I was on the wrong end of horrendous abuse and vitriol about 3 a.m. one summer morning. I had come from the mortuary and tried to tell a hysterical mum that her son had died of a drugs overdose. She howled. She shouted. She swore. She tried to throw me out, wanting to believe that if I weren’t there her son would still be alive. After she’d used up every ounce of emotional energy, I persuaded her to get her other son round to be with her. She reluctantly allowed me to remain until he arrived. He wasn’t much better, aggravated by the fact that he was a police officer from another force. Bizarrely, instead of comforting his mum he started by questioning my investigation and trying to give me advice. I had to take it all in my stride, seeing it as a reaction to something I never wanted to experience. As the hours went by my presence was accepted even if my news wasn’t. I hope that in time the pain eased.
Another evening, a car full of teenagers had plummeted off the cliffs at Brighton onto the Marina Village. Two of the lads inside died but miraculously not all were killed. I hadn’t been to the accident but was tasked with visiting the family of one of the survivors to break the news. All of the occupants had grown up together and the tragedy had been due to a simple lapse of judgement. A community was about to be devastated. There is no instruction book for how you tell a mum that while her son was alive – critically injured and on life support, but alive – that his best friends had died a horrible death plunging over a hundred-foot cliff to the ground below.
It was a long, hard evening with that family, trying to keep up with them on their rollercoaster of emotions: relief, guilt, grief, hope and despair. I will never know whether my approach, along the lines of ‘this is really awful but try to cling on to hope and the fact that he is alive and in the very best hands’, worked, but it was all I could think of. Sometimes gut instinct, common sense and humanity are all you have to fall back on; you have to hope they get you through.
Occasionally you have to adopt a parental role towards those whose world you have just destroyed.
Following yet another young life being snuffed out decades before its time by drugs, it fell to me to break the news to the young man’s parents. It was the middle of the day and they were hard to find, but death is notoriously disrespectful of convenience.
I eventually tracked the father down to his small shop close to Brighton’s border with Hove. Thankfully the lunchtime rush had yet to materialize so the shop was empty.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Murphy. I’m from the police. Do you mind just shutting the shop for a while as I need to talk to you?’
‘Yes, of course, Officer, what’s the problem?’ he chirped. Only I knew that would be his last cheery word for years.
Having secured our privacy, I went through the basics of quickly checking his identity, as you never want to give a death message to the wrong person, confirmed who his son was, and then I told him.
‘I am very sorry to tell you that we have found your son dead in his flat this morning. We are sure it’s him and the early indications are that he died of a drugs overdose.’
He stared at me in frozen shock. No emotion.
‘I have to tell Pam, my ex-wife, his mother. I suppose I should do that after I close up tonight.’
‘No, that needs to happen now. How would you like to do that?’
‘Well, she ought to be told but I can’t close the shop.’
‘Really, you can. You must. You can’t stay at work. It probably hasn’t sunk in yet but this is going to hit you very hard.’
‘Do you think so? I mean, do you think I should shut up the shop?’
‘Yes, absolutely. Please do it. How would you like Pam told? Shall we do it?’
‘No. I must. Can you come with me though?’
‘Of course.’
After what seemed like an age I helped Mr Murphy towards my waiting unmarked car. He had not yet broken down, he had not yet asked the thousands of questions I knew would come; he had gone onto autopilot.
As we drove the short distance to Pam’s office in the centre of Hove we agreed that we would ask for her to be fetched and that I would request a quiet room. He would then break the terrible news and I would support him by answering any questions and helping with any arrangements.
I took the liberty of parking directly outside, placing the Police Vehicle Log Book on the dashboard to ward off any overzealous traffic warden. We climbed the narrow stairway to the office reception. We introduced ourselves and I persuaded them to give us the privacy we needed.
So far so good. I would stay in the background while the tragedy unfolded between the bereaved parents.
In walked Pam. It seemed she had been told nothing, still less that her ex was with a police officer.
