Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

She decided she’d made a good clothes selection during that last plea-persuasion meeting with Jeremy Hall. For the opening day of the trial she chose the severe, although loosely tailored blue Dior suit and a plainly cut voile shirt to create the appearance she’d favoured when she’d worked at Enco-Corps, subtly feminine but more obviously no-nonsense businesslike. It was also, she remembered, how she’d usually dressed for the committee meetings of the charities and fund-raising groups that had so very quickly found her name an encumbrance. Jennifer returned to the larger bathroom mirror to survey the complete effect, glad the long sleeves completely hid the worst of the scars. She’d included gloves in her clothes request and considered wearing them, to cover the damage to her hands, but decided against it until she’d assessed the court.

Beryl Harrison was waiting directly outside the bathroom when Jennifer emerged. She said, ‘You look lovely. Beautiful.’ The reaching out was not really to feel the material but for some brief, physical contact. As Jennifer followed the escort along the corridors, towards the exit, she passed Emma and Fran, together as always. Emma told her to hurry back and Fran said, ‘I like that outfit. That would look good on me. I’ll have to try it on.’

Jennifer strained to see something, anything, of the streets along which the prison van moved but the windows were small and heavily tinted and hardly anything registered. One of the escorting wardresses, a motherly woman, said, ‘Here it is then. Your big day.’

Jennifer smiled but said nothing. There was a cough in her head, a more positive throat-clearing than any before. Jennifer stiffened but nothing came.

The same wardress said, ‘We’re almost there. I’d sit back, if I were you.’

Jennifer did, although not knowing why. The van began to slow and then abruptly there was an eruption of blinding light through three of the windows.

‘Cameramen,’ explained the wardress. ‘They shoot blind through the windows. It hardly ever works. Don’t know why they do it. They won’t have got you.’

After the virtual isolation of the past weeks, Jennifer found the sudden bustle and activity strangely disorientating. The yard beyond the shielding-off, high-gated entrance was jammed with police cars and vans and men and woman in police and prison officer uniform. The escorting wardresses formed up either side and walked her into the building. Almost directly inside was a reception office, where her arrival was officially listed in a ledger and a clerk signed a receipt which Jennifer realized was for her, as if she was a product or a package. Still unspeaking they led her on, nodding and occasionally greeting other officers and prison staff as they passed.

The cell at which they stopped was half-tiled. In its centre there was a scarred table with a tin ashtray in its middle. There was a chair either side and two more against the wall, below the barred window. There was no bed or obvious toilet, but there was a pervading smell of urine. The wardress who had remained silent until now said, ‘Do you want to pee or anything? Once you’re in court you’ll be stuck, not able to go.’

‘I don’t think so. Thank you.’

‘It’s your last chance.’

‘No.’

‘If her brief hurries, we’ll be able to get a cup of tea before we have to go up,’ said the talkative wardress to the other. And then smiled as Jeremy Hall appeared at the door.

Hall was smiling, too. Humphrey Perry was directly behind. He was blank-faced.

‘The suit’s just right. Perfect.’

‘Good.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘OK.’ The excitement of no longer being incarcerated was ebbing away, back in yet another cell.

‘Not frightened?’ asked Hall.

Jennifer didn’t answer at once. ‘I’ve never been in a court before but no, I don’t think so.’

‘There’s quite a lot of ritual. Tradition. Don’t pay any attention to it. But you must leave everything to me. Not try to address the court yourself.’

‘I’ll do my best not to let anything happen. She’s doing something different. I know she’s with me but she’s not talking. Trying to upset me now by saying nothing. Just lurking.’

Perry, who’d brought up one of the spare chairs to sit beside the other lawyer, shifted but didn’t speak. His chair grated, jarringly.

‘How do you know she’s with you?’ asked Hall.

‘I won’t tell you, remember? She’ll know if I tell you. Maybe do something to stop me knowing.’ She wondered if that would get any reaction but there was no sound in her head.

Perry sighed.

Hall said, ‘I forgot. If you want to say anything to me you can do it through Mr Perry. Write a note or ask him to come up to the dock. That’s acceptable. For several days it’ll just be the prosecution evidence.’ And a lot more he didn’t want to contemplate, he thought, fearfully.

‘All right.’

‘We’ve done well with jury selection.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘Ensured, as best we can, what might be the most favourable jury.’

Jennifer’s frown deepened. ‘I don’t understand?’

‘I challenged the men to the allowable limit and got them replaced by women.’ He regretted now making the comment at all: the composition wouldn’t have meant anything to her if he hadn’t mentioned it.

‘More sympathetic to me about Rebecca, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s not part of my defence.’

‘It’s the key to the prosecution, which I’ve got to do everything to confront.’

‘Which I expect you to do very well.’

Hall half shrugged, looking around the bare room. ‘You can have food brought in during the trial, if you’d like. I don’t think what they provide here is much good.’

‘I’m not very interested in eating. Maybe I’ll think about it tomorrow. But thank you for the thought.’ It seemed a long time since anyone had treated her with any kindness or personal consideration. She realized how much she’d missed it. Suddenly she demanded, ‘Are you frightened?’

‘No,’ blinked Hall, startled. He was glad she hadn’t asked if he was apprehensive, which he didn’t consider the same thing, the most minimal element of fear and therefore hardly qualifying. And if she had he would have lied to retain her confidence. But he was apprehensive. Not of any one single danger but generally concerned, mostly about the unknown. Whatever happened it was going to be a parody of a proper trial until Jarvis intervened to stop it and Hall accepted he personally would be the object of every sort of criticism and outrage. And not only – just most immediately and directly – from Jarvis but at every other legal level. Realistically Jarvis’s influence disappeared with the old man’s retirement and Hall expected to retain his place in the Proudfoot chambers even after Sir Richard’s elevation because he was the man’s nephew. But it would be a long time, if ever, before a brief was offered to him by name. And even longer before Bert Feltham accepted one for him, named or not.

‘I’m glad you’re not frightened,’ said Jennifer. ‘And I appreciate what you’ve done for me.’

‘I haven’t done anything for you yet,’ Hall reminded.

‘What you’re going to do for me,’ Jennifer corrected.

‘I have to go and robe,’ said Hall, standing. ‘Do you want to make yourself comfortable before the court?’

‘No,’ refused Jennifer again. ‘And I want to apologize, for going on about a QC. I trust you.’

As they climbed the stairs to reach the robing room Perry said, ‘Yet another amazing transformation. The voice has mysteriously gone away and you’re the barrister she wants after all.’

‘She’ll change her mind soon enough when she sees how I’m going to let the trial go.’