“Right.” Tabitha wondered which it was better to be: fishy or dodgy.
“She said you hadn’t entered into the village community much. That you wore odd, mannish clothes—well, that’s true anyway.” And now Michaela smiled at her, a large and unexpected smile that showed a chipped tooth. “And you didn’t have much chitchat. You just worked on your house or swam in the sea when nobody in their right minds would do that in the winter, or stalked around the village in a dark coat, scowling.”
“I get it. They didn’t like me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. They’re all just getting off on this. I asked if anyone thought you might be innocent.”
“And?”
“She sighed and said the police had been very thorough and she was very sorry to say it wasn’t in much doubt. Then she asked if I knew about what had happened between you and the guy you’re meant to have killed in the past. I said I knew the bare bones. She lowered her voice and leaned across the counter and got very chummy.”
There was a lightness about Michaela that was completely new to Tabitha. It’s being free, she thought, and a spasm of pain gripped her.
“What did she say?”
“Things like: you never could tell what people get up to behind closed doors, dark horses or something. Then the vicar came in and she told her I was a reporter, and the vicar said nobody in the village would want to discuss something that had been so distressing. Then she said that she wanted to make it known that she had visited you in her pastoral role or whatever. She said she couldn’t reveal what you had told her but she thought it had been helpful to you to see her.” Michaela put her head on one side. “Was it helpful?”
“What do you think?”
“That’s what I reckoned. The two of them smiled at me so much I thought their jaws would crack. They kept saying it was very sad and smiling at me. They asked when my article would come out. And I said I didn’t know. Then I walked to your house.”
“What for?”
“I wasn’t going to go all that way and not see it. They pointed me in the right direction. It’s pretty, but it doesn’t look like anyone could live there. There was a man painting the porch.”
“Andy.”
“I said I was a reporter and he told me he had nothing to say to me. But he was quite polite about it so I didn’t mind.”
“Yes, he is polite.”
“And that was it.”
“Thank you, Michaela,” said Tabitha. “I’m really grateful.”
And she was, although in truth she had learned nothing new. Then a thought came to her.
“What was the dumper truck doing at Rob’s? And you mentioned machines as well.”
“The whole place is a huge muddy building site.”
“What’s being built?”
“Houses maybe? That’s what I assumed anyway.”
“I see,” said Tabitha.
Terry’s words came into her mind: He was applying for permission to build some holiday homes. It was going to be his pension. Then it was all halted. There was an objection.
Stuart.
Forty-One
The bus driver, Sam McBride, looked more like he belonged in prison than many of the actual prisoners did. He was thin, with an unhealthy pallor that made Tabitha think of days spent indoors, and sandy hair that he wore in a ponytail. He was wearing a combat jacket, and when he took it off and hung it over the back of the chair, Tabitha saw that both his arms were thickly tattooed. He reminded her of a fox, quick and watchful, his brown eyes flickering around the room.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
“Yeah, well,” he said, his voice surprisingly low. “I don’t know what use I am.”
“It was just on the off chance. I looked at the CCTV of that day and you were in the shop at the same time as me in the morning. You came in to buy cigarettes and I was in front of you.”
“In your pajamas.” A little smile chased across his face.
“Right. And I just wondered if you remembered anything.”
“Like what?”
“Like, did I say anything?”
“Can’t you remember?”
“The man who was standing in front of me claims I said something offensive about Stuart.”
“That’s not good.”
“Did you hear me, though?”
His eyes rested on her face briefly. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”
Tabitha paused.
“Do you remember me not saying anything or do you just not remember anything?”
He looked puzzled. “I don’t know. If you’d shouted or been angry, I guess I’d have remembered that.”
Tabitha let out a sigh.
“That’s good, I suppose. Did you hear Rob Coombe—that’s the guy—say anything? He looked angry on the CCTV. I want to know what he was angry about.” She took a breath. “Specifically, I want to know if he was angry about Stuart.”
“I see,” said the driver slowly. “That’s what you want.”
“I want the truth.”
“Right. You want that to be the truth.”
Tabitha smiled, though she felt discouraged. “Sure,” she said. “There’s a great wall of evidence stacked against me and I want to pull out a few of the bricks. Or loosen them.”
“I wish I could help you more,” he said and he seemed to mean it. “But I go in there most days to buy cigarettes or a can of Coke or whatever, and I don’t really pay attention to what’s going on. Now you mention it, it rings a bell—but that may only be because you’re mentioning it, if you get me.”
“If I asked you to be a witness, would you?”
He gave a tiny, crooked smile. “You must be desperate.”
“Pretty much.”
He stared at her for a few seconds, considering. “If it’ll help.”
“And if anything else does occur to you, like remembering the farmer yelling about Stuart, you’ll tell me.”
“Sure.”
“Do you drive the school bus every day?”
“Yeah. I spend from half seven in the morning till about five in the afternoon, five days a week, driving it; except after the school run, it’s the old people going to community centers and stuff like that.”
“So you know the
