Confessions of a Police Constable

by Matt Delito

  But I digress.

  Jamie was standing there, hands in his jeans pockets, as my radio buzzed into life.

  ‘Five-nine-two receiving Mike Delta,’ it chimed. I turned the volume down a couple of clicks before responding.

  ‘Five-nine-two receiving.’

  ‘Are you still on scene?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ll be about twenty minutes.’

  ‘Are you Charlie Papa?’

  Now, I should explain that the last question normally means trouble. Charlie Papa is short for Close Proximity, which means that they want to talk to me without my suspect overhearing it. This usually means that they’ve found a marker on the person or the car that I am dealing with, and have a piece of news that I need to know about. I’ve already run his plates through the system, so the operator will know all about the vehicle and its owner. They may need to tell me that there is a warrant for his arrest, or that he is known for guns or violence.

  ‘Spare, please,’ I requested.

  ‘Changing,’ the CAD operator replied, and I change my radio to the spare channel.

  ‘Jamie, I won’t be a minute,’ I said, and walked out of earshot.

  ‘No worries, take your time,’ he said, still leaning against the grey Audi, and now fiddling with, but not lighting, a cigarette.

  ‘Can you repeat the index, please,’ the CAD operator asked me. She wants me to read out the number plate again.

  ‘Yes, yes. It’s Kilo Alpha Five Four Mike Bravo X-Ray.’

  ‘Stand by,’ the CAD operator said before the radio went quiet.

  After what seems like an eternity, the operator came back on.

  ‘Five-nine-two receiving,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I replied.

  ‘Er, there’s a marker on the car, do you have your mobile on you?’ It’s an unusual request; why would I need my mobile phone?

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, and hesitantly added ‘… Is everything okay?’

  ‘Stand by your mobile,’ was her only reply. ‘Mike Delta out.’

  The busy A-road was buzzing with traffic pulling past us at a slow pace. The park behind me sent a fresh breeze my way, and Jamie was finally lighting the cigarette he had been playing with, never taking his eyes off me for a second.

  I switched my radio back to the main dispatch channel, and just as I finished doing that, my phone rang with a withheld number.

  ‘Hi, is that Delito five-nine-two Mike Delta?’

  ‘Umm … Yes, it is. Who is speaking, please?’

  ‘Yeah, this is Commander Smith from CO fifteen.’ My brain was racing. CO15 is the counter-terrorism unit: what the hell would they want from me, and why do I suddenly have a commander on the line?

  ‘We just had a phone call from special branch. Did you just tug35 Kilo Alpha Five Four Mike Bravo X-Ray?’

  ‘Er … Yes, sir, I did.’

  ‘Who is the driver of the vehicle?’ I glanced over at Jamie. Is he a terrorist? What the hell is going on?

  ‘It’s a Jamie, sir …’ I read the name on the licence. ‘Cancel that. His name is James Robert McKenzie, sir.’

  ‘Okay, that’s all right,’ the man on the phone said.

  ‘Jamie is a good man. What did you stop him for?’ he asked.

  ‘He was driving whilst talking on his mobile, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘That’s fine. Give him a ticket, but don’t run his name through PNC. Once he’s left, make sure to destroy the ticket, and please give me a call once you’re back in the office.’

  Commander Smith rang off after giving me an internal Metropolitan Police telephone number. I checked with Dispatch to make sure that I was to do what the Commander had just told me, and then I walked over to Jamie. I calmly started writing him out a £60 endorsable fixed penalty notice. I explained to him that he had to pay within 28 days, and that he would get three points on his licence. Jamie was completely unfazed by any of it. He listened politely – carefully, even – but didn’t say a word.

  Once the process was completed, he spoke.

  ‘Thanks, buddy. Stay safe.’ He extended his hand to shake mine, but I curtly shook my head; I wouldn’t usually shake someone’s hand after handing them a ticket – it’s a safety thing. He shrugged, flashed me another smile and then climbed back into his car.

  The silver Audi slid off the sidewalk and back into traffic.

