Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

‘There’ll be no further interviews with my client,’ announced Hall.

‘ Is she your client?’ demanded Bentley, belligerently. ‘Sounded to me as if you were going to be fired.’

‘Until I am, properly, I represent Mrs Lomax,’ insisted Hall. ‘And while I do I won’t allow a repetition of what took place in there.’

Cocky young bastard out to make a name for himself, judged Bentley. He was going to have his work cut out doing it with this case and Bentley decided he’d be buggered if he’d do anything to help. ‘You actually believe all her nonsense?’

‘From the beginning Mrs Lomax appeared genuinely unwell to me.’

‘You heard the voice?’ mocked Rodgers, who’d worked with Bentley long enough to gauge his superior’s mood and knew that at that moment Bentley was as furious as hell.

‘I got sufficient indication of a mentally distressed woman.’

‘Which you’ll get a lot of tame psychiatrists to swear to, in court.’

‘It’s Mrs Lomax’s own wish to be psychiatrically examined,’ said Hall.

‘And we’ll match you, trick-cyclist for trick-cyclist, to say that she’s sane,’ insisted Bentley.

Hall allowed himself to become angry at his own mistakes but had a barrister’s control against letting it happen professionally at the attitudes of others. Bentley was the sort of overconfident person easy to handle in court, someone quickly coaxed into ill-considered response. ‘Perhaps it won’t be necessary. I thought you knew Mrs Lomax wants to be diagnosed sane.’

‘That’s the cleverest bloody part of what she’s doing, isn’t it?’ said Rodgers. ‘Playing mad but saying she doesn’t want to be.’

Hall decided to experiment, to see how easy it would be to manipulate Bentley. ‘I’ve told you I won’t allow the interview to continue. There’s no real point in your staying here any longer, is there?’

Who the fuck did this cocky little bugger just out of school think he was talking to? Red faced, Bentley said, ‘I’ll decide when and how to leave enquiries.’

‘Of course,’ said Hall, mildly. ‘I was just trying to save you wasting time.’

‘I’ll make up my own mind when I’m doing that, too.’ Bentley caught the smirk on Perry’s face and realized, too late, what was going on. They’d see who had the last laugh, he promised himself, vindictively. The bloody woman thought she was making a fool out of him and these two smarmy sods thought they were making a fool out of him – actually laughing! – but before it was all over they’d learn who the real fools were.

‘We’ll set up the examinations as soon as we get the go-ahead from the doctor,’ Hall said to Perry. ‘You have names?’

‘Several,’ assured the solicitor, aware of the renewed irritation from the two detectives at apparently being ignored. It might have been unintentional but if it wasn’t Jeremy Hall appeared to have mastered a useful courtroom technique.

‘We’ll use several,’ decided the younger man. ‘And I want each totally independent, not one responding to the opinion of another…’ Appearing to remember Bentley, Hall said, ‘How soon will you submit to the Crown Prosecution?’

‘When I’m ready,’ said Bentley, petulantly.

Hall turned pointedly and dismissively from the man. To Perry again he said, ‘Officially inform them we’re acting. We’ll need the earliest evidence exchange of everything she said and did immediately after arrest, for the psychiatrists to assess as well.’

Lloyd’s arrival added another angry man to the room. ‘I don’t consider Mrs Lomax sufficiently well to be interviewed further,’ he declared, looking challengingly between the police and the lawyers.

‘I’ve already decided it won’t be continued,’ said Hall.

‘When will it be possible?’ demanded Rodgers.

‘I don’t know. Several days,’ said Lloyd.

‘And only in our presence,’ added Hall. ‘In fact I think we’ll review whether or not it will be continued at all, in the light of medical evidence…’ To Lloyd he said, ‘Mrs Lomax’s collapse was genuine, not feigned?’

The doctor appeared surprised at the question. ‘Unquestionably genuine. I don’t even understand the question.’

‘I’ve had a lot of people collapse on me when they didn’t have answers to the questions I was asking,’ exaggerated Bentley.

Lloyd sighed, impatiently. ‘Mrs Lomax was medically unconscious. She remains extremely disorientated.’

‘We’ll require a statement from you to that effect,’ said Rodgers.

‘Which I’ll be pleased to provide, including the cause of the distress that preceded Mrs Lomax’s collapse,’ came back Lloyd, irritably. He was very aware he had given the medical permission for the questioning and he, too, now accepted it had been wrong. He’d been on duty for fifty-six hours and thought the British National Health Service and all hospital trusts were a total fucking disaster and wished he was allowed to tell someone.

‘I want to know the moment she’s well enough for me to see her again,’ insisted Bentley, moving towards the door. It had been an absolute bloody shambles and he’d been made to look a prick, not once but several times. He wasn’t sure if Rodgers was loyal enough not to spread stories.

He’d spoken to the doctor but it was Perry who replied, ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we are told. And decide, upon expert professional advice, whether it should be resumed at all.’

In their car Perry said, ‘Why did you antagonize Bentley like that?’

‘To see how easy it’s going to be in court,’ admitted Hall. ‘And it’s going to be very easy indeed.’

Perry nodded, impressed. Guardedly he said, ‘Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have allowed the questioning?’

‘We had medical agreement,’ reminded the barrister. ‘The doctor who gave it is prepared to testify the collapse was genuine. And to criticize police aggression. Which a jury will be able to judge for themselves when they see how quickly Bentley loses his temper.’

Perry gave another gesture of approval. ‘You thinking of going along the sympathy road: wronged wife temporarily driven beyond control by a cheating husband?’

‘I’m keeping an open mind but it’s a strong possibility,’ admitted Hall. ‘We’d need to get as many women as possible on the jury, during selection.’

‘I’d recommend that anyway,’ said Perry.

‘And let’s get started right away with psychiatrists. I really don’t want any committee decisions – that’s important – but I want them all singing to the same tune when it comes to giving their evidence in court. So we’ll discard any that don’t concur for one that does.’

Perry didn’t think the younger man was going to need as much hand-holding as he had first thought.

Jennifer’s first conscious impression was of fog, fog in her head so that she couldn’t think clearly, get her thoughts together. Or cotton wool: head stuffed with cotton wool, so that everything felt thick. At once there was noise, a lot of noise of a lot of people, enjoying themselves, laughing and shouting too loudly like people laugh and shout at a party after drinking too much. But the fog began to lift and it wasn’t a lot of people. Just one. One that she knew, just as she knew, abruptly, where she was and what she had been accused of doing and why the bored policewomen were slumped in their chairs, ignoring her for their newspapers and magazines. And knew, worst of all, most terrible of all, what the detective had said about Gerald and the woman she’d thought to be her friend. Wasn’t true: couldn’t be true. Gerald had…

‘ Of course it’s true! ’

‘No!’

‘ Gerald didn’t love you.’

‘He did.’