House of Correction : A Novel (2020) Read online

  ‘Not on that day.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? The village was blocked off. There was a big storm and a giant chestnut tree that had blight was torn up by its roots and fell across the road. There was no way out and no way in. Apparently it took most of the day to clear it.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘But you were there, Tabitha, all day. You must have known.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Tabitha repeated. She felt like the last fragments of memory were flowing away like water through her fingers. ‘I don’t know if I knew.’

  ‘The police have a list of everyone who was in Okeham on the twenty-first of December. They also have your statement saying that you were in your house most of the day. They have statements from other witnesses, but I haven’t seen them yet. All we have at the moment is a police summary. I’ll get the rest later, well before the first court appearance.’

  ‘The trial, you mean?’

  ‘No. On the seventh of February you will be officially charged. That’s where you plead. You know, guilty or not guilty.’

  ‘Isn’t there a chance they’ll realise that this is all wrong and let me go?’

  Mora Piozzi gave a smile that didn’t look like a smile. ‘Let’s not leap ahead. I want you to tell me what you remember about the twenty-first of December. Take your time.’

  Tabitha nodded. She closed her eyes and then opened them again. What did she remember? It was like looking into a night full of snow, a dizzying half-darkness, when even up and down seem reversed and the ground tilted beneath her feet.

  ‘I woke up early,’ she began. ‘But I don’t think I got up at once. It was cold outside, a horrible day. I remember it was half-snowing and then it was sleety, with a hard wind blowing. I started to make myself breakfast, then I realised I’d run out of milk so I just put a jacket on over my pyjamas and went to the village shop. I bought a paper, I think.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t looking at the time. Then I went home.’

  ‘Did you go out again?’

  ‘I had a swim. I always have a swim.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where’s the nearest swimming pool and how did you get there? Remember, the road was blocked after ten, so you would have to have gone and returned before then.’ She spoke with a warning tone.

  ‘In the sea.’

  Piozzi’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You went swimming in the sea, in the middle of winter, on a day you describe as horrible.’

  ‘I do it every day,’ said Tabitha. ‘It’s a rule. My own rule. I have to.’

  ‘Rather you than me. You have a wetsuit, though?’

  ‘I like to feel the cold water on my skin. It almost hurts.’ She saw Mora Piozzi purse her lips slightly, as if Tabitha had said something she didn’t like. ‘People in Okeham probably think I’m mad. Anyway, I swam that day.’ She thought she could remember the bitter splash of waves on her body and the sharp, icy stones under her feet, but perhaps she was making that up. She swam every day. How was she meant to tell one from another?

  ‘What time?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. In the morning? I think it would have been the morning. That’s when I normally go.’

  ‘Did you meet anyone?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t think. I go every day, so things blur together.’

  ‘And after your swim?’

  ‘I went back home.’

  ‘Did you leave again?’

  ‘I think I did, but I don’t know for sure anymore. People have asked me so many questions that I can’t tell things apart.’

  ‘What did you do in your house?’

  ‘Not much. I can’t really remember.’

  ‘Did you speak to anyone on the phone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or send any texts, or use your computer – you have a computer?’

  Tabitha nodded. ‘I didn’t do any of that.’

  ‘Did you send emails?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I might have done some work.’ She knew she hadn’t worked. It had been one of those terrible days when she simply had to survive.

  ‘So you have no clear memory of what you did during that day?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you remember Andrew Kane coming round?’

  ‘Andy, yes.’

  ‘Tell me about that. Be careful, take your time.’

  Tabitha wondered why she kept saying that: take your time. Anyway, it didn’t matter. She had so much time.

  ‘He knocked on the door. I was in the main room and I opened the door. Or maybe he opened it himself. It was already dark and very cold. I remember the icy wind rushing in. He was all wet. He was dripping on to the floor.’

  ‘Were you expecting him?’

  ‘No. But he often just comes round.’ She saw the questioning look on Mora Piozzi’s face. ‘He’s helping me with the house. It was a wreck when I moved in, back in November, and we’re doing it up together. I pay him by the hour and he fits me in between other jobs. We were going to lay some floorboards the next day and he just wanted to check on everything.’

  She stopped and took a deep breath. This was where her memory became clear, like a shaft of light in the gloom.

  ‘He went outside to the shed where the planks were stacked and I heard him call out. I don’t know what he said, maybe it wasn’t even words. I went out to him, and he was sprawled on the ground inside the shed, on top of something.’ She swallowed hard. Her throat was tight. ‘I bent to help him and I felt something wet and sticky, it was everywhere, and I pulled him to his feet and he kept saying, “Oh God, oh God,” over and over. I think he was crying.’

  Tabitha stopped but Piozzi didn’t speak, just waited, her eyes narrowed.

  ‘It was dark. We couldn’t see anything really. Andy got his mobile out of his pocket but dropped it on the ground and had to scrabble around to find it. Then he shone it downwards and there was a body. Andy had blood all over him, even on his face. I looked down at my hands and saw I did too.’ As she spoke, she could see it all: the little beam of the mobile’s torch picking out the bulky shape on the ground.

