Page 22 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
CM:Cool.
AB:I suppose it was … cool.
CM:How long was the apprenticeship and where d’you go from there?
AB:A year, but I didn’t finish it. It’s a long and boring story. Moved to Brighton for a few years and worked on a local paper there.But it’s all different now. News is online, there are fewer traditional news-gathering roles. As for music journalism … [You must switch off the recording as it ends abruptly here. EC]
Email from my editor Pippa Deacon, 21 June 2021:
TO:Amanda Bailey
DATE:21 June 2021
SUBJECT:Oliver Menzies
FROM:Pippa Deacon
Thanks for your call, Mandy. Lovely to speak with you and chat through your concerns. I’m sorry you’ve had this trouble with your old friend, but SO relieved you’ve nearly found the baby. Phew! Let me speak to Jo at Green Street. I’ll explain the situation and suggest they tell this Oliver to back off – I can be quite the diplomat when required. Seeing as we all but have the baby in the bag, they can’t not change their angle. You won’t have him looming over you much longer and can concentrate on the book.
Meeting with Police Constable Neil Rose at Costa Coffee, Westway Cross, Greenford, 21 June 2021. Transcribed by Ellie Cooper.
AB:Thanks for meeting me [etc., etc. I cut out the dull stuff. EC]
NR:I was at Sudbury nick when the Alperton Angels … Mike Dean was in charge. I can only tell you what I saw – and what I’ve heard since – for what that’s worth.
AB:What was your first encounter with the cult?
NR:A 999 call. Young woman said she had a baby. But it wasn’t clear what her emergency was, so they filed it under mental health crisis, possible vulnerable infant. Called us and an ambulance to a warehouse in Alperton. It was a derelict shell by the canal. Total darkness. I wondered if it was a hoax but then a light flashed in a second-floor window. So we went up the old fire escape on the outside of the building.
AB:What was the building?
NR:Abandoned factory or warehouse. It’s flats now. We reach the second floor and there’s no door, so straight in and torches full on. [Hmmm, suspicious pause here. Is it a difficult memory or is he trying to remember a lie? EC] The girl was sat in the middle of an open-plan floor with some plastic bags round her. She was covered in dried blood. Like a Halloween costume.
AB:It must’ve been—
NR:My first thought was a stabbing, so we go straight in to see where the blood’s coming from. But there was no obvious wound. We couldn’t rule out self-harm, so called to check where the ambulance was.
AB:What was she like? Did she say much?
NR:Nothing. She was calm, probably shock. Didn’t speak. We remembered the mention of a baby and looked around for it. This is what we had to answer questions about later. You see, there was no baby. She didn’t seem to have just given birth there and then, she was fully dressed, and the original call had put mental health crisis in our minds. Plus it was dark. Anyway, we call to find out where the paramedics are and they’re nowhere near so we cancel the ambulance and say we’ll run her to hospital ourselves. We reassure the girl and have a look round the place. [Another pause. EC] I swear to you here and now, this happened like I’m about to tell you. There were markings on the floor. The paint was dry, but new. Symbols. Nothing I recognised. No pentagrams, crucifixes or eyes of Horus. I’ve seen all the horror films. My mum’s a Christian. My dad’s family are Jewish. My colleague was Muslim. Between us we knew our religious symbols, right? My colleague mentioned Freemasons, and later I looked up their symbols. Nothing like the marks on that floor. Likewise, Buddhist, Hindu and Jain.
AB:Did you take photographs?
NR:Didn’t have a camera on my phone back then. Didn’t cross our minds they had anything to do with the girl. We took her to the squad car and put her in the back with her bags. It was a fifteen-minute journey to A&E.
AB:And when you arrived?
NR:We didn’t. Got a code blue, so dropped her off at the entrance. That’s when a police officer is in trouble. We drop everything and go to their aid. I shout this at the girl as we’re leaving, can’t say for sure if she heard or understood, but a colleague was down so … off we went.
AB:But it wasn’t the last you heard of it.
NR:Not by a long way, but we only realised later how significant the case was. The girl went into A&E. Turned out she had … she had a baby in one of her plastic bags. Jesus Christ. It had been in the car with us, she’d had it with her the whole time. How we didn’t know it was there … [He exhales. EC] The hospital reported our failure to spot the baby – thanks very much – and the PCC had to investigate. Months later I’m hauled in to answer questions about the call. Picking over every step we took, every detail we might or might not have seen, and wanting times down to the last second. Two people are never going to remember things exactly the same, are they?
AB:What was the point of their questions? The angle?
NR:Those symbols. They went over and over it. Made us each draw them out, pinpoint exactly where they were on the floor. I tried. But at the end of the day it was all in torchlight. It was only because I found them interesting I remembered them at all.
AB:Strange they should focus on the symbols …
