Cock

So, there was I crawling on all fours around a damp dark smelly room, dressed in rubber boots and rubber gauntlets, looking for cock.

*****

It was a warm sunny day with clear skies except for the occasional tiny white cloud bouncing in the sea of blue. The warmth hit me and a first drip of perspiration rolled down my neck. It was a lovely day to go out and do something worthwhile on – May in England could sometimes but not often be like this. Oh there I go again. Right British. Already going on about the weather. Apologies for that. Let’s get back to the story. So where was I? Oh yes, a lovely day. What could I spend it doing? But I already knew. The local non-league football team had a game at home, and I would take the long 2 mile walk from my parent’s home, where I was visiting, to the ground and enjoy the game. The team were doing well and it should be an easy win.

I better wear shirt and trousers, I thought. You never know and it had happened enough times in the past, but with afternoon coming on, it would be a surprise if it came up this time. So I put my white shirt and black trousers on and clipped the blue device onto my belt checking it was actually on. Then throwing my leather jacket over my back suspended from a finger, I strolled out of the door, across the crazy paving and out of the gate. I was on my way. I was looking forward to the game.

I walked up past the row of houses to the crossway and then took a left. The sun was nice, not overly hot but warm enough to create pleasant thoughts in my mind. I let it wander as I continued on the well known journey. Then it was a right and reaching the end of the small roads of semi-detached 50’s built houses and entering the more modern designs of the council houses in the estate. It was to be one of the last big builds of council houses in the UK as political priorities turned elsewhere to people. Shame that. I had met nobody I knew and had not needed to indulge in small talk, which I found both difficult and boring. The day was going well as I wandered over the waste land, past the railway station and the nearby pub, doors closed and no doubt drinking, talking and smoking going on inside. An old building of maybe a hundred years, was that one. I wondered briefly how things had changed in its existence, but my mind was not really set for such creativity today, so soon moved on to letting it meander along wherever it wanted to go. I was soon at the arterial road and the long hike on the footpath beside the carriageways. Cars whipped past, I walked. It was only fifteen minutes until I would reach the ground.

*****

The ground was at one side of the huge playing fields and down a small drive to the car park. I wandered past it all and headed for the turnstiles. In those days the ground had only turnstiles and a small gate for season ticket holders. I cannot attest to if that changed later as I moved on. Football became less of something I did and then of course I left the country. But I doubt much changed before those who run such things decided local football teams were not a priority, bulldozed the entire ground and built something they considered more important and more importantly made them and their friend a lot of money. Shame really.

Those turnstiles were tiny iron or steel ones that even someone thin like me – yes, I was thin in those days, so don’t start laughing – struggled to fit through. I often wondered how the mostly ample gutted supporters made it through, but they did. I paid the old man at the window to the right of the turnstile, nodded to him and gave the strong shove it took to get the squeaking gate to turn. I was in. Now, I liked to stand at the end our team were attacking and then change ends at half time, so I wandered round to where the other regulars were, taking a chance on getting the right end. Of course, we were wrong and as our team in white shirts and blue shorts lined up for kick off, we trudged round to the other end. And of course, as we were doing it, they surged down to where we wanted to be and put the ball in the back of the net straight from kick off. Typical. But we were cheering and heading more rapidly round to the end.

The game was going well. We were 3 up already, but of course had managed to concede one so the game was not as yet put to bed. But that was how we played. Attack and win mixed with a few hard challenges in the middle. The crowd was larger than normal. I put it down to the fine weather. The team we were playing was one of those middle to low end teams from somewhere up north and we were in the top few, so no local derby affect. Behind the goal it was rowdy – noisy – fun. We were enjoying it.

“Hey, who is that wanker they are calling on the PA? Same name as you…”

“Fuck off. Shut up. Let me listen.”

I heard them calling my name – first and second and saying go to the stand. Weird. For one minute I wondered if something had happened to my father or mother, or from that night… I shuddered at that thought. Anyway, to the stand it was. I found the little office underneath and one of my worries was dispelled. My father was there.

“Is mum OK? What is up?”

“Errrrrr… What? Mum is fine. You missed the bleep. Work called.”

I thought oh, shit. But avoided saying it.

“They need you to go to this address. Take the van, but first give Dave a call.”

