The Coopers Field Murder

by Wonny Lea

  After a final quick check of the residents she made her way along the corridor and up the half flight of stairs to the administrator’s office. It was on a mezzanine-type landing, situated between the residents’ area and the owner’s office. The door was never locked because a Care Standards Inspector had decreed that out-of-hours access to all resident information, on a need to know basis, must always be available in case of an emergency.

  As she approached the door Sarah felt unusually anxious and went over in her mind the story she had invented to explain what she was doing if she was discovered in the act of reading old case notes. True to form, the office was unbelievably tidy, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to see the paper clips lined up; it was uncanny.

  The first thing she noticed was a full-size filing cabinet, not yet unwrapped but already placed neatly in the position it would occupy. Sarah wondered how Peter Doster had managed to get approval for its purchase knowing how long it took for anything she needed for the residents to be agreed.

  Sarah had legitimately been in the office on many occasions and knew where everything was kept. All the filing cabinets were kept locked and the location of the keys known only to a few people. Much to Mr Doster’s disgust it had been made clear to him that Sarah, as the appointed Home Manager, would have to know how to access anything to do with the residents and with the management of the home.

  The first thing she did was to unlock the filing drawer containing the current medical records and selected a folder at random. Using a corner of Mr Doster’s desk, Sarah concentrated on the front cover of the notes and copied some of the detail onto one of the sheets of paper she had brought with her.

  The records she had chosen belonged to Enid Prosser, who had only been at the home for three weeks and was quite a character. The care assistants were always giggling at the stories she told them about her life before the Second World War, when she had been a young girl growing up in Tiger Bay, then a notorious dockland area of Cardiff.

  In just a few minutes Sarah had filled half a sheet of paper with facts relating to Enid’s weight, diet, and lifestyle, and she hoped these jottings would be sufficient to give her a reason for being in the office.

  On the other sheet of paper Sarah had brought with her was the list of the deceased residents that she and Maria had agreed on. She kept that one in her hand, not wanting it to be discovered in the event of an interruption.

  The files of all the residents who died had to be kept for ten years or even longer if there was any on-going legal requirement, and when Sarah unlocked the cabinet she could see why a new one had been purchased. This one was bursting at the seams. However, as she would have expected, all the records were filed in alphabetical order with each section neatly labelled. Sarah had anticipated taking five minutes to scan each record and make whatever notes she needed.

  Nancy Coleman was the first file she looked for and her fingers moved over several names she recognised until she came to Walter Collins, someone whose shock of ginger hair had stayed with him until he died aged eighty-something. So she had gone too far down the files and looked at the name in front of Walter Collins and remembered yet another character – Samuel Coker.

  Checking all the records surrounding these two names Sarah concluded that they were all in absolute alphabetical order and that could only mean one thing – Nancy Coleman’s notes were not there – they were missing!

  Her heart beat a bit faster as she mentally put forward all sorts of sinister reasons why this should be the case and then checked her list to confirm the next one she wanted to check was George Perkins. His notes should have been between Albert Perkins and Thelma Peters, but they weren’t there either and now Sarah’s heart was really starting to race. The absence of one set of the notes she was looking for could be a coincidence but two seemed unlikely. She quickly looked for Vera Thorne and then Edward Myers, and the results were the same as before. So far none of the records on her list were in the filing cabinet.

  Sarah felt compelled to complete the check and make sure that none of the names on her list had corresponding files in the cabinet. She sat on the floor and pulled out the bottom drawer to look for the records of Terence Watts and was so deeply engrossed in what she was doing that she failed to hear the office door open.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ shouted Peter Doster, no longer the pale-faced man who had left the building just about an hour ago, but now very red in the face with rage.

  If it had been Mr Cooper shouting Sarah would probably have taken it in her stride because she had heard him shout so many times, but she had never before heard Mr Doster so much as raise his voice and she virtually jumped out of her skin.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ she replied trying to regain her composure. ‘You scared me to death.’

  ‘What are you doing in my office and why are you going through those files? They are not current, they are the files of residents who have died – what possible interest could you have with them?’

  Sarah, now completely composed, rose to her feet and presented Mr Doster with her most disarming smile. ‘Oh I’m really sorry, I tried to catch you before you went out with Mr Cooper but I had to attend to one of the residents. I haven’t disturbed anything other than that file on the table there and I’ll put it back exactly as I found it.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ retorted Peter Doster and then added sarcastically. ‘I asked what you were doing going through that particular filing cabinet – none of those residents need your attention, Sister Thomas.’

  Although Sarah didn’t regard him as a fool she knew that Mr Doster understood very little about things like care plans and so she hoped she could baffle him with a little elaboration on the science of nursing. ‘It’s by looking back on old notes that we can improve the care we give now, and all I was doing was selecting random notes to check things like lifestyle and compare it with longevity.’ Sarah knew she was talking rubbish but she had to continue the bluff.

