A Mind to Kill Read online

  A Mind to Kill

  Brian Freemantle

  A Mind to Kill

  Brian Freemantle

  Chapter One

  Jennifer had never imagined in her wildest dreams that she could be this happy.

  It went way beyond happiness. It wouldn’t have made sense to anyone if she’d tried to put it into words, because there weren’t words to express properly how she felt. The best she could do to describe it, and only to herself, was as a total completeness. Everything was complete. Her perfect life and her perfect marriage to a perfect husband and the most beautiful, most perfect baby in the world, all absolutely and totally complete. And secure, as if there was a wall between her and everyone else to keep out anything bad, as high and as protective as the wall encircling the mansion she’d just left.

  Jennifer sometimes became frightened, like she was unsettled by the reflection now, although it was something else she never tried to explain to anyone, not wanting to be laughed at.

  Her fear was that she – anyone – didn’t have the right to be as lucky as she was, so secure, so sure of everything and everybody. Of herself.

  That feeling was easier to rationalize than the overwhelming happiness. It was, she knew, a guilt she’d never ever be able to lose absolutely. She’d read all the newspaper reports and gone through everything with Gerald – so many times he’d grown angry and wouldn’t talk about it any more – before finally accepting there was nothing to reproach herself for. So it wasn’t that. It was the even earlier unease.

  It had been there from the very start of the affair, the first night even, long before she’d ever fallen in love with Gerald and realized that it wasn’t simply an affair after all. The moment, in fact, she’d decided she’d been stupid to become involved with a married man and that everything was going to end in the mess it had.

  Not, of course, the tragedy that had actually occurred. And from which she’d emerged unscathed and uncriticized to her own very special, locked-away happiness. A happiness she still found hard to believe she deserved. Soon after the tragedy she had considered seeking psychiatric help, unable to accept Gerald’s assurances by themselves, anxious for an unbiased, unemotional opinion.

  But she hadn’t. And now Jennifer was glad. She’d never found it easy – virtually impossible in fact – to talk about personal, intimate things even to people close to her; even to Gerald. The thought of exposing herself to a stranger, mentally stripping herself naked, had stopped her then and now it made her physically shudder just to think about it as she came to the turn off to the kindergarten.

  Jennifer had to wait because of the traffic congestion on the London road, smiling at another thought. She guessed a psychiatrist would judge how she chose to lead a lot of her life now as that of someone seeking atonement. She had immersed herself in charities and contributed substantially to every appeal and fund-raising approach made to her. The charity thought reminded her that for the rest of the month – maybe longer – she probably wouldn’t be able to collect Emily so regularly. Virtually everything was set up for the AIDS ball at Grosvenor House but Jennifer gave minute attention to every detail of anything she did or organized, seeking confirmation of confirmation, a habit she’d developed as the leading trader in Gerald’s company before their marriage. Now she didn’t trade any more – another lingering although very secret regret – she’d transferred her never-lose determination to another activity, to the benefit of people not as fortunate as herself. And there was still one item, the most important, not absolutely guaranteed. A lot of the intended success of the ball depended upon final confirmation of the Royal promise to attend. She’d give it another day or two before approaching the palace again.

  What she did so well wasn’t atonement, Jennifer knew. She had nothing to atone for. When her other commitments allowed she collected Emily herself, instead of delegating to the nanny, because she adored the child and wanted her always to feel as safe as she did. She contributed to fund-raising because Gerald could more than afford it and she organized charity events superbly well because it was a practical and worthwhile way of occupying her mind as well as passing on just a little of the good fortune she’d never believed it possible to have.

  Jennifer managed the turn at last, hurrying the final few hundred metres when she saw some children already-being bundled into cars.

  Miss Singleton formed a physical barrier at the kindergarten entrance, not releasing any child until she recognized the parent or the nanny. The teacher beckoned Emily forward at Jennifer’s arrival and announced, ‘She’s been a very clever girl today.’

