But Salter overruled this one, and Giotti nodded. ‘Yes. He told me he’d be dead within a couple of months.’

‘He knew that?’

‘He thought he did, yes.’

‘Thank you, Your Honor. That’s all.’ He turned to Soma.

‘Redirect?’

But the prosecutors realized that perhaps, for all their fawning, Giotti was not exactly in their pocket, and they passed the witness.

As soon as the judge had left the stand, before he was through the bar back into the gallery, Salter pointed down at Soma with his gavel. ‘Your next witness?’

‘The People call John Strout.’

The tall man with the Deep South accent moved from the gallery into the bullpen, took the oath, and went around to the witness chair. Strout testified about once a week in one case or another and was a recognized forensic expert throughout the country. He often traveled to other jurisdictions to render second opinions on ambiguous causes of death. So he sat back, legs crossed, languidly at home on the stand, while Soma got his name, occupation, experience, on the record, asked the first few predictable questions.

Then, ‘In other words, Dr Strout, are you saying that twelve milligrams of morphine injected directly into the vein is sufficient to cause death?’

Hardy thought if Strout were any more relaxed up there, he’d be dead. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. He corrected Soma. ‘Twelve milligrams intravenous could be sufficient to cause death, especially if there were other factors such as alcohol.’

‘And was there alcohol in the case of Salvatore Russo?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘Well, his blood alcohol level was point one oh.’

‘And is that a lot, Doctor? Was Sal Russo drunk?’

‘In California he was legally drunk, yes.’

Hardy didn’t have any idea where Soma was going with all these questions about Sal and drinking, and that worried him. So what if Sal had been drunk? How did it relate to Graham? How could it hurt him?

‘Now, Doctor, could the alcohol level in the victim’s blood contribute to the effect the morphine might have?’

Strout took his time, wanting to be precise. After a moment he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in the witness box. ‘Yes, it could have.’

‘In what way?’

‘With that much alcohol aboard, the morphine would have caused his blood pressure to drop rapidly.’

‘Almost instantaneously?’

Strout nodded. ‘Almost.’

‘And then what would happen?’

‘Well, with no blood pressure, you get no blood to your head and you pass out.’

This was the answer Soma expected, and he nodded, pleased. ‘But if Sal Russo injected himself and went unconscious, he would not have had time to remove the needle from his arm, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘And in this photo’ – Soma entered the Polaroid print into evidence – ‘can you see the syringe on a table near the body with the cap in place over it, Doctor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, assuming that the needle was found as shown in the photo, and assuming further that Mr Russo did fall unconscious from the combined effect of alcohol and morphine, it is true, is it not, that this scenario is not consistent with Sal Russo having administered the morphine himself?’

‘Yes,’ Strout replied. ‘Assuming those facts as true, this morphine was not self-administered.’

Hardy scribbled a note. He would hammer Strout with all of this ‘consistent’ and ‘inconsistent’ in his cross-examination, but he understood Soma’s point, and he thought the jury would too. Soma made it sound as though Strout were saying that someone had killed Sal Russo. It wasn’t a suicide.

But Soma, well on his way to establishing that, had more, and not in the category of maybe. ‘Dr Strout, was there any evidence of trauma on the victim’s body?’

Strout nodded, going on about the bruise to the head, behind the ear.

‘Could this bruise have knocked the victim out?’

‘Briefly. Yes, I think so.’

‘Do you know what could have caused this bruise?’ Hardy objected, citing speculation, but was overruled. This fell well within the doctor’s realm of expertise. ‘Well, whatever it was didn’t cause a concussion and left no imprint on the skull. I can say only that it was a relatively heavy blunt object without sharp edges.’

‘Such as a whiskey bottle?’

‘Objection. This is speculation, Your Honor.’

‘Overruled.’

‘Yes,’ Strout answered. ‘This would be consistent with the whiskey bottle at the scene.’

Soma kept at it, staccato style, barely taking time to draw breath between questions. ‘How about the injection site? How did that look?’

‘Well, there was trauma there too.’

‘What do you mean by trauma?’

‘In layperson’s terms the skin and muscles were slightly torn as the needle was coming out. Like a deep scratch.’

‘Not as the needle was going in?’

‘No. Definitely not.’ A small but important point, since a skilled shot-giver like Graham wouldn’t have botched the injection itself, whereas a jerk or a struggle after the needle was in could happen to anyone.

Soma thanked Strout and walked back to the prosecution table, where he glanced at some papers on the desk. Hardy was ready to pounce with objections should Soma, as he expected, try to wrap it up.

The picture, Hardy thought, was clear enough. Somebody loaded the victim up with alcohol, then hit him on the head, knocking him out long enough to get the shot in the vein, in the middle of which Sal jerked, either in spasm or waking up.

All of that would be speculation on Strout’s part, and not admissible.

But Hardy didn’t get his opportunity to object. Soma simply turned to him, amicable and professional for the jury’s benefit. ‘Your witness.’

Hardy took it right to him. ‘Dr Strout, did Sal Russo kill himself or did somebody kill him?’

Crossing his legs to get more comfortable, Strout settled in the witness chair. ‘Well, from the pure forensic evidence, it could have been either.’

‘Are you saying there is no way to tell, from a strictly medical standpoint, whether Sal Russo killed himself or someone else killed him?’

‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’ Strout waited. An experienced witness, he wasn’t about to lead an attorney so he could be interrupted and made to look unprofessional.

Hardy nodded, apparently intrigued with these unearthed truths. ‘Is there anything in the forensic evidence, Doctor, that would lead you to think one is more likely than the other?’

Strout thought this over briefly. ‘No.’

‘What about this bruise on the head we’ve heard about? Did that contribute to Sal Russo’s death in a medical sense?’

‘No.’

‘Not at all?’

‘No, not at all. It was possibly enough to knock out Mr Russo, but it had nothing to do with his death.’

Hardy feigned a small surprise, bringing in the jury. ‘Doctor, did you just say that this bruise was possibly enough to knock out Mr Russo?’

‘Yes. It could have.’

‘And are you saying it might not have?’

‘That’s right too.’ Strout was showing a hint of impatience. ‘I said it wasn’t very serious.’

‘Yes, you did, thank you, Doctor. Essentially it was just a bump on the head, isn’t that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now, was the head trauma suffered before or after the injection?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘So Sal Russo might have injected himself, fallen over, and hit his head?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if the head injury happened before the injection, can you tell how long before could it have happened?’

Strout thought for a moment. ‘Only from the bruising, within a day or two.’

Hardy feigned shock and disbelief. ‘Doctor, do you mean you can’t even say that Sal Russo got the bump on his head on the same day as his death?’

‘Not for sure.’

‘Not for sure. Well, then, Doctor, is it correct to say you don’t know if this bump on the head has any connection at all to Sal Russo’s death?’