  ‘I have looked at the records of several residents who reached a ripe old age before they died and as you can see I have selected Enid Prosser as my comparison study. She came from a deprived family and paints a very colourful picture of her early years in Tiger Bay. She was probably a prostitute but she met a rich man – a bit like Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, don’t you think?’

  ‘I have not got the slightest idea what you’re talking about, Sister Thomas,’ came back the tight-lipped reply and it was then that Sarah noticed he had lost the florid colour of anger and was now even paler than the man she had seen earlier in the car park. His gaze was firmly fixed on the notes of Enid Prosser that she had left open on his table and as she followed his gaze it became Sarah’s turn to lose her colour.

  She hadn’t noticed it before but now she recognised Dr Shaw’s handwriting and she briefly glanced at the signed and dated entry indicating that it was the wishes of Enid Prosser not to be admitted to hospital under any circumstances.

  Peter Doster gathered up the case folder and replaced the loose pages in the correct order before picking up the sheet of paper on which Sarah had made her earlier notes. Fortunately for Sarah the things she had written matched the story she had spun the administrator about lifestyle and longevity, and he relaxed somewhat and then quietly asked Sarah why she had chosen this particular resident for her living comparison.

  Sarah had been remembering Detective Sergeant Pryor’s advice and was now making sure that nothing she said upset Mr Doster. ‘I didn’t really choose her,’ she said lightly. ‘I just closed my eyes and picked out a folder. On reflection it would have been better if I had waited for you so that you could have randomly chosen one male and one female resident for me. That way there could be no bias, and my findings would be more difficult to challenge.’

  She continued. ‘In fact, I think that’s the best way forward, so would you mind just handing me the notes of two residents, chosen by you at random and I’ll discard what I hav
e done with Mrs Prosser.’ To emphasise her point, Sarah tore up the notes she had written and deliberately put them in the office waste paper bin. Her ploy worked and Mr Doster gave her a feeble smile. He picked out two sets of notes at random and checked to see he had chosen one male and one female before handing them to Sarah. ‘There,’ he said. ‘I could have done that for you in the first place if you’d just asked.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Sarah. ‘But I know how busy you are. We all see how much effort you put into keeping the place running smoothly and with so many nursing homes going out of business it is comforting for the nurses to know you are working so hard to keep Parkland as a thriving concern.’

  Peter Doster was not used to praise of any sort and Sarah saw a vestige of colour return to his cheeks as they parted, apparently on good terms. She was even allowed to take the case notes he had selected to her office, provided she returned them before she went off duty.

  Sarah walked as slowly as she could down the short flight of stairs and back to the relative sanctuary of her office. No one seeing her would have guessed the speed at which her heart was racing and how desperately she was controlling the desire of her stomach to throw up.

  Why had Peter Doster come back so early? She groaned as she thought of the possibility that Mr Cooper could had come back with him and wondered what would have happened if they had both come into the Administrator’s Office and found her rooting through their precious files.

  She didn’t think she could have bluffed the two of them with her research nonsense but she honestly believed she had got away with it and had convinced Peter Doster she was just involved with a project. With the image of Dr Shaw’s writing, she had seen in the notes of Enid Prosser, fixed firmly in her mind Sarah turned the corner to her office and literally bumped into Maria.

  ‘Whoa!’ shouted Maria. ‘What’s up with you? You look a bit peaky – not coming down with anything are you?’

  Sarah shook her head and then asked Maria what she was doing in work.

  ‘Well, as you know, it should have been my day off, but Terri rang me to say her son is ill and would I swap days with her – so here I am. I didn’t think you would mind because you would need someone instead of Terri and I did try to tell you when I came on duty, but I couldn’t find you.’

  Sarah was barely listening to Maria as she had other things on her mind and she interrupted by asking. ‘How is Mrs Prosser? – have you seen her since you started your shift?’

  Maria gave a beaming smile. ‘What a woman,’ she said. ‘She’s in the lounge at the moment enthralling an audience with stories of a misspent youth and even at her age the men are surrounding her, like ‘bees round a honey pot’. It’s amazing how a new resident can change the whole mood of the place and this time in a very positive way.’

  ‘So she’s not complaining of anything is she – no aches and pains or symptoms of a cold?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘I’ve never heard her complain of anything,’ replied Maria. ‘True, she is typical of the residents we get with dementia and part of the time she doesn’t know where she is, or what year it is, but as for complaining, it’s not in her nature, so why do you ask?’

  There was now no doubt in Sarah’s mind that there was something going on at the Parkland Nursing Home and she believed that at least eight residents had died prematurely. Attached to each of the deaths was a set of circumstances that in her mind had too many similarities to be just coincidental. She reminded herself of the warning note struck by DS Pryor and turned to Maria with the intention of telling her she was just making a general enquiry. She wouldn’t involve Maria in her thinking.

  But Maria had other ideas. ‘You think she’s going to be the next one don’t you? Oh my God! – You think Enid’s name will be the next on our list.’

  They had been standing in the corridor just outside the nurses, office and with Maria in mid-sentence Sarah opened the door and virtually pushed her in.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ she urged. ‘You can’t go around asking questions like that, anyone could have heard you.

