Читать книгу: «The Confessions Series», страница 6
Willy warmers
It’s cold on night duty. Freezing on occasion. I suggest thermals. Or thick tights. But being cold was not the reason I was knitting at four in the morning when posted as station officer.
I was station officer because I was biding my time, waiting for my posting to Surveillance and trying to keep out of trouble. I’d already had a month on the dreaded clamp van and now it was my turn on the front desk. This included fielding the drunks, redirecting the lost, and taking reports from those wishing to make complaints of thefts or lost property. After midnight it usually fell quiet.
My case files were up to date and the correspondence in my tray had been dealt with, as much as it can ever be. I’d read the daily bulletins and made regular cups of tea for the custody office and CAD room, the hub of the station where all messages were received and allocated, hence Computer Aided Despatch. I’d checked the missing persons binder and the lost dogs, of which there were none; the kennels were empty. My thumbs had been twiddled until they were sore.
As night duty was a week long, it became boring. By Wednesday I decided to take in some knitting. If I followed the pattern, I found it was one of the few craft-like things I could do without winding myself into a knot. I was knitting baby clothes for a friend of mine who was pregnant. Little mittens, socks and baby cardigans are small, easy to do and quick to make, an ideal filler during the night once the city had settled down.
At 2.30 a.m. a call came out about a disturbance in the upstairs room of an exclusive restaurant in the St James area. It was a private party that had ended with a family at war – drunken, argumentative and causing a breach of the peace. Five men and one woman were arrested. The rest of the party turned up at the front desk, irate, drunk and demanding solicitors. They insisted their loved ones had to be released, now, this instant.
My attempts at calming them down failed. The sergeant in the CAD room heard the raucous carry-on and came to my assistance. Two of them ended up arrested for causing a disturbance and swearing at the sergeant and me. One of the remaining crowd tried to reason that his family had been falsely arrested. I listened, nodded and asked him to take a seat while I made tea and coffee for them while they waited for news. Feeling generous, I threw half a packet of digestives onto the tray too.
By 4 a.m., those in the cells were sleeping, as were some of the rabble loitering in the lobby.
One of the arresting officers, Joe Fenelli, stopped by the front office for a coffee and a chat. I was busy – knit one, purl one, knit one, knit two together – working on the sleeve of a baby cardi.
‘That’s them settled down,’ he said. ‘All over a bit of posh totty.’
I laughed.
‘What you knitting, Ash? Willy warmers?’ he asked, pulling a thread of wool.
‘Hey, get off!’ I tugged it back. ‘Yeah, I got white, lemon and baby blue,’ I joked, knit knitting away.
The following morning some of the prisoners went to court for breach of the peace and the others were kicked out, sheepish and hungover.
A couple of weeks later I was issued with a Regulation 9, a form 163, that the Complaints Department (now Professional Standards) issue to give notice that someone has made a complaint about you. Everyone on duty when the Hooray Henrys were arrested was served with a 163. The whole shift had been subject to complaints from the wealthy and influential family. The allegations comprised a variety of things including unlawful arrest, insubordination and abuse of force. Mine was for ‘performance of duty’ issues.
It was alleged that while on duty I was knitting willy warmers, neglecting my post when I should have been conscientious and diligent. What nonsense. I couldn’t believe it. And to think I’d been kept inside the station to keep me out of trouble!
An independent panel was convened to interview every one of us.
‘Officer, why were you knitting at five a.m. in the morning?’ said the chap on the left.
‘It was four o’clock, sir. And I took my knitting to work because it was very quiet and nothing much was happening.’
‘During work time, officer? Surely there was some paperwork you could do? We’re always hearing about how much paperwork there is these days.’
I confidently told him, ‘All my paperwork was up to date, sir.’
He looked surprised.
The woman on the panel looked down her nose at me and said, ‘What exactly were you knitting, miss?’
I hated being called ‘Miss’.
‘Baby clothes, ma’am. For a friend. One of my colleagues, PC Fenelli, joked I was knitting willy warmers but I wasn’t, it was a baby cardigan.’
The older man on the panel woke up and said, ‘Willy warmers? What are they?’
No one answered.
I filled the uncomfortable silence by adding, ‘I was knitting the sleeve of a baby cardigan, sir. It can become tiring on night duty when you’re posted to the front desk. Nothing much happens past two in the morning during the week but we still have to man the front office. I hadn’t had a refreshment break and you can’t really expect to be relieved for an hour by another officer when it’s so quiet indoors and they are busy out on the streets. I sat and ate my sandwiches and did some knitting at my desk during what would have been my break.’
That must absolve me, surely?
I was wrong.
