A Mind to Kill

Chapter Seventeen

There was no alternative to a mental-illness defence. Jeremy Hall supposed he had known that from the beginning, despite Jennifer’s insistence and the unexpectedly conflicting opinions from a lot of the professional experts – prosecution as well as defence – quite a few of whom still had tests and examinations they wanted to carry out or repeat but all of whose findings so far were going to make that defence a mountainously uphill struggle. He’d let them go through the motions, of course: all part of justice being seen to be done. But that’s all it could be, recognized routines with fancy names like Schneider’s First Rank Symptoms assessment to protect their judgement against contrary challenge and impressively to fill the invoice page when they submitted their exorbitant final bills.

Hall was most surprised of all – disappointed even – by Julian Mason’s adamant refusal, after Jennifer’s agreement, to have their final sessions with her under the influence of pentathol, the truth drug, to testify to a mental imbalance, despite having personally witnessed Jennifer’s attack upon the child. Any small doubts that Hall had harboured – and they’d been very small indeed – had disappeared with that frenzied episode that to remember still made his skin crawl.

But Mason wasn’t alone: just the only psychiatrist who’d had the personal experience. With the exception of Milton Smith, the London-based American psychiatrist who was prepared to give evidence of Multiple Personality Disorder, the independent and preliminary agreement of the other three defence psychiatrists was that although Jennifer showed some signs of schizophrenia by hearing a voice and the depressed regression into which she’d sunk after the attack on Emily, mental illness was too arguably uncertain for them to give a positive diagnosis. So arguable, in fact, that each had so far indicated they were coming down on the side of sanity.

Most bewildering of all was their unanimous finding, like that of Mason, that the coherent if sometimes obscene conversational logic of what Jennifer claimed to be Jane speaking – the prime indicator of schizophrenia – proved rather than disproved she wasn’t suffering from the illness. Hall’s problem of mounting any sort of defence acceptable to a court was compounded by each of the three prosecution psychiatrists, although again agreeing some mental disorientation, also being prepared to swear there was insufficient mental disturbance to amount to diminished responsibility. Which wasn’t the end of Hall’s problems. There’d been two separate neurological examinations, during which Jennifer had undergone electroencephalograms, in addition to all the other tests administered by George Fosdyke, including brain and upper body scans. Both had registered absolutely normal, showing no physical cause for Jennifer’s condition.

Hall accepted that what little he had was all he could possibly expect for a very fragile and uncertain mitigation plea, apart from the outstanding psychiatric assessments which he didn’t anticipate would do anything to help him and which shouldn’t take longer than a week to complete.

Perry had made brilliant background preparation. Because of Jennifer’s possession claim – the major thrust of his intended defence – the solicitor had gone beyond obtaining a complete transcript of the Jane Lomax inquest – discovering in doing so that Bentley had done the same in an effort to uncover a missed murder – by having a Washington lawyer provide a full medical and personal history of Gerald and Jane Lomax before their transfer to England. Perry had extended the lawyer’s investigation to include a dossier on Rebecca Nicholls, which they’d had to make available to the prosecution under the rules of disclosure and which Hall was sure would be made into a major part of the case against Jennifer.

It appeared Lomax’s affair with Rebecca had begun at least three years earlier – maybe even before that – and that during their return trips to New York they had occupied Rebecca’s Manhattan apartment virtually as husband and wife. They’d continued to do that, in the London flat, during the nights Lomax spent in London while Jennifer remained in the country with Emily. When he’d given Hall the Rebecca Nicholls’ file Perry had remarked that Lomax seemed quite a bastard and after reading it Hall agreed with the assessment. In view of her mental state he would have liked a lot of it kept from Jennifer but objectively realized it was a forlorn hope, providing as it did the vengeance grounds upon which the prosecution were making their case, which was founded on the incontestably concreted evidence of sixteen people witnessing the killing. And which was going to be supported, because of their doubt about mental illness, by at least half a dozen of the country’s foremost mind doctors. By contrast – but he feared easily overwhelmed by the weight of evidence against her – the biography he had of Jennifer Lomax, nee Stone, was of a Mensa-level woman who professionally had been relentless to succeed, which she had, and whose only known failing was to have embarked upon an affair with a married man whom she’d subsequently married and who, ever since, had lived a faultless, blameless, charity organizing life. He paused at the final thought: charities that couldn’t now fast enough get rid of her, an embarrassing encumbrance.

