The Third Breath

by Malcolm Hollingdrake

  “What about the chap he said he used to see, the mystery figure, the nosy bastard he used to call him? It used to worry him. You both know it. Someone realised that something wasn’t right and Dad did. I believe you knew too.”

  His sister stood and shook her head. “Jesus, Jonny, just let him rest in peace for Christ’s sake. You’ve gone on and on… tell the bloody coppers if it’ll shut you up but do it quickly, say what you have to say and then just shut the fuc—!” she yelled, not finishing the final expletive before storming out, her elbow knocking the table and spilling her coffee.

  Moving to mop it up, his mother looked at him, tears in her eyes. “We’ve suffered enough. I’ve been through enough. Your father drank too much and, well, you know. He was going to stop. He’d seen demons in the bedroom before now, screamed out loud. How he ever passed his medicals I’ll never fully understand although I have an idea.” She sat down and wept.

  Jonathan came around the table and consoled her.

  “You know just how hard he worked; it provided all this and more, he was a generous father to you and your sister. Be thankful and just let it be. What did he use to say when you were little? Watch the wall, my darling, as the gentlemen go by… As your sister says, let him rest, darling. Please.”

  Stuart Park found Cyril in his office, a cup of tea in one hand. He was swivelling to and fro on his chair as if in deep thought. Stuart tapped on the partly opened door. Cyril stopped the chair’s movement and turned. Seeing Stuart, he smiled.

  “Come in! Tell me something, Stuart; advise me. What would you do if someone were to give you this?” Cyril picked up a photograph from his desk and passed it over, it was of the Bentley his father had bequeathed him.

  Stuart looked at it enviously. “I’d thank my lucky stars, sir. Bloody gorgeous that is. A Rolls?”

  “Bentley.”

  “Same thing really in my eyes. Great colour too! Which lucky bastard owns that?”

  “Unfortunately, right at this minute…” He paused before collecting the photograph, glancing at it and then back at Stuart. “Me!”

  Stuart smiled and pulled a face. “Nice! Please may I have a ride?”

  Cyril could not help but laugh. “Only if you come to look at my puppies first!”

  They both chuckled.

  “On a serious note, sir, I’ve been going through the flight logbooks of the Stephens family. They used the aircraft for flights to the continent, France mainly, linked with the business when visiting vineyards, and the like. I want to get someone to go through their business accounts to see what was purchased and what was personally brought back into the country.”

  “If we do that, the family will have to be informed that his death is being investigated. It’s a serious move.”

  “I think they’re already aware of that.” Stuart added, “Jonathan wanted to know if his father had done something wrong so I told him we were looking into his father’s death owing to the similarity with another death. He’s not stupid and he wasn’t surprised.”

  “Do they have sole use of the aircraft?”

  “No, he allows it to be rented by the flying club on occasion. Helps with hangar and running costs. Happens all the time in the private aircraft industry, I’m led to believe.”

  Cyril nodded knowing that from his past experience. “Have you seen the aircraft and logbooks?”

  Stuart frowned shaking his head. “Father’s, son’s and daughter’s but she flew very little. The aircraft logs are with the aircraft.”

  “As soon as.”

  Stuart Park stood. “Yeadon here I come. I could do with that R2 helicopter that’s in Stephens’s garage, or that Bentley.” He leaned over and tapped the photograph.

  The call came through from Julie fifteen minutes after Park’s departure from his office.

  “I have some results from the pathology lab. We need to chat.”

  Julie was already at her desk when Cyril arrived, denying him his usual time with the objects dotted along the shelves.

  “Hypoxia, Cyril, but in the end it’s up to the coroner and your evidence as to the exact reasons. The results are convincingly similar to a case in which two engineers died from immediate oxygen deprivation. They were working in the brewing industry about six years ago. They were repairing a faulty release valve at the top of a tank that held vented inert gas produced by having liquid nitrogen stored under pressure below.”