The lady of the bench glared at me. ‘Could you not read law books? You don’t know it all, officer. There are plenty of updates and changes in policy and law to become familiar with, I am sure.’
My quiet protestations of, ‘But that would well and truly put me to sleep!’ were ignored.
They had me.
I was given words of advice and told that in future I should read Blackstone’s police manuals during the nights when I was bored.
And to think, I’d given that family our last packet of biscuits. That’s gratitude. It put me off knitting, too. I never did finish those willy warmers.
Cut!
A few days after the willy warmers’ incident I was back on day shift and still station officer. I made the tea and coffee, checked my handover files and offered to do some typing for one of the dyslexic blokes on shift who was bogged down with his paperwork. I liked to do a good turn and as a quick typist it earned me a few favours in the bag.
I hoisted the manual typewriter onto the counter and swept to one side the bundles of flyers and vouchers that littered the front desk. These comprised the usual advice leaflets for those who find themselves homeless, for domestic violence victims, plus some small street maps and handouts for new restaurants and fancy cafés that enticed customers with generous discounts in return for reviews. Theatres did the same to fill seats at preview shows. A pair of tickets for a West End show cost just a pound. It wasn’t a gratuity because these offers were given to all offices, hotels and shops around the West End and were meant for all to enjoy the perks, police and public alike.
A flyer for Vidal Sassoon salon in Mayfair fluttered down to the floor. I picked it up. ‘Models Wanted. Free haircuts.’ It sounded perfect as I was thinking I could do with a new style for the new job. I phoned and booked my free cut for Thursday, 3.30 p.m., after the early shift finished.
Thursday was uneventful on the front desk and I arrived keen and eager at the hairdresser’s. I signed the consent form, rather chuffed to be having my hair cut at a place I would never usually be able to afford. I skimmed the small print and sat down, unconcerned. It’s only hair, right? It grows back.
My hair was shoulder-length with layers of rotten half curls, hanging limp at the ends. It was time to shed the remnants of a shaggy perm. I needed a new look. Being out of uniform meant no more pinning it up beneath a police hat and it could fly free.
Hairdressers from all over the world came to Vidal Sassoon to be trained and to learn new techniques. A male hairdresser from Chicago was assigned to me, under the guidance of Gideon, his tutor.
‘Perfect!’ said Gideon. ‘And you’ve agreed the terms? That we can do whatever we like? And take pictures to use in advertising if we so wish?’
‘Oh yes, I’m quite looking forward to it,’ I smiled.
He didn’t smile back. ‘As long as you’re prepared. There’s no going back. And no suing us.’
‘Absolutely,’ I nodded, a tad too trusting.
The two men tugged and pulled my hair and entered a technical discussion that was beyond my ken. I started to feel a bit concerned as they discussed how my hair needed treatment to gain back lustre.
I glanced to my left and saw a beautiful girl in her early twenties with long blonde hair and symmetrical features. She could have been a model. Might have been a model. A real one. I felt a tingling creeping up the back of my neck when I saw her hairdresser take a razor to her head. She was being scalped! It was only then it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to be given a conventional cut. Oh dear. Could I take my leave?
When I came back from an intense conditioning treatment, my pretty neighbour was all-over bald. I could have cried for her. I couldn’t understand why she was smiling. Maybe she wanted a total change. Maybe she had been given a modelling job, or was an actress that needed a bald head for the part? Maybe she had cancer and wanted it cut off before it fell out?
I felt uncomfortable as I glanced away and out of the window. I noticed two of my uniformed colleagues talking to a motorist who did not look happy. I shrank further down in my chair, hoping they wouldn’t glance in and see me.
A rumpus erupted outside and the suspect ended up with his arms behind his back, handcuffed.
My hairdresser picked up his scissors and watched the commotion. ‘I see cops are the same on both sides of the pond, honey,’ he drawled.
‘Mmm.’
‘Too many innocent motorists getting popped when these guys should be out catching real criminals,’ he said, chopping a wedge from my hair.
‘Mmm!’ I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.
‘At least your cops don’t have guns, like ours.’ Chop. Chop.
‘No, that’s a good thing,’ I agreed, glad of something positive to say.
‘You’d think they’d have better things to do than hassle people parking for too long. Not as if he’s an armed robber, is it?’ Chop. Snip. Hack.
I bit the inside of my lip. Who knew what they were arresting him for? He might have committed murder for all we knew.
‘Who would do a job like that? Sick in the head if you ask me.’
I didn’t ask him but maybe I was sick in the head – for agreeing to be a patsy for a hairdresser from a fancy salon.
‘So honey, what is it you do?’ he asked.
