She accompanied her question by making a jerking motion with her hand, whilst simultaneously pushing the inside of her cheek out with her tongue. I politely declined and she then changed tactics.
“Come on, Officer. Nobody’s been harmed. Can’t we just put this down to experience and you can take me home?”
True; no one had been harmed, but when nearly one in six of all deaths on the road involves drivers who are over the legal alcohol limit, someone might easily have been. It wasn’t something that could just be glossed over.
“You’re treating me like a common criminal,” she pouted as she sat back in the seat and crossed her arms.
“That’s because you are,” remarked Gwen. She may not have read the latest edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People, but she was perfectly right. Whenever I’m asked by drink-drivers why we are harassing motorists instead of catching killers, the answer is because often they’re one and the same. While I explained to my prisoner what would happen next, Gwen went and secured Astrid’s BMW.
“Well, as they say,” replied Astrid with a wink, “when life gives you melons… wear a low-cut top.” Something in her demeanour told me that she felt sure that she could still get away with the offence through the deployment of her charms when we got to custody.
When Gwen returned a few moments later, I had changed places and was sat in the driver’s seat.
“Rosa Parks!” I announced. I was here now and there was no way I was going to move and sit in the back with Nell Gywnn. Gwen didn’t seem to relish the prospect either and I instantly knew that she didn’t find it even remotely funny when she began her sentence with, “I just find it funny how…”
After she reluctantly climbed into the back with Mrs Stevens, we made our way to the police station in silence. Five minutes later and we were stood in front of the desk in the custody suite. As an aside, my advice to anyone who finds themselves in custody is to preferably avoid any of the following, as they generally do not endear you to the sergeant booking you in.
1.Do not interrupt the arresting officer by constantly shouting ‘allegedly’ whilst he or she is explaining the circumstances of the arrest.
2.Refrain from embarking on a long diatribe about what is wrong with ‘the law’ in this country and using air quotes each time you repeat the aforementioned term (which was approximately fifteen times if we’re counting – which I was) when asked by the sergeant if you have understood what the officer has said.
“I admire your conviction,” Sergeant Ingarfield informed her when she had finished. “I mean, you’re wrong and possibly a little deranged in maintaining that you should be exempt from being arrested because you have a lot of money, but you do stick to your guns.”
“So this is really going ahead?”
As the sergeant explained once more to a genuinely surprised Astrid Stevens why she had been arrested, she offered another unabridged rebuttal. Personally, I didn’t follow much of her rationale, but I was left pondering over why people always say ‘I’m not arguing with you’ when they clearly are, and that the origin of the phrase ‘you’re shitting me’ must be one hell of a story.
“It’s a black and white offence, madam.” I could sense that the sergeant was becoming exasperated, but trying to tell a drunken woman to calm down works about as well as baptising a cat. “You are either over the legal limit whilst driving a car on the road or you are not.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but you’ll agree with me that there is a fine line between two things separated by a fine line?”
He chose to ignore her conundrum, and instead continued to book her into custody, although he did have to apologise to her on several occasions as it appeared that the middle of his questions were constantly interrupting the start of her answers.
“Just admit it: you’re obsessed with me!”
“Madam, I can assure you that I’m not, but there are some risk assessment questions that I need to ask you that I would be delighted if you could answer for me. So, if we can please continue. Have you any medical conditions?”
“I’m bi.”
“Polar?” queried the sergeant, his fingers hovering above the keyboard.
“Sexual.”
Ingarfield shook his head and then asked her how she was currently feeling.
“Is apocalyptic an emotion?” she replied; although from the defeated look on his face, I think that it was more applicable to the sarge. He let out an audible sigh and asked her if there were any other factors that should be taken into consideration during her stay with us.
“Well, I have suffered from low self-esteem ever since Lou Bega didn’t mention me in his ‘Mambo Number 5’.”
“Really?” he asked, sounding irritated.
“No! Of course not!” Then began her impassioned monologue to the assembled crowd: “Look, I’m a rich, bored, attractive housewife with an incredible bust. I’m a wanton woman in her prime with time on her hands. That’s the real crime here. I should be wined and dined and made love to like I’m still under warranty! I’m a cougar! I should be lured into a heavenly trap with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and a copy of Journey’s greatest hits rather than caged in, caught by a random policeman,” she lowered her voice and turned to face me, “regardless of how cute he is.”
I’ve been called a number of names by the people I’ve arrested, but I’d never been described as ‘cute’ before. I made a mental note to ask Barry to put it into my annual appraisal. Sergeant Ingarfield, however, was not so impressed with her comment, and called for the new probationer on secondment to come through.
“James!” he roared. A young, fresh-faced looking officer emerged from the back office and led our charge through to the room that housed the station breathalyser.
“Well, if anything convinced me she was drunk, it was that last comment,” added Gwen, rather unkindly, in my opinion. Personally, the moment that had convinced me that she was intoxicated was her hysterical reaction while walking past the dog-section vehicle that was parked in the backyard when we had been making our way into custody; the rear doors of the van had been opened to give the animal some fresh air, and a large German Shepherd had been sitting in the cage, attentively noting everything that was going on; Astrid had suddenly become distraught, demanding to know why the dog had been arrested and what he had done wrong.
