According to the Evidence (30 page)

‘When did you last attend her, doctor?' asked Lewis Gordon.

‘Four days before her death, sir. I usually went in on alternate days, though there was nothing I could really do, except check that she was getting sufficient painkillers and proper nursing care. Unfortunately, I was on holiday when she died.'

No one took him up on why he considered his absence ‘unfortunate'.

‘And was she any different on that last visit?'

Dr Rogers thought carefully, as he knew the significance of his reply, but had no thought other than to tell the truth as he saw it.

‘Not really. Her condition didn't change much on a daily basis, but she was certainly worse than she had been a week or two earlier.'

‘But you had no reason to think that she would have died from the cancer four days later?' persisted the barrister.

Again the careful doctor thought before he spoke. ‘No, but equally I had no reason to exclude that possibility. Patients in the terminal stages can die at any time.'

Gordon tried several more times, asking what was basically the same question in different ways, but Rogers stuck to his guns. Even though she was already partisan in this issue, Moira silently applauded him for his refusal to be pressurized into qualifying his opinion to suit the QC.

Gordon's court sense soon told him that the judge would get restive if he persisted in his repetition and, knowing that he had obtained all he was likely to get from the family doctor, sat down to leave the field to his defence colleague.

‘Have you any questions for this witness, Mr Prideaux?' asked Templeman.

Nathan rose slowly to his feet and wrapped his gown around his stomach as he leaned against his document stand.

‘I will be very brief, my lord.' He turned to the witness box.

‘Dr Rogers, you indicated to my learned colleague just now that you had no reason to exclude the possibility that Mrs Parker might have died within days following your last visit. How strong would you rate the word “possibility”?'

Again the experienced GP hesitated before he replied. ‘I think it impossible to quantify, sir. I have been in practice for over thirty-five years and seen many patients die in similar circumstances. I think it virtually impossible to forecast when death will occur. In fact, I sometimes deprecate the too-dogmatic opinions of some of my colleagues, which can lead to distress for both patients and their relatives when their estimates prove markedly incorrect, in either direction.'

Nathan Prideaux nodded wisely, to emphasize to the jury what a sensible fellow this witness was. ‘So you were not surprised to hear that Mary Parker had died on that day?'

Dr Rogers shook his head. ‘Not at all, though I was sorry that it occurred when I was away on holiday – especially when I learned of the allegations that arose later.'

Prideaux shied away from this aspect, as it was outside this witness's sphere of knowledge. He tried another tack. ‘So why, medically speaking, would you not be surprised that this patient or any other in similar circumstances might die suddenly and unexpectedly?'

John Rogers looked down at the front of the court through his thick glasses and saw what he correctly took to be a pathologist in the second row. ‘I expect you will get a more authoritative answer to that from other experts, sir, but as a mere family doctor I can say that a widespread cancer like that suffered by Mrs Parker can lead to a variety of fatal pathological events. She had secondary growths in her bones, her liver and her lungs. These could cause internal bleeding or clotting of the veins, which could cause sudden death by blocking the circulation in the lungs. Her liver impairment can reach a point where the whole chemistry of the body is irreparably damaged. But even apart from those specific problems, any patient with very severe disease of many kinds can just give up on life. We all have to die from something at some time – it used to be called “giving up the ghost”!'

Prideaux felt that this rather philosophical statement was an ideal point to leave with the jury and, being a canny advocate, he knew when to stop pushing.

He sat down with a sincere, ‘Thank you, doctor.'

The judge asked Gordon if he wished to re-examine, but the prosecution barrister politely declined. Mr Justice Templeman offered his own thanks to the family doctor and released him from any further attendance.

As the next witness was being called from outside the court, Moira whispered to her new friend from the solicitor's office. ‘How did that go, do you think?' she asked anxiously.

Mrs Armitage, who had attended many courts with her own boss, gave a little shrug. ‘Neither helped nor hindered, really. Probably more helpful than not,' she said. ‘It's the next chap who might be a problem.'

The ‘next chap' was Dr Roger's locum, the man who had been called to the vet's house on the day of her death.

Moira took an instant dislike to Dr Austin Harrap-Johnson from the moment he strutted importantly down the side of the court to take his place in the witness box. Though rather short, he stood ramrod straight to take the oath, holding the New Testament dramatically high in the air. His voice was loud and imbued with a plummy accent that went well with the Old Harrovian tie that set off his immaculate pinstriped suit. His fair hair was Brylcreemed back from his round, pink face as he attentively faced the judge to respond to prosecuting counsel's request to state his name and confirm that he was a registered medical practitioner.

‘I am a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and also hold the Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery of the Society of Apothecaries of London,' he declared, inclining slightly towards the judge, as if to impress him with the notion that these qualifications were among the highest accolades in the British medical profession. In his seat on the second row of benches, Richard Pryor grinned to himself, as he knew that Mr Justice Templeman would be well aware that these ‘Conjoint' qualifications and the LMSSA, though eminently respectable, were the basic requirements to get on the Medical Register. In fact, some medical students used them as a ‘safety net' in case they failed the final examinations of their own universities.

Responding to further questions from the QC, Harrap-Johnson confirmed that he had acted as Dr Rogers' locum for three weeks at the material time and that he had attended Mrs Mary Parker during that period.

‘And were you called urgently to the Parker household on April the seventh this year?'

‘I was indeed – but unfortunately the patient was deceased when I arrived, and all I could do was to confirm the fact of death.'

The young doctor spoke with a degree of gravitas that suggested he was used to attending the deathbeds of royalty.

‘You say that you confirmed the fact of death, doctor,' said Lewis Gordon, tugging his black gown more closely across his chest. ‘But did you not certify the cause of death?'

