Page 15 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
WhatsApp messages between me and my former assistant Ellie Cooper, 14 June 2021:
Amanda Bailey
Hi Els. Are you still able to turn around transcriptions? Two-speaker interviews as usual, same rates? Starting this Thursday. I’m working on a ‘holiday page-turner’ for Kronos.
Ellie Cooper
EC ready and waiting!
Meeting with retired detective chief superintendent Don Makepeace at Bluebird, Fulham, 17 June 2021. Transcribed by Ellie Cooper.
AB:Thanks for meeting me, Don.
DM:Pleasure. You look well, Mandy. How is your lovely assistant? [She’s blushing and hating herself for valuing the approval of a man. EC]
AB:Not my assistant any more. She’s moved on. Studying for a PhD. [I ignored all the boring small talk and cut to the chase. EC] Don, you were chief inspector at Wembley Central in 2003 when the Alperton Angels case broke. What do you remember about it?
DM:I remember him very well.
AB:Gabriel.
DM:[He laughs. EC] Yes. Well, that’s what he called himself eventually. Before he discovered God he was plain old Peter Duffy. I remember we put him away for fraud not long after I joined up. This was years before all the Alperton business. He had no qualms breaking the eighth commandment back then! [Thou shalt not steal. EC]
AB:What was he like?
DM:You know coppers, Mandy. We watch people all the time. When they’re guilty, when they’re not. Guilty of something, but not what you think. Hiding a secret or wanting to reveal it. They’re all the same. But him …
AB:What was it about him?
DM:I watched all his interviews. Many times, some of them. And I couldn’t tell.
AB:If he was guilty?
DM:If he was telling the truth.
AB:Sure, when someone believes their own lies, your copper’s sixth sense is redundant.
DM:Something like that. Will you speak to him?
AB:I’ll apply to the governor. Not counting on it, though.
DM:I haven’t known him to give an interview. Claims he remembers nothing about what happened that night or the preceding months. Yet maintains his innocence. Well, if he can’t remember, how can he be so sure? [He chuckles. EC] Classic.
AB:How about the teenagers? Holly and Jonah.
DM:Not their real names either.
AB:Can you remember their real names?
DM:No.
AB:What were they like?
DM:Chalk and cheese. She was bright; he was shy, easily led. Maturity quite different. Still— [Didn’t catch the rest. EC]
AB:Did you ever find out who the baby’s father was, Gabriel or Jonah?
DM:That was social services’ domain. We focused on the murder charge.
