A Mind to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to hear about it?’

  There was a long pause. ‘You know I don’t like wasting my time. And this is wasting my time.’

  Perry felt a bubble of uncertainty, despite being in what he considered an assured bargaining position. ‘You have to eat lunch somewhere.’

  ‘I’m on a diet.’

  ‘Smoked salmon and Puligny Montrachet. El Vino. Tomorrow, twelve-thirty, before it gets crowded.’

  ‘I’m nor going to take it.’

  ‘Let’s just have lunch then. It’s been a while.’

  ‘Don’t be late.’

  Perry arrived early to secure a basement table in the corner; the wine was already open when Feltham entered precisely at half past twelve. He was a man in need of a diet: case discussion usually began over lunch. His face had the reddening of blood pressure, too. It was an inverted snobbery – some even said Feltham’s personal joke – to reject the dark-suited uniform of law in the way he dressed. Today the brass-buttoned sports jacket was brown and black striped, with fawn trousers. The shirt collar was button down. There were perfunctory handshakes. Perry poured the wine.

  As he did so he said, ‘You did well with the Hallett case.’ There was a ritual that had to be performed, but today there was reason additional to the expected flattery.

  ‘It was predictable we’d win.’ The case of Peregrine Hallett was the most recent cause celebre: Sir Richard Proudfoot himself had defended the society financier with minor royal friends against a charge of share-rigging a company take-over, exposed a flaw in the 1987 Banking Act that now needed Parliamentary legislation to correct, and gained Hallett an acquittal with costs and a public apology from the trial judge.

  ‘Not to most.’ It would have been Feltham who’d judged the potential from the beginning.

  ‘All good for the chamber,’ wheezed Feltham, reciting the inviolable credo. He did order smoked salmon, although a double portion, with a salad he soaked in dressing and a side order of new potatoes.

  ‘How’s the diet going?’

  ‘Slowly. There was a lot of press coverage about your business in the papers this morning.’

  ‘Attractive woman, isn’t she?’ Although there was no need for him to diet, Perry limited himself to a single order of smoked salmon, without extras.

  ‘I’m not interested, Humphrey.’

  ‘She’s the beautiful wife of a millionaire commodity trader.’

  ‘Whom, according to what you told me last night and what I read this morning, she killed because she’s a menopausal paranoid schizophrenic obeying the voice of his first wife.’

  ‘I didn’t say she was menopausal. She isn’t.’

  ‘The rest is more than sufficient.’ Feltham added more dressing to what salad remained.

  ‘You know John Bentley?’

  Feltham nodded. ‘Headline hunter.’

  ‘Good copper though. Best murder track record in the Met.’

  ‘This isn’t going to be one he’s proud of.’

  ‘He thinks there’s another woman. And that the voice in the head is all bullshit, a prepared-in-advance defence.’

  Feltham looked disappointedly at his empty plate. ‘It doesn’t matter which way you present it, Jennifer Lomax murdered her husband in front of sixteen people. She’s guilty. I’m not into formal pleas of mitigation and you know it. I’m surprised you called me, I really am.’ He nodded to cheese and port, vintage Warre in preference to the Dow.

  ‘She wants the best.’

  ‘She wants a miracle. Why are you trying so hard?’

  ‘Lomax’s American parent put all their European business through our corporate division.’

  Feltham nodded, ‘I sympathize. And understand. And I’d do it as a favour, if it were possible. But look at it objectively, from my point of view. Even if the voice in her head is bullshit, we couldn’t win! I don’t take cases that are lost before they begin. I wouldn’t put this to any of my seniors. They trust me. They’d think I was the one who’d gone mad.’

  ‘You did do well with Hallett.’

  Feltham looked steadily across the table for several moments. ‘We’ve already talked about that.’

  ‘There’s an Exchange inquiry going on, into some copper dealings Lomax fronted for some Far East dealers.’

  ‘How did it go wrong?’

  ‘A Tokyo dealer got over-extended. Went on buying to cover his losses, with money he didn’t have. Persuaded the finance minister in Bolivia to use government money for a private portfolio they asked Lomax to set up.’

  ‘Was Lomax part of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘But it’ll go to court here?’

