The Power of Life and death

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Mark Lawson's murder mystery about the suspicious deaths of government select committee members.  Do you enjoy the variety on Oldtuberadio? Like, Share and Subscribe to be notified of our new shows #radio #crime #thriller #drama To Support this channel please visit https://www.buymeacoffee.com/oldtuberadio https://ko-fi.com/oldtuberadio98 https://www.patreon.com/oldtuberadio https://locals.com/Oldtuberadio

Transcript

00:00Well now, BBC Radio 4, the omnibus edition of our drama serial, The Power of Life and

00:14Death, by Mark Lawson.

00:16When a number of distinguished members of government committees are found dead in suspicious

00:20circumstances, it falls to DCI Kate Duncan, played by Hayden Gwynn, to discover what,

00:26if any, is the connecting factor.

00:30The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green, and many cold wind was

00:38night, my love, and I had seen...

00:41Morning, or is it still night?

00:44You're cupping.

00:45Oh, phew, you've got my text.

00:47Yeah, but latte wasn't a word they recognised, so I went for white.

00:51Still, amazing to find anywhere around here at quarter to five in the morning.

00:55It's getting like New York.

00:56What?

00:57Oh, 24-hour culture.

01:00Otherwise Buckinghamshire's still arguably some way behind.

01:05Is this your first exhumation, Detective Sergeant?

01:08Yes.

01:09It's the rite of passage for a copper.

01:12It might call first autopsy.

01:14They're less gory.

01:15Everything happens behind screens.

01:17All we'll see is the coffin being carried away in a bigger box.

01:21Are they always this early?

01:22Yes, first light, by law.

01:24Maybe to reduce the risk of being watched.

01:27Some kind of pagan hangover, I suppose.

01:30Although Dame Imelda is getting prayers.

01:32As the mortal remains of Imelda are taken to another place of rest, we put our trust in you.

01:39May those who bear responsibility in this process show care and compassion.

01:45I was glad Andy had asked to be cremated.

01:47And be given wisdom and skill.

01:49It's irrational, I know, but I found it easier to think of him as dust than damn rare.

01:54Sure.

01:54Lorenzo, you don't have to feel uncomfortable when I mention my dead husband.

01:59Absolutely.

02:00Yeah.

02:02You know, sometimes I think it's the people around me who need the bereavement counsellors, not me.

02:07Of course, another advantage of having Andy burned is that nobody will ever be able to find out if I killed him.

02:12Do you really think there's a chance this old bird was murdered?

02:14Well, they don't do exhumations unless they have to.

02:18Opening graves messes with the paperwork and people's heads.

02:22I think our crazed overlords are just being cautious.

02:27The lady in that grave had good connections, and you know what A.C. Briggs is like.

02:37DCI Duncan.

02:39Assistant Commissioner.

02:40I think there's another little puzzle coming your way.

02:43Why that face, Kate?

02:45Well, I've still got leaves stacked up from the previous two.

02:48We're a small squad, sir.

02:50Well, you're running a sensitive cases squad in times when the force is walking on, let's say, the only way out of Eggshell Alley is Thin Ice Lane.

02:58Unless you get stuck in metaphor news.

03:00What?

03:01Who are we trying not to upset now?

03:03Do you recognise the name Dame Imelda Sharp?

03:06Hmm.

03:07I'm getting a flashback to episodes of Question Time.

03:10She'd be the token woman who wasn't a politician.

03:13She'd been a teacher, went into the Ministry of Education side.

03:16After that, committees, reports, enquiries.

03:19She was on the Police Complaints Commission for a long time.

03:23And what had she done, or had done to her?

03:26Dame Imelda died just before Christmas.

03:2882, and no great surprise to the GP or the family.

03:32But recently we received suggestions that there may have been suspicious circumstances.

03:36What kind of suggestions?

03:38Letters, anonymous.

03:39These are copies.

03:40Are there questions to be answered about the death of Dame Imelda Sharp?

03:49Are you certain Dame Imelda Sharp died from congestive heart failure?

03:54That's an interesting level of detail.

03:56Look at this one.

03:58Was Dame Imelda a victim of NHS drug rationing?

04:02Again, very medically specific.

04:05Yes, if it's mischief, it's informed mischief.

04:07But the reason we're taking this so seriously, I assume,

04:10is that she had enough police connections for the Met to send you to the funeral.

04:14That isn't how it works.

04:16No.

04:17And isn't it a Sharp who writes that column that has the sixth floor reaching for the deodorant every Thursday morning?

04:23Dame Imelda's daughter is a journalist, yes?

04:26Ah.

04:26No, not ah.

04:28Contrary to your cynicism, Hermione Sharp doesn't think her mother was bumped off.

04:32She's vehemently against an exhumation.

04:34Ah.

04:34Which, as a cynic, makes me interested.

04:38Yes, I thought you'd want to see her.

04:44I thought we'd meet here rather than the office, Detective Chief Inspector.

04:47Once the word goes round the PA circuit that the bill is in,

04:50journos have a tendency to be paranoid.

04:53Do they?

04:54Long time since I've been called the bill.

04:56Oh, yes.

04:58Excuse my newspeak.

04:59Papers like ours are written in this peculiar slang.

05:03Short words fit better in headlines, and they give a bit of variation.

05:06You can't have the words prime minister and mistake in every sentence.

05:10Are you sure you won't have one of their cakes?

05:12We always have a box sent in on office birthdays.

05:14I won't.

05:14I've read your views on women who let themselves go.

05:18Oh, you've got told, as my daughters say.

05:21You can probably see that I'm 20 pounds heavier than my byline picture.

05:25In that difficult interlude between beauty and Botox, God bless Photoshop.

05:30I don't suppose you read our rag?

05:33I see it.

05:35I see.

05:37Did you and your mother get on well?

05:39Well, we wouldn't have troubled the fire brigade.

05:41She was a good sort, I suppose.

05:43By which I mean she did a sort of good.

05:46All those committees and fundraisers and inquiries.

05:49A lady of the letterheads.

05:51They'll struggle to find people to do it all in the future.

05:53I can't imagine my generation playing Solomon for a train ticket and a plate of stale biscuits.

05:58Were you very disappointed that your mother didn't leave you any money?

06:02Blimey, you have been reading up on me.

06:05No, Mummy thought I made enough myself.

06:08Hmm.

06:09But you had been a beneficiary for most of your life.

06:12Dame Imelda made a new will a year before her death, removing you.

06:16Did you know that?

06:17I suspected it.

06:18Why do you think she did that?

06:20Mummy was pleased that I'd done well.

06:22But I think she really wanted me to do good.

