Sudden Death

Sudden Death

by M. M. Fenner

Nine p.m. on a Monday evening in late November. It's raining. I'm
sitting in a car with a colleague, Nick. We have been at work for seven
hours and only have one hour left of our shift.
We're on what is called a 'Quick Change Over'. This means that we
finished a night shift at six a.m. that morning and returned to work at
two p.m. that afternoon. There are two 'Quick Change Over' days in our
shift cycle, but the one from nights to days is the worst.
You return to work in the afternoon having had some sleep, if you are
lucky, and then have to work for eight hours almost like a zombie. And
then, when you finish your shift, just when you are starting to wake
up, you have to go home and go to bed.
This is just one of the joys of being a police officer.
The radio crackles and a voice says, "Any unit available to deal with
a call on the Orchard Estate. Neighbour not seen for several days." No
one replies. It is the same all over the country, possibly even
elsewhere in the world too.
Police officers nearing the end of their shift just waiting for time
when they can go home. Not wanting to become involved in a call which,
at best, means working overtime or, at worst, dealing with a dead body,
which may have been there days or even weeks. The silence from the
radio is deafening.
I look at Nick who looks back at me. We both continue writing in our
notebooks prior to going of duty. The rain keeps falling. The
windscreen wipers swoosh backwards and forwards across the
screen.
Twenty minutes pass and the radio crackles again. "Any unit to deal
with this call please. Neighbour not seen for several days."
Silence.
"81 from Romeo Golf. Are you receiving? Over."
81 was the Call Sign for our vehicle. Nick and I looked at each other
again.
"81. Are you receiving? Over."
"We are going to have to take it." Nick said.
"I know," I replied.
I picked up the radio handset and said, "81. Go ahead. Over."
"Mark, can you and Nick take this call to the Orchard Estate?
Neighbour not seen for several days."
"Yes, we'll deal with it. What is the name and address of the
Informant?"
"The Informant lives at Flat 21." There was a pause.
"What is the Informant's name?" I asked.
"Mr Deadman."
"Sorry. Did you say that the Informant is a Mr Deadman?"
"Yes that's correct."
"Is this a joke?" I asked.
"No."
It was going to be one of those calls.
Mr Deadman couldn't really tell us much about his neighbour. He said
that they sometimes met on the stairs and would pass the time of day
but that was all. He said that he hadn't seen the neighbour for about
ten days. The front door of number 22 was a blue, solid wooden door
with a square of wire-reinforced glass at face height. We knocked
several times but did not get any reply. On looking through the letter
box the only thing I could see was darkness.
These sorts of calls are always difficult because the occupant might
well have gone away for a few days and not be inside dead. In the end
it came down to making a decision about whether (or not) to break in
based on all the information available at the time. Regulations
required that you always seek advice from a sergeant before causing any
damage. With the little we had, we both felt that we would have to gain
entry. As Nick was the acting sergeant for the shift that was taken
care of too.
Despite what you may have seen in various television shows in which
police officers kick open a front door with apparent ease, in real life
this is actually quite rare. Most of the doors I had to force open did
not give way so easily.
The door of flat 22 was one such door.
I took out my truncheon and hit the glass panel. It cracked but did
not break. I hit it a few more times to no great effect.
Nick went to find the caretaker for the block. After about ten minutes
he returned with a man in his forties, who was carrying a hammer. The
hammer worked better than my truncheon had. Within a few hits I had
broken the glass and the wire mesh creating a large enough hole to get
my hand through and release the door catch.
As the door opened I could see a small hallway in front of me. Inside
the hall there was a doorway to the right which was open. At the end of
the hall opposite me was a second door that was shut. There was a third
doorway to the left. This was also open. The flat was in total
darkness. The dim landing light made no difference once inside the
flat.
I flicked the hallway light switch. Click. Nothing happened.
"The meters are in the kitchen to the left," said the caretaker who
was behind Nick who was standing behind me. Why was I at the
front?
"They take fifty pence pieces," he added.
