As every Grace novel reminds us, briefings are the centrepiece of any investigation. They are the place where information is shared, snippets of intelligence checked out, updates given and priorities set. Roy Grace is deft at ensuring that during his, there is control and structure yet even the most junior officer feels able to speak up; it is often they who have the nugget that all the others have been waiting for.
I did just that myself once when I plucked up the courage to suggest Ian McLaughlin as a suspect for a homophobic murder. It was him. It turned out he had killed before and did so again while on day release from prison in 2013. He will now die in prison.
This one, however, was really more of a chat. The venue was the nicotine-stained, threadbare-carpeted CID office that had the appearance of having been equipped at a car boot sale; each battered and bruised piece of furniture was different from its neighbour. Each workstation, however, was the nerve centre of dozens of investigations into man’s appalling inhumanity to man. As Grace reflected in Dead Simple when revisiting that self-same office, each desk appeared as if ‘the occupant had abandoned it in haste and would return shortly.’
The information was a tad light on detail. All we knew was that we were going to storm 1 Wykeham Terrace, and a few garages dotted around the city. There was only sporadic mention of tapes, printers and passports. All I picked up was that ‘stuff had been happening’ and we needed to crash through Henty’s door to find out exactly what.
I was still working with DC Dave Swainston and I felt incredibly privileged to be learning from such a seasoned master; he relished the most complex and arduous investigations and what he didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing.
On hearing of hundreds of thousands of tapes, and a hint of the counterfeiting of passports, Dave volunteered to run the investigation, as it would be something different to get his teeth into. I knew, given how closely we worked, if Dave took this job on then so would I. I couldn’t wait.
This was long before the days of Local Support Teams who now would crash open doors and secure premises needing to be searched. This raid was down to us suits.
Off we went, crammed into our oh-so-identifiable unmarked CID cars. Anyone watching us screech, in convoy, up the traffic-choked North Street towards the Clock Tower would have wondered what on earth was going on. So did I.
It really wasn’t essential to race to the target address. The only point at which it becomes necessary to go hell-for-leather is when you risk being seen by your quarry. Frankly, tearing up the road was nothing more than ego-boosting, adrenaline-pumping fun.
As we cleared the Clock Tower, the cars juddered in unison to a halt opposite the ivy-clad, stone-arched entrance that provided Wykeham Terrace with privacy from the outside world. Today it worked to screen us as we squeezed out of our three-door saloons, allowing us a few more seconds of surprise.
Eight of us raced up the flint steps into the courtyard in front of the imposing Tudor-Gothic facade of the terrace. Now was the time to rush.
We sprinted out of the shadows and leapt up the steps leading to house number 1. DS Don Welch, a rugby-playing, marathon-running giant, booted open the huge front door.
As we raced in creating an ear-splitting din with our shouts of ‘police’, ‘stay where you are’, and ‘nobody move’, we heard pounding footsteps and shouts above us. A door banged and it became clear that whoever we had disturbed didn’t want to hang around to say hello. Dave and I raced up the stairs, knowing that whatever their intentions, the architecture of the building would make any escape attempt futile.
Behind Wykeham Terrace sits Queen Square. Between the two is a ten-foot-wide void that drops four storeys from the rooftop. Only the bravest free-runner would have any hope of leaping across and we, of course, had officers watching and waiting on the other side.
As we reached the first landing, I was distracted by a terrifying scream followed by a thud then further shrieking coming from outside. Dave and I turned and found a doorway to a narrow balcony overlooking the backs of the houses. My gaze turned towards the sickening cries coming from the depths below. I could just make out in the shadows a crumpled figure writhing around.
‘Help me. Help me.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘we’re coming to get you. Where does it hurt?’
‘I’ve bust my ankle.’
‘OK, OK, we’ll get help.’ I shouted to the stricken fugitive. ‘Well, he’s going nowhere,’ I quipped to Dave.
At that moment, I heard more shouting above.
‘Come down now. You’re going to kill yourself,’ yelled a detective hidden from our view.
‘What of it,’ came the reply, ‘I’m stuffed.’
I gazed up into the afternoon sunlight and saw David Henty teetering precariously on the rooftop. With nowhere to go, he was stranded, and seemed frozen with fear, looking desperately around for an escape route. Then he peered down into the void, apparently weighing up his options. The sight of his crippled comrade writhing in agony below discouraged him from any attempt to leap.
As Cleo points out to Grace in Dead Man’s Grip after learning that he had been scaling huge chimney stacks, many cops are terrified of heights. I am a proud member of that club. I was petrified that, as the new boy, I would be sent up after Henty.
Lots of voices were pleading for him to come down safely and I was relieved to see him being skilfully coaxed into the arms of waiting police officers. Probably the promise of having a moment to say goodbye to his wife, coupled with the agonizing cries of his companion below reminding him that it would bloody hurt if he jumped, had something to do with it.
Other officers came to guard our crippled fugitive, waiting for the Fire and Ambulance Services to extract him from his impossible position while Dave Swainston and I went back into the house to join our colleagues, assessing the scene.
With time now to survey what we had, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Our timing had been perfect. We had literally burst in mid-production. The kitchen worktops were littered with passport components: offcuts of rexine, strips of gold foil, fake immigration stamps alongside inkpads and odd-looking oval-shaped metal templates. It was the counterfeiting equivalent of a smoking gun.
Only one person, Stephen Tully, a well-known armed robber, had bothered to stay behind and welcome us and, despite his assertions that he had only popped in to see his god-daughter, he was led off in handcuffs.
Cliff Wake, oblivious to what had been going on and having dealt with the tape issue, walked blindly into the gardens at the front of Wykeham Terrace. He was quickly pounced on, cuffed and taken into custody before he knew what was happening.
The search of the house then commenced in earnest. First, though, the SOCOs photographed the damning kitchen scenes. It was vital to capture a record of how we found the house — a factory in full production.
Unlike Grace we did not have the benefit of a POLSA (Police Search Advisor). However, we did go through the house with a fine-tooth comb. We even sent specialists down the chimney of a neighbouring house, as Henty had been seen stuffing something into it, from where they recovered passport remnants.
Henty, years later, would insist that we missed a box full of the finished product hidden in the house, and another in a car parked nearby. He said that he quickly had them recovered and burned while in custody. We never did find very many, a surprise given that the passports were due to be delivered to Lenny, so perhaps he was right.