Then it was Monday, and she was both appalled and relieved that it was time to be in court again.
This time Rob Coombe wore a suit and shiny shoes. Tabitha thought he looked like a boxer, bulky and tense and waiting for the fight to begin.
They started with the CCTV. Tabitha had asked for it to start at 08:05, so the court spent a few minutes looking at the grainy space of empty shop before the door opened and Rob Coombe came in with his daughter behind him, almost hidden by his bulk.
There he was at the counter, gesticulating angrily, his face broken into myriad tiny gray squares so it was hard to make out his expression.
And there she was, entering the shop, in her jacket and her pajama trousers, her face a briefly glimpsed pinch of distress.
The bus driver came and stood behind her.
Rob Coombe was still talking. He took his newspaper and a packet of cigarettes that Terry had to open the little cupboard for. For a few moments he turned and Tabitha saw the back of his head and her own face, pale with tiredness, and her slumped shoulders. She could recognize her own wretchedness as if it was in the court beside her.
Rob Coombe shouldered past her, out of the shop.
She gestured at the clerk and the CCTV was halted.
“Right,” she said to the farmer. “I don’t know what you just saw, but I saw you doing all the talking.”
“Ask a question, Ms. Hardy,” said Judge Munday.
“OK. Wasn’t that you doing all the talking?”
“No.”
“No? We just saw you and you looked really grumpy and you were waving your hands and talking.”
“You talked as well. I heard you.”
“But you were facing the other direction.”
“I didn’t say I saw you, I said I heard you. I heard you say Stuart Rees was a bastard. Definitely.” He gave a firm nod.
“The camera doesn’t show that.”
“Just because we can’t see you talking doesn’t mean you weren’t talking.”
“You have a loud voice.”
“Ask a question,” said the judge warningly.
“Wouldn’t you agree you have a loud voice?”
“Sometimes. Like everyone else.”
“Booming, even.” He shrugged. “And do I?” she asked.
“What? I don’t get you.”
“Do I have a loud voice too?”
“It’s a bit scratchy,” he said. “Like you’ve had a cold or something.”
“So how could you have heard me while you were booming away there and I was apparently saying something in my scratchy little voice?”
He looked at her. She could imagine him hitting her. She could imagine him doing worse things than that.
“I just did,” he said sullenly. He pointed his finger at her. “I heard you abusing Stuart Rees and a few hours later he was dead.”
“Maybe it was you who said it.” She shot a look at Judge Munday. “I mean, didn’t you say it yourself?”
“No.”
“It looked like you were saying something angry.”
“It was you. End of story.”
“Because isn’t it true that you were angry with Stuart?”
“No. We got on fine.”
“That’s very noble of you,” said Tabitha, “considering he’d blocked your application to build holiday homes on your land.”
Rob Coombe glared at her. His face was flushed. “Be careful,” he said.
“But it’s OK now,” said Tabitha. “It’s all going ahead, isn’t it? Now he’s dead.”
“Ms. Hardy,” came the warning voice of the judge.
“You watch out,” said Rob Coombe in a nasty growl.
“It’s OK, you would never hit a lady, would you?”
She was about to sit down when Michaela hissed: “Ask him where he was.”
“What?”
“Ask about that day. Like you said you were going to.”
“Oh yes, I nearly forgot,” Tabitha said to the court. “You dropped your daughter off at the bus stop at about ten past eight so why didn’t you go back to your farm?”
“I had a few things to do.”
“Like what?”
“I went for a wander, had a cigarette, read my paper in peace, stuff like that. What?” He glowered at her. “You’re in a great big hole and you want to smear other people in the muck that’s covering you.”
“Until the tree came down.”
“Yep.”
“So you were there all day?”
“So?”
“So where were you?”
She knew of course where he was. He had been with Shona—for some of the time at least. For a moment, she thought she would say it out loud, but she stopped herself, and not just because she couldn’t see how it would help her case. The events of the past months had shone a bright and unforgiving spotlight on how people saw her: as plain or even ugly, as mannish, weird, ridiculous, dysfunctional, angry, pathetic, capable of killing someone. But Shona and Andy didn’t see her like that.
“Here and there,” he said. And then he added, “But nowhere near the Reeses’, and if you don’t believe me, watch the CCTV, why don’t you, and it’ll show you I never went in that direction and whatever you’re trying to suggest is crap.”
And it was true, thought Tabitha, as she sat down, feeling like everything was askew. He might be a sleazy, lying lecher, but the CCTV showed that he hadn’t gone beyond the village shop during the day. The jury might not like him much after his time in the witness box, they might not entirely believe that she had called Stuart Rees a bastard, but it didn’t alter the solid, unshakeable fact that he couldn’t have done the murder. And she could have.
Sixty-One
Tabitha entered the court, but she didn’t even get a chance to sit down. An usher came across and touched her on the arm.
“You’re to come with me,” she said.
“Where?”
“Just follow me.”
Still handcuffed to the police officer, Tabitha followed the usher across the court and through the door that was usually reserved for the judge. It felt like going backstage. They entered a corridor that was notably smarter than the one she generally used. There was a carpet, the wall was painted a smooth, smoky blue and there were
