A Mind to Kill

QC.’

‘No. That was professional: your choice.’

‘Can you always be impartial, like that?’

‘It’s an essential of the job.’

‘Are you impartial now?’ She looked intently sideways at him.

He wasn’t sure how to answer: wasn’t sure what she even meant by the question. ‘I’m not going to abandon you: leave you by yourself.’

She looked away and walked without speaking for several moments. ‘Thank you, for what you did then. At the trial I mean. I haven’t thanked you before, have I?’

‘You haven’t seen my fee yet,’ he said, trying for lightness.

‘Did you always believe me?’

Truth or lie? Truth, Mason had dictated: no other way, blunt truth in fact. ‘Of course not, not at first. It was too absurd.’

‘What did you think was going to happen?’

Keep to the truth. ‘That the judge would stop the trial. Order the jury to return a verdict on mental incapacity.’

‘Which would have achieved what you wanted all along?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sneaky bastard!’

She actually laughed, the first time he’d ever seen her do that – the first time since they’d met that she’d ever had the slightest cause, he supposed – and Hall came close to faltering. ‘I thought it was the best outcome. The only outcome.’ And still might be, he thought, worriedly.

‘The television is saying that you’re famous now. In demand.’ She veered off the path, on to the grass, to avoid a rapidly approaching track-suited jogger.

‘We’ll see.’ Bert Feltham hadn’t been happy at his continuing to delay a response to the offered briefs: the total, as of the previous evening, stood at twelve.

They walked unspeaking again, in the general direction of a display of oaks, bowed and gnarled by age.

‘They were there hundreds of years before we were born and they’ll be there after we die,’ she said.

The remark unsettled him. He said, ‘But in between we have a life,’ and at once regretted the remark.

‘Do we?’ She turned away from the tree-line, towards the clinic. To have gone around the coppice the other way would have taken the refuge out of sight. ‘Do you know what I thought, on the day it happened? Before it happened: before Jane? I remember thinking that I was the happiest, luckiest, most contented woman in the world…’ She snorted an empty laugh. ‘… Can you believe that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you believe Rebecca in court? That he was going to divorce me and take Emily away?’

‘I thought we were trying to forget things, just for a moment.’

‘We can’t, can we?’

Honesty, he reminded himself. ‘Not for very long.’

‘So what’s the answer?’

‘She was performing: wanting the jury to make a comparison. She couldn’t be challenged.’

‘Still not an answer.’

‘I can’t give you one. If I’d had anything to challenge her with, I would have done.’

He followed her lead again, accepting they were returning to the clinic. He waited for her to lead the conversation, too.

‘Did Gerald do it?’ she demanded, abruptly.

Gently to warn her might lessen the shock, according to the psychiatrist. ‘There are a lot of things that don’t add up: things the police would have investigated, if they’d known.’

‘Do you believe I wasn’t involved.’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you prove it to her?’

‘If it’s based on the remark I think it is, yes.’

‘What if it isn’t?’

‘Then at least I’ll know where to go on looking.’

‘Why is she letting me alone, now?’

‘Because of what happened in the chapel?’ he suggested.

‘Wouldn’t it be…?’ Jennifer began, then stopped.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, not needing her to finish.

Jane wasn’t there the following morning. Of all the setbacks and reversals Jeremy Hall attempted to anticipate – accepting as he tried to forearm himself there were too many unknowns possibly to insure against – he’d never imagined that when he came to argue Jane’s possession with legal objectivity she wouldn’t be there to argue back.

Cox had declared Jennifer fit for the ordeal and all of them – Hall, Dawson and Julian Mason – were startled by the visibly obvious recovery. It was not so much physical although her face, still free of make-up, had for the first time in weeks a glow about it and her freshly washed hair still hung with the flow of expensive, if long past, attention. It was more in Jennifer’s demeanour. The apathy had lessened – lessened, not gone completely – to give way to something Hall held back from identifying as an eagerness for the confrontation.

