She couldn’t understand how Simon Brockbank had been so in control of all the information—those hundreds of statements and documents and photos and timings—and he had gathered it all smoothly up and offered it to the jury in bullet points. Glancing at the notes had just been a gesture. Whereas she—who had lived through the events he was only describing, and who had had months to assimilate the information and shape it into some kind of narrative—was still in a fog.
She needed to focus. Michaela had taken the folders, but she opened up her moleskin book that was falling apart and gazed at the notes, the lists, the drawings, the arrows and the graphs and the various timelines. She looked at the asterisks and exclamation marks and circled and underlined words. It looked mad. It was mad. She closed the book and closed her eyes and let sleep swamp her.
She dreamed that she was back in Okeham. She was in her house in the darkness and someone was rapping at her door and she knew she mustn’t open it but she did. Stuart Rees was standing there but he was the Stuart of fifteen years ago. He beckoned at her, his finger like a hook. The school bus was behind him. She could see her own face at its central window, scribbled over by the crack in the glass, illegible, soundlessly shouting something. The sea was rolling toward her, hissing and swollen and inky black.
She woke with a jerk and stared around her. Her mouth was dry and her head was full of cobwebs and ghosts.
Fifty-Five
When Tabitha was a teenager she had gone to see a comedian who gave a brilliant improvisatory performance, drifting from topic to topic in a kind of random free association, bouncing off comments made by the audience. She had been so dazzled by it that she had gone the next night as well. It turned out that it wasn’t improvisation at all. Every cough, every stumble, every little digression was identical. Even the apparent off-the-cuff responses to heckles were identical. She had felt let down and grudgingly admiring at the same time.
She felt much the same when she sat and watched Simon Brockbank deliver his opening statement for the second time. The first time it had felt conversational and relaxed, like a man with complete control of the case was thinking aloud, sharing his thoughts with the jury. There had been a moment where he had mentioned Laura Rees, what it was like for her to have to identify the body of the man she had been married to for thirty-five years, when his voice broke, he paused and then took a sip of water, as if the emotion was so great that it had got to him, a hardened professional. The second time, he did it exactly the same way, the same cracking of the voice, the same sip of water. Tabitha almost wanted to laugh and to get up and shout to the jury that this was a fake, a performance. But she didn’t. She didn’t want the trial stopped all over again.
Instead, her mind started to wander. She looked around the court that was crammed with journalists who must have heard about this lunatic woman who was defending herself, and then she looked up at the public gallery. It too was crowded; she saw faces peering down at her and quickly turned away.
Next, she looked across at the jury. They were sitting in two rows down to her left. She looked along the back row: balding man, like a middle manager, early forties maybe; frizzy, black-haired woman, late thirties, hippyish, big earrings, Tabitha imagined she’d made them herself; round-faced woman, head scarf, looking round and smiling at nothing in particular, thirties; woman, forties, bright pink cardigan, stern face; young man, twenties, hoodie and tee shirt, blotchy face, clearly bored and it was still only the first day; man in his fifties, dressed for court, thin, serious, kept shifting around—to concentrate? Stay awake?
Front row: serious woman, serious hair, serious small round tortoiseshell spectacles, serious dark clothes, probably a doctor; man, trimmed beard, checked shirt, possible geography teacher; older woman, late sixties, comfy, flowery dress; woman in forties, big brown-beaded necklace, ferocious brow, stared up at Tabitha more than any of the others, not in a friendly way; posh woman, mid-forties, immaculate fawn sweater and discreet necklace, precisely made up, Tabitha could imagine her on a horse in tight white trousers; man in a man bun, but too old for it, late forties probably.
There were different sexes, different ages, different races. Tabitha could imagine an alternative universe in which she would be winning them over one by one, crafting a defense that would appeal to each one of them personally. Probably she should at least separate them in her mind into the friendly and the unfriendly. The problem was that they all seemed unfriendly. Scary brow was probably worst, but they all showed varying degrees of suspicion. When they had looked up at her, Tabitha, in her Plexiglas container, had felt like a creature in a zoo. There might as well have been a label: “Tabitha Hardy. Murderer.”
“Ms. Hardy?”
Tabitha looked round. She had almost forgotten where she was.
“What?”
“Your defense statement,” said Judge Munday.
“What?”
“It’s time for you to make it.”
Tabitha looked round in dismay. Simon Brockbank had finished his statement and was seated. Both barristers had swiveled in their chairs and were gazing at her, as were the jury, as was the judge, as was everyone in the court, for once not staring down at their laptops.
Tabitha’s mind was a complete blank.
“Am I meant to speak from here?” she said.
“This has already been decided,” said Judge Munday in a firm tone.
“It just feels like I’m talking from inside a box.”
“Please continue.”
Tabitha took a deep breath. What if she just didn’t say anything? What if she fainted? She looked at the jury, who looked back at
