A Mind to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  Keflin-Brown, even more adept at ingratiating himself with a judge than he was with a jury, managed to create a very visible contrast between Jennifer’s impromptu interruptions by the efficient quickness with which he called his technical witnesses.

  A police photographer produced an extensive portfolio of pictures, individual copies of which were distributed to the jury and among the assembled lawyers. The man quickly itemized each print. Copies were not given to Jennifer but she could see some open in front of the lawyers that included Gerald’s blood-soaked body and the gore-splattered office and the lip-clamped shuddering the sight caused her had nothing to do with Jane. The photographs were supplemented by the official plans of the Enco-Corps’ office, which were sworn by the architect as those he’d drawn to rebuild the property after the IRA bombing but which had been additionally marked for the trial showing the positioning of Gerald Lomax’s permanently visible office and its glass-sided approach corridor in relation to the open trading floor from which the murder had been witnessed by so many people.

  It was Jennifer’s own revulsion that again shook through her at the evidence of the Home Office pathologist Felix Hewitt, its awfulness worsened by the clinically unemotional way the man presented his post-mortem findings. He described the injuries as massive. The aorta artery and ventricle chamber had been penetrated – the aorta twice – and one knife wound had entered the brain through the left eye, inflicting huge damage to the frontal lobe and into the cortex. The carotid artery in the neck was also severed as well as the femoral artery in the groin, which was the worst of seven cuts and stabs to the genital area. The face was also extensively lacerated, the nose practically severed. In Hewitt’s opinion six of a total of thirty-two severe stab and cut wounds would have been fatal. There were numerous others, less severe, to the arms and hands consistent with attempted self-defence. Death would have occurred in minutes, from a combination of the fatal stab wounds, extensive and immediate blood loss and shock.

  ‘ Tried to cut his cock off. Bastard deserved to lose it. Thought I’d managed it. He’d have felt it, though. Been in agony. Like that one in the eye: that would have hurt! ’

  By the time of the luncheon adjournment Jennifer felt totally exhausted, her arms and legs cramped from the way she’d forced herself to sit. The muscles in her arms and legs trembled and she needed the support of both wardresses either side to reach the downward steps and for them to be at her front and back to guide her down into the cell. The once crisp and pure white voile shirt was grey and limp from perspiration, sticking to her back and shoulders like another skin: sweat had soaked through into the suit, too, which was sagged with creases and damply uncomfortable. Her handkerchief was sodden with spittle, too wet for her to wipe herself dry any more. Her make-up would be totally destroyed, she realized. She shook her head against the motherly wardress’ suggestion of food: nausea churned her stomach, bringing her close to vomiting.

  She found it difficult even to look up at Jeremy Hall’s entry from the table at which she was slumped. The solicitor was not with him.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I’m not all right!’

  ‘ She’s insane. Everyone knows that! ’

  ‘Shut up!’ To Hall she said, ‘She’s saying I’m insane, like she always does.’

  ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘You saw how bad it was!’

  ‘I meant how much did you manage to stop?’

  ‘ Not enough! ’

  ‘A lot. Nearly all the outbursts. A lot of the movement, too. But I know it wasn’t enough. I’ve annoyed the judge, haven’t I?’

  ‘Do you want a doctor? An adjournment?’

  ‘ No! You’ve got to go on suffering! ’

  ‘What would that achieve?’

  Hall made an uncertain movement. ‘Tranquillizers might help.’

  ‘ No! Say you don’t want them.’

  Jennifer found herself clutching the underside of the cell chair. ‘Are they permissible?’

  ‘ No! Won’t stop you being my puppet. ’

  ‘I think so. I’ll try to arrange something. It wouldn’t be possible for Mason to hypnotize you. He’s to be called as an expert defence witness.’

  ‘You didn’t question any of the witnesses this morning?’ Jennifer challenged.

  ‘There was nothing to ask them.’

  ‘The women you so carefully got on the jury were appalled at the photographs. I saw their faces.’

  ‘Don’t try to anticipate reaction.’

