And she had forgiven him because she was his wife, stayed with him because she was his wife: as wives do all over the world, she was implying, and Pinky and Smiley, and Blinky, Posh, Comfy and Doc all leaned forward slightly, united in their shared understanding of what wives do and what wives knew. Tabitha scowled down at her ringless hands with their bitten fingernails. Michaela calmly put a tab of chewing gum in her mouth.
“It was a relief when she moved away,” said Laura Rees. “We could go back to normal.”
Tabitha wanted to leap up and howl: “What about me, what about what I felt, what about me never being able to go back to normal?” But though she visibly squirmed in her seat she kept quiet.
Now they had jumped forward to the weeks leading up to the murder and Tabitha’s return to the village.
“You were suddenly neighbors,” said Elinor Ackroyd.
“Yes.”
“How did you feel about that?”
Laura Rees hesitated for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It had happened so long ago. You just get on with things, don’t you? Make do.”
“How did your husband feel?”
“He didn’t talk about it and I didn’t ask him. But I know he felt very anxious.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me that we had to leave the village.”
“Let me get this absolutely clear: you are saying that as soon as the accused returned to Okeham your husband decided you had to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Are you quite sure that the two things are connected?”
“What other reason would there be?”
“Did you ask him directly?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Laura Rees took another drink of water. “Because I already knew,” she said. “So why confront him? It would only muddy the waters.”
“Did you put your house on the market?”
“Yes. We were going to have viewings early in the new year.”
They moved on to the day itself. Tabitha flicked through her notes but couldn’t find the pages where she had written things about Laura. Her hands were sweaty. Laura’s uninflected, hoarse voice and Elinor Ackroyd’s clear, low one went on, back and forth: how Laura had left home at 9:30 A.M. to see a client; how she had returned at 3:30 P.M., earlier than usual because her son was coming home for Christmas; how her husband wasn’t there and nor was his car in the drive, but she hadn’t thought anything of that.
There was nothing that Tabitha didn’t already know, hadn’t read several times. Laura Rees even used the same phrases she had used in her statement to the police. Everyone’s memories, thought Tabitha, were just memories of memories of memories of what they had said six months ago.
It was very hot in the court. There was a fly buzzing nearby though she couldn’t see it. She twisted her head and found herself looking at a journalist on the press bench with small eyes and a double chin and he stared back then wrote something down. She returned to doodling in her notebook. She drew her house. She drew a fly. She drew a face and put a wig on it. She could feel her eyes grow heavy and she forced them wide. How could she be in danger of falling asleep when she was on trial for murder and the widow of the man she was meant to have killed was giving evidence a few feet from her?
Then suddenly it was over. Elinor Ackroyd sat down. Laura Rees smoothed her hair and fiddled with her scarf and her eyes flickered briefly across to Tabitha. The judge ordered a break. The court all rose.
“I know this is hard for you,” said Tabitha. “And it must feel really weird as well. It does for me too.”
“Ms. Hardy,” came the judge’s voice.
“What? Is that a wrong thing to say? I don’t know how this works,” she said to Laura, “but I need to ask you a few questions, so well, yes. Here goes.”
She cleared her throat. Her mind had gone horribly blank. Along the bench, Simon Brockbank was gently bouncing a pen on the desk. The sound of it ticked in her head.
“Can you stop that?” she said and he serenely laid down his pen and folded his arms.
“Yes, as I was saying. Just a couple of things. First off, the abuse, affair, whatever.” Her whole body was hot and itchy; she could feel her face become scarlet. “You said it was just once.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. You said ‘episode.’ That’s singular. Do you still believe it was just once?”
“I don’t know,” said Laura.
Their eyes met, and it felt neither hostile nor friendly.
“Do you accept it might have been more?”
“It might have been, yes.”
“If I said it was multiple times, would you be surprised?”
“I don’t know.”
“Thank you. And also . . .” She glanced down at the scrawled notes she had made. “You also said you chose to believe your husband when he said I’d started it.”
“Yes.”
“Do you still choose to believe that?”
“I don’t know,” Laura said again.
“So if I were to—” Tabitha felt Michaela pulling on her jacket. “What?” she said, breaking off. “Sorry,” she said to Laura. “Hang on.”
She leaned toward Michaela, who whispered urgently, “I think this is making it worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see, all this—him coming on to you, it going on for longer—makes it more likely you’d want to kill him, not less?”
“Oh.”
She stood up straight again, faced Laura.
“Can I ask you about this business of moving? Does it really make sense that it was because of me?”
“Yes.”
“I mean, did he ever say I had threatened him?”
“No.”
“Because whatever Pauline Leavitt said, I hadn’t.”
“Ms. Hardy!” reprimanded the judge at the same time as Simon Brockbank got to his feet.
“Sorry. OK. So he never actually said I’d been threatening him, is that right?”
“All I know,” said Laura Rees, “is that you arrived in Okeham at exactly the time he became anxious and decided to move.”
“I want to ask you about the day itself. You went to meet a client?”
“Yes.”
“But you never met him?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that a bit odd?”
“Not really.”
“I think it’s odd.”
Brockbank was
