Just as Dido had predicted, a large heist was about to go down just as the Lord Mayor’s was making its way to the Guildhall, three Transit vans decked out in City of London Police markings pulled up outside a diamond dealer’s premises in Hatton Garden.

The few passers-by didn’t think anything out of the ordinary when nine officers in full riot gear emerged from the vans and disappeared down an alley in what appeared to the public to be a coordinated move.

The group left an officer in each of the vans. They kept the engines running, ready for a quick getaway should things go wrong. Again, this did not appear to be out of the ordinary to the casual pedestrian.

Because of the tip-off that Dido had supplied, a joint City of London and Met Police operation was forming just out of sight of the three vans. They maintained strict radio silence, leaving it to normal police chatter relating to the Lord Mayor’s Show, which was nearing its climax.

Five minutes after the officers disappeared down the alley, a silent alarm was triggered at the diamond dealers. Almost at the same time, three lycra-clad cyclists came down the street. At first glance, they appeared to be just normal cycle couriers, of which there are hundreds in the City of London. They were larking about, and it was no surprise that one of them came off their bike right next to the first transit van.

That was the trigger for the three cyclists to draw firearms from their clothing and point them at the drivers of the vans. Those drivers were taken by surprise and froze on the spot.

One by one, the cyclists opened the door to each van and gestured for the driver to get out, but slowly. They obeyed.

Each driver was handcuffed, and the keys were removed from the ignition. Then, the drivers were frog-marched down the street and around the corner, where a whole squad of armed officers were waiting. Another three officers appeared and removed the bikes that had been ridden by the other officers. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds. Not a word was said by the officers.

Now that the street was quiet, the police operation was standing by, waiting for the thieves to emerge from the dealers.

Thanks to a spotter in a nearby building, a team of black-clad officers, all carrying semi-automatic rifles, sprinted down the street and were able to intercept the robbers as they emerged from the alleyway. Two of the thieves put up some resistance but were soon overpowered. All of the thieves were soon in handcuffs, and not a shot was fired by either side. The element of surprise had won the day.

A fleet of genuine Police Vans from the Met Police arrived and took those under arrest away. Within minutes, a team of SOCO officers arrived on the scene and began to process the crime scene. Once that preliminary examination was done, each of the transits was taken away on a Recovery vehicle for a detailed forensic examination.

Less than fifty minutes after the fake police vans drew up with the thieves on board, the street was empty. No signs remained as to what had gone on while the City of London celebrated the appointment of a new Lord Mayor. Outside the square mile, three trucks bearing the logo and name of a non-existent racing car team were stopped as they tried to join the M11 from the A406 in Leytonstone. Seven people were arrested without the need for force. The Trucks were driven to the Essex Police Pound near Harlow for forensic examination.

Two senior officers had watched the operation from the rear and pronounced themselves pleased at how it had gone. The tip that Dido had given the Police proved to be 100% accurate. The few doubters that remained in the Met Police had a lot of egg on their faces.

The three vans had been clocked by one of the three dozen ANPR cameras that ring the city of London. Every road vehicle coming into and going out of the city [1] is photographed. The cloned plates were easily picked up by the team that monitors the cameras 24/7, and the operation was given a green light. The registration numbers that they were showing were of genuine City of London vehicles. The problem was that all the real City of London Police Transit vans had been issued with new age-related registrations a few days previously. The photos that Dido had provided showed the ‘Call Numbers’ on the roof. That was more than enough for the City Police to get the real van registrations changed. The arrival of the fake vans inside the ‘Ring of Steel’ sounded the alarm loud and clear.

The Chief Superintendent from the Serious and Organised Crime Squad from the Met and his City Police counterpart retired to the HQ of the NCA for a debrief. Both of them wanted to congratulate the team on a great result. The initial estimate of the value of the diamonds that the gang had stolen was over £12 million. Not bad for twenty minutes of work if they had been able to get away with it.

None of those arrested was saying a word other than ‘Lawyer’. That was to be expected, and they were all processed. That processing included the taking of their photographs and fingerprints. Those were fed into the Police National Computer. Three of the twelve were soon identified as coming from Scotland thanks to their previous criminal records.

