Tom put down the newspaper on his desk. Well, on top of another newspaper
which was on top of a stack of cases, which was on his desk. Open cases, closed
cases, press reports, headlines, and interview transcripts. It was chaotic and
the weather was atrocious. Lightning illuminated the city outside the window,
and rain was audible over the whirring of Tom’s computer. Tom Stout was stuck.
All the activity of the last six months and this was where luck ran out. He
lashed out at the papers and they went everywhere. He’d pick them up later,
probably in two months. Then his phone rang, and he answered.
“Yeah. What?”
He paused. Then spoke, “I know the interview didn’t go as planned, Fred. You
should call Gladys, she’ll be able to finish the case. There are some things you
can’t solve with raw concentration power.” He hung up before Fred could reply.
Fred’s case would be solved within the hour. Then he thought of something and
redialled Fred. But he didn’t answer, so the call was redirected to the
department’s operator; a teenage intern called Michelle who’d got in trouble
multiple times for her cynical and dark sense of humour. And being bored, all
the time.
“Speak. You have ten seconds or I’ll hang up.” Flat and without
emotion, although Tom was about 70% sure she was joking.
“Get me through to
Fred or Gladys. I need to find something from the suspect.”
“I’ll see what I
can do. But I promise you nothing. Do you need them this evening? Or is it
non-urgent?”
“As urgent as possible, please.” Telling Michelle a job could
wait was the same as not asking for it. Time would tell if she’d get through to
Gladys.
The phone rang at the very end of the interview, after Gladys had
thoroughly embarrassed and scared the suspect.
“Hello?” Gladys was always
polite on the phone; she’d been brought up that way.
Tom spoke from his desk,
while looking at the open case file. “I need you to find out whether or not they
buried the dog.” Tom hung up after Gladys’ assent.
Then Gladys turned back to
the suspect with a glint in her eye, and the suspect moved backwards out of
fear. But Gladys had moved too fast and her hip twinged.
“Damn being 73,” she
muttered under her breath.
The rest of Falkland City woke up to the headlines. But the police department
were there when they happened. They didn’t sleep at all.
“Yes. This is the
case we’d been unable to solve for months,” Tom said, while reclining in his
chair. He was on the phone to some journalist, as often happened after a big
case. Something in his demeanour changed when he heard the next line.
“What
do you mean I have sole credit?”
He put the phone down without saying
goodbye, and yelled into the abyss that was the rest of his office; “Gladys, get
in here.” The walls were thin. She’d heard.
“I know what you’re going to say,
all of it.” Gladys eased herself into a chair Tom had put on standby.
“And
that’s okay, is it?”
“Look at me. I have my dream job, and I’m doing it for
far longer than I legally have to. I’m not complaining. I don’t want the fame.
That’s your job.”
“My problem.” Tom chuckled and turned over a newspaper on
his desk. “My problem, yes indeed.” This perplexed Gladys, but she’d learned not
to ask too many questions.
Fred got into work, passing Michelle on the way to his desk. She always put a
hand out to stop him if Tom was busy and likely to throw a fit. She didn’t
today. On this occasion, Fred wasn’t technically late because he’d been
gathering evidence in a different part of town. Fred hadn’t taken a sick day in
ten years.
“111, what’s your – ” Michelle began to answer the phone sounding
bored, then stopped. Whatever the caller had said, she was now paying full
attention. “I’ll just get him.” She got up, leaving the phone face up on her
desk.
Michelle didn’t knock. She never knocked before interrupting Tom. It
wouldn’t be interrupting, otherwise.
“Tom?”
“What. I’m busy.” He gestured
at Gladys, who was still seated.
“Yeah, I think you’ll want to take this
one.”
“All right fine just pass it here.” Tom was slightly annoyed at this;
Michelle had never been the most caring of workers and tended to offload if at
all possible. He grabbed the phone grumpily and listened for a while.
“So …
should I just go then?” Gladys queried, as she stood up and winced as her hip
clicked.
Michelle had already left and Gladys only just made it through Tom’s
office door before it shut behind her, rapping her on the elbow.
“Michelle,
you really need to watch what you’re doing.” Nothing from the other woman who
sat at her desk and put headphones in, presumably to continue not doing work.
Once the two women had left Tom could properly talk.
“I don’t know what
you want, but you have to stop calling me. It’s getting annoying now, you just
sitting and listening.”
The man on the other end of the phone call sat and listened. After a
while, he got bored, so he put the phone on speaker, and walked across to a
wall with many pictures, news articles and research clippings on. He
pencilled in another line to a flow chart diagram that had been drawn in
Visio. It made the document look unprofessional; he’d tidy it up later. The
important thing was that his plans were succeeding. Everything was in place
… and he’d prepared it all to specification. That was what the voice on the
end of his phone had said. He checked the conversation with Tom. He’d hung
up. Shame. The man hung up the phone. Then there was a knock at the door of
his small and dimly lit apartment. Well, closer to bang than knock and he
didn’t really have a choice other than to answer. So he answered the door.
That was a mistake.
“Robert Byrne, you are under …” He zoned out. Knew this bit. He’d seen
films.
Gladys had been assigned an interrogation early in the evening.
“Mr.
Robert Byrne, where were you yesterday evening?” Gladys had the interrogation
room set up for an interrogation, which is as you might expect under the
circumstances; them being that she was in the interrogation room, and it has
been established that she was in fact doing an interrogation. The room was
perfectly simple in its decoration, mind you; winning art-deco awards wasn’t its
purpose. There was an iron table in the centre of the room and decent space for
walking around it (and physical violence, but it was only once and Stout made
sure the recorder was off and just generally shhhhh).
Gladys had a light
shining directly in his face, and Byrne was cuffed to the table. For effect,
Gladys had a walking stick she was using to walk around, and her intent was to
make Byrne feel an odd mixture of pity for the old woman, and threat of getting
whacked on the head if he stepped out of line. So he was being oddly
cooperative. He listened to Gladys talking and answered every second question
with an icy glare, which Gladys countered by raising the stick.
“And when we
found the body at the bottom of the ditch, it was clear you’d put it there.”
“How?”
“Your ID was there. I mean could it be any more obvious?”
Unnaturally calm given he was being interrogated by a woman with a stick. “Oh,
so that’s where it got to. I spent about ten minutes looking for it the other
day. Can I have it back?”
“Okay, sure.” Gladys put the card on the table,
just out of Byrne’s reach. She grinned in only the way sweet old women can
without seeming inherently psychopathic.
Michelle tried to steal Johnny’s popcorn (which isn’t a euphemism). Johnny
always seemed to have some sort of snack food on standby at his desk. Writing
the case report for the interrogation Gladys was currently doing; Fred looked
up, cross. “Get a room, you two.”
“We have a room.” Johnny replied, gesturing
at the office. To this, Fred picked up a newspaper and threw it. The paper
collided with Johnny’s face and made a satisfactory whack noise.
“I have to
finish this report before Gladys gets back from the interview and gives me the
final details, and Tom gets back from his case; so if you wouldn’t mind being
very quiet or perhaps even fucking off totally that would be super.”
“Ooh
Fred; you’re always doing work.” Michelle countered with extreme levels of
sarcasm.
“Given that Johnny is a new and, even though I wouldn’t have said
this if Stout was in the room, incompetent member of the force, I feel it may be
in his interests to actually learn what it is I’m doing rather than sitting
there scoffing at me and trying to get in your pants.”
Under normal circumstances, Johnny might perhaps have been hurt by the
dissection of his character. But it was accurate, and he knew it; and also
he was trying to impress Michelle (shhhh don’t tell her).
Gladys put her stick on the table. “So tell me,” she said after a pause
for thought, “what you were doing at the site of the murder and why your ID
was there.”
“I was murdering your victim, and it fell out of my pocket. Oops, my bad,
I should just go and not make these mistakes again …” Robert stood up to
leave and Gladys began to laugh. His handcuffs that he had forgotten about
prevented much, if any, movement. He was, for want of a better phrase, stuck
here.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear you confess to murder. You just put yourself
in jail, and I’d very much like to know why.”
“Because they’ll get me if
I’m on the outside.”
