A Mind to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘ Who gives a fuck? ’

  ‘You should. You fouled your family name. Didn’t prove anyone murdered you. Jennifer’s free. Couldn’t keep a husband when you had one. You failed all the way down the line, didn’t you?’ Jennifer had both arms clutched around her, holding her sides. Mason was intently forward, determined against missing anything of the exchange. The two policemen were pebble-eyed, in astonished bewilderment. It had to have been going on for eight minutes by now.

  ‘ What the fuck are you saying? ’

  ‘That I can defeat you, whenever I want. And that you’re too scared to admit it. So you’re going to make a scene when we get outside, like a spoilt child…’ He looked to the policemen, shrugging. ‘Let’s go back. It’s a waste of time…’

  He’d been sure of Julian Mason but not of the other two men, so they hadn’t been rehearsed. But the psychiatrist had, although he hadn’t thought this dialogue remotely possible: it was, of them all, the greatest uncertainty.

  Mason matched the barrister’s shrug and set off back along the metalled walkway, pausing after a few steps to turn back. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ he asked the uncertain policemen.

  ‘ Bullshit and bluff. How you going to get her out? ’

  ‘From the emergency helicopter pad on the roof,’ lied Hall. ‘Whenever we choose, any time later today when it’s light.’

  ‘ What the fuck’s all this about in the first place then? ’

  ‘You’ve seen the television pictures of what’s happening outside,’ said Hall, knowing from Lloyd that Jennifer had watched. ‘The police wanted to end the chaos as soon as they could. Now they’re going to have to wait.’ He took Jennifer’s arm and began to follow the psychiatrist. He had lost, he admitted to himself. The fifteen minutes he’d built into the timing had to have expired by now.

  ‘ What do you think you can do? ’

  ‘It’s not important now.’

  ‘ Tell me now! ’ Jennifer jerked her arms up, to cover her ears at the shouted demand, crying out at the pain it caused but still gasping out the reply.

  ‘Fuck off, Jane. Another failure! How about that?’

  ‘ Now! ’

  Hall continued walking Jennifer back into the hospital, behind Julian Mason. There was the clatter of footsteps on metal, as the policemen followed. He didn’t reply.

  ‘ I mean let’s go. Now! ’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Hall, not pausing.

  Jennifer was brought to a halt, stopping him. ‘ You want a fight? ’

  ‘You’re not up to it.’

  ‘ You want a fight? ’ Jennifer whimpered at the pain of trying physically to close her ears off again.

  ‘Yes. I want to fight.’

  ‘ Then let’s go, asshole.’

  Far above, the assembled waggon train was also ready to go. The final trigger that brought the ‘Jennifer’ howl to a throbbing crescendo was the sight of a blanket-embalmed figure – the nurse whose uniform Jennifer was wearing far below – being stretchered between attentive hospital staff into the ambulance. It only just negotiated the left-hand turn back on to the attention-drawing Westminster Bridge before the police and soldier line burst, under the irresistible pressure of frenetically mind-robbed people. But by then the procession was already halfway over the bridge, quickly turning south west past the Houses of Parliament on to Millbank in an obvious direction: back to Hampshire.

  It had already crossed and was out of sight when one of the St Thomas’s overalled policemen cautiously eased through the gully-submerged oil delivery opening and even more cautiously climbed the steps to look around, his hand raised in readiness for the down-wave that would tell his colleague, who had finally established radio contact at ground level, to slam shut the scarcely open door. Already the crowd on the river-bordering Albert Embankment was thinning and they – and those that remained – still all gazed and crushed towards the bridge over which they appeared to expect the autocade to return. Others strained to follow the identifying searchlight beams of the helicopters, pursuing along the other side of the river. There was still a loud ‘Jennifer’ wail. The prepared door slamming gesture turned into an urgent beckoning.

  They came out together, Mason and Hall either side of Jennifer, the remaining policeman close behind, all three ignoring her scarf-muffled pleas to slow because she was hurting.