  Emily proudly held up the postcard of a cow and Jennifer entered into the solemnity of the moment, taking her time to read the handwritten declaration on the back that it had been awarded to Emily Lomax for recognizing the letter C.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Jennifer enthused. ‘I’m very proud of you.’

  ‘Will Daddy be?’

  ‘I know he will.’ They began to return to the car, Emily automatically reaching up for Jennifer’s hand, waving with the other to various children who called to her.

  ‘I’ve got a card in my bag. Sally’s having a party next week. Can I go?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She’s four, like me.’

  ‘But you were four three months ago.’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  Jennifer laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘She wants a dog. A real one.’

  Jennifer carefully secured the child into the rear-facing safety seat, brushing the bundle of curls from her forehead and kissing her. ‘Maybe if she’s a good girl she’ll get one.’

  ‘She doesn’t know what C means yet.’

  ‘Perhaps she will by the time her birthday comes.’

  ‘Why must I look backwards! I can’t see you like this.’

  ‘This way’s safer.’

  ‘No-one else in my class has to sit like this.’

  ‘If there’s an accident, you won’t get hurt.’ Although the gap was sufficient Jennifer waited until an approaching van passed before pulling out.

  ‘Is there going to be an accident?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Never,’ promised Jennifer.

  ‘Why can’t I sit the other way then?’

  Jennifer smiled. ‘I think you’re going to be a lawyer when you grow up.’

  ‘What’s a lawyer?’

  ‘A very clever person.’

  ‘Cleverer than Daddy?’

  ‘No-one’s cleverer than Daddy.’

  ‘What are we doing after lunch?’

  ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘Go to Marwell zoo and see the animals.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do.’

  Jennifer was late triggering the remote control as she came off the London road and had to wait for the high security gates to open fully before she could start up the drive. It was several moments before the square Georgian house became visible, through the trees.

  Annabelle was waiting, just inside the entrance.

  ‘I’ve got a prize,’ announced Emily, producing the postcard. ‘For knowing what C is.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked the nanny.

  ‘Cow,’ declared the child.

  ‘Well done!’ praised the girl.

  ‘We’re going to Marwell this afternoon as a reward,’ said Jennifer, as they walked down the corridor towards the rear kitchen.

  ‘ We’ve got a long way to go. We’d better hurry,’ said Jane. ‘ I’ve waited so long, almost seven years, for you to feel as happy and as content as this. Oh, don’t forget the knife: we mustn’t forget that. ’

  Chapter Two

  The office had gained architectural awards and the City nickname
of The Goldfish Bowl, to which Gerald Lomax, proud of their aggressive commodity record, added ‘for piranha fish.’ Built literally on the rubble of one of the IRA’s worst City bombings that totally destroyed the original building in which Jennifer had worked, it was a glass-walled expanse bare except for banks of computer stations. Lomax’s office was suspended above it against an inner wall, the side overlooking the trading floor also glassed from carpet to ceiling. So was the corridor from the elevator to Lomax’s eyrie.

  The goldfish bowl self-consciousness had long ago vanished so no-one on the trading floor noticed Jennifer emerge from the lift. Three did look up, curiously, at the noise she made tapping her knuckles against the glass as she walked towards her husband’s room. Her left hand was buried deeply into her large, shoulder-strapped handbag.

  Lomax raised his head, surprised, as she entered. ‘Darling, I didn’t…’ he began.

  ‘ MURDERING BASTARD!’

  The first, sweeping slash opened the left side of Gerald Lomax’s face, from ear to chin. He threw himself backwards so hard his chair overturned, crashing into the see-through wall, but every trader below was already staring, transfixed, attracted by the screaming accusation.

  ‘Jennifer… for God’s sake…!’