‘Hello, I am DS Bartlett,’ was all I said before the man beside me wailed like a banshee.
‘What? What’s going on? What’s happened? Will someone please tell me?’ Pam demanded.
The stoic determination Mr Murphy had shown earlier had crumbled at the critical moment. There was no way this poor lady was going to hear the terrible news from him. We should have agreed a plan B but I knew I needed to step in and fast.
‘I am afraid to tell you that your son has been found dead this morning. He was in his flat and we think he died of a drugs overdose,’ I said gently, for the second time within an hour.
Now I had two banshees. The screams must have been heard right through the adjacent offices. I had to get these two out of here quickly.
Bombarded with questions, denials, more questions and waterfalls of tears I managed to extricate the two devastated parents from the building, into the car and away to nearby relatives. There I went through the announcement for the third time, before leaving the mum and dad in the care of someone they loved.
I have no doubt they weep to this day. No-one should have to bury their offspring. As Grace says in Dead Tomorrow when explaining to Cleo why Lynn Beckett went to such lengths to save her daughter Caitlin’s life: ‘The gods have no greater torment than for a mother to outlive her child.’
There are lots of aspects of the job that don’t necessarily fit in with the idea that the police’s role is to cut crime. Giving death messages is an obvious one. Just as Grace applies Locard’s principle of ‘every contact leaves a trace’ to the forensic quandaries facing him with the recovered bodies in Dead Tomorrow so it applies to the personal contacts the police have with ordinary people. The way officers speak to and treat those they are telling of an unexpected death will mark those people for life. All personal baggage must be left at the door. Be it the fight they have just been to, the tray full of reports waiting for them, the grief from home for being late off duty, nothing must interfere with that moment.
Bad enough that the bereaved have been visited by the angel of death, but to taint that further with arrogance, insensitivity or clumsiness would be criminal. Thankfully officers acting in such a way tend to be confined to television fiction; in reality they are invariably all you would hope them to be.
I pray you never have to find out for yourselves.
10: BLINDED IN THE NIGHT
That couple of months between Christmas and the first daffodils of spring can be a great time for the police. Less partying means fewer people inflicting unspeakable evil on each other; a welcome breather for beleaguered cops. The year of 1998 was the exception that proves the rule. We’d had the calm, now followed the storm.
This was a time of new beginnings for me. Fifteen months previously, after five years of trying, Julie had finally fallen pregnant – with triplets. Going from the despair of childlessness to hitting the triple jackpot on our first IVF attempt was as wondrous as it was exhausting. We had never predicted that we would have a complete family delivered in one go.
Julie had selflessly taken voluntary redundancy from her career at Gatwick Airport to fund and prepare for the fertility treatment. She put heart and soul into trying everything to conceive, including some incredibly painful and intrusive operations. We were both hea
ding towards our mid-thirties and were worrying whether we would ever have the family we so craved.
The IVF had gone as well as such a physically and emotionally draining procedure could. The first pregnancy test in mid-December 1996 had us leaping, gently, around the Christmas tree – Julie would not get to use the new squash racket I had bought her as a present that day for some years.
A very nervous and edgy few weeks of the New Year ended with a scan in early February, which diagnosed twins, but the hesitancy in the obstetrician’s poorly hidden reaction scared us.
Four weeks later, this time at a different hospital, the crowd of doctors and midwives that the sonographer called in again did nothing to relieve our fears.
A hushed pow-wow around the screen ended with the announcement, ‘Mr and Mrs Bartlett, you are pregnant with triplets.’
Our reflex was just to burst into laughter and query, ‘Are you sure there are no more?’
‘No, just the three. Congratulations.’
Our euphoria was short-lived, however. As soon as we left the ultrasound room the consultant obstetrician called us in.
