Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

Jennifer timed the sedative demand with the care of the previous night and resisted Jane’s frenetic wake-up attempts even longer than before and felt better upon awakening than she had the previous day.

‘Told you I’d find a way.’ She didn’t care any more about the sighed reaction from the attendant policewomen.

‘ It won’t help you.’

‘You can’t control me all the time, can you?’

‘ Whenever I want.’ Without her being able to stop it happening both of Jennifer’s arms rose and in unison fell heavily back upon the bed. The police sergeant moved towards the door.

‘I’ll stop that happening, too.’

‘ You’re my puppet, Jennifer. Jump, puppet: jump puppet. ’ Jennifer managed to stop her arms jerking to the chant that time.

‘I can resist,’ insisted Jennifer, excited by the discovery.

‘ Not enough to stop me doing exactly what I want with you. And whenever I want to do it.’

‘Mistake, Jane! You’ve just admitted I’m right.’

For several moments Jennifer’s head cleared. Then, from a long way off, there began a distant sound that grew louder by the second, like an onrushing, siren-wailing train. Except it wasn’t a siren but a manic scream that rose and rose until Jennifer thought her head would explode, the pain so bad she screamed aloud herself. With her arm no longer tethered she tried to clamp both hands against her head, to close out the mind-splitting cacophony but couldn’t because it wasn’t coming from outside and her whole body convulsed with the vibration of the noise. The agony was so bad it was a long time before she became aware of restraining hands – an arm even encompassing her – and only then when the pain at last receded, as the sound passed. It was Peter Lloyd with his arm around her, a placating nurse on her other side. Both policewomen were at the foot of the bed, eyes bulged.

‘ Pissed yourself, Jennifer. Dirty girl! ’

She had. She was, in fact, soaked, sweat glueing the hospital smock to her, hair lank rats’ tails. ‘She screamed. I thought my head was going to burst. I’ve made a mess.’

‘It doesn’t matter: we can clean you up,’ assured Lloyd. Still with an arm around her, he squeezed her shoulder in added reassurance. He wouldn’t argue against the hospital board’s decision about the psychiatric examination. He hoped to Christ her lawyers agreed. The board’s problem, not his: his was avoiding any fall-out from what had happened yesterday. The Social Services business was her lawyer’s, too. Make sure the wounds didn’t become infected: that’s all he had to do. Then pass the problem on. It was still difficult to believe she could have done what she did. But then he’d never before treated – even seen – a murderer.

‘She wants to prove how helpless I am.’

‘ And I did, didn’t I! ’

‘We’re going to do some tests today,’ said Lloyd, pressing on, refusing any diversion.

‘ What tests? Ask him what tests? ’

Jennifer managed to prevent herself, seizing a victory. ‘To prove I’m sane?’

‘Part of it.’

‘I want to do that right away.’ At the nurse’s pressure she held out her least bandaged arm for a blood pressure cuff to be attached.

‘ What tests? ’ repeated Jane’s voice, insistently.

‘We must be medically sure you’re recovered enough for a psychiatric examination,’ explained Lloyd, unwittingly answering the question. ‘Your heart monitor has been stable throughout the night. That’s why we disconnected it.’

Until that moment Jennifer had been unaware the adhesive pads and their attaching leads had gone.

‘ You’re not…’ started Jane but the nurse was already releasing the cuff.

‘Fine,’ guaranteed the woman to Lloyd.

‘Because of the…’ started the doctor, then stopped. Determinedly he started again. ‘Because you’re officially facing a criminal charge, we’ve approached your lawyers. Invited them to participate…’

‘With a psychiatrist?’

‘Not from the hospital: our tests are to be strictly medical. Neurological. We’ll take blood, faeces and urine samples and I also want to do a spinal tap now.’

Jennifer curled herself up in a ball, as the man instructed, but continued talking over her shoulder. ‘Are they bringing a psychiatrist?’ She’d intended dismissing Perry and Hall without the concrete assurance of a QC, she remembered. Not important, this early. The absolute essential – the essential upon which everything hinged – was to be declared sane. The insistence upon a senior barrister could wait.

‘ The Lord Chief Justice himself can’t save you! You’re lost. Can’t prevent yourself being lost.’

‘Call them,’ ordered Jennifer, straightening herself as she was told and lying flat, without a pillow, to prevent any headache or nausea after the lumbar puncture. ‘Tell them I want a psychiatrist, as well: that I won’t have a neurological examination unless I have a psychiatric one.’

Precisely what the hospital board wanted, accepted Lloyd: the responsibility – and any unforeseen repercussions – that of the woman’s advisors, the hospital’s accountability tightly limited to scientifically provable and universally acknowledged medical criteria. ‘That’s your definite wish?’

‘That’s my positive instruction. Tell them that I demand it. And that I want it today.’ There was a sudden rush of confidence, a feeling of being in charge. She had other feelings – other impressions – but refused to let herself think of them.

‘ What? ’

‘Not things for you to know,’ refused Jennifer, embarking on another experiment.

‘I beg your pardon?’ frowned the doctor.

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ smiled Jennifer, apologetically.

Lloyd gestured for the nurse to leave with him. ‘I’ll call your solicitor.’

‘ Think it! ’

‘Make me!’

The numbness worsened, into a burn, but Jennifer easily resisted. ‘I’m finding weaknesses about you all the time, aren’t I, Jane? My mind was always better than other people’s. I’m going to prove it.’

‘ And I’m going to enjoy taking that arrogance from you, like I’m going to take everything else from you.’

It wasn’t Jennifer’s demand but Julian Mason’s insistence that a neurological screening was necessary that persuaded Jeremy Hall to change his mind about a joint examination. It wasn’t, explained Mason, a shared discipline but a complimentary one. Hall was as impressed by the man as he was by the argument. Julian Mason was a past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a senior lecturer at Essex University and the author of two acknowledged reference books on forensic psychiatry. Hall also liked that the man didn’t look an absent-minded, long-haired psychiatrist, baggy jacketed, shapelessly trousered and meerschaum-piped. Mason wore a crew cut, jeans and an Essex university T-shirt under an unzipped cotton blouson: Hall hoped he had a different outfit for court. What Hall appreciated most of all was the absence of any condescension at their meeting in his cramped rooms overlooking the car park at the rear of the chambers, identifying him as the most junior member of the practice.

Mason listened intently to the facts of the murder, not interrupting until Hall linked schizophrenia with the voice in Jennifer’s head. At once the man raised a halting hand, ‘You’re the lawyer. I’m the psychiatrist. I’ll make the diagnosis.’

‘Bentley thinks she’s faking.’

‘People try.’

‘How difficult is it for you to tell?’

‘Sometimes impossible. Sometimes easy.’ Seeing the reaction on Hall’s face the other man grinned and said, ‘It’s very difficult to fake genuine mental illness. People who try usually make lots of mistakes.’