The fingerprints of the other six were sent to Interpol. They could take several days to produce results, but the Police had more than enough to charge them and to get them remanded in custody pending further inquiries.

It soon became evident that the twelve were merely foot soldiers hired to do the job for a flat fee. Seven of them were arrested with £2,000 in cash, which was probably their fee for the job.

The three vans were given a thorough forensic examination. All the original VINs had been replaced with the VINs of the real Police vehicles. That caused a lot of head-scratching in both forces. Only someone with inside knowledge would have been able to provide that level of detail. It also showed the Police just how far this gang would go to make their fake vehicle appear real. It had needed specialist equipment to positively prove that the VIN Number had been faked.

The only conclusion was that somehow, the real vans had been somewhere where their VIN could have been read. One bit of good news was that the radios in the vans were confirmed as ones that had been stolen over the previous year. None of them were originally Police Vehicles. The quality of their conversions caused a lot of head-scratching in the Home Office.
Nevertheless, the Home Office in London and its counterparts in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast issued an order for all Police Radios to have their encryption keys changed. A subsequent inventory of all radios showed that a total of 23 units that used secure digital communication methods were missing. Again, a lot of ‘egg on face’ moments were being had by forces all around the UK. Thankfully, the media didn’t pick up on that fact.

Dido and Trish were blissfully unaware of the events happening in London. They were in Durham, ‘coming clean’ to Trish’s parents. Trish’s Mother had guessed what was going on between her daughter and Dido and had given Trish an ultimatum to bring Dido up to meet the family, or else. What the ‘or else’ meant was not described, but it was enough to make Trish nervous.

Dido was introduced to Trish’s immediate family at a pub for Sunday Lunch. Thankfully, no one brought up the subject of children. Trish soon found out that her mother had read the riot act to every one of them, thanks to the discussion that Trish had had with her father over the summer. That was for another time. For Trish and Dido, it was a subject that neither of them wanted to discuss.

When they returned to Trish’s home late that afternoon, the TV news was covering the robbery. Dido sat poker-faced and tried her hardest to ignore it. It was the beaming smile that Trish had that gave the game away.

“Come on now, you two,” said Charles, Trish’s father.
“Did you have something to do with all this?”

He pointed to the scene outside the diamond merchants that was being shown on the news.

Dido sighed and nodded.
“I gave them a possible time and place for a robbery, that’s all.”

Trish came to Dido’s rescue.
“Dido is very modest, and that information does not go outside these four walls. You know how Pally Gran is with Ma Parsons down at the Bingo Club; neither of us wants a target on our backs with only seven months or so to go on our courses. The Parsons’ clan is up to no good everywhere. It would not be beyond a distinct possibility that the Parsons’ clan had had dealings with the cloned vehicle team. We don’t want a leak at this stage. Naturally, all of that is very confidential.”

Dido took hold of Trish’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Trish carried on.

“I am sure that there are people in the criminal world who would like to do Dido harm. The last thing we both need is for us to get a reputation and for that reputation to become known to the world at large. Got it!”

Trish’s parents reluctantly agreed to keep quiet.
“I will leave it to you, Mum, to keep Gran on the right track. The less I say, the better,” said Trish.

Trish looked at her watch.
“It is time we were heading to the station. We have a train to catch…”

While they waited on the platform for their train to arrive, Dido held Trish’s hands and looked her in the eyes.
“Thank you for rescuing me, darling.”

Trish smiled.
“That is my job.”

“What do you mean by your job?” asked a slightly indignant Dido.

“Let’s face it, darling; you are a far better investigator than I could ever be and, if I might add, almost every officer in any force in the country. You have a wealth of contacts that can get information that those cops can only dream about. If I have to go through my life being your sidekick and keeping the media and others at bay, then I will gladly do it.”

“Why… When did you come to that conclusion?”

