The Coopers Field Murder

Book 4: DCI Phelps

by Wonny Lea

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

The first novel in this series, Jack-Knifed, saw the introduction of Detective Chief Inspector Martin Phelps, together with his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Matt Pryor, and their team, investigating the horrendous murder of a gay man in Cardiff. Now they are faced with a body found in Coopers Field, a Cardiff beauty spot ? a naked body that has lain there so long it is almost unidentifiable. Pathology reports establish that the body is that of a woman ? but who is she, and how did she die? Local nurse Sarah Thomas, a helpful passer-by when the body is found, soon finds that she has another unexpected death to deal with ? at Parkland Nursing Home where she works. Colin James, one of her favourite residents at the home, dies suddenly ? but the reactions of those closest to him are surprising. Was Colin?s death due to natural causes ? or is there something more sinister afoot at Parkland? The Coopers Field Murder is the second in Wonny Lea?s DCI Martin Phelps series, set in the thriving Welsh capital city of Cardiff.

Release date: January 30, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 350

Sample

 Chapter One
Body Discovered

The heavy rain that had been an almost constant feature throughout July had given way to intermittent warmish curtains of drizzle as the month drew to a close and visions of a glorious summer faded once again.

‘Maybe August will be better,’ suggested DS Matt Pryor, as he and his boss walked up the steps leading from the car park in Sophia Gardens and started to cross the bridge leading to Coopers Field. As they got to the middle of the bridge Matt looked in both directions, but what should have been a stunning view was limited to the short distance he could see through the miserable weather.

He bounced up and down and the bridge gently moved with him, making him smile. ‘My nieces call this the bouncy bridge,’ he told Detective Chief Inspector Martin Phelps. ‘You can see why – it really does feel a bit like a trampoline.’ He demonstrated further and the whole structure seemed to shake.

‘Yes, I get the picture,’ replied Martin. ‘Unstable bridges are not really my thing – so quit making it wobble and tell me exactly what Sergeant Evans said.’

Matt got back into step with Martin and the two men fell into their well-established pattern of briefing prior to their arrival at a crime scene.

‘Well, for once, he wasn’t the first on the scene,’ Matt began. ‘This time it was the dynamic duo of PC Davies and PC Cook-Watts, but the Evans team wasn’t far behind.’

‘The call came through to Goleudy at ten past seven this morning, and the first pair of officers was at the scene before twenty past, as they were already in the area. Apparently it was a dog walker that called, after her dog refused to bring back a ball that had been thrown for him – he chose instead to bark madly and sniff around a pile of discarded clothes. After a few minutes, and when he showed no signs of coming back to her, the woman went to drag the dog away from the clothes and that was when she found the dead body.

‘According to Sergeant Evans, the poor woman was in a hell of a state, as the body has apparently been there for some time with not a stitch on and with bits eaten off, presumably by rats or whatever animals lurk around here when the picnickers go home.’

‘Is it a man or a woman?’ asked Martin.

‘Sergeant Evans was in some doubt about that. It seems the genitals and the chest area are the most mutilated, so we won’t know for sure if the body is male or female until after the post-mortem. Professor Moore is already there and so is Alex Griffiths, and the message from both of them is that we are going to need our wellies – it’s apparently like a mud bath – what a good start to the week. No wonder I hate Mondays!’

The rain was actually easing off, and there was even a vague sighting of sun as the detectives walked through Bute Park, making their way along a path bordered to the left by a deep bed of seasonal flowers and a variety of shrubs. Martin reflected that it would be possible to walk this route every day and always be presented with a different canvas to admire. In spite of the dreadful wind and rain of the past month, the whole area had still managed to produce wave after wave of colour that contrasted and yet complemented one patch of flowers with another to make a perfect picture.

There were a number of benches, dotted at intervals in front of the flowerbeds, but the weather was not conducive to sitting on park benches and so they were all empty. To the right of the path were large areas of grass and several plots where shrubs and flowers had been planted carefully to produce the effect of having just been put there by Mother Nature.

The grey railings at the back of this area marked the bank of the River Taff and, looking around, Martin, not for the first time, told himself how lucky the people of Cardiff were to have such a terrific park at the very centre of their city. The trees, the flowers, the shrubs, and just the sheer open space – it was like a beautiful living picture.  

