The Coopers Field Murder

by Wonny Lea

  Half-reluctantly, he sat down at the piano, pushed the stool back slightly, and for several minutes just sat there.

  ‘Come on,’ coaxed Enid. ‘The piano is in good tune, it was just my playing that was an affront to the ears.’

  Eric just rested his hands on the keys and then quietly practiced a few random scales and chords. Sarah could see that he was now in a world where only he and the piano existed and she, along with Enid and the other residents, listened in silence to the music that Eric had once again found from within himself. It was one of those life-stopping moments and as Eric’s confidence returned so his playing moved from the relatively simple notes of Brahms’ Lullaby to the complex arrangements of chords in the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – and then to an abrupt end.

  Enid looked in horror at the tears that were streaming down Eric’s face. ‘Oh, please don’t cry!’ she begged. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you to play if I had realised it would have upset you so much.’ She took hold of Eric’s hands because she could see that they were shaking.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you so much.’

  The silence that had been in the room now erupted into a continuous buzz as everyone tried to talk at once about the piano playing they had just heard, and the rest of Eric and Enid’s conversation was known only to them.

  One by one the residents left the dining room making for the television lounge or just to their rooms for a nap or to read. As they passed her Sarah listened to snippets of conversation and learned that Stanley Protheroe had once been a drummer in a band and that Susan Fellows had played the flute in the National Orchestra. Sarah couldn’t imagine how Enid would get hold of a flute or a set of drums but she had a sudden image of her forming the Parkland Trio – at the very least.

  Sarah had been thinking about her career, and had known when she left the NHS that being at Parkland, or any other nursing home, was only a stopgap, but she was still completely undecided about which direction to take. When there were moments like the one she had just witnessed she couldn’t think of anywhere she would rather be, but most of the time she felt restless and vaguely dissatisfied.

  Sarah’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Maria, who had come to tell her that a gentleman had arrived to see Mr Doster.

  ‘Well, just show him to the administrator’s office,’ suggested Sarah. ‘We don’t usually get involved.’

  ‘That’s what I did,’ replied Maria. ‘He says Mr Doster’s office is locked and Mr Cooper’s car is not here so no one will be in his office.’

  ‘Peter Doster is here somewhere,’ said Sarah. ‘I saw him earlier, and if he’s gone walkabout he’s not supposed to lock the office door, we’ve all got better things to do than chase around after him. Who is it that wants to see him?’

  ‘He says his name is Brian Prosser and he is the grandson of our Enid – but he doesn’t want to see her, just says he has an appointment with Mr Doster, arranged because Mr Cooper has been held up somewhere. Well that’s what he said, anyway.’

  Sarah took a sharp intake of breath. Wasn’t this one of the set of events surrounding the premature deaths that she and Maria had looked at? In every case a meeting between Mr Cooper and the next of kin had happened a few days before each death.

  ‘I have a key to the administrator’s office,’ said Sarah, unpinning a set of keys she had attached to her belt. ‘Mr Prosser can wait there until Peter Doster decides to turn up and I decide what I’m going to do. Tell Mr Prosser I’m opening the office for him.’

  Sarah moved quickly up the short flight of stairs and tried the door of Peter Doster’s office. It was indeed locked and she used the key she had brought with her.

  The sight that greeted her left Sarah with no doubt about what she was going to do next. She dialled Matt’s number. ‘I suggest you come here now,’ she said. ‘It’s in relation to another premature death!’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thanks, Peter

  Sarah had worked in major accident departments and had seen the results of attempted suicides by shooting, hanging, and overdoses, and on one occasion had witnessed the barely living body of a man who had set fire to himself.

  But this was different.

  This wasn’t an attempted suicide – this was a successful suicide.

  This was someone she knew.

  This was in an office where just hours earlier she had been drinking coffee with the man who was now hanging there.

  Peter Doster was no longer the whitish-grey colour he had been when she left him, or the liverish colour she had witnessed when he was angry.

