In this job, every once in a while you come across cases that are just plain bizarre. There was the 12-year-old I arrested for sexual assault, the 80-year-old that got nicked for stealing fully-inflated party balloons (he’d tried to do a runner with his Zimmer frame), and the car thief I completely failed to arrest because she flashed her boobs: she caused such a stir amongst a group of bystanders that I was distracted for long enough for her to simply leave the car where it was, saunter off and get on the tube.
From the moment I spotted Jamie, I knew there was something just a little bit odd about him. I just wasn’t able to pinpoint what. He drove meticulously, with both his hands on the steering wheel, and he seemed to drive to ‘the system’, much like they teach us in our advanced driving course. And then there was his demeanour when I pulled him over for talking on his mobile phone whilst driving …
It all started after I had just finished taking a burglary statement. Usually, it would be the Burglary Squad who dealt with burglaries, unsurprisingly (I’ll leave it to your imagination what the Licensing Division or the Robbery Taskforce do … ). However, this particular theft victim had been so desperately upset, the operator had upgraded our response and sent me over to take an initial statement. It was a relatively QT33 shift, and the Burglary team were swamped thanks to a spate of non-residential burglaries on the borough.
As I was pulling back onto the main road, I spotted somebody doing something they shouldn’t be doing whilst driving, and since I was officially ‘on patrol’, I figured I’d pull them over and have a chat.
‘Please turn off your ignition, leave your keys in the car and join me on the pavement,’ I asked the driver, after walking up to his passenger-side window. He shrugged, killed the engine on his car, took his keys out of the ignition, looked carefully to see if there were any cars coming, then got out, walked around and leaned against the slightly battered but overall well-maintained Audi A4 saloon.
‘Do you know why I stopped you?’ I asked him, in that fishing-for-self-incriminatory-information kind of way that I seemed to perfect the day I graduated from Hendon.
‘I believe I do,’ he said, to my surprise. ‘I was talking on my mobile phone, contravening section 26 of the Road Safety Act of 2006 and, I suppose, regulation 104 of the Road Vehicles Regulations of 1986, officer.’ He flashed a half-smile at me, which I wasn’t quite able to ascertain the meaning of.
Surprisingly, it isn’t often I stare into the face of a man who knows exactly what he has been stopped for down to the act and regulation. Usually, people pretend to not have spoken on the phone (a daft move, it’s pretty easy to see when you’re driving behind somebody). When that defence fails, they pretend they didn’t know it was illegal, and when that doesn’t work, they usually tell me that they’ve never done it before, that it was a really important call, and that they will never do it again if they please, please, please don’t get a ticket because their insurance is going to go up if I issue one.
It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to these things. Over the years, the Black Rats34 have caught me for a small yet illustrious menu of motoring offences, including speeding and being on the car phone whilst driving (car phones! Does anyone even remember those?). After I started this job, I put a swift end to silliness behind the wheel. Part of what I do for a living is attend traffic collisions, and it is easily my least favourite part of the job – and, indeed, of my life as a whole.
The truth is, traffic ‘accidents’ are caused by technical failure only in extremely rare cases. The two biggest reasons for accidents in traffic are stupidity and complacence. The combination of these two things is a particularly nasty cocktail. Just because you’ve driven yourself to work every day for the past three years without an incident, it doesn’t mean that a cyclist isn’t going to be on your left as you turn without looking. It doesn’t mean that you can text your friend about your plans for the weekend because there wasn’t a kid playing in that particular part of the road the day before. It doesn’t mean you can put in your contact lenses whilst driving because you didn’t have time before you jumped in the car. I’ve seen all three of these things happen.
Normally after I ask someone whether they know why I stopped them, I explain all these things to them: nobody likes being stopped by the police, nobody likes to get a ticket, and I understand it when people get grumpy about being caught out. Nonetheless, I won’t apologise – endanger my roads where I can see you, and you’re fair game.
But I digress.
Jamie was standing there, hands in his jeans pockets, as my radio buzzed into life.
‘Five-nine-two receiving Mike Delta,’ it chimed. I turned the volume down a couple of clicks before responding.
‘Five-nine-two receiving.’
‘Are you still on scene?’
‘Yes, yes. I’ll be about twenty minutes.’
‘Are you Charlie Papa?’