  ‘Inevitably.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘I’d say it’ll run for three months. Maybe four. Some Lichtenstein royalty were conned. And a Hollywood producer.’

  ‘High profile as well as a good earner?’

  ‘Guaranteed.’

  Feltham sighed. ‘So we’ve got a problem.’

  ‘One that can surely be resolved.’

  ‘My seniors trust me,’ repeated Feltham. ‘It’s a matter of integrity.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Perry, who did and saw nothing hypocritical or even odd in Feltham’s remark. ‘What about Jeremy Hall?’

  Feltham smiled. ‘You stay on top of things.’

  ‘We both do,’ said Perry, smiling back. Jeremy Hall was the newest arrival at Sir Richard Proudfoot’s chambers, the first barrister in ten years whose acceptance hadn’t been subject to Feltham’s veto. Hall was Proudfoot’s nephew.

  ‘He’s under my care.’

  ‘Aren’t all your people?’

  ‘Special care.’ Feltham gestured for a second port.

  ‘At its worst, she’s mad,’ said Perry. ‘She herself is demanding a psychiatric examination so we’ll know soon enough. At its best, it’s a cleverly planned murder. All right, so it’s guilty, whichever. But the money’s guaranteed and if there is another woman he’ll be able to push the spurned wife defence. And she is beautiful, so the publicity to the chambers is as assured as the fee. It wouldn’t hurt just occasionally to be on the side of the underdog, would it?’

  ‘She cut him to pieces, according to this morning’s papers!’

  ‘Temporary insanity. All part of the same mitigation.’

  ‘I’m still not totally happy.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s perfect.’

  ‘How much prelim work would be involved in the copper case?’

  ‘Two months, minimum.’

  ‘And the case would run for four?’

  ‘At least. It’ll be very worthwhile.’

  ‘I’d have to explain the Lomax brief to Sir Richard.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He was very pleased at the way the Hallett thing turned out.’

  ‘I’ve heard the Lord Chancellor was impressed.’

  ‘Sir Richard would make a good judge,’ agreed Feltham, smiling in acknowledgement of Perry’s preparation. ‘I’d be sorry to lose him, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Perry. ‘The chamber accepting an obvious guilty plea wouldn’t go against the consideration, would it? The contrary, in fact.’

  Feltham smiled again. ‘Good point, well made.’

  ‘Are we agreed then?’

  ‘I think so. I’m sorry if I was brusque at the beginning.’

  Perry shook his head in dismissal. ‘What’s Hall like?’

  ‘Young. A little brash. Good pass marks. Not a bad court presence. It’ll improve when I’ve trained him up. Special case, as I said. Father was a Name at Lloyds: family was wiped out by the insurance crash. The old man killed himself. Sir Richard let Hall into the chambers literally as an act of charity: he didn’t have any money to go anywhere else.’

  ‘Riches to rags?’ smiled the bald-headed man.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Feltham, unimpressed by the attempted jo
ke. ‘When’s the remand hearing?’

  ‘This afternoon, at the hospital.’

  ‘You want him to be there?’

  Perry gave another dismissive gesture. ‘It’ll only be a formality.’

  ‘Properly handled, there will be some mileage in it for the chambers, won’t there?’

  ‘I’ll look after him,’ promised Perry.

  ‘It’s been a good lunch. Thank you.’

  ‘Best of luck with the diet.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Feltham rose but remained standing at the table. ‘Unwinnable cases are a bastard, aren’t they?’

  ‘An absolute bastard,’ agreed Perry.

  ‘All sixteen?’ queried Rodgers.

  ‘Until I get the name,’ insisted Bentley. ‘The place is a fucking goldfish bowl. Someone will know who he was screwing, like they knew he was popping Jennifer while his first wife was alive.’

  ‘When do you want to start?’

  ‘Directly after the magistrate’s hearing. It’ll be up and down, five minutes at the most.’

  ‘You want me to warn Lomax’s office?’

  ‘No,’ said Bentley. ‘Let’s surprise them.’