"Has anyone got fifty pence?" I asked beginning to search my own
pockets.
"I have," said Nick who came past me and went into the darkened
kitchen. I heard a 'clunk' as Nick put the coin into the meter and then
a 'click' as he turned the key to make the coin drop. I flicked the
light switch again. Nothing happened.
"Bollocks!" Nick said from the darkness. "I must have put it in the
gas meter." There was a pause. "Has anyone got another fifty pence
piece?"
This time I found one in my pocket and passed it to Nick. 'Clunk',
money going in. 'Click', money dropping. The light bulb in the hall
burst into life filling the hall with a pale yellow glow.
I went into the bathroom on the right turning on the light as I went.
It was a very small room. The bath was empty and clean. The toilet was
also empty but looked as though it had not been flushed for several
days.
From there I crossed the hall into the kitchen and joined Nick. This
was also a small, clean room.
Having checked these rooms we were now faced by the closed door at the
end of the small hallway. Somehow I was in front again. I thought to
myself that there had to be some, as yet unlearned, knack for getting
to the back.
Very slowly and gingerly, I pressed down the handle and carefully
pushed the door open. Inside this room the light was already on. A bare
bulb hung from the middle of the ceiling. It must have been a very low
watt bulb because the light it gave out seemed very weak and pale. As I
pushed the door open further I could see some chairs in the room. I
peered around the edge of the door and saw the occupant of the
flat.
He was sitting in a wooden framed chair in front of a gas fire. I
didn't notice any particular smell and there were no flies as far as I
could tell. But I could see that the man was dead. He sat slightly
slumped with his head down and to one side looking as though he was
asleep. But there was stiffness about his position, something
unnatural.
"He's in here." I said opening the door fully and stepping into the
room. Nick followed me. The caretaker stood in the doorway for a few
moments taking in the scene. Then he said, "Right. I'll leave you to it
then." And promptly disappeared.
There was a door from this main room into another room, which I
discovered was the bedroom. Like the kitchen and bathroom, this room
was small and clean. The bed was made and obviously hadn't been slept
in for some time.
I returned to the main room and stood looking at the man in the chair.
He looked as though he was in his late fifties or early sixties. He was
wearing a cardigan, a shirt, trousers, socks and a pair of slippers. He
looked, from his left side, as though he had fallen asleep.
Nick sighed and said, "It's just as well the gas meter ran out."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well. If it hadn't, this old boy would have been well cooked by
now."
It was true. He was sitting right in front of the fire.
It was bad enough as it was. The man must have been there for about
ten to fourteen days. Parts of the flesh on the right side of his face
and his hands had turned black. It had probably been prevented from
being worse by virtue of the fact the whole flat was like an icebox.
"Talking of gas. Can you smell anything?" Nick asked. At the same time
we remembered that Nick had put some money in the gas meter. The fire
was still turned on. Nick quickly turned it off.
"I'll get the nick to call the Divisional Surgeon." Nick said.
"Okay." I replied.
"You had better check him over." Nick said nodding towards the
man.
"What for?" I asked, somewhat surprised.
"To make sure that he wasn't murdered. You know, knife in the back,
cord around the neck. Things like that".
"What?" I said feeling rather uneasy.
"Yes. And you had better check his pockets too." Nick smiled.
"Why don't you do it? You're the senior officer." I said
"I am also the Acting Sergeant. It'll be good experience for you."
Nick replied.
"Great." I said. It wasn't that I didn't want to touch the man because
he was dead (although I didn't). But I had heard stories about bodies,
which had become badly decomposed falling apart.
"I don't have any rubber gloves," I said feebly. Nick just looked at
me.
I then had an idea.
"Where are you going?" Nick asked as I walked past him and went into
the kitchen. After a few moments I returned with what I had been
looking for. I held up my hands triumphantly. On each hand was a
Sainsbury's plastic shopping bag.
"Not quite rubber gloves." I said. "But they will do." I began to look
over the body thoroughly. Having satisfied myself that there were no
knives protruding from anywhere or indeed any lengths of rope where
they shouldn't be, I then considered the problem of

