Confessions of a Police Constable (27 page)

‘There are two guys in there, and they're using an iPad. Tracy says it doesn't have that hideous pink cover on it, but it looks like they have a fair amount of second-hand stuff for sale behind the counter. It could be anywhere. One of the men is our man from the bar,' Simon said.

Tracy grabbed the radio from Simon, ignoring the one he had sticking out of his back pocket.

‘I recognise the other guy, too; he's a nasty piece of work. I don't think he clocked me, but I nicked him for running a prostitution racket a few year years back. Turkish bloke, in a blue shirt. He put up quite a fight last time I nicked him, so be careful.'

‘Should we go in now or wait?' the skipper asked.

‘Now. Let's get the little fucker,' Tracy said.

‘Let's do it,' the skipper said, reaching for his torch. I did the same, and saw Simon producing a torch as well.

Simon was first in though the door.

‘Police, don't move,' he shouted, and pointed his torch straight in the face of the guy with the yellow shirt.

I aimed my torch into the eyes of the second man, who was seated behind the table, but he dropped the iPad in front of him, leapt to his feet and dived out of sight to the left of us. Tracy leapt forward and grabbed hold of our yellow-shirted scoundrel, and within seconds he had his prisoner bent over the table with a set of handcuffs keeping his arms behind his back.

Simon and I edged forward, trying to locate the man in blue over the racket being caused by Tracy trying to search his prisoner and Sergeant Thomas radioing in a status report. The man seemed to have vanished into thin air. I stuck my head carefully around the corner and spotted a stairway going down into darkness.

‘He's gone down the stairs,' I called. I turned around to see whether Simon was still following me, and caught a face-full of his ludicrously bright LED torch, which caused me to lose whatever night vision I might have had up to that point.

‘Sorry, mate,' he mumbled.

‘Let's see if we can find him,' I said, and started descending the stairs, my torch piercing the darkness. I heard a clicking sound next to my head; it was Simon, trying a light switch. Nothing.

We continued down the creaking stair. At the bottom, there was a small, narrow hallway going left and right. We stopped and listened, and I took a step to the right, letting Simon step off the stairs with a step to the left. We couldn't hear anything.

Simon swung his torch around, and took a couple of steps down the corridor.

Suddenly, I heard an almighty crash and a shout.

‘Whattafuuuuuuuuu—' Simon wailed, as his torch went spinning away into the dark corridor, creating a ghoulish shadow play on the walls as the light from his torch picked up all sorts of rubbish on the floor.

‘Aaaaaaaaaah,' Simon shouted again. In the light of my own torch, I could see him grabbing his arm. I also spotted his assailant; it was the Turkish man Tracy had warned us about before we entered the shop.

I reached up to my radio and pressed the orange button next to my antenna.

‘Urgent assistance required,' I shouted. ‘Basement of the Internet shop, 33 Garyson Rise, we're under attack from a man with a stick.'

I paused briefly to think whether there's anything else I needed to say: ‘Get us an ambulance as well, Mike Delta two-eight-eight got whacked.'

With that, I turned my torch off.

There are few things police officers care about more than their torches. You'll inevitably lose your torch eventually, but that doesn't stop me from investing some serious cash into a top-quality light source; I use the thing nearly every night shift, so it makes sense to get a proper one. Some officers choose to use Maglite-style torches so they can double as nightsticks, but I don't quite see the point. I already have a police-issue Asp – or a gravity friction-lock baton, as it's officially called – which is manufactured specifically for slapping people about, so I have no idea why anyone would choose to carry a heavy flashlight. My torch is a Night-Ops Gladius, a tactical flashlight that was apparently made for mounting on an assault rifle or a pistol. Since the Met hasn't deigned to provide me with one of these lead-redistribution devices, I use the torch on its own. I chose it for several reasons: it's as solid as can be; it's the right size to be used as a Kubotan (a small hand-to-hand combat weapon); and, most importantly, it has a rapid strobe mode, a feature that has saved my bacon more than once.