What a shame that today they would have to be looking at a very different sight – one nothing like as pretty as a picture and certainly not living.

At the end of the path there was a choice of two directions – one going right and leading in to the city, with an offshoot to the landing platform for the Cardiff Castle waterbus, the other leading to Coopers Field. They took the left-hand option, walking away from the river. This immediately took them to a paved area, where more empty benches waited to welcome visitors to the park, and behind that a rather old-fashioned garden of five raised beds surrounded by paths. In the round central bed was what Martin thought looked like a shaped bay tree, but he was no tree expert – his guess was based on it looking like a much smaller version he had in his back garden. The four surrounding beds were shaped to form a small inner circle and a larger outer circle, with the edges framed by neatly cut low hedges and the middles full of pale pink roses.

The vast expanse of Coopers Field stretched to the right and to the left, bordered by a huge expanse of trees of variable types, shapes, and sizes. It was in this area where nature and nurture worked hand in hand that they sighted the cold reality of what they were looking for – the familiar white tent that signalled a crime scene.

As they got nearer they spotted another familiar sight in the form of Sergeant Evans, who was patrolling the outer edge of the surrounding area that was cordoned off with blue and white scene of crime tape.

A veteran in the procedure for protecting a crime scene, Sergeant Evans issued Martin and Matt with suits, masks, and boots before lifting the tape and allowing the senior officers through.

‘We were worried about Mrs Pattern, the woman who found the body, as we thought she was having a heart attack – but luckily a nurse  walking to work, helped us out. She used the paper bag that her lunch was wrapped in and after Mrs Pattern had taken a couple of large breaths into the bag she recovered.

‘Since then we haven’t been able to stop her talking and, as you can see, PC Cook-Watts is standing over there with Mrs Pattern, still having her ear bent. The nurse has gone to work as she says they’re short of staff, but we have all her details and she’s prepared to give a statement or whatever is necessary.’

‘OK, thanks for that,’ said Martin as he focused his mind on the scene that would now unfold inside the white tent.

‘I won’t say good morning – it’s hardly that,’ said Alex as Phelps and Pryor walked under the canvas. ‘At least you’ve frightened off the rain. And is that pale yellow thing actually something called sun?’

Alex Griffiths greeted his colleagues and made a feeble attempt to lighten the atmosphere, knowing that the two detectives were about to witness an ugly, and what had struck him as a somewhat pathetic, sight.

‘The body hasn’t been moved yet as we knew you’d want to see it as it was found – but we have photographed extensively and taken samples of everything and anything that surrounds it. The professor is, as always, keen to get the body back to the laboratory and look for clues that will help us with identification and cause of death – we can’t even be sure at this stage, if we have the remains of a man or a woman.’

‘It’s a woman.’

The words came from the mouth of Professor Dafydd Moore, who was kneeling at the side of the body and who continued examining the head without saying another word.

No one was surprised at that as when it came to conversation at a crime scene the professor was best known for his silence. He had acknowledged the presence of the CID officers with just a nod of the head while continuing to be completely absorbed with the left hand side of the partly revealed skull.

Alex looked at Martin. ‘Well I’m not sure how he can tell the sex considering the state of the body, but if he says it’s a woman then I’ll put my next month’s salary on it being a woman – never known him say anything he isn’t able to substantiate.’

Being able to substantiate theories had seemingly always been a way of life for the professor. He was first and foremost an academic with a brilliant mind but unlike most of his university colleagues he was immensely practical and the combination of these two qualities made him a brilliant criminal pathologist.

It was the latter that for most people allowed them to excuse his personality, but did not prevent Matt from frequently referring to him as a ‘miserable old git’.

Martin knew better than to ask Prof. Moore a load of questions at this time. A man who was often silent, morose, and some would say downright rude, the professor would become more animated during the post-mortem and become a complete show off during his presentation of findings to the assembled murder enquiry team.

Although he believed he already knew the answer, there was one question Martin had to ask. ‘Do you think she died of natural causes?’

‘She was murdered! Her skull was hit hard on one side but I won’t know if that was the cause of death until I have done a full PM examination.’

Prof. Moore picked up his Gladstone bag, lifted the flap of the tent, and started to walk out when Martin risked another question. ‘How long has she been here?’

