Cross and Ottey went back in to see Sutton.
‘It’s my understanding you’ve charged someone. Presumably you’re here to inform my client that he is free to go,’ said the lawyer, with a resignation that implied that, had they listened to him in the first place, all this would have been over hours ago and saved them a lot of time and inconvenience. This despite the fact that his contribution to the proceedings had been virtually non-existent.
Cross finished organising his folders on the table, as if the interview wouldn’t officially start till he’d done so. He was irritated now, that someone in the custody suite had opened their mouths unnecessarily about Diana Coogan. There was no need for the lawyer to know right now, and it immediately changed the way Cross would conduct the interview.
‘That is correct,’ he said at last. ‘Which brings me to my main question. Dr Sutton, were you aware that your secretary, who we have just charged, was committing these murders?’
‘I was unaware she was helping them to die,’ Sutton answered.
‘So you approve of her actions?’ said Cross.
‘Of course not. It’s illegal.’
‘The way you phrase it would seem to imply otherwise,’ said Cross.
‘I can’t help how you choose to interpret my answers,’ said Sutton.
‘Did you tell her to kill them?’ Cross went on.
‘I did not.’
Cross noticed that Sutton was more relaxed in this interview, as if the charging of Diana had changed things for him.
‘Encourage her then, implicitly rather than explicitly?’
‘No.’
‘You told us that Flick had been, to use your exact expression, “killed”,’ said Cross.
‘Correct.’
‘Do you still hold that view?’ Cross asked.
There was a momentary pause.
‘I do,’ Sutton said.
‘So what do you think happened? I mean, you’ve said so yourself – Flick wasn’t suicidal. She had no need to be “helped to die”, as you insist on putting it.’
‘I have no idea. I suggest you direct that question to Diana,’ said Sutton.
‘Oh, I will. Rest assured. How do you feel about it now?’
‘In Flick’s case? I’m devastated,’ said Sutton.
‘You’re not devastated by them all?’ asked Cross, surprised.
Sutton didn’t answer.
‘It’s just that when you say “in Flick’s case”, it would seem to imply that you’re not devastated by all of them,’ Cross pointed out.
‘I think some of them were in a very dark place, from which they saw no way out,’ Sutton said.
‘So you do approve. In those cases.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Cross looked at him as if he was trying to work something out which was really puzzling him.
‘You must’ve known, though. Surely.’
‘I did not,’ said Sutton.
‘You had absolutely no idea?’ Cross seemed to find this implausible.
‘None at all,’ Sutton said again.
‘You didn’t notice that within a matter of hours of Diana’s appointments to conduct random blood tests, your patients were dying?’
‘I have hundreds of patients. I didn’t notice, no,’ Sutton maintained.
‘I find that hard to believe. Even you must’ve been aware that more and more suicides were happening on your watch.’
‘No, not at all. The way I viewed it was that possibly I was willing to entertain several difficult cases that my colleagues wouldn’t entertain,’ said Sutton.
‘So you did notice it, but you had a justifiable rationale for it?’
‘No,’ Sutton replied firmly.
‘Again, I ask you. Random blood tests, followed by death, no fewer than twenty-two times, over eight years admittedly, but still,’ said Cross.
‘Sergeant, I wasn’t aware of the timings of Diana’s blood tests. They were random. The clue is in the word,’ said Sutton.
‘Did they occur during office hours?’ Cross went on.
‘Mostly not. No. So there you are. It wasn’t even as if she was leaving the office for me to be able to notice,’ Sutton reasoned. ‘What is more, they weren’t appointments, as you keep referring to them. They were random.’
‘They may have been random to your patients, but we both know they weren’t random to Diana,’ said Cross. ‘Far from it. They were regulated in her own way. She had a system. If you look at her diaries you will quickly see there is a pattern. The intermittence, or periodicity if you will, is always the same – for all of the patients. I can show you if you like. It’s quite fascinating.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for it. I haven’t looked at them that closely.’
‘So you have looked at them,’ said Cross. ‘Just not closely.’
Sutton didn’t answer.
‘You have a key to her desk drawer,’ Cross went on. ‘Where she keeps her desk diary.’
