Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes (20 page)

In fact as far as the ‘dirty tricks’ department went, John had a number of successes. He lacked George Upton’s ruthless full-on attack on the criminal fraternity, and whereas George could always provide a loud and blunt justification for his various courses of action, John worked in slightly more subtle, devious and often amusing ways.

One of the big frustrations of the Policeman’s lot is when you know that someone is guilty of an offence, but you haven’t quite got the evidence to prove it, even if you were tempted to indulge in a bit of ‘fitting up’ or similar creative writing. As an ex-traffic man John retained an interest in road-traffic related stuff and was a good, fast driver, but when one day he came up behind a motorbike which refused to stop, he found that the little panda car he was driving was woefully underpowered.

The bike was only a small one, a 125cc Yamaha, but it was a two stroke and one of the newer breed which produced power in amounts only dreamed of a few years earlier. This was obtained by fine engineering tolerances, and the accurate metering of fuel. Central to this was the constant-loss oil system for engine lubrication which was fed from a separate tank, rather than being mixed in with the petrol as had been the case previously.

John lost sight of the bike after a short chase, and although it was found a few minutes later, the rider was nowhere to be seen. The bike was brought in to the Police Station and placed in the ‘cage’, a secure area in the underground car parking area by the Headquarters. As John was filling in the property card at the front desk, a youth presented himself there, and introduced himself as the owner of the bike. His story was that he had heard
the Police had recovered his bike and he wanted to report that it had been stolen.

John recognised the jacket, helmet and trousers on the lad as suspiciously similar to those worn by whoever had been riding it when he had the chase, but any prospect of convicting the lad was scuppered by virtue of the fact that he could not have seen the rider’s face at the time, so it was what was called ‘no cough, no job’.

Masking his frustration, John offered the bike owner a measure of sympathy at the temporary loss of the bike, got the keys to the storage cage, and escorted the lad down into the yard.

‘Wait there and I’ll go and get your bike for you Sir,’ he said respectfully, and went to the cage.

He returned a minute or so later, wheeled the bike up to its owner and put it on the centre stand.

‘Nice bike,’ he said, ‘doesn’t seem to have suffered anyway. You take care and ride safely. Goodbye now.’

He gave a cheery wave and turned back to walk into the Police Station, safe in the knowledge that while the lad would never face prosecution for his driving offences, he would also never know who it was who had topped up the oil tank with urine, which would prove quite hopeless as a main bearing lubricant, leading to the utter destruction of the engine in a matter of a few miles.

Another colleague had done a similar trick on a man who had evaded Police whilst drunk, and after abandoning his car had gone home on foot across country before reporting it stolen. Smelling a rat the officer hunted quickly and thoroughly
for the car, and eventually located it in a lane less than half a mile from the man’s house. There were no keys in the ignition which was a good indication that the last person to drive it was probably the owner. Again, the procedure was that all recovered cars were brought into the Police Station, so he obligingly hotwired the ignition, removed the sump plug to release the engine oil, and drove it the three miles back. As he arrived at the nick the engine expired, so he replaced the sump plug and parked it ready for the owner to collect. When the now sober owner arrived, the Bobby was waiting for him.

‘There’s your keys’ he said ‘but I wouldn’t drive it till you’ve had it looked at.’

‘Why not?’ enquired the owner and hatcher of the Perfect Plan.

‘The engine’s knackered,’ he replied. ‘Whoever took it must have given it a right thrashing and they’ve wrecked it.’

‘But…’ said the owner. This was not an eventuality he thought he would have to deal with.

The Bobby fixed him with a hard look.

‘But what?’ he asked.

There was a long silence.

‘Nothing,’ said the owner, and walked away confused and disheartened.

Despite John Morgan’s efforts, the motorcycle incident was a reminder that technology was advancing, and the Police Force was no exception.

Radios, when they worked, were something that a generation earlier would have been seen as a huge luxury, and their introduction had brought about the creation of the local control room, where the public phone calls came in and the jobs were given out and co-ordinated over the air.

