Hurting Distance aka The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Do you want to stop, Naomi?’ Sergeant Zailer asks me. ‘You can stop whenever you like.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I say. This ice-cool woman, I remind myself, is the same Juliet who is too shy to answer the telephone, too spineless to learn how to use a computer, too frail to work, who made you stop doing overnight jobs because she couldn’t bear to be in the house alone.

  Remembering all the things you’ve said about her gives me my next line. ‘You’ve changed. You used to be timid and neurotic, scared of your own shadow, reliant on Robert for everything.’

  ‘True.’ She smiles. It’s a game to her, one she’s enjoying.

  ‘You don’t seem like that now,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve been—what’s the word? Empowered.’ She sniggers and looks at Sergeant Zailer, as if hoping to have impressed her.

  ‘By what? By smashing Robert’s head in with a brick?’ I say.

  ‘It was a stone acting as a doorstop that caused Robert’s injuries. Haven’t these nice officers told you the basic facts? My bloody fingerprints are all over it. But I could have picked it up after the attack, couldn’t I? The distraught wife, on discovering her dying husband.’

  ‘Someone who’s been a frail wimp all her life doesn’t suddenly turn into the cool, calculating, confident liar that you are now,’ I say. ‘Even if she does lose it and attack her husband for having an affair.’

  Juliet looks bored and disappointed. ‘I’ve known about Robert’s affair with you since before Christmas,’ she says. ‘As you say, I was completely reliant on him. So I kept my mouth shut and put up with it. Pathetic or what?’

  ‘So why did you attack Robert last week? Did he tell you he was leaving you for me? Was that what made you want to kill him?’

  She examines her fingernails in silence. ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘Someone who’s been a feeble wimp all her life is unlikely to change her entire personality, even after a significant event takes place.’

  ‘So what are you saying? That you haven’t always been a wimp?’

  ‘Ah.’ Juliet closes her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t say you’re getting warm, exactly, but you’ve stepped out of the Arctic region.’

  ‘You faked your weakness,’ I guess aloud. ‘You’re one of those women I hate, who are easily capable of looking after themselves but go all helpless the minute a man turns up. You made Robert believe you were needy and helpless because you knew he’d leave you otherwise!’

  ‘Oh dear. I’m afraid you’re back in the snow with Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott. You may be gone for some time.’ Juliet looks at DC Waterhouse. ‘Did I get the quote right?’

  ‘Was it that you didn’t fancy working?’ I stick to my guns, feeling as if I might finally be getting somewhere. ‘Was it easier to stay at home and exploit Robert?’

  ‘I used to love working, before I stopped,’ Juliet says. Her face twists slightly.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I was a potter. I made pottery cottages.’

  Zailer and Waterhouse both write this down.

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ I say. ‘They’re all over your lounge. They’re fucking hideous.’ There is a loud roaring in my ears as I try hard not to picture Juliet’s living room. Your living room.

  ‘You wouldn’t think that if I made one of your house,’ Juliet says. ‘That’s what people did: commissioned me to make models of their homes. I used to love it—getting all the details right. I can do you one, if you like. I’m sure they’ll let me work in prison. You will, won’t you, Sergeant Zailer? I fancy starting again, actually. Tell you what: if all three of you bring me photographs of your houses, from all angles, in front, behind and the side-on view, I’ll sort you all out.’

  ‘Why did you give up work if you liked it so much?’ I ask.

  ‘Welcome home, Mr Shackleton.’ She grins. ‘You’ve lost a few toes to frostbite, but at least you’re not dead. Pull up a chair by the fire, why don’t you?’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  She hoots with laughter at my anger. ‘This is such fun. It’s like being invisible. You can cause mayhem and there’s nothing anyone can do.’

  ‘Except leave you to rot in jail,’ I point out.

  ‘I’ll be fine in jail, thank you very much.’ She turns to Sergeant Zailer. ‘Can I work in the prison library? Can I be the person who gets to push the trolley of books round the cell blocks? In the films, that position always has a certain amount of prestige attached to it.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask her. ‘If you really don’t care about being locked up for the rest of your life, why not tell the police what they want to know: if you tried to kill Robert and why?’

