Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace's Brighton

16: Hell Hath No Fury

Thirty-five-year-old Canadian ‘action man’ seeks professional white single female between thirty and forty for companionship, days out, holidays and possibly more! Must be willing to tolerate ‘Walter Mitty’ personality, hidden violent background, refusals to accept rejection, obsessive stalking, psychological torture, arson and plots to harm you and your family.

If only people could be this honest. If only Dr Alison Hewitt had had this insight into the new man in her life from the outset. Much the same goes for Red Westwood, besotted with her lover turned would-be killer, Bryce Laurent, in Want You Dead. Had she been given a glimpse beneath his phony immaculate veneer then surely she would have chosen a different path. One that did not involve the complete destruction of her and her family’s life.

DCI Nev Kemp worked for me as the Head of Crime for Brighton and Hove. He had been a friend for years and I had mentored and supported him into CID and up the promotion ladder. I had recognized his talent and potential and, when I retired, he succeeded me as Divisional Commander at Brighton and Hove.

Nev was a grafter who had a knack of separating the wheat from the chaff. He had a fabulous eye for detail and could scan the dozens of crimes reported each day and pick out those that might come back to bite us.

As the only other senior officer in the city with a CID background, he felt safe using me as a confidant in those decisions that were not always clear-cut. Professionally and personally I was glad to help; command can be a lonely place. I saw myself as Chief Superintendent Jack Skerritt to his Roy Grace.

The arrest of Al Amin Dhalla leapt off the page at him. It seemed a relatively low-level incident, in the scheme of things, but something about it made him worry.

‘Graham, I’m not happy about a job that’s come in. Can I just run it past you to check my thinking?’ he said as he entered my office one morning in March 2011, gently closing the door behind him. ‘It’s a stalking job but I think it’s going to blow up into more than that.’

‘Tell me more.’ The very term stalking grabbed my full attention. These cases were never easy and too often dismissed as minor irritations.

Early in my career, I had great hopes to be part of a change that would finally protect people from the horrors of obsessive behaviour. As Staff Officer to ACC Maria Wallis, I had been at the centre of devising anti-stalking laws under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case, the police, through clumsy implementation, watered down the effect this Act was intended to have and countless victims were left unprotected.

You have probably never heard of Aston Abbotts. That would not be surprising; it’s not fame that its 500 residents crave. A scan of its website depicts a charming Buckinghamshire village which appears to be struggling with its transition from a nineteenth-century self-supporting agricultural community to an idyllic rural retreat for professional townspeople. Nothing illustrates this better than its boast of being home to ‘one pub, one church and one helipad’.

What a joy it must have been for Alison Hewitt to be brought up in such a lovely little village, even with its issues with incomers. Despite the sad death of Alison’s father, her mother, a former probation officer, saw that she and her three younger brothers, Mark, Paul and Dave, wanted for nothing. Alison’s ambition to read medicine and qualify as a doctor was nurtured by her perfect Middle England upbringing in this quaint spot. Life was safe, life was good.

The horrors that would befall Alison, however, could have come straight from the pages of a Roy Grace novel. The twists, the turns, the chase, the bluffs, the sheer adrenaline that this real-life nightmare entailed prompted many to question: which is stranger, fact or fiction? The eventual publicity that followed this case, including a gripping Channel 4 documentary ‘Living with My Stalker’, was among the inspirations for Peter to write Want You Dead, to highlight the horrors of stalking and to promote the domestic violence charity the White Ribbon Campaign.

It’s no secret that the lot of a junior doctor can be tough. Long, unsociable shifts interspersed with hours of being on call, coupled with endless studying, means there is precious little time for romance. Only those who inhabit that frenetic world understand the demands it makes on tomorrow’s consultants. Alison was so immersed in her work and her passion for the outdoor life that she simply did not have time for dating.

At thirty-five, however, she wanted to find the man she would spend the rest of her life with. She’d had some false starts and, frankly, craved a short-cut to happiness. Unlike Red’s preferred route to find love, she did not fancy the idea of online dating. She wanted more control; less chance of landing a weirdo. A friend recommended the London-based Executive Club dating agency. Since it catered for the more discerning professional, she felt safe. Even if she didn’t find Mr Right, at least she would not end up with some nutter who would not take no for an answer.

Al Amin Dhalla had been a member of the agency for a while. As a thirty-five-year-old Canadian accountant who had been in the UK for a number of years, he seemed quite a catch. Other than being perhaps a little too generous with his first date gifts, nothing about him had rung any alarm bells with the agency. He appeared to be a most eligible bachelor. His introduction to Alison could easily have been yet another success story for the Executive Club.