  Lomax was on his hands and knees when she stabbed him twice, in the back. He clawed upwards, levering against the desk, and she stabbed him through the hand, actually embedding the knife in the wood and Lomax punched her in the side of the face, splitting her lip, as she wrestled the blade free, then grabbed out for it as she did so to drive it upwards into her free hand.

  ‘Jen…’ For a moment they clung together, in a frenzied dance, but he was already weak from the cuts and stabs and she was easily able to get the knife back. The next slash was across his nose, almost severing it. Lomax hit the wall again, although remaining upright, but his eyes were flooded by the slashing blow and he couldn’t see to protect himself any more.

  ‘Don’t, Jen… stop…’

  She drove the knife into his stomach so forcefully the blade went completely through his body and hit the glass, twisting it out of her hand. Lomax actually pulled it from himself and struck wildly at her, hitting her in the arm, but she jerked it from his grasp again. This time she held it dagger-like, stabbing again and again, driving him back initially against the glass and then on to the ground. As he lay there, helpless, she stabbed and slashed more, her head thrown back as she laughed, hysterically.

  Blood gouted from Lomax, spurting over the glass before dribbling down in wavering streaks. Finally, leaving the knife protruding from his back, Jennifer lurched exhausted to her feet and stood legs spread-eagled to overlook the trading floor, her outstretched hands pressed against the pane, more blood trickling down from her own wounds. For a moment she remained there, panting, before throwing her head back to laugh, over and over, lips tight against her teeth in a triumphant grimace.

  When the police cautiously entered the office Jennifer was sitting on the floor with Gerald Lomax’s body cradled in her arms, weeping uncontrollably. She looked up and, her voice broken by sobs, said, ‘He’s dead. Stabbed. Please help me.’

  As they separated her from the dead man the photograph of Emily that Lomax always kept on his desk fell from between them. It was encrusted with blood.

  Chapter Three

  John Bentley liked murder but decided almost at once there wasn’t going to be any personal benefit from this one. There would automatically be some publicity from Gerald Lomax being a millionaire City high-flyer and Bentley was ready to bet a mistress with big tits would emerge within forty-eight hours but it wasn’t like the other twelve he’d solved without a single failure to justify the promotion to Detective Superintendent at the age of thirty-nine and the legend he worked so aggressively to maintain.

  If there was anything at all remarkable about this one it was that it was virtually over before it began, an open and shut domestic stabbing in full view of sixteen credible witnesses.

  The only thing to do was organize the routine, find the motive when he found the mistress and hope she had a pretty face as well as big tits for the photographers. It would still count as a success on his record, which was all that really mattered.

  The ambulance paramedic, leaving his partner applying the emergency dressings to Jennifer’s arm and hands, crossed towards Bentley. Gesturing down to the blood on his jacket the man said, ‘She’s badly cut. Needs suturing. And she’s in pretty deep shock.’ He rubbed at the bloodstains. ‘It’s a bastard getting this stuff off.’

  Bentley looked towards the vacant-eyed woman. ‘Wouldn’t believe she was capable of it, would you?’

  ‘She did a pretty good job. The poor sod is cut and stabbed to buggery. Whatever he did, it upset her.’

  A young pathologist whom Bentley didn’t know was bent over the body, mumbling into a hand-held tape recorder.

  ‘It’ll be sex. Classic syndrome,’ predicted Bentley. He turned to two policewomen in the outer corridor. ‘Go with her in the ambulance. I’ll come later.’

  Jennifer allowed herself to be laid on the stretcher trolley and Bentley stood aside for her to be wheeled past him. Her eyes were closed but there was a faint smile on her face.

  ‘Call us when the body’s ready to be moved,’ said the ambulanceman as they went by.

  Bentley nodded, staying to the side of the room for the overalled forensic team to enter. He recognized Anthony Billington at the head of the group: he’d worked with the obese man on three of the previous murders.

  ‘All fairly straightforward?’ said the scientist.

  ‘Looks that way,’ agreed Bentley.

  ‘Shouldn’t take us long.’

