The Truth-Teller's Lie (39 page)

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?

‘SHE’S TAKEN MY fucking car!’ Charlie yelled into the darkness.

‘You didn’t leave the keys in it, did you?’ said Sellers, running up behind her.

‘Keys, handbag, phone, credit cards.
Jesus!
Don’t say it, I don’t want to hear it. Don’t either of you tell me I shouldn’t have brought her with me, or left the car unlocked with my bag inside, all right? In fact, can we steer clear of any discussion of what I should and shouldn’t have done? I’m still your sergeant, remember.’ Charlie wanted to ask them how much Proust knew, but was unwilling to show weakness. Extreme situations called for a return to the crude playground tactics that had got her through at school: never show you care.

‘Sellers, get on your mobile. I want my car back.’

‘You’ll be lucky, Sarge. You know what Scottish police are like.’

‘She won’t be in Scotland for long. She’s heading for Culver Valley General Hospital and her beloved psychopath, Robert Haworth. Get some uniforms to meet her in the car park. Gibbs, you and me’ll talk to Mrs Graham Angilley.’ The arrival of Sellers and Gibbs had given Charlie a jolt, and now she felt a bit more like her old self. Enough to do a passable impression, at any rate.

Steph was in the lodge, sitting behind one of the desks, with a roll of pink toilet paper and a bottle of nail-varnish-remover in front of her, rubbing at the nail of her index finger with the tissue. The skin around her neck was red. She made a point of not looking up. Her face—like her arse, if her husband’s word could be relied upon—was sunbed orange, apart from just above and below her eyes, where paler patches of skin remained. She looks like a fucking owl, thought Charlie.

‘Stag nights,’ she said loudly, slapping her palms down flat on the desk.

Steph’s body seemed to contract. ‘How did you find out? Who told you that? Was it him?’ She jerked her head in Gibbs’ direction.

‘Is it true?’

‘No.’

‘You just asked how I found out. Nobody says “found out” about something that isn’t true. You’d say, “What makes you think that?” Or are you too dense to understand the difference?’

‘My husband only wanted to fuck you because of your job,’ said Steph, her voice full of venom. ‘He never fancied you. He gets a buzz from taking risks, that’s all. Like letting you use our computer the other night, even though he knew you were a cop. If you’d bothered to look, you’d have found all sorts. I told Graham he was daft letting you, but he can’t help himself. It’s a buzz—that’s what he said.’ Steph sniggered. ‘Do you know what he calls you? The Boob Tube. Because you’re skinny and your tits are too big.’

‘What’s on the computer that your husband wouldn’t want me to find?’ asked Charlie. ‘I thought you said the women were all actresses, that it was all consensual and above board? If that were true, Graham would have nothing to fear from the police, would he? You’d better face it, Steph. You’re not intelligent enough to be able to lie to me convincingly. You’ve just contradicted yourself twice, in less than a minute. And I’m not the only person who’s considerably sharper than you and who might well want to shaft you. Think about Graham. Don’t you reckon he’d love to pin it all on you? Don’t you think he could string together a story that’s . . . oh, miles better than anything you could come up with? He’s got a first from Oxford. You’re just his dogsbody.’

Steph looked cornered. Her eyes were roaming uncomfortably, landing on objects around the room for no particular reason.

Her eyes.
The skin around them wasn’t orange because Steph wore an eye mask when she went on the sunbed, like the masks the rape victims were made to wear. Unlike DS Sam Kombothekra, who claimed never to go to Boots, Steph would know where to buy eye masks in bulk. Did Graham send her on a shopping trip every now and then, to stock up? Charlie knocked the roll of toilet paper and the nail-varnish-remover on to the floor. ‘I’ll ask you once more,’ she said stonily. ‘Is it stag nights, your little business?’

‘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
un
lucky 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?’