Page 23 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
NR:When the girl got to hospital she must’ve told them about the angels, The Assembly as they called it. After we’d left, the bodies were found in the basement of that building and all hell broke loose.
AB:Did you get into trouble for not finding the bodies?
NR:No, no. We hadn’t known to go down there. They were getting us on the baby. Neither of us were popular with the bosses. Finally, they bring out photographs of where we’d found the girl, taken in daylight the day after. The only mark on that floor was a large circle in blue paint. The symbols had gone. Mystery to me.
AB:Did your colleague remember the symbols?
NR:At first, yeah. But then he changed his story, I don’t know why. We were under a lot of pressure. But still. It didn’t make me lookgood, did it?
AB:Can you draw those symbols for me now?
NR:Got any paper?
Meeting with Police Sergeant Fareed Khan at Costa Coffee, South Harrow, 22 June 2021. Transcribed by Ellie Cooper.
FK:It was a long time ago. But I know you’ve spoken to Neil. I want to get my side across because [Awkward pause. EC] you know how things are.
AB:OK, well, can you tell me what you found when you were called to the Alperton warehouse?
FK:Yeah, the girl, Holly, was there, drugged or shocked. We saw it wasn’t an emergency so cancelled the ambulance and drove her to A&E ourselves. Where we got into trouble was, we didn’t see the baby. It was in a bag. You expect a baby to be in a carrier or someone’s arms, right? When we didn’t see it, we assumed the call was wrong. You get crazy shit in 999 calls.
AB:Who made the call?
FK:She did. And yeah, she mentioned the baby, but we just didn’t see it. We were more concerned about her. She had blood on her. You do what you think is best, then get pilloried for it.
AB:Was the baby OK?
FK:Yeah, but it was silent. What baby that age is totally still and silent for that long?
AB:Neil said you both looked around the second floor of the building.
FK:We checked the place out, briefly. Looked for anything of interest, stolen items, drug paraphernalia. All good intel.
AB:Did you find occult symbols painted on the floor?
FK:[He tuts or something. EC] See, this is where it gets … Neil says he saw weird symbols, right? That’s what he still says, yeah? But they showed me the photo. It was just a circle painted on the floor.
AB:Did your story change?
FK:It was dark. We only had torches. Neil said he’d seen them and [Falters a bit here. EC] I thought we had, so I backed him up. When I saw the photo, obviously we can’t have seen anything. Trick of the light. We both got disciplined for the baby thing, they moved us and we haven’t worked together since.
AB:Why do you think he still says that? About the symbols?
FK:Look, I dunno. People look at the same thing but see it differently. I wanted to make sure you had both sides of the story. [Scraping chair, sounds like he’s off. EC]
AB:Thanks.
WhatsApp messages between my editor Pippa Deacon and me, 22 June 2021:
Pippa Deacon
Lunch with Jo at Green Street. Just back. Macs have a double happy hour and don’t know how many cocktails we tried. Have you been there? It’s CRAZY. Did WE have a chat about your friend Oliver!
Pippa Deacon
I know you’ll want all the gossip! Well, he was only commissioned because their managing editor is an old school friend and felt sorry for him. Lost his job and dad just died etc. He’s on the phone to them every day with problems and excuses.
Amanda Bailey
