‘That’s absurd.’
‘It may be absurd, but is it right?’
‘He thought that my version of Christianity was too liberal, certainly. Happy-clappy, he called it.’ Her face had become flushed; she was almost angry, thought Tabitha.
‘That sounds rude.’
‘I have to accept things like that. It goes with the job.’
‘Was it just a disagreement?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is it true that he wrote to the bishop, complaining about you?’
Simon Brockbank at last rose to his feet. ‘I’ve been lenient with Ms Hardy, but I think that is called leading the witness.’
‘It seems proper enough,’ said Judge Munday.
‘He did write to the bishop,’ said Mel.
‘Was it upsetting?’
‘I always tried to remain friendly with him and not take it personally.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘Not really. I knew his hostility came from a deeply troubled place, so really, I felt sorry for him.’
Sorry for Stuart, sorry for me, thought Tabitha.
‘A deeply troubled place?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Once he—’ She stopped.
‘Yes?’
‘He was very heated. I’m afraid I had spoken words that perhaps were not wise. I said something along the lines of his version of God being rather angry and unyielding, and he laughed and said he was damned whatever he did now.’
A murmur ran through the court. The reporters were scribbling away furiously. Tabitha glanced up and saw Laura leaning forward, her mouth in a thin line and her eyes shining oddly in her drawn face.
‘Damned,’ she said. ‘He told you that?’
‘You have to remember it was in the heat of the moment,’ said Mel. ‘But yes. He said he was damned for what he had done.’
Tabitha felt a bit giddy. A few minutes earlier the vicar had told the court that she, Tabitha, had said she was beyond hope and forgiveness, and now she was saying that Stuart had also said as much. As if the two of them were in the same pit of despair and self-hatred.
‘Why would he say that?’
‘Perhaps he was thinking of what he did to you all those years ago.’
Once again, Tabitha didn’t know if what Mel was saying helped or damaged her case. Probably neither, but this sunshiny woman had brought a darkness into the courtroom, as if the trial was no longer just about murder but about sin and depravity.
‘Thank you. I don’t have anything else to ask you,’ she said.
SIXTY-FOUR
Tabitha could hardly bear to look at Andy when he gave his evidence, standing in the dock in his cheap, badly fitting suit, newly shaved, looking like he wanted to be somewhere else. On several occasions the judge told him to speak up.
But it didn’t really matter that he mumbled and looked shifty. His evidence was solid enough. Tabitha knew exactly what he was going to say, but she was still dismayed by it.
He told the jury – although he didn’t look in their direction, but down at his feet or sometimes at the woman sitting beneath the judge’s bench – who he was, how long he had lived in Okeham (all his life), what he did and how he knew Tabitha. He described the work they had been doing on her house, and he grew more confident as he talked about joinery and damp courses and leaking gutters. He talked about how he had been working up the road that day at Ken Turner’s house, though Ken hadn’t been there, and had gone to Tabitha’s when he’d finished, at about half past four.
‘Sunset was at fifteen-fifty-three that day,’ said Simon Brockbank. ‘So it would have been dark, I presume?’
‘Yes,’ said Andy. Dark, cold and sleety; filthy weather. His voice became a mumble as he told the court how Tabitha hadn’t answered the door at first and when she had, she had been odd.
‘In what sense odd?’
‘Not herself,’ said Andy and when Simon Brockbank waited, he added, ‘Maybe she’d been crying, or something. Her eyes were bloodshot. Not herself.’
Again, he cast his wild look at Tabitha. She wanted to smile at him but her lips were stiff.
‘And then what happened?’
‘I went inside. I wanted to talk to her about the work we’d planned. We were going to lay floorboards. But she wasn’t right in herself,’ he said uselessly. ‘I thought she was ill maybe.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I went out the back door to get the wood.’
‘Where was the wood kept?’
‘Shed,’ muttered Andy.
‘In the shed at the back of the house, is that right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But did anything happen before you went out there?’
‘She said not to go.’
‘Can you speak up, please?’
‘She said not to go out there.’
‘She said not to go out there,’ repeated Simon Brockbank. ‘I see. And what was her manner when she said this?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Did she say it calmly?’
‘No.’
‘So how did she say it?’
‘She shouted it.’
‘I’m sorry. Please can you say that more clearly?’
‘I said, she shouted it. Like she was in a panic.’
‘But you went anyway.’
‘Yes.’
So it went on. His faltering words, the barrister’s fluent ones, back and forth. The body. The blood. The staring eyes in Stuart’s dead face. What Tabitha had done, had said, how she had seemed almost drunk with the horror. How he had called emergency services. Tabitha had lain on the sofa with blood on her face.
‘Did she say anything?’
‘She was kind of gabbling stuff. Like she was in pain.’
Tabitha shielded her face with her hand. She felt eyes on her. They were imagining her smeared in blood and wild. She was imagining herself.
* * *
At last it was over and it was her turn. She stood up and faced Andy. Their gazes locked.
‘Sorry about all this,’ she said.