  Cyril’s expression conveyed his confusion. “Think of it as a shallow chamber that collects any gases that are released so that they can be controlled and monitored before they’re vented into the atmosphere. Today, you just can’t put gases, even inert ones, into the surrounding environment without monitoring them. Anyway, to get to a part of the valve, the engineers had to remove the top seal. It was believed that the tank had been purged of any residual gas before this operation took place.

  “When the lid was removed, one of the engineers was suddenly overcome and dropped into the upper chamber. His colleague, seeing this, used a stepladder to climb into the chamber to rescue him but he too was immediately rendered unconscious and died within minutes. It appears that errors had been made on both sides. The engineers had received training within the last six months and there had been warning signs instructing that the use of self-contained breathing apparatus was mandatory within the chamber but not when working near and in the area.”

  “Do we know the type of gas that killed them?”

  “It wasn’t a gas but the total lack of oxygen. After very few inhalations, maybe three, they would be unconscious and within a minute or two they’d be dead. They would have had no warning signs at all.”

  “You mentioned that they’d removed the seal and the lid or am I missing something?”

  “What was stored deep within that tank, below this chamber, would have been liquid nitrogen. It can be referred to as LIN, Cryogenic liquid nitrogen or simply liquid nitrogen and it’s used in a variety of industries for myriad reasons. In some ways that’s immaterial right now. I’m trying to keep this simple, Cyril. When it’s stored in a pressurised container, no matter what the size, it needs to have a safety valve. It boils at minus 195.8 degrees centigrade or Celsius, that’s bloody cold. It’s freezing enough to cause severe skin damage and frost bite, or cold burns as they can be described. It’s colourless and odourless, but it’s around us, we breathe it, it makes up seventy-eight per cent of that air so it’s difficult to detect. Although on the face of it the stuff looks safe, inert and chemically inactive, it’s exceptionally dangerous in certain situations.”

  Cyril scratched his head. “Please remember that you’re talking to a copper and not a particularly bright one.” He grinned and pulled a face, hoping for a complimentary riposte but none came.

  “Pure nitrogen vented into a carrier bag over your head will be a way of shuffling off this mortal coil, Cyril, leaving it quickly and probably painlessly. Then there’s nitrogen, kept in liquid form within insulated containers of any size, and maintained at a set pressure. The environment around the vessel has an ambient temperature, that heat warms the liquid nitrogen forming a vapour; unless that vapour is properly vented, an explosion can occur.”

  “Julie, what has the death of these two workers got to do with Baines?”

  “Look, there’s no reason why Baines should have died suddenly, yes there’s evidence of an irregular heart rate but many people who kick a ball about at weekends have arrhythmia. The two guys who died in the tank were fit. We know how they died, and as a result, can compare the pathological results with those of Baines. It is my professional judgement that all three died of hypoxia, think of it as asphyxiation. They demonstrated the same degree of damage to their organs. Only by comparison with the pathology records of those unfortunate workers can we make a presumption of how Baines died. In cases like these we take the evidence we can to extrapolate the truth, the coroner will now ask for further evidence, your evidence, and then we’ll see.

  “I’d like to be ab
le to state that the way Baines died is irrefutable. I can’t. All I can demonstrate is that these three men may have suffered the same fate and that, Cyril, might just be the lead you need. And before you ask, we’re looking at samples taken from David Stephens as we speak. You need to do some research into the world of liquid nitrogen. Two further points might interest you. The American government is considering using liquid nitrogen as a means of performing capital punishment after the difficulties they’ve had with the lethal injection and in this country, nitrogen-rich environments are used for the humane killing of poultry. Look it up!”

  18

  It was midnight when Cyril finished his search on the Internet. A large sheet of paper was full of jottings and sat alongside two empty bottles labelled Black Sheep Ale. The more he had read, the more he could see the possibility that Baines had accidentally killed himself or had been murdered. Had he committed suicide, one question would need to be answered? As for Stephens, that prognosis would have to wait until pathology results proved that he had also suffered from the same symptoms as Baines and the two unfortunate brewery workers Julie had discussed.

