26
Saturday, April 8
IT’S THE WORST sort of darkness that surrounds us,
the sort that folds you in and makes you feel you might never claw
your way back to the light. It only lasts a second. I hear a
buzzing sound, and the chalet’s interior is visible again. Just.
Everything looks grey. A man’s voice says, ‘Shit.’ I see two forms
in the dimness—a thick one, and a smaller, narrow one. The broader
shape could be yours, Robert. For a moment I convince myself it is
and my heart soars. I do not think about DNA matches and the lies
you have told me, or the real name you share with your brother, a
rapist. Not immediately, anyway. I think about your kisses, and how
they felt, how I felt when you told me to go away and leave you
alone. The loss of you.
Gradually the room gets brighter. The buzzing was
the sound of a dimmer switch. Neither of the two men is you, or
Graham Angilley. My shoulders sag as the tension drains from my
body. It’s DC Sellers and DC Gibbs.
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ Charlie yells
at them. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
I look at Gibbs, expecting him to react badly to
being reprimanded, but he doesn’t look as fierce as he did on
Wednesday, in my workshop. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I must have leaned
against the switch.’
Sellers, the fat one, is angry. ‘What are
you playing at?’ he says. ‘Just buggering off without a word
to anyone. What were we supposed to tell Proust?’
Charlie doesn’t respond.
‘Switch your bloody phone on and ring Waterhouse,’
says Sellers. ‘He’s not all right. He’s more worried about you than
about lying to the Snowman. I’ve seen men with wives missing in
less of a state. If he doesn’t hear from you soon, God knows what
he might do.’
A small gasp comes from Charlie, as if his words
have shocked or upset her.
‘Where’s Angilley?’ says Gibbs.
Charlie looks at me, then back at her two
colleagues. ‘We’d better talk in private. Naomi, wait here. We’ll
go outside.’ Halfway to the door, she stops. ‘Unless you’d rather
wait outside,’ she says.
I feel three pairs of eyes on me. I don’t want to
stay here in this place where I was tortured, especially not on my
own, but outside I will be unprotected if Graham Angilley suddenly
returns. I might be the first person he sees. But Steph said she
thought he was at Charlie’s house . . . ‘Why would Graham Angilley
be at your house?’ I ask her.
Suspicion begins to swell inside me when I see
Gibbs and Sellers looking as embarrassed as Charlie. They know
something. ‘What’s going on?’ I try not to sound as if I’m pleading
for information, begging to be allowed in. ‘Are you and Graham . .
. Have you been seeing each other? Are you having sex with him?’ As
crazy as it sounds, I can’t think of any other explanation.
‘How?’ I yell at her. ‘How could you be? Did you
know him before you met me? When I gave you that card—’
‘This’ll have to wait,’ Sellers interrupts. ‘We
need a chat, Sarge.’
Charlie rakes her short hair with her fingers.
‘Give us five minutes, Naomi. Please. We’ll talk later,
okay.’
None of the detectives moves, and I realise that I
am being sent outside. As quickly as I can, I walk to the door,
which seems a million miles away. I close it behind me. Trying to
eavesdrop proves pointless: the walls are too thick, the building
too well made. It’s like a sealed container; nothing escapes.
It’s dark now, but there is a floodlight attached
to the wall of one of the chalets. I feel as if I’m right in its
beam, attracting the full glare. If Graham Angilley drives up in
his car, he will see me immediately. I crouch down, hugging my
knees, feeling like a hunted animal.
My breath starts to come in short, sharp bursts.
There are too many connections, too many links that are wrong, that
shouldn’t be there. You shouldn’t be the brother of the man who
raped me. Yvon should not have had his business card, or designed a
website for him. Charlie shouldn’t be sleeping with him, but she
is, she must be.
Sellers and Gibbs didn’t know she was in Scotland.
They didn’t know she brought me with her. Why did she run off
without telling anyone? Why did she bring me? As some sort
of bait? There was shock on Sellers’ face when he looked at her
before. Horror, almost. As if he’d never have thought her capable
of whatever it is she’s done.
It could happen again.
Here I am, in the place where I was once raped,
with a woman who has blithely lied to me and to her colleagues.
What the hell am I doing? I spring to my feet. I need to move, to
replace thought with action before my suspicions turn into
full-blown terror.
Charlie’s handbag is on the driver’s seat of her
car. The door is closed, but not locked. I pull it open and unzip
the bag, looking for keys. If I were brave, I’d escape on foot, but
I’m not much of a runner and this place is miles from
anywhere.
No keys inside the purse, in the zipped
compartment, anywhere in the bag. Damn. In desperation, I bend down
to look in the ignition, knowing I’m not the sort of person who has
that kind of good luck. I blink several times, to check it isn’t a
stress-induced hallucination: the keys are there, a whole bunch.
Home, work, car. Perhaps one to a neighbour’s house as well. I
stare at the dangling bundle of metal, wondering why it doesn’t
annoy Charlie to have it hanging there as she drives. If it were
me, I’d take the car key off the ring and keep it separately.
I throw the handbag on to the passenger seat, climb
into the car and start it. The engine is quiet. I drive over the
grass to the edge of the field and bump on to the gravel. Within
seconds I am driving along the narrow lane away from Silver Brae
Chalets. It’s a good feeling. Better than standing under Graham
Angilley’s spotlight, on his property, waiting for him to come and
find me.
Which didn’t happen because he’s at Charlie’s
house. I’ve got her keys. I could go and find him. He doesn’t know
I know where he is, or who he is.
I gasp at the idea that, finally, I have the
advantage over him. I don’t want to lose it. I won’t, can’t. I’ve
lost enough already. Now would be a good time to try to remember,
in detail, all those revenge fantasies that used to play in my head
all day every day until I met you. Which one did I like best:
stabbing, shooting, poisoning? Tying the man up and doing to him
what he did to me?
I need to ditch Charlie’s car as soon as possible,
leave it by the side of the road, as soon as I get to a proper
road, and hitch a lift. Otherwise it won’t be long before I’m
stopped by a police car. Believe me, Robert, nothing is going to
stop me this time. With or without Charlie, I am coming to that
hospital, and if you tell me again to go away and leave you alone,
I won’t care.
Because I understand now. I know why you said it.
You thought I’d been talking to Juliet, didn’t you? You assumed it.
Or, rather, that she’d been talking to me. Giving me her version of
events, ruining everything, telling me all the things you couldn’t
bear for me to know. And so you gave up.
I told you I loved you, at the hospital. You must
have been able to see that I meant it, how much I meant it, from my
eyes and from my voice, yet you still gave up. And expected me to
do the same, to walk away. Until I can get to the hospital again,
you will be certain that I am never coming back.
How could you think that, Robert? Don’t you know me
at all?