  ‘Look Maria, I wasn’t going to involve you any further, in what is still very probably the ravings of my over- fertile imagination but I can see you are not prepared to be excluded. I need to do a round of the residents and I’m sure you have things to do, so let’s get on with the day job and if you bring your NVQ folder to the office at five o’clock I will have an apparently good professional reason for meeting with you.’

  Within minutes the needs of some of the residents had taken over all the space in Sarah’s mind and she went about the familiar business of arranging podiatry visits and sorting out hearing aids. Eric Walters needed his catheter changing, which took up a fair bit of time, but he looked so much more comfortable with the new one in situ that it was time well spent.

  All the residents who were able to had made their way to the dining room for tea, although there was no sign of the sort of high tea that some of them would remember. No delicate cucumber sandwiches and fresh cream pastries – all that was provided was a cup of tea and biscuits. At first Sarah had thought this was a bit mean, but she now realised that the main component of afternoon tea was the conversation.

  Even most of the more frail residents could manage to hold a biscuit and only one or two needed help with the mug of tea and so they had time to chat. Maria was right, thought Sarah, as she spotted Enid Prosser perched like a small bird on one of the six chairs surrounding a large rectangular table. The other five occupants of that particular table were men and they were hanging on her every word!

  Sarah resolved there and then that Enid, together with her colourful memories, would not be the next sudden death and she would be bringing a bit of sunshine into the life of some of the gentlemen of the Parkland Nursing Home for a few more years yet – if Sarah had anything to do with it.

  It was a hot afternoon and the windows were wide open but the sudden onset of summer was not liked by a few of the residents and Sarah helped the care assistants to get three ladies back to the cooler environments of their rooms.

  Sarah went to the treatment room. She checked on clinical supplies and completed the pharmacy order, but it was an almighty effort to keep focused and with another three quarters of an hour before her meeting with Maria she looked around for something to occupy her body if not her mind.

  Cleaning out the medicine cupboard was always therapeutic, and Sarah set about it with all the enthusiasm she could muster. After half an hour of checking expiry dates and putting medication no longer needed into the pharmacy returns box, she locked the cupboard door, washed her hands, and went in search of Maria.

  Not able to see her, she gave a message to one of the other care assistants asking Maria to come to the office with her NVQ file as soon as possible. Sarah then boiled the kettle and was making two cups of coffee when the door opened and in walked Mr Cooper. He hadn’t knocked of course – that wasn’t his style and the sight of him started Sarah’s thoughts spinning. What was he doing here? He rarely came to the Nurses Office. Had Mr Doster told him about their earlier conversation and was he here to find out if she had been telling the truth?

  She didn’t have to guess for long.

  ‘We’ve had no more visits from our detective friends, have we?’ he asked, with a half-smile that to Sarah was more disconcerting than his usual snarl.

  ‘No.’ Sarah returned his smile and tried to make hers look a little more genuine. ‘I don’t expect we’ll see any more of them. If what the papers say is correct, they’ve got more than their share of problems trying to find the killer. I only helped out briefly, and they have told me that they will not want to speak to me any more on that count.’

  Sarah spoke the truth and so was able to sound totally convincing. Mr Cooper gave his version of a real smile.

  ‘Well, that’s fine then, and I’ll leave you to get on with whatever you were doing,’ he said. ‘I expect you’re looking forward to having your long weekend off.’ With
that he strutted out of the office and left Sarah with a truly terrible thought.

  When Maria joined her ten minutes later she was still staring at her now almost cold cup of coffee, and the list of names on the desk alongside it. ‘You look even more washed-out now than you did earlier. I saw Mr Cooper walking back upstairs a little while ago, has he been having a go at you?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ replied Sarah. ‘For him he was half-decent, and apparently only wanted to be sure we hadn’t had any more visits from the police. Have you ever known him to be aware of our duty rotas?’ she asked Maria.

  Maria looked puzzled as she answered, ‘Only when we have a planned visit from the care standards people, and apart from that he wouldn’t know if nurses or monkeys were running the show. Mr Doster on the other hand knows everyone’s shift pattern down to the last minute, and will only authorise our wages on the basis of what is written down even if the hours we work are longer.’

  ‘So how does Mr Cooper know that I have a long weekend coming up?’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘Yes. He just asked me if I was looking forward to it.’

  With fresh cups of coffee made and Maria’s NVQ file open on the desk, Sarah filled Maria in with what she had done earlier.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do so that I could have kept a lookout for you?’ asked a stunned Maria.

  ‘Well, number one, I didn’t know you were here, and number two, I have never known Mr Doster return before five on a Wednesday – so I didn’t think a look out was necessary. Thank God I did think of a story in case I was interrupted – but I honestly didn’t think I would need to use it!’

  ‘I can’t believe what you’re saying,’ interrupted Maria. ‘It can’t be a coincidence that none of the notes for the names on our list are in that filing cabinet. They must have all been removed for a reason.’