The Student Union Halloween party season was in full swing when Dido received a call from her friend, who ran the nightclub, George Papandreou.

“Hi George, what’s up?”

“He is? How many in his party?”

“That is interesting. Are they there now?”

“Ok, gotcha on that one. Just keep an eye on them and don’t do anything to alert them that they are being watched. Can you send me their mugshots tomorrow?”

“Please don’t do anything to alert him that he is being watched.”

“He is connected. You know what that means.”

“You stay safe now. Bye.”

She hung up the phone and closed her eyes.
Trish was watching and knew that Dido was thinking things through, and she’d be back in the real world when she understood what the conversation meant. While it frustrated the hell out of Trish, she knew that this was how Dido functioned and was not in any way meant to be an insult to anyone around her when she did this.

When Dido opened her eyes, she smiled at Trish.

“Ollie is on the move. He and six friends are at George’s Club right now. They have a young female in tow.”

“Oh dear,” remarked Trish.

“George is keeping an eye on her. If they slip her something illegal, he’ll throw them out. He’ll send me their photos in the morning. He also said that Ollie was flashing the cash using his Hugo Black alias. Strange that, given how loudly he moans when it is his time to buy a round in the Student Union?”

“Yeah, he is always pleading poverty… if he were only living on the income of his wife as an Estate Agent, that would be true, but we’ve both seen the new top-of-the-line laptop he has, as well as his clothes. They aren’t like most of us from the cheaper places like Primark or Matalan.”

“Don’t forget that ‘S’ Class Merc with the personalised plates that he drives and parks in the Barbican every day using a resident’s parking tag. He knows someone or has some dirt on someone who lives there. I checked, and the Merc was bought with cash and is ‘owned’ by a company registered in Mauritania. The more we dig, the deeper in the mire we get,” said Trish.

“His pleading poverty is suspect. So? The same applies to you, my darling.”

Dido smiled.
“Ok, I get you. It is the people he’s with that interest me. How many friends does he have in the class if you exclude the four in his clique?”

Trish was one step ahead of her.
“Are you thinking that these are members of the gang that defiled Chrissy?”

“Either them or they might be other members of his family. If they do anything suspicious, George will be sending me their photos in the morning.”

“For a moment, I wondered if you wanted to go to the club and see them for yourself?” said Trish.

“Not today. We have an assignment due tomorrow. I wonder what excuse Oliver will give when Prof Jackson does not get his work, or at least a work of the required quality? We know how fastidious he is. Everything has to be formatted as if it is a motion that is submitted to a judge.”

“On that subject, how did you solve the question of the potential for double jeopardy?”

“I didn’t. It wasn’t a question that we had to answer. That is for the lawyers. All we do is present the facts without opinion. They get paid the big bucks to provide the answers to those questions.”

Trish laughed.
“There speaks the person who has read almost everything available about the Child Trafficking Act, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and half a dozen more Acts just to prepare for her next paper.”

“That was different, and you know it.”

Dido just smiled. She did so in a way that told Trish that her brain was working overtime on a plan.

Over lunch on the 31st, Trish could not wait any longer.
“Ok, darling, what dastardly plan have you come up with?”

“Not so much of a plan, but I put some moves into operation a while ago, and the results are starting to come in.”

“Do I need to worry about those moves?”

Dido chuckled.
“No UK laws were harmed in the generation of this information.”

Trish laughed and shook her head at the same time.
“So, the dark web is being accessed from offshore. That is a given, but what else?”

“A few cameras watching the coming and going at a few locations that are of interest to us, and if it pans out, then the Police. Those cameras are on public land. The locations are places of business and not domestic, so there is no expectation of privacy.”

“I guess that something of interest has been revealed by my reading of your body language?”

“Yes. The person running the operation flew a drone over two of the locations in the past week. Again, these are industrial premises, so the rules about flying near homes do not apply.”

“Ok, that is borderline legal, but say it is accepted. What did the images reveal?”

