Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

“You want me to do what?”

“I just need you to power it up, enter his recent calls list and tell me any numbers that he called Friday night.”

“Are you taking the piss? Is this a wind-up? I’m fifty-three years old — I still miss using a bloody dial. I can barely send a text message.”

Warren closed his eyes briefly. “No, Sergeant, I’m serious. I need those numbers and don’t have time for the hour-long round trip down to Welwyn to pick up the phone and do it myself. Is there somebody…” he almost said ‘younger’ but bit his tongue at the last second “… more used to mobile phones that could perhaps try for me?”

Warren chose to ignore the mumbled profanities and references to ‘the Carphone Fucking Warehouse’, as the grumpy, veteran police officer stamped off down the corridor in search of a member of the mobile generation.

A few moments later a flustered constable who sounded as if his voice had barely broken came on the line. Warren explained what he wanted him to do. Fortunately, the phone had enough battery-life left to fulfil this simple task — Warren could only imagine the response he’d have received if he’d asked them to track down a charger as well.

The phone’s log confirmed an incoming call lasting less than three minutes from another mobile phone on Tuesday evening and then showed several outgoing calls to the same number on the Friday evening, none of which were answered. It seemed that Severino’s story was at least partially true. With that accomplished, he next got the officer to look up Severino’s fiancée’s and parents’ numbers and address for Sutton.

Finishing his call, Warren returned to the main office. Sutton was away from his desk, so Warren left the numbers and addresses on a Post-it note stuck to the screen of his computer.

Calling over Gary Hastings and Karen Hardwick, he filled the two young constables in on his morning. He handed over the number that Severino claimed belonged to his mysterious liaison.

“Have either of you ever requested telephone records before?”

Hardwick shook her head immediately. It wasn’t that surprising given that she had only just joined CID. Hastings had assisted in drafting a warrant a couple of times. Warren reminded them how under the Regulation of Investigationary Powers Act, police had to fill in a special warrant for every phone, computer or similar device that they wanted information on. Each device was dealt with separately and a justification given each time. The amount of information they could request varied, from a simple enquiry about a phone’s ownership, to a list of calls made and or received; a track of the phone’s historic movements, using either GPS or cell tower triangulation; a track of its current whereabouts; or in the rarest of cases an interception of calls, text messages, instant messages, emails or anything else that could be thought of.

Warren asked Hastings to show Hardwick how to draft a request for the ownership details and the previous twelve-months’ usage records for the number found on Severino’s phone. He had a feeling that RIPA was going to be an increasing part of a police officer’s day-to-day governance and he wanted all of his officers trained in its use. When they had completed the request, he told them they were to show it to DS Kent, who was an expert at finessing such requests to get what information they needed.

Before leaving the office, Warren did a quick Internet search and located the pub and club that Severino claimed to have been drinking in. Both were in the town centre, within easy staggering distance of each other and Severino’s house. Grabbing his car keys, he decided to target the White Bear first, before retracing the couple’s steps to Mr G’s nightclub.

Situated at the north end of the town centre, the pub had a large plastic polar bear sitting above the porch-style entrance. Surrounded by neon lights, it might look enticing and exciting in the dark, after a few beers and if small market towns in north Hertfordshire were your sole experience of big city night-life. At one forty-five on a Tuesday afternoon it just seemed seedy to Warren, who was used to the somewhat more glamorous drinking establishments on offer in Birmingham or London. The fact that the once-white polar bear was largely covered by the green mould that covered white plastic garden furniture if it was left outside too long further dispelled the illusion.

The sturdy front door was locked, but inside Warren could hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Peering through the window into the gloom beyond, he could make out someone behind the bar doing something with the till. Next to the door was a doorbell. Warren pressed it.

“Deliveries round the back!” a voice shouted over the din of the vacuum cleaner.

“I’m not delivering…” started Warren before being interrupted.

“Then come back in fifteen minutes. We ain’t reopened yet.”

“It’s the police. Could you open the door please, Mr…Stribling?” Warren took a guess that the person most likely to be opening the till early afternoon on a weekday would be the landlord, whose name was listed on the licence above the door.

“Oh, bollocks. What now?” Warren watched through the window as the landlord made his way to the door. It took almost a minute for him to open it, turning three different keys and sliding across two different bolts. The man was short and portly with dirty-grey hair slicked down with gel. A scraggly moustache clung to his top lip, its colour a mixture of white, grey and nicotine yellow. He had one of those smoker’s faces that could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five.

Holding up his warrant card, Warren introduced himself. Looking around, he noticed the faded décor and scratched tables. The source of the vacuuming came from the farthest corner where a plump young woman unenthusiastically ran the machine forward and backwards. With her back to the door and the white headphones of an iPod clearly adding their own din to that of the vacuum cleaner, Warren doubted she was even aware that an extra person was in the room.

A strong smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air, which the landlord dismissed quickly. “Must ’ave left the back door open when I ’ad me fag break.” He casually tossed a bar towel over the burning cigarette in the half-filled ashtray on the bar top, clearly hoping that Warren hadn’t noticed.

“What can I do fer you, Officer? If it’s about them sixth formers, they had fake ID, real good ’n all. ’Course, soon as I realised they was underage, like, I chucked them out.”

Not before getting a few quid out of them first, I’ll bet, thought Warren. He decided not to point out that detective chief inspectors didn’t usually investigate reports of seventeen-year-old A-level students having a crafty pint.

Now the man looked really worried and Warren wondered what he was hiding. Nothing to do with his case, he decided, but it might come in useful as leverage. By the looks of things, Mr Stribling was your basic dodgy landlord who kept his head above water by skirting around the law and turning a blind eye to some of the more dubious deals run by his customers, perhaps taking a small cut of the action for his trouble.

“I’m sure you did your duty, Mr Stribling.”

“Call me Larry, please. Every time you say Mr Stribling, I fink you’re talking to me old man!” His laugh was cut short by a wheezing cough that suggested that the person most inconvenienced by the smoking ban in this pub was the landlord. Or perhaps not, thought Warren, eyeing the faint wisps of smoke still curling from under the bar towel. He made a mental note to check out any 999 calls to the fire brigade later on.

“I wonder if you recognise this man, drinking in here on the evening of Friday August fifth.”