Hurting Distance aka The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  A man I had never seen before was standing beside my car. He was tall, with short, dark-brown hair. He was wearing a light-brown corduroy jacket with what looked like a sheepskin lining, black jeans and Timberland boots. As I approached, he called out, ‘Naomi!’ and waved. His other hand was in his pocket. Even though I didn’t recognise him, I assumed he knew me and was waiting for me. (I now know the man to be Robert Haworth, of 3 Chapel Lane, Spilling, but I did not know this at the time.)

  I walked right up to him. He grabbed my arm and produced a knife from his jacket pocket. I screamed. The knife had a hard, black handle about three inches long and a blade that was about five inches long. He pulled me towards him, so that we were standing chest to chest, and pushed the tip of the knife against my stomach. Throughout all this he kept smiling at me. In a quiet voice, he told me to stop screaming. He said, ‘Shut up or I’ll cut your guts out. I’ll cut your heart out. You know I mean it.’ I stopped screaming. Mr Haworth said, ‘Do exactly what you’re told and you won’t end up with a knife inside you, all right?’ I nodded. He seemed angry that I hadn’t answered him. ‘All right?’ he repeated.

  This time I replied by saying, ‘All right.’

  He put the knife back in his pocket, linked his arm through mine and told me to walk to his car, which was parked approximately two hundred metres further up Thornton Road in the direction of Spilling, outside a shop called Snowy Joe’s, which sells sports equipment. His car was black. I think it was a hatchback. I was too frightened to notice the make, model or registration.

  He unlocked the car as we walked towards it, using a key fob that came from the same pocket as the knife. When we got to the car, he opened the back door and told me to get in. I climbed on to the back seat. He slammed the door, then went round to the other side of the car and got in next to me. He took my handbag, removed my mobile phone from it and threw the bag out of the car window. He threw the phone on to the front passenger seat of the car. There was a shelf in the car, running the full length of the top of the back seats. He reached behind me and pulled something off the shelf. It was an eye mask made of blue padded fabric, with a black elastic strap. He put it on me, covering my eyes, and told me that if I took it off, he would use the knife on me. He said, ‘If you don’t want to bleed to death slowly, you’ll do what I say.’

  I heard the car door slam. From what I heard next, I could tell that he’d got into the driver’s seat. He said, ‘I’m adjusting the rear-view mirror so I can see you all the time. Don’t try anything.’ The car began to move. I don’t know how long we were in the car. It felt like hours, but I was so frightened that I was not able to assess this accurately. I estimate that we were driving for at least two hours and possibly much longer. At first I tried to persuade Mr Haworth to let me go. I offered him money in exchange for releasing me. I asked him how he knew my name, and what he intended to do with me. He laughed at me whenever I asked a question, and didn’t answer. Eventually, he seemed to get irritated and he told me to shut up. I kept quiet after that, because he again threatened me with the knife. He told me he’d locked all the car doors, and that if I tried to escape, I’d regret it. He said, ‘All you have to do is what I tell you and you won’t be hurt.’

  For the whole journey, Radio 5 Live was playing in the car. I did not notice which programmes were on, just the station. After a while, during which there was no verbal exchange between us, Mr Haworth started to tell me things about myself. He knew my home address and that I was a sundial-maker. He asked me questions about sundials and insisted I answer them. He said that if I got one wrong, he’d pull over and get his knife out. It was clear from his questions that he knew a reasonable amount about sundials. He mentioned scaphe dials, and he knew what an analemma was. These are both technical terms that those unfamiliar with sundials might not know. He knew that I was born in Folkestone, that I’d studied typography at Reading University and that I’d started my sundial business using a substantial sum of money I’d made when I sold a typographical font I created in my final year at university to Adobe, the word-processing software company. He asked me, ‘How does it feel to be a successful businesswoman?’ The tone of his questions was mocking. I had the impression that he wanted to taunt me with how much he knew about me. I asked him how he knew all this information. He stopped the car at that point, and I felt something sharp against my nose. I assumed this was the knife. Mr Haworth reminded me that I wasn’t allowed to ask questions and made me apologise. Then he started driving again.