“One of the sites is fitting out three Transits to look like regular Police Vehicles. The images were not good enough to show what force they were going to masquerade as, but there is something afoot.”

“How does Ollie tie into all this?”

Dido took a deep breath before replying.

“According to the camera watching the site, he has visited the site twice since the camera was installed, or at least a Merc ‘S’ Class with his personalised plates has visited. He has tinted the windows super dark. A tad illegal but would only result in a fixed penalty fine and three points on his license, so we can’t prove who was in the car, but… those visits took place on Wednesday afternoons, and the Merc is only insured for him to drive as the only registered employee of the Mauritanian company that does not seem to be trading here or on its home country. All very circumstantial, but it shows a pattern, especially when those visits coincide with days when he was conspicuous by his absence from the tutorials that we both attended on those days.”

That news shook Trish. Dido had presented the outline of a case that would make most of her fellow CID officers want to hit the road and arrest Oliver, but she knew that there was a lot more to come.

“What do you want to do?”

“At the moment, nothing. I know that goes against all your instincts as a Police Officer, but if I put myself in the shoes of this crime gang, then those transits would be identical to the real thing, including the registration numbers, VIN IDs and the call signs painted on the roof. I think this week will see them completed and ready to go. The next problem will be moving them to wherever the crime will take place. As you are aware, cop spec transits are not small vehicles. That means some specialised transport will be needed to move them away from prying eyes.”

Trish smiled.
“And you know where that transport is coming from?”

“I think I do. At another location, there are three large trucks and trailers, all with the logo of a fake but very plausible motor racing team on the sides. The trailers are tall enough to take a transit. Using the cover of a motor racing team is perfect. Because of the concentration of Formula 1 and other racing teams in the South Midlands, similar vehicles are going up and down the motorways almost every day.”

Dido paused.
“I think the target is in London.”

“Why?” asked Trish.
“There is an end-of-season Motor Racing event at Brands Hatch on Sunday. Perfect cover.”

“You have been giving this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”

Dido smiled.
“I have just been analysing the data that comes across my desk and trying not to jump to conclusions. However, this is a real-world scenario, and it is hard not to jump to conclusions. For example, I asked myself, when the first images of the trailers came in, could they take a transit? The next set showed a Transit minibus being driven into the rear of one of them. That was more luck as the cameras are not controlled by my operator friend. All they do is take one image a minute from an hour before the start of the working day until 10 pm. They get uploaded overnight.”

“So, it is good practice for us after we graduate?” suggested Trish.

“Not if we are under contract to the Police. I’m sure that a brief like Fox would get any evidence coming from them thrown out, as there was no warrant issued. As a private citizen, I have fewer restrictions on how I obtain evidence as long as I don’t trespass and the like. If I were under contract to the Police, I would be bound by the same rules as they are. Sending tips to Crimestoppers would only get me so far.”

Dido paused before saying,
“I used ‘I’ because you are currently a serving officer, but it holds very true for us if we set up shop with John.”

Trish chuckled.
“I like your use of ‘and the like’… That has the potential to be a huge bag of worms if not venomous snakes.”

Dido grinned back at her partner.
“You know what I mean. In normal times, the Criminologist has to assess the evidence and come up with a hypothesis for how the crime was committed based on the evidence available at that time. This is not ‘normal times’, but we have to collect the evidence and present a solution to the Police based upon that evidence. I’m merely collecting the evidence by slightly unconventional means.”

“Do you have an ETA for your hypothesis?” asked Trish.

“I’m not sure. It all depends on where and when those three transits are going to be used, but… a Sunday would be an ideal time for a crime in the City when it is quiet.”

“One point just occurred to me,” said Trish.
“There was a TV show based in Cheshire where the TV crew recorded what went on in the workshop of the local force. I seem to remember that they went to a small range of suppliers to fit out their new BMWs and Transits. Are you sure that this workshop isn’t one of them?”