  Chapter Six

  Jennifer was totally exhausted, eyes sunk into black-ringed hollows, skin so numb it tingled and was sensitive to touch, as if it had been burned. It was a constant effort in the daylight to retain the consciousness she’d wanted so desperately to lose during the night but hadn’t been able to. Because of the drip it hurt to reach up with her right hand and the bandages on her left made it difficult to knuckle the drooping tiredness away even to see around her. The hospital doctor, Peter Lloyd, had refused to give her the stimulant she’d asked for, saying it would counteract the painkillers she was having. He’d done so standing well back from the bed when Jane had made her call the man an awkward bastard. It had been Lloyd, whom she thought looked too young to be a doctor, who’d given her the time of the magistrate’s arrival and she’d tried, before Humphrey Perry came, to tidy herself with a brush and make-up but she couldn’t control the shake any more. Her lipstick had smudged, unevenly, and she’d had to stop where her lip was swollen and split and the liner was a mistake on eyes already too dark. The tears, when she’d cried from frustration as well as grief, had made the mascara run and she hadn’t been able to clean properly the marks from her face and knew she looked dirty and unwashed.

  ‘She wouldn’t let me sleep. Not at all. She kept on at me all night,’ Jennifer announced, as the solicitor came into her room. She saw one of the two departing policewomen shaking her head.

  ‘ Do what I like, do what I like! ’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Perry didn’t think he’d shown any reaction but supposed there must have been something. He felt a twitch of pity, despite what she’d done: mentally sick people weren’t responsible for their actions, however horrifying.

  ‘It’s not! I look like a mad woman.’

  ‘ You sure do, honey. ’

  Perry didn’t think he would have recognized the gaunt, cadaverous-faced woman lying on the bed in front of him as the svelte, sophisticated person photographed and named as Jennifer Lomax in that morning’s newspapers. If she continued to look like this it would contribute to the only plea it was possible to enter. ‘It’ll only last a few minutes today.’

  ‘I’ve got to stop her! You’ve got to help me stop her.’

  ‘ You can’t! Neither can he! ’

  ‘I will,’ promised Perry, emptily. He’d probably be back in the office in time to call the psychiatrists he’d employed in the past. Mason was good. So was Denning. He’d use both. And anyone else they suggested. Get it over as quickly as possible. Bert Feltham was right: unwinnable cases were a bastard.

  ‘What have you done already?’ demanded Jennifer. She gripped the edge of the sheet and then covered one hand with the other to stop the trembling. It didn’t.

  ‘We’re going to use Sir Richard Proudfoot’s chambers. They’re the best.’

  ‘Is he a QC?’

  Perry hesitated, with a choice of reply to a question he hadn’t wanted. ‘Proudfoot is, yes.’

  Jennifer caught the qualification. ‘He is going to represent me, isn’t he? Proudfoot himself?’ She felt her eyes closing, despite herself, and stretched her face to keep them open, distorting her features and making her broken lip hurt.

  ‘His junior, at first. Jeremy Hall,’ avoided the solicitor. Was she consciously pulling faces at him? Fleetingly he wondered if it was safe to have the policewomen out of the ward. There didn’t seem to be anything in the room she could use as a weapon.

  ‘But it will be Proudfoot, at the trial?’

  ‘There’s some way to go before we get that far.’

  ‘ Can’t you see he’s lying, you stupid bitch! ’

  Jennifer moved to speak but stopped, trying to assemble the words first, straightening against the pillows. ‘I am not pleading guilty. I am not guilty. And I am not mad. And I want the best, not a junior.’

  ‘You’ve got the best, believe me.’ It was going to become very tiresome before it was all over. Hall was going to earn the chambers’ copper brief.

  ‘How old is Jeremy Hall?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How long has be belonged to the chambers?’

  Perry shifted, uncomfortably. ‘They’re the best because they only take the best.’

  ‘I want a QC. The most foremost criminal barrister there is.’

  ‘ He’s going through the motions! That’s all any of them are going to do. ’

  ‘Things have to go in sequence, in a proper order,’ recited Perry. ‘We’ve got to have this committal hearing and the proper medical and clinical examinations and then pre-trial discussions, before we even get into a proper court. You must trust me. I won’t let you down. But I think it would be advisable to give Geoffrey Johnson your power of attorney to make sure everything goes smoothly while you’re… you’re indisposed. I’ve brought the authorizing document for you to sign.’