Andy half-smiled. For a moment his face was handsome again. She didn’t know what to ask him. In the silence she could hear Simon Brockbank tapping his pen on the table: tick, tick, tick.
‘Do you think I killed him?’ she asked.
Beside her, Michaela let out a loud groan. ‘You promised never to ask that again,’ she said, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
Andy stared at Tabitha, horrified. In that brief moment Tabitha understood that he did. And she knew that everyone else in the court also understood.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘I mean, of course I didn’t think… You’re my friend. It’s just… look, I don’t think you would hurt a fly unless… well, unless you weren’t yourself.’
He was saying other things, about how the body was in her house and that was strange, but that didn’t mean… Tabitha couldn’t hear properly for the roaring in her ears. The room was going in and out of focus.
She whirled round towards Simon Brockbank and Elinor Ackroyd, though their faces weren’t properly in focus, just bland circles of discreet pleasure.
‘You fuckers,’ she shouted, so loudly the words ripped at her throat. ‘He was pretty much the only good relationship I had left in my shitty, stupid life and you’ve fucked that as well. What have you done? What have you gone and done to me?’
She went on shouting as she was led from the court, and her last sight was of Andy, bent over in the witness box, his face screwed up as if someone had punched him.
SIXTY-FIVE
Even sitting alone in the quiet of the holding cells, Tabitha felt like she was surrounded by a swarm of wasps. They were inside her head and outside her head. They were buzzing and they were crawling on her skin and they were crawling inside her skin. She felt an urge to tear at herself or to smash against the wall, anything that would just put an end to this fever of anger and agitation that was like an unbeara
ble itch that she couldn’t scratch. She only had the dimmest memory of the previous minutes, of being dragged like an animal through the court, along the corridors into the cell.
She stood up and faced the white concrete wall. She slowly clenched the fingers of her right hand and raised it. Just one punch would do something to break the fever.
‘Don’t,’ said a voice behind her.
She looked round. Simon Brockbank was leaning in the doorway of the cell, his wig in his hand, his robe over his arm. There were two chairs in the cell. Brockbank walked inside and sat on one of them. He draped his robe across his lap and placed his wig on top.
‘I did a case a few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘A fight outside a pub. My client took a swing at another defendant, missed, and hit a brick wall instead. So I’m a bit of an expert on hands and walls. There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand and if you do what you’re thinking of doing, they’re difficult to fix.’
He gestured towards the other chair. Tabitha glared at him. She was seriously thinking of punching Simon Brockbank instead of the wall. She looked at Brockbank’s face with its slightly sarcastic smile. He’d probably like it if she took a swing at him. It would show he had got to her. So she took a slow, long breath and sat down opposite him.
‘Have you come to gloat?’
Brockbank thought for a moment. ‘That would be one idea,’ he said. ‘You did me a favour up there. I imagine the jury had been thinking, this Tabitha Hardy, she’s a bit prickly, a big angry, but would she really be capable of killing someone? You’ve dealt with that little problem.’
Tabitha knew he was probably right. ‘Andy was my only friend,’ she said. ‘And look what you all did to him.’
‘That sounds like a conversation you should have with someone,’ Brockbank said, not sounding very concerned. ‘Meanwhile you have a decision to make.’
‘What’s that?’
Brockbank sniffed. ‘It’s not really a decision. It’s more like an acknowledgement of reality. You can’t just sit here forever. You have to do something.’
‘Such as what? Plead guilty? Is that what you want?’
Brockbank seemed to consider this, as if it was an entirely new idea.
‘It’s never too late to do the right thing. The judge might give you a certain amount of credit.’ He looked at Tabitha, whose expression was entirely impassive. ‘I thought not. In that case, what you really should do is go back upstairs and make a full, unconditional, sincere apology to the court.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Tabitha.
‘All right,’ said Brockbank, looking more serious. ‘I really should let you do this to yourself. But first I’m going to spell out in detail what will happen.’
‘Go on then,’ said Tabitha. ‘Spell it out.’
Leaning closer in, gesturing with both hands, Simon Brockbank spelled it out.
* * *
‘Have you anything to say, Ms Hardy?’
Tabitha stood up and faced the judge. She had a sudden flashback to apologies when she was at school, to a teacher or, on occasion, to the head. Those apologies were normally delivered in a faintly ironic monotone. It was generally accepted on both sides that Tabitha wasn’t really sorry but it was a form of theatre that had to be gone through so that life could proceed.
This was different. If she was going to do this, it had to be convincing. It had to be real. It wasn’t real, of course. But it had to convince both the judge and, even more important, the jury.
She clenched her fists so that her fingernails bit into her palms so hard that they actually hurt.
‘Yes, I do have something to say. I don’t want to make excuses for what I did. I don’t want to say that I’m feeling stressed by this whole situation, I don’t want to say that I was upset by having a friend appearing for the prosecution—’ She stopped herself, realising that she was making the excuses she’d said she wasn’t going to make. ‘I just want to say that I’m truly sorry. I know that you’re meant to behave in a certain respectful way in court, quite rightly, and I didn’t live up to that. I’m sure I’ve broken some law and I’m completely willing to acknowledge that and pay the penalty.’ She turned to the jury with an expression that she hoped wasn’t obviously hypocritical. ‘I just hope that you can all accept this apology and that I’ll be allowed to carry on representing myself. I absolutely promise that nothing like it will happen again.’
