‘Being passive. Not doing much. I wouldn’t expect you to just be sitting here waiting for someone else to sort things out.’
Tabitha took a few deep breaths. ‘Have you looked around?’ she said. ‘I’m in fucking prison. How am I supposed to sort things out?’
‘I don’t want to get sucked into one of your arguments.’
‘One of my arguments?’
‘I used to sometimes feel like we were slipping down a slope into an argument and whatever I did to stop it, I couldn’t.’
‘Whatever you did?’ said Tabitha. ‘You mean, sit there and look at me as if I was an object of poor taste?’
‘Tabitha, please—’
‘That’s exactly the tone. Tabitha, please. Like you were the sensible grown-up and I was a naughty little girl who was—’
She stopped suddenly and put a hand over her eyes so she didn’t have to see his face. ‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ she said.
‘I understand you’re under a great strain,’ he said stiffly.
‘I’m grateful you’re here.’ Her face ached with the effort it took to look calm and rational. ‘I’m going to need all the help I can get.’
There was a pause.
‘Ye-e-s,’ said Michael slowly and then Tabitha knew, with a sickening lurch, what was coming.
‘I’m so sorry about all of this. It’s terrible. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. But I’m not the right person for this.’
‘Oh,’ said Tabitha.
‘I felt I needed to make the gesture. To come here and see you and bring you things.’
‘Magazines.’
‘And some other things. But we weren’t together for that long—’
‘Fourteen months.’
‘And it was a while ago.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. She looked at his mouth opening and closing and she just wanted him gone. Why had she ever asked him to come?
‘I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have money. I’m trying to deal with things myself.’
‘I said it was all right.’
He looked at his watch. ‘I’d probably better be, you know…’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a bus and a train.’
‘Of course.’
He got up and held out a hand and then looked at it as if it didn’t belong to him. ‘I don’t know. Are we allowed…?’
‘Yes, we can shake hands.’
They shook hands briefly and then he turned and walked away. Tabitha thought to herself: Well, he was an ex-boyfriend, after all What was I expecting?
TEN
You just have to keep going, that was what Ingrid had said. And Michaela. But today was one of Tabitha’s bad days, when the effort of hauling herself out of bed, of pulling on clothes that were always grubby, brushing her hair that always felt a bit greasy, eating food that made her gag, seemed a monumental task. Her body felt impossibly heavy. She wanted to curl in a ball and hide. She wanted to howl.
But at least her solicitor was coming to see her.
* * *
‘So have you any good news?’ she asked. Her voice came out too bright, almost jocose.
‘I have your medical assessment,’ said Mora Piozzi, tapping on her iPad. She looked older than Tabitha remembered, and more unyielding.
‘You don’t look particularly happy about it. I hope I’m not dying.’ She winced as she spoke at the sound of her false cheerfulness.
Mora Piozzi didn’t smile. She was studying the screen in front of her, swiping through pages. Then she looked up.
‘I’m not particularly happy,’ she said.
Tabitha felt a lurch in her stomach.
‘Do you remember I said you should tell me of anything relevant – anything I’d rather hear from you than from the prosecution?’
‘Did you say that?’
‘You didn’t tell me about your history of depression.’
‘It’s not really a history.’
‘You were hospitalised in 2010 and then again in 2013.’
‘It was more of a clinic.’
‘You were sectioned.’
‘Only the once. The second time was voluntary. And it wasn’t for long. I was going through a bad patch.’
‘Tabitha, I’m not judging you, but don’t you see that this is relevant information?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of it.’
Mora Piozzi looked down at the screen again. ‘Over the years, you’ve been prescribed a variety of medications: Citalopram. Paroxetine. Most recently – in fact until ten days before the murder – Zoloft and Amitriptyline.’
‘I didn’t get on with them, though.’
‘Which is also relevant. And you’ve had therapy.’
‘That was a waste of time.’
‘Did you think all this wouldn’t come up, Tabitha?’
‘Why should it?’ Tabitha bunched her fists up and leaned forward. ‘Why the fuck should it? When I was younger, I had a hard time and I dropped out of uni. That’s not a crime, just a wasted opportunity. I’ve had drugs and therapy to help me cope. That’s not a crime. I don’t like people knowing about it because then they put a label on me and I hate that. I know what I have to do to deal with it. I make myself get up. I walk. I swim in the sea. I eat healthy food. I do practical things, like fixing my house. I put one foot in front of the other. I have my bad days, sure, but I’m doing all right. I was doing all right.’
Mora Piozzi briefly put a hand on Tabitha’s bunched fist.
‘I am sure you were and in normal circumstances, of course, you can keep it all private. But these are not normal circumstances. You’ve been charged with murder. Your whole life will be scrutinised. The fact that you have been seriously depressed is relevant. The fact that you have been on a regime of strong antidepressants, some of which are associated with memory loss, is relevant.’
Tabitha’s mouth felt dry and her head hurt slightly. The lights in the room were too bright; it was like being in a laboratory.
‘Dr Hartson says you were resistant to his questions.’
‘I answered everything he asked,’ said Tabitha. ‘What did he want me to do? Break down and weep? Tell him all my troubles so he could be the good doctor? Where would that get me?’
Mora Piozzi was looking at her as if she was a problem to be solved. ‘Was that day one of your bad days?’
‘It wasn’t great.’ Not great at all, she thought: a day that had been heavy and colourless and grim.
‘And you say you can’t remember much of it.’
‘It’s a bit of a fog. But I’d remember killing someone.’ Tabitha laughed harshly. ‘That’s not something I’d ever forget.’
Piozzi didn’t smile back. She started to write and then stopped.
‘You believe that I’m here to do everything I possibly can for you?’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I have to. It’s not like I’ve got many other people on my side.’
‘You’ve got to trust me,’ Piozzi continued. ‘But I also have to trust you. I need to know the problems, the weaknesses. I need to hear them from you, not from the police, not from the prosecution. You have to be straight with me.’