“They look like they’re in a good mood,” Tabitha murmured.
“Don’t think about them,” said Michaela. “Think about what you’re going to say.”
“I don’t really know. I need to hear what Brockbank says.”
Michaela started to speak and then stopped. She seemed hesitant.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“What?”
“I thought it might be a help. For the summing up. Or it might not be a help.”
“What?”
“I can’t ask you because then you’ll want to see it and then—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, what is it? Just show me.”
Michaela started fumbling through her files.
“I’ve been collecting the reports,” she said. “In the papers. I thought you might want to see them.”
“Why didn’t you show me before?”
“I thought it might put you off.”
“Just show me.”
Michaela pulled the file from the heap and pushed it over.
“They’re only allowed to report,” she said. “They’re not allowed to make comments.”
Tabitha opened the file. Inside was a thick pile of newspaper clippings and she immediately saw the large headline: “I was covered with his blood.” Below, the story began “A court heard . . .” and was followed by quotations from Tabitha’s own testimony. Her attention was caught by two photographs. The first was of Stuart Rees. It was recent, he was standing outside, probably in his garden, squinting into the sun, and Tabitha thought it made him look old and harmless. The second was of Tabitha herself, an older image, square, staring straight at the camera, glaring almost. Tabitha couldn’t remember exactly when it was taken, but it must have been for a passport or a railcard or something like that. It looked uncomfortably like a mug shot.
She flicked through the cuttings. Another huge headline: “I slept with my teacher.” Again the story beneath began: “A court heard . . .” Accompanying this article was a preposterous sketch of her by a court artist. It didn’t look like her. It looked like a short-haired witch, with an angry expression, gesturing wildly. She flicked through page after page. Where had they got all these photographs of her? There was Tabitha, wearing a blazer in her class photo. There was Tabitha caught with a glass and a cigarette at a college party. There was Tabitha on a beach somewhere.
At first she was struck by the headlines: the sex and the blood and the murder. But then she was struck by the sheer amount of attention, reports covering a whole page, a double-page spread. She thought about the people across the country sitting with a cup of tea and reading about her sex life and her mental troubles and why her neighbors thought she had committed a murder. She had gone through her life without many friends, without making much of a stir, and now there were thousands and thousands of people across the country who knew about her, who had an opinion about her. There were people who thought she was a murderer, people who thought she was an abuse victim, people who were for her, people who were against her, all these people she would never know.
She closed the file. She felt suddenly nauseous, as if an abyss had opened at her feet and she was staring down into it.
The door opened and the court usher entered the court, but the judge didn’t follow her. The usher walked through the court and stopped next to Simon Brockbank and spoke to him in a low voice. He looked round at Tabitha. Then she came across to Tabitha and leaned down and spoke as if she didn’t want to be overheard.
“Judge Munday wants to see you and prosecution counsel in her chamber.”
Tabitha started to speak, but the usher just gestured her to follow. Brockbank and Ackroyd walked after her. As they made their way in single file out of the court and through the corridors, Tabitha tried to think of something to ask, some question, but nothing occurred. She had an ominous sense that there was an aspect of the case she’d missed, something damaging. The usher opened the door and Tabitha walked past her into the sumptuous room where Judge Munday was sitting behind her desk. She wasn’t talking on the phone or pretending to be busy. Her hands were laid, one on the other, on the table surface and she was looking directly at her visitors. Three armchairs had been arranged in front of the desk and she waved Tabitha and Brockbank and Ackroyd toward them. They sat down.
“If there’s some new witness—” Tabitha began.
Judge Munday raised her hands, almost in prayer. “Please, Ms. Hardy, just once in your life, could you keep quiet until you have something to say.”
“Sorry,” said Tabitha sulkily.
“Good.” Judge Munday put her hands together once more. “Now we need to be clear—and by this I mean that you, Tabitha Hardy, need to be clear—that any discussion we have here is privileged and is not to be referred to in open court or indeed anywhere else. Do you understand?”
“Fine.”
“Not only understand but agree.”
“All right, yes, OK.”
Judge Munday paused, gathering her thoughts.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I spent yesterday and most of the night going through the relevant transcripts. I paid particular attention to the forensic evidence, to the testimony of the delivery driver and finally yesterday’s testimony of the detective in charge of the investigation.”
Tabitha had a slow, awakening sense of what was coming. She looked round at Simon Brockbank. He looked indifferent, of course, but there was also a faint smile forming on his face.
“The case against Ms. Hardy,” Judge Munday continued, “was always circumstantial but, on the face of it, compelling. It seemed to me that these testimonies exposed gross errors and omissions in the investigation.” She paused and looked fixedly at Simon Brockbank.
