The Truth-Teller's Lie (24 page)

‘Shall I . . . ?’ He nods at the champagne.

‘Afterwards. Speak to the chef now.’ Suddenly I can’t wait.

‘Naomi, this is insane,’ Yvon hisses at me as soon as we’re alone again. ‘You’re going to ask the chef if he remembers Robert coming in and ordering that meal for you, aren’t you?’

I say nothing.

‘What if he does? So what? What are you going to say then? Are you going to ask him what exactly Robert said? Did he look like a man who’d just fallen in love? This is
not
healthy, indulging your obsession like this!’

‘Yvon,’ I say quietly. ‘Think about it. Look around you, look at this place.’

‘What about it?’

‘Eat your expensive food, it’s going cold,’ I remind her. ‘Does this look like the sort of restaurant that’d let someone dash in off the street and order a takeaway? Can you see a takeaway menu anywhere? The sort of place that’d let a complete stranger walk out with not only food but also a tray and cutlery and an expensive cloth napkin? And just trust him to bring it back, when he was finished with it?’

Yvon considers this, chewing a mouthful of lamb. ‘No. But . . . why would Robert lie?’

‘I don’t think he lied. I think he withheld certain crucial facts.’

Our waiter returns. ‘I introduce you to our chef, Martin Gilligan,’ he says. Behind him is a short, thin man with untidy ginger hair.

‘How’s your food?’ Gilligan asks, in what sounds like a northern accent. I had a friend at university who was from Hull; this chef’s voice reminds me of his.

‘It’s fantastic, thanks. Amazing.’ Yvon smiles warmly. She says nothing about thinking it’s overpriced.

‘Etienne said you wanted to know how long I’ve worked here?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m fixtures and fittings.’ He looks apologetic, as if he fears we might accuse him of being unadventurous for staying. ‘I’ve been here since it opened in 1997.’

‘Do you know Robert Haworth?’ I ask him.

He nods, looks pleasantly surprised. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

I won’t say yes to this, even if doing so would help the flow of the conversation. ‘How do you know him?’

Yvon watches us as she might a tennis match, her head turning back and forth.

‘He used to work here,’ says Gilligan.

‘When? For how long?’

‘Oh . . . let’s see, it must have been 2002, 2003, something like that. It was a good few years ago. He’d just got married when he started, I remember that. Told me he’d just got back off his honeymoon. And he left . . . ooh, about a year later. Went on to be a lorry driver. He said he preferred open roads to hot kitchens. We’re still in touch, still have the odd bevvy now and then, at the Star. Though I’ve not seen him for a while.’

‘Robert worked in the kitchen, then? He wasn’t a waiter.’

‘No, he was a chef. My second-in-command.’

I nod. That’s how you were able to get your hands on your little surprise for me. They knew you at the Bay Tree—you’d worked here—so of course they trusted you. Naturally, they let you take a tray and cutlery and a napkin, and Martin Gilligan was only too happy to cook
Magret de Canard aux Poires
for you when you told him it was urgently needed to help a woman in distress.

I don’t need to ask any more questions. I thank Gilligan, and he returns to the kitchen. Like Etienne, our waiter, he is too discreet to demand to know why I felt the need to interrogate him.

The same doesn’t apply to Yvon. As soon as we’re alone again, she orders me to explain. The temptation to be facetious and evasive is strong. Games are safer than reality. But I can’t do it to Yvon; she’s my best friend, and I’m not Juliet.

‘Robert once said to me that being a lorry driver was better than being a commis,’ I tell her. ‘I didn’t understand. I thought he meant Commie, Communist, which didn’t seem to make much sense, but he didn’t. He meant a commis chef—c, o, m, m, i, s. Because that’s what he used to be.’

Yvon shrugs. ‘So?’

‘The man who raped me served a three-course meal to the men who watched,’ I say. ‘Every now and then he disappeared into a room at the back of the theatre and came out with more food. That room had to be a kitchen.’