  Peter Doster’s face was now displaying all those colours – superimposed on the underlying blue colour associated with asphyxia and oxygen deprivation.

  His eyes bulged and his lips were bloated and Sarah was in no doubt whatsoever that he had been dead for several hours – possibly within minutes of putting the phone down after she had left his office earlier.

  It certainly was another premature death, but not the one she had been expecting.

  That was when she used her mobile phone, pressing the button for Matt’s direct line number. She heard his initial response but before he had time to say anything else she blurted out her piece and put the phone back in her pocket.

  She realised that she had not fully opened the door and was still standing half-in and half-out of the room staring at a sight she knew would be with her for many nights in the future. Sarah was suddenly aware of footsteps on the stairs behind her and guessing the approaching stranger to be Enid’s grandson she closed the office door and stood in front of it.

  ‘You can’t go in there,’ she said and was amazed to hear her voice sounding so calm and in control. ‘There has been a terrible accident and I have just called the police.’

  Brian Prosser’s reaction was bizarre, and if someone had just told him the place was on fire he couldn’t have turned on his heels any quicker.

  The shock of what she had seen began to grip Sarah and she felt herself go weak at the knees and so deliberately sat down on the top step of the stairs. She hadn’t been there more than a few minutes when Maria appeared and flew into a panic when she saw Sarah. ‘Are you alright?’ she shouted as she approached her. ‘I saw that man Prosser almost running through the front door and guessed something had happened. Are you alright? What’s happened? Why are you sitting on the floor?’

  ‘I’m OK, Maria, at least I will be, just give me a moment and I’ll tell you, but you must be prepared for a shock – I’ve certainly had one.’

  Maria knelt down beside Sarah and rubbed her friend’s hands, not knowing what else to do. After a few moments Maria started to get up. ‘I’ll get you a drink of water from Mr Doster’s office,’ she said. ‘You seem to be getting a bit of colour back.’

  Sarah grabbed hold of Maria’s skirt to prevent her from getting up. ‘No, Maria. No! You mustn’t go in there, seriously, you mustn’t go in there.’

  Before Maria had time to ask Sarah why not, they both heard the sound of police sirens getting closer and closer and then stopping outside the main entrance.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Maria, but Sarah did not reply and within a matter of seconds Matt appeared and then came to the top of the stairs in two strides.

  ‘Are you hurt, Sarah?’ he asked, and Sarah shook her head as she pointed towards the office door. ‘It’s horrific,’ she said. ‘It’s our home administrator, Mr Doster. He’s in there but he’s dead – he’s killed himself.’

  Martin had been immediately behind Matt as they came up the stairs followed closely by Sergeant Evans and PC Davies. There was nowhere for any of them to go except through the door ahead of them but on hearing Sarah’s words it was Maria who had now freaked out.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she screamed. ‘What’s happened, Sarah? How do you know he’s killed himself? Has he overdosed, or what?’

  Having Maria’s hysterics to deal with was perversely therapeutic for Sarah, and she
linked arms with her colleague and led her down the stairs, not wanting her to witness the opening of the office door. Looking back up the stairs she could see that Matt, Sergeant Evans, and the other man with them were already inside the office and the younger uniformed officer was standing outside.

  Seeing her glance towards him, PC Davies introduced himself and explained that the men inside were Detective Chief Inspector Phelps, DS Pryor, and Sergeant Evans. Sarah of course knew two of them already, and had guessed that the third man was probably Matt’s boss.

  ‘I’m just going to take Maria to my office,’ she told the constable. ‘That’s where we will be if anyone wants us for anything.’

  As they walked along, Maria quickly regained her composure and apologised for her outburst. ‘It’s you who should have been hysterical,’ she told Sarah. ‘You were the one who actually found him. I didn’t even see him.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ agreed Sarah. ‘But sometimes our imagination is more graphic than the actual sight of something, and yours probably ran wild.’ Although Sarah said these words, she inwardly wondered how much more damage her imagination could have done to her mind than the horror she had actually witnessed.

