House of Correction

by French, Nicci

  ‘She’s the one on trial, not me.’

  ‘Can you answer the question?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve just tried to behave like a decent member of society.’

  ‘Just say yes and get it over with,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘I have given a short interview,’ said Shona, ‘and why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Because,’ said Judge Munday, ‘you cannot be an impartial witness if you have been paid for your story.’

  ‘That’s just unfair,’ said Shona. ‘Why is it wrong to tell my story? It’s mine. Anyway,’ she added, her voice loud and high with outrage, ‘she obviously did it. That’s what everyone thinks and it’s what I think and if you want the truth, even at school we all said she was mad.’

  ‘Clear the court,’ barked Judge Munday.

  She turned to Tabitha. ‘I take it you have no other character witnesses appearing in your defence that you want to demolish, Ms Hardy?’

  * * *

  ‘That was awful,’ Tabitha said. ‘Horrible.’

  ‘It wasn’t what I was expecting,’ said Michaela. She was eating a blueberry muffin and drinking a cappuccino. There was foam on her upper lip.

  ‘At least I didn’t say anything about her and Rob Coombe.’

  ‘Why didn’t you, while you were at it?’

  ‘I almost did – and then I saw us from the outside and felt ashamed.’

  ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think some of the jury are beginning to like you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. That one in the hoodie who spoke to you, he was laughing. And the woman in the front row with the beads.’

  ‘Blinky.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s what I call her. She blinks a lot.’

  ‘Don’t say that in court. Anyway, when the trial started all of them looked grim, but now that’s changed. At least some of them are on your side.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  SIXTY-NINE

  Sam McBride was smaller and slighter than Tabitha remembered. He looked vulnerable in the witness box in a cheap blue suit that was baggy on him, with an orange tie that he had knotted too tightly. His voice wavered when he took his oath and when he took a mouthful of water Tabitha saw that his hands were trembling slightly. But once he got going, he answered steadily enough, though Tabitha felt so weary of everything that she barely had the energy to ask him anything.

  He explained to the jury that he was a bus driver. He had only lived in the area for seven months – and at the time of the murder had been there for five weeks. Before that, he’d been in the army. He’d come to Devon to get away from things. He was a stranger to the area and had been working for the bus company for three and a half weeks. He’d driven lorries in the army so it wasn’t that different. He described his average day: collecting kids up on his route, dropping them at school, picking up the old folk and taking them to their community centres for lunch, returning to the school for the home run, before taking the bus back to the depot.

  He’d been in Okeham on 21 December. It was a normal kind of day – except for the ice, he added, plus the kids were pretty hyped up because it was their last day of term. He’d got there at about a quarter past eight, his usual time. He’d gone into the village shop to buy cigarettes.

  ‘I keep trying to give them up,’ he said, shrugging his thin shoulders.

  ‘Do you remember seeing me?’

  ‘You were wearing pyjamas.’

  ‘Did I talk to you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did I talk to anyone?’

  He shrugged. ‘I guess you maybe said something to the woman, you know, the woman behind the counter.’

  ‘Do you have any memory of me saying anything about Stuart Rees?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about Rob Coombe? Did he say anything about Stuart Rees?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Tabitha had been hoping for a different answer. She pressed on. ‘When you say you don’t know, do you mean he might have done?’

  Sam McBride shook his head. ‘I wasn’t paying attention. Maybe he said something.’

  ‘Can I put it the other way round? You didn’t hear me bad-mouthing him?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I think I would have remembered if you had. You were inches from me.’

  It was more than he’d said before and Tabitha felt pathetically grateful. She asked for the CCTV to be played. First they watched the images filmed by the camera outside. The digits at the bottom showed it was 08.10. Two young girls walked into the frame in their bulky coats. Three more kids appeared. A car drew up and Rob Coombe and his daughter got out. A figure entered the frame in a heavy jacket and pyjama trousers. Herself at 08.11.44. She knew all this almost by heart. She watched herself disappear into the shop. The bus pulled up; there was the face of the boy staring out through the cracked glass of the central window. Sam McBride appeared and also went towards the shop and out of frame.

  She asked for the interior clip to be played. There was the back of Terry’s head and Rob Coombe. Then came Tabitha. The bus driver came in and joined the little queue. Rob was gesturing angrily, briefly turning so that they could all see Tabitha’s face, smudged with tiredness. Rob Coombe left with a newspaper and cigarettes. She herself bought milk and exited. Sam McBride also bought cigarettes and some kind of chocolate bar, then he too left.

  ‘There,’ said Tabitha to the jury. ‘Does that look like I’m yelling about Stuart Rees? Doesn’t it look more like I’m saying nothing and that Rob Coombe is doing the shouting?’

  She thanked the skinny figure in the witness box. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt so frail and weepy: perhaps it was that Sam McBride made her feel sad, because in his solitariness he reminded her of herself; perhaps it was simply the sight of herself on that icy December morning, heavy with exhaustion and defeat, blundering towards disaster.

