The mysterious case of the Belgian bike burglar
‘Two-six receiving Mike Delta,’ my radio buzzed. I was slumped in the driver’s seat of my Astra, which I’d parked in an employees-only car park behind a local shopping centre. Kim was snoozing in the seat next to me.
We were coming to the end of a 12-hour shift and bloody knackered. It was one of the last shifts on an unusually difficult pattern. All the officers were running at about 60 per cent mental capacity, which makes policing particularly difficult, because in many of the situations we run into we’ve really got to have our wits about us.
‘Two-six. Two-six. Are you receiving, Mike Delta?’ the radio buzzed again.
‘Shit, that’s us,’ I realised, shaking my head. Had I been sleeping? I looked down at my hand; my coffee cup was precariously balanced on my lap, nearly – but not quite – tipping its scalding hot contents onto my leg. I straightened the cup carefully, and reached for the PTT lever on the dash.
‘Yeah, two-six receiving. I apologise for the delay,’ I added, ‘I was on a private call.’
I immediately regretted lying to the CAD operator. They, and anybody else who had overheard that conversation, would have known it was a lie – we never apologise for delays in getting back to the CAD operator; either you respond in good time, or you’re too busy to respond (for example, if you’re in the middle of an arrest) and you’ll call up as soon as you can.
‘Er, yeah. Right. We’ve had a call about a theft. Shoplifter. You guys free?’
‘At your service!’ I said as brightly as I could. Next to me, Kim stretched and yawned, before zipping up her Metvest and fastening her seatbelt.
‘Great, on its way to your MDT,’ the operator said, just before the Mobile Data Terminal in our car used its ghastly pre-recorded voice to announce that the CAD had been updated.
Kim pressed the touch-screen on the MDT.
‘The Bike Shack in Main Street detained a shoplifter, apparently, but then he got away,’ she said.
‘Call the bike shop, get a description,’ I replied. We weren’t that far away from Main Street, so I flicked the blue lights on and placed my coffee in the car’s cup holder.
Kim made the call on speakerphone, so she wouldn’t have to relay the description to me later. Clever.
‘He was wearing a bright red T-shirt,’ I heard Kim’s radio say. ‘And stole a very distinctive bike. It’s a large-tubed bike, and the owner had taken all the paint off, sand-blasting the tubes to bare aluminium.’
As the bike shop manager continued his description, we went through a red light, sirens blaring. Suddenly, Kim made a squeaking sound – she does that when she can’t think of words to describe what’s going on – and pointed at the intersection we had just gone through. I slammed on the brakes, and looked in the direction of her gesticulations. There he was. Bright red T-shirt with a white logo on the front, and a bike that gleamed in the bright August sun. He had calmly stopped, letting us fly through the intersection unimpeded.
‘I’ll call you back,’ Kim blurted at the bike shop owner, cancelling the call and getting straight back on the radio.
‘Mike Delta receiving two-six,’ she said.
‘Go ahead.’
‘We see a possible suspect for our bike theft; he’s crossing Main Street at City Road, going east. We’re just spinning the car around now. He’s wearing a red tee, and riding an aluminium-coloured bike,’ she said.
‘Any units in the area who can assist with the last?’ the operator asked.
‘Show six-eight,’ responded a gruff voice I recognised as Simon. ‘One minute.’
Six-eight is the caged van we use for transporting prisoners. Excellent.
I could hear Simon’s sirens come on at the far side of City Road, just as I had managed to turn my Astra around. I half expected a bit of a chase, but the cyclist simply stopped, pulling his bike half up on the pavement to let us pass him. He seemed a little bit confused when we came to a stop next to him.
Kim leapt out of the car and took a firm grip of his bike, before asking the suspect to please wait there. Simon arrived not ten seconds later, and stepped out of the van, along with his operator.
‘Do you know why we’ve stopped you?’ Kim asked.
‘I suspect it is because of my bike,’ he said.
‘That’s correct,’ Kim said. ‘Do you know why, specifically?’
‘I’m guessing because I just took it from the bike shop up the road,’ he said.
‘Did you have permission to take the bike? A test ride, perhaps?’ Kim said.
‘No,’ he said, and I saw Kim start reaching for her handcuffs. ‘It’s my bike, though. It was stolen from me.’
‘Riiii-ight,’ Kim said. ‘Well, we are going to need to figure out exactly what has happened. I’m arresting you for theft; the arrest is necessary in order to assure a prompt and effective investigation. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don’t mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘Yeah, yeah. But I can explain—’ the man began.
‘Time of arrest is eleven forty-six,’ Kim interrupted, writing the time on the back of her hand with her biro.
Simon tapped my shoulder and beckoned me to step aside for a second.
‘Cells are full, mate. We just had to take someone to Yankee Romeo, and that was the last of their cells, as well. We’ll be taking bodies25 to Essex next,’ he huffed.
Yankee Romeo is the borough code for Lewisham – and it’s nowhere near our own borough. It was no big surprise that cells were full everywhere: many boroughs had been doing a series of raids at the homes of people identified, thanks to CCTV, as having been involved in recent riots across London. However, having to take our prisoner all the way outside the Metropolitan Police area because of full cells would be a royal pain, not least because there was only 15 minutes left of my shift, and a trip to Essex would mean several hours’ overtime. Usually, I’d welcome the overtime for the wage bump it implies, but after my tenth straight 12-hour shift, I’d gladly have paid to be able to go home and sleep for a few … well … days.
‘I don’t really fancy a two-hour round-trip,’ I said. Simon grunted in agreement.
‘Kim,’ I said, ‘can you put the guy in the cage for now? I’m going to try and find out what we need to do with him.’
Kim lead our prisoner to the van’s back doors, as Simon took the bike and put it in the middle section. I reached for my radio.
‘Is there a duty skipper available?’ I asked.
‘Unit calling for duty skipper,’ replied the CAD operator. ‘Please call up Mike Delta eight-eight.’
‘Received,’ I transmitted. ‘Eight-eight receiving five-nine-two’.
‘Eight-eight receiving, go ahead.’
‘Spare please.’
‘Changing,’ the sergeant replied. I changed my radio to the spare channel.
‘Mike Delta five-nine-two receiving.’
‘Hi skip, I’m here. We’ve just arrested a suspected bike thief, but he claims the bike is his.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, I was just wondering if it would be okay to take him to the bike shop