“They?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you who ‘they’ are, but I can say there’s a gang
in operation in this city.”
“Honey, there’s many of those.”
“But I mean a sophisticated gang organising crime. Not the wishy-washy
‘what’d you say about my mum’ sort.”
“Oh? And have you any idea what they intend to do?”
“There’s a murder planned for tomorrow at the hospital. That’s all I
know. I’ll just be off …” Movement, to no avail.
His chains clanked. “Damn.”
“You will be off, yes. But to prison.”
Robert Byrne sighed. “Of course.”
Gladys didn’t like Byrne much. So she hit him over the head on the way
out, just to make sure he actually got where he was supposed to be going. He
seemed the sort of slippery bugger that would find a way out. (I mean yeah,
it’s technically illegal to hit someone over the head but no-one was looking
-- unless you want to tell someone … but you don’t? DO YOU?)
Gladys arrived back at the office just a little after ten o’clock, and,
surprise surprise, Michelle and Johnny had already bunked off. Even though
they were technically allowed to leave, Gladys still thought of it as
bunking, mostly because she had news to tell and only Tom was there to
listen. So she told him about the murder that she’d been told about. Stout
leapt into action; that is to say he leapt straight into his police car that
was nicknamed ‘Action’, and departed the station to pick up Johnny to go and
wait by the hospital for if anything developed. Then Gladys remembered she’d
left some photos developing and asked if Tom could collect them on his way.
Eventually, the two men ended up at the hospital with the obligatory
donuts to eat while waiting, and of course, Gladys’ photos. She had many
grandkids. It wasn’t long before Johnny’s feet were up on the dashboard and
donut crumbs were everywhere.
They weren’t sure how much time had passed before they heard the gunshot.
They looked at each other in mute horror because they both realised in
that split second that Johnny wasn’t a very good cop. Then a decision was
reached, and the two men ran out of the car and into the hospital door,
which resulted in an enormous bang and didn’t so much stop the crime from
being committed, as distract one of the criminals and freak the other one
out. The distracted assailant recovered and raised his weapon and pointed it
at the police through the sliding glass door.
Byrne saw it on the news. They were on the right track. A more immediate
and important question was whether or not the shooters had done what they
intended to do, and if the police would ever get to the bottom of the case.
He sat back. There was nothing he could do in here, and nothing they could
do to him while he was either. In fact, he was bored. Using a contraption
devised from a steel spoon and fork, he began to lightly scratch markings
into the floor. A drawing. Of boxes and lines, mapping out connections,
planning. He’d been asked to design a plan, but hadn’t been told where it
would lead …
The door fell inwards slowly, like a drunk teenager trying
not to pass out when the momentums of gravity and
unconsciousness are already united against him. It turned out
the hinges were still attached, a small oversight on Fred’s
part. The net result of all this was the most awkward-looking
slow tumble it is possible to imagine; something that left
absolutely stellar impressions of the Falkland City Police
Department on all innocent bystanders; and also some stellar
impressions and hinge-marks left on the team courtesy of the
fallen door.
The commotion had, as was to be expected,
entirely disrupted a murder. Or at least in many respects it had
disrupted the murder, but in others it had sort of sped it up.
Such was the confusion that by the team the FLKPD had got their
bearings and stood up, the assailants had disappeared and left
two people dead. The two victims seemed to be unrelated both to
each other, and to the operation of the hospital. In other words
they were two random strangers that weren’t staff.
“So. That wasn’t pretty.” Johnny and Tom had sat down in the
break room with one of the nurses to try and recover from the
trauma; and this was as much for her as it was for them.
“Would you be okay telling us what had actually happened before
we arrived?”
“Or after we arrived, for that matter?” Johnny
intercut before Tom could clap him across the back of the head.
“Well,” the shaken nurse put down the shaking glass with her
shaking fingers. She was middle-aged, and seemed to be a
housewife; slightly portly and brown-haired, she mostly
administered injections (without taking part in them herself,
obviously). A job that meant she didn’t form much attachment
with any client. So she didn’t know very much, especially why
two masked intruders would so publicly shoot up a hospital and
then depart. She just wanted to get home to her kids.
“At
least we did get some information.”
“Yes, two random
attackers, and a very public shooting.” Johnny interrupted Tom
to complete the sentence. Tom wasn’t particularly happy about
this.
“Right. A small number of affected people, or at least
that was the plan. Also I think it’s possible that chaos that we
– err – caused was intended to cover up the actual crime. When
there is such a ruckus in a hospital, one dead body might be
missed, especially if the death method doesn’t match the
shooting.”
“So you’re saying that if we find the victim, then
we could find the perpetrator?” Johnny was smart, just lazy.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.” Tom said as he stood up
from the chair to leave.
Next port of call was the receptionist at the front desk.
She’d most definitely have a better account of what was going
on, and might be able to give the department a list of potential
people of interest, or shed light on why the shooting had
occurred.
She was also, as it turns out, rather pretty. This posed new
problems for Tom as it threatened Johnny’s professionalism.
“Could you tell us if you saw anything of interest?”
“They came from inside the building not the entrance. Now
that I think about that it seems weird.”
“Could we have a list of patients in the hospital at that
time?”
“Sure. Just hold up, I’ll print it now.”
While she
was away performing this task, Tom and Johnny had a look around
the crime scene. There was little of note, except the places
where people had been killed. But Johnny noticed a folded yellow
piece of paper inside a stack of files. He unfolded it, even
though this was probably unethical or something, and took a
photo of it. What he had found was a sequence of symbols,
perpendicular lines, crosses and dots. He was pretty sure it was
Pig Latin. Then he replaced the paper and moved on with his
search. The receptionist came back with a list of names, and
left the cops to their work
“I’ll run all the names through the FLKPD recognition
software and see if there are any matches in military or police
fields; see what we can find.” Tom continued talking after the
woman continued on with her work
“Hey, also I found a thing.” Johnny alerted Tom to the coded
message, just before Tom moved off to run the names. “And why
police or military?”
“Let’s take everything we know so far and add it up. A
criminal told us there would be a murder and also that there was
a gang in operation. So what would that mean? It would probably
mean they had a cop or soldier that they wanted revenge on
because of shortsightedness and the belief that ‘the system’ is
against them. So narrow it to military/cop and you’ll probably
get what you want to find.”
Some time later, Tom had run the names, and there were five
possible victims, and a list of two possible suspects.
“Hey boss, what should I do?” Johnny seemed unsure, and Tom
had dealt with this behaviour enough times to be a little
annoyed by it.
“Look, just find the codes that there are in this place, and
then we’ll be able to solve them to narrow down which of the two
suspects that we have is guilty.”
“No, but I mean; if we planted some evidence here we could
narrow it down to one with far less work.”
“Well yes but that’s illegal.”
“And that’s bugged us before, has it?”
“I will not let you plant evidence that falsely incriminates
a suspect.”
“I already did it. There was a van that left the ambulance
depot about a minute ago, and I put one of the shooters’ IDs on
it.”
“The shooters had IDs?”
“Yeah there was one that had fallen by the door, I saw it,
wrote the name down and then passed it off.”
Tom was shocked. Firstly by the display of initiative,
second by the lack of apparent morals and third by the
insistence on doing the wrong thing. And the fact that
Johnny had seen something he’d missed. He took a minute to
gather his thoughts into a coherent sentence that didn’t
involve swear words. This wait was too long for Johnny, who
was impatient.
“Boss, I said what do we do?”
Michelle and Gladys hadn’t directly heard
about Johnny’s massive mistake. They heard about it more or less
through osmosis and the fact that Tom asked they all come to the
hospital said there’d been some kind of problem. Fred was
stressed although this happened somewhat regularly so was not,
in and of itself, especially notable.
“Boss, I said what do we do?”
“Well,” Tom answered after careful thought.
“You need to intercept the van and get the evidence back.
Because the political implications of evidence-planting may well
end your career.”
“This isn’t about my career, it’s about
yours, isn’t it?”