  ‘Let’s get everything, just the same.’

  ‘We always do,’ said Billington, curtly.

  ‘I know,’ placated Bentley. Fucking prima donna, he thought. The room was becoming crowded, so he went into the outer corridor. From there he looked down into the trading room. Malcolm Rodgers, his inspector, had everyone seated at their terminal stations, giving statements to attentive constables. It really was straightforward. If it hadn’t been part of the routine there wouldn’t have been any reason for his even being there.

  The pathologist scuffed out of the office and immediately began stripping off his protective suit. He smiled at Bentley and said, ‘Hewitt, Felix Hewitt.’

  They shook hands. Bentley was a gaunt, tall man who towered over the medical examiner.

  ‘Multiple stab wounds and extensive lacerations,’ said the pathologist. ‘I won’t know until after the postmortem, obviously, but I’d say at least five would have been fatal. Quite a concentration around the heart area, as if she was specifically hitting him there. That and the face. A lot of cuts there, like she was determined to disfigure him.’

  ‘Hell hath no fury,’ said Bentley.

  ‘I haven’t got much on, so I can let you have a report by tomorrow.’

  ‘That’ll be fine.’

  Rodgers emerged from the lift for which the doctor was waiting to descend. Looking down towards the trading floor Rodgers said, ‘First time I’ve known sixteen statements all saying the same thing in virtually the same words. This is going to be the easiest ever.’ The two had worked on eight of the previous murders and spent a lot of time together socially. Their wives liked each other.

  ‘No question about it,’ agreed Bentley.

  ‘It’ll be another woman.’

  ‘Guaranteed.’

  ‘Flat here in London, country house in Hampshire where the little wife lives most of the time with the baby. While the cat’s away, the mice play.’

  ‘Wonder what the mistress will be like?’

  ‘Classy,’ guessed Rodgers. ‘Lomax was loaded. He could afford the best.’ He looked needlessly at a notebook. ‘This is the second wife. Name’s Jennifer. Worked in the firm to begin with. Brilliant, from what they said down there. First wife, Jane, died of an overdose.’

  Bentley turned hopefully from
looking down at the trading floor. ‘Anything suspicious?’

  The inspector shook his head. ‘She was a diabetic. It was an insulin imbalance, according to what they’re saying.’

  ‘Was Lomax having an affair with this one while the first wife was alive?’

  ‘For almost a year, apparently.’

  ‘So he made a habit of it?’

  ‘Seems that way: lucky bugger.’

  From the doorway Billington said, ‘We’re through with the body. Can we get it out of the way?’

  A uniformed policeman further along the corridor looked enquiringly at Bentley, who nodded and said, ‘Please.’ The policeman, glad of something to do, began talking into his radio.

  ‘She said anything?’ asked Rodgers.

  ‘She’s in shock, according to the paramedic. She’ll know who the other woman is. We might as well go and find out.’

  Both men were keen rugby fans and on the drive along the Embankment the conversation was about that Saturday’s international between England and Wales. Both had tickets. Rodgers, whose mother had been born in Swansea, offered a?5 bet on Wales, which Bentley took. They gambled between each other a lot. Bentley usually won.

  ‘If this had been a difficult one it could have buggered Saturday up,’ suggested Rodgers, putting their Scotland Yard identification on the dashboard as he parked in a consultant’s reserved space.

  Jennifer was in a single ward. One of the policewomen outside the room rose at their approach and said, ‘They did the stitching under local anaesthetic. And the doctor insists there’s no shock. They’re happy for her to be interviewed.’

  The second policewoman made room for them as Bentley and Rodgers entered the tiny ward.

  Bentley formally identified himself and Rodgers and then said, ‘You’re Jennifer Lomax?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know why we’re here?’

  ‘Gerald,’ said the woman.

  Hurriedly, anxious for everything to be kept in its proper routine sequence, Bentley recited the official caution before she could say anything more.