Hall moved the papers around again, although aimlessly. ‘Your preparation is brilliant.’
‘You said,’ frowned Perry. ‘Thank you.’
‘So you know everything there is, in the files?’
The frown remained. ‘Yes?’
‘So what’s missing?’
Perry stiffened, affronted. ‘There’s nothing missing!’
‘I’m not suggesting you overlooked something: it’s complete. It’s me. Us. It’s probably there, staring us in the face, but we can’t see it. I can’t see it.’
Perry looked curiously at the younger man. Hall’s first case, he remembered. ‘There’s nothing I haven’t pointed up that would help us,’ he insisted.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ retreated Hall. ‘Maybe I’m trying too hard.’
‘Maybe you are,’ agreed the solicitor.
It was only a short walk across the expansive car park to the back entrance to El Vino and Perry was at their regular corner table when Bert Feltham panted down the stairs. Perry waited for the man to recover his breath, pouring the Montrachet without speaking.
‘All set?’ demanded the chief clerk, finally. Today’s outfit was a dove-grey suit, with a tie to match worn with a black shirt. He looked like a Mafia capo from Central Casting.
‘As ready as we’ll ever be. Medical experts are being a bloody nuisance, but that’s not unusual. Won’t come out positively to say she’s mad.’
‘Persuaded her to plead guilty?’
‘Not yet. That’s Jeremy’s job. I’ve done all the other donkey work. Lomax was a bastard. Prosecution’s got a good case for a woman scorned.’
Feltham ordered a double portion of potatoes with his beef, looking pointedly at the white wine.
‘Margaux?’ suggested Perry.
‘Good choice,’ accepted Feltham. ‘How’s Hall shaped up, overall?’
‘Very well. I’m impressed, genuinely. Had a funny five minutes this morning, about something that we’ve overlooked but then he agreed himself that he was trying too hard and whatever he thought it was didn’t exist. We’ve left the magistrates now. It’s trial time.’
‘When?’
‘Soon as we get a date and a judge.’
‘Think she’d be persuaded to plead?’
‘She was pretty firm at the beginning but she’s gone downhill a lot since. Shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘All done in a day?’
‘Three at the most.’
‘That’ll help. He’s behind with his chambers’ rent.’
Perry gave a dismissive nod. ‘We’ve got the summonses, on the copper affair.’
‘I think we can accept that brief,’ said Feltham, smiling broadly.
‘We’ve brought a friend,’ announced Fran. ‘This is Harriet.’
The newcomer was black, with very short hair, and tall, towering over the other two prisoners. ‘Hello.’
‘And your other friend,’ said Emma, holding up the dildo. ‘You like this friend, don’t you?’
‘No, please,’ said Jennifer. The injection hadn’t worked, like it had on the other nights. She felt relaxed but she wasn’t drifting off, to blot everything out.
‘ Say fuck me! ’
‘No.’
‘You know you want it,’ said Emma.
‘Say fuck me! ’
‘Fuck me.’
‘There, we knew you did.’
The black girl was undressing, at the foot of the bed, watching as the other two women, on either side, unbuttoned Jennifer’s dress.
‘Go away!’
‘Is that what you like? Fighting?’ said the black girl, leaning forward. Abruptly she slapped Jennifer, backhanded, across the face.
‘Careful!’ warned Emma. ‘Don’t mark her.’
The black girl drew back, strapping the dildo around her waist. When it hung like a penis between her legs she said, ‘Look Jennifer, for you.’
‘ Say it’s nice.’
‘No.’
‘ Nice. Say it.’
‘Nice.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Emma. ‘But you were a naughty girl today, Jennifer. You said something about the fun we’re having to the magistrates, didn’t you?’
‘No. It was Jane.’
‘We know you did. Matron told us. And we told you what would happen if you did that, didn’t we?’
The dress was totally open, leaving Jennifer in bra and pants. From the top pocket of her prison overalls Fran took a double-edged safety razor blade. One side was embedded between two pieces of wood, bound in place with twine.
‘No!’ whimpered Jennifer.
‘ They’re going to cut you! ’ screamed Jane, excited.
