A Full Churchyard Page 5

  ‘Nothing is impossible, Wayne. I shall discuss this further with you in my office upon my return at two o’clock. In the meantime, perhaps you could establish the name of the undertaker who buried Miss Croucher, the one who thought there was something odd about her death? We must establish exactly what he thought was odd.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘Here’s your beef casserole, Montague,’ beamed Millicent. ‘I’m sorry it’s an early lunch but I have to dash off. Several ladies have hair appointments for tomorrow’s funeral and I promised to help by doing some of their work.’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ smiled Montague. ‘Glad to help.’

  ‘I hope I’m not a nuisance but you’re not very busy just now, are you?’

  ‘Things are rather quiet,’ he admitted before adding, ‘But we’re considering the re-opening of some old unsolved cases, Millicent, perhaps committed by serial offenders. We’re going to conduct a cold-case review.’

  ‘Serial offenders? I didn’t think you had any unsolved cases, Montague? I thought you had a 100% clear-up rate for serious crime.’

  ‘Our department does have a full detection rate, Millicent, but that doesn’t include Crickledale Police Station as a whole. The uniform section has some undetected minor crimes on its books and there are always cases and procedures that need to be re-examined if and when new evidence arises. We never rest, Millicent, we are eternally vigilant and we in Crickledale CID take our responsibilities very seriously. But I would not wish my duties to impinge upon your work with the CVC.’

  ‘As you know, Crickledale Volunteer Carers – amateurs and part-timers – work very hard alongside professionals and it’s always interesting to make comparisons. We learn from one another and recently I was most impressed at the way our members rallied around to help Mrs Langneb in her final hours. She needed help and we made sure she got it, but we said we would never make the same mistakes as we did with poor Miss Hullott.’

  ‘Miss Hullott? So what happened to Miss Hullott?’ he asked.

  ‘It was nothing really, not the sort of carelessness that would interest the police or even the newspapers. You’ll remember she died last December? Just before Christmas?’

  ‘Did she? I had no idea.’

  ‘The police weren’t involved, Montague, otherwise you’d have known. She had been ill, poor thing, for quite a long time and we all took turns caring for her. She insisted on cleanliness and hated smoke; she had her chimney swept every month. One morning when one of our ladies went to make her breakfast, she found poor Miss Hullott lying on the bedroom floor. She was quite dead with all the windows and doors open. It was quite a shock, I can tell you. Some of us were in tears. We felt we’d let her down.’

  Montague did not know how to react. ‘Is this true, Millicent? All the doors and windows were open? And she was lying on the bedroom floor?’

  ‘Yes, just as if she’d been laid out for her coffin.’

  ‘So the police weren’t called? Not even the uniform branch?’

  ‘No, it was just a routine natural death with no police enquiries and no post mortem or inquest.’

  ‘Well, I must say I’m very surprised, Millicent. Clearly the doctor must have been confident about certifying the cause of death.’

  ‘He’d treated her for several weeks before she died so he was familiar with her condition and had no doubts about her cause of death. It was Dr Simpson, a partner in Crickledale Surgery, I’m sure you know him. The CVC use him where possible. The police weren’t involved, Montague, but I must admit I thought it all rather peculiar. I suppose that’s because I am a policeman’s wife, we tend to be aware of such things.’

  ‘But you never told me, Millicent.’

  ‘We have a duty of confidentiality towards all our patients, Montague and besides, I didn’t think you’d be interested. Her death was entirely from natural causes and in no way suspicious. That was the official medical conclusion.’

  ‘So how or why had the windows and doors come to be open, Millicent? And why was she lying on the bedroom floor? Was it carpeted?’

  ‘No, it was bare wooden floorboards, it’s an old house and she was rather old fashioned.’

  ‘Didn’t that cause the doctor some concern?’

  ‘We never knew, Montague, there were no enquiries about it. No one tried to establish what she’d been doing before she was discovered. I think it was put down to nothing more than old age. Old people do some funny things at times. The CVC and Dr Simpson both agreed with that diagnosis.’

  ‘So, Millicent, within your knowledge did that sort of thing happen to any other people in the care of Crickledale Volunteer Carers?’

  ‘So far as I recall, the only other one I heard about was Miss Croucher but she had managed to get downstairs somehow.’

  ‘We were away at that time, Millicent, in Italy.’

  ‘Yes, I know, you do know about her?’

  ‘Just a little,’ he admitted. ‘Detective Sergeant Wain has been going through some old files and came across Miss Croucher’s death – he recalled it because he had attended the house at the time. At first, it seemed she had been attacked but tests revealed the death was due to natural causes. There was no police investigation.’

  ‘I hope you are not snooping, Montague Pluke! Dredging up old cases that have nothing to do with you and your criminal investigations!’

  ‘We are clearing out old files to make more space, Millicent, and this one happened to be right in front of us! We chatted about it because Detective Sergeant Wain had attended the incident – by chance he was passing when the local patrolling constable was investigating and so he stopped to give assistance. You mentioned Miss Hullott. Was there something odd about her death?’