Tom was annoyed at this display of
arrogance and ignorance; in the same sentence, no less. “Well no
it’s not. But if you have such a low opinion of me and the work
we do here and that would mean you didn’t want to change the
frankly atrocious act of misconduct you just committed, then
that is absolutely fine. But you would eventually be hung out to
dry. It might not be this week, or month, or year. But some way
down the line, some lawyer is going to ask ‘can this be used in
court’ and whoever it is that has it is going to have to look
really quite stupid and say ‘no, I’m so sorry it can’t’. So I
think it would be best for all people involved if you just
tracked down the van and corrected your mistake.”
“Fine.” Johnny moved off. Tom sighed. Then
he called Fred, and asked him to start working on the codes.
Johnny couldn’t possibly find the van, that
just wouldn’t have happened. And he knew that.
After a small amount of thought (we’re
talking about twenty seconds – quite a fast decision by Johnny
standards), he decided to set up an elaborate batch of
roadblocks using Department resources and intercept it that way.
About ten minutes later, the van driver
approached a road block. Odd. It was just after eleven in the
morning, so being a breath-test outpost was unlikely. He hadn’t
heard anything about police chases on the news (and he would
have heard about police chases on the news because of the way
they impact other people). He pulled up and rolled down his
window. An old woman approached and asked for ID and
registration number. He passed it over. He had a load to run and
was in a rush – he hadn’t done anything wrong either. They had
no reason to detain him, and he knew his rights.
But the message came back through and the
old woman told him to stop his motor and that other people would
be on the way to check out the vehicle.
He felt compelled to obey, almost entirely
because he had no reason to (and no reason to be stopped in the
first place…)
Then a young cop arrived. He looked new on
the job; blond, spiky hair and a crisp, ironed uniform.
“Could we have a look in your boot,
please?”
“But I don’t have any –”
“Then you won’t mind us having a look.” The
older woman intercut, and strolled around the back; calling her
colleague around after a while. They opened the boot, and
retrieved something that the driver couldn’t see.
“And, sir, could you explain what this is?”
The woman held up something that looked
nothing like what the driver was pretty sure they’d taken. The
driver also had never seen it before.
Her colleague said; “It’s like the codes we
found at the hospital, and I’m pretty sure that’s a V, and
that’s an X …” he continued decoding the message wrongly.
“Look, I don’t even know what any of this
is and you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
“I’m sure you’re perfectly innocent. The
bigger question is, why you?”
“Look, I need to go …”
he cops let him leave, and travelled back
to the hospital.
“So we need to find the actual victim and
figure out what the codes mean.”
“But we can’t figure them out; I mean
Johnny’s tried, and failed, but there’s nothing concrete.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“You and I should try to find the victim.
That will shed light on who is trying to do this and why. Gladys
should go to the prison and give the codes to Byrne. He should
know what they mean.”
Gladys left the hospital, and the two men
tracked through the death records of the last day. They found
two deaths that had occurred under suspicious circumstances and
noted them down, then left the hospital. Both men had been
military personnel. Then Tom stopped as a thought hit him (so
did Johnny, who hadn’t noticed the change in pace); what if it
was linked to the criminal ring? He’d mark it down as
‘investigation ongoing’. Then the two cops received a call from
Michelle; a burglary had happened in the central city that they
should go and have a look at. He’d return to this investigation
later.
Gladys arrived at the prison just after 11
in the morning. Which wasn’t something she’d done before; she
normally preferred to simply put people in prison and then
forget about them; and the mid-morning task disrupted her sleep
time. Remarkably easy. She requested to meet with Byrne about
the messages. He was cuffed to the table (which wasn’t the first
time Gladys had made that happen – although thinking about it
that was different, and you didn’t need to hear about it).
Byrne was understandably pleased to see
her. Mostly because he had nothing else to do all day.
“We found some messages at the scene of the
murder that we have no idea what they say. Even though one of
our cops knows how they’re encoded, he can’t actually decode
them because he can’t be stuffed looking it up.”
“Well, this one is telling someone that a
murder is about to occur,” Byrne pulls another of the messages,
“and this one is threatening your team; specifically a woman
called Michelle.”
“And the last one …?”
“Could you get me some paper?” Gladys went
to grab Byrne some paper, which Byrne used (somehow) to draw a
box and line plot with a ruler. He seemed validated by the
diagram, and was able to answer the question. “It says the
Department would cut corners to achieve their goals and fram
people for the greater good. It says you should be careful. In
my personal experience,” he gestured at a bruise on his temple,
“this is correct. Don’t continue on the
false-imprisonment-and-police-brutality route. It may get
short-term results, but it will always cause problems in the
long term.” Gladys sat in silence for a minute, considering
this.
Then; “So which of the two suspects
committed the crime?”
“There’s no way of knowing, from these
codes at least. It’s probably too hard to find out now. Why
don’t you just leave it?” So Gladys left. Then Byrne requested a
phone call.
He heard a dial tone then a female voice
that said “where are you calling from?”
“Cell phone. Look, they’re starting to
figure it out …”
Chaos. Bookshelves toppled over, cushions
ripped, cables everywhere. A TV torn from the wall and taken.
Missing computers, graffiti on the windows. Tom and Johnny
surveyed the property from the outside.
“Someone did a very good job of hiding what
it was they came here for.” Johnny was the first to speak.
“Or they just had too much fun. It’s
possible.”
“Yes, but given what we know about the
gangs in operation in this city, what would you think?”
“You’re right, but I was giving them the
benefit of the doubt.”
They found the owner of the property in her
bedroom; Alice (middle-height, brunette, young), swept up in the
shock of the whole situation. She’d heard them talking and
looked up as they entered, fear in her eyes.
“Did you say there were gangs in this
city?” She was hiding something.
Tom took one approach to finding out what.
“There are gangs in every city, why would this one be any
different?”
“No it’s just … I used to …. They might …”
“Ah. So you think this is a personal attack
against you?”
“Boss? I found something.” Johnny pulled a
piece of paper from the wreckage of Alice’s wardrobe.
He had found a message. It read; this is a
personal attack.
Michelle put the phone off its stand. It
wouldn’t ring that way. She could work on the things that were
actually important.
She was working on a system that would
automate her job. Short term pain for long term gain, as she
said. Work now and then never again.
She tried some settings and then put the
phone back on its stand. She answered it; this had not been
planned for.
“No.” Then she hung up.
Then she tried more settings. And recorded
a different answerphone message. Then the phone rang again and
she let it. The machine answered itself.
[Hello, Falkland City Police. Have you
tried turning it off and on again?]
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, some guy stole my father’s
life support ma –”
“Sorry about that,” Michelle picked up the
phone mid-statement. Trying out the system had been a mistake.
Too early.
The rest of the department split up to
survey the whole house, see what’s missing, what’s damaged, and
where there might be fingerprints.
Johnny ended up talking to Alice, while Tom
dusted for prints.
“I – I got home at about three oclock and
it was just like this … I hate to think what might have happened
if I’d been home …”
“And you think you might be in danger?”
Gladys arrived at the house, and interjected.
“Yes, I’m assuming you know how they work.
You are cops after all …”
Tom was dusting for prints in another room
but he could hear the discussion. Then he saw a piece of paper
slotted into a bookshelf. He opened it out, and it was a
message. Not coded, unlike the others.
Apparently there would be a heist at the
art gallery tomorrow.
But why was it here? Why was this one
uncoded? And what had the burglars actually come for?
These were questions for another …
Tom had a thought and raced back to Johnny
and Gladys’ discussion with Alice.
“I heard you say you worked with them. How
long ago did you stop?”
“About a week, why?”
“Okay, so they’re probably after something
you held on to after you left them. Something they wanted. But
also; could you explain this?” He showed her the message, and
she decided to tell them everything.
By this point, Michelle had managed to
automate her job.
Which had its positives; for instance she
was playing Angry Birds with one hand and drinking coffee with
the other. While Facebook was open on her computer and she was
totally ignoring the phones.
The phone rang while Michelle was ignoring
it, and the machine answered. It was Tom.
“Michelle, have there been any other
calls?”
[Please state your ailment or injury]
“Have. There. Been. Any. Other. Calls.”
[A team has been dispatched to your
location]
“MICHELLE, FOR GOD’S SAKE.”
[Which service do you req-]
Tom hung up from the call, which was just
as well. Had he stayed on the line, he would have heard Michelle
fall out of her chair laughing.