With one quick, downward slash Fran brought the exposed part of the blade down between Jennifer’s breasts, severing the strip between the two bra cups but missing her skin. Emma pulled both cups apart, briefly leaning forward to kiss Jennifer’s nipples. The moment Emma’s head lifted Fran lay the edge of the razor against Jennifer’s right nipple. ‘We’ll cut them off,’ she said. ‘If you complain, we’ll cut your tits off and then you won’t be pretty any more.’
‘ Say you don’t care. That you’d like it ’
For the first time in days, weeks, Jennifer bit her lips shut, refusing the words, the effort trembling through her.
‘Excited!’ said Harriet. ‘Look, she’s coming! Go on, cut her, just a little.’
‘Too soon, yet,’ refused Emma. She pointed to the prison-tattooed bird, on her left cheek. ‘Would you like one of these, Jennifer? I’ll give you one, when the court hearing’s over.’
‘I want her!’ demanded Harriet.
Fran cut the pants away with the razor and Jennifer’s legs were jerked apart, for them to be pulled clear. Emma and Fran stood either side, still holding Jennifer’s legs wide, as the black girl climbed between them, the artificial penis erect in front of her. Jennifer tightly closed her eyes, refusing to look, but she couldn’t avoid the feeling, when she was penetrated, not that time or when Emma followed or Fran, behind her.
‘ This is the suffering I promise, Jennifer. And it’s going to go on and on and never stop.’
Jennifer was shivering and sobbing when the matron entered the enclosed, now empty ward. ‘Here’s nursey, darling: nursey with the lovely cream.’
Jennifer lay unresisting, eyes still tightly shut, needing the balm for the soreness scouring between her legs.
‘That’s not nice, is it darling. Shouldn’t do that to you, should they?’
Jennifer didn’t speak. Didn’t open her eyes.
‘Shall nursey make them stop?’
‘ No! ’
Again Jennifer managed to hold the word back. ‘What?’ She opened her eyes.
‘Nursey make them stop, shall she?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’ll have to help nursey.’
‘How?’
‘Sign the form I’ve got here. It says I can look after your cheque-book for you. That will be all right, won’t it.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ll pay them, not to come near you. You’d do that, wouldn’t you? Pay them?’
‘Yes. Oh God, yes.’
‘ No! ’
Jennifer didn’t say it.
‘How much do you think? Three hundred pounds, I think, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘You make the cheque out to nursey and nursey will pay them not to come in any more.’
‘Thank you. Oh, thank you.’
‘ Bitch.’
‘Here’s the authorization. And nursey will go on rubbing this lovely cream in, until the soreness goes. It’s all right if nursey does it all the time, isn’t it?’
‘ Here goes your money, Jennifer. Cheaper to he fucked. ’
The following day Feltham appeared early at Jeremy Hall’s door.
‘We’ve been offered a provisional date, if we’re ready.’
‘We are. When?’
‘Two weeks’
time. The Monday. Simon Keflin-Brown QC is against you. Robert Morley’s the junior.’
‘Who’s the judge.’
‘Jarvis. Probably his last case.’
‘Oh,’ said Hall.
‘When your luck’s out it’s out,’ said Feltham, philosophically. ‘And he wants pre-trial conferences.’
Chapter Eighteen
The only difference from their previous encounter appeared to be the greater number of files barricaded on Sir Ivan Jarvis’s massive desk: the squirrel collected more nuts, the kernel of his case among them, thought Hall, as he followed Simon Keflin-Brown, QC, into the judge’s rooms. Keflin-Brown led as if by divine right. He was an urbane, avuncular man who out of court affected broad-striped suits which the inevitably worn pastel-shaded Garrick tie rarely matched. In court, usually to the tolerance of judges to whom he was well known, Keflin-Brown performed tricks to impress and influence juries: he’d produced one in the corridor outside, immediately looking enquiringly beyond Hall to ask who his leader was and reacting with exaggerated, wide-eyed surprise when Hall said there wasn’t one, which the man had well known all along.
‘Thought the woman was rich?’
