“You did that really well.”
When Dana left the cell, Tabitha quickly rewrote the letter on a fresh sheet of paper.
Twenty-Nine
Almost by return of post, Tabitha got a letter back from Coombe.
Dear Miss Hardy,
Thank you for your letter. I may be called up to give evidence in the upcoming trial and therefore I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to come and visit you.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Coombe
“Fucking pompous idiot,” she said aloud when she had finished it. She tossed the letter down and then immediately picked it up again. He was giving evidence for the prosecution. And if it were for the prosecution, it would have to be damaging to her. Was it just that he had heard her bad-mouthing Stuart? Or he said that he had. She didn’t believe him, but why would he make up something like that? Would she be informed as part of the prosecution case? Probably.
It was all so confusing. She had thought that in spite of everything Coombe would see her, that he would be curious enough. But just a few hours later, she found herself sitting opposite someone she had never even thought to ask.
“Long time no see,” said Luke Rees.
And it was a long time. He had been eleven or twelve when she left Okeham, and they were at the same school for only a year. All she’d known about him was that he was Stuart’s son, though by the time Luke arrived in secondary school Stuart no longer paid any attention to Tabitha. She remembered him as scrawny and emotional; once she had seen him weeping near the school gates, pushing his knuckly fists into his eyes, trying hard not to cry. To be a boy and cry was to be a baby or a sissy; to be the teacher’s son was to be the target for bullies.
Now Luke was tall and rangy, with pale skin, long dark hair in a topknot: he was arresting in a wasted kind of way. He was wearing a purple hoodie and beneath it a red tee shirt. Tabitha tried to make out his expression. Was he contemptuous, amused, distressed or just detached?
“I’m surprised to see you,” she said finally. “I mean, really surprised. I didn’t write to you. I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“Why? Because you fucked my father? Or because you’re accused of killing him?”
He grinned and nodded his head as he spoke, as if he was agitated and trying to keep it under control. He put his hands on the table. They were pale and smooth with long fingers; beautiful hands, except the nails were bitten back almost to nothing.
“Is that what you came all this way to say?”
“I’m not sure why I came. Maybe it was just because I wanted to take a good look at you and hear what you had to say for yourself.”
“I’m not sure that I’ve got anything to say for myself. I know this must be horrible for you.”
“Don’t pity me,” he said in a loud tone that made Tabitha look around.
“You don’t want to make a scene here,” she said.
“What will they do, throw me in prison?”
Luke Rees was about five years younger than Tabitha but she felt like he was a morose, ironic teenager who was going to be as sulky as he could, simply to make a point. But what point?
“Our paths have never crossed,” said Tabitha. “Since school, I mean. Not that they really crossed even when we were at school.”
“I didn’t know,” he said. She liked his directness. “About you and my father, I mean. I only knew when Mum told me a few days ago.”
“I suppose she was very angry with me.”
“She didn’t seem angry. I think she just put up with things. That’s what being married means, doesn’t it? Putting up with things.”
“I don’t know,” said Tabitha. “I’ve never been married.”
“You don’t seem like the marrying kind.”
Tabitha didn’t know what to make of that. She forced herself to focus. She wasn’t sure why Luke had come but she needed to make the most of it, to learn anything she could.
“What did you think when she told you?”
He put his hands behind his head. Underneath his casual manner he was like a coiled spring.
“Think? I thought, poor old Mum, having that as well.”
“You weren’t surprised?”
Luke gave a harsh laugh. “I’m told it’s what men do when they reach a certain age. I was only surprised it was with you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I remember you. You weren’t exactly the most sophisticated girl in the class.”
“No. I wasn’t.”
“So yeah, really I just felt sorry for Mum.”
“Have the police talked to you?”
“Why do you care?”
“I want to know who was in the village. Were you there?”
“Sure.”
“So you saw Stuart . . . your dad?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How come?”
“I came home that day. I took the train to Dormouth, but the bus to Okeham wasn’t running. So I walked.”
“In the storm?”
“It’s a way of thinking, clearing my head. There was almost nobody around. I saw where the tree had blown down and blocked the road. They were starting to work on it.”
“I thought there was no way into the village at all.”
“There wasn’t, except over the tree. I climbed over the trunk with the help of the men, and walked down. When I got home there was nobody in, the car wasn’t there.”
“It must have been parked round the back of my house by then. What time was this?”
“Why?”
“Was it morning or afternoon?”
“I don’t know exactly. Afternoon, about two or three. Before Mum came back anyway. I wasn’t looking.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing. I was tired.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“What does it matter whether I saw anyone?”
“I’m trying to work out who was in the village and who met who and who talked to who and what they said and
