“And what was the answer to that?”
“That’s not really the point. I went through it in my mind. It went something like this: I suffer from depression, I drop out of college, I go traveling in an aimless sort of way. All the time, without really knowing it, I’m thinking about what happened between me and Stuart. At the time it felt a bit sophisticated maybe, or at least one of those things almost all young people go through, messy sexual experiences that are part of growing up. But gradually I start to realize that I was horribly exploited by him and I start to blame him for what’s gone wrong with my life.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ingrid. “Are you saying this is what you felt?”
“Wait,” said Tabitha. “So I start unconsciously fixating on this and it kind of takes me over and in the end I move back to Okeham. I have a vague, hidden sort of feeling that I’m going to confront him about what happened, make him face up to what he did to me. I meet him and we have words. I threaten to expose him, go to the police. I arrange to meet him at my house. I tell him there are things we need to talk about. Instead, when he gets there, I have a knife. Which I use. I have a plan to get rid of the body, but before I can do it, my friend Andy walks out to the shed at the back of the house and finds it.”
There was silence, except for the shouts across the yard, the thumping of a basketball.
“You’re not saying anything,” said Tabitha.
“I don’t really know what to say. Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m pretty certain that that’s what Mora thinks happened. So I was trying to look at myself the way Mora looks at me. I know I’m a bit crazy sometimes. I brood. I get angry. Could I have done it and somehow suppressed all memory of it?”
“Surely you couldn’t have?” said Ingrid. There was a deep crease between her brows.
“That’s what I think. I couldn’t, could I? Even if the pills mess with my memory, I’d remember. Now that I’m here, going over everything, I know that Stuart did terrible things, and it damaged me in some deep way. It was abuse, of course it was. But I didn’t think that before. At least, if I did, I pushed it down deep. Anyway, none of that matters, all of that stuff about a motive. I wouldn’t kill someone whether I had a motive or not.” She looked at Ingrid’s expression again. “I’m not asking you to believe me. I know everyone says they’re innocent.”
“Some of them are,” said Ingrid.
“The problem is, what I know, or what I say I know, isn’t going to be much help in court. This may sound stupid but I don’t want someone just to do some clever defense. I don’t want them to think about strategy. I want to know the truth, even if it’s a terrible truth, and it’s driving me crazy. You see, I can’t remember that day. I’ve tried and tried, but it’s a horrible blank with nasty fragments in it, and I don’t know what I did. I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what I did during that day. The story I told you sounds quite convincing, doesn’t it?”
Ingrid looked at her with a troubled expression.
“What was your lawyer like?” asked Tabitha.
Ingrid’s expression hardened and then she gave a shrug. “He promised more than he delivered,” she said.
Sixteen
When she woke in the early hours, she couldn’t remember for a moment where she was. She lay in the dark silence, just the sound of Michaela’s steady breathing, which had become somehow reassuring, and everything returned to her.
Tomorrow was her court appearance. She needed to prepare herself. She tried to imagine it and found she couldn’t. Her world had shrunk to this tiny room and to the thoughts in her head that she couldn’t escape. In here, time was both meaningless and relentless: measured out by doors being locked and unlocked, by meager breakfasts, unappetizing lunches and nasty suppers, walks round and round the yard. But in twenty-six hours, she would, briefly, be back in time again. She used the toilet, washed her hands and face, brushed her teeth, dressed in the same old shapeless trousers and thick top that she wore every day.
It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t have the right clothes for the court and it was too late to ask Shona to bring anything. She rummaged through her things, old tee shirts and trousers and jerseys, everything a bit wrinkled and stained. She couldn’t ask Michaela—she was about twice her size; one of her tee shirts would look like a dress on Tabitha. She imagined herself standing in front of the judge in a grubby tracksuit, with her uncut hair and her bitten fingernails and her cut lip, then put her head in her hands for a moment, feeling grim and helpless.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course.” Ingrid patted the chair next to her. The library was cold this morning; the heating wasn’t working. Heavy, sleety rain fell past its window so Tabitha couldn’t even see the fields and the trees.
“I haven’t got anything to wear to court. I wondered if you could lend me something. You’re always so smart.”
And it was true. Today, Ingrid was dressed in dark woolen trousers and a bottle-green round-necked sweater. She had studs in her ears and her graying hair was neatly brushed. She looked like she was about to go into a meeting or stand at a podium to talk about fiscal responsibility.
“I know not to let myself go,” she said. “Of course you can borrow whatever you want. Though you might drown in my things. Let’s go and have a look.”
Tabitha felt like a