Now, I should explain that the last question normally means trouble. Charlie Papa is short for Close Proximity, which means that they want to talk to me without my suspect overhearing it. This usually means that they’ve found a marker on the person or the car that I am dealing with, and have a piece of news that I need to know about. I’ve already run his plates through the system, so the operator will know all about the vehicle and its owner. They may need to tell me that there is a warrant for his arrest, or that he is known for guns or violence.
‘Spare, please,’ I requested.
‘Changing,’ the CAD operator replied, and I change my radio to the spare channel.
‘Jamie, I won’t be a minute,’ I said, and walked out of earshot.
‘No worries, take your time,’ he said, still leaning against the grey Audi, and now fiddling with, but not lighting, a cigarette.
‘Can you repeat the index, please,’ the CAD operator asked me. She wants me to read out the number plate again.
‘Yes, yes. It’s Kilo Alpha Five Four Mike Bravo X-Ray.’
‘Stand by,’ the CAD operator said before the radio went quiet.
After what seems like an eternity, the operator came back on.
‘Five-nine-two receiving,’ she said.
‘Go ahead,’ I replied.
‘Er, there’s a marker on the car, do you have your mobile on you?’ It’s an unusual request; why would I need my mobile phone?
‘Yes,’ I replied, and hesitantly added ‘… Is everything okay?’
‘Stand by your mobile,’ was her only reply. ‘Mike Delta out.’
The busy A-road was buzzing with traffic pulling past us at a slow pace. The park behind me sent a fresh breeze my way, and Jamie was finally lighting the cigarette he had been playing with, never taking his eyes off me for a second.
I switched my radio back to the main dispatch channel, and just as I finished doing that, my phone rang with a withheld number.
‘Hi, is that Delito five-nine-two Mike Delta?’
‘Umm … Yes, it is. Who is speaking, please?’
‘Yeah, this is Commander Smith from CO fifteen.’ My brain was racing. CO15 is the counter-terrorism unit: what the hell would they want from me, and why do I suddenly have a commander on the line?
‘We just had a phone call from special branch. Did you just tug35 Kilo Alpha Five Four Mike Bravo X-Ray?’
‘Er … Yes, sir, I did.’
‘Who is the driver of the vehicle?’ I glanced over at Jamie. Is he a terrorist? What the hell is going on?
‘It’s a Jamie, sir …’ I read the name on the licence. ‘Cancel that. His name is James Robert McKenzie, sir.’
‘Okay, that’s all right,’ the man on the phone said.
‘Jamie is a good man. What did you stop him for?’ he asked.
‘He was driving whilst talking on his mobile, sir,’ I replied.
‘That’s fine. Give him a ticket, but don’t run his name through PNC. Once he’s left, make sure to destroy the ticket, and please give me a call once you’re back in the office.’
Commander Smith rang off after giving me an internal Metropolitan Police telephone number. I checked with Dispatch to make sure that I was to do what the Commander had just told me, and then I walked over to Jamie. I calmly started writing him out a £60 endorsable fixed penalty notice. I explained to him that he had to pay within 28 days, and that he would get three points on his licence. Jamie was completely unfazed by any of it. He listened politely – carefully, even – but didn’t say a word.
Once the process was completed, he spoke.
‘Thanks, buddy. Stay safe.’ He extended his hand to shake mine, but I curtly shook my head; I wouldn’t usually shake someone’s hand after handing them a ticket – it’s a safety thing. He shrugged, flashed me another smile and then climbed back into his car.
The silver Audi slid off the sidewalk and back into traffic.
Before he faded into the sea of metal, I spotted Jamie waving a greeting of thanks to the driver that let him in, and I kicked myself. I should have said or done something cool! I should have at least shook his hand.
Or perhaps invited him for a pint.
Or borrowed a cigarette off him.
I don’t even smoke.
I tried to call Commander Smith but was instead greeted by an inspector who said he’d meet me at the police station for a debriefing in person. It turned out that the system should have flagged up a warning message as soon as I ran the car through the PNC (Police National Computer). Normally, the message that would have shown was: ‘Must not be stopped without Trojan assistance’, but due to a glitch that didn’t happen.
They never did tell me who Jamie was or what he did (or, indeed, if that was his real name), only that he was not ‘job’ (so, not working for the police) but did work for the government.
Out of all the traffic stops I’ve done, Jamie is probably the only spy I’ve ever seen … That I know of.