CHAPTER 11

Till Death Do Us Part

The following morning, Christine served me up two boiled eggs for my breakfast along with bread soldiers.

I was ravenous, so stopped filling in the crossword and, after taking the tops off the eggs, I dipped a soldier into the golden part of the egg, the best bit, the yolk – I loved eggs and grabbed another bread soldier.

‘These eggs are lovely, duck,’ I shouted to Christine who was in the other room. She couldn’t have heard me properly and shouted back, ‘They’re not duck eggs; they’re hens eggs from Stenton’s Farm,’ which made me laugh.

I’d childishly saved some egg yolk for the last bread soldier and, as I eagerly dipped it into the golden liquid, the bread snapped in two leaving my best mouthful in the bottom of the shell. As I looked at the broken piece of brown bread it resembled a finger – here we go again, I thought. I’m ready for the loony bin. As I sat and stared at it in deep thought the niggle had returned.

Suddenly I jumped up, ‘Christine, I’ve forgotten that I have a job on this morning, I’ll have to go to work – and now.’

‘It’s your day off, I thought we were going out for the day?’ she replied.

‘Sorry, but this is important, we’ll go out later when I get back.’

‘What about your snap, I didn’t know you wanted any so I haven’t made any sandwiches.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get something while I’m out,’ I said.

I patted her swollen tummy and with a kiss said, ‘Look after yourself and get your feet up.’ With that I was off and for a couple of minutes I couldn’t stop laughing at what Jenny had said the night before – the thoughts of it made me shudder.

I wasn’t laughing for long as I made my way towards the East End of the city to where the grizzly finds had been made.

Rick, John and I had previously checked every hospital in Sheffield and we had satisfied ourselves that the fingers couldn’t be part of any legal medical waste, so we had nothing left to go on and could only attempt to apply logic and think ‘out of the box’.

The only other possibility for their appearance was, in our minds, as a result of ‘torture’.

Every city had its gangs and Sheffield was no exception. They didn’t mess about and administered their own rough justice. If they thought that someone had ‘pointed the finger’ and ‘grassed’ on them they weren’t long in dealing with it in their own way. We’d already asked contacts in the underworld but nobody was saying anything so it looked as if we were stuck.

Was there another possibility? The one that had been niggling me for the last couple of days? It was a seed of an idea that culminated in my mind when I saw the bread soldier in my egg yolk. It sounded bizarre, despicable and certainly not nice to think about and it also hinged on what I would find back at the scene of the two previous incidents.

Now back at the scene, I made my customary and, by now, regular walk around the vicinity of the crime to check out my theory. Within five minutes I saw what I was looking for and realized that even if I was right it would be nigh on impossible to prove.

My niggle had started after I’d attended my mate’s funeral at Darfield and then afterwards walked around the village. Later that same day I’d spoken to Jenny about Christine’s swollen feet and then, today, as I was eating my breakfast – EUREKA – I came up with a theory that, although feasible, I was hoping was wrong – surely no one could be that despicable.

I needed to talk to someone – someone whose opinion I always respected and valued and that person was my team mate Rick Hardwick. We were both on our day off but even so I went to his house and, out of earshot of his wife Doreen, I explained to him why I was there.

After telling him about my mate’s funeral and my walk around Darfield I also told him about Christine’s swollen feet and Jenny’s pre-natal midwifery lessons which had him in stitches. When I told him about my niggle and the fact that the bread soldier with yellow yolk around it had reminded me of a finger with a gold wedding ring on it. I expected him to burst out loud in laughter but he didn’t.

Rick knew me better than most and knowing that there was probably a reason for what appeared to be a stupid analogy. He simply said, ‘Go on Martyn – tell me more.’

‘When I was a blacksmith some years ago in Darfield both the two village doctors would sometimes send old people to the workshop, who for varying reasons, had got very badly swollen fingers. Because of this their wedding rings had bitten deep into the fleshy finger and they were unable to remove them to release the pressure. This pressure caused them tremendous pain and sometimes their fingers had even turned septic which of course was very dangerous. Both doctors knew that it was easier and quicker for us to cut off the ring with tin snips or a small saw than it was to send them to hospital for the necessary treatment. It was when I’d been talking to Jenny the night before about Christine’s swollen feet that caused me to remember those incidents,’ I said.