‘She is. And she’s satisfied,’ said Hall. That still wasn’t certain, he remembered. But he was happy with the retort.
‘Should be an easy one, I suppose.’
It posed an equally easy retort – why had Keflin-Brown accepted such a mundane brief – but Hall didn’t ask it: according to Feltham the QC only took on sure-fire winners if he had the opportunity and had jumped at the Jennifer Lomax prosecution. There was a smirk from Morley, whom Hall guessed to be only four or five years older than he was, although the man was thin-haired and paunchy and looked at least fifteen years his senior. Perry appeared disinterested in the exchange, a man privately admitting lost battles before a shot had been fired.
Jarvis greeted Keflin-Brown with a thin-lipped grimace that passed for a smile but which had gone by the time he got to Hall. The judge completely ignored the other barrister and Perry.
After the grimaced smile came the nod and after the nod the beginning of the required verbal minuet.
Jarvis said, ‘Mr Keflin-Brown,’ and the QC said, ‘My Lord,’ and then Jarvis said, ‘Mr Hall,’ who echoed, ‘My Lord.’
Adept from long practice at the intricate steps, Keflin-Brown said, ‘With my friend, Mr Robert Morley, I prosecute on behalf of the Crown, my Lord.’
‘And you are in a position to proceed?’
‘We are, my Lord.’
‘Mr Hall?’
‘We will be ready on the suggested date, my Lord.’
‘Does being ready also mean you will be in a position to mount a satisfactory defence?’ demanded the tiny man, pedantically.
Hall heard Perry shift behind him. On their way there the solicitor, with questionable Jewish cynicism, had said confronting Sir Ivan after the press complaint was going to be like facing Himmler with toothache. Hall said, ‘It does mean that, my Lord.’
Jarvis briefly shifted some files, for no reason. Hall realized it was customary for the man to sit with his finger-tips on the table edge, which really did make him seem to be holding on to keep himself in view. The judge said, ‘Something like twenty-five prosecution witnesses, Mr Keflin-Brown?’
‘A total of twenty-eight, if all are called, my Lord,’ said the
QC.
‘Indeed,’ said Jarvis. ‘Perhaps you can help us with that, Mr Hall?’
‘My instructions are to enter a plea of not guilty, my Lord,’ said Hall. The point and purpose of the meeting, he knew, aware of the concentration not just from the judge but from Keflin-Brown as well.
‘Not guilty?’ pressed Jarvis, ominously.
‘Those are my instructions,’ repeated Hall.
‘I have had certain advice, in advance of this hearing,’ said Jarvis. ‘As you know, Mr Keflin-Brown…’ the tight-lipped smile flickered and died. ‘… and as I am taking some pains to advise you, Mr Hall, I expect the correct propriety to be shown in my court, at all times…’
‘I am obliged, my Lord,’ said Hall, realizing too late that he had spoken prematurely, interrupting the old man before he’d finished.
There was a moment of glacial, eternity-stretched silence before Jarvis said, ‘As I was intending to make clear I do not like the time in my court to be wasted. Nor do I like – indeed, I will not in any way tolerate – my court to be abused.’
This time Hall said nothing. Keflin-Brown said, ‘Quite so, my Lord. I’m obliged.’
‘Mr Hall?’ prompted Jarvis.
‘I’m obliged, my Lord.’
‘It is important that your client is given every protection under the law available to her.’
‘Which I shall do my best to provide, my Lord.’
‘Were I for a moment to believe that wasn’t being done, I would take steps to ensure any failure or omission be immediately rectified.’
Hall waited, to ensure the man had finished. ‘Quite so, my Lord.’
‘I understand certain medical evidence will feature strongly in this case?’
‘That is so, my Lord.’
‘With the benefit of evidence exchange, is the prosecution in a position to suggest a certain course of events, Mr Keflin-Brown?’
‘If it is your Lordship’s wish I could discuss certain matters with my learned friend,’ accepted the QC, dancing to the judge’s lead.
‘Mr Hall?’
‘My instructions are to enter a plea of not guilty to murder,’ said Hall.
