John Browns Body 10

 

Moving almost through the doorway the porter pushed the door fully open with the side of the coffin he was attached to, Alan reached forward with his hand and took the strain.  We shuffled through into the icy cold mortuary, the inside temperature being just the same as that outside, a few degrees below freezing.  Between the three of us we struggled to lift the coffin onto the mortuary slab.  “Alan, “ I said, “You have his head in your hand,you need to put your end here, “ and I indicated with a brief nod the end of the table closest to the door which had closed to behind us.  With a few half steps Alan moved around to the end of the slab which had a stone pillow shape on it.  This is where John Brown’s head would lie when the port mortem examination was carried out.  The porter and I heaved the dead weight of his body up onto the slab and laid it gently down along the length of the ridges running from top to bottom of the slab.  

We all stepped back and took a few quiet deep breaths, the struggle and effort warming all of us considerably and for a time warding off the icy cold.  As we took the cold air into our lungs and then expelled it clouds of vapour lifted and then settled, and finally dissipated.  “Right, “ said the porter.  “If you don’t need me any more I leave you to it then”.  I glanced at him and nodded my thanks.  “We won’t be here long, “ I said.  “We’re going to strip him and then take his stuff to the nick for safe keeping. Do you have any idea when the pathologist is going to be doing the examination?”   He shook his head.  “I’ve no idea, sorry.  I think someone from your station might have the information, but no one has told us here.”  He turned to the door.  “Good luck with him” he said, and opened the door.  As he walked though a cold draft of air entered from outside, lowering the temperature even further.

As the door closed behind him I reached to the top of the canvas coffin lying on the slab and took the zipper tab in my hand, and gripping it firmly pulled it slowly down to the foot.  As the two edges of the coffin parted the clothing and body of John Brown once again became visible.  As the zipper drew below his waist his left arm which was on the side away from me slipped limply from its place of rest on his hip down to his side.  I head Alan give an involuntary gasp at the movement.  I grinned up at him, “It’s okay, he became lodged like that in the Rover.  He’s just moving back into a flat position through gravity” I said.  “Yes, “ he muttered, “It’s just the surprise of the movement which caught me”.   Together we pulled the zipper the whole way down to his feet until all of his body was exposed inside the canvas shell.  We both stood looking at him for a moment or two, then I said, “Take the coffin from underneath him when I lift his head up.”  Alan moved to the body’s head as did I.  I gently took his head in my hands and lifted it and his shoulders from the hard surface.  As his head came free Alan took hold of the canvas and pulled it gently away from him,  We repeated this until the canvas shell lay on the floor by the side of the white cold slab and John lay there alone, waiting for us to remove his clothing.

“I’m going to need some help here Alan, “ I said.  “When I start to take off his clothes you are going to have to hold him or the piece of clothing I am taking off and then when we’ve taken it off I want you to make a note of the garment on a sheet of paper.  Got it?”   He nodded silently and stood opposite me on the far side of the slab ready to follow my instructions.  His face had lost the flush of exertion from earlier and was now pale apart from a slight reddening high on his cheek bones.  I pointed to a foolscap pad of paper on the stainless steel trolley behind him.  “Use that pad behind you” I said.  He half turned and reached for the pad, placing it on the edge of the trolley close to him.  “Ready?” I asked.  “Yes.” He replied.

In the white harsh lights of the mortuary it was easier now to see what clothing John was wearing.  The first garment we removed was a dark green heavy duty waxed cotton which reached half way down his thigh.  It had a full length zip and buttons fastening it.  Both buttons and zip were unfastened as I had seen on the moor.  Under that he had a thick hand knitted woollen jumper, again with a zipper, this too was unfastened.  Under that he had a thick woollen shirt, unfastened and then a white tee shirt.  We removed them all, laying them carefully out on the trolley behind Alan one by one.  Moving to the bottom of the table I unfastened the laces on his heavy leather walking boots and with some difficulty removed them from his feet.  The boots had black peat worked into the heavy moulded rubber soles and small pieces fell onto the white table as I took them to the steel trolley.  Next he had on a pair of thick knitted woollen socks which reached almost to his knees, though the left one was winkled half was down his calf.  I removed them as well.  Finally working first one leg then the other we removed his green moleskin trouser, they were fastened with a brown leather belt at his waist.  These went onto the trolley.  The last garment was a pair of white cotton Jockey shorts, which we slid down from under his bottom and off at his feet.  He lay naked on the trolley.

I stood for a moment looking him up and down when Alan suddenly said, “What’s all that red?” I looked to where he was pointing, the underside of Johns back and buttocks.  There was a liver red line of settled blood lying all along the length of this body from shoulders to the calves of his legs.  “Never seen that before?  “I asked.  “No” he replied, “What is it, blood?”  “That’s right.  When the heart stops beating the blood settles at the lowest point which gravity can find.  In John’s case it is the back of his body, as he was lying on his back.”  He grunted in acknowledgement of the information.  The lad was learning a lot tonight.

“Take his watch off will you Alan and I’ll go through his pockets to see what else he has.”  Alan lifted John’s left hand and started to unfasten the leather watch strap holding the gold faced watch to his wrist.  He placed it with the rest of his clothes as I walked around the table to carry out a search of his clothing.

In the trouser pockets I found some small loose change and a neatly ironed and folder unused white cotton handkerchief, and nothing else.  In the inside pocket of his green waxed jacket was a cheap ball point pen, and in the outer left lower pocket a pair of sheepskin mittens.  The tee shirt was creased but unsoiled, as where the white underpants.  No signs of sweat, urine, faeces, blood or anything.  I turned to examine his body.  It was well nourished without any indication of excessive fat around his waist where I might have expected to find it if he had been an inactive man.  I knew from his history that he was fairly fit for his age with the cycling and walked he engaged in.  His toe nails were short and his feet were clean.  His face was clean shaven with only the very slightest sign of beard growth around his jaw.  He was about five feet ten inches tall and good build.  There appeared on first examination to be no signs of any injury, or operation scars which I could see, but no doubt a closer examination by the pathologist would reveal exactly what, if any, medical operations he had undergone during his life.  He lay peacefully and apparently at rest on the cold slab.  He face was relaxed, his eyes gently closed and his lips pursed lightly together.  There was no indication I could see of any bodily injury to him.  He appeared to have fallen asleep, and then died.

