Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes (8 page)

Various ways around this were found. There were often spare cars in the police station yard, so after 24 miles some drivers would swap cars and start again. Others had the simple yet brilliant idea of ignoring the figures in the ‘start’ and ‘finish’ columns and simply putting 22 or 23 miles as the total. They guessed (correctly) that if any supervisor actually got as far as checking the log book entries, they would never go as far as checking the maths in each individual car. If they did get caught, they could just say that their maths was poor. Other times the
previous driver might have done less than the maximum distance in a shift, and would write up a total of 24 but actually ‘hand over’ the excess unused miles to the next driver.

The other method of reducing recorded mileage showed the real stupidity of the system. The cars had mechanical speedometer drives, so if you drove forwards they added miles, and if you drove backwards they removed miles. It was quite common at 4.30 in the morning to see a panda driving round and round a supermarket car park in reverse, but anything more than 5 or 6 miles wound off tended to induce nausea in the occupants, and the incidence of people reporting sick with a bad back after nights increased due to having to look over their shoulder for half an hour continually.

The other consequence was that the fuel bill rose considerably, using petrol to add the mileage and then more again to remove it. But no one in admin ever worked out that some cars were only doing 17 miles to the gallon, and as long as none of them seemed to exceed 24 miles in a shift they were happy.

Shifts with traffic made me keen to join that department one day, but I was under no illusions of it being a quick process. Those who went on traffic tended to stay for years, sometimes decades, and none seemed keen for promotion. To be in traffic with less than seven or eight years’ service was unusual at the time, so I knew I would have to be patient.

Foot patrol was still my lot, and very pleasant it was on a fine Summer’s day, but in Winter it was a different matter. Rain and wind were no excuse for not ‘checking your property’ as it was called, an obligatory task on nights. This meant going round every shop on your beat, checking the doors and windows were closed and no signs of any break-in were evident. If it turned out there had been any damage or burglary when the proprietor opened up the next day, you had to account for either why you hadn’t noticed it or at least say categorically at what time you last checked it.

Of course if it snowed, life was a bit easier. Once you had checked a street you only had to see if there were any footprints going towards a door to see if anyone had approached it. No footprints meant all was still well. But much that I like snow,
walking round in it for hours became progressively more unpleasant. You could go to one of the hotels in town and scrounge a hot drink – the night porters were a reasonably approachable breed. Like me they were at the bottom of a food chain, carrying responsibilities and only being noticed when they got it wrong. But many were either busy or fairly soon became dull company, so after a swift drink you would head out again into the cold. I had joined at a time when the traditional Police cape was being phased out, and was one of the last to be issued with one. In the coldest weather I generally wore the standard issue greatcoat, a bulky garment apparently made of thick felt, which kept my body warm, but as with the cape it still left my legs cold. One snowy night I watched with envy as one of the traffic cars cruised round the town, the two occupants in shirt sleeves with the heater set somewhere in the ‘sub-tropical’ range. The huge Rover pulled up alongside me, heat surging off the V8 engine and wafting tantalisingly at my freezing frame.

The driver took pity on me. ‘Get in and have a warm.’

I didn’t need asking twice.

I settled into the rear seat, even the upholstery exuding warmth which it had absorbed through a night of closed windows and high heat. It was almost stifling, and I loved it. It wasn’t long before I started to doze, floating away on a blissful wave of luxury.

After what felt like a few seconds this tranquillity was rudely interrupted by my radio crackling into life.

‘Your location for Sergeant York please.’

Sergeant York was my patrol Sergeant at the time. He took delight in hounding the foot patrols to see they were exactly on
their beats. He was generally disliked and left the older in service alone as he knew better than to try pushing them around. This meant that the probationers bore the brunt of his efforts.

I sat up and looked out of the car window. I knew the town centre quite well by now, but worryingly didn’t recognise a single building.

‘Where are we?’ I asked.

‘Cuckenfold,’ said the driver.