  ‘I don’t really want to know, but I have to ask: how did he do it?’ asked Maria.

  ‘He hanged himself,’ Sarah said simply and even as she did a fresh image of Peter Doster’s face, cruelly distorted by the effects of strangulation came clearly into the focus of her mind. She closed her eyes but instead of going away the image sharpened and she wondered how long it would be before she was able prevent that happening.

  In the administrator’s office Martin was taking stock of the situation.

  ‘Two suicides in two days,’ he said, looking at Matt. ‘Let’s hope the expression ‘everything comes in threes’ doesn’t apply this time. What’s been going on here? I can’t believe it’s not connected in some way to the concerns that Sister Thomas has shared with you.’

  ‘No, whatever caused him to do this is not something as simple as not balancing the books, but what?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Well,’ responded Martin, looking up at Peter Doster’s lifeless body, ‘he can rest assured that whatever it was we will now get to the bottom of it. We will be looking at everything that has ever happened in this nursing home, going back to the time it was built if necessary.’

  Martin would have liked to remove the body from where it was hanging, but knew that it would have to wait until the SOC team and the duty pathologist arrived. It was unusual for the detectives to be on the scene first and Martin turned his attention to the paperwork on the desk.

  There were eleven folders and Martin picked the top one up, confirming that, as he had thought, the folders were the medical records of some of the residents.

  The one he now held in his hand was the file of a Mr Colin James. The name meant nothing to Martin, but he could see that the gentleman was recently deceased and there were a number of entries circled in red. The entries themselves seemed random, but one thing was possibly significant and it was the presence of a red pen at the side of the pile of records. Was this the last thing Peter Doster had done before he ended his life, and, if so, was this in effect his suicide note? There wasn’t one to be seen.

  Martin had been so engrossed that he had not heard the office door open, but now looked up to see Alex Griffiths and his team standing in the doorway.

  ‘I hope you lot haven’t messed up my crime scene, if that’s what it is. Although from where I am standing it looks like a straightforward suicide by hanging.’ Alex shook his head as he took in the full picture.

  ‘He obviously used his belt and that long, not-too-thick leather type is perfect for the job. Poor sod, I couldn’t even contemplate doing that to myself. Do we know why he did it? Be careful not to disturb that chair,’ he told one of his team. ‘I guess it’s what he stood on to hook his belt over that beam, and it looks as if he then kicked the chair away.’

  ‘Do we have any reason to suspect that it is anything other than suicide?’ he asked Martin.

  Martin replied. ‘As you know, suicide should never be presumed, and we will have to find some evidence that Peter Doster intended to take his own life and it will have to be beyond reasonable doubt. If we don’t do that it is likely that all a coroner will do is record an open verdict.

  ‘But first of all it’s for us to decide – did he jump or was he pushed?’

  As if on cue the door opened and in walked the very person to help them with that particular conundrum. It was Professor Moore, with his half-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and sporting a pair of ancient-looking open-toed sandals. He looked even more bedraggled than usual, and the only clue to his profession was the Gladstone bag he carried – although even that looked as if it belonged in a museum.

  ‘When I got the message of an unexpected death in Parkland,’ he said, ‘I thought someone was trying to be funny. How would any death here be unexpected, it’s what they’re all waiting for, isn’t it?’

  Martin raised his eyebrows, and Matt hid a smirk at what was the nearest thing to humour the professor was ever likely to achieve. ‘Who is this man? Is he the owner of the nursing home?’ Prof. Moore stood to one side asking questions while he watched Alex and his team take countless photographs from every conceivable angle.

  ‘He isn’t the owner,’ responded Matt. ‘I met the owner when I was last here and a nasty piece of work he is too. I never met this man, but as we are in the administrator’s office it’s a fair bet he’s the home administrator … yes, in fact, Sister Thomas did say that, and she also said his name is Doster.’

