There were a couple of beats while she weighed up whether to confess. She took a deep breath. ‘It was important to reassure people that there’d been no negligence. Dr Goulden was very clear about that.’
‘He told you to say they’d turned up?’
‘He said it could reflect very badly on us here. There’s a very strict check kept on the medicines.’ She mumbled something else, her head lowered, the neat black cap of hair swinging forward to hide her expression.
‘Pardon?’
‘He said he would see to the paperwork.’
‘You didn’t think it was strange? Such concern about one small bottle of tablets?’
‘In the wrong hands-’
‘But he was very agitated about it, wasn’t he? He virtually accused Miss Donlan of stealing them. He had a go at you.’
‘He has a short temper,’ she couldn’t bring herself to be critical, ‘he’d had a bad night.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Mrs Knight, where did you usually get prescriptions made up?’
‘The chemist round the corner.’
‘But these were different?’
She frowned. ‘Yes, the doctor brought them himself. They often get samples from the drug companies. He said we might as well try them, they were the right prescription for Mrs Palmer and they’d probably work out cheaper in the long run. I really don’t know why you’re making such a song and dance about it. And if you’ve got the tablets,’ she said briskly, ‘then they can be returned and everything can be straightened out.’ She gave me a bright look.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘You see, there was something wrong with those tablets.’
‘Wrong? What do you mean?’
‘They were four times the stated dosage. Lily Palmer was being given huge amounts of thioridazine – enough to make her very poorly. She’d become more agitated and confused, she’d have trouble sleeping. And every time she was given something to help her sleep it would react with the high level of drugs and increase her confusion. She was aggressive the night she was admitted to hospital, wasn’t she, stumbling about, hallucinating, thinking people were trying to harm her?’
‘Oh, my goodness.’ She sank into her chair. Her shock seemed genuine.
‘We’ve had them analysed. They definitely contain the wrong amount of the drug.’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ she repeated. ‘It’s the sort of accident you dread. How on earth could it…’ She didn’t finish her question, her thoughts leaping ahead. ‘Surely we couldn’t be liable. We gave them in good faith. There was no negligence here. The label had the wrong dosage on – how could we possibly know?’
‘I don’t know which chemist made them up,’ I said.