Cuckenfold?! I had obviously been more asleep than I realised. We were over five miles out of town, a long way on a snowy night. I needed to be back in town, and fast. Finding an explanation for being a matter of yards off my beat was difficult. To explain being several miles away in an outlying village meant trouble. I could claim I got lost in a blizzard, but I discounted that one straight away. An excuse on the lines of ‘I needed to warm up to avoid dying of exposure’ wouldn’t be good enough either.

Although it was not strictly their fault I was so far off my patch, the traffic crew did their best for me. The roads had been gritted, but the snowfall was starting to win the battle again, and I admired the true skill with which the heavy car was made to hurtle through the night towards town. Meanwhile I had to buy time to stave off the Sergeant. First I ignored the transmissions until about the third time of calling, then said ‘receiving you, go ahead,’ let them give the entire message and then repeated ‘receiving you, go ahead,’ as if I had heard nothing. Eventually I could stall no longer, and gave my location as New Beam Street, a long road in the town centre. There were
numerous alleyways and back yards off it, in which I could maintain I had been unable to get proper radio reception. My stalling worked, and a few minutes later we slewed to a halt in the road and I jumped out. The traffic car shot off up one of the side streets, and moments later the Sergeant’s panda turned the corner into view. By some miracle we had avoided being seen.

Sergeant York stopped next to me. I tried the passenger door handle and found it locked, and instead of opening it he gesticulated for me to walk round to the driver’s side. He wound the window down a couple of inches, not wanting too much cold to get in.

‘Anything going on?’ he asked.

‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘Quite quiet tonight.’

‘Right. Carry on then,’ he said, and drove off.

This was nothing more than a spying expedition, seeing if I really was on my beat or not. He didn’t seem to notice that I was dry and relaxed, betraying none of the symptoms of frostbite that he probably expected. Maybe that was why he didn’t offer me a brief respite in his car, but more likely he took his usual satisfaction from being warm while others were not.

John Morgan met up with me one night when we were both on foot patrol. He was wearing his cape, and with the falling snow he looked quite Dickensian. I was shivering with cold after about two hours of non-stop property checking. John also had a good covering of snow, but looked far warmer than me. The cape covered your arms and body in one, but this difference did not seem enough to justify John’s relative comfort.

‘How come you’re not shivering?’ I asked.

‘Central heating,’ he said with a comfortable grin.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Central heating,’ he repeated, and opened the front of his cape to reveal a dull yellow glow. He had ‘borrowed’ a paraffin fuelled lamp from beside some roadworks, and was carrying it under his cape.

This was a brilliant innovation, handed down by word of mouth for decades. Sadly it died out with the advent of battery powered lamps.

Its only downside was that your uniform tended to smell faintly of diesel, but it was a small price to pay.

I still had a great deal to learn, but every day brought more work, more experience and slowly, subtly, I was changing.

Like most people outside the Police world, I had what I thought was a reasonable idea of how life within it would be – everyone focussed on a goal of keeping the lid on the bad guys (and girls of course), with the public supporting us, one big happy family of Police and public, united in the pursuit of good. How wrong I was!

It wasn’t so much the public that surprised me – a scale from the lowest criminal at one end to the most law abiding and virtuous at the other is easy for anyone to imagine and relate to. What surprised me were the divisions within the Police itself. While we all knew we were paid to go out and get on with our duties, I never expected to find the empire-building and back-stabbing that went on inside the organisation, often from quite unexpected angles. I wasn’t greatly worried – after all I posed no threat to anyone’s career aspirations, I was pretty much at
the bottom of the pile and just starting out. So it came as a shock to be called in to my Inspector’s office after about 18 months’ service and be told ‘I’m putting in a report suggesting we dispense with your services.’

I agree I wasn’t the most outstanding of officers, but nor was I the worst by a long way. I was honest, punctual and reliable; all things which I thought stood me in good stead. More than that, I had no inkling that this bombshell was coming. I did my best to query the line of thinking behind the Inspector’s move, but the best I got was, ‘Don’t worry – I got rid of seven probationers one year. Anyway, I’ll send my report to the Chief Inspector and see what he says.’

