This one started as an idea for a longer story, but the team was so good they solved the case before it went too far. It wrapped up just in time for Christmas.
Marianne

Chapter 1

Everything was quiet in the CID office in Aston. Most of the team being out on various cases. Acting Detective Sergeant Sally Brown was busy finalising the file of a robbery case. It hadn’t been a long investigation, as the criminals had tried to sell off the loot, taken from a country house, on the internet. Sally shook her head. Anybody could see that a Queen Anne chair was a bit different from a ‘fifties designer chair, ideal for an older dwelling’. You only had to watch television to know those sorts of things. That one had taken Ben and Charlie just two days to track down and find the lock-up with the rest of the haul.

After the suicides case, though, she no longer wondered at the idiocy that some of the criminals exhibited. That one had been planned with care, along with many others, but was sunk by a simple act of stupidity. As she worked, a police courier came in with some files.

“Sally, there isn’t much in this lot to need your skills, just some more robberies and one that looks like a natural death, although a relative has screamed that the victim was perfectly healthy.”

“Since when have you started sifting through the files? You shouldn’t do that, you know. Too much of that sort of thing and you’ll be asking for a transfer to CID, and then you’ll have to work!”

“I know, Sally, but I look at you and I know that it wasn’t that long ago that you were a simple WPC.”

“Watch it, Alf! I may have been a WPC, but enough with the simple comments. I’ll have you know that I have a complex character.”

“I’ll agree with the complex, Sally. Anyway, have a good day, see you later.”

He left and Sally finished what she was doing. The files, on Sue’s desk, beckoned, so she went and had a look. Alf had been right, there wasn’t much there to get excited about. Back at her desk, she started working on the monthly budget. As the latest promotion to the sergeant rank, it had fallen to her to make sure that they had enough to work with. She didn’t mind, as she was good with figures and she always tried to make sure that they had enough for emergencies, without having to go upstairs, cap in hand.

As the day drew to an end, the others started getting back. They were a little short for the moment. The boss, DCI Susan Cousins, as well as DI ‘Lean’ Skinner, were down in London at a seminar on modern methods of policing. As far as Sally had learned, this meant doing more with less. DS Martin (Super) Henderson came in with Sally’s two team members; DC’s Jerry (Ben) Britten and Harry (Charlie) Parker. They had been at the courts where the stately house robbers were being tried.

“How did it go, lads?”

“They both got five years, as it was the first offence. Mind you, I reckon that if we went further back in their histories, we’d find that they’ve been nicking stuff from an early age. There was some things that wasn’t allowed to be presented as it was juvenile records.”

“At least it was a result. I’ve done the finals on the files. They’re on your desk, Ben. All you have to do is add the court results and you can both sign them off.”

“Thanks, Sally. You’re a brick! Is there anything else for us to sink our teeth into?”

“Other than a steak, tonight, nothing that I know.”

Jack Brownlee came over and dropped a file on the desk.

“You can look into this one. It should only take a day. Looks like someone has her knickers in a twist over nothing.”

He walked away and Sally looked at the file.

“That one, my lads, is a death by natural causes that has been flagged for our attention. We will need to talk to the complainant, as well as the doctor, before we can sign off on it. Tomorrow, I think. Time to go home, go to the pub, or, in my case, pick up my lad from school. See you in the morning.”

The next morning, Sally and Ben phoned the complainant and went to see her.

“Thank you for seeing us, Miss Williams. If you don’t mind, I’ll be recording this conversation so it can be transcribed into our report.”

“That’s perfectly all right, Detective Brown. I’m just happy that someone has listened to me.”

“Can you tell me what your relationship was with the deceased, Fred Williams, and why you think that his death was less than natural?”

“Fred was my husband. We had a love/hate relationship. In the end, we divorced, but kept in touch. Although he was approaching seventy, he was still strong and vigorous. Extremely so when we were together. It was better than when we were married. I could be satisfied but not have to put up with his moods.”

“We’ll be talking to his doctor, but are there any reasons that you could give us for his dying? The report from the first attendees said that he was found on his kitchen floor, on the Tuesday afternoon, and had been dead around six hours.”

