Blood on the Marsh

by Peter Tickler

  ‘What is your name?’ she said.

  ‘David Wright,’ I said. That was an easy one to answer.

  ‘And are you open on Monday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case, maybe I’ll bring my picture in then, and you can frame it for me.’

  Jim and Maureen Wright lived in an unprepossessing semi-detached house in Lytton Road. Built in the 1920s, it had been adapted more recently to the modern age: the front garden had been concreted over to provide a parking space for Jim’s white van, and the windows were PVC and double-glazed. The only sign of nature was a pot of chrysanthemums by the front door. Holden pressed the bell, and heard from inside the eight-note call of the door chime. She winced. A few seconds later, the door was opened by a man barely an inch taller than she herself was. That was as far as the similarities went. He was considerably rounder than her in face and body, and he had a head from which every trace of hair had been ruthlessly removed.

  Holden displayed her ID card. ‘Detective Inspector Holden, and my colleague is Detective Sergeant Fox.’

  He took the card, studied it as if it was a distinctly unconvincing fifty pound note, and then handed it back. ‘I’m Jim Wright.’

  ‘Can we come in?’

  He led them along the short hall corridor, and through a door on the left that opened into the front room. ‘Sit down if you want,’ he said, without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll give the wife a call.’

  But his wife needed no calling. She had materialized at the door behind them. ‘God, you’re quick, aren’t you?’

  Holden was thrown off balance by this greeting. As far as she was concerned, their visit ought to be a complete surprise, but it clearly wasn’t.

  ‘Are you Mrs Maureen Wright?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s me. And have you found the money?’

  This time, the surprise showed on Holden’s face. ‘What money?’

  ‘The money that was stolen from our Nan. Fifty pounds. We gave it to her on Sunday, but she died on Tuesday, and when we collected her possessions on Wednesday, there was no money. So we reported it. Isn’t that what you’ve come about?’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ Holden sat down in the armchair, and waited for the others to follow suit. She didn’t want anyone fainting on her.

  ‘We have come about Nanette Wright, however. You are aware that the doctor asked for a post-mortem to be carried out on her body?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jim. If they had come about Nanette, then it was his business – she was his mother. ‘He said to us it was just a precaution. He was ninety-five per cent certain it was a heart attack.’

  ‘I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the post-mortem has revealed that Nanette had a significant amount of morphine in her system.’

  ‘Morphine?’ The surprise in Jim Wright’s voice appeared genuine. ‘What are you talking about? She wasn’t on morphine.’

  ‘So I have been told.’ Holden had switched into robot mode. It was easier to deliver the information like that. ‘But the fact is she died as a result of a high concentration of morphine in her body, and for that reason I have to tell you that we are treating her death as suspicious.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ This time it was Maureen speaking. ‘Do you mean they were trying to keep her quiet by dosing her up with morphine? Are you saying that bloody woman Fran did that and killed her?’

  ‘No, absolutely not!’ Holden spoke firmly, conscious that this conversation was in danger of running out of control. ‘We have, at this stage, no idea how the morphine got into her body. And we have no reason to believe that Sunnymede staff were using morphine to sedate her. However, clearly the morphine got into her body somehow, and that is going to be at the centre of our inquiries.’

  ‘Just because they weren’t meant to give her morphine doesn’t mean they didn’t.’ Maureen Wright was leaning forward, and wagging her forefinger to reinforce her point. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past that dyke Fran Sinclair and that sleazeball Paul Greenleaf. Absolutely nothing!’

  Holden could feel the woman’s anger and prejudice. It flew from her mouth with every word, like spittle, and Holden felt only revulsion. And yet, of course, the same thought had already occurred to her, that someone in Sunnymede had resorted to morphine just to quieten down a difficult old lady. That had to be the most likely scenario, one in which an overdose had led to death. But that thought wasn’t something she was going to admit to in front of these two. Not until she had more evidence. Instead, she glanced at Fox and stood up. She had broken the news. She had done what she had come here to do. It was time to make their excuses and go.

