The Truth-Teller's Lie

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Yeah,’ said Steph after a pause. ‘And Graham couldn’t pin it on me. I’m not a man. I can’t rape anybody, can I?’

  ‘He could say you were the brains behind the operation. He could even say you made him do it. He will say both those things. It’ll be your word against his. I bet you did all the admin, didn’t you, kept all the records, like you do for the chalets?’

  ‘But . . . it wouldn’t be fair for him to say that,’ Steph protested. Charlie had observed, during her years in the police, that everyone felt entitled to just treatment, even the most ruthless and depraved sociopaths. Like many criminals Charlie had met, Steph was horrified by the idea that she might not be dealt with fairly. It was so much easier to break the rules—ethical and legal—if other people continued to follow them.

  ‘So whose idea was it—the business? Live rape stag nights. Inspired, by the way. Well done. I imagine your little shows were popular.’

  ‘It was Graham’s idea, all of it.’

  ‘Not Robert Haworth’s?’ asked Gibbs.

  Steph shook her head. ‘I never liked it,’ she said. ‘I knew it was wrong.’

  ‘So you knew the women weren’t actresses,’ said Charlie. ‘You knew they were being raped.’

  ‘No, I thought they were actresses.’

  ‘Then what was wrong?’

  ‘It was wrong anyway, even though the women wanted to do it.’

  ‘Oh, really? Why?’

  Steph cast about for something to say. Charlie could almost see the cogs moving inside her head: slow, creaking rotations. ‘Those men who came along . . . they might have watched the shows we . . . the shows Graham put on and . . . got the wrong idea. They might have thought it was okay to do that to women.’

  ‘Tell me the fucking truth!’ Charlie yelled, grabbing Steph by the hair. ‘You knew, didn’t you, you shitty little bitch? You knew those women were being raped!’

  ‘Ow! Let go of me, you’re—All right, I knew!’

  Charlie felt the tightness slacken in her hand. She had pulled out a clump of Steph’s hair, leaving beads of blood on her scalp. Gibbs watched impassively; he might have been staring at an uneventful rugby match on a television screen for all the difference it would have made to his expression or manner.

  Steph began to snivel. ‘I’m not part of this, I’m a victim too.’ She rubbed the side of her head. ‘I didn’t want to do it, Graham made me. He said he couldn’t risk taking women off the street too often, so I had to act the victim most of the time. Whatever he did to those other women once or twice, he did to me hundreds and thousands of times. Some days I’m so sore I can’t even sit down. You can’t imagine what that feels like, can you? You’ve no idea what it’s like to be me, so don’t—’

  ‘You described yourself as acting before,’ said Charlie. ‘Graham was your husband. You slept with him anyway. Why not do it in front of an audience and make a bit of cash? A lot of cash, probably.’

  ‘Graham raped me, just like he raped the others,’ Steph insisted.

  ‘Earlier, you described your role in the proceedings as “knackering”, ’ said Charlie. ‘Not traumatic, horrific, terrifying, humiliating. Knackering. A funny way to talk about being endlessly raped in front of live audiences, isn’t it? It sounds much more convincing as a description of taking part in live sex shows, willingly, night after night. That, I can imagine, would be knackering.’

  ‘I didn’t do it willingly. I hated it! I said to Graham, give me a bog to clean any day rather than make me do that.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you ring the police? You could have put a stop to the whole thing with one phone call.’

  Steph blinked several times at the outlandishness of this idea. ‘I didn’t want Graham to get into trouble.’

  ‘Really? Most women would be quite keen for a man who’s raped them only once to get into trouble, let alone hundreds of times.’

  ‘No they wouldn’t, not when it’s their husband!’ Steph wiped her wet face with the backs of her hands.

  Charlie had to concede she had a point. Was it possible Steph was a reluctant participant? And Robert Haworth too? Could Graham have forced his brother to abduct and rape Prue Kelvey?

  ‘Graham’s not a bad person,’ said Steph. ‘He’s just . . . He sees the world in a different way, that’s all. In his own way. Women have rape fantasies all the time, don’t they? That’s what he says. And it’s not like he harms them physically.’

