A Mind to Kill

Chapter Thirty

The inquest had returned an open verdict, the only one possible from the evidence. And it was unclear from local Hampshire newspaper reports, the only public record available, how much of that evidence had been considered by the coroner, solicitor James Davies, against the prepared statements of witnesses.

Hall read the newspaper reports first, for a general understanding of how deeply Jane’s death had been examined. Gerald Lomax had been the main witness and his evidence made up the major proportion of each account. His wife had suffered diabetes from birth and had always needed to take insulin. She injected herself, usually without any problems, although on two previous occasions, before their move from America to England, there had been two serious overdose incidents. Fortunately there had been people with her on both occasions and doctors had been quickly summoned: on the second she had been admitted to hospital to be stabilized.

In the Hampshire Chronicle, which carried the longest account, the report had been broken here by a series of questions and answers, between the coroner and Lomax.

‘Was your wife careless about her injections?’ the coroner had asked.

‘Sometimes,’ Lomax had replied. ‘She also ate too irregularly for her condition.’

‘What about alcohol, which I understand can contribute to an imbalance?’

‘That had greatly reduced, since our move from America.’

‘You mean she drank immoderately?’

‘Rarely, since our transfer to this country.’

‘But before?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Would you say your wife was careless of her condition?’

‘I would say she had grown too familiar with it.’

‘Familiarity breeding contempt?’ cliched the coroner.

‘That is so.’

‘Was your wife in any way suicidal because of her condition?’

‘Absolutely not! She loved life.’

‘Did your wife take sleeping pills?’

‘No.’

‘You are aware that some were found. And that traces were found in your wife’s body?’

‘I can’t account for that. The pills were mine. An old prescription. They should have been thrown away.’

It was his working practice usually to spend at least three days a week in London. On the day of her death, a Friday, he had arrived home in mid-afternoon. The house had appeared to be empty, which had surprised him because he had telephoned the previous evening to give her his time of arrival. He had assumed Jane was out, shopping or with friends. He’d actually telephoned a particular acquaintance, the wife of an American on an exchange secondment from IBM, to see if she was there. It was not until an hour after his return that he’d gone upstairs to find his wife in bed, in a coma. He called her doctor at the same time as the ambulance and travelled in it to hospital with her. She’d died an hour after admission.

Police Constable Harry Elroyd testified to being automatically called to the mansion by the ambulance alarm. Mrs Lomax had been in bed, still wearing her nightdress: that and the bedding was soiled, where her bladder had apparently collapsed. On a bedside table he found an insulin pack with four ampoules missing. Two, both empty, were on the table. He’d found the other two, also empty, in the bathroom waste bin. In the bathroom cabinet he had found a half-filled bottle of temazepam sleeping tablets. On the bedside table was a syringe, with a needle still attached. Close to it was a goblet still containing sufficient brandy to be identified by its smell. He’d found a two-thirds-filled bottle of brandy on the downstairs kitchen table, together with the uncleared remains of an evening meal, for one person. There was the residue of red wine in a glass and in the kitchen waste bin an empty Margaux bottle. He had located no note to indicate Mrs Lomax had intended to take her own life.

Dr Allan Greenaway said he had been Mrs Lomax’s physician since her arrival in Hampshire. Considering her diabetes she was a woman in reasonably good health, although she had consulted him about stomach pains. He had prescribed mebeverine hydrochloride, for irritable bowel syndrome, but had feared she might be developing stomach ulcers, not uncommon in her condition. For that he issued repeat prescriptions for the insulin he identified from the pack shown to him. Because of her long history of diabetes he had never thought it necessary to warn her against heavy indulgence in alcohol. It was a precaution of which she would have been permanently aware.

Pathologist Michael Bailey described Jane Lomax as a woman in general good health, apart from some pancreatic atrophy consistent with the history from childhood of her diabetes. His autopsy had also disclosed the evidence of impending ulceration suspected by Dr Green-away, which again resulted from her condition. Her blood sugar level was radically out of balance which would have inevitably caused shock, not just to the virtually inoperative pancreas but to the liver and heart. Forensically that imbalance was caused by an excess of insulin, compounded by alcohol and the lactose and sucrose ingredients of the specific meberevine hydrochloride tablets that had been prescribed. It had been impossible for him to calculate with any accuracy the excess of insulin that had proved fatal. He understood her daily dosage to be twenty units, twice a day. The discarded ampoules represented twice that amount and should not, additionally, have been present during what had evidently been a night-time period. He had found substantial traces of temazepam in Mrs Lomax’s body and agreed with the coroner that a dangerous but common side effect of sleeping pills was for someone to awaken, forget they had already taken some and ingest more.