She turned back to the judge. Too much? she wondered. Actually, she was regretful. She’d lost all control. She’d let everyone see something that should have been kept hidden. She waited, looking at the judge, who was looking down at her notes, frowning. What would be truly galling would be if she had grovelled and humiliated herself and it didn’t get her anywhere.
Judge Munday looked up. ‘Ms Hardy, your outburst was a disgrace. I seriously considered citing you for contempt of court and appointing a counsel to act for you.’
Tabitha gave an inward sigh of relief. But she knew she mustn’t look relieved. She must continue to look penitent.
‘I want you to be clear,’ Judge Munday continued. ‘I won’t tolerate anything like this again. No outbursts, no swearing, no shouting. Do you understand?’
Tabitha nodded humbly and sat down beside Michaela, who was sitting with her head in her hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
Michaela lifted her head. She looked grim.
The court then stood up as Judge Munday adjourned for the day and the police officer approached to take Tabitha away.
‘Just give me a moment,’ said Tabitha.
The officer looked at his watch. ‘Two minutes,’ he said.
‘That’s ridiculous. I need to talk about the case.’
He looked at his watch again. ‘One and a half minutes.’
Tabitha turned to Michaela. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. She felt like a little girl who was losing her only friend.
‘How can I be your McKenzie fucking friend if you do things like that? I told you not to.’
‘I know. I was stupid.’
‘Bloody stupid. Do you ever listen to anyone?’
‘I won’t do it again.’
‘That’s what you always say. But you lose your temper and then say whatever comes into your head.’
‘I know. That’s why I need you to be here as well.’ There was a silence. ‘You will keep on coming, won’t you?’
Michaela sighed heavily. ‘What else have I got to do?’
‘Thank you.’ She waited a few seconds. ‘Tomorrow’s the crime scene officer.’
‘Anything you’re worried about?’
‘I’m worried about everything. All the time.’
‘I mean, is there going to be anything new?’
Tabitha thought for a moment. ‘I read the report. It’s just about what was at the scene. They didn’t find a weapon. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.’
‘You want me to do anything?’
‘I don’t know what would help,’ said Tabitha desperately. ‘I don’t know what we’re looking for. You could take a look at that list of things they had in storage. You’ve done so much already. I don’t know what to say.’
She looked round at the officer. ‘Is my time up?’
‘More than up.’
Tabitha looked back at Michaela. ‘Or have an evening off. Whatever.’
* * *
The next morning when Tabitha was brought into the courtroom, there was no sign of Michaela. Perhaps she had decided not to come after what had happened the previous day: Tabitha felt nauseous at the idea. The jury came in and then the judge. The scene of crime officer, Dr Andrew Belfy, made his way into the courtroom to the witness box and still there was no sign of Michaela. Tabitha looked around for her. Perhaps she had overslept. Perhaps she had just given up on all of this and returned to her old life. Tabitha had been let down by so many people, why not Michaela as well?
She turned her attention to Dr Belfy, dressed in a rumpled grey suit t
hat seemed a size too small for him. He was largely bald with frameless spectacles and he was carrying a bundle of files and a small bag from which he extracted a laptop. He opened it and started tapping at it until the usher brought him a Bible to swear on.
Elinor Ackroyd stood up and elicited from him that he was not a police officer but hired on a contractual basis. He had a degree in organic chemistry and had twenty-six years of experience in his job, which took him all over the south-west region.
Ackroyd began to take him through the details of his report, the position of the body, the bloodstains on the plastic sheeting that the body had been wrapped in, the bloody footprints leading back into the house. It should have been horrifying but Dr Belfy spoke about it as if he were discussing the construction of a model railway. He kept referring back to obscure paragraphs of his report, which he always had trouble finding. Also, he had a strange voice that sounded as if his tongue was too large for his mouth. Tabitha became so preoccupied with this that she found it difficult to pay attention to what he was saying. She had to force herself to take the occasional note. There didn’t seem anything especially damaging about the report apart from the basic, central, horrible fact of it happening in the outbuilding of her home.
She sensed a movement behind her, looked round and saw Michaela tiptoeing forward, mouthing an apology at Judge Munday, who glowered back at her. She sat down next to Tabitha, breathing heavily.
‘You all right?’ said Tabitha in a whisper. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘Sorry I’m late, I had to make some calls. I found out something weird. It’s about the sheet.’
‘What sheet?’
‘The one the body was wrapped in.’
‘Please, Ms Hardy,’ said Judge Munday, breaking in.
‘What?’
‘There is an examination going on here.’
As the examination continued, Tabitha tried to make sense of Michaela’s scrawled notes.
‘Are you sure?’ she whispered.
‘I rang the delivery firm.’
Tabitha thought so hard that it almost made her head hurt.
House of Correction Page 28