  ‘She was upstairs and lying on the floor beside her bed. She had been checked by Mrs Jarvis at bedtime on the Wednesday and found by one of our volunteers next morning.’

  ‘Mrs Jarvis is efficient, is she?’

  ‘Of course she is, Montague! Juliet Jarvis is a fine professional! I believe all our other casualties died in their beds although I can’t be a 100 per cent sure. I am not privy to all such circumstances. Now, I don’t want you delving into CVC practices, Montague, I don’t want you snooping. I am telling you this in confidence, this is between you and I as man and wife.’

  ‘I get the feeling that you are concerned in some way, Millicent,’ was his response. ‘Is something troubling you?’

  ‘You are very perceptive, Montague. I must admit things are not quite as I would have hoped . . . little things . . . lost papers, carers not turning up on time or not at all, relatives reporting things missing when an old person dies . . . matters of that kind. No one seems to check such things . . . not like the police who check everything. But these are trivial internal matters, Montague. Such things going on in every kind of office and there is nothing to concern you. Most certainly you should not be worried about old folks who have died. All those in our care have died naturally. And that’s official, just ask Dr Simpson.’

  ‘I’m concerned because you are concerned . . .’ he began.

  ‘Then don’t be! Our duty is to put our clients at peace, Montague! That is our skill, even among amateurs like me. So I don’t want you poking your official nose into our affairs. We’ve nothing to hide from the police or anyone else.’

  He finished his meal in something of a hurry, completely astonished at the phrase she had just used, ‘Our duty is to put our patients at peace. . .’ but he pretended he wanted Millicent to be free to leave home as soon as possible to meet her obligations. From her brief chat, it did seem things were not all running smoothly within Crickledale Voluntary Carers. Perhaps the new chief executive wasn’t as efficient as many believed? So did she know more than she was admitting? But if that was the case, why would she keep her knowledge secret?

  His strategy of deploying some kind of subterfuge in
his investigations now seemed infinitely more important and due to Millicent’s slip of the tongue, there was a new urgency. Surely she – or the entire CVC staff – wasn’t involved in actually helping old folks to die? Were they? Was CVC involved in mercy killings? That would he barely credible, although due to his knowledge of old customs, practices and superstitions, Detective Inspector Pluke was seriously concerned that someone could be helping those old folks to die in the manner of times past . . . putting patients at their ease. . . . That had been a fairly common practice even within living memory but was it being practised in the 21st century? In Crickledale? If so, it could mean that many unsolved and hitherto unknown murders had been committed. But how many and over what number of years? The truth could radically affect his crime detection figures but worse than that, was he right to suspect his own wife of complicity in serial killings?

  Detective Inspector Pluke left home with a lot to think about.

  The deaths of which he was already aware had appeared to involve a fairly ancient superstitious practice with which he was not particularly familiar. His specialities were modern customs and beliefs, most of which involved luck-enhancing rituals. He needed to refresh his understanding of those older activities and so before returning to his office, he decided to visit Crickledale library to expand his knowledge about those old beliefs and practices. As he strode purposefully through the town, his active mind recalled that even in his grandparents’ time there had been parts of England, mainly remote rural areas, where superstitious rituals and actions had been practised as a prelude to the moment of death. More interestingly, there were tales of such practices continuing into the middle years of the 20th century so could they still occur in Crickledale, right under his nose? Was there a culture of assisting death? And if so, was the Crickledale Volunteer Carers service involved? So did Millicent know something he did not? Something she dare not speak about?

  During his walk he recalled that when a person in the fairly recent past was enduring a ‘hard death’, a term that would describe a difficult transition to the spiritual world, it had been customary for friends and relations to help the sufferer to die peacefully. Their actions would reduce the agony of those final moments and produce a happy death.

  It wasn’t just a case of saying prayers or uttering comforting words with the family gathered around. The helpers actually took a physical part in assisting the person to die and it was done quite openly with never a thought they might be committing murder or manslaughter. One method was called ‘drawing the pillow’ and others included freeing all the bolts or undoing locks in the house, opening doors or windows wide or moving the bed so that it stood parallel with the floorboards and not crosswise over them.

  The deaths of both Miss Hullott and Miss Croucher appeared to have such a link because their doors and windows had been opened wide. Those facts alone were insufficient to be considered evidence of a criminal offence, but they might be an indication that further enquiries were necessary to establish what other customs had been used. As he approached the library, he recalled other methods of assisting death. A very simple one was to place a soft feathery pillow over the patient’s face and press gently until he or she could not breathe. In that way, they died peacefully and painlessly with the doctors of the time not noticing anything suspicious whilst undoubtedly being aware that the person was already at the point of death. It was no surprise to anyone, family or officials, when such a person slipped easily and calmly into the next world.

  However, there were methods Pluke had only vaguely heard about in his role as a modern detective. Now, he realized, someone in Crickledale appeared to be using those methods to help people to die. If he was to embark upon an official investigation he must familiarize himself with all the methods. Details would be in The Encyclopaedia of Superstitions by E. and M.A. Radford, as revised by Christina Hole in 1961.

