Peter James: You Are Dead

The bane of her and her colleagues’ work was the constant stream of hoax calls, and the even larger volume of calls from mentally ill people, around the clock. One particular elderly lady with dementia called fifteen times a day. It was a fact that twenty per cent of all 999 calls for immediate police response were mental health issues.

She had one on the line right now. A young man, crying.

‘I’m going to kill myself.’

His hysterical voice was barely audible above the crackling roar of wind.

‘Can you tell me where you are?’ He was phoning from a mobile phone, and the location of the cell tower receiving and transmitting his signal showed up on her screen. It was in the town of Hastings and he could have been in any of a dozen streets.

‘I don’t think you can help me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got problems in my head.’

‘Where are you?’ she asked him calmly and pleasantly.

‘Rigger Road,’ he said and began blubbing. ‘No one understands me, yeah?’

As she spoke she was typing out a running incident log and instructions to a radio dispatcher.

‘Can you tell me your name?’

There was a long silence. She heard what sounded like Dan. ‘Is your name Dan?’

‘No, Ben.’

The whole tone of his voice was worrying her. She completed her instructions with Grade One, which meant immediate response — and to be there within a maximum of fifteen minutes.

‘So what’s been happening this week to make you feel like this, Ben?’

‘I’ve just never fitted in. I can’t tell my mum what’s wrong. I’m from Senegal. Came when I was ten. I’ve just never fitted in. People treat me different. I’ve got a knife, I’m going to cut my throat now.’

‘Please stay on the line for me, Ben, I have someone on their way to you. I’m staying on the line with you until they get to you.’

A reply flashed back on her screen with the call sign of a police response car that had been allocated. She could see on the map the pink symbol of the police car, no more than half a mile from Rigger Road. The car suddenly jumped two blocks nearer.

‘Why do people treat me different?’ He began crying hysterically. ‘Please help me.’

‘Officers are very close, Ben. I’ll stay on the line until they get to you.’ She could see the pink symbol entering Rigger Road. ‘Can you see a police car? Can you see a police car, Ben?’

‘Yrrrr.’

‘Will you wave at it?’

She heard voices. Then the message she was relieved to see flashed up: Officers at scene.

Job done, she ended the call. It was always hard to tell whether would-be suicide calls were real or a cry for help, and neither she, nor any of the others here, would ever take a risk on a call like this one. A week ago she’d taken a call from a man who said he had a rope round his neck and was going to jump through his loft hatch. Just as the police entered his house, she heard him gurgling, and then the chilling sound of the officers shouting to each other for a knife.

Amy looked at her watch. 5.45. Not halfway through her twelve-hour shift yet, but time to grab a cuppa, and see how many others in the department fancied ordering in a curry tonight from a local, rather good balti house, which was fast turning into their latest canteen. But before she could remove her headset and stand up, her phone rang.

‘Sussex Police emergency, how can I help?’ she answered, and immediately looked at the number and approximate location that showed on the screen. It was in the Crawley area, close to Gatwick Airport. She guessed from the traffic noise the caller was on a motorway. An RTC, she anticipated — most calls from motorways were either reporting debris lying in one of the lanes, or else road traffic collisions.

As was so often the case, at first the young man seemed to have problems getting his words out. From her long experience, Amy knew that for most people the mere act of phoning 999 was nerve-wracking, let alone the effect that the emergency they were phoning to report was having on them. Half the people who called were in some kind of ‘red mist’ of nerves and confusion.

She could barely hear the man’s voice above the roar of the traffic. ‘I just phoned her you see — look — the thing is — I’m really worried about my fiancée,’ he stuttered, finally.

‘May I have your name and number, caller?’ she asked, although she could see his number already.

He blurted them out. ‘I think my fiancée is in trouble. I was just on the phone to her as she was driving into the underground car park beneath our flat. She said there was a man lurking in there, he scared her, then I heard her scream and the phone went dead.’

‘Have you tried calling her again, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, I have. Please send someone over there, I’m really worried.’

All Amy’s experience and instincts told her this was real and potentially serious. ‘What is your name, please?’

‘Jamie — Jamie Ball.’

Despite the background roar he now spoke more clearly. Once again she was typing as she spoke. ‘Can you give me the address, her name, and a brief description of your fiancée.’

He gave them to her, then added, ‘Please, please can you get someone there quickly, something’s not right.’

She looked at her screen then at the map, searching for the pink car symbol, then spotted it. ‘Officers are being dispatched now, sir.’

‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

She could hear his voice cracking. ‘Please stay on the line for a moment, sir. Sir. Mr Ball? Jamie. My name is Amy.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding more composed.

‘Can you please give me your fiancée’s mobile and home phone numbers and car registration number?’

Ball gave the details, but suddenly could not remember the entire registration number. ‘It begins GU10,’ he said. ‘Please ask them to hurry.’

‘Do you have any idea who the person in the car park might be? Have you or your fiancée seen anyone suspicious in the car park before?’

‘No. No. But it’s dark down there and there’s no security. Some vehicles were vandalized there a few months ago. I’m on my way home now, but I’m a good half an hour away.’

‘Officers will be there in minutes, sir.’

‘Please make sure she’s OK. Please. I love her. Please make sure she’s all right. Please.’

‘I’m giving the officers attending your mobile number, sir. They’ll contact you.’

‘I heard her scream,’ he said. ‘Oh God, I heard her scream. It was terrible. They’ve got to help her.’

She typed the details out and sent them by FLUM — a flash unsolicited message — to Andy Kille.

He immediately alerted the Duty Force Gold commander, Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp, and the duty Critical Incident Manager, formerly known as the Silver Commander, Chief Inspector Jason Tingley, that they had a potential abduction.

Thursday 11 December

‘PC Rain’, officers called this kind of weather, only partially in jest. Scrotes didn’t like getting wet, and accordingly the crime levels almost always went down in the city of Brighton and Hove whenever there was heavy rain.

Six o’clock on a dark, chilly Thursday evening in December. PC Susi Holliday, with her crew mate, the older and more experienced PC Richard Kyrke, known as RVK, and famed within the police for his photographic memory, were heading west along Hove seafront in their Ford Mondeo estate patrol car. They were passing a succession of handsome Regency terraces to their right, and the deserted lawns, with rows of beach huts, to their left. Further away, beyond the throw of the promenade street lighting, the stormy water of the English Channel tossed and foamed.