Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

‘ Say wonderful! ’ shouted Jane.

Jennifer was totally engrossed in the horror, hand-hold even relaxed. ‘Wonderf…’ came out before she could prevent it, sufficient for everyone to decipher the bitten off word.

Perry swivelled, making waving-down gestures.

Jarvis said, ‘Mr Hall! One more outburst and I will send your client down into the cells! And that’s my last warning.’

‘ Ah. Don’t want that. You’ve got to stay up here, where everyone can see you. Santa’s little helper’s just saved you, Jennifer. What about that? ’

Perry was at the dock rail. ‘I know it’s difficult but please try to control yourself.’ The stage whisper easily reached the tightly packed journalists.

Jennifer nodded. ‘She doesn’t want me out of court.’

‘The accused said something, Mr Hall?’ demanded Jarvis.

Perry bustled back, cupping his hand to Jeremy Hall’s ear. The young barrister turned back to the judge and said, ‘My client promises not to interrupt again, my Lord.’

‘She doesn’t have a choice,’ said the small man, nodding to Keflin-Brown.

‘Go on, if you can,’ urged the barrister.

‘… It was terrible. Obscene. Just stabbing and blood. Blood everywhere. Then Gerald stopped fighting. Stopped moving…’

‘What was the next thing to happen?’

‘She came and stood at the window, laughing. Just stared down at us and laughed and laughed…’

‘ Christ, I enjoyed that. Looking down at the stupid fuckers.’

‘How, exactly, did she stand, Ms Nicholls?’

‘With her hands outstretched, against the window. Supporting herself… People began running then. Roger… Roger Jones, the floor manager, began going upstairs. Someone had already rung the police.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Stayed where I was.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t think there was anything I could do. Others were following Roger.’

‘Was that the only reason you didn’t go upstairs, Ms Nicholls?’

‘I was frightened.’

‘I’m sure everyone was frightened. Was there any particular reason for your being more frightened than anyone else?’

‘ Doesn’t your heart go out to her! ’

‘Perhaps,’ said Rebecca, hushed-voiced again.

‘ Last time I saw a performance like this it really did win an Oscar. ’

‘You were Gerald Lomax’s lover, weren’t you?’ said Keflin-Brown, the tone almost as if he were confronting a hostile witness.

‘Yes.’

‘For how long?’

‘Four years.’

‘Not four and a half years?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘How long had you been aware that Mrs Lomax had learned of your relationship with her husband?’

‘Objection, my Lord!’ protested Hall. ‘This court has had no evidence of Mrs Lomax knowing of an affair between her husband and Ms Nicholls.’

‘Let’s get things in their proper sequence, shall we, Mr Keflin-Brown?’ sighed Jarvis.

‘I beg the court’s indulgence,’ said the barrister. ‘A regrettable oversight. Allow me to rephrase the question.’

‘ Too late for it not to have been heard and taken on board by every member of the jury.’

‘Did you have any reason to believe Mrs Lomax knew of your affair with her husband?’

‘Not positively.’

‘Not positively?’ echoed the lawyer. ‘What then? How then?’

‘We’d talked about it, Gerald and I.’

‘Talked about what?’

‘His telling her he wanted a divorce.’

No! thought Jennifer, anguished. Please no. Wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t have abandoned her. Abandoned Emily. Already decided that. Decided it was impossible. Just sex. Nothing else. Sex.

‘ Just like it was with me: going to dump you just like the two of you dumped me. What a shit! Think you’d have lived, Jennifer? Just think: I could have saved your life by killing him. He had to die though. Everything’s working out exactly as I planned.’

In the well of the court Hall was studying Rebecca Nicholls’ sworn statement to Superintendent Bentley.

‘Did he?’ asked Keflin-Brown.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re wearing a very beautiful ring. Diamonds, are they not, around a central stone?’

Jennifer closed her eyes, trying to shut out the sight of Rebecca and the ring and the court: shut out everything to curl up into the smallest ball that no-one could see and die. Why fight any more? No point. Give up. Plead however Jeremy Hall wanted her to plead and be sent somewhere as a sex toy, to be played with. Emily, she remembered. Had to survive – to fight – so there was someone to look after Emily. Jennifer waited for the taunt but Jane put no thoughts in her head.

‘ You’re doing fine, torturing yourself. ’

‘Who bought that ring for you, Ms Nicholls?’

‘Gerry.’

‘Does it have a particular significance?’

‘He bought it for me when we talked of getting married.’

‘An engagement ring, in fact?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you think, when you saw what Jennifer Lomax did to her husband that dreadful day in the office of Euro-Corps?’

‘That he had told her.’

‘And were you too frightened to go up to where your lover – your future husband – lay dying because you were afraid she’d try to kill you, too?’

‘Yes.’ Rebecca looked away from the press gallery, to stare directly and accusingly at Jennifer.

‘There is a child, a daughter, from Mr Lomax’s marriage to the accused, isn’t there?’

‘Emily,’ confirmed the woman.

A fury, a hatred, boiled up within Jennifer. She began physically to shake, without encouragement from Jane.

‘ That’s how I felt, Jennifer. Worse than you, even. That’s why I killed Gerald and why I’m doing what I am to you. Balancing the score. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Only fair, after what you did .’

‘Steady,’ hissed Ann, close beside her. ‘Calm down.’

‘You are, in fact, Emily’s godmother, are you not?’

‘Yes.’

‘A child you love, like your own.’

‘Yes.’

Jennifer’s shaking worsened and she felt Ann’s hand on her arm, restraining her.

‘Was there any discussion between you and Mr Lomax about Emily?’

‘He said whatever happened he couldn’t give her up: that Emily was his life. And that he’d make Jennifer agree to his having Emily with us.’

Jennifer felt an emptiness, a void. He couldn’t have been this cruel. He would have had to hate her to be this cruel: to have used her, like the matron and Emma and Fran and Harriet used her.

‘ That’s it, Jennifer: that’s what it was, all the time. Still think you’re the luckiest woman in the world?’

‘What was Mr Lomax’s intention, as far as you were aware?’

Rebecca remained staring straight at the dock, the look of contempt on her face again. ‘As far as I was aware Gerald intended divorcing Jennifer and getting custody of Emily. And then we would marry.’

‘ Left with nothing! Tossed out, with the garbage. ’

‘And for the three of you to become a family?’

‘Yes.’ Rebecca’s voice was soft again, trembling with the uncertainty of a happiness she’d now never achieve.

‘Gerald would have told Mrs Lomax what he intended with the child, as well as wanting a divorce, wouldn’t he?’

‘Objection!’ protested Hall. ‘There is no way the witness can speculate about a conversation, if any, between Mr and Mrs Lomax.’

‘Mr Keflin-Brown,’ rebuked the judge, mildly.

‘I beg the court’s indulgence and of course withdraw the question

…’ apologized the older barrister.

‘ Too late. Motive all sorted and made perfectly clear. You’re for the drop, Jennifer. Would have been if they still hanged murderers.’