The Coopers Field Murder

by Wonny Lea

  Alex grinned. It was typical of Martin to allow him to be the bearer of vital information, and without hesitation he launched into a commentary of his team’s findings.

  ‘Thanks to modern technology the amount of information we get on our receipts is phenomenal, as you can see from the computer-enhanced version of our original find. We have the date and the time of the purchases, and of course an itemised cost of each thing bought and the total cost. Although the actual cost is probably not significant, what is relevant is the fact that the bill totalled £268.98 and was paid for using a Mastercard.

  ‘We will be able to get full details of the owner of that credit card and I have already put in a request for that information. As I just said we know the time and date of the purchases and we can also see that the transaction took place at the Culverhouse Cross branch of M&S.

  ‘That’s all I have for the moment, but needless to say we have taken all sorts of samples from the area surrounding the discovery and I know the professor has things to add, so I will hand over to him.’

  There was nothing Professor Moore liked better than enthralling an audience with the wonders of pathology, but he had just taken a phone call and appeared somewhat distracted as he got to his feet. ‘So sorry, ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘That was a call that requires an urgent response and so I am going to have to give you just the bare facts with none of the usual elaboration.’

  ‘The woman was around eighty years of age, had very poor eyesight, and due to advanced osteoarthritis would have found movement difficult. She has borne children, at least one with the aid of a Caesarean section, and taking account of her height and her weight I would say that if you put the clothes described by Mr Griffiths on this body, they would be a perfect fit.’

  ‘Her bones were brittle and on the left hand side of her skull is an almost perfectly round injury that in my view caused her death – there is nothing else in the PM finding that would have been directly responsible. She …’ The professor’s sentence was cut short by the flashing and vibrating of his phone on the table in front of him. He looked at the incoming caller identification and then across at Martin. ‘My apologies, DCI Phelps – I really do need to be somewhere else, but the full report of the PM is being completed by Mrs Williams and is probably even now ready to be picked up.’

  Martin simply nodded as Moore left the room, but was left with the question of what could have called him away, with no apparent warning. It was quite out of character and Martin found himself hoping that it was just the Prof’s profession that was calling him to more macabre business, and not a personal problem.

  Having settled themselves down to a lengthy session surrounding the findings of the post-mortem the room was now at odds with the proceedings and Martin struggled to get everyone’s attention back on track.

  ‘DS Pryor and I were there for most of the PM examination and so will probably be able to answer any questions. The task now is to follow up on the information we have uncovered and ensure that nothing is missed.

  ‘During the PM the Prof talked about the difficulty this lady would have had with walking and asked whether or not some sort of walking aid had been found. He also asked if there had been any glasses found in the clothes or near the body, as she would have been almost blind without them. It’s extremely likely that the woman wore dentures but they haven’t been found either. Up to now we have found nothing other than the clothes.’

  Martin turned towards Sergeant Evans and asked if anything else had come to light.

  ‘Nothing at all so far,’ was the reply. ‘We have extended the area we are searching but have absolutely nothing to report. Is there anything else uniform can help with?’

  ‘Reluctantly I have to say that there’s nothing I can think of at the moment, so if you all have other things to do it just leaves me to thank you for your help. I will let you know of any progress.’ Martin looked around for Matt as the room almost cleared, leaving just Alex who was also preparing to leave.

  ‘If you’re looking for Matt, he’s just nipped out to get you both some coffee,’ said Alex. ‘Unless there’s anything in particular you require I want to get back to see how things are going with some of the tests we’ve set up.’

  ‘That’s fine with me,’ replied Martin. ‘I’m just going to stay here and take in all the information we’ve accrued so far and hopefully I will be able to prioritise the things that need to be done next.’

  By the time Matt returned with the coffee, Martin had made a list of the things he wanted tackled by himself and his team, and had posed three questions that needed to be answered. Top of his to do list was an interview with Mrs Pattern. He had no reason to think she would be able to tell them anything other what she had already said to Helen Cook-Watts, but she was to a certain extent yet another victim in this crime.

  She was just an ordinary member of the public, doing ordinary things, when she had witnessed a sight quite likely to give her nightmares for the foreseeable future. Martin believed it was his duty to personally call on her and thank her for her assistance and ensure she was being well supported. It wouldn’t take long, and he would ask Helen to go with him, as she would be a face already known to Mrs Pattern.

  The next thing wouldn’t even require his moving from the building, as it concerned the urgent chasing up of the details of that Mastercard. Martin knew, and quite rightly, that even the Police Force had to jump through a number of hoops before information could be released. He would be surprised if Alex had been able to get the information they needed and the card company would be totally within their rights under the Data Protection Act to protect the details of their client – even if he or she was part of a murder enquiry. But with the right checks and balances the information would be made available.

  The third thing he had committed himself to was a re-check of that local missing persons list, or specifically a more detailed look at Mrs Daphne Mansfield. There were lots of things about her that fitted the dead woman, but there was of course the slightly tricky probability that she was alive and living in France. If he visited Miss Forrester, it would demonstrate, if nothing more, that public concerns about missing persons were treated seriously and by such a senior officer.

