Page 220 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

At the duly appointed time, I turned up at Queens Road. On the way there I
wracked my brain for any misdemeanour I might be facing a discipline
charge for. Whilst we sometime stretched the envelope of procedures I
couldn’t think of any misdeed that might be my undoing.

I was swept into Superintendent Kelly’s office by his secretary and he was on
the phone so he pointed to the seat opposite which I gratefully took. I was
busily thinking over all the arrests I’d been involved in recently, readying
myself to give the boss my spiel about what a good copper I was.

As it turned out, I didn’t need any of it. The boss cam off the phone, straight-
faced and slid across a piece of paper that I recognised as an extract from
our police standing orders, which was effectively the force newsletter of is
day, telling of movements within the force. As I read I couldn’t conceal the
smile like that of a cheshire cat that appeared on my face. It read something
along the lines of ‘PC 8777 Bennett appointed Detective with effect from 4
th
August 1986’. It’s official, it’s in standing orders, I’ve done it!

I looked up from the paper and the boss was smiling (a rarity). He
congratulated me and said I was well deserved and he knew I wouldn’t let
him down. He went onto say a couple of things that were to haunt me over
the coming months. Firstly he said ‘Forget any fanciful ideas of promotion, I
haven’t fast-tracked you to a D’s job, booking you on a CID course so you
can piss off to get promoted at the first chance’. I said ‘no way sir, I’m loving
what I’m doing too much’. Pleased with that response he went on to explain
an additional responsibility that would be expected of me as a newly
appointed Detective. He said he not only wanted me to be one of his ‘eyes
and ears’ within the department, but that on occasion I would be expected
to be his ‘bag-man’ if called upon, which might mean dropping everything
to come and collect him and take him home or wherever. ‘One final thing’
he said ‘you’ve done very well locking them up the old fashioned way, but I
haven’t seen you on any prison visits yet. We need the detection rate up and
I want you involved in making that happen.’ It was clear my future would
contain some very different days to those I’d been used to.
As I reflected on his words, I vowed to myself I would not betray the loyalty of
my mates by tittle tattling. Unless some criminal activity revealed itself which
would obviously need sorting, as far as I was concerned what happened on
the patch would stay on the patch. That decision alone was to come back
and bite me later.

The full implications of his parting words would become apparent over
coming months, but for now, as I thanked him and left his office, I was
floating on air. ‘Detective Constable Bennett’ – I’d said it to myself many
times in my hopeful dreams and now it was very real. Page220