The Coopers Field Murder

by Wonny Lea

  They were none the wiser when in response to their ring the door was opened by a rather gorgeous blonde who, unless she was already seriously in to facelifts, was on the good side of forty – his wife or his daughter maybe?

  ‘Good morning,’ said Martin. ‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Phelps and this is Detective Sergeant Pryor. We are hoping to speak to Dr George Shaw, please.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s just me at home, as I rarely see my husband during the hours of daylight, Inspector,’ was the reply, in a Scandinavian accent. ‘His PA at the clinic is much more likely to be able to help you than I am, so I suggest you try there.’

  She gave them the address and watched them walk back to their car but Martin had looked back and noticed a shadowy figure in one of the rooms at the front of the house and retraced his footsteps to the front door.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ he said to Mrs Shaw, ‘a quick word with you could just be all we need.’ Without waiting to be asked in, Martin took two steps into the hall and opened the door leading to the room where he had seen movement.

  ‘Georgie – it wasn’t me! I didn’t let them in!’

  The doctor’s wife continued to protest as they all entered the room to find Dr Shaw closing the lid of a suitcase that was alongside five other cases, already packed.

  ‘Going somewhere, sir?’ asked Martin of the elderly gentleman with rimless glasses – one point for him and one for Matt.

  Minutes later the doctor was being offered the same mode of transport as Mr Cooper, but this time there were no witnesses at the window, just a slightly tearful blonde left on the doorstep.

  On their return Incident Room One was a hive of activity with all the excitement that goes with the knowledge that a case is being cracked and every effort was going into discovering the details that would be essential in order to obtain a conviction.

  Sarah and Maria had left but Prof. Moore was still poring over the prescription sheets now helped by the last two monthly copies of MIMS (Monthly Index of Medical Specialities – the profession’s guide to pharmaceuticals). He was up to date, and in fact a world leader in his own field of medicine, but with new drugs arriving on the scene every week it was impossible to keep abreast especially when not directly involved with prescribing. The MIMS, sent to all GP practices free of charge, was also available to other healthcare professionals, and the prof. had a regular copy delivered. He could never remember not having access to this essential prescribing reference, it had certainly been around for more than fifty years and was updated every month. The online version was on one of the computer screens in front of him and he was finding it easier to cross-reference the interaction between different drugs with the aid of the programme it offered.

  ‘He’s been on the phone to pharmacists and toxicologists and various other “ists” ever since you left, and I’ve never seen him so animated – he’s almost excited,’ smiled Charlie. ‘I think he may be after your job – this has certainly brought out the detective in him.’

  Martin walked over to the professor who looked up and smiled – yes, actually smiled – at him, but his voice mirrored the contempt he was feeling for a fellow doctor.

  ‘We may well conclude that the man is an evil bastard,’ he stated, ‘but he is a clever one, and without the bizarre series of events that brought us to this point it could have been years before these crimes were discovered, if ever.’

  ‘He has used quite ordinary, run-of-the-mill drugs, but he has combined them with serious consequences and they have reacted one with the other in textbook fashion. Even a fit man like you, Chief Inspector, would have been made seriously ill, and quite quickly, by these deadly combinations.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the nurses administering these drugs know about the possible adverse effect of certain drugs when used together?’ asked Martin.

  ‘It’s more than likely that someone like Sister Thomas, especially if she saw a deterioration in the resident’s condition, would have questioned the drug regime, but that’s another point where our doctor has been devious. Sister was always on a series of days off when the medication was prescribed, and the dosage times for each of the different drugs meant that a different nurse gave a different drug at various times of the day.’

  ‘No, Chief Inspector, I wouldn’t blame the nurses for not knowing of the possible consequences of this combination of medicines, since reading this latest copy of the MIMS I can’t believe how many new drugs are released on a monthly basis. It’s almost impossible for the average practitioner to keep up.’

  The professor paused for effect before announcing, ‘Then we have the grand finale!’

  The room was quiet and Professor Moore had everyone’s attention.

  ‘Each of these residents had deteriorated to the point of the nurses phoning Dr Shaw, something I have picked up from the nursing Kardex. In all cases he made a visit, regardless of the hour of the day or night and on the pretence of alleviating pain and suffering he administered diamorphine hydrochloride. In all cases the resident had died before he left the home, having first commiserated with the nurses and signed the death certificate. The cause of death in all cases is given as pneumonia with complications commensurate with the age and general condition of the resident.

  ‘No post-mortems would have been required, as each of the residents had been seen and treated by a doctor immediately prior to their death. It scares me to think how relatively easy it has been for him to cover his tracks. He didn’t give a one-off overdose of diamorphine to kill, as was the case with Harold Shipman – that I’m sure would have been picked up with the routine checks that are made on the usage and storage of all controlled drugs.’

  ‘What he did was inflict yet another potent drug on top of the ones already causing harm, and with lethal effect. What kind of message is this going to send out to residents and their families in nursing homes throughout the country? I take it the motive was money but where did the money come from? Did he persuade the residents to make him their main beneficiary? Surely that would have caused an uproar from indignant relatives? So what did he do?’