Yvon is shaking her head. She can see where I’m going, and she doesn’t want it to be true.

‘I’ve never really thought about who cooked the food.’

‘Oh, God, Naomi.’

‘My rapist had his hands full. He had to entertain the men, clear each course, bring the next course. He was front of house.’ I laugh bitterly. ‘And we know he didn’t operate alone, from what Charlie Zailer’s said. At least two of the rapes took place in Robert’s lorry, and it was Robert who raped Prue Kelvey.’ I am making the agony worse, deliberately taking as long as I can to arrive at my conclusion. Like when you’ve got an elastic band round your wrist and you pull it back as far as it’ll go, stretching it until it’s taut and skinny, then letting it snap back against your skin. The further away it is, the more you know it will hurt you in the end.
Hurting distance.
Isn’t that what you called it?

Yvon has stopped trying to defend you. ‘While that man was attacking you, Robert was in the kitchen,’ she says, giving up, letting me know I’ve convinced her. ‘He cooked the meal.’

I jolt awake, with a scream trapped in my throat. I am soaked in sweat, my heart drumming fast. A bad dream. Worse than being awake, than real life? Yes. Even worse than that. Once I’ve waited long enough to check I’m not having a stroke or a heart attack, I turn to the radio alarm clock by my bed. I can only see the tops of the digits, small glowing red lines and curves poking out behind the tall pile of books on my bedside cabinet.

I knock the books on to the floor. It’s three-thirteen in the morning. Three one three. The number terrifies me; the hammering in my chest speeds up. Yvon wouldn’t hear me if I called her, even if I screamed. Her room is in the basement, and mine is on the top floor. I want to run downstairs to where she is, but there isn’t time. I fall back; fear pins me to the bed. Something is about to happen. I must let it happen. I have no choice. Pushing it away only works for so long. Oh, God, please let it be over quickly. If I have to remember, then let me remember
now.

I was Juliet. I pulled that certainty out of the nightmare with me. I’ve dreamed of being your wife for so long, but always while I’m awake. And the dream was that I, Naomi Jenkins, was your wife. I have never wanted to be Juliet Haworth. You talked about her as if she were weak, craven, pitiable.

In my dream, the worst I’ve ever had, I was Juliet. I was tied to the bed, to the acorn bedposts, on the stage. I had turned my head to the right, so that my cheek was flat against the mattress. My skin stuck to the plastic covering. It was uncomfortable, but I couldn’t turn to look straight ahead, because then I’d have seen the man, seen the expression on his face. Hearing what he was saying was bad enough. The men in the audience were eating smoked salmon. I could smell it—a disgusting pink fishy smell.

So I kept my head where it was and stared straight ahead, at the edge of the curtain. The curtain was dark red. It was designed to go round three sides of the stage, every side apart from the back. Yes, that’s how it looked. I didn’t remember that before. And there was something else unusual about it. What? I can’t remember.

Beyond the edge of the curtain was the theatre’s inside wall. I looked down at a small window. That’s right: the window wasn’t at eye level, it was lower than that. It wasn’t at eye level for the men around the table either.

I wipe sweat from my forehead with the corner of my duvet. I’m sure I’m right, the dream was accurate. That window was odd. It had no curtain. Most theatres don’t have windows at all, not in the auditorium. I had to cast my eyes downwards to see it, and the men would have had to look up. It was between the two levels, in the middle. As it got darker, I stopped being able to see anything. But before, when I was Juliet in the dream and I was lying on the bed, and that man was cutting off my clothes with a pair of scissors, I could see what was outside. I fixed my eyes on it, trying not to think about what was happening, what was going to happen . . .

I throw the duvet off me, feel the chill night air rush in to cover me instead. I know what I saw through the small theatre window. And I know what I saw through the window of your living room, Robert. And why I had the dream I’ve just had; I know what it all means now. It changes everything. Nothing is as I thought it was. Thought I
knew
it was. I cannot believe how wrong I’ve been.