‘I am not deaf, Mr Hall: I heard you the first time. And several times after that. Surely you are aware we are talking of a lesser charge to which a different plea could be considered in which the mercy of the court could be exercised!’
Hall felt the perspiration wet across his back and hoped it wouldn’t show on his face. ‘I regret to inform my Lord that my client resists in the strongest possible terms that course of action.’
There was another long pause, as glacial as the first.
‘Mr Hall, there is a period of two weeks before the scheduled trial date,’ said Jarvis. ‘I would suggest that in that time you discuss with your client in the clearest possible manner the offer that has been intimated by Mr Keflin-Brown here today…’ He looked enquiringly at his clerk. ‘Is there a diary convenience, say, two days before trial?’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ said the man, not needing to look.
‘Here,’ declared the judge, patting his hand impatiently against the desk. ‘Ten o’clock on the fourteenth. Is that acceptable to you both?’
‘As my Lord wishes,’ said the QC.
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ said Hall.
As they began to gather up their papers, Jarvis said, ‘Mr Hall, I would have you remain, if you so please.’
For the first time the equanimity of Keflin-Brown faltered. He filed out after his junior with his pinkly bland face creased with curiosity. Perry was frowning, too.
Hall wondered if Jarvis intended the reminder of a headmaster’s punishment in the way the man kept him standing, appearing suddenly engrossed in one of the files. Finally he looked up and said, ‘Since our last meeting certain matters have come to my attention. I do not intend to dwell upon them, Mr Hall. But I want you to understand, without the remotest possibility of any misunderstanding between us, that I will not tolerate any future nonsense. I will not have the authority of my court put into question, nor will I have it humiliated by being turned into a music-hall. There will be no tricks. Have I made myself clear, Mr Hall?’
‘Completely so, my Lord.’
‘As I will, from now on, if there is any transgression.’
‘I am obliged, my Lord.’
‘I will see you before me, as arranged.’
‘Thank you, my Lord.’
‘You will be careful, won’t you, Mr Hall?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
Keflin-Brown was poised directly beyond the entrance. He hurried forward, smiling
, and said, ‘Anything I should know about, Jeremy?’
‘If it had been I’m sure Sir Ivan would have asked you to stay.’
The smile went. ‘Do you think you can afford attitudes on your first murder?’
‘No,’ replied Hall, honestly. ‘I’m not trying to create one.’
Disarmed, the other barrister said, ‘He’s a miserable old bugger. We’ll have to be careful.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me.’ Hall hadn’t intended the reply to sound as testy as it had.
‘You’ll let me know in advance, before we see the old bastard again?’
‘If there’s anything to let you know about.’
‘Either way,’ insisted Keflin-Brown. ‘And if you’ll take my advice you’ll do your best to fix it the way he wants.’
Perry, who’d waited patiently and politely out of hearing, fell into step as Hall continued along the corridor, listening without interruption as they made their way from the building. Just before the exit he said, ‘You’re not going to be let off lightly.’
‘I know,’ said Hall.
‘She’s got to accept diminished responsibility.’
‘She won’t.’
‘Then we’re in serious trouble.’
‘So’s Jennifer Lomax.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Of course,’ accepted Hall, knowing that wasn’t what the solicitor had meant at all.
‘It’s called a temporary interruption,’ announced the matron. She lounged back expansively in her chair, in control. ‘I got a heavy hint, from the governor: it’s time to ease off.’
‘Who gives a fuck about the governor?’ said Emma.
‘We’re going to.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ demanded Fran, even more aggressively.
‘We’re going to leave her alone,’ insisted the ward supervisor.
‘Who says?’ The voice was strident, that of a woman accustomed to hitting before she was hit.
‘I did.’
‘We got a problem here, Beryl?’ demanded Fran, threateningly.
‘Not unless you make it into one. Which you’d be stupid to do.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Harriet. ‘We’ve got a brand new toy and I like playing with it. I haven’t had enough yet.’
‘We’re leaving her alone, until after the trial,’ insisted the matron. She was glad of her position of command, behind the desk: it made her appear more confident than she felt.
A Mind to Kill Page 18