“All rise,” said a voice.
Tabitha looked around, puzzled, and saw the officer gesturing at her to stand. A door in the far wall opened and a figure entered. Tabitha saw a red robe, an off-white wig and a pale face. The figure sat down and nodded at the prosecution lawyers. Everybody in the court sat. When the judge spoke, Tabitha was surprised to hear a woman’s voice, although she shouldn’t have been. She had been told repeatedly.
The judge put on a pair of half-moon spectacles, shuffled through some papers in front of her and opened a laptop. She looked around and seemed to notice Tabitha for the first time. She frowned.
“Today we’re going to deal with some preliminary matters,” she said. “Do you understand?”
She sounded like a very grand headmistress. A headmistress from an earlier age. Tabitha’s own headmistress had not been grand.
“Not really,” said Tabitha.
The judge gave an exasperated sigh.
“This is why we have counsel.”
“Counsel?”
“Barristers. Lawyers.” She sighed again. “But there’s no point talking about that now. You’ll just have to do your best. I’ll try to give you some guidance but there’s only so much I can do. For example, is there any prosecution evidence that you want excluded?”
“I’m sorry,” said Tabitha, “but I can’t properly hear what you’re saying. Am I going to be stuck in this plastic box for the whole trial?”
“You’re the accused. The accused sits in the dock.”
“So what was your question?”
Judge Munday repeated it.
“Like what evidence?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what that means.”
Judge Munday took a long slow breath.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said and wrote something on a pad in front of her. She turned to the prosecution lawyers. Brockbank stood up. He put his hands in his pockets.
“I’m hoping we can arrange for the witness statements to be read out. To save time.”
“What does that mean?” said Tabitha in a raised voice.
“There’s no need to shout, Miss Hardy,” said Judge Munday.
“Ms. Hardy.”
Judge Munday paused. It looked like she was swallowing a piece of food that was hard to get down.
“Ms. Hardy,” she said finally. “All statements are to be addressed to me, not to anyone else in court. Unless you are cross-examining a witness. Evidence that is accepted as an agreed fact can simply be read out to the court.”
“No,” said Tabitha.
“What do you mean no?”
“I don’t accept it.”
“Which evidence don’t you accept?”
“None of it.”
Judge Munday slowly took off her spectacles.
“Ms. Hardy, you cannot simply waste the court’s time.”
“I’m fighting for my life,” said Tabitha breathlessly. “I’m not wasting anybody’s time.”
There was a pause. Brockbank gave a cough.
“Perhaps it might help if we went through the witnesses one by one,” he said.
He went through them all: the police officers, the forensic investigator, the pathologist, the various fellow villagers, and in each case Tabitha said that she didn’t accept it and that they would have to give evidence in person. Finally he sat down and Judge Munday gave another sigh and picked up a piece of paper and scrutinized it for a moment and then looked at Tabitha.
“I have to say that your defense statement was wholly unsatisfactory.”
“What do you mean?”
“The purpose of the defense statement is to define the issues on which your defense will rely. There is none of that here. There is nothing.”
Tabitha couldn’t think of anything to say. Again it felt like she was standing in front of a headmistress being dressed down. Tabitha had never been good in situations like that. Judge Munday put the piece of paper down.
“Ms. Hardy,” she said. “I don’t know what you’ve been told about conducting your own defense. Some defendants seem to see it as a way of creating confusion and throwing dust in the eyes of the jury. I can assure you that you will be treated fairly but I will not allow that to happen in my courtroom. Do you understand?”
“I really don’t know—”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’ll begin with the opening statements tomorrow.”
She stood up and everybody stood up with her.
Fifty-Three
Tabitha clutched her notebook. She stared through the Plexiglas at the court.
There was Michaela with all the files in front of her; today she was wearing a vibrant green dress which cheered Tabitha slightly: she was a flash of color and disobedience in a room of grays and blacks.
There was the jury who had been sworn in that morning, seven men and five women, and Tabitha didn’t like the look of that man on the left with a military mustache or the woman with hair like a bowl and a look of disapproval already on her face. Or the young man who kept picking his teeth for that matter. She had thought of objecting, opened her mouth to do so, then stopped: not liking the way someone looked at her wasn’t a reason for throwing them off the jury.
There was Simon Brockbank and Elinor Ackroyd in their flappy gowns and their stupid wigs.
And Judge Munday sitting in state, files stacked in front of her. It was hard to believe there was a normal woman under her wig and robe.
There were other people as well, some of them tapping on their laptops. Tabitha didn’t know who they all were. She guessed the men and women with notebooks must be journalists. And there were a handful of people up in the public gallery. She met the eye of an old man who was gazing avidly at her and looked away, feeling suddenly nauseous. Then she saw Michael gazing down at her and his face had lost its disapproving expression and was kind. She blinked. The face resolved.