Alice had been a member of the gang for
two years. She had encoded the messages at the hospital
before her sudden departure from the gang, and it had been
intended she would encode that one as well. But she packed
up and ran from them. In theory, they shouldn’t have found
her. She wasn’t sure how they had. She was scared. And she
didn’t even know what they’d come to her house to steal. She
didn’t actually know they were behind the robbery. But
obviously they were. Unless they were, her mind always told
her; then she ignored it. They were. They must be.
She’d just finished scouring through
her property to notice anything of importance that was
missing. Then she realised. The burglars had stolen her gang
patch. And it was clearly a threat. But a threat of what,
exactly.
She talked to Tom, Fred and Johnny.
They agreed they’d keep her safe from the gang’s operations.
There was a safehouse on the outskirts of the city she could
move into. Gladys would take hr there as soon as she was
ready.
Alice packed a bag and took inventory
of all her damaged property so she could fill out an
insurance form while she hid in the safehouse. She’d need
something to do.
Fred had a phone call to make, so he
detached from the department who were now clustered in
Alice’s lounge. Meanwhile, Tom re-read the message and tried
to form a plan.
“Right. We’ll go to the gallery, and Gladys; you
take Alice to the safehouse, then meet us.”
Tom had finished reading the message.
“Okay. So. the message definitely talked about a heist that was
going to occur at the art museum and that we should get there
quickly. Obviously the note didn’t say that we should get there,
but we really should.”
The department mobilised, and clear roads
meant that only a short time later they were outside the art
gallery. The roads being clear was probably a good thing because
Johnny wasn’t particularly mindful of the other drivers on the
road (or road markings). But he did drive fast, so they arrived
quicker than they should have.
The curator of the museum met them at the
door, and was visibly stressed and dishevelled. His name was
Alex, and he’d been alerted to the fact the theft was
potentially going to happen at the same time the cops had. He
showed them to the room the painting was in; a small room with a
large frame dominating the far wall. Then he shut and locked the
door
A grate over an air vent fell to the floor
with a clang. Cautiously, a balaclava’d head peeked down, then
after realising nobody had heard, did some acrobatic manoeuver
and finished the right way up on the floor of the room. There
was only a painting on the wall, and the room was small; barely
five metres square. So the man could see exactly what it was
they’d come for. With a second sweeping hand movement, he swiped
the painting from its frame in one smooth movement, then he
spent another ten seconds rolling it up. He passed the rolled-up
painting back up the vent, to some other person that was
presumably waiting.
The department were stationed outside the
room. It wasn’t quite like how you see in films though; there
weren’t random Kalashnikovs lying around and pointed at the
door. The team weren’t even in uniform. It was the middle of the
day and they should have been in bed. Gladys was taking
involuntary cat naps and jolting awake whenever Michelle tapped
her on the shoulder. Unusual foresight for someone who didn’t
normally care much.
“I spy, with my little –” Tom started
sarcastically.
“No.” Even Michelle couldn’t get on board,
such was the time of day.
“So we’re just waiting here until the …
when, exactly?”
“Just the night. To make sure nothing
happens to the painting.”
“Well I’m pretty sure nothing’s going to
happen to it. I mean, we’re here; an old woman – ” Gladys hit
him over the head at this point. “And, uh, an inexperienced new
cop,” evils from Johnny; “an intern that seems to have tagged
along for some reason,” Michelle paid no attention whatsoever to
this insult; “and a workaholic investigator.” Fred ignored this
description too, mostly because it was dead accurate.
Johnny waited a bit, then sarcastically
remarked; “If the painting’s gone then please someone hit me on
the head with a shoe.”
It was at this point in the heist that
things took a turn for the worse, because there was an almighty
knock on the door from the outside. The man froze; totally
still; for about a minute and the danger had passed. The next
question was how he himself would escape. It had to be answered
quickly as there was a key in the door. He could hear the
rattling; then it again stopped. The man was able to wedge
himself in the air vent to escape by sitting such that his back
was against one wall and his feet against the other. One of his
shoes fell off just before he managed to jam the grate back over
the opening of the vent, then work his way up the vent and out
to escape. Then the door started to open …
“Do you think all these crimes are
connected to the organisation?”
“Probably. It’s certainly the most likely
course of action. But then the question is how they’re
relevant.”
“And do you have any answers?”
“We already kind of figured that the actual
murder victim wasn’t any of the people we knew to be involved in
the shooting; and we think it was this guy on a life support
machine in one of the upper floors. But how would he be
connected to the gang and why would they kill him?”
“And what would they want with a painting?
These are probably questions for another day, I think. Certainly
good insight, Johnny. You may become a good cop yet.”
“Why, thank you, Allister.” Sarcasm could
be cut with a knife.
“Allister?” Tom was confused by this
“You were getting too happy. Used the wrong
name on purpose to show I don’t like you that much. It worked.”
“Wait.” Michelle had heard something from
within the room. “We should check, just to see what that was.”
Johnny opened the door slowly and
carefully, just in time to notice three things. First, that the
frame hanging on the wall no longer had a painting in it,
secondly that there was nobody currently in the room, and
thirdly, and perhaps most noticeably, Johnny got hit on the head
when a shoe fell from the ceiling.
Confused, he called back to the team, “uh,
guys. I think there’s a problem.” Which was of course an
understatement.
Gladys saw what had happened and replied
dryly, “yep. Big problem. So how are we going to get the
painting back?”
Clambering out of the air vents, the man
looked at his accomplice as they pulled off their balaclavas.
“Nice job, Alex. Are you sure it has the
map on?”
“Yeah, definitely. We did enough
illicit art trade in the 80s to know the maps are definitely
on the back of the paintings.”
“Why’d you put them there?”
“It was just spare paper at the time.
Didn’t really think. We should still be able to follow them
…”
The men walked off,
together, passing the map between them.
The team looked at each other in confusion.
“The shoe’s
probably gonna be useful?”
“Most likely, yes. So that would
allow us to find out who the people that committed the heist
are. But that doesn’t help us with where they have ended up,
does it?”
“That depends. I think, because I got hit on the
head with a shoe, that they left through the air vents. They
might be in a database.”
“What, and have a GPS on them that
tells the government their location at all times?”
“It’s
possible. I read somewhere …”
“Oh God. Not you and your
stupid conspiracy theories again …”
“I’m just saying it’s
possible is all. Anyway, what do you suggest?”
“I suggest we
track cell phone records once we figure out who the guy is, and
track phone and credit card records to find where he ended up.
Then some of us can go there and collect it.”
“… yeah. Good
plan. I suppose at least we solved the Locked Room mystery.”
“Or had it solved for us …”
“Right, so first thing’s first. We need to get a sample off
the shoe to analyse it and see if there are any matches in our
software.” Johnny stated, in such a way as to clearly point out
the task that needed doing, but in no way suggest he would be
the person that he thought should do it.
“So do it then.” Tom
was the leader and Johnny would have needed to comply.
“Yes,
um, I’ll just take … this,” Johnny stuttered awkwardly while
Michelle tried not to laugh, “and go do … that”.
He shuffled
off as if trying to forget that he had a smelly shoe in his
hand. After a while, Michelle said; “I’ll just go with him …
make sure he does the thing properly.” She moved off after
Johnny.
No sooner had she left, than Alex, the curator of the
museum, approached the team. He seemed curiously out of breath
and had (for want of a better term) hat-hair.
“All good?”
“Ye—yes. We’re fine.” Gladys answered. As she did so, she
observed the man to whom she was talking. Looked him up and down
and noticed something was wrong. Up and down … and he was
missing a shoe.
“I’ll just swab the shoe then we can run it through the
system.” Johnny was startled to hear Michelle’s voice behind
him.
“You?” Johnny couldn’t recover presence of mind fast
enough.
“Yes. It is me. Let’s do this thing. Quickly.” She
grabbed his hand and ran off. He had no choice but to follow at
an equal pace.
They arrived at the station five minutes later
totally exhausted and out of breath. But Michelle wasted no time
grabbing a swab from one of the top drawers while Johnny fired
up the computer with the database in it. Michelle swabbed the
shoe. Johnny processed the swab. Michelle waited for the
results. Johnny put the kettle on. The results would be another
ten minutes.