  ‘The launch is there: we’re all right,’ reported the radio-man, at the top of the stairway but without pausing, anxious now for them to get into the concealing ebb-and-flow of people.

  The two hundred metres to Lambeth Pier was a barefoot walk on glowing coals. Only Hall could sensibly remain as close as might be necessary to Jennifer: the others had to become gawking sensation-seekers although within a second’s leap. Mason actually joined in the still-existing excitement, pointing up like others were needlessly doing, tracing the distant progress of the convoy from the helicopters’ search-light fingers. They were constantly jostled because the majority of people were going in the opposite direction, still towards Westminster Bridge, but the apologies, when there were any, were invariably automatic, made without looking. Several times Jennifer groaned from the sudden pain of a collision.

  With fifty yards still to go Jennifer said, desperately: ‘She’s taking my legs away: I can’t walk much further.’

  ‘ Can’t run back and hide now. Too far away.’

  So she couldn’t risk a fight, after all!’ said Hall, even more desperately. The bitch! But he should have guessed. ‘ Just testing: flexing muscles.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s better.’

  The boarding was another potential and anticipated flash point. The launch that Perry had hired but which was crewed by casually dressed river police had been unobtrusively moored at the bottom of the steps for two hours, in total darkness and apparently battened down. An obvious and official police boat, one of four that throughout the day had kept the river between the hospital and Parliament clear of a would-be armada of water-borne sightseers, burbled about ten yards offshore like a growling guard dog, just holding itself in position against the tide. The look-out policeman reached the chained-off steps first, seeming to loiter and then expansively stretched. At the signal there was shadowed movement from below, the faintest footscrape. At the moment the rest of them drew level, on the embankment, a figure rose from the river steps to release the chain.

  ‘Careful. The steps are slippery.’

  They were in and descending within seconds, Hall groping down backwards to reach up with both hands against Jennifer’s shoulders, Mason trying to balance her from behind. Twice Hall slipped, the second time grating his shin against the edge of the step. The surprised exclamation came when they were half way down, then a shout. They were at the pontoon, Jennifer handed in first and unseen, before people appeared above. At once there was a blinding, obscuring beam from the police launch as it swept in under sudden power. The subterfuge was brilliant, a rehearsed performance they hadn’t been told about. With Jennifer, Hall, Mason and the two escorting policeman huddled unseen in the cabin there was a shouted argument between the uniformed and plain-clothes river police, quickly concluded with an even louder shouted announcement that the boat was under arrest. By the time the civilian boat moved off obediently in the wake of the launch, the Embankment level embarkation stage had cleared of people.

  Jennifer had burrowed into Hall’s shoulder, shivering. Quietly she said, ‘Hold me. Please hold me.’

  As he did so Jane echoed, in a small-child voice: ‘ Hold me. Please hold me ’

  Humphrey Perry was waiting at the designated berth at Richmond, which Hall had chosen because he rowed from there, although not from that specific boat club. They finally parted from their police escorts with whispered, hurried thanks, anxious to get on the road before their arrival was seen: already the sky was lightening. Coffee had been waiting, once they had got underway, and just before they arrived Jennifer had managed without any choking, rejecting difficulty
the painkilling pills Lloyd had provided. Within minutes of the car beginning to move she was lolled against Hall’s shoulder, occasionally moving, fitfully, but most of the time snoring. Mason made an exaggerated, lifted-eyebrow expression but didn’t speak. Hall answered the look but didn’t say anything either.

  It was completely light by the time they reached the private psychiatric clinic at Hertfordshire, although the only people, apart from the nightstaff, were the medical doctor and two nurses whom Mason alerted from the car phone just before they arrived.

  There was a wheelchair for the half-asleep Jennifer but the efficient smoothness of her immediately being swept into her private suite was broken by her abruptly twisting, seeking Hall who for once had retreated into the background.

  The imploring hand came out again. ‘You’re not leaving me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t want you to.’

  ‘I told you I’m not.’

  ‘ I’m not leaving you, either.’