  ‘You don’t think rape counts as physical harm, you stupid bitch?’ said Gibbs.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Steph indignantly. ‘Not necessarily. It’s just sex, isn’t it? Graham would never beat anyone up or make them need to go to hospital.’ She looked up at Charlie resentfully. ‘Look, Graham had a really terrible childhood. His mum was a slut and a pisshead, and his dad didn’t give a toss. They were the poorest family in their village. But it was the making of Graham, he always says that. People who’ve never had anything bad happen to them, they’re the unlucky ones, not the lucky ones. They never get to learn what they’re made of, what they could do if they were really up against it.’

  ‘Are you quoting him?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I’m just saying, you don’t understand him, and I do. After his dad left, his mum got her act together and started a business . . .’

  ‘Yes, a telephone sex business,’ said Charlie. ‘Enterprising of her.’

  ‘She went from being an amateur whore to being a professional whore, Graham says. He was ashamed of her. But he was pleased about the business in one way, because finally they had some money, and he could escape. He got himself an education and made something of himself.’

  ‘He made a kidnapper and a rapist of himself, that’s what he made,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘He’s a successful businessman,’ Steph said proudly. ‘Last year he bought me a personalised number plate for my car that cost five grand.’ She sighed. ‘Loads of businesses have got stuff going on behind the scenes that if everyone knew about it, they’d—’

  ‘How did you advertise?’ Gibbs interrupted her pathetic justifications. ‘How did you attract customers?’

  ‘Internet chatrooms, mainly. And a lot of word of mouth.’ She spoke in a bored drawl. ‘Graham takes care of that. Recruitment, he calls it.’

  ‘The audiences—do they make group bookings?’

  Charlie nodded at Gibbs’ question. It was an important one. She’d let him take over for a bit. Her interest in this was too personal; Gibbs was thinking about the mechanics of the operation.

  ‘Only very occasionally. Once we had a group, with some women in it as well. That was unusual. Normally it’s individual bookings, and Graham’d never let women book—the men in the audience wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘So how exactly does it work?’ asked Gibbs. ‘A man who’s getting married approaches Graham, wanting one of his speciality stag nights, and then what?’

  ‘Graham finds the other men, to make up a party of anywhere between ten and fifteen.’

  ‘How does he find them?’

  ‘I told you. Mainly through talking to people on the Net. He’s in all these . . . porno cyber-communities. He’s got loads of contacts.’

  ‘Friends in high places,’ Charlie muttered.

  ‘So these men spend their stag nights with people they’ve never seen before?’ asked Gibbs.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Steph, as if this should have been obvious. ‘Most men can’t invite their normal mates along, can they? Chances are their normal mates wouldn’t be into that sort of thing, so our customers wouldn’t want to let on that they were. Do you see what I mean?’

  Charlie nodded, feeling disgust spread through her body like a slow, dull poison.

  ‘Normal men want to spend their stag nights with their mates,’ Gibbs said quietly. ‘That’s the whole point. Not watching a rape, with strangers. That’s not a stag night.’

  ‘So Graham drums up ten to fifteen twisted perverts for each rape, and what happens next?’ asked Charlie. ‘D
o the men meet beforehand, get to know each other?’

  ‘No, of course not. They don’t want to know each other. They just want to spend one evening with like-minded people they’ll never see again. They don’t even use their own names. Soon as they book, Graham assigns them a new name, which they use for the whole of that evening. Look, I hope I’m going to get some credit for all the help I’m giving you. You can’t say I’m not cooperating now.’

  An unpleasant memory broke through the surface of Charlie’s thoughts. ‘Isn’t Graham supposed to be absent-minded, always cocking up the chalet bookings?’

  Steph frowned. ‘Yes, but I run the chalets. Graham’s not passionate about them, not compared with his stag nights. When he really cares about something, he does it properly, one hundred percent.’

  ‘How admirable,’ said Charlie.

  Steph appeared to miss the sarcasm. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He makes sure never to put his customers at risk. He really cares about protecting them, it’s his main rule. Always look after the customer, never bite the hand that feeds you.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to telling him that all his customers are going to be charged with being accessories to rape,’ said Charlie.

