A Mind to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  The question unnecessarily reminded Jennifer once more of how totally alone she was and momentarily she couldn’t reply. Swallowing she said, ‘No. No-one.’

  ‘What about Gerald’s family?’

  ‘There isn’t one. He was an only child, no uncles and no aunts. And his parents are dead.’

  ‘The local authorities do have a legal responsibility, although I am surprised they’re exercising it so quickly,’ warned the solicitor, cautiously. He ignored the now vacant chairs. So did Hall. The doctor remained where he was, beside Jennifer on the bed, although he released her wrist.

  ‘Emily hasn’t been abandoned. Left.’ Jennifer became aware of the two policewomen staring through the window. ‘Must they look in like that? I’m like a bloody freak show.’

  ‘They’re not being allowed in here any more, so I’m afraid you’ve got to put up with it,’ said the barrister. He should have anticipated the effect upon her of the official approach about the child but hadn’t. But then neither had Perry. At least there’d been the forethought to get Geoffrey Johnson the woman’s power of attorney.

  Jennifer made an impatient dismissive gesture. ‘Emily can’t be taken away from me! I won’t let that happen.’

  Hall breathed in, heavily. ‘I won’t hold out any false hope. Legally she can be, if you’re convicted.’

  ‘I’ve not been convicted, not yet,’ seized Jennifer. ‘I’m still innocent, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ conceded Perry and Hall regretted the doubt in the man’s voice.

  ‘Then they can’t do anything. Emily is being cared for by a certificated nanny, in a mansion for Christ’s sake. She’s the best looked after child in England.’

  ‘That’s probably right, at the moment,’ agreed Hall. ‘You want us legally to oppose any move by the authorities?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ said Jennifer, with fresh impatience. ‘I want you to do every conceivable thing to block whatever they try to do. I don’t care what it is or how much it costs. Just do it.’ There was a sudden empty feeling of helplessness. ‘Please…’ She half reached out, towards the barrister, before stopping, embarrassed at the unthinking movement. She was glad the man hadn’t instinctively responded.

  ‘We could prove adequate care provision with an onsite visit: attend ourselves,’ Perry suggested. Halfway through he remembered Jennifer’s dislike of being ignored and turned away from Hall to include her as he spoke.

  ‘Arrange it,’ said Jennifer, eagerly.

  ‘This nanny…?’ Hall let the question trail.

  ‘… Annabelle,’ prompted Jennifer.

  ‘… Annabelle is definitely certificated?’

  ‘Norland trained,’ assured Jennifer. ‘She’s been with us since Emily was born… Emily adores her…’

  ‘There’s no question of her not continuing in the job?’ pressed Perry, careless of the grammar.

  ‘Of course not! Why should there be!’

  ‘We’d better establish that positively, before any meeting with the authorities,’ said Hall. He didn’t have any real doubt from the woman’s behaviour with the psychiatrist and the neurologist that she was suffering some mental abnormality. How much worse might it get if the child was officially put into care? He probably could, technically, prevent the child being taken until after a court verdict but it didn’t amount to anything more than postponing the inevitable. He really didn’t intend offering false hope but there was nothing to be achieved, apart perhaps from a worse collapse, from being too honest with her. A doubt began to flicker. It was curious that all talk of voices in her head ended at the threat of losing her daughter. Hall stopped the reflection, positively: wrong to risk preconceived impressions before hearing the professional opinion of the two specialists. Worth mentioning to them, though.

  ‘You’ll do it all today: stop the process before it begins?’ demanded Jennifer, urgently.

  ‘Before doing that I think it’s important to get things clear between us,’ said Perry. ‘During the interview with the police I got the feeling you were dissatisfied with your legal representation…’

  Hall frowned. It was something that had to be clarified and Perry was the person who had to do it but he wished the timing could have been different. His look towards the bed was for a reaction but for the first time he properly focused on the woman herself. Almost unconsciously his initial impression had been that Jennifer Lomax really had looked like a mad woman, lank-haired, bedraggled and distraught. But today the eyes weren’t black ringed any more, the blond hair had a semblance of a style and what little make-up she’d bothered with wasn’t smudged: the swelling had gone down and the cut lip was scarcely noticeable. She was, in fact, looking more like the woman whose photograph was yet again blazoned over that day’s newspapers, although the head-tilted, almost arrogant confidence of the pictures wasn’t evident in the woman at whom he was looking. But then it would have been impossible to appear elegant in the hospital smock and towelling robe.

