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First published Monday 5th February 2007:
A very English Murder
In the days of Agatha Christie, this would involve landed gentry, a small village seething with backstabbing and rivalry in the local WI, maybe a bit of illicit lust, all very harmless in itself, the odd revolver or fire poker and a few brutal deaths. Alcohol was limited to the odd pre-dinner sherry, and drugs were heart pills prescribed by the local quack, the only hazard being that some mental old biddy might lace one or two with cyanide. Cars were registered to the owner and insured correctly, and everyone was clean. Murder was still wrong, of course, but at least you could see the murderer would gain some benefit from doing the deed if they got away with it.
All together a pleasant way of life, unless you were unlucky enough to be the one whose murder Mrs Marple was solving, but at least if she was, you could guarantee that the murderer would hang.
These days, it is a bit different.
A few years ago, my division went through a bit of a bad patch, we averaged one murder every 18 days for a year, and a serious shooting at least once a week. The definition of serious shooting at the time was either someone was injured, or automatic weapons were used.
There were procons around that time who had the rather dubious distinction of being first at the scene of more than one murder. First at the scene is a difficult job, as you have a million and one things to do, and only two hands. If you have a person on the floor injured, and a man running away, what do you do? What about the onlookers trying to walk over or round the potential murderee, as they have to get to work. Do you arrest them, and stop yourself from doing your primary job, or just tell them to f*ck off, and hope they don’t contaminate your scene any more than they already have? It is fun, one of the few times when your pulse really races even though you are not usually in any great danger.
My murder that year was a classic of a modern english murder. Key elements are alcohol, numerous previous convictions, drugs, mindless violence, lots of overtime and the sheer total unnecessariness of it all. No party gained anything other than some overtime.
My friend Dave and I were delivering a court warning when a call came in to a local bail hostel, a minor disorder outside, the manager called us saying an ex-resident had come back and caused a scuffle. We tootle half a mile down the road, and the manager is there standing, and the ex-resident is lying there, unconscious. Manager says he swung at me, missed, fell and hit his head on the step. Sure enough, there is a step there with a small amount of blood on it. I kneel down and start monitoring the guys pulse and breathing, which are slow and steady, nothing to worry about. He is already in the recovery position, or something closely approximating it, so nothing much to do really. There is a CCTV camera there, so Dave goes to look at the pictures to see what went on before we decide what to do further. An ambulance is on the way, so we sit tight, bored.
Another car was there, as it came over as a disorder, so my friend Phil helps me with the guy, he is lying half on a run of three steps down to the pavement proper, so we agree who will grab where to get this guy on his back for CPR, just in case it becomes necessary. We sit there, trying to work out what his last meal was from the contents of the vomit near to his mouth, but there is none inside, so we’re not particularly worried.
All of a sudden, I realise I cannot see the condensation of his breath anymore. I check his chest, which is not breathing, and as his pulse starts sinking to zero, mine shoots in the other direction. We grab him hurriedly and get him on his back, and I start CPR. I can’t find my face mask in the rush, so I end up going lips to lips with him. Mmm, lovely. Incidentally, in the process, we drop him on his head from about 3 inches up onto concrete, more on this later, but this is the least of his problems right now.
I start wondering where the ambulance is, and a figure from my Summer Camp job in the USA many years ago pops into my mind, from a senior paramedic trainer there, who told us that the chances of resuscitating someone by manual CPR without the intervention of medical staff with the correct equipment is approximately 1 in 64,500. Hey ho, the ambulance gets there soon, and I help pile him into the back, still going with the CPR. The manager, surprisingly, is getting rather panicked at this point, one suspects he has hit the guy at least once and is now wishing he hadn’t. He is arrested for assault at this point, and the radio goes mad.
I say to the paramedic, as I always do in the back of ambulances, do you want me to do anything or just f*ck off out of your way, and am invited to continue the chest compressions. I can see the results of my labours on a monitor, like some mental version of Daley Thompsons Decathlon, the 80’s athletics computer game. Now I’m really showing my age. For those with a too low geek rating, you waggle a joystick and the little guy runs, jumps or swims, the faster you swim, the faster he goes. I try to keep the peaks and troughs the right height and width, and soon we pull up and A & E. I stand back while the proper tea work on him, but they decide to stop after about 10 minutes. No emotion, no dramatics as a junior doctor demands to be allowed to keep trying, to be led off in tears by the consultant, they did their best and his injuries just happened to be too much
So, come on duty at 0700, and by 0930 I’m tucking into buttered toast at City Hospital sitting in the same room as a slowly cooling corpse. Having cleaned my mouth of his vomit first, of course. Well, you gotta eat. Once the vitals are out of the way, I get down to the serious business of bagging and tagging all his clothing and doing a lengthy statement.
Eventually, I get the privilege of going to his post mortem, which I have to say, I found fascinating. I can now reveal that when they cut the top of your skull off to look at your brain, they cut a little notch in the back, so it goes back on straight. Now there’s quality British workmanship for you. It was truly fascinating, especially the bit when the pathologist noted the bruise on the back of the poor guys head, and I stuck my hand up and said ‘Errrr, actually doctor, that one’s my fault. Sorry.’ The pathologist was truly charming, a real gentleman, as he should be for the £2,000 he was getting paid for a couple of hours of dicing and slicing. If you get a chance to go to a PM, do not turn it down!
I eventually got home at 10.30 pm, we had a chinese for dinner and I was not in the least peturbed by the fact it was the second time that day I was seeing spare ribs. The guy was charged with murder, as he’d conveniently forgotton to mention the fact he’d beaten the shit out of the victim before ringing us, but a second post mortem was inconclusive, so it was dropped.
I can honestly say I was not in the least emotionally upset, I did my best for him and it just wasn’t good enough, and as for watching someone die in front of me, nope sorry dear reader, not a flicker. I didn’t know him, and I’m sorry for his death as I am every death, but that fact I saw it happen doesn’t make me feel any worse about it.
Miss Marple it wasn’t, but a good days work it was.
