House of Correction

by French, Nicci

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘First off, the farmer, his name’s Rob Coombe, he said I was being threatening about Stuart that morning, in the post office. He says I called him a bastard.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I don’t remember it at all. It doesn’t sound right. But he won’t come and see me. So I wondered if you’d go and talk to him.’

  ‘What would I say?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sound him out, see if he’ll tell you anything. Just get a feeling if he’s lying.’ It sounded a bit desperate, but then, she was desperate. ‘You can say you’re a reporter or something. People sometimes like talking to the papers.’

  ‘I’m not sure I look like a reporter.’

  ‘Or you could—’ Tabitha stopped. She couldn’t think of anything.

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I can borrow my aunt’s car and have a day out. You have to give me the address.’

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

  ‘Then don’t try.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  The prosecution delivered its evidence to Tabitha on April Fool’s Day, which seemed appropriate.

  The giant warder who had first escorted her to her cupboard full of mannequins, and whose name, she had discovered, was Barry, brought it in. Tabitha was sitting in the semi-darkness: the socket the lamp had been plugged into was no longer working and the bulb that hung above her flickered dismally. She had expected a box folder or something like that. Instead, she got two large boxes full of papers, photos and forensic evidence; reports on the fallen tree, the state of the road and on what kind of heavy-duty plastic the body had been wrapped in. There were details of the fibres, hairs, blood types, blood spatter and the outside temperature at various times during the day; the marks made by tyre tracks from Stuart’s car, invoices, receipts and phone logs. There were statements from people whose names she’d never heard and who hadn’t been in the village, all of them rendered into the kind of clunky legalese that made her head bang.

  Even at a cursory glance, Tabitha could see that most of it was useless to her. The problem was, anything that might be relevant was buried in the avalanche of spurious information.

  She sighed heavily.

  ‘What?’ said Barry, pausing on his way out.

  ‘There’s too much here.’

  ‘They’re fucking with you.’

  ‘What am I meant to do with it all?’

  ‘I’m just the guy who delivers it.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I could bring you some coffee.’

  ‘What! Really?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘I would love that.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll help you keep awake.’

  Tabitha lifted the contents of the first box onto the table and started from the top. She peered at a map of Okeham, although in the dim light it was hard to make it out, and then looked at the transcript of Andy’s call to emergency services. She read the officer at the scene’s description of the body, and of herself. ‘Miss Hardy was in an incoherent and agitated state,’ she read. ‘She was covered in blood and she repeatedly said, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know.” ’ Tabitha laid aside the sheet of paper and frowned. What didn’t she know? Her memory was still a horrible blank and reading about herself was like reading about a stranger.

  She came to the photos of Stuart and made herself look at them again – but what could they tell her? That his carotid artery had been severed and he had been stabbed repeatedly in his chest and stomach. The autopsy used the word ‘frenzied’. Could she have been so frenzied that she had killed Stuart and forgotten? And how had his body got into the shed? He was overweight and she was small.

  Several of the sheets of paper had been signed by DCI Dudley.

  After several hours of reading she came to the CCTV shots. She saw herself going into the village shop at 08.10 and then leaving at 08.15. She saw Stuart’s car drive past at 10.34 and, in the next image, returning at 10.41. That was all.

  She looked at the four grainy pictures for a long time. The sewing machines outside had stopped; everyone must have left. She had no idea what time it was. Whoever had killed Stuart had done so after 10.41am, but there were no CCTV pictures for after that. If she was going to get anywhere, she needed to see who had gone past the surveillance camera throughout the day. Anyone who walked through the village towards Stuart’s house had to go that way. All of the houses except hers and Stuart’s were on the other side of the village shop, so it made sense that the murderer, whoever she or he was, would be on film.

  Tabitha flicked rapidly through the pile of paper in front of her, then lifted the second batch out of its box and scrabbled through that as well. There were no other CCTV photos: they had dumped every bit of information they had, however irrelevant, but left those out.

  She bundled everything together and opened her notebook to find the card she had pushed between its pages after her court appearance in January. Tom Creevey, liaison officer for the prosecution.

  * * *

  ‘I need to see all the footage,’ she said, cupping her hand over the receiver and turning her back on the warder who was standing too close to her.

  ‘All?’ Creevey’s voice was politely incredulous.

  ‘Yes. From, say, six in the morning of the twenty-first of December until half past four in the afternoon.’

  ‘I think that might be a problem.’

  ‘It’s my right,’ she said. ‘The judge said you were to give me everything I asked for. I demand it.’

  A hefty sigh came down the phone. ‘It might take some time.’

  ‘I haven’t got time.’

  * * *

  ‘I need a different room. It’s my right.’ She sneezed loudly.

  Deborah Cole stared at her across the polished desk as if she were an alien species, something curious and faintly repellent. ‘You don’t seem to understand the rules,’ she said. ‘This is a prison, not a hotel.’

  ‘I have the right to see all the evidence I need before my trial.’

  ‘You’re beginning to try my patience.’