  Jennifer returned Jeremy Hall’s attention, although not appraisingly but honestly. He was a very broad-shouldered man and she liked the way he looked directly at her, not avoiding her eyes as if he was embarrassed or afraid of her. The blue striped suit was beginning to shine at the elbows and she guessed the shirt was on its second wearing. It looked like a family crest on the signet ring. She really didn’t want to do what she had to: she simply didn’t have a choice. Maintaining the calm – enjoying being able to feel it without the Southern drawl voice echoing in her head – she said, ‘I am not mad but I could easily be made so by the nightmare I’m living in, right now…’ A smile came, briefly. ‘Except that I am not going to let it happen. But for me to survive, in any court, I need the very best criminal lawyer it is possible to get. Which means someone with murder trial experience. Someone, in fact, whose very reputation is going to make a court listen: to believe him because he believes me. I’m not trying to be offensive or doubt you. But I’m fighting, literally, for my sanity and my freedom and now I’m fighting for my child. I can’t concern myself with hurt feelings…’ Jennifer straggled to a stop, not sure how further to explain herself.

  ‘I can assure you, Mrs Lomax…’ began Perry but Hall broke across the solicitor’s stood-to-attention formality.

  ‘No, let me. I am not offended by anything you’ve said, today or prior to today. We are still very much in the preliminary stages of your case. We’ve talked about that. Like we’ve talked about my being a junior counsel. Which is the capacity in which I will act, to the best of my ability. No leader – that’s what we call a QC, heading a case – becomes involved now. Don’t be offended for your part, but what we are doing now is the nuts and bolts of a defence preparation. Which is the function of a junior counsel.’ He found it virtually impossible to believe a woman who had just expressed herself so logically and reasonably was the same person who a few hours earlier had been ranting and raving obscenities.

  ‘So there will be a QC with previous experience of murder trials?’ insisted Jennifer.

  Just as pedantically Hall said, ‘There are eight QCs in my chambers. I will ask the most experienced, in murder, to represent you.’

  Jennifer did not speak for several moments. ‘Thank you. I trust you.’

  For even longer Humphrey Perry remained staring at the barrister before turning to Jennifer. Still stiffly formal he said, ‘So you wish to retain our services?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jennifer, although speaking to Hall. Then, briskly, she went on, ‘You will personally go down, for the onsite visit with the authorities?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I am taken from here, to the hospital wing of a prison, will I be allowed to wear my own clothes?’

  ‘Yes,’ guaranteed Hall.

  ‘The Hampshire visit will have to be arranged, beforehand. I want Anna belle to sort out some clothes for me. Tell her to use her own judgement. I want suits… nightwear and a dressing gown, obviously. Underwear. And toiletries and make-up.’

  �
��I’ll see it’s arranged,’ promised the barrister.

  There was a silence but it was obvious there was something more Jennifer wanted to say.

  ‘What?’ prompted Hall.

  Turning to the doctor, Jennifer said, ‘When will you give medical permission for me to be transferred to a prison hospital?’

  Lloyd hesitated. ‘Two or three days. You’re very much better, medically.’

  Jennifer ignored the qualification, although it registered. To Hall she said, ‘I’m not convicted. I can have visitors. I want Emily brought here, to this proper hospital to see me. I don’t want her brought into a prison.’

  ‘I will try to arrange it,’ promised Hall.

  Perry strode intentionally fast to their assessment from the psychiatrist and neurologist, to distance them from the doctor who lingered to speak to a nurse. Perry said, ‘That was totally outrageous! No senior in your chambers will take over this and you know it!’

  ‘They will, if my uncle decides they should.’

  ‘And why should he do that?’

  ‘To keep his part of whatever deal you arranged with Bert Feltham for us to act in the first place. I need your help, Humphrey, not your condescension. And I need you to understand that I’m not stupid.’ Hall stopped at the elevator, turning to face the man. ‘We’ll get on much better if we have that understanding, OK?’