  Steph was shaking her head. ‘You can’t do that,’ she said. She was trying to come across as an objective supplier of information, trying to hide the triumph in her voice, but Charlie heard it. ‘What I said about the women all being paidactresses—that’s the official line. Graham tells everyone who books, if any shit ever hits any fans, the men must all say they fully believed the women were willing participants, that it was all a show, the rape part wasn’t real. That’s why Graham does the sex and the men only watch, even though most of the time they probably want to join in. It’s so they can’t be done for anything. You can’t prove any of our customers knew the women were being forced to have sex.’

  ‘You’ve just told us.’ Gibbs was unimpressed by her logic. ‘We both heard you explain it, very clearly. That’s all we need.’

  ‘But . . . it’s not written down or anything.’ Steph had turned pale.

  ‘Do you really think we can’t crack these men? You think they won’t talk, give themselves away?’ Charlie leaned over the desk. ‘There’s too many of them, Steph. Some of them will give up and spill whatever beans they’ve got, because they’ll be shit-scared. They’ll fall for the same lie you fell for: that talking’ll help them stay out of prison.’

  Steph’s bottom lip trembled. ‘Graham’ll kill me,’ she said. ‘He’ll blame me, and it’s not fair! We were only providing a service, that’s all. Entertainment. The men didn’t do anything wrong, they didn’t touch those women.’

  ‘Did you cook the food?’ asked Gibbs. ‘The elaborate dinners? Or did Robert Haworth do that? We know he was involved in the rapes, and we know he used to be a chef.’

  Charlie hid her surprise. Robert Haworth, a chef?

  ‘I cooked,’ said Steph.

  ‘Is that another lie?’

  ‘She’s trying to protect Robert because he’s Graham’s brother,’ said Charlie. ‘If Graham’s sentimental about his customers, imagine how he must feel about his brother.’

  ‘You’re wrong there, actually,’ Steph gloated. ‘Robert and Graham aren’t speaking, haven’t for years.’

  ‘Why?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘They had a huge row. Robert started going out with . . . one of the women. He told Graham he was going to marry her. And then he did marry her, the stupid bastard.’

  ‘Juliet?’ said Charlie. ‘Juliet Heslehurst?’

  Steph nodded. ‘Graham was furious that Robert would even think of going near her, after . . . well, you know. It was such a risk to the business. Graham could have ended up behind bars, and Robert didn’t give a toss, just went ahead and married her.’ Her lips twitched in anger. ‘Graham’s way too soft on Robert. I keep telling him, if Robert was my brother, I’d never speak to him again.’

  ‘I thought you said Graham doesn’t speak to him,’ Charlie reminded her.

  ‘Yeah, but he keeps trying to make up. I’m the go-between, and I’m bloody fed up of passing messages back and forth. He’s too soft, my husband. It’s Robert who keeps the feud going.’ She frowned, deep in thought. ‘Graham says he can’t give up on him, though. Robert’s his kid brother, he’s always looked after him. More than their useless parents did, anyway.’

  ‘So Graham was willing to forgive Robert for endangering the business?’ said Gibbs.

  ‘Yeah. Family’s family to Graham, whatever they do. He was the same with his mum and dad. Robert was the one who cut them off, both of them. Didn’t speak a word to them after he left home. Claimed they’d let him down. Well, they had, but . . . then he said the same about Graham, after the row when he started seeing that Juliet woman. As if that was in any way the same!’ Old indignation, newly expressed.

  ‘If Graham cares about Robert, that gives you a reason to lie about Robert’s involvement in the rapes,’ said Charlie.

  Steph frowned. ‘I’m not saying anything about Robert.’

  ‘He raped Prudence Kelvey,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. I don’t know that name. Look, I don’t remember most of the women’s names. I was busy in the kitchen most of the time.’

  ‘Prue Kelvey was raped in Robert’s lorry,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘Oh, right. In that case, I wouldn’t know. Once there were no meals involved, I kept out of it. Apart from when I was . . . being the victim.’

  ‘Why the change from chalet to lorry?’ asked Gibbs.

  Steph examined her fingernails.

  ‘Well?’