Oh, God, Robert. I have to see you and tell you everything—how I worked it out, put it all together. I must persuade Sergeant Zailer to take me to the hospital again.

20

4/8/06

EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW SPILLING POLICE STATION, APRIL 8, 2006, 8.30 A.M.

Present: DS Charlotte Zailer (C.Z.), DC Simon Waterhouse (S.W.), Miss Naomi Jenkins (N.J.), Mrs Juliet Haworth (J.H.).

J.H.: Morning, Naomi. What is it they say? We must stop meeting like this. Did you and Robert ever say that to each other?

N.J.: No.

J.H.: I’m relying on you to help me talk some sense into these morons. They all woke up this morning convinced that I’m a porn magnate. [Laughs.] It’s ridiculous.

N.J.: Is it true you first met Robert in a video shop?

J.H.: Why would a woman run a company that profited from other women being raped? [Laughs.] Though I suppose you might say that someone who tries to pulverise her husband’s brain with an enormous stone is capable of anything. Do you think I did it, Naomi? Do you think I sold tickets to men who wanted to watch you being raped? Paper tickets, torn in two at the door, like when you go to the pictures? How much do you think you were worth?

S.W.: Cut it out.

N.J.: I know you didn’t do that. Tell me about how you met Robert.

J.H.: Sounds like you already know.

N.J.: In a video shop?

J.H.: Oui. Si. Affirmative.

N.J.: Tell me.

J.H.: I just did. Have you got Alzheimer’s?

N.J.: Did he approach you, or did you approach him?

J.H.: I bashed him over the head with a video, dragged him home and forced him to marry me. The funny thing was, all the time he was shouting. ‘No, no, Naomi’s the one I love.’ Is that what you want to hear? [Laughs.] The story of how I met Robert. Picture poor little me in the queue for the till, clutching the video case in my sweaty paws, shaking with nerves. It was the first time I’d left the house in ages. I bet you can’t see me as a nervous wreck, can you? Look at me now—I’m an inspiration to us all.

N.J.: I know you had a breakdown, and I know why.

[
Long pause
.]

J.H.: Really? Do share.

N.J.: Go on. You were in the queue.

J.H.: I got to the front and found I’d forgotten my purse. It felt like the end of the world. My first trip out—my parents were so proud—and I’d gone and ruined it by forgetting to bring any money. Nearly wet myself, I did. I knew I’d have to go home empty-handed and admit I’d failed, and I knew I wouldn’t dare to go out again after that. [Pause.] I started mumbling to the woman behind the till—don’t remember what, really. Actually, I think I just kept apologising over and over again. Everything’s my fault, you see. Ask our good detectives here. I’m a wannabe murderess and a theatrical porn entrepreneur. But back to the story: next thing I know, someone’s tapping me on the shoulder. Robert. My hero.

N.J.: He paid for the video.

J.H.: Paid for the film, scooped me up off the floor, walked me home, reassured me, reassured my parents. God, they were keen to get me off their hands. Why do you think I married Robert so quickly?

N.J.: I imagine it was a whirlwind romance.

J.H.: Yes, but what made the wind whirl? I’ll tell you: my parents didn’t want to look after me, and Robert did. It didn’t scare him like it scared them. Madness in the family.

N.J.: Didn’t you love him?

J.H.: Course I bloody did! I was a total wreck. I’d given up on myself, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was comprehensively worthless, and Robert came along and told me I’d got it all wrong: I wasn’t worthless at all, I’d just been through a bad patch and needed to be looked after for a while. He said that some people weren’t cut out for working, that I’d already achieved more than most people did in a lifetime. He promised to look after me.

N.J.: This great achievement—he meant those ugly pottery houses of yours? I’ve seen them. In your lounge. In the cabinet with the glass doors.

J.H.: And?