Dido grinned.
“Darling, that was the first question I asked myself. I went to John, and he confirmed that the company that I’m interested in is not an approved Home Office supplier. He wanted to know more naturally, but I told him to back off for the time being, but to be ready to move when I get definitive proof one way or another.”

Trish shook her head. Once again, Dido was at least two, if not three, steps ahead of her.

“What else did he say?”

“You know, John. His first and last words are ‘keep safe. ’”

“Apart from that?”

“He said that as long as I was disconnected from the surveillance, I should be ok. He went off and made a few phone calls. When he came back, he didn’t look happy. He went on to say that Ollie’s family are known to settle their disputes with a lot of violence. He went on to say that in the past, his family had been good clients of Fox and his chambers. Two of his close family are walking free and clear thanks to Fox.”

“That explains a lot about his reaction to you giving Fox the knockout blow.”

Dido grinned.
“Then I’m so lucky to have my very own personal Police bodyguard…”

“That service comes at a price, you know.”

Dido stuck her tongue out at Trish, who laughed. They were good.

On the 3rd of November. A text from Janus alerted Dido to watch the latest videos. What she saw worried her. Dido’s next move was to download the video and package it up. Then she sent it off to Crimestoppers along with an explanatory note. That was followed up by a call to DI Harrison.

“I’m doing well, Detective Inspector. I have a tip for you that can’t wait until tonight.”

“DI Harrison, have any of my tips ever turned out to be rubbish?”

“Yes, I know it. I can be there in forty minutes.”

“Good. I’ll see you soon.”

Dido put a copy of the Video on a USB drive before heading out of her home, and headed for the riverboat that she could see just leaving the stop downriver from hers.

“Ok, Dido, what have you got for me that can’t wait?” as the DI sat down in a Café near the iconic Tate Modern building on the South Bank of the River Thames.

“Watch this first, and then I’ll give you some context.”

She played the latest video from the Rugby site. It showed the trucks with the Motor Racing team branding arriving and the three fake Police Transit vans being loaded.

“My sources tell me that no force uses trucks like this to move police vehicles.”

“Why me?” asked the DI.
“Why are you tipping me off and not saying, West Midlands Police?”

“The force logo is that of the City of London. In my non-expert opinion, I think that something is going on in the city, and with the Lord Mayor’s parade next weekend, the City of London Police will be out in force. Seeing three Transits parked up on the day of the parade would not raise an eyebrow. A perfect cover for a job in, say, somewhere like Hatton Garden?”

The DI reviewed the tape two more times before passing a comment.

“I hope that this tape was obtained legally?”

“An associate of mine put the camera up on a wall that is by the side of the road. AFAIK, there was no trespass onto private property, as it can be reached from a rarely used public footpath. The camera was obtained legally.”

“Do you have the vehicle reg numbers? If you are correct, then I’d assume that they will have cloned real police vans.”

“Sorry. I don’t have them. Perhaps your techy people can enhance the images. The numbers painted on the roof should help.”

Dido paused for a second before pulling out an article from the ‘Police Gazette’. She passed it over to the DI. John Proudfoot received a copy every week. Dido had started reading them when she was studying for her A-levels. On her last visit to John’s home, she had gone through at least twenty issues before finding the article. She’d seen it before but wanted to re-read it now that she had more data to work with.

The article talked about the theft and subsequent torching of an almost new police Transit van after a Newcastle vs Sunderland Cup tie. What Trish had said had rekindled her memory about Police Radios.

“What’s the connection?”

“I might be wrong, and I sincerely hope not, that the radio in this Transit was removed before it was torched. What if… that radio and possibly a few others just happen to find their way into these fake vehicles? They could listen in on all your radio traffic and keep tabs on the real police.”

“I won’t ask how you got hold of this article, but if you are right, then we are up shit creek. Many of the top brass, in my opinion, stupidly think that our new encrypted radio network is unbreakable. Stealing genuine radios and then cloning the encryption chips would make our network almost useless.”