Alison lived in a small, anonymous rented flat just a short walk from the Royal Sussex County Hospital where she worked. Her and Al’s companionship, to start with, was unremarkable. Given her punishing schedule, they would spend what spare time she had enjoying trips out in London, romantic walks along the Brighton seafront or just nestling up together in her flat. He seemed genuinely charming and his knowledge of history, castles and films fascinated Alison. They established a routine of him travelling down to the city from his Croydon home to spend their weekends together.

Soon afterwards, as part of her training, Alison started a placement at the Accident and Emergency Department, which meant less predictable shifts often leaving her completely exhausted. This irritated Al, especially as his weekend visits would often be to an empty flat.

His solution was to propose that he move in with her and effectively be her house husband. It was all a bit quick for Alison, so she gently rejected his kind offer. However, she started to notice more and more of his possessions were stacking up in her cramped apartment. Her objections and his reassurances changed nothing; his clutter kept coming and coming.

Eventually he finally admitted that he had let his London flat go and had effectively moved in. Angry but boxed into a corner, Alison felt all she could do was negotiate that he support her with the rent. She implored him not to make big decisions like that again, at least not without a discussion. With an apology, he meekly agreed.

Fourteen years after losing her first husband and the father of her children, Pam — Alison’s mother — was soon to marry the man who had brought meaning back into her life: defence contractor David Gray. The whole family were looking forward to him becoming stepfather to Alison and her brothers. The wedding was to be a celebration of a new chapter in her mother’s life.

Al insisted that this would be the ideal occasion to introduce him to the family, especially as two of her brothers lived abroad. This was a rare opportunity, as all the Hewitts would be in one place.

As Alison was to be her mother’s bridesmaid, Al was paired up with her grandmother, Peggy, so he was not left alone. During the day he was most affable, chatting easily to Peggy and other guests, moving effortlessly among them. He enchanted them with his derring-do past and his multifarious achievements.

To Peggy, he confided in fine detail the tragic death of his parents in a horrific car crash of which he was the only survivor. The verdict from the gathered well-wishers was that Al was charming — if a little intense — and that he had coped well, considering that meeting all the family in one go must have been quite overwhelming.

Peggy thought otherwise, however. His resistance to her gentle yet rapier interrogation caused her to conclude that he was hiding something; he had a big secret. More than once, after the event, she warned Pam, ‘This is not the man for Alison.’

Not long after the wedding, Pam treated her four-year-old grandson to a visit to the seaside to see his Auntie Alison. During a meal at a seafront restaurant, Pam gently questioned Al about the tragedy that had so scarred his childhood. Instead of an emotional skate through the events that orphaned him at such a tender age, he painted a gruesomely detailed picture of a raging fire, the stench of petrol and the screams of his dying parents. His clinically detailed, emotionless testimony convinced Pam that Al was lying.

The Accident and Emergency shifts were starting to take their toll and Alison felt she needed some proper time with Al. They decided on a romantic getaway to the Greek island of Skiathos. Having selected the date and hotel, Alison got online and made the booking. It was while she was entering the passport details that she noticed something odd. Al was, in fact, five years older than he had maintained and had only been in the UK for two years not the five he had previously said. She immediately asked him for an explanation and he apologized, explaining that he felt that to tell her his true age might have put her off him at the get-go. She accepted this white lie, smelling no rats, and they flew off to Greece.

Sun, sand and sea provided the perfect relief from those punishing shifts. However, on her return from snorkelling one day, another of Dhalla’s unwelcome surprises awaited her.

As she dried off she noticed him grinning like a Cheshire cat next to a freshly built sandcastle. For some reason, she mischievously kicked the castle over only to reveal a black box buried in the powdered rubble. Her heart sank as she flipped the lid. The contents glistened.

They had talked about this. He had quizzed her about ring sizes. He had hinted about marriage. She thought she had been firm in her rebuffs and had made it clear. Apparently not.

‘Alison, will you marry me?’

Her stomach was in turmoil. What had he not understood? Why was he putting them both through this? Once again she gently but firmly refused his misplaced offer.

His reaction to yet another rejection was pitiful. He behaved like a scolded child so, to appease him, Alison reluctantly agreed to briefly slip the ring on her fourth finger. Of course it fitted, of course it was stunning but there was no way she could keep it.

Sheepishly, he gathered up the box and slipped it away, out of sight but not out of mind. The rest of the day was a series of awkward silences, both of them walking on eggshells. She assumed that Al was wallowing in humiliation. She felt for him. He, on the other hand, like Want You Dead’s Bryce when confronted by Red’s first rejection, was burning with rage. You don’t treat men such as Al and Bryce like that. If you try, you will learn the hard way.

Meanwhile, Peggy’s warnings coupled with her own suspicions induced Pam to dig a little further into this enigma. During a call to her son Dave in Australia, he admitted that he had seen no reason to be wary but promised to play around online to see what he could come up with.