Was this meant to justify the action or reassure me? Whichever way it didn’t seem to do either, and was not good. The Chief Inspector was a relic from a previous era, utterly out of touch, who regarded all Constables as lowest of the low. He was so old fashioned and out of touch that he had once had a stand-up row with a member of the plain clothes drug squad, ordering the man to get his hair cut because he ‘didn’t even look like a Bobby’. My hopes were low, and my potential situation not helped by being newly married, complete with mortgage, hopes for the future and other expensive commitments. There was a lot at stake. At the 18 month stage I was looking towards the two year service point where I would be what they called ‘confirmed in the rank’, the end of one’s probation and the point where you could be considered fully fledged. Now it looked as if I could be out on my ear.

I went back to the parade room and saw my patrol Sergeant. He was genuinely surprised, but offered some explanation –
‘He’s trying for promotion, so probably thinks he’ll score a few points in the interview if he shows how ruthless he is.’ My revelation to the Sergeant was the first he had heard of it, so his guess was probably correct. I was to be sacrificed on the altar of self-interest.

A few days later my ‘meeting’ with the Chief Inspector was brief and predictable. ‘Your Inspector suggests we dismiss you. I see no reason to doubt his judgement so I will forward this to the Chief Superintendent backing the recommendation. Anything you want to say?’

What could I say? To tell him what I was thinking of him at that moment would have got me arrested. I briefly considered killing him, but there was nowhere convenient to hide a body on the second floor of the building. I had heard of slow vengeance being had by sticky-taping a prawn under a boss’s desk, but I had neither prawns nor tape upon me, and it wouldn’t have done me any practical good anyway.

Even before this event I had wondered if this desperately out of touch man had ever been bullied early in his service. If he hadn’t, I now decided, he should have been.

In a few days I was in front of the Chief Super. This was long before the time when dismissals needed backing up with real evidence, the unsubstantiated opinion of the Inspector was enough to start the ball rolling, and no-one apparently cared or had enough influence to stop it. The Chief Super was sympathetic but unhelpful. ‘I’ve seen you round the building, you always seem smart and busy, and you always seem to be getting on with something when I see you in town, but you
must understand I can’t go against the Inspector and Chief Inspector.’

It just seemed to be a matter of relative value, and mine was low. Upsetting the flow would cause more trouble than I was worth. Things were looking rather bleak.

Not long afterwards I had to present myself to the Deputy Chief Constable, who gave me very short shrift. At this level I was in the ‘something on the sole of your shoe’ category. He seemed to forget that he was once at the bottom of the pile, and that if he and his ilk all vanished, no one would notice or even really care, whereas if all the Constables vanished, then his very purpose in life would disappear instantly. This thought didn’t appear to trouble him though.

‘The Chief’s away from this afternoon (it was a Thursday) so I’ll put your file through tomorrow. He won’t see it till Monday. That will give you the weekend to think things over.’

Think things over? Think what over? Where I was going to sign on for my dole money? What I was going to do with the rest of my life? 18 months in the Police had left me keen for more, strangely. I knew what I wanted to do as a career, and I was in it, but not for much longer it seemed. I felt like the shamed military officer who is left in a room with a bottle of Scotch and a revolver, with the advice ‘you know what to do old man’. I wouldn’t have minded that situation at the time. I’d have drunk the Scotch and shot the Deputy Chief, but that was just a dream.

To compound my irritation the Deputy didn’t even stick to his word. He must have put the paperwork through straight away, because within an hour a message came down from the Chief Constable. I had to make an appointment to see him.
Oddly he offered a choice of dates, and out of a sense of respect I took the earliest. Taking a later date would mean a few more days’ pay, but I liked the Chief. He knew everyone in the station and headquarters by first name. He had been Deputy Chief on that first interview and took over at the very top shortly after I joined. It seemed a long time since then, and a sad end to so many of my hopes. For someone who had joined the Force more or less by accident I now didn’t want to leave. I felt bizarrely at home.