‘I wouldn’t ask her if I were you,’ said Simon. ‘You’d probably get your teeth kicked in. Look, she does all sorts: wall-mounted, plinth-mounted, vertical, horizontal, brass, stone, fibreglass. Impressive, aren’t they?’

‘I love them. Except that one.’ Charlie pointed to a picture of a plain stone cube with triangular iron gnomons attached to two of its sides. ‘I’d prefer a Latin motto. Does she carve the letters herself, do you think? It says they’re hand-carved . . .’

‘“Time is a shadow,”’ Simon read aloud. ‘Why would anyone commission a sundial with that on it? Imagine: sunbathing, gardening, next to a reminder of your own rapidly approaching death.’

‘Charmingly put,’ said Charlie, wondering if Simon knew she was pissed off with him. Pissed off, upset, whatever. She was trying as hard as she could to hide it. ‘What did you make of Miss Jenkins?’

Simon abandoned the keyboard and turned to face her. ‘She’s overreacting. A bit unstable. She implied she’s had panic attacks before.’

Charlie nodded. ‘Why do you think she was so angry and resentful? I thought we gave her a fair hearing, didn’t you? And why did she say, “I’m not scared of the police”? That was out of the blue, wasn’t it?’ She nodded at the computer screen. ‘Is there a page about her on the website, personal information, anything like that?’

‘If this Haworth guy’s avoiding her, I don’t blame him,’ said Simon. ‘It might be the coward’s way out and all that, but would you fancy trying to end a relationship with her?’

‘He’d promised her marriage as well, so it would have been quite a let-down. Why are men such dicks?’