“Fred, I saw something that I thought you might want to
know,” Gladys said while Tom and Alex were talking.
“What was
it?” Fred respected Gladys’ observations and skills. He’d known
her for too long (and she was too often right) for him to
discount things she said.
“The curator was missing a shoe.”
“So?”
”So what if he was involved with the theft?”
“Why
would he do that, though?”
“Because the painting was
something important, and served another purpose, perhaps?”
Tom and Alex continued talking, and, as she looked over Fred’s
shoulder, Gladys noticed Alex attempting to shuffle around Tom
and into the room. Trying to see … straining …. Really trying ….
And then nothing. He just stopped.
He had seen that the shoe
was gone.
If that’s what he was looking for. But if not that,
then what?
He excused himself and went off, leaving Tom
looking confused.
Went to the next room.
Pulled out a
phone.
Dialled, listened, started to talk.
Oh God, this
was bad.
Johnny and Michelle returned to the lookout just as
the rest of the team was finishing up.
“What’s going on? We
found the guy whose shoe that was …” Johnny was confused.
“So
did we. It was Alex, the curator. We talked with him and he told
us. Then we arrested him, and he gave the painting back.”
“Did he say why he wanted it?”
“For-profit sale. I think
that’s a lie, but I guess we’ll never know. I couldn’t see
anything wrong with the painting when we got it back.”
“So
he’s in prison now?” Michelle asked.
“And we didn’t cut any
more corners, right?”
“As far as I know. Why?”
“It’s
becoming a problem. We should stop doing it.”
“So then stop
doing it. And be prepared to stop solving cases.”
“But hasn’t
it occurred to you? What if we’re wrong?”
Alex walked into the cell and slumped down against the wall.
Damn, he’d failed. So close. At least he’d taken low-quality
pictures of the maps. But that wouldn’t be any help. Unless ….
“Hello?” A voice from behind. He looked around. Robert Byrne sat
against the opposite wall, just hanging out.
Alex had an
idea.
“Hey. I just met you, and this is crazy. But would you
want to break out of this hellhole?”
“How?”
“I have maps.
I know how to.”
"Where are they?”
Alex tapped his head in a knowing fashion.
“I heard you guys keep making mistakes. Johnson’s not
pleased. She’s probably coming for you now. Same as me.”
“Good thing we’re here then. What’s she after you for?”
“Oooh, that would be telling. I think we should focus on
the escape plan …”
As the sun set, the Night Division of the
Falkland City Police Department left their station to go out on
duty.
Team go on duty on the streets. Johnny, Tom, Fred and
Gladys started their patrol together, walking side-by-side along
the footpaths with torches stretched out in front. After a while
they spread further out. This would cover more ground that way.
It was an ordinary Friday evening, and the sun had gone down
about an hour ago.
Gladys and Johnny found themselves walking
along the same street about a minute later; Fred and Tom were
together in a street headed in the opposite direction to Gladys
and Johnny. Michelle had stayed at the headquarters to manage
the phone lines, which were reasonably active for a change. This
was, of course, not helped by a conversation Michelle was trying
to have over the intercoms with Johnny. Over the course of the
next hour of patrolling, this had thoroughly annoyed Gladys, who
walked slightly behind and mimed hitting Johnny on the head with
her stick.
Passing a nightclub on a Friday night is a
bad move. Tom and Fred learned this the hard way when they
witnessed a tussle between a long-suffering bouncer and a drunk
man with a superiority complex.
It wasn’t going well. The
drunk was trying to swing the bouncer around by his ankles
(which, had he succeeded, would have given another meaning to
the name). Instead, the bouncer just looked thoroughly
exasperated and bored by the whole thing. The drunk guy was so
out of it, Johnny and Gladys managed to sneak up behind him and
get handcuffs two-thirds of the way on his wrists before he
noticed what had happened.
They left the cuffs on him for the
next ten minutes until the guy had calmed down (and Johnny had
sent a photo back to Michelle), letting him off with a warning
and telling the guy to go home. Gladys offered to drive him, but
the drunk guy refused.
“What’s your name?” Johnny asked just
before the guy left.
“Joe,” the guy slurred as he stumbled
away.
The team apologised to the bouncer and then moved on
their rounds.
Some six-inch heels clacked on hard
concrete floor. Click. Click. Click.
“Where was Robert Byrne
last time he called us?”
“In prison ma’am. He called us on a
cell phone.” A tall, sophisticated-looking woman was talking to
one of her admin workers. She was poised as if she was a CEO of
an organisation and had worked her way up from the mailroom. So
she looked as if she thought she fully deserved everything she
was currently in control of. And in many ways, she’d earned it.
“And did you check in with the segment operating in the
Badlands?”
“Yes, I did that yesterday.” The admin worker was
used to these discussions; he’d worked here for a while.
“The
shipments of arms and munitions ready to enter the city?”
“Yes, ma’am. We just need to get the cops out of the way …”
Around midnight, Gladys and Johnny stumbled
upon (over) a hunched figure in a doorway.
“Wha-what?” the
guy stuttered sleepily as he repositioned himself so he could
see the two policepeople.
He couldn’t clearly see them
because of their torchlight obscuring his view; but they could
see him. It was Joe, from before. As it turns out, he had not
made it home.
“Sir, I can’t help but notice, you have not
made it home.” Johnny tried being polite.
“No shit,
Sherlock.” He was significantly less drunk, but no more
dignified than the last time they’d met.
“This time I must
insist we take you home.” Gladys offered transport, but this
time it was far less of a question.
“Okay, fine. I’ll tell
you where my address is.” So he climbed in an uncoordinated
manner into a police car when it arrived, and they set off.
“Is it left or right at this intersection?” Johnny was
navigating.
Joe gave them the directions and they ended up
outside a three storey building, looking formidable, dark and
empty in the moonlight.
“This it?” Gladys asked.
“Yes,
yes. Thanks very much.” Joe exited the vehicle and composed
himself on the pavement before entering the property. He looked
up into one of the windows and saw a female figure looking down
at him. Oh, shit. He’d messed up.
“YOU SHOWED THE POLICE HERE? TO OUR BASE?
ARE YOU MAD?” The woman was livid.
“I did what you asked,
ma’am.” Joe was now completely sober. It had been an act.
“And then you totally messed it all up. What if they come back?”
“But this is part of the plan. See? Now they know where we
operate.”
“Do they know of your involvement in the heist?”
“They know there was two of us. And they know about Alex.”
“And where are they on the murder at the hospital?”
“Still
investigating, I think.”
Johnson paused, and looked at the
diagram with boxes and lines.
“So this will achieve what we
want it to?”
“Should do, yes. We just need to try harder.
They seem to be able to deal with what we’re throwing at them.”
“You said Robert Byrne was in prison. He probably thinks he’s
safer in there. Away from us. But what if he’s useful to us?”
“Like what? Use him to distract the department and then commit a
series of attacks they can’t deal with?”
“Kind of, yes. Not
exactly. But he’ll be getting bored in there. If we could
guarantee his safety, he’d work with us. After all, that’s the
reason he went so easily to prison. To be safe from us.”
Tom’s phone rang after the department
arrived back at the station. He picked it up, cautiously.
“Yes? What do you want?”
He heard a female voice respond. One
he had never heard before.
“I’m Johnson, and I’m sure you
weren’t expecting to talk with me. You normally get Robert
Byrne, but he’s indisposed at the moment. I’d like to arrange a
meeting between you and I, just to clear up what’s going on.
Come to the centre of the city on Friday to talk. Come alone. I
don’t want you to record, either.”
“Okay. Hopefully we’ll be
able to sort this out. In simple terms, what do your lot even
want?” Tom asked.
The phone hung up and he never got a
proper answer. He put the phone down and an alert came
through. There was talk of an escape from the prison. The
whole team would be needed on duty, as well as the entirety
of the Day force.
Tom Stout reviewed CCTV footage for the cell block containing Robert Byrne.
After a while of meaningless scrolling, he found a snatch of useful footage.
Robert Byrne looked at his watch. “It’s time.”