The prof. turned back and viewed Martin over the top of his half rimmed glasses. ‘I am not a clairvoyant, Detective Chief Inspector Phelps,’ was his reply. ‘I can’t tell you when she arrived at this exact spot but I can say she has been dead for some time – unlikely to be just days,  could even be weeks – but the absence of flesh on the face and other parts is not just down to tissue decay, it has been eaten away by small animals. However, if you will let me get away, I will be able to offer you some scientific evidence rather than attempting to gaze into a non-existent crystal ball.’

On that note of sarcasm the professor left, and Alex shrugged his shoulders. ‘There is no denying the brilliance of that man, but an occasional smile or kind word wouldn’t go amiss. You should have been here when he first arrived – anyone would have thought I had personally and deliberately set out to ruin the start of his week.’

Martin turned his attention to the pile of clothes that had been partially scattered by the dog that had found them earlier. In spite of the fact that the shoes and one of the garments were strewn around, the majority of the clothes were in a peculiarly neat pile and looked to have been deliberately placed at the lower end of the body, close to the feet.

‘Was this how you found the clothes?’ asked Martin.

‘It’s exactly as we found them,’ replied Alex. ‘I would think that all the clothes including the shoes were originally placed together, and I guess the dog took the shoes off the top first and then pulled that jacket along by the sleeve. Everything else is very precisely folded and we should be able to get quite a bit of information from them.’

Matt had been looking over the body and pointed out the area of the skull where the woman was likely to have been bludgeoned. ‘It’s not a very big area,’ he remarked. ‘But then she isn’t very big, is she?’ He continued looking around and making random observations. ‘She definitely wasn’t very tall, and look at her shoes – they look quite new and what I would call very sensible. Certainly not the height of fashion.’

‘Could even be school shoes,’ suggested Alex. ‘So perhaps we aren’t looking at a short woman but a tall child, or maybe a teenager.’

‘We do have one child still unaccounted for, missing since April,’ Matt told them. ‘But he’s just six years old, and as the father has also disappeared it’s likely to be a family thing and we have no reason to suspect external foul play.’

‘Well, this is definitely not a six-year-old, and we aren’t likely to find out anything else by just looking here, so let’s get everything back to Goleudy and start unravelling the mystery.’

Martin referred to Goleudy with his usual due reverence, as he believed beyond doubt that it was one of the best places in the world for solving crime. To the public at large it was their local police station, but behind that front the enormous, modernised Victorian building were floor after floor of the very latest crime-busting technology.

The thing Martin liked best about the place was that it brought all the facets of modern day policing together in a building that was solidly constructed with tall ceilings and a general feeling of space. It was not unusual for police forces from other parts of the country, and even foreign constabularies, to visit the set-up and be highly impressed with the opportunity it gave for experts in the various fields of criminal detection to work so closely together.

The body they had found this morning would be taken to the fourth floor, where Professor Moore headed up a team of brilliant technicians and forensic scientists, each one with a particular skill and all eager to be part of discovering facts crucial to the solving of cases. Even as Martin thought of the PM rooms and their proximity to the laboratories he could mentally smell the pungent odour that signalled entry to Prof. Moore’s domain.

As if reading his boss’s thoughts, Matt declared. ‘The only good thing about finding a body in the open air is that you aren’t knocked over by the smell. Do you remember when we were called to that place on Newport Road where the couple had been dead since the day after their daughter went for a ten-day holiday to Egypt?’

Alex interjected. ‘I really don’t want to be reminded about that case. It wasn’t just that the couple had decided on a suicide pact for themselves, but overdosing their cat, dog, and tropical fish meant we had the stench of decomposing pets as well – and after a week of warm weather. I could still easily throw up at just the memory of it.’

Alex indicated to members of the SOC team that the body could be removed and the clothing put into four separate bags in line with the four positions in which it had been found. Each shoe was bagged separately, as was the jacket that had been partly pulled from the main pile, and finally the remaining items were lifted – ready to be put into one of the larger evidence bags.

‘Hold it there!’ shouted Matt as he spotted something white near the bottom of the neatly folded clothes. ‘Is that a letter or something – is it too much to hope it’s a suicide note?’