  Before he faded into the sea of metal, I spotted Jamie waving a greeting of thanks to the driver that let him in, and I kicked myself. I should have said or done something cool! I should have at least shook his hand.

  Or perhaps invited him for a pint.

  Or borrowed a cigarette off him.

  I don’t even smoke.

  I tried to call Commander Smith but was instead greeted by an inspector who said he’d meet me at the police station for a debriefing in person. It turned out that the system should have flagged up a warning message as soon as I ran the car through the PNC (Police National Computer). Normally, the message that would have shown was: ‘Must not be stopped without Trojan assistance’, but due to a glitch that didn’t happen.

  They never did tell me who Jamie was or what he did (or, indeed, if that was his real name), only that he was not ‘job’ (so, not working for the police) but did work for the government.

  Out of all the traffic stops I’ve done, Jamie is probably the only spy I’ve ever seen … That I know of.

  Crossing over to the other side

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ I shouted, as I ran across the road to the man on the asphalt. He was making a horrible gargling sound. In the three seconds it took me to cross the road, his white T-shirt had been soaked with claret.

  I applied pressure to his throat to try and stop the bleeding, but it kept coming out with a surprising amount of force; I didn’t seem to be able to even slow the bleeding.

  The passer-by I had shouted at for an ambulance was fumbling with her mobile phone. She said something, but not loud enough for me to hear. ‘What?!’ I barked back.

  ‘I don’t know the number,’ she blurted out, and burst into tears.

  There wasn’t time to stop and ponder about the sheer idiocy of that statement. Even though I was now covered in blood trying to save the man’s life, an old joke forced its way to the forefront of my mind: ‘Operator! What is the number for 911?!’

  It had all begun barely a minute earlier. I was on my way to a late shift. We were parading at two, so I left the house at about noon. I treated myself to a full English breakfast and a couple of cups of nuclear-strength java, before walking to work.

  I was at an intersection. Traffic was backed up, so a couple of my fellow pedestrians took the opportunity to cross between the cars. As long as the road is clear, there’s no problem with this; there are no laws against jaywalking in the UK.

  I considered crossing myself, but I looked further up the road, and through the front windshield of a bus, I saw a motorcycle moving up the far side of the line of traffic at a lofty pace.

  ‘A bit risky,’ I remember thinking. A fraction of a second later, someone brushed past me, and darted in front of the white Transit van that was stopped in front of us.

  His timing could not have been worse. I opened my mouth to warn the pedestrian about the motorcyclist, but before as much as a syllable had shaped in my vocal cords, I was interrupted by a sickening sound. The motorcycle’s mirror was the first point of impact against the pedestrian. The force against the right handlebar made the motorbike turn right, and it crashed into the back of the car that had stopped just in front of the van, sending the motorcyclist sailing through the air.

  The pedestrian went down like a sack of spuds. As he did, he smashed his head against the side of the pavement. He must have sliced his throat open against something on the motorcycle – before I even managed to make it over to him, he had grasped at his throat and then blacked out.

  I shouted at the shocked lady: ‘999! It’s 999! Call them now!’ Her mobile was still in her hands, her eyes flicking
between the motorcyclist who’d gone flying clean over the car he hit, and the pedestrian whose life was leaking out of the gaping gash in his throat.

  Another passer-by held a phone to my ear.

  ‘999, what is your emergency?’ the operator asked. I glanced up at the passer-by. He was only a kid, perhaps 16 years old. He looked pale. I mouthed ‘Thank you’ to him, before turning my attention to the phone.

  ‘This is Matthew Delito, PC five-nine-two Mike Delta. I need an ambulance.’ The operator connected me to another – the dispatch unit for the ambulance service, I presumed. Meanwhile I was still trying to stop the blood gushing out of the pedestrian’s throat, and not having much luck. His lips were going blue, he was getting weaker, and now his bleeding was slowing down.

  ‘I have two casualties – one male, around twenty-four years of age, not responding, laboured breathing. He has severe neck trauma, bleeding profusely. The other is a motorcyclist.’