‘This sounds interesting and knowing you there’s more to come – keep going,’ said Rick.

‘Remember when we were in uniform we all dealt with sudden deaths on a fairly regular basis – agreed?’ He nodded his head and I continued, ‘If the doctor of the person who had deceased didn’t issue a death certificate giving the cause of death, what did we do?’ I asked Rick.

‘Take the body to the mortuary for a post mortem to take place,’ he replied.

‘Correct – what did we do with the dead person’s possessions?’

‘In the daytime we’d leave them in the mortuary for the family to collect and if it was out of hours we’d deposit them at the Charge Office to be collected later,’ said Rick.

‘Right!’ and I looked at Rick and slowly and purposefully asked, ‘What did we always leave on the body?’

‘Bloody hell – their wedding rings of course,’ he replied. For a few moments we were both silent and deep in thought.

‘Martyn – you might be on to something here,’ Rick said, ‘keep going.’

‘Come on Rick grab a coat and I’ll show you something.’ We drove down Staniforth Road and then turned right onto Attercliffe Road towards Rotherham. A couple of minutes later we pulled up where the first finger had been found and we got out of my car.

‘Right Rick – finger number one was found there as you know,’ I said. Then we walked across the zebra crossing and up a side street to where finger number two had been found. Another hundred yards further on I pointed out the find spot where finger number three had been found.

‘Right,’ said Rick. ‘I’ve known you long enough to know that you think you may have an answer to the finger mystery – so what’s this leading up to?’ he asked.

‘After the post mortem what happens to the body?’ I asked.

‘As you know it’s released to the family’s undertaker of choice in order for them to prepare it for burial or cremation,’ said Rick as he looked at me rather quizzically, ‘and?’

Pointing across the road, I said, ‘Look over there, near the church and next door to the greengrocers – what can you see?’ After a few seconds Rick suddenly said, ‘Bleeding hell, a funeral directors – and its bang in the middle of where the fingers have been found.’

I didn’t say a word – instead, I left Rick to think about any possibilities in his own time and as I waited I passed him a fag and we both lit up.

The thoughts of a rogue undertaker – or one of his workers – chopping off a finger in order to steal a wedding ring sounded crazy. There was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that it was happening, but something was happening, so for my money it had to remain a possibility – remote or otherwise.

Rick, at this point, was pacing up and down and I knew that he was mulling it over in his own mind. A couple of minutes later he came up to me and said, ‘I think you’ve got something here.’

What a relief that he had agreed with my observations and he also thought that it was a distinct possibility.

‘Just one thing puzzles me Martyn. If someone is nicking wedding rings off a dead body why would they need to cut off a finger?’

Rick and I had both dealt with many dead bodies in the past and I pointed out to him that I had never yet seen a body that had suffered from rigor mortis with its fingers outstretched. The fingers invariably curve inwards which would make it impossible to take off the ring.

If it was a worker at the undertakers it would only take a minute to chop off the finger and remove the ring. By then taking the finger away from the premises and discarding it, all evidence of the crime would be gone. It would have to be done after relatives had viewed the body in the coffin itself whilst in the Chapel of Rest – after which time the lid would go on the coffin and no one, other than the culprit, would be any the wiser.

Impossible, stupid, fanciful, circumstantial, hypothetical – Rick and I both used all those words to describe the possibility, but at the same time we lived and worked in the real world, where anything can happen when money is concerned and until proven otherwise the theory had to remain a possibility. Furthermore, it didn’t just apply to bodies taken from the mortuary after the post mortem, but also to people who had died either at home or hospital where, after a doctor had issued a death certificate, the body would then be removed to the undertakers.

It was definitely a horrible and dastardly thing to even think about and so we decided to go and see Detective Chief Superintendent Chambers, the boss of CID, to let him decide what action, if any, was required.