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  ‘I don’t know what I thought. Andy said it was Stuart, I realised he was right.’

  ‘Just to be clear, you knew Stuart Rees?’

  ‘Yes, he’s my neighbour now.’ She stopped. ‘I suppose I should say he was my neighbour. And years ago, he was one of my teachers.’

  ‘So you knew him well?’

  ‘What can I say? He was a teacher.’

  ‘Were you on good terms?’

  ‘We weren’t on bad terms. I didn’t really see him much though, just to say hello.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘We went back inside. Andy called nine-nine-nine. We waited. The ambulance arrived and the police and it all started. You know the rest.’

  Mora Piozzi closed her laptop.

  ‘So you see, it makes no sense,’ Tabitha continued urgently. ‘Why would I have sent Andy outside to look at the planks if I’d just killed someone out there and left the body for him to trip over? Why would I kill Stuart anyway? It’s just crazy. You see that, don’t you?’

  The solicitor glanced at her watch. ‘We’ve made a good start. I’ll be back quite soon, by which time I hope to have a more detailed knowledge of the prosecution’s case against you.’

  Tabitha nodded.

  ‘In the next few days you’ll have a medical assessment.’

  ‘Why? I’m not ill. I might be small but I’m strong. It’s all that swimming.’ Her voice jarred. She tried to smile. She was cold and shaky and she didn’t want to go back to the central hall, where everyone watched her and shouts echoed, or to her cell, where she was trapped with herself. The day ahead seemed endless, but the day led to the night and that was even worse.

  ‘It’s just part of the process. A
nd I want you to write down everything you can remember that you think might be useful.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Timings. People you saw or talked to. Give me a list of the people in the village you’re friendly with.’

  ‘I only moved there a few weeks ago.’

  ‘You should tell me anything you think might be helpful to your case, or relevant. I would much rather hear things from you than from the prosecution.’

  Tabitha nodded.

  ‘Make sure you arrange visitors. Family. Friends. Have you any of your things here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get someone to bring them. Keep yourself occupied. Keep healthy.’

  ‘And you’ll get me out of here? Won’t you?’

  ‘That’s my job,’ said Mora Piozzi. ‘I’ll do it as best I can.’

  Tabitha watched her leave, the door opening and then shutting. She imagined her going through a series of doors, each one locked behind her, until at last she reached the exit and stepped out into the world, breathing in the fresh air, free.

  THREE

  Tabitha couldn’t remember the last time she’d queued to use a public phone. Okeham had an old red telephone box but it didn’t have a phone in it. It was used to store second-hand books for people to borrow. Now she was standing third in the queue waiting for the burly woman at the front to finish an argument with what sounded like a feckless husband or boyfriend on the other end of the line.

  Tabitha kept looking around nervously. It was nearly lunchtime. She’d heard that a warder might come and send them away at any time. She’d been told by the warder with the grim face, whose name, she’d discovered, was Mary Guy, that she needed to fill out a form and that each telephone number had to be recorded in advance and approved. She didn’t know anybody’s numbers, apart from her own. Her numbers were in her phone. How could she be expected to know them by heart? She asked Mary Guy if there was any way she could have access to her phone, just to get the numbers. That got a laugh.

  She had no parents to phone. No other close relatives. She tried to think of friends, contacts, but she had been abroad for several years and lost touch with people. They had moved, drifted away. She had one number. The solicitor, Mora Piozzi. That was a start. But was there anyone else? She went through the people she knew in the village. Stuart’s wife, Laura. That wouldn’t be appropriate. It probably wouldn’t be legal. There was Andy. She could get his number from Mora. Who in the village did she actually talk to? There was Terry, the woman who ran the village shop. They used to chat a bit when she bought a carton of milk. But they weren’t exactly friends.

  Then she had a thought: Shona Fry. Shona had been at school with Tabitha and had stayed on in the village after everyone else had left. Tabitha didn’t know Shona’s mobile number but she did know her landline number because it was a mirror version of her own: 525607.

  When she got to the front of the queue, there was just five minutes before lunch.

  ‘Tabitha! They told me you were going to call,’ said Shona, who sounded breathless with excitement.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They asked if it was all right. They wanted my permission, which is a bit odd, isn’t it? Obviously I said yes. You must know that because—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tabitha, interrupting. ‘I’ve got almost no money for the call and almost no time. I need to ask you a couple of favours.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Anything at all.’

  ‘First, can you come to visit me?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Shona. ‘Yes, fine. I mean, of course I will, sure…’ She didn’t seem to know how to end the sentence, so Tabitha cut her off.

  ‘That’s brilliant. Could you bring some things for me?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I suppose there are rules.’

  ‘I need clothes.’

  ‘I thought people in prison had a prison uniform.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right. Oh, this is so weird. What clothes?’

  ‘Just comfy things. Another pair of trousers, a few long-sleeved tops and jerseys. It’s freezing in here.’

  ‘So you don’t mind which ones I bring?’