“I had stayed overnight on Saturday and left after breakfast. He was hale and hearty and full of beans when I went. We made an appointment for the following weekend. We would be going out to dinner, seeing it was after the pension.”

“The unit he was in, that is a council one, isn’t it?”

“Yes. When we divorced, we sold the house and split it. He had a good job, while he was working, but it included a lot of driving. He made it a regular thing to walk after he retired and was a much better man for it.”

“Tell me more?”

“Fred was diabetic. He had lived a life in the driving seat and on terrible food from fast food outlets. He had been on pills for it, and his high blood pressure since he was about fifty-five. When he retired, he started the walking and lost a lot of weight. He also gave up smoking and drinking. He was determined to live until he was a hundred. His doctor was very happy with how he was doing.”

“We’ll be speaking to him, this afternoon. Tell me, did you only see him on weekends?”

“Yes, he was looked after by one of the lionesses during the week. They would visit every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. It was one that found him and called the ambulance.”

“Lionesses?”

“Nurses that came in to see how he was doing and do any washing or cleaning he needed. He always was a lazy sod around the house. It’s a company that looks after the elderly who are living at home. It’s actually called Live-In Outreach Nursing Society, or Lions for short. Their logo is almost a rip-off of the old MGM film logo, a lion in the middle with the name around the outside. His will has left them five thousand, with the rest split between me and our two daughters.”

“These lionesses, did he have a regular one?”

“No, they have a lot on their books, everyone a qualified nurse. They visit when they’re in the area. I think there was about five that would see him, seeing as they would be seeing others nearby. There was no regularity, though.”

“So, the money will go to the organisation, rather than any one nurse?”

“As far as I know. The will said that it was a donation to the organisation. Not that they need it, with the prices they charge for their services. The more you see them, the more you pay. I’ve been looking into that sort of thing for when I get so that I can’t look after myself. I think that when that time comes, I’ll just slash my wrists and save the money!”

“Thank you, Miss Williams. I think that I have enough to move forward. We’ll let you know if we need anything else. Just one thing, before we go. Was Fred buried or cremated?”

“He was cremated. I was hoping to have somewhere I could put flowers but there was a note on his contract with the Lions to cremate him. I suppose that this had been put in if he had died without anyone to make those arrangements. Me and the girls only had a week to make our own arrangements to be there. I suppose it would have been a bit different if we’d still been married.”

“Did the company, or the nurses, know that you were seeing him, regularly?”

“I doubt it unless he told them. He used to joke that his neighbours thought that he had a standing order with the local knocking shop, with me on his arm on Saturday nights.”

“All right. Unless you have any questions, we’ll be on our way.”

Once in the car, Ben said what they both were thinking.

“So, we have an elderly, but not old, man, with enough get up and go to satisfy his ex, almost every weekend. He’s fit and healthy but drops dead on a Tuesday morning. When I looked at the medical report, it just said that he had simply died, but, although no foul play was considered, they couldn’t tell if the heart stopped before he stopped breathing or the other way round. Shouldn’t that have been grounds for an autopsy?”

“If there had been other factors, such as arguments, enemies or someone known to have been with him. My reading of the report said that the neighbours had seen him on Monday evening and that nobody had visited him before the carer. I’m still not convinced.”

In the afternoon, they were ushered into the doctor’s office.

“Good of you to see us, Doctor. We’re here to ask you a few simple questions about one of your patients, a Frederick Williams, recently deceased.”

“What do you want to know, detectives? I’ll just get his file up on the computer.”

“We’re told that he was a long-term diabetic with high blood pressure. Can you tell us anything about his history?”

“I’ve been treating Fred for nigh on twenty years. When I first saw him, he was overweight, in poor health, and a smoker. He was using a sleep apnoea machine at the time, and he complained that he had to sleep in a separate room because the sound of the fan. He was starting type two diabetes, and his blood pressure was constantly high. I put him on the ‘holy trinity’ of medications that we were using at those times. He took a metformin and gliclazide combination, with a blood pressure reducer. After he retired, and finally started walking, he lost weight. His glucose levels were good until the covid started, then the lack of exercise did to him the thing that it had done to thousands like him. The readings started to lift, and he was, by that time, out of practice with the exercise. Two years ago, I changed his primary medication to one which added another ingredient to the metformin, and the readings stabilised at a lower level.”