Jeremy Hall was frightened, far more apprehensive than he had been entering the Old Bailey that first day to argue ghostly possession as a murder defence to a hostile, God-fearing judge. The desperation of the whole idea, which had seemed reasonable, even logical, in those adrenalin-exploding first hours of their anything’s-possible escape from hospital now seemed preposterously absurd.

Jennifer’s words the previous night – normal, ordinary – echoed in his mind. Which Hall acknowledged to be his difficulty. For two days – three because to begin with night had merged into new day and new day into night – he’d been normal and ordinary, a lawyer immersed in the normal and ordinary defence of a client. So immersed, inconceivable though it now was for him to concede, that he’d dismissed from conscious thought who that client was and the circumstances and to whom he would be presenting her defence. He’d lapsed – relaxed – into becoming ordinarily normal. Which nothing was. Or could be. He had to step back into the supernatural, into the unknown and the unpredictable, unable to judge anything by the safe and logically enshrined rules and process of law.

And now he was being off-balanced before he’d started.

‘I reached her,’ argued Dawson, hopefully. ‘She prayed. Renounced evil.’

‘She didn’t come afterwards. Not at all during the night,’ agreed Jennifer, just as hopefully, eager for omens.

‘She was devout, before she died,’ accepted Hall, although less convinced. ‘Incredibly so. But I can’t imagine it could have been this easy.’

‘You hadn’t tried God before,’ reminded the priest, critically.

‘We hardly had the opportunity!’ protested the barrister. ‘We were arguing a murder charge.’

‘What do we do?’ demanded Mason, delighted at Jennifer’s very obvious mental recovery although secretly disappointed there wouldn’t be more to take to its exaggerated limit his participation and the honour-awarding thesis that would come from it.

‘We wait,’ decided Hall.

‘For how long?’ asked the priest.

‘As long as it takes.’

Mason was about to protest the glib near-cliche but stopped at the thought of how it might sound to Jennifer. Instead he said, ‘Yes. We wait.’

Which they did. Every day Jennifer attended services in the chapel and underwent analysis, sometimes under hypnosis, with Julian Mason, who even – dangerously – invited Jane to join them. Jeremy Hall read and re-read everything he’d assembled, actually glad of the opportunity the delay gave him to search for something that incriminated Jennifer that he might have missed. And found nothing.

His solitary walks with Jennifer in the clinic grounds, each evening, grew longer – the building not needing to be in view any more – and afterwards the four of them ate together, sometimes joined by Cox. And Jennifer did eat, hungrily, and the priest boasted his knowledge of the wine list, showing off in front of a beautiful woman.

On the second day Hall had Bert Feltham send him the outlines of the four most urgent briefs, simply by posting them care of Dr Cox. He instructed Geoffrey Johnson to arrange the private security protection for the Hampshire mansion. He didn’t even consider telling Jennifer of the problems with Emily or of Annabelle’s growing reluctance to continue the role of surrogate mother.

All five of them were at dinner on the sixth night, as usual in Jennifer’s suite. It was Dawson who ordered the Roederer Crystal with the promise to pay for it himself, declaring a celebration for the complete return of Jennifer’s physical health that had just been announced by Dr Cox.

Jennifer insisted upon joining in her own toast. ‘Here’s to Jane’s departure. I know she’s left me.’

‘ I haven’t,’ said the familiar American voice. ‘ I’ve had a lot to think about.’

Depression swamped them. Jennifer was devastated although she didn’t fall back into immediate apathy. Legally it was a recognized ploy, acknowledged Hall: protract a case to unsettle its participants and then spring the surprise of a hearing.

‘ I’ve been looking forward to this ’ It was virtually automatic for Jennifer to mouth the words, as Jane’s puppet.

‘So have we,’ said Hall.

‘ I’m right, aren’t If I was murdered. ’

Jennifer sat with her head slightly bowed, both hands gripping the table edge. If Jane threw Jennifer into a fit she’d probably upend the table over all of them, Hall calculated. How they would stage this was something else he hadn’t anticipated: as they were, encircling a table, actually made it look like a seance. Or what he imagined a seance to be like, although he thought people were supposed to link hands. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t heard your argument.’