searching the trouser pockets.
I decided that the best course of action would be to put my hand into
the pocket, grasp the pocket material and then pull it out. This would
turn the whole pocket inside out and deposit any contents there might
be into my hand. This worked very well for the left hand pocket.
However, when it came to the right hand pocket, it was a different
matter altogether.
For some reason, the right hand side of the body had decayed more
quickly that the left hand side. Because of the way the man was sitting
when he died, or perhaps because he slumped to the right slightly after
death, a large quantity of blood had collected in the area of his right
buttock and thigh.
As I put my hand into this pocket, I very gently felt for the pocket
lining. The whole area had the feel of a squashy orange. Once I had
what I thought was the lining between my thumb and forefinger I pulled
very slowly. Despite all my care I found myself holding a bloody mess,
quite literally, in my hand. Amidst the material and blood and goodness
knows what else there were a few coins.
"The Divisional Surgeon is on his way". Nick said from behind me. I
had been so engrossed in what I was doing that I hadn't heard the radio
at all. Nick looked at what was in hand and just said, "Ugh".
I sat on the floor and stared at the plastic bags on my hands. Looking
around the room and at the man in the chair I felt like an intruder, an
invader in this person's home, life and death. I had never known him in
life. But in death, our paths had crossed. It struck me as being
terribly sad that he died alone and that it had been several days
before anyone had noticed.

A life had ended and no one appeared to know. I wondered if anyone
cared. Who was
this man? I knew from papers that we found what his name was (although
I do not remember it now which I find very sad). But who he had been,
what was his life like. Did he have a family? If so, where were
they?
And I realised that I cared. About a person I had never known, I
cared. His death mattered to me. As I look back on it now some 20 years
later I know that this was also the moment that I realised that when we
die, the person that was is no more. What is left is the body, the
casing if you like. All the things that make us human, feelings,
emotions, laughter, tears, hopes and fears are gone. All that remains
is the shell that holds everything together for the time that we are
alive.
The Police Doctor arrived. According to the manual the correct
procedure is that the Divisional Surgeon attends the scene, examines
the body and pronounces life extinct i.e. death.
As I came to learn, what the book says and what actually happens are,
very often, two entirely different things. On this occasion, a small,
dark haired man, poked his head around the door and said:
"Hello. I'm the Divisional Surgeon. Oh yes, he is definitely dead."
And vanished before we could say anything! Nick and I just looked at
each other.
Then Nick glanced at his watch and said:
"Well. I'll be off then." I didn't say anything. The expression on my
face must have said it all for he continued. "Well, there's no point us
both staying here while we wait for the undertaker. I'll go back to the
nick and make sure everything is in hand. And I'll get one of the night
duty to come out and relieve you if the undertaker is going to be a
while."

He smiled. "How does that sound?"
"Okay". I replied. "Yeah. Okay".
"See you in the pub after work." Nick said.
"Right." I replied, although Nick was already out of the door.
I sat in the dim, pale yellow light in the freezing cold room. I
decided that whilst I was waiting I would write my report. I searched
through cupboards and drawers to find any information I could about
this man. There did not seem to be any details about a wife or children
although there were some women's names written down who may have been
daughters who had married. It was difficult to know for certain. In any
event, the Coroner's Officer would undertake the search for more
information more thoroughly in the morning when he picked up the
report.
My relief arrived at 10.50 p.m. He sat in a chair opposite me.
"The undertaker is going to be a while so I've come out so that you
can get off home," he said.
"Thanks." I was feeling very tired. I looked at the man in the chair
and walked out of the flat.
It was not the first dead body I had seen. And it certainly wasn't the
last. But I have never forgotten that evening. I often think of that
cold stark flat in the harsh glare of the dim light bulb. The decaying
shell of what was once a person sitting in that chair. Even now, I feel
an overwhelming sadness which fills my body and soul and takes me to
the edge of tears.
I thought about Nick and the others who would be waiting at the
pub.
When I got back to the car, it was still raining.