  ‘I didn’t have to try.’

  Hall shifted, discomfited. He’d come to the cells because he’d felt he had to but Perry had been right: there was nothing he could say or do. He hadn’t expected to hope this soon that Jarvis would terminate the trial. ‘Anything you want? Anything I can do?’

  ‘The tranquillizers might help.’

  ‘ Waste of time! ’

  ‘I’ll find the court doctor.’

  ‘And can you let me have a handkerchief? This one’s no good any more.’

  ***

  Without her intending it to happen Jennifer’s throat closed against the Librium the court doctor offered. She choked against regurgitating, coughing afresh at the water she gulped to help swallow them. She finally managed it, her eyes and nose running. She was still weak-kneed and unsteady on her feet, glad of the two women to help her back to the court: wanting to anticipate each and every problem, although do nothing to alert Jane in advance, she abruptly asked to use the toilet as they passed it, even though she hardly needed to when she entered. Almost at once her bladder collapsed and she only just managed to avoid wetting herself.

  ‘ Difficult to keep up, isn’t it Jennifer? But you can’t relax, not for a moment. Not ever. Not until I’ve taken away so much of your mind that it doesn’t matter any more.’

  Jennifer clutched apprehensively at the dock rail, her escorts tight on either side, for the judge’s entry but no feeling was taken from her legs this time and she only had to remain standing for seconds. She grabbed at once for the seat as she sat, entwining her legs again. She felt desperately, achingly tired, tremors constantly flickering through her muscles. It all had to be from the strain of the morning: the tranquillizer would not have had time to work yet. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide, against the desire to close them altogether.

  ‘ Tired, Jennifer? Want to sleep a little. Go on, close your eyes .’

  Jennifer stopped herself by continuously stretching and unstretching her face until she realized people were looking at her: two women jurors were shaking their heads, sadly. Abruptly she stopped. The pain of biting the inside of her lips helped fight off the tiredness as well as keep them closed, to stop herself being Jane’s ventriloquist’s dummy.

  ‘ Can’t relax, not for a moment. Forgot again, didn’t you? ’

  It was the prosecuting junior, Robert Morley, who took forensic scientist Anthony Billington through his evidence. Keflin-Brown sat relaxed beside the man, legs fully outstretched, head sunk on his chest as if he, too, was about to sleep.

  Billington was a large, fat man who’d either put on a lot of weight since buying the over-stretched suit or been misled over its size. His deathly pale although heavily freckled face heightened the redness of his disordered hair.

  As he began responding to the younger barrister’s lead Jane said, ‘ This is what’s going to convict you, so listen up, you hear? Don’t want to miss a word of it.’

  The body of a man identified to him as Gerald Lomax had still been in situ although already dead upon his arrival, Billington agreed, to Morley’s opening question. Mrs Lomax, whom he recognized in the dock, had also been there and identified to him. Both had suffered severe injuries, the man far more extensively than the woman. These injuries had caused widespread bloodstaining illustrated in the photographs, which Morley showed the man. Billington said he had taken numerous blood samples, which he had later identified. One, AB Rhesus Positive, was that of Gerald
Lomax. The other sample was O Rhesus Negative. At Morley’s urging the scientist isolated three pictures from the portfolio showing finger and palm prints in a splayed, arced pattern, where someone with blood-soaked hands had stood, supported on outstretched arms. At the scene was a German-made kitchen knife, heavily bloodstained on both blade and handle, which he again identified from the picture file. The fingerprints in the blood on the handle of the knife matched those on the window that overlooked the trading floor. Mrs Lomax had substantial cuts to her hand. The blood on the handle and the window was O Rhesus Negative. On the blade there was also a considerable amount of AB Rhesus Positive.

  Jennifer had by now been lulled by the tranquillizer and Jane’s absence for several minutes, so the sharp return almost caught her out. But oddly the slowing of her reaction at the same time gave her time virtually to hold it back, as well as to keep her lower lip tight between her teeth.

