Story Episode 12

Penny and I had enjoyed a lovely day out in Bridport and West Bay. Rather than just sitting in the pub twiddling our thumbs and hoping to hear from someone at G4S we thought it was a good idea to get away from the Dorchester area and make the most of the nice weather.

Penny had intentionally left her mobile phone switched off for our day out. For at least one day we could try to pretend that we were living a normal life. But as soon as we had got back to the pub she had switched her phone on only to discover that we had a voicemail message from the young man we had spoken to at G4S HQ in Crawley.

It was encouraging news. The young man had spoken to one of the more senior members of staff who had immediately accepted the credence of our story. Apparently senior staff had been having some suspicions about what a certain member of staff had been doing. Part of his job was to deal with bank payments and someone had noticed that recently he had been spending a lot more time on this aspect of his work than before.  As a result of what we had told them this man had been put under close surveillance. In addition they were aware that this individual was related to another G4S employee who was based in Bournemouth. He could easily get back and forth to Dorchester from there. Someone had been sent down to watch his movements and to report back.

The senior G4S man had also initiated investigations into the white squatter camps in South Africa that we had mentioned. Hopefully this would lead to the recovery of Ken and Tom.

At the end of the voicemail the young man had left us a direct line phone number at G4S for us to call.  Penny dialed the number and found that she had got through to Mandy in reception.  She passed the phone to me. 

When I said who was calling Mandy said "Oh yes, hello.  Things do seem to be moving here now following your conversation with Gavin. He spoke to Mr. Anderson, one of our senior members of staff. He would very much like you to come up to Crawley as soon as possible to give him more exact details on what you know You showed Gavin a file with lots of information but you didn't leave it here. Mr. Anderson would like you to bring it with you when you come so that he can take a photocopy of your report and the other files for us to work with".  I told Mandy that he wouldn't need to photocopy anything as we had got one ready to give him . (I didn't mention that we also had other copies to go off to the newspapers!) Mandy asked when it would be convenient for us to see Mr. Anderson. I  said the sooner the better.  We agreed a time of 2 o'clock the next day, a perfect time as we wouldn't have to rush to get there in the morning.

We passed the good news on to Dave and Stan and got ready for our evening meal.  "Something light for me" Penny said. "After the fish and chips and all the cakes I have eaten today I haven't got room for much else".

I said that we should at least have a celebratory drink as things now seemed to be working out.  "Not until we know that Ken and Tom are safe and well" said Penny. "Well, maybe just a nice glass of wine and we will save the champagne for later!".

European elections

Tomorrow is the day of the elections for our MEPs.  Please vote.  People have given their lives to secure the vote for all men and women in this country.

Where I live is part of the South East constituency which is entitled to 10 MEPs.  Electors cast a single vote for the party of their choice. Votes are then shared on a percentage basis amongst the top scoring parties to select the MEPs.  A constituent can then contact any one of these MEPs as his/her representative. Currently my region has 4 Conservatives, 2 Lib Dems, 2 Ukips (including Nigel Farage), 1 Labour and 1 Green. http://www.euroelection.co.uk/eresult/see

The candidates this time are shown here http://www.southampton.gov.uk/Images/Statement%20of%20Parties%20and%20Individual%20Canidates%20Nominated%20and%20Notice%20of%20Poll_tcm46-356525.pdf

If you choose to vote for Ukip you will still be a friend of mine but you will get a fierce examination from me about why you did it next time we actually meet!

Story Episode 11

So now we were back at Stan's pub.  There were no new clues to be found from our visit to our place of imprisonment. But with Stan's help we had tracked down the name and even the home address of one of our jailers, Nathan Roberts. We had even gone there to see where it was that he lived, in a council house on the outskirts of Dorchester. We had seen a young lad playing outside and a woman, presumably Mrs. Roberts, putting out the washing in the back garden.

We had visited G4S HQ and spoken to someone there. He was obviously not a senior manager though, and we just had to hope that he had passed on our story to one of his superiors. And that person took it seriously enough to follow it up. We just had to be patient and wait a few days to see if they would do anything about the accusations we had made.

We had a text from Mike, our next door neighbour, to say that it looked as if the stakeout outside our house was over. Looking out of his window that morning he saw that the car was gone.

So Nathan Roberts and the other jailer were on their way back to Dorset, perhaps already there. It was best if we avoided going into Dorchester for the time being. I didn't particularly want to run into Roberts for a while. The last time we had been together I had whacked him over the back with a table leg in my cell. 

Talking it over as a group we also came to the view that if, as we were assuming, the jailers had been recruited locally, they were probably not G4S employees. We should perhaps just leave them alone. It wouldn't help Mrs. Roberts and her son if herb husband was put in jail. It was likely that the man who had interviewed Dave and me was working with someone else at G4S HQ - perhaps just one other person. These were the people to go after.