To his surprise, Al had been busy. A simple internet search uncovered a breathtakingly arrogant website which purported to catalogue Dhalla’s claims to various athletic, military, charitable and educational accomplishments. Titled ‘The Memoirs Of Al Dhalla (His Legacy And Contributions To Society)’ it read like a Boy’s Own sketch of a swashbuckling modern-day conquistador. Worryingly too, it paraded several, clearly staged, photographs of Dhalla with various women who he proclaimed were former girlfriends. Of most concern were nearly forty snaps of the woman he described as his fiancée. The woman who had gently rejected his proposal on those silver Greek sands.

Pam became more and more determined to protect her daughter from this man who at best was delusional, at worst predatory. Never had she thought she would need to immerse herself in the murky undercover world of secret surveillance, but never had she feared for her child like she did now.

Having researched extensively, she eventually found a private eye who she felt might fit the bill. After some mutual jousting to test each other’s credibility, Pam decided that Elliot was the detective who would be charged with unmasking Dhalla for what he was. She had been mildly surprised that she would never meet him in person, but he appeared thorough and the fact that he had contacts in Canada seemed ideal.

Al’s behaviour was becoming increasingly possessive. Despite the clear rejections of his marriage proposals, he persisted in his determination to get Alison down the aisle. Having been confronted by her about the website, he casually fobbed her off. He was by now starting to show a darkly offensive and condescending manner to others when he did not get exactly what he wanted. Alison brushed all this to one side. She had bigger worries, as there was an investigation at work following the death of one of her patients that was causing her great concern.

In October 2010, Alison and Al were invited to join David and Pam on a short break to their villa on the Costa Blanca in Spain. Around this time Elliot had revealed that he was convinced Al was not the orphan he purported to be. He was sure that Dhalla’s passport would confirm that.

One afternoon, while Alison and Al were out for a walk, Pam and David seized the moment and after a brief search they found what they were looking for. The pages of Al’s blue Canadian passport revealed not only his fictitious age and the lie about how long he had been in the UK, but that the aunt he had talked so often about, Gulshan, was in fact his mother. The whole car crash story had been a sickening sham.

After about half an hour, Alison and Al arrived back at the villa. As they put their stuff back in their room a sixth sense overcame Al. Something told him that all was not how he left it. Darting straight to the bedside cabinet, he became incandescent with rage. Someone had been messing with his papers. Someone had been snooping.

A furious row followed with Dhalla shouting and swearing, alleging all sorts of breaches of trust and declaring his hatred of Alison’s parents. He was uncontrollable. Alison had not seen this side of him before. It scared her but still she tried to placate him. After all, she knew of none of her family’s suspicions so saw his accusations as bizarre.

Al’s anger intensified over that day and into the next. His rage saw him crashing furniture around their small bedroom. Alison persuaded him to take a walk with her to cool off but still he remained incandescent, lashing out at thin air. Even sleep did not pacify him. At 5 a.m. Alison was awoken by him venting his temper again. Efforts to mollify this spoiled child were wasted.

Pam and David decided they needed to confront Al with what they had found. They tried to tell him that they knew he was lying and that they were worried about their daughter. Nothing they said made him see reason.

Inconsolable, the fuming Dhalla grabbed his belongings, stuffed them into a bag, stormed out of the villa, jumped into a taxi and headed for the airport. Seeing that Alison deserved some explanation, Pam and David sat her down and gently told her all. They delicately took her through Peggy’s warnings, their suspicions, the findings of the private detective and now, the proof they had that Dhalla was a liar.

While confused and angry, Alison remained blind to the risks that Dhalla posed. She felt there had to be a reasonable explanation but it now dawned on her that Peggy had been right; Al was not the man for her.

Once back in the UK, Alison confronted him with what she had been told. He had already admitted lying about his age and his time in the UK but now he finally confessed that the whole orphan story was also made up. So distraught was he over his troubled and fractured family that to the outside world he had effectively airbrushed them from his life, re-designating his mother as his aunt. He said he had been telling this story since he was a little boy as a way to stop people asking too many questions.

Al knew he had to let Alison in on some more of his secrets if he was ever to make her his bride. To her horror, he revealed that he had a dark and violent past. Depicting himself as the victim, he described how, in self-defence, he’d hospitalized an uncle who was attacking him. He tried to justify the fact he’d grabbed a kitchen knife and used it by saying he had finally found the courage to stand up for himself. However, given his uncle’s injuries the court was left with no option than to imprison him.

As time passed, Alison was starting to make concerted efforts to split up with Al but he simply refused to move out of her flat. It was becoming unbearable. She was worn down by his intransigence together with the pressure brought by the investigation at work.

She desperately needed to get away and recharge her batteries. In better times, they had booked a holiday to Canada, so she agreed to keep to those plans and use the break as an opportunity to rest.

