Page 153 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
Thank you. One more thing: when you were going through the documents did you or anyone else come across a woman called Ashleigh?
Cathy-June Lloyd
Give me a moment, Amanda, I’ll ask.
Cathy-June Lloyd
The verdict from the WhatsApp group is that no, we haven’t found an Ashleigh in relation to the Alperton Angels case.
WhatsApp messages between me and Oliver Menzies, 9 August 2021:
Amanda Bailey
Woooo! Your ghastly ghosted friend here … I’m taking you out out.
Oliver Menzies
Busy.
Oliver Menzies
Where to?
Amanda Bailey
An old passageway under a motorway. I’m working from 30-year-old memories, but back in the 80s it had a distinctive arch and elaborate grilles. My aunt’s house is near there. Me and my cousins would dare each other to run through the tunnel and back again. Google Street View shows that both entrances are covered by undergrowth now. Clearing it is a two-person job.
Oliver Menzies
For crying out loud, it’s ‘my cousins and I’ – and I knew there’d be a reason to invite me. I’m the muscle.
Amanda Bailey
It’s for your book. Some of our contacts have mixed up the Alperton Angels of 2003 with a man who befriended teenagers and told them they were angels in the early 1990s.
Oliver Menzies
How is this spooky passageway relevant?
Amanda Bailey
A hunch. Call it a sixth sense.
Oliver Menzies
OK. I’m in.
Meeting with Oliver Menzies beside what sounds like a motorway, 10 August 2021. Transcribed by Ellie Cooper.
AB:Ellie, please transcribe everything we discuss. I’ll have to switch it on and off in case he spots the phone. Just run the files together in one transcript. Thanks. [You got it. But should you be recording him without his knowledge? EC]
AB:The Master Brewer, a three-star hotel, was on that patch of wasteland over there. Very 1960s architecture. I found this picture online.
OM:They overdid it with three stars.
AB:It was a local landmark for years. This used to be called the Master Brewer Roundabout.
OM:Now there’s no Master Brewer and no roundabout. Shit, I’ll get run over here, Mand. Where’s this haunted alley?
