A Mind to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘So there was no proper scientific, forensic comparison between the bloodstained fingerprints upon Gerald Lomax’s office window and fingerprints taken from Mrs Jennifer Lomax?’

  Billington was no longer deathly pale. His face blazed, in odd contrast to his red hair. He looked hopefully again to the prosecuting barrister, who steadfastly refused to answer the plea. ‘No.’

  ‘That means, doesn’t it, Doctor, that your evidence of the bloody fingerprints being those of Mrs Lomax has no forensic or scientific basis or value? The police told you whose they were and you accepted it, entirely upon their word!’

  Billington didn’t reply.

  ‘Doctor Billington?’ demanded Jarvis, all his waspishness transferred.

  ‘Yes, it does,’ finally admitted the forensic scientist.

  ‘There were two types of blood upon the knife…’ At Hall’s gesture, the usher offered it to the perspiring witness. ‘… What were they?’

  ‘AB Rhesus Positive and O Rhesus Negative.’

  ‘And fingerprints?’ persisted Hall, relentlessly.

  ‘The same as those upon the window.’

  ‘As the Home Office’s first choice – its leader – in forensic examination, would you consider yourself an expert in fingerprint comparison?’

  ‘It is not my particular discipline but I am practised in it,’ qualified the scientist.

  ‘You have a chart of those bloody fingerprints, among the documents in front of you, do you not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I fully accept that these are not what you would consider proper scientific conditions, but would you compare these prints against the chart you claim to be Mrs Lomax’s fingerprints?’ asked Hall, gesturing again to the attentive usher to take the offered sheet to the scientist.

  Billington spent several minutes studying the two sheets, side by side, at one stage taking a pocket magnifying glass from his strained suit. At last he looked up and pronounced, ‘They do not match.’

  ‘You mean they are the fingerprints of two different people?’ persisted Hall.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you need to take them away to a laboratory, for more detailed examination?’

  ‘I will of course do so if the court orders it. But I do not think it is necessary…’ He waved with his pocket device like a flag of surrender. ‘Even under this magnification the difference is obvious. One set is peaked, the other whorled. And the linear difference between the two is obvious, almost to the naked eye.’

  ‘You also found – and eliminated – another set of finger-prints in Gerald Lomax’s office: those of the cleaner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you compare what I have just handed you with those prints you lifted?’

  It did not take the man as long this time. ‘Again they are quite different.’

  ‘You found some hair strands in Gerald Lomax’s office, did you not?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Billington, cautiously.

  ‘Whose were they?’

  Billington’s sigh filled the hesitation. ‘I was told they were Mrs Lomax’s. She’s blond. So was the hair.’

  ‘By whom were you told?’

  ‘Superintendent Bentley.’

  ‘Did you make comparison tests, from proven samples of Mrs Lomax’s hair?’ The earlier, half-formed idea was hardening in Hall’s mind. He’d been demeaned, humiliated and shat upon by a pompous legal establishment and he wanted every ounce of revenge – and humbled recognition – that he was owed.

  ‘None was made available to me.’

  ‘Answer the question, Doctor Billington.’

  ‘No, I did not make any comparison.’

  ‘What about a B Rhesus Positive blood group?’ demanded Hall, abruptly and intentionally going in yet another direction.

  ‘I don’t understand that question.’

  ‘Did you, from anywhere in Gerald Lomax’s office, lift blood subsequently identified as B Rhesus Positive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘From the extensive sampling you took, do you believe you would have found B Rhesus Positive if there had been traces in Gerald Lomax’s office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From your forensic examination of Gerald Lomax’s office how many people were in it, at the time of his murder?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘No-one else?’

  ‘No. It isn’t possible.’