  Here again he would have liked to take Helen Cook-Watts along, as she had seen Elsie Forrester when she reported her sister missing. However, it occurred to him that using her too much may not look good this near to her interview – one in which he could have a deciding vote if more than one candidate was in the running. He juggled things around in his mind and decided it would be Matt to go with him to see Mrs Pattern, and Helen to pick up where she had left off with Miss Forrester.

  Martin looked at the questions he had written on the whiteboard and then turned his head as Matt came in with two cups of coffee and an explanation as to why he had taken so long to get them.

  ‘I got cornered by Superintendent Bryant, who has obviously heard about the body in Coopers Field and wanted an update. He’s keen that we hold a press conference later today and didn’t seem too impressed when I said that we were thinking a simple press statement would be more appropriate until more information is known.’

  ‘What he actually said was, “Surely, Sergeant, you are aware that the public have a right to be given timely and accurate information when something like this happens on their doorstep. We ignore the public at our peril, and any good detective will tell you that information received from the public has solved many a complex crime. Please pass on my concerns.” I think that was it.’ Matt was a first-class mimic and had the voice and facial expressions of the Super off to a T. Martin wondered how close Matt came to accurately impersonating him when he was out of earshot!

  ‘Just what I didn’t want to hear,’ Martin sighed. ‘I think I will still duck out of it for today and get the statement out with a view to meeting the press head on – say tomorrow lunchtime. With any luck by then we will be that much nearer to at least having the body identified, and that sh
ould take us one step nearer to the murderer.’

  Looking back at the questions he had set out Martin fired the first one at his sergeant. ‘How did the body get into Bute Park – how many entrances are there?’

  Matt rubbed the side of his face and ran his mind over what he has made it his business to find out about the area. ‘Well, there’s the entrance from Sophia Gardens, over the bridge – the way we went this morning. I believe there are other entrances, but I can only visualise the one that comes from somewhere on or near North Road and the one shoppers usually take when parking in Sophia Gardens and heading for town.’

  ‘We could benefit from taking a good walk around the area,’ suggested Martin. ‘As well as there being entrances for vehicles and pedestrians there is also access by water. I can’t say I’ve ever paid much attention to the set-up but I know there is a waterbus stop somewhere along the Taff, and I’d like to look at where it is in relation to where the body was found.’

  ‘My precise knowledge of the area is no better than yours,’ Matt added, ‘and I don’t think I have the answer to your question on access, but we have requested an up-to-date map from Cardiff Council.’

  Both men looked at the whiteboard where Martin had written his second question. Was she dead or alive when she arrived at Bute Park?

  Suddenly realising his mistake, Martin picked up a marker pen and drew an arrow from the second question, placing its point just above the first. ‘I’ve put the cart before the horse there,’ he explained to Matt. ‘Our first priority is to find out if she arrived in the park dead or alive, as that could make the world of difference regarding how she got there.’

  Matt nodded. ‘Judging from what we have heard from Alex, my money is on her being killed somewhere else and her body being taken to where it was found by Mrs Pattern. Whoever the dead woman is, she would have been easy enough for most men to lift single-handed, so it would have been possible for her to be carried quite a distance – but surely someone would have seen a body being carried through a public park!’

  ‘I’m calling it a day,’ concluded Martin. ‘There’s a café just over the bridge we crossed this morning, and I noticed they sell breakfast baguettes, so meet me there at half eight tomorrow.’

  Chapter Six

  Same Death Lists

  Sarah was expecting her intercom buzzer to be activated but nevertheless it made her jump, as always. She was pottering around her kitchen, putting the finishing touches to the evening meal she had prepared for herself and Maria, and needed to wash her hands, before picking up her end of the speaker. Before she got to it the buzzer struck again and Sarah snatched it out of its cradle, pressed the door release button, and shouted into the mouthpiece. ‘Have patience, Maria, I was on my way! The front door is open now, and my door is on the latch, so come straight through.’

  Having heard the sound of the front door being unlocked and Maria closing it behind her, Sarah returned to the kitchen to tackle the cheese sauce. She was a reasonably good cook – perhaps not up to the standard of Masterchef, but she prided herself in the fact that, for the majority of the time, she cooked from scratch rather than resorting to ready meals.

  For the past nine months she had been helping Maria get some National Vocational Qualifications and found it hard to decide who had been the most delighted when Maria had flown through Level 1 and was now well along the road to obtaining NVQ Level 2. She remembered the first session that they had organised in Sarah’s home, and how it had ended in tears, but not because they had fallen out – in fact, quite the opposite.

  During their time together at Parkland, Sarah had learned very little about Maria, and now as she thought back she realised that the sum total of everything she had known then was that Maria was the oldest child and had two brothers and a sister. She recognised Maria as one of those people who manage to learn a lot about everyone else but who gave away very little about herself, and smiled as she realised that the recognition was a bit like looking in the mirror.