Wide-eyed and impotent, I looked back at him from the mirror in front of me. I tried not to notice my depleting locks. ‘Oh, I work in an office. Just around the corner. Boring, nothing exciting,’ I spurted out, coward-like and quivering.
‘Let’s see if we can liven up your life a little then, yeah? I think a streak of purple at the front with a long fringe hanging to the side. Short at the back.’
I tried to avoid looking out of the window. I didn’t want anyone to recognise me and wave. I didn’t fancy being a baldy or having any other revenge cut by someone who loathed the police.
I was relieved when I saw the van pull up and take the prisoner away. I relaxed a little, until I looked in the mirror. What the hell had I agreed to?
I left the salon with dark purple hair, which I had to admit was better than one streak, but I’d certainly stand out working undercover with this colour. I doubted my boss would be happy. It was chopped short at the back and the hairline was cut fashionably raggy, according to Gideon. I had a long pointed fringe that hung down to the right but as I’d forever had a right-hand parting, never a left, it felt odd. I didn’t suit my hair hanging down and for years I’d worn it behind my ears, not in front. If I were little instead of large, I’d have looked like an elf.
The salon photographer had taken a couple of pictures and I have no idea if any were ever used. I’ve never had the stomach to look in any hairdressing magazines.
The next day I took a trip to my regular salon and had it tidied up, which is what I should have done in the first instance.
Therein lie a couple more of life’s lessons:
1) Sometimes it’s necessary to lie and 2) there’s no such thing as a free haircut.
House bugs and other nasty things
There is so much to learn when working undercover, aside from surveillance techniques. Of course I’m not going to reveal tactics and practical working methods, though I’ll let you into some of the more interesting aspects of the job. But first, before any of that, there is a huge amount of law and protocol to understand and adhere to. If you don’t know it, you can’t work with it.
RIPA, The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000, governs the use of covert (undercover) operations. Prior to RIPA, 2000, permission for such jobs fell under different regulations, but today these operations require the highest authority. Chief constables are vested with the power to authorise officers to use directed surveillance, to tap phones, intercept mail and email, to put bugs in houses, cameras in offices and so on. It has to be necessary and either in the interests of national security, for the prevention and detection of crime, or to prevent disorder or otherwise in the interests of public safety. There are other reasons but these are the main reasons police use such operations.
Chief constables delegate to high-ranking senior officers, normally the head of the crime department, a commander or chief superintendent, or whoever the relevant force policy dictates at the time. The sorts of offences investigated using covert surveillance are serious crime such as murder, paedophile rings, high-scale drug dealing, major fraud, armed robbery and national security. It can prove and disprove someone’s guilt. It’s expensive and time consuming, the operations long and arduous. And it doesn’t always bring results. Before resorting to covert surveillance methods evidence should be gathered another way, if at all possible.
Barristers and judges are, as you would expect, hot on RIPA and the use of it. It has to be sound, justified and significant. It will be tested in the courtroom and evidence will be dismissed if it hasn’t been gathered and recorded correctly. There is no room for error.
Specialist officers are assigned to plant the bugs, cameras and other devices. Justifying the expense is a major headache for the budget holders and, of course, it is a factor that influences decision-making. The easiest, and probably cheapest, method is a phone tap. A boring job but someone has to do it, listening in to phone calls.
House bugs helped us to secure a conviction for a couple that had systematically abused their baby. The father got a life sentence when the child died and the recorded conversations in the couple’s kitchen were invaluable in proving his guilt.
Phone calls nabbed a national paedophile ring that planned to kidnap a nine-year-old girl.
Many a bad cop has been rooted out through intrusive and covert surveillance and in those cases the judge highly commended the use of covert ops.
The general public think the police can do more and know more than they actually do, so if you think they’re watching you, they probably aren’t. But it might be the DSS, or the NHS, or the Tax Office, or the Local Authority, or Customs, or one of many other organisations covered by RIPA …
Who’s there?
When I joined the surveillance team I found that undercover work is 90 per cent boredom and 2 per cent action. But, oh, what action! The other bits of the job involved meetings, briefings and admin. We did a lot of sitting around in cars. We would sit up in buildings, on park benches, and traipse and trawl the streets. Occasionally we had to mingle, mix with suspects, and pretend to be someone we weren’t. It was a bit like acting, but not at all like it’s portrayed on the screen. It was also dangerous and addictive and far from a nine-to-five job, or foot patrol.