  ‘Doctor Billington, what explanation can you give the court when I tell you that the fingerprints I have just made available to you are those of Mrs Jennifer Lomax, taken last night in the presence of a number of witnesses, including the police? And that Mrs Lomax’s blood group, again taken last night to confirm five different earlier samplings, is not O Rhesus Negative, but B Rhesus Positive? Or that the hair you early testified before this court to be that of Mrs Lomax is quite different, in colour, from that taken last night and which is, as we talk, being subjected to DNA analytical comparison.’

  The scientist shook his head. ‘That isn’t possible.’

  ‘It’s more than possible, Doctor Billington. They are unarguable facts, witnessed among others last night by my learned friend for the prosecution, Mr Keflin-Brown.’

  It was several minutes before Billington was able to reply. Then he said, ‘I can’t explain it… it’s beyond explanation…’ He looked apprehensively across the court at Jennifer. ‘… It’s too frightening to explain…’

  Everyone else in the court was looking at Jennifer at that moment. And there was very little noise.

  There was a great deal, however, in the cells during the lunchtime adjournment. Twice the force of Jennifer’s convulsions threw not just herself but both wardresses trying to support her off their feet. The harangue in Jennifer’s head was so loud it made her scream with pain. She defecated and urinated at the same time but because her dress was up around her waist in a struggle with the wardresses it wasn’t stained. Jennifer was too distraught – too possessed – to be embarrassed that it happened in front of Hall and Perry or that the corridor outside was crowded with onlookers. Everything Hall tried to say to her was drowned beneath obscene, shouted invective and so he stopped trying.

  It ended as abruptly and dramatically as it began, with the arrival of the duty doctor and the Librium she’d refused earlier.

  ‘ Don’t want that. Not working things out properly.’

  ‘Please go,’ pleaded Jennifer, to the two lawyers, wrinkling her nose at her own odour. ‘This is disgusting! I’m all right.’

  Nervous of the reaction it might cause, Hall nevertheless said, ‘It’s going well. Remember, don’t worry about anything happening in the dock.’

  ‘Jarvis wouldn’t like that happening in the dock,’ said Perry, as they both left the cell, Hall herding the bystanders away.

  Neither man felt like eating. It was automatic to make their way to the canteen but having reached it they turned away, going back into the court corridors. Perry said, ‘You believe it, don’t you? That there’s another person – Jane – in her head?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Hall, avoiding the answer.

  Perry ducked a response, too. ‘Have you any idea what this could lead to? I mean there’s only one direction Jarvis can order the jury now. And that’s before he hears from Forest!’ Ross Hamilton Forest II was the Washington lawyer at that moment airborne over the Atlantic.

  ‘I worked all that out last night and early this morning,’ said Hall. ‘And all right, if you want me to say it, I will. I don’t understand it and I’m not sure I want to and I’m frightened and I’m not sure what favours we’re doing Jennifer Lomax.’

  ‘I’ve had some messages,’ said Perry, who had come to the cells after Hall and was reluctant to continue their present conversation. ‘Forest’s plane is on time. Geoffrey Johnson’s meeting him personally. They should arrive here by the time the court resumes.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Hall.

  ‘And there was another from Bert Feltham. There’s a conference ton
ight, with Sir Richard.’

  ‘About Jennifer Lomax?’ queried Hall. ‘Or about whatever it is that made it so important for this case to be dumped upon me in the first place?’

  Humphrey Perry didn’t reply.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Jennifer cleaned herself up but had to discard her already ruined underwear. Without which she felt naked, defenceless – revulsed by herself – and as she tried to restore her hair and repair her make-up the voice said, ‘ That’s what you are, Jennifer, bare-assed, defenceless and revolting. You smell like a pig. And there’s really no end to what I can make you do.’

  People are believing me now, she thought.

  ‘ So what, you’re still a freak.’

  But not a murderer.

  ‘ The show ain’t over till the fat lady sings.’

  People know it’s you singing, not me.

  ‘ Still a freak. ’

  Jennifer made a positive effort to stop the mental conversation. She’d hit her leg, opening the wound, during the convulsion and when he’d re-dressed it the doctor had said it needed to be stitched but that it couldn’t be done there. To the wardress Jennifer said, ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you.’