The control room was manned by two officers, who were in turn supervised by a Sergeant. The Sergeant also had to check and submit any paperwork from the block, and the office men had to deal with enquiries at the front desk as well as making the tea at strategic points throughout the day. For those who didn’t mind being under the gaze of their supervisor, working the office had a number of advantages. Principally it was warm and dry, and apart from the occasion when someone threw a petrol bomb into the office from the foyer, it was generally safer than being out on the street. The downside was that for every job that a Bobby was sent to, there would be ten phone calls from the ever-hungry public demanding to know everything
from whether their offspring had been arrested to who the late-night chemist was.

Any call that needed an officer actually to visit someone would be logged on a ‘message pad’, an A5 sized piece of paper ready printed with sections to record the caller’s name, address and telephone number, a small space to show the call signs or collar numbers of the officers dispatched, and a bigger area to note the brief details of the incident. Finally a small panel allowed the result to be recorded. So a typical pad would have a line saying for example ‘shoplifter – male 23 years’, a foot or mobile patrol would be shown as allocated, and the result section would say ‘Fred Smith arrested’.

All nice and simple.

But technology marched ever onward, and rumours started to spread that the system was to be computerised. Even though no such radical modernisation was imminent, it still caused a wave of panic among the more dinosaur-like office men, and some applied to move back out onto the streets.

This meant that a vacancy came up on my block for someone to go into the office and work the radio, answer the phones and so on. After the better part of four years on the streets I fancied a change, and became a slight anomaly as one of the younger in service to be indoors. I wasn’t complaining – the Station Sergeant was a very likeable man who was eking out the last few years of his service in as quiet a post as possible, and the others on the block showed no resentment that someone many years their junior in service was giving them their instructions over the radio.

Despite my initial difficulties in learning the layout of the
town, I had by now managed to build up a very good mental map of the area, and was able to visualise where each patrol was in relation to most premises in the town. This was a useful attribute, as on the office end of the radio you relied entirely on spoken word for any update, and were expected to take responsibility for who went where. I was helped to a huge degree in many instances by the sheer professionalism of the others on the block, who worked with seamless efficiency (at least in times of crisis) – often all the outgoing radio message had to say was something like ‘intruders on at Spratt’s jewellers’, and the next four radio messages returned would be four patrols all picking different approaches and areas to cover, to try to contain the building. The whole process took only moments, and gave us the best chance of success in getting criminals arrested. If a building looked to have been broken into and we had been quick enough getting there, it was sometimes prudent to surround the place as best possible and then call for a dog patrol to search the place. Police dogs were good at this – they could outrun any burglar, generally searched very thoroughly and got their teeth firmly stuck into anyone they found. It could be a different story in an open area though. A building could be nicely contained, and the dog would know that any human it found was fair game, so the handler would wait by the point of entry and any Bobby in his right mind would stand well clear. But if the dog went off to follow a scent leading away from the building then the Bobbies were better advised to stay in their cars or stay with the handler if they were to reduce the chances of being bitten. Some dogs were better than others and often a reflection of the handler.

At one end of the scale was Alec Shearwater, a man who in fact bore an uncanny resemblance to an Alsatian, and usually claimed to have been issued with a ‘dud’. His dogs always seemed to be called ‘bastard’, or at least that was the only name he ever applied to them, but he could ‘talk a good job’ as they say. He would start to follow a scent and disappear into the darkness in apparent hot pursuit, shouting warnings to the rest of us to ‘keep back in case I let him off’. A few moments later he would radio an update, saying he was following two men. A rough description would follow, the two men would then be reported to be running but he was gaining on them, and a few moments later they would somehow disappear, just as the rest of us were on the edge of our metaphoric seats in anticipation of an arrest. I wouldn’t have minded, but it was the same script every time, so in the end when Alec picked up a scent and hurtled off into the dark the rest of us would slope off and put the kettle on, and listen to the repeat broadcast from the quiet comfort of the Police Station.