  Some time later the car stopped. Mr Haworth opened my door and pulled me out. He linked his arm through mine again and told me to walk slowly. He steered me in the direction he wanted me to go. Eventually, I could tell from the feel of the ground beneath my feet that we were entering a building. I was led up some steps. Mr Haworth grabbed me and pulled my coat off. He told me to take my shoes off, which I did. It was very cold inside whatever building we were in, colder than outside. He turned me round and told me to sit down. I sat. He told me to lie down. I thought that I was probably on a bed. He tied ropes round my ankles and wrists and pulled my body into an X-shape as he tied each of my limbs to something. Then he took the eye mask off my face.

  I saw that we were in a small theatre. I was tied to a bed on the stage. The bed was made of some kind of dark wood—perhaps mahogany—and had a carved acorn sticking up from each of the four corners of its frame. The mattress that I was lying on had some sort of plastic cover over it. I noticed that there were steps leading down on one side of the stage and assumed these were the steps I’d just walked up. The curtains were open in front of me, so I could see the rest of the theatre. Instead of rows of seats for the audience, there was a large, long dinner table made of what looked like the same dark wood as the bed, and lots of dark wood chairs with white cushion seats. Every place at the table was set with several knives and forks.

  Mr Haworth said, ‘Do you want to warm up before the show?’ He put his hand on my breast and squeezed it. I begged him to let me go. He laughed and took his knife out of his pocket. He began, very slowly, to cut my clothes off. I panicked and again begged him to let me go. He ignored me and continued to cut. I was unsure how long he took to cut my clothes off, but there was a small window that I could see from where I lay, and I noticed it was getting darker outside. I estimate that it took him at least an hour.

  Once I was completely naked, he left me alone for a few minutes. I think he left the theatre. I called for help as loudly as I could. I was freezing cold and my teeth were chattering.

  After a few minutes Mr Haworth returned. ‘You’ll be glad to hear I’ve turned the heating on,’ he said. ‘The audience’ll be here soon. Can’t have them freezing their balls off, can we?’

  I saw that he was holding my mobile phone. He asked me if it was one that could take photographs. I was too scared to lie, so I told him it was. He asked me what he needed to do if he wanted to take a picture. I told him. He took a photograph of me lying on the bed and showed it to me. ‘A souvenir,’ he said. ‘Your first main part.’ He asked me how to send the photo to another mobile phone. I told him. He said he was sending the picture to his own mobile phone. He threatened to send it to all the numbers stored on my phone if I didn’t obey his orders, or if I ever went to the police. Then he sat on the edge of the bed for a while and began to touch my private parts, laughing at me when I cried and recoiled.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but a while later, there was a knock at the door and Mr Haworth left me alone again, disappearing down the steps and then behind me and out of sight. I heard the sound of lots of people’s footsteps. The theatre had a wooden floor, so the noise was loud. I heard Mr Haworth greeting what sounded like lots of other men, but no names were mentioned. Then I saw several men, all wearing the sort of dinner dress that is known as ‘black tie’, approach the table and sit down at it. There were at least ten men present, excluding Mr Haworth. Most of them were Caucasians, but at least two were black. Mr Haworth poured
wine for them and welcomed them. They exchanged a few comments about the weather and the conditions on the roads.

  I screamed and begged the men to help me, but they all laughed at me. They stared at my body and made lewd remarks. One of them said to Mr Haworth, ‘When do we get a closer look?’ and he replied, ‘All in good time.’ Then he disappeared into a room at the back of the theatre, on the opposite side of the room to the stage. He emerged a couple of minutes later holding a tray, and put down a small plate in front of each man at the table. Each plate had smoked salmon and a slice of lemon on it, and a globule of something white with green flecks in it.

  As the men began to eat and drink, Mr Haworth came back on to the stage. He proceeded to rape me, first orally and then vaginally. While this was going on, the men cheered, laughed, clapped and made lewd comments. After he had finished raping me, Mr Haworth began to clear the plates away, taking them back into the small room behind where the men were sitting. He left the door to this room open, and I became aware of a range of sounds typical of a kitchen, noises I associated with cooking and washing up. I realised there were people in the kitchen.