‘That proves nothing,’ said Sutton.
‘Okay. So perhaps you could answer me this question. When Diana did these random blood tests, of which you had no foreknowledge, did she report back to you? I mean, she must’ve done hundreds, yes?’
‘She did,’ Sutton replied.
‘How?’
‘She would either text me or email.’
‘Did any of them ever fail the test?’ asked Cross.
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘I no longer treated them,’ Sutton answered.
‘That seems a little draconian,’ Cross commented.
‘Deliberately so. They had to want to get clean. Otherwise it was a waste of my time. Time I could’ve used treating patients who actually wanted to get well.’
‘And what were the results of the twenty-two blood tests?’ asked Cross.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Sutton.
‘Were they all clean? No issues there?’
Sutton didn’t reply.
‘Did Diana not provide you with them?’ Cross asked, confused.
‘They were dead, Sergeant! What would be the point?’ Sutton said.
‘You weren’t in the least interested? Not even professionally?’
‘It never occurred to me,’ said Sutton.
Cross looked at him for a while.
‘Because you knew they didn’t exist.’
‘No.’
‘The fact is that Diana does everything by the book, through to completion. She is totally regimented in the way she works. Had she taken those blood tests, she would’ve had to send them to you. She wouldn’t be happy until that task had been ticked off. Till she’d done her job properly. It’s what she lived for. How she lived. You and I both know that.’
‘I’ll defer to your greater knowledge of autistic behaviour, Sergeant. As I told you previously, it’s my belief that she may well be on the spectrum,’ said Sutton, as if it was some sort of challenge.
Again, one Cross wasn’t going to rise to.
‘You didn’t find it odd that there were no results for those blood tests? That they didn’t exist?’ Cross asked.
No answer was forthcoming.
‘So you weren’t aware of the timings of Diana’s blood tests?’ asked Cross.
‘How many times is he going to ask this?’ Sutton said, looking at Ottey. This told both her and Cross that Cross was getting well and truly under his skin. ‘No!’
‘Then how did you know about Angie?’ Cross asked.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Yesterday. You were able to tell us the time of her blood test. How was that?’ Cross asked.
‘I guess it’s just the exception that proves the rule,’ Sutton answered.
‘No. I don’t think so. You see, I think you’d worked the whole thing out. Some time ago. You knew what she was up to and yet you said nothing,’ said Cross.
‘Which, to my certain knowledge of the law, isn’t a crime, Sergeant,’ said Sutton’s lawyer brightly. ‘If indeed it’s true, which it seems isn’t actually something you can prove.’
Cross didn’t look at him but just carried on.
‘So you maintain you weren’t, at any point, aware of your secretary’s blood test appointments with your patients?’
‘Correct,’ Sutton replied wearily.
‘Except that, as we know, you were aware of Angie’s appointment yesterday?’ said Cross.
Sutton didn’t answer.
Cross consulted his notes, though he had no need to. He just wanted Sutton to be aware that he was taking notes of absolutely everything he said. ‘You knew that Diana wouldn’t be in the office when we were about to go round and arrest her because she was doing a blood test for Angie at four.’
‘She must’ve told me in passing.’
‘I see,’ Cross commented. ‘How did you manage to sign all the death certificates for the twenty-two cases we’ve been discussing? What I mean by that is, how was it that you were there?’ asked Cross.
‘Diana called me,’ said Sutton.
‘To say she’d killed them? Job done,’ said Ottey, who hadn’t spoken for some time but was getting annoyed by Sutton.
‘No, of course not. She maintained she’d discovered the bodies. I then went over to see to all the formalities. It was the least I could do for them.’
‘Well, that’s true,’ agreed Cross. ‘It certainly was the very least you could have done for them.’
‘What are you suggesting I should have done?’ Sutton took the bait.
‘I should’ve thought that was obvious. Prevented their deaths in the first place. By stopping your secretary from killing them,’ said Cross.
‘How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t know what she was up to,’ Sutton insisted.
‘In the same way you weren’t aware of when she was doing it?’ Cross went on.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry,’ interjected the lawyer, ‘but by my calculations you have another fifteen minutes with my client unless you intend to apply for an extension or charge him – quite what with, however, I’m not entirely sure.’