  ‘Who found him?’ asked Alex.

  ‘I haven’t had time to talk to her yet,’ stated Matt. ‘It was Sister Thomas who phoned me, and I think it’s likely she rang immediately after she had discovered the body.’

  ‘So why did she ring you?’ continued Alex. ‘Why wasn’t it a 999 call?’

  Matt went on to explain that Sister Thomas was the person who had helped out when the woman, who found the body in Coopers Field, had become hysterical. ‘Just as a matter of routine Sergeant Evans came here to take a statement from her, and when one of the relatives of a recently deceased man behaved strangely I came back with John for a second look.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sergeant Evans. ‘I came here first of all with PC Cook-Watts, and we anticipated a five-minute session, just to get a statement from Sister Thomas about her brief involvement on Monday morning. That would have been it, but the relative Matt just mentioned became really fazed by our presence and I just had a gut feeling that something was not quite right.’

  Martin took up the thread. ‘When John mentioned it to me I suggested a return visit with Matt. I didn’t expect them to come up with anything but something told me not to just let it go – that gut feeling syndrome must be contagious.’

  ‘To be honest,’ continued Matt ‘we didn’t really come up with anything, but I think we planted some thoughts in the mind of Sister Thomas. It’s obvious from a number of phone calls I have since had from her that she is concerned about what she now believes to be a number of unexpectedly premature deaths. When I got her call earlier I thought it was the death of one of the residents she was talking about – I certainly didn’t expect this.’

  Martin turned to Alex and the professor, and asked them if they had finished looking at things as they had been found and if it was possible to bring the body down to rest on the floor. There was agreement and two members of the SOC team handled the transition.

  Martin continued. ‘All I know about any possible malpractice is what Matt has just said, but in light of this probable suicide, I will now be looking into every aspect of the business. Will you please bear in mind when doing the PM, and collecting evidence from this room, the possibility that others may have been involved in this death. I don’t honestly think so but it can’t be ruled out.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to fin
ish off here and take Matt with me to talk to Sister Thomas and the other nurse who was with her when we arrived.’

  Matt led the way to the nurses’ office and introduced Martin to Maria, but Sarah wasn’t there. Maria explained. ‘Sister Thomas won’t be long, she just has to give out some tablets and sort out a PEG feed that has gone wrong. She told me to wait here in case you came down, and if you want I can make you a coffee.’

  ‘Coffee would be great, Maria,’ responded Martin. ‘Tell me, were you with Sister when she found the body?’

  ‘Oh God, no!’ replied Maria. ‘I didn’t even know there was a body until Sarah told you that Mr Doster was dead and that he had killed himself. She told me later that she had found him hanging from one of the beams in his office, and then she was worried because she wasn’t sure if she should speak about it – she only told me.’

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ said Matt. ‘So were you and Sarah going to see Mr Doster together, or did she go ahead of you, or what?’

  ‘Neither of us had any plans to go to his office, but a Mr Prosser arrived and said he had an appointment. But when I went up to tell Mr Doster someone had come to see him, the office door was locked. All I can say now is I’m bloody glad it was locked, because if I had gone in and seen what Sarah found I would be demented.’

  ‘What happened then?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Well, I went to find Sarah to tell her that someone wanted to see Mr Doster, and she said she had a key to his office so she would take Mr Prosser up and he could wait there. She went up ahead of him and I saw him follow her but the next thing I noticed was him heading for the front door at top speed. To say he looked anxious is the understatement of the year and I wondered what had happened, so I went looking for Sarah.’

  ‘You must realise, Inspector,’ she looked earnestly at Martin, ‘Sarah and I have been getting a bit jumpy since we were together on Monday evening. That’s when we both came up with an almost identical list of residents who had died. They had all gone downhill suddenly and, well, I’m not a proper nurse, but I wouldn’t have expected any of them to go the way they did.’