  What had first impressed Sarah was the way Maria interacted with the residents. She had a way of anticipating their requirements often before they did themselves. They had only been working together for a couple of weeks when Sarah asked Maria if she had ever considered applying to do a nursing degree.

  The reaction from Maria had been totally unexpected, and it was the one and only time that Sarah had ever seen Maria angry. She had thrown down the shoes she was about to put on one of the elderly gentlemen and rushed out of his room, slamming that door and every other door that she passed through on her way to the front entrance.

  Half an hour later, after searching the nursing home, Sarah found Maria sitting on the bench outside the front door with her head in her hands. That was when, within a matter of ten minutes and between bursts of sobbing, Sarah had got to know more about Maria’s life, and in particular her dreams, than probably any other living soul had done before.

  Maria had gone to Sarah’s flat that same evening and from then on the sessions had become a weekly occurrence. It transpired that Sarah had touched a raw nerve when she had asked about nurse training because it was the one thing that Maria wanted. She had not seen her mother since she was nine years old and her memories were not good. Maria could recall the time when her mother stayed in bed most of the day and constantly smelled of alcohol and tobacco. Her own father had long since gone and her mother was with a more often than not out-of-work labourer. They had produced a half-sister for Maria, followed by twin boys, and even before Maria had reached her tenth birthday it was she who was the mother figure to the youngsters.

  Needless to say her education was greatly affected, and Maria spent more time at home tending to the needs of her family than she did in school – and the situation got even worse when her mother finally left, apparently to move to London with someone she had met in the local off-license.

  Although Maria described the time when her mother left as horrendous, she admitted that in some ways it was the best thing that could have happened, maybe not for her but at least for the rest of the family. Tony, her stepfather, with the threat of Social Services taking his family into care, managed to pull himself together and miraculously, given the general job shortage, got himself some steady employment. The hours were long and the pay not brilliant, but it was work, and he stuck at it as never before.

  Maria was most of the time late for school as she had to take her brothers and sisters to their school first and if one of them was ill then she had to stay at home with them. The education officials wrote several letters and paid a few visits to see Tony, and always after these visits there was a short period when Maria’s school attendance improved – but the improvement, because of the underlying situation, could never be maintained.

  Even when Maria did turn up for her lessons she was far too tired to absorb any pearls of wisdom, which was not surprising given that before getting there she would have done what many people would consider to be a day’s work. Consequently she had left school at the earliest opportunity, and with nothing to show that she had ever been a pupil. As the twins had come down with chickenpox at the time her class-mates were sitting GCSE examinations, Maria had not been sitting pen poised to answer the questions on the maths paper – she had been at home dabbing on the calamine lotion.

  Sarah thought it was truly amazing that Maria had turned out the way she had, and told her so on that first visit. It was those kind words that had reduced Maria to tears. Quite unused to anyone praising her, Maria had dissolved into tears for the second time that day and in the evening it was as if a dam had burst. Sarah thought the emotions had never dared to escape before, and she had not seen Maria cry before or since that day. She believed that in just those few sessions of release Maria had washed away years of pain and resentment and had then started, for the first time, to put herself and her own hopes and aspirations just that little bit ahead of the family her mother had left her to nurture.

  ‘Something smells good,’ said Maria,
as she hung her shoulder bag on one of the four wooden chairs grouped around the matching dining table. ‘I love coming here, it’s so quiet – do you need any help? What are you cooking? Do you want me to get my books out or are we eating first?’

  ‘Why ask one question when you can ask three?’ laughed Sarah. ‘You can set the table as food is just about ready. I’ve just fried some mushrooms, bacon, and garlic in a knob of butter, cooked some penne pasta, and I’m mixing everything into the cheese sauce – it’s simple but tasty, and I’ve got a bowl of chopped peppers and tomatoes to go with it and help lift our levels of antioxidants. I haven’t stocked up the wine cellar recently but there are a few cans of Strongbow in the fridge if you want.’

  Within minutes they had sorted out the preliminaries and were tucking in to what turned out to be a very tasty meal, and it was not until she had almost finished eating that Maria picked up her glass of cider.

  ‘He was quite dishy, wasn’t he?’ she smiled. ‘It’s a pity Mr Cooper had to come back and spoil your cosy chat.’

  Sarah realised immediately that Maria was talking about Detective Sergeant Pryor, and returned Maria’s smile. ‘I won’t disagree with you on your first point but we were hardly having an intimate tête-à-tête: don’t forget, there were three of us in the room.’

  ‘Oh yes, the lovely Sergeant Evans,’ giggled Maria. ‘He’s my idea of a perfect dad. I bet he comes over all strict to his children, if he has any, but is like a big marshmallow inside.’

  They both laughed at the thought of Sergeant Evans turning into marshmallow-man, but then Sarah pushed her plate to one side and went into the bedroom she used as a sort of study, coming back a minute or so later with a small notebook.

  ‘I know you’re here so that we can go through the last set of questions you need to complete your coursework, but contrary to what everyone thinks the police didn’t return to Parkland in relation to the body in the field and they’ve asked me to help them look into any recent and unexpected deaths in the home.’