  Cyril sat back and drained the remaining beer from his glass. He let his eyes drift to the wall and he stared at an Isherwood oil painting directly ahead. Its composition taunted him. The oil painting’s blue and misty sky was streaked with yellow that had all the appearance of a poisoned gas. It hung above the buildings and the disproportional pedestrians who somehow seemed motionless, as if trapped in the petrifying haze. The more research he had carried out on liquid nitrogen, the more complex and confusing the task seemed to have become. This confusion was why he thought he saw gas and death clearly reflected within the haphazard brush strokes of the innocent painting or maybe it was the beer and the lack of food. There was one thing he had gleaned from his evening’s labour, the ideas and the theories he had derived from his reading were full of possibilities, admittedly long shots at best, but they were certainly not lost pathways of investigation. In all his years of policing, he had learned not to dismiss the obvious or the obscure.

  Walking into the station the next morning, Cyril paused and chatted briefly to the officer on the desk. He slipped the lanyard holding his security ID and key pass over his head before making his way to his office; the rolled up piece of A1 paper, like a large cigarette, was tucked under his arm. Owen had not arrived. Cyril checked his watch, shook it and looked again. He scribbled a comment on a lime green post-it note and attached it to Owen’s computer screen.

  Morning. We need to chat immediately when you get this.

  Cyril rolled out the paper onto his desk before weighing down the corners with different objects. He read through the scribbled notes and the highlights he had made.

  Liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic fluid that can cause rapid freezing of living tissue. If appropriately stored it can be kept and transported. It is maintained in this state by a slow boiling of the liquid and this evaporation process releases nitrogen gas.

  Liquid nitrogen has become popular in the preparation of cocktails!!!

  Used in the brewing industry/purging oxygen from water/food freezing and processing.

  If liquid nitrogen evaporates it reduces the oxygen content in the air rapidly and can act as an asphyxiant, especially in confined spaces. It is colourless, without smell and tasteless and may kill quickly without prior warning. The victim may feel slightly euphoric and have no sense of the danger in which they find themselves.

  Cyril had just finished reading the notes when the light suddenly diminished.

  “Come in, Owen, and stop blocking the light. Take a look at this. Even at my time of life I’ve had homework.”

  Owen came over and stood next to Cyril before looking at the sheet of paper. Owen held a slice of burnt toast. A globule of molten butter dropped onto the paper but was swiftly smudged with his thumb which then travelled to his mouth to be cleaned. “Sorry!” He popped what was left of the toast into his mouth and wiped his hands on his trousers.

  After a few moments he let his finger run along the highlighted sentences following each line in order before going back to the first one that referred to cocktails. “How does that work then?”

  “New fad, I believe. It quick freezes the items going into the cocktail but also makes it look somewhat sinister, smoke or steam is seen tumbling out of the glass and down the stem. Although nitrogen gas is slightly lighter than air, when it’s very cold, it’s heavier and that is why you get the tumbling low floating cloud, a dry ice effect.”

  Owen looked up at Cyril, his face showing signs of puzzlement.

  “When I was at the Bauhaus Champagne and Cocktail place, I noticed a purple drink doing just that. Looked for all intents and purposes like a witch’s cauldron. Can’t imagine anyone drinking it, bloody foul concoction!”

  Picking up a pencil, Cyril made a note. “As things are getting colder, my friend, we might…” He emphasised the word might, “…be getting just that little bit warmer.”

  Owen’s confused expression did not alter. “Really? Right.”

  Cyril’s phone rang. “Bennett.”

  Owen watched Cyril doodle on a corner of the large sheet of paper for what seemed like an age. He might like art, but from what he could see, Cyril was certainly no Picasso.

