“Well,” she said eventually, “it’s over, anyway.”
“I didn’t mean for it to harm you,” said Sam. “That’s why I turned up in court for you. I wanted you to be OK.”
Tabitha considered this. He had been quite prepared for her to spend six months in prison and be tried for murder in a case that had seemed cut and dried. Turning up as a witness in her defense, with a paltry bit of supporting evidence, didn’t seem like much. She thought of saying so, but what was the point?
“The police have no other lines of inquiry,” she said instead.
“Unless you give them one.”
“If you think I’m going to tell you that people know where I am, you’re wrong. Nobody knows I’m here.”
He could strangle her, she thought. Or drag her into the van and kill her there. They sat in silence. The sun was low in the pale sky and there was a smudge of mosquitoes above them. He shook his head.
“I’m done,” he said.
“I’ve brought something with me,” she said.
“What?”
She opened up her little rucksack and took out a sheet of paper.
“I wrote down in advance what I thought had happened and it’s pretty much right. I want you to date and sign it.”
“A confession.” Sam’s face darkened.
“I won’t show it to anyone unless you do anything else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But if you do anything bad, then I’ll go to the police with this.”
“You’re blackmailing me.” He sounded aggrieved.
Tabitha started to laugh. It hurt the back of her throat and made her eyes sting and it felt unpleasant, but for several minutes she couldn’t stop.
“You killed a man,” she said at last. “He might have been a bad man, but you killed him. And you were going to let me go to prison for years in your place. This”—she waved the paper before his face—“is just a guarantee that you won’t harm someone else.”
“I’m not like that.”
“No one’s like that, until they are.”
She handed him a pen and watched as he read the words slowly, his index finger moving along the lines. He put the paper down and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Then he signed his name.
When she left, she didn’t look back, not once, though she felt his eyes on her as she walked away.
On the shore, the sun nearly set and the tide coming in, little waves licking at her boots, she took out the piece of paper and read what was written on it. Then she tore it into tiny shreds, which she scattered into the sea. They drifted pale on the dark surface of the water amid the straggle of seaweed, and after a while they disappeared.
“Home,” she said to herself, though the word held no meaning for her.
Seventy-Six
Tabitha went back to Okeham one more time. She couldn’t avoid it. She had put the house on the market and an estate agent had managed the process, arranged for the house to be cleaned, shown prospective buyers around, everything. He was very enthusiastic about the property.
“Short walk from the sea, perfect,” he’d said. “Any preferences?”
“What do you mean?” Tabitha had said.
He had explained that some people preferred to sell to local people, even if it involved taking a slight loss. It was to do with maintaining the community.
“No preferences,” Tabitha had said.
Within a few days, she accepted an offer for the full asking price. She didn’t know anything about the buyer except for the name and she didn’t care.
But she still had her possessions in the house, her furniture and other stuff. So, one dawn in early October, she drove back to Okeham in a van she hired for the day. She had asked Michaela if she wanted to come with her.
“You don’t have to,” Tabitha said. “It’ll probably be boring.”
“Are you kidding?” said Michaela.
It was before seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning when they drove into the village. There was nobody around. Tabitha felt like she was returning from the dead, a ghost that nobody could see. She pulled up outside her house.
“We’ll be in and out before anyone knows we’ve been here,” she said. “Except for the CCTV.”
She unlocked the front door and they stepped inside. There was a smell of emptiness and abandonment.
“Do you want some tea?” asked Tabitha.
“All right. Have you got milk?”
Tabitha shook her head. “I haven’t got tea either.” She rummaged in her jacket and produced a five-pound note. “I don’t want to show my face, but you could go to the village shop and buy some tea and milk. Biscuits as well, if you want.”
While Michaela was gone, Tabitha looked around. It was all rubbish really. She should probably just have thrown it in a Dumpster. She started piling plates into a cardboard box. She shook open a bin bag for mugs and plates that were chipped or cracked or just too awful to take. She put the kettle on and it had come to the boil when Michaela arrived back with a box of tea bags, a carton of milk and a packet of chocolate biscuits.
“They seemed a bit suspicious,” Michaela said. “They asked me what I was doing in Okeham. I told the woman I was here with you. Then she got very interested.”
“Terry.” Tabitha nodded.
They walked round the house with their mugs of tea and decided to leave the beds and sofa and the kitchen table.
“Some people take the light bulbs with them,” said Michaela.
Tabitha looked around. “You know I still wake up in the middle of the night and for a moment I think I’m back in the cell and I want to scream out.”
“Yeah, I know. Think of the ones who are there for decades.”
“I can hardly bear to.”
“What happened to that girl you shared with after I left?”
“Dana?” Tabitha looked away,
