Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes (24 page)

Before and after the brief noises of the accident it was a quiet weekday afternoon, so the attention-grabbing qualities of the collision were quite pronounced.

A row of shops at the junction contained a hairdresser’s premises, from within which a member of the staff emerged. A stout girl, she had presumably led quite a dull life, invigorated by many hours of watching action films on television, and must have thought one such had sprung into life before her very eyes.

She covered the fifty yards or so from shop to upturned car in a surprisingly short space of time, yelling at the top of her voice,‘Get out, it’s going to blow!’ several times.

This was the point in the film where the car bursts into flames, the impromptu heroine drags the injured from the burning wreck, and a discreet few seconds later the now empty car obligingly detonates to the delight of the audience.

In this instance it was not to be. Wobbling gently and slightly out of breath she arrived at the scene, completely at a loss. There was no flame, no explosion, and no real drama. She was greeted by the driver of the upturned car who had by now lit a cigarette and was sitting on the remains of the pub wall with his family.

She was met with the words, ‘It’s a diesel, it isn’t going to blow up, and will you stop running round making such a terrible noise,’ which brought her back to earth, and a few moments later sent her back to work, presumably to spend the rest of her life doing cuts and perms, possibly reflecting on how her moment of glory turned into a damp squib, but more likely
telling customers of the day she saved a couple of busloads of orphans from spontaneous immolation.

My attendance there shortly afterwards saw the application of what was by now a familiar pattern of checking for injured, finding out who was from which car, getting a thumbnail account from drivers and witnesses, and getting all the relevant contact details from anyone who might be of use. After this the scene would be measured and sketched, and the cars removed by a local garage.

Over the next few days I collected the various statements from witnesses, and then invited the driver of the Mini to the Police Station for interview, as it was by now abundantly clear that her actions had been the cause of the accident.

She was a retired lady of about 70 years of age, perfectly amenable and pleasant, and we went through the preamble to the interview very amicably. The questions and answers were recorded on what was called ‘contemporaneous notes’. I would write down the questions I wanted to ask, and then wrote down her answers verbatim. At the end of the interview she would read the notes and sign them as a true record of what had been asked and how she had answered.

In these circumstances I had developed a standard set of lead-in questions, covering the basics such as ‘were you the driver of a such-and-such make of car, registered number “ABC 123” on this road at this time?’, then ‘tell me what the weather conditions were like at the time’, and so on, partly for evidential purposes and also to get the driver thinking about the incident and its attendant circumstances. Eventually I would come to what was always an interesting question – ‘whose fault do you think the accident was?’

The array of answers over the years was amazing. Occasionally, very occasionally, a driver would say ‘Mine’, whereupon I would feel sorry for them as they stood to get hammered by Courts and insurers alike, mainly for being honest. But the majority would perhaps accept a little responsibility before launching into a tirade against everything from the layout of the junction, through the actions of the other parties involved, to things like the angle of the sun or maybe the phase of the moon, usually a list of features which if they had truly taken them into account a little earlier would have ensured the accident never happened.

The reply I got from this old lady was one of the best ever, and I remember it word for word.

‘Whose fault?’ she asked, and thought for a few seconds. ‘Well I really don’t think it was mine,’ she said confidently.

‘Why is that? I asked.

‘Well I’ve turned right at that junction every day for the last ten years, and nothing like that has ever happened before.’

Did she expect it to? And how often?

She signed the interview notes with the confidence of someone who knows they have done no wrong, or at least firmly believes so.

I never did find out what the Court did to her, but in truth I rarely heard the outcome of a case. Dealing with any job was like being allowed into an enormous library full of books about people’s lives, and being forced to read just one chapter of each. If the story was harrowing you still had to read to the last page of the section allocated to you, and if it was exciting and held your attention then you still had to put it down after the one
chapter and move on to the next, even though you might be desperate to know what happened next. That was the nature of being an emergency service. To see any subsequent follow-up was very unusual, and on the odd occasion when I did, it felt like some form of intrusion. As a Policeman you deal with an incident as a uniform, not an individual. People don’t ring up and specify who they want in a crisis, they ask for ‘the Police’ and an officer attends. When the matter is finished, the uniform disappears and their lives continue. Read just the one chapter, put the book down and move on.