‘In your opinion, could this have happened in this case and further disorientated Mrs Lomax so that she self-administered a totally unnecessary and lethal injection of insulin?’ the coroner had asked.

‘I consider that the most likely explanation for what happened,’ replied the pathologist. His phrase – a fatal cocktail – had provided the headline in two separate newspapers.

It had also been used – and justified the headline – by James Davies in his summing up, although not part of the quote that appeared. There are many facets of this tragedy for which I cannot find a satisfactory explanation – because of which I feel I am prevented from anything other than an open verdict – but all the evidence before me indicates an unfortunately afflicted woman neglecting, through familiarity, the medical condition with which she had been born. Mr Lomax is a new but already respected member of the local community and to him I express my sympathy in his sad loss.

Jeremy Hall was swamped with pointless, unresolvable frustration. At once – objectively, reminding himself of what he was trying to achieve – he suppressed the distraction, as he would have suppressed a flicker of anger in a court. The coroner’s remarks had done more than sum up the inquest: indeed, the concluding words had thrown up in neon-bright clarity the entire formularized direction of the inquest. Sadly bereaved – there were three photographs of a darkly-bespectacled, black-suited, head-bent Lomax hurrying from court – charity supporting pillar of the local community robbed of an adored, medically afflicted wife through a combination of small but fatal misjudgements by a past-his-prime country doctor who himself had died six months later and an occasionally wilfully-challenging woman prone to disregarding her illness. All the statements read and filleted beforehand. A verdict determined (‘Sorry, Gerry: accidental or misadventure just wouldn’t have been right,’) in advance to get the legally required but painful official business over and out of the way in the shortest acceptable time.

In his eagerness he was making the mistake of examining the inquest evidence as he would have done in a far more rigidly structured Court of Law. But the inquest hadn’t done that. Inquests rarely did. Nine times out of ten – maybe slightly less – they were occasions of commiseration. Which is what Jane Lomax’s had been. Her death had been investigated and decided upon in the familiar, non-adversarial surroundings of a village hall, with flower show and horticultural exhibition flyers on a tattered notice board and fold-away chairs stacked at the back amidst smells of paraffin and dust and chalk.

He had to come from the totally opposite direction, the criminally minded, suspicious, believe-nothing direction. The way of John Bentley and Malcolm Rodgers, thinking the worst of everybody and every situation until proven wrong: sometimes not even then.

Jeremy Hall determined upon a middle course, refusing the easy criticism of a country inquest but rejecting, too, a guilty-until-proven innocent approach. As he picked his way with methodical care through the written statements he had consciously to keep that determination in mind, so easy would it have been to veer wildly across both self-imposed guidelines. When he finished he had seven closely handwritten pages of reminders, believed anomalies, seeming contradictions and outright inconsistencies. It had taken most of the day and occupied a further hour separating his own uncertainties into a list of positive requests to Humphrey Perry. They still occupied four pages and after telephoning to ensure the man would be at the receiving end, preventing anyone else identifying the source, Hall faxed them for convenience and to ensure there was no verbal misunderstanding between himself and the solicitor.

Hall allowed a further hour for Perry to read everything before he telephoned London for the second time.

‘You sure you want all this?’ demanded the solicitor, at once.

‘I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t been.’

‘I’ve read the same file, as closely as you have. It was a scarcely adequate inquest but then a lot of inquests are scarcely adequate. None of the statements – not even of witnesses who weren’t called – incriminate Lomax in any way whatsoever. And it doesn’t take you one step further to what you’re trying to prove: Jennifer isn’t involved at all.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to prove?’

‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it,’ said Perry, irritably.

‘There were a lot of questions that should have been asked but weren’t.’

‘Six years ago!’

‘That’s when Jane died. The time we’re talking about.’

‘The time you’re talking about.’

‘I’d like the answers as soon as possible.’

‘Bert called me. He wants to know where you are.’

‘Did you tell him?’

‘I promised you’d call.’

‘I will,’ agreed Hall.

‘I’ve got five more offers, all for books. Three are repeats, upping their first offers.’

‘Hold them.’

‘Have you discussed any with her yet?’

‘That’s way down the list.’

‘We’ve got a bill for police time. And for damage to equipment. Twenty-three thousand.’

‘Ignore it. If they issue a writ, file a necessity defence under the Public Order Act. Anything else?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Not for the moment.’

