“It might be thought,” said Brockbank, “that after this regrettable incident you have a grievance against the accused. Is that the case?”
Coombe shook his head. “Not at all. I felt sorry for her, not angry. I figured I was just in the way. I didn’t take it personally. I wished her well. I just hoped,” he added virtuously, “that she would be able to sort her life out a bit. You only have to look at her to know she is clearly angry and unhappy.”
Before Tabitha could react, Michaela stood up. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Please sit down, Ms.—”
“Horvat. Michaela Horvat. And he can’t say things like that.”
“McKenzie friends are not allowed to address the court. And I think the statement is allowable.”
Coombe looked across at Tabitha and smiled nastily.
“Now we’ve got that over,” continued Brockbank blandly, “we can move on to the morning of the murder, which is why you have been called to give evidence by the prosecution. You say in your statement to the police that you saw the accused that morning.”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe what took place?”
“It was around eight,” he said. Tabitha scribbled a note. “I was buying a paper and she comes in.”
“The accused.”
“Yes. And she starts going on about Stuart.”
“For the record, Stuart Rees, the victim?”
“Right. She was in one of her moods and she called him a bastard.”
“A bastard,” repeated Brockbank.
“Right.”
“Can you remember in what context she made this comment?”
Coombe shrugged his large shoulders. “It was morning. I was dropping my kid off. I wasn’t paying attention. I just remember that. She called him a bastard. I think she said other things about him too, but I can’t be sure. She wasn’t a happy bunny.”
“You are absolutely sure that the accused called Stuart Rees a bastard.”
“Yes.”
“Did you mention this to anyone?”
“The police obviously. Before them, you mean? Why would I? I mean, if we told each other every time she went off on one, that’d be all we ever talked about. But she said it.”
They broke for lunch. Tabitha paced up and down the little cell while Michaela ate her chips.
“I’d like to punch him again,” she said.
“Right,” said Tabitha. “Let’s start with the time I punched you.”
He nodded and folded his arms across his chest.
“I’m not disputing it,” she said. “I did punch you. You did have a bloody nose.” She tried not to smile. That wouldn’t look good. “You say you can’t remember what you said to me before?”
“Right.”
“But you think you said something about me going swimming and how cold it must be?”
“Right,” he said again. “Not much of a reason to hit me, was it?”
“You did say that, it’s true,” said Tabitha. “You said you knew it must have been cold because you could see my nipples through my jersey.” A little murmur ran through the court and out of the corner of her eye she could see the jury slightly rearrange itself on the two benches.
“Rubbish,” said Rob Coombe. “I wouldn’t speak like that to a lady.”
“You don’t think of me as a lady, though, do you. You think I’m a wild cat.”
“That’s just a figure of speech.”
“Yeah. Then I told you to fuck off and you said you’d never thought of me as having proper breasts but my nipples looked like bullets and could you feel them to test their hardness.”
“That’s a lie!”
“You don’t remember that?”
“I don’t remember it because it never happened.”
“I hit you because you asked to touch my nipples.”
“This is just desperate.”
“And if I’m honest, I’m glad I hit you.”
“Why would I want to touch someone as ugly as you?”
Judge Munday intervened like someone trying to stop a pub brawl. When Tabitha resumed, Coombe’s voice was even louder now and his face a beefier shade of red.
“You say you were in the shop at shortly after eight?”
“Right.”
Michaela handed Tabitha the timeline she had made and she glanced at it.
“I came in at eight-eleven, so that makes sense. And you say I was angry. That was your word, right? And I called Stuart a bastard.”
“Right.”
“Are you surprised that no one else heard me say that?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
“Or that I don’t remember it?”
“That’s what you say.”
“There was Terry and she hasn’t said anything about it, and the driver of the bus and he hasn’t said anything. And me. And I don’t remember.”
“I’m just saying what I heard. You called him a bastard. I’m not going to change my mind, you know.”
“I’m sure you’re not. But the jury might.”
A ripple of laughter went through the public gallery. And the immaculate woman in the second row of jurors actually smiled. Tabitha felt a moment of giddy triumph.
“Where was I?” she said.
Michaela tugged at her sleeve and whispered something.
“Oh yes, I remember now. I need to show the CCTV footage,” she said to the judge.
Judge Munday nodded then looked at her watch.
“We will break early,” she said, “and meet again on Monday, when we will start with the relevant CCTV footage.”
“What! Do you mean I have to come back?” asked Rob Coombe. “I’m a very busy man.”
Judge Munday looked at him for a few seconds. Her face was quite blank. “Yes, you have to come back,” she said.
Sixty
Tabitha’s mood of exhilaration seeped away quickly, leaving her drained and stale. The weekend was a strange interruption. She spent many hours in the library, which wasn’t as pleasant as the one in Crow Grange and had no view over fields and woods, trying to prepare for the week ahead, but she was so tired that she couldn’t focus on anything. Her thoughts were confused and her eyes heavy. Several times she fell asleep at the table, jerking awake to stare in bewilderment round the unfamiliar surroundings.
She leafed through all her documents. She phoned Michaela. She slept alone in her cell and dreamed she’d had a baby, but a woman in wellington boots and a nun’s
