Prey to All by Natasha Cooper Read Free Book Online

idea what she’d said. It had terrified her. But her instructing solicitor had later told her he’d never heard her so eloquent or so forceful.
    Since then, she had learned to trust herself, and even to welcome the moment when the words took over and she could almost switch off. Of course, with George it was easy. It didn’t matter what she said to him. He would neither mock nor betray anything she told him. She became aware that she’d stopped talking.
    ‘Why did she—?’ George said, interrupting himself to ask, ‘D’you want some more tabbouleh?’
    Trish looked down at her plate and discovered she’d eaten everything on it. She’d hardly been conscious of swallowing anything between the torrents of words. ‘Yes. Thanks. It’s great,’ she said, wanting to know how it tasted.
    George ladled a lot more on to her plate. The mixed scents of mint, lemon and coriander were all round her. He refilled her glass and sat back to listen. She smiled, cherishing his patience and his interest, determined to repay both the next time he wanted to talk about a difficult case.
    ‘So, to sum up,’ he said, as he watched her eat, ‘your proto-client was convicted because she was the only able-bodied person in the house when her father died.’
    ‘That’s right.’ Trish wiped her mouth. ‘The doctor didn’t believe the death was natural. He refused to sign a death certificate and called the police. They came in force.’
    ‘Not just a country bobby on a bike, you mean?’
    ‘Exactly. They must have trusted the doctor’s judgement because they sent two full cars’ worth. So, there were two officers searching the house, two interviewing Deb, and two her mother. The mother confessed to suffocating her husband, but said she’d done it with a pillow. Deb said she hadn’t touched him, but the SOCOs found the incriminating bag in her wastepaper basket.’
    ‘Which she has just explained to your satisfaction, if not to theirs?’
    Trish smiled at George. He was very clear-headed, reducing her rambling explanation to a few crispish propositions.
    ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Her account made quite as much sense as the prosecution’s, and as far as I can see, there was no scientific evidence to prove their version.’
    ‘OK. Then the autopsy produced the fact that he had had an overdose of an antihistamine called terfenadine, which he had been prescribed only two days earlier, and which had been collected from the surgery by your Deb?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘As well as small traces of another, conflicting, antihistamine called astemizole, which he’d never been prescribed?’
    ‘Yes, that’s right, too. But Deb herself had been prescribed it the previous year – for hay fever. She admits she didn’t finish that packet, but swears she threw the remains away, not liking to have drugs around in a house full of young children.’
    ‘Quite right, too,’ said George, picking up his glass and drinking the last of the wine in it. ‘But did she just chuck it out with the rest of the household rubbish?’
    Trish nodded. ‘When I queried that, she pointed out that any council would just laugh if you said you wanted a hazardous-waste pick-up for ten measly tablets.’
    ‘And would ten tablets have been enough to affect him?’
    ‘Presumably, but I’ll have to get that checked. Phil should have, but there’s nothing in the trial transcript about it.’
    George tried to drink again, having forgotten that his glass was empty. Trish pushed forward the bottle. It still seemed extraordinarily full. Perhaps talking so much had stopped her drinking her usual quota.
    ‘Do you suppose,’ he said, tipping in about half a glass, ‘the reason Phil didn’t let her give evidence was because he was afraid she’d betray herself in cross-examination?’
    ‘I think that must have been it, although obviously he didn’t tell her that. She says he told her the prosecution had nothing but circumstantial evidence and the best way of