Being stalked and intimidated saps so much spirit from victims that they often do things that look odd to those observing from the sidelines and to themselves looking back. Alison described it when she advised me on this chapter as ‘dumb in hindsight’ but she was burned out and in desperate need to get away from it all — even if it was with Dhalla. While there she met the woman Al had by now admitted was his mother.

Back home, Elliot was revealing to Pam all the dreadful facts he had learned about Dhalla. The man had served at least two prison terms, had a history of violence including, as recently as in 2006, using a knife to assault his uncle. He was banned from possessing weapons in his homeland and had been barred from entering the USA. Pam shared Elliot’s worries that the trip to Canada might be a ruse to engineer Alison’s kidnapping.

Despite those fears being unfounded, on the couple’s return to the UK their relationship was going from bad to worse. Warnings, which had been coming thick and fast from Pam, were starting to come true.

Alison’s renewed vigour since the Canadian holiday had given her the strength to try to get Al out of her flat once and for all. Despite this, she was becoming aware that he was reading her emails and texts, as he seemed to know her day-to-day movements.

During a busy Christmas Eve night shift, following yet another attempt to get through to Al that the relationship was over, Alison returned to find all the festive decorations ripped down and her degree certificate destroyed in the dustbin. He later denied this but Alison is positive in her claims and there seems no reason to doubt her.

Even visits by the police, triggered by Pam, and an enforced eviction by David and Alison’s brother Paul did not stop Al’s obsessive behaviour. This time it was through the cynical use of silence.

As any stalking victim will confirm, the terror never lets up. The acts themselves are appalling but the anticipation and the fear of what will happen next are equally sinister. He piled on the pressure by doing nothing for a while.

When he broke cover, it was a multi-pronged attack on the reputations and characters of all who had crossed him. A letter to the hospital accusing Alison of murder and theft of drugs was the first twist of the knife. In letters to those he had celebrated with at Pam and David’s wedding, he accused the whole family of drug dealing, possession of weapons, domestic violence, using prostitutes and failing to bury Alison’s grandfather properly. The accusations were as diverse as they were ludicrous.

On their own, these attempts to turn loyal friends, colleagues and employers against such decent people as the Hewitts would be laughable. However, each poison pen letter hurt. The family tried to remain optimistic, hoping that life would settle down once his rage had burned out. If only.

Guessing that Pam and David had employed a private eye, Al did likewise, securing the local services of Tony Yates. Unlike Elliot’s brief, Tony’s was not just to find out information. It was to watch Alison twenty-four seven. See where she went, whom she met and what she did. That was pretty standard. When the requests escalated to asking him to get her to confess who she’d had sex with recently and whether David used prostitutes, Yates became suspicious and refused.

Reality had now dawned on Alison and she knew it was time to involve the police. She had already tried obtaining an injunction but, curiously, this failed as she could not provide a current address for him. Alison had produced a stack of incriminating letters from Al, which were more than enough for us to launch an investigation from. She had suffered so much, as so many do before they go to the police. I am always astounded by what people will go through before they think they can report it. We never really get across well enough that no-one has to put up with violence, abuse and intimidation. The thresholds for police intervention are surprisingly low. Despite what people imagine, there really are no ‘more important things’ for us to be getting on with.

Thankfully, one of Brighton and Hove’s finest and most sensitive detectives, Emily Hoare, now had a grip of this case and would be part of Alison’s life for the next critical months, providing her a vital lifeline.

Nev had clearly got his head around this harrowing and haunting case. He had ramped up the police activity and ensured that he would now be kept personally informed at every turn. He brought me up to speed with what we knew now and what we were doing about it.

Frustrated by his world collapsing around him, Al was now trying the more direct approach. Not quite as direct as Want You Dead’s Bryce however. There were no incendiary bombs in supermarkets or mysterious Queen of Hearts drawn in the shower room condensation but his tactics were no less petrifying.

Just when Alison had assumed Al would be keeping his distance, one Sunday in March 2011, as she was leaving for work, he appeared bold as brass at her front door.

Ever the optimist, Alison decided to agree to his request to ‘just talk’ but on the strict condition that the conversation would last only as long as the short walk to the hospital and then that would be the end.

He managed to convince her that he had moved back to London and had pawned the rejected engagement ring. He tried to assure her that he had got the message and just wanted to know where it had all gone wrong. Alison didn’t want that conversation; she was determined for him to hear loud and clear that he was ruining her life.

Beneath that facade of acquiescence, however, the embers of Dhalla’s wrath had ignited once more. He upped his campaign against Alison and her friends with various out-of-the-blue visits. His ingenuity in finding ways to harass her knew no bounds. Discovering her work pattern to plan when to target her and inviting himself to her friend’s wedding ‘as a romantic surprise’ were just two ways by which he turned the screw.