‘ You first.’

‘Prosecution before defence.’

‘ My rules, not yours.’

‘Making me the prosecutor as well as the defender?’

‘ With me as the judge. The way it always had to be.’

Dawson’s head was more bowed than Jennifer’s. He had his hands clasped before him and his eyes tightly shut, his lips moving in silent prayer. Julian Mason was tensed forward, eyes bright with excitement. Cox appeared frozen, transfixed.

‘Your death wasn’t properly investigated,’ conceded Hall.

‘ It was murder! ’

‘There wasn’t a proper investigation,’ repeated the barrister, reluctant to concede anything.

‘ Do you think you’ve conducted one? ’

‘Better than that carried out at the time.’

‘ So tell them! I want everyone to hear it! I want my trial. Not the trial there should have been but for the truth to come out at last: Jennifer was panting, short-breathed from gabbling Jane’s insistence. The words that followed were measured, a threat the barrister didn’t need to hear. ‘ And I do hope you’ve got it right. Found it all out. I shall be very angry if you haven’t.’

He didn’t have any of the carefully listed notes, the points enumerated: any of the inquest statements or the replies from the American lawyer to the specific queries he’d raised. Everything was back in his own rooms, at the far end of the corridor. ‘I have to collect some papers.’

‘ What? ’

The evidence you need.’

Could he risk the courtroom ploy of engendering anger? ‘Or don’t you want to hear and see evidence to prove you wrong?’

‘ Careful! ’

‘The real truth? Or the truth according to Jane Lomax, not interested in hearing any story other than that she wants to believe?’

‘ I told you to be careful! ’

‘“Not the trial there should have been but for the truth to come out,”’ Hall quoted, throwing Jane’s words back at her.

‘ Hurry. Be very quick before I lose my patience.’

Hall indicated the cluttered table to Julian Mason as he rose, conscious of Jennifer’s pleading eyes upon him. He walked normally to his own suite, refusing to be panicked. It was all prepared, waiting. For a few moments, just seconds, he remained there, composing himself. Or delaying? he demanded. Positively he strode out of the room and back along the corridor. The table was cleared except for water, the dinner debris piled carelessly on to the coffee table by the television. The priest still prayed. Jennifer looked up at his entry, imploringly. Hall poured water first for her, then for himself.

‘ You planning any more delays? ’

‘None. Are you?’

Jennifer looked up at him again, shaking her head.

‘ She doesn’t think you can save her.’

‘We need an undertaking, don’t we?’

‘ What undertaking? ’

‘If I make the case, you’ll free Jennifer?’ pressed the barrister. He’d left normality and the ordinary behind again, he accepted. He wished he knew where that put him now.

‘ Make your case.’

It wasn’t the commitment he’d wanted but it would have to do. Hall breathed in deeply again, readying himself. He sipped some water. ‘Let me make yours, instead. I think you were murdered.’

‘ Hah! ’

A gasp came from Jennifer, too. Her look towards him now wasn’t any longer imploring. It was accusing and at the same time bewildered, the expression of someone who had been deceived and couldn’t understand why. Almost, in fact, one of guilt. The other three men were regarding him with varying degrees of astonishment: he’d discussed some but not all of the inquest disparities with them but said nothing about Humphrey Perry’s findings.

If he was to be the prosecutor, Jane had to be his witness. The realization – the full, incredible awareness – momentarily held him speechless: he was about to cross-examine the victim about her own murder. ‘He did come home that night, didn’t he? The night before you died?’ he forced himself to ask.

‘ Hey, what’s this? ’

‘The way it has to be, if you want the priest and Cox and Mason to hear your story: hear the truth. And the only way you’ll be able to judge whether I am going to get to the truth or not. So, Gerald came home that night?’

‘ Yes.’

‘After ten?’

‘ About ten-thirty.’

‘Were you in bed?’

‘ Just going.’

‘What did he say?’