The club were good enough to let me use the office phone. There were no mobiles back in those days. Dave a was a good man A gentle giant from Newcastle who, in spite of his towering heavyweight threatening look, really only knew kindness and was totally gentle. One of the best I ever knew. However, on the phone he was not happy and made it clear.

“Why did you go to a football match? You know you are on call. And this work is important. It is not just some sales pitch or late for a meeting. You are on call and you missed it. I got here in a taxi and everyone was already here, but we cannot start without the equipment. Where did you park the van?”

“Ponders. Hey sorry Dave…” My apologies stammered on for a while.

“Just get the van and get here as soon as you can.” He cut me off.

I looked down to my belt and saw the tiny flashing light on the bleeper that meant I had missed an incoming alert. By now, guilt and stupidity were filling my mind.

“Come on. I will drive you to Ponders. Don’t mess around, and try to be more responsible next time. Come on let’s go. The are waiting for you.” My father said.

And so, he drove me the short way to Ponders and I picked the van up from the parking zone.

*****

The drive on a Saturday afternoon went surprisingly well and I arrived in central London only an hour or so later than I should. That perked me up. The scene was typical of many I had visited…

Oh yes of course, you do not know about my work. I should tell you a little about that first, I guess. Sorry if I have been confusing you. Ok.

*****

Well at that time I was a civil servant working as a forensic scientist. Yes, sounds fun and such, I guess what with all those totally laughable and unrealistic CSI TV shows that have been churned out since back in those days. Oh, and there was no DNA back then either, nor databases and international links and so on, so things were a lot different.

Well, I had started as a general chemist working in a lab doing things like comparing paint samples, examining shoeprints, comparing glass and scratch marks on frames, measuring blood alcohol and urine alcohol levels of samples and other such mundane stuff like that. It was not for me. It showed. I got disciplined. Other departments refused to take me on a transfer. All that was left was transfer to the punishment unit. That was the FIU. That stood for Fire Investigation Unit. That suited me not just because of all the overtime although that was a nice bonus, but because it was not boring and did not involve being stuck in a lab all the time. Please don’t get me wrong, I am sure plenty of people enjoy lab work. I hated it although I could see compared to shovelling fire debris out of a snow covered 5 acre burned down factory that was storing cocoa butter on Christmas Day, it could be a tad more liberating to be assigned to lab duties. Nah, not for me, but I may be weird that way.

Now Fire Investigation did not mean attending every fire in London and Home Counties. There were hundreds every day, but it did mean attending all the big ones, the political ones, the ones involving death and such like.

So, I guess you get an idea of my job now.

*****

So, to get back to things, The scene was like many. A building that if you looked at the walls, did not look much different from the rest, but as your eyes moved up, the roof had gone in one place. Wooden joists and tiles. Accelerant? I wondered.  There was still water running into the street and some debris had been tossed out by the brigade. The Fire Brigade’s main responsibility obviously was to extinguish the fire and ensure the building was safe for anyone to enter, or otherwise. Apart from hosing everything with gallons of water, they would try to remove anything that could further fuel the fire if it helped. In those days the Fire Brigade had no investigation unit. That would change in later years, but back then it was some combination of police, scenes of crime officers (SOCO) who were under the police and us civil servants, independent from the police, who had to investigate the fire. Our responsibility was to ascertain what had happened and how the fire had started and spread – basically we answered what had happened and how. The police were left with the who if indeed there was a who.

The brigade had gone already on my arrival. Dave was sat smoking on a step in the small road in what looked like a mews to me. The police had cordoned off the entrance.

“Flat above a shop,” he said as I opened the van side door so we could don our overalls, boots and gloves.

“One dead in there, a lot of damage to body and flat.” Dave summed it up for me.

“Go in. Take a look and see what you think. I have been in briefly but waited to change before looking more.” He lit up another Benson as I walked away and to the building.

“Be careful, some of the wood looks ready to give. Careful where you tread.”

*****

On going in there was a shop or actually more like a front office with adjacent smaller rooms. This area was not badly affected. There was smoke damage and the false ceiling had collapsed and broken or been pulled down by the brigade. The only area of real damage was where the wooden floor of the room above had burned through leaving a hole with pieces of burned carpet, badly charred joists and a broken looking orb of some description was hanging through.