06:25Or at least wrote for the Guardian rather than this rag.

06:28I think you were contacted about some letters we received.

06:31Yeah.

06:31I have copies here.

06:37Look, I read them.

06:39I was mildly surprised that someone knew or had bothered to find out the cause of death.

06:43But no idea what they meant by her being...

06:46Yes, here it is.

06:48A victim of NHS drug rationing?

06:51My understanding is that you didn't take the letters very seriously.

06:55Well, no, I'm pretty sure it's someone trying to get at me.

06:59At you?

07:00Yes.

07:01The thing is, you may also have noticed that it's not a very kind professional.

07:05To be honest, I even wondered if this was the revenge of a copper I pissed off.

07:10So you're suggesting that someone might be trying to set you up?

07:14That's my worry, yes.

07:15Sending me a stick to see if I get hold of the wrong end.

07:19Happens to columnists all the time, especially since the internet.

07:22Isn't that a little paranoid?

07:23Look, if you saw my inbox in the morning after a column,

07:26I was referred to the Press Complaints Commission 14 times last year.

07:30Never successfully, as it happens.

07:32Well, if the Police Complaints Commission consisted only of senior coppers,

07:36I guess we'd be in the clear as well.

07:40This may seem an odd question,

07:42but do you happen to have kept a look of your mother's hair?

07:47Hardly.

07:47We didn't have that kind of relationship.

07:49Why would you want it?

07:51Depending on the date of the sample,

07:53it can be used for toxicology tests.

07:56Hair absorbs toxins, and they stay there.

07:58Oh, yes.

07:59So, in the absence of a lock?

08:02If it came to it, I'm afraid it would be exhumation.

08:07But you know I really don't want that.

08:10I'm afraid it wouldn't be up to you, Miss Sharp.

08:12The decision is with the Home Office.

08:15It will depend entirely on the weight of evidence.

08:19Amen.

08:21Just four months ago at the funeral,

08:24they'll have prayed for her resurrection.

08:27But they didn't mean as quickly or like this.

08:31Ah, here she comes.

08:33They're usually no family.

08:34Often.

08:36Would you want to get up in the middle of the night

08:37to see your mother dug up?

08:39And in this case, the daughter was, well,

08:41it set against the whole thing.

08:43Which makes her prime suspect.

08:44But too early, Rob.

08:46The usual rules when investigating a death

08:49look into the life.

08:56We move on to our next question,

08:59which comes from Mrs. Fiona Irving.

09:02My husband has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

09:06His specialist has identified a drug,

09:09which my husband's specialist believes

09:11would significantly increase both length and quality of life.

09:15But the local NHS refuses to fund the drug.

09:20However, if we lived in one of two neighbouring counties,

09:24the treatment would be paid for.

09:26Can this be just or fair?

09:29All right, let's hear first from Dame Imelda Sharp.

09:33First of all, Mrs. Irving,

09:35I think everyone will sympathise with you.

09:38Many, including myself, may also badly empathise.

09:42But the fact that you...

09:43OK, let's stop it there.

09:45That's interesting.

09:47What is?

09:49The fact that she makes such a deliberate distinction

09:51between sympathy and empathy.

09:54Isn't she just the type to use two words where one would do?

09:57They're the same thing.

09:58No, they're not.

09:59As one of my lecturers once said,

10:01if Mick Jagger had called the album Empathy for the Devil,

10:04we'd have had even more respect for him.

10:07What she's saying is that she has personal experience

10:09of being denied, or knowing someone who was denied drugs.

10:13Well, maybe she doesn't know what the words really mean.

10:15She seems the kind of woman who would.

10:19DCR Duncan?

10:22Right.

10:24Yes, OK.

10:25Well, thank you for being so quick.

10:29The preliminary toxicology results on Dame Imelda, Ian.

10:32Her body contained significant levels of viscerant,

10:35an experimental cancer drug.

10:37But wasn't it...

10:38Wasn't it her heart that did that?

10:40We've got the death certificate here somewhere.

10:43Yes.

10:45We need to talk to her GP.

10:47Dr. Creedy.

10:56Dr. Creedy, I'm DCI Duncan.

10:58I'm investigating the potentially suspicious death of one of your patients,

11:03Dame Imelda Sharp.

11:06Yes, indeed.

11:07I'd like to ask you a few questions.

11:11Dr. Creedy, were you at any point treating the patient for cancer?

11:14Well, in common with many, even most of her generation,

11:19she had experienced basal cell skin cancers, which were removed.

11:23But she had not presented with any other carcinogenic condition.

11:27So you hadn't at any point prescribed to her the drug viscerant?

11:31No.

11:32An anti-cancer of that kind would, of course,

11:35commonly be prescribed by a hospital consultant rather than a GP.

11:39But that distinction is irrelevant in this case.

11:42Why is that?

11:43Because there is nothing to suggest that it was ever indicated for Dame Imelda.

11:46Could she have been seeing another doctor?

11:48That's always possible, of course.

11:50Some patients scuttled between public and private medicine.

11:54Doctor, how could you explain the presence of viscerant

11:57in the patient's body at the time of her death?

12:01Is that what the PM shows?

12:03I need you to answer that question.

12:04Well, I could only assume a mistake.

12:07At your surgery?

12:08In the autopsy.

12:11Doctor, I'm going to have to come see you.

12:17So, Gov, another doctor death?

12:20Maybe.

12:21But it's also possible that someone convinced her she had cancer

12:25or that somebody mixed up the drugs.

12:28Frankly, if she hadn't been on the police complaints commission,

12:30she'd have stayed buried with all the other mistakes doctors make.

12:34Do you have the CDs?

12:35I want to get more sense of her.

12:38All right, let's hear first from Dame Imelda Sharp.

12:44First of all, Mrs. Irving, I think everyone will sympathise with you.

12:49Many, including myself, may also sadly empathise.

12:53But the fact is that the exercise of public policy involves tough decisions.

12:59The NHS is not a bottomless pit.

13:03And so hard choices have to be made about the value of particular treatments,

13:09which is why we pay people to make those unenviable decisions.

13:13Perhaps we could try paying them a bit less.

13:16Max Chambers of the Daily News.

13:18I don't want to personalise this at all,

13:19but you, Dame Imelda, have been a public servant in a variety of positions,

13:23and I am sure you've been very well rewarded for it.

13:27Maybe if your pensions were a little smaller,

13:29there will be more money available for cancer drugs.

13:32I think it's a little ungallant, Max,

13:38to drag into this my own emoluments,

13:40which were not by any standards vast.

13:43And I was only involved in the smallest possible way

13:46in the creation of public policy.

