The IPCC report into the death of Helena Reed, following contact with Cambridgeshire Police, resulted in a reg 14 misconduct notice for DC Monique Moynihan, who had taken the call from Helena on the night of 7 January 2011. In her witness statement, DC Moynihan stated that staffing levels in MIT that night were herself and two other detective constables. However, one of these detective constables had a period of twenty days’ leave owing and this officer had been advised by the division if he did not take the time off it would be lost. DC Moynihan stated that she raised concerns about the staffing levels with DI Kirk Tate but did not file a report on the matter. DI Tate did not recall DC Moynihan raising the issue. DC Moynihan had a number of investigations in progress on the night of Sunday 7 January, which she considered urgent. She said Miss Reed had sounded tentative and shy, but not in great distress when she had rung the department. She noted that Miss Reed had not called 999. Immediately following the call, DC Moynihan and the other detective on duty that night, DC Lee Rayner, were called out to a reported burglary.
The IPCC additionally looked into the duty of care towards Helena Reed by MIT team four investigating the disappearance of Edith Hind. The IPCC noted that the Hind investigation was extremely high profile and required a great deal of police resource. It found that risk assessments of Helena Reed prior to the Crimewatch appeal on Wednesday 4 January 2011, undertaken by DC Kim Delaney, and additionally a risk assessment filed by DS Manon Bradshaw, were adequate and adhered to professional standards protocol. However, interviews with Miss Reed’s psychoanalyst, Dr Young, revealed that her fragile state was in excess of officers’ assessment of her mental health.
The IPCC issued a learning strategy document with a recommendation that all members of MIT team four, which investigated the Hind misper, undertake a duty of care refresher course and complete the two-hour training package on mental health.
Manon hears the vibration of her mobile phone on the kitchen table and walks over to Fly’s books, patting among the papers and crumbs until she finds it. A text from DCI Havers of Kilburn CID – her new boss.
Want you on early shift tomorrow, DI Bradshaw.
Her current arse ache, the new job. No Harriet to chat to (now DCI at Cambridgeshire, the rest of the band still together – that rankles) and a twat like Havers lording it over her. And Fly increasingly beset by the Met’s stop and search obsession. She’s told him to keep the details, to log every single incident, in a notebook in his ever-drooping jeans back pocket, and these she follows up.
‘Didn’t know he was eleven,’ said one Met officer.
‘Try asking him,’ she replied.
‘Sorry, Mrs …?’
‘It’s DI Bradshaw.’
They didn’t like ruffling their own, and she hoped to make it clear Fly was not to be touched, at least to all the officers at Kilburn. A white copper mothering a black boy – didn’t that set the cat among the pigeons.
She’s worried about some of the lads he’s hanging out with at school. Another mental note: to make an appointment with the headmaster. Shower gel, see the headmaster, pick up fruit, bread, and bin bags. When did her lists get so long? She casts about for a pad and pen. Buy pad and pen for lists.
When the six-month let expired, she signed for another six, checking again: ‘It’s one month notice on either side, right?’
Life isn’t perfect, she thinks, as the lot of them clatter into her kitchen. It has taken her a while to get on friendly terms with this notion. She had thought perhaps it was perfect for others, just not for her. Or that she could revise and revise and revise life, as if sitting a perpetual Cambridge exam, and it would become perfect. Increasingly, she can find no evidence of perfection in any life. There’s always something: illness, divorce, bereavement, or corners of the personality that are devastating to live with. Everyone making the best of it, doing their time, together by accident – like Manon and Fly, because he had no one else and she couldn’t back out of it.
‘Sit down, everyone,’ she says. ‘Dinner’s ready. Ellie, would you like some wine?’
‘Lovely,’ says Ellie, and she hands the solid dollop that is Solly to Fly, saying, ‘Here you go, do your worst.’
Fly holds Solly about his hip, smiling his hello with a kiss into the little boy’s neck while Solly clutches Fly’s cheeks with his fat hands and lets out a delighted screech.
Manon and Fly have bought an Ikea highchair for ￡10 to have in their flat, and a cot for when Solly stays overnight. Fly wedges Solly into his highchair and the baby bangs on the plastic table in excited anticipation of mashed stew. Everyone is seated except Manon, who is being ‘mother’ with a ladle hovering above the plates.