  Juliet raises her over-plucked eyebrows. ‘Well, there’s one I can answer easily: because of you. That’s why I’m not revealing all like a good egg. You have no idea how much your existence, your place in Robert’s life, changes everything.’

  16

  4/7/06

  ‘I FEEL TERRIBLE,’ said Yvon Cotchin. ‘If I’d known Naomi was in prison, I’d have been there like a shot. Why didn’t she ring me?’ She sat with her knees pulled up to her chin, on a faded blue sofa in the middle of her ex-husband’s messy living room in Cambridge’s Great Shelford. Half-empty mugs, balled-up socks, remote controls, old newspapers and unopened junk mail littered the floor.

  The house reeked of marijuana; the windowsill was covered with pieces of burned silver foil and empty plastic bottles with holes in their sides. Cotchin, who smelled of shampoo and a rich, sweet perfume, looked out of place in her tight red jumper and smart black trousers, clutching an unopened packet of Consulate cigarettes in one hand and a yellow plastic lighter in the other. More than out of place: marooned.

  ‘Naomi wasn’t in prison,’ said Chris Gibbs. ‘She came in to answer some questions.’

  ‘And now she’s bailed, she’s back at home,’ said Charlie, who had accompanied Gibbs to make sure he did a thorough job of questioning Naomi Jenkins’ ex-lodger. He’d made it clear he didn’t think they’d get anything useful from Yvon Cotchin, and Charlie didn’t want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  ‘Bailed? That sounds awful. Naomi hasn’t done anything that bad, has she?’

  ‘Has she done anything at all?’

  Cotchin looked away. She fiddled with the cellophane on her cigarette packet.

  ‘Yvon?’ Charlie prompted. Open the packet and light a fag, for fuck’s sake. She hated people who faffed around endlessly.

  ‘I told Naomi I was going to tell you. It’s not as if I ever said I’d go along with it, so I’m not betraying her by telling you.’

  ‘Go along with what?’ asked Gibbs.

  ‘It’s better if you know the truth before Robert . . . He’s bound to be all right, isn’t he? I mean, if he’s survived this long . . .’

  ‘You told us you’d never met Robert Haworth,’ Charlie reminded her.

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘What did you tell Naomi Jenkins you wouldn’t go along with?’ Gibbs persisted.

  ‘She lied. She pretended Robert had raped her. I couldn’t believe she’d do something like that, but . . . she reckoned it was the only way to make you care about finding him.’

  ‘Are you sure he didn’t rape her?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Very sure. Naomi worships the ground that man walks on.’

  ‘It has been known for a woman to fall in love with her rapist.’

  ‘Not Naomi.’

  ‘How can you be certain?’

  Cotchin considered the question. ‘The way Naomi looks at the world. It’s all black and white, all about justice. You’d have to know her to understand. She starts talking about revenge if someone nicks her parking space.’ She sighed. ‘Look, I’ve never been a huge fan of Robert Haworth. I’ve not met him, but from what Naomi’s told me . . . But I know he didn’t rape her. Hasn’t she admitted to the lie, now that Robert’s been found? She said she would.’

  ‘It’s a bit
more complicated than that.’ Charlie opened the file she was holding. On the sofa beside Yvon Cotchin, she laid out copies of the three survivor stories: the one from the SRISA website—Tanya’s, the waitress from Cardiff—and numbers thirty-one and seventy-two from the Speak Out and Survive site. She pointed to number seventy-two, the one by ‘N.J.’. ‘As you can see, this has got Naomi’s initials at the bottom and it’s dated the eighteenth of May 2003. When Naomi came in to tell her lie about Robert Haworth, she directed one of my detectives to the Speak Out and Survive website and told him how to find her contribution.’

  ‘But . . . I don’t understand.’ Cotchin’s face had lost all its colour. ‘Naomi hadn’t even met Robert in 2003.’

  ‘Read the other two,’ said Gibbs.

  She didn’t have the confidence, or a good enough reason, to refuse. Wrapping one arm around her knees, she began to read, narrowing her eyes, as if to block out some of the words, or lessen their impact. ‘What are these? What have they got to do with Naomi?’