13:48These are, as I say, tough decisions.

13:52They're being asked to exercise the very power of life and death.

13:56D.C.I. Duncan and D.S. Lorenzo, as arranged?

14:04Ah, yes, of course.

14:13Good evening, Doctor.

14:15Looks as if you've had a visit from the local force's personal security advisor.

14:19My office is right at the end of this corridor.

14:22Not ideal, given that half-hour customers can't walk,

14:25but we're a big practice.

14:27Are you often here late on your own, Doctor?

14:30What?

14:31Oh, you think that's when I falsify the records and death certificates

14:33with no-one around?

14:34Oh, not at all.

14:36No, no, no, that's a line you have to pursue.

14:38I understand that.

14:39After shipment, we're lucky every patient we certify isn't dug up.

14:42Why do you keep these hours, though?

14:44Are you short-staffed?

14:45Not really.

14:46We're one down in the dispensary at the moment,

14:48but that's standard stuff in any business.

14:50The late nights are partly that.

14:52More and more paperwork.

14:53Patients tell me it's the same in your line of work.

14:55Snap.

14:56And ever more levels of meddling.

14:58That sounds familiar.

14:59Ten years ago, the patient coughed.

15:01I listened.

15:02I prescribed.

15:03Or not.

15:05These days, there'll be seven emails from the PCT

15:07telling me which linkters I'm allowed to give them.

15:09PCT is primary...

15:11Primary care trust.

15:12The way I explain it is that it's as if GPs are MPs

15:16and the PCT is the government.

15:18They set policy.

15:19We get the whinging constituents.

15:22Here we are.

15:24Pull that other chair across.

15:26We only use two for mum and child consultations

15:28or infertile couples.

15:30So, Dame Imelda Sharp.

15:37Well, as this is a potential murder investigation,

15:40I have authority, as it happens from the very PCT,

15:42their ears must be burning,

15:44to drop patient confidentiality.

15:46Were you surprised when she died?

15:49With her conditions,

15:49she wasn't ever going to blow out 90 candles,

15:52but conversely,

15:53I've had other patients with an identical profile

15:55who didn't make 80.

15:56She was more or less in the middle of the predicted outcomes.

15:59In the simplest terms, what killed her?

16:02She had left-sided heart failure,

16:05which can take years to play out, and did.

16:08What happens is that the heart pumps less and less efficiently

16:10so that fluid builds up in the lungs.

16:13As is often the case,

16:15she first presented with dyspnea and oedema.

16:19What?

16:20Breathlessness and swollen ankles.

16:22The standard treatment, which, as her records show,

16:25she received is diuretics to disperse the liquid

16:28and inhibitors to regulate the heart rate.

16:31I had her on furosemide, digoxin, and benazepril.

16:36Fairly standard combinations.

16:38It's all about trying to keep the pump going.

16:40So if a patient in her condition was suddenly given another drug,

16:43one she wasn't supposed to be on?

16:46Literally a shock to the system.

16:49Especially as it happens with an anti-cancer.

16:52They tend to be at the sledgehammer end of the medicine cabinet.

16:56Cardiovascular strength is often an issue in prescribing them.

16:59Doctor, what was your reaction when the autopsy report showed an overdose of...

17:04viscerant?

17:05Uh, viscerant.

17:07We had never been treating the patient for bowel cancer,

17:10so why should she be on that treatment?

17:13Could she accidentally have been given the wrong drug from the dispensary?

17:16Look, I can't say it's never happened,

17:20but the point is, is that she couldn't have been given viscerant from this surgery

17:24because it wouldn't have been in stock.

17:28Our PCT hasn't approved it for use.

17:32Ah.

17:32That's the postcode lottery people go on about in phone-ins.

17:36I mean, in effect, yes.

17:38There are two layers of rationing.

17:41You've heard of NICE.

17:43Well, I've read, um, the National Institute...

17:46Of Clinical Excellence.

17:48NICE decides which drugs can be used in this country, you see.

17:51And if they don't like it, you either buy or fly.

17:55But even if NICE does like it,

17:56a local PCT may decide it doesn't like the price.

17:59So, yeah, two patients, two counties, same tumour.

18:04One gets the funeral, one gets the birthday party.

18:07And they call it a national health service.

18:11Could Dame Imelda have got the cancer drug on the internet or somewhere else?

18:14Well, she could have.

18:16It's the curse of modern medicine.

18:17Half my patients diagnose themselves on one site

18:22and choose the cure from another.

18:24If I'm lucky, I'm a second opinion.

18:27But why would she?

18:28As I keep saying,

18:30nothing in her story suggested that illness.

18:34OK, we can leave you to your emails.

18:37But we will have to speak to the dispensary staff, I'm afraid.

18:42Well, you can talk to who's around.

18:44But not until tomorrow.

18:46Sure.

18:47Good morning.

18:52Hello.

18:52I'll need the prescription you're collecting.

18:54Ah, no.

18:55We're DCI Duncan and DS Lorenzo.

18:59Ah, yes.

19:00I'm about to pull the shutters down for lunch anyway.

19:02Come round.

19:04For the record, you are Sue Wells and your dispensary manager.

19:09For acting.

19:10Dee Mortimer's usually in charge, but she's away.

19:13Oh, dear.

19:14I hope she isn't.

19:15Oh, don't.

19:15Every patient thinks of the first with that note.

19:18She's taken a career break.

19:20It's a new thing they've brought in.

19:21Yes, we have it too.

19:24Look, what possibility would there be of somebody picking up the wrong drugs?

19:28We've never had it happen in my time.

19:30But theoretically, it could.

19:32Well, have you ever got an innocent person locked up?

19:34No.

19:36No, not that I know.

19:38Well, that's me and killing patients then.

19:41But the name and number on the box is checked against the name and number on the form.

19:45Tell me, can you think of any innocent way that a patient could end up taking the wrong drugs?

19:50Oh, yes.

19:51But you just said it couldn't happen.

19:53It wouldn't happen here, I said, but, well, yes.

19:57It's obvious.

19:59In a hospital.

20:00Or a care home.

20:01Lots of pills on a trolley.

20:03Even an elderly couple in their own house, both on different medications.

20:07Oh, God.

20:09Yes, that's right.

20:10I'm sorry, Rob.

20:14I feel a complete wally.

20:16I never thought to ask the daughter or the doctor if she'd spent time in hospital.

20:20Or even if she'd been on holiday with another Doris and they accidentally swapped bottles.

20:25The team's on it.

20:26They'll call me.

20:27The time we've wasted if this turns out to have been accidental contamination.

20:32I don't know, though.

20:33Then why didn't Dr. Creedy offer that as a defence when he must have talked it over with the pill lady?

20:38And if it is just the mix-up, why the letters in the first place?

20:42That's quick.

20:44If it's to say Dame Imelda died in a home, we could be in our homes by lunchtime.

20:49DS Lorenzo?

20:52Really?

20:52When?

20:54Read it to me.

20:57Crikey.

20:58I'll tell her.

21:00So, tell me, she'd been on a thousand cabin cruise ship just before she died.

21:05The case is off.

21:06Oh, no.

21:06The case is on.

21:08We've just been contacted by the PCT.

21:10The autopsy on another of Creedy's patients has shown fatal levels of a drug for a condition she didn't have.

21:16Let's get back there.

21:18Looks as if our Dr. Creedy may be the next Harold Shipman.

21:24The Duncans to room four for Dr. Creedy, please.

21:30Apologies, Detective Sergeant, for marrying you off to your boss.

21:35No worries.

21:35I thought it easier to pass you off as a couple coming for a consultation.

21:40Patients are often paranoid enough in waiting room.

21:43Well, we wouldn't want your customers any more worried.

21:46Ouch.

21:47Lady Patricia Carey.

21:52Yes.

21:52Did her death surprise you?

21:54You asked me this yesterday about Dame Imelda.

21:56At 81, Lady Patricia was within the shaded part of the graph, as it were.

22:02She was not terminally ill, but at some point there would be a terminus.

22:07The reason that there was an autopsy in her case was that she hadn't seen a doctor for many...

22:11In the fortnight before she died.

22:13Yes.

22:14That was one of the precautions introduced after the wretched shipman.

22:18Lady Patricia died suddenly?

22:20Yes.

22:20Her son, who was visiting her, found her in bed.

22:24In our job, as in yours, we're not supposed to jump to conclusions, but we do.

22:30What was your best guess as to what had happened?

22:32There had been signs of vascular disease, clogged arteries to civilians, which we were beginning to treat.

22:42I took that as the villain.

22:44But you've seen the autopsy report.

22:46I have.

22:47And what was your reaction?

22:48Completely mystified and alarmed at the implications.

22:53Had Lady Patricia Carey been prescribed vesican?

22:56Not with my knowledge.

22:57And I would have been surprised if she had received it in any event, as there was no indication of the condition.

23:04And what were you treating her for?

23:05She was in pretty reasonable general health for someone of 81.

23:09Her main problem was chronic rheumatoid arthritis with a complication of cervical myelopathy.

23:14I'm afraid I don't speak, Holby City.

23:16Ah.

23:17The latter is a compression of the spine.

23:20Her movement was becoming quite restricted.

23:22In association with her orthopaedic consultant at the hospital, we'd settled on a regime of DMARDS.

23:29DMARDS?

23:30I'm sorry.

23:31Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, which were the last before one big thing for treating RA.

23:38In fact, both the consultant and I had been keen to try her on TNF inhibitors.

23:44These are a new line which actually arrest the information process.

23:48But unfortunately, they are red-triangled.

23:50Red-triangled?

23:52Yes.

23:53It's a system commonly used by primary care trusts now.

23:57Suppose, Detective Chief Inspector, that you present to me with migraine.

24:01That's uncanny.

24:02How did you know?

24:03Oh, there was something somewhat photophobic in your squinting at the light.

24:08But look, this is what I do.

24:11I type migraine into this page here.

24:13And this site lists the available licensed drugs.

24:21A green triangle means that they are approved for use by my PCT.

24:25A red triangle means they're not.

24:28And is that because they're dangerous?

24:29No.

24:30Well, sometimes.

24:32It can mean that they haven't been licensed by the National Institute for...

24:35Yes, nice.

24:36We've got the hang of that one.

24:38Or that clinical trials have not been completed.

24:41But no.

24:41To be honest, green usually means that they're cheap.

24:45Really?

24:45I'm afraid so.

24:46One of the things that surprised me about the presence of Vesican is that, in common with

24:51the drug that you asked me about yesterday...

24:53I'm viscerant.

24:53Yes.

24:55Both of them are red triangled here.

24:58Right.

24:59So we've got quite a problem here, haven't we, Dr. Creedy?

25:03Dame Imelda Sharp seems to have died from a drug you hadn't prescribed her for a cancer

25:09she hadn't got.

25:11Now the same thing seems to have happened to Lady Patricia Carey.

25:14Why is it that elderly title ladies in your practice are being killed by pills they aren't

25:21taking?

25:22Look, I find it inexplicable as well.

25:25You understand that we'll need to speak to the dispensary manager again?

25:29The acting dispensary manager.

25:32Yes.

25:34Yes, the system records every prescription signed out to a patient and the name of the

25:39person who collected it.

25:41Could you show us on the computer the most recent records?

25:44What's for Lady Patricia Carey?

25:48Now here it is, erm, methotrexate, azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, erm, ketoprofen.

25:55And when was the last time she got them?

25:58There it is.

26:00That's about a month before she died.

26:02Does it say who picked them up?

26:04Well it will, we just have to...

26:06Er, Oliver Carey, well that's her son.

26:09He's a doctor actually.

26:11Really?

26:11Round here?

26:12No, er, Oxford way.

26:14And can you do Dame Imelda Sharp for us?

26:17Yep.

26:19Here.

26:21Ferosamide, digoxin, benazepril, er, 1712.

26:25Again, about a month.

26:26And who collected those?

26:28Hermione Sharp, the daughter.

26:30When we were here the other day, you told us that when a patient dies, you encourage unused

26:35drugs to be returned, are there records of that?

26:39Do you want to check those two?

26:42Er, Sharp Imelda, yes.

26:45Several packets were brought back about ten days after her death.

26:49And do those drugs get given to other patients?

26:51Well, no, not now.

26:52They used to.

26:54But there was a new regulation a few years ago.

26:56They either have to be burned, or apparently, some go to the third, the developing world.

27:02And the fact that you can't reallocate them, that's because of fear of contamination?

27:08Well, I suppose so.

27:11Or sued.

27:12Most of it's about not being sued now.

27:16Patricia Carey.

27:17Now, nothing returned.

27:19So, if there was anything left, they'd be at the house?

27:22I imagine.

27:23Right.

27:25And if, say, you're dispensing a prescription, would you also be the person who took the drugs

27:29off the shelves, got them ready?

27:31Er, not necessarily.

27:33The people we know are coming in for renewals.

27:36We'll bag up the prescriptions first thing, but that might be me, or Dee, whoever.

27:40I think you told us Dee Mortimer is on a career break.

27:45That's right.

27:46Do you happen to know if she's at home?

27:47She went travelling, I think.

27:49A cruise, and then staying with people.

27:52That's what I'd probably do if I were a widow like her.

27:55Do you have her number on your phone?

27:56Hmm?

27:58Workmates often do these days.

27:59Oh, yeah.

28:01I'll need it, please.

28:03Here.

28:03I'll run it down.

28:04And we'll also need Lady Patricia's home address.

28:13DCI Duncan, DS Lorenzo.

28:16We're investigating the death of Lady Patricia Carey?

28:20Ah, yes.

28:20I'm Ollie, her son.

28:22Dr Carey?

28:23Strictly, yes, but I shrug it off between consultations.

28:26Come in.

28:32We gambled that there might be someone at the house.

28:35Yes, I was staying here while we made the funeral arrangements, which of course were delayed by the PM.

28:40We're probably best in here.

28:41Were you happy with the treatment Lady Patricia received?

28:50Well, this is complicated.

28:51There's a certain egotism in all professions.

28:54But the regime Tom Creedy and the consultant came up with was pretty much what I'd have done.

28:58Of course, in Mother's case, there was a further complication, as she kept a beady eye on what she was being given herself.

29:04To paraphrase the late Princess of Wales, there were three doctors in this consultation.

29:09Lady Patricia was a doctor?

29:11Oh, yes.

29:12Retired, but she used to run the practice Creedy has now.

29:16I don't think a lot of people around here even realised.

29:18She used to grouch that they took her as some kind of aristo who'd never worked for a living.

29:22I don't know what it's like when chief constables are burgled, but it's a bugger being a doctor's doctor.

29:28Hmm?

29:29Mummy sometimes seemed deeply suspicious of poor Tom Creedy.

29:33Really?

29:34Yes, to the extent that I began to wonder if it was paranoia as a symptom of dementia.

29:38A few days before she died, she claimed that he'd turned up on her doorstep unannounced.

29:44Right.

29:44He said she'd requested a home visit.

29:47She insisted she hadn't.

29:49She sent him on his way.

29:51Okay.

29:51And what was your reaction as a doctor, rather than a son, to the autopsy results?

29:58I felt it was probably a misunderstanding at the lab.

30:01You see, two of the drugs Mother was given for RA actually are used in certain circumstances to treat cancers.

30:07But when the substance turned out to be cetanamine...

30:09Cetanamine?

30:11That's the generic term.

30:12The brand is Vesican.

30:13There was clearly no way that was indicated in her case, and I don't know if you know, but it's not actually available in this area.

30:19And at the time of your Mother's death, there were presumably incomplete prescriptions.

30:23Oh, yes, I've got them in my bag over there.

30:25Oh, there you go.

30:34If I were a doctor, when I heard the autopsy results, I'd have checked the packets to see if...

30:42Yes.

30:43Go on.

30:45The furosemide didn't look like the kind I prescribe.

30:48I was going to check them at work.

30:49We'll do that.

30:50You bag them as evidence, Rob.

30:52Of course, if someone has somehow given her a rationed drug, accidentally or deliberately, it's horribly ironic.

30:59Why ironic?

31:00Oh, one of the things Mother did in her retirement was to sit on these drug licensing committees.

31:06I used to say that what she did after she stopped working made it hell for me at work.

31:10You can imagine what it's like.

31:11A patient hears about some super drug on the radio, and it's our job to tell them that NICE or the PCT won't let them have it.

31:17Gov.

31:18Yes, we're almost done here.

31:21Dr. Carey, you wouldn't happen to know which drug decisions your mother was specifically involved in?

31:26Oh, no.

31:27She was always terrifically secretive about that, almost as strict as patient confidentiality.

31:35Tom Creedy.

31:36Dr. Carey, it's DCI Duncan.

31:41Ah, yes.

31:42Hello.

31:43Is it true that shortly before she died, Lady Patricia Carey refused to be examined by you at her home?

31:51Well, not exactly.

31:53There seemed to be an appointment's cock-up.

31:56A home visit request had been recorded in the diary, and when I arrived, she insisted she hadn't made one.

32:01Oh?

32:02Well, these things can happen. We do have more than one patient with that surname.

32:08Okay, thank you, Doctor.

32:11Goodbye.

32:13Well, he wasn't very convincing on that, Rob.

32:15You're thinking that he turned up to visit her, because if she'd been seen by a doctor within a fortnight of her death, there wouldn't be an autopsy.

32:22Yes.

32:23Gambling that at her age, she might just let him in.

32:27But what's his motive?

32:30And how did he get the means, given that those drugs are unobtainable?

32:33Well, every time I look up, you're shuffling those newspaper printers.

32:38They're Hermione Sharp's columns. There's a reference somewhere to drug rationing.

32:43Well, yes, that whole series on patients buying drugs off the web.

32:47But we've ruled her out as a suspect. Whatever did happen, happened at Westbury Medical Centre.

32:53No, not the series. There's another one somewhere. Something about her mother.

32:57Her mother?

32:58Yes. Here it is. Headline. For God's sake, stop playing God. Hermione Sharp writes.

33:06Really?

33:07So the victims are linked, Gov. They both served on drug committees.

33:12Yes. I should have seen it. A lady of the letterheads, Hermione Sharp called her mother.

33:20When was that piece published?

33:22Oh, last July.

33:24Just before Dame Imelda changed her will to exclude her daughter.

33:29But you said we'd excluded Hermione as a suspect.

33:32Yes. But what I'm thinking is that the mother was furious that her daughter had given the game away.

33:37And she may have been right, because it was the piece in the paper that alerted someone to what she did in her spare time.

33:45Do you see her, Duncan?

33:48Yes.

33:49Okay. Thank you.

33:54That was Path Lab.

33:57One of the packets we took away from Patricia Carey's house contained the wrong tablets.

34:03Vesican. The bladder drug?

34:05We need to get back to Westbury Medical Centre.

34:08I think we've stumbled on a new motive for murder.

34:12People are being killed for cutting short the lives of others.

34:15Gov, I reckon I've got what happened here.

34:26Go on, Rob.

34:27Creedy told us that the single thing that most annoys him in medicine is having to refuse new drugs to patients.

34:32Well, yes. I'm pretty sure the solution to this lies somewhere in that area.

34:36So Creedy was killing the people who stopped him?

34:39From being the doctor he wants to be?

34:42You made my patients die, so now I'll kill you.

34:45Yes.

34:46By giving them false prescriptions, which he would have known were dangerous for people in their conditions?

34:51Yes, exactly.

34:52I very nearly came to that conclusion myself, but there's a problem, isn't there?

34:57Is there? Surely it's the perfect motive.

35:00Yes, right motive, wrong man.

35:02Look, if Creedy had somehow managed to get hold of a supply of those drugs from somewhere,

35:07why wouldn't he give them to the patients who needed them, rather than feeding them to old ladies who didn't?

35:12No.

35:15You're right.

35:17So who did do it?

35:18No, we're nowhere near a name, but as I think Al Pacino, or possibly the other one, once said in a movie,

35:25we need to follow the trail of the drugs.

35:27PHONE RINGS

35:28Hello?

35:31No, we're not there yet.

35:33What?

35:35Which hospital?

35:37Okay, we'll go straight there.

35:40Cheers.

35:40Who's in hospital, another of Creedy's patients?

35:43No, one of the consultants there, Mr. Tanner Harding, found dead this morning, suspected murder.

35:49Okay, the turning was on the roundabout back there.

35:54Dr. Creedy, when we spoke the other day, you explained the way in which treatment of a seriously ill patient would be shared between you and a consultant at the general hospital.

36:05Yes, that's right.

36:07Have you, in such cases, had dealings with Mr. Stuart Tanner Harding?

36:12On and off.

36:13You have to realise that, as a GP, you want, in the nicest possible way, to have as little to do with consultant oncologists as possible,

36:21because only a seriously ill patient would need one.

36:24What's his specialism?

36:26Renal.

36:27He has a reputation as the best kidney man in the district.

36:30Renal?

36:31Renal.

36:32Really?

36:33And has he treated any of your patients recently?

36:36Look, do you begin to understand what patient confidentiality means?

36:41Priests in the confessional have nothing on it.

36:44Dr. Creedy, I'm conducting what is now almost certainly a triple murder investigation.

36:49Triple?

36:50Stuart Tanner Harding was found dead this morning.

36:52Oh, no.

36:53How?

36:54I can't go any further than suspicious circumstances.

36:58We have our own confidentiality, I'm afraid.

37:02Could Mr. Tanner Harding have prescribed either viscerant or vesican for any of your patients?

37:08Well, no, because neither would be indicated for renal treatment.

37:11And as I keep saying, to the point of tedium, they are not licensed in this region.

37:17So patients would need to pay for or source it themselves.

37:20Well, I'll need a list of all the patients in this practice who've been treated for cancer of the bowel, bladder or kidneys in, well, let's say the last two years.

37:28I'll need to clear that with the PCT and the General Medical Council.

37:31Sure.

37:32But I need them quickly.

37:34We also need to speak to Mrs. Wells in the dispensary again.

37:38Well, yes.

37:39If a consultant has prescribed a drug, it can be dispensed here by arrangement.

37:43And suppose someone paid for a drug privately, as they can.

37:47Could that be distributed from here?

37:49No, no.

37:49Well, we've been asked that, but this is an NHS practice.

37:52And so Dr. Creedy's view was that it wouldn't be fair on the patients who don't have access.

37:57Now, just to be absolutely clear about this, neither viscerant nor vesican has ever been prescribed to any patient in this practice.

38:06No, we keep telling you they couldn't be.

38:09Something else I'm interested in.

38:11Would there be somewhere in the NHS a record of every drug dispensed in the country throughout the year?

38:18Crikey.

38:19Well, if there is, I think Newcastle would be your best bet.

38:23Newcastle?

38:24A record of every prescription we dispense is sent to a department there so that the practice can claim the money back.

38:30I don't know why it's Newcastle, but that's the way it works.

38:32The NHS is rarely simple.

38:33OK, and one other thing.

38:37When we spoke the other day, you said Dee Mortimer was a widow?

38:40Yes.

38:41When did she lose her husband?

38:43Coming up to six months, I think.

38:46Are you able to tell us what killed him?

38:48I mean, it's spread by the end.

38:52But he had it in the bowels, I think, originally.

38:57Hello, this is Dee Mortimer.

38:59Please leave a message after the bleep.

39:01Mrs. Mortimer, this is DS Rob Lorenzo from Scotland Yard.

39:06I need you to call me urgently on one of the numbers I've texted you.

39:09I'm not calling with bad news about anyone you know.

39:12Although the answer to this goes back to her getting bad news.

39:16You've worked it out.

39:17I'm heading there, but I need to get some advice from a nice man.

39:21I was utterly convinced that Tanner Harding would be linked with the drugs that killed the posh ladies.

39:26But he turns out to have dealt with a completely different part of the body.

39:29The three deaths don't connect.

39:31Well, they don't if you look for straight lines.

39:38One more year!

39:40One more year!

39:42One more year!

39:43One more year!

39:45One more year!

39:47One more year!

39:48Good afternoon.

39:50Henrietta Granville, Director of Public Policy for NICE.

39:54I've been fully briefed about why you're here.

39:56Sit down.

39:57The crowd outside, do you have that all the time?

40:01Oh, yes.

40:02One more year, please.

40:04It's a national patient pressure group.

40:07That phrase is their mantra.

40:09And you know what?

40:09It gets to the nub of the issue.

40:11Actually, there's a certain honesty to it.

40:14The demand sounds modest.

40:16Most of the relatives we upset aren't looking for a cure or immortality, just a little bit longer.

40:21But it's the modesty of the demands that causes the problems.

40:26We and the other licensing bodies have to take a hard judgment on qualies.

40:31Qualies?

40:32Quality-adjusted life years.

40:34It's a measure that guides all of our committees in deciding the merit of a certain intervention.

40:38A coronary artery bypass graft may extend life by 40 or more years, and so, when divided by the cost of the operation, scores high on qualies.

40:49Hang on.

40:49You divide the extra time gained by the price.

40:54So, you're just looking for the cheapest treatments?

40:58Ah, well, the word just in that sentence is, as it were, unjust.

41:04Expense isn't everything, but it's something.

41:07One of our jobs is to help to keep the NHS solvent.

41:10Look, you read in the paper a story, Mother of Four Denied Life-Saving Drug.

41:15Well, no.

41:16In these cases, not life-saving.

41:18Life-extended.

41:20Well, wouldn't you want yours extended, if it came to it?

41:23Sure, of course.

41:25But the question of how long for how much has to come into it.

41:28Listen, someone has to be tough to take a hard look at whether it actually alters the odds.

41:33Look, they yell one more year outside our windows because it sounds better.

41:38But in reality, it often comes down to one or two more months, if you're lucky.

41:42And these are frequently experimental expensive treatments, so they score very badly on qualies.

41:48What counts as a bad score?

41:50Well, these aren't hard and fast, but once you get above £25,000, £30,000 per qualie, we'd question whether it's cost-effective for the NHS.

