Page 86 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
[Mand, if this means what I think it does, then it was Gray Graham who found the bodies of the Alperton Angels. EC]
Second stab at a first chapter, written 15 July 2021:
Divine
by
Amanda Bailey
One
Freelance news reporter Thomas Andrew Graham – known to his colleagues as Gray Graham – started his career in the long hot summer of 1976. The first event he reported on was a swarm of ladybirds that blew across London from the Thames Estuary. He described a heaving carpet of red as the creatures settled on roads and pavements.
By 10 December 2003 Gray Graham was a veteran reporter. He’d seen bypasses, tower blocks and housing estates planned, objected to, protested against and built anyway. He’d covered the celebrations across the borough for the Royal Wedding in July 1981. He’d watched from a press box at RAF Northolt as Princess Diana’s body was flown back from Paris in September 1997. To say Gray Graham had ‘seen it all’ would be a cliché, but no less accurate for it.
As this chilly Wednesday drew to a close, only a story of particularly newsworthy proportions would have tempted him out of his warm flat.
‘Baby born in old baby food warehouse’ is scribbled in Pitman shorthand on his pad, along with a note to find out whether mother and child pulled through. This feel-good story could make tomorrow’s deadline for Friday’s paper. But then, something else is scrawled across the page: ‘Devil worshippers move in behind bus garage.’ How Gray knew these stories were unfolding is a mystery. Did he have an informal arrangement with police officers? A quid pro quo whereby he reported stories – or not – in return for regular leads? Where was he when these stories broke? Riding in police friends’ patrol cars in return for cash? The newsroom atThe Informerhad long considered his story-gathering skills toborder on the psychic, but the simple fact was, no one ever asked.
Gray scrapes open a tumbledown door and squeezes through into the old warehouse. His torch sweeps back and forth, his eyes search the floor for evidence of devil worshipping: occult symbols, candles, pentagrams … an atmospheric picture in this gloomy light could make the front page.
What he sees instead are creeping pools of black liquid. As his footsteps approach, he slows. His torch beam reveals these pools to be not black, but red. There’s a carpet of crimson across this entire floor. Gray instinctively takes a step back as the sticky pool reaches his shoes.
Then he sees them. One after the other after the other. Twisted, bloody, shocking. Gray Graham has stumbled upon a scene so horrific, later that night hardened police officers would ask to leave the site. Ritual suicide and post-mortem mutilation. A literal bloodbath that sends Gray hurtling back in the direction he came, tripping and stumbling until he’s back under a streetlight, in the normal everyday world, where he can calm himself down and dial 999 [but did he dial 999? Find out].
And so began the case of the Alperton Angels.
3
Fishing for my New Angle
WhatsApp messages between me and retired detective chief superintendent Don Makepeace, 16 July 2021:
Amanda Bailey
Hey Don! How are you? Quick question: who found the bodies of the dead angels?
Don Makepeace
I think the girl disclosed something – enough to trigger a 999 call – once she was at the hospital. No idea who made that call.
Amanda Bailey
Perhaps the nurse who treated Holly in A&E. Cheers, Don.
Don Makepeace
You heard Gray Graham died?
Amanda Bailey
I did, yes.
Don Makepeace
Found dead in a housing association bedsit. A sad end for someone who had been quite the local face in his day. Don.
Amanda Bailey