On the floor above was a flat. The usual style lounge, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom. It was the lounge where most of the damage was. The floor was covered in pieces of charred or not so charred foam, badly charred pieces of wood, debris from the ceiling, bare wires a with melted insulation. Puddles of water on the floor, Water dripping from above. Water on walls. Water everywhere it could get to. Oh, and the distinctive smell of petrol. Partially burned petrol. I had been right about accelerant.

On the floor in front of a table was a hole burned into the floor. This would be the seat of the fire – where it had started, usually, but not always the most damaged area in a fire. But let’s spare the technical details of fire investigation and continue. A badly burned body was lying next to the hole partially covered in pieces of ceiling now. The smell of burned flesh hung in the air mingling with the petrol. It would be our job to clear this and bag the body for removal to the mortuary. Unless of course the coroner turned up. Hopefully not. It turned out the orb seen from below was the skull or what part of it remained of the body. We would also have to take care in our work, as any fat from the body would make the area around it slippery and the body itself need to be handled with care to keep it intact.

It was not an unusual scene and one you get used to, apart from the children. You never get used to that. Or if you do, you are probably sociopathic as a coroner once told me. But the body here was adult. Adult for sure just judging from size.

Dave was with me now. He had smoked his Benson.

“Petrol”

“Petrol”

We agreed. Now for us, it was onto drawing a plan of what was where, and making sure the photographer who had arrived got any pictures we wanted as well as those the police, and she thought were needed. We also carried a polaroid for our own record and so we would not be affected by any delay in developing the films and receiving our set. Then we would need to bag some samples of fire debris to get analysed to prove presence of petrol. Everything would need to be signed and sealed properly. Chain of evidence is crucial in forensic evidence. Then when all done, we could bag the body and get it moved by the coroner’s office.

As we discussed who would do what and where to take samples from, DS Dereck beckoned for us to go downstairs. DS Dereck was a liaison officer. These were police, usually detective sergeants, who were trained to work between police and us. Now, the police had their own culture and hierarchical system, and the scenes of crime officers fell into this too. But for us we were civil servants and independent, so differences of opinion or misunderstanding could occur. I must tell you the story of the army general in Germany some time, but let’s not get distracted right now. The liaison officers were trained to make sure these did not happen or at least minimise them. Requests for us to attend scenes came through liaison officers. Our requests for information from investigation that may help us, went through liaison. DS Dereck was a tall slim dapper aging DS who I would say was old school except that he had none of the bad reputation that went with many labelled such. He was more of a gentleman kind of officer.

We went and talked.

“Neighbours say, two gay men live here. Nice people. It sounds like there was a lot of shouting or an argument last night and then later the fire. There is only one body here. So, one survived anyway. The neighbours are quite upset but the damage to their property does not seem too bad. Any ideas yet?”

“We have only just started looking. We will give you a shout if anything comes up. Just hang around.”

“No choice, I have to be here until the end.” We laughed. He would be last out when handing the scene completely over to the police.

*****

I cannot remember which of us found it, but there was a desk in the corner of the room and a piece of ceiling had collapsed onto it. On clearing the mess off, underneath the desk was quite untouched. The ceiling here must have come down in the fire and protected what was on the desk. Among other things, there was a telephone answering machine. It was damaged, mostly in one corner, but the tape compartment was open and the clearly would not close again. More interestingly though around the damaged corner, there were dark red-brown stains and some hair that Dave and I were looking at.

“Oh shit. This looks bad. Better call Dereck and we are going to be here for hours. The coroner will have to come now.”

“Shit.” Was all I could reply. We could be waiting for hours for a coroner and not able to do much before he arrived. “We better bag that up. Biology will be wanting to do blood grouping and hair comparison. There was no DNA analysis back then. Did I mention that already? If so, sorry for repeating myself.

Dave was telling Dereck. DS Dereck would have to call the coroner – liaison and all that.

“Pub?” said Dereck. There was nothing else to do until the corner arrived and finished. We had our samples, pictures and plans finished. There was no SOCO today as it was weekend and the SOCO had to attend other possible crimes, so we could not hand over bagging the body to him or her. It was going to be a long haul.

*****

Dereck came back into the warm if small pub just at the end of the road where the three of us had gone to wait. The police DCI and his sergeant had already been in there a while awaiting a time when the scene was close to hand over and they would be briefed on what had been done, but we sat separately. There was nothing to say yet, and they would be demanding.