Penny suggested that as we had time to kill it might be a good idea to have a day out somewhere.  Dave said that he preferred just stay in his room. Stan had to stay in his pub having left it all to his wife the previous day.

Penny suggested a day out in Bridport and nearby West Bay. We hadn't been there for a while.

The drive down there was a slow one. We seemed to get stuck behind caravans on a regular basis. But the view from the top of the hill of the coast as you come into Bridport was breathtaking. We had seen it before of course but, except when it is obscured by sea mist, it always makes the drive worthwhile.

Bridport was quite busy as it was market day and there were stalls all up the main street. Penny insisted on looking at all the stalls, although she didn't buy anything.  We had a coffee and a bit of cake in an independent coffee and tea shop and then got in the car to go down to West Bay.

We parked the car and had a bit of a stroll round.  Soon it seemed to be lunch time so we enjoyed an excellent fish and chip meal.  After that we needed another walk. It was a lovely day and it felt like we were on holiday. We returned to our car and stopped off again in Bridport. By now it was late enough for afternoon tea! Then we drove back to our temporary home at the pub.

Penny had purposely left her mobile phone switched off for our day out but once we were back at the pub she switched it on again.  To her surprise there was a voice mail message from the young man we had spoken to.  "Here", said Penny "You had better listen to this. Things seem to be happening."

Story Episode 10

Waking up the next morning I had an idea. If the two jailers were still keeping watch outside our house maybe we should take the initiative and go back to our place of imprisonment to see if we could find any clues to their identity. We discussed the idea over breakfast. Stan overheard our conversation and asked if he could come along with us. A good idea, I thought. Just in case anyone does turn up to challenge us the more people on our side the better.

So, having checked with Mike that the lookout was still outside our house, we set off in Penny's car for the place where we had been held. We took with us various tools supplied by Stan that might be helpful for breaking and entering.

We found the place again quite easily. I suggested that Penny should stay in the car in case we needed a quick getaway. Also, three people would be more than enough to carry out our search.

It was surprisingly easy to break open the exit door. Dave, Stan and I went inside to take a closer look, starting with the first room at the end of the corridor where the jailers rested. I wondered how long the building had been there, why it had been put there originally and how it had come to be used as a jail by the rogue G4S employees. 

There wasn't room for all three of us in the jailers' room so Dave went next door to look in the interview room while Stan and I searched for clues about the jailers.  The fridge was empty now and the cupboard just had a few biscuits in it. There was nothing else to be seen either on the table or the worktop. No jackets, keys or anything else to give us a lead. Dave came back to tell us he could find nothing in the interview room either. He had looked in the filing cabinet and the draw in the desk. Not a thing.

Reluctantly we left the building and got back into Penny's car.  On the way back to the pub Stan wondered if the jailers themselves were actually G4S employees at all.  The interviewing man almost certainly was, but perhaps he had just hired two local men to be the jailers.  We had the car registration number and Stan reckoned that we could track down its owner. He knew most of the people running the local garages and MOT centres. The car in question was certainly old enough to require an MOT. If we could find the garage that had been used we could perhaps find the home address of one of the jailers.

So it was that instead of going back to the pub we had a tour of the local garages.  At our third stop we struck lucky. For a small consideration and the promise of a free meal for him and his family at Stan's pub the garage man gave us the name and address of the car owner, Nathan Roberts. He lived in a council house on the outskirts of Dorchester.  We knew he wouldn't be at home and decided to take a look.

Parking our car just down the street we observed a young boy of about six playing on his bike outside the house.  It was an end of terrace property and we could just see round the back where a woman was putting out some washing. There was no point in confronting her so we returned to the pub to sit down to think what we might do next.

Story Episode 9

The mood on the train back to Waterloo was a bit despondent. “Do you think he believed us?” wondered Dave. “Hard to tell” said Penny “But I’ve got a feeling that he did. I think he will pass it up the line all right, but who knows whether his superiors will feel they need to do anything or not”.  “Well at least we can post the envelopes” I commented.  “I’m not sure about that” replied Penny.  “If the story is splashed all over tomorrow’s newspapers the G4S top brass may react badly and conclude that we were just out to cause trouble. The important thing right now is to get Ken and Tom back. I think we should hold off contacting the press for now. We can always do that later if nothing seems to be happening.”  Dave nodded in agreement. On reflection I agreed that Penny had it right.  We wanted the rogue G4S people to be tracked down but this wasn’t as important as getting Ken and Tom back with us.  So we should hold onto the envelopes for the moment and just get on the train from Waterloo back to Dorchester.