John Browns Body 11

 

There was nothing more to be done now, other than ensure the safe keeping of his effects and to secure the mortuary with his body inside.  I went over to the far wall and took down a long green sheet hanging from a coat hook.  Nudging the steel trolley out of the way with my hip I flicked the sheet out over his body until it rested covering him completely.   I turned to Alan. “Have you made a list?” I asked.  “Yes” he said indicating the top sheet on the pad which now contained his handwriting.  “Okay then, lets get his stuff bundled up and take it to the nick for safe keeping.”  Alan started to fold the items of clothing and place them into a large brown paper sack which lay under the green sheet which had been crumpled on the trolley behind him.  “Pass me his watch please Alan” I said, “Better not put that in the sack, it might get lost.”  Alan rummaged in what was left of the clothes on the trolley and picked up the gold wristwatch.  He leaned over the slab and handed it to me.  I looked at it to check the time against my own watch, they both showed it was ten thirty.  “Christ “ I exclaimed, “Have you seen the bloody time? It’s time we got a move on”.  He completed his packaging of the clothes and started to walk to the door where I waited with one hand on the light switch, the key to the door in my other hand.  He walked past me and I
flicked the switch up, the lights went out and the room suddenly became completely black.  Nothing could be seen.

We hurried to the Land Rover and I quickly fired up the engine, Alan held onto his cargo of clothes in the paper sack on his knee as I drove the vehicle back the way we had come, back to the station.  I parked the Land Rover in the enclosed yard at the rear of the station, the high brick walls preventing anyone from entering other than through the iron railing gates.  The back door of the station was open and sounds of men coming on duty and preparing to go off duty were evident as we walked through into the front office.  Sergeant Harrison was standing by the counter.  A sly grin creased his face as we walked through.  “Got him sorted then?” he asked.  There were three other constables in the office in addition to George, the duty offcier. “No problem” I said, and offered him no further explanation.  “If you want to know you prat, then you can bloody well ask”  I thought as I walked along the short corridor leading to the property room.

After his singular lack of assistance during the day I was not in any mood to help him out in any way.  If he wanted to know anything he could either ask or wait for my report.  The property room door was unlocked, which was unusual.  George called to me along the corridor, “I’ve unlocked it for you David.”  I called  back, “Thanks George.  At least someone is working around here.”  Alan and I loaded the sack onto tone of the packed shelves, pushing aside stolen televisions and tools to make room for it.  Alan took down the large red backed ledger in which were recorded all the property handed in to the station.  It was one of the most valuable and contentious items of stationary in the nick.  Things sometimes went missing from this room and were never seen again.  If that happened to John Brown’s property then at least there would be a record of it.  I turned out the light and pulled the door close when we had finished and walked back to the front office.  “Are you getting off now then Alan?” I asked of my young colleague.  “Yes, I should have been off two hours ago” he replied.  “Well make sure you book the overtime then.” I said.  He grinned.  “Oh I will, “ he said.  “You did a good job today Alan, pleasure to have you alongside me.”  He grinned and looked down at his feet.  “No problem “ he said and turned to the locker room to replace his tunic with a civilian jacket in which to travel home.

Sergeant Harrison was waiting for me in the front office.  “You got everything sorted then?” he asked.  “Yes sarg”  I said.  “I’m off home myself now.  Don’t suppose the hospital have called through with a time for the post mortem have they?”

Before he could answer George called out from his goldfish bowl, “It’s down for two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.  Doctor Bainbridge is doing it.”  I turned to him and thanked him through the glass.  “I’ll be off then sarg, “ I said and turned back to the locker room for my overcoat.   I was still freezing cold despite the heater in the Land Rover as I walked to the drivers door of my own car parked in the yard at the back of the station.  

As I started the engine I wondered what the outcome of the post mortem examination teh following day would reveal.  Time would tell.

John Brown’s Body Part 9

Much later that night I lay awake in bed in the pitch black darkness alongside my wife, unable to sleep.  My mind was still active with the visions of things which had taken place that day and sleep was not about to take over my brain at any time quickly.  I lay there for what appeared to be hours, thinking of the things which had made up John Brown’s life, the things I knew and the things at which I was doing little more than guessing.  I wanted to try and make some sense out of the  life and the nature of his sudden re-appearance and death.

He was a single man living alone.  He had some family and a friendship with a single woman. No doubt that he had friends at his place of work which was only a mile or so from his home.  From the previous enquiries made in the village I learned that he occasionally went to the Rose and Crown public house, mainly alone, and mainly on a Saturday night.  He would have a few solitary pints of bitter and sometimes a whisky to send him home happy, but never drunk. Whilst he was known to the regulars of the pub he never appeared to go there with someone else, though he would always engage in conversation with people in the pub.  He might have lived alone, but it struck me that he was a man who sought company.

How did he cope with the loneliness of the winters long night hours once the curtains were closed and the doors locked against the cold and night noises?  I imagined him returning home from work in the late afternoon or early evening to a house empty and dark, of him opening the door and stepping into his cold kitchen and groping on the wall by the door for the light switch.  There was little in the house to indicate any interest or hobby to keep him occupied during those hours.  A small television on a brown wooden table sat in the alcove by the left hand side of the fire on the wall opposite the door.  Only a very few books indicated any level of reading interest  or education.  There appeared to be nothing substantial to indicate his state of mind or anything which would appear to have upset him in any way.  Why did he die?  The question kept on coming back time and again.

I tossed restlessly in my bed, tangling the bedclothes into knots around my legs.  There appeared to be no answers.  Mentally I went through the list of his possessions to see if there was any inclination there to how and why he had died.  He’s lying on his back at the top of the moor with his arms out wide and legs crossed at the ankles.  His clothing is all unfastened from the outside in.  When we strip him of his clothing it is clean.  His shirt has a little staining under the arms through sweat, but it was clean apart from that.  His trousers had some slight traces of peaty mud on them, maybe from his walk across the moor.  The trouser belt was fastened on the hole which it appeared to normally always be, there were no new holes punched to indicate he had lost any weight during his period of disappearance and had had to tighten his belt.  His boots had recently been cleaned on the uppers, the cleats on the soles were full of the same peaty mud as had appeared on his trousers.

His underpants were freshly washed and probably had been put on fresh the day he was found.  Even the most meticulous man cannot stop the odd drop or two of urine from leaking into his underwear, but that is all there was, just the odd drop or two.  Everything pointed to him having been well nourished during the six weeks when he had disappeared from public view, right down to his cleanly shaven face.  How did he do that?  Where had he been living?  Had he been living with someone else, or had he lived by himself somewhere other than his cottage in the village?  Where was his wallet?  Why did he have only a few loose coins in his pocket?  There were no bus tickets in the pockets of his jacket, there were no receipts for food either. The only thing of anything like a personal nature on his body was his gold Ingersol wristwatch with the leather strap.  Even that was intact and clean.