  Despite lying deep within the boundaries of the city of Oxford, Sunnymede Care Home occupies an almost rural location. It is tucked away discreetly at the end of a no-through road, between the Oxford Golf Club and the sports fields of the Oxford School. It is most easily accessed via the Cowley Road, yet unless you work there, live there, or know someone there who needs visiting, Sunnymede Care Home might as well not exist. That had been the case for DI Holden until that very morning. Fox, however – who had spent the whole of his life in Oxford – had had no difficulty in negotiating his way to it.

  ‘This would be a nice place for your mother if she ever gets to that stage,’ Fox said as he pulled up in the gravelled, tree-fringed car park.

  ‘She’ll have to be dead before she leaves her flat in Grandpont Grange.’

  Fox chuckled. He had met Mrs Holden a couple of times. She was, like her daughter, a woman of spirit, a woman who would fight to the end to keep her independence.

  A man emerged from the main entrance and strode across towards them. He was of medium height, with wide shoulders and tan-coloured hair that flopped down almost to his shoulders. He was, Holden judged, in his late forties, yet with an appearance that harked back to more youthful days, an ageing surfer perhaps, stranded now in a city that could barely be further from the sea.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said with an overzealous smile. ‘I’m Paul Greenleaf.’

  Holden displayed her ID, and Fox followed suit. Greenleaf had obviously been watching out for them. Holden doubted he rushed out to greet every visitor, but when you’re being investigated because of the unexpected death of a patient, the last thing you’d want is the police wandering around unsupervised, asking awkward questions of all and sundry. Greenleaf ushered them inside, along a corridor, and into a small office in which a woman was already ensconced. Fran Sinclair made no attempt to rise from her chair, merely nodding as Greenleaf made the introductions. She thought maybe she had met the inspector somewhere, socially, but she had no intention of saying as much. Besides, the inspector had already started speaking.

  ‘You are both aware of the results of the post-mortem.’ It was a statement rather than a question. ‘Can you confirm for me that morphine had not been prescribed for Mrs Nanette Wright?’

  ‘I can confirm that.’ It was Fran Sinclair who spoke. The medical side was her overall responsibility, and she knew she had no chance of help on this from Greenleaf.

  ‘But you do keep morphine here?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘I see.’ Holden nodded slowly, apparently deep in thought as she pondered the implications of this response. Then she looked across at Fran again. ‘Would you describe Mrs Wright as a difficult patient?’

  This time it was Fran who paused. She had expected a grilling about procedures and practices. Were all medicines kept locked up? Who had access to them? How many keys were there? That sort of thing, but not this question. She tried to look Holden in the eye. ‘No, I wouldn’t. She had her moments, but then most old people do.’

  ‘That’s an interesting expression: “She had her moments”. What do you mean? Was she cantankerous, and bad tempered? Did she swear at the nurses? Throw her food on the floor? Shit in the bed?’

  Fran Sinclair’s face was square and expressionless under the fringe of hair. ‘I would say she was one of our better-behaved patients, actually.’

  ‘E
xcept when she had her moments.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

  Holden smiled innocently. ‘I have an elderly mother. Sometimes, I could strangle her. Not literally, but you know what I mean. And I’ve seen it on TV. You know, documentaries about old people being abused – sometimes by families at home, sometimes by staff in nursing homes.’

  ‘What the hell are you insinuating?’ Paul Greenleaf had risen to his feet.

  Holden didn’t flinch. She continued to look across at Fran Sinclair, as if Greenleaf didn’t even exist. ‘I am not suggesting that there has been any abuse in Sunnymede. But I just wanted to underline how old people sometimes drive their carers to distraction. If Mrs Wright drove someone here to distraction, then maybe that person might have been tempted to administer morphine to quieten her down, and maybe if that person wasn’t too experienced, well I am sure you can see how an overdose might have occurred, with fatal results.’