Alex sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Right. So. This is what we need to do …”
Then a guard came by with the prisoners’ breakfast. And the prisoners made
some movements that couldn’t easily be seen on the camera. And the guard ended
up on the ground; the prisoners escaping through the open cell door.
“Okay, so that was how it began … but the real question is, of course, how
did they escape?”
Over a month, Alex and Robert studied the maps.
“One thing you never said; why did the shootout at the hospital occur?” Alex
asked on one occasion.
“Mostly theatrics. There was a team member that was opposed to us stealing
the maps, so obviously he had to go … but that was quiet. Subtle. The shootout
was just for show.”
“And you think they’ll figure it out?”
“Not now. There was a time it was a viable option. But it’s been too long
now. So no.”
They studied the plans every night after the guards were off-duty. Finally,
Alex was convinced Robert had committed them to memory.
So the question remains, how would you escape this prison?
As it turns out, it’s easy.
You would find yourself in a corridor after leaving your cell. You’d have
half an hour before anyone noticed anything was wrong. Bureaucratic authority is
often arrogant and self-important. When they say there’s no way out, they
believe it. Thing is, they’re sometimes wrong.
Then you’d run down corridors. Hoping to find something useful. You’d escaped
your cell, but what good was that if you were discovered in the hallways. You
had twenty-five minutes.
Then you’d remember it was dinnertime and that most people had gone home.
Twenty minutes. And you’d realise it was worth a solid go at just walking out
the front door. You’d go back to the guard and steal his uniform. Fifteen. You’d
approach the reception desk, and use the monitor of their computer to knock them
out. You’d steal their clothes. If they were male, good; because you are. If
female, then you’d have to learn to be sassy, fast. Ten. Then you’d walk out the
front door and into the visitor carpark. Seven. The good thing with having a
criminal record is that adding to it isn’t even a problem. You’d try to hotwire
a car. Five. The car would start and you’d pile in and drive off. Two.
Then you’d have escaped, and you’d have two minutes on the outside to find
somewhere to hide. In two minutes they’d –
The alarms begin. Even though they were about a kilometre away from the
prison, they could clearly hear.
Alex looked at Robert. “It begins.”
The man left the prison and walked across the carpark to a van that was no
longer there.
“My fucking luck. First, I get made late to a prison security meeting by a
random van search, and now this. For fuck’s sake …”
Annoyed, he walked back into the prison. He saw a news channel on one of the
screens in the main entrance.
There was a story about police brutality on the news and some interview room
footage of an old woman hitting a suspect with a cane.
Gladys saw the footage. She sighed, and opened a file on her computer. A
resignation letter.
“It was fun while it lasted,” she said sadly. Resigned to her fate, in every
sense. She was guilty, there was literal proof.
Across the other side of the office, Michelle had already taken some
initiative and set up a series of roadblocks to find the prisoners. Gladys had
walked in to see Tom.
Johnny radioed the Day watch to pool resources so the prisoners could be
caught faster. The first wave of cop cars left the Headquarters, with Fred in
charge.
The prisoners had driven the van for about half an hour when they approached
a roadblock.
The police force were fast at setting those up.
They approached the cop who was standing out in front. He looked like he was
a member of the Day Police.
“Officer?”
“Yes?”
“What’s this for?”
“Some prisoners escaped and we need to get them –”
The cop stopped talking abruptly when the two men revealed their faces.
A pause, dramatic.
The cop reached a decision.
“So you used the information I gave you?”
“Yes, sir. Bring them down from within. Are we done here?”
“I think so.”
“Good on you, Fred. You’ve done well for us.”
The two men moved off in the vehicle, leaving Fred to think about what
had just happened. He made a decision, and followed after the two men.
One week later.
Michelle rushed into the station during the day. This was not normal, for
her. She had been compiling a list of ways to help get Gladys back. Johnny was
privy to the list too, and hadn’t directly commented on it, but found the fact
that she’d assembled it out of her character. And then he decided to help.
There had to be a way to get Gladys back on the team/ Work had slowed right
down, they couldn’t solve any cases. It was certainly true that Gladys’ methods
were illegal, but there was no question that they worked. It hadn’t helped that
Fred had suddenly, and without detailed explanation, upped and left. The
question was, of course, why. Johnny suspected that’s why Fred hadn’t told them,
and pointed it out to Michelle. Michelle in turn pointed out that Johnny was
getting some police instincts and might be on the way to being a good cop.
The two of them eventually settled on an open letter to the police department
that they tried to get signed by everyone in the department.
Gladys read the letter from her home after it was published in the newspaper.
She was touched, more than she’d thought she ever would be in that job. With
those people. Maybe they were becoming a family unit. Somewhat cohesive. She
anticipated a call from the department before the end of the week. Either
accepting her resignation or offering her the job back. Of course she’d take it,
it was too much fun.
Meanwhile, Tom worked on the actual problem; how had the two men escaped.
Piecing the beginning of the escape. Reviewing the CCTV footage to see what had
happened and been recorded. He realised they’d got maps somehow. Maps … of the
prison. That would mean planning. So they acquired them someh-
He stopped a particular piece of footage two-thirds of the way through. It
couldn’t be …
The paper the map was on. On the other side, there was a drawing. Or, more
accurately, a painting. It looked vaguely similar to the one that had been
stolen.
He scanned back through all the other footage. Finding a clearer shot of the
reverse side of the map.
Yes, that was it. That was definitely it …
But if this was closely linked with the heist, then what other crime could be
directly relevant to the gang’s activity?
Tom needed to do proper research. He would do that soon. Because there was
possibly not much time.
Alice was used to it by now. Boarded-up windows and no movement outside,
except for the garden out the back for fresh air. A member of the Night Watch
would stop by every day with food and anything else Alice needed; and to check
she was still alive. They’d been searching for Joe and Alex for a week.=
Bang.
Alice looked up. Dropped her mug of coffee. Audible clatter as the cup
smashed.
Bang. Bang.
Alice backed to against the wall, terrified. Slowly, carefully. Without
making noise.
Bang. Bang. Bangbang. Bangbangbang.
The door fell in with a clatter, and Alice squinted into sudden brightness. A
figure appeared from the light holding something in each hand. In the left, a
sawn-off shotgun. But that wasn’t even the most interesting part. Because in the
right, the figure held a bundle of loosely folded material. He tossed the
material on the floor of the safehouse, while gesturing to the far wall from the
door with the gun. Alice moved across, picking up and unfolding the cloth the
man had thrown. It was her gang patch. The man didn’t need to say anything else.
The police department had been looking for the two escapees for a week. The
road blocks hadn’t actually turned anything up, and the suspects had escaped on
the wind. It hadn’t helped that Fred had handed in a resignation letter the very
afternoon of the blocks. Gladys and Fred at the same time. The Department wasn’t
able to cope with its standard amount of work.
Then there was an alert. A hostage situation. At the safe house. With Alice.
The department (such as it was) mobilised immediately and arrived at the
scene not long after. They weren’t armed, though and this presented several
difficulties; they couldn’t actually enter the scene in any way, or interact
with the kidnapper before he engaged them. But it wasn’t long before they
received a message. It was an anonymously uploaded video to YouTube. Like most
videos of the sort, it was shot on a mobile and you could see a gun in the top
of the frame. Alice was terrified, and it showed. She requested that the
department assemble $1 million and meet with it and a briefcase in an hour.
“We should at least try to negotiate; I did Debating at high sch-” Michelle
said.
“I’m sure that’d help.” Tom shut her down.
They were prepared to storm the building, and had waited about half an hour
when they were alerted to the second video. It showed Alice being threatened by
one of the two men. The video showed the men admonish the police for not meeting
their demands. Then one of the two kidnappers (Tom was never sure which one
although he recognised the voice. But this wasn’t noteworthy, he’d met both of
them before) shot Alice live on camera. They heard the gunshot in real life too,
and they had little choice but to storm the building.
The department moving into the building took longer than the kidnappers
exiting. Such that there was a confrontation at the front door. Then a third
member that none of the team had known about appeared from behind. Still
shrouded in darkness. But they knew he was there because they heard two gunshots
and the two men in front both keeled over. Then this third man charged forward,
little regard for his fallen ex-comrades, and out the door. Fred.
