‘I have, my Lord.’
‘During how many conferences, since our last meeting?’
‘Three, my Lord.’
‘Logged meetings?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘I am displeased, Mr Hall.’
‘I have explained, in the clearest possible detail, the courses open to my client. She repeats her instruction that she pleads not guilty to the major charge, that of murder.’
To the prosecuting barrister the judge said, ‘You have been apprised of this?’
‘I have, my Lord: I’m obliged to my learned friend.’
Turning to his clerk Jarvis said, ‘What’s the calendar allowance?’
‘Two weeks, my Lord,’ said the man, as usual not needing to consult the diary.
Coming back to Hall, the man said, ‘You will remember what I said about tricks, won’t you?’
‘I will, my Lord.’
‘If you don’t, I shall be very quick to remind you.’
In the corridor outside Keflin-Brown said, ‘I don’t envy you one moment of it. I’ll do what I can to help. My case is proven before it starts, after all.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You did make three prison visits, didn’t you?’ pressed the older barrister.
‘Yes.’ Jennifer had remained as brightly alert as before and boasted about resisting the voice, which she appeared to be doing: certainly there hadn’t been any unintelligible interruptions or swearing. She’d actually become angry when he’d pressed her to reconsider the plea, dismissing it and instead handing him a long list of clothes and accessories she wanted brought up from Hampshire for her court appearances.
‘Good,’ said Keflin-Brown. ‘You know the old bugger will check, don’t you? That’s why he asked if they were logged.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘There’s nothing ever funny about Sir Ivan Jarvis. Which you’re going to find out.’
He’d spent the two previous weekends engrossed in the case notes and been unsure if he could spare the time to come out on the river this Saturday. In the end he decided he needed the relaxation in anticipation of what the next fortnight might bring. But he was stiff, not concentrating sufficiently: at the beginning he frequently mis-oared and dug too deep to feather until he consciously forced himself to dismiss the case from his mind, to get the slide moving easily and build up the rhythm. Hall got it, finally, feeling the cramped tension ease from his back and shoulders, building up until the narrow boat was smoothly cleaving the water: as he thrust beneath Richmond Bridge a group of Japanese tourists leaned over the parapet to photograph him and Hall wondered how many times in the next two weeks his photograph was going to be taken. For what, he reflected, could be the obituary of a failed legal career.
It was inevitable that Jennifer would commit some outrage from the dock and just as inevitable that because of it Jarvis would intervene with instructions to the jury about diminished responsibility. And most inevitable of all that the old man would consider it the sort of trick against which he’d specifically warned, forcing as it would the court to make the decision Jennifer Lomax had failed to be persuaded to make for herself. Trick or not – and Hall didn’t totally agree that it was – it would serve Jennifer Lomax’s best interests. Which was his primary concern, as her counsel.
Jeremy Hall wished he could resolve the doubt in his mind that he was still in some way failing her. He abruptly decided to cut the row short and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening going yet again over notes and statements he’d already read so many times he knew them verbatim. His rowing concentration gone again, he missed his stroke altogether with his left blade, veering the boat abruptly sideways, and a group of people watching from Mortlake bridge laughed at him.
He finished reading everything and considered calling Patricia, who hadn’t telephoned him since the can’t-make-it message on the answering machine. Hall supposed he’d have to become accustomed to being laughed at in the coming weeks.
Chapter Twenty
Jennifer had a soaring, uplifting feeling of release being taken from prison, which she acknowledged at once was precisely what it was and what it should be: since the day of Gerald’s death she had been imprisoned, first in the cell-like hospital room and then in an actual cell, although part of the prison hospital.
The escape wasn’t total, however. There was, in fact, something new, a torture that hadn’t been inflicted before. Jennifer hadn’t been conscious of the voice when she’d emerged from her drugged sleep that morning, as she usually was, but when she became fully awake her body tingled with the numbness of Jane’s presence. But there wasn’t a taunting voice. Instead, at Jennifer’s moment of awareness, there was a cough, the subdued sound of a watcher in the shadows. Which, she accepted, was the perfect description, except that this watcher wasn’t in the shadows, waiting to pounce, but in her mind. But still waiting, she didn’t know for what. Or when. Jennifer positively let the thought linger, challenging Jane to read it and react – to let Jane know she wasn’t surprised or caught out by the change of torment – but still the voice didn’t come. There were, though, the occasional coughs of a patient stalker.
Which Jennifer ignored, practically succeeding in submerging the occasional interruption beneath the growing euphoria at getting beyond four narrow, enclosing walls. For which she made meticulous preparation. A?100 cheque kept the insistent matron (‘nursey will wash you: just lay back,’) on the other side of the locked bathroom door and provided the dryer to get her hair in perfect shape. Because the mirrors were larger she made up in the bathroom, too. She did so discreetly, the lightest blusher, the minimum of mascara, a pale lipline, determined to look her absolute best. And most of all, for every minute of every day that the trial might take, to appear in control.
She decided she’d made a good clothes selection during that last plea-persuasion meeting with Jeremy Hall. For the opening day of the trial she chose the severe, although loosely tailored blue Dior suit and a plainly cut voile shirt to create the appearance she’d favoured when she’d worked at Enco-Corps, subtly feminine but more obviously no-nonsense businesslike. It was also, she remembered, how she’d usually dressed for the committee meetings of the charities and fund-raising groups that had so very quickly found her name an encumbrance. Jennifer returned to the larger bathroom mirror to survey the complete effect, glad the long sleeves completely hid the worst of the scars. She’d included gloves in her clothes request and considered wearing them, to cover the damage to her hands, but decided against it until she’d assessed the court.
Beryl Harrison was waiting directly outside the bathroom when Jennifer emerged. She said, ‘You look lovely. Beautiful.’ The reaching out was not really to feel the material but for some brief, physical contact. As Jennifer followed the escort along the corridors, towards the exit, she passed Emma and Fran, together as always. Emma told her to hurry back and Fran said, ‘I like that outfit. That would look good on me. I’ll have to try it on.’
Jennifer strained to see something, anything, of the streets along which the prison van moved but the windows were small and heavily tinted and hardly anything registered. One of the escorting wardresses, a motherly woman, said, ‘Here it is then. Your big day.’
Jennifer smiled but said nothing. There was a cough in her head, a more positive throat-clearing than any before. Jennifer stiffened but nothing came.
The same wardress said, ‘We’re almost there. I’d sit back, if I were you.’
Jennifer did, although not knowing why. The van began to slow and then abruptly there was an eruption of blinding light through three of the windows.
‘Cameramen,’ explained the wardress. ‘They shoot blind through the windows. It hardly ever works. Don’t know why they do it. They won’t have got you.’