“Bloody hell, it is that supercilious Jock, Sean!” Dereck said on sitting down. He was clearly not happy. Now, Sean, the coroner on duty, was indeed from Scotland and known for his arrogant approach. He was known as Sean by all, outside of his earshot, because he resembled Sean Connery and he was a Scot.

“We could be waiting until well after dark with him and then God knows what demands he would leave us with.” Dereck continued.

We said nothing and just got back to talking about other things. But Dereck was right, Sean was famous for showing up when he wanted, however urgent things were or without any consideration for others. Dave and I had seen it many times before.

We sat and tried to enjoy the wait as the clock above the bar moved slowly forward. We talked about old cases we had previously worked on, football, gossip and watched the bored looking detectives at the next table.

*****

It turned out to be our lucky day. Sean arrived in under an hour.

A uniformed constable came in to tell us. Dereck left to greet Sean. Dave and I then wandered out standing back. Sean’s large Daimler was parked just inside the street. He stood near it wearing what looked like a very expensive suit and shoes with his trade mark coiffured grey beard. We both nodded and said hello. Then waited.

Now it was looing like at least a suspicious death if not murder, the coroner needed to look at the body in situ and get additional shots taken by the photographer. Standard procedure. The coroner would then, when happy, release the body to the police to be removed as per the coroner’s instructions. There was little for Dave and I at this stage, but with no SOCO, we could not really leave the bagging of the body, which could be very tricky with burned ones, to the police.

Sean opened the boot of his car and removed a white coverall, pair of boots, medical gloves and cap. He was quickly changed. The Dereck led him to the body upstairs. Dave and I followed and stood back as Sean instructed the photographer to take a couple of shots. Then he lightly brushed the loose debris away and cut the last frays of the burned clothes away. He looked intensely, and had more pictures taken. He tried to turn the body, but as with these scenes it had melted onto the floor in places making that impossible.

Sean then turned to looking at the skull, which was hanging into the hole. He was careful not to touch it and asked the photographer to take a few more pictures. Dereck then showed him the answering machine on the desk.

At this point, Sean announced he had finished the examination and we could bag the body. However, first he had a few things that needed to be done before that could happen.

“Male with no penis,” he said.

“You sure it’s a man,” Dereck said, as Dave and I joined the conversation. Ignoring Dereck, Sean continued.

“A man with no penis means incomplete body. You need to find it before you can remove the body.”

“You fucking me around?” Dereck – probably not thinking came out with.

“Do not speak to me like that DS. I am very serious. We cannot have an incomplete body. You will find it before you do anything else, and be careful with that head, the neck is burned and it may break. And do be careful you do not let the brain fall out of the skull. I am not fucking you around. Finally, put any bone fragments in in the bag too. I do not expect you find them all in this mess. Just most of them.”

“It looks to me like the head was smashed in, killing him and then his tackle cut off in an emotive fit.” Dereck pushed on with. “In that case we do not need to find the penis, and let’s hope the killer has not taken it with him as a trophy.” He added. “I have seen this before in these kinds of murders. Then the killer, probably his boyfriend, calmed down, got scared and thought it best to torch the place to hide the evidence.”

“Maybe,” Sean muttered, “but we do not know if he died from having his head smashed in, from blood loss of having his organ severed, from shock of inhaling flames when set alight with petrol or if it was some kind of bizarre suicide, so find me the penis and do not damage the body any further. Oh, and one other thing, do not let any of those police constable plods get anywhere near this body. Just you.”

I do not think any of us thought this was some kind of bizarre suicide at this stage, but telling a coroner that was not the remit of Dave or I, so we just listened. Bodies were for coroners to see what had happened.

“Anyway, gentlemen, good evening, I will be taking my leave of you as I have an event at the club tonight. God speed in your search. I look forward to seeing the body complete tomorrow morning.”

With that he departed to a muttered “wanker” from Dereck who turned to me.

“How big do you think it is?”

“What”

“How big do you think his dick is?”

“No idea. Kind of normal size, I guess. But DS Dereck, we ain’t looking for a normal one, or some hard thing. Fires tighten skin and shrink things. And all the blood in it will be gone. It could be smaller than your little finger, what we are looking for. I don’t know. Hopefully, we will recognise it when we find it.”

“What you two talking about knob sizes for? Cut your fantasies and let’s find the thing and get out of here.”

“Fuck off, Dave.”