“I’m glad that you are thinking like a DI. I got the article from my good friend, retired Chief Super John Proudfoot.”

Dropping that name got a reaction from the DI.

“How the hell do you know someone like him?”

Dido grinned.
“Many years ago, I tried to nick his Ford Cortina. He caught me and showed me that not every man is an ogre, like Fox. Without him in my life, I would not have been able to face Fox in court like I did.”

“I read some of the transcripts of that trial. My Chief Inspector said that Fox had been put to the sword by you. Whether you know it or not, you have a lot of cred in the middle ranks of the Met.”

“And a lot of those at the top have left to spend more time with their families… You join the dots.”

“I wondered about that.”

“Your former Commander at West End Central was one of those who raped me, but that is not for general consumption.”

The DI looked at Dido for well over five seconds.
“You have changed a lot since we first met on Oxford Street. I can see that you are more than just a survivor of the hell that Fox and his ilk must have put you through. If this tip had come from anyone else, I would have dismissed it in a flash, but your track record speaks for itself.”

“Thanks for those kind words, DI Harrison. Are you going to act on this?”

“I am going to speak to a contact in the City Police, but what aren’t you telling me?”

Dido smiled and nodded.

“I believe that the company behind the construction and transport of the three possibly fake transits are part of a national network where vehicles are supplied to order for criminals to use. Gone are the days of stealing a fast car and taking it on a job that day. Now… they want a properly cloned and perfectly clean vehicle with a full tank of fuel and certainly no trackers.”

DI Harrison didn’t look happy.
“How the hell did you come up with all that? That info is strictly on a need-to-know basis only?”

“I’m on their tail because one of the people running the car side of the business is also suspected of being part of the gang that takes delight in sodomising women and destroying their lives. As such, she is a friend. The people running Operation Chesil know about my pursuit of the gang. Any solid evidence I get will be handed over to them. A package detailing the group behind the transporters and transits was delivered to them by courier an hour ago. Naturally, what they do or do not do is down to them; however, given the immediacy of the Lord Mayor’s Show and the possibility of it being used as a cover… I came to you.”

“Dido… Are you angling for my job?”

She laughed.

“Not at all, DI Harrison. Your job will be to apprehend the crooks. Who supplies the vehicles if they come from outside of the Met area is a job for the NCA, or that is what the politicians tell us…”

The DI laughed.
“I can see the influence of someone who spent years fighting meddling politicians in what you just said.”

“That might be true, but am I right?”

“Sadly, Dido, you are.”

The DI relaxed and shook his head.
“Where is the Dido who ran a dipping crew on Oxford Street? She was so innocent, yet a decently honourable crook?”

“She grew up, I’m afraid, Detective Inspector.”

“And turned into a formidable investigator in the process. When you graduate, there will be forces from all over the country wanting you to come and work for them. The way you demolished Fox at the Old Bailey was front page news for almost a week.”

“Sorry, DI Harrison, I hope to be setting myself up as a consulting criminologist.”

He grinned.
“A modern-day Sherlock? Where is your Dr Watson?” he joked.

“On the course with me. That DC from Durham. I believe you know her boss?”

He looked at Dido with both admiration and regret. The old Dido was direct, in your face and a PITA, but her tips had proved to be 100% accurate. The new Dido had added a layer of deviousness on top. That made her someone to keep on the right side of. At the same time, he admired her for just surviving the likes of Fox and even his old commander.”

“I wish you well, Dido. I’ll sleep on this, but I promise that I will act only on what you have given me.”

“Then we are good…”
Then Dido added,
“We are good, and perhaps it is time for you to become a DCI?”

He smiled back at Dido. He knew right from the start that she was different to all the other street criminals. Their meeting proved to his face that she was going to be a real asset to whichever force employed her.

[NCA HQ, Central London]

“Sir,” said the DI.
“We have received a lot of information from an anonymous source about Operation Chesil and also a possible crime going down in the City of London during the Lord Mayor’s Parade.”

