Fosdyke brought himself up at their arrival, gesturing towards three straight-back chairs obviously newly installed in an uncertain, formal line opposite Mason. Opposing combatants again, thought Hall.
Fosdyke said, ‘Waiting Room issue, I’m afraid…’ He raised his coffee container. ‘Like this: can you believe cleaners and patients steal anything else! God knows what for! But I grind the coffee myself. Colombian…’ There was another gesture, to a table near the window where a full pot stood on its hotplate. ‘… Help yourselves.’
Lloyd continued straight on to the coffee. Perry hesitated, then followed. Hall sat down, looking around the room. Perhaps, he thought, the mess was a camouflage against further larceny. The idle reflection was short lived. A few hundred yards away there was a mentally ill murderer who’d cut another human being – her husband – to pieces and this meeting to help her began with an apology about hospital furniture and coffee cups. Wrong, Hall corrected himself, at once. They were doing a job, all of them performing different expertise from different perspectives. But as proper, dispassionate professionals, not allowing the distraction or influence of personal involvement. My first murder, he reminded himself: their attitude was right, his was wrong.
Still at the machine the solicitor turned and said, ‘You sure?’
‘Black, no sugar,’ accepted Hall. He hoped Perry hadn’t imagined he’d waited to be served. He was sorry taking it within seconds of Perry giving him the container: it was too hot to hold without a handle, and he hurriedly placed it on the floor. The returning Lloyd repositioned his chair more towards the doctors before he sat down. Combatants, Hall thought again.
‘Well?’ invited Perry. ‘What’s the verdict?’
‘Limited, from my side,’ said Mason, lowering his feet to the floor. ‘So let’s start with medically provable findings.’
On cue Fosdyke came further upright, too, assembling a few sheets of paper and some X-ray plates before him. As he did so the psychiatrist said, ‘Remember, as far as I am concerned, this isn’t a verdict. It’s a very preliminary impression.’
Fosdyke coughed. ‘Quite obviously mental problems – insanity even – can be brought on by physical factors or illness. We know now, from symptoms still recorded in the archives, that George III wasn’t mad: he suffered from porphyria, which we’d control by pills today…’ He was playing with his notes but Hall didn’t think the neurologist needed them.
‘As well as for organic reasons, apparent mental illness can be caused by head or brain malformation or injury,’ continued Fosdyke, looking up. ‘A difficult birth, the use of forceps or Caesarian section, things like that can result in cerebral anoxia, damage the temporal lobes and bring about epileptic dysfunction in later life… cortical atrophy even…’
Perry stirred, smiling sideways to Hall. ‘This could be better than any defence we’ve thought of so far…!’
‘If I could find any of it, which I can’t,’ stopped Fosdyke, immediately puncturing the expectation. He made an inclusive gesture towards Lloyd. ‘As a part of my assessment, we’ve carried out faeces, urine and blood tests. Earlier today there was even a lumbar drain, to examine spinal fluid for any cranial bleed or infection. In nothing we have done have we found the slightest evidence whatsoever of any medical conditions or illness from which Mrs Lomax might be suffering: most certainly nothing that would reflect upon or cause the mental collapse she appears to have undergone-’
‘What about physical damage or malformation?’ pressed Hall, reluctant to lose an acceptable defence avenue.
‘She responded a hundred per cent normally to every sensory test I carried out in the ward,’ refused Fosdyke. ‘In the examination room I even extended the scan, beyond the brain, to include the upper part of the body. There is absolutely no brain abnormality or malformation to account for Mrs Lomax’s behaviour. Neither is there in the upper body: anything that could be interrupting the oxygen or blood supply to the brain, for instance…’
‘… In short?’ invited Hall.
Fosdyke lifted the plates and printouts from the scan and said, ‘In short, Jennifer Lomax is, physically and neurologically, probably the fittest thirty-two-year-old woman I’ve ever examined in my life. Actuarilly, she’ll live to be a hundred.’
Hall finally picked up his cooled coffee. It was excellent, despite its container. ‘There’s no other test left you could carry out?’
The neurologist shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I,’ said the barrister, with feeling.
Beside him Perry said to Julian Mason, ‘Which means our hope comes back to you.’
‘I’m not sure you’re going to be any better pleased,’ said the psychiatrist. He got up, refilled his cup and stayed slightly propped against the window in an attitude reminding Hall of how his tutor had sometimes tried to explain particularly esoteric points of law. The recollection prompted a reminder of its own, which he put aside until he’d heard Mason out.
‘You can’t have found nothing,’ challenged Perry in irritation.
Mason smiled, unoffended. ‘The problem may be that I’ve found too much but that I need even more.’
Hall detected a move of fresh irritation beside him and quickly said, ‘Perhaps you should talk us through it.’
The psychiatrist paused, preparing himself but unencumbered by any notes. ‘You’ve got to understand from the outset that one session, like we had today, was always going to be totally inadequate. I’ll need more – probably a lot more – if I’m ever going to be of any practical use to you or to a court.’
‘Of course we accept that,’ said Hall. ‘What we’re looking for today is a suggested way to go forward.’
Mason nodded, extending the gesture towards the neurologist. ‘George was looking for a pathological cause for Mrs Lomax’s condition. And didn’t find one. On face value Mrs Lomax is showing some of the classic symptoms of schizophrenia. There are no pathological tests for schizophrenia. It’s decided upon by the psychiatrist from visual and behavioural perception. For which they observe the symptoms devised by a German psychiatrist named Schneider: technically it’s called the Schneider Present State Examination. Mrs Lomax’s most obvious symptom is Second Person Auditory Hallucination: people – in this case one person – are talking to her. Equally obvious is Delusion of Thought Insertion: Jane can think for Jennifer, is aware of Jennifer’s thoughts… is inside her head, listening.’
Mason paused to sip his coffee and Hall waited, far from impatient at the lecture. Rather, he wanted a lecture: whatever defence they decided upon, he was going to need the phrases and the methodology. To be able to use and understand them.
‘There are some other schizophrenic indicators,’ resumed the psychiatrist. ‘The apparent uncontrolled movement of her arms and legs. Not having many friends is schizoid. Using obscenities is another… the actual murder would come under the heading of dyssocial personality disorder…’
Humphrey Perry didn’t have Hall’s patience. ‘So she’s genuinely mentally ill? Not properly aware of what she’s doing so we can suggest she’s suffering diminished responsibility or is unfit to plead?’
‘No,’ said the psychiatrist, shortly.
‘No!’
‘I’ve treated and diagnosed dozens of schizophrenics: a lot of paranoid schizophrenics who’ve killed. And I’ve never before encountered anyone like Jennifer Lomax.’