Dead if You Don’t

29

Saturday 12 August

17.00–18.00

Inside the Sussex Police Force Control Room, Keith Ellis was relieved that the immediate crisis was over and the match was continuing. Although he wondered about Roy Grace’s actions, and the inevitable bollocking he would be facing. Whilst the police brass might publicly laud heroes, privately a reckless action by an officer could be a disciplinary offence — though surely they would realize that Roy could have saved a huge number of lives.

He settled into the tall chair at his screened-off and raised command centre, from which he could oversee the whole of his domain. The ground floor and open mezzanine housed a team of eighty people. Some were serving police officers, dressed in black polo shirts, the rest were civilians, identified by their royal blue polo shirts with the words POLICE SUPPORT STAFF embroidered in white on their sleeves. Directly in front of him was a bank of CCTV monitors. Using the toggle on his control panel he could instantly view and move any of the cameras in the county.

To his left was the CCTV area, where all of Sussex’s cameras were monitored around the clock by a rota of four people. The rest of the two floors was filled with rows of desks and computer terminals, each manned by either a radio controller, who would speak directly to any police unit, or an operator handling the emergency calls. It was the operator’s role to grade any of 2,000 emergency calls that came in on an average day into one of four options: Immediate response; Respond within thirty minutes; Respond when possible; Deal with by phone.

Keith was feeling the buzz of excitement he always got during a major incident, as he liaised between the pilot of the helicopter, the Match Commander, PC Balkham and the Explosive Ordnance Division Unit which was under police escort to the stadium.

What could ever possibly replace this adrenaline rush after he retired? He thought about one of his predecessors, and good mate, Andy Kille, telling him over a pint how much he missed the buzz, and that attending local council meetings in a Scottish village and growing olives in Spain might have their moments, but none that matched situations like this.

Suddenly a FLUM — a flash unsolicited message — appeared on his core screen. Then he saw contact handler Grace Holkham signalling urgently to him, and calling out, ‘Sir! Sir!’

‘Yes, Grace?’ He jumped down and hurried over to her.

‘I think we have a kidnap.’

‘What details have you got?’

She filled him in quickly.

‘Kipp Brown?’ he queried.

‘Yes.’

‘Is that the guy in the radio ads, you know the ones, “Trust Kipp”?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

He sat down beside her, pulled on the spare headset and spoke into the microphone. ‘Hello, Mr Brown, this is Inspector Ellis. I understand your fourteen-year-old son has gone missing at the Amex Stadium. You’ve had a text from someone purporting to have abducted or kidnapped him advising you a ransom demand will follow, and you are currently calling from a secure encrypted phone in a toilet in the grounds? Is this correct?’

‘Yes, but listen, they’ve threatened to kill him if I contact the police. Can you keep this completely under wraps?’

A ransom demand indicated to Ellis that this was a kidnap, rather than an abduction, which was at least a positive. Abductions of minors were often for child sexual exploitation purposes and frequently did not end well. But kidnappers had a motive, blackmail. Financial gain with a threat. With kidnappers, there was the ability to negotiate, as kidnappers wanted something.

There were two ways to handle a kidnap: overt, with uniform officers involved, or covert, undercover. With a covert operation, it was crucial not to tip-off the kidnappers that the police were involved. Everything was restricted. Guidelines for any kidnap victim under the age of eighteen were that the operation should be overt, unless circumstances dictated otherwise. But they were just guidelines. Using his judgement from the information available to him at this moment, Ellis opted for covert. Which meant everything was to be restricted to himself and his deputy, otherwise known as Oscar-2. And the report would not, for the time being, be put on the police national computer, because that could mean a zealous uniform police crew in the area turning up at Kipp Brown’s house — which was very likely under surveillance now by the kidnappers, if they were well organized.

‘Mr Brown, for the moment we will run this as a covert operation. I need some details from you, but first, in case we lose contact for any reason, I want to give you a code word for you to use when you call in or we call you, to ensure it’s you, and that you know it’s us.’

‘A code word?’

‘We just need something simple, sir. Shall we say apple?’

‘Apple?’

‘Or anything else that would be easy for you to remember.’

‘Apple is fine.’

‘Right, when did you last see your son?’

‘About two hours ago, when we arrived here at the Amex.’ Brown went on hastily to explain the circumstances. Then as requested by Ellis he read out the text he had received and added, ‘Please get him back. Look, the text is very clear about my not contacting the police — if I want to see my son alive again. Perhaps I shouldn’t have contacted you, do you think?’

‘Sir, you have done exactly the right thing.’

‘Have I?’