House of Correction

by French, Nicci

  ‘That’s not enough. You need to tell me the things I wouldn’t even think of asking about.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything, everything I can think of.’

  Piozzi put her pen down.

  ‘Good,’ she said, very softly.

  ELEVEN

  ‘There’s a visitor for you,’ said the warder.

  Tabitha looked up from where she was lying on her bunk.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  Tabitha got up and quickly walked past the warder and along the corridor. She would have liked time to prepare mentally for a visitor, collect her thoughts, think of questions. She would have liked time to prepare physically. She hadn’t looked in the mirror but she suspected that her hair was dishevelled and greasy. She probably didn’t smell too good either. She hadn’t showered today, just a quick wash under the arms. But it was too late. The important thing was to get there on time.

  She was so used to the noises of the prison – the clanging of doors and footsteps, the shouting – that it took her a moment to notice a scuffle taking place across to one side. The old woman with the papers was being jostled by two young women. Some of the papers had fallen to the floor.

  Tabitha continued walking. She remembered the advice she had been given. To get through this just keep your head down, don’t get involved, don’t make trouble. Besides, she was in a hurry, someone was waiting for her. Anything she did would only make things worse.

  She stopped. She muttered to herself angrily. She felt a familiar sensation, as if something were tearing apart in her head. A wave of anger was curling and cresting inside her. Don’t, she told herself. Just don’t. She knew she would.

  She turned back. The old woman was on her knees, trying to collect her papers, but more kept falling.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Tabitha. ‘You never told me your name.’

  The old woman looked up. ‘Vera,’ she said.

  The two younger women looked round. One of them had tattooed tears down her left cheek. The other had hair that was shaved, leaving a ribbed pattern across her head.

  ‘Fuck off out of it,’ said the tattooed woman.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Tabitha.

  The shaved woman pushed Tabitha’s shoulder.

  ‘What’s the point of that?’ said Tabitha. She was crackling with rage and it felt good. ‘Stop bullying her and fuck off,’ she added.

  The woman pushed her harder. Tabitha pushed back, hard, and then she was immediately lost in a whirlwind of blows and punches. She pulled herself free and swung her right fist, her left fist. She didn’t know if she was making contact. There were shouts and screams and she felt herself held from behind and a blow against her face that felt like an explosion of white and orange and red. She kept trying to wriggle free and was forced down on to the linoleum, and even then, when she couldn’t use her arms she managed to flap her legs. Gradually it all subsided. She saw the boots of a warder beside her face. Her mouth felt full and she spat on the floor and saw that it was blood.

  * * *

  Standing in the prison governor’s room, Tabitha felt she wasn’t in a prison anymore. It was more like the headmistress’s office. There were paintings on the wall of a deer and one of a moonlit lake. There was an embroidered rug, a leather chair. On the desk was a nameplate: Deborah Cole MBE. Sitting at the desk was Deborah Cole herself, a woman in her late forties, her hair neatly styled with blond streaks. Tabitha could only see her top half: grey jacket, white shirt with a brooch at the throat. Her face was made up with surgical precision, as if she were about to appear on television.

  Tabitha had been led into the office by two female warders, who stood on either side of her. Cole looked up from a file she was reading. Tabitha assumed it was hers.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tabitha. ‘It was a bit of a blur.’

  Cole barely reacted. She just tightened her lips. ‘Orla Donnelly,’ she said. ‘Jasmine Cash. Were they the girls you were fighting with?’

  Girls. Tabitha almost found the word funny, as if this had been a little bundle on the hockey field.

  ‘I’m new here. I don’t know people’s names.’

  ‘Could you identify them?’

  Tabitha knew that she should just say no but she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘Are you saying that I should inform on other prisoners, and then what? You’ll protect me? Keep me safe?’

  ‘We keep everyone safe.’

  ‘Yeah, right, OK. But as I say, it was a bit of a blur.’ She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her mouth. It was red. ‘And now I’ve got to go. There’s a visitor here to see me.’

  Cole shook her head. ‘You’ve been in a fight. No visitor.’

  ‘I’m not a prisoner. I’m on remand. I’ve got the right to be visited.’

  Cole’s expression became almost contemptuous. ‘Visits are a privilege not a right. You can have visits when you deserve them.’

  ‘How the fuck can I prepare for the trial if I can’t have visits?’

  ‘You should have thought about that before.’ She looked down at the file. ‘Less than a fortnight and already causing trouble. We’ll need to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ said Tabitha.

  Very slowly Cole closed the file. ‘Maybe things haven’t been explained to you properly, Miss Hardy. I run a zero-tolerance environment here. Zero tolerance for drugs. Zero tolerance for violence. And zero tolerance for disruptive behaviour. This is a house of correction.’ She looked at one of the warders. ‘Take her away. Full search.’

  ‘What do you mean, full search? Search for what?’

  Cole was already looking down at her desk and Mary Guy and the stringy woman seized an arm each and pulled her out of the office. In the anteroom she saw the tattooed woman and the shaved woman, each with a warder, seated.