“Well, the CAMIC machine will confirm it either way,” commented Ingarfield, bringing me back to the present. To drive legally in England and Wales you must have under 35 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath in your body and the CAMIC is the name of the calibrated apparatus that gives us that reading. Two specimens of breath are analysed by the machine printing out the result, but even then drivers are given the benefit of the doubt, as it’s only the lower reading that is used for evidential purposes. As we waited for our prisoner to return, conjecture set in as we started to ruminate over what the result might be.
“I wonder what she blows?” commented Gwen quietly to herself before suddenly jumping to her feet. “Oh dear God, we’d better check on James!”
We both sprang into action as a wave of realisation swept over us. We raced through to the side room to find a very flushed young probationer fending off the advances of Mrs Stevens.
“She asked me if I had a giant peach,” he stuttered as I led him out to safety, “and she told me she had two superpowers and that they both had nipples.” The poor guy seemed shell-shocked. I took him through to the back office to make him a cup of tea, while he continued with his babbling. “She told me that she would turn me from a boy to a man in six weekly instalments if I blew into the machine instead of her.”
Clearly, he had valiantly held out against her overtures. Gwen now led Astrid back to the custody counter, announcing that she had blown over 100 and proving that despite her contacts in high places, she was indeed as guilty as any other drink-driver. The sergeant informed her of the result, and told her that she would now be processed.
“I am NO
T a cheese! I will NOT be processed,” was her indignant reply.
“I’m sure the officers will do it Caerphilly,” he replied, winking at Gwen.
I desperately racked my brain to think of another cheese pun, but all I could manage at the time was that the only cheese to greet itself in the third person is Halloumi but it didn’t really seem appropriate. Whilst I was wasting time, the sergeant explained to Astrid that it just meant that we needed to take her DNA, fingerprints and photograph. They say it takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-two to frown – Astrid must have used about fifty-five by including a jerk-off motion and an eye roll to accompany her scowl.
Despite her finely manicured nails, the prints were taken easily enough. Since scans replaced the old-fashioned ink block, the reduced level of mess has been matched with a reduced level of resistance to the whole procedure; even taking the DNA sample went smoothly enough, but, when it came to having her photograph taken, things came to a grinding halt. They say that procrastination is a dish best served eventually, and Astrid now used every trick in the book to buy some time as she preened herself; ready for her close-up.
“It’s just a head shot,” explained Gwen, as our prisoner straightened her dress. Astrid’s eyes lit up and she beckoned me over, doing the whole tongue in cheek thing again – it would seem that a ‘head shot’ can mean different things to different people. Astrid was eventually persuaded to calm down before being instructed to sit in the photo booth – only for her to start a commotion again a few moments later. Apparently, a guaranteed way of driving a woman mad is to take a photo of her and not show it to her within three seconds so she can vet it. Once the process had been finally completed, Astrid was led to the cells.
“Oh, one last thing,” interrupted Sergeant Ingarfield, “when you were with the officer taking the CAMIC procedure, you indicated that you had drugs on your person that you were willing to share if he let you off. We’re going to have to strip-search you now.”
“I just said I had some crack he might be interested in!” she protested. “It was just some unsubtle flirting! I also told him I had an opening that needed filling, but I wasn’t offering him a job!” But it was too late: the words had been said and the consequences were upon her. “Oh well,” sighed Astrid, resigning herself to her fate, “I should have suspected something was up when my gynaecologist gave me a safe word last week.”
I thought it would have been funnier if he had said ‘At your cervix, madam’ but I decided to keep that gem to myself.
As she was led into the cell, I couldn’t quite work out who was more horrified by the thought of the procedure: Astrid or Gwen. The idea of the strip-search is to ascertain if the individual has anything hidden on their person that wasn’t found on the usual ‘pat down’. I wasn’t sure why Gwen was so worried: she should be pleased that our subject was so presentable. She was certainly far cleaner and more fragrant that any of the males I’ve had to deal with! As for Astrid, the whole process was nowhere near as invasive as she had feared. Nevertheless, within minutes of Jessica arriving to assist and the search commencing, I heard the first anguished protests emanating from within.
“Please stop cupping your breasts, Mrs Stevens. I believe that they’re natural, but I’d rather not feel them, if it’s all the same to you.”
It seems that Astrid had found her inner exhibitionist and had turned the tables on my colleagues; relishing the opportunity to flaunt herself in front of her captive audience as she sashayed around the room. Meanwhile, Gwen and Jess tried desperately to complete the job in hand, whilst also fending off their charge’s questions.
“No, madam, I’ve never heard of a vajazzle, but it sounds like something my nana might like for her birthday as she is a big Acker Bilk fan… oh, it’s nothing to do with jazz music… it’s WHAT? Oh, dear God!”
“No, Astrid, I don’t select my attire based on ease of removal – that must just be you.”
“No, I don’t actually know what a MILF is so I couldn’t possibly comment on whether you are one or not, Mrs Stevens.”
