All in a night's work

It was a filthy night. The rain was coming down in sheets and the street lamps struggled to penetrate the watery darkness. The ancient beech tree opposite the police station was swaying ominously in the wind. The Super had already advised us not to park on that side of the yard for fear of falling branches.

Teresa was taking calls tonight. Young, recently trained and on her first night shift in the station; she looked nervous. I made her a cup of tea and sat with her for awhile chatting until her facial expression began to soften almost to a smile. The phone on her desk rang and she picked up the receiver clumsily.

"Colville Police Station, can I help you?" she said, and I was pleased to see her visibly switch to an efficient business-like presence.

 " Hello dear, I am very worried and I didn't know what to do except to call you ," an elderly woman said.

"Can I take your name and address first please and then we can talk about the problem," Teresa said, following her well rehearsed telephone protocol.

"Of course, dear. My name is Hilda Walters and I live at number 58 Taunton Towers on North Street."

"Thank you Mrs Walters, now what is it that concerns you?" Teresa asked.

"It's  very upsetting, dear. I keep hearing crying coming from the flat above mine. Then it all goes very quiet for a few days only to start up again. I thought I might have been imagining it but when my daughter came round for tea this evening, she heard it too. My hearing is not so good these days so I wasn't sure, but my daughter said I really ought to ring you."

"Do you know who lives in that flat, Mrs Walters?" Teresa asked.

"No dear, the top flats were empty for a long time and it is only in the last couple of weeks I have started to hear noises from upstairs. Most of my neighbours are quite elderly  like myself. I asked Mrs Chubb next door if she had heard anything, but she is more deaf than me and I doubt she could hear anything over the sound of her television."

"Can you hear sounds of crying now, Mrs Walters?" Teresa asked, looking at me to gauge my response to the conversation.

"Yes, it is very distressing. It sounds like a young girl. Do you think you could send someone to investigate?"

"We will send a team right away, Mrs Walters". Teresa put the phone down and quickly completed the contact details form and handed it to me.

I called for my partner, who was sitting at his desk surrounded by unfinished paperwork, and we gathered up our gear and headed out to the car. North Street was in a rather run down part of town, with several tower blocks dating from the 1970's. Most of the tenants had been there for a long time and many were elderly. There were a number of empty flats and we had previously been called there to deal with squatters.

We pulled up in the concrete car park in front of the tower block. The area was littered with plastic bags and fast food wrappers whirling in the wind. The overflowing commercial wheelie bins smelt of rotting food. The sooner the Council re-house the elderly from here the better, I thought. Plans to demolish this block had been talked about for ten years or so.

As we got out of the car, there was a loud rumble of thunder followed by a vivid flash of lightning. The entire block was lit up and I briefly saw the face of an elderly Chinese man at one of the bare upper windows. There was something a little disturbing about this vision, a photographic image captured by the lightning, his sad, pale face staring out into the storm.

We walked quickly into the entrance porch and pressed the lift call button with its grubby red arrow. The stuffy utilitarian lift moved slowly upwards to the eighth floor and we knocked on the door of number 58.

"Hello Mrs Walters, it's Officer Musgrave here," I called through the letter box. We heard her moving towards the front door. She peered through the peep hole, and satisfied we were truly police officers, opened the door and let us in. Her small flat was crammed with old furniture and smelt of stale cooking but was warm and relatively clean. She took us through to her bedroom at the back.

"This is where I hear it best," she said. We stood silently for a minute or so and from somewhere above, the sound of a young girl sobbing uncontrollably was unmistakeable.

"I hear it Mrs Walters, it is definitely not your imagination," I said. " We will go and have a look, thank you for your cooperation," I shook her hand as we left the flat.

We took the stairs up to the next floor. We  moved as silently as possible along the corridor. The  door to the flat immediately above Mrs Walter's home looked as if the lock had recently been changed. There was also a large footprint on the wall next to the door, as if some-one had braced their weight against the wall while forcing the door open.

"Police, open up!" I shouted as I banged on the door. The elderly Chinese man who we had briefly glimpsed from outside, shuffled to the door. We heard the sound of a chain being removed and he opened the door, peering out at us fearfully.

"No speak English", he repeated over and over as we entered the flat. He seemed alone in a sparsely furnished room. There was a rug on the bare floorboards on which was a Mah-jong set, the tiles and dice in disarray. On a small table in the corner was a large bag of rice and an abacus. There were no seats and no curtains.

My partner went to the far side of the room and tried to open a door which was locked. "What is in here?" he asked the old man.

"No, no, no, no speak English", he answered, now visibly agitated.

"Give me the key, sir", I said, miming opening the door. He rummaged in his pocket and produced a key. I put it in the lock and turned the key. I think I was expecting to find drug paraphernalia, but I was taken aback to find four young Chinese girls, cowering on a filthy mattress in the corner of the room.

I looked at my partner. "Trafficking,"  I said, and he nodded. I didn't have to ask him what to do next. He was on his radio to the base asking for back up, Social Services and the Border Agency, while I attempted to get some identification information from the elderly man without success.

While we waited for back up, we were concerned that the criminals might return, potentially armed, so it was quite a relief to see a large presence of officers from the Station and the Border Agency appear quickly. It took most of the night to process the situation, working with the help of an interpreter. The girls were probably no more than fourteen years old and were taken to safe foster homes. The old man was found to be in the country illegally and was removed to a detention centre. Armed officers were left in the flat to await the criminal organisers of the trafficking ring and we left the building to return to the very welcome warmth of the Police Station for a well earned cup of tea.

"All in  a night's work", I said , as we pulled out on to the main road, peering through the windscreen wipers as they struggled to clear the streaming water from the windscreen. Teresa had the kettle on for us on our arrival, and I was pleased to see that she had already added a visit to Mrs Walters on the Community Officer's work schedule for the morning.

 

 

 

CP Nov 2013