Cordon of Lies: A Sgt Major Crane Novel

by Wendy Cartmell

  They looked at the baby and then at each other.

  “Do you think…?”

  Kim couldn’t seem to finish the sentence so Francis did it for her, “…it’s dead? Yes, I think it’s safe to assume that. Look, the child’s not moving. There’s no shuffling, murmuring or crying.”

  Kim rubbed at her eyes brushing away her tears and turned her head away from the pitiful sight, but Francis felt compelled to reach out and pick up the child.

  “Stop!” Kim called, as he moved towards the child. “Don’t touch it. We should treat this as a crime scene.”

  “Crime scene?” he said, quickly retrieving his hands and stuffing them in his uniform trouser pockets, to keep them out of the way. They were itching to pick up the baby and... what? He wasn’t sure, he just had this need to hold the child in his arms and offer it some kind of comfort, he supposed. “Isn’t it just a case of a poor child that has died being left at the church door?” he asked her.

  “We don’t know that,” Kim answered, “and we won’t do until after the post mortem. Until then we should treat this as a crime scene. I’d better call the police.”

  Kim busied herself with ringing firstly DI Anderson of the local Aldershot Police and then Sgt Major Crane from the Special Investigations Branch of the Military Police, Kim’s ex-boss. Both men needed to know about the child: the Aldershot Police because the baby was a civilian and the SIB as it was abandoned on a military garrison.

  Francis watched Kim at work. She was dressed in civvies, rather than her Army uniform. It still felt strange, not seeing her in her uniform any more. While they were ‘going out’ they’d both been in the Army and therefore more often than not in uniform. As she’d now left the forces, she was permanently in civvies. At first she’d swapped her khaki uniform for black trousers worn with tailored shirts. But as she seemed to relax into her new life and her new role as the wife of the Padre, her dress had become more informal, which more often than not meant she wore jeans. Which was fine by him. She looked bloody good in jeans.

  Today she was wearing what he believed the fashionistas called skinny jeans, which clung to her long legs, emphasising their length and ankle boots. She had teamed those with a red jumper and blue tailored jacket. Her blond hair was scraped back into a pony tail and she had a light touch of colour on her cheeks. He was being introduced to a whole new world by Kim. The world of women. He learned how some women had a fixation with their clothes, make-up and hair, as he read with interest his wife’s magazines. Let’s face it, during his formative years he had been more concerned with God than girls. But he only read them when she wasn’t there, of course. He thought of it as gathering background information. She would have found it hilarious. So he kept it quiet, a kind of guilty secret.

  Bringing his thoughts back to the present situation, he reflected on who would do such a thing? Leave a dead baby at the church? Whoever it was needed help. He considered a range of scenarios. A young girl who had given birth in secret? A woman caught unawares, whose child was still-born? A baby that had died in the night and the parents didn’t know what to do?

  Still watching Kim, he couldn’t imagine the unspeakable horror of losing so young a child, for from what he had seen, it looked new born, or at the most only a couple of months old. How would he and Kim feel if it was their child that had died? Not that they had any children. Not yet at any rate. That was something that he was looking forward to. But it would be sometime in their future probably, for that was a conversation they hadn’t had as yet.

  He then thought about the different ways the baby could have died. Cot death, naturally, or shaking the child, unnaturally. It, for Francis didn’t yet know if it was a boy or a girl, could have died from heart failure, lung failure or a myriad of other natural causes. But the thing most concerning the Padre at that moment was the parents. He figured that someone must be pretty desperate to leave a dead child at God’s door. Still keeping some way away from the baby, as instructed, he made the sign of the cross in its direction and then prayed for the child’s soul and for the souls of its parents.

  Sgt Major Crane was the first to arrive on the scene as a result of Kim’s phone calls and he came to stand next to the Padre. After finishing his silent prayers the Padre raised his head. “Morning, Crane. Good to see you,” he said and shook the investigator’s hand. “Sorry we’re meeting under such circumstances. It seems to be the nature of our meetings these days.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m afraid it does. What a bloody awful thing.”

  “Do you mean the death of the child or the leaving of it at the church?”

  “Both, Padre, both,” and Francis watched Crane worry at the short dark beard he’d been given permission to grow and which hid the disfiguring scar that ran from his ear to his chin. “Excuse me, sir,” Crane went on, “but I see Major Martin has arrived.”

  As the investigator moved away, Francis was confident that if anyone could find out who the parents of the child were, it would be Sgt Major Tom Crane. He had great faith in the man, after working with him on a several occasions and had nothing but admiration for the results he obtained. Alright, there were those who said he was unconventional, insubordinate and without doubt a huge pain in the arse to work with. But Francis had come to realise that those were excellent qualities for an Army investigator.

  He watched Crane and Kim talk to the retired Major, who was now a pathologist at the nearby Frimley Park Hospital. They were quickly joined by Sgt Billy Williams, also from the SIB, who had arrived with his forensic kit and by DI Anderson. They recounted what had happened so far. Or rather what had not happened, as they’d all been careful to stay away from the baby and the church door.

  The Major and Billy bundled themselves up in crime scene suits, pulling on overshoes and putting up the hoods over their hair. The Major waddled to the church door, encumbered by his suit and his case, looking a bit like the Michelin Man. Well, a lot, actually. Francis thought that Billy being younger, taller and broader around the chest than the Major, wore his suit with rather more panache.

  “Sorry, Francis, I’ve been ignoring you,” Kim said as she walked over to him.

  He put his arm around her shoulders, “Of course you haven’t. I’m just glad you were here to deal with it so competently.”

  “Thanks, it’s, um, been a step back in time, I guess.”

  “Well, you’ve not forgotten what to do,” he joked. “You kept me in check at any rate,” and he smiled down at her.

  She gave him a small smile in return but Francs glimpsed sadness in Kim’s eyes. She looked away from him, her blond pony tail swishing, as though she wanted to end the conversation. But he pressed on.

  “And how do you feel about falling back into an RMP role?”

  He couldn’t help it, he had to ask her. He’d always been concerned that once Kim was over her pneumonia and back to full health, she might regret her decision to leave the Royal Military Police in order to marry him. Military rules stated that a serving soldier couldn’t marry anyone of a higher rank and stay in the Army. So instead of being a busy and respected office manager within the Branch, she was now just a vicar’s wife.

  “Is that what’s troubling you?” he asked her. “Because something is. And has been for a while.”

  “No, Francis, I’m fine,” she replied.

  But he knew she wasn’t, as he watched her walk away from him and return to DI Anderson and Crane.

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