‘ We’d spoken on the phone, earlier. I told him I had one of my bad headaches. I got them sometimes: Greenaway’s treatment for the stomach pains could have been contributing. Gerald said he’d driven all the way home to make sure I was all right.’

‘You’d already eaten supper?’

‘ Steak.’

‘And cleared away?’

‘ I don’t like leaving a mess.’

‘But you got something for him?’ Hall pushed her water closer to Jennifer. She ignored it.

‘ Steak. There was a lot left over, in the refrigerator.’

‘And wine? Margaux?’

‘ Gerald opened it. He liked wine.’

‘Did you sit with him, while he ate?’

‘ The commission earnings had been calculated that week. He said

…’ There was a break. ‘… He said Jennifer Stone had come out on top again, even though she’d been away from the office…’

Jennifer began to cry, soundlessly, tears edging down her face. She grabbed for the water at last, gulping it.

‘You shared the wine, while you talked?’

‘ I only had one glass: didn’t drink all of that. The headache had begun to go.’

‘Gerald drank the rest?’

‘ He enjoyed wine. Drink didn’t affect him.’

‘And he had a brandy, afterwards?’

‘ Yes.’

‘Did you go to bed straight away?’

‘ I started to clear up, put the wine bottle in the bin, but he told me he’d finish doing it. That he wanted to go to bed…’ There was another break. ‘… It was obvious he wanted to make love…’

Jennifer squeezed her eyes shut, still crying. The other three men were locked on to Jennifer, speaking for Jane. Cox’s mouth hung open.

‘So you went up ahead of him? Put your clothes away, like you usually did?’

‘ Yes.’

‘And put your underwear in the laundry basket?’

‘ Yes.’

‘And took some insulin?’

‘ I’d had problems since Dr Greenaway prescribed the stomach pills, as I told you. Nausea as well as headaches sometimes. I thought there might be a slight imbalance – I’d told Gerald, downstairs – and decided I could correct it. It was quite safe. After so long I knew exactly what I could and couldn’t do.’

‘How much did you inject?’

‘ Twenty units.’

‘Two ampoules, each of ten units?’

‘ Yes.’

‘What did you do with the ampoules?’

‘ Put them into the disposal basket.’

‘And then got into bed?’

‘ Yes.’

‘You didn’t take the syringe into the bedroom with you and put it on the side table?’

‘ Of course not! ’

‘Or any ampoules?’

‘ No.’

‘Or a glass of brandy?’

‘ No.’

‘Tell us what happened when you got into bed.’

‘ I shouldn’t have drunk what little wine I did: the headache came back. I told Gerald when he came up: I didn’t want to disappoint him, after he’d come all the way from London.’

He had to crush every feeling, Hall decided: stick always to the truth, according to the psychiatrist. ‘Disappoint him about making love, you mean?’

‘ Yes.’

Jennifer’s shoulders were heaving but still she wasn’t making any sound. She drank again.

‘What happened?’ Hall drank, too.

‘ He got me something from the bathroom.’

‘Something for the headache?’

‘ Yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘ Gerald didn’t bring a bottle back. Just some pills, in his hand .’

‘Did he say what they were?’

‘ Paracetamol. I could safely take that.’

‘You saw they were paracetamol?’

‘ The headache had got bad again. I was keeping my eyes closed against the light, although it wasn’t very bright.’

‘So he gave you pills and you took them without looking to see what they were?’

‘ Yes.’

‘What then?’

‘ He said it didn’t matter. About making love. He just held me.’

‘He got into bed to hold you?’

‘ No, not then. He sat on the side of the bed.’

‘Not then. What about later.’

‘ I don’t remember later. I went to sleep.’

‘Don’t you remember anything about later?’

‘ Vaguely that there was something against my face, hurting me. And a smell, of something strong… and then of choking.’

‘Was it brandy you smelled?’

‘ I don’t drink any spirit. Never have. I told you, it was only vague. It could have been brandy. It must have been, from what was said at the inquest. ’

Hall paused at the next question, held this time by the inanity of it, telling himself that nothing could be inane. ‘You were at your own inquest?’