The final acknowledgement of the obstacles he faced further unsettled Hall, who single-mindedly had set out on a Bar career to become even more respected and famous – but more importantly, richer – than his respected and famous uncle. Which required the same absolutely ruthless objectivity which his uncle possessed and of which irritatingly he knew himself at that precise moment to be a victim. But an absolute ruthlessness which he, personally, hadn’t so far shown: if not his heart he’d most certainly worn his integrity on his sleeve. He’d wanted to do his best for Jennifer Lomax – was still determined to do his best for and by Jennifer Lomax – but he had to accept reality. And the reality was that he was defending a case as hopeless as he’d recognized it to be from the very first sherry-and-bullshit session with Sir Richard and the inhaler-puffing Bert Feltham, partners in cynical ruthlessness. Recognized but refused to recognize, he reminded himself, permitting no personal excuses. He’d been fooling himself: allowing himself to forget and minimize the horrific awfulness of her crime because he’d been too hungrily eager to make a career. Which he would – because he was determined – but not with this case. He’d given it a potential it didn’t have. Had never had.

At once came another scathing personal examination. If he’d known it was an unwinnable case from the beginning – which he had – and known he was an inconsequential cog in some complicated higher chambers machination – which he also had – why did he have this incomplete feeling, this belief he couldn’t shake off that there was something more that he should have done, should have recognized, but hadn’t? Get-to-the-top-whatever ambition? Nothing to do with it. Something quite different, quite inexplicable. There was a gap, an empty place or a missing piece from a jig-saw with no missing pieces, a complete picture that didn’t have to be assembled. He had all the parts: every statement, almost every scientific and forensic result, every reason, every motive, every witness. Himself a witness to the madness even. There couldn’t be a gap, a piece that didn’t fit. Inexperience, Hall decided. Easy to rationalize – to understand – if he stopped looking outside and looked inwardly instead at himself, which he was at last doing. His first murder. Newspaper coverage because Jennifer Lomax was beautiful and her cheating husband was a millionaire. The carnage of the crime. He’d wanted her to be not guilty. So he’d disregarded facts and common sense and more forensic evidence than any other murder case in the English criminal history of homicide about which he’d read about or studied or been officially lectured about.

It had all been absurd fantasy, the half-awake-at-night dream that indefensible though it appeared he was going to produce some incredible, last-minute proof of innocence – virtually impossible and almost certainly inadmissible under the rules of disclosure – and lead the beautiful, blond, smiling Jennifer Lomax to face the cameras and a life of innocent freedom. If he tried hard enough, he could probably have imagined the soaring music – lots of violins – that normally accompanied such soap-box endings.

Despite the self-honesty the overlooked feeling wouldn’t go. It stayed nagging in his mind and he wondered if this was what Jane’s voice in Jennifer’s head was like until he realized what he was wondering – that he was accepting the very presence of a voice in Jennifer’s head – and refused to let the speculation run.

His internal telephone buzzed, to warn him that Humphrey Perry was on his way up from that day’s remand hearing, and Hall pushed the case notes aside.

‘Before we begin,’ Hall said, as the older man entered the room. ‘I want to say that I think the preparation is magnificent. I’m in your debt. Thank you.’

Perry, whose opinion of the barrister had changed during the pre-trial weeks, actually flushed. ‘I wish there was a possibility of it working out differently from how it will.’

‘That’s what I want to discuss,’ said Hall. ‘The way forward.’

‘There was no change,’ reported Perry. ‘She’s still wrapped in apathy.’

‘Abject depression is a schizophrenic symptom.’

‘I’ve read all the expert opinions: I commissioned them,’ reminded Perry.

‘What about outbursts?’

‘Usual abuse, to Mrs Heathcote: asked her how many times a day she masturbated. And references again to Jennifer herself being assaulted in the prison hospital.’

‘What about that, exactly?’ pressed Hall.

‘“Ask Jennifer who’s fucking her,”’ quoted the solicitor, literally.

‘Did you?’ asked Hall.

Perry nodded. ‘After today’s hearing. She said nothing was happening: that it was Jane, making her say it. And immediately afterwards said it was true but that Jane made her say that, too.’

Hall sighed, shaking his head. ‘Mason says he thinks there’s some abuse…’ Hall rustled his hand through the dossiers in front of him. ‘… Not in his report. He telephoned.’

