House of Correction

by French, Nicci

  ‘So what are they saying?’

  ‘I don’t know, just that it’s awful. Things like that.’

  ‘What are they saying about me?’

  A flush suffused Shona’s smooth skin. She leaned across the table slightly, made as if to put a hand on Tabitha’s arm, changed her mind.

  ‘Don’t think about that.’

  ‘Is is that bad?’

  ‘No! But you’ve always been your own worst enemy, haven’t you, they way you charge in. You put people’s backs up a bit.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘It’s just you don’t let sleeping dogs lie. I’m on your side though,’ Shona said. ‘Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’

  ‘Tell people it’s a mistake. That I’ll be back soon.’

  Shona nodded.

  ‘Because it’s mad,’ Tabitha went on. ‘I mean, why would I kill Stuart? There’s absolutely no reason. The prosecution will see that.’

  ‘Of course they will. Of course.’

  ‘I’ve got a solicitor who seems clever.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Shona.

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence filled the space between them. The woman at the table next to Tabitha was leaning towards the man opposite her and sobbing. She was pleading with him, but Tabitha couldn’t make out the words. The man merely looked bored.

  ‘Andy’s very upset,’ Shona said. ‘He’s practically the only one in Okeham who doesn’t like talking about it, even though he was the one who… you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘You two are close,’ said Shona.

  Tabitha knew what she was saying. ‘He’s just working on my house.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I don’t even know if you… you know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Like men.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Shona waited a beat but Tabitha didn’t say anything else.

  ‘Does he ever talk about me?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Tabitha cautiously. ‘But he doesn’t talk much anyway.’

  Shona nodded. ‘Still waters run deep. Maybe if he visits you could mention that I’ve broken up with Paul at last.’

  Tabitha couldn’t stop herself from giving a snort of disbelieving laughter: she was in prison charged with murder and Shona wanted her to act as a matchmaker.

  ‘I should go.’ Shona stood up. ‘I’m on call this afternoon and some of my mothers are about to pop. But I’ll come again, if you’d like me to. It must be lonely.’

  Tabitha tried to smile. ‘I’ll be home before long.’

  EIGHT

  Tabitha sat at the little table in her cell. It was so narrow that her back was almost touching the bed. She opened the notebook. She tried to remember the last time she had written a letter on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope and posted it. Probably it had been to a grandparent to say thank you for a present she hadn’t really liked. Her mother had told her that it was important to write proper letters to grandparents. Emails didn’t count.

  Now her mother was dead and her father was dead and all four grandparents were dead and she finally needed to write a letter.

  For the past two years, she had been working as a copy-editor for a London publisher. It was perfect for her. She could do it from home. She could do it whenever she wanted, just so long as she met her deadlines. But she wouldn’t be able to do it in prison.

  14 January

  AO3573

  Dear Cathy,

  Maybe you’ve heard by now but I’m writing this to you from prison. It’s all a mad mistake. I won’t go into the details. I’m sure it’s going to be sorted out soon but for the moment I’m not going to be able to do any work for you.

  Also, I don’t think you’ve paid me for the Greenwood job or the psychology collection I did before that. I know there’s always a delay in paying and I don’t want to make a fuss, but I really need the money at the moment as you can imagine. It would be good if you could do it by bank transfer. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to pay cheques in from here.

  You can write to me here and I’ll let you know if things change.

  All the best,

  Tabitha

  Tabitha looked over the letter. It felt like a mixture of too much information and not enough. And a bit whiny as well. It felt strange to be complaining about late payment when she was in prison charged with murder.

  The second letter required more thought.

  14 January

  AO3573

  Dear Michael,

  After writing this, Tabitha stared at the wall for fully ten minutes. There was a poster on the wall, a photograph of a pine forest with a soft green floor, dropping gently into the distance. For a tiny moment, she had the illusion that she was looking through a window and the forest was just in front of her, tantalisingly out of reach.

  Michael. What could she say to him? They’d had no contact at all for nearly a year. Things with him hadn’t ended disastrously, but they hadn’t ended all that well either. Just write, she told herself. Don’t think about it too much.

  You’re probably surprised to hear from me. And you’re probably even more surprised to get a letter from me. I don’t know if you’ve heard what happened. The postmark will tell you something. There’s no point in me going through it all here. Just google me and you’ll be able to find out as much as you want to find out.

  Short version. I’m in Crow Grange Prison. What happened is that a neighbour of mine was found murdered and insanely I was suspected of it. In fact, you’ll see after about two seconds of going online that I’ve been charged with murdering him and so I’m here on remand.

  So why am I writing to you? All I can say is that I’m like someone who’s just fallen in the water and you were one of the names that came into my head to shout to for help. I was wondering if you might come to visit. I know it’s a lot to ask because you’d have to come all the way to Devon. But it would mean a lot to me.

  If you can come, please write back with a phone number. I’ll need to ring you because visiting is a bit complicated. You have to fill out a form and bring ID and probably other stuff. I’ll check.