  Charlie had left Matt with all the details of her investigations into bank accounts and investment portfolios. Martin asked him to go through the findings and he did so, first of all focusing on the eleven names that had been identified in the records.

  ‘All the names are those of either the actual next of kin of a resident or someone very close to that person. In every case the sum of five thousand pounds has been withdrawn in cash from the accounts of our named individuals, usually days before, but anything up to a month prior to, a particular resident’s death.’

  ‘So far we have looked at eleven sets of £5000 amounts, and within days of the money being withdrawn the exact same amount is paid by Mr Doster into the Parkland Nursing Home account. However, it doesn’t stay there very long, and two amounts are electronically transferred to the personal accounts of Dr Shaw and Mr Cooper.’

  ‘I couldn’t initially make any sense of the split because it wasn’t always the same. It was Charlie who found that on the same day a cash deposit was made into Mr Doster’s girls’ university fund. I still don’t understand the split but it looks as if Doster was allowed to take between seven hundred and a thousand pounds in cash, and the rest was sent in equal amounts to Shaw and Cooper.’

  Professor Moore erupted. ‘You mean the bastard actually committed murder at least eleven times, and for a total less than he earns in a month!’

  Matt stopped him. ‘No, not just for that amount, that’s not where it stops,’ continued Matt. ‘The big pay-out comes weeks and in some cases months later when the various insurance companies pay out on the resident’s life insurance. The last claim, that is the one in relation to the death of Colin James, has been lodged but not yet paid out, but the Co-operative Insurance Company told me it will be issuing a cheque for £75,000!

  ‘In relation to the ten other names the insurance claims have been around the £50,000 mark and each time hal
f of the amount awarded to the family is paid into the nursing home account, and then as before electronically transferred between Shaw and Cooper. On these occasions Doster doesn’t come into the equation – other than it is he who does the transfers.’

  ‘I’m beginning to feel really sorry for that man,’ said Martin. ‘The other two must have had some strong hold over him to secure his silence for a pittance in relation to what they were getting.’

  ‘Yes, guv, but it doesn’t even end there!’ said Matt.

  Martin looked at Professor Moore, who held his head in his hands and appeared to have taken on board all the sins of his profession. Martin hoped that later his elderly colleague would be able to balance the good of the majority in favour of the evil of one bad apple.

  Matt went on to explain that most of the next of kin also inherited the estates of their relatives, and that in two cases alone the estates had been worth almost half a million pounds. No wonder the relatives had been prepared to accept a solution to the problem of the possible longevity of their particular resident.

  ‘Four months after the death of Nancy Coleman we see another deposit from her daughter’s husband into the Parkland deposit account. It’s for £52,000 and it ties in with the release of money from her estate. The man who owns the account it was transferred from is in one of our interview rooms and I think he realises we have discovered what has been going on. I have advised him it would be better if he helped us, and I don’t think it will take much persuasion for him to tell us the exact series of events.’

  ‘I suspect the same will be the case with most of the others,’ suggested Martin. ‘There is no way I am condoning their complicity in all of this, but they are not hardened criminals, neither are they the instigators of these crimes. Some may even have thought they were relieving their relatives of pain and suffering if the doctor fed them that line. My guess is that most of them will be quite relieved to put an end to their involvement with the likes of Shaw and Cooper. However, there will be a number of conspiracy charges, and none of these people are blameless.’

  ‘It’s going to be one hell of a job for us,’ continued Martin, as he cleaned the whiteboard and began listing all the names of the people who would have to be interviewed. ‘The obvious ones are Shaw, Cooper, and the eleven names from the medical records, but those eleven will most certainly lead to others who were complicit. On top of that we will need statements from the nurses at Parkland and they will be advised to seek representation from their professional organisations, so that will take time and it will be months or even years before this case gets to court.’

  A PC interrupted to say that a rather posh-looking solicitor had arrived, and was apparently representing both Dr Shaw and Mr Cooper. He had briefly spoken to both men and was now demanding that Dr Shaw should be interviewed first.

  ‘In that case tell him that DS Pryor and I will be interviewing Mr Cooper in five minutes’ time.’

  The PC grinned, and would enjoy passing on the message.

  An hour of ‘no comment’ from Mr Cooper, and more of the same with Dr Shaw, was exactly what Martin had expected, but he had more than enough evidence for their continued detention and he was happy to leave them to stew while he attended to more pleasant duties.

  At ten minutes to three he made his way upstairs to the office of Superintendent Bryant and sat with him at the table prepared for the interviews. It was the same office and the same table where he had sat when being interviewed for a post as a detective sergeant, and he felt strangely nervous on behalf of the two candidates they were expecting. One other person was already seated. It was Kate from Personnel, and was there to ensure a correct and fair process was adhered to.

  Martin knew Kate as she had represented Personnel on a number of previous interviews, and he knew she would not interfere unless she had to – unlike some of her colleagues.