A little way into that part of the journey Penny’s phone rang. It was Mike our friend and next-door neighbour He asked Penny if she was OK. Usually we let Mike know if we are going away and he keeps an eye on our house for us. We do the same for him. Mike said that he was a bit worried as there seemed to be people keeping watch on our house. He had noticed a man sitting in a car opposite our house.  At one point the man had got out of the car and gone round the back of our house. Mike thought the man was a burglar and was about to phone the police when the man reappeared and got back into his car. Since then there seemed to be a continuous watch on the house. Another man had relieved the first man during the night.  Mike asked if he should call the police or just keep an eye on our house watchers.  I took the phone from Penny and went down the corridor to an unoccupied part of the train where I could talk to Mike without being overheard. I gave him a full rundown of what had been going on. “Unbelievable” was his reaction. I asked Mike not to tell anyone about it for now, with the exception of course of his wife Karen. I asked him if he could see the registration number of the car. “Not a problem” he said “already done” and he proceeded to give it to me. Sure enough I recognised it straight away as the one the jailers had been in when they chased us. This was good news in two respects.  First it suggested that a relatively small number of people were involved with the rogue G4S group. If there were more they could have called upon someone else to watch the house. Also, so long as the car was outside the house it meant we wouldn’t be running into our jailers back in Dorset.  

  

By the time we got back to Dorchester it was quite late and we took the risk of getting a taxi to take us back to the pub.

Stan got us drinks and sausages and chips in return for an update on our day. All we could do now was to wait a bit and see if anyone from G4S made contact.

Story Episode 8

We arrived by taxi at G4S's Crawley headquarters just after 3.15 pm. We entered through the automatic doors and made our way to reception where a young woman in her late twenties or early thirties was seated behind a hotel reception type desk. She stood up as we approached. 

"Hello" she said. "How may I help you?"

"Hello" I replied. "Would it be possible to see one of your senior executives about a matter of extreme importance to the company?"

"Have you got an appointment?" she asked. I said that unfortunately we had not but that the situation that presented itself had come about very quickly and it was most important that we speak to someone in authority as a matter of urgency. 

"I'm sorry" she countered "but you can't see anyone here without an appointment. I can make one for you to see someone next week".

I tried again to press our case but to no avail. "Look" I said finally "we are not leaving here until we see somebody". I saw her glance across at someone who looked like a security guard and I thought for a moment that we were going to be thrown out. But instead she said "All right. If you take a seat over there I will see what I can do". She pointed to some seats at the far end of the reception area. "Thank you" I said and we went and sat down.

We saw her pick up the telephone and speak to someone but we were too far away to hear what she was saying. The conversation went on for some time and at one point we saw her shake her head. It is funny how sometimes people do this on the telephone even though the person at the other end of the line can't see it.

When she put the phone down I thought she might come over and speak to us but instead she just sat down on her chair.

After about half an hour I started to lose patience. I got up and went over to her at the reception desk. "Look" I said "is anyone going to come and see us or are you just wasting our time here?"

"Please be patient" she replied. "Someone will be able to see you shortly but he is in a meeting at the moment. Can I get you a tea or coffee while you are waiting?"

I said no thanks and went back to sit with the others.

About twenty minutes later her telephone rang. She answered and while speaking looked across at us. Putting the phone down she gestured for me to come over. "Someone will see you now" she said. "Go up in the lift to level 3 and find room 3.2.  It will be down the corridor on the left when you come out of the lift. I thanked her and the three of us made our way across reception to the lift. We went up to level 3 as we had been told and found our way to room 3.2. 

The door to the room was closed so I knocked loudly on it.  "Come in" said a voice from inside.

Entering the room we saw a young man sitting on an L-shaped sofa. The room had all the things that you would expect to find in an office - a desk with a telephone, laptop and a printer, a filing cabinet etc., but also a more informal area where the young man was sitting.  

"Do come in and make yourself comfortable" he said.

When we were seated he asked us what this was all about. I gave what I hoped was a succinct but coherent account of the situation. From time to time he nodded his head as if to confirm that he was listening intently. When I had finished I looked at Dave and Penny and asked if I had missed anything crucial. They both shook their heads.

"It's a very interesting story" said the young man "although I do find it hard to believe. Are you sure that this isn't just some kind of a hoax? There are a lot of people out there trying to cause problems for us at the moment". I assured him that we were on the level and actually trying to help G4S as well as ourselves. "OK" he said "I will see what I can do. If you give your names and contact details to Mandy on reception someone will get in touch with you". At that point he rose from the sofa and ushered us out of the room. "Nice to meet you" he said as we left. 

We went back to the lift and down to Mandy at reception. As requested we gave our details and then phoned for a taxi to take us back to the station. I was feeling a bit dejected. Nothing was going to happen today. Maybe we wouldn't hear anything more at all. It had been naive of me to expect anything to happen quickly. The man we had seen was clearly not a senior executive, He hadn't even told us his name.