Trish grinned.
“When I read that paper you wrote on modernising PACE back in our first year, it blew my mind. My Detective Chief Superintendent read it and was amazed that a first-year student had written it. I knew then that you were the top dog, and that was before you told me about Fox. Since then, almost everything you do and produce is of PHD level and above quality, but then you dumb it down in an attempt to hide your brilliance from the others in the class. I see the reaction of the lecturers when they read your papers. They know that you are selling yourself short. I have shown some of your original assignments to my Chief Super, and he agrees with me that you are that good. Your thesis will blow up a lot of minds, but you already know that, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t that piss you off? I can’t help who I am.”

Trish shook her head.
“It did at first, but when you told me about Fox, I decided that I was with you through thick and thin. If I can help you ‘see further by standing on the shoulders of giants’, then so be it! We are a team. You are the brains, and I’m the brawn, or at least the one who writes reports ad nauseam.”

“But… what about your job here?”

Trish smiled before saying,
“Do you remember what I just said about showing your assignments to my boss? Well, after the last few that he saw, he said, and I will do my best to quote him, ‘If you want to hitch your wagon to her, then you have my blessing’. He went on to say that I’d be very much wasted in the Durham force and that the two of us becoming a team would benefit many forces. He went on to say that if what you did to bring down Fox is a sample of what you can do, we… as in you, me and John could make a real difference to forces all over the country. That very much ties in with John’s business plan.”

Dido smiled and gave Trish a long, long kiss. That was only interrupted by the arrival of their train back to London.

The next day at lectures, Oliver was very down. This was unusual for him, especially as his football team, West Ham United, had won their latest game on Saturday, which was a London Derby against Crystal Palace. Normally, he’d be in fine spirits for a few days.

Trish watched his behaviour from afar with interest. Dido took one look at him and mentally pronounced him ‘Guilty of all Charges’. Trish laughed when Dido told her, but by the end of the day, his mood had, if anything, gotten worse.

The reason for that was the lead item on the TV News that evening. Three more of the gang who had robbed the diamond merchants had been identified. One of them was a cousin of Oliver. The family’s connections to organised crime were solidifying rapidly.

Dido’s next problem was that their tutor had let it slip that she had already completed her final year thesis. Some of the class made comments like, ‘Can’t be that good then’. Little did they know that several high-ranking police officers had already seen it and had reported that it was very, very good.

After a few days and the arrival of more assignments to complete, the topic of the thesis was temporarily forgotten.

Dido and Trish were still trying to make it appear that they were not a couple and were travelling to and from the university by separate routes. On that Friday afternoon, Dido was walking towards the Shoreditch Overground station when she felt that she was being followed. Her years of living on the street kicked in as she ducked into an alleyway that would lead towards the site of the famous ‘Petticoat Lane’ market. She picked up the pace and made two more changes in direction before emerging close to the station. After a glance over her shoulder, she went into the station.

Her southbound train was showing as being due in three minutes when she had that feeling again. This time, there was nowhere to duck and dive short of chancing it and going across the railway tracks. The presence of a live third rail carrying 750V DC made that a last-ditch option. Instead, she turned to face whoever it was.

Dido was surprised when she recognised the person who had been following her.
That person was PC Serena Baylis, assistant to the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Constabulary. She had been present at the briefing for the operation to arrest Professor Fox.

“You are bloody good, Dido. That second double back almost got me,” said a slightly breathless PC Baylis.

“What are you doing here?”

“Errrrr…. Looking for you. The boss wants a word.”

Dido looked a bit worried.

“Don’t worry, Dido, there is nothing wrong.”

“Sorry, PC Baylis, there has to be something wrong when a Chief Constable wants to see someone like me. Why would she send you when there is this strange thing called a phone?”

The PC laughed.
“If you were in trouble… which you are not, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that I’d have my cuffs out?”

“You wouldn’t try to arrest me on your own. I guess that you, or rather she, wants to question me about some crime that I may or may not have taken part in?”

The PC suddenly grasped that Dido was playing with her.
She laughed.
“You nearly had me there…”

“Always my pleasure to lead officers of the law up the garden path… when they are intent on making a fool of themselves, that is.”

“Where and when?” asked Dido.

The PC looked at her watch.
“If we head back to Liverpool St Station, we can catch the next train to Hertford East. I’ll call for a car to meet us there.”

