A Mind to Kill

Chapter Thirty-two

‘Is she there?’

‘No.’ Jennifer knelt in the chapel, as Dawson told her and bowed her head under the pressure of his hand. The chapel smelled heavily of the incense smouldering in the burners. Despite the softness of the well-padded hassock her knee hurt, where she’d cut it.

‘I want to speak to you, Jane,’ declared the priest. When there was nothing he said, ‘Don’t be afraid. You know you don’t have to be afraid of God.’

When there was still no response he began the exorcism ritual with oil and holy water and salt and said, ‘Hear me, oh Lord, not in the name of this supplicant but in the name of the spirit that possesses her, a spirit in need of release and of your succour…’

‘ Stop! ’ Jennifer relayed the word, according to the previous arrangement. Ennui embalmed her.

‘Pray with me, Jane.’

‘ I don’t want to pray with you.’

‘You do. You want to pray for forgiveness for the sins you have committed. To release yourself from the terrible torment of Hell.’

‘ I’m not in torment.’

‘You’re in terrible torment, to be saying what you are. Behaving and threatening as you do.’

‘ Not true. Won’t listen.’

Dawson sprinkled holy water and intoned, ‘And in Philippians it says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”.’ The priest hesitated. ‘God exacts his vengeance, Jane. Not mortals.’

‘ I’m not mortal,’ she scored. ‘ I’m dead. Killed. Without the chance of salvation.’

‘I could save you, if you’d pray with me. Give you absolution.’

There was nothing for several moments. Jennifer’s knee was throbbing, rhythmically, like a heartbeat.

‘ Not for what I’ve done.’

‘Yes, Jane!’ said the priest, almost too urgently. The beginning of the Apostles’ Creed was too hurried as well. ‘“I believe in God, the Father Almighty…”’

‘ I don’t want to hear it! ’

The ache wasn’t any longer confined to Jennifer’s injured leg. It was suffusing her entire body, as if she was straining to oppose the man.

‘“… who was conceived by the Holy Ghost…”’ Dawson pressed on.

‘ Stop! I won’t listen! ’

As well as pain Jennifer felt frightened, although strangely not for herself. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – think it was for Jane.

Dawson ignored the interruptions, ‘“… From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead…”’

It was a discordant, moaning chant, a rhythmless noise to drown out any other sound.

‘“… I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints; the Forgiveness of sin; the Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting…”’ The priest’s face ran with sweat, like his hand against Jennifer’s head. ‘God can forgive the most terrible sin: any sin…’ He hesitated again, remembering Jeremy Hall’s account of the Hampshire visit. ‘You know that, Jane. You don’t believe in one creed, one denomination. You believe in God: the total love of God-’

‘ No! ’

‘Yes! Pray with me, Jane. “Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name…”’

The moaning chant started again.

‘“… Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done…”’

The closing-out sound in Jennifer’s head wavered.

“‘… as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…”’

‘ And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, hut deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever…’

‘We can do it, Jane!’ said the priest, exultant but physically as close to the exhaustion that Jennifer now felt. He was crying. ‘We’ll pray together. Worship together. And find your way back.’

‘ I’m frightened,’ confessed Jane, the voice distant, like somebody hiding.

So quickly – and at times so confusingly – did events unfold that day that even for someone with a trained lawyer’s mind it was difficult for Jeremy Hall to differentiate explicable inconsistency from outright contradiction. And before he reached that comparable analysis there was the first telephone call from Humphrey Perry, which began with an apology for questioning the check Hall had asked for the previous day.

‘It’s not important,’ dismissed the barrister. ‘It’s what you found that matters.’

‘And I think it matters a great deal,’ said Perry.

‘You’ve got the doctor’s name?’ demanded Hall, the moment the solicitor finished telling him.

‘Ian Halliday.’

‘I can be there…’

‘… You don’t need to be,’ stopped Perry. ‘I spoke to Halliday an hour ago. Harley Street, naturally.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Lomax had always been a private patient. He was an American, remember. Didn’t qualify for National Health, even if he’d wanted it.’

‘The prescription was filled on the same day as the temazepam?’

‘And collected by the same person,’ confirmed Perry. ‘It should have been obvious to me but it wasn’t. Hemels is an independent chemist, not part of a chain. Been there for more than fifty years. And they still keep their records on the premises: part of their history.’

Hall paused, curious at the strange hollowness in his stomach.

‘Who collected it?’

‘I didn’t need the photograph of Jennifer. It was Elizabeth McIntyre. And I’ve got a photostat of her signature, from the ledger. She’s…’

‘… I know who she is,’ said Hall, as impatient as the other man. ‘She was one of the ones never called.’

‘You’re assuming it’s the basis for Jane’s accusation.’

‘You’ve read everything I have. Did you find another?’

‘No.’

Hall accepted Perry’s insistence it was impossible for them properly to discuss the latest responses from Washington DC from Ross Hamilton Forest II without having a transcript in front of him. He had the solicitor fax it personally to the clinic to prevent its location becoming known throughout the solicitor’s office. That morning’s media coverage maintained the hysteria – and the pursuit – at fever pitch: he’d succeeded in causing some confusion by the different stories he’d given but the consensus was that the death of Jane Lomax was being reopened as a murder inquiry, although the police and the coroner denied it. Pathologist Michael Bailey had been traced, as well as Inspector Hughes and PC Elroyd. Everyone was photographed and extensively quoted. Hall felt sorry for the avalanche that would have engulfed Elspeth Simpson. Fred Knowland appeared on all five breakfast television channels.

Forest’s report from America ran to twenty-five A4 pages, including two signed affidavits, and took the barrister two hours to digest as fully as he wanted.

When they spoke again Perry, who had monitored the media as closely as Hall, said, ‘We probably could get an investigation reopened on the strength of what we’ve found out. I’d take a bet on a posthumous murder verdict.’

‘That’s not what we’re trying to prove,’ reminded Hall.

‘What do you want me to say if there’s an official approach from Hampshire?’

‘Let’s hear what it is, first. We wouldn’t be legally bound to hand our evidence over but I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t. Jennifer wouldn’t be involved any more.’

‘They might try to involve her. Don’t forget the motive of an affair.’

‘Let’s wait for an approach.’

‘You think you’re ready?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

‘You thought what life’s going to be like when it’s all over?’

‘No,’ admitted Hall, honestly. ‘Sometimes I can’t imagine that it ever will be.’ Or, he mentally added in a thought that surprised him, that he particularly wanted it to be. He was certainly anxious to get rid of Jane, but not Jennifer.

Dr Cox confirmed the priest’s insistence that Jennifer was too exhausted by being Jane’s conduit to face what amounted to a quasi-trial and Mason deferred to their opinion and also abandoned any analysis that day. They used Hall’s room to talk through what he intended and Cox said he’d wait until tomorrow before deciding whether Jennifer would even then be able to stand the strain.

‘It’s an attempt to persuade Jane to go, after all,’ the doctor reminded, unnecessarily. ‘The most important thing in her life. She’ll be wound up tighter than a spring.’

‘I couldn’t be more encouraged by how she’s responding,’ enthused Dawson. ‘I know I can exorcize Jane, if this doesn’t work.’

‘It’s not important which of us does it, as long as it’s done,’ said Hall.

‘Jane prayed with me,’ said the priest. ‘And there’s no obscenity, not any more.’

‘I wonder if it’ll be any different when she’s talking to me?’ said Hall.

‘Gerald Lomax was quite a bastard, wasn’t he?’ said Cox.

Mason sniggered, cynically. ‘I think he had more of a Multiple Personality Disorder than some people suspected Jennifer of suffering.’