  Greenleaf reluctantly sat down, but his face was still flushed, and he thrust a finger at Holden. ‘Shouldn’t you concentrate on finding evidence rather than fabricating wild theories?’

  Holden’s face swivelled to face him. There was no smile on her lips now. ‘Who was it who found Mrs Wright dead?’

  Ania Gorski entered the staff room with her eyes on the ground. Holden and Fox had commandeered it for the remainder of their visit, and had had time to drink a slow cup of tea as they waited for her arrival. She was on nights, and hadn’t been due in for another hour, but the joy of mobile phones means you can contact people at the most inconvenient times. Ania Gorski had picked up on the second ring and agreed to come straight in. She was Polish with a kind, rather than a pretty face, Fox reckoned. She had mousey brown hair that hung just short of her shoulders, and a slightly plump figure that he found rather appealing, but she glanced up only briefly at Holden when she introduced herself, and not at all at him.

  ‘It’s good of you to come in early, Ania.’ Holden began.

  ‘I am not used to this.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Holden could be comforting and reassuring if she needed to be, though she hadn’t had much practice recently. ‘Please try not to worry. It is just that we have to ask you a few questions because it was you who found Mrs Nanette Wright dead.’

  ‘Dead, yes!’ she gasped, and her hand moved to her mouth. ‘I have only worked a few months here, and I never found a person dead in bed.’ It was, Holden reckoned, one of the inevitable parts of a job at a nursing home, that you would sooner or later find a patient dead in bed, but of course she wasn’t going to say that now.

  ‘I know you may find it distressing to think about Mrs Wright, but it is very important that I ask you some questions.’ She paused, giving the woman time to prepare herself.

  ‘Please, ask me.’ Gorski was looking at Holden now, with unblinking green eyes.

  ‘I want you to think back to when you found her. I want you to try and picture in your mind what you saw, and then tell me about it.’ Holden smiled encouragingly. ‘When you are ready,’ she purred.

  ‘It is about seven o’clock. After supper. I try to go around and say hello to all my ladies and gentlemen after supper to see if they are all right, but Mr Day has made a mess in his bed, and I have to clean him up and calm him down. So I am late when I get to Mrs Wright. She is in her chair. The TV is on, but her eyes are shut and I think she is asleep.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I wish to turn the TV down. It is very loud, and she has the controller in her hand, but when I take it from her, her hand is cold.’ Again her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I feel her pulse. But I cannot feel it. So I ring for help.’ There was distress in her voice, and Gorski began to cry.

  ‘Here.’ Holden passed a tissue to her, and waited for her to recover herself. She could do sympathy up to a point – say comforting things, behave patiently, show concern – but she was more interested in getting answers. So she asked another question. ‘Did you notice anything else?’

  ‘Anything else?’ Gorski looked at her as if she hadn’t understood the question. ‘She is dead. I call Miss Sinclair for help. What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’

  Gorski made a face. The British policewoman was very odd. Why so many questions about an old lady who has died? She tried to focus her mind back to the time she realized Mrs Wright was dead. ‘No. Nothing unusual. I tidy Mrs Wright up while I wait for Miss Sinclair to come. I try to make her look peaceful. And I take the flask from her.’

  If eyes had stalks, both Holden’s and Fox’s would have been fully extended on them.

  ‘What flask?’ Holden tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  ‘Mrs Wright has a flask. It is naughty, no? She thinks it is her secret, but we know. She likes a nip of whisky. That is what she called it. A nip. And the flask is in her other hand. So I take it and put it in her cupboard to be tidy. It is a matter of respect, I think. I did right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Holden replied. Of course it was right to give a dead woman a bit of decency in death. ‘Was there any whisky left in the flask?’

  Gorski made a face. ‘I think not. I shake it, but it is empty. Mrs Wright has been drinking, I think.’ And then she began to cry again.

  ‘Where is Nanette Wright’s flask?’

  Ania Gorski had gone off to start her shift, and almost immediately Fran Sinclair stuck her nosy head round the door. ‘Everything all right?’ she had said.

