in prolonging her ordeal; she would only embarrass herself further.
Jenny said, 'I note your theory, Mrs Jacobs, and I can assure you your solicitor will be able to explore it fully with the other witnesses.' She addressed the lawyers: 'Any questions?'
'No, ma'am,' Randall said, with a reassuring smile to his client.
Suzanne Hayter stood abruptly, extracting a document from amongst her orderly notes. 'Mrs Jacobs, at the police's request the pharmacist at the Conway Unit carried out an audit of the stocks of phenobarbital and found that two packets, each containing a sheet of twelve tablets, were unaccounted for. Here is the report.' She held up the document. 'Your husband had access to the pharmacy and regularly signed drugs out. The pharmacy is outside the locked unit. Patients have no access to it.'
'But you do know that your husband had a recent history of impropriety in matters concerning drugs and their prescription.'
'It wasn't Alan at fault,' Mrs Jacobs snapped back. 'It was the psychiatrist. You know that.'
Sitting in the row behind, Harry Gordon, the Trust's lawyer, wore the smug expression of a man who felt that things were about to turn in his favour.
'The patient who killed herself following his unauthorized intervention in her drugs regime was called Emma Derwent,' Suzanne Hayter said.
'Alan saved her life. It was Dr Pearce who made her suicidal.'
Suzanne Hayter belonged to the tungsten-shelled breed of advocates Jenny had once envied with a passion. Mrs Jacobs's emotion seemed only to harden her further. 'Did you notice any change in your husband's mood following Miss Derwent's death?'
'He was always upset when a patient died.'
'I'm sorry to have to be so blunt, but what I am asking is whether his remorse at having interfered with her treatment and her subsequent suicide could have driven him to take his own life.'
Ceri Jacobs erupted. 'How dare you accuse my husband of harming that girl. It's Dr Pearce who should be feeling sorry, and all the people who have covered up for him.'
Unmoved, Suzanne Hayter turned to Jenny. 'No further questions, ma'am.'
Jenny thanked Mrs Jacobs for her patience and told her she could return to her seat. Refusing to step down, she said, 'I am not going to let them tell lies about my husband. You can see what they're doing, they're just trying to protect themselves.'
'I appreciate how you feel, Mrs Jacobs, but all parties are entitled to ask questions.'
Randall intervened before Ceri Jacobs retaliated. 'Thank you, ma'am. I'll make sure my client fully understands the position.' With a gentle smile he coaxed her from the witness box, whispering comforting words as he guided her to her seat. Her relatives traded uncomfortable glances that told Jenny they suspected Suzanne Hayter had hit a raw nerve, and quite probably the truth.
DI Wallace was showing increasing signs of impatience, but Jenny made him wait his turn and called for Deborah Bishop, director of the Conway Unit. With her untinted hair, and clothes that failed to flatter her spreading figure, she looked older than her forty-four years; a woman, Jenny speculated, struggling to manage a high-pressure job as well as care for her family.
Deborah Bishop read the oath with a nervous briskness. Jenny noticed her cast Harry Gordon a mistrustful glance. He would have briefed her exhaustively, instructing her on pain of death to stick to the corporate line and never to admit to mistakes, even honest ones. It occurred to Jenny that the future of Deborah Bishop's career might hang on her performance in the next few minutes.
Bishop told the court that she had been director of the Conway Unit for a little over two years and had been Alan Jacobs's line manager for the entire period. He was the senior psychiatric nurse in the young persons' ward and had performed his duties admirably, helping the unit gain a three-star government rating. They had held regular weekly meetings and as far as she was concerned he was as happy as could be expected, given the extraordinary pressures of his job. In fact, he coped better than most: his personnel file showed he hadn't taken a day off sick for over fifteen months. Her last meeting with him had been on the Friday morning, thirty-six hours before he died. Their discussion had been perfectly routine, and was mostly concerned with how he should deal with a black female nurse suffering racist taunts from a deeply disturbed young woman on the ward. The nurse claimed a right not