  They dragged her along the corridor and into a room, completely empty, with grey walls, no pictures, a window high up. All Tabitha could see through it was the blankness of a grey sky. They let her go and she stood between them in the middle of the room.

  ‘You know this is crap, right?’ she said, panting with anger rather than the effort.

  ‘Wait,’ said Mary Guy.

  ‘For what?’

  Neither of them answered. After a few awkward minutes, the door opened and two more female warders came in. They were dressed in the same uniform but were clearly younger, much younger. They were like schoolgirls. The two of them stood to one side, right by the wall. Mary Guy turned to them.

  ‘Watch,’ she said. ‘This is what we do.’ Then she turned to Tabitha. ‘Take everything off and put it in a pile.’

  ‘This is crap,’ said Tabitha. ‘I was just on my way from my cell. You’ve got no right to do this.’

  ‘We can make you do it. And I promise you won’t like that.’

  ‘I’m not a convicted prisoner. I’m just on remand. You can’t do this.’

  ‘It’s going to be done, one way or another. If necessary, I’ll send for more people and they won’t all be women.’

  Tabitha tried to make her mind go blank. She pulled her sweater and her tee shirt together over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She kicked off her shoes. She pulled off her trousers.

  ‘Everything,’ said the stringy warder.

  She pulled down her knickers and added them to the pile.

  ‘I said, everything.’

  Tabitha looked down. ‘You mean my socks? Oh for fuck’s sake.’

  She teetered on her left foot and pulled off her right sock, then teetered on her right foot and pulled off her left sock. She tossed them on the floor.

  ‘You should shave more,’ said Mary Guy. There was a snickering sound from behind Tabitha.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘I’ll remember you said that.’

  Mary Guy walked forward until she was almost touching Tabitha. Then she walked behind her.
/>   ‘Squat,’ she said.

  ‘I know what you’re doing,’ said Tabitha. ‘You’re not looking for anything. You’re just doing this as some kind of punishment.’

  ‘Squat.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you like a week in solitary?’

  Tabitha thought of her visitor. Of her visitors. The visitors she desperately needed.

  She squatted.

  ‘Lower.’

  She forced herself down. Her back was hurting.

  ‘Stay like that.’

  She sensed the woman behind her. ‘You’re not allowed to touch me.’

  ‘I’m not going to touch you.’

  Tabitha heard a click. She looked down and saw that the other warder had placed a small pocket mirror between her feet.

  ‘This is how we check whether they’re hiding anything inside. I want you to come one by one and look.’

  One by one the other warders came over. One of them squatted in front of Tabitha, looked down at the mirror and then smiled at her. It was almost a grin. Tabitha imagined her going home in the evening, being with her family. Imagined her at Christmas dinner. It was a way of not screaming.

  * * *

  An hour later, or it may have been two or three hours later, Tabitha was lying on the bed in her cell, facing away from the door. She heard a sound and turned round. The tattooed woman and the shaved woman had come into the cell. The shaved woman had pulled the door almost closed and was standing with her back to it. The tattooed woman took a stop closer.

  So this was it, Tabitha thought. This was where it all ended. She stood up. If they were going to do it, they would really have to do it. She wasn’t going down passively.

  The shaved woman extended her hand – it was empty.

  ‘You did good,’ she said. ‘You didn’t rat us out. I’m Jasmine. This is Orla.’

  Warily, Tabitha shook Jasmine’s hand and then Orla’s.

  ‘Leave Vera alone,’ she said.

  TWELVE

  As Tabitha approached the table, she wasn’t even sure if she knew who her visitor was. The woman stood up to greet her and then Tabitha recognised her. She was the vicar of St Peter’s church in the village. For an alarming moment, she couldn’t remember her name. She felt like she was searching for something in a dark room and then suddenly the light came on.

  ‘Melanie,’ she said and held her hand out. ‘Do I call you vicar?’

  Melanie Coglan took her hand and shook it with a firm grip.

  ‘Call me Mel,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry about your visit a couple of days ago.’

  ‘That’s fine. Is your lip all right?’

  Tabitha put her hand to her lip and flinched slightly. She knew it was still swollen.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to take you away from your church.’

  Tabitha had never seen Mel in the church. She had never been in the church, except to look around the old Norman interior on a weekday when nobody else was there. She had only seen the vicar striding around the village and she had the look of someone who walked a lot in the open air. She was square jawed, freckled even in the winter. She had grey-blond hair, tied back in a ponytail, and wore a grey sweater, dark slacks and solid leather shoes. And she wore a dog collar. A bulky jacket was draped over the back of her chair, the one Tabitha had seen her in so often, walking with large and energetic strides around the village to call on parishioners. She glanced around the room with obvious fascination, then contemplated Tabitha with a look of concern that also had a touch of fascination. Tabitha felt like a strange exotic animal, crouched at the back of a cage being stared at through bars.

  ‘You’re looking at my dog collar,’ Mel said.

  ‘I wasn’t really.’