  “So why is it relevant, April?” He listened again. “I don’t want it moved. Get it checked out thoroughly and I need someone watching the house, preferably plain clothes officers.” Cyril wrote the word Wighill on the paper. “We’re on our way.” As he said that the force he used to add a full stop after the word made the pencil point break sending a small projectile across the paper.

  “Car… burned out… Wighill.”

  “As I mentioned the other day, there’s been a spate, that’s why April’s chasing up that cold case.”

  “Belongs to a Claire Baldwin. Turns out that Ms Baldwin hasn’t been to work or been seen for two days and the car is miles from her home address.”

  It was apparent that Owen had not made the connection. “The note I found in Baines’s home office. Claire. Remember?”

  “Hell! I was just focusing on Baldwin. Got you!”

  “We’re doing a background check now. There’s more to this than meets the eye.”

  Within thirty-five minutes they were turning off the A1M heading towards Dishforth Airfield. A black jet marked with yellow lightning flashes flew low over the road. However, its destination was RAF Leeming, not Dishforth. Cyril tilted his head and watched its slow turn, a trail of black from the rear, charcoal lining the blue sky.

  “That’s a Hawk. RAF training aircraft.”

  There was a sudden pause as Owen negotiated some roadworks.

  “How come you get travel sick in a car but you can fly a plane? Don’t you need a lot of those sick bags when it gets bumpy?”

  “Turbulence? No, must be the adrenalin. It seems to be just your driving, Owen, that brings on the nausea especially when you think we need to arrive before we depart!”

  “Right, sir. Wait until you get that Bentley. You’ll be on cloud nine as they run like silk.”

  Immediately Owen realised he had said not the most tactful thing and quickly changed the subject. “So the burned out car’s in Wighill, near Tadcaster, and she lives in Thirsk? Maybe it was taken by someone who needed to get home as there are no trains to Tadcaster. They removed the line, come to think of it, way back in time! You told me about the man who did it.”

  “Beeching.”

  “That’s him. And the buses as well! Probably a group of lads pissed, possibly squaddies who’d spent up and couldn’t afford a taxi.” He turned to Cyril hoping to see that his theory might have a degree of credibility but Cyril simply stared ahead.

  Passing Dalton disused airfield, Owen thought of a previous case but owing to the memories it held he tried to block the thought from his mind and concentrate on the road. Cyril said nothing for the next ten minutes and then raised a hand. The volume on the satnav had been
turned off earlier in the journey.

  “Next left, Owen. Just after what looks like a shop.”

  Owen turned. The row of terraced houses stretched for some distance both on the left and right. Cars were parked on either side of the narrow road, half on and half off the pavement.

  “Park on the right where you can.”

  There was a blue Ford Mondeo positioned on the opposite side of the road about twenty yards away. The driver watched them carefully. The camera facing forward would have recorded their approach. It was then that Owen pointed to the satnav.

  “We’re on Victoria Avenue! This has got to be some kind of bloody joke, sir.” He could see from Cyril’s demeanour that he considered it neither a joke nor remotely funny.

  “It’s deliberate, Owen. You can trust me on that score.”

  Cyril flashed his ID and the driver of the Mondeo nodded.

  “Nobody in or out, sir. A window cleaner came down the road and knocked but there was no answer. He pushed something through the letter box.”

  “Is there a back way in?” Cyril enquired as he glanced up and down the road.

  “A narrow passageway, wide enough for a car, leads to the small rear gardens of that terraced row. I have a colleague round there. She’s seen nothing, apart from the window man, or she hadn’t up to five minutes ago.”

  “Thanks. Owen, check neighbours on either side. See if someone’s home and find out who has a key.”

  April pulled off the road and into what was an extended opening of a farm track. A huge pile of dung stood sentinel like. A white wisp of steam rose from different parts of the heap accompanied by an even stronger aroma. The CSI van was further up the lane and two white-suited figures were just clearing away. There was no sign of a fire engine other than the mud it had left when pulling out onto the road that was now dry.