‘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 eleven65, 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.
‘Fuck that for a sack of cow’s testicles,’ Pete said colourfully (if slightly zoologically inaccurately). ‘The lift’s broken, isn’t it?’
He took a step back, and gave the door an almighty kick. It creaked, but stubbornly resisted the attack. Pete kicked again, and this time the door flew open. In the blow, the top hinge had become loose as well, so as the door flew inwards, it swayed back and forth briefly, before the screws came loose from the rotten wood at the bottom and the whole door went tumbling inwards to the floor with a crash.
‘Whoops,’ Pete said, mirthlessly, stepping aside for one of us to enter the house. Bernard and I stared at each other dumbly, neither sure as to who was going to go in first.
‘Pansies,’ Pete mumbled, and made his way in first. Bernard followed him.
‘Mike Delta from five-nine-two,’ I transmitted quickly. ‘We’ve just breached the door to the premises of our last assigned. Going in now.’
‘Received,’ came the reply.
At least, if they never heard from us again, they’d know where to start looking for our corpses. I followed the others into the apartment.
The door on the far side of the hallway opened and a young, slim black man dressed only in poorly fitting briefs came out of his room, shouting something in a language none of us understood, presumably at the other occupants of the flat.
‘Police!’ Pete shouted, as if being a six-foot-six Metropolitan Police uniform-clad man didn’t make that clear enough. ‘We are looking for Stéphane. Please stay where you are.’
The three of us proceeded along the narrow hallway quickly, checking room by room to make sure nobody could run out or vanish out of a window. In the kitchen, we found the man I had seen through the letterbox. He had dropped his towel, and was only moderately successful in preserving his modesty with a small frying pan. Bernard burst out laughing and threw the man his towel.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, cover yourself up, we just want a chat with you.’
The man accepted the towel, wrapped it around himself and stood there, still holding the frying pan.
‘Come with me,’ Bernard said, pointing to the door of the kitchen. The man looked confused, and shrugged.
‘Please, this way,’ I said.
Bernard gently took the frying pan out of the man’s hand and led him by the arm out of the kitchen and into the small living room across the hallway.
Bernard’s action was the result of many a hard-learned lesson: kitchens are not good places to talk to people who may be about to get arrested. Apart from the frying pan the man had already been holding, I had counted at least six large knives, a meat cleaver and a couple of other potential weapons in the room. I don’t know about you, but if I had to choose between being hit with a cast-iron skillet or a sofa cushion, I know what my preference is going to be.
‘What’s your name?’ Bernard asked after we had walked into the living room and encouraged the man to sit down in the sofa.
‘What?’
‘Your name,’ Bernard tried again. ‘What is it?’
‘What?’
‘Name,’ Bernard continued tirelessly.
‘My … Name … Is … Bernard,’ he added, pointing at his own chest and prodding his Metvest with every syllable. Then, he pointed at the man. ‘Your Name Is …?’
‘Uh?’
Bernard fished his handcuffs out of their holster.
‘If I am not happy that I know who you are, I’m going to arrest you’ – he jangled his handcuffs in the air – ‘on suspicion of assault, to ascertain your identity properly.’
Suddenly the man remembered his name.
‘Charles,’ he said. ‘My name is Charles.’
‘See,’ Bernard replied, sardonically. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it? Do you have any ID, Charles?’
It appeared that Charles’ command of the English language had improved drastically since the beginning of their exchange.
‘Yeah, I do,’ he said. ‘It is in my room.’
‘Which one is your room?’
He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.
Bernard nodded. ‘Where in your room?’
‘Night stand,’ he said. ‘Drawer.’
‘Would you mind waiting here for me? Is it okay if I go find your ID for you?’ Bernard said.
Charles nodded, and I waited around with him until Bernard returned waving a passport. Meanwhile, Pete was standing, wide-legged, blocking the exit of anyone who might try to leave the house and at the same time keeping an eye on the man in briefs.
‘When were you born, Charles?’ Bernard said.
‘September fourteenth, nineteen seventy-three,’ he replied.
‘Where?’
‘Senegal.’
‘Where in Senegal?’
‘Kaolack.’
‘Has anybody ever told you that you don’t look a lot like your passport photo?’ Bernard asked him, as he passed me the small booklet.
It was one of the old-style passports, where the passport photos were essentially just stapled into place with fancy-looking staples. I looked at the passport closely: it was well worn, but I couldn’t really tell whether it was genuine or not; and even if I had been an expert on Senegalese identification documents, I still wouldn’t have been able to tell whether the photo had been replaced or not.
