Yes, she said, her name was Melanie Coglan. Mel, she added. Yes, she was the vicar in Okeham and also in surrounding parishes: she had several churches on her patch. Most people, she explained, didn’t understand how hard a vicar had to work these days and how much ground they had to cover. No, she hadn’t always been a vicar. Before she was called, she had been in sales for a pharmaceutical company in the southeast of England. She had earned much more, she said, but soon she had realized that her life had little meaning. Her expression as she answered Simon Brockbank’s questions was friendly. She looked at the jury and smiled and her teeth were square and white. She had been a vicar for a decade now and had been in Okeham for seven years. She lived in the vicarage that was next to the church and very near the village shop—bang in the center, she said, and gave a warm laugh though Tabitha didn’t see why it was funny.
And yes, she had been there all through the day of Friday, December 21, when Stuart Rees had been murdered. She confirmed that she had seen the accused during that day. Her benevolent gaze rested on Tabitha as she spoke, and Tabitha stared fixedly back until she felt Michaela prodding her.
“What?” she whispered.
“You look really scary. Stop it!”
They were coming to the crucial bit. The barrister leaned forward slightly. He spoke slowly.
“Can you tell me when you saw the accused?”
“I can’t say the exact time, obviously. The first would have been midmorning, I think, after I’d been to the shop.”
Simon Brockbank glanced at his notes. “The CCTV shows you there at ten twenty-two. Would it have been then?”
“Yes.”
“Did you talk?”
“Not really. I would have greeted her, of course. I always make a point of greeting everyone.” Again, she smiled her wide, trusty smile.
“Did you observe her demeanor?”
“Fucking demeanor,” hissed Tabitha to Michaela. “Always my fucking demeanor.”
“Shh,” whispered Michaela. “Why are you letting this woman get to you?”
“I did,” said Mel. “She was obviously in a bad way. She was walking fast and hugging herself and I think she was talking to herself as well.” She lifted her eyes to the jury. “I should have stopped her. I should have asked her if I could help her. I’ll always regret that I didn’t.”
Tabitha was about to hiss something again, but then she stopped. Mel looked genuinely troubled: what if she was simply being sincere? What if she actually was a good woman who wanted to help people? Tabitha clenched her hands together, seeing herself from Mel’s point of view—a furious, damaged, lonely young woman in the grip of her own demons.
“The next time,” Mel was saying, “was in the early afternoon.”
“That would be at two-thirty,” interposed Simon Brockbank, consulting his notes.
“That sounds right. This time we did talk.”
“And can you tell me what you talked about?”
“Yes. I stopped her, because she still looked really wretched and in a bad way, and I wanted to help her however I could. I tried to make conversation, draw her out of herself. So I pointed to this story in the papers about the reported drone at Gatwick Airport that had stopped all flights arriving or departing from the airport. She didn’t really say anything. I asked her if she didn’t think it was awful to do that kind of thing as a prank, something like that.”
“Did she reply?”
“Not really, not in the way I expected. She had a strange look about her.”
“Strange in what way?”
“Blank. Fixed. It was like she wasn’t really seeing me. Then she said, well, she said, excuse me.” She looked directly at the jury again. “She said, ‘I’ve f-ing ruined my life and you expect me to care about f-ing drones?’”
“I see,” said Simon Brockbank solemnly. “I see. And was that the end of your conversation?”
“I’m afraid not. I asked her what she meant, and she said something like, ‘You’re a vicar, you’ve got God on your side, but I don’t believe in God and anyway, if there was a God he would hate me.’”
“She said God would hate her?”
“Yes.”
“What did you make of that?”
“I didn’t know what to make of it. I felt deeply concerned for her. I told her it was never too late to turn to God and open her heart to him, and that God was about love not hate. I was actually scared of her. She said I didn’t know anything and it was too late for her now. She said she had wrecked everything and her life was over.”
“Too late,” repeated Simon Brockbank. “She had wrecked everything and her life was over. Hmm. Can you tell the jury how you interpreted those words?”
“At the time, I thought she was a soul in despair. I felt extremely sorry for her.” Mel’s eyes settled once more on Tabitha, who felt she would jump up, scream and hurl something just to stop the pity she saw in them. “Now, I think she was making a confession.”
“And what do you think she wanted to confess?”
“She wanted to confess to the murder of Stuart Rees,” said Mel softly.
The court was completely quiet. To be outside, Tabitha thought. To be somewhere else. She thought of the great waves rolling in toward the shore; their shining smooth darkness rising and gathering power. She could walk into that water and be carried far away.
“And you are sure that what you have remembered is accurate?”
“I may have got one or two words slightly wrong,” said Mel. “But I have sworn an oath to tell the truth. I feel certain now that she was in a state of guilt and despair and self-horror, and that she was confessing to me. That is the truth.”
Sixty-Three
“What are you going to say?” asked Michaela.
“Sssh.”
“You have to say something.”
“I’m thinking.”
“And you need
