Page 53 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
Amanda Bailey
Agreed.
Oliver Menzies
OK. Where are we meeting him?
Amanda Bailey
It’ll be a whole day out. An adventure.
Oliver Menzies
So, it’s a long drive and I’m at the wheel.
Amanda Bailey
Also, can you book a ferry on your Green Street expenses?
WhatsApp messages between me and retired detective chief superintendent Don Makepeace, 7 July 2021:
Amanda Bailey
Hey, Don. I’m counting on the magic M40 corridor. A police officer called Marie-Claire. Is she still serving?
Don Makepeace
I’d remember that name. Very pretty. Don’t know her but will ask around. Don.
WhatsApp messages between WembleyOnline editor Louisa Sinclair and me, 8 July 2021:
Louisa Sinclair
Remember Gray Graham? He was on the ground for that case. Retired now, but says he was given Jonathan Childs’s name by a senior officer, with a REQUEST that the name appear in print.
Amanda Bailey
Bingo. My hunch was correct
Louisa Sinclair
Looks like it. The restaurant where Singh worked was raided a few months later.
Amanda Bailey
They wanted to compromise Childs’s relationship with the OCG.
Louisa Sinclair
Turn him into an informer. Message Gray yourself if you can bear his war stories from the good old days. Credit where it’s due, hehad a sixth sense for a story. No idea how he got half the stuff he filed. They don’t make them like that these days.
Text message from me to retired local news reporter Gray Graham, 8 July 2021:
Amanda Bailey
Hi Gray, Louisa Sinclair gave me your number. You probably won’t remember speaking to me at an Informer party years ago, but I remember your stories and anecdotes. I’m working on a book about the Alperton Angels. You did some initial news reporting for the murder of Harpinder Singh. Any ideas why the police asked you to name the officer first on the scene?
No reply until 10 July 2021:
