This is the second day of the trial. I don’t know what happened yesterday, and I don’t really understand how the legal system works, but I can see the prosecutor slowly spinning her case, seeding her ideas. And I can see the defense trying to dissolve the suspicions as they form, like popping bubbles before they land. Becca’s lawyer has a round, scrubbed-looking face and is at least a foot shorter than the tall, striking prosecutor woman. His voice is quieter and less confident too. I wonder if that matters. And I wonder how Auntie Rach and Uncle Jack have managed to afford a lawyer at all.

The next witness is Becca’s GP. My stomach twirls as he confirms that Becca did take carbamazepine, and that she came to him asking for a change of prescription. A murmur ripples through the courtroom as he’s asked when this happened.

Eight days after Nick died.

She must have panicked. Must have gone back to Derby and decided she had to switch her pills, hoping it would somehow disguise the connection.

“Did she say why she was suddenly so desperate to alter her prescription?” the prosecutor asks.

“She said she was getting side effects. Nausea and dizziness. She was very keen to try something else, so I agreed we could.”

“The defendant’s original statement claimed she was not taking any medication for her epilepsy at the time of the victim’s death,” the prosecutor says. “Were you aware of her stopping drug therapy, Dr. Holmes?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You didn’t advise her to stop taking carbamazepine?”

“I wouldn’t have advised that.”

“Why not?” The prosecutor has this way of sounding intrigued and almost surprised, even when the examination’s clearly going the way she means it to.

“It’s dangerous to stop taking it. It can bring on a rebound seizure. The dose needs to be lowered incrementally, and alternative medication introduced.”

The prosecutor asks the jury to turn to Document F in their evidence packs. There’s a sound of shuffling paper followed by a moment of quiet.

“This is a copy of the defendant’s medical records,” she tells them. “You can see she was given a repeat prescription of carbamazepine only four days before she went to stay with her aunt and cousin.” The prosecutor turns back to Dr. Holmes. “Did she mention that she wanted to stop taking the drug then?”

“No,” he says. “It was my belief she would continue.”

“Do you know whether she took her carbamazepine pills with her to her aunt’s flat?”

“I don’t know that,” Dr. Holmes says.

The prosecutor nudges the jury back to their evidence packs, pointing out the record for the later change from carbamazepine to sodium valproate. She draws their attention to the date again, and the phrase that Dr. Holmes has apparently written in his notes: Medication reviewed at the patient’s request.

—