‘Sit down!’ said the solicitor, in a stage whisper heard by everyone.
But Jennifer didn’t sit down, despite the wardresses plucking at her arms. At the dock rail she said, imploringly, ‘I’m sorry! It wasn’t me! It’s never me! It’s Jane.’
‘Shut up and sit down!’ said Perry, still loud.
‘Mr Hall!’ demanded the judge.
‘I beg the court’s indulgence, my Lord. A problem from which my client is suffering which I intend bringing to your Lordship’s notice, during the course of this trial-’
‘A problem this court does not wish to suffer,’ cut off the tiny, irascible man. ‘Do I need to remind you about turning this court into a music-hall?’
‘No, my Lord.’
‘Do you wish an adjournment, to advise your client how properly to behave in my court?’
‘I do not think that will be necessary, my Lord.’
‘Don’t have me make it necessary, Mr Hall.’ Jarvis raised his head, looking directly at Jennifer. ‘Do what your legal advisors tell you, Mrs Lomax. Sit down. And do not interrupt the proceedings of this court again.’
As Jennifer once more was put back into her seat Jane said, ‘ The dwarf doesn’t like you. No-one likes you. Not even Gerald liked you. All alone. Poor little Jennifer No-Friends.’
‘May I proceed, my Lord?’ unnecessarily asked Keflin-Brown.
‘I wish you would,’ said Jarvis, grimly.
Keflin-Brown’s opening had been broken at his background sketch, back to which he returned with a professional’s skill. Jennifer Stone had been born to privilege and known no other life, the barrister resumed. She was the only daughter of an army Brigadier whose outstanding service as military attache first in Washington and then in Moscow, at the very height of the Cold War, had culminated with his appointment as deputy chief of the Britain’s Defence Staff and for a time permanent NATO representative.
‘The accused travelled and lived in high places. She knew no other life. Such echelons were her life.’
Nothing in that life had been difficult for her, nothing barred to her. She was a natural linguist, fluent in German and French. The Oxford double degree in economics and mathematics had been gained with an appropriate Double First.
‘Before you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, sits a woman upon whom life has always smiled, the sun always shone…’
‘… And a murderess. Tell them you’re a murderess! ’
Jennifer was clutching the underside of the chair and tensed as the words and the desire again to leap up surged through her. She kept her head tight against her chest and wrapped her feet around the chair legs, the effort shuddering through her. There was a stir from the press gallery and the jury looked. Hall jerked around, face creased. Keflin-Brown remained looking steadfastly at the jury, his only concession a hesitation measured with stop-watch accuracy.
‘… Truly a beneficiary of the Gods,’ the man picked up on the absolute edge of hyperbole. The transition from a brilliant academic student to an even more brilliant financial career was as flawlessly smooth as everything else that Jennifer Stone had ever undertaken in that flawless life.
‘She became, ladies and gentlemen, a commodity trader, a vocation so far removed from the sort of mundane lives that you and I enjoy as to be difficult for us to comprehend. In previous centuries such people would have become swash-bucklers, pirates even. Today they are the sort of entrepreneurs who daily pledge millions, hundreds of millions, upon their ability to forecast and predict the value of commodities – metals, oil, grain, meat, money even, in fact every essential of life – in a month, three months, a year. It is a piratical existence, a hard, unrelenting, dog-eat-dog, give no quarter occupation. Those who follow it are hard, unrelenting, unforgiving people which as the facts of this case unfold you might well bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen of the jury…’
It was overly theatrical and flamboyant but at the same time true, thought Jennifer. That’s exactly how she so nostalgically remembered Enco-Corps: price-assess before anyone else, better than anyone else, buy or sell before and better than anyone else, forgive and forget no-one else, no mercy, no excuses, no escapes, ready to kill to stop being killed…’
‘ Kill to stop being killed.’