Surveillance units function locally, regionally and nationally, often overlapping, working together on joint operations that include phone tapping, house bugging, following people and accessing information on suspects, as per RIPA and other legislation. Our job was to gather information, intelligence and evidence, to find out what we could about suspects, the things they did and who they mixed with, and also to build up a profile of them. Sometimes we’d be given dossiers on criminals and we had to do the rest of the legwork, tracing and tracking them and monitoring their every move. We didn’t often get in on the arrests, either. We would assist these bigger inquiries and investigations and pass the information back to source once the objectives were achieved. We also worked on our own cases. And although it could be monotonous, trailing someone who didn’t do much for hours, you always had to keep sharp. A foot wrong and cover would be blown; you’d lose the whole thing, making it a costly and botched operation.
A lot of long hours are spent working closely with colleagues of the opposite sex. You’re in situations where you have to depend on each other entirely and trust is essential. It’s not unusual to form close friendships that, even if innocent, threaten personal relationships. The unpredictable lifestyle, having to drop everything to go off on a job, not knowing when you’ll return, can be a strain. I was fortunate, I suppose, that during my years working undercover and in plain clothes, I didn’t live with a partner.
One guy I was seeing became very jealous and suspicious. He wasn’t a police officer and didn’t understand why I couldn’t refuse when I was called into work, or why I didn’t want to say no. Neither did I wish to discuss my job with him. He accused me, wrongly, of having an affair with a married colleague. I became so sick of his accusations that one night, when I was paged at 10 p.m. to go into work, I left him in a bar and never saw him again.
It’s well known that police officers deal with high levels of stress and alcoholism. I’ve known a few alcoholics in the job. One detective had a large bottle of water on his desk and it was only when the DI ordered him into rehab that I realised it was neat vodka. Another detective would leave me to work alone on night duty because he couldn’t do without a drink. If there was a major incident I had instructions to call him, otherwise I was on my own. It was sort of accepted practice. He was a good detective with a vast knowledge and great way with people. He was a lovely man. Like many, he was a functioning alcoholic. I was upset to find out he committed suicide when he was forced to retire after thirty years’ service.
Ronnie was someone I worked with undercover. He was married with three little boys. I went to see his wife when their youngest was born. They were a beautiful family. I didn’t question Ronnie on how he knew where all the drug drops were going down, or why he was always disappearing off to see an informant. I didn’t ask any questions when he came into work beaten up. He was rarely partnered with me, but one time when we were posted together I noticed he was acting strange. I thought he’d had a drink but couldn’t smell alcohol. After an hour, he had a call from an informant and he went off for the rest of the shift. I was on my own for the remainder of duty.
A few months after this, Ronnie was arrested. He’d been under surveillance by Complaints. I don’t know if he was criminally prosecuted, but he was sacked for malfeasance in office, a catch-all for officers doing wrong. Ronnie was addicted to heroin and had got himself into a right mess with the wrong people. Despite all my knowledge about addicts, I’d never guessed. Alcoholics and other addicts learn to hide their addictions well.
Another colleague, Ben, ended up as a resident in the mental institute where we often took patients. He was signed off work with stress and had become so paranoid that he was convinced he was under surveillance by some secret squad. He phoned us to report exploding pavements outside his house, insisting they were coming to get him. The sergeant sent Barry and myself to go and see him.
A paving stone had lifted from the pavement and sparks were shooting up from beneath it. We called the gas board and the local council. They came to fix a problem with some underground pipes but Ben remained convinced someone was after him. He was in such an agitated state we had to call his doctor who ended up sectioning him. It was very sad, especially when his wife left him.
Some officers went so deep undercover that they ended up being arrested along with the suspect groups they were infiltrating, unable to blow their cover and often part of the overall strategy, because if they did end up nicked, it could only help keep their cover. Then there are those more recently in the media who formed relationships with the people they were supposed to be working against. I don’t condone this, but I can understand how it might be easy in those circumstances to forget the boundaries after a long period so close to those people.
Someone I worked with went off on a long-term drugs operation in Manchester, or Leeds, or another big northern city. He was shot in both kneecaps when it went wrong. He had to take medical retirement but was lucky he wasn’t murdered. Another undercover officer had a concrete slab dropped on his head. He suffered permanent brain damage and had a drastic change of personality. He also had to leave the service.
Police departments operate within geographical boundaries, unlike criminals, who don’t. Surveillance takes you wherever the suspect goes. My work took me all over London and up and down the country. I loved it, all of it, but especially the undercover part. There’s nothing to beat it. I did miss nicking burglars and general villains, reporting the neighbour disputes and stolen cars and rolling around with drunken street fighters on a weekend. The transition was difficult to begin with, having to switch off and ignore calls about that sort of stuff. From time to time we did stints in the CID office and it was good to touch base, to be reminded of how people lived their lives in the real world. You can’t live in the deep and murky underworld too long. It’s not healthy.
The following is a selection of some of my good and some of the not-so-good escapades undercover. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
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