  She suggested that the interviews start as both candidates were available and she brought in a fresh-faced young man who looked as if he could still be in the sixth form. It transpired that Paul Clarke was a university graduate who wanted to join CID, but didn’t want to go through the route of the Police Force Graduate Direct Entry Programme. Martin asked him why not and was pleasantly surprised by his reply.

  ‘I see the need for a lot of hands-on experience in this role,’ he said. ‘I can get the theory from books and the web, and I intend doing that too, but it’s only by working alongside people like yourself that I will get a real understanding of detection.’

  The Superintendent asked a number of questions, but spent most of the time answering them himself, much to the frustration of Kate and Martin. However they both knew he would behave in exactly the same way with both candidates and so his style of interviewing was not questioned. The final question that was to be put to both candidates was the usual. ‘Where do you see yourself in ten years’ time?’

  Paul’s answer was a bit vague, and he confessed to not having thought that far ahead, but then hoped he may have redeemed himself by suggesting the possibility of internal promotion or a transfer to the Metropolitan Police Force.

  After he had left the room the super made his first and only comment. ‘Why do these young graduates always assume that the Met. has more to offer than we do?’

  ‘I could work with him,’ said Martin. ‘He wouldn’t be a bundle of laughs, but I guess we aren’t interviewing for the next Tommy Cooper!’

  ‘Let’s get Helen Cook-Watts in now, shall we?’ suggested Kate. ‘We can have our discussions after they have both been interviewed.’

  Helen looked more nervous than Martin had ever seen her, and he sympathised. It was always more difficult being interviewed by people you know. Remembering the response from the first candidate regarding graduate entrants, Martin began the interview. ‘You will be aware that we try to move people into the position you are applying for from a number of different backgrounds. What do you think are the benefits to a team of having graduate entry at this level compared with a straight transfer from our uniform section?’

  ‘Whoops!’ thought Helen. ‘Here am I sat opposite two men, one of whom I know has come up through the ranks and the other for all I know could be a graduate entry. I’ll just have to get a grip and say it as I see it.’

  What she actually said was, ‘I can see merit in both ways of becoming a detective constable, but that’s not the full story – the whole thing is about the team, not the individual. If a team is made up of all graduate entrants it will lack the experience that can only be gained from the grass roots. On the other hand it is easy to focus on just one way of looking at things and the academic input of a graduate could provide a different approach. So in my view the best team would be formed from as many different backgrounds as possible, and it will be for the team leader to make the most of everyone’s attributes and potential.’

  After about half an hour Martin asked the agreed final question and Helen smiled as she said, ‘Sitting where you are, sir!’

  After a welcome cup of coffee and a respectable length of discussion time Martin made his way to his office and spent the next fifteen minutes on the phone to the CPS. He explained the happenings in Parkland and the factual evidence that had been discovered and sought official confirmation on the charges he had considered. This was duly given and he went in search of Matt to give him the news.

  Both men then headed for the interview rooms, and Mr Cooper was charged with conspiracy to murder by virtue of section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

  There was no immediate reaction, but then Cooper began making random accusations about how Dr Shaw had persuaded him to get involved. His solicitor already knew his client had said too much, and tried to stop him talking, but Cooper was on a roll.

  ‘It was all his idea,’ said Cooper referring to Dr Shaw. ‘Funny thing is, we were at a funeral last October and he suggested a fool-proof way of getting rich and solving my waiting list problems at the same time.’

  At this point the solici
tor did intervene and on the basis of his advice Cooper said nothing more.

  A few minutes later the solicitor, Martin, and Matt were in the next interview room, and it was Dr Shaw who was charged, and this time not just with conspiracy to murder but with actual murder – and on eleven counts. The elderly GP stared straight ahead through his rimless glasses and showed no outward signs of emotion – it was the solicitor who was looking the most agitated and couldn’t believe his ears.

  Matt called the duty sergeant and waited until both men had been taken to the custody cells, before joining Martin who had gone back to Incident Room One. It was now almost six o’clock, and Martin asked him if he would like to be the one to take the news of the arrests and charges to Sister Thomas. ‘I suspect she will be waiting at home for your call, and I’m sure you will be able to think of some way of rewarding her for the enormous help she has been to us this week,’ he teased Matt. ‘Apart from that, after the week from hell we have had, neither of us should have a weekend alone – I don’t intend to, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ replied Matt. ‘I was planning on ringing her as soon as I left here, but now that I have your blessing I will do it straight away.’

  He grinned as he took his mobile out of his pocket and was about to dial her number when Martin stopped him.

  ‘There is just one thing before you do that,’ he said, and as he did so the room was suddenly filled with every CID and uniformed officer who was left in the building at this time on a Friday night.

  At Martin’s request, Shelley had joined them, and although Professor Moore had been invited he had offered his apologies as he was in no mood for celebrations.

  ‘Make way!’ said Iris as she pushed through the gathering throng with a trolley laden with sandwiches, cakes and drinks.

  She handed plates around and it wasn’t long before everyone was enjoying the spontaneous party.

  Matt looked puzzled. ‘It’s been a good week in terms of results, but you don’t usually treat us this well.’