Occasionally I had the odd situation arise where I popped up in a subsequent chapter, and very strange it could be. I had dealt with a sudden death, quite run of the mill, where an old gent had died peacefully in his armchair after a long, honest life. His son, a man in his late forties, had turned up to assist with the various formalities. The undertaker was known to him as he had dealt with the mother’s funeral a few years earlier, the neighbours were supportive, and there were no delays or frustrations. The man’s bungalow was well kept, and the whole setting had a feeling of tranquility about it. As deaths go, it was probably as pleasant as they get, and upset though he was, the son could draw comfort from the fact his father had a long, industrious life, a happy marriage and a decent length of retirement, and finished with a dignified end free from any suffering. As a representative of ‘the system’ I walked into his world, filled in the required form, and walked out again. Chapter finished.

About a week after this event I was in a local bookshop, and as I stood up from looking at a lower shelf, I found myself face
to face with the son from the sudden death. I recognised him as someone I knew, but for a moment I couldn’t place him. My mind flipped quickly through a huge list of associates, friends and relatives, but he didn’t fit any of the images brought up, though I spontaneously said ‘Hello’ to him as I was trying to place him, and he replied similarly having recognised me immediately. There was a brief silence as the pieces fell into place and I realised who he was, and then I wondered what to say.

I toyed with a light-hearted quip like ‘Dad still dead is he?’ but soon decided this was perhaps a little too much ‘Police humour’ and might result in violence, and eventually settled on ‘Are things settling down a bit now?’

We chatted for a few minutes, and it was nice when he thanked me for ‘what I had done for his father’, an odd choice of phrase when I had really done nothing. All in all it was an embarrassing encounter, though ultimately gratifying to know I had made some impression in helping someone through a difficult time in their life. But I still felt I had appeared in a chapter in which I didn’t belong.

One autumn morning I was called into my Inspector’s office. Lately returned to duty after a lengthy suspension for shoplifting which had resulted in his acquittal, he was in good spirits.

‘I’ve had a phone call from the Driving School,’ he said. ‘You go on your advanced course in a fortnight. Well done.’

I thanked him and left his office. He was one of the best supervisors I ever had the pleasure of serving under. He was so supportive of his block that it was a privilege to work with him, he would never ask anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself and we knew it. He was always keen to get stuck in – his arrest rate compared well with any of the Constables on the shift, and he had that intangible ability to inspire those under his command. He was also barking mad, but such an attribute has never been a hindrance to any successful copper.

Now, after over six years of waiting I finally had my major career goal in my sights.

The advanced driving course was six weeks long and was relatively only days away, and brought with it the promise of a place on traffic. Completion of the course meant joining the relatively short queue of hopefuls to go onto the Divisional Traffic Unit.

My only concern was that I should not do anything to jeopardise my place, such as having an accident in the interim. Day after day I drove my panda as carefully and safely as possible, and tried to drive to ‘the system’ as taught on the basic driving course three years earlier. I volunteered for any job that would keep me away from speed and danger, but as with most well thought-out plans, they inevitably go wrong. Two o’clock in the morning on the set of nights before the course brought a chase onto our area; a stolen sports car heading from the coast back to the city, cutting through a corner of our County en route. Caution turned to vanity, as my mind adopted the twisted logic of ‘I’m going to be an advanced driver so I must be good’, as I sat and waited for the chase to come past me so I could join in. It came, and very shortly afterwards, it went. At well over a hundred miles an hour with two traffic cars in hot pursuit I had no chance of getting near, but that didn’t stop me thrashing the little panda in an effort to be near the action. And it worked, to a degree. The stolen car crashed a few miles further on, just over the boundary with our neighbouring force, so within a minute or so I was there as well. The area was crawling with Police from two forces – there were cars with flashing blue lights and engines revving, an ambulance (to show we cared), Police dogs barking, Bobbies calling to each other, and a helicopter clattering loudly overhead. It took about fifteen minutes to locate the two youths from the car who had hidden in a garden, and as they were led to a waiting van a man came out from one of the terraced houses that lined the road. There was a feeling of success in the air as the two criminals had been nicked; it made all the effort worthwhile. I was standing with one of the men from the neighbouring force,
and the local resident walked up to him. We were both a little taken aback as he launched into a tirade of complaint.