  Let me know.

  Love (if it’s OK to say that),

  Tabitha

  NINE

  And, three days later, he came.

  Tabitha took the route to the visiting hall. She saw him before he saw her. He looked so familiar. The unbrushed hair that was starting to recede, the grey jacket he always wore with too many pockets, his hands awkwardly in two of them. He always had the air of seeming just a little uncomfortable wherever he was. At least he had some excuse this time. There were the usual sounds of sobbing. Somebody shouted and a warder ran across.

  Tabitha sat down opposite him.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ she said.

  He shifted in his seat as if he was already preparing to leave.

  ‘I didn’t know what to bring,’ he said. ‘I brought some magazines and a couple of other things. They took them away. But the woman said you’d get them. I suppose they need to check them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tabitha. ‘And thank you for coming.’

  ‘Thank you for asking me,’ he replied solemnly, absurdly. But then he added, ‘I was a bit surprised that you did, actually.’

  She remembered the last time they’d met. She remembered shouting at him and him backing away. He had often seemed faintly puzzled and embarrassed by her. They’d met in the café where she’d briefly worked when she’d arrived in London after dropping out of university. Michael had come in to the café almost every day for lunch. He had the soup of the day followed by Earl Grey tea and a flapjack. They’d both been lonely, knowing almost nobody in this huge, churning city. They’d both taken the other for someone they were not. Tabitha had thought Michael was shy and thoughtful, but actually he turned out to be quite smug and doggedly set in his ways. He had thought Tabitha charmingly kooky at first; her rages
and her wretchedness had soon made him acutely uncomfortable.

  ‘So what the hell happened?’ said Michael now.

  ‘Did you google me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you know.’

  ‘No, I don’t. For a start, what were you even doing in Okeham? I thought you loathed the place.’

  ‘Not exactly hated.’

  ‘You said you were miserable there.’

  ‘Maybe it was me, not the place. You know I hated living in London. It was always meant to be a stopgap while I decided what to do in my life but I kind of got stuck there.’ He nodded. ‘Anyway, there was a fantasy I’d always had about this old house there and it came on the market and I bought it and I’ve been doing it up.’

  Michael leaned forward on the table and rested his head on his hands. He looked like he was in pain.

  ‘I saw that he was found in your house.’

  ‘In a shed at the back.’

  ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He gave a nervous little laugh. ‘I mean, why would you report finding a body in your own house if you’d killed him?’

  ‘Shed. And I didn’t exactly find it. It was found by this guy, Andy.’

  ‘Is he your new…?’

  Tabitha remembered that Michael had an irritating habit of leaving his sentences unfinished as if he were waiting for you to guess the word.

  ‘No. He’s a builder. He’s helping me with the house. I guess I should say he was helping me.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve got lots of old friends in the village.’

  ‘I know people in the village to say hello to. There are a few left from when I lived there. And now one of them is dead.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘He was a teacher at my school.’

  ‘So you’ve got a motive,’ he said with a half-smile.

  ‘Don’t. I’m in prison. Don’t make one of your stupid unfunny jokes.’

  Michael made an indeterminate gesture. ‘I took a train across England to get here. I had to change twice and then take a bus and then a taxi.’

  ‘OK,’ said Tabitha tightly. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Can I ask a question? A body is found in your house. Or next to your house. That’s bad. But why are they actually charging you with murder?’

  ‘I’m not completely sure. I think they have to tell the solicitor and she’ll tell me.’

  ‘And what about your defence?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the law. I’m just desperately hoping that the lawyers are going to sort this out and show the police that they’ve made a mistake.’

  Michael gave a shrug and shook his head.

  ‘What?’ said Tabitha.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just that it doesn’t sound like you. It sounds more like the way you saw me.’

  ‘How did I see you?’

  ‘Being passive. Not doing much. I wouldn’t expect you to just be sitting here waiting for someone else to sort things out.’

  Tabitha took a few deep breaths. ‘Have you looked around?’ she said. ‘I’m in fucking prison. How am I supposed to sort things out?’

  ‘I don’t want to get sucked into one of your arguments.’

  ‘One of my arguments?’

  ‘I used to sometimes feel like we were slipping down a slope into an argument and whatever I did to stop it, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Whatever you did?’ said Tabitha. ‘You mean, sit there and look at me as if I was an object of poor taste?’

  ‘Tabitha, please—’

  ‘That’s exactly the tone. Tabitha, please. Like you were the sensible grown-up and I was a naughty little girl who was—’

  She stopped suddenly and put a hand over her eyes so she didn’t have to see his face. ‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ she said.

  ‘I understand you’re under a great strain,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘I’m grateful you’re here.’ Her face ached with the effort it took to look calm and rational. ‘I’m going to need all the help I can get.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Ye-e-s,’ said Michael slowly and then Tabitha knew, with a sickening lurch, what was coming.

