Cross spent the next few days taking a closer look at Flick’s therapist, Benedict Sutton. It wasn’t so much that he suspected him of killing Flick, but it was the only other avenue available to him to wander down at this point in time, while they waited for something pertinent to advance their case against Danny Stokes. The path might lead nowhere, but who knew what or who he might encounter on that particular stroll, and the documentary had interested him.
He started, as he always did in these situations, with a general search. During this time Ottey left him well alone and got on with other casework. Carson, though, hovered outside Cross’s door occasionally, hesitating and wondering whether to knock. Then, thinking better of it, he would walk away, congratulating himself on his restraint. Cross was often aware, out of the corner of his eye, of his boss’s presence outside his door – it had a glass panel – but didn’t look up, as he knew any acknowledgement of Carson would be interpreted as an invitation to come in.
A basic Google search showed that Sutton had quite a lot to say for himself. There were interviews in magazines and papers, video clips from local news and soundbites from radio. They were mainly about substance abuse and recovery, but he also spoke a lot about bereavement and grief counselling. For one journalist in the BBC Points West newsroom, though, he had become a reliable source for a quote or point of view on anything medical. He had also been married but his wife had died a number of years earlier. They had no children.
One topic stuck out and seemed to have become something of a theme. Sutton had made some quite controversial comments along the way about legalising assisted dying, not only for medical reasons, but also for mental health issues. This had caused a lot of heated debate at times. He had argued that people suffering from long-term, seemingly incurable mental health problems should be able to choose to die, as they could in the Netherlands. There, if a doctor was satisfied a patient’s suffering was ‘unbearable with no prospect of improvement’, and if there was ‘no reasonable alternative in the patient’s situation’, euthanasia was legal.
This was, of course, hugely contentious in the UK. Sutton’s argument was that many people with such issues often took it upon themselves to end their lives, but not always successfully, and often in the most unpleasant of ways. This argument had placed him at odds with several other medical practitioners, religious leaders and members of Parliament. The general consensus was that the very fact that these people were suffering from mental illnesses meant they weren’t competent enough to make such a decision in the first place. The argument against was also based on the innumerable ethical considerations applied to the idea of state-sanctioned euthanasia. Over time, Sutton seemed to have warmed to his thesis.
Sutton also appeared to have a nemesis in the form of another media-loving doctor in Bath. He was a GP who had a health advice slot on an afternoon TV lifestyle show. His name was Marcus Todd, and he had been asked in passing about Sutton’s views. He rounded on both Sutton and his views, criticising them as socially irresponsible and ill-considered. Sutton had replied robustly in a tweet. The gripe between the two of them had then grown exponentially. If Sutton was on a radio talk show, Todd would often be asked to give the opposing view. Cross thought, looking through the various interchanges, that their public debate had become more and more personal.