“Were those his only problems? Could he have just died in his sleep?”

“He had stopped using the CPAP machine, as losing weight allowed him easier sleeping. Or, at least, as easy as a diabetic on medication can have. He would have needed a couple of trips to the toilet during the night. Perhaps I should have sent him to a sleep test, but he always reported that he felt good and awake during the day, so it didn’t seem urgent. If he had died in bed, it could have been that he had stopped breathing. The police that looked at his death asked me that, and I had to tell them that you don’t just stop breathing during the day. As far as I was concerned, his heart was as good as anyone.”

“The report showed that they couldn’t tell if the heart or the lungs stopped first.”

“That’s not a diagnosis that I would have given. So, they just looked at his medical records and written him off! Mind you, that’s not the first I’ve heard of. Some departments are so overworked, it’s no wonder they take the easy way out. What’s another old man between friends.”

“You say it’s not the first. Would you care to elaborate?”

“Look, I don’t know for certain, but talking to other doctors, we have all noticed a lift in fatalities among the older generation over the last couple of years. If we discount the known covid cases, I think that the number of the elderly on our books who have dropped dead, like Fred, may be higher that it was pre-covid. It could be a residual of covid symptoms, but I have my doubts.”

“Is it possible for you to look in your records and send me a list of the ones that you’re suspicious about? We can check with the official reports. We would appreciate it.”

“I’ll have a think about that, and I’ll talk to the other doctors, here. I’ll email you a list as soon as I can. Of course, we are just one clinic. I don’t know if any others have seen similar numbers. That’s for you to check.”

“Do you know what area your patients are from?”

“Fred was over the other side of the Brookvale Park. We have three hospitals within walking distance from this clinic, and I would think that we, along with the out-of-hours clinic would be looking after everyone within a couple of miles.”

“Do you know of a company called Lions?”

“Oh, yes. They do a great job of looking after our patients who are still living at home. We have quite a number who see the nurses, some more often than others. It does save us the time if we don’t have to see them for the slightest sniffles.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll look forward to looking at your list. If there’s any questions, I’ll get back to you.”

Back in the car, Sally sat for a few moments. Ben was also quiet. He then cleared his throat.

“Boss. If I tell you that something sucks, would you believe me?”

“I would, Ben. It’s almost like it was when we were given that file with the suicides. Something doesn’t look right with this. I’m with you on the ‘how did he really die’ question. It was listed as unimportant, rather than unusual. I don’t think that we’ll write this off, just yet.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“What we do, Ben, is get you and Charlie going through that report with a fine-tooth comb. We need to speak to the Lioness who found him, the paramedics who attended, and the police who signed off that it wasn’t suspicious. Only then will we have enough information to decide on what we tell Sue. If you two work on putting that list together, tomorrow, I’ll get an appointment to talk to the head lion, or whatever the company boss calls himself.”

The following morning saw Sally parking outside the offices of the Lions. It was a standard property, in an industrial area, with enough land for a decent shed, with an attached office entry. When she entered, she was surprised to see a warm and welcoming reception area with a girl behind a desk which was obviously also a work desk. When she gave her name, the girl motioned her to go into the shed part and see the man on the first office to the right.

As Sally went through the door, she found herself in a short corridor, with two offices each side, and the end opening to the shed area. The first office to the right, so she saw through the glass, contained a small man in an open-neck shirt, gazing at a computer screen with a look that she had seen on others. It was the look of wishful thinking. She knocked and he looked up to beckon her in. She sat on the offered seat in front of his desk.

“Mister Hobson, I’m Detective Sergeant Brown. Your PA set me up with this appointment.”

“Yes, Detective. How can I help you?”

“We are looking into a case where one of your clients was found by one of your employees. I’m trying to build a picture of how your company works, and who may have been seeing this particular client. If you give me the overview, please.”

“Well, to start with, we are an arm of a national company. Each office has its own name to trade by. There are four offices in Birmingham and about two hundred around the country. We supply live-in help to pensioners and disabled clients; from just popping in to make sure that they’re taking their medication, to giving injections, changing dressings, cleaning, and washing. We don’t do anything to do with food, there are other organisations that have that covered. We have forty-seven who work from here, each using their own car. They are all employed as casuals, so are independent operators. We supply the medical equipment. Medicines and specialised equipment are prescribed by the doctors.”