  ‘We’ve had worse,’ said Ann, speaking for both of them.

  ‘ No you haven’t, not yet.’

  Go away! thought Jennifer.

  ‘ Not until I’ve finished. And I’ve got a lot to do before I’ve finished.’

  ‘It’s pretty unusual up there? What’s happening, I mean?’ said Ann.

  For the first time Jennifer was conscious of a change of attitude from the motherly woman who had befriended her and couldn’t understand it. There was a caution, a distancing that hadn’t been obvious before.

  ‘ Freak! ’

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ said Jennifer, replying to the wardress. ‘We’re proving I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Eerie!’ said the second wardress, smiling uncertainly.

  ‘ Better get used to it! ’

  ‘I’ve been doing this for eighteen years,’ said Ann. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘It’, isolated Jennifer. She was becoming an ‘it’, not a human being.

  ‘ That’s what you are, honey: an “it ”.’

  ‘Would you do something for me?’ asked the second woman, tentatively.

  ‘What?’ asked Jennifer.

  The woman offered a sheet from a notebook she took from the top pocket of her uniform. ‘Sign an autograph? My name’s Kathleen.’ The accent was Irish.

  ‘ Hah! ’

  Jennifer flushed and Ann said to the other wardress: ‘Don’t be so bloody daft!’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jennifer, self-consciously taking the paper.

  ‘ There’s a place for you in a carnival, along with the bearded lady and the fattest man in the world.’

  ‘If you don’t mind then…?’ smiled Ann, taking out her own pocket book.

  Jennifer signed for the second time. Both women held the paper towards her at arm’s length. ‘Please stay close to me in court. In case anything happens.’

  ‘ They think you’re contagious! ’

  ‘Sure,’ said Kathleen, doubtfully.

  ‘Do you know when it’s going to happen: when you’re going to be thrown about?’ asked Ann.

  ‘I know when she’s with me.’

  ‘Is she with you now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Both women stared at her open-mouthed, dumb-struck.

  ‘ This is going to be the story of their lives! The only story of their lives ’

  ‘How?’ asked Kathleen, breathlessly.

  ‘I don’t want her to know.’ Jennifer’s face was burning and not from Jane’s presence. She did feel a freak. What the hell was she doing, going along with this inane conversation, responding to their inane, stupid questions?

  ‘ You’re the woman with two heads! That’s the billing! Roll up, roll up, see the woman with two heads, one inside the other! ’

  Jennifer saw the two wardresses exchange awed looks. ‘And I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ accepted Ann, immediately deferential. ‘It’s time we were moving anyway.’

  Jeremy Hall and Humphrey Perry were beside the dock when Jennifer re-entered, putting themselves between her and the press, who were noisier than ever before. Four journalists were outside the gallery, waiting for her to appear. When she did they surged forward, to be intercepted by police and a black-gowned court official. Perry moved to meet them. Each thrust pieces of paper at the solicitor, who accepted them.

  ‘More autographs?’ demanded Jennifer.

  ‘What?’ frowned Hall.

  ‘What’s all that about?’ she demanded.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about. Is everything all right?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Jennifer was at once aware of the self-pity. ‘Yes. I’m OK.’

  ‘You’re going to be fine.’

  ‘Am I?’ Hall wasn’t standing as close to the dock edge as he could have done.

  ‘ Not if I can prevent it. ’

  From the bench there were demands for silence from the clerk. Hall hurried towards his place as Jarvis strutted into court, glowering towards the media. He remained looking in their direction when he sat. ‘Your editors are already aware of my feelings about press intrusion. If your behaviour in this court offends me, then I shall conduct the remainder of this trial in camera, excluding you all. I want what I have said reported, verbatim, by whichever of you represent news agencies, so that all editors are aware of my feelings. I want that done now. I will not reconvene this court until it is done.’

