I lived in an annexe called Ryders, a smaller house set slightly apart from the main building. One resident, who I will call Dan, worked a different shift pattern from most of us. Sandy-haired and stocky, at thirty he was older than most of us but fitted in well nonetheless. He would always have a tall story to tell, especially about some of his more outrageous antics in the Royal Navy, and he certainly liked a drink. I don’t think we were meant to believe all of his tales but what they lacked in credibility they made up for in entertainment value. He was great to be around.
That was until one late shift at the airport. We heard rumours of a police officer having been arrested, following a chase and a struggle in nearby Crawley. Word was that the off-duty cop had been caught stealing a bottle of whisky from a town centre supermarket. As the gossip evolved into hard fact we discovered it was our housemate, Dan. We were told he had been interviewed, bailed and suspended from duty. Inevitably we were shocked and we presumed that would be the last we would see of him.
However when we arrived back at Ryders after work we were stunned to find him happily crashed out in the communal lounge watching TV.
‘Er, Dan, are you supposed to be here?’ enquired Benny, our burly spokesperson.
‘Oh. You’ve heard, have you?’ came the sheepish reply. ‘Well, it’s all a mistake, of course. I just forgot to pay.’ Like we hadn’t heard that one before. ‘It’ll all be sorted but, even though I’m suspended, they say I can carry on living here.’
‘OK. How long for?’ I asked.
‘As long as it takes but don’t worry, as I’m not working I’ll make sure I keep the place clean for us. I can cook for you if you like. Hey, I can even go shopping for you.’
A babble of ‘No, you’re OK’, ‘Don’t worry’, and ‘I don’t think so’ from us all, accompanied a hasty mass exit as we made our way to our respective rooms for an uncharacteristically early night.
Everyone ensured that all their stuff was locked up after that — just in case. While you start by trusting your colleagues, once they betray you that changes to instant and irrevocable suspicion.
Thankfully, justice was swift and it was only a few months before Dan was convicted, sacked and evicted, but the nasty taste of that experience remained for years.
Peter Salkeld was not always a high flyer. He blossomed relatively late. The ex-drugs squad PC had, like me, spent most of his early years honing his craft on the streets of Brighton; he was popular and effective. You had to be both back in the late eighties if you wanted to fit in. If you were good at your job, fearless and ready to watch your mates’ backs then you were OK. Lack any of those attributes and, well, the Job Centre was only across the street from the nick.
In 1992 Peter and I both qualified to be Sergeants but his rise to Inspector was swifter than mine. Thereafter he found his niche. A short stint in the Organizational Development Department, effectively the workhorse of the Chief Officers, brought him to the attention of those who mattered. He worked hard, he was bright, loyal and exuded boundless confidence. The world was his oyster; he was the chosen one.
Change really started to affect the police service from the turn of the millennium. Inevitably, some departments were more ready than others. The world of criminal intelligence was altering, with geographic borders becoming no more than lines on maps. Regional Intelligence Units were being established and they needed clever, driven, operationally credible leaders to meet the spectre of organized crime. Pete was seen as the agent of change needed.
Given a role where he was effectively his own boss meant that he could shine quickly and ensure that any credit due to him was not filtered through a chain of command. Pete had proven his professional and personal integrity many times. He had earned the universal trust he enjoyed.
However, he had a darker side and a perfect storm of temptation brought that to the surface. His job came with a corporate credit card, his work was almost unsupervised and, in his private life, he had befriended a vulnerable old lady.
Eileen Savage was ninety-three. A childless divorcee, she would have been delighted that the senior cop wanted to help her through her twilight years. As dementia gripped, she was happy to appoint Pete her power of attorney, giving him control over her financial affairs.
Whether greed triggered the friendship or whether the opportunities that presented themselves were just too tempting, only he will know.
It was the internal discrepancies that triggered his undoing. Small yet suspicious inconsistencies in the finances of the new unit coupled with a secretive culture prompted wary colleagues to blow the whistle to the Professional Standards Department. His office and home were raided and following a close look at his lifestyle, the true scale of what he’d done emerged.
He had used the cash float and his corporate credit card to buy items including a designer watch and a mini fridge, giving a range of excuses such as the pen was required for a fictitious security operation. He had tapped into the welfare fund, reserved for those with real financial hardship, to pay for his caravanning hobby. Despite knowing full well that Eileen Savage’s estate could afford her £96,000 care fees, he hoodwinked the council into funding those.
There were other allegations that were not proven, but those that were ensured his fall was as dramatic as his rise. He was charged, suspended and sent for trial.
Whatever set him on his road to ruin, it had resulted in a whole host of crimes. Despite his denials, the jury recognized the weight of the evidence against him and convicted him of eleven counts of theft and deception. He was subsequently jailed for three years.
His demise left his reputation in tatters. The order to repay £100k was sweeter still to those who had trusted this rising star. No-one forgives a bent copper.
By 2012 I was the Chief Superintendent in charge of Brighton and Hove, and being a Sussex career cop I went back a long way with various heads of the Professional Standards Department (PSD). That never lessened the anxiety when I received a message that one of them wanted to talk to me. It was never good news. Who’s done what to whom, would be my first thought. It was never a minor matter — they didn’t merit a boss-to-boss chat. Such calls meant that shit was going to happen to someone on my division and it was down to me to manage the fallout.
Throughout most of the first nine novels in the Roy Grace series, our hero is foxed by the near-clairvoyance of fictional Argus crime reporter Kevin Spinella. Seemingly, he had the inside track on each twist and turn of every investigation. He would report details of crimes the police had deliberately withheld, turn up at scenes or search sites at the drop of a hat and repeat chit-chat back to Grace. He had a line into the police.
Grace was convinced that someone was leaking information and no-one was immune from his suspicion. It was not until a bug was found in the software of his own phone that he realized that rather than through a human source, technology was how Spinella picked up his stories. It took the ingenious use of misinformation to trap him at a fishing lake in Not Dead Yet, ending his criminal eavesdropping and his grimy career.
Operation Elveden was the Metropolitan Police enquiry into corrupt payments by the press to the police. In 2011, stories of greedy cops and manipulative journalists being caught hit the media. Arrests were made, charges brought and officers imprisoned with sickening regularity. Thankfully no such drama had yet touched Sussex Police.
I happened to be at Headquarters when I got the call.
‘Graham, have you got a minute?’ enquired Detective Superintendent Ken Taylor, a longstanding friend and colleague and head of PSD. It wasn’t really a question, more the entrée to some devastating news.