  There was still too much adrenalin for either of them even to consider sleep. Hall sat through the formal admission procedures, which Mason completed with the resident doctor, Charles Cox. He was a pipe-smoking, slow-talking man who showed neither surprise nor awe at Jennifer’s presence.

  ‘What about you three?’ he asked, in a strangely high-pitched voice.

  ‘I’d like my usual room,’ accepted Mason, at once.

  ‘I haven’t thought about it,’ admitted Hall.

  ‘From what I’ve seen on television you’re going to need somewhere to hide, too.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ accepted Hall. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You looked bloody scared among all those people yesterday.’

  ‘I was.’ He hadn’t been aware of any television cameras.

  ‘I won’t be staying,’ refused Perry, hurriedly.

  ‘No,’ agreed Hall, just as quickly. ‘I’m going to want you back in London.’

  ‘Am I still professionally engaged?’ demanded the solicitor.

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Hall.

  ‘Upon whose instructions?’

  ‘Mine. Which will be confirmed by Mrs Lomax tomorrow. Or rather later today, when she wakes up.’

  ‘What is there legally left to do?’

  ‘At the moment I’m not sure. But it could be a lot.’

  After Perry left with the doctor, Mason said, ‘You really think you can drive Jane out? Make her leave Jennifer?’

  Hall felt a flicker of embarrassment. ‘We’re not talking reality here. So it’s as sensible in a nonsensical situation as anything else.’

  ‘I still think you should try exorcism. There’s a chapel here. A priest.’

  ‘I’m willing to try anything.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘Am I being professionally retained again?’

  ‘You told me there was nothing you could do, psychiatrically.’

  ‘That was to get rid of Jane. Jennifer’s now in a depressed suicidal state. That is treatable. And should be treated, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Of course. But can it be, despite Jane?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted the psychiatrist. ‘We’ve obviously got to try.’

  Then I’d like you to be the one to do it. To organize the exorcism, as well.’

  ‘ Attempted exorcism,’ warned the psychiatrist. He didn’t immediately continue, although it was obvious he wanted to. Finally he said, outright, ‘I’d like her permission and authorization to do a Paper.’

  Another vulture, picking at the carcase, thought Hall. Except that Jennifer wasn’t a carcase – yet – and it was unfair to criticize Mason as a vulture. What was he going to do when it came around to considering all the media and book offers? Not a question needing an immediate answer. There were a lot of others to be settled first. He said, ‘I’ll talk to her about it. We both can, in fact.’

  ‘I can give you one early diagnosis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘One of the commonest treatment methods for mental illness is for a psychiatrist to gain the utter reliance of his patient.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s going to be hard for me to do that with Jennifer. She’s already transferred her total dependence on to you.’

  In her adjoining room, through the drug haze and exhaustion and despair, Jennifer was distantly aware of Jane singing, to her own tune and adjusted words, ‘Three Little Piggies Went to Market’.

  ‘ One little piggy went to the slaughter.

  Another little piggy makes two.

  A third little piggy is waiting by the door

  Who can we find to make four? ’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  They did finally sleep but only for two or three hours and then fitfully. Hall was glad Jennifer was still asleep. Henot House, he discovered, was not specifically a psychiatric hospital – although it had a dedicated and fully staffed wing – but a drug and alcohol dependency clinic for the ultra rich and very famous, set in wooded grounds at least three times as big as those in which the Hampshire mansion was set, these complete with an eighteen hole golf course. He took particular note of the helicopter pad.

  Within the building there was a shopping mall. He charged a designer track suit, trousers and shirt, underwear and shaving gear to an account he already found opened for him, although against his suite number, not his name. He checked at once with Charles Cox, reassured it was all part of the?500-a-day system and that Jennifer’s identity was similarly protected.

