Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes (23 page)

He paused, reliving the horror of hopes dashed and a good idea gone terribly wrong.

‘Then it got worse. The driver of the car pulled at my sleeve and said “my briefcase is on the back seat”. Before I can stop him the idiot had opened the rear door, and got his legs and feet soaked in wet concrete and gravel so now his suit was ruined as well. I heard a noise, looked round and saw the concrete mixer driving off as fast as he could. The mixer driver obviously saw what had happened, and while I was still in shock he’d got back in the truck and gone – I never even got the registration. Then to cap it all the flames started coming out from underneath the bonnet again, so it was all a waste of time. I spent the next ten minutes shovelling concrete off the back seat of the car to rescue the briefcase, which was wrecked as well. The only saving feature is that by the time County Fire actually got to it the car was burnt out so the damage I caused from the cement mixer was immaterial. What an utter waste. I give up.’

He heaved himself out of the seat and disappeared upstairs to his office.

It wasn’t just passing Bobbies we could see from the office – the back door next to the office also gave access to the cells, so we
would see all the prisoners coming in, and sometimes had to go into the yard to help out as a ‘reception party’ for the more unruly guests, the more extreme of whom would end up simply carried in with a Bobby at each corner to be presented to the cell Sergeant as an uncooperative heap.

Although some of the more liberal members of society might recount tales of dark goings-on in Police cells, as a general rule (laxatives aside) prisoners were safer inside the building than outside. Once someone is arrested we have a ‘duty of care’. This roughly translates that if someone were to, say, die of a drug overdose or drink themselves to death in their own house then they are a victim of their own stupidity. If they die after years of drug or alcohol misuse while under arrest, it is somehow our fault for not looking after them. Never quite saw the logic in that one, but that’s how it seems to be. This ‘duty of care’ would prompt many a miscreant to become very much braver after their arrest, safe in the knowledge that they could be as obnoxious as they liked with little fear of spontaneous retribution. But some get it wrong. None more so than a man arrested by a friend of mine, Craig Pearce, a mild and reasonable man at all times unless provoked, when his training as a boxer in the Army would come to the fore, to the distress of anyone on the receiving end. He had arrested a man for the usual Saturday night sport of ‘beating up the girlfriend’, and this particular affair had been more savage than normal. On the way in to the station, Craig was in the back of the Police car while another officer drove. It didn’t take long for the girlfriend beater to become brave again, feeling safe in the arms of the law.

‘You wait,’ he said. ‘Once I’m out of here you’d better watch
your back. If it wasn’t for these handcuffs I’d have the pair of you.’ This stream of threats carried on for a bit, designed to make the officers grateful that the man was indeed handcuffed. All it actually did was annoy Craig, to the point where he told the driver to stop, opened the rear door and hauled the irritating man out.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘never mind all this crap about “when I’m out” and “if it wasn’t for the handcuffs”, here’s the deal. I take the cuffs off and we have it out here and now. If you win, you walk away, end of story. If you lose, the cuffs go back on and you don’t make any complaint about your injuries. And you’ll have plenty, believe me. How does that grab you, big man?’

‘No chance,’ said the man, ‘I’m not having that. There’ll be a trick in it somewhere.’

Craig inserted him back into the car and said,‘No trick, but maybe a trip to hospital for you. Good choice, so wind your neck in and let’s get into the cells.’

The journey was completed in silence, but in the holding area inside the cell entrance the man felt emboldened by the presence of a few more Bobbies with other prisoners, and he started again. With his cuffed hands he pointed out some scratches on his neck. These had been inflicted by his girlfriend as she tried to fend off his cowardly attack on her shortly before.

‘See these,’ he said to Craig, ‘I’m going to say you’ve done them. That’s assault, and you’ll get sacked you will.’

‘I’ve put those scratches on your neck have I?’ said Craig.

‘Yeah, and you’ll get sacked, I’ll see to that. You’ll wish you’d never arrested me.’

Craig turned to the man and quietly showed him his fingernails. His childhood habit of biting them had never left him, and he posed the obvious question – ‘How can I have scratched you with these nails? Look at them. They’re far too short to have caused you any injury at all.’

