Chapter 3: Things Ain’t What They Seem to Be

1130 hrs.Tuesday 2 April 2019 Thurston Hall

It is not unknown for serving members of a police force to die in harness so to speak. Some are killed on duty – the majority in traffic accidents – and there have been a handful killed – murdered – by criminals and/or terrorists, but the great majority of deaths in service are due to heart attacks. The Job, as it is known by Police Forces throughout the UK, is a hard taskmaster. Long hours, late nights, rushed cholesterol-heavy meals, coupled with a high intake of alcohol and tobacco result in deaths due to cardiovascular disease scything through the ranks of long-serving officers. I assumed ‘Drab’ Rampley was one of the many to succumb.

I sat down at the late Detective Sergeant Arnold ‘Drab’ Rampley’s desk and powered up the PC. I would have to wait for the two detective constables who had worked with Sergeant Rampley to acquaint me with the current state of play with Missing Persons, but I might be able to get some idea of what I had inherited from what files were on his computer. The monitor screen lit up with a message – ‘Password protected’. Great! How was I to access the case files if I couldn’t get into the sodding computer? But surely his files would be duplicated with the DI, although that venomous streak of piss had said nothing as to how I was to get up to speed as the new tsar of Missing Persons. I would have to wait, twiddling my thumbs until the two detective constables, whose names I had already disremembered, returned to HQ after their investigation into the purloined combine harvester, whatever that was.

It was as I sat gazing mournfully at the waiting but un-working computer that I noticed the mouse was on the left-hand side of the computer keyboard. Sergeant Rampley must have been keggy-handed or ambidextrous. At least I now had something to do to pass the time and I disconnected the mouse lead from the back of the computer. After a struggle rerouting the lead I reconnected the mouse and positioned the mouse on the right, i.e. the correct, side of the keyboard. During the proceedings I had sent the mouse-mat sliding to the floor. When I retrieved it, I saw that taped on the back was a yellow Post-It note with the password written on it. So much for DS Rampley’s security.

I typed in the password and accessed the document files; or rather a single document file entitled Missing Persons. The file consisted of a list of some thirty names. Alongside each name was the date the person was reported missing, their age, and a brief description. Some names had an asterisk against their name, some had a hash mark against the name and some had neither. The first thing that struck me was that all the missing persons on the list were female, the next that none of them were over the age of 35. In London, a list like this would scream ‘human trafficking’, yet if only a lowly detective sergeant and two detective constables had been assigned to the case then it appeared The Powers That Be of the East Anglian Constabulary had not thought that these missing females were victims of Serious Organised Crime and had not called on the National Crime Agency (NCA) to assist in the investigation.

I was still puzzling over the annotations against some of the names in the list when DI Warren appeared with two detective constables in tow, the rest of my team I supposed. One of the constables was a dark-skinned female who I surmised had connections to India. The other constable was obviously an English male. She was in her early twenties; he was in his early fifties. Alpha and omega.

I stood up as Warren introduced the two. DI Warren showed herself to be a women’s libber who paid scant attention to the notion of ‘ladies first’ ‘as it was the male detective she first introduced.

“Detective Constable William Clark,” she announced.

I held out my hand, which after a moment’s hesitation he took and shook.

“Pleased to meet you, Detective,” I said.

“Likewise,” he replied. Obviously he was a man of few words.

“And this is Detective Constable Sada Kaur Samir,” Warren said, indicating the female constable.

Placing the palms of my hands together at chest height and bowing my head I made, and said, ‘Namaste‘. I saw the look of delighted surprise on the young Sikh’s face, and she reciprocated.

Warren gave me an appraising look. “Is it part of The Met’s diversity program to teach their people Urdu, Sergeant?”

“My family has Indian ancestry, Ma’am, and I also know that Sikh females prefer not to shake hands.” I didn’t tell her I had spoken in Hindi.

“No wonder you were in the Diplomatic Protection Squad,” she said with a sneer. “I will leave the three of you to get better acquainted.” She then turned on her heel and returned to her desk. The two constables looked at me, waiting for orders. I looked at my watch.

“I expect you two are ready for your lunch,” I said. “I won’t join you as I had a plateful of Welsh cakes when I was with DCI Brownlow and...”

“You did well there, Sarge,” Clark interrupted. “The DCI usually scoffs the lot and empties the plate. Loves his Welsh cakes, he does.” He then noticed the list of missing persons displayed on Rampley’s PC screen. “How did you – “ he paused “ Of course you’re a detective. You discovered the password on the back of the mouse mat?”

I nodded, “Yes, but there is only the one document in the folder. I expected many more.”

Clark gave me a rueful look. “Drab was not exactly computer savvy and often crashed his PC and lost data. I made copies of all the files Drab had regarding missing persons and have them on my computer. You are welcome to make copies and transfer them to your PC.” He went to his desk and switched on his desktop computer. “Copy the folder named ‘Drab’ to a flash drive, there’s some in my desk drawer, and then load it into your computer.”

“You don’t mind me accessing your PC?”

“All my personal stuff is password-protected, Sarge.”

While Clark and I had been talking DC Samir had sat at her console and had started inputting data. The ear-bud in her ear was connected to her mobile as she typed away with the speed of a trained typist.

Clark saw where I was looking and smiled. “Sammy is inputting all the information we have concerning the stolen harvester. DI Warren said we were to transfer all our information to DS Beddoes’ team.”

“Is DC Samir inputting all the witness statements you recoded today?”