  ‘It’s an indefensible case,’ protested Perry, unthinkingly.

  ‘Then whatever you promised Sir Richard must be mega,’ said Hall.

  Chapter Twelve

  Neither Mason nor Fosdyke was talking when the other three men entered the neurologist’s rooms. Both were lounged with polystyrene cups balanced on their chests, Fosdyke behind his desk tilted far enough back in a much-used round-back chair to gaze up at the ceiling, Mason with his feet propped on some unrecognizable carved protrusion from the front of the equally much-used desk. The surprise didn’t finish with desk and chairs. In total contrast to Fosdyke’s over-starched, pristine appearance it was a cluttered, disorganized room of half-open drawers and sagged cabinets. On top of one paint-chipped cabinet a neglected, unidentifiable plant had withered into the vague shape of a sacrificial cross. The only cleared space on the paper-littered desk was around three photograph frames: close by a tower was slowly rising from previously much-fingered polystyrene cups placed one inside the other.

  Fosdyke brought himself up at their arrival, gesturing towards three straight-back chairs obviously newly installed in an uncertain, formal line opposite Mason. Opposing combatants again, thought Hall.

  Fosdyke said, ‘Waiting Room issue, I’m afraid…’ He raised his coffee container. ‘Like this: can you believe cleaners and patients steal anything else! God knows what for! But I grind the coffee myself. Colombian…’ There was another gesture, to a table near the window where a full pot stood on its hotplate. ‘… Help yourselves.’

  Lloyd continued straight on to the coffee. Perry hesitated, then followed. Hall sat down, looking around the room. Perhaps, he thought, the mess was a camouflage against further larceny. The idle reflection was short lived. A few hundred yards away there was a mentally ill murderer who’d cut another human being – her husband – to pieces and this meeting to help her began with an apology about hospital furniture and coffee cups. Wrong, Hall corrected himself, at once. They were doing a job, all of them performing different expertise from different perspectives. But as proper, dispassionate professionals, not allowing the distraction or influence of personal involvement. My first murder, he reminded himself: their attitude was right, his was wrong.

  Still at the machine the solicitor turned and said, ‘You sure?’

  ‘Black, no sugar,’ accepted Hall. He hoped Perry hadn’t imagined he’d waited to be served. He was sorry taking it within seconds of Perry giving him the container: it was too hot to hold without a handle, and he hurriedly placed it on the floor. The returning Lloyd repositioned his chair more towards the doctors before he sat down. Combatants, Hall thought again.

  ‘Well?’ invited Perry. ‘What’s the verdict?’

  ‘Limited, from my side,’ said Mason, lowering his feet to the floor. ‘So let’s start with medically provable findings.’

  On cue Fosdyke came further upright, too, assembling a few sheets of paper and some X-ray plates before him. As he did so the psychiatrist said, ‘Remember, as far as I am concerned, this isn’t a verdict. It’s a very preliminary impression.’

  Fosdyke coughed. ‘Quite obviously mental problems – insanity even – can be brought on by physical factors or illness. We know now, from symptoms still recorded in the archives, that George III wasn’t mad: he suffered from porphyria, which we’d control by pills today…’ He was playing with his notes but Hall didn’t think the neurologist needed them.

  ‘As well as for organic reasons, apparent mental illness can be caused by head or brain malformation or injury,’ continued Fosdyke, looking up. ‘A difficult birth, the use of forceps or Caesarian section, things like that can result in cerebral anoxia, damage the temporal lobes and bring about epileptic dysfunction in later life… cortical atrophy even…’

  Perry stirred, smiling sideways to Hall. ‘This could be better than any defence we’ve thought of so far…!’

  ‘If I could find any of it, which I can’t,’ stopped Fosdyke, immediately puncturing the expectation. He made an inclusive gesture towards Lloyd. ‘As a part of my assessment, we’ve carried out faeces, urine and blood tests. Earlier today there was even a lumbar drain, to examine spinal fluid for any cranial bleed or infection. In nothing we have done have we found the slightest evidence whatsoever of any medical conditions or illness from which Mrs Lomax might be suffering: most certainly nothing that would reflect upon or cause the mental collapse she appears to have undergone-’

  ‘What about physical damage or malformation?’ pressed Hall, reluctant to lose an acceptable defence avenue.