‘You do realize we don’t advise that triplet pregnancies are viable. You run a huge risk to all the babies if you continue with it. I strongly recommend that you reduce the pregnancy.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘You should only look to carry two of the babies.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A simple injection into one of the babies will terminate it, leaving you with a more optimistic prognosis.’
‘So kill a healthy baby. That’s what you’re saying?’ Julie asked through her tears.
‘Well, that’s a harsh way to put it.’
‘But that’s what it boils down to,’ she wailed.
She and I looked at each other for no more than a second. Words between us were not necessary.
‘No way,’ insisted Julie. ‘If this pregnancy is meant to be then we will give all our babies a chance. How can you suggest killing one?’
‘Well,’ the pompous cold doctor continued, ‘they will be premature and we won’t have room for them here so they will be farmed out to other hospitals.’
‘How dare you,’ I snarled. ‘This is our dream and you are not going to wreck it.’
We stormed out, marched to the car and held each other laughing and crying for the next twenty minutes.
Thankfully, the doctor who had carried out the IVF and first spotted two babies was more sympathetic. He was the clinical director at another hospital and took us under his care, saw us every two weeks and admitted Julie as an inpatient for ten weeks until Conall George, Niamh Sarah and Deaglan John, three healthy babies, were delivered at thirty-four weeks.
Julie’s pregnancy had gone swimmingly and the triplets have grown into wonderful, intelligent, loving and healthy young adults. Thankfully I have never met that miserable consultant obstetrician since, but in some ways I would love to and show him the results of us dismissing his cruel advice.
By February 1998 Conall, Niamh and Deaglan were at that dangerous crawling stage where everything that was in reach was subjected to either the mouth or the drop test. As with the fictional DC Nick Nicholl, sleep was just a pipe dream. I’d recently returned, as a DS, to the city I loved. I had previously been posted from Haywards Heath to work at Headquarters for an Assistant Chief Constable – thankfully quite unlike Grace’s nemesis ACC Vosper – but now I was back.
The country was mourning the death of Princess Diana, the Japanese Winter Olympics were about to start and President Bill Clinton had just asserted his undying fidelity to wife Hillary in a national address. The twenty-first century was now within touching distance and people were pondering whether Armageddon would strike when the planet’s computers went into meltdown, unable to cope with eight-figure date formats: the millennium bug that fortunately never was.
It was always a relief for Glynn Morgan when he could finally lock up his cramped pizza takeaway restaurant squeezed among a row of shops on Church Road, Hove. A twelve-hour day getting deliveries out on time, serving the passing trade of ravenous drunks and managing unreliable employees could take its toll. Lucky for Glynn that his partner and soulmate Fiona Perry was always there to help ease the burden and lift his spirits.
Glynn and Fiona lived in a compact mid-terrace flat in central Hove just a stone’s throw from the scene of the crash that killed Tony Revere and set in train the most ruthless campaign of revenge in Dead Man’s Grip. The roads in that area are narrow, giving a feeling of a close community who look out for each other. People were friendly, which was just as well as parking was a nightmare. Tolerance was essential in avoiding road rage.
Being with each other and scraping a living out of their franchised takeaway pizza business kept Glynn and Fiona busy and contented. They drove a clapped-out Austin Ambassador car which limped from one annual MOT to another. Affectionately naming it Anna (‘Anna nother thing wrong with her!’) they had no need for anything more ostentatious, which was just as well given they lived from hand to mouth.
Staff turnover was high. People did not view riding a Perfect Pizza-liveried moped around the city distributing boxes of Meat Feasts and garlic bread as a long-term career. Many treated it as a stopgap between other jobs or a short-term way of boosting their income.
Glynn was grateful when David McLellan had been transferred from another branch a few years previously. He knew the ropes already and didn’t need training. When he left around 1996 he had been with them longer than most.