  ‘ Tell him Rhesus is a monkey and he’s a fucking ape.’

  Jennifer stopped the sentence halfway through and coughed to cover the words she did utter. The urge was to throw her arms wildly up in the air and make the animal grunting sounds echoing through her head but she fought the movement by hanging on to the chair and for once the permanently irate judge did not appear to notice. She thought some people in the court had detected it, like they’d seen her contorted face. There was a nudge from the friendly wardress, who offered Hall’s handkerchief. Hurriedly Jennifer mopped her face, conscious that saliva speckled her suit front. She cleaned that off, too.

  ‘ Get you a bib. That’s what we’ll have to do. And some adult diapers for when you piss yourself.’

  After his scene-of-crime examination Billington said he was later given samples of debris scraped from beneath the dead man’s fingernails by the pathologist, Professor Hewitt. It included O Rhesus Negative blood and skin particles consistent with a self-defence struggle and with the extensive scratch marks on Mrs Lomax’s arms and hands.

  ‘ Couldn’t stop me though, could he? ’ demanded Jane, as Morley sat down.

  For the moment he had to go through the motions of presenting the defence demanded by his client, thought Jeremy Hall, rising for the first time.

  ‘Did you take any further samples, for forensic examination?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which you haven’t presented in court?’ Hall asked the question half turned, accusingly, towards the prosecution.

  ‘I was not asked about them,’ reminded the scientist, defensively.

  ‘Then I shall ask you now,’ said Hall.

  ‘If you must,’ intruded Jarvis, wearily.

  ‘ He’s going to be so pissed off at the end of all this it’s going to be unbelievable! ’

  ‘Perhaps you would tell the court what other samples you took,’ persisted Hall.

  ‘There was considerable evidence of a struggle,’ said the man. ‘The desk was greatly pushed out of the position indicated by indented pressure marks upon the carpet and what had obviously been Mr Lomax’s chair was overturned. Articles from the desk had been thrown to the floor and two decorative pots smashed. I examined several of these articles for fingerprints, to establish if anything had been used as a weapon-’

  ‘Had anything been so used?’ broke in Hall.

  ‘There was some hair adhering in blood to one of the broken pots.’

  ‘Whose hair?’

  ‘Mr Lomax’s.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘There was other hair, which matched both Mr and Mrs Lomax, on the chair and against the window at which Mrs Lomax was slumped when I entered the office.’

  ‘I’m sure the prosecution are greatly obliged for your assisting their case, Mr Hall,’ broke in Jarvis.

  ‘What about fingerprints?’ continued Hall, determinedly.

  ‘Widespread, throughout the office.’

  ‘Of Mr and Mrs Lomax?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But of no-one else?’

  ‘Mr Hall!’ said the judge, pained.

  ‘ Shut the fuck up, you silly little bastard! Tell him! ’

  Jennifer had the first word half-formed before she was able to stop herself, so the sound came out as a sibilant hiss.

  Billington hesitated, unsure whether or not to answer. At an impatient nod from the judge, he said, ‘There was a third set of fingerprints, which were found to be those of the cleaner.’

  ‘Not of any other person, apart from the cleaner?’

  ‘He’s answered the question, Mr Hall!’ said Jarvis.

  ‘With respect, my Lord, I think it could be more fully responded to.’

  This time the nod of permission was accompanied by a heavy sigh. Red patches of anger were picked out on Jarvis’s cheeks.

  Billington said, ‘Apart from the cleaner’s fingerprints, there was no forensic evidence whatsoever of anyone having been in the office other than Mr and Mrs Lomax.’

  He’d made the pretence, thought Hall, gratefully sitting under the glare of the judge.

  ‘I call Superintendent John Bentley, the arresting officer,’ declared the younger prosecuting barrister and Jane said, ‘ I’m not going to be able to do anything here to make you sound more of a loony than you did yourself.’

  ***

  The detective entered the box only just short of a swagger and gave the smallest bow in the direction of Jarvis before looking towards the press gallery and smiling, to old friends. Jennifer saw several actually smile back.

