Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

‘That’ll help. He’s behind with his chambers’ rent.’

Perry gave a dismissive nod. ‘We’ve got the summonses, on the copper affair.’

‘I think we can accept that brief,’ said Feltham, smiling broadly.

‘We’ve brought a friend,’ announced Fran. ‘This is Harriet.’

The newcomer was black, with very short hair, and tall, towering over the other two prisoners. ‘Hello.’

‘And your other friend,’ said Emma, holding up the dildo. ‘You like this friend, don’t you?’

‘No, please,’ said Jennifer. The injection hadn’t worked, like it had on the other nights. She felt relaxed but she wasn’t drifting off, to blot everything out.

‘ Say fuck me! ’

‘No.’

‘You know you want it,’ said Emma.

‘Say fuck me! ’

‘Fuck me.’

‘There, we knew you did.’

The black girl was undressing, at the foot of the bed, watching as the other two women, on either side, unbuttoned Jennifer’s dress.

‘Go away!’

‘Is that what you like? Fighting?’ said the black girl, leaning forward. Abruptly she slapped Jennifer, backhanded, across the face.

‘Careful!’ warned Emma. ‘Don’t mark her.’

The black girl drew back, strapping the dildo around her waist. When it hung like a penis between her legs she said, ‘Look Jennifer, for you.’

‘ Say it’s nice.’

‘No.’

‘ Nice. Say it.’

‘Nice.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Emma. ‘But you were a naughty girl today, Jennifer. You said something about the fun we’re having to the magistrates, didn’t you?’

‘No. It was Jane.’

‘We know you did. Matron told us. And we told you what would happen if you did that, didn’t we?’

The dress was totally open, leaving Jennifer in bra and pants. From the top pocket of her prison overalls Fran took a double-edged safety razor blade. One side was embedded between two pieces of wood, bound in place with twine.

‘No!’ whimpered Jennifer.

‘ They’re going to cut you! ’ screamed Jane, excited.

With one quick, downward slash Fran brought the exposed part of the blade down between Jennifer’s breasts, severing the strip between the two bra cups but missing her skin. Emma pulled both cups apart, briefly leaning forward to kiss Jennifer’s nipples. The moment Emma’s head lifted Fran lay the edge of the razor against Jennifer’s right nipple. ‘We’ll cut them off,’ she said. ‘If you complain, we’ll cut your tits off and then you won’t be pretty any more.’

‘ Say you don’t care. That you’d like it ’

For the first time in days, weeks, Jennifer bit her lips shut, refusing the words, the effort trembling through her.

‘Excited!’ said Harriet. ‘Look, she’s coming! Go on, cut her, just a little.’

‘Too soon, yet,’ refused Emma. She pointed to the prison-tattooed bird, on her left cheek. ‘Would you like one of these, Jennifer? I’ll give you one, when the court hearing’s over.’

‘I want her!’ demanded Harriet.

Fran cut the pants away with the razor and Jennifer’s legs were jerked apart, for them to be pulled clear. Emma and Fran stood either side, still holding Jennifer’s legs wide, as the black girl climbed between them, the artificial penis erect in front of her. Jennifer tightly closed her eyes, refusing to look, but she couldn’t avoid the feeling, when she was penetrated, not that time or when Emma followed or Fran, behind her.

‘ This is the suffering I promise, Jennifer. And it’s going to go on and on and never stop.’

Jennifer was shivering and sobbing when the matron entered the enclosed, now empty ward. ‘Here’s nursey, darling: nursey with the lovely cream.’

Jennifer lay unresisting, eyes still tightly shut, needing the balm for the soreness scouring between her legs.

‘That’s not nice, is it darling. Shouldn’t do that to you, should they?’

Jennifer didn’t speak. Didn’t open her eyes.

‘Shall nursey make them stop?’

‘ No! ’

Again Jennifer managed to hold the word back. ‘What?’ She opened her eyes.

‘Nursey make them stop, shall she?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’ll have to help nursey.’

‘How?’

‘Sign the form I’ve got here. It says I can look after your cheque-book for you. That will be all right, won’t it.’

‘Why?’

‘We’ll pay them, not to come near you. You’d do that, wouldn’t you? Pay them?’

‘Yes. Oh God, yes.’

‘ No! ’

Jennifer didn’t say it.

‘How much do you think? Three hundred pounds, I think, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘You make the cheque out to nursey and nursey will pay them not to come in any more.’

‘Thank you. Oh, thank you.’

‘ Bitch.’

‘Here’s the authorization. And nursey will go on rubbing this lovely cream in, until the soreness goes. It’s all right if nursey does it all the time, isn’t it?’

‘ Here goes your money, Jennifer. Cheaper to he fucked. ’

The following day Feltham appeared early at Jeremy Hall’s door.

‘We’ve been offered a provisional date, if we’re ready.’

‘We are. When?’

‘Two weeks’ time. The Monday. Simon Keflin-Brown QC is against you. Robert Morley’s the junior.’

‘Who’s the judge.’

‘Jarvis. Probably his last case.’

‘Oh,’ said Hall.

‘When your luck’s out it’s out,’ said Feltham, philosophically. ‘And he wants pre-trial conferences.’

The only difference from their previous encounter appeared to be the greater number of files barricaded on Sir Ivan Jarvis’s massive desk: the squirrel collected more nuts, the kernel of his case among them, thought Hall, as he followed Simon Keflin-Brown, QC, into the judge’s rooms. Keflin-Brown led as if by divine right. He was an urbane, avuncular man who out of court affected broad-striped suits which the inevitably worn pastel-shaded Garrick tie rarely matched. In court, usually to the tolerance of judges to whom he was well known, Keflin-Brown performed tricks to impress and influence juries: he’d produced one in the corridor outside, immediately looking enquiringly beyond Hall to ask who his leader was and reacting with exaggerated, wide-eyed surprise when Hall said there wasn’t one, which the man had well known all along.

‘Thought the woman was rich?’

‘She is. And she’s satisfied,’ said Hall. That still wasn’t certain, he remembered. But he was happy with the retort.

‘Should be an easy one, I suppose.’

It posed an equally easy retort – why had Keflin-Brown accepted such a mundane brief – but Hall didn’t ask it: according to Feltham the QC only took on sure-fire winners if he had the opportunity and had jumped at the Jennifer Lomax prosecution. There was a smirk from Morley, whom Hall guessed to be only four or five years older than he was, although the man was thin-haired and paunchy and looked at least fifteen years his senior. Perry appeared disinterested in the exchange, a man privately admitting lost battles before a shot had been fired.

Jarvis greeted Keflin-Brown with a thin-lipped grimace that passed for a smile but which had gone by the time he got to Hall. The judge completely ignored the other barrister and Perry.

After the grimaced smile came the nod and after the nod the beginning of the required verbal minuet.

Jarvis said, ‘Mr Keflin-Brown,’ and the QC said, ‘My Lord,’ and then Jarvis said, ‘Mr Hall,’ who echoed, ‘My Lord.’

Adept from long practice at the intricate steps, Keflin-Brown said, ‘With my friend, Mr Robert Morley, I prosecute on behalf of the Crown, my Lord.’

‘And you are in a position to proceed?’