Brian Freemantle - A Mind to Kill

‘She wants to hurt Emily.’

‘She can’t. Emily’s safe. Nothing can happen to her. If Jane wants to hurt Emily, throw Jane out.’

‘Don’t know how.’

‘Could you believe Mr Dawson?’

‘Not really.’

‘Jane could believe him, couldn’t she?’

‘ Shut up! ’

When Jennifer didn’t reply the psychiatrist repeated: ‘Couldn’t she?’

‘ Don’t bother to listen. It’s crap.’

‘She doesn’t want to listen.’

‘Because she’s afraid.’

‘ Shut up! ’

‘She’s getting angry.’

‘No, Jennifer. She’s getting scared.’

Mason was excited, at the animation that was emerging through the hypnotic trance. ‘Try with Dawson, Jennifer. Try as hard as you can.’

‘It’s not just that.’

‘What then, Jennifer?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You’ve got to talk about it, if I’m to help you.’

‘Too awful.’

‘ Oh go on! Shock him.’

‘Was it something that happened in prison?’ Mason guessed.

‘Don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Were you attacked in prison, sexually?’

‘Horrible.’ She physically shuddered.

‘You’re not in prison any longer. Never will be, again. What happened can’t hurt you.’

‘Jeremy wouldn’t want me if he knew, would he?’

Hall didn’t try to establish any contact, hurrying directly to his rooms at the clinic to telephone Humphrey Perry before the solicitor left for the day. ‘You’ve got the name? Hemels, Bury Street.’

‘There’ll never be a record, after all this time,’ protested Perry.

‘We won’t know, until we try to find one. And take a photograph of Jennifer with you.’

‘What could it prove, anyway?’

‘We don’t know that, either. Anything from America?’

‘If there had been I would have told you.’

‘You’ve got to admit it was an inadequate inquiry.’

‘All right,’ conceded the solicitor, reluctantly. Falling back on his most frequent complaint, he said, ‘But you’re still clutching at straws.’

‘And as I keep telling you, that’s what we’ve been doing from the beginning.’

Hall bumped into the psychiatrist almost immediately outside his door. ‘I was coming to see if you were back,’ said Mason.

‘I was just going to see Jennifer.’

‘I think you should.’

‘I’ve been on all the rides,’ said Emily. ‘Lots of times. And been in the pool every day.’

‘What would you like to do now?’ asked Annabelle.

‘Go home to Mummy and Daddy. And go to school with my friends.’

‘Is she there?’

‘No.’ Jennifer knelt in the chapel, as Dawson told her and bowed her head under the pressure of his hand. The chapel smelled heavily of the incense smouldering in the burners. Despite the softness of the well-padded hassock her knee hurt, where she’d cut it.

‘I want to speak to you, Jane,’ declared the priest. When there was nothing he said, ‘Don’t be afraid. You know you don’t have to be afraid of God.’

When there was still no response he began the exorcism ritual with oil and holy water and salt and said, ‘Hear me, oh Lord, not in the name of this supplicant but in the name of the spirit that possesses her, a spirit in need of release and of your succour…’

‘ Stop! ’ Jennifer relayed the word, according to the previous arrangement. Ennui embalmed her.

‘Pray with me, Jane.’

‘ I don’t want to pray with you.’

‘You do. You want to pray for forgiveness for the sins you have committed. To release yourself from the terrible torment of Hell.’

‘ I’m not in torment.’

‘You’re in terrible torment, to be saying what you are. Behaving and threatening as you do.’

‘ Not true. Won’t listen.’

Dawson sprinkled holy water and intoned, ‘And in Philippians it says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”.’ The priest hesitated. ‘God exacts his vengeance, Jane. Not mortals.’

‘ I’m not mortal,’ she scored. ‘ I’m dead. Killed. Without the chance of salvation.’

‘I could save you, if you’d pray with me. Give you absolution.’

There was nothing for several moments. Jennifer’s knee was throbbing, rhythmically, like a heartbeat.

‘ Not for what I’ve done.’

‘Yes, Jane!’ said the priest, almost too urgently. The beginning of the Apostles’ Creed was too hurried as well. ‘“I believe in God, the Father Almighty…”’

‘ I don’t want to hear it! ’

The ache wasn’t any longer confined to Jennifer’s injured leg. It was suffusing her entire body, as if she was straining to oppose the man.

‘“… who was conceived by the Holy Ghost…”’ Dawson pressed on.

‘ Stop! I won’t listen! ’

As well as pain Jennifer felt frightened, although strangely not for herself. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – think it was for Jane.

Dawson ignored the interruptions, ‘“… From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead…”’

It was a discordant, moaning chant, a rhythmless noise to drown out any other sound.

‘“… I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic Church; the Communion of Saints; the Forgiveness of sin; the Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting…”’ The priest’s face ran with sweat, like his hand against Jennifer’s head. ‘God can forgive the most terrible sin: any sin…’ He hesitated again, remembering Jeremy Hall’s account of the Hampshire visit. ‘You know that, Jane. You don’t believe in one creed, one denomination. You believe in God: the total love of God-’

‘ No! ’

‘Yes! Pray with me, Jane. “Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name…”’

The moaning chant started again.

‘“… Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done…”’

The closing-out sound in Jennifer’s head wavered.

“‘… as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…”’

‘ And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, hut deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever…’

‘We can do it, Jane!’ said the priest, exultant but physically as close to the exhaustion that Jennifer now felt. He was crying. ‘We’ll pray together. Worship together. And find your way back.’

‘ I’m frightened,’ confessed Jane, the voice distant, like somebody hiding.

So quickly – and at times so confusingly – did events unfold that day that even for someone with a trained lawyer’s mind it was difficult for Jeremy Hall to differentiate explicable inconsistency from outright contradiction. And before he reached that comparable analysis there was the first telephone call from Humphrey Perry, which began with an apology for questioning the check Hall had asked for the previous day.

‘It’s not important,’ dismissed the barrister. ‘It’s what you found that matters.’

‘And I think it matters a great deal,’ said Perry.

‘You’ve got the doctor’s name?’ demanded Hall, the moment the solicitor finished telling him.

‘Ian Halliday.’

‘I can be there…’

‘… You don’t need to be,’ stopped Perry. ‘I spoke to Halliday an hour ago. Harley Street, naturally.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Lomax had always been a private patient. He was an American, remember. Didn’t qualify for National Health, even if he’d wanted it.’

‘The prescription was filled on the same day as the temazepam?’

‘And collected by the same person,’ confirmed Perry. ‘It should have been obvious to me but it wasn’t. Hemels is an independent chemist, not part of a chain. Been there for more than fifty years. And they still keep their records on the premises: part of their history.’