With a quick twist of the torch's rear cap, you can prepare the strobe mode. Next, point it at someone's eyes and press the back of the cap to activate it. If you're at the receiving end of that treatment, it's extremely disorienting; the only thing you'll see is the strobing of the light – the person behind the light becomes completely invisible.

This seemed a perfect occasion to exploit my torch's functionality. I flicked my Gladius into the strobe mode, passed it into my left hand, and drew and racked my Asp with my right.

I could just make out the man from the light of Simon's torch, which had come to rest pointing at the wall behind him. He was hiding next to the half-opened door, as Simon lay yelping on the floor, pushing himself towards me with his legs.

‘You okay?' I asked him, knowing the answer.

‘Do I fucking sound all right?' he barked. ‘He twatted me in the fucking arm, didn't he?'

‘Hey! You!' I called out to the man. ‘You saw us, you know we've got two more officers upstairs, and we've got a vanload more coppers coming. Put down the bat, you can't win.'

An unprintable malediction ruptured from behind the door.

‘I'll give you five seconds,' I said. ‘Then I'm coming for you.'

I could see him take a firmer grip of his aluminium bat as he tensed in anticipation; I also heard a faint creaking on the stairs next to me. They must have finished loading our other prisoner into the back of the van, because both Tracy and Sergeant Thomas were on the stairs, batons drawn, ready to spring into action.

‘Five …' I said. Simon staggered to his feet next to the stairs, and leant against the walls.

‘Four …' I called a few seconds later. I whispered to Simon, ‘Take my torch. When I say One, lean as far forward as you can.'

‘Three …' I said out loud, before dropping my voice to a whisper again ‘… and hold the button on the back pressed in. Whatever happens, keep it aimed at his eyes.'

‘Two …' I called out to the man. Then slid my torch into the hand of Simon's uninjured arm, double-checking he had a firm grip of the torch before I let go of his hand.

‘Got that?' I whispered.

‘ONE!' I called, and dropped to the floor with all the grace and finesse of a narcoleptic cow.

Simon shouted a battle cry that would make a banshee sob with envy, as he pressed the button on the back of the torch. The super-bright LED bulb started strobing rapidly, catching the man square in the face. I crawled as fast as I could, on all fours like a dog, along the floor.

With the first few strobes, I could see his wide-open eyes. The next few flashes illuminated his whole face as he moved out of his hiding place, taking a firmer grip of his bat and trying to shrink away from the bright light being beamed at him.

I could see the expression on his face change with each pulse of light.

It showed his gritted teeth.

It showed a face that was making the decision to fight for his life.

He raised his bat. But then, suddenly, realised something was wrong; the source of the strobing light and manic cry wasn't coming closer.

Just as the penny dropped, my baton connected with the side of his left shin. The man screamed and I didn't waste any time. I leapt to a position behind him. He was holding his bat with his right hand, as his left went down to his shin. I whirled around and put my whole weight behind my baton, aiming for the side of his upper arm. To the sound of a nausea-inducing snap, the baton thumped into his arm less than a second after it had reduced the nerves in his lower leg to a concerto of agony. From the ‘snap', I was pretty certain I had broken his arm.

I grabbed my cuffs out of their holder, but before I was able to get close enough to apply them to the now-squealing man, another set of hands reached out of the dark, grabbed him and hauled him to the ground, pressing his face against the dusty floor. Tracy's torch clicked on and suddenly the whole messy scene was well lit.

He wasn't one for wasting time; Simon's attacker was in handcuffs before he had time to take another breath.

By now I was sitting on the floor, my back to a wall, panting. As the adrenaline of our sneak attack wore off, I could feel my knees hurting. I looked down to see I was bleeding from my right knee; my left one was badly scraped as well but somehow wasn't leaking, though the trouser legs on both legs were torn.

‘Extra points for creativity,' Simon said drily, and limped his way up the stairs, muttering something about ambulances.

‘We've had a report of a burglary in progress at the MumToBe on 53 Lower Street,' the call came over the radio. ‘Graded I, Graded India.'

I leapt up and grabbed the coffee from the table in front of me. I must have squeezed a little bit too enthusiastically on the Styrofoam cup.