His scariest act to date, however, was waiting at the end of Alison’s driveway for her to get home and, picking his moment, leaping in through her unlocked passenger door. Terrified, she crunched the gearshift into reverse and drove onto the main street, parking next to a coffee shop, as she was confident that he was too smart to become violent in the public gaze.

As if completely oblivious to the effects of his actions, while Alison trembled in the driver’s seat, he calmly announced he had tickets to Leeds Castle and would she like to come?

She persuaded him to get out of the car on the promise that she would see him a few days later. As he appeared to have fallen for this, she called the police. Recognizing the urgency of her plight, our response was swift. Unfortunately, despite a thorough search, Dhalla was nowhere to be found — although the officers told Alison they thought they glimpsed him getting onto a bus nearby but were unable to confirm it.

Alison’s feigned promise to see him again provided a fabulous opportunity for the diligent officers. While the search for him continued and warnings were added to her address record at the Force Control Room, a plan was hatched.

That Monday, for once, it looked like Dhalla was running late. The best-laid plans can be blown out of the water by an unreliable target, as happens occasionally. However, soon enough Al rapped on Alison’s door. He was expecting a fair-haired professional to open the door — just not that the person would also be six foot tall, wearing police uniform and going by the name of Rick.

After a pathetic protest he was handcuffed, marched away to a waiting car and driven off to the cells. As with many so-called brave inmates of the cells at Brighton Custody Suite, once safely behind the cell door he effed and blinded and, with complete futility, tried to crash his way through the four-inch metal door.

He was eventually released on bail on the condition that he did not contact Alison or enter Sussex. As Nev briefed me, I sensed that he had little optimism, that this would dissuade Dhalla from his relentless campaign of terror.

‘So you see, he is heading towards some kind of endgame scenario,’ he told me. He was certain that Dhalla was not going to stop until he died or went to prison. From the days when Nev had been my deputy, when I was head of public protection, we both knew these types. Evil personified.

‘Go with it, Nev, and don’t spare the horses. You are right, he is building up to something. Your job is to stop him. Whatever you require, you’ve got it. If you need me to open doors to get it, just shout. Keep me informed day and night.’

Not long after, Nev’s fears were confirmed. On Mother’s Day, a sharp-eyed farmer 120 miles away in Wiltshire reported a man firing weapons in his fields. Erring on the side of caution, armed police were dispatched. It takes a lot to spook firearms officers. They are tough, fit and very well trained. However, when they approached this particular shooter, something made them feel so uneasy that they discreetly lowered their hands to hover over their pistol grips.

Introducing himself as Al Amin Dhalla, his icy stare pierced straight through them. His answers were brief, his whole aura chilling. He explained he was ‘just doing some target practice’ with his crossbow. Crossbows are deadly weapons and take expert handling if you want to make a clean kill. Bryce honed his accuracy skills by shooting watermelons while preparing to assassinate Grace at his wedding just as Al had been practising with silhouette targets in this remote meadow.

The search of his van told a sinister story. He wouldn’t explain the hammer, blowtorch, goggles and high-powered air rifle they found. Nor would he account for why the van had been modified in such a way that someone inside could move from front to back, or a person could be locked there unseen from the outside. There was even a grille fitted through which a weapon could be fired. As for the addresses, including the ferry terminal to Lundy Island, saved as favourites in his satnav, he was saying nothing.

His choice of weapons had been clever. While deadly, none were illegal. Only his trespassing and out-of-date Canadian driving licence gave the officers grounds for arrest, but it did allow the van and his murderous arsenal to be seized. Despite all the background information from Brighton and the excellent case put forward by Wiltshire Police and Crown Prosecution Service, the charges were at the very lowest end of the scale and the magistrates released Dhalla on bail with the condition that he lived at a particular hotel. In many ways their hands were tied. Dhalla, on the other hand, couldn’t believe his luck.

Nev strode round to my office with an inevitable update.

‘Dhalla has left his bail address. I’m certain the target practice was so he could wreak revenge on the Hewitt and Gray families. The addresses in the satnav show he has an interest in Aston Abbotts. My single most important objective now is to protect Alison and her parents. It’s a race against time. We can arrest him for breaching his bail but I wouldn’t bet on him being remanded for long on that charge. We’ve now got at least three forces involved. I don’t really know where he is or when he will strike next, but it is a when, not an if.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Are we still the lead force? I wouldn’t want any ambiguity about who is in charge to allow anything to fall between the gaps.’

‘Yes. I’m the SIO and I am getting great co-operation from the other forces. Everyone sees the risk.’

‘Well done. Make sure it stays that way. Would you like me to brief the ACC, given it’s cross border?’

We all know that can be a thankless task, through Grace’s experiences with ACCs Vosper, Rigg and the odious Pewe. Thankfully, my bosses were far more approachable.