  ‘Not really. I’ll be out soon, so it’s just for the next few weeks. Underwear.’

  ‘Like knickers and things?’ Shona sounded almost embarrassed

  ‘Yes. And socks. Thick socks.’

  ‘Where do I find them?’

  Tabitha pictured her bedroom. It was at the top of the house, under a sloping roof. She’d chosen it because one window gave on to the sea, and the other on to the cliffs. She still slept on a mattress on the floor, and there was only one chest of drawers in there. The rest of her things were in suitcases and boxes.

  ‘In my room upstairs,’ she said. ‘You’ll just have to rummage around.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Some pens. And pads of paper. And soap and shampoo. More toothpaste.’

  ‘I need to write this down.’

  ‘The pens and the paper are the most important. There are several pads of paper in the kitchen, on the table, I think, and pencils and pens in a big jar on the windowsill.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘And could you buy me writing paper and envelopes. Also, the village shop sells notebooks; they have black or brown covers and unlined paper. Could you get one for me?’

  ‘All right.’ But now she sounded grudging.

  ‘I’ll pay you.’

  ‘Sorry, it sounds awful but I’m completely skint. Is that it?’

  Tabitha thought for a moment. ‘Books. There are a few next to my bed. Can you bring them?’

  ‘Sure. But how do I get in?’

  ‘There’s a key under a stone next to the front door. Oh, and stamps,’ Tabitha said.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Ten. No. Twenty.’

  ‘First class or second class?’

  ‘First class, I guess. I haven’t got time to wait around.’

  ‘Are you doing all right?’ said Shona. ‘I mean, this is so awful. I can’t believe it’s happening.’

  ‘Me neither. I don’t know how I’m doing. I’m trying. How are things in the village?’

  ‘Yeah, well, obviously there’s only one subject people are talking about.’

  Tabitha had a sudden thought. ‘Could you bring phone numbers of people in the village?’

  ‘Which people?’

  ‘Anyone. People who might be helpful. Landlines if people have them. Calls are really expensive here and I haven’t got much money.’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. Could you suggest some names?’

  Tabitha started to speak and then a hand appeared from the side, disconnecting the call. She looked round. It was a male warder she hadn’t seen before. He was pale, slightly puffy and overweight, as if he had been overinflated.

  ‘Hey! What the fuck? It was important,’ said Tabitha.

  ‘Lunch,’ he said and turned away.

  FOUR

  She lay tightly curled up in her bed, dimly aware of Michaela moving around the small cell. She heard her use the lavatory. She heard taps running, soft footsteps. She kept her eyes shut and her blanket pulled over her so she was in her own sour cave; she didn’t want to move and she didn’t want to see the light of day. Her thoughts were thick and sluggish.

  ‘Get up.’ Michaela’s voice was matter of fact.

  Tabitha didn’t reply.

  ‘Get up, Tabitha.’ The blanket was pulled from her face.

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘You can. You have to.’

  Tabitha opened her eyes. Her mouth felt furry.

  ‘Up,’ said Michaela.

  * * *

  ‘How are you?’

  Tabitha looked at the laminated plastic name tag that the psychiatrist was wearing round his neck. Dr David Hartson, with a photograph that showed him when he had more hair and different spectacles. The stringy warder with long, limp
hair, who she had seen that first morning, had come to her cell and led her downstairs past the rows of other cells, unlocking and locking a series of doors, along a corridor and then into a room that didn’t feel like it was in the prison at all. It looked like a rather shabby doctor’s consulting room that you might find anywhere.

  ‘Can I ask a question first?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Who is this for?’

  Dr Hartson gave a slightly uneasy smile. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You’re a doctor. Are you here to help me or are you here to assess me?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s a good question. I’m really acting for the court. But obviously if I see anything of concern, I’ll do what I can. So, how are you?’

  ‘I’m in prison. I’ve been accused of murder. I guess that means I’m not doing so well.’

  ‘Do you have any feelings about self-harm?’

  Tabitha shook her head. ‘I’ve been here two nights. I still feel like I’m in the middle of a car crash and the crash is going on and on and on. But soon they’ll realise that all of this is crazy and let me go.’

  Dr Hartson reached for a form and straightened it in front of him; took a pen from his pocket and clicked it. He took details of her schooling, of her parents, of her father’s death from a heart attack when she was thirteen and her mother’s death just two years ago. He asked if those deaths had been difficult and she said, yes, they had been difficult. He asked if she had been close to her parents and she had thought for a moment and answered that there had been ups and downs. He didn’t seem to show much engagement with anything she said; just frowned with concentration and wrote on the form. Tabitha couldn’t make out what he was writing.

  ‘Do you work?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a freelance copy-editor of science textbooks.’

  ‘Any episodes of mental illness?’ he said.

  ‘What kind of mental illness?’

  ‘Anything that needed medical treatment?’

  ‘I’ve been a bit down sometimes.’

  ‘Are you currently on medication?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Were you treated with medication in the past?’

  Tabitha mentioned one or two names although she wasn’t sure if she had got them right. Dr Hartson wrote them down.