Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

Jennifer had by now been lulled by the tranquillizer and Jane’s absence for several minutes, so the sharp return almost caught her out. But oddly the slowing of her reaction at the same time gave her time virtually to hold it back, as well as to keep her lower lip tight between her teeth.

‘ Tell him Rhesus is a monkey and he’s a fucking ape.’

Jennifer stopped the sentence halfway through and coughed to cover the words she did utter. The urge was to throw her arms wildly up in the air and make the animal grunting sounds echoing through her head but she fought the movement by hanging on to the chair and for once the permanently irate judge did not appear to notice. She thought some people in the court had detected it, like they’d seen her contorted face. There was a nudge from the friendly wardress, who offered Hall’s handkerchief. Hurriedly Jennifer mopped her face, conscious that saliva speckled her suit front. She cleaned that off, too.

‘ Get you a bib. That’s what we’ll have to do. And some adult diapers for when you piss yourself.’

After his scene-of-crime examination Billington said he was later given samples of debris scraped from beneath the dead man’s fingernails by the pathologist, Professor Hewitt. It included O Rhesus Negative blood and skin particles consistent with a self-defence struggle and with the extensive scratch marks on Mrs Lomax’s arms and hands.

‘ Couldn’t stop me though, could he? ’ demanded Jane, as Morley sat down.

For the moment he had to go through the motions of presenting the defence demanded by his client, thought Jeremy Hall, rising for the first time.

‘Did you take any further samples, for forensic examination?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which you haven’t presented in court?’ Hall asked the question half turned, accusingly, towards the prosecution.

‘I was not asked about them,’ reminded the scientist, defensively.

‘Then I shall ask you now,’ said Hall.

‘If you must,’ intruded Jarvis, wearily.

‘ He’s going to be so pissed off at the end of all this it’s going to be unbelievable! ’

‘Perhaps you would tell the court what other samples you took,’ persisted Hall.

‘There was considerable evidence of a struggle,’ said the man. ‘The desk was greatly pushed out of the position indicated by indented pressure marks upon the carpet and what had obviously been Mr Lomax’s chair was overturned. Articles from the desk had been thrown to the floor and two decorative pots smashed. I examined several of these articles for fingerprints, to establish if anything had been used as a weapon-’

‘Had anything been so used?’ broke in Hall.

‘There was some hair adhering in blood to one of the broken pots.’

‘Whose hair?’

‘Mr Lomax’s.’

‘Anything else?’

‘There was other hair, which matched both Mr and Mrs Lomax, on the chair and against the window at which Mrs Lomax was slumped when I entered the office.’

‘I’m sure the prosecution are greatly obliged for your assisting their case, Mr Hall,’ broke in Jarvis.

‘What about fingerprints?’ continued Hall, determinedly.

‘Widespread, throughout the office.’

‘Of Mr and Mrs Lomax?’

‘Yes.’

‘But of no-one else?’

‘Mr Hall!’ said the judge, pained.

‘ Shut the fuck up, you silly little bastard! Tell him! ’

Jennifer had the first word half-formed before she was able to stop herself, so the sound came out as a sibilant hiss.

Billington hesitated, unsure whether or not to answer. At an impatient nod from the judge, he said, ‘There was a third set of fingerprints, which were found to be those of the cleaner.’

‘Not of any other person, apart from the cleaner?’

‘He’s answered the question, Mr Hall!’ said Jarvis.

‘With respect, my Lord, I think it could be more fully responded to.’

This time the nod of permission was accompanied by a heavy sigh. Red patches of anger were picked out on Jarvis’s cheeks.

Billington said, ‘Apart from the cleaner’s fingerprints, there was no forensic evidence whatsoever of anyone having been in the office other than Mr and Mrs Lomax.’

He’d made the pretence, thought Hall, gratefully sitting under the glare of the judge.

‘I call Superintendent John Bentley, the arresting officer,’ declared the younger prosecuting barrister and Jane said, ‘ I’m not going to be able to do anything here to make you sound more of a loony than you did yourself.’

The detective entered the box only just short of a swagger and gave the smallest bow in the direction of Jarvis before looking towards the press gallery and smiling, to old friends. Jennifer saw several actually smile back.

Having allowed his junior the crumbs of establishing the technical, bottom-of-the-page evidence, it was Keflin-Brown who stood to take Bentley’s account. The suave superintendent, flamboyantly immaculate in brown pinstriped suit complete with a deep red carnation, recited his rank and position and followed the older barrister’s direction with accustomed ease, a well rehearsed double act. At precisely three-thirty on the afternoon of the 14th, he and Detective Inspector Malcolm Rodgers had responded to an emergency call to the City premises of Enco-Corps, off Leadenhall Street. In the third-floor office they found the heavily bloodstained body of a man subsequently identified as Gerald James Lomax, the managing director of the commodity trading company. He was already dead, from numerous wounds. Slumped against a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the office’s working area they saw Mrs Jennifer Lomax. She was alive although bleeding profusely from a number of injuries and appeared to be in a state of deep shock. Because of that, which was confirmed by an on-the-scene paramedic team, Mrs Lomax was conveyed to St Thomas’s Hospital, for subsequent interview.

‘Did you form an opinion of what had happened in that office?’ demanded Keflin-Brown.

‘I did, sir,’ replied Bentley. ‘From my observations and from interviewing witnesses at the scene I concluded there had been a violent altercation between Mr and Mrs Lomax, culminating in Mr Lomax’s death.’

‘Mr Lomax’s murder,’ clarified Keflin-Brown.

‘Resulting in Mr Lomax’s murder, yes, sir.’

Keflin-Brown allowed himself a tit-for-tat sideways look at Hall before asking, ‘You came upon no evidence, nor did you form the opinion, that anyone else had been involved in this altercation?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What did you then do?’

‘After ensuring that statements were being satisfactorily taken from the large number of witnesses to the incident I went with my inspector to the hospital, where Mrs Lomax was being treated for her injuries. I established from the doctor that she was sufficiently fit to be interviewed…’

‘… There was no question of her fitness?’ slowed the barrister, wanting what he was sure to be the following morning’s headline delivered at the pace he intended.

‘None, sir. In fact, the doctor decided that Mrs Lomax was not, after all, suffering from shock.’

‘What then?’

Knowing his part in the publicity act, Bentley concentrated everyone’s attention by laboriously taking a notebook from his pocket. ‘The accused identified herself as Jennifer Lomax. I asked her if she knew why my inspector and I were there and she replied “Gerald”-’

‘Nothing else, simply “Gerald”?’ broke in Keflin-Brown again.

‘That’s all, sir. I then formally cautioned her and asked her if she had anything to say…’ Bentley paused, expectantly.

‘And what did she say?’

Bentley looked up from his notebook, directly towards the press. Quoting, he said, ‘“It wasn’t me. It was Jane.”’