Requiem (45 page)

The procurator fiscal turned to the sheriff. ‘Your honour, in view of the seriousness of the allegation concerning Reldane – a product which is freely available to the general public over the counter – and in view of the court’s duty to investigate the matter as thoroughly as possible I will be calling an eminent toxicologist to give evidence about Reldane at a later stage.’

Nick’s expression darkened. Hadn’t he realized that this was inevitable? Daisy wondered. Hadn’t he realized that his word would count for little against the experts’?

The procurator fiscal put his next question. ‘Did the toxicologists you consulted venture any opinion on Rel-dane’s role in your wife’s illness?’

‘Not really …’ He shrugged it off. It was an unfortunate gesture, giving the impression that he wasn’t interested in the question. Perhaps he realized his mistake because he added sharply: ‘They all had different ideas.’

The procurator fiscal nodded solemnly. ‘Did they not match the known effects of Reldane against your wife’s symptoms?’

‘They didn’t seem to know a lot about Reldane.’

‘So they could not be sure it was the Reldane?’

‘Not certain, no.’

‘You took your wife to America for assessment and treatment, I believe?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what was offered there?’

‘Not a lot. They had no idea about treatment either.’

‘But your wife was treated by a Dr Hubert Gravely of Boston?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he offered a firm opinion on the nature of your wife’s illness?’

‘Yes.’

The procurator fiscal reached behind him for some papers and announced that he was going to read the affadavit from Dr Gravely of Boston, Massachusetts. He read slowly, pausing occasionally to allow the sheriff to make his notes. The doctor’s statement was impenetrable with jargon, but it seemed to boil down to the fact that he had attended Mrs Alusha Mackenzie at various times between November 15th and December 18th of the previous year in Boston, and that she was suffering from the effects of exposure to a highly toxic substance. The toxicity had affected, as far as one could gather, almost every organ in her body, including the heart, the liver, and the endocrinal and nervous systems.

‘It appears, then, that your wife suffered a rapid and devastating decline in her health, Mr Mackenzie. Had she been well before the accident?’

‘Yes.’

‘Both mentally and physically?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘She was of normal weight?’

‘Yes.’

‘She had been expecting a baby at the time of the accident, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what happened?’

‘She lost it. Two weeks later.’

‘What did the doctors say about that?’

Nick cast him a withering look. ‘There wasn’t a great deal they could say, was there?’ It was the first time he had showed anything approaching emotion.

‘And her weight loss, did that come soon after the accident too?’

‘Yes.’ He had pulled the mask back over his face.

‘How did it come about? Did she lose the desire to eat?’

‘No. She lost the ability to absorb her food.’

‘So she ate as much as usual but still lost weight.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What other symptoms did she have?’

‘She was in pain nearly all the time.’

‘I see. What sort of pain? Can you elaborate?’

‘All her joints and – well, all over. And vicious headaches.’

‘Did this pain disturb her a great deal?’

‘It was unbearable.’

‘And she was given drugs for it?’

‘Yes. Morphine.’ His voice had dropped until it was barely audible.

‘And this was prescribed for her?’

He gave the briefest nod of his head.

‘By whom?’

‘The American doctor.’

‘This doctor?’ The procurator fiscal said, picking up the affidavit. ‘Dr Gravely?’

He gave a slight shrug. ‘Yes.’

‘What dosage did she take?’

‘It varied. I don’t know.’

‘Then she herself determined the dose?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’ A pause. ‘May I ask, Mr Mackenzie, was your wife depressed at all?’

He didn’t reply for a moment. ‘What sort of depression are you referring to? Endogenous or exogenous?’ he demanded, and there was an edge to his voice.

‘Well – I don’t think we need to know …’

‘It’s an important distinction,’ Nick said defensively, his voice rising. ‘If you mean had my wife lost the will to fight her illness – absolutely not. Even at her worst she never gave up, never doubted that she’d get well. But the illness itself – sometimes she felt so bad that it got her down. Physically, I mean. But it was never so bad that – ’ He broke off. He didn’t need to finish; everyone knew what he had intended to say. But he said it anyway. ‘That she would consider taking her own life.’