Pete had moved further into the flat, and by the sound of things, he was asking similar questions of the other man. A few moments later, Pete brought the second man into the living room. Based on the man’s irate tirade, I reasoned that there was nothing wrong with his language skills.
‘Flat’s clear,’ Pete concluded, as he pushed the man brusquely into the living room. ‘This guy is a live one.’
‘What the hell is this, man?’ the man said. ‘You broke our fucking door!’
‘Why didn’t you open up?’ Pete asked.
‘I was afraid,’ he said.
‘Of the police?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
The man didn’t reply.
‘Anyway, Charles, I just wanted to …’ Pete said.
‘Wait a minute,’ Bernard interrupted, pointing at the man we had found in the kitchen. ‘I thought you were called Charles’.
‘We are both called Charles,’ the second man snapped, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
We spent the next 20 minutes running both Charleses’ details through the police databases. Bernard’s Charles came back with a match.
‘Have you ever been arrested, Charles?’ Bernard said.
Both men immediately shook their heads.
We spent another 45 minutes going back and forth, before reaching the unlikely but apparently accurate conclusion that both these men really were called Charles. And, yes, Bernard’s Charles’ name really was Charles Ba, but there was another Charles Ba, with the exact same birthday and place of birth, who had been arrested after he had been suspected of a hit-and-run offence in Essex three years prior. It turns out that the Essex-based Charles Ba had a distinctive scar on his face, but our London-based Charles Ba didn’t.
You can’t make this stuff up.
By the time we had finally cleared up that the two people we were talking to were who they said, the three of us had been in the flat for what felt like roughly an eternity.
‘So …’ Bernard said to our duet of Charleses ‘… we are here to find Stéphane Nguimgo. Do you guys know who he is?’
They shook their heads in perfect unison.
‘This house has three bedrooms; there are only two of you here. Who lives in the third bedroom?’
‘Nobody,’ Pete’s Charles volunteered.
‘Mate, don’t have a laugh. It’s quite obvious that someone lives there, there’s stuff there.’
‘Nobody lives there.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Nobody. It’s a guest room.’
‘Do you have a visitor at the moment?’
‘No.’
‘So there is nobody living in that room?’
‘No.’
‘Charles, how much rent do you pay?’
‘Eh?’
‘Rent. The money you pay to live here,’ Bernard continued. By now, it was quite clear that both our Charles-named friends spoke absolutely fluent English, but they continued to ‘forget’ even simple words when it suited them. This happens all the time when questioning people, and can be extremely frustrating. I guess this is why Bernard had taken the lead in talking to the men: I’ve never met a more patient officer in my life.
‘How much do you pay in rent?’ he repeated.
‘Eighty pounds per week.’
‘How long have you been living here?’
‘About five years.’
‘Do you pay the same?’ Bernard turned to the other Charles.
He nodded.
‘So between the two of you, you pay about a hundred and sixty pounds per week? For this place?’
Charles Ba nodded, but with less conviction this time.
‘Mate, this is a pretty good apartment. It’s not council, is it?’
He shook his head.
‘Who is your landlord?’
He shrugged: ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know who your landlord is?’
‘No.’
‘How do you pay him?’
‘Cash, every week.’
‘How?’
‘How?’ the man echoed.
‘Yes,’ Bernard said, and I sensed his patience was beginning to fray. ‘Do you meet him somewhere? Does he come here?’
‘We send it in the mail.’
‘You send cash in the mail?’
‘Yes.’
‘And it never goes missing in the mail?’
‘No.’
‘Ever?’
‘No.’
‘You’re lucky, then. I wouldn’t generally recommend sending cash in the mail, you know. Not a good idea.’
‘To what address do you send the rent money?’ Bernard continued.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Who normally pays the rent?’
‘Me.’
‘So you’ve lived here for five years, paid your rent every week, and sent it in the mail every week? So you’ve written down this address more than two hundred and fifty times, but you can’t remember what it is, or who your landlord is?’
‘Yes?’ the man answered with the most obvious lie of the day yet.
Clearly, there was something really weird going on – the flat we were in was in a pretty dodgy estate, for sure, but the flat itself was pretty nice; it was close to a tube station and local shops. There was no way they were paying £160 per week for this place. Now, if there was a third person involved who shared the rent duties, bringing the total to £240 per week, or about a grand per month in total … well, that would still have been cheap, but it sounded more likely.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Bernard said, completely straight-faced. I stifled a chuckle.