Shock. The whole team stopped, very unsure about what had just happened.
Fred managed to overpower Tom and get into the car they’d driven to the
scene in. Using his key that he still had, he started the vehicle and drove
away.
“What?” Johnny was totally flabbergasted.
“I assume,” replied Tom, frustrated, disappointed, beaten, “I assume he’s
been giving them info this whole time.”
The car vanished into the distance, leaving the team standing on the roadside
looking into the distance where the police car used to be.
“I don’t want to state the obvious, but –”
“Then don’t”.
“So then what, because you seem to have all the answers, are we going to use
to chase him?”
“Chase them? Good God, no. No way we’d catch him by now.”
“What else do you propose? It’s not like we have many resources at this
time.”
“Okay. So what the hell are we going to use to chase him?”
“I’m sure there’s something somewhere …” Johnny said as he walked into the
distance swinging his keys.
Tom noticed Michelle staring after Johnny. “I hear wedding bells already …”
Johnny conjured a vehicle as if from thin air, and drove up to the assorted
remaining team members a minute later.
“So,” Johnny settled into the leather and turned the key in the ignition,
“let’s begin.”
“Where’d you get the car?”
“I live around the corner.”
“Johnny, you just need to be careful while you’re dri –
holyshitshitshitshitwatchoutthat’sabus.” Tom had probably shat himself in the
back seat. The car was driving on a 50km/h road at … not that speed. In pursuit
of the other vehicle, but due to the time distance between the two vehicles,
they were traveling in very different route paths.
“This is Cat, on the trail
of Mouse.” Johnny spoke into his walkie-talkie, and Tom’s heard the reply. Which
made the whole thing pointless because they were both in the same car.
Michelle worked out a route that would get them to the path of the stolen cop
car so that they could catch Fred. Meanwhile Johnny drove the car like a madman
with his foot glued to the floor and head in a box of pills.
“Um, Johnny,” Michelle said about a minute later, “could I have the AUX cable
please?”
“Last time you were given the cable, we ended up listening to whale noises.”
“They’re soothing. Don’t knock it till you try.”
“The last time I saw you try to be relaxed ended with your foot on fire.”
“Yeah, everything I do is kind of … ironic.”
“I noticed.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Well yes, that is why I just said it.”
“I know but I was being – JOHNNYWATCHOUTTHAT’SACAR”
“Jesus Christ man,” Tom had recovered from the shock of this latest
near-miss, “pay attention to the road, and not your girlfriend.”
Michelle blushed, and hoped Tom hadn’t seen. She hadn’t.
“Update; Cat still on the trail of – oh. Oops.” Johnny remembered that Tom
was in the same car and stopped talking into his walkie-talkie.
By precise and exact calculations, the route the team was headed on would
intersect with Fred’s car at an intersection just outside the Parliament
building, in about five minutes. Traffic permitting, which of course means that
the traffic stopped to let them pass.
They arrived at the intersection, and Fred was about two cars ahead. They
carried on, in the pursuit, hoping he would mess up somehow.
“Come on, I don’t have all day …” Johnny was getting impatient.
“Actually you do. The sun’s just come up and it’s not like you have anywhere
else to be.”
“Shush.”
About ten minutes after catching up with the car Fred had stolen, Fred
mistook a left-turn and crashed into a lamppost. Going well over 100km/h, this
was bad news for pole, driver and car.
The department stopped at the scene and tried to help Fred. Because they were
a police department and that’s what they did.
“Should’ve said you wanted to be a pole dancer.”
“Stop that, Johnny. Now tell us, Fred. What the hell do the gang want?”
“There’s a very complicated plan that they’ve been working on for a while …”
“Which is? WHAT IS IT?”
“It’s to make the Police Department …” He didn’t finish the sentence before
his somewhat untimely death.
Michelle found Fred’s phone nearby and saw that he’d uploaded something to
Facebook, but the phone died before they figured out what.
“If we could get a warrant, we should search his house to see if we could
find more information about the gang’s plans.”
“That might take a while, but should be possible.”
A week later, Tom received a piece of paper in the post.
So, late at night on a Wednesday (because everyone knows no crime ever
happens on a Wednesday), when they wouldn’t be needed anywhere else, the team
showed up at Fred’s house with a search warrant that there was nobody to show it
to. The door was locked. Tom kicked it down. It’s not like there’d be anyone
coming home to the place for a while. Until the estate would have to pay for a
new door.
The team turned on their torches. If it helps to describe this scene, think
like a detective procedural where the police search through a darkly lit scene
at night to find evidence. This image really does help because it’s … exactly
what they were doing.
Tom took the living and dining rooms, Johnny took the hallways, bedroom and
bathroom, and Michelle took notes on what people found in each room. Midway
through his sweep of the dining room, Tom found a safe, and search of the
bedroom shed some light when Johnny found paperwork. The paperwork outlined the
gang’s masterplan. Johnny took photos of it without actually reading it. Then
Tom opened the safe and found more material that photos were taken of, to be
analysed later.
The team packed up the house and picked up the door, then left to continue
with their analysis.
Upon returning to the headquarters, and Tom sitting down in his office,
he read a notice from someone called ‘Johnson’. Some plans had been leaked
that should not have been leaked. Their privacy had been breached, and
reputations damaged. And they were prepared to sue …
Stout v. Johnson [2015] FLKHC 134
ALIAS CJ.
[1]
The defendant, Ms Katherine Johnson appeals against a $500,000 fine
imposed by Judge Smith in the High Court relating to one count of Invasion of
Privacy. The alleged breach arose from an illegally conducted search by the
plaintiff; the Falkland City Police Department, which then gave rise to a
Privacy breach when the findings of this search were leaked by an unnamed and
unknown third party.
Facts
[2]
The data that was part of the search that led to the alleged breach
concerned the plans of an organised crime ring and the way in which they
continue their operations. This data was collected by the police and
incriminates many upstanding members of society. The nature of this breach and
the alleged crimes committed will be summarised below.
[3]
The plan documents found in a search of the property of Ms Johnson
related to incidents that had occurred between June and December 2015. The
documents related to a murder of an ex-operative who ‘knew too much’, who was
currently in the hospital in June; this event led to a shooting in the same
hospital. There was also reference to the heist of a famous painting in July;
the painting that had maps of Falkland City Prison that would presumably be used
to help a gang operative escape. This presumption is made because there was in
fact just such an escape in October of this year. Furthermore, the crime ring is
linked to a seemingly random burglary and vandalism of a house in Southern
Falkland City, where the ring acquired an ex-member’s gang patch and used it to
threaten her. She was then killed in a hostage situation after the prisonbreak.
This led to a chase with the police department ending in a crash and the death
of the suspect.
[4]
After this death, the police department searched the suspect’s house for
more information, and it is this search that resulted in the breach of privacy
when the data was released to the public by a cop.
Invasion of Privacy
[5]
The issue here is whether or not the alleged sharing of information as I
have laid out is a breach of privacy. This would mean that the Falkland City
Police Department would be liable to reasonable fines for breaching the privacy
of the defendants.
[6]
The defendant is alleging an Invasion of Privacy, defined as “a public
disclosure of private information, such that the disclosure would or may cause
harm to the plaintiff”. This would relate to the release of the criminal plans
to the public, and subsequent damage to the reputations of people mentioned in
plans, that may or may not be accurate, would be damaged as a result of the
publication. However, when establishing the facts of the case, it was discovered
that the breach of privacy was created by a member of the police department who
was also a member of the gang.
[7]
At this point, I must question whether it would still be classified a
breach of privacy if a gang member had released their own plans to the public. I
find then, in that case, that while the criteria for a breach of privacy could
still be made, this case would have the wrong emphasis.
[8]
Even so, the counsel for the plaintiff has alleged there is significant
public interest in these plans, and that any relevant breach of privacy (if one
occurred) could be justified as the public would be informed of the gang’s plans
and be able to stop them without harm being caused to the community.
[9]
The only question, in this case, is whether or not the data leak was a
breach of privacy. This case is not concerned with whether or not the search of
the property was legal or not, partly because that is beyond the scope of the
case, and partly also because the search and seizure of the data was legal.
