Confessions of a Police Constable (28 page)

If that sounds busy, it wasn't the half of it: a report had been called in of a man shouting threats to kill at a group of teenagers. The man had been spotted with what appeared to be a shotgun, and the helicopter and several Trojan units were called in. The main dispatch channel was taken over by a shooting incident, and the working channel was changed to another channel. The earlier brawl slowly got even more out of hand, and fighting had now been reported at four different pubs. CS gas was deployed in two of the locations, and the Territorial Support Group was called in to try and deal with the fighting, which was now technically three riots and an affray.

And all the while, I was standing outside the Mum To Be, with a wet and cold crotch, and a desperate need to go for a wee, powerlessly listening as my teammates were being pushed to hell and back.

Then, finally, my radio said something actually directed at me.

‘Five-nine-two receiving Mike Delta?' the radio said.

‘Yes! Receiving!' I said, elated that I might finally be relieved.

‘You still on your last?'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘How long do you think you're going to be?'

‘Er … You tell me? I'm waiting for someone to come board up this shop.'

‘Oh. Right,' the CAD operator said. ‘The next shift are going to need your car. We'll send someone to come pick it up, and see about getting you relieved.'

‘Received,' I said drily.

A few minutes later, a car showed up with two officers. One of them left right away in the car they had come in, heading off to help out with the brawl, but I managed to convince the other to stand watch for a few minutes whilst I walked to the McDonald's around the corner to use the bathroom and buy some water.

‘You didn't make it, then,' he said when I returned.

‘Huh?'

‘Looks like you've pissed yourself, mate,' he laughed.

I looked down.

Oh yes.

The coffee stain was significantly more visible than I'd hoped it would be.

‘It's coffee,' I said, but there was nobody listening; he had already vanished down the road in my car, leaving me with only the smell of burning rubber and the echoes of his sirens for company.

The echoes died out.

‘Thanks a lot, guys,' I said to myself.

I was outside the shop for another hour and a half before an officer arrived on foot.

‘Hey!' he said brightly.

‘Hi,' I replied.

‘What are you doing here, then?' he asked

‘Er … Waiting for you, I hope?'

‘I dunno, are you? I'm just wandering around on foot patrol at the moment,' he said.

Angry, I grabbed my radio.

‘Mike Delta receiving five-nine-two?'

‘Go ahead?'

‘I was just wondering if you guys would be able to arrange for me to be relieved?'

‘Er … I don't have you as active on my system,' the CAD op said.

‘I assure you I'm most certainly active. And I've been on this crime scene for nearly four hours,' I snapped.

‘Stand by,' the operator replied, and continued, ‘Mike Delta receiving two-eight-one.'

The officer standing next to me looked down at his radio, and reached for his transmit button.

‘Receiving,' he said.

‘Are you free to deal?'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘You are on foot, correct? In the Lower Street area?'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘Could you make your way to the MumToBe on Lower Street?'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘There's an officer there who needs to be relieved.'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘Mike Delta five-nine-two receiving?' the operator continued, addressing me this time.

‘Yes, yes,' I replied, mirroring my colleague wearily.

‘Your relief is on its way.'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘Two-eight is on their way back to the station with a prisoner,' they said, referring to the call sign of the caged van. ‘I'll get them to pick you up on the way.'

‘Yes, yes.'

I stood around, chatting with two-eight-one for a few minutes.

‘Need a drink?' I asked the officer.

‘Yeah, if you wouldn't mind?'

I walked to the McDonald's again to get my relief a cup of coffee and a large water. When I returned, the van was there, waiting for me, finally.

It had been an absolute killer of a shift, and I had missed out on all of it, protecting a broken window pane from curious cats and inquisitive foxes for more than half of my shift. Frankly, all I wanted to do was go home, bury my face in a pillow and sleep for 12 hours.

As I got in the van, two-eight-one called after me: ‘Hey, Delito,' he shouted.

I turned around.

‘It looks like you pissed yourself,' he said, and waved a goodbye.

