The Accused (Modern Plays) (10 page)

Sherwood
Yes, I do.

Barrington
You are presently a senior consultant, head of the Cardio Thoracic Unit at St George’s, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons?

Sherwood
That is correct.

Barrington
Your life-long hobby has been sailing and until the age of forty-five you were a surgeon captain in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve?

Sherwood
Yes, and I still keep a small boat at Burnham, which my wife … my late wife and I used to sail at weekends.

Barrington
In 1982 you were called up as a reservist to serve in the Falklands, where you performed over a hundred operations in twenty-nine days.

Sherwood
I have no idea how many operations I performed.

Barrington
My Lord, over a hundred were the words mentioned in dispatches by the fleet commander. Now I’d like to begin, Mr Sherwood, with your relationship with your wife. How long were you married?

Sherwood
Just over seventeen years.

Barrington
And was your marriage a happy one?

Sherwood
I adored Elizabeth; no one will ever be able to replace her.

Barrington
When was it that you first discovered your wife had a heart problem?

Sherwood
The first hint came in 1997, when Elizabeth complained of loss of breath, and of feeling pains in her chest, and left arm. These are the classic signs of a minor
heart attack, so I took her into St George’s and carried out some routine tests.

Barrington
And what did those tests reveal?

Sherwood
That her heartbeat was irregular and she was suffering from an arrhythmia.

Barrington
Did you consider this curable at the time?

Sherwood
Oh, yes, I deal with this sort of problem every day, and as long as a patient is willing to be disciplined with their diet, sensible about taking exercise and, if it applies, give up smoking, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t live to an old age.

Barrington
So what did you do next?

Sherwood
I put her on a programme of medication that was approved by her GP and confirmed by the brightest young specialist on my staff.

Barrington
And once she had begun that programme, did her health start to improve?

Sherwood
No, she continued to complain about loss of breath and feeling tired, which caused me to doubt my own diagnosis.

Barrington
So what did you do about it?

Sherwood
I got in touch with Sir Magdi Yacoub at the Brompton Hospital. He’s the leading authority in my field and I was keen to seek a second opinion.

Barrington
And what was his judgement?

Sherwood
He was puzzled. He could find no fault with my diagnosis and suggested that Elizabeth be put on a special fat-free diet.

Barrington
And did you at last see some improvement?

Sherwood
No, her health continued to deteriorate and during the last few months I couldn’t get her to leave the flat, even to go for a short walk.

Barrington
And she finally collapsed on the evening of March the twenty-first 1999, and was taken into hospital, where she died of cardiac arrest a few hours later.

Sherwood
(
bows his head
) Yes and I’ll never forgive myself for not being by her side.

Barrington
Looking back over that last year, do you think you could have done any more?

Sherwood
I ask myself the same question a hundred times every day, and I think I can honestly say that I did everything in my power to prolong Elizabeth’s life.

Barrington
But the Crown would have us believe that over a period of three months, you instructed Ms Mitchell to pick up several ampoules of Potassium Chloride from a chemist in Wellingborough for the sole purpose of poisoning your wife.

Sherwood
The Crown only has Ms Mitchell’s word for that.

Barrington
But your signature is on all the prescriptions.

Sherwood
And hundreds of others like it. Sir James, but it’s the first time I’ve been arrested and charged with murder.

Barrington
Then why did you ask her to have them made up in Wellingborough?

Sherwood
I didn’t - she could have collected those prescriptions from the hospital pharmacy whenever it suited her.

Barrington
And now I would like to address the Crown’s suggestion that after your wife died, it was you who gave the instruction to have her body cremated. Is that true, Mr Sherwood?

Sherwood
No. I’d been against the idea right from the start. If it hadn’t been for a codicil in Elizabeth’s will, she would have been buried in the family plot at Highgate cemetery. And if only she had been, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you today.

Barrington
Quite so. Which brings me on to Ms Mitchell, and the one question on which this whole case rests. Whether you did, or did not, have an affair with this lady - for the purpose of using her as part of a well-thought-out plan to poison your wife. So let me ask you straight away, Mr Sherwood, what was your relationship with Ms Mitchell?

Sherwood
Entirely professional. On the rare occasions we met outside the hospital, it would have been at gatherings where other members of staff were present.

Barrington
Did you ever flirt with Ms Mitchell?

Sherwood
I flirt with all the nurses in my department, Sir James.

Barrington
You flirt with all the nurses in your department?

Sherwood
When you work on a cardiac unit you come into contact with death every day, which naturally causes relationships to be quite intense. One’s moods swing from being morose to flippant and sometimes to just downright silly.

Barrington
But Ms Mitchell claims that you gave her presents, sent her flowers, took her to restaurants and, on at least two occasions, accompanied her to the theatre?

Sherwood
I think on one occasion I did pass on a box of chocolates to Ms Mitchell that had been given to me by a patient, but as for all her other suggestions, they are nothing more than fantasy.

Barrington
She went on to tell the court that after having dinner together you would then drive her home. Is that also fantasy?

Sherwood
It’s not only fantasy, Sir James, it’s simply not possible.

Barrington
I’m not sure I understand, Mr Sherwood.

Sherwood
It’s quite hard to drive someone home when you don’t own a car.

