Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

It was as if she didn’t exist, thought Jennifer, outraged. They were talking about her and across her but no-one was even looking at her!

‘Mr Perry?’ invited the magistrate.

‘I have no objection to that course, madam. At a later date, in view of Mrs Lomax’s injuries and other matters that need consideration, I would ask for any further remands to be in a hospital wing of a prison-’

‘What about my objections!’ Everyone looked at Jennifer as if for the first time, visibly stunned by the outburst. Before there was any other reaction, Jennifer said, ‘I am not guilty! I want everyone to know that.’

‘Mr Perry?’ demanded the woman.

‘ Tell the bitch to shut up and let you speak! ’

‘Shut up! Let me speak…’ blurted Jennifer. Then, ‘No! Oh no! Damn! Damn! Damn!’

‘ Caught you. Forgot I was here, didn’t you? ’

‘Now, now,’ soothed the doctor, almost unseen.

‘Don’t patronize me as if I were mad! None of you!’

‘I apologize,’ said Perry, hurriedly. ‘As I said, there are other matters to be pursued… medical and specialist examinations-’

‘I said don’t patronize me,’ Jennifer screamed at her lawyer. Then, still shouting, to Bentley, ‘Tell them what I said when you charged me!’

‘Mrs Lomax… please…’ tried Perry.

‘Tell them!’ yelled Jennifer.

‘Go ahead,’ said Gillian Heathcote, nodding to the detective.

‘ The frumpy cow is patronizing you worst of all! ’

‘Don’t patro-’ started Jennifer, then stopped.

‘ Say it! ’

‘She says you’re patronizing me worst of all.’

‘She says?’ demanded the magistrate, bewildered.

‘When I charged Mrs Lomax she said she hadn’t killed her husband. That it was Jane…’ Bentley paused, in a rare moment of embarrassment. ‘Jane Lomax was the first wife of the murdered man.’

Gillian Heathcote smiled, bleakly, turning to Perry. ‘I understand.’

‘I want everyone to understand,’ said Jennifer, her voice cracked from shouting. She came forward on her pillows, wincing as the drip needle bit into her arm. She couldn’t support herself and at once fell back against the pillows, aware the magistrate had instinctively retreated at the movement. Jennifer tried to prevent it but she couldn’t stop the crying. ‘I didn’t kill him. I loved him!’

‘I think we can bring this quickly to an end,’ said the magistrate, anxiously. ‘I agree to a formal remand, for seven days…’ She remained half standing, looking at Perry again. ‘… I fully understand your problems but I think you should do all you can at future hearings to keep your client under some sort of control.’

‘ God, this is fun. This really is so much fun! ’

Jeremy Hall came hesitantly into his uncle’s rooms, momentarily stopping completely when he saw Bert Feltham comfortably seated beside Sir Richard’s desk. Proudfoot himself was framed against the window overlooking the Inner Temple and the manicured grass leading down towards the Thames.

‘Come in, come in,’ encouraged the older barrister. ‘Interesting case to discuss.’

‘The Lomax killing,’ said Feltham, uninvited. ‘You read about it in the papers?’

‘Briefly,’ said Hall. He was a big man, the height accentuated by a build developed at Cambridge where he’d gained a rowing Blue: anxious that it wouldn’t turn to fat he tried to scull as many weekends as possible. He appeared far too big for the chair towards which Proudfoot gestured him.

‘It’s going to be a high-profile case. Get your name in the papers,’ encouraged the older man. He was tall, too, the greying hair swept back but worn comparatively long to fashion into two distinct wings, on either side of his head. He affected a slow, measured delivery when he spoke, either in court or out. That afternoon’s stance was a favourite, too: hands clasped behind his back, winged head slightly forward, a lecturing pose.

‘From the papers it looked like a simple domestic,’ said Hall. After only nine months in chambers he wasn’t in a position to argue against any brief but there wasn’t any reason unquestionably to accept whatever he was presented with. There was still some lingering regret at having had to join his uncle’s practice in the first place, instead of being able to make his way independently in a rival chambers, although he reassured himself there was even less reason to let pride outweigh the practical reality of earning a decent living after working so bloody hard for so bloody long getting a Double First as well as his rowing Blue and the pass marks he had in the Bar examinations. That and the fact he’d had no alternative. As his mother had told him at his father’s funeral, beggars couldn’t be choosers. He didn’t enjoy being a beggar.

‘It’ll be a guilty, to manslaughter,’ said Feltham, confidently. ‘Diminished responsibility.’

‘So it comes down to a plea of mitigation,’ said Hall. ‘What’s that going to be?’

‘Humphrey Perry’s instructing. Arranging the usual psychiatric things.’

‘Short, sharp but extremely profitable,’ said Proudfoot, from the window. ‘It won’t do the chambers – or you – any harm. In fact I’m anxious for you to do it. We’ve had a long run of wins. Wrong for a practice to appear only to take the ones they’re sure of. And this won’t be a loss. It’ll be a brilliant plea…’ He smiled. ‘… Which I know-it will be, for a sad, sick woman.’

Proudfoot finished what he was saying at an open cabinet and, as he leaned forward to accept the sherry his uncle offered, Hall was suddenly curious why such a case had to be pressed upon him over sherry by the chamber’s head, even if it was his uncle. According to office lore, Feltham would have already accepted the brief anyway. Still unwilling to accept a fait accompli, Hall said, ‘I’ll be by myself?’

‘Absolutely,’ confirmed Proudfoot.

To Feltham, Hall said, ‘She’s mad? No other reason or motive?’

‘Police haven’t finished yet, but there doesn’t seem to be any doubt. Cut her husband to pieces in front of sixteen people and then stood there laughing. I’ve fixed a meeting for you with Perry for tomorrow.’

So much for the pretence of discussion before acceptance, thought Hall. Pointedly – confident he could do it because Proudfoot was his uncle – Hall said, ‘There’s nothing else to it, is there?’

‘Nothing else?’ said Proudfoot. ‘I don’t understand the question.’

‘It seems almost…’ Hall paused. ‘Almost too mundane: too small compared to most of the things we do.’

‘I’ve explained my thinking on that,’ said Proudfoot.

‘I understand,’ capitulated Hall, detecting the older man’s irritation. He was being railroaded, Hall realized.

‘Eleven tomorrow morning OK, here in chambers?’ said Feltham, who already knew it would be because he maintained the appointment diaries and knew Hall’s was hungrily empty.

‘Fine,’ agreed Hall.

‘A well publicized murder’s the best fast track for a reputation,’ confided the chief clerk. ‘This could be a good beginning.’

‘It’ll be my first murder,’ admitted Hall.

‘But not the last, if you handle this one right.’

As Proudfoot served him his second whisky, after Hall had left the room, Feltham said, ‘That was a sharp question, about a hidden agenda.’

‘His ability was more important than his relationship to me,’ insisted Proudfoot. ‘He’s damned clever.’ The man added to his own glass, disdaining the earlier sherry. ‘Perry wouldn’t do anything underhand about the copper thing, would he?’

Feltham shook his head, smiling. ‘There isn’t a solicitor in London who’d try to cheat me. Certainly not one who’d get half a chance to do it a second time. It’s more than their job’s worth.’