“I’ll need to let someone know that I’m going to be late for dinner…”

“Would that be DC Trisha ??? by any chance?”

“Yes. Your boss is well informed.”

“She’s the new chair of ACPO [2].”

It took Dido a moment to remember what the acronym stood for.

“Good for her. She’s a good leader. The way she handled the raid on Fox’s home told me that.”

“Shall we go?”

An hour later, Dido was at the home of the Chief Constable. To her surprise, she found John Proudfoot there as well.

“John?”

“Don’t worry, Dido, this meeting is off the record and should be interesting for you.”

“I hope so,” said Dido, who was still in the dark about what was going on.

John showed Dido into the kitchen at the rear of the house.

“Welcome, Dido, I am so pleased that you came.”

“I didn’t think that I had much choice in the matter.”

The Chief laughed.
“My PC can be a bit formal at times. She seemed to miss the lessons about consensus policing during her training. In time, I think that she will become a decent officer, but that’s not why I wanted to see you.”
Then she added,
“Please, both of you, take a seat.”

“Dido,” said John.
“Your thesis is causing a lot of… shall we say, discussion amongst the top brass in the Police and now, the Home Office. At first, the Chief called me to see what my input to the document was. I told her that apart from providing you with records, I didn’t write a word of it. That call was a bit of a surprise to me; I can tell you. A good one, I might add.”

“Who… How did they get hold of it? I only sent a draft to my tutor a couple of weeks ago?”

John smiled.
“Your tutor is a Special Constable with the Surrey Force. As I understand it, he read it and then sent it to his Chief Constable after getting the ok from the Dean,” said John, neglecting to mention that it was he who leaked an earlier draft.”

“So?” asked Dido defensively.
“It is only a draft and needs lots of work.”

The Chief shook her head.
“Dido, your work is causing a lot of very senior officers to question a lot of the current thinking when it comes to investigating child trafficking. You have a lot of fans in the force thanks to your takedown of Fox at the Bailey. They read it, and I know from their comments to me that there was a lot of head scratching.”

Dido just shook her head.
“I was just telling it as I saw it from the point of view of a victim.”

“And that is what makes it so important. As far as we know, no other trafficking victim has been able to take what happened to them and propose changes to the policing system,” said the Chief.

“No, it bloody well doesn’t. It is just the rants and ravings of someone who was trafficked and abused,” argued Dido.

The chief said,
“And it tells a story that has not been told until now, at least, to those who make the policies relating to how we investigate this sort of crime. That’s what is making the top brass sit up and take notice. Every one of my colleagues who received the document and saw your name on it and read it with interest. None of them liked the content, but knew that, thanks to how you demolished Fox, it was written from the heart. They all found it a hard read, but all of them said, and I quote, ‘This must not be buried.’”

Dido was feeling very uneasy at all this attention. She had hoped that with the jailing of Fox, her fifteen seconds of fame were done and dusted. Now, it seemed that was not the case.

“I have a lot of feedback from the people who have reviewed the paper. As you said, it needs some editing, and from what I have read, most of the comments are positive,” said the Chief as she pushed a stack of papers towards Dido.

“What about the negative ones?”

“There is only one.”

“Can I see it?” asked Dido as she fought the urge to sound belligerent.

John could see Dido’s anger level rise as she read the comments despite her attempts to remain calm. When she had read the comments which tried to demolish the whole paper with bullshit, she went to her phone and did some searching.

“Fuck him!” exclaimed Dido as she almost threw her phone down on the kitchen counter.
“He’s one of Fox’s buddies.”

John picked up the phone and saw a picture of a senior police officer. He handed it to the Chief Constable, who looked at the picture and shook her head.

“Don’t you believe me? I’m sure that Chrissy would back me up. He started coming to Fox’s place a few months before I escaped.”

“Sorry, Dido, I do believe you. It was just my shock at seeing someone I was at Police College with,” said the Chief Constable.
“I…” she added with a sad look on her face.
“I… nearly married him.”

“Dido, you need to make a statement to the NCA about this,” said John.