Suddenly I shot up in bed and threw off the bedclothes.  My wife woke with a jumpy and called out in shock.  “What, what is it?” she asked.  “Nothing love, don’t worry”, I said.  “I Just had a thought” I stood up off the edge of the bed fumbling with my feet for the slippers I knew were somewhere close.  I pushed my feet into them and groped my way in darkness around the edge and bottom of the bed, feeling with my hands on the bedroom wall for the door and the dressing gown hung on the hook at the back of the door.  I took it down and pulled it around me, already I was starting to feel the chill of the night hitting me.  “Where are you going?” my wife asked drowsily.  “Just need to check on something “ I replied and opened the door.  As I gently pulled the door close behind me I heard her settling back down to sleep. I felt on the wall for the light switch and made for the head of the staircase leading down into the living room.  

Walking quietly into the room I turned on lights and went to the book shelves on the wall by the side of the leather armchair which was ‘mine’.  On the second shelf and out of the reach of our young daughter was the watch belonging to John Brown.  It was not until I had arrived home from work earlier that evening, and was emptying out the cigarettes and matches out of my pocket, that I discovered I still had his watch, where I had placed it after removing it from his body at the mortuary.  I held it up towards the bright room light by the side of my chair.  It was showing two thirty, almost twelve hours after his body had been discovered, and it was still going.  I held the watch face to my ear and heard the steady tick of it’s movement.  Replacing it back on the shelf I eased myself into the armchair and settled back to think.  I could feel in my mind that there was something in the fact that the watch was still going even twelve hours later, something was niggling away like a bug, but it’s significance was eluding me.  I stood and walked through into the kitchen where I filled the kettle and plugged it into the wall socket.  Flicking on the switch I pulled a mug to me from the back of the work surface and then reached into the cupboard above my head for instant coffee and sugar.  My mind was too busy to apply itself to the problem of the watch, so I ignored it and made a cup of coffee when the kettle boiled. Typical displacement activity.

John Browns Body 12

 

Taking the mug in my hand I wandered aimlessly around the kitchen, looking out of the back door onto the dark lawn of the back garden.  It was winter, it looked dead.  It would not require any work until at least Spring, a long time off.  At the bottom right hand corner loomed the dark shape of the three hundred gallon oil tank for the central heating, something moved on top of it.  I stood motionless watching until whatever it was that had attracted my attention moved again.  It was the cat from next door, mooching around the garden looking for its nocturnal snacks coming into our gardens from the fields at the end of the road.  I glanced up at the kitchen clock on the wall by the door.  Three o’clock.  Why would it not come to me? Then it did, quite suddenly, as daylight breaking thoughts do.  

If I kept his watch with me until it stopped and made a note of the time it stopped, then wound it fully and ran it again until it stopped again, made a note of that time, then I would be able to calculate how many hours the watch would run.  By subtracting the number of hours from the time of his discovery to the first stoppage time, then subtracting that figure from the total number of hours the watch would run, it would at  least give me some idea of the timing for his appearance on the moor.  I had to work backwards from the time of his discovery to the time he last wound the watch.  As suddenly as the first thought had come bursting into my mind another one forced it’s way in.  The light snow on his body!  It had only snowed a little during the previous night, between midnight and one in the morning, and then the temperature dropped quickly and went well below freezing.  There was still a light covering of snow on his body when I first saw him at three o’clock, so by the time the snow fell, he must have been dead and cold, or surely the snow would have melted due to the warmth of his body? Or if he had laid down on the snow and more had fallen on him, then the lower parts of his clothing in contact with the ground would have been soaked, and yet they had been relatively dry.  He must have laid down on the moor before midnight for the snow to have fallen on him. He must have been dead before it started to snow. If I could determine when he last wound up his watch, then I would be able to make some assumptions about his last movements.

I placed the watch carefully back on the second shelf amongst some books, safe from prying eyes and hands and sat back down in the chair.  Realisation that I might have gone some way to at least solving the problem of when he had arrived on the moor dawned on me.  “We’ll get you yet John” I murmured to myself.  “Well get to the bottom of it all soon.”  I stretched out my feet then decided it was time to go back to the warm bed upstairs.  Walking to the foot of the stairs I looked back at the book shelves to make certain the watch was till there, and safe, it was.  Turning off the light in the living room I went up the stairs and into the fuggy warmth of our bedroom.

As I eased myself gently into bed alongside her, my wife moved very slightly to the centre of the bed.  I moved over towards her and wrapped my arm around her then snuggled up close to her back, nuzzling her neck and feelig her soft warm bottom in my lap.  I was very cold, she was warm.  She grunted in shock and pulled away.  “Bugger” she muttered.  I grinned and turned over pulling the blankets over my head to form a dark warm cocoon.  

Downstairs the watch ticked on, and on, and on.  For a little over two days it ran, until it finally stopped at six o’clock in the evening on Tuesday, a total of fifty one hours.  At that point I wound it fully once more and ran it again.  The watch ran on again for seventy two hours more, then stopped again.  I did the calculations.  Subtracting fifty one from seventy two meant that the watch had been running for twenty one hours before I discovered him at three in the afternoon on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas Day.  Taking the time back twenty one hours meant that John Brown last wound his watch at six o’clock in the evening on Christmas Day.  Something happened to him either before that time or after it, but whatever did occur was enough to make him reach some sort of decision to go up onto the moors where he died.

Had he made the decision himself, or was there someone else involved in his final days on earth?  The post mortem examination would reveal exactly how he died, I hoped.

At eight fifteen the following morning my wife bent over my probably comatose body and kissed me goodbye for the day before she left the house to take our daughter to school, and then catch the bus to her job as receptionist and assistant to almost everyone at the local health centre.  I never knew that she had kissed me until she told me later that night.  I had returned to bed some three and a half hours earlier after setting John’s watch on the book shelf, and nothing would have awakened me from my death like state after so few hours of sleep.  At some point I heard an alarm sound and must eventually have reached across the bed to the table on which the alarm clock rocked solidly for several minutes.  I do remember feeling for it in my sleep and finding the ‘off’ button to silence the racket.  I also remember making the fatal mistake of telling myself that I could have just another five minutes sleep.  God knows how long I slept after that, but it was gone mid day when I woke.  Not to put too fine a point on it, the time was almost one o’clock when something managed to severe the bonds of sleep and I woke, with that awful pit of the stomach churning which you know is a clear indication that you are late, and should have been up and out of bed hours ago.

