Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace's Brighton

Epilogue

I had said farewell to my last visitor as I checked my watch: 6 p.m., Friday, 1 March 2013. The time that I had been both dreading and working towards since I was eighteen had arrived.

I gently closed the door and took a deep breath. I turned and absorbed the sights that had been my backdrop for the last four years. The office was suddenly less a place to work, more a symbol of where I had come to and what I had achieved.

I reached to my left shoulder and, with a heavy heart, slowly unbuttoned one of the epaulettes that I wore with such pride. The Chief Superintendent insignia it bore represented the fulfilment I felt. How typical that it came off far easier now than when I first struggled to fix my shoulder badges on three decades ago. Taking the right one off I placed both on what, for just a few more minutes, was my desk.

Policing had defined me for all of my adult life. I waited in vain for the lump in my throat to swell and the tears to flow. This was supposed to be emotional. In their place, however, was just an overwhelming sense of pride and of a mission accomplished.

Peter James’ good friend Pat Lanigan, a detective in the New York Police Department, once said that being a cop was like having ‘a lifetime ticket for a front-row seat to the best show on earth’. I could not have put it better myself. I had seen the best and worst of human nature. I had been there for people at their lowest moments and hopefully made a difference. How could I feel tearful at all that I had experienced?

I loved every minute of my career but have now moved on. As well as writing and helping Peter with his books, I use the skills and experiences from my extraordinary vocation in other ways, supporting people, organizations and partnerships to go on protecting the good from the bad.

Julie and I can now enjoy some wonderful time together. I have been around far more for Conall, Niamh and Deaglan during the precious years as they enter adulthood. You can’t have that part of family life back, so to be there before the children fly the nest has been phenomenal and immensely important.

I was very fortunate to have served with so many fantastically dedicated people and during such a period of change. So much of the technology we take for granted, DNA, the internet, CCTV and mobile telephones were confined to science fiction movies when I started. Conversely, the challenges policing now face through the explosion of drugs, cybercrime and international criminality underpinned by swingeing budget cuts, lower public satisfaction and a twenty-four-hour news media, which seeks to blame first and listen later, all make the job far harder.

As smarter criminals exploit the latest developments, such as through phishing or using the dark web, the police are forever playing catch-up. Within three weeks of Peter James and a couple of his friends setting up Pavilion, one of the UK’s first internet service providers in the early 1990s, West Midlands Police were complaining that the Information Superhighway was being turned into a dirt track by paedophiles downloading child abuse images.

Many criminals and ex-criminals I have spoken to, while in the police and during research for this book, say ‘I couldn’t do your job’, citing the abuse and violence cops have to endure and the rules that constrain them. Some of those offenders lived a very comfortable life, ill-gotten but comfortable nonetheless. Many had bigger houses, better cars and more cash in their pockets than I ever would.

The flip side though is that although they turned a blind eye to the misery left in their wake, they never knew when we would come knocking nor when the Proceeds of Crime Act would take it all away. I know which lifestyle I preferred. There is no softer pillow than a clear conscience. I guarantee I sleep better than Messrs Bloomstein, Sherry and Chiggers.

It is hard leaving a life that has defined you for so long. Not being part of something so unique and honourable takes some getting used to. The camaraderie, the unifying sense of purpose and the instinct that we would all lay down our lives for each other create a powerful bond.

I could never imagine Roy Grace, Glenn Branson or their colleagues shedding the values that define them as people when their time comes to leave. Neither have I. As the adage goes, ‘You can take the man out of the police but you can never take policing out of the man.’ I would still run towards danger rather than away and would prefer to give my time to help someone in need than to make a buck.

I don’t regret one day of my service. Nor do I regret retiring from the job that fulfilled me and made my family so proud. I loved policing Roy Grace’s Brighton. Now it’s someone else’s turn.