‘Oh yes, if you don’t mind, thanks. Tell him too that if it becomes a firearms job here, Superintendent Steve Whitton is Gold and Chief Inspector Jim Bartlett is Silver.’ I was most relieved. Steve was the best commander the force had, and my deputy at Brighton, and Jim, as well as being a fine leader, is my stepbrother.

Nev’s eagerness was tempered with just the right mix of anxiety. He was leading a battle of wits to predict and prevent Dhalla’s next move: a fight to protect three innocent lives from a hunter so driven, so focused, that it seemed he would stop at nothing until he had his prey. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

The first step was to break the news to Alison that Dhalla was free once more, robbing her of the sense of security she had enjoyed for just one day. Strict measures were put in place to protect her but no-one knew where Dhalla was or what his next move would be.

Alison had mentally mapped out her flat, estimating where her best chances of survival or escape lay. It was not easy. He had lived there. He knew every nook and cranny. Any hiding place would be futile to a hunter as determined as he. She was terrified. She wondered when and how he would get her.

She opted to spend what would be a sleepless night under the kitchen table. Nerves wrecked and weeping uncontrollably, she found her heart was racing. How was she going to get through this? She had a life to lead, patients to care for. When would this terror end? At least her parents had decided to get away from it all to the safety of their long-planned holiday on Lundy Island in the middle of the Bristol Channel.

She felt exhausted; she could not continue like this. At times she wished he would find her and something, anything, would happen that would end the nightmare one way or another. She knew her kitchen table shelter would offer little protection or refuge but it might, just might, buy her time.

In the small hours she was awoken from a shallow doze. ‘Open up, police, open up!’ came an insistent shout, as the flat was lit up by a sweep of blinding torchlight through the thin curtains.

Terrified and struggling to place the voice, she edged towards the door, her fingers about to punch out 999 on the phone that never left her side.

‘Alison Hewitt?’

‘Yes,’ she confirmed, having now placed the voice as that of Rick, her blond six-foot saviour from before.

Relieved, she let them in. She sensed that something had happened that might draw all this to a close.

‘Someone’s set fire to your mum’s house,’ came the bombshell.

‘What?’ was all she could manage in reply, a thousand scenarios going through her exhausted mind.

‘You need to come with us. Back to the police station. You’ll be safe there.’

As she grabbed what she could in the short time the insistent officers allowed, they explained that it was almost certainly arson. The whole perimeter of the house was a ring of fire with the front and back doors ablaze.

Alison slouched, shell-shocked, in the back of the police car during the short drive to Brighton Police Station. She knew that she was as safe as she could ever be right now, but still her instinctive fear that Al would pounce from nowhere was never far from the surface.

Once inside the fortress police station, she spent the next hours learning about events as they arose, and revealing, under the gentle skill of Emily Hoare’s questioning, the fine details of her life with Al.

The whole family was at risk, but Paul’s nomadic lifestyle and the difficulty even Alison had in contacting him, reassured the police that he was probably safe from Dhalla. Pam and David, on the other hand, were clearly in his sights.

Strict procedures kicked in to ensure the likely targets were protected as far as possible. Potential victims are sometimes served with notices called Osman warnings. These set out the risks, what the victim can do and how they should co-operate with the police to protect themselves. Carly Chase’s version is set out in Dead Man’s Grip and demonstrates the impact such a notice must have. Some accept them. Others, like Red, are more reluctant to change their habits in the interests of survival.

Long-term measures take some time to put in place. Therefore, the default in an emergency such as this is for those at risk to be whisked away to police stations. Hence, Alison being safely ensconced in the largest one in Sussex. The race now was to get Pam and David somewhere safe; even their choice of isolated holiday island seemed to be known to Dhalla. Efforts to contact them on their mobile phones to warn them of the threat came to nothing. Fears were growing that he had already struck.

The stark reality was, though, that up until now, Al could only have been arrested for the minor offence of breaching his bail. The fire changed all that. It was now a case of finding him before someone was killed.

He was so resourceful that he could easily strike again and that could be whenever, wherever and at whomever he chose. He was calling the shots. This was as intense as Grace’s hunt for Dr Crisp in You Are Dead.

Thames Valley Police had discovered, to their horror, that a neighbourhood police office near Aston Abbotts had been set alight around the same time as Alison’s mother’s house. Luckily again, it was empty but given that fires rarely happen in that area, the two blazes within hours of each other just had to be linked. Dhalla was running amok since his release from custody in Wiltshire.

A bleary-eyed DCI Nev Kemp was called in and started coordinating the race to catch this madman. The crosshairs of Al’s hate were shifting between Alison and her parents. Nev knew they all needed protection and needed it now. Eventually he was told that an officer had finally managed to speak to a hotel receptionist on the Island and Pam and David were safe, for now.