The man peered up, staring open-eyed at the fingernails. Microseconds later the fingers flicked, accurate and very hard, and the nails made contact with the staring eyeballs. As Craig said later, ‘it was like pressing into a pair of firm grapes.’

The man howled in pain, and was then led to the cell Sergeant to be booked in, water pouring from both eyes in surprisingly generous quantities.

‘What on earth’s the matter with him?’ asked the Sergeant.

Craig’s answer was true, though immensely abbreviated.

‘He’s all upset because he wishes he’d never hit his girlfriend.’

After more than a year in the office I realised I was in danger of becoming a fixture.

I was comfortable, proficient and to a reasonable degree appreciated, at least as much as anyone ever is who doles out jobs without doing any of them himself.

There were many in my position who had taken a decision quite early in their service to remain in the office with all its benefits – warm, dry, safe, and indispensable. The downside to this was that you lost touch with the outside world with its greater variety and eccentricity, and the longer you stayed away from real life, the greater the danger of having nothing to commend you if an alternative post came up that you really wanted.

Perhaps it was some ingrained feeling of reassurance from the warm traffic car in which I had taken refuge as a probationer, or more likely that I was a frustrated boy racer with a speed fixation, but whatever it was I still had my sights set on going onto the Traffic Unit, and to have a plausible case to do this meant going back ‘outside’.

My relatively short time in the office had seen no
fundamental changes in legislation and was not long enough for me to be too rusty, and I resumed my panda driving career quite happily. I tried to make sure that if there was a decent road accident I went to it, and tried hard to pick up as many tips as I could from the established members of Traffic. As with all specialisms there were trade secrets and hints and tips which I had to pick up as I went along.

I still had the ‘outsider’s’ eye on many things.

One weekday morning during the rush hour saw me helping one of the longest serving members of traffic at an accident on a busy junction. I never knew his real Christian name, he was always known and addressed just as ‘Jock’, and he was never the most communicative of folk. There are no prizes for guessing his ethnic origins.

At the accident there were no particularly interesting injuries, but three undriveable cars blocking the road meant huge queues and long delays. I had driven down the outside of about a quarter of a mile of frustrated motorists, all late for work, and all looking to the Police to restore order and get the traffic flowing as soon as possible. I knew that every minute I was at the accident would mean the hold-up getting longer. At any accident there was usually one man in charge who would be responsible for the paperwork and any follow-up interviewing. In this event it was Jock as he was the only one there before I arrived. Feeling keen and wanting to help, the part of me that was still thinking like a member of the public asked what seemed an obvious question:

‘Shall I get the brush and clear up so the traffic can get moving?’

‘Leave the brush where it is – they can wait till the breakdown gets here.’

‘But there’s a huge queue – wouldn’t it be better to get the road clear?’

Years of experience spoke back – ‘If you start the traffic moving, all they’ll do is stare at you as they go past and either run into each other or run over you or me. As long as they’re stopped, you’re safe. This is your office, and the less cars that drive through it the better you are.’

He was right. The same public who would shudder at the thought of dealing with mangled bodies would do anything to have a good stare at an accident as they drove by, just in the hope of seeing some blood and guts so they could tell their friends what a horrible sight they had seen. This is the same mentality that made public executions a guaranteed sell-out – watch someone else’s suffering and then go and tell everyone how revolting it was. It also explains why newspapers concentrate on bad news – it sells. Unfortunately the vulture mentality also blinkers the watchers – pickpockets thrived at executions, Policemen get run over at accidents. So Jock made them wait.

A while later a tow truck had moved the wrecks out of the way, Jock had finished his measuring and writing, and I was able to wave the traffic through. As it passed I watched the drivers and passengers in their safe metal boxes. All would no doubt have said that they were keen to get on their way and were frustrated by the delay, but not one looked where they were going – every single one peered and gawped at the scene, hoping to see something to turn their stomachs, and looking almost disappointed when there was nothing. I pondered as to
who was the watched and who was the watcher in these circumstances, and eventually decided that the motorists were the exhibit, as an ultimately tasteless exhibition of human curiosity.