Barrington
But you could have borrowed a car from the hospital, even hired one.

Sherwood
Yes, I could have done, if I had a driving licence.

Barrington
You don’t have a driving licence?

Sherwood
No and I’ve never had one. Elizabeth used to drive me everywhere.

Barrington
But even if you didn’t drive Ms Mitchell home, she claimed that you regularly joined her in her flat for coffee.

Sherwood
I never drink coffee, Sir James, gallons of tea, but never coffee.

Barrington
I must now ask you about Ms Mitchell’s claims that you told her not to inform the police that you had been with her on the night your wife died, because you had come up with a more convincing alibi. How do you
answer
that charge?

Sherwood
There is no need to answer it, Sir James, because I don’t even know where she lives.

Barrington
But Mr Sherwood, you’re on trial for murder. Why not admit to having an affair, rather than risk going to prison for the rest of your life?

Sherwood
Because we didn’t have an affair.

Barrington
But you did go as far as kissing her on one occasion?

Sherwood
Yes I did - it was at the staff Christmas party, I’d drunk a little too much, and regretted it immediately. I apologised and left soon afterwards.

Barrington
So as far as you were concerned, that was an end of the matter?

Sherwood
It would have been if I hadn’t asked her to come to my office the following morning.

Barrington
Why did you do that?

Sherwood
I wanted to apologise more formally.

Barrington
And what was her reaction?

Sherwood
She said there was no need to apologise as she had enjoyed it. She then locked the door and started to unbutton her uniform.

Barrington
How did you react?

Sherwood
I went straight to the door, unlocked it, held it open and waited for her to leave.

Barrington
Did she do so?

Sherwood
Yes, she did, but I’ll never forget her words as she stormed out of the room: ‘Mr Sherwood, you will live to regret this.’

Barrington
What did you imagine she meant by that?

Sherwood
I thought she might report me to the hospital board, even to an industrial tribunal.

Barrington
And did she do so?

Sherwood
No, she was far more devious than that. But even I couldn’t have imagined she would claim I was with her the night my wife died.

Barrington
Where were you that night, Mr Sherwood?

Sherwood
I was out on an emergency call visiting a patient in Westminster.

Barrington
So why isn’t that patient in court today to verify your story?

Sherwood
Because he died later that night.

Barrington
And what was the time entered on the death certificate?

Sherwood
10.27 p.m.

Barrington
And who signed that death certificate?

Sherwood
I did.

Barrington
So if it was signed at 10.27 p.m., you would not have needed a more convincing alibi, as Ms Mitchell suggested.

Sherwood
Ms Mitchell seems to think I could have been in two places at once.

Barrington
Quite. So finally, let me ask you, Mr Sherwood, how do you answer Ms Mitchell’s damning accusation that you used her as a courier over a period of three months, to collect ampoules of Potassium Chloride in order to poison your wife?

Sherwood
Sir James, if I had wanted to poison my wife, I could have picked up any amount of drugs from the hospital pharmacy, without ever involving Ms Mitchell. No, the truth is that during that unhappy year I tended to my wife’s every need, often neglecting other patients. I only wish I’d been as successful with Elizabeth as I have been with some of them.

Barrington
No further questions, My Lord.

Judge
Do you wish to cross-examine, Mr Kersley?

Kersley
I most certainly do, My Lord. Mr Sherwood, much as we enjoyed the description of your wedded bliss, I suspect the time has now come for all of us in this
courtroom to return to the real world. Let me begin by asking you when you first met Ms Mitchell?

Sherwood
It must have been when she was transferred to the cardiac unit.

Kersley
And did you find her attractive?

Sherwood
No, I didn’t think of her in that way.

Kersley
So it wasn’t love at first sight?

Sherwood
Or second sight, Mr Kersley.

Kersley
So it was some time later that you fell under her spell?

Sherwood
I never fell under her spell.

Kersley
Ah. So she was correct in suggesting that you were the pursuer and she the pursued in this relationship?

Sherwood
There never was a relationship, Mr Kersley.

Kersley
I shall return to the proof of that relationship later, Mr Sherwood.

Sherwood
And I shall continue to deny it.

Kersley
I’ll look forward to that. So let me turn to something you can’t deny. Where do you live?

Sherwood
Twenty-two Cadogan Villas.

Kersley
So when did you move out of your flat in Wimbledon?

Sherwood
About a year ago.

Kersley
And how much did it cost to purchase a penthouse in Chelsea?

Sherwood
I don’t remember exactly.

Kersley
Come, come, Mr Sherwood, I think every one of us knows exactly what we paid for the home we live in,
especially if we bought it less than a year ago. I repeat, how much did it cost to purchase a penthouse in Chelsea?

Sherwood
Around eight hundred thousand pounds.

Kersley
Wouldn’t eight hundred and thirty-seven thousand be more accurate?

Sherwood
Possibly.

Kersley
So you must have won the lottery? Or did you inherit it?

Sherwood
Neither. My wife left few assets in her will. By the time I had finished paying death duties I received less than twenty thousand pounds.

Kersley
Well, that would just about cover the stamp duty on twenty-two Cadogan villas, so I must therefore ask you what the current salary is for a surgeon at St George’s?