“I can’t eat anything. I’ll be sick.”
“You need to keep your strength up.”
“No.”
“You have to say it isn’t true. You wouldn’t have said all that to her.”
“Maybe it is true.”
“Stop it! You’ve been doing so well. Don’t go all gloomy and self-harming on me, Tabitha.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Cheese and onion marmalade. Here, have a bite at least. You can ask about how she and Stuart fell out. That’s what you were going to do, isn’t it? That letter he wrote about her. Make her look suspicious.”
“That’s not the point.”
The buzz of a fly on the wall high above her. Tabitha rose and looked at Mel where she stood in the witness box. She cleared her throat unnecessarily.
“It wasn’t half past two that we talked,” she said. She heard her own voice, loud and harsh.
“That’s not a question,” said the judge.
“It wasn’t half past two that we talked, was it?”
“What do you mean?” Mel looked bewildered.
“You say we talked about that story about drones in the paper, right?”
“Yes.”
“But you bought the paper in the morning, didn’t you?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“I have. You did. You are on CCTV at ten twenty-two going into the shop and a few minutes later you come out carrying it.”
“All right,” said Mel in a conciliatory tone. “Maybe I bought the paper in the morning.”
“And at two thirty-one you’re seen again on CCTV not carrying a paper. That’s when you say you talked to me, but I think we had that conversation, or whatever you want to call it, in the morning. And if it was in the morning I couldn’t have been confessing because Stuart was still alive. That’s a question, I guess.”
Mel nodded and looked thoughtful but not flustered. “Well,” she said. “You might be right, of course, and you were talking about something you were going to do, rather than something you had done. But I tend to think it was in the afternoon. Maybe I still had the paper with me.”
“You didn’t. We can look at the CCTV if that helps.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right,” said Mel. “But I don’t see why that means I wouldn’t have mentioned the drone at Gatwick Airport anyway. I didn’t need to be holding the paper, did I?”
“But you said you pointed at the story.”
“Maybe I just mentioned it because I remembered it.”
“So what you said wasn’t true?”
“Everything I’ve said I believe to be true. But it could be that I wasn’t actually carrying the newspaper and I didn’t actually point at it. I’m not sure that’s a very grave error.” She looked at Tabitha with her cheerful kindness. “I was just trying to connect with you, in your distress. That’s all.”
“Yes,” said Tabitha through gritted teeth. “So let’s talk about that conversation. The one where I’m apparently confessing. At the time, you didn’t think I was confessing, did you?”
“But I did, though.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you call the police at once?”
Mel gave a small clucking laugh. “I didn’t think you were confessing to murder, obviously. I thought you were confessing to a sense of self-loathing and despair.”
“But that’s not a crime, is it?”
“No,” said Mel cautiously. She was about to add something but Tabitha cut in.
“You only thought I was confessing to an actual crime once you knew about the murder, right?”
“That’s true.”
“So I’m someone who suffers from depression and I say I’ve wrecked my life. As a vicar, you must have heard countless people saying things like that.” She waited a beat. “Haven’t you?”
“People bring all manner of sorrows to me,” said Mel earnestly. “Things they cannot carry on their own.”
“Good. And they’re not criminals either?”
“Of course not.”
“So the only thing that makes what I said to you that day suspicious is the fact that someone was found dead later in the day, is that it?”
“It’s for other people to judge what that means.”
“Right,” said Tabitha.
She looked at the jury and they looked at her. She didn’t think she was convincing them. She glanced up at the public gallery and met Laura’s gaze. For a moment, she considered just sitting down and putting her head in her hands and saying she was done. They would lead her away and put her in a cell and she would hear the lock turning and the struggle would be over.
She felt a hand on the small of her back.
“Ask about the feud,” Michaela murmured. “Go on.”
Tabitha turned back to Mel. “Can you tell me about your relationship with Stuart Rees?”
Mel looked puzzled by the question. “I don’t know what you mean by relationship. He came to church on Sunday, helped out at the church fete, and we met at the parish council and in the village sometimes.” For the first time, she seemed cautious.
“Was he a regular churchgoer?”
“Regular as clockwork,” she said, and there was a hint of acerbity in her voice.
“Were you on friendly terms?”
“Of course.”
“Really? I’ve heard that the two of you didn’t see eye to eye.” Before the judge could intervene, she added: “Is that correct?”
“No. I mean, it is true that Mr. Rees disagreed with me about some doctrinal issues.” She smiled. “But goodness me, if I fell out with everyone who disagreed with me on such things, there would be no one left in my church.”
“But isn’t it true that Stuart Rees thought you didn’t even believe in God?”
“That’s absurd.”
“It may be absurd, but is it right?”
“He thought that my version of Christianity was too liberal, certainly. Happy-clappy, he called it.” Her face had become flushed; she was almost angry, thought Tabitha.
“That sounds rude.”
“I have to accept things like that. It goes with the job.”
“Was it just a disagreement?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it true that he wrote to the bishop, complaining about you?”
Simon Brockbank at last rose to his feet. “I’ve been lenient with Ms. Hardy, but I think that is called leading the witness.”
“It seems proper enough,” said Judge Munday.
“He did write to the bishop,” said Mel.
“Was it upsetting?”
“I always tried to remain friendly with him
