Jennifer – Jennifer Stone as she then was – had been Enco-Corps’ leading London trader during her last two years with the firm: it had been one of Lomax’s early jokes that he’d fallen in love with her professionally long before he’d been attracted in any other way.
All traders have to ‘know’ markets, to be able to assess margins and percentages but the very best additionally can ‘feel’, to judge instinctively when a price has peaked and is about to fall or whether it has the buoyancy of a few more points or a commodity can go up a few more cents to attain that extra eighth or quarter per cent that turns a good position into a spectacular one. Jennifer could ‘know’ and ‘feel’ and had the added ability of a gambler able photographically to memorize every card played in a poker game: indeed, it was a soon abandoned party trick for her mentally to add and multiply and subtract complicated equations faster than people could compete on pocket calculators.
All of which still only made up part of the legend of Jennifer Stone. It was completed by an awesome determination to be the best – to overcome any opposition or obstacle – in any trading deal upon which she embarked. It was another of Gerald Lomax’s remarks that he’d had Jennifer in mind when he attached ‘for piranha fish’ to the description of the totally glassed office as a goldfish bowl.
The combination of abilities and attitudes made Jennifer special and without conceit or arrogance she knew it, like she knew she definitely wasn’t mad. To allow herself to think that would be the final abandonment, giving Jane the ultimate victory. And she’d never do that.
It had been good – fulfilling – to have an unusual, unique mind: to be different. Living as she’d lived after her marriage had never been quite enough. She’d never admitted it but she’d felt wasted, unused, when she’d finally accepted it would be untenable for her to remain on a trading floor controlled by her husband or work on another in competition against him.
Now she didn’t have that special mind any more. It had been stolen from her – invaded – and when she forced herself beyond the horror of Gerald’s killing and the numbing ebb and flow of exhaustion and the terrifying, unbelievable unreality of what was happening to her – ghosts didn’t exist! spiritual possession was nonsense! – Jennifer’s overwhelming feeling was of outrage, of being mentally raped.
She’d lost Gerald, whom she’d adored. She wasn’t going to lose anything more. She was going to defeat Jane – stop whatever it was being done to her – whatever it took, whatever she had to do to achieve it. She’d never lost anything upon which she’d set her mind in the past and she wasn’t going to lose now.
It took a long time for Jennifer to get to that conclusion. Jane was constantly with her every unsteady step of every weary thought, knowing each thought as it came, jeering and gloating over every one to goad Jennifer into the furious, even shouted, responses that were met with sighs and headshakes from the successive, guarding policewomen.
Bur Jennifer learned in the persistently interrupted, disjointed process.
It was unconscious at first, an impression rather than a proper awareness. Her bone-aching exhaustion triggered it, at Jane’s mockery of how grotesque she would look after the second utterly sleepless night she intended to impose: that and the physical sensation of numbness which Jennifer had imagined to be all part of the same fatigue. Until, that is, she made a different connection. The tingling, like the tingle of knocking the humerus in her elbow, seemed to precede by the merest fraction of a second the sound of Jane in her head. When there was no voice – a momentary gap in the possession – there was no numbness. It wasn’t a positive experiment – Jennifer then hadn’t learned enough.
In the evening of the second day, confronted with the agony of not sleeping again, Jennifer very positively experimented, waiting for a moment of normality when the nurses were fixing another drip before blurting, ‘Please give me something very strong tonight to make me sleep.’
The feeling at once suffused her. ‘ No! ’
Jennifer’s jaw hurt in her determination not to speak.
‘ No! You don’t want it! ’
‘There was a note from the night staff yesterday that you didn’t sleep,’ agreed one of the nurses. ‘You were… distressed.’
‘Please,’ gritted Jennifer, through clamped teeth, careless of the pain from her lip. ‘I need something… so tired… very tired…’
Jennifer’s skin was on fire, worse than ever before.
‘You all right?’ said the second nurse. ‘You’re very red.’
‘Just want to sleep.’ If she said anything about Jane they would dismiss her wanting a sedative as part of the madness: not give her anything.
‘ Say it! ’
Jennifer stayed rigid faced.
‘ Say it, damn you! ’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ promised the first nurse. ‘It should be all right.’
Jennifer’s shaking, which the nurses and the policewomen had become accustomed to, was from the physical effort of hanging on – of staying silent – until the nurses left the room. As soon as the door closed behind them Jennifer said, ‘Beat you.’ She spoke very quietly, her head sunk on her chest. The nearest policewoman looked, aware of the mutter but not hearing the words.
‘ You won’t, not again. ’
‘We’ll see.’ Jennifer was euphoric, wanting to laugh.
‘ Laugh then.’
Jennifer tightened her mouth again. ‘Another mistake. Warned me against it.’ Jennifer tried but couldn’t stop the moan at the screech of anger that pounded agonizingly through her head. ‘Beat you,’ she managed. ‘Beat you again.’
‘ You can’t drug me out. They can’t drug me out. ’
‘Why are you so frightened then? So angry?’
There was another echoing scream, as loud as before.
‘So angry, Jane? Lost control, haven’t you? Lost control to me.’ She wasn’t going to laugh aloud but she was still buoyant at the excitement of fighting back.
‘ Not going to do you any good though, is it? Still won’t be able to convince anyone you’re not mad. Still the rest of your life in a mental asylum ’
Jennifer shook her head. ‘I’ll find a way, like I found this way.’
Jennifer brought her head up at the arrival of two new policewomen for the night-shift change-over.
‘Anything?’ asked the newly-arriving sergeant, ignoring Jennifer.
The departing sergeant said, ‘Spent all afternoon mumbling to herself. Totally off her head.’
‘ Listen to them! ’
‘I’m not off my head!’ shouted Jennifer.
None of the women bothered to look at her.
‘ Jennifer Stone’s
A stupid drone
So much off her head
Might as well be dead. ’
‘Shitty poetry,’ dismissed Jennifer.
‘ I thought it was funny. ’
Jennifer went to speak but quickly stopped, halted by the entry of the nurse who’d changed the saline drip. Now she carried a kidney bowl covered by a cloth.
‘ I’ll over-ride it! ’
‘The doctor says it’s OK. That you need to get some sleep.’
‘ Waste of time! ’
‘Please,’ said Jennifer, offering her free arm, sighing at the prick of the needle going into her arm. ‘Thank you. Thank you so very much.’
Jennifer never fully lost consciousness. It was like the sort of half-asleep awareness she’d sometimes had when she knew she was dreaming and stayed like a spectator, refusing properly to wake up. Except this wasn’t a dream but the distant, frenzied voice of Jane trying to get through the sedation, becoming even more hysterical when Jennifer refused, as she’d refused with the real dreams.
It was still early, although daylight, when she did surrender. But Jane wasn’t inside her head. Jennifer remained lying as she was, waiting but there was nothing and hurriedly Jennifer began thinking of the day ahead, seizing the respite. Humphrey Perry hadn’t given a time but she expected him to come that morning. With the barrister, he’d said. Jeremy Hall. Nice enough name. But not a QC. It probably wasn’t etiquette to make the protest direct to the man but she would. Bypass Perry completely and if he didn’t like it engage another solicitor. She couldn’t be bothered with niceties as desperate as she was. She’d still do her best not to offend Hall, of course. Make it clear she wanted to retain him as well but insist her defence be headed by the most experienced person. Proudfoot himself, in fact.