  I glanced over at the motorcyclist. He was moaning and moving around, which meant he was hurt, but at least he was breathing. If a man’s breathing it means his heart is beating. If his heart is beating, well, that means he’s already better off than the pedestrian I was dealing with.

  ‘The motorcyclist is conscious and breathing, but he’s got unknown injuries. He went flying. Broken bones at least. Oh, and get some police over here, it’s a fucking mess,’ I finished.

  A woman showed up out of nowhere and took the phone – now dripping with blood – from me. She asked if I was okay.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ I barked, glancing desperately at the pedestrian who had stopped any attempts at breathing. She checked his pulse, and relayed something to the 999 operator who was still on the line.

  ‘Could you go deal with the motorcyclist?’ she asked me. ‘I don’t think there’s a lot you can do here.’ As she said this, she produced a pair of gloves out of her purse, put them on and took over from me, applying pressure to the man’s throat.

  I must have looked rather grateful, because she responded by smiling for a brief moment, before nodding her head towards the motorcyclist. ‘Go save a life, cowboy,’ she said.

  I recognised her just as I made to turn away; we bring prisoners to A&E all the time and she was one of the nurses we deal with.

  I shook my thoughts back to the task at hand as I bounded over to the motorcyclist. His arm was sticking out at a curious angle. With his other, working, arm he was wrestling with his helmet.

  ‘Hey. I’m police. Don’t worry, an ambulance is on the way. I need you to lay down and not move for a while, okay?’ He seemed happy to take instructions. ‘What’s your name, mate?’ I asked him.

  He said something that sounded like Alexej.

  ‘Alex. Can I call you Alex?’ He tried to nod, but I stopped him with a wave. ‘Alex, you may have a neck injury, and nodding is bad news. I need you to lay down on your back and just not move. Can you do that for me?’ He did. I opened up the visor of his helmet to give him some extra air. He was dazed but able to talk to me.

  ‘The man. Is he okay?’ Alex asked me, straining to move his head to catch a glimpse of the pedestrian.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I lied, hoping Alex wouldn’t notice that I looked like I’d been doing butterfly strokes in red paint all morning. ‘The ambulance will deal with him. For now, I’m just worried about you. Where do you live, mate?’ I talked to him about various day-to-day things, just to keep his mind occupied. Keeping him talking had an additional bonus: it meant that I would immediately notice if his situation worsened.

  The first ambulance arrived, and I knew it was bad news when they came over to us nearly immediately.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you, then,’ the paramedic said to the motorcyclist, before looking at me and shaking his head.

  The pedestrian didn’t make it.

  It’s always really hard not to place the blame in traffic collisions. In this case, the motorcyclist was going too fast for the conditions, but still well within the speed limit. As far as he was concerned, he was crossing on a green light, and making good progress past a line of stopped cars. The pedestrian only saw the line of stopped traffic, ignored the red light for pedestrians and failed to consider whether there might be other traffic behind the stopped vehicles. He should have stopped to check, perhaps, but it’s easy to forget – even if it was an oversight that claimed his life that day.

  More police and ambulances showed up; the motorcyclist had a badly broken arm and a serious concussion. I called my sergeant, and told him the state of play.

  ‘Go home, Delito,’ he said. ‘We’ve got plenty of people on today, sounds like you need a break.’

  I felt bad about leaving my team in the lurch; traffic accidents like this are relatively commonplace, and I could have worked my shift if I’d had to, but I was looking forward to a shower, to scrubbing the blood off me, to getting my clothes into a washing machine and going back to bed.

  One of the ambulances gave me a lift home: it was on the way to the hospital anyway. I remember my last thought before I went to sleep was ‘What a horrible way to die.’

  ‘Going the Way of the Dojo’

  In the parking lot behind a local Sainsbury’s, I was sitting with my feet on the Panda’s dashboard, waiting for my colleague Jay to come back with our lunch. I didn’t really have any reason for staying in the car, other than complete, abject laziness. I suppose I quite like to have someone else buy my lunch for me … with my own money, of course.