  ‘I know, it looks funny. I’m not really that sort of a vicar. I don’t want to ram the God thing down people’s throats. But when I come somewhere like this, I think it shows a certain, I don’t know…’

  ‘That you’re not trying to smuggle drugs and a mobile phone in?’

  Mel suddenly looked alarmed. ‘They wouldn’t think that, would they?’

  ‘That’s what people do.’

  ‘I did bring you some magazines,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Tabitha never read magazines. She had passed the ones Michael had left for her straight to Michaela.

  There was a pause. Mel looked awkward but Tabitha felt no inclination to speak. She waited.

  ‘You’re probably surprised to see me here. I know you’re not a churchgoer.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Well, I’m not sorry. I just don’t believe in God.’

  Mel smiled. ‘It’s not compulsory,’ she said. ‘Actually a lot of people come to church without really specifically believing in a God who’s up there in the sky. It’s more about comfort and meeting others.’

  ‘Just now I’ve got another problem with going to church.’

  ‘I know, I know, and if my job is about anything, it’s about coming to see people in the parish when they’re in distress. It’s not about judging you. It’s about trying to give you solace.’

  ‘It is about judging me,’ said Tabitha. ‘And realising I didn’t do it.’

  ‘You don’t need to say that to me. You don’t need to say anything.’

  ‘Have you been to offer comfort to Laura Rees as well?’

  There was a momentary pause before Mel replied. ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s in mourning.’

  ‘Sorry. I guess it’s inappropriate for you to talk to me about her. Does she mind that you’re coming to see the woman who’s been charged with murdering her husband?’

  ‘She knows that I look after all my parishioners.’

  ‘You mean the goats as well as the sheep?’

  ‘I don’t really see it like that.’

  ‘And Stuart was a parishioner of yours as well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was a churchgoer, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He was a regular churchgoer.’

  Tabitha started to say something else and then stopped, struck by what she had just heard.

  ‘That sounds not completely enthusiastic.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything like that,’ said Mel. ‘One of the challenges of my job, maybe I should say one of the joys of my job, is that people have their own personal views of religion. And how it should be practised.’

  ‘He thought you weren’t religious enough?’

  ‘He had certain views.’ Mel smiled cheerily. ‘Which I quite understand. I shouldn’t be saying any of this. I’m here to listen to you. Is there any way I can help?’

  ‘You can get me out.’

  Mel gave a nervous bark of laughter.

  ‘All right,’ said Tabitha. ‘Failing that, you can tell me how things are in the village.’

  Mel thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know what to say. Nothing like this has ever happened there before. Once the police and the television cameras had gone away, there was a sense of confusion and grief.’

  Tabitha felt dissatisfied with this. Confusion and grief sounded more like a sermon Mel was giving to her usual, near-empty church. Tabitha needed specifics.

  ‘Did the police interview people?’ she asked.

  ‘They talked to people.’

  ‘Did they talk to you?’

  Mel beamed at her. ‘I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re allowed to say either. Anyway, what could you possibly tell them about me?’

  Tabitha looked at Mel but Mel didn’t reply.

  ‘I know this is tricky for you,’ Tabitha said, ‘but what do people think of me?’

  ‘They don’t know what to think,’ said Mel. ‘They know that Stuart Rees was murdered and they know that you have been, you know…’

  ‘Charged with his murder,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I don’t completely fit with O
keham society.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’

  ‘And Stuart was friends with everyone.’

  Mel’s amiable smile wavered. ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that either.’

  Tabitha stopped to consider. ‘Then what would you say?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Villages.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean exactly,’ said Tabitha. ‘My main impression was that I didn’t really know anyone in the village and he knew everyone. Villages like Okeham probably depend on people like Stuart.’

  ‘I suppose he did know everyone.’ She gave another little laugh. ‘But then I know everyone as well. And people probably have mixed feelings about me. You know, here comes Mel again, asking how I am. That’s probably what people say.’

  ‘I’m sure they don’t. But what do they say about me? You’re the person who talks to everyone.’

  Mel took a deep breath, as if she was making a resolution. ‘Tabitha, rather than worrying about what other people think of you, don’t you think it would be helpful to reflect on what you think of yourself?’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a good idea at all.’

  ‘I’m just here to guide you and give you comfort in any way that I can.’

  She leaned forward with an expression of earnest sympathy that made Tabitha want to tell her to fuck off and never come back. But she didn’t. It occurred to her that she might need Mel one day.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That means a lot to me.’

  THIRTEEN

  It was spitting snow outside the little window. It didn’t look like the kind that would settle. Tabitha tried to count the days. Today was Thursday 31 January so she had been here three weeks and one day. Tomorrow it would be February. That meant that in a week’s time she would be going to the court to enter her plea. One week.

  Michaela was brushing her long hair in front of the mirror that Tabitha still avoided looking into, though every so often she caught a glimpse of her face: pale, with new lines round the eyes, cracked lips and hair badly in need of a cut. She put on a clean shirt, though nothing really felt properly clean, and a cardigan that had a hole in the elbow but was better than her old sweatshirt.