She would have asked God what to do, but she didn’t have a god. Or her parents, but she didn’t have them either. If she turned to Michaela she knew exactly what her response would be—incredulity and anger that Tabitha was even thinking she had an option. Nobody could tell her what to do, because it was her own freedom and life that was at stake here.
She found her battered notebook whose torn and scrawled-over pages were a record of the past months and also felt, in their mess and urgency and erasures, like the inside of her brain: maps and timelines and crossings out and doodles and notes to herself and names and lists and questions and night terrors. There were only a couple of blank pages at the end, but this was the last time she would need to write in it. She uncapped her pen.
The question was this: would she be found not guilty anyway, without revealing what she now knew? She wrote everything down, unnecessarily neat, numbering points, and then she sat for a long time staring at what she had. She knew that she had done all right in discrediting some of the less important evidence: the old woman who claimed to have heard her from a distance threatening Stuart but who turned out to be rather deaf; Mel, who had her times muddled up and who was involved in a feud with the murdered man; Rob Coombe, who bore a grudge against both Stuart and presumably Tabitha herself—she had after all punched him in the face. She had confused the assumed timeline, thrown not only the time of death but the place into doubt.
But at the start of the case the prosecution had talked about the three cornerstones of their case against Tabitha: evidence, opportunity and motive. She had the opportunity and the motive remained. Even if Stuart had been killed in his own home, rather than in Tabitha’s, she had been nearby and she couldn’t work out how anyone else could have been. And he had abused her when she was fifteen and his student.
So had she done enough? She thought of the twelve jurors. What would they think? What would Scary think, or Posh, or the ponytail man or Smiley? Sometimes they had looked hostile; sometimes amused, interested, curious, pained, disgusted. She couldn’t read them. Michaela said that some of them were beginning to warm to Tabitha, but she had no idea if that was true or if that made any difference in the end, because it came down to cold facts, to the balance of probability, to whether or not they thought that Tabitha had murdered Stuart.
She wondered what she would think, if she were a member of the jury. Would she believe that the small, unkempt woman who had been abused by the murdered man when an unhappy schoolgirl, who had been depressed and angry for years, who shouted a lot and swore and punched people on the nose when they offended her, who swam in icy seas to try to keep sane, who had tried to stop Andy from discovering the body, who even the one person she called a friend believed had probably done it . . .
She stood up abruptly, slightly dazed by what she was about to do. Of course she couldn’t know what verdict the jury would reach. It wasn’t possible to make a rational calculation, because this was a decision that was not based on reason or logic or even an educated guess. It was a leap in the darkness; an act of faith or of selfhood. It was about who she was and who she wanted to be.
Seventy-Three
Detective Chief Inspector Keith Dudley was in some way the most smartly dressed witness to appear. Luke and Andy had both mentioned his sharp style and today his dark suit looked brushed, like a politician’s. His cuff links gleamed. His dark hair was parted in a line that was geometrically straight. As he stood in the witness box, he looked around the courtroom with an almost amused expression. He seemed more at home than anyone there. When he turned toward Tabitha, she saw that his eyes were a startling gray color, almost beautiful. She could imagine being questioned by him. The idea of it frightened her.
Tabitha had thought for days and days about whether it was sensible—whether it was sane—to call the man who had been in charge of the inquiry, the man who knew all the evidence against her; who had a face like an ax or a hatchet. She had talked it over with Michaela. It felt like a desperate last throw of the dice. This was the last thing the jury would hear. If it went wrong, if he had something damaging and new it could ruin her.
But she had her list of questions. She picked up the piece of paper and it shook so much that she had to put it down just to be able to read it. She picked up a glass of water. She sipped from it and replaced it on the table. The courtroom was so quiet that the sound of the glass on the wood was clearly audible. She looked round. The public gallery and the press gallery were packed, people crammed together, leaning forward. She felt like the victim of an accident with onlookers ghoulishly curious to look at the damage.
“You were in charge of the inquiry,” said Tabitha.
“That’s right.”
“But it’s the first time we’ve met.”
“We’re meeting now. And I’ve seen you of course.”
“Seen me?”
“When you were in police custody and