Harrap-Johnson shook his head gravely. ‘I did not, sir. I felt unable to do so for several reasons.'

‘And what were they?'

‘First, although I was of course fully aware of Mrs Parker's serious medical condition, I had seen her only two days previously and considered then that she was in no immediate danger of dying. Her notes compiled by Dr Rogers indicated that her condition had not deteriorated since his last visit.'

‘And the second reason?'

‘When I attended the house, I was met by the dead lady's sister, Miss Lupin, who immediately conveyed her concerns about the nature of the death. She told me that she was a qualified pharmacist and that she suspected that her sister had been given an injection of a toxic substance.'

At this, the murmur of excitement that came from the public seats was almost palpable and the judge looked up sharply, a frown of annoyance on his face.

Lewis Gordon pressed on with his questions.

‘This must have come as something of a surprise to you, doctor?'

Harrap-Johnson managed to give the impression that such events were not uncommon in his practice and that he could take them in his stride. ‘Well, it was rather! But I was already uneasy about finding the lady dead so unexpectedly.'

‘What happened next?'

‘After I had done all I could at the bedside and confirmed that there was nothing to be done by the way of resuscitation, Miss Lupin insisted on taking me through to the veterinary clinic, where she showed me a large syringe still containing some liquid, a bottle labelled as potassium chloride and a carton of vials of sodium Pentothal.'

‘Was the defendant present when you arrived at the house?'

‘Not at first, sir. The housekeeper who admitted me said that Mr Parker was very shocked and was in the sitting room where she had given him strong tea, while he telephoned a funeral director to start making arrangements.'

‘So he was not present when his sister-in-law expressed her concerns about the nature of the death?'

‘No, but before I left I naturally sought him out to express my condolences and to tell him that I feared I was not in a position to provide a death certificate.'

‘How did he respond to that?' asked Lewis Gordon.

For the first time, the locum doctor looked a little uncomfortable, and Moira wondered if there had been some strong opinions exchanged at the time.

‘Mr Parker expressed surprise and consternation at my inability to certify the death, especially when I said that I had no option but to inform the coroner.'

‘Did you mention the suspicions of Miss Lupin at that point?'

‘I did not. I thought it was not my place to do so; that aspect was up to the coroner.'

‘So the possibility of some sort of poisoning was not mentioned?'

Harrap-Johnson again looked uneasy, and Moira thought he might be recalling some terse words from the veterinary surgeon.

‘Not by me, but Mr Parker raised the allegations of his sister-in-law and forcefully rejected them.'

The prosecutor did not want to go further down this path and backtracked in order to get further details. This was boring stuff, and Moira could almost feel the restlessness of the court in having sheered away from more the dramatic revelations.

When he came to the end of these more mundane matters, the judge offered Nathan Prideaux the opportunity to cross-examine, which he accepted with an almost casual grace.

Leaning with one elbow on his little table, he started by investigating Austin Harrap-Johnson, rather than the facts of the case. ‘Doctor, how long have you been qualified?'

The young man frowned; this was not what he expected – he was here to show off his forensic acumen to the court.

‘Three years – and ten months,' he added defensively.

‘How have you been employed during that time?'

Again Harrap-Johnson looked nonplussed.

‘Employed? Well, as soon as I qualified I became a house surgeon at Guy's and then a house physician at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Then I was called up for National Service for two years as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Eastbury was my first locum after returning to civilian practice.'

‘What were your duties in the army, doctor?'

‘I was a Regimental Medical Officer to the Coldstream Guards. At first with the rank of lieutenant, then captain.'

Richard again grinned to himself – he knew that RMO postings to the posh regiments usually went to those with double-barrelled names who had been to Eton, Harrow or Marlborough.

The defence counsel nodded complacently. ‘I assume that most of those in a Guards regiment were pretty fit chaps, eh?'

Mystified, Harrap-Johnson agreed. ‘Most of my work was dealing with injuries of various types.'

‘So you have had little experience of middle-aged ladies dying of cancer?'

The discomfited doctor huffed and puffed a little, but had to agree. ‘But of course I had spent a year in two large hospitals before that – and as a student I had been trained in the full range of disease process.'

‘But had you even managed a case of terminal pancreatic carcinoma before?'

Harrap-Johnson, for all his pomposity, was an honest young man and had sworn to tell the truth, so he agreed he had not.

‘And had you ever seen a patient with that awful disease?' pursued Prideaux relentlessly.

The locum wriggled a little, saying that a case had been demonstrated by a consultant at Guy's and that he had seen other types of advanced cancer.

‘So doctor, it comes to this, doesn't it?' concluded the QC. ‘You have no personal experience of how and when a sufferer from terminal cancer of the pancreas might die. It's right, isn't it, that if Miss Sheila Lupin had not made her allegations about the possibility of a fatal injection, you would have taken your pad of certificates from your black bag and signed one on the spot?'

Harrap-Johnson pulled himself up in a last-ditch expression of defiance. ‘I don't know about that. I was still not happy about the case.'

Nathan Prideaux gripped each side of his table and jutted his head forward towards the witness box. ‘But why not? You were quite entitled to certify, under the law which states that if a doctor has attended a patient within the previous four-teen days before death, excluding the final visit, he is entitled to issue a certificate. You fulfilled those criteria and were also locum to Dr Rogers, who had been treating Mrs Parker for many years, let alone fourteen days!'

Deflated, Austin Harrap-Johnson mumbled something and attracted the notice of the judge, who glared at him over his half-moon spectacles.

‘Doctor, please speak up! The jury need to hear what you have to say.'