‘You didn’t question any of the witnesses this morning?’ Jennifer challenged.
‘There was nothing to ask them.’
‘The women you so carefully got on the jury were appalled at the photographs. I saw their faces.’
‘Don’t try to anticipate reaction.’
‘I didn’t have to try.’
Hall shifted, discomfited. He’d come to the cells because he’d felt he had to but Perry had been right: there was nothing he could say or do. He hadn’t expected to hope this soon that Jarvis would terminate the trial. ‘Anything you want? Anything I can do?’
‘The tranquillizers might help.’
‘ Waste of time! ’
‘I’ll find the court doctor.’
‘And can you let me have a handkerchief? This one’s no good any more.’
Without her intending it to happen Jennifer’s throat closed against the Librium the court doctor offered. She choked against regurgitating, coughing afresh at the water she gulped to help swallow them. She finally managed it, her eyes and nose running. She was still weak-kneed and unsteady on her feet, glad of the two women to help her back to the court: wanting to anticipate each and every problem, although do nothing to alert Jane in advance, she abruptly asked to use the toilet as they passed it, even though she hardly needed to when she entered. Almost at once her bladder collapsed and she only just managed to avoid wetting herself.
‘ Difficult to keep up, isn’t it Jennifer? But you can’t relax, not for a moment. Not ever. Not until I’ve taken away so much of your mind that it doesn’t matter any more.’
Jennifer clutched apprehensively at the dock rail, her escorts tight on either side, for the judge’s entry but no feeling was taken from her legs this time and she only had to remain standing for seconds. She grabbed at once for the seat as she sat, entwining her legs again. She felt desperately, achingly tired, tremors constantly flickering through her muscles. It all had to be from the strain of the morning: the tranquillizer would not have had time to work yet. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide, against the desire to close them altogether.
‘ Tired, Jennifer? Want to sleep a little. Go on, close your eyes .’
Jennifer stopped herself by continuously stretching and unstretching her face until she realized people were looking at her: two women jurors were shaking their heads, sadly. Abruptly she stopped. The pain of biting the inside of her lips helped fight off the tiredness as well as keep them closed, to stop herself being Jane’s ventriloquist’s dummy.
‘ Can’t relax, not for a moment. Forgot again, didn’t you? ’
It was the prosecuting junior, Robert Morley, who took forensic scientist Anthony Billington through his evidence. Keflin-Brown sat relaxed beside the man, legs fully outstretched, head sunk on his chest as if he, too, was about to sleep.
Billington was a large, fat man who’d either put on a lot of weight since buying the over-stretched suit or been misled over its size. His deathly pale although heavily freckled face heightened the redness of his disordered hair.
As he began responding to the younger barrister’s lead Jane said, ‘ This is what’s going to convict you, so listen up, you hear? Don’t want to miss a word of it.’
The body of a man identified to him as Gerald Lomax had still been in situ although already dead upon his arrival, Billington agreed, to Morley’s opening question. Mrs Lomax, whom he recognized in the dock, had also been there and identified to him. Both had suffered severe injuries, the man far more extensively than the woman. These injuries had caused widespread bloodstaining illustrated in the photographs, which Morley showed the man. Billington said he had taken numerous blood samples, which he had later identified. One, AB Rhesus Positive, was that of Gerald Lomax. The other sample was O Rhesus Negative. At Morley’s urging the scientist isolated three pictures from the portfolio showing finger and palm prints in a splayed, arced pattern, where someone with blood-soaked hands had stood, supported on outstretched arms. At the scene was a German-made kitchen knife, heavily bloodstained on both blade and handle, which he again identified from the picture file. The fingerprints in the blood on the handle of the knife matched those on the window that overlooked the trading floor. Mrs Lomax had substantial cuts to her hand. The blood on the handle and the window was O Rhesus Negative. On the blade there was also a considerable amount of AB Rhesus Positive.
Jennifer had by now been lulled by the tranquillizer and Jane’s absence for several minutes, so the sharp return almost caught her out. But oddly the slowing of her reaction at the same time gave her time virtually to hold it back, as well as to keep her lower lip tight between her teeth.
‘ Tell him Rhesus is a monkey and he’s a fucking ape.’
Jennifer stopped the sentence halfway through and coughed to cover the words she did utter. The urge was to throw her arms wildly up in the air and make the animal grunting sounds echoing through her head but she fought the movement by hanging on to the chair and for once the permanently irate judge did not appear to notice. She thought some people in the court had detected it, like they’d seen her contorted face. There was a nudge from the friendly wardress, who offered Hall’s handkerchief. Hurriedly Jennifer mopped her face, conscious that saliva speckled her suit front. She cleaned that off, too.
‘ Get you a bib. That’s what we’ll have to do. And some adult diapers for when you piss yourself.’
After his scene-of-crime examination Billington said he was later given samples of debris scraped from beneath the dead man’s fingernails by the pathologist, Professor Hewitt. It included O Rhesus Negative blood and skin particles consistent with a self-defence struggle and with the extensive scratch marks on Mrs Lomax’s arms and hands.
‘ Couldn’t stop me though, could he? ’ demanded Jane, as Morley sat down.
For the moment he had to go through the motions of presenting the defence demanded by his client, thought Jeremy Hall, rising for the first time.
‘Did you take any further samples, for forensic examination?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which you haven’t presented in court?’ Hall asked the question half turned, accusingly, towards the prosecution.
‘I was not asked about them,’ reminded the scientist, defensively.
‘Then I shall ask you now,’ said Hall.
‘If you must,’ intruded Jarvis, wearily.
‘ He’s going to be so pissed off at the end of all this it’s going to be unbelievable! ’
‘Perhaps you would tell the court what other samples you took,’ persisted Hall.
‘There was considerable evidence of a struggle,’ said the man. ‘The desk was greatly pushed out of the position indicated by indented pressure marks upon the carpet and what had obviously been Mr Lomax’s chair was overturned. Articles from the desk had been thrown to the floor and two decorative pots smashed. I examined several of these articles for fingerprints, to establish if anything had been used as a weapon-’
‘Had anything been so used?’ broke in Hall.
‘There was some hair adhering in blood to one of the broken pots.’
‘Whose hair?’
‘Mr Lomax’s.’
‘Anything else?’
‘There was other hair, which matched both Mr and Mrs Lomax, on the chair and against the window at which Mrs Lomax was slumped when I entered the office.’
‘I’m sure the prosecution are greatly obliged for your assisting their case, Mr Hall,’ broke in Jarvis.
‘What about fingerprints?’ continued Hall, determinedly.
‘Widespread, throughout the office.’
‘Of Mr and Mrs Lomax?’
‘Yes.’
‘But of no-one else?’
‘Mr Hall!’ said the judge, pained.
‘ Shut the fuck up, you silly little bastard! Tell him! ’
Jennifer had the first word half-formed before she was able to stop herself, so the sound came out as a sibilant hiss.