‘On the day of her death, was she particularly depressed?’

‘No.’ There was a tremor in his voice, as if he were controlling himself with difficulty.

‘She didn’t make any remark, any comment that could have a bearing on later events?’

‘No.’

‘There was no note, no message of any kind?’

It was an instant before Nick managed to answer. ‘No,’ he said with emphasis. ‘There was not.’

There was a short pause while the procurator fiscal consulted his notes.

‘Your wife didn’t have a family doctor here in Scotland?’

‘No.’

‘Why was that, may I ask?’

‘She’d had enough of doctors. And before that she never needed one.’

‘Thank you.’ The procurator fiscal sat down. The worst was over; but then the damage had already been done.

Nick’s lawyer did what he could, going over Alusha’s health before the accident and the devastation of her illness, but there was no disguising the fact that, according to Nick’s own evidence, the toxicologists had been unable to offer explanations about the cause of Alusha’s illness, nor had they been able to support the allegations about Reldane.

Finally Nick was allowed to leave the box. He strode back to his seat, his face set, his expression guarded.

The court adjourned for lunch. The press were up and making for the door before the sheriff had left the court. As the spectators stood up, Daisy looked for Nick but there was no sign of him and she realized he had been ghosted away, perhaps into a side room. She spent the hour rebuilding Campbell’s spirits in the nearest pub.

When the court reassembled, the procurator fiscal said to the sheriff: ‘In view of the highly technical nature of the affidavit from Dr Gravely I think the court may benefit from some elucidation.’ He nodded to the clerk who recalled the pathologist to the witness box.

The pathologist shook his head. ‘I find it very difficult to interpret this statement, Mr Procurator Fiscal. Certainly it doesn’t match with my findings.’

‘In what way?’

‘He mentions liver damage. I found no evidence of that whatsoever. He also mentions heart damage. Again I found no evidence of that. And as for hypothalamus malfunction – well, that’s impossible to measure; there
is
no test for hypothalamus function. And he talks about T-cell damage of a type unknown to science.’

‘So there would seem to be some discrepancy?’

‘Yes, and I think I can offer an explanation. I took the liberty of looking up Dr Hubert Gravely in the United States medical register. I could not find him there.’

‘You’re saying he’s not a registered medical practitioner?’

‘Apparently not.’

There was a rustling in the room. The two women in front of Daisy exchanged glances at this unexpected turn of events. Nick had a hurried consultation with his lawyer. The two of them seemed to be in some disagreement because, though Nick was strongly arguing some point or another, the lawyer wasn’t having any of it and kept shaking his head.

Then the procurator fiscal recalled Nick.

It was obvious that Nick’s mood had shifted. The largely impassive expression of the morning had been replaced by one of guarded belligerence. He no longer sat erect, but hunched forward, one elbow on the chair-arm, knuckle against his chin, glaring at the procurator fiscal with what might easily be interpreted as suspicion. There was something else, too, a heaviness to his eyes, an unfocused look. It suddenly occurred to Daisy with slight shock that he had been drinking.

The procurator fiscal went back to the matter of Alusha Mackenzie’s medical care in America. Nick left no one in any doubt as to his dislike for this line of questioning, grunting the briefest of replies, and executing some fairly obvious manoeuvres around direct answers. But it came out all the same.

Alusha Mackenzie had gone to Dr Gravely only after several stays in hospitals in London and New York, where, despite running every possible test, the doctors had been unable to offer an explanation for her illness.

‘They could find no abnormalities whatsoever?’ asked the procurator fiscal, clearly puzzled.

‘Tests don’t pick up everything,’ Nick snapped. ‘They’re not perfect.’

‘So in the absence of any diagnosis from the physicians, your wife went to Dr Gravely. He was an alternative practitioner, was he not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Forgive me, but I’m confused on two matters here,’ said the procurator fiscal. ‘First, what reason was offered by Mrs Mackenzie’s physicians for the considerable pain she was in, the loss of weight and so on?’

Even from that distance Daisy could see Nick’s jaw muscles working overtime.

‘I have to ask, Mr Mackenzie.’

Still Nick didn’t answer.

