The Accused (Modern Plays) (5 page)

Hussein
To do one’s duty as a good citizen and respect the law is the British way, Mr Kersley. Or that’s what Sir James assured us when he delivered his lecture to the Anglo-Indian Society last year.

Kersley
No more questions, My Lord.

Judge
Thank you Mr Hussein, you may leave the witness box. (Hussein
leaves the witness box and passes in front of
Kersley
.).

Kersley
(
aside to
Hussein)
Dr Hussein, you’re wasted on the medical profession - you should have joined us at the Bar.

Hussein
Oh, no, Mr Kersley, I’m far too honest to make a success of your chosen profession.

Judge
You may call your next witness, Mr Kersley.

Kersley
Thank you, My Lord. I call Professor Alistair Forsyth.

Usher
Call Alistair Forsyth.

Guard
Alistair Forsyth.

Professor Forsyth
is a Scot of around fifty-five to sixty, very formal and slightly pompom. He enters the courtroom and goes straight to the witness box. He takes the card in his right hand, as if he has been through the process many times before. He does not wait for the
Usher
to instruct him
.

Forsyth
I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Kersley
Professor, I would like to establish with the jury the particular expertise you bring to this case. (
Forsyth
nods
.) You were educated at Edinburgh Academy, from where you won a scholarship to Cambridge to read medicine?

Forsyth
Yes, Mr Kersley, that is correct.

Kersley
At Cambridge you graduated with honours in Pharmacology and went on to do research for an MD?

Forsyth
That is also correct.

Kersley
On completing your MD, you took up a Fellowship at King’s College, London, where you continued your research. May I enquire what your specialist subject was?

Forsyth
Toxicology, the study of poisons.

Kersley
You were offered the Chair of Toxicology at London University, and you have since written several books on the subject, which are acknowledged as the recognised text for any student reading for a medical degree?

Forsyth
Only three of my works are set texts, Mr Kersley. The rest of them would be far beyond the understanding of the average undergraduate.

Kersley
Quite so. You are a Fellow of the Royal Society and have recently been awarded a CBE for services to medicine?

Judge
I do believe, Mr Kersley, that you have established beyond peradventure the credentials of your expert witness, so perhaps the time has come to get on with the case in hand.

Kersley
I am delighted to learn, My Lord, that you feel Professor Forsyth’s credentials need no further claims on my part, as I believe your endorsement can only give the jury added confidence in his opinions.

Judge
(
scowls
) Mr Kersley. Get on with it.

Kersley
First let me ask you, Professor, how you became involved in this case?

Forsyth
The Crown Prosecution Service invited me to make a report on Mrs Sherwood’s medical history. I began by reading all Mrs Sherwood’s files held at St George’s.

Kersley
And would I be correct in thinking that you sought a Home Office order to exhume the body?

Forsyth
I would have done so, Mr Kersley, had Mr Sherwood not given instructions for the body to be cremated a few days after her death.

Kersley
Really. Despite this setback, were you able to discover any new evidence?

Forsyth
No, because Mr Sherwood had misled his colleagues into believing that his wife’s previous heart attack explained her premature death. They also emphasised that as she was married to a surgeon who specialised in the subject, her aftercare treatment could hardly have been better.

Kersley
Or worse, as the case may be.

Judge
Mr Kersley, you will in future desist from making these
sotto voce
remarks. (
Turns to the audience
.) Members of the Jury, Mr Kersley’s comment should be ignored.

Kersley
But not forgotten, I suspect.

Judge
Did you wish to say something, Mr Kerlsey?

Kersley
My Lord, I was simply at pains to point out that …

Judge
It is not your responsibility to point out anything, Mr Kersley, merely to ask questions, which may elicit answers that in turn might possibly assist the jury.

Kersley
But … My Lord … if I am to discharge …

Judge
No buts, Mr Kersley, as Sir James has so properly reminded us. From you, I only require questions. I expect the answers to come from the witnesses.

Kersley
So be it, My Lord. Professor, would it be possible for an experienced doctor to poison a patient while at the same time fooling his colleagues?

Forsyth
Yes, nowadays that would be easy enough for anyone with Mr Sherwood’s experience. There are three known poisons - only one available on prescription - that would kill an intended victim without leaving any clue that a murder had taken place.

Kersley
Well, I will deal only with the one poison that is available on prescription - Potassium Chloride. Professor, could you poison someone with Potassium Chloride and hope to get away with it?

Forsyth
Oh, yes, it’s the most satisfactory of all poisons for a would-be murderer. Once injected, the victim will suffer a cardiac arrest, showing absolutely no sign of being poisoned.

Kersley
So what led you to suspect that this was not a death by natural causes?

Forsyth
The discovery of a deposit of Potassium Chloride on the rubber glove found on the floor of the Sherwoods’ kitchen.

Kersley
And how much poison was discovered on the glove?

Forsyth
One milligram, which is an amount consistent with checking that a hypodermic needle was working effectively.

Kersley
Would you care to demonstrate to the jury exactly what you mean by that, Professor?

Forsyth
Certainly. (
Pulls on a rubber glove and demonstrates to the audience
.) Just before injecting a patient, you press the plunger thus, to ensure that the liquid is flowing. (
He allows it to fly into the air, landing on his glove
.) As you observe, some droplets end up on the glove.