Only Cox showed any reaction, shaking his head. There was no facial reaction.

‘ I wanted to know! But it was all lies! ’

‘I know some of them,’ promised Hall. ‘You’re left handed, aren’t you? All the stab wounds to Gerald’s body were from a left-handed person and Jennifer is right handed.’

‘ Yes. I’m left handed.’

‘Could you inject, with your right hand?’

‘ It wasn’t easy.’

‘Did Gerald ever inject you?’

‘ I didn’t like him doing it: I always thought it was a private thing. And he didn’t like doing it.’

‘But he could, in an emergency?’

‘ I’d taught him how. But he was clumsy. It hurt.’

‘That night you injected yourself in your right thigh?’

‘ Yes.’

‘Twice?’

‘ Yes.’

‘Not three times?’

‘ That was a lie, at the inquest! I didn’t administer the third, the most obvious one.’

‘What about the even more obvious one, the big puncture mark in your left arm?’

‘ No! I’ve never ever injected myself in my left arm. I couldn’t, obviously.’

‘Did Gerald do it?’

‘ He must have done. I was asleep. Unconscious.’

Hall pushed across in front of Jennifer the copies of the American enquiries that Humphrey Perry had faxed him. There’s your American medical records. And another affidavit from your family doctor, up until you moved to England. You were never hospitalized, for an insulin overdose, were you? You’ve never ever overdosed?’

‘ Never! It was another lie! ’

‘And you never had a drink problem, in America?’

‘ How could I have had, with diabetes as severe as mine? ’

Jennifer was slumping lower and lower over the table, pressed down again by exhaustion. Hall was drained, too, but wouldn’t stop. There was a momentum he didn’t want to lose. He was doing more than follow the basic legal precept of never asking a question to which he didn’t already know the answer. lle was intently listening, too, gauging his knowledge against Jane’s. He was sure he was ahead. Now he was about to go beyond the established precept: to grope out for answers he didn’t already know and needed to guess precisely the right questions to ask.

‘It’s all guesswork, though, isn’t it? You can’t prove Gerald killed you? It’s what the police would consider circumstantial.’

‘ More than circumstantial! Everything at the inquest was lies! The police would have investigated, if they’d known.’

‘Of course they would,’ agreed Hall. ‘And I believe they would have found enough for a murder charge, like I believe I have.’

‘ So where’s your argument? ’

‘Where’s yours, to prove Jennifer was part of it?’

‘ His mistake! What he said in his statement.’

It was too soon for any satisfaction. ‘Where, precisely, in his statement?’

‘ About the temazepam, which I know now he gave me instead of paracetamol: drugged me to make everything else possible. Read it! It says “I had it collected. ” Not “I collected it.” Had it collected, by her. By Jennifer Stone.’

He was there! thought Hall, euphorically. He’d guessed correctly – had Humphrey Perry agree with him – and now he had his defence. ‘“I had it collected”,’ Hall repeated yet again, returning the quote. ‘Not “I had it collected by Jennifer Stone.” You don’t know who collected it, do you?’

‘ Had to be her. She had the motive, the reason.’

‘You didn’t know about the affair with Jennifer Stone when you were alive, did you?’

‘ No.’

‘You went to bed that night wanting to make love to him. Thinking he loved you.’

‘ He did. Always did.’

The denial of the cheated wives isolated Hall, sadness mingling with the satisfaction: Jane refusing to admit losing to Jennifer and Jennifer refusing to admit losing to Rebecca. How many other lives of other women would Gerald Lomax have shattered if he hadn’t died? ‘And you hate Jennifer, don’t you? Hate her not because you think she had anything to do with your death but because she stole your husband from you.’

‘ Yes.’ For the first time there was a discernible emotion, the word hissing out in snake-like loathing.

‘Who’s Ian Halliday?’ demanded Hall, abruptly.

There wasn’t an immediate answer. Then, ‘ Gerald’s doctor.’

‘Never yours?’

‘ I spent most of my time in the country. I needed a local doctor. ’

‘Halliday never treated you?’

‘ No.’