  SEVENTY

  When Luke was in the witness box, Tabitha never once looked up at the public gallery, but she could sense Laura’s eyes on her and she saw the scene as if from above: her in the increasingly baggy and creased suit she had worn for weeks now, like a uniform, with wild hair that needed washing and cutting; Luke facing her, tall and angular, with his pale face and dark hair tied in a topknot. Of all the people who had given evidence, he was the only one who had made no effort to dress up for the occasion. He was dressed in old jeans and the same red tee shirt he’d worn when they first met in prison.

  ‘Can you tell me about your relationship with your father?’ she asked.

  Judge Munday was practically quivering with vigilance. Tabitha knew she had to tread carefully.

  ‘It wasn’t good,’ said Luke matter-of-factly. He seemed unnaturally calm, much more so than the times he had come to see her at Crow Grange. ‘I wasn’t the son he wanted.’

  ‘What kind of son was that?’

  ‘Obedient. Traditional. One of the lads.’

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘Look at me. I was a crybaby. That’s what he called me.’ He lifted his face towards Laura. ‘I was bullied at school and I was bullied at home.’

  He still spoke without anxiety, almost as if it was a relief to him.

  ‘You dropped out of school early, didn’t you? Why?’ Tabitha asked.

  ‘I had to get away from him. I felt badly about leaving Mum. It wasn’t her fault. She tried to stop him sometimes and then she paid for it.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘He didn’t just bully me. He bullied her too. I don’t think he hit her but he controlled her. She was scared of him.’

  Tabitha glanced across at Simon Brockbank, wondering why he didn’t intervene. He was sitting back in his chair with his eyes half closed.

  ‘Why did you come back?’ she asked.

  ‘I wanted to persuade Mum to leave him. I never got why she stuck it out. I mean, I k
now they were comfortably off and had a nice house and all the stuff that goes with it but she had a terrible time of it. I never saw her happy.’ Again, he glanced up and away. ‘She didn’t laugh or even smile much. She just got through life, like a robot. It made me mad. I wanted her to leave and start again.’

  At last Simon Brockbank rose to his feet.

  ‘I fail to see what relevance there is in smearing the good name of a murder victim.’

  ‘Really?’ Tabitha put her hands on the table the way she’d seen him do and leaned towards him. ‘Really? One reason I’m on trial here is because I had a motive. But don’t you see, loads of people had a motive. I’m just showing the jury that Stuart damaged people. He made an entire village toxic. He ruined lives. Not just mine. Even his own son’s.’

  She waved her hand towards Luke, who looked back at her with a small, ironic smile. And, Oh Christ, she thought, noticing his large pupils, he’s stoned. At eleven in the morning.

  ‘Did your mother know why you were coming back?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did your father?’

  ‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe. You know, he had a way of finding things out. Secrets and weakness and things that made you ashamed. He had a nose for them.’

  Tabitha stared at him hard. ‘You’re saying that he collected secrets?’

  He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and once more glanced towards Laura. Tabitha saw an expression she couldn’t read flicker across his face. ‘He liked controlling people. He liked them knowing he had something on them, seeing them squirm.’

  ‘So do you think—?’ she began, but he cut her off.

  ‘Loads of people would have wanted him dead, or at least not be sad that he was,’ he said. ‘You’re just in a long line of them.’

  Tabitha took a sip of water.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Want him dead?’ He looked suddenly young and vulnerable. ‘I’m glad I’ll never have to see him again.’

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Lev Wojcik looked like he was wearing a suit that belonged to someone else. It wasn’t too small nor too big but somehow both at the same time. The trousers stretched over his thighs as he walked to the witness box, while the sleeves reached to his palms. Tabitha looked at him for a moment before speaking. He was probably the last person who had seen Stuart alive – apart from the killer. The police had interviewed him, but the prosecution hadn’t called him. Was that simply because they didn’t think he had anything relevant to say?

  She stood up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to pronounce your name.’

  ‘Voy-chick,’ he said with a slow weariness. Tabitha thought of how often he must have to go through this, pronouncing his name, spelling it out.

  ‘Mr Wojcik,’ she said carefully, ‘you were interviewed by the police, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did they want to know?’

  ‘What time I deliver package to Stuart Rees.’

  ‘And what time was that?’

  ‘He sign on my manifest so I have exact time.’

  ‘Manifest?’

  ‘Mobile thing. For signature.’

  He took a piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it. ‘Nine hours and forty-six minutes.’

  Tabitha paused. She really only had one question to ask.

  ‘How did he seem?’

  Wojcik gave a little shrug. ‘Nothing big.’

  ‘And then you were stuck in the village. That must have been a pain.’

  ‘Yes. Big pain.’

  ‘When did you realise that the tree had blocked your exit?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I go to shop and they say.’

  ‘But aren’t I right to think that you went there on your way to Stuart Rees’s house, and then on your way back.’

  ‘That is right.’

  ‘So were you told about the tree before you went to the house or after?’

  She tried to speak calmly, but she could feel beads of sweat on her forehead.

  ‘The woman say before. When I buy cigarettes. It must have fallen just behind me.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Tabitha. Her legs felt funny. ‘You knew before you got to Stuart Rees’s house that you were trapped in the village?’