I rolled out of bed and danced naked across the end of the bed and out the bedroom door.  The bathroom and bedrooms became a blur as I showered, shaved and pulled on my uniform.  Rushing down the stairs to the front door I was only just aware of our Labrador dog waiting patiently at the foot of the stairs.  I bent to pat her and she wagged her faithful tail in response.  No time for her as I opened the front door and stepped through it and out into the real world.  My car was where I had left it on the drive by the side of the house, and it was frozen white with frost, even at that time of the afternoon.  “Shit, shit, shit!” I shouted and turned back to the front door of my home.  By the time I had the key in the door and opened it the dog was waiting expectantly behind the door.  As I took the first blind step into the hallway I saw the dog too late and became caught up in her, skidding across the floor as my arms carried out a passable imitation of a helicopter starting its rotors.  She scooted away out of reach of any stray arms or legs which might accidentally come into contact with her.  “Sheba” I screeched, “Get out the bloody way”.  The dog slunk rapidly away from the firing line .  I dashed through to the kitchen and turned on the hot water tap, letting it run whilst I searched in cupboards under the sink and around the kitchen for a large jug to hold some hot water.  

I carried the jug full of, by then, near boiling water through the house and outside where clouds of steam rose from it as soon as it hit the freezing cold air.  As gently as I was able I poured the water over the frozen lock on the drivers door and then used the remainder to try to move some of the ice on the front  windscreen.  It was almost successful, some of it did move.  I stood in the open door way of the house and threw the plastic jug onto the sofa.  As I started to pull the door to behind me the telephone rang.  For a second I deliberated whether to ignore it or answer it.  How many times do we do this?  Do we really want to hear what is obviously going to be a time consuming bad news message? I opened the door and went through into the living room, picking up the phone from the low table near the sofa.  “Hello” I said.  “Dave?” asked a familiar voice on the other end of the phone.  I recognised the voice of my shift sergeant, Alan Jeffreys..  “Yes Sarg.  I’m just on my way into the nick and then going off to the PM at Birch Hill.”  He interrupted me.  “Forget that, we just had a call from the hospital.  Dr Bainbridge has kicked off early, he’s got another one this afternoon at Rochdale, so wanted to get yours out the way.  He’s on with it now, so get yourself straight up there.  I’ll book you on duty from now.”  I groaned inwardly at the thought of trying to catch up with the good doctor at the post mortem examination.  “Okay Alan” I replied, “I should be there in ten minutes, no later.”  I put the phone back on the cradle and grinned at the dog cowering behind the chair.  “Come on lass, “I said.  “Not your fault.  It’s me.”  the dog wagged her tail nervously and came out from hiding.  I bent to scratch behind her ear and the tail started wagging again.  How trusting are animals?

Joihn Brown Body 13

 

A large black Crow once worked out that from my home to the hospital at Birch Hill was exactly one mile, but going by road as I had to do was almost two miles.  The traffic was tip toeing along in the frosty road conditions and the journey took me a good fifteen minutes.  I drove around the hospital repeating my trip of the previous night and felt how different it looked and felt during daylight hours.  Even though the light was only just there.  The sky was a uniform dead whale grey colour from horizon to horizon.  Ahead of me the mortuary appeared on the left and I gingerly drove along the untreated service road running around the hospital until I came to a space by the side of the road for the parking of a couple of vehicles.  There was one car parked in the space, a British Racing Green Rover 2000 TC belonging to Doctor John Bainbridge.  He was the Home Office Pathologist who covered the whole of the division in which I worked and was well liked and regarded by all the officers who came into contact with him.  In his mid fifties he was going to fat, no easy way of putting it, but was admired for his skill, speed and uncanny knack of never apparently missing anything relating to the clients who came under his scrutiny.  In addition, he treated each body as being the relative of a close friend.  He was a man of great dignity, kindness and humanity.  The only fear which crossed my mind, as I closed the door of my car, was that he would already have started his operation.

My shoes crunched in the frost covered gravel car parking area as I walked across it to the arched door of the mortuary. I gripped the handle, opened the door inward and walked through into the room.  It was brightly illuminated now, contrasting to the coal mine darkness of the previous night, but what hit me as soon as I was fully in the room was the smell.  The cloying throat gripping smell of formaldehyde bit hard in my nose and throat and I gasped at the shock.  I had forgotten just how bad that smell was, worse than the smell of any dead body was the means by which body parts were preserved.   At the far side of the mortuary slab stood a mortuary assistant whose job it was to clean up after the operation had been finished by the doctor and keep whatever records he required.  He was a small man, almost bald and wearing the same sort of green rubber apron which the pathologist was also wearing.  He glanced briefly at me as I entered but said nothing.

Doctor Bainbridge looked up from his position by the side of John Brown’s body on the white mortuary slab and acknowledged me with a nod and a brief “Hello”.  The body of John Brown was lying where we had left it late yesterday evening, but now he had been worked on by the doctor he was almost unrecognisable as a human being.  A long vertical incision had been cut from the point where his neck and head joined right down to a point just above his pubis bone.  Ribs had been cut aside and organs lay displayed inside the body cavity and outside on the rim of the white porcelain slab.  Blood dribbled slowly away down the side and bottom drain holes on the table.  His flesh was a ghostly white and lifeless.  He no longer resembled a man.  I took in what the doctor was doing and inhaled a deep breath through my mouth, the smell was horrendous and continued to constrict the back of my throat.  An insistent banging headache was starting to dominate my head so I moved further around the top edge of the table to where an electric fan heater was working hard to dispel some of the freezing cold air in the room, rather ineffectively I thought.  Briefly the doctor raised his head from his work to see what I was doing and where I was going.  “ A bit warmer round there officer” he said pointing with his chin to where I was shuffling.  “Won’t be long now, nearly finished”.  He held an organ in his hands, a lung I think, and carefully replaced it within the cavity from where it had originally lay.  He stood up straight from the table and arched his back to stretch it.  “These tables should be replaced” he said in a matter of fact vioce, “In fact it’s time this whole place was condemned, not suitable for modern examinations”.  I grunted in agreement.  Any talking would entail opening my mouth and breathing in the foul smells of the chemicals used in this place, and I really did not want to risk that.  Because I had overslept I had also missed most of the actual operation which had taken place, something I was not particularly displeased about.  I had seen enough dead bodies during my eight years on traffic patrol, and whilst they held no fears for me, they were not my favourite topic of interest or conversation, particularly as the ones I had had to view were normally entangled within or under the twisted and broken remains of cars or motorcycles.