Nev picked up the phone.

Devon and Cornwall Police leapt into action the second Nev finished the call. In scenes more akin to a James Bond movie than Middle England tranquillity, a team of heavily armed officers dressed head to toe in black combat gear were air-dropped through the early morning mist onto Lundy. They sprinted to a waiting David and Pam who, having been alerted earlier, were cowering behind their door. Briefed by a gruff officer they grasped the danger they were in.

Minutes later they were being rushed across the dew-soaked lawn towards the waiting helicopter. Some of the crack police team leapt into the chopper seconds before take off. Others had already secreted themselves around the mainland ferry station as Nev could not be sure Dhalla wouldn’t be there waiting for Pam and David.

While this military-style operation was unfolding in the Bristol Channel, Alison was still outlining her life history to Emily and her gentle-giant sergeant, Colin Jaques. They were establishing that Dhalla had free and ready access to all Alison’s emails and texts — how else would he have known when and where she would be?

The decision was taken that she and her family would be hidden away in a quaint little hotel along the coast in sleepy Eastbourne. They would check in under false names and no phones or credit cards would be allowed. Their survival depended on no-one knowing who or where they were.

Back at Brighton Police Station, another threat hit Nev like a bolt from the blue. He shared his concern with his second in command, DI Jon Wallace.

‘Christ, Jon, you know we’ve turned the tables on ourselves.’

‘Sorry, Nev, not with you,’ admitted Jon.

‘We’ve gone from hunters to hunted.’

‘How so?’

‘I have identified a hire car he is using and it was in Brighton just hours after the fires. He must have seen the police cars we have stationed outside Alison’s flat to protect the neighbours. Dhalla has shown that nothing is going to get in his way. He knows we are going to nick him if we see him. He’s already torched one police office. If he knows we have got the family with us he is going to be furious. There is every chance he’s going to try to get us too.’

In assessing Dhalla, Nev mirrored Grace’s reflections of Bryce: He has to win, there’s no other possible option for him. He would kill her and then himself, and see that as a grand act of defiance. This was what we were up against.

‘Shit, you’re right. We need to put some protection around the police station and the safe hotel. He’s clearly capable of doing us some serious damage too,’ deduced Jon.

Nev brought me up to speed on his latest hypothesis. We agreed that the security at the hotel would be his to manage but that I would get someone else to devise a plan for the police station. He had enough on his plate.

By now Pam and David were back in Sussex and the whole family were safely together, protected and miles from Brighton. All terrified, all hopelessly disorientated, all slowly realizing that life would never be the same again, they were effectively imprisoned for their own survival.

Nev had already dispatched a team of detectives armed with photos of Dhalla to the Royal Sussex County Hospital and its sister building, the Princess Royal at nearby Haywards Heath, where Alison was due to start her work placement on the obstetric and gynaecology ward.

Following dozens of the usual blank looks cops are used to receiving when showing a suspect’s photos, a sharp-eyed nurse at the Princess Royal did a double take.

‘I know that man,’ she declared.

‘What?’ said the startled officer.

‘He was here on the ward an hour ago. He said he was a new doctor. He was asking about rotas. He didn’t stay long but I thought it was odd. He wouldn’t make eye contact when we spoke to him and most doctors these days don’t wear white coats.’

This was the breakthrough Nev needed. Finally a sighting, a clue — nowhere near conclusive but a snippet to latch on to.

Immediately the order went out to search the hospital and the grounds and to scour the CCTV. Bryce used CCTV to his advantage by trying to feign a trip to the continent. For Dhalla it would be his undoing. There on screen walking through the hospital car parks, just before dawn, about three hours after the fire in Aston Abbotts, was the menacing stalker. He had drawn suspicion at the time and there was clear footage of security guards challenging him. Not knowing his past, his intentions or that he was now wanted by police, they accepted his story of being unable to sleep and sent him on his way.

Dhalla clearly had a plan and, thinking he had struck a blow at Pam and David, he had made straight for Alison.

‘Graham, we think he is hacking into her emails,’ Nev declared.

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Well, there is no other way he would know so much about her movements.’

Playing the part of his coach, I asked, ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

‘He thinks he is so smart so I’m going to set him a trap.’ He took me through his cunning plan.

It was simple yet brilliant. He phoned it through to Emily. She sat down with Alison and carefully briefed her. It would work only if it came from her, in her words. He would smell a rat otherwise. So she typed an email:

The bait was set, all Nev could do was wait. Sensing that Dhalla would remain holed up nearby, Nev instructed that every hotel and guest house in the towns and villages close to the hospital be visited to try to smoke him out. This drew a blank; we would later discover he had driven to London as soon as the hospital security officers had confronted him.