Alex carefully folded back two-thirds of the clothes, all of which were soaking wet, and looked at the single sheet of A5 size white paper which had been revealed, without touching it. ‘It looks to be a blank sheet of paper,’ he said and he sounded somewhat disappointed. ‘I won’t touch it here as it’ll probably fall to pieces, and there’s nothing written on it as far as I can see. If there ever was anything written on it our best bet will be to get it back to the lab and look at it there.’

With the body now moved all three men could take a closer look at the site where it had lain, but there was nothing of any obvious significance to be seen. Alex called to his team to work quickly, because murky water from the saturated surroundings would soon seep into the recently vacated space and dilute any existing evidence.

The team were ahead of him and had thrown a large plastic sheet over the whole area. The newly positioned cover was already capturing the incoming fluid and protecting the crime scene.

‘We have taken samples of the mud and grass surrounding the body and if, as the professor suggests, she was murdered by a blow to the skull we would probably expect to see more evidence of blood. However, we all know what the weather has been like over the past few weeks, and much of it could have been washed away. That may not be the case for any evidence underneath the body, so we need to make sure that nothing stops us from looking more closely at that area.’

Martin nodded in agreement. ‘Of course, the other reason for lack of blood here could simply be that she was killed somewhere else and her body dumped here – although I have to say that never before have I come across a murderer who dumps a body and puts the victim’s clothing in a neat pile at her feet – that is weird.’

‘The other thing is that there was no real attempt to hide the body. She was just put under the trees not far from the edge of the field. There is some growth around the base of this tree and it did provide a bit of cover for the body, but not that much. If there had been less rain in July more people would have been walking around the area and she would almost certainly have been discovered earlier.’

‘Yes, this field’s also used for festivals and the like,’ said Matt. ‘I got two of my sisters tickets to the Florence and the Machine gig in June, and we bring all the nieces here for the Sparks in the Park firework display every November – it’s brilliant. Don’t know the last event that was held here but I’ll check it out when we get back.’

Alex had finished giving instructions to his team and pulled down the hood of his scene of crime suit to reveal his perfectly smooth, hairless head. There was no fear of contaminating the crime scene from him, but that was not the reason for his shiny scalp and Martin recalled that Alex had shaved his head even before joining the force.

Matt couldn’t resist a comment. ‘Thought the new Mrs Griffiths would have persuaded you to grow your hair,’ he teased the recently married SOC expert.

Matt had been unable to attend the wedding as he had been recovering from a near-fatal knife wound at the time, inflicted when he and Martin had apprehended a serial killer. Alex’s marriage, to Charlie Walsh, who headed up the IT arm of the Goleudy setup, had been organised by Charlie in less time than it took most people to do their weekly shop – that was Charlie! Although confined to a wheelchair following a serious car accident when she was a teenager, Charlie managed to live life to the full – more so on two wheels than most people did on two legs.

The wedding in Charlie’s hometown of Balbriggan had been a harmonious meeting of the Celts, with the family and friends of Charlie providing the warmest of Irish welcomes to Alex and his family and friends from South Wales. No one would have guessed that the wedding had taken so little time to organise, and from start to finish the whole affair had been a perfect match of solemn commitment and lots of fun.

Martin had his own good reasons for remembering the occasion. He had been Alex’s best man, and contrary to his expectations he had thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but the main reason for his terrific memories was the time he had spent in the company of Shelley Edwards.

Shelley worked as a civilian member of the Police Force and was the health and safety expert of the Goleudy Training Department. She was responsible for training officers at a local level and for providing quarterly seminars for the whole police force in Wales. Not being a technical expert, Shelley had looked for help in setting up the IT arrangements for these sessions. Charlie, a whizz at anything involved with pushing buttons, had willingly obliged and the two of them had soon become really good friends.

In true Irish fashion the wedding celebrations had gone on through the night, with a magical mixture of Welsh singing and Irish dancing – helped along by a constant flow of the local brew. It was at half-past five in the morning, when the sky was getting light, that Martin and Shelley had wandered off to the beach some twenty minutes’ walk away, and then on to the small harbour to watch the early morning activities of the local fishermen. Just prior to the wedding Shelley and Martin had begun a relationship, but that had been a secret shared by just the two of them, and they had attended the wedding as individual friends of the bride and groom. They had left as a couple, and Martin remembered that morning as one of the best mornings of his life – worlds apart from the one he was facing today. This was cold reality. A Monday morning, with a sky signalling rain and a field full of mud, and the discovery of a naked body the order of the day – one that had to be faced.

