Jen006 - Something Strange

Jenna is called to investigate an act of 'vandalism' in the Churchyard...

Monday morning.  9:10am.

The Police Station was quiet and sluggish and frankly, like most of its occupants, not yet awake enough to care too much about the residual paperwork from the weekend... the farmer who was caught driving home with a blood-alcohol level of 0.2... the kids who smashed the pub window... the old biddy who had complained about her neighbour’s dog, again.  It would all get dealt with in due course.  No desperate rush.

Jenna was alone in the back office.  The room was warm and stifling, threatening to send her back to sleep.  She took a lethargic gulp of cool coffee and grimaced as she scanned the new cases on the computer system – lots of minor violations and petty squabbles, but nothing particularly exciting.  Oh for some action!  Couldn’t something interesting happen, just once?

One case had already been assigned to her; she opened the file and studied the details... the door of the church had been vandalised... the vicar suspected kids but had no proof... he was furious.

She took another gulp of coffee as she read the Vicar’s statement, eyes half-closed. It would almost certainly be a dull investigation, but at least it would get her out of the office for a while.  It was cold outside, but that was oddly appealing.  Maybe it would wake her up?  Plus, she could grab a real take-out coffee from the cafe on the way back – infinitely better than the instant stuff they had at the station.  She looked distastefully down at the cold pungent black liquid in her cup.  Yes, the prospect of a real coffee was definitely the clincher.

She gathered some paperwork and headed off to the church to inspect the damage.

The skies had clouded over.

Spots of rain were appearing in the air as Jenna stood in front of the church door, studying the damage... it was strange; as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it and delivered a single powerful blow.  There was no damage around the lock and no sign of forced entry or even attempted entry.

The vicar was standing behind her, watching closely.

“Can you believe it?” he asked in a sad voice.

He was a tall man in his mid forties.  His clothes were casual and his demeanour generally non-descript; the white stripe in his collar provided the only indication of his credentials.

“It’s too bad” Jenna agreed.

“Well, what do you think happened?  Kids trying to break in?”

“I don’t think so.  There’s no sign of an attempted break in”

The vicar seemed confused, “You mean, apart from the fact someone tried to batter the door down?”

“I’m not sure they did try to batter it down.  It looks like just one blow, and there’s no sign of damage to the lock...”

The vicar pursed his lips and nodded.  “It’s a solid door.  Thankfully!  Maybe they realised it wasn’t going to budge and gave up?”

“Maybe.  Do you know if anyone saw anything?”

“The woman from that house” he pointed across the churchyard towards a window which was partially hidden behind the branches of a tall Ash tree, “says she heard a commotion and she saw some people running out through the gate, but that must have been after it happened”

“I’d like to ask her some questions.  I’ll pay her a visit after”

“Of course.  I must warn you though, she is rather old and confused.  And then there’s the CCTV camera” he gestured towards the gateway on the other side of the churchyard, pointing out an outdated CCTV camera mounted high on one of the stone pillars beside the gate, “I had the cameras fitted last year, last time some kids tried to break in!”

“Oh, good!  Can I see the footage?”

“Yes, you can.  But it won’t tell you anything.  The recording is all fuzzy... you can’t make out any details.  Well, I couldn’t anyway”

“Oh.  That’s unfortunate”

“Yes, it is.  I should have checked it was working I suppose.  In honesty I haven’t had any need to review the videos since last year.  Funny thing is though, I looked back through some of the previous days and they seem fine – I mean it’s not the crispest picture, but it’s ok.  But last night’s tape is so fuzzy I can’t make anything out!  Typical, isn’t it?  The one time you need the camera is the one day it doesn’t record properly”

Jenna made a sympathetic noise.  “I see.  And... do you wish to pursue a complaint regarding this matter?  I mean, clearly some damage has been done...”

The Vicar was incredulous.

“Yes, I do!  This is a house of God, not a playground for vandals!  I want a full investigation and I want the culprits reprimanded.  We cannot allow this sort of behaviour in the church grounds – with the church’s property!”

“Sure.  Ok.  Well, leave it with me.  There are other CCTV cameras in the area – I’ll see what I can find out”

The vicar pulled himself up to his full height and straightened his jacket.  “Thank you officer”

“Sure.  No problem.  I just need to take down some details”

Jenna pulled some forms out of her pocket and started scribbling.

The skies were turning darker and the breeze was getting up; she had to hold the papers down with her hand as she wrote.  A storm was coming.

Jenna got back to the office around 10:30am, hung up her damp uniform jacket and gratefully drank the double-shot espresso that she’d picked up from the cafe, savouring the rich-roasted intensity in every sip.

She smiled appreciatively.  Wow, it was so much nicer than the instant stuff!