*****

So, there was I crawling on all fours around a damp dark smelly room, dressed in rubber boots and rubber gauntlets, looking for cock.

*****

I don’t remember who found it. I do remember it took hours. I do remember we had to bring in the generator and lighting from the van as the daylight faded to help. I do remember it was indeed tiny – smaller than any of us would have thought. It was bagged and sealed with a signature and marked for refrigeration.

With that done we could turn to the body and removing it. The black body bag was unzipped and waiting. All that remained was detaching the melted parts of the torso, a leg and buttocks from the floor.

Now this was not delicate work. There were no short cuts, it had to be done with a shovel being forced under the attached part at floor level in a very hard and accurate thrust. It was no job for the squeamish and if it went wrong a limb may be severed or broken. We were not going to get it wrong and had plenty of practice in the past. Dave mostly left this to me as his hands tended to be a bit shaky if he had not had a few drinks.

There was one other problem with the body at this scene. The head was damaged with a hole in it revealing the damaged brain and the neck was badly burnt and may collapse. So to detach the body, brute force was needed, but we had to minimise any shock through the body to the head. And when the body was finally freed, we could not have it bounce up as the final thrust went in. This would need planning.

Dereck was quick to volunteer.

“I will hold the head. There is a step ladder outside. I will put it up underneath and hold the head while you two break the body free.”

“Sounds good,“ I said. “I will do the shovel work, if that is OK, Dave?”

“Sure, I will watch the body and try and keep it at floor level when your final thrust goes in. You know it will take some effort to get the shovel under and force it through. This is well melted down.”

“Yes. But I have had worse when working with Sue.” That one was terrible.

“Yeah, I remember that case, awful and so many bodies.”

I picked up the shovel and looked at it like it was some fine instrument to perform precise surgery with. It, though, remained a shovel.

Dereck had soon moved the step ladder and got up it as we repositioned a light so he could see what he was doing. He held the skull in his two hands surprisingly gently for such a big man.

Dave was looking down at the body intensely.

“No fucking cock, poor sod. Still got balls though, look.” He held his portable lamp revealing it all where the clothes had been removed. “Imagine that…”

“No thanks. It is enough to think this was a person doing whatever they do in their life yesterday and now I am using a shovel on them. Let’s just get it done.”

I started on the easy one, the leg. It took one thrust and it came away. No problem, no damage!

Next it was the buttocks. This would be trickier. The slippery floor could help or hinder. I had to be very accurate and keep downwards pressure throughout or the shovel may slide upwards when the breach came. But it was my lucky day so far. First attempt was a slow push to avoid any dramatic movement, A few centimetres at the edge came clear. That was the easy part. I would ask Dave to push down, but the body was too damaged. But with the slight lift at the edge, it gave me a nice entry point and one big push and the buttocks were clear as Dave gently held the chest to stop any rising or rotation.

The next bit would be the hardest. The floor was weak. The back by the torso was close to the hole. There was little that could be done to stop any reaction when it came free. I needed the space and the floor would probably not take my and Dave’s combined weight anyway. And then there was the head. We worried about it severing and asked Dereck to position his hands to hold it if that happened.

As I went in to position, the floor creaked and a few pieces of charred joist and floorboard fell into the room below. To date nobody had stood so close to the edge, but I was thin and the lightest of the three of us. It seemed OK. I hoped. But to be honest, I did not want to wait too long and I had no option of leaping or falling back without spooning the body into the air, which would probably break it into several parts. That was not going to happen.

I positioned the shovel as Dave stood behind.

“I will try and grab you if you lose you footing.”

I slowly pushed the shovel forward, testing the join. But no luck it was fast.  I thrust gently. Still no luck. I had to get this right. All pressure forward only. Downward pressure may break the floor. Upward pressure would raise the body. It had to be forward and forward only and hard.

“OK. Here I go…”

I balanced, took a breath and thrust hard. The shovel went in. It in went in further. It went in further still. And then I was free. Amazed I pulled back and withdrew the shovel stepping back onto more solid ground as I went. And as the shovel went through and I pulled it back…

“Argggghhhhh. Fucking hell. Arghhhhh. No. Fuck….”

The screams came from below with some crashing.

I looked down the body was whole. The head was intact. The floor was still there, mostly. But where was DS Dereck?