At the other end of the scale was Charlie Parks and his dog Sam. Charlie was a realist, and if there was no scent to follow, then that was that and he would be first in the queue for the tea. If there was a scent then Sam would follow it, concentrating hard, and on many occasions proved beyond doubt that a dog really can follow scents for long distances even over hard surfaces. The best thing about Sam was that he could also recognise Police uniforms, and there was never any risk of him sinking his teeth into your leg in a fit of over enthusiasm. Most dog handlers kept their dogs on a long ‘running line’, a rope about thirty feet long, to allow the dog to work in an area free
from distracting scents, but Sam could be trusted to work completely free with no line or lead. In the middle of one night Charlie went to a house burglary and let Sam have a sniff round the back garden for a possible track. Sure enough in moments he was off down the back alleys – nose down, tail up, and tracking well. Charlie ran to try and keep up but lost sight of his dog after a few turns in among the maze of back-to-back houses that made up the old part of the town. After a minute or so of chasing he gave up, and stood still to listen for any sound from the dog. He heard a sound which he knew was Sam, and moved closer to it. It grew louder as he got closer, and he could tell the dog was out of breath, panting hard and growling occasionally. He must have caught the burglar and be holding him at bay. Confident of another success, he rounded another corner to find Sam panting, growling gently, in
flagrante delecto
with an Alsatian bitch.

Ever the realist, he knew that even if the scent had been originally from burglars, Sam’s mind was most definitely not on his work, nor would it be for the rest of the night. Sipping his tea a bit later he said philosophically ‘at least someone’s got a litter of fine pups for nothing.’

Sometimes on nights Charlie would bring Sam into the station and give him a search exercise as a bit of extra training. This consisted of checking the top two floors of the building were empty and then hiding one of the dog’s favourite toys in one of the offices before letting him loose. If there was a new probationer on the block they could sometimes be persuaded to play the part of an intruder and hide in an office for the dog to find. The end of the search was usually marked by excited
barks and screams of fear from somewhere high in the building, indicating that the two participants had met. Occasionally Charlie would come in but get distracted in conversation, and we would spend an hour or more talking in the office. Charlie would tell tales of his past career while Sam would rest his huge muzzle on my knee, leaving thousands of dog hairs on my trousers while fixing me with an unblinking gaze, his soft brown eyes pleading to be fed bits of my sandwiches. Eventually Charlie would remember his original plan and head off into the building, from which would emanate even louder screams than normal as the probationer would by then have fallen asleep, to be rudely awakened by a set of bared white fangs, sometimes with bits of my sandwiches still between the teeth.

However good Sam was though, he remained a piece of Police issue equipment, on paper no different to an item of uniform. In acknowledgement of this Charlie was paid an allowance and given duty time to look after the dog at home. He wasn’t allowed in the house (Sam, that is) and if he went on holiday then Sam had to go to the Force kennels. But of all the Police dogs I have known, I would agree with Charlie when he said Sam was the best by a mile. Such was the bond that on one occasion Charlie could not bear to put Sam in the kennels when he went for a weekend’s camping and decided to take him along for the break. What was the harm? He had the most obedient dog ever, and a highly intelligent one to boot. So a breach of rules it may have been, but off they went all the same.

All was fine on the Friday evening, Sam fitting in as an undercover pet, sitting under a chair in a quiet country pub, perfectly behaved.

The Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, and Sam was let out of the car where he had spent the night – sharing a tent with an Alsatian was a bit too much to consider. Charlie watched as Sam scampered off into a field, and leaned on a gate to see the morning mist rise gently off the field as birds sang and cows mooed. There was not another soul to be seen for miles – it was remote, beautiful and tranquil. At least it was until the calm was shattered by an unearthly wail from a cow, which hurtled along the field in front of Charlie, who saw that the reason the cow was so panicked was that it had Sam hanging onto its flank by his teeth. He shouted as loud as he could, and to be fair to Sam he let go immediately, and was a bit crestfallen to find that his efforts at finding a nice breakfast for his master were not appreciated. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief and instinctively looked round, checking that there really was nobody around. He did a swift double-take when on the opposite side of the lane he saw a stout, severe looking woman glaring at him. ‘You want to keep that bloody dog under control you damned townie. I’ve a mind to call the Police.’