“There were a couple of eyebrows raised when I had my first facelift,” Astrid remarked, striking a pose, and then resuming her catwalk. “You need to check my underwear? I was waxed at the spa yesterday, darling – so they’ll slide down easily.”
“If you can take your underwear off yourself, Mrs Stevens, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
“No, madam, I don’t want to try your underwear on, I just need to smooth them down to make sure that there’s nothing hidden in them… no, I can’t do that whilst you’re still wearing them.”
“Agent Provocateur, sweetheart,” I could hear Astrid telling Jess. “You can keep them as a memento.”
“It’s not really appropriate,” came the response. “If you could please put them back on now and get dressed.”
“You can get my number off the sergeant. Sext me! … Oh dear! That was a Droidian slip!” giggled our prisoner. “I mean text me!”
“I don’t think that will be happening,” replied my colleague over her shoulder as both she and Gwen quickly exited the cell and closed the door behind them. They came over and leant on the custody desk, shaking their heads just as the cell buzzer went off, indicating that Astrid wanted something else. To save them from any further embarrassment, I went to see what her latest request was.
“I could really do with a frappuccino, honey.”
“We don’t really have those sorts of things here, Mrs Stevens. I can offer you a tea-flavoured drink or a coffee-flavoured drink. At a push, you can have a warm cocoa-based beverage. What will it be?”
“Send that gorgeous young James out to Starbucks!”
“Astrid, no one is going to Starbucks. I can get you a coffee, accompanied by one of our range of microwave meals if you’re hungry. You have a choice of: all-day breakfast, beans and sausage or mince and dumplings.”
“I’d rather starve!”
Ten minutes later, I was called back and Astrid quietly and demurely informed me that she’d have a tea and an all-day breakfast. I went and prepared the food. Two minutes later and a ‘ping’ announced that the magnificent feast was ready. I duly delivered it through the hatch, along with a plastic fork and a large plastic mug that wouldn’t look out of place in a nursery. The reason for the plastic accoutrements became clear when, a few minutes later, I heard the sound of them smashing against the wall, followed by a shout claiming that even Bear Grylls wouldn’t eat that (expletive deleted)!
“As much as I don’t really want to deal with a drunken, violent male,” remarked James, as we sat in the back room of the custody suite completing our paperwork, “I think I’d rather do that than face Mrs Stevens again.” A general murmur went around the room; as much as drunken, violent males can be dangerous and unpleasant, they are no match for an intoxicated, predatory female.
Then, as though prearranged, the buzzer went off again in Astrid’s cell. We all looked at one another and, after an embarrassingly long pause, Sergeant Ingarfield volunteered the young lad to go and see what she wanted.
“You do know what a cougar is?” I queried. Ingarfield replied by shaking his head and offering a shrug of the shoulders. “Jess will explain,” I told him, “but I think it’s probably best if I go.”
It turned out that Astrid wanted to know if I would smuggle a file hidden in a cake into her cell. I informed her that that wouldn’t be possible, and that sawing through the bars was a bit old-fashioned, especially since there weren’t actually any bars in her cell. In a desperate bid to sway me, she then lowered her voice and in a conspiratorial whisper, informed me that when she was released, that thing that Meatloaf ‘wouldn’t do for love’ – well, she would… I told her it was an intriguing offer but that my shift was almost over and I’d be gone when the morning comes.
Chapter 2
“Here’s Johnny!”
“Urgent: RTC reported on Dominion Road. All available units to attend. Casualties reported.”
As
the radio call broke the silence, I instantly sat up straight in my seat. At eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning the rush hour would be well underway with traffic and pedestrians all going about the business of commuting to work, doing the school run or making their way to the shops. It would be manic.
As I lit up the roof with blue flashing lights and edged into the traffic, I could hear sirens in the distance as a series of other units announced they were on their way. I informed Comms that I was also en route and added my own two-tones to the mix. Soon a cacophony of sound reverberated through the town as units raced through the rush-hour traffic. Comms came back quickly with an update and, even before the dispatcher spoke, I sensed the urgency in the call. “We now have reports of children running amongst the traffic.”
Children? Had I heard that right?
“Units attending the RTC, please be aware that we now have sightings of at least one, maybe two toddlers on the road. Additionally, we have several other reports coming in of a further accident at the same location.”
Where could the children have come from? Had they been in one of the cars, or had they been on their way to school on foot? Had their mother been hit as she crossed the road? There were so many unanswered questions and more clarity was required. I wanted to know who precisely was involved, what the extent of the injuries were and where exactly I needed to be, but I knew how difficult it was to get a clear picture of events; sometimes, the only thing worse than not getting enough information is getting too much. At this moment the control room would, no doubt, be inundated with calls and would be struggling to distinguish which were duplicates and which were new incidents. Some callers would expect the police operator to have precise local knowledge, too, unaware that the person to whom they were speaking was sat in a control room thirty miles away, taking calls from across the entire county, while others, although well intentioned, would be giving the wrong location or incorrect information, or exaggerating or underplaying the crisis. Striving to establish a clear, logical picture for the attending units speeding to the scene from the plethora of confusing and often conflicting reports can sometimes be a real art form in itself.
Police, Arrests & Suspects Page 2
