‘I have it,’ promised Hall, not wanting to lose control. He went back to Halliday’s statement. ‘It goes on, “Gerald Lomax complained of having difficulty in sleeping: blamed the pressure of work and asked for sleeping pills. I prescribed temazepam…’ Hall slowed, unnecessarily building up the moment. ‘… At the same time he said he was worried about his wife, who was a diabetic although not a patient of mine. He told me she was extremely careless about her medication: sometimes even forgot to bring it with her when she came up to their apartment in London…”’
It was impossible to tell whether the sound, a whimpering, groaning noise, was initiated by Jane or Jennifer.
Hall waited for the sound to become an identifiable word. When it didn’t he went back to the statement. Quoting again he said, ‘“She’d done it the previous week and they’d had to cancel everything and go back to Hampshire. He asked if I could issue a script for emergencies: something that he could keep in London if it happened again. I gave him a prescription for a month’s supply of ten-unit strength soluble insulin, the type he told me his wife used.”’
All three men were looking at Hall now, the awareness registering. Only Mason spoke. He said, ‘Good God!’ and then looked apologetically at the priest.
‘ He did it! I knew he did it.’
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ said the barrister, determined to maintain the pace. ‘Jennifer was in New York, all that time. And you knew it. You’ve told us that Gerald said she was away when he talked of her commission. The Enco-Corps records, which are part of this pile, prove it, in black and white: Jennifer Stone didn’t get back to England until July 9, just two weeks before your death. The prescription, for the temazepam and the insulin, was made up on June 13 by an independent chemist in Bury Street, in the City of London, named Hemels. Who still have the dispensing record, signed by the person who collected it…’ He slid a photocopy across the table. ‘The person who collected it was Elizabeth McIntyre, Gerald Lomax’s secretary…’ Hall stopped, dry-throated, all the water gone, desperately searching his mind for something – anything – he’d overlooked. Just the final accusation, he decided. ‘… You never thought Jennifer conspired in your murder… you wanted to kill her because she stole Gerald from you… that’s the truth, isn’t it Jane? The truth you didn’t want to admit!’
Jennifer said, ‘She’s crying. That’s the sound in my head. Crying.’
‘She didn’t go.’ Jeremy Hall was slouched over the table, drained, his arms and legs too heavy for his body, his head lolling. The heaviest weight was the feeling of defeat.
‘She didn’t swear, not once. Get angry or make Jennifer do anything. And in the end she cried,’ said Mason, enumerating points for his own benefit. He looked across at the lawyer. ‘And you did what you promised you’d do.’
‘But she still didn’t go,’ repeated the barrister.
Dawson was the only other man still in the room with them. Having weaned Jennifer completely from drugs during Jane’s absence, Dr Cox had decided that night she needed a tranquillizer and was still in the adjoining bedroom: it had needed Hall as well as the doctor virtually to carry Jennifer away from the table. They hadn’t been sure whether it was her own or Jane’s tears she was shedding.
‘There is nothing more I can do,’ admitted the barrister.
‘Which only leaves me,’ accepted the priest. ‘Dear God, please help me: please help us both.’
Chapter Thirty-four
‘Your father taught you to love God?’
‘ Yes.’
‘And you do love Him, don’t you?’
‘ I did.’
‘And you still do, Jane.’ As always Dawson stood with his hand on Jennifer’s head, his eyes tightly shut, his whole will concentrated upon the woman kneeling before him, a woman who would be for ever damned by another if he failed. Feeling he, too, would be damned if he failed.
He’d not slept at all. He’d spent the whole night prostrate, outstretched before the altar in prayer, pleading for guidance and for a miracle and for Jennifer to be released from a living purgatory.
Two hours before he’d anointed her with oil and marked the cross upon her in holy water and spread the salt and gone through the exorcism ritual until there were no prayers left to be said as part of it.
Jennifer hadn’t slept, either. And not because Jane had filled her mind: she hadn’t needed to. Jennifer knew this was the last chance, the last hope. Now she prayed, too, eyes as fervently shut as the man above her, her desperation even greater, not caring that Jane would know the agony of her fear: that she was giving Jane a target to attack. Despite her daily periods with the priest Jennifer still couldn’t believe, although she wanted to: told herself she had to and mouthed the litany to the priest’s dictation and made her own childlike vow – if You grant me this one thing I will worship, I truly will…
‘ I’m frightened. ’
‘God can help you! Save you!’
‘ No-one can help me.’
‘God can forgive all things: all sin.’ Why were the words so empty, so trite?
‘ He could not forgive me. I’II be for ever in Purgatory… in Hell
… I know the teaching…’
‘You don’t want to cause any more suffering, do you?’
‘ No.’
‘Then you must leave this woman.’
‘ I have sinned too much.’
‘To stay would be the greater sin.’ Not enough. Never enough. There had to be more to say, a way to convince someone who had once believed, as Jane had believed.
‘ I am beyond forgiveness.’
Please, prayed Jennifer. Make her go away. Leave me alone. I’m sorry, so very sorry I can’t believe in You. But please make her leave me alone.
Dawson held back from the forgiveness of the Lord’s Prayer. Instead he said, ‘“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.”’
‘ Saint Luke wasn’t talking of murder. And I wanted to send Jennifer mad, for taking Gerald… Said I’d kill the child… I can’t be forgiven for that… None of it…’
‘“I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,”’ preached the man, hands shaking with emotion. ‘Repent Jane! Truly repent! You’ll descend into Hell, which you know we all must, but then you’ll rise again, into Heaven. You know that’s true. The way.’
‘I will kill myself, decided Jennifer. No other way. Don’t want to live. Not living. A body for someone else. Destroy the body, destroy the horror.
‘ I have done such terrible things. Now I am so very, very frightened.’
‘Do you love God, Jane?’
‘ I abandoned Him, for evil.’
‘Do you want to love him again?’
‘ Yes.’
‘So you want a way back?’
‘ There can’t be a way back, not for me.’
‘Do you truly repent, Jane?’
There was no immediate reply. Finally, ‘ Yes.’
‘Then trust God. You know you can. You always did in life. How better can you show your true repentance than by freeing Jennifer? To remain is to go on sinning: to continue evil and deserve an eternity in the fires of Hell…’
There was no response. The only sound was their breathing, the priest’s heavy from his effort. ‘Jane?’
‘ She deserved to suffer, for taking Gerald.’
‘Don’t you think she has?’
‘ I’ll only ask for God’s forgiveness: for God’s mercy. Not her.’
‘It’s only God we have to ask.’ He could pray for his own forgiveness for that later.
There was another long silence. Nothing left, thought Jennifer: no way to stop it. Die then. Pills. Pills wouldn’t hurt and she didn’t want to be hurt. Not hurt any more. Just ‘… I repent. Oh dear, merciful Lord, forgive me…’
A fraying thread of excitement held Jennifer and the priest from total collapse. Cox had worriedly taken both their pulses and Dawson’s blood pressure. He still wore his vestments, even his shawclass="underline" he sat holding it, running it through his fingers as he talked, which he did haltingly, in short bursts, with not enough breath for what he wanted to say.