DPDA Case No. 15

The thirteenth case of the DPDA occurred between the 11th and 14th of June 1993. The following case file is written by Denzel Pepper.

## Case File

On the 11th of June, 1993, I were with, Benjamin, Tim, Cecil, Bernie and The Fredster at a local pub in Islington, near where Tim lived. We were doing karaoke of Tom Jones' Love Me Tonight, Fred and Tim and I. I was wearing my valiant violet shirt, Tim wore his youthful yellow shirt, and Fred wore a delicate mixture of a beige shirt and a black leather jacket. Suddenly, I overheard an old woman at the bar, proclaiming that she was robbed of 2,900 Great British Pounds. I fell to my knees, and my world split into two. I tried to sing, but I kept falling down. I got to my feet, my body ached, I made for the bar for no one's sake, my mind was a blur, and I felt weak, I declared ''This is a case for the DPDA'' in a hoarse and weak voice. The old woman flashed a peaceful smile, and a tear ran down her cheek. The entire pub began clapping and singing 'We Are The Champions' by Queen, for they knew the DPDA would get to the bottom of this heinous crime.

We made our way to the DPDA Office in Camden Town, accompanied by the woman, who gave us the details of the crime. She said that she had saved up for years to move to Las Vegas, and that the money was locked away in a safe for which a codex was needed to open. We went to her house to examine the scene. A large house. 5 bedrooms, only one which was inhabited by this seemingly lonely old woman. The living room was populated by the domestic middle class life which I so very much despised. Leather settees, potpourri, a 26" screen television, storage jars, figurines, and dralon upholstery. I almost threw up, however, I maintained myself. This woman was in need of help, and I would not my distaste of her lack of individuality get our way. We walked up to her bedroom, and I spied with my little eye. Two beds separated by five inches of empty space. The net curtains were blowing slightly in the London summer breeze, lemon and lime was filtering the room. Little specks of dust suspended by sunbeams floated in the sky. Two large sash windows, which could have been the way of breaking in. Cecil questioned her on her life. She claimed that her only family members were her mother, her brother and her lover (husband). We asked her if we could speak to her husband, but she said he was away.

Bernard and Tim were downstairs in the basement, inspecting the area. When I walked down there, the filthiness disgusted me. A thick layer of dust covered the beige wooden floorboards. The waxy ceiling had various large yellow spots splattered across it, which almost made me throw up once again, however for other reasons than the living room. I looked in the corner, where some cockroaches had settled a home. Me and Tim were teriffied, however, Bernard (the muscle) calmed us with his soothing hug and deep Barry White-ish Shefifeld voice. He grabbed the cockroaches with his comforting hand, and took them outside, showing mercy, and compassion. In another corner of the basement were photos of a man, who we assumed to be her husband. The photos were all dated in the 50s and 60s, when both of them were young. We also found a leather backed book, which I took with me for evidence. We had gathered enough evidence, now it was time to draw up suspects.

We returned to our Headquarters, and thought up of possible suspects. My mind of this felonious crime went directly to Elroy Crookes, who happened to live in the same general area where the old woman lived - The Angel, Islington. We made our way to his housing estate, and walked in. His flat was an ugly mess, his life was a total wreck, it looked so bleak and sad. An empty, lost, pathetic little man, who's visions died and fell, and passions dwindled one by one by one. He had to resort to a life of crime due to his total unwillingness to muster up any other sort of talent. I heard him walking to the living room, so I waited on his windowsill, Tim sat on his settee, and Cecil danced in the middle of the room. Upon seeing us, a black stain formed around the crotch of his white trousers. He pissed himself. I jumped off of the windowsill, and dropkicked him. Bernard broke down his door and grabbed him by the scruff of his collar. We interrogated him for three hours, using various methods, including Tim's horrifying silent torture. But he insisted he did not do it. The lack of his dramatic monologue, him pissing himself with laughter, and his will-power pointed towards him not doing it. Shit. We'd broken the law by accident. We paid him off to not sue us, and repaired his door.

The next possible suspect was the woman's husband. We went round to her neighbourhood, to ask about her husband. The first people we asked were her neighbours. We were chilled at the details. They claimed that her husband had passed away in May of 1986. I was mortified. Cecil fainted due to the inability to cope with this news. They said that since he had passed away, she became totally socially isolated, and that prior to his death, their relationship was unhealthy. They claimed that her husband (Terry) was a dangerous man with drug relations. Shit; I thought. We went to Disko Elephant & Castle to calm ourselves.

I drank seven pints of rum, and melted into a glorious performance of the Batusi to the Bee Gees' 'You Should Be Dancing'. This attracted the attention of some local hooligans. This was when I realised that diskotheques had become much less friendly than they were in our golden disko age (1988 - 1991). They were laughing at us, calling us nasty names. Overcome by emotion, I sucker punched the leader, whilst Bernard (also overcome by emotion) beat his chest like a gorilla and gave the second one a great right hook. A fight broke out in the disko, however I proposed a dance battle, which we naturally won. Cecil drenched himself in rum, and we partied hard. We caused some proper fucking damage.

The next morning, I woke with a headache, and I seemed to be allergic to light. Cecil kindly made me pancakes to comfort me. I immediately got back to work on the case. I grabbed the case notes from my bag and was reminded of the horrific truth of the woman's husband. I immediately contacted the only drug dealer I knew - Sydney Sinclair, who worked for the Salford Branch of the company I worked for, in the hopes that he knew something about Terry. Me and Benjamin drove up to Salford, while Tim, Cecil and Bernard stayed down at the Headquarters in case any new information had been acquired. We arrived to Sydney's flat where we asked him if he knew anything about Terry. During our meeting, Sydney gave us some acid, and we had a party. Unfortunately, he knew nothing about this Terry geezer, however, he told us about a group of people who might. He gave us the address to a council estate in Burnage and directed us to a treehouse. He told us to knock on flat Number 4 and ask whoever answered for the Claypans.

When we arrived to the estate, we saw no such treehouse. We went to the flat and knocked on the door. A chubby looking man with a Beatles-y haircut answered the door. He told us his name was Manon Higgins, and invited us in for a cup of tea. We told him we were looking for the Clay Pans. He immediately rose up to his seat and told us to wait there. He returned a couple of minutes later and told us to go into the garden. When we entered the garden, we saw a glorious tree-house. We could hear a Stone Roses song blasting through the house, and we made our way up on the ladder. When we entered, we saw five men who were awaiting our arrival. They introduced themselves as Hugo, Jacquees, Bradley, Life-Man and Victor. Hugo jokingly said that Bradley's nickname was ''Useless twat''. He laughed and laughed, however Bradley seemed sad.