  ‘She responded a hundred per cent normally to every sensory test I carried out in the ward,’ refused Fosdyke. ‘In the examination room I even extended the scan, beyond the brain, to include the upper part of the body. There is absolutely no brain abnormality or malformation to account for Mrs Lomax’s behaviour. Neither is there in the upper body: anything that could be interrupting the oxygen or blood supply to the brain, for instance…’

  ‘… In short?’ invited Hall.

  Fosdyke lifted the plates and printouts from the scan and said, ‘In short, Jennifer Lomax is, physically and neurologically, probably the fittest thirty-two-year-old woman I’ve ever examined in my life. Actuarilly, she’ll live to be a hundred.’

  Hall finally picked up his cooled coffee. It was excellent, despite its container. ‘There’s no other test left you could carry out?’

  The neurologist shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I,’ said the barrister, with feeling.

  Beside him Perry said to Julian Mason, ‘Which means our hope comes back to you.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’re going to be any better pleased,’ said the psychiatrist. He got up, refilled his cup and stayed slightly propped against the window in an attitude reminding Hall of how his tutor had sometimes tried to explain particularly esoteric points of law. The recollection prompted a reminder of its own, which he put aside until he’d heard Mason out.

  ‘You can’t have found nothing,’ challenged Perry in irritation.

  Mason smiled, unoffended. ‘The problem may be that I’ve found too much but that I need even more.’

  Hall detected a move of fresh irritation beside him and quickly said, ‘Perhaps you should talk us through it.’

  The psychiatrist paused, preparing himself but unencumbered by any notes. ‘You’ve got to understand from the outset that one session, like we had today, was always going to be totally inadequate. I’ll need more – probably a lot more – if I’m ever going to be of any practical use to you or to a court.’

  ‘Of course we accept that,’ said Hall. �
�What we’re looking for today is a suggested way to go forward.’

  Mason nodded, extending the gesture towards the neurologist. ‘George was looking for a pathological cause for Mrs Lomax’s condition. And didn’t find one. On face value Mrs Lomax is showing some of the classic symptoms of schizophrenia. There are no pathological tests for schizophrenia. It’s decided upon by the psychiatrist from visual and behavioural perception. For which they observe the symptoms devised by a German psychiatrist named Schneider: technically it’s called the Schneider Present State Examination. Mrs Lomax’s most obvious symptom is Second Person Auditory Hallucination: people – in this case one person – are talking to her. Equally obvious is Delusion of Thought Insertion: Jane can think for Jennifer, is aware of Jennifer’s thoughts… is inside her head, listening.’

  Mason paused to sip his coffee and Hall waited, far from impatient at the lecture. Rather, he wanted a lecture: whatever defence they decided upon, he was going to need the phrases and the methodology. To be able to use and understand them.

  ‘There are some other schizophrenic indicators,’ resumed the psychiatrist. ‘The apparent uncontrolled movement of her arms and legs. Not having many friends is schizoid. Using obscenities is another… the actual murder would come under the heading of dyssocial personality disorder…’

  Humphrey Perry didn’t have Hall’s patience. ‘So she’s genuinely mentally ill? Not properly aware of what she’s doing so we can suggest she’s suffering diminished responsibility or is unfit to plead?’

  ‘No,’ said the psychiatrist, shortly.

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’ve treated and diagnosed dozens of schizophrenics: a lot of paranoid schizophrenics who’ve killed. And I’ve never before encountered anyone like Jennifer Lomax.’

  ‘So she’s faking it?’ persisted Perry, easily able to dance to a different rhythm.

  ‘I don’t think that, either.’

  There was a sharp sideways look from Lloyd. The neurologist gave no reaction and Hall presumed the two specialists had fully discussed everything before their arrival. He had to remember the absence of the voice, as well as raise the query from the long ago Cambridge debate. He said, ‘Until this moment I’ve understood everything you’ve said. Now you’re losing me.’