  Tabitha squeezed her fists together. She knew she mustn’t lose her temper but the sight of the governor’s blond hair, her impeccably applied make-up, her tailored clothes maddened her. She pictured all the women prisoners, their night terrors and their private agonies and the mess of their lives, and she looked at Deborah Cole’s manicured hands and her shapely eyebrows and thought she might pick up the paperweight and hurl it at her.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said in a tight, scratchy voice. ‘But I do need a space where the electrics work and where I can watch CCTV footage. The judge was very insistent,’ she added, ‘that I have everything I require. He made a point of it. I’m sure you don’t want to be seen to be impeding the course of justice.’

  She felt ridiculous using such a phrase, but she saw something shift under the smooth surface of Deborah Cole’s face.

  THIRTY-THREE

  There was no warning. After the breakfast trays had been collected, Mary Guy appeared at the door.

  ‘You’re going to see a film,’ she said.

  Tabitha wasn’t immediately sure whether this was a question or a statement. Then she realised. She picked up her notebook and a handful of pens. She followed the warder into the library. Mary Guy walked round the desk into the librarian’s office. They went through a door at the back, entering a room that was little more than a corridor with the toilet at the far end. A small TV screen had been placed on a narrow table. A DVD player was attached.

  ‘Really?’ Tabitha said. ‘You could have just put it on a memory stick.’

  ‘No computer. It’s a security issue.’

  ‘It would have saved a lot of trouble.’

  ‘We’re not here to save you trouble.’

  ‘So is it on disc?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  There was a pause.
>
  ‘All right,’ said Tabitha. ‘I wasn’t just asking out of interest. Are you going to give it to me?’

  ‘Them. There are a few of them.’

  ‘Are you going to give them to me?’

  ‘Hang on.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘It needs to be checked over.’

  ‘I know how to operate a DVD player.’

  ‘I said hang on.’

  Mary Guy’s tone had grown more menacing, so Tabitha stood and waited, faintly puzzled. Then the door opened and a familiar shaven-headed figure entered. One of the women from the fight, all those days ago. It took Tabitha a moment to remember her name.

  ‘Jasmine,’ she said. ‘Are you going to watch TV with me?’

  Mary Guy took something from her pocket and handed it to Jasmine Cash. Tabitha couldn’t see what it was.

  ‘Two minutes,’ said the warder and left the room.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Tabitha. ‘I don’t need help to work a DVD player.’

  Jasmine ignored her. She sat down and put the DVD player on her lap. Now Tabitha saw that the warder had given Jasmine a miniature screwdriver. With a few deft movements, she was using it to unfasten the screws on the back panel. She didn’t remove the panel but loosened it enough so that she could push her fingers inside. She pulled out a small white plastic bag and then Tabitha saw that the plastic wasn’t white. It was what was inside the bag.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’

  Jasmine ignored her. She put the bag on the table and then pushed her hand inside the back of the DVD player again. When she was done, there were four small bags in a line on the table. She put two in each pocket of her tracksuit bottoms. Then, with a frown of concentration, she refastened the panel. Then she looked round at Tabitha with a smile.

  ‘We owe you one,’ she said.

  ‘If they found out—’ Tabitha began.

  ‘They won’t find out. They don’t want to find out.’

  The door opened and Mary Guy came back in. Jasmine handed the screwdriver back.

  ‘All working fine,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ said Mary Guy. ‘Then you’d better be on your way.’

  When Jasmine had gone, Tabitha looked at the warder for some sign that she felt guilty or uneasy or acknowledged in any way what had just happened. She saw nothing, nothing at all.

  ‘There are rules,’ the warder said.

  ‘Rules? What do you mean, rules?’

  ‘I’m told that you’re entitled to watch this and you’re entitled to privacy. That means I’m outside the door at all times. Don’t get up to anything. Just watch your film.’

  Mary Guy was holding an A4-sized padded envelope. She laid it on the table.

  ‘The discs are in there,’ she said and then she left the room.

  The envelope was stapled shut and Tabitha pulled it open. There were two little stacks of discs, held together with rubber bands. She took the two piles out and examined them. Each one had a label affixed: one said ‘interior’ and the other ‘exterior’. She started with the exterior pile. Each disc was in its own square envelope with a time scrawled on it in thick black marker. She saw ‘3–4pm’ on one, ‘10–11am’ on another. She arranged them in chronological order. The first was ‘6–7am’. Wouldn’t it be completely dark? The last was ‘7–8pm’, well after the action was over. She opened the envelope of the second disc, ‘8–9am’, and inserted it into the DVD player. At first the screen was just a fizzing blur and she felt a terrible sense of anticlimax. But after some clicking on the control, an image appeared on the screen, wavering and wobbling, and then suddenly, like in one of the dreams she had been having night after night, Tabitha was back in Okeham.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The image was in black and white and it was a little grainy but she was looking across the main street of the village. There wasn’t much to see, the tarmac of the road, the bus stop and the little bus shelter behind it that was built into the sheer cliff side that climbed to the moorland above. If it weren’t for the time code in the top left corner of the screen, it could have been a still photograph, except that, when she looked closely, she could see the birch tree beside the shelter swaying slightly, its naked leafless branches rippling. Tabitha felt tears coming to her eyes. She could almost feel the northerly wind from the Channel on her cheeks. She could almost smell the salt and the seaweed and the mud at low tide.