‘He told me the same,’ said Perry. ‘That’s why I made a point of seeing the governor again today. He assured me she’s in the safest place, in the hospital. And that he’s made the matron personally responsible.’

Hall sighed again. ‘What about the election to go direct to a higher court, bypassing committal?’

Perry smiled, wryly. ‘If I hadn’t applied for it I think Mrs Heathcote would have suggested it herself. She seems to be the only person without the slightest doubt that Jennifer Lomax is stark, raving mad. I’ve sent her a note, thanking her for her forebearance. She’s taken a lot of abuse.’

Hall tapped the files in front of him, reminded. ‘Despite what all the experts say, it’s got to be diminished responsibility?’

‘That’s all it was ever going to be.’

‘And because of what the experts say – or rather won’t say – we’re going to have to introduce the episode with Emily,’ insisted Hall. ‘Bring it out when Lloyd and Annabelle Parkes are on the stand and call the two policewomen. You and Johnson, too.’

Perry shook his head, sadly. ‘What a way to prove she’s mentally unstable.’

‘Can you think of a better way, so that I can avoid doing this?’

‘It wasn’t a criticism,’ said Perry, quickly. ‘It’s the only thing you can do: the best of a bad job.’

‘Did you tell her I’d need two or three sessions, before the trial?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything about a QC?’

Perry shook his head. ‘There hasn’t been, for quite a while now. Like I said, her apathy is pretty complete.’

Hall moved the papers around again, although aimlessly. ‘Your preparation is brilliant.’

‘You said,’ frowned Perry. ‘Thank you.’

‘So you know everything there is, in the files?’

The frown remained. ‘Yes?’

‘So what’s missing?’

Perry stiffened, affronted. ‘There’s nothing missing!’

‘I’m not suggesting you overlooked something: it’s complete. It’s me. Us. It’s probably there, staring us in the face, but we can’t see it. I can’t see it.’

Perry looked curiously at the younger man. Hall’s first case, he remembered. ‘There’s nothing I haven’t pointed up that would help us,’ he insisted.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ retreated Hall. ‘Maybe I’m trying too hard.’

‘Maybe you are,’ agreed the solicitor.

It was only a short walk across the expansive car park to the back entrance to El Vino and Perry was at their regular corner table when Bert Feltham panted down the stairs. Perry waited for the man to recover his breath, pouring the Montrachet without speaking.

‘All set?’ demanded the chief clerk, finally. Today’s outfit was a dove-grey suit, with a tie to match worn with a black shirt. He looked like a Mafia capo from Central Casting.

‘As ready as we’ll ever be. Medical experts are being a bloody nuisance, but that’s not unusual. Won’t come out positively to say she’s mad.’

‘Persuaded her to plead guilty?’

‘Not yet. That’s Jeremy’s job. I’ve done all the other donkey work. Lomax was a bastard. Prosecution’s got a good case for a woman scorned.’

Feltham ordered a double portion of potatoes with his beef, looking pointedly at the white wine.

‘Margaux?’ suggested Perry.

‘Good choice,’ accepted Feltham. ‘How’s Hall shaped up, overall?’

‘Very well. I’m impressed, genuinely. Had a funny five minutes this morning, about something that we’ve overlooked but then he agreed himself that he was trying too hard and whatever he thought it was didn’t exist. We’ve left the magistrates now. It’s trial time.’

‘When?’

‘Soon as we get a date and a judge.’

‘Think she’d be persuaded to plead?’

‘She was pretty firm at the beginning but she’s gone downhill a lot since. Shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘All done in a day?’

‘Three at the most.’

‘That’ll help. He’s behind with his chambers’ rent.’

Perry gave a dismissive nod. ‘We’ve got the summonses, on the copper affair.’

‘I think we can accept that brief,’ said Feltham, smiling broadly.

‘We’ve brought a friend,’ announced Fran. ‘This is Harriet.’

The newcomer was black, with very short hair, and tall, towering over the other two prisoners. ‘Hello.’

‘And your other friend,’ said Emma, holding up the dildo. ‘You like this friend, don’t you?’

‘No, please,’ said Jennifer. The injection hadn’t worked, like it had on the other nights. She felt relaxed but she wasn’t drifting off, to blot everything out.

‘ Say fuck me! ’

‘No.’

‘You know you want it,’ said Emma.

‘Say fuck me! ’

‘Fuck me.’

‘There, we knew you did.’

