Day 325 - After Arrest

Tuesday

After I was arrested, my arresting officer told me they’d be taking me to CX (Charing Cross Police Station). He didn’t see why I couldn’t go in the van with my friend, also arrested. But then there was a change of plan — another officer would drive me to CX in the police car. My backpack, inspected and placed in a large transparent chain-of-evidence bag, was with my friend, in the van.

As we drove through Whitehall, I expected people to look in the police car and see me wearing handcuffs. But no-one looked.

I’d been separated from my friend so that the police could try to get us talking, but I was sticking to no comment. I’d made my statement to camera. This mean that the two officers, giving up the effort of asking why I’d done what I’d done, started chatting.

The young officer driving, in a reversal of Hot Fuzz, said that he had just moved to the Met from 70 square miles of rural Sussex (policed by only three officers). My arresting officer said really, then gave him directions up Westminster and through Trafalgar Square. ‘Hmm, it’s quite a nice little area,’ the driver said. ‘I’m not used to London traffic — I’m used to roads and sheep and cars and…’ He trailed off to suggest gaps between cars.

As we neared CX, a call came on both their radios. It identified a black Audi, and gave the registration number — which was the number of the black Audi directly in front of us.

The officer driving recognised this, with a laugh, and called it in.

There followed the slowest car chase ever, as we trailed the black Audi round the block, waiting for permission to do something — a little problematic, that, because they had, as they said, ‘a prisoner’ on board.

Eventually, the driver put on the blues, activated a mild siren, and pulled the Audi over.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ said my arresting officer.

It turned out the driver of the stolen car was the owner of the stolen car.

He’d reported it missing a couple of days earlier, but hadn’t reported it found. I didn’t hear him explain how he’d tracked it down.

Again I thought people would look into the back of the police car (a Vauxhall with Magic OO’s on the radio), to see who’d been arrested, but no one even glanced.

While the stolen car owner-driver was talking to the Sussex officer, the radio ordered my polite arresting officer to take me instead to Woolworth — which turned out to be Walworth Road. This took minutes to become clear, as we drove south and over the river. For all that time, I’d sat silently believing that I’d entered a parallel reality where they were taking me to a suburb of London that hadn’t previously existed. And that, when I needed to get home, I wouldn’t have my bag or anything in it: travel card, bank card.