He, like us, recognized the possibility and the fact that it could very well be true. But, as he also said, short of exhuming all of the bodies buried over the last couple of years by the undertaker and without any tangible evidence to go on there were no further lines of enquiry that we could follow up. Accordingly, the case was left open (but laid to rest, so to speak), there was nothing else that we could do.

As far as I am aware no further fingers were recorded as having been found and in the absence of any proof that a crime had been committed their finding remained a mystery.

The undertaker’s business and the premises concerned, disappeared a long time ago but the niggle remained with me for many, many years!

Several years later I showed a young recruit called Graham Glover around the job and we became very big pals (more of him later).

A good few years after that, in roughly the year 2000 and quite a while after I’d left the job I was having a pint in the George and Dragon in Wentworth when in walked Graham wearing a dark suit and a black tie, so it was obvious that he’d been to a funeral.

‘I’ve been up to the Rockingham Arms looking for you and Nick Kenworthy told me that you were in here for a change,’ said Graham.

‘It’s quiz night at the Rockingham Arms mate that’s why I’ve come in here. What’ll you have?’ I asked him.

‘A Gold Label – but listen to this,’ said Graham.

‘It’d better be good for me to miss the quiz, what’s up?’

‘I’ve been to a funeral this afternoon, in Sheffield – one of my old school pals,’ he said. He sounded excited which was unusual for Graham, especially after losing a school pal. This could be interesting I thought. He continued, ‘My pal’s grandad (Roger) is an old villain who used to handle stolen metal – right? Anyway, for some reason the family wanted us all to walk past the open coffin and pay our last respects.’

‘Blimey that’s unusual,’ I said.

‘Well, listen to this then!’ said Graham excitedly, ‘I was behind Roger (grandad) when I heard him say to his mate, another villain, count how many fingers he’s got.’

‘You’re kidding,’ I said.

‘I’m not,’ replied Graham, ‘and so later on I asked him why he’d asked about the number of fingers.’

‘What did he say?’ I politely asked, thinking that the lad had been in a road accident or something and lost his fingers.

Graham took a couple of paces back, leaned on the bar, looked me in the eye and slowly said, ‘GET THIS – Roger didn’t know that I was a copper and he nodded towards his old mate Harold who was talking to someone else and said in a whisper, “He used to buy wedding rings off a bloke who worked for an undertaker until he was killed in a car accident some time back.” ’

As Graham said that, he looked at me as I sprayed a mouth full of beer all across the bar – I couldn’t believe what he’d said and I had to sit down.

‘Now you know why I’ve come looking for you,’ Graham said very proudly, ‘I remembered you telling me about the finger mystery when you showed me round the job years ago.’

‘I don’t believe this – go on,’ I said, as I hung on every word he was saying.

‘Because of what you’d already told me I asked Jim’s grandad what had the number of fingers got to do with buying wedding rings. Then again after a quick look round to make sure no one could hear he said in a whisper, ‘The bastard who used to sell the rings to my mate chopped off the wedding ring finger – nicked the ring and then got shut of the finger as quick as he could before anybody caught him with it.’

I was gobsmacked and just couldn’t speak. Graham could sense it, and very slowly and proudly he said, ‘I’ll give you ONE GUESS where the bloke worked?’ He was so excited that I knew that I didn’t need to ask, I already knew.

‘What about that then?’ said Graham. ‘You showed me that place some years ago before it got knocked down and I remember it being at the side of the church just where Roger had told me.’

I slowly shook my head in disbelief and I could have happily bought Graham a case of Gold Labels, I was that chuffed. It came as a big shock to learn the truth after all these years and I just couldn’t take it in that, even though there was no prisoner, in my own mind at last I could lay the case to rest.

By the time that Graham told me this story both John and Ricky had passed away but I am sure that they, like me, would have liked to have known the truth before they went to ‘that great nick in the sky’.

How anyone could stoop so low in order to make a few quid is totally beyond my comprehension. I just hope, for everybody’s sake, that this was an isolated incident – I’m sure it was.

Anyway I’m fed up now about talking about death – occasionally there were some funny stories. Let’s have one of them in the next chapter. OK?