“How do the payments work?”

“It depends on what the client needs. We can do a visit once a week, just to check. That’s the cheapest. It then goes up to visiting every day, with cleaning and washing, and medical assistance. We have mostly clients who are not old, or ill enough to be in an aged care home. They are sometimes prescribed the service by their doctor, and the NHS pays the bill. We’re not cheap, but we are still cheaper than a full-time patient in hospital.”

“What about the payments to the nurses?”

“They get paid a set amount per visit, based on what the client has contracted for. We have some who see eight to ten clients a day and there are others who may only see a couple a day, it all depends on the qualifications a nurse would have.”

“What about Frederick Williams, I believe he was seen twice a week?”

“Yes, poor Fred. He had been a client for about four years. I’ll just call his file up. Ah! There he is. He was an easy call, about twenty minutes a visit, just to ensure that he was up and about, his pantry was stocked and that he was mobile. We didn’t do any medications for him; what he was on would have been taken after his breakfast and dinner. He was one of those who had around five or six of our staff who would see him, depending on their rounds. With that type of client, it’s a company policy to mix the nurses, so that there is no dependency on any one nurse. With the more difficult cases, it’s usual to have a single nurse see the client, that creates a level of control over them, which many need.”

“Do your nurses offer advice?”

“Not usually. If they see a fit person who isn’t getting around, they may chide them to get off their easy chair. A lot of the single clients eat the wrong things, not having someone to tell them off. Many eat too many cakes or too much chocolate. It’s their life and we don’t get involved.”

“Can I have a list of the nurses who used to see Fred Williams, please?”

“Of course. I can email you his file if you want. Now he’s dead, there’s no problem.”

“Have you had many of your clients die suddenly?”

“It depends on what you mean by sudden. If they’re taken off to hospital, they are off our books, so we don’t know when they die. With clients, like Fred, we may get three or four a month, where they’re found in their home. We have a standard procedure that all of the nurses follow. Paramedics first, then the police. It’s up to the police to contact the relatives.”

“What about disposal of the body? Fred was cremated, so I’m told, on your orders.”

“We have that on our contract form for those without close relatives. Girlfriends, boyfriends, ex-wives, or husbands don’t count. Legal partners, sons and daughters get first say.”

“I’m told that Fred had daughters?”

“They are both older than his marriage, so not considered close relatives, even if he was their father, as far as our contract is concerned.”

“I’m told that he left you some money in his will?”

“That’s good. It will pay for the funeral service. We do have insurance which covers that if nothing is left. I’m sure that he had been told that when he signed up. We generally tell new clients that five thousand is a good figure if they want us to do the final rites.”

“Tell me. Why the big shed?”

“That’s easy. We have a couple of hoists, and we do repairs and maintenance on the cars, at cost. Those nurses do a considerable mileage and getting the cars looked at in a normal garage would send them broke. I expect that your car is looked after by the police garage. We also have good stock of various items that the nurses carry as emergency supplies.”

“You keep saying ‘nurses’. Do you employ male nurses as well?”

“Oh! yes. About a third of our casuals are men. Some of them are very good. Before you ask; every one of our staff have had police checks, and none have anything on their records that preclude them from working with the elderly.”

“Is that just in this country?”

“Yes. Many are from overseas, but the cost of checking them out would be prohibitive.”

“Thank you for your help. If you can email me that file, it would help. Here’s my card. Before I go, do you think that the number of sudden deaths has increased, since covid. I was told, yesterday, that it may be twice or three times what it had been prior to twenty-twenty. Would it be possible for you to also send me the files of any cases where your nurses have been the ones to find a dead client. It’s not urgent but would help me eliminate any whiff of suspicion from this case. At the moment, I’m really not sure why Fred died, so can’t sign off that it was natural causes.”

“I’ll put one of the staff on looking them up for you. Will just a list be all right?”

“That will be good. I can then check with the police report which will give me the basics. If I need more, I’ll be in touch.”

Back in her car, she went to the station, where Ben and Charlie were peering at a computer screen.