  ‘The statement Naomi Jenkins signed on Tuesday—Robert Haworth’s fictional attack on her—shares many details with these two accounts,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘How is that possible?’ Cotchin sounded panicky. ‘I’m too stupid to understand this on my own. You’ll have to tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘There are also two cases in West Yorkshire that fit the same pattern, ’ Charlie told her. ‘You’re not the only one who wants to know what’s going on, Yvon. We need to find out if Robert Haworth raped Naomi Jenkins and these other women, or if someone else did. We’re hoping you can help us.’

  Cotchin was squeezing her cigarette packet hard in the middle, crushing its contents. ‘Naomi can’t have been raped. She’d have told me. I’m her best friend.’

  ‘Did you live with her then? Spring 2003?’

  ‘No, but I’d still have known. Naomi and I have been best friends since school. We tell each other everything. And . . . she seemed fine in spring 2003, totally normal. Her usual strong self.’

  ‘You can remember that far back?’ said Charlie. ‘I can’t remember what sort of mood my friends were in three years ago.’

  Cotchin looked wary. ‘Ben and I were going through a bad patch,’ she said eventually. ‘The first of many. It was pretty serious. I was spending the night at Naomi’s twice a week, if not more. She was fantastic. She cooked for me, emailed my clients and smoothed things over—I was too upset to work. She made me have showers and brush my teeth when all I wanted to do was neglect myself out of existence. Has either of you ever been through a marriage break-up?’

  Charlie couldn’t interpret the noise Gibbs made. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Then you can’t imagine how painful and destructive it is.’

  ‘I find it a little unusual that you came here, after your fight with Naomi,’ said Charlie. ‘Most women don’t run to their ex-husbands in times of trouble.’

  Cotchin looked embarrassed. ‘My parents are too preoccupied with their work. They don’t like people staying. And my siblings and all my friends apart from Naomi have got partners or kids. I was upset, all right?’

  ‘There are hotels, B&Bs. Is a reconciliation with Ben on the cards?’ Charlie prodded. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘That’s none of your business. We’re not back together, if that’s what you mean. I’m sleeping in the spare room.’

  ‘Why did the two of you split up?’ Might as well ask, thought Charlie even though it’s probably irrelevant. Unless . . . A hypothesis began to take shape at the back of her mind. An unlikely one, but it was worth a try.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you that!’ Cotchin protested. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Answer the question.’ Gibbs’ voice was full of unpleasant consequences.

  ‘Ben drank too much, okay? And he refused to get a job.’

  ‘This is a big place.’ Charlie looked around. ‘And that’s an expensive telly and DVD player. How does Ben afford it all if he doesn’t work?’

  ‘It’s all inherited.’ Cotchin sounded bitter. ‘Ben’s never done a day’s hard work in his life and he’ll never have to.’

  ‘You mentioned the first bad patch . . .’

  ‘In January 2003 he slept with someone else while I was away visiting my brother and his family. When I got back, the woman had gone, but I found Ben fast asleep—or unconscious, more like—in bed with the used condom and one of her earrings. He’d been so drunk, he’d passed out and hadn’t woken up in time to cover his tracks before I got home.’

  She hasn’t forgiven him, thought Charlie. If she had, she’d have said, ‘He was unfaithful to me, but it was only a one-night stand. It meant nothing.’

  Gibbs looked down at his notes. ‘So you and Naomi Jenkins were together in her house on the night of Wednesday 29 March and all day on Thursday 30 March until she left to go and meet Haworth at the Traveltel?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Yvon Cotchin looked relieved. She preferred to talk about the attempted murder of Robert Haworth than her love life.

  ‘Could Naomi have left the house during Wednesday night or Thursday without you noticing?’

  ‘I suppose she could have, in the middle of the night while I was asleep. But she didn’t. She was asleep too. On Thursday, no. My office and bedroom are in the converted cellar of Naomi’s house. Were,’ Cotchin corrected herself. ‘You’ve seen for yourself,’ she said to Gibbs. ‘My desk faces the window, with a clear view of the drive. If Naomi had left the house any time on Thursday, I’d have seen her.’

  ‘You didn’t leave your desk at all? To grab a sandwich or use the bathroom?’

  ‘Well . . . yes, of course, but . . .’

  ‘Can you see the drive from the basement window?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cotchin, with a trace of impatience in her voice. ‘Ask him, he’s been to the house.’ She nodded at Gibbs. ‘If you look up, you can see the drive, and the road. I’d have noticed if Naomi went out. And she didn’t.’