Finally Dr Bainbridge had finished his job of cutting and slicing and taking out various part of bits of body for his examination and bent over the body to begin the final part of the operation, stitching up the two flaps of the body cavity so that the body could be released to the family for burial.  The assistant moved closer to the table to help and almost without speaking the two men held the flaps together and stitched, long black worms of thread from one side of the body to the other, until the job was done.  John had now given up whatever information he could and was being made presentable for his family.  His job was done, and so was the doctors.  He stood up straight again and stepped back a pace from the slab, “Can you do the final cleaning up for me please Brian?” he asked of the assistant.  “Of course doctor,” Brian the assistant replied, and turned to a small tap on the side of the slab, giving it a quarter turn twist.  Water flowed gently around the sides of the body washing away a few minor flesh remains and the final washes of blood which lay around the sides of the body.  Within a short time the white table was pristine once more and held nothing other than a limp, white and lifeless corpse, with a very cold shivering police officer stood by its side.

The doctor stood close by the edge of the table unfastening the ties which wrapped his green rubber apron around his body.  He lifted it over his head and handed it across the end of the slab to his assistant who took it from him and placed it in a wicker basket leaning against the far wall.  He looked up at me and smiled.  “So,” he said, “You want to know how he died?” I nodded my head, “Yes please doctor.” I replied.  He half turned back to the mortuary slab and took a small petrie dish which had been resting against the back edge of the area where he had been working.  Holding it in his left hand he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a pair of stainless steel sharp nosed tweezers and started to gently move one of the white tablets which lay on the dish.  The tablet was lying with four others in a pale brown liquid, two of them were little more than fuzzy blobs of white matter but the other three all had the unmistakable shape and form of round prescription tablets.  He picked up the one he was moving and turned it over so that I could see a letter M imprinted in the surface of the tablet.  “Know what that is?” he asked.  “No doctor, no idea.” I replied.  “Well, I will need to do some tests on them, but my guess is that they are Mogadon, probably 5 mg”.  I looked at him quizzically and he offered me the explanation that they were a brand of sleeping pills regularly prescribed for insomnia.  I nodded my head in understanding and asked him the first question which came into my head.  “How many would it take to knock you out, you know, put you to sleep?”  I asked.

He slowly replaced the petrie dish on the side of the mortuary slab and looked thoughtfully at the body of John whilst reaching into a side pocket of his jacket.  He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and flipped open the top, offering me the packet, I took one and pulled a box of matches from my own tunic pocket.  There was a short silence as he continued to consider my question and his answer whilst I lit both the cigarettes.  He blew out a column of smoke away from us and finally with a slight grin said, “I know what you are getting at, how many to kill him?  That’s right isn’t it?”  “Well I need to get some idea of the mechanics of how he died so i can give the coroner some information” I replied.  He flicked some ash from the end of his cigarette into the stream of cold water still flowing down the edge of the mortuary slab, the ash was carried away down the drain.

He looked me in the eye with the slight grin still around his lips.  “One or two to put him to sleep if he was in bed and wanting to go to sleep.  Seven or eight to kill him.”  He paused and after a moment continued.  “Doesn’t really help you with him having five or six in his stomach does it.  Doesn’t give you the right answer does it?  In fact, it doesn’t give you any answer.”   I shook my head and added the end of my cigarette ash to his in the water on the slab.  “No.  No answer at all really.”  I said.  As we stood in silence I looked across at the small shallow glass petrie dish near to John’s head.  The tablet remains were lying in a small pool of light brown liquid which looked a lot like weak tea.  “Any idea what the liquid in the dish is doctor?”  I asked. “Johnny Walker or Haigh I would say judging from the smell of it” he said.  I moved over to the glass dish and bent my head close to it.  The pungent fumes of whisky hit my nose.  I straightened up.  “Was that all that was in his stomach then, just the pills and the whisky?” I asked.  “Yes” he replied.  “That’s all, there was nothing else at all.  Quite strange really.”  He looked a little undecided about something.  “How do you mean doctor? “I asked him.  He cleared his throat and stubbed out his cigarette in the water on the slab.  “As I understand it officer, he was found on the moors, with a covering of snow on him yesterday afternoon, and that he had been reported missing from home about six weeks ago?”    I nodded my head, “That’s right.  Not been seen by friends or family or his workmates for the past six weeks.”

He reached for another cigarette from the pack and lit it from a gold lighter he pulled from the same pocket.  Glancing sideways at me he grinned ruefully, “These could kill you” he said quietly, indicating the lit cigarette.  I smiled and he continued.  “It doesn’t really add up does it officer?  He goes missing for six weeks then turns up on the moors, well nourished, not injured in any way, not dirty, in fact very clean, clean shaven, and wearing clean clothes from what Brian told me.  His stomach has no food in it at all, nothing.  The fact that there was no food residue in his stomach indicates that he last ate many hours before he died, as everything which would have been in his stomach had digested and passed through his gut and digestive system.” He glanced at me.  “You still with me?”  he asked.  “Yes” I said, “Still with you.”

“His body was still very cold when I examined him, though it had started to thaw a little.  Where it had started to thaw there was some rigor mortis present, it was disappearing, and quite quickly in some parts of his body.”  He inhaled once more from the cigarette.  He smoked more than I did.  “I would say that he died about twelve to fifteen hours before you found him, and that he last ate anything substantial a day or so earlier.”  We both stood silently for a few moments whilst I tried to understand exactly what he had said.  The doctor stood silently watching me.  After a while I looked up at him.  “I don’t understand.”  I said.  He didn’t make any comment, just waited for me to ask the question.

“He was found with snow on him, that puts him on the ground on the moor before midnight on Christmas night, as it only snowed between midnight and one o’clock.  By that time he had some five or six Mogadon pills inside him together with a small quantity of whisky.”  I looked to him for confirmation.  He nodded a couple of times.  “The pills themselves would not have killed him, but presumably with the whisky they would really have knocked him out.  Am I right.”  He nodded again in agreement.  “Yes, that’s right.”  

