‘Okay, this one is a beauty,’ Penn said, reading from the screen. ‘Trudy Lennox was admitted to hospital on the 7th October 2015 to have an ovary removed. Apparently, it was riddled with cysts and was both painful and non-productive.’

‘Okay, sounds straightforward,’ Stacey said, distractedly.

‘Doctor Cordell took out the wrong ovary.’

That got her attention and she looked up. ‘You’re joking?’

Penn shook his head. ‘Nope. She was twenty-six years old at the time.’

‘And left without the chance of ever having children,’ Stacey observed, returning her attention to her own screen. Jesus, that would be motivation for doing someone harm. ‘What happened?’ she asked, as something jumped out at her from the monitor.

‘It never got to court and was settled for an undisclosed sum; but no one actually died. So, I’m not sure there’s enough motive for—’

‘Shut up, Penn,’ Stacey said, as her eyes read quickly across the screen.

‘You got something?’ he asked.

‘Not much, yet,’ she said, trying to take it all in. ‘This one is still tied up in legal.’

‘Hit me,’ he said.

‘Bear with me, I’m piecing stuff together here as I talk. From what I can gather, eight months ago a woman was rushed into A & E in a bad way after a car accident. She was heavily pregnant, and despite Cordell performing emergency surgery, the woman died.’

‘How heavily pregnant?’ Penn asked.

‘Eight months, I think,’ Stacey said.

‘Did the child survive?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know yet,’ Stacey said. ‘But guess who was in the surgery with him?’

‘Nat Mansell?’

Stacey nodded as she flicked between documents and newspaper reports, though information was limited.

She felt heat surging into her body.

‘Penn, what did Nat Mansell say to the boss before she ran away?’

‘Something about making a choice and living with it.’

‘Oh shit. He had to make a choice,’ Stacey breathed. ‘The next of kin, presumably the husband, had to choose whether to save the life of the wife or the child,’ she said dumbfounded.

Penn stood and looked at the board.

‘So, you’re thinking he made them choose?’

Stacey nodded as she continued to tap.

‘But if Cordell made the choice to die himself then why is his eldest son still dead? And Nat Mansell’s mother died before she did.’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ Stacey said, standing beside him. ‘Let’s say Cordell chose to save his son’s life over his own. Explains why he was so easy to move around. There was no force involved. He’d accepted his own death in place of his older boy, who ended up dying anyway.’

Penn followed her train of thought. ‘And, what if Nat Mansell was given the choice of herself or her mother and she chose to save herself?’ he asked.

Stacey was horrified. ‘You think she could do that to her own mother?’

Penn shrugged. ‘Her mum was getting on, in an old people’s home. Maybe she thought she deserved the chance to live more. Didn’t she say about having to live with the choice she’d made?’

‘Yeah but she didn’t have to live with it for very long, did she?’ Stacey asked, returning to her desk and throwing some search words into Google.

‘We’re missing something,’ Penn said, pacing in front of the board. ‘If he’s giving them a choice of who dies, and they die anyway, then it’s really not a choice at all.’

‘Bingo,’ Stacey cried out.

‘Huh?’ Penn said turning.

‘It does make sense,’ Stacey said, turning her screen towards him. ‘If after making such a horrific choice between his wife and child, the one he saved died anyway.’