  Having allowed his junior the crumbs of establishing the technical, bottom-of-the-page evidence, it was Keflin-Brown who stood to take Bentley’s account. The suave superintendent, flamboyantly immaculate in brown pinstriped suit complete with a deep red carnation, recited his rank and position and followed the older barrister’s direction with accustomed ease, a well rehearsed double act. At precisely three-thirty on the afternoon of the 14th, he and Detective Inspector Malcolm Rodgers had responded to an emergency call to the City premises of Enco-Corps, off Leadenhall Street. In the third-floor office they found the heavily bloodstained body of a man subsequently identified as Gerald James Lomax, the managing director of the commodity trading company. He was already dead, from numerous wounds. Slumped against a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the office’s working area they saw Mrs Jennifer Lomax. She was alive although bleeding profusely from a number of injuries and appeared to be in a state of deep shock. Because of that, which was confirmed by an on-the-scene paramedic team, Mrs Lomax was conveyed to St Thomas’s Hospital, for subsequent interview.

  ‘Did you form an opinion of what had happened in that office?’ demanded Keflin-Brown.

  ‘I did, sir,’ replied Bentley. ‘From my observations and from interviewing witnesses at the scene I concluded there had been a violent altercation between Mr and Mrs Lomax, culminating in Mr Lomax’s death.’

  ‘Mr Lomax’s murder,’ clarified Keflin-Brown.

  ‘Resulting in Mr Lomax’s murder, yes, sir.’

  Keflin-Brown allowed himself a tit-for-tat sideways look at Hall before asking, ‘You came upon no evidence, nor did you form the opinion, that anyone else had been involved in this altercation?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What did you then do?’

  ‘After ensuring that statements were being satisfactorily taken from the large number of witnesses to the incident I went with my inspector to the hospital, where Mrs Lomax was being treated for her injuries. I established from the doctor that she was sufficiently fit to be interviewed…’

  ‘… There was no question of her fitness?’ slowed the barrister, wanting what he was sure to be the following morning’s headline delivered at the pace he intended.

  ‘None, sir. In fact, the doctor decided that Mrs Lomax was not, after all, suffering from shock.’

  ‘What then?’

  Knowing his part in the publicity act, Bentley concentrated everyone’s attention by laboriously taking a notebook from his pocket. ‘The accused identified herself as Jennifer Lomax. I
asked her if she knew why my inspector and I were there and she replied “Gerald”-’

  ‘Nothing else, simply “Gerald”?’ broke in Keflin-Brown again.

  ‘That’s all, sir. I then formally cautioned her and asked her if she had anything to say…’ Bentley paused, expectantly.

  ‘And what did she say?’

  Bentley looked up from his notebook, directly towards the press. Quoting, he said, ‘“It wasn’t me. It was Jane.”’

  There was an electric ripple throughout the journalists and a murmur from the public gallery above Jennifer. The jury exchanged frowned glances.

  ‘“It wasn’t me. It was Jane,”’ echoed Keflin-Brown.

  ‘That is correct, sir.’

  ‘Help us if you will, Superintendent. Who is Jane?’

  ‘The first wife of Gerald Lomax,’ said Bentley, jolting the media with another electric charge.

  ‘ There you go, Jennifer. Off to the funny farm with the kind men in the white coats.’

  It took the choleric Jarvis several minutes to bring the court to order. Throughout the delay Keflin-Brown retained a statue-like pose matched by that of Bentley, upright and expressionless in the witness-box. Every member of the jury and all the press were looking at Jennifer: the two artists were sketching even more rapidly.

  There was a hurried gesture from the wardress with the handkerchief, which Jennifer snatched to clean her face. It meant she was only holding on to the chair with her left hand. She was lurched furiously sideways, to her left, dislodging her grip. She grabbed out frantically, at first missing the wardress’s offered hand and briefly disappeared from sight beneath the court rail, as if trying to hide from the attention, before they righted her again. A fresh hubbub arose, which the agitated Jarvis once more shouted to control.