  ‘ He doesn’t give a fuck. All he wants is the money. Ask him what he’s going to charge.’

  Jennifer didn’t, momentarily pleased she was able to resist. Instead she remained looking at the man, feeling the despair as well as the frustration and exhaustion. There was nothing she could do! She was helpless! She tried to bite her lip, gnawing back the whimper, forgetting the split.

  ‘ That’s exactly what you are, helpless! ’

  Jane says I’m helpless.’

  Perry sighed at the new face she was pulling but glad the delusion had taken over. ‘You’re not. You know you’re not. Your lip’s bleeding.’

  ‘ Listen to the lying bugger! ’

  ‘What about Emily?’ Jennifer was pleased again, excited that she’d managed to change the subject without Jane’s intervention. She ran her tongue over the cut.

  ‘We told you last night she’s all right. That the nanny is looking after her.’ Perry hadn’t bothered to check and made another reminder note to see if Geoffrey Johnson had done so. It was more Johnson’s responsibility as the family lawyer. He had to tell the man about the power of attorney, too.

  ‘I want Emily told that I love her. That I can’t come home at the moment but that I love her and will see her soon.’

  ‘ How, exactly, do you think you’re going to see her soon! ’

  ‘I’ll ensure she’s told that.’

  Jennifer felt another dip of despair. She had no-one, she abruptly realized. No mother, no father: not alive any more. Gerald and Emily were her life: had been her life. No-one else. What about Rebecca? Rebecca was a friend. She’d help. Had to help. Stupid not to have thought of Rebecca before: been allowed to think of Rebecca before, she qualified. Abruptly she pulled herself upright, aware she’d had her head to one side again, listening. Had to stop that: stop looking mad. ‘There’s a trader at Gerald’s company. We’re friends. Rebecca Nicholls. I want her to come here. She can see Emily for me.’

  Perry made a note o
f the name with his carefully pointed propelling pencil. ‘I’m going to oppose any transfer from here, today. The doctors don’t want it. But you’ll need clothes. Perhaps I can ask

  …’ He paused. ‘Is it Miss or Mrs Nicholls?’

  ‘Miss.’ Where was Jane? Why wasn’t she jeering, mocking?

  ‘… Perhaps I can ask Miss Nicholls to do that for you, if she will.’

  ‘She will,’ said Jennifer, confidently. Incredible she hadn’t thought of Rebecca before. Although perhaps it wasn’t. But now she had. So it was all right. Rebecca wouldn’t treat her as if she was mad. Rebecca even believed in clairvoyants: went to fortune tellers.

  There was movement from the door and people entered as a group. Ahead of those Jennifer recognized, Bentley and Rodgers and the policewomen, there was a tightly costumed, open-faced woman with rigidly permed grey hair. Slightly behind her was a distracted, disordered man who appeared to have difficulty with two files he was trying to carry in addition to a briefcase. A second man also carried a briefcase and was supervising the policewomen manoeuvring ahead of them two tables like the one that fitted over Jennifer’s bed for meals she had so far been unable to eat. A nurse and a doctor, at the very rear, carried chairs.

  The room became almost impossibly overcrowded. From the rear Dr Lloyd said, ‘We could all move to somewhere larger if you like.’

  The grey-haired woman looked at Perry and said, ‘I’m happy, if you are. It’s not going to take long, is it?’ The voice was the strident one of someone accustomed to being obeyed. In an apparent afterthought she turned to the distracted man and said, ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘It’s going to be brief, as far as I am concerned,’ agreed Perry.

  The other man said, ‘Strictly formal.’ He put his files and briefcase down on one of the hospital tables and looked at Jennifer curiously for several moments before fumbling with his papers.

  Perry edged around the bed to put himself beside the other man. They nodded to each other before introducing themselves by name to the woman: the distracted man’s name was Norman Burden. Despite the formality, both men seemed to know her anyway but for the benefit of the unidentified court clerk at the edge of her table the woman named herself as Gillian Heathcote. In the same breath she said briskly, ‘Right! Let’s get on with it, shall we?’