‘Thanks, I know,' I called back, and slumped back in the van, on my way back to the police station.

‘Delito,' the skipper snapped, peering over his stack of loosely arranged papers.

I looked up.

‘What are you, six years old?'

‘What? I … I didn't even do anything,' I stuttered, but the sergeant's eyes confirmed that my half-hearted lie was never going to be believed.

I bowed my head and mumbled a ‘Sorry, sarge', which was greeted by a cacophony of laughter from the rest of my team.

We had been carrying out a series of practical pranks on each other all week, and I'd managed to be the first person to get caught out, mid-prank.

I spent the next few minutes fiddling with my handcuff keys, trying to release the cuff that was linking Pete's arm to the radiator – and just in time, too. The inspector walked into the briefing room, and we all leapt to our feet. Pete hid the fact that he still had a cuff attached to his arm by placing his hand behind his back.

Some inspectors really like to, er, inspect, but thankfully the unfortunately named Inspector Michael Hunt (he insists, for obvious reasons, on being called ‘Michael') has a slightly more relaxed take on things.

Inspector Hunt counted the number of faces, before waving us back down into our seats.

‘Nice one, Delito,' Pete whispered to me. ‘I didn't see that one coming. Of course, I'll get my revenge – you'd better keep a cuff key handy …' he said, grinning.

It was one of those unexpectedly hot days that sometimes arrive even before the beginning of spring. The kind of day you remember from childhood, when you'd sneak outside without a jacket for the first time in the year, without any real risk of your mum shouting at you for it.

‘Pretty light shift today,' the inspector grunted at our shift sergeant.

‘Yeah. Couple of people on training, four are in court to testify on that bar brawl back in November, one's off ill, and a small group are on secondment to CO eleven
⁶⁵
, some sort of training ahead of the Olympics, I think,' he replied.

‘Righty-oh,' the inspector said, looking around the room. ‘There's still almost a dozen of you, so let's wrap up this briefing and go hunting.'

We were given our postings as usual, but for reasons unknown to me, I was put on caged-van duty. It's not a bad posting, really, but it had been a long time since I'd been in anything but a Panda or the area car.

‘Five-nine-two and two-two-three,' the skipper said, looking over at Pete and myself. ‘Before we get too many bodies in, could the two of you go and deal with an arrest inquiry? Take seven-two-three with you.'

Once we'd left the briefing room, I walked over to the Borough Intelligence Unit based at our station and asked them to print us off a copy of the arrest inquiry we were meant to go to.

‘I've already got the CAD,' I said as I returned to my team, and triumphantly held up the six sheets of A4 paper, still warm from the printer. ‘Who wants coffee?'

We all piled into the mess at the police station. I ordered a round of coffees (the ground stuff that we have to pay for, not the pitiful slop that comes out of the free machine), and Pete skim-read the CAD printout to see what we were up for.

‘Right,' Pete said. ‘Looks like we're looking for a, um, Stephanie Eng … Engu …'

‘You what?' I said. ‘I'm sure it was some dude we were looking for?'

‘It says “Stephanie”,' Pete said. ‘Oh, wait …'

I grabbed the papers from him.

‘You plum … It says Stéphane. That's like Steven. And the last name is Nguimgo,' I said, hoping I hadn't butchered the guy's last name too badly.

I continued to scan the report.

‘He's from Cameroon … Wanted for serious assault at work … He works in a warehouse … Wow …' – I paused – ‘Says here he smacked first his boss, then a co-worker, with a crowbar – all over an argument about some food in the break-room fridge. Lovely fellow.'

‘Remind me why they aren't sending the BSU to deal with this guy,' seven-two-three, affectionately known as Bernard, or Bernard Bernard, piped up; it was the first thing he had said all day. ‘Sounds like he's a piece of work, and at least those meatheads are padded,' Bernard concluded, before glancing over to Pete, who takes any secondments to the Borough Support Unit that are on offer. ‘No offence, of course.'