Colin Dawson perfectly suited the opulence and ambience of his surroundings, a white-haired, pink-faced avuncular gentleman priest of independent means who had never believed his genuine religious piety needed to be reinforced by secular hardship. He rode to hounds on one of his two hunters, favoured burgundy over claret in a wine cellar the envy of the county and donated his entire church salary to Save the Children. His cassocks were tailored.

He came curiously but sincerely concerned into Jennifer’s suite, made totally unafraid of encountering a woman possessed by a murderous ghost not just by his belief in the protection of God but by never having known a life without a financial armour through which no harm or ill had ever penetrated.

‘ The Jesus jockey,’ Jane greeted.

The man had been well briefed by Julian Mason. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter what she makes you do or say. She can’t frighten or shock me. I’m stronger than she is, because I have God and she is evil, the Devil incarnate. Let her fight me. I’ll fight her back and I will win.’

‘ The fuck he will.’

Jennifer had found it easier – a relief even – simply to be the conduit between Jane and Jeremy Hall and she did it now with Dawson, too exhausted, too apathetic, any longer to censor the words.

Dawson laughed at the obscenity. ‘And St Matthew said “The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men”.’

‘ And Exodus teaches “Life for life. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. ”’

He laughed again. ‘And the Prayers say “Keep thy tongue from evil: and thy lips, that they speak no guile. Eschew evil and do good: seek peace and ensure it.” Which is what I’ll do, if you help me, Jennifer. I’ll eschew the evil that possesses you and give you peace.’

‘If only you could,’ said Jennifer.

‘ Verse 8. Romans. ’

‘Ah!’ said the priest. ‘Interesting!’

‘ Forgotten it? ’

The man shook his head. ‘“Let us do evil, that good may come.” So you know your Bible, Jane? Therefore you must believe? Or did believe, once. Philippians, 26?’

‘ Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath ,’ Jane recognized, immediately.

‘All right,’ accepted Dawson. ‘So I have a formidable adversary.’

‘ You’d better believe it. I can out-argue you creed for creed, ritual for ritual.’

‘When did you lose your way, Jane?’

‘ When I lost my fucking life! ’

‘Become a catechumen again, Jane,’ said the priest, urgently. ‘Be my pupil. Learn to believe again. To love again. And leave this child whose mind you occupy and whom you want to destroy.’

‘ This “child” conspired to kill me! Took part in it…’

‘Then hers will be the punishment on the terrible day of judgement.’ He was sweating, his face pinker than usual.

‘ No way, pops. I’d rather do it myself. My way.’

The psychiatrist’s briefing had been total. Dawson said, ‘You’ve chosen judgement without proof.’

‘ Been talking to people, haven’t you? ’

‘Will you listen to me?’

‘ Until I get bored.’

‘Will you listen to the lawyer who’s trying to prove you wrong?’

‘ He won’t.’

‘Will you go, leave her, if he does?’

‘ That’s the deal. Easy one for me to make. ’

‘Maybe I’ll persuade you to leave first.’

‘ Then again, maybe you won’t.’

‘Jennifer, could you learn to believe in God? Love God?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Will you go through the services with me? Pray with me? Try?’

‘Yes.’

‘ Hypocrite.’

‘“Though ye believe not me, believe the works”,’ retorted the man.

‘ OK pops. Show us the works.’

‘I will,’ said Dawson, sincerely. ‘I’ll make you believe again, even if I can’t make Jennifer.’

‘ Nah! ’

‘“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth”,’ said the priest, quoting again.

‘ Corinthians,’ identified Jane, as quickly as before.

‘I can guide you back.’

‘ Let’s make it a challenge, like it is with Jeremy Hall! ’

It was in the lawyer’s rooms, thirty minutes later, that Dawson, who could find his way around the establishment’s wine list with the sure-footedness of a tightrope walker crossing Niagara Falls, selected the Roederer Crystal (‘the Krug they’ve got is too buttery,’) and announced, ‘I’ve found the weakness.’

‘What?’ demanded Mason and Hall, almost in unison.

‘Jane believes in God. Or did, very devoutly.’

‘Her father was an Episcopalian bishop,’ remembered Hall.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the man, a mystery solved. ‘This might not be as difficult as we thought it was going to be.’

‘You think you can do it?’ demanded the lawyer.

‘I’m more confident now than I was an hour ago.’

‘Which only leaves me to do what I have to do,’ accepted Mason.

Dawson nodded. ‘And Jennifer will be saved.’