“I want you to be clear,” Judge Munday continued. “I won’t tolerate anything like this again. No outbursts, no swearing, no shouting. Do you understand?”
Tabitha nodded humbly and sat down beside Michaela, who was sitting with her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Michaela lifted her head. She looked grim.
The court then stood up as Judge Munday adjourned for the day and the police officer approached to take Tabitha away.
“Just give me a moment,” said Tabitha.
The officer looked at his watch. “Two minutes,” he said.
“That’s ridiculous. I need to talk about the case.”
He looked at his watch again. “One and a half minutes.”
Tabitha turned to Michaela. “Sorry,” she said again. She felt like a little girl who was losing her only friend.
“How can I be your McKenzie fucking friend if you do things like that? I told you not to.”
“I know. I was stupid.”
“Bloody stupid. Do you ever listen to anyone?”
“I won’t do it again.”
“That’s what you always say. But you lose your temper and then say whatever comes into your head.”
“I know. That’s why I need you to be here as well.” There was a silence. “You will keep on coming, won’t you?”
Michaela sighed heavily. “What else have I got to do?”
“Thank you.” She waited a few seconds. “Tomorrow’s the crime scene officer.”
“Anything you’re worried about?”
“I’m worried about everything. All the time.”
“I mean, is there going to be anything new?”
Tabitha thought for a moment. “I read the report. It’s just about what was at the scene. They didn’t find a weapon. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“You want me to do anything?”
“I don’t know what would help,” said Tabitha desperately. “I don’t know what we’re looking for. You could take a look at that list of things they had in storage. You’ve done so much already. I don’t know what to say.”
She looked round at the officer. “Is my time up?”
“More than up.”
Tabitha looked back at Michaela. “Or have an evening off. Whatever.”
The next morning when Tabitha was brought into the courtroom, there was no sign of Michaela. Perhaps she had decided not to come after what had happened the previous day: she felt nauseous at the idea. The jury came in and then the judge. The scene of crime officer, Dr. Andrew Belfry, made his way into the courtroom to the witness box and still there was no sign of Michaela. Tabitha looked around for her. Perhaps she had overslept. Perhaps she had just given up on all of this and returned to her old life. Tabitha had been let down by so many people, why not Michaela as well?
She turned her attention to Dr. Belfry, dressed in a rumpled gray suit that seemed a size too small for him. He was largely bald with frameless spectacles and he was carrying a bundle of files and a small bag from which he extracted a laptop. He opened it and started tapping at it until the usher brought him a Bible to swear on.
Elinor Ackroyd stood up and elicited from him that he was not a police officer but hired on a contractual basis. He had a degree in organic chemistry and had twenty-six years of experience in his job, which took him all over the southwest region.
Ackroyd began to take him through the details of his report, the position of the body, the bloodstains on the plastic sheeting that the body had been lying on, the bloody footprints leading back into the house. It should have been horrifying but Dr. Belfry spoke about it as if he were discussing the construction of a model railway. He kept referring back to obscure paragraphs of his report, which he always had trouble finding. Also, he had a strange voice that sounded as if his tongue was too large for his mouth. Tabitha became so preoccupied with this that she found it difficult to pay attention to what he was saying. She had to force herself to take the occasional note. There didn’t seem anything especially damaging about the report apart from the basic, central, horrible fact of it happening in the outbuilding of her home.
She sensed a movement behind her, looked round and saw Michaela tiptoeing forward, mouthing an apology at Judge Munday, who glowered back at her. She sat down next to Tabitha, breathing heavily.
“You all right?” said Tabitha in a whisper. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“Sorry I’m late, I had to make some calls. I found out something weird. It’s about the sheet?”
“What sheet?”
“The one the body was wrapped in.”
“Please, Ms. Hardy,” said Judge Munday, breaking in.
“What?”
“There is a an examination going on here.”
As the examination continued, Tabitha tried to make sense of Michaela’s scrawled notes.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
“I rang the delivery firm.”
Tabitha thought so hard that it almost made her head hurt.
“So what does it mean?” she whispered, with her lips actually touching Michaela’s ear.
Michaela shrugged. “I don’t know. Just ask that guy.”
“Finally,” said Elinor Ackroyd, “I have one final question. Dr. Belfry, you have supervised all the evidence connected with the crime scene. Have you found evidence of anybody else’s presence? I mean beyond the victim, Tabitha Hardy, and Andrew Kane, who found the body.”
Belfry turned to the jury before answering. “No,” he said, in a louder voice than before. “None whatever.”
“Thank you for your help,” said Ackroyd, sitting down.
Tabitha stood up with that familiar lurching feeling. She looked down at her notes. She had written two words: “prints” and “blood.” It didn’t seem like very much.
“Is it surprising that my prints and traces and whatever were all over the place? I mean, it was where I lived.”
“There were prints on the plastic sheeting he was lying on,” he said.
Belfry raised his eyebrows as he answered and gave a little nod toward the jury. It made Tabitha want to shout at him or hit him.
“Andy and I found the body. We pulled the sheet off