‘Why do people do that?’ asked Cross.
‘What?’ said the lawyer.
‘Are you genuinely apologetic?’ Cross asked him.
‘Apologetic for what?’ The lawyer was puzzled.
‘Why say “I’m sorry”, when you’re clearly not?’
‘It’s an expression,’ said the lawyer.
‘Of regret. You shouldn’t use it if you’re not regretful. As a lawyer, I’m surprised you’re not more exact in your use of the English language,’ Cross said, then without waiting for a response, turned back to Sutton. ‘You maintain that Diana called you when she had “discovered” the bodies, to inform you of their deaths. Correct?’
‘Yes,’ said Sutton.
‘Except that’s not entirely true, is it?’ said Cross.
There was no answer from Sutton.
‘You see, we’ve been through Diana’s phone records,’ he continued, extracting the phone records from his file as if to remove any doubts from across the table. ‘And while she did call you on several occasions, there were some where she didn’t call you at all. Five, if we include Flick.’
‘That was because Sandra called me,’ Sutton said quickly.
‘Indeed, but let’s discuss the other four. How did you know they’d died? You signed their death certificates without Diana calling you. How?’ said Cross.
Sutton didn’t reply.
‘Because she didn’t have to, did she? Because you were there already. You were there when they died, weren’t you?’ Cross asked.
‘Don’t answer that question,’ Sutton’s lawyer said to him.
‘Why were you there? Was it the urge to see it? Or make sure? What was it?’ asked Cross. It was as if he was genuinely, naively interested.
‘Have you ever seen anyone die, Sergeant?’ said Sutton.
‘Dr Sutton…’ said his lawyer, warning him.
‘I have, as it happens. Quite recently,’ said Cross.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Sutton said. ‘But you now know what an amazingly powerful thing it is. To see life leaving a person’s body is quite extraordinary, didn’t you think?’
‘I did, actually,’ Cross replied.
‘Then you understand,’ Sutton went on.
‘Understand what?’
‘Not only how profound it is but also how no one should do it alone,’ said Sutton enthusiastically.
‘Surely none of your patients actually knew you were there?’ Cross pointed out.
‘That I don’t know. I’d like to think so.’
‘Are we done here?’ asked the lawyer.
‘For the moment. Despite the fact that your client was aware of his secretary’s actions and that he attended some of the deaths inflicted by her hand, he hasn’t actually committed a crime that I’m aware of,’ Cross said with some distaste.
‘Well, thank you for your time,’ said Sutton, smiling. ‘Doubtless I will see you at Diana’s trial.’
‘If not before,’ replied Cross. He looked Sutton straight in the eye.
The doctor appeared to be trying to figure out what Cross had meant.
Cross went on, ‘I’m not entirely sure, though, why you’re smiling. Perhaps it’s ironic. I can never tell. But one thing I’m fairly certain of is that nothing positive will come out of this situation for you. With all the attendant publicity which will come your way during Diana’s trial, I’m not at all sure your practice will have a viable future. Why would people visit a therapist seeking help for their problems when one of his solutions is to have them killed by his secretary?’
‘I did no such thing,’ said Sutton nervously.
‘Well, the public has a very different way of looking at these things, particularly when they learn that you actually attended some of the deaths,’ said Cross.
‘How would they ever know? That has nothing to do with Diana’s trial,’ said the lawyer.
‘You know how it is – these things have a way of getting into the public domain,’ said Cross.
‘This interview with Dr Sutton—’ the lawyer began, but Cross interrupted him.
‘And it won’t be long, I imagine, before it’s back to plain old “Mr” Sutton, once the General Medical Council are made aware of the case,’ Cross concluded before walking out of the room.
‘Not feeling so smug now, Doctor?’ said Ottey. Cross then reappeared, as if something had just occurred to him.
‘You say things were okay with Flick,’ he said.
‘That’s a very general question, Sergeant,’ Sutton replied.
‘In your relationship with her. In her sessions progress was being made.’
‘Yes.’
‘One thing puzzles me. Why would Diana say that she thought Flick was going to cause trouble for you?’
‘Again. Something you should probably ask her.’