The goldfish bowl self-consciousness had long ago vanished so no-one on the trading floor noticed Jennifer emerge from the lift. Three did look up, curiously, at the noise she made tapping her knuckles against the glass as she walked towards her husband’s room. Her left hand was buried deeply into her large, shoulder-strapped handbag.
Lomax raised his head, surprised, as she entered. ‘Darling, I didn’t…’ he began.
‘ MURDERING BASTARD!’
The first, sweeping slash opened the left side of Gerald Lomax’s face, from ear to chin. He threw himself backwards so hard his chair overturned, crashing into the see-through wall, but every trader below was already staring, transfixed, attracted by the screaming accusation.
‘Jennifer… for God’s sake…!’
Lomax was on his hands and knees when she stabbed him twice, in the back. He clawed upwards, levering against the desk, and she stabbed him through the hand, actually embedding the knife in the wood and Lomax punched her in the side of the face, splitting her lip, as she wrestled the blade free, then grabbed out for it as she did so to drive it upwards into her free hand.
‘Jen…’ For a moment they clung together, in a frenzied dance, but he was already weak from the cuts and stabs and she was easily able to get the knife back. The next slash was across his nose, almost severing it. Lomax hit the wall again, although remaining upright, but his eyes were flooded by the slashing blow and he couldn’t see to protect himself any more.
‘Don’t, Jen… stop…’
She drove the knife into his stomach so forcefully the blade went completely through his body and hit the glass, twisting it out of her hand. Lomax actually pulled it from himself and struck wildly at her, hitting her in the arm, but she jerked it from his grasp again. This time she held it dagger-like, stabbing again and again, driving him back initially against the glass and then on to the ground. As he lay there, helpless, she stabbed and slashed more, her head thrown back as she laughed, hysterically.
Blood gouted from Lomax, spurting over the glass before dribbling down in wavering streaks. Finally, leaving the knife protruding from his back, Jennifer lurched exhausted to her feet and stood legs spread-eagled to overlook the trading floor, her outstretched hands pressed against the pane, more blood trickling down from her own wounds. For a moment she remained there, panting, before throwing her head back to laugh, over and over, lips tight against her teeth in a triumphant grimace.
When the police cautiously entered the office Jennifer was sitting on the floor with Gerald Lomax’s body cradled in her arms, weeping uncontrollably. She looked up and, her voice broken by sobs, said, ‘He’s dead. Stabbed. Please help me.’
As they separated her from the dead man the photograph of Emily that Lomax always kept on his desk fell from between them. It was encrusted with blood.
Chapter Three
John Bentley liked murder but decided almost at once there wasn’t going to be any personal benefit from this one. There would automatically be some publicity from Gerald Lomax being a millionaire City high-flyer and Bentley was ready to bet a mistress with big tits would emerge within forty-eight hours but it wasn’t like the other twelve he’d solved without a single failure to justify the promotion to Detective Superintendent at the age of thirty-nine and the legend he worked so aggressively to maintain.
If there was anything at all remarkable about this one it was that it was virtually over before it began, an open and shut domestic stabbing in full view of sixteen credible witnesses.
The only thing to do was organize the routine, find the motive when he found the mistress and hope she had a pretty face as well as big tits for the photographers. It would still count as a success on his record, which was all that really mattered.
The ambulance paramedic, leaving his partner applying the emergency dressings to Jennifer’s arm and hands, crossed towards Bentley. Gesturing down to the blood on his jacket the man said, ‘She’s badly cut. Needs suturing. And she’s in pretty deep shock.’ He rubbed at the bloodstains. ‘It’s a bastard getting this stuff off.’
Bentley looked towards the vacant-eyed woman. ‘Wouldn’t believe she was capable of it, would you?’
‘She did a pretty good job. The poor sod is cut and stabbed to buggery. Whatever he did, it upset her.’
A young pathologist whom Bentley didn’t know was bent over the body, mumbling into a hand-held tape recorder.
‘It’ll be sex. Classic syndrome,’ predicted Bentley. He turned to two policewomen in the outer corridor. ‘Go with her in the ambulance. I’ll come later.’
Jennifer allowed herself to be laid on the stretcher trolley and Bentley stood aside for her to be wheeled past him. Her eyes were closed but there was a faint smile on her face.
‘Call us when the body’s ready to be moved,’ said the ambulanceman as they went by.
Bentley nodded, staying to the side of the room for the overalled forensic team to enter. He recognized Anthony Billington at the head of the group: he’d worked with the obese man on three of the previous murders.
‘All fairly straightforward?’ said the scientist.
‘Looks that way,’ agreed Bentley.
‘Shouldn’t take us long.’
‘Let’s get everything, just the same.’
‘We always do,’ said Billington, curtly.
‘I know,’ placated Bentley. Fucking prima donna, he thought. The room was becoming crowded, so he went into the outer corridor. From there he looked down into the trading room. Malcolm Rodgers, his inspector, had everyone seated at their terminal stations, giving statements to attentive constables. It really was straightforward. If it hadn’t been part of the routine there wouldn’t have been any reason for his even being there.
The pathologist scuffed out of the office and immediately began stripping off his protective suit. He smiled at Bentley and said, ‘Hewitt, Felix Hewitt.’
They shook hands. Bentley was a gaunt, tall man who towered over the medical examiner.
‘Multiple stab wounds and extensive lacerations,’ said the pathologist. ‘I won’t know until after the postmortem, obviously, but I’d say at least five would have been fatal. Quite a concentration around the heart area, as if she was specifically hitting him there. That and the face. A lot of cuts there, like she was determined to disfigure him.’
‘Hell hath no fury,’ said Bentley.
‘I haven’t got much on, so I can let you have a report by tomorrow.’
‘That’ll be fine.’
Rodgers emerged from the lift for which the doctor was waiting to descend. Looking down towards the trading floor Rodgers said, ‘First time I’ve known sixteen statements all saying the same thing in virtually the same words. This is going to be the easiest ever.’ The two had worked on eight of the previous murders and spent a lot of time together socially. Their wives liked each other.
‘No question about it,’ agreed Bentley.
‘It’ll be another woman.’
‘Guaranteed.’
‘Flat here in London, country house in Hampshire where the little wife lives most of the time with the baby. While the cat’s away, the mice play.’
‘Wonder what the mistress will be like?’
‘Classy,’ guessed Rodgers. ‘Lomax was loaded. He could afford the best.’ He looked needlessly at a notebook. ‘This is the second wife. Name’s Jennifer. Worked in the firm to begin with. Brilliant, from what they said down there. First wife, Jane, died of an overdose.’
Bentley turned hopefully from looking down at the trading floor. ‘Anything suspicious?’
The inspector shook his head. ‘She was a diabetic. It was an insulin imbalance, according to what they’re saying.’
‘Was Lomax having an affair with this one while the first wife was alive?’