  She sighed, as if the questions were putting her out. ‘The chalet business started doing better and better. It got to the point where there were people around, guests, nearly all the time. Graham thought it was too risky—anyone might have seen or heard something. And the lorry was . . . mobile. It was more convenient. For me, especially. I was fed up of all the bloody cooking. I’ve got enough on my plate without that as well. The only downside is, we can’t charge as much now that we’re offering a package that doesn’t include dinner. But we still provide drinks.’ Steph’s voice was shrill, defensive. ‘Champagne—good-quality champagne. So it’s not as if we don’t offer them anything.’

  Charlie decided she’d be quite happy if Steph Angilley were to die, suddenly, of an unforeseen but particularly painful heart attack. Gibbs looked as if he felt the same.

  ‘I hate Robert,’ Steph confided tearfully, as if she couldn’t keep it in any longer. ‘Changing his name like that—the bastard. He only did that to hurt Graham, and it worked. Graham was devastated. He’s in a terrible state at the moment, ever since you told him Robert was in hospital.’

  She spat the words at Charlie, who tried not to flinch as she remembered talking to Simon on her mobile in front of Graham. ‘So, what’s happened to this Haworth chap?’ Graham had asked casually afterwards. And Charlie had told him about Robert, that he was unlikely to live. Graham had looked upset; Charlie remembered thinking it was sweet of him to be concerned.

  ‘Graham really cares about family, and his are all shit,’ Steph went on. ‘Even his little brother turned out to be a traitor. Who does Robert think he is? He was the one in the wrong, not Graham. It’s so unfair! Everyone knows you don’t mix business with pleasure, and you certainly don’t try to ruin your own brother’s business. He did it again as well.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Naomi woman you were with before. Robert must have been shagging her, because she tried to book a chalet for the two of them. She pretended she was called Haworth too, but I knew it was her as soon as I heard the name Naomi. Graham was spitting feathers. “Robert’s done it again,” he said.’

  Charlie tried to clear her mind. There was nothing like talking to a very stupid person for bringing on a sort of mental claustrophobia. ‘Graham and Robert aren’t speaking. Yet you use his lorry for your stag nights.’

&nb
sp; ‘Yeah,’ said Steph. ‘Graham had his own key cut.’

  ‘You mean to say Robert doesn’t know you use the lorry for your stag dos?’ Gibbs’ voice was incredulous. ‘He must notice it’s missing some nights. Does Graham pretend he uses the lorry for some other purpose?’

  Charlie didn’t like the slant of Gibbs’ questions. Why was he trying to find a way for Robert Haworth not to be guilty of anything? They knew Haworth had raped Prue Kelvey—there was solid, incontrovertible evidence to prove it.

  Steph bit her lip, looking wary.

  Gibbs tried again. ‘If Robert wants nothing to do with Graham, why let him use the lorry? For money? Does Graham hire it from him?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything about Robert, all right?’ Steph folded her arms. ‘As it is, Graham’s going to bloody kill me. If I talk about Robert, he really will murder me. He’s very protective of his little brother.’

  28

  Sunday, April 9

  IT’S AFTER MIDNIGHT by the time I get to my house. I hitched a lift with a chatty young lorry driver called Terry, and made it back safely. I wasn’t nervous about being in a stranger’s car. All the worst things that might happen to me already have. I feel immune to danger.

  Yvon’s car isn’t here. She must have gone back to Cambridge, to Ben’s. I knew she would, when I left home yesterday without telling her where I was going. Yvon is one of those people who can’t be alone. She needs a strong presence in her life, someone to rely on, and my recent behaviour has been too unpredictable. She imagines life with Ben Cotchin will be safer.

  The cliché ‘Love is blind’ should be replaced with a more accurate one: ‘Love is unconscious.’ Like you, Robert. If you’ll pardon the sick joke. Yvon sees everything Ben does, but can’t draw the right conclusions. It’s her mind that’s not working properly, not her eyes.

  I go straight to my workshop, unlock the door and pick up the largest of my dummy mallets, weighing it in my palm. I stroke its gold head with my fingers. I’ve always found dummy mallets satisfying to hold; I like the absence of straight lines. They’re the same shape as the pestles some people use for grinding herbs into pastes, except they’re made of wood and bronze. With this one in my hand, I could do serious damage, which is what I want to do.