  ‘I’m so sorry about all of this. It’s terrible. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. But I’m not the right person for this.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘I felt I needed to make the gesture. To come here and see you and bring you things.’

  ‘Magazines.’

  ‘And some other things. But we weren’t together for that long—’

  ‘Fourteen months.’

  ‘And it was a while ago.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. She looked at his mouth opening and closing and she just wanted him gone. Why had she ever asked him to come?

  ‘I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have money. I’m trying to deal with things myself.’

  ‘I said it was all right.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I’d probably better be, you know…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a bus and a train.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He got up and held out a hand and then looked at it as if it didn’t belong to him. ‘I don’t know. Are we allowed…?’

  ‘Yes, we can shake hands.’

  They shook hands briefly and then he turned and walked away. Tabitha thought to herself: Well, he was an ex-boyfriend, after all What was I expecting?

  TEN

  You just have to keep going, that was what Ingrid had said. And Michaela. But today was one of Tabitha’s bad days, when the effort of hauling herself out of bed, of pulling on clothes that were always grubby, brushing her hair that always felt a bit greasy, eating food that made her gag, seemed a monumental task. Her body felt impossibly heavy. She wanted to curl in a ball and hide. She wanted to howl.

  But at least her solicitor was coming to see her.

  * * *

  ‘So have you any good news?’ she asked. Her voice came out too bright, almost jocose.

  ‘I have your medical assessment,’ said Mora Piozzi, tapping on her iPad. She looked older than Tabitha remembered, and more unyielding.

  ‘You don’t look particularly happy about it. I hope I’m not dying.’ She winced as she spoke at the sound of her false cheerfulness.

  Mora Piozzi didn’t smile. She was studying the screen in front of her, swiping through pages. Then she looked up.

  ‘I’m not particularly happy,’ she said.

  Tabitha felt a lurch in her stomach.

  ‘Do you remember I said you should tell me of anything relevant – anything I’d rather hear from you than from the prosecution?’

  ‘Did you say that?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about your history of depression.’

  ‘It’s not really a history.’

  ‘You were hospitalised in 2010 and then again in 2013.’

  ‘It was more of a clinic.’

  ‘You were sectioned.’

  ‘Only the once. The second time was voluntary. And it wasn’t for long. I was going through a bad patch.’

  ‘Tabitha, I’m not judging you, but don’t you see that this is relevant information?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of it.’

  Mora Piozzi looked down at the screen again. ‘Over the years, you’ve been prescribed a variety of medications: Citalopram. Paroxetine. Most recently – in fact until ten days before the murder – Zoloft and Amitriptyline.’

  ‘I didn’t get on with them, though.’

  ‘Which is also relevant. And you’ve had therapy.’

  ‘That was a waste of time.’

  ‘Did you think all this wouldn’t come up, Tabitha?’

  ‘Why should it?’ Tabitha bunched her fists up and leaned forward. ‘Why the fuck should it? When I was younger, I had a hard time and I dropped out of uni. That’s not a crime, just a wasted opportunity. I’ve had drugs and therapy to help me cope. That’s not a crime. I don’t like pe
ople knowing about it because then they put a label on me and I hate that. I know what I have to do to deal with it. I make myself get up. I walk. I swim in the sea. I eat healthy food. I do practical things, like fixing my house. I put one foot in front of the other. I have my bad days, sure, but I’m doing all right. I was doing all right.’

  Mora Piozzi briefly put a hand on Tabitha’s bunched fist.

  ‘I am sure you were and in normal circumstances, of course, you can keep it all private. But these are not normal circumstances. You’ve been charged with murder. Your whole life will be scrutinised. The fact that you have been seriously depressed is relevant. The fact that you have been on a regime of strong antidepressants, some of which are associated with memory loss, is relevant.’

  Tabitha’s mouth felt dry and her head hurt slightly. The lights in the room were too bright; it was like being in a laboratory.

  ‘Dr Hartson says you were resistant to his questions.’

  ‘I answered everything he asked,’ said Tabitha. ‘What did he want me to do? Break down and weep? Tell him all my troubles so he could be the good doctor? Where would that get me?’

  Mora Piozzi was looking at her as if she was a problem to be solved. ‘Was that day one of your bad days?’

  ‘It wasn’t great.’ Not great at all, she thought: a day that had been heavy and colourless and grim.

  ‘And you say you can’t remember much of it.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a fog. But I’d remember killing someone.’ Tabitha laughed harshly. ‘That’s not something I’d ever forget.’

  Piozzi didn’t smile back. She started to write and then stopped.

  ‘You believe that I’m here to do everything I possibly can for you?’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I have to. It’s not like I’ve got many other people on my side.’

  ‘You’ve got to trust me,’ Piozzi continued. ‘But I also have to trust you. I need to know the problems, the weaknesses. I need to hear them from you, not from the police, not from the prosecution. You have to be straight with me.’

  ‘Just ask me anything,’ said Tabitha, ‘and I’ll answer it.’