‘Not something! Do what I ask you. Get her taken away from me, please. She’ll never be safe, if you don’t…’ She swallowed, heavily, unable to go on for several moments. ‘Then it can be all over.’
‘No,’ refused Hall, fearing he understood the final remark. ‘It’s not going to be all over.’
There were five of them in Beringer’s office but when the proposal to get Jennifer out began to take shape Hall kept a telephone line open to Perry because it was easier for the solicitor to make their part of the arrangements from his end. Hopkins used another extension to co-ordinate the police participation and Mason a third. It took three hours and they spent a further hour objectively criticizing each other’s contribution in the hope of exposing unforeseen flaws.
‘You sure about the security?’ Hall asked the psychiatrist.
‘That’s what you pay for and how they can afford me as a consultant,’ assured Mason. ‘They’ve treated a cabinet minister and two pop stars in the last six months and not a word leaked out…’ He made a vague gesture through the window overlooking the chaos outside. ‘What you’re seeing there is mass hysteria: strangely, something like a mass religious hysteria. There’s already the cult camped outside Lambeth Palace. It’ll grow far beyond any police or army control unless we get her away. For hundreds of people – hundreds who are going to become thousands – Jennifer Lomax is the equivalent of someone from outer space. Or the second Messiah.’
‘I wish we could use a helicopter again,’ Hall said, to Hopkins.
‘So do I. But we can’t. The crowd should get smaller, after midnight. And we’ve kept the sightseeing ferries and boats away all day.’
‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’
Only Mason and Lloyd accompanied him when Hall returned to the small ward to explain to Jennifer what was going to happen. She listened blank-eyed, disinterested, shrugging when Lloyd asked her if she physically felt up to it. She said, ‘I suppose so. It hardly matters, does it?’
Lloyd remained in the ward, insisting upon personally restrapping Jennifer’s ribs and making a final medical examination.
As Hall and Mason walked back towards the administrator’s office, which was to act as the control room, Hall said, ‘What do you think Jennifer meant by saying it would all be over when I got a protection order for Emily?’
‘That she intends killing herself, of course,’ said the psychiatrist, without any hesitation. ‘Are you going to take Emily away, legally?’
‘It’s not necessary at the moment. There’s no way Jennifer can get to her.’
‘What are you going to do then?’
‘Take Jane on,’ said Hall, simply. Insane ideas for insane situations, he thought again.
Back in Jennifer’s ward Lloyd said, ‘I’ve got something you’re going to want to hear. The blood test is absolutely negative. Not a trace of HIV.’
‘I was hoping there would be,’ said Jennifer.
‘ It would have imposed a time limit on what I’m going to do but it would have been a wonderful way to see you finally die, wouldn’t it? ’
Chapter Twenty-eight
It worked.
When the moment came no-one truly believed that it would, because too many uncertainties were compounded at the outset. Despite the examination and re-examination of what they were going to attempt they hadn’t allowed for equipment failure or interference: the police radio linking Hall’s group to everyone else wouldn’t work from the below-basement boiler room, isolating them completely.
‘We can’t go back,’ decided Hall, at once. ‘Everyone else will already be moving. Just keep trying.’
There were five of them. Hall and Mason, like the two escorting policemen, wore hospital maintenance overalls. As additional disguise the barrister wore a yellow hard-hat. Jennifer wore a nurse’s cloak, over a regulation uniform: the shoes pinched. The headscarf was ready, for when they emerged through the heating service door. Jennifer was shuffling along automatically, engulfed in apathy, moved by Hall and Mason either side.
‘Two o’clock was start time,’ agreed Mason. ‘It’s five past.’
Three floors up, at ground level, it had started although not from the hospital itself. A route for vehicles had been forced through by the army reinforcements, particularly across Westminster Bridge because it was visible from the Albert Embankment. Across it, promptly on time, streamed a cavalcade of motor-cycle outriders, lights on, sirens blaring. The three police vans and two Range Rovers burned their siren-connected lights, too. Police and soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, pushed back against a crowd smaller than during the day but still large enough to block the entrance, reacting to the prearranged signal of an ambulance emerging from the hospital garage to park directly outside the main entrance. Following it from the garage came a squad of soldiers at the double to form another shoulder to shoulder wall between the vehicle and the crowd. ‘Jennifer, Jennifer,’ was an isolated shout at first but at once was taken up to become a repetitive howl. A lot of people tried to kneel in prayer but almost at once started screaming when they were trampled on. Everything was in fact made ghostly white by camera lights. Again, from circling helicopters, lights stabbed down.
The noise was so loud that it reached them, close to the boiler-room door, although the radio remained dead. Hall gently touched Jennifer’s arm as if to rouse her, to confront the problem they had recognized but couldn’t anticipate. ‘What’s she saying?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is she there?’
‘No.’
‘What about the sedation?’
‘I feel all right. Quite clear. My chest still hurts.’
The two policemen edged back, despite their personal selection by Hopkins: one was a sergeant, the other an inspector. ‘My best,’ Hopkins had called them.
‘Try to give me a warning,’ Hall told her. ‘If it works at all the diversion won’t last long.’
‘She’ll do something. She has to.’
‘ Hah! ’
‘She’s back!’ It had been abrupt, the numbness practically at the same time as the triumphant exclamation.
‘Tell me what she says,’ demanded Hall, urgently, trying to maintain a timetable tor which he’d attempted to make allowances for Jane’s inevitable interference, although not able to judge how long they’d need. If Jennifer erupted in attention-attracting convulsions the intention was to retreat, back into the hospital. And everything would have been a waste of time. ‘Every word, as she says it.’
‘ Throw you to the wolves! How about that! They’d tear you apart, like a pack: frightened of the unknown.’
‘And you’re frightened too, aren’t you?’ demanded Hall, addressing Jane.
‘ Cocky little scumbag! You talking to me? ’
‘Yes. And you are frightened: not sure of yourself any more. Not sure what you can make Jennifer do.’
‘ You want me to show you what I can make her do? ’
Three minutes, estimated Hall, unable to check the timing. And still unable to discover any setbacks above. ‘What would that prove?’
‘ That I still call the shots. Which I do.’
‘I disgraced you in court: disgraced the memory of your father. Exposed you as a murderess and destroyed the Herbetson family name.’ He’d discarded the destroyed jacket but wore the boiler-suit over the rest of his clothes. He was saturated by sweat. It had to be five minutes by now.
‘ Who gives a fuck? ’
‘You should. You fouled your family name. Didn’t prove anyone murdered you. Jennifer’s free. Couldn’t keep a husband when you had one. You failed all the way down the line, didn’t you?’ Jennifer had both arms clutched around her, holding her sides. Mason was intently forward, determined against missing anything of the exchange. The two policemen were pebble-eyed, in astonished bewilderment. It had to have been going on for eight minutes by now.
‘ What the fuck are you saying? ’
‘That I can defeat you, whenever I want. And that you’re too scared to admit it. So you’re going to make a scene when we get outside, like a spoilt child…’ He looked to the policemen, shrugging. ‘Let’s go back. It’s a waste of time…’