‘I’m fed up with you lot, waking me up in the middle of the night, all this noise and disturbance, and as for that bloody thing’ – he gesticulated at the helicopter – ‘it’s a liability. I wish you’d all go away and leave me in peace.’

‘I do apologise,’ said my colleague, ‘but we’ve had to search for two car thieves, and you may be interested to know we’ve caught them, so it was all in a good cause.’

‘Good cause my arse,’ came the unappreciative reply. ‘I don’t care what excuses you come up with, just leave me in peace. I’ve got to be up for work in the morning, but you wouldn’t care. I’ve a good mind to complain.’

The fact it was now nearly half past two in the morning and we were actually
at
work seemed to have escaped his martyrish tone, but then we weren’t people, just a public service.

‘No need to complain,’ said the other Bobby. ‘Let me take your details and I’ll make sure your comments are noted. Can I have your name please?’ He produced his notebook and pen.

The man gave his name, slightly surprised at being taken seriously. Apparently.

‘And where exactly do you live Sir?’

‘That house there, number 874.’

‘The one with the blue door is it?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Why are you writing all this down anyway?’ he said, becoming suspicious.

‘’OK,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got your details, just remember this. Next time
you’ve
got a problem and need the Police to come, we know who you are so we won’t bother.’

He turned and walked off, leaving the ungrateful little man with a bit to think about.

Towards the end of that week of nights I had to go through my paperwork and make sure that any that was not finished off was either handed over to others on the block or could wait until I returned. Most of it was easily sorted, until I came to the bottom of the tray and to my great annoyance found an accident file in its distinctive purple card folder. It was one which time and again had been left for another day, simply because it was a very minor accident and was certain not to result in any prosecution, a true paper exercise if ever there was. Now it had been rediscovered I couldn’t hand it to someone else to pick up as it was so late, and I couldn’t submit it as it was because there were still statements outstanding, and to submit it late would look very bad as a new hopeful on traffic. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I made a decision – it would have to be ‘binned’. The audit trail for accidents was very poor, and I would just insist I had submitted it, it must have got lost somewhere in the labyrinthine filing systems somewhere within the force. Such an eventuality was not uncommon. But I had to make sure it didn’t pop up and haunt me, so its disposal had to be thorough. I considered throwing it into a field in the outer reaches of the Division, but then had visions of a farmer coming to the front desk with a sodden file in a fit of helpfulness. Setting fire to it was an option, but in the dark you never know who is watching. Taking it home was a possibility, but its sheer physical existence would still be a worry. Then I had a brainwave. The admin office had a magical
‘one-way fax machine’ – a shredder. Any paper so disposed went into a secure bag for incineration. No-one ever checked that, guaranteed. I ran up to the second floor and went into the office, put the light on and looked round. Normally this was a place to avoid, filled in the daytime with typists and filing clerks, and at one side was the door to the Chief Inspector’s office. But at three in the morning all was quiet as I went to the far end of the room and switched the shredder on. It seemed very loud against a backdrop of silence, and I offered the folder to its unquestioning jaws. The mechanism seized the material offered and began to devour it, but in my exuberance to dispose of this curse of a file I had forgotten that even the most powerful office shredder has its limits. Half way through its feed, the shredder jammed. The paper stopped anyway, but the motor carried on moaning and whirring, and after a very short space of time a smell of hot electrical components hit my nostrils. Despite my panic I managed to hit the ‘reverse’ button, and after moment it spat the half-eaten file back out. It was now in a very sorry state, looking like a cross between an abandoned origami project and a pineapple. I stood and pondered my next move. Then things got worse. I heard the sound of a door being opened, turned round and saw the door to the Chief Inspector’s office open slowly. From within emerged the Divisional Superintendent.