On several occasions I debated the possibility of getting some of the less saleable items from the bins behind my local butchers, and draping them up and down the hedgerows at an accident to give these vultures what they craved, then see how many of them were taken ill, but in the end never did. But it did show me how far I had come beyond the invisible line separating my outlook from that of ‘civilised’ society.

Jock remained on traffic for the last few years of his service, eventually moving to a clerical job in the traffic office. This gave him the undoubted advantage of working office hours as he approached retirement, which must have been of great benefit to his life expectancy. All he had to do was put in eight hours a day somewhere between 8am and 6pm, so even his start time was flexible. In this position the pressure was off and he could continue beyond the 30 years’ service needed for a ‘full’ pension, and just retire whenever was convenient, so the topic was never discussed between him and his Sergeant in the office they shared. As part of ‘traffic management’, he had to check and file accident reports, pass non-Police matters to the local Council Highways or Transport Ministry offices, attend site meetings for roadworks, and make regular trips to Headquarters to deliver piles of paperwork to the ever-growing herd of figure-jugglers who seemed to appear from nowhere and rule our lives.

One afternoon not long after lunch Jock got up from his
desk and announced, ‘I’m going to HQ to hand in some paperwork, and then I’ll be off home.’

His Sergeant didn’t mind if this meant an ‘early dart’, pinching a few minutes off the end of the day was a perk of the post.

The next morning the Sergeant started at 8 o’clock as he usually did, and expected Jock in at 9. Nine o’clock came and went, as did ten o’clock, and shortly before eleven he was becoming concerned, so he rang Jock’s home number. When the familiar Glasgow accent answered the phone he asked, ‘What shift are you on today? I was expecting you in at 9 .’

‘I’m not coming in today at all,’ said Jock.

‘What is it then? Annual leave or time owing?’

‘Neither. I’m not in today.’

‘Off sick are you? What’s the matter then?’

‘No,’ said Jock, ‘I said I’m not coming in today.’

Perplexed and a little irritated, the Sergeant tried to get some sense. ‘So what are you working tomorrow? 8 to 4 or 10 till 6, or what?’

‘I’m not coming in tomorrow either. Or the day after.’

‘Why not? What’s the matter?’ asked the Sergeant.

‘Because I’ve retired, that’s why. You know I was going to Headquarters yesterday, well that was for the handshake and cup of tea from the Chief, and I did say to you I wasn’t coming back to the office. I meant just that. I’m not coming back. That’s what retirement means, you know. Goodbye.’

This was widely seen as a very stylish move, and proof that despite what everyone thought, deep down Jock really did have a sense of humour.

His departure caused some turmoil, because vacancies on traffic were few and far between, and filling his place meant everyone moved up a stage. Another long-in-the-tooth member would move into the admin post, and at the other end a fresh face would start at the bottom as ‘the new one on traffic.’

The knock-on effect was a need to have more hopefuls trained in preparation of further vacancies, and it was at this point that the word went round the Division that ‘they’ were after names for the next course. Rather than the farce of interviews as was now becoming the norm on CID, traffic hopefuls would find that while their stated interest (usually in a sycophantic visit to the traffic supervision complete with cups of tea and cream cakes) was noted, there would also be some serous liaison between the traffic Sergeants and one’s own supervisors to see if you had a real interest in the necessary skills, and whether your traffic files were of a good enough standard.

I was aware of this and had by now managed to acquire a reputation as a keen and ruthless user of the breathalyser, and also succeeded in being the first to a number of relatively serious bumps.

In the same way that people like gawping at accidents, they enjoy even more the thought of actually being involved in the chaos of the aftermath, provided it draws plenty of attention and is at no risk to themselves. An accident at a busy junction in the town saw a family of four escape injury when their car was overturned – a Mini turned suddenly and unexpectedly across its path, hitting it a glancing blow which was sufficient to divert it into a low wall outside a pub, flattening a section of wall and
demolishing a street lamp. From suburban tranquillity to automotive mayhem in less than two seconds.