41:59You have to.

42:00The new government's talking about funding all available cancer treatments, but once the pill firms hear that, they'll jack the price tags up.

42:07And no matter how high the budgets get, they'll never be higher than the hopes of the dying.

42:11But remember as well that these are only guidelines. People don't have to do what we say.

42:17They don't?

42:18No. The people shouting outside say we're playing God, but some primary care trusts and doctors don't believe in us.

42:25We have no power in Scotland at all, and not much in Northern Ireland.

42:29And even in England and Wales, a local PCT may decide a drug we've licensed is too expensive,

42:34or find the cash to fund a treatment we don't approve.

42:38I had no idea it was so complicated.

42:40Sure. And deliberately so, some might say.

42:43Why deliberate?

42:45Well, listen to what we walk through to get to work.

42:48Would you want that outside your house, or ringing you up in the early hours?

42:52One of the benefits of the system is that it's pretty hard to work out who actually stopped Aunty Gladys getting those tablets.

42:58Yes, Rob, let's just...

43:01Even so, within the organisation, there must be some kind of a paper trail.

43:06You could tell us if Dame Imelda Sharp and Lady Patricia Carey were on certain committees?

43:12That's right. I looked it up for you.

43:14You asked about Visserant.

43:16Dame Imelda was a member of the panel that refused a licence to that drug.

43:19Right.

43:20Now, Vesican, you also asked about, is a different case.

43:24That was approved by NICE.

43:25Again, Dame Imelda was a panellist.

43:28Approved?

43:30And Lady Patricia Carey wasn't connected with any of these decisions?

43:34Well, she hasn't worked for us for some years.

43:36Interestingly, though, she does crop up later in papers relating to a High Court appeal on Vesican,

43:41after its use was refused by PCT and Bucks.

43:45Lady Patricia served on the local prescriptions committee.

43:48I see.

43:50One other thing.

43:51Is there any new wonder drug for kidneys that you've had to rule on recently?

43:55Yes. There's something called Cynera, an almost anagram of Rhenes, Latin for the kidneys, I think.

44:02We approved it last December.

44:04Actually, that's an odd one.

44:06Its QALY score was nearer £45,000, but it went through.

44:09Right.

44:10But again, it would be up to individual health authorities whether to use it.

44:15Absolutely.

44:15Well, thank you.

44:18I can't say you've made it clearer, but the confusion has been useful.

44:23I hope so.

44:23I often think it's ironic that two-thirds of our work now is euthanasia or drug rationing.

44:32It's coming together, isn't it?

44:34The revenge of the relatives?

44:36Yeah, Rob.

44:37We started off thinking this is about doctors killing their patients, but it's the other way round.

44:43After a lot of cases, I end up thinking that all the motives for murder are still the old ones.

44:47Sex, money, jealousy.

44:49But we've got a new one here.

44:53Death to those who exercise the power of life and death.

45:03Okay, Duncan.

45:06Yes?

45:10Yes, I'll look at it now.

45:13Rob.

45:15Rob!

45:16Take those headphones off.

45:20Sorry, Gov.

45:21I was listening to the tapes of Dame Imelda Sharp on the radio.

45:24See how much she gives away about her work on the drugs panels.

45:26The PM and crime scene analysis on Stuart Tanner Harding are in.

45:30It has all the marks of a deliberate hit and run.

45:32Have they ID'd the vehicle?

45:34Yes, easily.

45:35Someone who wants to be caught?

45:36Well, not exactly.

45:37Someone who had reason not to worry if they were.

45:41Who is it?

45:41The Casa Renault Espace registered to a Des Valentine of Rectory Close, Westbury.

45:48Creedie's medical centre is in Rectory Lane, so it would be amazing if he's not a patient.

45:52It keeps coming back to Dr. Creedie.

45:54Yes, although he's more of a coincidence than a cause.

45:57But before we go to see Mr. Valentine, Creedie is the first urgent conversation we need to have.

46:06Creedie.

46:06Good morning, Doctor.

46:09Oh, it's you.

46:10Yes.

46:11I'm interested in the drug scenario.

46:14Yes.

46:15Is it something you've ever prescribed?

46:19I tried to, but we were unable to agree funding.

46:23In this case, the specialist couldn't get it past the financial manager in his unit.

46:27The oncologist.

46:29Was that Stuart Tanner Harding?

46:31Um, yes.

46:35And in this case, would you ever have had cause to tell the patient why you were unable to provide the drug?

46:43Oh, dear, I don't like the way this is going.

46:46I'm afraid it's a very important question.

46:49I may have told the patient that we simply couldn't have funded Scenera, while the hospital could have but wouldn't.

46:55Is Mr. Desmond Valentine of Rectory Close-Westbury a patient of yours?

47:02Uh, yes, I think I'm able to say that he is.

47:06Was he also a patient of Mr. Tanner Harding?

47:10To answer that would potentially breach patient confidentiality.

47:13Come on, I'm investigating three murders.

47:16I have already told you that I need all your medical records urgently.

47:19And the PCT is deciding whether to give them to you.

47:22They'll be in touch.

47:23Ah, finally.

47:31The PCT have sent the list of Creedy's patients for the conditions we specified.

47:36Well, that's one we expected.

47:39Valentine Desmond of Rectory Close would have been a candidate for Scenera if someone would have paid for it.

47:46We need to see him.

47:47Quickly, I'd think.

47:48Yes.

47:49What about Viserant and Vesican?

47:51There are four or five bladder patients.

47:54We'll just have to work through those.

47:55There's no obvious lead.

47:57But the bowel ones...

48:00Ah, here it is.

48:02Yes.

48:03Mortimer Daniel.

48:051942 to 2010.

48:07Registered to the same Westbury address as D. Mortimer.

48:11Where are we on bringing her in?

48:13Soon.

48:14We found her at her sister's.

48:16Is that in Scotland?

48:18Yeah.

48:19How did you...

48:21It makes sense.

48:22Are you Deidre, commonly known as D. Mortimer, of 34 Sandpit Lane, Westbury?

48:31Yes.

48:32And you have been employed since April 1994 as dispensary manager at the Westbury Medical Centre in Westbury?

48:39Yes.

48:40DCI Duncan?

48:41I'm now going to have to ask you some questions you may find distressing.

48:48Your husband, Daniel Mortimer, died in January of this year.

48:55Was it in the course of his illness that you became aware of the drug Viserant, and if so, how?

49:04OMYP. Have a website.

49:06You're referring to the patient support group called One More Year, please?

49:11The website's international.

49:14All the patients in America, with what Dan had, they were raving about this new thing.