‘None taken,' Pete answered. However, his face said otherwise. Bernard and Pete had had a falling out over something or other. Again. They are both great police officers, but they are simultaneously too similar
and
too different to play nicely together.

‘Anyway, last known address is here, where they send his pay-slips,' I said, pointing at the address. ‘So I guess we go take a look there. It's only a ten-minute drive.'

Turning to Bernard I asked, ‘You want a lift with us, or are you taking a separate car?'

Bernard decided to grab a Panda and make his way separately. Not a bad idea: when you're on caged-van duty, you can be called away from less urgent tasks, and it's a pain in the arse if you're stuck on the van as a passenger when that happens.

Thirty minutes later, we were outside a block of flats in a particularly grim ex-council estate, discussing amongst ourselves how best to get into the building. We could have rung the doorbell, of course, but when you're going to places on official duty – especially if you're going on an arrest enquiry – it makes sense to not announce your presence until you're ready to do so.

‘Anyone got a fireman's key?' Pete asked.

‘I do,' I answered, and started rooting around in my Metvest for the short length of metal that opens nearly all estate outer doors when inserted into the hole marked ‘fire' (normally up high, above the buzzers or door entry system), but it had gone missing.

‘Gis here, then,' Pete said.

‘Someone's nicked it,' I concluded. My key
had
been clipped to the left pocket of my Metvest with a carabineer, but it was no longer there. I suddenly remembered that I had left my Metvest hanging outside my locker at the police station a few days before. I had been dealing with a grim traffic accident, and in an effort to try and clean off the blood, I had managed to convince the drycleaners around the corner to clean my vest for me. When I got it back, it was still a bit damp, so I had left it out to dry out properly. Someone must have taken my fireman's key then.

‘Fuck's sake,' Pete said, before walking back to the Panda, rummaging around in the bag he keeps in the boot of the police car and returning with his own key. We were inside in no time.

It turned out the elevator was broken, so we had to take the stairs. On the way up, I was moaning about my missing fireman's key.

‘That was the third bloody key I've lost,' I said.

‘You should have learned then, shouldn't you?' Pete said. ‘Nothing's safe in a police station.'

He's right. The amount of stuff that goes missing at police stations is absolutely mind-boggling. Pieces of uniform are particularly prone to sprout legs and go walkies. Nobody ever gets caught nicking each other's stuff, either. It's bizarre.

Just as I was coming to the climax of my rant – ‘How can people get away with nicking stuff in the building with the highest per-square-feet number of police officers in London!' – we arrived at the fourth-floor flat.

I'm not a huge fan of this estate. It's particularly out of the way, neither our patrol cars nor those of the borough south of ours tend to be in the area. If you need assistance, it's not easy. On this particular occasion, I concluded we'd be fine. There were three of us: Pete is built like a brick outhouse; Bernard does some sort of martial art (‘I'm all Martial, no Art,' he likes to say – I think the martial art in question is
Krav Maga
, but I'm not sure); and I'm pretty useful when the proverbial push comes to shove, as well.

Pete took the lead, and rapped on the door with his knuckles. Meanwhile, I bent down and took a peek through the letterbox. I spotted someone dressed in a towel move from the hallway into a room to the left-hand side.

‘Police!' I shouted into the letterbox. ‘Open up!'

Nothing.

‘Police!' I tried again. ‘I've seen you! If you don't come open the door right now, we'll find our own way in!'

There was no sound from inside the flat.

‘Do these flats have rear entrances?' I asked the others.

‘Not that I know of. There may be a window going out the side, but I don't think there's a roof or anything they can climb onto,' Bernard replied.

‘Well then …' I said to them, before shouting through the letterbox one last time, banging on the door with the butt of my baton, ‘If you do not open up right now, we'll have to open it for you.'

‘Do you need this door open, boss?' Pete asked.

‘Yeah, I just said, didn't I? … But, we should probably go get the Big Red Key.'

The Big Red Key is what we call the battering ram that's bolted down behind the driver's seat in the caged van.