Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

It was Jennifer’s own revulsion that again shook through her at the evidence of the Home Office pathologist Felix Hewitt, its awfulness worsened by the clinically unemotional way the man presented his post-mortem findings. He described the injuries as massive. The aorta artery and ventricle chamber had been penetrated – the aorta twice – and one knife wound had entered the brain through the left eye, inflicting huge damage to the frontal lobe and into the cortex. The carotid artery in the neck was also severed as well as the femoral artery in the groin, which was the worst of seven cuts and stabs to the genital area. The face was also extensively lacerated, the nose practically severed. In Hewitt’s opinion six of a total of thirty-two severe stab and cut wounds would have been fatal. There were numerous others, less severe, to the arms and hands consistent with attempted self-defence. Death would have occurred in minutes, from a combination of the fatal stab wounds, extensive and immediate blood loss and shock.

‘ Tried to cut his cock off. Bastard deserved to lose it. Thought I’d managed it. He’d have felt it, though. Been in agony. Like that one in the eye: that would have hurt! ’

By the time of the luncheon adjournment Jennifer felt totally exhausted, her arms and legs cramped from the way she’d forced herself to sit. The muscles in her arms and legs trembled and she needed the support of both wardresses either side to reach the downward steps and for them to be at her front and back to guide her down into the cell. The once crisp and pure white voile shirt was grey and limp from perspiration, sticking to her back and shoulders like another skin: sweat had soaked through into the suit, too, which was sagged with creases and damply uncomfortable. Her handkerchief was sodden with spittle, too wet for her to wipe herself dry any more. Her make-up would be totally destroyed, she realized. She shook her head against the motherly wardress’ suggestion of food: nausea churned her stomach, bringing her close to vomiting.

She found it difficult even to look up at Jeremy Hall’s entry from the table at which she was slumped. The solicitor was not with him.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m not all right!’

‘ She’s insane. Everyone knows that! ’

‘Shut up!’ To Hall she said, ‘She’s saying I’m insane, like she always does.’

‘Was it bad?’

‘You saw how bad it was!’

‘I meant how much did you manage to stop?’

‘ Not enough! ’

‘A lot. Nearly all the outbursts. A lot of the movement, too. But I know it wasn’t enough. I’ve annoyed the judge, haven’t I?’

‘Do you want a doctor? An adjournment?’

‘ No! You’ve got to go on suffering! ’

‘What would that achieve?’

Hall made an uncertain movement. ‘Tranquillizers might help.’

‘ No! Say you don’t want them.’

Jennifer found herself clutching the underside of the cell chair. ‘Are they permissible?’

‘ No! Won’t stop you being my puppet. ’

‘I think so. I’ll try to arrange something. It wouldn’t be possible for Mason to hypnotize you. He’s to be called as an expert defence witness.’

‘You didn’t question any of the witnesses this morning?’ Jennifer challenged.

‘There was nothing to ask them.’

‘The women you so carefully got on the jury were appalled at the photographs. I saw their faces.’

‘Don’t try to anticipate reaction.’

‘I didn’t have to try.’

Hall shifted, discomfited. He’d come to the cells because he’d felt he had to but Perry had been right: there was nothing he could say or do. He hadn’t expected to hope this soon that Jarvis would terminate the trial. ‘Anything you want? Anything I can do?’

‘The tranquillizers might help.’

‘ Waste of time! ’

‘I’ll find the court doctor.’

‘And can you let me have a handkerchief? This one’s no good any more.’

Without her intending it to happen Jennifer’s throat closed against the Librium the court doctor offered. She choked against regurgitating, coughing afresh at the water she gulped to help swallow them. She finally managed it, her eyes and nose running. She was still weak-kneed and unsteady on her feet, glad of the two women to help her back to the court: wanting to anticipate each and every problem, although do nothing to alert Jane in advance, she abruptly asked to use the toilet as they passed it, even though she hardly needed to when she entered. Almost at once her bladder collapsed and she only just managed to avoid wetting herself.

‘ Difficult to keep up, isn’t it Jennifer? But you can’t relax, not for a moment. Not ever. Not until I’ve taken away so much of your mind that it doesn’t matter any more.’

Jennifer clutched apprehensively at the dock rail, her escorts tight on either side, for the judge’s entry but no feeling was taken from her legs this time and she only had to remain standing for seconds. She grabbed at once for the seat as she sat, entwining her legs again. She felt desperately, achingly tired, tremors constantly flickering through her muscles. It all had to be from the strain of the morning: the tranquillizer would not have had time to work yet. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide, against the desire to close them altogether.

‘ Tired, Jennifer? Want to sleep a little. Go on, close your eyes .’

Jennifer stopped herself by continuously stretching and unstretching her face until she realized people were looking at her: two women jurors were shaking their heads, sadly. Abruptly she stopped. The pain of biting the inside of her lips helped fight off the tiredness as well as keep them closed, to stop herself being Jane’s ventriloquist’s dummy.

‘ Can’t relax, not for a moment. Forgot again, didn’t you? ’

It was the prosecuting junior, Robert Morley, who took forensic scientist Anthony Billington through his evidence. Keflin-Brown sat relaxed beside the man, legs fully outstretched, head sunk on his chest as if he, too, was about to sleep.

Billington was a large, fat man who’d either put on a lot of weight since buying the over-stretched suit or been misled over its size. His deathly pale although heavily freckled face heightened the redness of his disordered hair.

As he began responding to the younger barrister’s lead Jane said, ‘ This is what’s going to convict you, so listen up, you hear? Don’t want to miss a word of it.’

The body of a man identified to him as Gerald Lomax had still been in situ although already dead upon his arrival, Billington agreed, to Morley’s opening question. Mrs Lomax, whom he recognized in the dock, had also been there and identified to him. Both had suffered severe injuries, the man far more extensively than the woman. These injuries had caused widespread bloodstaining illustrated in the photographs, which Morley showed the man. Billington said he had taken numerous blood samples, which he had later identified. One, AB Rhesus Positive, was that of Gerald Lomax. The other sample was O Rhesus Negative. At Morley’s urging the scientist isolated three pictures from the portfolio showing finger and palm prints in a splayed, arced pattern, where someone with blood-soaked hands had stood, supported on outstretched arms. At the scene was a German-made kitchen knife, heavily bloodstained on both blade and handle, which he again identified from the picture file. The fingerprints in the blood on the handle of the knife matched those on the window that overlooked the trading floor. Mrs Lomax had substantial cuts to her hand. The blood on the handle and the window was O Rhesus Negative. On the blade there was also a considerable amount of AB Rhesus Positive.