  Jay, especially, had been on a great streak for picking tasty foods lately – he’d had a vegan girlfriend for a while, a relationship that fell apart, and he’d been trying to take revenge by eating as many cows, lambs and chickens as possible. If you ask me, it’s not the greatest way of getting back at an ex, but as long as it made him happy …

  ‘Mike Delta two-four receiving Mike Delta,’ the radio buzzed. I looked down lazily, before reaching for the in-car handset. It was one of those old-fashioned squeeze-button microphones you see in American cop shows a lot. We never use it; in fact, I’m not even sure why we have them. The cars are fitted with small microphones next to the sun visors, along with fancy push-to-talk buttons on the steering wheel – but I guess I was in a retro mood.

  ‘Ten-four, Mike Delta,’ I said, in my worst American accent. (Incidentally, that is also my best American accent.)

  ‘You free to deal with an assault?’

  ‘Yeah, why not. Send ’er over.’

  ‘Done. Thanks. It’s on an S-grade.’

  ‘Received!’

  I reached for my phone. The call was a Sierra-grade. This meant we had an hour to get to the location, but it never harms to get going. I rang Jay on his mobile, to urge him to get a move on. It’s possible to call people directly radio-to-radio, of course, but the user interface on our radios is very Motorola circa 1995, which means it takes a rocket scientist to figure out how to programme numbers into the phone book etc. So I just went ahead and called him on my personal phone instead. At least that’s usable.

  Before long, Jay hopped into the car. From the second he opened the door, I was aware of a truly delicious smell.

  ‘What’d you get?’ I asked, fastening my seatbelt.

  ‘Chicken. Roasted. Whole,’ Jay replied. I looked over. He grinned, barely holding back from salivating. ‘Where are we going, then?’

  ‘Church Street,’ I replied. ‘It’s a weird one, actually. We’ve been called to a boxing ring about an assault, I think. We’re meeting a Chris there, who is the victim, apparently.’

  We made it to the address we had been given in decent time.

  ‘This,’ Jay observed, ‘is not a boxing gym.’

  We were standing outside a deep and narrow building, with Japanese-looking writing on the signs and posters. This was a martial arts dojo, and a much fancier one than the ratty, 1960s-throwback community hall where I train jiu-jitsu twice per week.

  A paramedic came out to greet us.

  ‘This way,’ he said
, without seeming to be in a particular hurry. That’s usually either really good news or really bad news: either Chris wasn’t hurt enough to warrant being in a rush, or he had already died.

  We were led into a café-looking area near the front of the dojo. An advanced session of some martial art I didn’t recognise – it looked a little bit like taekwondo – was in progress in the hall itself. We could see the training through the large glass wall, and it looked rather impressive.

  In the café, we met a young man in a martial arts costume. Another paramedic was checking his pulse and blood pressure, as he sat in a chair.

  Not dead, then, I concluded.

  ‘What happened here?’ Jay asked, after we had introduced ourselves and verified that this was, indeed, Chris.

  Chris opened his mouth to answer, and it was immediately clear that he had recently had a tooth knocked out, in addition to other injuries to his face – and arm, which he was wearing in a sling clutched close to his body.

  ‘He beat the shit out of me,’ Chris said.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The instructor.’

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In there,’ Chris nodded, starting to turn his head to look through the glass wall, but then flinching in pain as he twisted his neck.

  ‘Right. So what exactly happened?’

  ‘We were training, and I landed a punch a little bit too hard.’

  ‘So you punched him?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose, but I didn’t mean to. Or, well, I meant to punch him, just not as hard as I did.’

  ‘Forgive me if I ask a stupid question,’ Jay started, ‘But isn’t punching people the point of martial arts?’

  ‘Well, yeah – but we don’t go full contact without a lot of padding. Normally, we just mark our punches, and I guess I miscalculated, and put a little bit too much into my punch.’

  ‘By accident?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Does that happen a lot?’ Jay asked

  ‘I suppose it’s not uncommon to leave a session with a few bruises here and there. When you get better, you tend to have more control. As you climb through the belts you learn more, and you become used to not punching too hard. I guess I miscalculated in this case.’