DCI Ferguson smiled.
“How detailed is this information?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink. Bank accounts, phone numbers, company profiles and at first glance, around 500 hours of stop frame surveillance at three locations in the Midlands, South Yorkshire and Lancashire.”

The DCI shook his head.
“I wonder if this is Dido making good on her promise?”

“Dido?”

“Sorry, DI Hammond. You were not part of the team that worked on the Fox case.”

“I read all about it in the media.”

The DCI shook his head again.

“The media, DI Hammond, only have the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the case was broken. It, sadly, was none of our doing. It was all the work of one of his victims. She tracked him down and obtained a vast amount of evidence that was more than enough for three judges at the Court of Appeal to sign off on a search warrant for Fox’s home in under 10 minutes. Amazingly, she led the team that entered the property because she knew the layout.”

“Sounds like quite a woman?”

“Dido is, in my opinion, a one-of-a-kind investigator. She was held by Fox for nearly six years. Almost single-handedly, she found him and tracked him down. Then, she got an education and eventually became a student of Fox’s. She learned how he ticked from the inside when it came to court. Then, she faced him in the witness box as an equal. It was a joy to watch her not only trade blows with a master tactician in court but to land the knockout punch. After the trial, she vowed to continue the hunt for the team who are the subject of Operation Chesil. That investigation has unearthed a possible network of companies that can effectively supply a clean vehicle for use in a crime. Any vehicle, I might add. Before the arrival of this information, we had no firm idea who these companies were, other than the name of the family behind them. So far, our investigation into their dark side has not gathered much. If, as you say, the information contains details of companies, then if the source is indeed Dido Pleasance, we must take that information seriously. Not once has she ever given us a bum steer.”

“It seems a lot for one person to uncover?” asked the DI.

“I asked the same question. A DI from West End Central told me that she used to run a gang of pickpockets who operated in and around Oxford Circus. They only kept the cash. Just think about that… Any passports that were lifted were posted to the relevant Embassy or High Commission. They were so good that none of them was ever caught. She may be using one or more of that gang of thieves to gather the video evidence. It keeps her distance from the grunt work. She has learned from a master about how to delegate the hard work.”

The DCI sighed.
“If she ever went over to the dark side, then we would not know what hit us.”

“Sir? Wasn’t she on the ‘dark side’ when running the gang?”

“She was, but she was also an informant to the DI I spoke about. She gave us many perfect tips that resulted in at least twenty convictions for very serious offences. Then she gave all that up and became a student. As they say, it would not have been in the public interest to pursue her for her dipping. She has more than repaid us by just taking Fox off the streets.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, you seem rather in awe of her?”

He smiled.

“I am. She has skills that have been honed by living on the street and having a retired Chief Super as her mentor. If the NCA had ten of her, we could take down almost all organised crime in the country, but I am fully aware that if we employed her, some of her more… shall we say unorthodox methods of obtaining data could not be used. There are restrictions on the way we have to work for good legal reasons. Take those bank account details. My small £1.00 bet, and that is my limit, is that someone working a long way from the UK did a lot of the legwork. I’ll also bet that same pound that if we don’t act within a certain time, all that information will appear on social media for all to see. Then the shit will hit the fan in a big way. The media will crucify us for starters.”

“Sir, you make it sound like she has us over a barrel?”

“Do I? My answer to that is ‘No comment’. However, don’t just stand there… get on with reviewing the information that has been dropped in your lap. One word of advice, though. Think of the big picture. Do your ‘what if’ on a national scale, but keep it under wraps for the time being. Go through it all and report to me tomorrow. If she is right, then time is of the essence. Then, and only then, will we consider sharing it with the team. We have to get this right. If she is leading us up the garden path, then the sooner we know, the better.”

“Gotcha on that, sir.”

As the DI left his office, the DCI let out another sigh. If the information was as good as it promised to be, then it might be a case of ‘all leave is cancelled until the new year as that proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg’ might be about to hit the ship of commerce that is the City of London.