She settled into her chair and started piecing together the facts of the case.  She didn’t have much to go on... maybe a timeline of around 2am; but that was it.

A few of the local residents had heard voices, and some had spoken of strange figures roaming the streets in the early hours of Sunday morning.  But there was nothing concrete.  Even the old woman whose window overlooked the churchyard had nothing coherent to report... she’d seen several people running through the churchyard, but – as the vicar had warned – she was old and confused; her descriptions were nonsensical and frankly worthless.  “They were like ghosts” she had stuttered with trembling hands, “They moved ever so quickly dear... I never got a good look...”

Jenna reviewed her notes sceptically.  Basically, she had nothing.

So she switched her focus to the CCTV footage.  The vicar had given her the tape from the church’s camera; it was an old-fashioned tape, encased in a black plastic mould.  Luckily, the police station had a machine that would play it.  She slotted it into the archaic video player and waited for the picture to appear on the small screen.

As the vicar had warned her, the footage from Saturday night – and Sunday morning – was fuzzy and unusable.

Jenna clicked her tongue.  How bloody frustrating!

But it wasn’t the end of the road.  There were other CCTV cameras close to the church, some of which were run by the police and were no doubt in good working order; there was a good chance one of them had caught something significant.

She put in a request for the footage from the surveillance team, and they responded promptly, promising her a reply within the hour.

Cool!  With any luck she’d have the case wrapped up by lunchtime.

She sank back into her seat and drained her espresso.  Man, she could easily go another one of them!

When she got back from lunch, the footage had been forwarded to her email address in a series of movie files.

There were four videos.  The first was from a camera on the wrong side of town, and showed nothing of any interest.  The second was in the park and was equally worthless to her investigation.  But the other two were interesting... one was stationed in the main street, and it had suffered the same treatment as the one by the church, except to a greater extend... in fact, the entire hour between 1:30am and 2:30am was entirely missing.

Her suspicions spiralled as she watched minute after minute of blackness before normal recording snapped back into view shortly after 2:30am.

Ok, there was definitely something weird going on!

She quickly cooked up a couple of conspiracy theories... Government involvement... aliens... or just kids who had vandalised the church and knew how to cover their tracks... they all seemed equally unlikely.

The forth tape was the key.  It was a video of the road leading into Monmouth over the river bridge.  She fast-forwarded to 1:30am and watched the tape at 2x speed... nothing happened for several minutes, but then a lone car appeared and paused at the traffic lights by the bridge.  She reduced to tape to normal speed and watched closely... she could see figures inside the car, but she couldn’t make out any details... the car remained stationary for several minutes while the traffic lights turned repeatedly from green to amber to red then back again... eventually, shortly before 2am, the car drove over the bridge and turned into the main street, out of view.

She rewound the tape and watched it again.  It was bizarre behaviour, and the timing tied in uncannily with the – admittedly sketchy – 2am timeline she was working on.

She paused the tape as the car turned away from the camera and zoomed into the number plate.  It was quite clear.  She grabbed a pen and paper and jotted it down.

Jenna, despite her habit of putting herself down, was actually a damn good investigator.  She had an eye for detail, and a constant craving for the truth.  So it didn’t take her long to track down the registered address of the car – it was registered to a car rental company at Heathrow airport.  She found a telephone number on the internet and dialled it from her desk phone.  A man answered in a strong cockney accent,

“Good mowning, Ace rentuls, ‘ow can I ‘elp ya?”

“Oh hello, this is Constable Jenna Rose calling from Monmouth police station”

The guy was silent.

“No need to panic” Jenna quickly added, “I’m just wondering if you can help me with an investigation I’m running?”

“Go on...”

“I’m trying to track down the driver of a car which was rented from your company two days ago.  Would you be able to help with that?”

“Uh...maybe”

“Great.  Do you have an email address I could send the details to?”

The guy was hesitant.  He asked a few more questions before reluctantly giving Jenna the enquiries email address – which she already knew from the internet.

Jenna thanked him and hung up.  She was going out on a limb with this one.  Technically, she was entitled to follow up the lead, but in reality she know her Chief Inspector would frown upon her using her time on this – it was a low priority case, and there was absolutely no hard evidence to tie the car to the crime at the church.  In fact, if the guy at Ace Rentals had put up any kind of resistance she would probably have been forced to drop it; luckilly it seemed he was going to play ball.

Ten minutes later she got the email; there was a scanned image of a UK passport and a UK driver’s license.  The man who hired the car was called Victor Dvorkina; he’d paid on a credit card which was registered to the same address as his driver’s license.  She studied his passport photograph with distaste... the guy was gruesome!  His black eyes made her shudder in her seat.