  He had not lost sight of the fact that the crime of murder had long required malice aforethought as an essential ingredient. In thinking about assisted death, it was always questionable whether malice was present if a person was kindly helping someone to overcome a difficult death. Surely that was not malice? It was kindness and consideration, a supreme act of compassion or love. Malice suggested ill-will or an intention to harm someone. Pluke pondered those questions and told himself he must be impartial in this cold-case review, whatever his enquiries revealed.

  Mrs Bentham, the duty librarian and a studious lady with half-moon spectacles, watched him arrive and thought he appeared to be wearing an intense but thoughtful expression.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Pluke, what a tremendous surprise, seeing you at this time of day, and during mid-week too. So how can I help you?’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Bentham. I’m here on a matter of police interest and am sure your shelves will provide the answer. I’m seeking that famous Encyclopaedia of Superstitions in your reference section.’

  ‘It should be there, Mr Pluke, we don’t allow scarce reference books to be taken from the premises. You can study it in there. You know the way?’

  He refrained from telling her the purpose of his research because he did not want the people of Crickledale knowing that their detective inspector was possibly hot on the trail of a clever serial killer or killers who may have been active for years and who may still be operating. Such a revelation could prompt wholesale panic and wild stories in red-top newspapers. Detectives must be discreet, especially when gathering compelling and sensitive evidence, he reminded himself.

  He found the book and took it to his sanctuary in the corner near the window. He quickly found the heading Easing Death but was surprised that that particular section was very well-thumbed with its page corners turned over, pencil marks in the margins and dirty fingerprints around the borders. Clearly, it was a popular subject. With whom? Suspicious or assisted deaths were not common in Crickledale – or were they? Were they more common that he realized? So who had left those dirty fingerprints? Could Scenes of Crime Officers produce acceptable images from them, he wondered? He would bear the possibility in mind but he did not wish to seize the book as evidence, not at this early stage of his enquiries. That would prompt rumours!

  As he concentrated, his research reinforced his knowledge that, in the past, there had been a widespread desire to help people to die if their passage from life was difficult. Invariably, that help was of the practical kind with no prayers. In all cases the house where the dying person lay was prepared for the exit from life by having all its doors and windows opened to permit the soul to depart without hindrance. In some cases, the dying person was lifted out of bed and laid on the floor to ensure he or she lay parallel to the floorboards.

  This was also designed to ease the departure of the soul and it was known that in the days before fitted carpets and comfortable rugs, and when bedrooms were on the ground floor, the shock of a very weak person being lifted from a warm bed and laid on a cold floor, especially one of stone, was enough to terminate the sufferer’s precariously slender hold on life. It was also believed that a person could never die if their pillow contained the feathers of pigeons, doves or game birds and so there had developed a custom known as ‘Drawing the Pillow’. To hasten death, any pillow thought to contain such feathers – as most did – was suddenly and rapidly withdrawn from beneath the head in such a way that it hastened death of a person already terminally weak. To enable the person to survive, however, such a pillow was left alone and indeed, others might be added by packing them around the head or close to the body beneath the bedclothes. Friends and family would always help an ailing person to live – or to die.

  Even as late as 1902 in the Isle of Ely, if a person was on the point of death but struggling to die, the village nurse was asked to bring a certain pillow with a black lace edging. Reputedly made years earlier and handed down through the years from one nurse to another, it was used to speed the death by being pressed on the face of the sufferer.
>
  Sometimes this treatment was aided by a concoction of opium pills mixed with gin – but it was all done out of kindness towards the sufferer.

  Following the death, there were practices to help the soul leave the bodily remains and the home of the deceased. The opening of all doors and windows was vital to help the soul leave the premises without hindering its journey to heaven. Mirrors were turned to the wall or covered so that the departing soul would not catch sight of itself on that final journey and become confused about its purpose and direction. Wandering souls did not understand the impact of seeing their own image so they must be protected against themselves. Clocks were stopped at the time of death, animals were not permitted in the house of death and all perishable foods were thrown out. Sometimes a bucket containing earth, or perhaps water and salt, was placed under the dead person’s bed, ostensibly to prevent the body swelling in death but probably to thwart the attention of the devil. Candles may be lit in the dead person’s room for the same purpose – apparently the devil did not like bright lights.

  One important fact was that a dead body should never be left alone in the house – someone should watch it until the funeral. This led to the practice of carrying out wakes or even having a meal with the dead person in attendance. Sometimes people would sit around drinking and eating with the coffin in the centre being used as a table. In this way, it was felt the spirit of the deceased was participating. Refreshed by his revision and satisfied he had gleaned sufficient information to further his enquiries, Pluke went to thank Mrs Bentham.

  ‘Did you find what you wanted, Mr Pluke?’

  ‘Thank you, I did. But I did notice that the encyclopaedia appears to have been used a lot. Do you get many people using it?’

  ‘Superstitions are always a popular subject for research, Mr Pluke, and we do frequently get a number of people wanting to check things. We could really do with another copy of that book but they are difficult to find.’

  ‘Do they show interest in any particular subject?’