  She was worried. Holden could see that. It was a stressful situation, but even so, she seemed very on edge. Not that Holden had any interest in making her feel better. That wasn’t what she was here for. So she had fired off the question without any preamble. ‘Where is Nanette Wright’s flask?’

  ‘Her flask?’ Fran looked puzzled.

  ‘She had a hip flask. She was holding it when she died. Ania put it in her cupboard. But it isn’t there now. So where is it?’

  ‘I hadn’t realized.’ The look of incomprehension remained on her face.

  Holden pressed on, her natural scepticism now fully activated. ‘You hadn’t realized what? That she had a hip flask and liked a tipple? Or that she was holding it when she died?’

  ‘Well, I knew she liked a drink occasionally.’

  ‘Don’t you have rules about that sort of thing?’

  Fran’s look of innocent amazement receded, and was replaced by an altogether tougher expression. ‘We aren’t running a concentration camp here. It’s a place for old people to live the last of their days peacefully. And as pleasantly as possible. If they like an occasional drink, and it doesn’t conflict with their medication, then what harm is there in that?’

  ‘So you knew she liked a drink?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that she had a hip flask?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that she died with it in her hand?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’ The answers were quick and decisive.

  ‘So where did she get her whisky from?’

  Fran Sinclair shrugged. This was beyond her knowledge, she was implying, but she’d make an intelligent guess. ‘Nan would go home for lunch most Sundays. So presumably she got the flask filled up there. Why don’t you ask her son?’

  ‘We will,’ Holden replied, though her mind was already moving on, or rather picking up an earlier thought she hadn’t pursued. ‘When was Nanette last seen by a doctor?’

  ‘I’d have to check.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Holden said this as if she couldn’t believe that someone in Fran Sinclair’s position wouldn’t have this information immediately to hand.

  ‘Actually, I do,’ came the curt reply. ‘When she was dead! Dr Featherstone certified her dead for us. But I’m presuming you want to know when he last saw her alive, and that is a question I’d need to check her records for.’

  ‘I see,’ Holden said, but in a manner that indicated beyond all possible doubt that she didn’t see.

/>   ‘Look!’ Fran Sinclair was irritated. If there was one way to get her roused, it was to doubt her professionalism. ‘The doctor comes in every Monday and Thursday as a matter of course. Obviously, if medical problems occur, he comes out when we call him. But when he’s here, I don’t monitor his every move. Dr Featherstone is popular with the residents. He’s an old-school GP, and a lot closer to their ages than he’d probably care to admit, so he likes to go round and say hello, not just dole out prescriptions for those who have obvious problems. So I can’t for sure say when he last saw Nanette. If he had prescribed any medicines for her, then that would be recorded. But I don’t have a photographic memory. So that’s why I’d need to check her file.’

  ‘So he’ll be here on Monday, will he?’

  ‘God willing.’

  Holden nodded, apparently unperturbed by the forcefulness of the woman in front of her. ‘Well,’ she said, suddenly standing up. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing him then. Perhaps you can arrange it?’ And she smiled her best, synthetic smile.

  Ten minutes later, Holden and Fox were outside again. It was dark, and cold, and there was a drizzle in the air, but neither of them showed any sign of getting into the car. Fox was on his mobile phone, and Holden was smoking. She had started again big-time during her six-month period of leave, but now she had managed to get it back under some sort of control. She always carried a packet with her, but there were never more than two cigarettes in it at a time. It was her insurance against binge smoking. When she got up in the morning, she put two cigarettes in the packet. She didn’t want to get hooked again, not that hooked anyway. She was hooked in a small way, she knew that, but this way she maintained control. Sort of. She took a final drag, then stamped it out in the gravel. She ought to pick it up and dispose of it tidily, but her mind had better things to worry about.

  Fox clicked his mobile shut. ‘There’s only the daughter, Vickie, at home. Her parents are both out. She doesn’t know when they’ll be back, so I said to tell them we’d call round tomorrow morning about 8.30 a.m.’