N.J.: Nothing. I’m just telling you I’ve seen them. It’s funny. Your work made you have a nervous breakdown, yet you’ve got those models all over your living room. Don’t they remind you? Bring back memories you’d rather forget?

[
Long pause
.]

C.Z.: Mrs Haworth?

J.H.: Don’t interrupt, Sergeant. [Pause.] My life’s had its ups and downs, but do I want to erase it from my memory? No. Call me vain if you want to, but it’s important to me to hang on to some sort of evidence that I’ve existed. If that’s all right with all of you? So that I know I didn’t imagine my entire fucking life?

N.J.: I can understand that.

J.H.: Oh, I’m so pleased. I’m not sure I want to be understood by someone who pulls her pants down for the first stranger she bumps into in a service station. A lot of rape victims go on to become promiscuous, I believe. It’s because they feel worthless. They give themselves to anyone.

N.J.: Robert isn’t anyone.

J.H.: [Laughs.] That’s certainly true. Boy, is that true.

N.J.: Did you get to know him properly before you fell in love with him?

J.H.: No. But I know a lot about him now. I’m a real expert. I bet you don’t even know where he grew up, do you? What do you know about his childhood?

N.J.: I told you before. I know he doesn’t see his family, that he’s got three sisters . . .

J.H.: He grew up in a small village called Oxenhope. Do you know it? It’s in Yorkshire. Just down the road from Brontë country. Which is a greater masterpiece—Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights?

N.J.: Robert raped a woman who lived in Yorkshire. Prue Kelvey.

J.H.: So I’ve been told.

N.J.: Did he do it?

J.H.: You should get Robert on the subject of the Brontës. Assuming he ever speaks to you again. Or anyone, for that matter. He thinks Branwell was the one with the real talent. Robert goes for the underdog every time. When he was growing up, he had a poster of a painting of Branwell Brontë on his wall—a feckless drunkard and a layabout. Odd, isn’t it? With Robert being such a hard worker.

N.J.: What are you implying?

J.H.: He only told me all this after we were married. He saved it, he said, like people used to do with sex in ye olde days. I assume you’ve noticed my husband’s addiction to deferred gratification. What else? His mum was the village bike, and his dad was involved with the National Front. Left the family for another woman, in the end. Robert was six. It really fucked him up. His mum never stopped loving his dad, even though he’d discarded her, even though he’d used her as a punchbag for most of their marriage. And she didn’t give a shit about Robert, even though he adored her. She just ignored him, or criticised him. And because they were so poor after the dad left, she had to stop shagging everything in trousers and go out to work. Guess what line of work she chose?

N.J.: Did she make ridiculous pottery ornaments?

J.H.: [Laughs.] No, but she was a businesswoman. Started her own company, just like you and me. Except hers was telephone sex. She made a lot of money from it, enough to send the kids to a posh private school. Giggleswick. Heard of it?

N.J.: No.

J.H.: Robert’s dad never loved him. He labelled Robert the thick one, and the difficult one, the second child he’d been tricked into having that he’d never wanted. So when he upped and left, the mum blamed Robert for driving him away. Robert became the official black sheep. He failed his exams, despite the expensive education, and ended up working in the kitchen at the Oxenhope Steak and Kebab House. Maybe that’s why he identifies with Branwell Brontë.

N.J.: You could be making this up. Robert’s never told me any of this. Why should I believe you?

J.H.: Do you have a choice? It’s the information I give you or it’s no information. Poor Naomi. My heart bleeds.

N.J.: Why do you hate me so much?

J.H.: Because you were going to steal my husband, and I didn’t have anything else.

N.J.: If Robert dies, you’ll have nothing.

J.H.: [Laughs.] Wrong. You’ll notice I used the past tense: I didn’t have anything else. I’m fine now. I’ve got something much more important than Robert.

N.J.: What’s that?

J.H.: Work it out. It’s something you ain’t got, I’ll tell you that much.

N.J.: Do you know who raped me?

J.H.: Yes. [Laughs.] But I’m not going to tell you his name.