“There are still too many gaps, “ I said.  “The walk from the village to the moor would take him a good hour at that time of night and with frost on the ground.  So I am guessing he had already drunk the whisky and was carrying the pills with him, though there was no trace of a pill bottle on him, and come to think of it no bottle for the whisky, which makes me feel he drank the whisky in a pub somewhere close to the moor, or in someones house.”  I stopped for a moment to consider what I had said, then carried on.  “He gets to the moor full of whisky and pills, lays himself down, opens his clothing, crosses his leg, stretches out his arms, and goes to a Mogadon induced sleep. “  The doctor looked at me.  “It sounds alright so far” he said.

I stood shaking my head for a moment, the cold in the mortuary suddenly creeping through my tunic again.  I shivered and moved sideways, closer to the fan heater blowing away in the corner.  “It doesn’t make sense to me,” I said, “ Or maybe it’s simply that I don’t know enough about human physiology.”  He looked at me, “What do you mean?” he asked.  “If he had enough of the pills to knock him out to sleep with the help of some whisky, how does he manage to walk for an hour up to the top of the moors, and then calmly lay himself down to die?  Surely he would have walked off the effects of the drink and drugs?”  I looked him in the eye for some answers.  For a moment he was silent and was obviously considering his reply in some detail, but what came out surprised me.  “Well, you’re the Police officer investigating this.  I am sure you will come up with the right answers.”  I looked at him amazed.  He smiled and looked around to where Brian was finished with the body and had tidied  up the room.  All was in order.  “Right, “ he said, “I’ll send my full report into your station then officer.  Thanks for your time, and good luck.” then with a final “Goodbye” to Brian he turned and walked out of the mortuary.

I stood watching his back disappear through the arched doorway and turned to Brian. “What the fuck was that all about?” I demanded.  He turned away sheepishly.  “ No idea, “he said.  “It’s time for me to lock up here if you don’t mind officer.”  He jangled the old iron key in his hand to reinforce his words.  I pulled my short overcoat close around me and walked out of the room.  As I got into my car I heard the door of the mortuary being closed behind me.  I sat for a few moments in the car before starting the engine, then drove slowly back to the nick, parking my car in the yard at the back of the station.  I was no wiser now after the post mortem examination than I had been before I went into that damn place.

Well, I submitted my report, together with the results of the watch running down exercise, and prepared my file for the Coroners Officer to put before the court and sat back and waited for the Inquest date to arrive.  I was a little more than curious about what verdict the Coroner would return at the end of his Inquest.  

Two weeks after his body was discovered I walked into the Coroners Court, part of an old public building in Rochdale, and was surprised to see as many people in the room as were there.  I thought John Brown had no family to speak of, but there were a dozen or more in the room, all subdued and saying little, other than in whispered conversations between heads close together.  The only person I recognised was another Police Constable from the same station as myself.  As I entered the room he stood and came to me.  “Alright Dave” he said.  “Yes Bill, thanks.  What are you doing here?”  He shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot.  His eyes never left the floor.  “He was my uncle.  John Brown.” he said quietly. His eyes lifted and he looked directly at me.  “He is a Catholic you know” he said, and turned away to regain the seat he had near to the wall.

I went quietly to a seat near the back of the room and sat down.  Suddenly things were starting to make some sort of sense.  John Brown had committed suicide by taking pills and whisky, and then exposing his body to the freezing cold of Ogden moor in the middle of winter.  The combination of all three had been lethal.  However, for him to have drunk the whisky and taken the pills mean that someone in the village, or close by, had driven him part way to the hills, otherwise the effects of the pills and whisky would have knocked him out before he had walked even half way there.  Who was that someone?  

To assist someone to commit suicide is still an offence in England.  

The Coroner went through his ritual hearing and gave his summing up to the jury.  The jury returned an Open Verdict on the death of John Brown.  This meant the family were able to bury him with the full Rites of the Catholic Church and did not bring shame on his family.

Someone had got away with murder.

Belarus - A Victory Plan

 

The following document has been written by the opposition in Belarus at the moment.  It is long, it is complex, but I would suggest you read it.

There is not much we as non Belarusian can do, other than spread the word about the arrests, detentions and murder currently going on in the country.

So far, 25,000 have been arrested and imprisoned.  Four have been killed.  Many hundred have been beated up and severely injured.

 

Forgive the length of the article.  It is produced here just as it was published on the Telegram portal.  I would suggest that you download a copy as there are a couple of sites which post in English, with many up to the minute videos.

 

Belarus Protest Update (English), [15.11.20 20:20]

[Forwarded from Belarus Protest Update (English)]

‼️ VICTORY PLAN TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH - @NEXTA_LIVE

 

Defeating fascism is a difficult task, but our ancestors did it. Now it's our turn. We are fighting for our lives, for the future of our children and for all those who have already suffered from terror. Open and from the underground, together and separately, with bright deeds and daily imperceptible efforts. Before you is a general strategic plan of how Belarusians will regain power, justice, law and fair elections. This will require the methodical regular work of the whole society. And the more people begin to do at least some part of this work, the sooner the result will be, the less people will spend in prisons or suffer from Lukashenka's bandits.

Spread the Victory Plan among your acquaintances and study it yourself. Select those elements of the plan in which you will be most helpful. Determine for yourself the amount of time and, if necessary, the funds that you are willing to spend on the struggle for the liberation of the country. It can be 4 hours a week, and 40 - any number, the main thing is to do it persistently and regularly, until you win.

Not every generation gets to make history. The Victory Day over Lukashism will be another of our national holidays.

PURPOSE OF THE PLAN

Lukashenka's departure, the appointment of new free elections.

Release and full rehabilitation of all political prisoners and people who have been prosecuted for political reasons.

Honest, open trial over all those guilty of murders, tortures and beatings of Belarusians.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Having lost the election to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the psychopath is trying to hold out for at least a little more exclusively by violence, turning the country into a concentration camp and destroying all living things - the IT sphere, private business, other sectors of the economy, medicine, education, culture, etc. The Lukashists were the first to destroy the law and erased all moral boundaries - putting the people in a powerless position in relation to thugs who are ready to plant, beat and kill by moving their mustaches.

Everyone is subject to terror - from national elites (luminaries of science and medicine, the best entrepreneurs, leading athletes and cultural figures) to the simplest people whose names you may not even know. But these names will be inscribed in the history of the country as the names of heroes. If someone thought to sit out in "their own house on the edge", then these months of terror should get rid of illusions. Until the complete victory of the people, the robbery of the Lukashists will only grow, they are already coming to our homes and yards.

The whole civilized world and almost all neighbours who do not recognize the self-appointed as legitimate are with the Belarusians. Our indifference and solidarity, the ability to unite and act - this is the birth of a new Belarus, which the majority dreams of. It remains to free the country of our dreams from the invaders.