“What I want to know is how his ugly face wasn’t in the set of pictures we used to identify Fox’s clients. Is he or was he working for the NCA?” demanded Dido.

The chief used her phone for a minute before saying,
“He was away on secondment to Interpol for the last three years and only returned after the trial.”

There was an uneasy silence in the kitchen for several minutes. John broke it by saying,

“At the moment, this goes nowhere until Dido can make a formal statement. Do you agree, Chief Constable?”

“I do, and thank you, Dido. Every time I meet you or read about you, you do not fail to impress me. Sadly, you and others had to endure the torture that Fox put you through. His tentacles seem to keep coming back to haunt you,” said the Chief.

“You don’t need to tell me that,” remarked Dido.

“Dido,” said John,
“I think that you should take those comments from the others who have read your paper and, where appropriate, incorporate useful suggestions into it. I want to emphasise the words ‘where appropriate’. Personally, there is very little I would add or remove, but that is just my opinion.”

His attempt at changing the subject seemed to work when the Chief said,

“What John is saying is right. There are very few changes that I’d make other than a bit of phrasing.”

That seemed to quell Dido’s anger.

Less than half an hour later, John and Dido left the home of the Chief Constable.

Before turning onto the nearby main road and heading towards London, John stopped the BMW and turned to Dido.

“I know that you want to kill someone right now. The best revenge will be to add another public figure getting their collar felt by the NCA and then facing justice. From what the Chief said, she is… and I believe her, trying to clean the ship at the top of the Police forces in England and Wales. I think she is taking your information seriously and will act on it.”

Dido’s tight grip on the door handle didn’t relax.
“I will believe that when I see it. Just remember that other ‘Police Top Bitch’ who promised the world and delivered nothing.”

“Then let me arrange a meeting on Sunday somewhere out of London with the people from the NCA for you to give them a statement. I promise you, Dido, that I won’t rest until he is no longer a serving officer.”

“Why? From your tone, it seems personal. That is not like the John Proudfoot that I know.”

John managed a small smile.
“It is very personal, primarily because he stopped my promotion to Chief Super for almost two years, on the pettiest of reasons imaginable. I only received the promotion when he was offered the Assistant Chief’s job in Norfolk. He is not my friend. Since Norfolk, I know that he had at least three other jobs before the secondment to Interpol. If he can’t suck up to his boss, he moves on.”

Only then did Dido’s anger begin to subside.

“You are a good man, John Proudfoot.”

John smiled as he put the car into gear and drove towards London. Dido’s words made him feel a lot better.

Dido gave the NCA a detailed statement that weekend, and a few days later, the officer concerned, Commander Gerald Fisher, resigned. That wasn’t the end of it, and by the second week in December, he’d been charged with seventeen counts of Corruption. It was later revealed that he had supplied the plans to the cells that had been fitted to at least five hundred Police Vans to the company run by Oliver Wright’s family just before he left for Interpol. One more piece of the puzzle had been fitted in the right place.

Trish was not very surprised by the story of Dido’s thesis and how it was causing a re-examination of how Child Trafficking cases were investigated. John sat back and watched his protégé come of age. The ‘thing’ that he’d seen in her almost from the first time they’d met was starting to come to the fore.

Trish, as she’d promised, defended Dido when a couple of their fellow students questioned just how good Dido’s dissertation was. Trish read one page to them where Dido described how her abusers would boast about how they were untouchable. Then she read a paragraph from later in the document where she described how those very same boasters were almost all ‘enjoying more time with their families. Those that weren’t were ‘pushing up the daisies’ or looking at the world from behind the bars of a category A prison, hoping that they didn’t get shanked before their sentence was up. Hardened criminals don’t like cops, and cops who were sex offenders were right up there as a prime target.

Trish didn’t read the following paragraph, where she derided the tactic of letting senior people resign rather than face justice.

The doubters soon stopped questioning Dido’s work. None of Dido’s conclusions or recommendations were made public.