‘Was it suggested that your wife was suffering from a nervous illness?’

Nick flinched slightly as the procurator fiscal touched the raw spot. ‘She was damaged by a highly toxic substance,’ he said bitterly, ‘but it didn’t fit the textbook, you see, so they were too frightened to give it a name! They couldn’t find out exactly how the damage was done and couldn’t see a neat list of symptoms, so that was that! They had to dredge their ideas bags and come up with something else – anything else.’

Wrong way to go, Nick. Looks bad. Too emotional, too defensive, too angry.

The procurator fiscal hesitated, as if genuinely regretting the necessity to press the matter. ‘So – what was it they finally suggested?’

‘Ha!’ It was several moments before he managed: ‘They said it was depression. But it wasn’t true. There’s no way it was true.’

The procurator fiscal nodded slowly and for a moment Daisy thought he might let it go at that. But he was too professional to forget the other matter that had been confusing him. She had a good idea of what was coming, and she was right.

‘One last question, Mr Mackenzie, you said that Dr Gravely prescribed the morphine for your wife, yet he was not a qualified practitioner. Could you – er – clarify this point?’

‘I must have been mistaken,’ Nick said impatiently, his face puckering warningly.

‘It was another physician then?’

‘Yes – what the hell does it matter anyway?’

The procurator fiscal looked a little taken aback at that and for a moment Daisy thought he would drop the point, but he pressed: ‘You can’t recall the name of this other physician?’

‘No.’

‘But it was prescribed by a doctor during your stay in the United States?’

Making little effort to hide his exasperation, Nick barked: ‘Yes.’

After a last glance at Nick’s face, the procurator fiscal allowed him to leave the box.

The next hour was taken up by evidence from the Mackenzies’ staff corroborating the events of Alusha Mackenzie’s last days. The housekeeper was adamant that Mrs Mackenzie had not been in low spirits; the estate manager, though fiercely loyal, was less certain. She had not looked well, he said. He could not say in what way, and in evading the question left the unfortunate impression that he had seen her looking depressed.

The toxicologist was last on. He didn’t say anything unexpected, and he didn’t say anything helpful either. Reldane was regarded as a relatively safe product, he stated. Of proven low toxicity, it had never been known to cause serious side effects among people regularly exposed to it.

As the court was adjourned until the next day, a shaft of weak sunlight the colour of amber splashed against the wall of the court, a sudden incongruous shaft of brightness.

Wherever Nick had been spirited to during the noon recess, he did not go there now. Instead, with his companions forming a tight circle round him like soldiers round their warrior king, he ran the gauntlet of the photographers and hurried from the building.

Back at the hotel Daisy called the office. She got straight through to Alan, and she had the strong feeling that he had been waiting for her call.

Having martyred himself on the field of the trustees’ presentation all day, he was at his most scathing.

Going her own way, he accused, acting entirely at the expense of everyone else. No allowance for the load she was dumping on the rest of the team, no
consideration.
No pulling together. It was getting to the point, he added ominously, where Catch was becoming unworkable.

Ignoring the spirit of the last remark, Daisy made the appropriate noises: apology and entreaty, a little well-chosen flattery and some overt grovelling. Eventually Alan allowed himself to be placated, though grudgingly and with extremely bad grace so that she was left in no doubt that he was still highly displeased.

It was twenty minutes before she got to speak to Jenny, and even then she had to remind Alan she was calling longdistance before he would remove himself from the line.

‘Tried the Civil Aviation Authority,’ Jenny murmured, keeping her voice down. ‘They don’t give pilots’ addresses out to the public, but they do forward letters, so I wrote.’

‘Good.’

‘But they couldn’t be sure the address they had for Peter Duggan was up-to-date. It was abroad somewhere – outside Europe, presumably, because they asked for extra postage. I turned on my persuasive powers’ – she gave a self-mocking giggle – ‘but they wouldn’t say which country.’

‘There must be other ways to find pilots,’ Daisy said more in hope than certainty.

‘I’ll keep trying.’

‘And the mechanic?’

‘I’ve got someone trying all the Robertsons in the Inverness phone book.
Not
a simple task!’