Dave was heading down the stairs. I moved forward again and peered into the hold. There was Dereck thrashing around below still screaming. The step ladder had fallen to one side. Dereck looked as though his hair had been messed up. I noticed something smeared on his face, or was it a shadow? By then Dave was with him.

*****

We sat in the pub round the corner having a pint. The scene was dealt with. Everything was bagged and labelled and locked away for delivery to secure storage in the lab or in Dereck’s case to the local police station. The DCI had been briefed. The body was on its way to the mortuary. A local PC was left to keep the scene secure. Everything was done.

“Fucking brain. Fell on my face. Slimy. Fucking horrible feel. It scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know what had happened. It was like some horror story where something supernatural grabs you. I thought I was going to die. I was terrified. I fell off the step ladder. I still don’t know how I landed on my feet. The thing fell off, but I was covered in slime and fuck knows what, and it stank.” Dereck was telling his story again. He still obviously hadn’t got over it, and who could blame him. A dead man’s half cooked, half melted brain falling on your face…”

I noticed the stains on DS Dereck’s blue and white pinstripe suit and collar of his suit jacket, but did not have the heart to mention them. He had suffered enough for today and no doubt the police there would be spreading the story far and wide. His hair was still damp from washing it off under a sink tap and with soap and I may not be right on this but I still remember a faint odour of decay and death, but maybe that was my own nose or body. Whatever, the end seemed to linger as we sat and talked.

*****

Epilogue

There is not much more to tell, but having told this story to a few of you in an abridged form over beers before, I can answer the usual questions, and update on some events that happened later.

As I said before, our job – that of Dave and I – was to ascertain how the fire had started and where. That had been fairly easy. The place stank of petrol and there was huge hole where it started. It was an easy fire investigation in terms of the facts if difficult in terms of the scene work. The samples taken indeed showed petrol when run through gas chromatography.

Some of you love to ask who did it. Well, and this was common, we never heard the end result of that. Our job was complete and non controversial and we had to move on to other fires. We only had four teams of two – only one team at weekends – and so were always busy with the next job, or the lingering ones. I suspect the killer was, as mentioned in the narrative, the dead man’s lover and he had indeed killed him in a fit of rage over some infidelity, but that even now is only speculation for me.

Who was the dead man? Well, we were given a name. I do not remember it now. He was a professional working in something like marketing or graphic design and was in his 30’s. Yeah, another one gone both tragically and far too early in life. And another statistic in murder rates, for we did hear, the next day, that it was not a bizarre suicide, exactly as we expected to hear.

What was the cause of death? I am not sure on that one either, but strongly suspect it was having the head stoved in with the telephone answering machine. I certainly hoped it was not from the shock of burning alive and conscious, but that seems far fetched to me considering the damage inflicted to the body before.

*****

I ran into DS Dereck in the bar of the laboratory where I worked a few days later. He showed me a picture of a fire. This one was a bonfire.

“I burned the lot,” he told me. “Shirt, suit, the lot. The smell didn’t seem to go. It lingered. Just thinking about it still gives me the shivers. Anyway, you owe me a drink, it was your fault. You did the shovel work…”

“Yeah, me too… You owe me.”

I turned and saw Dave.

“I covered with the boss for you turning up late. It is all OK. Nobody knows or cares. Now get those drinks in.”

*****

We won the game 5-1 that day.

Author’s Notes on Cock

This story is based very closely on real events and a real case. I may have possibly changed a few names, though, and the narrator may or may not actually be me.

*****

The actual fire investigation in this followed what was the norm in those days for such things in the UK. There are cursory details in this story, but not an in depth description. The fire investigation here was one of the more simple and easy cases we conducted. The cause of the fire and where it started were easy to know just upon a cursory scene examination. Later analysis confirmed what was obvious and witness statements the police took were not needed.

This fire investigation simplicity was far from the norm compared to most of what we did.

The case concerning the cause of fire was also not one of much real interest. It was the events of the day and the human tragedy that made it more so. There were many more much more interesting ones especially the gang or political cases, but many of those are best not written about as the details are not always as known in the public realm.

*****

I have always thought that this story could be expanded into a novel. The actual events in this account, only concern one aspect and one day of the events. If the police investigation, coroners findings and indeed the events leading up to the murder were to be expanded on, it would cover a lot more and a lot longer period and have an outcome as per the “Hollywood” formula. The word count would also be well in the novel range. To date though, I have not found the inspiration to do this.