  ‘Is right.’

  ‘And, um.’ She licked her parched lips. ‘Did you say anything about the tree to Mr Rees?’

  ‘Oh yes. When he is signing, I tell him I’m stuck in the village because of tree and they say it will be hours, and he tells me about the café.’

  ‘So he knew.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Stuart knew that the tree had blocked the village.’

  ‘I tell him so.’

  ‘He knew,’ repeated Tabitha.

  Lev Wojcik looked at her in puzzlement. ‘I tell him,’ he repeated slowly, as if to a child.

  ‘And the police didn’t ask you about this?’

  ‘No. Small thing.’

  Tabitha hesitated. She looked round the court and didn’t understand why everyone wasn’t whispering to each other or staring in astonishment. She couldn’t think of what else to say. When she spoke it was almost reluctantly.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  She leaned over to Michaela.

  ‘There’s something I should have said,’ she whispered. ‘There’s something—’ And then it came to her. She didn’t have to ask. She just needed to remember. She wrote frantically on the pad in front of her.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  It was the weekend. She had two whole days to think, to plan for the last days of the trial, to ready herself.

  Tabitha walked up and down the prison yard. It was smaller than the one at Crow Grange and surrounded by brick walls. It was muggily hot. The air pressed down on her, her skin felt clammy and she longed for wind, for the salt spray of the sea. Up and down, up and down, trying to hold on to the thoughts that hissed through her mind and evaporated.

  Lev Wojcik’s evidence yesterday in court had given her a glimmer of hope that was almost terror. There was a chance, maybe only a small chance, and it almost hurt. The time of being free seemed far off, and all that seemed real was her sweaty cell and her journey to the court and back in the van that smelled of other people’s bodies, and the days, the weeks, spent in that high-ceilinged space where people with well-bred faces under bristly wigs used pompous words, while her own heart galloped with fear.

  But whatever happened, she still wouldn’t know who had killed Stuart Rees. She wouldn’t know that it wasn’t her. The case against her might be less robust than it had seemed when she first stared at the bundle of evidence laid out against her, but the question remained, a fist round her heart: who else could it have been? She didn’t understand why the prosecution didn’t seem to realise what she herself so inescapably knew – that only she had been on the right side of the CCTV camera for long enough to kill Stuart. There was nobody else, just her.

  Up and down, up and down, while she tried to find a way out. The film ran through her head, grainy black-and-white images of figures moving jerkily across the frame; of the branches of the tree swaying slightly; of a child staring down through the cracked window of the bus; of the vicar and her dog; of Rob Coombe gesticulating wildly; of Owen Mallon running past; of Stuart’s car passing and re-passing; of herself dragging her unwilling body along the road; of herself, dazed with tiredness and defeat, looking unknowingly into the eye of the camera; of sleet and snow and darkness drawing in. Fast forward and rewind, and time passing and time frozen on sky and on tree and faces.

  She stopped abruptly.

  ‘What you staring at?’ said a woman, shouldering her. ‘What’s so interesting?’

  ‘There isn’t a coastal path,’ she said dreamily.

  ‘What? Are you on something?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Tabitha. ‘Wait a moment.’

  She held on to
a face. She closed her eyes so she might see it more clearly. A bell was shrilling somewhere.

  ‘Time’s up,’ said a voice.

  ‘Wait.’

  * * *

  It took several hours for the discs to arrive and for the TV screen and the DVD player to be set up in the small room near the prison officers’ cloakroom that was full of metal lockers. But no one had objected to her request: it was common knowledge that Tabitha was conducting her own defence and not being utterly demolished in the process, and she was suddenly a figure of something that was almost respect. Someone even brought her a mug of coffee and a packet of digestive biscuits.

  She began from the beginning, just as she had done all those weeks ago, when Mary Guy had handed her the stapled A4 envelope of discs: two little stacks, held together with rubber bands. Tabitha inserted the first one and pressed play. Once again, she was in Okeham on a winter’s day. The birch tree beside the bus shelter moving slightly in the breeze, two young girls in their winter coats walking into the frame, a car pulling up and Rob Coombe and his daughter arriving. Then it was her turn, half hidden in her jacket and scarf, head down. Then came the school bus, the boy staring out through the cracked window, his face looking like it was written on.

  Like that first time, she slid in the interior disc and watched yet again the scene inside the shop: Rob, herself, then Sam. They all arrived, they left, the snow fell in flurries and then turned to sleet.

  A bird. A cat. Laura’s car. Lev’s van. Owen Mallon sprinting past. The mothers and their toddlers, fingers pointing to the sky at the unseen helicopter. Andy, the return of Dr Mallon, Mel and Sukie, Shona.

  Tabitha’s eyes felt tired from staring. She didn’t write anything down, but she leaned forward as if as long as she concentrated hard enough, then she would see.

  Stuart’s car passing. Returning.

  The delivery man and Mel once more. Shona and then Rob.

  Luke bowed under his large rucksack. Tabitha watched as he trudged past, kicking up slush.