  While he waited for Humphrey Perry to get into his office, Hall watched breakfast television. It was almost totally occupied, as it had been for the past five days, by Jennifer. Hector Beringer repeated in a live interview, with Superintendent Hopkins in insistent support beside him, that Jennifer was no longer at the hospital. Every channel had its own reporter who’d taken part in the previous night’s chase talking over the helicopter film of the decoy ambulance driving as far as Basingsroke before returning, without stopping, for the nurse dressed in Jennifer’s clothes very publicly to get out and actually pose for photographs at the hospital entrance. There was ground footage of her doing that and a lot of that morning’s film of a disbelieving crowd build-up which already looked as large as it had been the previous day. Soldiers were still there. Every station featured their resident psychiatrists, two of whom thought Jennifer could be freed of Jane’s possession by treatment they offered to provide against three who insisted Jennifer would be possessed for life. The latter view appeared to be the opinion of newspaper contributing psychiatrists, whose views were also discussed in detail. One tabloid held up to the camera had the headline Twinned for Life to a Murderer. There was a lot of psychiatric references to religious hysteria that had attracted the crowds and footage of the cult squatters by Lambeth Palace. There was on every channel discussion about the book and media offers as if they were being seriously considered by Jennifer and her legal advisors. On a commercial station, the last to which Hall turned, a pop group performed a Country and Western style Ode to Jennifer with a prediction from a disc jockey that it would be in the charts by the end of the week. The repeated chorus was that Jennifer was doomed for life.

  Despite having had little sleep himself, Humphrey Perry was in his office promptly at nine, waiting for Hall’s call. It took the solicitor fifteen minutes to take down Hall’s instructions, which included having collected from Geoffrey Johnson and delivered the clothes and belongings he’d collected from the prison. When Hall told the solicitor what he wanted from both the defence and prosecution sections of the murder file, Perry said, That absolutely-’

  ‘Don’t even bother to say it!’ stopped Hall.

  ‘We actually know Bentley, a trained murder squad detective, looked into it,’ still protested the man.

  ‘The same detective who didn’t properly carry out the investigation at the scene of the crime,’ rejected Hall. ‘It was all too obvious. They laid back.’

  ‘Leav
e it to the priests and the psychiatrists.’

  ‘Just have what I want sent down. But not by courier: someone you can trust from your office who won’t be recognized and followed.’

  Mason and the clinic doctor were in deep conversation when Hall emerged for the second time.

  ‘I’ve managed a preliminary medical examination,’ said the squeaky-voiced doctor. ‘I don’t like all the medication she’s been having. What St Thomas’s administered was fine but God knows what was pumped into her in prison. I’m going to put her on detox, to clean her out.’

  Hall flinched at the brutality of the doctor’s expression. In daylight Cox was an unusual looking man: Hall guessed the hooded eyes were normal but weren’t helped by the man waiting up for their arrival. ‘You consider she’s medically unwell?’

  ‘She’s not in good physical shape,’ said Cox. ‘I don’t think she’s eaten properly for weeks. The knife wounds have barely healed. The cut on her leg is still open. And I’m going to take X-rays later to see how the ribs are knitting.’

  ‘And that’s before I get involved or we think about exorcism,’ said Mason. ‘We’re wondering just how much more, at the moment, Jennifer Lomax can take, physically and mentally.’

  ‘Surely it’s a measure of how strong Jennifer is, mentally, that she’s been able to withstand it?’ said Hall.

  ‘There’s a limit,’ warned the psychiatrist. ‘I think she might be close to reaching it. Which is why I’d like to know what you think you can do?’

  Before Hall was halfway through explaining Mason and Cox were exchanging looks. The moment Hall finished Mason said flatly, ‘I don’t like it. You’ve no basis for believing that it would work. And it’ll put a hell of a strain on her.’

  ‘Any greater strain than she’s already under?’

  ‘Additional.’

  ‘I outmanoeuvred Jane to get us away from the hospital.’

  ‘You’re talking of more than outmanoeuvring her now.’

  ‘Are you telling me, on medical or mental health grounds, not to try it?’

  Both doctors were momentarily silent. Cox said, ‘I’d want to detox her, first. And after that give her some time to rest.’