Billington hesitated, unsure whether or not to answer. At an impatient nod from the judge, he said, ‘There was a third set of fingerprints, which were found to be those of the cleaner.’
‘Not of any other person, apart from the cleaner?’
‘He’s answered the question, Mr Hall!’ said Jarvis.
‘With respect, my Lord, I think it could be more fully responded to.’
This time the nod of permission was accompanied by a heavy sigh. Red patches of anger were picked out on Jarvis’s cheeks.
Billington said, ‘Apart from the cleaner’s fingerprints, there was no forensic evidence whatsoever of anyone having been in the office other than Mr and Mrs Lomax.’
He’d made the pretence, thought Hall, gratefully sitting under the glare of the judge.
‘I call Superintendent John Bentley, the arresting officer,’ declared the younger prosecuting barrister and Jane said, ‘ I’m not going to be able to do anything here to make you sound more of a loony than you did yourself.’
The detective entered the box only just short of a swagger and gave the smallest bow in the direction of Jarvis before looking towards the press gallery and smiling, to old friends. Jennifer saw several actually smile back.
Having allowed his junior the crumbs of establishing the technical, bottom-of-the-page evidence, it was Keflin-Brown who stood to take Bentley’s account. The suave superintendent, flamboyantly immaculate in brown pinstriped suit complete with a deep red carnation, recited his rank and position and followed the older barrister’s direction with accustomed ease, a well rehearsed double act. At precisely three-thirty on the afternoon of the 14th, he and Detective Inspector Malcolm Rodgers had responded to an emergency call to the City premises of Enco-Corps, off Leadenhall Street. In the third-floor office they found the heavily bloodstained body of a man subsequently identified as Gerald James Lomax, the managing director of the commodity trading company. He was already dead, from numerous wounds. Slumped against a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the office’s working area they saw Mrs Jennifer Lomax. She was alive although bleeding profusely from a number of injuries and appeared to be in a state of deep shock. Because of that, which was confirmed by an on-the-scene paramedic team, Mrs Lomax was conveyed to St Thomas’s Hospital, for subsequent interview.
‘Did you form an opinion of what had happened in that office?’ demanded Keflin-Brown.
‘I did, sir,’ replied Bentley. ‘From my observations and from interviewing witnesses at the scene I concluded there had been a violent altercation between Mr and Mrs Lomax, culminating in Mr Lomax’s death.’
‘Mr Lomax’s murder,’ clarified Keflin-Brown.
‘Resulting in Mr Lomax’s murder, yes, sir.’
Keflin-Brown allowed himself a tit-for-tat sideways look at Hall before asking, ‘You came upon no evidence, nor did you form the opinion, that anyone else had been involved in this altercation?’
‘No, sir.’
‘What did you then do?’
‘After ensuring that statements were being satisfactorily taken from the large number of witnesses to the incident I went with my inspector to the hospital, where Mrs Lomax was being treated for her injuries. I established from the doctor that she was sufficiently fit to be interviewed…’
‘… There was no question of her fitness?’ slowed the barrister, wanting what he was sure to be the following morning’s headline delivered at the pace he intended.
‘None, sir. In fact, the doctor decided that Mrs Lomax was not, after all, suffering from shock.’
‘What then?’
Knowing his part in the publicity act, Bentley concentrated everyone’s attention by laboriously taking a notebook from his pocket. ‘The accused identified herself as Jennifer Lomax. I asked her if she knew why my inspector and I were there and she replied “Gerald”-’
‘Nothing else, simply “Gerald”?’ broke in Keflin-Brown again.
‘That’s all, sir. I then formally cautioned her and asked her if she had anything to say…’ Bentley paused, expectantly.
‘And what did she say?’
Bentley looked up from his notebook, directly towards the press. Quoting, he said, ‘“It wasn’t me. It was Jane.”’
There was an electric ripple throughout the journalists and a murmur from the public gallery above Jennifer. The jury exchanged frowned glances.
‘“It wasn’t me. It was Jane,”’ echoed Keflin-Brown.
‘That is correct, sir.’
‘Help us if you will, Superintendent. Who is Jane?’
‘The first wife of Gerald Lomax,’ said Bentley, jolting the media with another electric charge.
‘ There you go, Jennifer. Off to the funny farm with the kind men in the white coats.’
It took the choleric Jarvis several minutes to bring the court to order. Throughout the delay Keflin-Brown retained a statue-like pose matched by that of Bentley, upright and expressionless in the witness-box. Every member of the jury and all the press were looking at Jennifer: the two artists were sketching even more rapidly.
There was a hurried gesture from the wardress with the handkerchief, which Jennifer snatched to clean her face. It meant she was only holding on to the chair with her left hand. She was lurched furiously sideways, to her left, dislodging her grip. She grabbed out frantically, at first missing the wardress’s offered hand and briefly disappeared from sight beneath the court rail, as if trying to hide from the attention, before they righted her again. A fresh hubbub arose, which the agitated Jarvis once more shouted to control.
In Jennifer’s head the voice chanted in rhyme: ‘ Peekaboo, peekaboo. Can’t see me if I can’t see you.’
‘I shall clear this court if this behaviour doesn’t cease!’ threatened Jarvis. ‘Proceed, Mr Keflin-Brown. Let’s stop this nonsense.’
‘Were you subsequently able to discover from Mrs Lomax what she meant by that remark?’
‘Not one that made any sense to me, no.’
‘Did she decline to make a statement?’ demanded Keflin-Brown, eyes wide with feigned surprise.
‘On the evening when I formally arrested her she refused to make a statement without the presence of her solicitor. I made another attempt, later, to interview Mrs Lomax at the hospital, prior to the taking of a formal statement. At that time her barrister, Mr Hall, and solicitor, Mr Perry, were present…’
‘… You were pursuing your enquiries?’
‘I was, sir. Yes.’
‘A particular line of enquiry?’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Bentley, alert for Keflin-Brown’s guidance on how far he was expected to go.
‘This was in a police-guarded hospital ward?’
‘But the attempted interview was to be taken in strict accordance with the required rules. By which I mean there was an audio recording.’
‘What was Mrs Lomax’s demeanour?’
‘One of anger, mostly. She seemed upset that her legal advisors, their having apparently earlier told her to say nothing, had now agreed to our conducting the interview without prior consultation with her.’
‘Was that all?’
‘There were some remarks from Mrs Lomax which were disorientated.’
Hall rose to his feet, stopping the other barrister. ‘I wonder, my Lord, if we are not endangering privilege here?’
‘The witness has testified to having given Mrs Lomax an official caution. And you were present,’ said Jarvis.
Hall ran his hand over the papers before him. ‘There was no indication that this would be included, in the prosecution’s disclosures.’
‘I’m prepared to admit it,’ ruled Jarvis.
‘I’m obliged, my Lord,’ said Keflin-Brown as Hall sat. Then he said, ‘Angry and disorientated? Anything else?’
‘She demanded the presence of a doctor, to act as an independent witness.’
‘So she was agreeing to be interviewed?’
‘I believed that to be the case.’
‘Why should Mrs Lomax have needed an independent witness with her lawyers being present?’