Just as the other forces had decided before, we realized catching Dhalla was a job for the firearms boys. Steve Whitton and Jim Bartlett devised a plan of their own. Guns and hospitals are not a good mix, as we’ve seen, but these guys were the best in their field. If they couldn’t plan a safe but sure operation to nail him, no-one could.

The following morning, the briefing of the elite Tactical Firearms Unit had only just started when the call came through to Jim.

‘Boss, we’ve had the hospital security on the phone. Your man is on the plot already. Just turned up in a white coat, wearing a stethoscope and carrying a clipboard.’

‘Christ,’ Jim shouted to the assembled throng, ‘get up there now, he can’t get onto a ward.’

The fleet of plain and marked BMWs hurtled towards the hospital, lights and sirens blaring. As if on cue, all the tell-tale sights and sounds of their approach were snuffed out on the outskirts of Haywards Heath in case they spooked the prey. As they glided up to the hospital entrance a pacing security guard met them.

‘He’s in the toilets just through here,’ he whispered, awestruck that he had a bit part in this unfolding thriller.

Three plain-clothes cops leapt from a grey BMW and followed the guard through. As he indicated where to go, they donned their fluorescent chequered ‘Police’ baseball caps and burst through the door. It did not take long to confirm they had their man.

‘Armed police! Put your hands on your head,’ snapped the team leader as all three drew their handguns, pointing them straight at Dhalla’s midriff. Amazingly, even in the face of such firepower, he did not take the hint. Rather than a peaceful surrender he launched himself at the officers.

Confronted with an obviously unarmed man, they quickly holstered their weapons and resorted to hand-to-hand combat. After several minutes of ferocious fighting in the confined space, Dhalla was eventually overpowered and his hands and legs swiftly bound. A search revealed he was carrying razor blades in his pockets; he would not say why. Finally they had him. Finally Alison, David and Pam could breathe easy — for now.

Nev knew Dhalla would have a car nearby. Where was it? What would it reveal? Soon they found the vehicle Nev had previously identified parked not far from the hospital. This was Dhalla’s operations centre. The search revealed a loaded crossbow, a large knife, fuel cans, more razor blades and a fuel-soaked envelope addressed to Pam. The satnav had saved on it the addresses of Pam and David’s house, Alison’s flat, the hotel on Lundy Island, both hospitals and a remote nearby wood.

Dhalla’s silence in interview was anticipated. He was arrogance personified. Then again, how exactly do you explain such a wicked and relentless targeting of those you purport to love? No doubt he knew he was going to be caught for what he had done but who could guess what more he was intending to do with the armoury in the van? He was charged and remanded to Lewes Prison to await his trial.

This would span a month and further extended the ordeal for Alison. Having to relive all of her terrors brought everything back. Alison and Pam had the comfort of being screened from Dhalla while they gave their evidence but that could not protect them from days of having every truth doubted, every horrific act minimized and their integrity questioned at every turn. The defence, at one stage, made the mistake of questioning Pam’s qualifications to label Dhalla a ‘narcissistic psychopath’. She was able to gently remind the court she was a trained social worker and probation officer and had worked in both prisons and psychiatric hospitals.

Dhalla spent five days in the witness box being grilled by Richard Barton, an excellent prosecution barrister, with whom I had worked many years earlier on a murder trial. Despite being on the ropes, Dhalla couldn’t resist repeating his farcical accusations of Alison, her family and their friends being guilty of murder and drug dealing. He thought he was so clever with an answer for everything. Barton’s skill, however, in presenting to the jury the catalogue of terror he had inflicted left them in no doubt of what they thought of Dhalla. Seven guilty verdicts, including for arson and harassment, brought huge relief to everyone except the man in the dock.

His pleas of remorse staged for the jury were hollow. His sentencing, however, was delayed while police investigated an allegation that he and other inmates had conspired to pay for a hit man. He was never charged with that so the hearing resumed.

Sentencing him to an indeterminate prison sentence Judge Charles Kemp (no relation to Nev) explained that he might never be released, certainly not until he was deemed to no longer present a threat. Even then he would face deportation back to Canada.

Alison now works to raise the awareness of stalking so that others don’t have to suffer the ordeals she did. Her book Stalked, published by Pan Macmillan, gives an extraordinary insight into how the terror of stalking can silently creep up on even the most astute and intelligent people until it explodes with such force as to rip apart their every sense of wellbeing. Her support and blessing for the inclusion of this story shows her resolve to highlight the evil some can inflict on others in the name of love.

Somehow, knowing what they know, living what they lived with, Alison and her family suspect that rather than this closing the book on their evil stalker, his imprisonment is merely the end of a chapter. As Grace explained regarding Bryce Laurent, ‘he might not be in jail forever. He still might get out one day, and Red knows that.’ So too does Alison.

All she can do is rebuild her life, learn to trust again and hope.