The lid popped off.

The cup buckled.

It slid from between my fingers.

The cup hit the table, sending a fountain of steaming hot coffee straight up towards me. I saw it coming in slow-mo, but thanks to a bona-fide miracle, it failed to hit me in the face. Instead, it cascaded down the front of my Metvest and into my lap.

I swore and then, leaving the enormous puddle of coffee where it was, grabbed some napkins, and furiously rubbed my crotch with them, as I sped out of the cafeteria, transmitting at the same time.

‘Show two-four,' I said.

‘Last transmitting, what's your shoulder number please?'

‘It's PC five-nine-two Mike Delta, Matt Delito.'

‘Received. We'll send the CAD to your MDT,' they concluded, and proceeded to send the notes for the current call to the mobile data terminal built into my police car.

‘Received, thanks,' I said, and climbed into the vehicle.

The fabric our uniform trousers are made of is truly, profoundly horrible: scratchy and static and not particularly comfortable. Though, it does have two advantages: it dries very quickly and, being dark blue, stains don't show up that easily.

However, as I sped out of the gate, blue strobes reflecting on the walls around me, the formerly scalding-hot coffee was cooling down rapidly, and a chill ran up my spine. I glanced down: there was a hugely visible wet patch on the front of my trousers.

In moments, I turned the car down Lower Street, and arrived at the MumToBe shop front.

‘Show two-four on location,' I transmitted, as I brought the car to a very rapid halt. I got out, grabbed my torch and peered into the shop for a closer look.

The scene was dead.

‘I can't see any sign of the burglars, but the glass in the entry door has been smashed in,' I transmitted, realising grimly what that would mean.

There was only one thing for it. I couldn't do a drive-around looking for the suspects. Nobody was in the shop to look after it, and with the front door completely smashed in, I couldn't leave it unguarded.

As soon as we arrive on scene, it becomes our responsibility that nothing further is stolen, so I wouldn't be able to leave until the door had been boarded up or the owners of the store had returned to look after their wares.

I got back on the radio, on the spare channel.

‘I'm going to need someone who can board up a shop door,' I transmitted.

There was a moment's pause before the response came: ‘Ah, I may have some bad news for you.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, there was some unrest in one of the neighbouring boroughs earlier today, and there seems to be quite a long wait before anybody will be able to come out and board up a shop front.'

‘Er. Could you give me an estimate?'

‘I could, but you're not going to like it'

‘Go on?'

‘Eight.'

‘What? in the morning?' I asked, looking at my watch. It had only just turned 10 p.m.

‘Sorry, buddy. We'll try to send someone to relieve you as soon as we can, but for now, hang tight!'

I looked up and down the street. The whole stretch of road, as far as I could see, was completely deserted. Not a single open shop, not one pedestrian. Even the lamp-posts seemed to spill their light on the road only with great reluctance.
Great
. I'd be spending the next few hours guarding a ghost town.

I grabbed some POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS cordon tape from the back of the Panda, and cordoned off the area in front of the shop, from the corner of the shutters, via a lamp-post, to the next set of shutters along.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait.

I settled in, standing against the wall.

The first 20 minutes were a bit slow.

The next 20 minutes were dreadfully boring.

The next 20 minutes were deathly boring.

In the 20 minutes after that, I started to lose my will to live. To make matters worse, I discovered that I really, really needed to go to the bathroom.

My watch beeped. It was 11 p.m. My radio was beginning its slow-building crescendo in the Friday-night symphony of destruction: there was a relatively serious accident where a bus driver had run down a pedestrian; there were three separate armed robberies, which appeared to be linked, and the robbery squad, on motorbikes, had support from four additional motorbikes from Traffic, trying to chase down the moped-riding robbers. There was a huge fight among several groups of travellers, which seemed to spread slowly from pub to pub somewhere in the south of the borough; there was a sudden death of a woman in her mid-30s that was considered suspicious. Later, another traffic collision was added to the mix, this time between a car and two bicyclists, one of whom had tragically expired on the scene already.