Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

‘Would you have done?’ asked the inspector, irritatingly ahead of Hall.

‘I think so, sir. I was very careful that day. I realized how important it was.’

No you didn’t, thought Hall. ‘So what’s the answer, Constable?’

‘There couldn’t have been any visible in the bedroom.’

‘So Mrs Lomax must have put them away before getting into bed?’

‘Presumably,’ said the policeman, even more doubtfully.

‘Is there any importance in whether or not Mrs Lomax left her day clothes lying around?’ said Peterson.

Again Hall ignored the solicitor. To Elroyd he said, ‘What about underclothes?’

The constable visibly blushed. ‘I’ve no note of any, sir.’

‘And you would have done, if you had seen any?’

‘I took a careful note of everything.’

‘Like the sleeping pills, the temazepam, in the bath-room medicine cabinet?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the constable, brightening.

‘Did you take a note of the chemist who dispensed the sleeping pills?’ He felt a quiver of excitement at something that occurred to him from Gerald Lomax’s written statement and wondered if he was interpreting it correctly: if he were, this could be the most vital question of the day. It could also be, he realized, the most damning for Jennifer.

‘Hemels, Bury Street, EC3,’ read out the man, triumphantly. ‘And the date of dispensing. June thirteenth.’

‘Thank you,’ said Hall, sincerely. ‘That was most helpful. And there was the empty wine bottle in the kitchen wastebin? You even recorded what wine it was, Margaux?’

The plump man checked his notes. That’s right, sir. Margaux.’ He mispronounced it, stressing the X.

‘Apart from the Margaux bottle having been put in the bin, would you describe the rest of the kitchen as messy?’

‘Only the table. There were even food scraps on the table. But everything else was in its proper place.’

‘Do you intend trying to reopen the inquest, upon some new evidence?’ demanded Peterson.

‘I’m not sure there would be sufficient. Certainly not now that Mr Lomax is dead,’ said Hall. ‘I don’t even intend seeing the coroner.’

‘What, then, is the point of all this?’

Hall hesitated. ‘I’m not sure yet whether Mrs Lomax shared the housekeeper’s love of tidiness: I intend to ask her. But I don’t understand why Mrs Lomax would have discarded an empty wine bottle in a wastebin but left the rest of the dinner – even food scraps – uncleared on the table. Or why she went to the trouble when she got upstairs – still, it would seem, with a glass of brandy in her hand – presumably to hang up her clothes. Or why some insulin ampoules were properly thrown away in the bathroom – where the temazepam was neatly in a medicine cabinet – but others on a bedside table-’

‘… From my reading of the inquest evidence Mrs Lomax was clearly drunk,’ broke in Hughes. ‘Drunken people do inconsistent things.’

Which was unarguably true, Hall cautioned himself. He still wasn’t sure if there was the remotest chance of his achieving anything with what he was doing – insane idea for an insane situation echoed in his head – but he had to be careful against turning discrepancies into incontestable facts. ‘Had you been involved, inspector, wouldn’t those inconsistencies have prompted you to question Gerald Lomax a little more closely than he was?’

‘No,’ said Hughes, at once. ‘Mr Lomax wasn’t there. How could he have helped us beyond telling us how he found his wife?’

‘Is that all?’ demanded Peterson.

Hall was reluctant to be dismissed – could imagine the solicitor’s “and-I-took-no-nonsense” dinner-table anecdotes that night – but there wasn’t anything else about which he wanted to satisfy himself. ‘I’m sure you’ll help me further if something else comes up that I want clarifying.’

‘Are you going to the house?’ asked Hughes.

Hall shook his head. ‘I didn’t intend to.’

‘We’re still having to keep officers there all the time. And it’s not just all the media people who’re hanging around for Mrs Lomax to come back. There’s a lot of souvenir hunters now. The house nameplate has gone and we caught a family three days ago digging up plants, to take home and put in their own garden. We’ve charged them. The gardener says he’s lost some tools.’

‘What is it you want, Inspector?’

‘A private security firm. We’ll perform a police function but we’d like the general protection taken over by someone else.’

‘I’ll arrange it,’ promised Hall.

Elspeth Simpson lived just two miles along the same road as the village policeman, who hadn’t exaggerated the woman’s house-proudness. Even the garden flowers were in order of colour and in regimented lines and inside everything looked as if it were arranged soon to be packed away for safekeeping. The tiny, bird-like woman was as neatly packed as her belongings, her white hair tightly netted, the white collar of her uncreased paisley-patterned dress hard with starch. She appeared relieved that Hall refused tea but looked anxiously at a man of his size occupying one of her best-room chairs. He did his best not to ruffle the protective loose covers on the arms.

For the first time that day he discerned no attitude at all towards him. Elspeth chattered like a bird and he let her, eager for the gossip of which he quickly guessed she was the self-appointed village archivist. Jane Lomax’s death had been a tragedy, awful. Poor Mr Lomax had been very brave. They’d been devoted. There was a sniff at how quickly he had married again and at Jennifer’s name but it wasn’t for her to criticize. The second Mrs Lomax had fitted every bit as well into the village and local life, apart from the church, although she supported its events and had put money towards the new organ. She didn’t understand how the murder (‘that awful thing,’) could have happened but thought everything in court had been all wrong (‘no disrespect to you, of course, sir,’) because ghosts weren’t natural (said without a suggestion of a smile) and it wasn’t God’s way. There was only one ghost, the Holy Ghost. Perhaps it wouldn’t have occurred if the second Mrs Lomax had gone to church, not that she was criticizing, of course.

‘Why didn’t you stay on as housekeeper to the second Mrs Lomax?’

‘George, my late. He was ill, before they got married. I had to leave to look after him all the time. Emphysema. Mr Lomax was very good to me. Gave me?1,000 when I left and?500 for the funeral. And the second Mrs Lomax used to call by sometimes to see if I was all right. By then Alice – that’s Mrs Jenkins – had been engaged so there wasn’t any cause for me to go back.’

‘You made a statement after the first Mrs Lomax’s death but you didn’t give evidence at the inquest?’

‘I went but the policeman – not Harry Elroyd, the one who organized it all – said the coroner didn’t want me because I hadn’t been there that day.’

‘Why was that?’

‘It was my day off, a Friday. Mr Lomax always came home early on a Friday, so Mrs Lomax wasn’t too long alone.’

‘Because of her diabetes.’

‘Yes. And they were devoted, like I said.’

Lomax must have been a consummate actor. ‘You knew she was a diabetic?’

‘Of course. That’s why I couldn’t understand a lot of what was said at the inquest.’

Hall breathed, deeply. ‘What exactly didn’t you understand, Mrs Simpson?’

‘Mr Lomax saying she was careless with her treatment. She never was, as far as I was concerned. She’d always done it, you see. It was automatic, like washing her hands.’ As if in reminder the woman checked her own to ensure they were clean.