Following the successful operation to stop the robbery during the Lord Mayor’s Show, Dido arranged for Janus to remove the cameras that were watching the sites operated by the gang that Oliver Wright was associated with. She knew that the NCA would be running an operation to gather evidence against them. Once she had instructed Janus to end their operation, she didn’t think much more about it for almost a week. The arrival of a text that said, “505 KMAX 3TD”

Janus wanted a meeting close to the grave of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery at 3 pm that day. It had to be very important. Otherwise, she would not have used the ‘505’ code.

Dido arrived early and checked over the area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She found a spot around 100m from the grave and waited. At five minutes past the hour, Janus came and sat next to her.

I wasn’t sure if you got my message or not”, said Janus.

“505 said do not reply, but it is very urgent,” said Dido.
“I’m here. I take it that the removal of the cameras didn’t go to plan?”

“Too right, they didn’t. The Wigan site was the last, and I was busted by someone flashing a Met Police Warrant Card. He said that his name was DI Farmer and that he was working for the NCA. He threatened me with all sorts of charges if I didn’t give him the camera and the SD card. I protested, but he pulled out a set of handcuffs, so I gave him an empty card and beat a hasty retreat. Luckily, I have the encounter on video. I bought one of those micro lapel cameras just for this very situation. He didn’t get any video because I palmed the real card and gave him an empty one. Thanks for showing me how to do that all those years ago.”

Dido smiled and nodded.

Janus showed Dido the video of the encounter.

Dido had to work hard not to react. It was the same DI Farmer who had tried to interview Chrissie all those months ago.

“This could change everything. I need to make a phone call. I won’t be long,” said Dido.

Dido moved away before calling John Proudfoot.

“John, what happened to DI Farmer after he was taken to AC-12? Please don’t tell me that he’s still on the force and still with the NCA?”

“Yes, it is urgent. He used his MET warrant card to intercept one of my associates.”

Dido hung up and paced around while John Proudfoot checked up on the DI.

Almost 10 minutes went by before her phone rang.

“He did? Thanks, John. I’ll brief you later.”

She returned to where Janus was sitting.

“DI Farmer left the MET a couple of years back under a cloud. Quit or face jail. I’d like you to upload the video and let me handle it. You have great proof that he’s impersonating a Police Officer. I suspect that he is connected to an Organised Crime Gang, the same gang that organised the diamond robbery attempt a few weeks back.”

“No shit?”

“I’ll send you the Bitcoin transfer details before the end of the day. Dump any phones apart from the clones and kit before you go… And thanks. I get the impression that things are concluding pretty rapidly now.”

“Thanks, Dido. I’ll plan to head off somewhere nice for the winter.”

Dido waited for Janus to leave before taking another exit from the cemetery and going home, still very unsure about what to do next.

Dido didn’t know it, but John Proudfoot had been hard at work trying to explain to anyone who would listen that the former DI Farmer was involved with the Car and Van supply ring and probably the gang who were the target of Operation Chesil.

Dido did something that was, for her, a bit crazy. She sent John the link to the video of DI Farmer warning Janus off. Normally, she would have let it ride for a day or so, but this was a direct threat to one of her friends, a shadowy friend but still a friend. The old Dido had protected her little gang of pickpockets, and this was no different. She owed it to Janus.

John was surprised to see the video, but it helped convince the Operation Chesil team that the former DI Farmer was involved with their targets. They applied for and received permission to tap his phone. That didn’t help much, as he was using a burner phone, but it did allow the NCA to track his whereabouts. Border Force was alerted when the phone turned up at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport; they also alerted the Transport Police, who arrested him just as he was about to board a flight to Dublin with an onward connection to Paris.

After a search of his luggage, a further ticket to Angola was discovered along with his Met Police warrant card. He was charged with impersonating a Police Officer and, because of his flight risk, remanded in custody.

He said nothing at all, not even ‘Lawyer’ from the time of his arrest until after his remand. Then, he tried to make a deal with his former colleagues, who took a dim view of his behaviour. No deal was on the table. He’d just have to wait for his trial. He was no longer a threat to Dido, Janus and especially Chrissie.

No trace of the camera and SD card was ever found. It didn’t matter, as all the real footage had been uploaded into the cloud. One more thing had fallen into place.

[1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Steel_(London)
[2] ACPO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Chief_Police_Of...