Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

The psychiatrist shook his head. ‘It’ll be a starting point tomorrow. With the hypnosis.’

‘If she agrees,’ cautioned Lloyd.

Jennifer did, at once, fifteen minutes later. Still without any physical sensation of Jane’s presence she asked, too, for the sedation to keep the voice away during the night.

‘Don’t you want to hear about the preliminary findings?’ asked Mason, experimentally.

‘No!’ refused Jennifer, anxiously and at once.

‘He said what?’ demanded Feltham. They were in El Vino again, because Jeremy Hall had insisted on returning to chambers and Perry hadn’t wanted obviously to meet the chief clerk there. And Feltham was annoyed because he didn’t like being around this late. Lunch was his time.

‘Words to the effect that he knew there was a hidden agenda and that to keep whatever else was on offer he’d get a leader – Sir Richard himself, he hinted – for the Lomax case.’

‘Cheeky bugger! What did you say?’ One advantage of not having to return to the office to work was that he could drink claret instead of lighter white wines. The St Emilion was excellent.

‘Nothing.’

‘Didn’t you even deny it?’

‘I dismissed it. Said the case was indefensible.’

‘How is it shaping up?’

‘Bloody nightmare. Hall is taking it all so seriously, as if there is a worthwhile plea to enter. And he’s far more confident than I thought he might be at our first meeting. Had me call the Hampshire Social Security people from the car, on our way back, and then dictated a list of instructions as long as my arm before we got here. His last insistence was that I go down to Hampshire with him tomorrow. When I asked him how he expected me to do that as well as everything else he said he had every confidence in me.’

Feltham nodded to another claret. ‘Judges don’t like cocky young beginners. You want me to have a word in his ear?’

‘No,’ said Perry. ‘Just wanted to keep you up to date with things.’

‘How is she?’

‘Totally mad.’

‘No leader from my chambers is going to appear in court and talk about ghostly murderers,’ decided Feltham, positively. ‘I don’t give a damn whether Jeremy bloody Hall is a nephew of Sir Richard’s or not. He’ll do as he’s told, like they all do.’

In Jennifer’s hospital room, less than two miles away, the sedative began to take affect. The last thing of which Jennifer was aware was Jane’s distant voice. ‘ You can’t begin to guess the plans I’ve got, Jennifer. It’s much more fun than I thought it might be.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I,’ said Patricia Boxall, beside him in the darkness.

‘I’ll be all right later,’ promised Hall.

Was it still too late to leave: call Alexander from the car? Probably. It had been close to midnight before they’d got back from the poxy Italian restaurant with its stale spaghetti and acid wine. ‘Wake me,’ she said, turning away from him. If the sex was over then so was everything else.

The traffic was heavier than they anticipated but they still arrived almost an hour ahead of the appointment with the council and care officials. When they turned into the driveway and stopped for the gate to be opened after identifying themselves through the speaker grill, two men with cameras and another with a tape recorder ran from an unseen car parked opposite. There were momentarily blinding flashes and the man with the tape recorder said, ‘May I ask…’ before the gates opened and Perry accelerated through.

‘Bastards!’ exclaimed the solicitor. ‘Frightened the hell out of me!’

‘Weren’t you told of this, when you spoke to the house?’ Hall asked Johnson.

‘Annabelle said she’d been bothered but didn’t tell me there were ambushes outside the gate,’ said the family solicitor.

Alerted by the gate telephone Annabelle Parkes was at the open door by the time they reached the square, creeper-clad mansion. The nanny was a plump, round-faced girl who wore her hair short and disdained any make-up. The impression, even for someone who could only have been in her twenties, was motherly, which Hall decided was an advantage. There was a firm, no-nonsense handshake but no smile. Coffee was already set out in the drawing room at the front of the house, overlooking the terraced lawns and the distant coppice which hid the gate. It was a room of heavy velvet drapes and brocaded furniture which Hall guessed to be Regency. It could, he supposed, have been Georgian in keeping with the period of the house. Some looked similar to the antiques his father had sold, trying to stave off the Lloyd’s bankruptcy. There were a lot of photographs, the majority of Jennifer with Lomax, with Emily completing the family in several. They were smiling and laughing in virtually all of them, apart from two posed studio portraits. The one of Jennifer reminded Hall of the picture that most of the newspapers had used. She was more than simply beautiful, he decided. The head-tilted confidence he’d earlier recognized made her intriguing, too. Meeting her in any other circumstances would have made him curious to discover just how intelligent she was.

As she poured coffee Annabelle said, ‘I’ve kept Emily home from kindergarten. I didn’t know if they – if you – would want to see her. She’s upstairs in the nursery, playing. You said you wanted to talk before the others arrived? And I’ve packed clothes. Quite a lot, to give Mrs Lomax a choice. She takes a lot of trouble about how she dresses.’

‘Mrs Lomax is resisting Emily being taken into care,’ announced Johnson. ‘We can do that, certainly until after any trial. But it’s very necessary that we know if you’re prepared to remain here, looking after the child.’

‘That’s what I’m employed to do,’ said the girl, stiffly.

‘And are happy to continue doing so?’ pressed Perry.

‘Absolutely.’

‘That’s good to know,’ said Hall. ‘I’m surprised this approach came from the council so quickly.’

‘I’m probably responsible,’ confessed the girl. ‘Ever since it happened we’ve been besieged by newspapers and television people: they even got over the perimeter wall and came up to the house through the tradesmen’s entrance when we wouldn’t let them through the main gate. I complained to the police: said I had a child here that I wanted protecting…’

Hall sighed, nodding. ‘Yes, you probably are. We were confronted by some of them at the gate.’

‘I wish I’d been given some indication,’ complained Johnson.

‘I’m sorry if it was the wrong thing to do.’

‘It wasn’t,’ said Perry.

‘In fact,’ reassured Hall, ‘it might even make things easier.’

The girl went to a bureau near the window, returning with several envelopes. Handing them to Johnson, whose authority she already knew, Annabelle said, ‘They put these in the postbox at the gate, too: offering money for photographs and for interviews. I thought you’d want them. And there’s some other mail, as well. I’ve kept it all for you.’

Johnson accepted the package, moving away from them to go through it.

Hall checked his watch, deciding there was sufficient time. ‘Describe Mrs Lomax to me,’ he demanded, suddenly.

Annabelle frowned. ‘I don’t…’ she started. Then, ‘Of course, I’m sorry. A wonderful woman. We got on very well together.’

Perry had frowned, too. Then his face cleared and hurriedly he got out a pad and the silver pencil. ‘Did she and Mr Lomax ever fight?’

The girl shook her head. ‘That’s the strangest part, about what’s happened. I’ve never known them argue, ever…’ She smiled for the first time. ‘Almost unnatural, we used to say.’