A Poisoned Mind by Natasha Cooper

out to her and muttered ‘sorry’. She bent down and was raising her head at just the moment he
reached for them. They banged their skulls together and Angie gasped. For a moment she stood, ignoring the notes as she rubbed her head and wiped the back of her bony hand across her eyes.
    ‘Ange, pull yourself together.’
    The snap in the man’s hissing voice would have made Trish want to hit him, but it seemed to help Angie, who took the notes, turned back to the judge and called her first witness.
    He was a doctor, the local GP, who had been the first on the scene after her desperate calls to the emergency services. He had seen the blaze from his house ten miles away and phoned 999 himself. The operator told him the fire had already been reported and the electricity shut down. With the ambulance likely to take about forty minutes to reach the farm, he was asked to go straight there. Trish thought of the statement she’d read over the weekend.
    There hadn’t been anything the doctor could do for John Fortwell, but he was able to deal with Angie’s shock and advise her about minimising the likely risks to her current and future health from the fumes. He’d also been able to describe the scene in his statement with a vividness untainted by the kind of understandable hysteria Angie herself must still feel.
    She asked him to give his name and address to the court and confirm that the statement was his own and that he stood by it. The words she used weren’t precisely the ones Trish expected, but they were near enough. She rose for her cross-examination, met the judge’s gaze and was impressed that he showed absolutely no sign of fellow-feeling or amusement at Angie’s throttled formality.
    ‘Doctor Jenkins, in your statement you have given
evidence about the claimant’s mental and physical condition after the explosion and fire at her property, Low Topps; did you know anything about her state of health before that night?’
    ‘Yes. She had several times come to consult me in the months leading up the explosion, and so I had given her various checks. Her general health was excellent then.’
    ‘In which case, what were the symptoms that had led her to consult you?’
    ‘She was suffering hot flushes and sleeplessness. She wanted to discuss the possibility of taking HRT.’
    ‘Were there any psychological symptoms associated with the condition?’
    He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then looked towards the judge to give an uncomfortable-sounding answer: ‘She did not mention any psychological symptoms, My Lord, nor did she show any signs of them in my surgery.’
    Trish considered his hesitation, and the emphasis he’d given to the pronoun he’d used, then she said: ‘Nevertheless, Doctor Jenkins, did you have any reason to suspect such symptoms?’
    This time the pause was longer. The judge looked over the top of his glasses first at Trish, then at the witness, and reminded him that he had to answer.
    ‘Her husband had come to see me twice, once in the week before her last appointment and once after it, to ask me to prescribe anti-depressants for her. I told him I couldn’t do so unless she consulted me about depression and reported symptoms consonant with the condition.’
    ‘What did he say then?’
    Trish could feel Robert tensing behind her and ignored it. She knew what she was doing.
    ‘He gave me a list of her symptoms as he had observed them.’
    ‘Which were?’
    ‘Sleeplessness, which, as I said, she later ascribed to the hot flushes; anxiety; lack of concentration and lack of appetite.’
    Trish glanced at Angie Fortwell and saw an expression of outrage, which gave her exactly what she wanted.
    ‘Did you believe him?’
    She felt a tug on her gown, nodded briefly to the judge and turned to glare at Robert, who was holding out a small piece of paper. He looked so anxious she took it and opened it to read: ‘Not part of Antony’s plan. Where are you going with this? Fatal to ask questions not