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Think, Tabitha, she told herself. Calm. Think calmly. She opened her notebook at a clean page and wrote ‘CCTV’ at the top and underlined it. She looked at the image. Nothing was happening. There was nothing to note down. There was an absurdity about it. A static image of nothing happening in an irrelevant part of the village. What good was that to her?

  She mustn’t give in to thoughts like that. It would drive her mad. Think, Tabitha, she told herself again. She tried to place herself at the scene. If she were standing there, with her back to the village shop, seeing what the camera saw, what else would she be able to see? If she turned right, she would be on the road leading up and out of the village, the road that had been blocked by the fallen tree. What time was that? She looked through the notes she had made. It must have been shortly after nine-thirty.

  Next door to the village shop was Dr Mallon’s house, then the church and next to that was the little vicarage where Mel lived. After that was a row of houses and then the hotel, closed up for the winter. On the other side, the side away from the sea, were two rows of houses on the hillside under the cliff.

  If you turned left instead of right, you would see the little cove and stony beach down on your left. Tabitha swam there every morning. Just beyond the cove, the road looped round on itself. If you stayed to the left, you went up the broad drive to the Rees’ house. If you veered right, a rough and uneven track led to Tabitha’s house. Beyond the two houses there was just the cliff wall as it curved round the bay that Okeham sat in. There was no way up or round. The coastal path didn’t go through Okeham, it veered away from it, up on the moors, and only rejoined the actual coastline three miles further along.

  But the camera couldn’t see to the left or to the right. It just looked blankly straight across at the bus shelter. And then suddenly two girls walked into the frame. They were young, about nine or ten, wearing thick coats and hats. Tabitha realised that this was going to be a problem. The twenty-first of December had been a cold, blustery day. Even if people were caught on this grainy footage, it might be a challenge to identify them. The girls walked across the road towards the camera and disappeared underneath as they entered the shop. Tabitha thought she recognised one of them. Beth Tally’s daughter, she thought. She wrote the name down. Another group of children appeared, two boys this time and a girl standing apart. They were waiting for the school bus. The girl crossed the road and entered the shop. Tabitha had got used to seeing them in the shop in the mornings, buying packets of crisps and giggling and escaping the cold.

  A car pulled up on the far side of the road and two people got out. Tabitha instantly recognised Rob Coombe. The girl getting out of the passenger side must be his daughter, though Tabitha had never seen her before. The two of them crossed the road and went into the shop. Tabitha noted the name and the time.

  The two boys were hunched over against the cold, hands in pockets. One of them laughed, then the other seemed to hear something and looked round to his right. What had he seen?

  A compact figure entered the frame, so wrapped up in a heavy jacket and a hat and a scarf that they were almost entirely hidden. For a moment Tabitha wondered who it was and then she felt a rush of emotion that left her feeling faint. She was looking at herself. She seized the control and froze the image.

  She looked at the time code: 08.11.44. At that moment, eleven minutes past eight on 21 December, Stuart Rees was home, alive, and Tabitha Hardy had walked to the village shop to buy a carton of milk. Tabitha felt a terrible impulse to shout at that woman, frozen there in the street, to tell h
er to forget everything, to go back home, get in her car and drive out of the village, to go anywhere, just get away. Not that it would have done any good. She had never been much good at taking advice. As she came closer to the shop, unaware she was being observed, she looked as if she were frowning, thinking hard about something. Tabitha wondered what it could have been.

  At almost the same moment as Tabitha disappeared into the shop, a huge shape filled the frame. The school bus had arrived. She could see the face of a boy staring through a cracked window of the bus, his face heavily scrawled over by the fractures in the glass. The bus driver emerged and walked past the camera into the shop. Tabitha smiled slightly, despite everything. She remembered it now, even if it was in fragments. As she’d queued for the milk, the children had been chattering, excited. It was the last day of term – that was it. Rob Coombe had bought a packet of cigarettes. Tabitha remembered that it was different from the old days. The cigarettes weren’t just stacked behind the counter. Terry, the woman behind the counter, had to open a kind of cabinet to get them. And then there was something else? What was it? Tabitha tried to remember but it was like trying to grasp an image that always slipped away at the last second.

  She wanted to follow herself into the shop. So she ejected the disc from the player and replaced it with the 8–9am disc from the interior pile. She pressed play. The interior camera, which she had never noticed before, was apparently placed at the back of the shop, almost at ceiling height, and looked towards the door. She fast-forwarded, seeing unidentified figures jerking in and out of the shop, until she reached just before eleven minutes past eight. She could see the back of Terry’s head and she could see Rob Coombe. The two girls were standing to one side. Like an actor making her entrance at the right time, Tabitha entered the shop and stood behind Rob, almost hidden by him, though it was clear that she was wearing pyjama trousers under her coat. Then the bus driver came in and joined the little queue. But Tabitha’s attention was on the farmer. He looked like he was in a bad mood and was gesticulating angrily. That was what Tabitha had been trying to remember: what had it been about?