“What’s so interesting, lads?”

“It’s a list that the doctor has sent. He has spoken to others, and they’ve compiled a list of a dozen where there was no reason for the death, as far as they were concerned. In his email he said that even they were shocked at the number, once they looked closely. We’re printing off the police report and the medical report for each one. How did you get on with the Lion King?”

“He’s as hard worked as we are. Mind you, I would love to see their profit and loss sheet. He has forty-odd nurses, all working as independent contractors on a casual basis and paid by the visit. They have a couple of hoists to look after their cars, so he tells me. He only charges them cost, which would include the pay of the mechanic. All he’s shelling out is on rent, insurance and the office staff. From what Miss Williams told us about the charges, I would say that they’re doing very nicely. Let’s do as much as we can with that list of yours, and I’ll tee up a visit to the paramedics and police officers for tomorrow. Then, we’ll set up a talk with the nurse, on Monday.”

They could talk to the paramedics at the ambulance station, early the next morning, while they restocked the ambulance and waited for a call-out. The police officers would be on duty now, so Sally rang their station to see if they could organise a meeting. She was told when they came off shift. The sergeant said that he would give them a call not to rush off.

They all went to the station later in the afternoon and talked with the duty sergeant while they waited. He said that he had noted more deaths of older people being spoken about. He showed them the daybook for the week before. There were three that the responding constables had reported in one afternoon, alone. Ben made a note of the date and the names to check with his list. When the officers came in, they tried not to hold them up, just asking about the attendance at the dead man’s unit.

“That looked straight forward,” one of them said. “He was on his back when we got there, with the paramedics just packing up their gear. The nurse had gone to another patient. They get paid by the visit, so she would have been out of pocket if she’d stayed.”

“So, you didn’t actually speak to her?”

“No. We have spoken to her on other occasions, and this looked cut and dried.”

“Other occasions?”

“Well, what with covid and everything, some of these oldies are keeling over with monotonous regularity. We know of three in one day, recently.”

“Yes, the duty Sarge has shown us the daybook. How many different nurses have you spoken to, just a rough count?”

He looked at his partner.

“It must be ten or fifteen. There’s a lot of them working with the live ins so it would only be normal that they find some who have died, sudden like.”

“Do you think that there are more, lately?”

“Oh, yes. Going back a few years we would only attend about one of these a month. Now it could be two or three a week.”

“There’s something I’ve noticed,” his partner said. “They seem to be keeling over at a younger age. Take Fred, for instance. You would have given him another ten or twenty years if you had met him. He used to have the odd drink in the pub we go to, when his darts team were playing there. Nice guy, full of beans. I have to say that I felt sad to see him stretched out on the floor.”

“Thank you, officers. We are working on the assumption that there could have been foul play unless the facts tell us otherwise. The cause of death was never verified, and he’s already been cremated. I think that we’ll have to put out a request that any future deaths are more closely reported. From the reports I’ve seen, it looks as if everyone has just decided that old folk die. If we have to request autopsies on all the suspicious ones, we’ll probably get howled down, but one good case, where we can truly determine a reason will go a long way to help. Remember that as you are on the beat. Photos and good notes, please.”

“Yes Sarge, always ready to help, that’s us.”

Taking the others back to the station, Sally thought about what they needed to do.

“Tomorrow, I’ll go and talk to the paramedics. What I want the two of you to do is to go through the files of those other cases. See if there are any similarities. There should be a list from the Lions with the names of the regular nurses that Fred saw. While you’re doing that, ring the other doctors in the area, say, out three or four miles from Fred’s home, and ask them to have a conversation, between the doctors in the clinics, to see if they have any similar cases where they had misgivings. Then ring a selection of clinics out to eight miles out and ask the same question. If this is a local thing, the more likely that it’s foul play.”

“Right, boss. We are looking for premature deaths, in older people, where they are living at home with visiting nurses, right?”

“That’ll do for a start. If anyone wants more, tell them that we’re looking for cases where the cause of death isn’t clear. Oh! While you’re about it, set up a spreadsheet with the names, addresses, illnesses, and medications, as well as who found the body and a likely time of death.”

She dropped them by their cars and went home.

Marianne Gregory © 2023