The black girl was undressing, at the foot of the bed, watching as the other two women, on either side, unbuttoned Jennifer’s dress.

‘Go away!’

‘Is that what you like? Fighting?’ said the black girl, leaning forward. Abruptly she slapped Jennifer, backhanded, across the face.

‘Careful!’ warned Emma. ‘Don’t mark her.’

The black girl drew back, strapping the dildo around her waist. When it hung like a penis between her legs she said, ‘Look Jennifer, for you.’

‘ Say it’s nice.’

‘No.’

‘ Nice. Say it.’

‘Nice.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Emma. ‘But you were a naughty girl today, Jennifer. You said something about the fun we’re having to the magistrates, didn’t you?’

‘No. It was Jane.’

‘We know you did. Matron told us. And we told you what would happen if you did that, didn’t we?’

The dress was totally open, leaving Jennifer in bra and pants. From the top pocket of her prison overalls Fran took a double-edged safety razor blade. One side was embedded between two pieces of wood, bound in place with twine.

‘No!’ whimpered Jennifer.

‘ They’re going to cut you! ’ screamed Jane, excited.

With one quick, downward slash Fran brought the exposed part of the blade down between Jennifer’s breasts, severing the strip between the two bra cups but missing her skin. Emma pulled both cups apart, briefly leaning forward to kiss Jennifer’s nipples. The moment Emma’s head lifted Fran lay the edge of the razor against Jennifer’s right nipple. ‘We’ll cut them off,’ she said. ‘If you complain, we’ll cut your tits off and then you won’t be pretty any more.’

‘ Say you don’t care. That you’d like it ’

For the first time in days, weeks, Jennifer bit her lips shut, refusing the words, the effort trembling through her.

‘Excited!’ said Harriet. ‘Look, she’s coming! Go on, cut her, just a little.’

‘Too soon, yet,’ refused Emma. She pointed to the prison-tattooed bird, on her left cheek. ‘Would you like one of these, Jennifer? I’ll give you one, when the court hearing’s over.’

‘I want her!’ demanded Harriet.

Fran cut the pants away with the razor and Jennifer’s legs were jerked apart, for them to be pulled clear. Emma and Fran stood either side, still holding Jennifer’s legs wide, as the black girl climbed between them, the artificial penis erect in front of her. Jennifer tightly closed her eyes, refusing to look, but she couldn’t avoid the feeling, when she was penetrated, not that time or when Emma followed or Fran, behind her.

‘ This is the suffering I promise, Jennifer. And it’s going to go on and on and never stop.’

Jennifer was shivering and sobbing when the matron entered the enclosed, now empty ward. ‘Here’s nursey, darling: nursey with the lovely cream.’

Jennifer lay unresisting, eyes still tightly shut, needing the balm for the soreness scouring between her legs.

‘That’s not nice, is it darling. Shouldn’t do that to you, should they?’

Jennifer didn’t speak. Didn’t open her eyes.

‘Shall nursey make them stop?’

‘ No! ’

Again Jennifer managed to hold the word back. ‘What?’ She opened her eyes.

‘Nursey make them stop, shall she?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’ll have to help nursey.’

‘How?’

‘Sign the form I’ve got here. It says I can look after your cheque-book for you. That will be all right, won’t it.’

‘Why?’

‘We’ll pay them, not to come near you. You’d do that, wouldn’t you? Pay them?’

‘Yes. Oh God, yes.’

‘ No! ’

Jennifer didn’t say it.

‘How much do you think? Three hundred pounds, I think, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘You make the cheque out to nursey and nursey will pay them not to come in any more.’

‘Thank you. Oh, thank you.’

‘ Bitch.’

‘Here’s the authorization. And nursey will go on rubbing this lovely cream in, until the soreness goes. It’s all right if nursey does it all the time, isn’t it?’

‘ Here goes your money, Jennifer. Cheaper to he fucked. ’

The following day Feltham appeared early at Jeremy Hall’s door.

‘We’ve been offered a provisional date, if we’re ready.’

‘We are. When?’

‘Two weeks’ time. The Monday. Simon Keflin-Brown QC is against you. Robert Morley’s the junior.’

‘Who’s the judge.’

‘Jarvis. Probably his last case.’

‘Oh,’ said Hall.

‘When your luck’s out it’s out,’ said Feltham, philosophically. ‘And he wants pre-trial conferences.’