‘Never prescribed for you?’

‘ No.’

‘Did you ever meet him?’

‘ No.’

Hall went to a paper in front of him, lifting it. ‘This is a signed statement, made to Humphrey Perry eight days ago by Doctor Ian Halliday, of Harley Street, London. It sets out the history of his medical association with Gerald Lomax. Part of it reads, “Two months before the death of his first wife – the actual date of the consultation was June 12 – Gerald Lomax-’

‘I wasn’t there!’ Jennifer’s interruption croaked out, the sound so strained and unexpected that everyone jumped. She gulped from her glass again, spilling some water down her chin. She didn’t bother to wipe it. ‘I wasn’t there!’ she repeated, stronger voice. ‘In June of the year Jane died… in fact throughout May and June and part of July

… I was on secondment to New York…’ She sniggered, disbelievingly. ‘It was there, that time, that I met Rebecca. Isn’t that ironic…? There’ll be proof…’

‘I have it,’ promised Hall, not wanting to lose control. He went back to Halliday’s statement. ‘It goes on, “Gerald Lomax complained of having difficulty in sleeping: blamed the pressure of work and asked for sleeping pills. I prescribed temazepam…’ Hall slowed, unnecessarily building up the moment. ‘… At the same time he said he was worried about his wife, who was a diabetic although not a patient of mine. He told me she was extremely careless about her medication: sometimes even forgot to bring it with her when she came up to their apartment in London…”’

It was impossible to tell whether the sound, a whimpering, groaning noise, was initiated by Jane or Jennifer.

Hall waited for the sound to become an identifiable word. When it didn’t he went back to the statement. Quoting again he said, ‘“She’d done it the previous week and they’d had to cancel everything and go back to Hampshire. He asked if I could issue a script for emergencies: something that he could keep in London if it happened again. I gave him a prescription for a month’s supply of ten-unit strength soluble insulin, the type he told me his wife used.”’

All three men were looking at Hall now, the awareness registering. Only Mason spoke. He said, ‘Good God!’ and then looked apologetically at the priest.

‘ He did it! I knew he did it.’

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ said the barrister, determined to maintain the pace. ‘Jennifer was in New York, all that time. And you knew it. You’ve told us that Gerald said she was away when he talked of her commission. The Enco-Corps records, which are part of this pile, prove it, in black and white: Jennifer Stone didn’t get back to England until July 9, just two weeks before your death. The prescription, for the temazepam and the insulin, was made up on June 13 by an independent chemist in Bury Street, in the City of London, named Hemels. Who still have the dispensing record, signed by the person who collected it…’ He slid a photocopy across the table. ‘The person who collected it was Elizabeth McIntyre, Gerald Lomax’s secretary…’ Hall stopped, dry-throated, all the water gone, desperately searching his mind for something – anything – he’d overlooked. Just the final accusation, he decided. ‘… You never thought Jennifer conspired in your murder… you wanted to kill her because she stole Gerald from you… that’s the truth, isn’t it Jane? The truth you didn’t want to admit!’

Jennifer said, ‘She’s crying. That’s the sound in my head. Crying.’

‘She didn’t go.’ Jeremy Hall was slouched over the table, drained, his arms and legs too heavy for his body, his head lolling. The heaviest weight was the feeling of defeat.

‘She didn’t swear, not once. Get angry or make Jennifer do anything. And in the end she cried,’ said Mason, enumerating points for his own benefit. He looked across at the lawyer. ‘And you did what you promised you’d do.’

‘But she still didn’t go,’ repeated the barrister.

Dawson was the only other man still in the room with them. Having weaned Jennifer completely from drugs during Jane’s absence, Dr Cox had decided that night she needed a tranquillizer and was still in the adjoining bedroom: it had needed Hall as well as the doctor virtually to carry Jennifer away from the table. They hadn’t been sure whether it was her own or Jane’s tears she was shedding.

‘There is nothing more I can do,’ admitted the barrister.

‘Which only leaves me,’ accepted the priest. ‘Dear God, please help me: please help us both.’