  Two men and a woman rose sheepishly from their places and hurried out. There were four court artists now, all sketching. Jennifer was conscious of every single person in the court staring at her. And that despite their undertaking, neither Ann nor Kathleen had their seats as close to her any longer.

  ‘ Freak. ’

  Not going to get me convicted of murder, thought Jennifer.

  ‘ Never intended to, remember? ’

  Jarvis had so subdued the court that the return of the news agency reporters was audible before they came into Jennifer’s vision to regain their seats.

  ‘Mr Hall?’ invited the judge, with the briefest grimaced smile.

  There was no swagger this time when Superintendent Bentley approached the witness-box. The suit, blue, was as immaculate as before but there was no buttonhole carnation.

  ‘You headed the investigation into the murder of Gerald Lomax?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Sir’, noted Hall. ‘There are certain standard procedures in such investigations, are there not?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Is one of those standard procedures taking fingerprints from an accused, once that accused has been charged?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Bentley wasn’t addressing the assembled journalists, nor smiling in their direction.

  ‘Did you or one of your junior officers do that, in this case?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Mrs Lomax declined to make a statement after I charged her,’ tried the detective. ‘That refusal was confirmed by her solicitor and by you.’

  Hall stretched the pause as long as he felt able. Then, ‘Superintendent, we are not discussing statements here, are we? We are talking of standard, operating procedures in murder investigations.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You ignored the standard, operating procedures you should have followed in the case of Mrs Lomax, didn’t you?’

  ‘She was too ill to be fingerprinted on the day of the murder,’ Bentley fought, desperately. ‘After that our enquiries were obstructed.’

  ‘Obstructed?’ seized Hall. ‘Obstructed by whom?’

  ‘My officers and I were denied the opportunity of interviewing or taking a statement from Mrs Lomax by yourself and by her solicitor.’

  Hall wasn’t perturbed the cross-examin
ation was temporarily going sideways: the detective was damning himself with virtually every answer. ‘Did you. at any time, approach myself or Mr Perry, my instructing solicitor, with a request to fingerprint Mrs Lomax?’

  ‘No, sir,’ admitted Hall, miserably, all the bombast gone.

  ‘ Perry Mason shit. Who’s impressed? ’

  ‘I am: you should be, thought Jennifer.

  ‘ Guy’s an amateur. Dumped on you.’

  ‘Did you instruct any of your junior officers to make such a request?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘So no official police fingerprints were obtained of a person whom you had charged with murder?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘That was a grave mistake, wasn’t it, Superintendent? A clear failure to follow standard operating procedures?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ conceded Bentley. His face was blazing.

  ‘I didn’t hear that,’ protested Jarvis, glaring down.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ repeated Bentley.

  ‘Yes, sir, to what?’

  ‘It was a grave mistake for us not to have taken fingerprints.’ Bentley practically choked on the words.

  ‘In your evidence-in-chief you were obviously proud of your conviction record. Twelve, was it not?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do you consider yourself an expert in murder investigations, Superintendent?’

  Bentley did not immediately reply, fervently seeking an answer that couldn’t be turned against him. In the end, hoping formality would save him, he said, ‘I have brought to a successful conclusion twelve murder investigations.’

  ‘An enviable record,’ agreed Hall. ‘So murders are a crime you have wide and long experience of investigating?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘After the conclusion of yesterday’s hearing, you were present with myself and others when the fingerprints of the accused – fingerprints you had failed to obtain – were finally taken?’

  Bentley squirmed. ‘Yes.’

  He could be forgiven for finally omitting the ‘sir’ but for nothing else, Hall decided. ‘Were you given the opportunity last night to compare Mrs Lomax’s fingerprints with those lifted from the glass wall of Gerald Lomax’s office?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And were you in court this morning to hear the evidence of the prosecution’s forensic scientist, Doctor Billington?’