  Mr Haworth came back on to the stage and untied me. He told me to walk down the steps and reminded me that if I disobeyed him in any way, he would ‘gut’ me. I did what he said. He led me to the table, where there was one chair still unoccupied. He pushed me down on to it and began to tie me up again. He pulled my arms behind my back and behind the back of the chair and tied my wrists together. Then he pushed my legs as far apart as they would go and told me to put my ankles together underneath the chair. He then tied my ankles. The other men continued to clap and cheer.

  Mr Haworth then served three more courses to the men, one that was a slab of some sort of meat with some vegetables, a tiramisu and then cheeses. None of the other men apart from Mr Haworth touched me at all, but while they were eating, they mocked and taunted me. From time to time, one of them asked me a question—for example, I was asked what my favourite sexual fantasy was, and my favourite sexual position. Mr Haworth ordered me to answer. ‘And you’d better make it good,’ he said. I said the sorts of things I thought he wanted me to say.

  After the men had finished their last course, Mr Haworth cleared away all the things from the table. He brought a bottle of port and some glasses from the kitchen, then a box of cigars, then some ashtrays and matches. Then he untied me and told me to lie face down on the table. I did so. Some of the men lit cigars. Mr Haworth climbed on top of me and raped me anally.

  When he’d finished, he said, ‘Does anyone want a go?’

  One of the men replied, ‘We’re all too pissed, mate.’

  A few of the men, including Mr Haworth, then tried to encourage a man named Paul to rape me. They said things like, ‘What about you, Paul?’ and, ‘Go on, Paul, you’ve got to do her.’ This made me think that the men all knew each other quite well, that they were an established group of friends and perhaps Paul was the leader, or known as some sort of character within the group. I couldn’t see which of the men was Paul, but I heard him say, ‘No, watching’s enough for me.’

  Mr Haworth told me to stand up. He handed me my coat and my shoes and told me to put them on. Once I was dressed, he put the mask over my eyes again and made me walk outside with him, leaving the men inside the room. He pushed me into the car and slammed the door. Mr Haworth didn’t speak to me at all during this second car journey. I think I must have fainted or blacked out for much of the journey, because I lost all track of time. Some time later, while it was still pitch dark, the car stopped and I was pulled out. I fell down to the ground. Mr Haworth did not give me back my mobile phone. I heard the car drive away and assumed he had gone. After a few seconds I plucked up the courage to pull off the mask and I saw that I was just down the road from my own car, on Thornton Road in Hamblesford. My car keys were in my coat pocket, so I got into my car and drove home.

  I told no one about what happened to me and did not report my abduction and attack to the police. I later encountered Mr Haworth again by chance, on 24 March 2005 at Rawndesley East Services, and was able to identify him by following him to his lorry in the car park, which had his name painted on it.

  Statement taken by: DC 124 Simon Waterhouse, Culver Valley CID

  Station: Spilling

  Time and place statement taken: 1610, 4.4.06 Spilling

  7

  4/5/06

  ‘A ROZZER?’ THE man who was showing Charlie and Olivia around their holiday chalet threw up his hands in alarm. ‘I wouldn’t have told you we had availability if I’d known you were one of the boys in blue. Girls in blue, rather.’ He winked and turned to Olivia. ‘You a rozzer as well?’ He had the sort of polished accent Charlie thought of as ‘public school’.

  ‘No,’ said Olivia. ‘Why does everybody who meets us together always say that?’ she asked Charlie. ‘No one asks you if you’re a journalist. It makes no sense. Is it meant to run in the family, the desire to enforce the law?’ Anyone who knew Olivia would have known how ludicrous it was, the idea of her chasing a teenage thug down the street or breaking down the door of a crack house. ‘Does your brother own a holiday-chalet business?’ she enquired innocently.

  The man wasn’t offended, thank goodness. He laughed. ‘This might come as a surprise, but, yes, my brother and I have been in business together for several years. So, you’re a journalist, are you? Like whatsername? Kate Adie!’