CREATION OF FRONTS

The invaders are armed, do not limit themselves by any laws and morals. But there are many, many more of us. The energy of millions of free Belarusians must be united and directed to specific points of resistance. We will conventionally call these points "fronts".

ECONOMIC FRONT

The paradox of the war with the people, which the Lukashists unleashed, is that they receive funds for this war only from the people themselves. Any measures to deprive the bandit power of our money are useful. In particular, it is worth making your way of life:

- Using Krama (Android, iOS) or BelScan applications in supermarkets - to avoid buying goods from Lukashenka's clan companies.

- Refusal from goods and services of companies from the Black List.

- Withdrawing deposits from banks and funds from card accounts - immediately after receiving a salary. At any time, this money can be stolen by Lukashenka's mafia, which has sunk to the outright theft of money collected by the victims. Use alternative payment systems, foreign cards or cryptocurrencies.

- Delay in payment of utilities - up to 2 months or more.

- It is worth postponing for a while large purchases in Belarus, since the VAT included in them goes directly into the pocket of the invaders.

- Payment for goods and services "off the checkout" and without a check, and salaries - "in envelopes." Any other means available to you to evade taxes and fees until the law is restored and new elections are scheduled.

- Maximum transition to goods and services from private companies and imports.

- Reduction of consumption or complete rejection of cigarettes and alcohol purchased in Belarus: there are large excise taxes in each pack and bottle, which are subsequently used to go to war with the people. Let's drink after the victory.

- Refusal to work with government agencies and security officials. No service for the invaders.

- Economic pressure on the regime is available to absolutely everyone - and it will be the more successful the more people are included in it. Involve friends and colleagues, distribute flyers.

The clear majority of Belarusians are for fairness and fair elections. But the Lukashists feed their propaganda with huge budget (that is, ours) money and an army of ideologists, and they are waging a war of destruction with independent media and bloggers. Therefore, do not give in to the illusion that “everyone knows everything anyway” and spread independent information and calls for concrete action much wider. Start right with this Victory Plan.

- Expansion of the Telegram sector. Create accounts for your parents, grandparents, colleagues and neighbours. Subscribe them to the main news channels. Follow the basic rules of safe communication on Telegram and the Internet, teach them to your friends and relatives.

- Spread news and independent opinions on any other platforms: VK, OK, Instagram, Viber, YouTube.

- Fill out information in leaflets (you can use the Leaflets97 channel and the Agitka website). distribute them at your entrance and in the area.

- Support for paper independent publications and samizdat. Real information about what is happening in the country should also reach those who are not on the Internet and are vulnerable to propaganda.

- Creation of thematic text, video and photo content. Create channels on any platform on topics that are not yet covered (for example, regional).

- Support for independent channels, journalists and bloggers. Help them with information and videos, and if you can, with money.

- For diasporas - the maximum dissemination of information about Belarus in the world: foreign social networks, media, informing local politicians.

- We support any format of protests - marches, chains of solidarity, flash mobs, processions in areas, any other actions of civil disobedience. We must be visible.

- Strikes of all kinds - from "Italian" to full-scale.

- Themed actions - for example, retirees, students, doctors or athletes, creative and creative actions.

- The spread of our symbols.

- This plan consists of peaceful formats of pressure on the regime, as it is addressed to absolutely every Belarusian. But r to actions of direct action and a "partisan" aimed against criminals and their technology, treat with understanding and support.

POLITICAL FRONT

- Increased pressure on the authorities at all levels to join the three popular demands. Boycott of any imitative, fake political initiatives.

- Withdrawal from all organizations of the invaders: Belarusian Republican Youth Union, pro-government trade unions (you can get help with leaving them on the profbel.online website or via the Telegram bot @ProfbelBot).

- Ignoring any voluntary-compulsory pro-government measures.

- Create your own chats, city and courtyard communities (add them to dze.chat), professional associations. All these associations are a powerful basis for future self-government, the basis of a civil society capable of interacting for common interests. All this will be useful for defending your interests even after the change of government.

 

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

- Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is the first Belarusian president who is accepted at this level: Macron, Merkel, etc. But the changes will be accelerated by the growing involvement of the Belarusian diasporas: in lobbying programs of assistance to the Belarusian civil society, sanctions against the regime and an international tribunal for state criminals, and full coverage of Belarusian events in the world media. Diasporas are real embassies of free Belarus around the world.

Choose by yourself or with your group Movement ministries and directions, actively get involved in the work to build a new Belarus. If you encounter problems, seek organizational help and advice from the funds and structures listed here.

Long live Belarus!

detained and persecuted, record everything that happened to you. Tell journalists and human rights activists about this. Write down all the details and names of the invaders who betrayed their people. Not a single crime of the state. authorities and each individual employee should not be forgotten and left without further investigation.

- Submit information about arrests, the names of operatives and judges and any other significant facts to the human rights center Viasna, to the Black Book of Belarus, as well as to 23-34.net.

- Collect all the facts about any persecution for political reasons at enterprises and educational institutions - and also submit them to the Black Book of Belarus or to the website Participants of the Crime.

- Help the Black Book of Belarus and other similar projects to identify criminals: one of them may be your neighbor or classmate.

- Disseminate information about criminals reliably established by these projects or other leading media outlets - even leaflets in their entrances and districts. Put social pressure on them. Even their own children will despise people who participate in the suppression of the people - and even more so, the servants of the inhuman regime must receive signals of condemnation from the whole society.

- Help those Belarusians who are forced to leave for security reasons.

- Get involved in volunteer projects in which you can participate remotely. In addition to volunteering in the listed funds, these are, for example, peramen.org, probono.by and others.

In a totalitarian regime, the interaction of society is not based on an extensive network of physical offices and a clear hierarchical structure. And on the stated above goals, common values and principles: a developed rule of law, respect for civil rights, freedoms and each individual person. THE MOVEMENT OF NEW BELARUS, ABBREVIATED - MOVEMENT OR ROK, is a symbol for all that wave of awakening in 2020. Each group of like-minded people who work together for change and interact to achieve common goals is already part of the Movement.

Connect with your colleagues, family and friends using Telegram and other social platforms. Create a coordination chat for your personal Movement group. Choose the fronts that are close to you, and then start systematic work in the chosen direction.

If the task of the fronts is resistance, the struggle for freedom, justice and fair elections, then in parallel with this we continue to build our own mechanisms and structures that will serve the people directly, bypassing the invaders. For convention, let's call them "ministries".

