‘I wasn’t sure where your cross-examination of Bentley took us,’ she said.
‘ First stop the madhouse.’
Hall wasn’t, either. ‘It dented his credibility.’
‘For which Rodgers more than compensated.’
‘It’s a long list so there’s no guarantee we’ll reach her, but Rebecca Nicholls is listed as a witness tomorrow,’ warned Hall.
‘ This we’ve both got to hear! ’
‘I think the tranquillizers helped today.’
‘I’ll see you have them again tomorrow.’
Jeremy Hall had a good note and an even better verbatim recall and went directly from court to chambers to compare what he considered relevant from the case notes with that day’s evidence. It took him two hours and ended with a feeling of frustration he couldn’t properly identify or even understand. ‘What is it?’ he demanded of himself, aloud and unembarrassed, in the solitude of his cramped back room. ‘What the fuck am I missing?’ Fuck wasn’t a word he normally resorted to but it seemed in very common usage these days.
His room was so remote that it was served by narrow back stairs so there was no collision as they left but he emerged at practically the same time as Sir Richard Proudfoot, Humphrey Perry and Bert Feltham leaving from the main entrance with two men he didn’t know. For several moments they remained looking at each other, startled. Then Proudfoot said, ‘Working late?’
‘Yes,’ said Hall. Then, uncaring, ‘You, too?’
‘Something like that,’ said the chamber head. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’
In Jennifer’s one-person prison ward the matron said, ‘There’s the magic to make you sleep, my lovely. Now nursey will just rub you, very gently, so you’ll relax.’
‘Give me the cheque-book,’ said Jennifer.
Chapter Twenty-two
So today she was going to face two enemies, one she would be able to see as well as listen to, the other only hear. Double torture, double humiliation: closing in, almost overwhelming despair that for the last thirty minutes she’d come near to giving in to. Quite apart – uncaring even – from Jane being aware of every mental reflection, Jennifer found it difficult to hold any thought. Which wasn’t the chlordiazepoxide that Jane had again made her choke to the point of vomiting against taking. That hadn’t had time to take effect. She was still thickheaded, that cotton-wool feeling, from the drug the matron had given her the previous night. Her pubic hair had still been slimed with whatever the woman had used for the game she’d played with her, after making her unconscious with the injection. But there’d been no soreness so Jennifer didn’t think she’d been fingered or abused by anyone other than Beryl Harrison. Still more humiliation.
The warning of Rebecca Nicholls being the first witness to the actual murder had come from Jeremy Hall’s cell visit, after her arrival from prison that morning. The barrister was still flushed from his pre-hearing encounter at which he’d told the judge of Jennifer’s continued refusal to change her plea. Sir Ivan Jarvis’s alternative, to foreshorten what again he’d called a music-hall instead of a trial, had been to cut by half the number of trading-floor witnesses with virtually identical accounts of the killing.
The fast-footed, headline-conscious Simon Keflin-Brown had instantly agreed and nominated Rebecca to be the first, guaranteeing the continuation of coverage that had exceeded either his or John Bentley’s expectations – and hopes – that morning. All the tabloids had led with the previous day’s hearing – Murder by Possession was one slogan, Murder in Mind another – and almost every newspaper carried collected photographs of Jennifer, Jane and Rebecca. Inevitably, the captions had referred to eternal triangles. The motherly wardress (‘It’s Ann: Ann Wardle. I’ve got a son who’s ill like you,’) had shown her the Daily Mirror on their way from the prison. All three photographs had been taken in happier, laughing times: assured, confident women, women upon whom no misfortune could ever fall.
Despite the woolly-headed feeling – and not knowing then that she would be confronting Rebecca – Jennifer had tried as hard with her appearance as the previous day, although she accepted, bitterly, just how far short she was of how she’d looked in the pictures the newspapers had obtained.
She’d bribed her way into the bathroom again, carrying today’s grey suit and black shirt which wouldn’t so easily show her sweating or slobbering, and not just to prepare herself behind a locked door but to douche herself from whatever she’d been subjected to, by the matron. There was a sanitary pad dispenser and Jennifer took one and lined her pants, against Jane’s threat to make her disgrace herself in the dock. She’d also brought several handkerchiefs, two of which Ann now carried escorting her along the corridor, towards the dock steps. The wardress also had the two Jeremy Hall had brought for her during their brief meeting.
‘Just do your best,’ he’d said, reaching across the battered cell table to squeeze her hands lightly in encouragement.
‘I ache all over from yesterday. From trying to hold myself against what she might do.’
‘Anything?’ He was glad Perry wasn’t in the cell, with his unnecessarily impatient sighs. There was no harm in humouring her: in trying to help her through. Jarvis had been furious at the refusal to alter her plea. He was going to be even more of a cantankerous bastard than he had the previous day.
‘She’s been humming, like she’s pleased with herself.’
‘ I am pleased with myself. Every reason to be. But what’s all this band-holding? Someone else trying to get inside your pants? Going to get crowded in there, isn’t it? ’
‘Just try your best,’ repeated Hall, at a loss for anything else to say. ‘That’s all you can do.’
‘I am making myself look a fool, aren’t I?’ That was at the brink of despair.
‘I could go back to the judge, even now,’ offered Hall, hopefully.
‘No!’ she’d determined, pulling back. ‘No!’
And now she was walking towards the bear pit, to be taunted and prodded and reduced to a sniggering, pitiful joke. At the bottom of the dock steps Jennifer hesitated, momentarily refusing – frightened – to ascend.
‘Up we go, love. Come on,’ urged Ann.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘You haven’t got a choice. Come on.’
With leaden feet, at last beginning to feel the Librium, Jennifer climbed, aware of the buzzed expectation as she got to the court level. As she became visible the noise grew, an excited, mob-like sound. Probably just like a bear-pit anticipation, she thought. Or maybe the entry into a Roman arena of a victim who didn’t stand a chance of escape.
‘ You don’t. I keep telling you that. I don’t think we’ll make a fool of you just yet, not until Rebecca. Let’s keep them in suspense .’
Rebecca Nicholls looked sensational and Jane said, ‘ Holy shit, she’s fantastic! And dressed to make you look a klutz.’
Rebecca’s hair, a darker, artificial blond against Jennifer’s natural colour, was cut severely into her neck, around which there was just a single strand of plaited gold. The dress was black and figure-hugging, belted again by a gold strand. She took the oath with her left hand resting prominently on the edge of the witness-box, displaying on her engagement finger a diamond ring that was her only jewellery. Having returned the Bible to the usher she began playing with the ring with her other hand, drawing attention to it. She stood staring defiantly at Jennifer, the expression carefully balanced between haughtiness and contemptuous revulsion.
‘ Great tits. Gerald always was a tit man, wasn’t he? That and cunt-sucking. You think he did that with her? Sure he did. She probably gave him head, too. Nose to tail, like a couple of vacuum cleaners.’
Jennifer held herself in her rigid pose, gripping the seat edge, legs entwined. The press concentration was entirely upon Rebecca, the same artists as the previous day sketching rapidly.
Keflin-Brown was on his feet, the consummate ringmaster about to present his best act. The barrister took Rebecca smoothly through her Euro-Corps career, demanding suddenly: ‘And now you’re acknowledged its leading trader?’