Conclusion
[10] In
conclusion, I am forced to decide whether a breach of privacy occurred, who was
guilty of the breach if one did occur, and whether there is sufficient public
interest in the breach of privacy for the information itself to be of note to
the public.
[11] I
find that a breach of privacy did, in fact, occur. But the gang member who
committed the breach was acting in his role as a gang member at the time, rather
than his role as a policeman. Therefore I find that the Falkland City Night
Watch did not commit the breach, and should not be accountable for it.
[12]
Similarly, the information that was leaked should be of sufficient interest to
the public to mean that charges would be dropped in this case. This would mean
that there is no criminal case to be brought against the late gang member who
leaked the information. However, in theory, a civil case could be pursued. But I
find this unlikely, given that he’s dead.
[13]
With all of this in mind, it seems obvious to me that the sharing of the
information relating to Ms Johnson and her operations was not a breach of
privacy by the Falkland City Police Department. For the reasons I have outlined
in that regard, I find the appeal unsuccessful by the defendant. However, I
would issue warning to the Night Watch that the gang seems unlikely to stop
their smear campaign in the near future.
Order
A
The appeal is dismissed. The defendant is ordered to pay court
costs.
B
The plaintiff appeals the ruling. Appeal to be heard in the Court
of Appeal.
Tom wouldn’t quite have believed what he saw on his desk,
if he hadn’t seen it on his desk. He saw a large pile of magazines and
newspapers on his desk. Michelle must have put them there. Before, he would have
said she was trying to stress him out and intimidate him just to watch him
squirm. But now … Tom thought she’d changed. For the better. He opened them at
random and skimmed through. Police brutality, random searches, corruption,
profiling, unsolved crimes …
The department was finished. Tom could see no way the
department might recover.
Gladys looked at some of the reports from her house. She
was expecting someone from the department to stop by fairly soon. Hopefully
Johnny, she had something to tell him …
Tom and Johnson had scheduled a meeting for the Friday
morning. They were seated across from each other in a conference room with the
door shut. Nobody would interrupt.
“Just tell me why I’m here. Surely we could just settle
this at trial?”
“We agreed a meeting, Johnson. So no, I won’t settle this
at trial. Although we both know you’ll lose.”
“Lose? Why would I lose? One of your cops leaked our
plans.”
“That’s as may be, but he wasn’t working in his capacity as
a cop at the time.”
“Ah, the good old plausible deniability. You didn’t know so
can’t be accountable. The thing is, though, that he was a cop, and he did leak
the data.”
“But what I don’t get is, why leak the plan? What do you
gain from it?”
“Making you look bad. Everything we’ve done has been to
make the cops look bad. From orchestrating many crimes at the same time to
releasing media reports to framing you for a privacy breach. All of it.”
“But why? Is it because when the police are out of the way,
your gang can operate freely?”
“We can operate freely as it is. We still managed to get
away with most of the crime. Did you even solve the murder, in the end?”
“Yes. You poisoned a patient that was averse to you
stealing the prison maps.”
Johnson looked at Tom with a certain level of admiration
now. Rather than how she’d been before; bored and frustrated. She was interested
and paying attention.
“There’s one more thing, though.”
“What?”
“There’s a bomb under the houses of parliament that will go
off when I say it should. Fred was going there before he unfortunately died. I’m
sure another volunteer will be on their way to find it. Tell you what, let’s
play a game; you find the bomb, you win and …”
“And? And you’ll be arrested? Because you were going to be
arrested anyway. So what’s your ‘and’?”
“And you’ll never be bugged by us again.”
“That word choice was odd …”
“Do you want a minute to communicate with your team?”
Johnny knocked on the door. It was the door of a house
you’d expect an old woman to live at. Then Gladys answered the door.
“Oh, hello Johnny, what can I help you with?”
“Not too much, really. I just came by with some of your
things.”
“Oh?” Gladys was surprised, because Johnny had nothing in
his hands. Johnny followed her gaze.
“Oh, yeah, it’s all in my car.”
As they walked back to Johnny’s car, she asked “how’s
Michelle?”
“Why’d you want to know? Does everyone think we’re
together?”
“Do you want to be?”
“I wouldn’t say no if she asked … but …”
“But?”
“But she wouldn’t ask. So it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever
heard, of course it matters. If you want her, you should say something. Or else
it might be too late, and then what?”
“You’re right but what if I mess up?”
“You’re right, but what if you don’t?”
Johnny paused, then appeared to reach some kind of
decision. He changed the subject.
“And you’re sure you’re not going to come back?”
“No, I’m too old. I think I knew that before, but this time
off … it cleared it up. It was fun … but alas. Not anymore.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’ll miss you around the
office.”
“You weren’t bad either, kid.”
“This bad press might mean we get shut down anyway, so
maybe this is for the best.”
“Maybe it is, or maybe the universe has other plans.”
Johnny received a text alert from Tom.
Bomb at Parliament.
“Oh, God. I have to go. Apparently there’s a bomb
underneath Parliament.”
“So glad I left. I’m too old for that sort of thing. Tell
Tom I said I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Just tell him. Tell him it was fun.”
Johnny dashed back to his car and set off, leaving Gladys
standing on her porch, looking sad.
Tom had also called Michelle into the meeting room, as
apparently she had some Debating experience and could assist with the
negotiations.
She hadn’t exactly succeeded.
Johnson seemed to have taken a dislike to her, possibly
because she was on her phone, looking up and flippantly replying ‘whatever’ any
time Johnson said anything.
Tom received word that Johnny had reached Parliament and
called for more backup. Then Michelle began to pay a little more attention.
“Wait, did you say Johnny?”
“Yes, he’s investigating a bomb that we put in Parliament.”
“Look, it’s already over. You didn’t even think twice about
meeting in this room but look over there,” she said, gesturing to an area on the
roof. There was a flash, they were being recorded.
“You’ve just gone on tape saying that you committed all
these crimes. We’d arrest you and our case is solid, then we’d arrest the other
members of your outfit because we have information on them too.”
“But there’s no sound in CCTV recorders.”
“Not always, but I’ve been told these ones are repurposed
webcams that do have sound.”
“Okay. So. How about I agree to call off the bomb threat?
Then we could walk out of here, and promise not to cause any more trouble.”
“Deal.” But Michelle didn’t shake on it. Johnson got up to
leave, and she only got as far as the door, where she smacked into Johnny, who
was waiting outside.
“But you just said you were at parliament?” Michelle was
confused.
“Yes, I had to make her think that’s where I was. What I
actually did was, after I got in my car, I realised Gladys could get the
Parliament security people to scope out the bomb threat, and then I could come
here in case you guys needed any help. Worked out rather well, didn’t it?”
“And the bomb?”
“I’m not sure, but I would say there never was one. Or it’s
been disabled by security men that are better at that job than I ever could be.”
“Are we done here?” Michelle stood up.
“I think so, yes. Meet you back at the station.”
The team left, with Johnson in cuffs and in tow. Crossing
the main road outside the Parliament building was slightly tricky on most days,
but the team managed to get halfway across before Johnson lashed out and hit
Michelle. She stumbled backwards and into the path of an oncoming car …
“She still doesn’t remember me.”
“She knows who you are right now, though?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know that we were friends … before.
It’s like I’m meeting her again.”
Johnny and Tom were sat in Tom’s new office. The Night
Watch department had been assimilated into the Day Watch, who were nice enough
guys. A bit dickish, sometimes, but basically okay.
“You go and see her?”
“Once a week, if I get time. I got promoted though, so it’s
tough.”
“You’ll be a good cop, don’t worry.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. You’ll move on, with time.”
“Yeah … Gladys said I should tell her how I felt, wish I
had; that’s all.”
“So, what now?”
“I’m just about to go on duty, do you want to join?”
“No, I have to do this paperwork,” Tom gestured at the pile
of papers on his desk.
Johnny left, then there was a lightning strike in the
distance.
“Poor kid, it’s raining too.”
Tom turned back to the case he was working on. “Oh, that’s
how it happened … someone get Gladys on the ph–”
He sat in the rain pondering his next case.