“Yeah, Sammy trained as an audio typist. She is a little gem, and we are lucky to have someone of her calibre on the team.”

DC Samir finished typing. “Everything we have has been transferred to DS Beddoes’ team now, Bill.” She looked at me. “I shall go to lunch now, Sergeant, if that is OK?”

“Yes, that fine, Sammy. See you back here in an hour and then Bill and you can bring me up to speed with the current situation concerning the Missing Persons file.”

“Hasn’t the DI done that?” Clark asked, surprise on his face.

“No, she just dumped me here and left me to get on with it.”

He gave a disbelieving shake of his head and sighed. “I’ll go for a swift smoke break and then come back and fill you in with all details pertaining to missing persons” He turned to DC Samir. “When you finish your lunch would you mind bringing me back a cappuccino, Sammy?”

She nodded. “What about you, Sergeant. Would you like a coffee?”

“Yes, thank you, Sammy. I’ll have an Americano, black, no sugar.” I fished in my wallet and pulled out a tenner. “This should cover Bill and my coffee, and whatever you want.”

She hesitated until Clark said “Take it, girl. It’s not often a DS hands out money to his troops, and it probably will never happen again.”

I laughed. “Never say never, Bill.”

Sammy took the note and gave me a lovely smile before she walked away.

“I was worried when Sammy first joined the team,” Bill said as Sammy left the office. “I thought she was the token racial diversity female, with nothing other than her gender and race making her a detective, but she has proved to be a top-notch detective, and has a work ethic second to none. I bet she is back at her desk within half an hour.”

He patted his pocket. “I need a smoke, so will pop outside and foul my lungs in the area separated from clean-living folks. See you later, Sarge.”

I fished a USB flash drive from the drawer of Bill’s desk and plugged it into his computer. The flash drive held no other data so I accessed the folder ‘Drab’ and transferred the files to the flash drive. I transferred the flash drive from Bill Clark’s computer to mine, then opened the folder. There were at least a dozen files in the folder. The first one I opened held the list of the persons missing from home reported to the East Anglian Constabulary (Central Division) during July 2018. There was a file for each subsequent month up to and including February 2019. Details in the file included the name of the missing person, gender, home address, physical description, occupation, name and address of the reportee, and reference numbers and links to supporting files such as witness statements and investigating officers’ notes, CCTV footage, etc.

I was scrolling through the January 2019 file when Bill Clark returned.

“That was a quick smoke break,” I said.

“It came on to rain and there is no cover outside. The top brass do all they can to dissuade us from smoking. Fat chance of that. Those of us who still smoke are addicted, just as much as any crack addict. When I tried giving up the weed I was hell to live with for three weeks, which was the end of marriage number three. I know what the junkies hooked on crack or meth, and all the other stuff coming into the country, go through. I arrest the poor sods, but it is the dealers and the importers I would really like to collar.”

I had printed off the single document in Rampley’s PC and asked Bill what the asterisks and hash marks indicated. His reply astonished me. “I’ve not seen this list before, Sarge, but Drab’s notebook might have the explanations for the markings in there.”

“Where is his notebook?”

“No idea. I suppose the Northumberland Police retrieved it and handed it to the IOPC ready for the inquiry but of course Drab topped himself before...”

“You’re saying Sergeant Rampley was under investigation and committed suicide?” To say I was gobsmacked by the information would be a great understatement. I was completely flabbergasted.

Clark looked at me in astonishment... “Hasn’t anyone told you about Drab? I thought Warren would have said something, or even Brownlow...”

“No one has said a dicky bird to me about him. Give me the full story, Bill. From the beginning.”

On March 17^th 2018, Pandora DeVere Charlton, the 19 years old daughter of a local East Anglian Member of Parliament (MP), Rupert Algernon DeVere Charlton, was reported missing from home by her mother. As Pandora was an adult and did not have dementia no action was taken other than passing her name to the Missing Persons Register at Constabulary HQ. After 24 hours with no contact from her, a missing person report was made and a search initiated.

“Lucky for us, that is the East Anglian Constabulary, she had been filmed on the security cameras at Cambridge railway station boarding a London bound train on the day she went missing,” Bill Clark said. “The Met were informed and CCTV footage accessed. She was seen arriving at Liverpool Street Station.”

London is probably the most surveilled city in the democratic world. All public transport; underground and over ground trains, and buses, have on board CCTV cameras. CCTV cameras are located at every underground and over-ground railway station, at all bus stations and at many bus shelters. They are positioned on every road junction with traffic lights, on all national and local government buildings, museums, shopping malls, hotels, public houses, restaurants, and other businesses, and of course on many private homes and blocks of flats. There are also cameras monitoring the Congestion Charge Area for drivers who haven’t paid to enter, and cameras checking the dedicated bus lanes for drivers who flout the rules.

Pandora was filmed boarding a #11 bus outside Liverpool Street station. The #11’s destination was South Kensington, and Pandora alighted near The Royal Albert Hall and walked down Queensway before turning into Queen’s Park Gardens. Unfortunately, South Kensington and Chelsea suffered a power outage for twenty minutes when the local electricity substation developed a fault. All the CCTV cameras in the area went off-air and when power was restored there was no sign of Pandora on any of the camera footage. The Metropolitan Police sent a bill to the East Anglian Constabulary for the man-hours spent watching CCTV cameras tracking her and said they were not going to spend any more time, money, or manpower looking for her. She had not been abducted and did not appear to be mentally ill. Pandora had been carrying a small suitcase and the Met suspected she was meeting a lover.