  Charlie wouldn’t have put up with the man’s prying if he had been any less handsome or if she had been any less thrilled with the chalet. She could tell Olivia loved it too. There was a bath big enough for two people, which stood on four gold feet in the centre of a large bathroom with a black slate floor. A straw basket beside the basin overflowed with Molton Brown products and the large, flat, gleaming shower-head in the glass stall in the corner looked capable of unleashing a satisfying downpour.

  Both beds in the chalet were wider than ordinary doubles. The frames were sleigh-shaped, cherry wood, with curved head- and footboards. Their friendly if slightly intrusive host—Mr Angilley, Charlie assumed, the one whose name was on the card—had given them a pillow menu when they’d first arrived. ‘Duck down,’ Olivia had said without a moment’s hesitation. Charlie had thought, I wouldn’t mind sharing my pillows with you, Mr Angilley, but she’d kept the thought to herself. He was the sort of good-looking that was unusual, verging on implausible—as if he’d been designed by a great artist or something. Almost too perfect.

  A huge, flat-screened television was set into the wall in the living area, and although there wasn’t a minibar, there was something called a ‘larder’ by the entrance to the kitchen that was stocked with every conceivable variety of alcohol and snack. ‘Just tell us what you’ve had at the end of the week—we trust you!’ Angilley had said, winking at Charlie. She didn’t normally like to be winked at, but perhaps it wasn’t sensible to be so rigid about things . . .

  The kitchen was tiny, which Charlie knew had pleased her sister. Olivia was opposed to the big, sociable, island- and table-stuffed kitchens that most women loved. She thought cooking was a waste of time and that nobody who didn’t have to do it professionally should do it at all.

  ‘Not at all like Kate Adie,’ she told Angilley. ‘I’m an arts journalist.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ he said. ‘Much better to get stuck at the Tate Modern than in downtown Baghdad.’

  ‘It’s a moot point,’ Olivia muttered.

  Charlie examined Angilley’s big brown eyes, which had laughter lines round them. How old was he? Early forties, she guessed. His centre-parted floppy hair gave him an agreeably unkempt look. Charlie liked the greeny-grey tweed jacket he was wearing, and his scarf. He was stylish, in a country sort of way. And he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  Much more attractive than Simon bloody Waterhouse.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Charlie decided to do a bit of counter-prying.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I’m Graham Angilley, the owner.’
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  ‘Graham?’ She looked at Olivia and grinned. Her sister glared at her. ‘What a coincidence.’ Charlie moved automatically into flirtatious mode. She tilted her head and gave Angilley a mischievous look. ‘My made-up boyfriend’s called Graham.’

  He seemed disproportionately pleased. Pink spots appeared on his cheeks. ‘Made-up? Why would you want to make up a boyfriend? I’d have thought you’d have plenty of real ones.’ He bit his lip and frowned. ‘I don’t mean plenty, I mean . . . well, you must have lots of admirers.’

  Charlie laughed at his embarrassment. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry. I’m usually much more suave and cool than this.’ He put his hands in his pockets and smiled sheepishly. He also knows how to flirt, thought Charlie; she didn’t normally go for the shy, hapless approach.

  Olivia said loudly, ‘Are there any good restaurants nearby?’

  ‘Well . . . Edinburgh’s within reach, if you don’t mind an hour or so’s drive,’ said Graham, ‘and there’s an excellent restaurant right here. Steph cooks for any guests who want top-notch home-cooked meals. All ingredients organic.’

  ‘Who’s Steph?’ Charlie asked as nonchalantly as possible. She felt unaccountably irritated.

  ‘Steph?’ Graham grinned at her, letting her know that he’d understood the implications of her question. ‘She’s all my staff rolled into one: cook, maid, secretary, receptionist—take your pick. My dogsbody. Though I shouldn’t malign our canine friends.’ He laughed. ‘No, to be fair, Steph’s perfectly attractive if you like peasant girls. And I’d be lost without her, she’s a darling. Shall I bring you over some menus later?’ He was looking only at Charlie.

  ‘That’d be great,’ she said, feeling slightly giddy.