Kersley
And this led you to believe that Mrs Sherwood had probably received an injection of Potassium Chloride just before her death?

Forsyth
Yes, it did.

Kersley
And could such an injection also have caused the bruising on her arm?

Forsyth
Most certainly it could, especially if she had offered any resistance.

Kersley
Professor, I should now like to ask you about the glass of wine found on the table by Mrs Sherwood’s side. Have you been able to analyse its contents?

Forsyth
Yes I have, and they revealed large deposits of Temazepam - a particularly strong sedative, available only on prescription. There was enough left in the glass to have knocked out a heavyweight boxer.

Kersley
Which would, had she taken it, have made injecting her all the more easy.

Barrington
My Lord, I was accused by my learned friend of a plot worthy of
A Book at Bedtime
. Following Mr Kersley’s flight of fancy, once this trial is over can I assume he will be applying to become an investigative journalist with the
News of the World?

Judge
We will leave the jury to decide which one they consider the better qualified for that job, Sir James. Carry on, please, Mr Kersley.

Kersley
Professor, can you confirm that six ampoules of Potassium Chloride were collected by Ms Mitchell from a chemist in Wellingborough?

Forsyth
Yes, I can. I studied the poison register and checked all six entries against the prescriptions collected by Miss Mitchell and they all tallied.

Kersley
And as a leading authority on the subject, would you now tell the court how many ampoules of Potassium Chloride it would take to cause a fatal heart attack?

Forsyth
(
hesitates
) Four ampoules would be certain to cause cardiac arrest, but a fifth would leave no hope of survival.

Kersley
And how would the victim die, Professor?

Forsyth
In great pain, before the heart finally gave out.

Kersley
But surely the post-mortem would reveal strong traces of Potassium Chloride that would cause the examining doctor to become suspicious?

Forsyth
Unfortunately not. A heart attack causes an unusual amount of Potassium to be released into the bloodstream, which would be regarded as quite normal by any doctor conducting a post-mortem.

Kersley
And Mr Sherwood would have been aware of this?

Forsyth
A first-year medical student would have been aware of it.

Kersley
Professor, what would be your opinion of a doctor who took advantage of such specialised knowledge?

Forsyth
It betrays the very principles of the Hippocratic Oath, ‘Whatever house I enter, there will I go for the benefit of the sick, refraining from all wrong doing.’ The meaning could not be clearer.

Kersley
No more questions, My Lord.

Judge
Sir James. Do you wish to cross-examine?

Barrington
Thank you, My Lord. Dr Forsyth.

Forsyth
Professor.

Barrington
I do apologise, Professor. May I begin by congratulating you on such an illustrious career, detailed so laboriously by my learned friend. But do you consider, as a scientist, you are also qualified to pass moral judgements on a colleague without relying on a shred of evidence?

Forsyth
The Hippocratic Oath is the very foundation of a doctor’s code of practice.

Barrington
And there is nothing in Mr Sherwood’s equally distinguished career to suggest that he doesn’t agree with you. So let us now consider the facts, Professor. You told the court that none of the doctors at St George’s gave you any reason to believe that Mrs Sherwood had died in unusual circumstances.

Forsyth
That is correct, but none of them was aware that Mr Sherwood had been collecting ampoules of Potassium Chloride from a chemist outside London.

Barrington
I will come to that, Professor. Now, in your long report commissioned by the Crown Prosecution Service, you also confirm (
Holds up the report
.) that Mrs Sherwood’s GP had her on the correct programme of medication for the particular heart problem she was suffering from?

Forsyth
Yes, but Dr Haslam, was not …

Barrington
I wonder, Professor, if you would be kind enough to confine yourself to answering my questions and not making speeches. This courtroom is not an extension of your lecture theatre and I am not one of your undergraduates. So allow me to move on to the constituents of Potassium Chloride and, may I say, Professor, how much we all enjoyed your little demonstration with the hypodermic needle, which you claimed was consistent with the amount of the chemical found on the kitchen glove.

Forsyth
(
now angry
) It most certainly was.

Barrington
But tell me, Professor, as an acknowledged expert on the subject, would it not also be consistent with the amount of Potassium found in this bottle of grapefruit juice, which is more likely to be located in a kitchen?

Forsyth
Yes, but …

Barrington
Search as I might, I couldn’t find any reference to grapefruit juice in your hundred-and-thirty-nine-page report.

Forsyth
My report was not concerned with … the contents …

Barrington
Then perhaps it should have been. Professor, you told the court that the first thing you did when you were asked to look into this case was to study Mrs Sherwood’s medical history.

Forsyth
And I did so.

Barrington
And so did I, Professor, and I discovered that Mrs Sherwood’s father had died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight. Why didn’t you consider this possible hereditary condition worthy of mention?

Forsyth
Because I could find no connection between the death of a thirty-seven-year old woman and her father’s demise at fifty-eight. Had you been one of my undergraduates Sir James, you would have learnt that research is one thing, being able to draw scientific conclusions from it is quite another.

Barrington
Well, let us consider some of your scientific conclusions, shall we, Professor, and try to find out what you have learnt from them. On how many occasions have you testified for the crown in murder trials where poisoning was involved?

Forsyth
A dozen - more, perhaps.

Barrington
And was one of those cases ‘The Crown versus Mr Roger Latham’?