49:21People who'd been given months turned into years, so, of course, we asked Dr. Creedy, but he said they wouldn't pay for it here.

49:29Here being the Westbury PCT area.

49:34Mrs. Mortimer nodded.

49:36Mrs. Mortimer, I have your husband's death certificate.

49:41He died at a house in Scotland, which I believe belongs to your sister?

49:45Yes.

49:46And where he seems to have been registered as a permanent resident, at least for the purposes of enrolling at a local GP surgery.

49:55Look, when you love someone and they tell you he won't see spring, if there was a medicine on the moon that would have helped him,

50:02I'd have got a rocket from somewhere.

50:05Is Viserant licensed for use in Scotland?

50:08Will you tell me why someone should be sentenced to death because of their address?

50:12Anyone with anything about them would have done the same.

50:15When your husband sadly died in January, was there a supply of unused Viserant?

50:22Mrs. Mortimer nodded.

50:25I put it to you that you deliberately placed those strong and unprescribed drugs in a packet intended for collection by Imelda Sharp.

50:36Mrs. Mortimer, there was a recent demonstration outside the medical centre by members of OMYP against the rationing of cancer drugs.

50:50Lady Patricia Carey became involved in an altercation with the protesters.

50:57I take it that it was either then or subsequently that you became aware of her part, as a member of the local PCT licensing committee, in refusing to authorise the drug vesican.

51:09She more or less boasted that it had been her. We called her Lady Death.

51:14I'm assuming that you got the supply of the vesican you gave to Patricia Carey from one of the relatives in the Westbury branch of OMYP?

51:25Mrs. Mortimer nodded.

51:29I'm going to need you to give me the name of the patient concerned.

51:33No, they didn't know what I was doing.

51:35I told them if they gave me the unused packets, I'd get rid of them.

51:39Any more questions, Detective Sergeant?

51:41Did you enter on the computerised booking system a false appointment for a doctor to make a home visit to Patricia Carey?

51:50Mrs. Mortimer nodded.

51:52Okay, I think we can leave it there.

51:55We haven't asked about the consultant, Mr. Tanner Harding?

51:59Oh, no.

52:01Mrs. Mortimer wasn't directly involved in that.

52:03And there it is, parked neatly on the drive, the car that killed the consultant.

52:12Oh, God, isn't that an undertaker's van outside?

52:15I think it is.

52:16Another death, Gov.

52:18Yes, although on this occasion, from what we laughably call natural causes.

52:22Mr. Desmond Valentine, we assume?

52:24We do.

52:25After two patients killed by taking cancer drugs they didn't need, one killed, so Omip would say, by not taking the ones he did need.

52:37Of course, I'm well aware that when you first came to see me here, I was the prime suspect for killing the two patients.

52:44We have to consider every possibility.

52:46Especially after recent cases, yes.

52:48What bothered me was that I knew that I hadn't done it, but I couldn't possibly work out who had, or even what had been done.

52:59The system doesn't think of patients or dispensary managers behaving that way.

53:03Probably, ironically, because doctors are seen as the gods.

53:07What a country this is.

53:09Full of people pretending they live somewhere else, so they can get into a school, so they can live a little longer.

53:15Well, to some extent, I sympathize.

53:19Empathize.

53:20Actually, my husband died.

53:23I'm sorry.

53:24You must see so many.

53:26Yes, but every single one of them feels like a defeat.

53:32But there's another irony.

53:35Why were there incomplete courses of viscerant and vesican floating around the system?

53:42Because they didn't work.

53:45Or at least they did nothing to alter the outcome of these cases.

53:48The relatives will say, if only they'd been available earlier.

53:53But it may just as well prove that the licensing authorities were right.

53:58The pills weren't worth the money.

54:02Look, I don't want anyone to die.

54:05It's against my principles.

54:07But if OMIP wanted to kill anyone, they should have gone to Switzerland.

54:13Not to kill themselves.

54:14But how strange the way that that country turns up in all our health debates.

54:19But to take out a few of the greedy drugs manufacturers.

54:22If they didn't charge so much, we would be able to prescribe their drugs as widely as we should.

54:29Take unto himself the soul of our dear sister Patricia here departed.

54:35We therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

54:42Ensure uncertain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.

54:48Amen.

54:49Amen.

54:52Before we complete the internment, Oliver wished to say a few words.

54:57Thank you, yes.

54:59When my mother became Lady Patricia, she was obviously pleased but a little disappointed.

55:04Because doctor was the title that meant most to her.

55:08On the day I left to start medical training, she told me that the most important words in medicine were

55:13Primum non nocere, first do no harm.

55:18My family will never recover from the fact that Mummy died from harm being done to her.

55:23But we have the consolation of knowing that she always lived up throughout her medical career to that short motto.

55:29It was not her fault that she was living in a time of

55:32Forgive me if my Latin is rusty,

55:36Primum demetior argento.

55:40Very touching words about your mother, Dr. Carey.

55:43Thank you for coming.

55:44And for writing to me about the timing of the trial.

55:47There's one tiny thing I need to ask you.

55:50Hmm?

55:51We took your prints to eliminate you from the people who handled your mother's drug packets.

55:56Yes.

55:57Where is this going?

55:59I don't know if you know that this whole investigation began with a letter to the Met

56:03suggesting that the death of another patient might be suspicious.

56:07I didn't.

56:09Ah.

56:10Because your prints were on the envelope.

56:13I...

56:14I really can't explain that.

56:16I think we probably can.

56:18Did your mother ever give you letters to post?

56:21Er...

56:21Later on she got out less and less.

56:24You said your mother became worried someone might try to kill her?

56:28She clearly had similar fears about Imelda Sharp.

56:32And as it turns out she wasn't going to Lally.

56:36God or whatever.

56:39Rest her soul.

56:40Yes.

56:41That Latin phrase you ended on.

56:45First...

56:46The British doctor's motto from now on I fear.

56:49First check the money.

56:50In the power of life and death by Mark Lawson, Kate Duncan was played by Hayden Gwynn and Rob Lorenzo by Lloyd Thomas.

57:09Hermione Sharp was Abigail McCurn, Dame Imelda Sharp, Anna Blackman, Dr. Tom Creedy, Nick Dunning, Dr. Olly Carey, Chris Mahallam, Sue Wells, Abigail McGibbon, and Dee Mortimer, Stella McCusker.

57:24Jeremy Vine played himself.

57:26The Power of Life and Death was directed in Belfast by Owen O'Callaghan.

57:30The Power of Life and Death was directed in Belfast by Owen O'Callaghan.

57:39The Power of Life and Death was directed in Belfast by Owen O'Callaghan.

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