Gradually – too gradually – the band around Jennifer’s chest began to ease. ‘That was awful. Frightened me.’
‘You’re all right now.’
‘She could kill me, couldn’t she? Make me kill myself?’
‘ Good thought, honey. I’ll keep it in mind…’ There was the cackling laugh. ‘ Your mind, my mind, somebody’s mind. Thanks for the idea.’
‘I thought you said you could resist her?’
‘Not when she makes me move my…’ She stopped as first her left leg, then her right, kicked up under the bed covering. ‘Shit! shit! shit…!’
‘You stopped telling me what Jane’s saying?’
‘She said making me kill myself was a good idea. And that suffocating, as if I was drowning, was how she was going to make me feel. It was what it seemed like, when I couldn’t breathe.’
‘You can now.’
‘Yes.’
‘So how else do you feel?’ demanded Mason, quickly.
‘How do you think I feel?’
‘Don’t answer my question with another question.’
Despite herself – despite everything – Jennifer smiled at having her earlier protest thrown back at her. ‘Frustrated! Impotent!’ Then she repeated, ‘How else do you expect me to feel?’
‘Very different from that.’
‘ What’s he mean? ’
‘She wants to know what you mean?’
‘If she’s so clever, tell her to work it out for herself.’
‘ Tell me! ’ It was a shout, loud enough to make Jennifer grimace yet again.
‘Don’t tell her!’ Jennifer used the ploy she’d learned, uttering the words before the thought came in time for Jane to intercept.
‘I’m not going to.’
‘ Bastard! ’
‘She’s angry. Called you a bastard.’
‘Good.’ Then, quickly, ‘You didn’t know about Rebecca?’
‘No.’
‘Do you believe it?’
‘I want to hear Rebecca say it.’
‘Don’t you believe the police?’
‘I want to be in a room… somewhere… where she has to say it in front of me.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought she was my friend. Wouldn’t do a thing like that to me.’
‘Have you got a lot of friends?’
‘No.’
‘Does that worry you?’
‘It didn’t, until now.’
‘Why does it worry you now?’
‘I need someone to help me. Clothes. And there’s Emily.’
Both lawyers stirred against the wall. Mason and Fosdyke ignored them.
‘Tell me about Emily,’ suggested Mason.
Jennifer smiled, distantly. ‘She’s our life, Gerald’s and mine. He wanted a baby so much.’
‘ Liar. Made me take the pill. ’
‘She says I’m a liar. That he made her take the pill.’
‘Do you know if that’s true, about the pill?’
‘Jane was a severe diabetic: that’s what she died of, an insulin overdose. I know Gerald was warned that medically it would have been dangerous for Jane to become pregnant.’
‘ Murderers.’
‘She’s calling me a murderer. That’s what she says: that Gerald and I murdered her, so we could be together.’
‘Did you?’
‘Of course we didn’t. It’s an absurd thing to say.’
‘Gerald didn’t ask you to take the pill?’
‘I told you, he wanted a baby very much.’
‘But there’s only Emily?’
‘I just didn’t become pregnant, afterwards. I had tests: we both did. There was no reason why it didn’t happen. It just didn’t.’
‘Will you hate Rebecca, if she admits the affair in front of you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you hate Gerald?’
‘I couldn’t hate Gerald. Ever.’
‘Not even if it’s true?’
‘It wouldn’t have been love. Just sex.’
‘Wouldn’t you hate her, just the same?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’ The psychiatrist had come forward on his chair, jabbing the questions at her.
‘If he needed another woman it would have meant I was inadequate, wouldn’t it? That I’d failed. It would have been my fault.’
‘ That you weren’t such a good fuck, after all.’
‘She says I’d realize I wasn’t such a good fuck after all.’
‘Were you?’
Jennifer felt herself colour. ‘I thought we had a more than satisfactory sex life,’ she forced herself to say.
‘You’re embarrassed?’
‘Of course I’m embarrassed.’
‘Do you swear?’
‘Swear?’ frowned Jennifer.
‘ Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
‘She’s saying fuck all the time.’
‘Do you? Use the word, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ admitted Jennifer at once.
‘So you’re not offended by it?’
‘No. Are you?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me what you thought about driving up from the country.’
‘I don’t remember much about that. It was as if I was a passenger.’
‘What about when you got to Gerald’s office?’
Jennifer shook her head. ‘I don’t properly remember that. I mean I do, but not as if I was part of it. It was as if I was looking on.’
Fosdyke stirred, a signal. ‘What illnesses did you have, as a child?’
Jennifer frowned. ‘The usual, I suppose.’
‘I want to know, specifically.’
‘I’m not sure, specifically. Is it important?’
‘Very. Can we find out from your family?’
‘I don’t have a family. My mother died twelve years ago: my father four years later. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.’
‘No aunt or uncle who could help?’
‘Both my parents were only children, like I was.’
‘We could try a trace through the family doctor,’ offered Peter Lloyd, from the bottom of the bed. ‘We’ve got his name on the case notes.’
‘Do that, will you? Now,’ said the neurologist, without turning to the doctor, who hesitated and then eased his way past the silent lawyers.
‘What about accidents?’ persisted Fosdyke.
‘ Being born.’
‘She says my being born was an accident,’ Jennifer told Mason, who nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘What’s the proper answer,’ prompted Fosdyke.
‘No.’
‘No broken legs? Arms?’
‘No.’
‘What about head injuries?’
‘ I’ve convinced them. You haven’t any idea how insane you sound .’
‘She says you’re convinced I’m insane… that I sound insane.’
For the neurologist’s benefit, Mason said, ‘What about a head injury, at any time?’
‘No. Never.’
‘How about your pregnancy?’
‘Perfectly straightforward… wonderful… no problems at all.’
‘The birth itself?’
‘The gynaecologist said it was the easiest he’d ever known.’
Fosdyke turned invitingly to Mason, who shook his head. To the lawyers the neurologist said, ‘I’m going to carry out a physical examination. Excuse us.’
Hall and Perry filed obediently into the corridor to the hostile glares from the two policewomen. The barrister continued walking until he was beyond their hearing before turning to the solicitor. ‘Well?’
‘I don’t know a court that would put up with it,’ said Perry, flatly.
‘I don’t think I do, either.’
‘I’m frightened what the reaction might be to what I’ve got to tell her about Emily,’ said Perry. ‘Maybe I should wait until tomorrow?’
Hall shook his head, forcefully. ‘Not in the circumstances. Make sure Lloyd’s with you.’
‘What about you?’ asked the solicitor, seeking as much support as possible.
Hall looked sceptically at the older man. ‘All right.’
Peter Lloyd emerged from the elevator at the far end of the corridor. When he reached them Lloyd said, ‘The family doctor is faxing what medical records there are. Which aren’t very much. We went through it on the phone: she’s never had a day’s illness in her life.’
‘Until now,’ said Perry, as the doctor moved on to the ward. ‘And now she’s making up for all the lost years.’
Inside the tiny room Jennifer lay on top of the bed as Fosdyke went through the neurological routine. Her toes contracted when a pencil tip was drawn across the soles of her feet and with her eyes closed she correctly isolated every point at which he lightly touched a pin against unbandaged parts of her arms and legs. Still with her eyes closed she correctly brought her finger-tip unfalteringly to the tip of her nose and resisted his pressure when he pushed against her raised legs. He repeated the test more gently against her injured arms but she was still able to respond.