‘Hey, guys …’ Pete said, as he walked back into the living room. To my embarrassment, that was the first time I had noticed he had left it in the first place.
There was a small, neatly stacked pile of mail in his hands. I looked at the top envelope in the stack. It was addressed to S. Nguimgo.
‘What’s this?’ I asked Team Charles.
‘I don’t know,’ Pete’s Charles lied.
Pete looked through the stack.
‘They are bills and letters …’ he said, as he was going through the stack. ‘All addressed to S or Stéphane … The newest one was post-marked two days ago, the oldest one about four weeks ago.’
I took a quick look at my wristwatch to confirm the date. Four weeks ago would have been around the beginning of February.
‘So here’s what I think, guys,’ I said. ‘There is a third person living here, but it’s not Stéphane.’
I looked from Charles to Charles. ‘Instead, Stéphane is your landlord, and he comes here at the beginning of every month to pick up his rent and his mail. Is that right?’
Both men remained silent.
I sighed, tearing off a piece of paper from my notebook.
‘If you don’t want police showing up here every few days, I strongly suggest that you “remember” where Stéphane lives. He’s not necessarily in that much trouble, but we do need to talk to him urgently. If you know anything, or if you run into him, please call us on this number,’ I said, and wrote down ‘101’ in comically large numbers on the pad. ‘Or ask him to come talk to us at any police station.’
‘And now,’ Pete says. ‘I’m just going to have a quick look in that room where nobody lives, to make sure that nobody is living there at this very moment. Would that be okay?’ He looked from Charles to Charles, daring each of them to protest. They didn’t.
As we waited, I found myself wondering if Pete really had valid grounds for search. Obviously, we have the right to search for people when we’re executing an arrest enquiry, but searching a room where there obviously is nobody home? I figured I’d keep my mouth shut. Still, if Pete felt he could write up an explanation for the search, then it was on him. In his defence, we did have to confirm whether or not our missing person actually lived in this flat, and it would be good for the report to be able to add that extra scrap of information.
Pete returned only a few minutes later and handed me a piece of paper; it was a letter from a mobile phone company.
‘Who is Boubacar?’ I asked.
One of the Charleses mumbled something.
‘Excuse me?’ I snapped. I’d lost my patience with these two by now.
We were two hours into a negative arrest enquiry, a process that normally only takes five minutes: you check the house – if the person you’re looking for is there, you arrest them and take them to the station; if not, you leave. This was getting a little bit ridiculous.
‘It’s my brother,’ said the Charles who hadn’t spoken any English at first.
‘Do you know his date of birth?’ I asked.
He gave it to me, and I ran Boubacar’s details through the computer as well. He came back as wanted in suspicion of several counts of fraud, all committed in Birmingham.
‘What does your brother do for a living, Charles?’ I asked.
He shrugged, and I tried to encourage him to tell me where his brother might be, but Charles claimed to know absolutely nothing. Eventually, I gave up.
I looked up at Pete, then across to Bernard.
‘Are we done here?’ I asked. The uniform-clad pair turned away, in perfect synchrony. I knew they felt the same as me: we had wasted a monumental amount of time and effort on a completely fruitless arrest enquiry, on a day when the borough was seriously short on staff.
Ridiculous.
As I started to leave, Pete’s Charles piped up.
‘Hey, who is going to pay for the door?’ he said.
‘You have home insurance, don’t you?’ I answered, and started digging around in my Metvest. Pete tapped me on the shoulder and shoved the flyer I was looking for into my hand with a grin. I was not particularly surprised to discover that Pete, who had a passion for kicking doors open, carried on him the information leaflet we hand out in these situations.
‘Next time,’ I said to the Charleses, handing over the flyer, ‘when the police knock on your door, try opening. It’s cheaper.’
Feeling despondent, we started walking down the four flights. That was a total of three officers times three hours – so, 12 hours of police constable time – wasted, for nothing.
However, before we fully made it to the bottom of the stairs, our bad moods were lifted: a group of youths had been seen ‘fighting with sticks’ (that means baseball or cricket bats, usually) in a nearby park. There was no way we weren’t going to be the first officers on scene.
‘Show six-eight,’ Bernard shouted into his radio as he ran towards the Panda.
‘Show eight-seven,’ I echoed, not a second later, as we leapt into the caged van, before flicking the lights and sirens on, following the Astra to the location at high speed.