For Glynn and Fiona it was like any other Saturday night in winter; steady but not rushed off their feet. Trade petered out naturally by the midnight closing time so they were able to clean and cash up before the shutters came down, meaning a swift getaway. Never in their wildest dreams did they imagine what was about to happen. Never did they realize that their every thought, word and act that followed would be delicately drawn out of them by detectives and savagely scrutinized by a sterile justice system.
The safe locked, the ovens off and the mopeds crammed into the shop, they secured the doors, jumped into Anna and made their way the short distance home.
‘One day we’ll actually find a space outside,’ complained a frustrated Glynn as the car crawled along the crammed street where they lived.
‘Why don’t you drop me off at the flat and I’ll go and put the kettle on while you find somewhere to park?’ suggested Fiona.
‘OK. I won’t be long. See you in a minute,’ replied Glynn as he stopped in the road by their front door.
He would never see her again.
As Glynn inched the car round the corner Fiona noticed a man walking briskly past her. She immediately realized it was David McLellan, and it struck her as odd him being in Hove as he lived on the other side of the city. Despite being almost certain that he had not noticed her, she took the precaution of pretending to search for her keys so he would not spot which house was theirs. At that moment she became aware of a second figure pass her by. She glanced up and saw him join McLellan near the junction at which Glynn had just turned. They disappeared from sight.
Not expecting Glynn to be long, she ambled up the steps to the front door when suddenly the roar of a racing engine and the squeal of tyres grabbed her attention. Startled, she turned to see Anna racing and weaving away from her, the rear passenger door being slammed shut as it went.
She couldn’t believe that someone had had the audacity to steal Anna so brazenly with Glynn being right there. How could he allow that to happen?
She walked to the corner, expecting Glynn to emerge from a shadow, clueless, wondering what was going on. As the minutes passed by so her fears soared.
Where was he? What was happening? She was right to be worried.
Glynn had found a perfect parking space just around the corner. Normally it would be, at most, a five-minute walk back from where he managed to squeeze his oversized car into the gap.
As he switched off the eng
ine, he flung open the driver’s door and swung his legs out. He wearily stretched as he stood on the deserted pavement, tired from his long day.
As he was closing the door, he saw McLellan walking straight at him. A second man was closing in from behind. The man behind grabbed Glynn’s keys, forced him into the front of the car, pushed him across to the passenger side and jumped into the driver’s seat next to him. At the same time McLellan leapt in the back behind Glynn.
The driver seemed flustered and couldn’t get the keys in the ignition.
‘You do it,’ he ordered.
Confused, Glynn did as he was told and leant over and started the car. As it raced off and around the corner, he came to his senses. He spun sideways and tried to kick the door open, intending to throw himself out, but it held fast.
McLellan grabbed him from behind and he felt cold steel being pressed against his throat. The threat of the knife told him this was about more than Anna. Terrified, he sensed they were making their way northwards out of town. The last thing he recalls is the driver demanding, ‘Have you got the shop keys?’
His memory of that night, and the next three months, finishes there. The brain is a wonderful thing. It can blot out forever the most horrific events, saving its host from a lifetime of flashbacks and nightmares.
Fiona frantically dashed to find a working telephone box. After hitting 999 she asked for the police. ‘My boyfriend’s been kidnapped. They’ve driven him off in our car. Please help me.’
Officers were dispatched immediately and, returning late from another enquiry, DC Mick Burkinshaw headed straight for Fiona. Doing his best to reassure her, he coaxed her into his car and drove around the local area hoping to glimpse Glynn or Anna. More cops saturated the neighbourhood and beyond, desperate to find him, hoping that he would have been dumped and that it was just the worthless car that was the robbers’ target.
PCs Richard Jarvis and Jo Nutter were conscientious and intelligent young officers. Regularly crewing together, they were a good team. Richard, despite his youth, had a dour demeanour that belied his dry sense of humour. Jo was the opposite. Irrepressibly bubbly and chatty, she was a perfect foil for Richard. They played to their differences expertly with the public, adopting good cop, bad cop roles when needed.
Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton Page 16