Chương 172: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-TWO: THE RECORDS ENTER

The records came in on the afternoon of the first day. Holloway had petitioned for their admission on arrival, nine days earlier, and Kessling had reserved the question. He ruled on it after the midday break.

"The defence seeks to enter the accused's own written records of her practice," Kessling said.

"The advocate objects that these are self-serving documents produced by the accused." He looked at Ferrin.

"Is that your objection?"

"It is," Ferrin said.

"It is a reasonable objection," Kessling said.

"It fails on one ground, which the court will state." He picked up a sheet.

"The records in question span nine years. They comprise, by the defence's count, four hundred and eleven separate cases. They were produced continuously from a date nine years before the events in question." He set the sheet down.

"A document produced to serve a purpose is produced after the purpose exists. These were produced before. The court cannot find that a woman documented four hundred and eleven cases over nine years in anticipation of this proceeding." Calla wrote in her notes: He is not helping us. He is being exact. It happens to help us.

"Further," Kessling said, "the records are written in a language the court cannot read." Holloway stood.

"The defence has provided a certified translation of the relevant entries—""The court is aware," Kessling said.

"The court is making a different point." He looked at the accused.

"The records are written in her own tongue. Not in this one. A person who writes falsely for a court writes in the court's language, so the court may be deceived. She wrote in a language nobody within two hundred miles can read." He paused.

"That is not the practice of a person building a defence. That is the practice of a person keeping a record." He admitted them. Ferrin sat down. Calla's note on that moment: This is what Danny means about a court being for the people in it. He is not being kind. He is refusing to be careless. It is producing kindness as a side effect. The relevant entries were four.

Holloway had selected them from the four hundred and eleven with the specific ruthlessness of an advocate who knew that entering everything was the same as entering nothing. The first was the Haldsey entry itself — written, by the record's internal dating, on the morning after the operation, some fourteen hours before the patient died. It described the presentation, the examination findings, the surgical findings, and the practitioner's assessment.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The surgical findings were the case. Holloway read them into the record in translation, slowly: Opened at the midline. Free purulent fluid in the peritoneal cavity, approximately 400ml by estimate, foul. Adhesions throughout, dense, consistent with several days' duration. Appendix perforated at the base, gangrenous, essentially disintegrated on handling. Localised abscess in the right iliac fossa.

Peritoneum inflamed generally. Removed what could be removed. Lavaged with boiled water, cooled, approximately 3 litres. Left the wound partially open with a drain of clean linen. Assessment: this is a perforation of at least five days' standing with established general peritonitis. Without intervention he dies within a day, certainly. With intervention he has some chance, which I estimate as poor. I would put it at one in five.

Told the family better than nothing, worse than good, which is honest and which is what I could say in the words I have. If he dies it will be the sepsis, which was established long before I opened him. I want this written down while I still believe it, in case I am tempted later to believe something more comfortable. Holloway stopped reading. He let the last line sit in the room for a full ten seconds. Then he said: "The defence draws the court's attention to the final sentence.

The accused wrote that on the morning after the operation, when the patient was alive and had spoken to his wife and when she had every reason to hope." He paused.

"She wrote down that he would probably die and why. Not to a court. To herself. So that she would not later lie to herself about it." He set the translation down.

"The advocate says she killed him," Holloway said.

"Her own record, written while he still lived, says the sepsis would kill him and names the reason. She was right. He died of sepsis forty-one hours later, as she predicted, from a perforation that had been poisoning him for five days before she ever saw him." The three other entries Holloway read were the other four times she had performed the same operation. Two of the patients had lived. One had died. One had lived and then died three weeks later of something unrelated, which she had also recorded.

Holloway read the entry for the patient who had died. It was harder reading. She had made an error in that one — had missed a second perforation, had recorded her missing of it in the follow-up entry two days later, had written: I did not look at the caecum properly. I was hurrying because the light was going. That is the reason and there is no better one. He is dead and it is because I hurried. Ferrin objected that the defence was entering evidence of a prior death caused by the accused. Kessling overruled him.

"The defence is entering it," Kessling said, "which means the defence has a purpose. The court will hear the purpose before deciding whether it is prejudicial." Holloway said: "The purpose is this. The advocate has asked the court to find that an unsanctioned practitioner is dangerous because she is unaccountable — because no one reviews her, no one corrects her, no one holds her to a standard." He gestured at the records.

"She held herself. There was no one to do it, so she did it herself, for nine years, in writing, including the times she failed and including the reason she failed. That is a practitioner submitting to a standard. The absence of an institution did not produce an absence of accountability. It produced accountability without an institution, which is harder." He sat down. Prior Bertrand was looking at the records on the table. He had not spoken all day. He did not speak now.

But Calla's note read: The prior has been looking at the records for four minutes without moving. Whatever else happens, he has understood something.