Jennifer’s mouth was open, the words formed. ‘Kill’ emerged although indistinctly and she managed to smother the rest in a choking cough. There was a what-did-she-say coming together of heads among the assembled journalists and another nervous, backwards glance from Jeremy Hall. Perry half rose, then lowered himself again. The judge remained poised longer, waiting.
It was another opportunity for Keflin-Brown to demonstrate his finely balanced timing. Jennifer Stone was such a person, the barrister picked up once more. In her first year at Enco-Corps she’d topped the in-house chart of successful trades, earned bigger profit-related commission than any other dealer and maintained that supremacy every year until she left.
‘That departure was to marry Gerald Lomax, a millionaire vice President of Euro-Corps’ American parent company and its head, here in Europe,’ continued the prosecutor. ‘It was a marriage that took place just six months after the death of Lomax’s first wife, from what an inquest jury concluded to be an inadvertent overdose of insulin upon which, as a severe diabetic, she was dependent…’
Jennifer saw Jeremy Hall’s sharp, sideways glance at the other barrister at the innuendo of the phrasing seconds before the voice burst through her head in a screaming, echoing tirade. ‘ Murdered. Killed me. The bastards killed me.’ And then, over and over, the same roaring chant, ‘ Murder, murder, murder, murder.’
But Jennifer was prepared, more so than ever before, alerted by the first reference to Jane. She clung desperately to the chair edge, her body rigid, pulling the control into herself and with her chin tight against her chest hopefully to prevent anyone seeing the bizarre, eyes-shut, face-squeezed contortion against the engulfing noise.
‘… As the facts of this case are outlined to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, one of the conclusions you may reach is that Gerald Lomax was a promiscuous womanizer,’ Keflin-Brown was saying. ‘While his first wife was still alive, Lomax was engaged in an extramarital affair with Jennifer Stone, his brilliant, top-achieving trader…’
No! thought Jennifer, outraged. They were the facts but they weren’t the facts at all. It hadn’t been like that, as it was being made to sound, as if she and Gerald had been rutting animals. It wasn’t sex: it was love. It was…
‘ Yes! ’ contradicted Jane. ‘ Exactly what you were, rutting, grunting animals. Pigs on heat. Fuck, fuck, honk honk. ’
‘No!’ protested Jennifer, forgetting where she was. She came up with a start. Hall remained looking forward but was hunched, almost as if he was trying to shield himself from her. Perry glared around and Keflin-Brown worsened the moment by halting in mid-sentence, turning his head from the jury to look enquiringly at her.
‘Mr Hall!’ said the judge, exasperated. ‘I really will not allow this to continue, as you well know.’
‘My Lord,’ said Hall, rising. ‘I apologize once more to the court for the behaviour of my client, which is in no way disrespectful-’
‘But which is precisely how this court is minded to regard it,’ stopped Jarvis, impatiently. ‘I would remind you there are ways open to me to restrict such behaviour.’
‘I am so reminded, my Lord, and I am obliged,’ said Hall, meekly.
‘… As I was saying,’ restarted Keflin-Brown. ‘Before their marriage, before the death of the first Mrs Lomax, Jennifer Stone and Gerald Lomax were lovers. After their marriage, the new Mrs Lomax gave up what had been a glittering career and chose to spend a considerable part of her time in the couple’s country estate, in Hampshire. For part of every week, however, Gerald Lomax chose to remain and live in London, which was, after all, his place of work…’ The slight, throat-clearing cough and the sip of water was as timed as everything else. ‘… At that place of work, the place where this terrible crime was committed and witnessed by no fewer than sixteen people, from all of whom you will hear, was employed another female trader, a fellow American named Rebecca Nicholls. You will hear, ladies and gentlemen, that for some years, maybe simultaneously with the affair he was conducting with the accused, Gerald Lomax was also engaged in a relationship with Miss Nicholls. Indeed, in New York which they had frequent occasion to visit and where Miss Nicholls retained an apartment, the couple lived virtually as husband and wife…’