- Until the victory over the occupiers, we develop as much as possible an economy alternative to the state. Purchase of goods, services or currency from private traders and friends. Farm products. Announcement sites and related Telegram communities. We help each other earn money without extra deductions in the pocket of the invaders. We will begin to pay all taxes when we have an elected government and popular control over the spending of these taxes.

- Creation of whitelisting businesses (example) - cafes, restaurants, individual entrepreneurs, companies and businesses that do not cooperate with the occupiers and help the resistance movement.

- Helping the work of solidarity foundations that support victims of repression and those dismissed for political reasons (a few links to the ones that have proven themselves - above). Remember that each of them needs volunteers, as well as information promotion.

- Those taxes that you do not give to the invaders should be addressed to those in need. Support your relatives, friends and neighbors, help retirees in your entrances or those who have a financially difficult situation

- Creation of local security forces, self-defense, which will ensure the safety of your area at the time of the transit of power (including with the participation of former security officials). And now they will monitor and suppress the illegal actions of the occupiers.

- Creation and development of trade

Lukashenko - a modern dictator

 

The president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko has held onto power in the country since 1996. Despite the law restricting the number of terms a president might stay in power, Lukashenko has changed the law and stayed in power for 26 years now. Since the recent discredited elections in August 2020 when he won 80% of the votes he has tried to crack down on the population on a daily basis.

His latest strategy to increase the power of the state, and himself, has been the insistence that all workers belong to a state recognised trade union.

His rationale is contained in a rambling discourse for the benefit of the local sycophants.

Part of it says, “This is what I mean: if you want to leave a trade union, do it. It is up to every person to decide. But then you will not get this social package,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko explained the reasons for his position. “Many people just got carried away with politics. If you want to be engaged in politics, then join a political party. If trade unions are not good enough for you, don't use their services.”

And so he goes on.

In effect, join the union or do not expect to take advantage of any benefits negotiated on behalf of the workers in an institution.

Where have we heard that before?

Belarus - a short history

For over 20 years I have had an interest in the country of Belarus. It started back in the late 1990s when I provided a holiday for a month for a young girl affected by the reactor explosion at Chernobyl. That went on for a few years and it was during one of these visits that I met a lady who came with the group of kids as an interpreter. Since then I have kept in touch with her and have in fact visited the country, and the interpreter has visited me as well. We talk fairly often via Skype.

If you are not familiar with the position of Belarus lets just take a look at a bit of history with which you might be familiar.

Napoleons retreat from Moscow. According to Google maps it is 1739 miles from Paris to Moscow and by foot will take 569 hours to walk from there via Minsk. Napoleon tried it in 1812 with 500,000 troops. He made it back with 10,000 men. All a bit weary and frostbitten, and one suspects, a bit fed up.

Fast forward to the period 1941-1945, what the Russians and Belarusians call The Great Patriotic War. We call it World War Two. June 1941 saw the start of Operation Barbarossa by the Germans where they crossed into Russia (Belarus) with massive armaments and started on their route to Moscow. One of the major features of that occupation was the murder of the people of Belarus. One quarter, that is 25% or one in four, of the population were killed during the period from June 1941 until August 1945. One Quarter. Men, women and children murdered. The country lost 619 villages during that time. Burned to the ground and mowed under by tanks. Villages which still no longer exist.

To give you an example. Following is an extract from the website of the memorial built for the village of Khatyn in Belarus.

“The village of Khatyn was burned by German fascist invaders on March 22, 1943 at 14. 00. 26 houses together with the farmsteads were burned. All the inhabitants were driven to a shed which was poured with benzine and set on fire. Those who tried to escape were killed.

1. 149 (one hundred and forty - nine) peaceful Soviet citizens were burned alive: “

 

 This is part of the site of the village now made into a memorial. Each chimney stack contains a bell which rings every few minutes.

The war ends and Russia takes Belarus under its wing, until 1991 when it declared itself an independent nation, The Republic of Belarus.

Some five years before that on April 26^th 1986, a large fire broke out in a nuclear reactor close to the border of its neighbouring country, Ukraine, at a place called Chernobyl. The radiation from the fallout today affects some 23% of the ground of Belarus today. The wind was blowing from Ukraine to Belarus and then on to the rest of Europe and Scandinavia. The Soviet government of the day stated that 31 people had died during the explosion.

Today 485 villages are still uninhabitable. 2.1 million people still live on contaminated land, including 700,000 children. This is from a population as of 2018 of 9.4 million. Tens of thousands were contaminated by radiation. It is not possible to state accurately how many have died of the effects of radiation since then. Belarus became a world centre of excellence in the treatment of childhood thyroid cancer. To read more I would recommend a book written by a Belarusian Nobel Laureate journalist, Svetlana Alexievich. Her book, Voices from Chernobyl, is chilling and accurate.

In 1994 Aleksandr Lukashenko was voted in as president of the country. He has been there ever since, by fair means and foul. In August 2020 he won yet another election by a typically massive 80% of the vote. This has been disputed vigorously by the people of the country following mysterious disappearances of his opposition, activists and ordinary people.

Today the country sees daily marches of students, pensioners, doctors and other members of the public in frequent quiet walks along main highways in the towns and cities of the country. The riot police (OMON), regular police, militia and secret police (KGB) make arrests on the streets. People are spirited away to police stations and courts where they are fined and frequently imprisoned for minor or ‘nothing’ offences. The country has become a police state. A viscous police state.

My friend recently told me of a colleague of hers. The colleague took part in a silent demonstration near to her home in Minsk along with other from her community. The people stood by the side of the road displaying a red and white flag, the old flag of Belarus now adopted by the people as the legitimate symbol of their country. Nothing happened to them though the police came and stopped close by in their armoured vehicles.

Some days later she received an ‘invitation’ to attend her local police station to explain why she had been at the demonstration. They had her photograph and had traced her using it.

If she does not attend the station she will be arrested. If she does attend she will be imprisoned for 15 days. Conditions in the prisons are barbaric. Prisoners are beaten and tortured, kept without food and sanitation. One recent report told of men and women being crowded together and told to strip naked by the guards then some were taken away and beaten.. There are many reports and photos of broken limbs, severe bruising from beatings etc. Three deaths have also been reported.

Sadly, whilst many in the country are taking part in the demonstrations there are many who are content to sit back and allow others to do the work for them. In the main these are old people who have lived through the torments of Soviet and Stalinist times. They are scared to talk out of place.

The country is a tinderbox, just waiting for a match.