Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

Proudfoot smiled, in sudden affability. ‘Thought I might sit in, at the resumption.’

Wigged, gowned and ready for recognition inside and out of the court, guessed Hall, bitterly. ‘I’m sure Mr Justice Jarvis would welcome someone rumoured to be his successor.’ He was tired and fed up and didn’t care.

‘It might not be a good idea, for that and other reasons,’ cautioned Feltham.

‘Reasons that might affect my case?’ demanded Hall, considering the impertinence justified if it did, although he couldn’t imagine how. He slightly stressed ‘my’.

Proudfoot looked sharply at his Chief Clerk, who flushed in unaccustomed and rare embarrassment, dragging an inhaler from his pocket. Proudfoot said, ‘It’s of no consequence. I don’t think I will attend.’

‘It is of consequence if it is in any way connected with my client,’ insisted Hall, curious at the obvious feeling between the two men.

Proudfoot sighed, heightening Feltham’s colour with another look. The older barrister said, ‘We have accepted the brief to represent Enco-Corps in a civil matter. Some derivatives dealing in copper, predominantly on the Far East market.’

‘And?’ persisted Hall, dissatisfied.

Now Proudfoot looked at Humphrey Perry. ‘We understood at the outset there was no question of culpability on the part of Enco-Corps: that they were acting in genuine good faith for Asian dealers. It would seem, however, that there might be some doubt…’

Hall waited.

‘Gerald Lomax was inflating prices on offer to Hong Kong and Singapore,’ finally admitted Proudfoot. ‘Manipulating the buy-in prices. It created a snowball effect, artificially heating both exchanges. Dealers panicked, continuing to buy high to cover their losses.’

‘Will it become public?’ demanded Hall. The deal, he recognized at once. His uncle had allowed the Jennifer Lomax murder to be dumped on to the chambers – and personally on to him, whose career was still too new to be of any importance – to gain a civil brief that would take months to prepare and months to litigate, all at a fee of?1,000 a day.

‘In my opinion any British prosecution will have died with Gerald Lomax himself,’ said Proudfoot. ‘Rebecca Nicholls’ name is on some of the sell orders but she says she was acting on Lomax’s instructions: there’s nothing criminally to link her.’

And with Gerald Lomax’s death went the hope of all that money, thought Hall, satisfaction warming through him. ‘Thank you, for advising me.’

‘I would have done so, had I considered it had any relevance,’ insisted Proudfoot. Now it was he who coloured.

‘I have no doubt whatsoever that you would have done,’ said Hall, maintaining the sarcasm.

‘What shall we do with all these offers,’ Perry hurried in to the rescue, waving the letters in his hand like a flag.

‘We’re Mrs Lomax’s agent,’ reminded Hall. ‘We’re required to pass on any correspondence.’ He paused. ‘I doubt she’ll be interested. Money’s the one thing she isn’t in need of.’

At the hospital Peter Lloyd said, ‘There was something you needed to know?’

‘I was lesbian raped in prison. They used something: an artificial penis. If it had been used on someone else, someone with AIDs, could I have been infected?’

Lloyd swallowed, swamped with pity. ‘I doubt it.’

‘But you’re not one hundred per cent sure?’

‘Would you like to be HIV tested?’

‘Yes.’

‘ Now here’s a whole new ball game! ’

‘Are there really ghosts?’

‘Of course not,’ said Annabelle.

‘Margaret Roberts says there are.’

‘Well there aren’t.’

‘Margaret Roberts say’s Mummy is a ghost.’

‘How can your mummy be a ghost? She’s your mummy.’

‘She’s not here though, is she?’

‘She will be, soon.’

Conducting the exhumation in the traditional early hours, just before dawn, to minimize public awareness and offence was totally pointless. There needed to be practically a shoulder-to-shoulder cordon of police to enforce the judge’s five-hundred-yard radius order around Jane Lomax’s grave and beyond that barrier night was transformed into day by the permanently switched-on film and television lights. It was made even brighter by the constant flicker of flashes for cameras that looked more like field guns from the length of their zoom and magnifying lenses, and the noise was almost at battleground level, too. The screens were totally inadequate, diaphanous and far too low, and concealed practically nothing.

It was equally crowded around the burial plot. Two gravediggers toiled under arc lights swarmed by insects, carefully shovelling earth on to canvas protecting the surrounding interments. A black-cassocked vicar stood at the gravestone (‘Jane Lomax, much loved and missed wife of Gerald. Always in my heart’), his lips moving in silent prayer. Felix Hewitt and Anthony Billington were encased in sterile white plastic scene-of-crime tunics, complete with fully enclosing head cowls and over-shoes. So were the forensic experts whom Jeremy Hall had engaged, a slim and unexpectedly young woman named Phylis Shipley and beside her a man to whom he had only just been introduced. Harold Carter looked old enough to be the girl’s father but visibly deferred to her. There were two uniformed police superintendents, one standing permanently with the exhumation group, the other acting as liaison with the outer police cordon. Hall wasn’t sure the liaison officer needed to go back and forth as often as he did but at every approach to the media there was a flashlight explosion, which Hall supposed provided the reason. Standing slightly apart from the superintendents was a police photographer, at the moment the only such operator in the cemetery with an unused camera. Hall had been unsure how to dress and settled for cords and heavy-weather anorak, which was a mistake because it was too hot under the arc lights. Now he stood with it open as wide as possible. He hadn’t expected Keflin-Brown but understood the other barrister’s presence the moment he saw the size of the press invasion. The older man wore a gaitered plus-four shooting suit, with highly polished brogues and topped off by a peakless cap. Humphrey Perry was dressed for court.

Keflin-Brown said, ‘I’ve got the newspapers in the car: found a shop open early. Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing. You’ll be beating clients off with sticks from now on.’

‘I’m not sure I want to make a reputation this way.’

‘It’s happened, whether you like it or not. You’re made, old boy. Famous.’

Hall’s flat had been surrounded when he’d finally arrived home the previous night. Among the inevitable envelopes in his pigeon hole had been three invitations to television chat shows:?100,000 had been the highest bid for his personal story but all the other offers, nine in all, had insisted they were open to negotiation. Among a lot of messages on his machine from newspapers and publishers there’d been a message from Patricia asking him to ring her. He hadn’t. Two cars had followed him when he’d left an hour earlier, to drive to the cemetery. He hadn’t opened their envelopes yet and wasn’t sure if he’d bother. Pointedly Hall said, ‘Mrs Lomax broke three ribs.’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Keflin-Brown, reminded. ‘Painful things, broken ribs.’

‘To go with all her other problems.’

‘But you’ve solved her biggest one.’

‘Have I?’ asked Hall, seriously, looking at the milling scene beyond the police line. ‘I’m not sure we even know the full extent of her problems. How many there are, even.’

‘You know the rules, old boy. Do your best in wig and gown but say goodbye at the court door.’