  ‘But she can’t vouch for you in the same way, can she?’ said Gibbs. ‘If she was in that shed she works in, that’s round the back of the house. She wouldn’t have seen you if you’d gone out, would she?’

  Cotchin turned to Charlie, an appeal in her eyes. ‘Why would I want to attack Robert? I don’t know him.’

  ‘You disapprove of him,’ said Charlie. ‘Your marriage was destroyed—if only temporarily—by infidelity.’ Cotchin blushed at the barbed aside. ‘Robert Haworth was cheating on his wife with your best friend for a year. You must have disapproved.’

  ‘Naomi gave me a home when Ben and I finally split up,’ said Cotchin angrily. ‘I couldn’t abandon her just because she was doing something I disagreed with.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, as time went on, my disapproval got weaker and weaker.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Naomi adored Robert. She was so happy. I don’t know how to describe it. It was like she was sort of lit up from the inside. And she said he felt the same. I thought, Maybe it’s the real thing, they’re destined to be together. I do believe in that, you know,’ she said defensively. ‘I saw that it was nothing like my situation with Ben. Ben’s unfaithfulness wasn’t about not loving me, or loving someone else more. I’m the person he’s always wanted to be with, he was just too stupid and self-indulgent to treat me properly. He’s changed now, though. He’s given up booze, almost completely.’

  And taken up drugs, thought Charlie, glancing at the paraphernalia on the windowsill. ‘If Robert loved Naomi, why didn’t he leave his wife to be with her?’

  ‘Good question. I think he was stringing Naomi along, though she claimed he wasn’t. He made out he couldn’t leave Juliet, as if she was some sort of needy underdog type, but I always thought that was probably crap. If he was as unhappy with her as he told Naomi he was, he’d have left her. Men don’t stay out of duty, not when they’ve got somewhere better to go. Only women are stupid enough to do that. And when Naomi went to Robert’s house to look for
him on Monday, she met Juliet and said herself that she was nothing like Robert had made out.’

  The lounge door opened and a man Charlie assumed was Ben Cotchin came in wearing only a pair of long red-and-navy checked boxer shorts. He was tall, thin and unshaven, with long dark hair in a ponytail. Exactly like Yvon’s hair, thought Charlie—same colour, same style. ‘Anyone fancy a cuppa?’ he said.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Charlie answered on behalf of herself, Gibbs and Yvon. If drinks were made, Ben would have to come back in and hand them out. Time would be wasted. As it was, Charlie had woken up this morning feeling crushed by the thought of everything she had to do before she would be able to climb back into bed tonight.

  ‘Robert and Naomi only had one topic of conversation,’ said Yvon, once her ex-husband had left the room. ‘How much they loved each other and how unfair and sad it was that they couldn’t be together. They created an alternative reality together that only existed for three hours a week, in one room. Why didn’t he ever take her away for the weekend? He said he couldn’t leave Juliet for that long . . .’

  ‘What do you think the reason was?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Robert’s a control freak. He wanted Juliet and Naomi, and he wanted to keep Naomi inside a very definite box: four to seven on a Thursday. She can’t see it. It’s so frustrating. It’s like she knows things about him that she doesn’t know she knows, if that makes any sense. I mean, I only know he’s a control freak from things she’s told me. But I can see those things for what they are, and she can’t.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  The way Yvon rolled her eyes suggested she was spoilt for choice. ‘He always brings a bottle of wine, when they meet. Once he knocked the bottle over while he was getting into bed. It was nearly full and most of the wine spilled on the carpet. Naomi said she’d go out and get another bottle, but he wouldn’t let her. He got really upset when she suggested it.’

  ‘If they only had three hours together—’ Charlie began, but Yvon was shaking her head.

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. He explained it to Naomi. He was offended by her taking for granted that if you spill wine, you can just buy more to replace it. As far as he was concerned, it was his carelessness that had led to the wine being spilled, so he thought he should make do with no wine as a sort of penance. He didn’t call it a penance, but that’s what he meant. Naomi said he felt bad about knocking the bottle over and didn’t want to let himself off the hook. “Casual vandalism”, he called it. He came out with all sorts of rubbish, all the time, can’t handle it at all if anything unexpected happens. I think he’s a bit mental, actually. Screwed up.’