Alex indicated that he and his team would be about another hour at the scene and would then be taking everything back to base. He agreed with Martin that it should be possible to get the first meeting of the investigation team together by early afternoon.

As Matt lifted the tent flap for himself and Martin to leave, he was momentarily blinded by a flash of light and quickly realised they were no longer alone under the trees, as they had been joined by a number of onlookers and what looked like just a single member of the press.

The one reporter, who was holding a flash camera, wasted no time and immediately bombarded the officers with questions. After all, he was the first of his colleagues to arrive at the scene, and he knew from past experience that when the rest of the news reporters arrived he would be unlikely to get a look-in. Very soon the whole area would be swarming with people from every section of the media, and he had to make the most of this unique opportunity.

‘Morning, Chief Inspector Phelps,’ he began. ‘The woman talking to your officer over there has a very loud voice and we have all gathered that she discovered a body here, within the last hour or so. Is that right?’

‘Good morning, Mike,’ returned Martin as he recognised the reporter as Mike Hiscock, a journalist from one of the smaller local papers and was more than happy to give out the known facts of the case to him – it would make his day to get information ahead of the big boys.

‘Yes, the woman you refer to did find a body when she was exercising her dog this morning.’

‘Is it the body of a man or a woman?’ Hiscock quickly interrupted and was keen to know more.

‘I’m afraid I can’t give you that information at present,’ replied Martin.

‘Is that can’t or won’t? How did he or she die? Was it of natural causes or was she murdered?’ The reporter persisted, obviously trying to get as many questions as possible answered.

Martin and Matt had now passed the barrier of the blue and white tape and were making their way back to the car park but their footsteps continued to be dogged by this young hound from the press.

‘OK,’ said Martin. ‘As you appear to have beaten your colleagues to this story I will give you an official statement. At ten minutes past seven this morning the police received a call from a member of the public who had been exercising her dog in Coopers Field. It would seem that the dog failed to retrieve a ball and when the woman went in search of it she discovered a body. You can see for yourself where the body was found and I can confirm that we are treating the death as suspicious.’

‘That’s it?’ questioned Mike.

‘Don’t push it,’ retorted Matt. ‘DCI Phelps has already given you more than you could have hoped for at this stage, so just hop it.’

Although enough was never enough for Mike and his colleagues, he did hop it, and in fact raced ahead and was over the bouncy bridge well before the detectives had reached it – no doubt running at the behest of that ever-looming deadline.

The journey back to Goleudy should only have taken fifteen minutes but they encountered the delights of the morning rush hour in the city and that, coupled with the aftermath of a minor accident, meant having to tolerate a journey lasting almost an hour.

Not that the time was wasted as it was an opportunity to reflect on the detail, albeit scanty, of this new case and to construct a plan for solving what was most definitely a murder – but what sort of murder?

The two men tossed around every possibility they could think of. At the one end of the spectrum they considered a brutal murder, possibly premeditated, having happened at some other location and the body dumped in the field later. At the other end there was the possibility of a simple accident. An accident that had resulted in the death of the victim could easily have caused the perpetrator to panic and move the body away from where he or she, the killer, could be identified.

Who was the victim? They needed an answer to that question as quickly as possible and there were a few ways in which that answer could be provided. When Prof. Moore had completed the post-mortem examination they would have a much better picture of the deceased and then trawling through the missing persons files would be easier. But the deceased may not have been reported missing.

The scientists would be able to provide them with the all-important DNA profile but that would only be helpful if it matched records on existing databases. As on many other similar occasions, Martin considered the pros and cons of there being a compulsory national DNA database.

A closer examination would also throw more light on the cause of death – was it just a single blow to the head or had the victim been subjected to a more sustained attack? Would they discover sexual abuse or other evidence of pre-death torture? Toxicology reports would also be interesting – and was there any underlying pathology? Would they discover that drugs were involved, either prescription or otherwise?

When did she die? The level of tissue decay, togeth. . .