Chapter 51: Conversations in the Custody Room

Chapter 51 – Conversation Inside the Custody Room

The new sergeant, Braden Jones, burst into the district police station in a hurry.

Just as he stepped through the front door, he was confronted by a small police officer clutching papers in his hands.

“What brings you here, Sergeant Jones? The police district work meeting isn’t until tomorrow, have you misremembered the date?”

Jones stopped in his tracks at his words and squeezed a smile out of his face, “No. The holding cells in my precinct are filling up, so I’m going to clean up the suspects and transfer them along to the magistrate’s court.

I happened to pass by the district police station today, so I was going to ask if you have any suspects here. If there are, I’ll simply bring them along.”

The junior constable smiled and said, “Sergeant Jones, you are really thoughtful. I won’t hide it from you, I just arrested one this morning and am squatting inside.”

“Alright, you organize his prosecution materials and give them to me.”

“No problem, his case is quite simple, you wait here for a while, I’ll go draft his case report now.”

“Okay, then you go and get busy. I’ll go to the back and cuff him first, I’ll take the man away directly when you’re done later.”

Jones said this and was about to take a step towards the holding cell, but before his leg was even stretched out, he suddenly remembered something else.

He hurriedly called out to the junior constable who was about to go and draft the documents, “By the way, Anthony, is Inspector Hastings in today?”

“Inspector? You may have come at a bad time if you are looking for him. The Inspector has only been out with Tom and Tony for a short while and has specifically told us he may not be back until this afternoon.”

Jones asked, “What did he do?”

“That’s unclear. Oh yeah, they had an eight or nine year old kid with them that they said Officer Tom had just adopted, could they have gone to do the adoption paperwork?”

“Does it take three people to go through adoption paperwork?”

“So it seems, then I’m not sure. Could it be that they’ve gone to gather information on Fred? The Inspector of Police has been giving Tom and Tony lessons every day lately about what the two of them should do as detectives from now on, specializing in crime-solving investigations.

Speaking of which, Sergeant Jones, have you found any leads on Fred in your patrol area lately? The police inspector might have to ask that question at tomorrow’s work meeting, so you’d better prepare early.”

Hearing this, Jones just clenched his chin and said helplessly, “Fred is not that easy to find out, listening to those pickpockets, it seems like this old guy hasn’t shown up for two or three years, hell knows what he’s been up to, even if he’s dead it’s still possible.

Now those gangs that are committing crimes under the banner of ‘Fred’ may be the same as the group of workers who rebel under the banner of ‘General Luther’. Maybe they just want to use Fred’s name to scare the competition.”

“How exactly that happened is anyone’s guess. But you have to give the police inspector an explanation, even if there’s no progress on Fred’s matter, you still have to come up with some decent results, otherwise it’s not going to be easy to deliver!”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Jones touched a piece of candy from his pocket and threw it over, “It’s been a hard day for you, I’m going to the holding cell to look for the suspect.”

The young officer took the candy and spoke with a smile, “You wait for two minutes, the prosecution documents will be ready soon.”

Jones nodded and whirled around to take a step towards the custody room.

The door of the detention room was pushed open, and what met his eyes were rows and rows of eight small compartments separated by an iron fence, and the furnishings in each compartment were very simple.

A wooden bucket used to hold excrement, a wooden board fixed to the wall with two chains, a thin quilt used as a seat, and a bed with a quilt on it. There was only one suspect in custody at the time, thus saving Jones the trouble of searching for him.

He first looked behind him to make sure that no one followed, then slowly closed the door, and then two arms around the suspects in front of the swaying.

“Fred, didn’t I tell you? Seven-thirty in the morning, disturbance at Carlson’s, 85 Thames Avenue.

At that hour, my patrolmen should be patrolling there just in time, and they’ll arrest you, and then I’ll go to the magistrate’s court for a speedy trial procedure.

Two days later, you’d be in the old boat jail just like you wanted. What in your right mind made you let the arrest come to the district police station?”

The suspect was crouching on the ground, bored, drawing circles with hay, and he didn’t look up at Jones, just grunted.

“Fuck, how do I know that passing patrolman wasn’t one of your weasels? Look at that stupid idea you came up with, just to get a public order charge, I’m getting my ass handed to me, why don’t you count my losses?”

Jones’ voice revealed a note of anger, “Didn’t I teach you how to recognize a patrolman? Look at their shoulder badge numbers, the ones with numbers starting with RG2 are the ones under my hand.

You stupid bastard, do you know that Inspector Hastings is looking for you all over the world? But what are you doing, you actually sent yourself to his jail.”

Fred laughed at that, “No way, the world is so humorous sometimes. He probably never would have guessed that Fred, the one he was trying to catch, was actually in his cell.”

Jones angrily said, “You still have the face to laugh? It’s a good thing we changed your identity six months ago, or else this would have been exposed! Do you know what will happen if things are exposed? You’ll be hanged on the gallows!”

Fred looked up as he raised an eyebrow, “You trying to scare me? A young scion who just succeeded Willox on the throne dares to talk to me like that? You should ask him what I did for a living in the Army.
If I hadn’t committed a crime, I wouldn’t have been forced to retire so early. If I hadn’t been discharged, I’d be in the Greater London Police by now. If Willox can be a sergeant, what should I be? Superintendent?”

Jones snorted, “Willox? He’s dead, where would you have me ask him?”

“Yes, of course I know he’s dead.”

Fred stood up and grasped the bars with both hands and wrenched them outward with all his might, only to hear a squeal of pain from the pig iron as his head stuck out.

His head was pressed against Jones’ forehead, and his eyes glared as if he could eat Jones whole in one bite, “I’m not God, so I can’t call Willox up here for you to cross-examine. But I can send you down.”

False sweat broke out on Jones’ forehead, and the knot in his throat twitched slightly as his afterglow glanced at the curved railing of the holding cell.

Just as the two men reached a stalemate, the voice of the junior officer sounded outside the door of the holding cell.

“Sheriff Jones, haven’t you brought him out yet? I’ve got charging papers to draft on my end.”

Jones took a slight step backward as he reached out and patted Fred on the shoulder, “Get in there and do your job, and incidentally get out of the way of Inspector Hastings, it’ll be good for you, and good for us.”

The corner of Fred’s mouth lifted in a disdainful grin and he put both hands out.

“Go ahead, cuff me.”

(End of chapter)