The Fishwhacker Swindle?

(The story began here. Click on the link first if you want to make any sense of the following correspondence.)





IN STRICTEST CONFIDENCE

07.04.06

TO: ALL CHIEF SUPERINTENDENTS AND SUPERINTENDENTS

FROM: ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE HACKETT

RE: MISSING PERSONS IN EDENGLEN VALLEY AREA

Further to the unexplained disappearances of Roland Batter, Olive Fry, Anais Meeyal and Brian Eaton in the Edenglen Valley, the Chief Constable is giving this investigation Code One priority. As you are aware, Edenglen Valley is the constituency of the Secretary of State for Health, and the political dimension to this matter does not need to be pointed out. Leave is henceforth cancelled until further notice. I shall be meeting with all of you on Monday 10.04.06 to establish a task force dedicated to this investigation.

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20 May 2006

Chief Superintendent F Strong
Hartwickshire Police
Willow Downs
Harts

Dear Fred

Just a quick note to ask how things are progressing with the Edenglen Valley business. It’s been six weeks now and the Home Secretary’s breathing down my neck, what with the local elections coming up. Have any of those leads you mentioned at the last briefing thrown anything up?

I have to tell you, Fred, I have a bad feeling about this, and the shit is going to hit the fan if we don’t produce some results soon.

How’s Joan and the kids?

Best,

Jim

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21 May 2006

Chief Constable James Dredge
Hartwickshire Police

Dear Jim

I appreciate the pressure you’re under but could I ask that you not get on my back like this? I do understand the implications of fucking this one up. As it happens, one of our officers, DI Shrike, has come across something rather interesting which I’ve asked him to follow up. Please find attached a copy of his report.

Joan and the boys are fine. Thanks.

Fred

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REPORT BY DETECTIVE INSPECTOR MICHAEL SHRIKE DATED 18 MAY 2006

Today (18 May) I was visiting my mother in Acorn Park Nursing Home, Edenglen Valley. My mother mentioned that one of her fellow residents had become very agitated recently every time there was a report on the television news about the ‘disappearances’. I spoke to this resident, a man named Mr Harry Foot. Mr Foot, 45, is a Falklands War veteran and suffered a severe head injury during that conflict, hence his placement in a nursing home. He also lost his right leg. I found him extremely difficult to interview as he was incoherent at times and seldom answered questions directly. I showed him the pictures of the four missing persons and he began laughing and shouting: “They’ve been et [sic].” I subsequently asked who ‘et [sic]’ them, to which he replied: “He did, the one what [sic] et [sic] my leg.”

Further questioning of Mr Foot proved fruitless, but I made enquiries among the nursing staff and later Mr Foot’s general practitioner. Apparently he and the remains of his company were rescued during the war after having been cut off for several days and having sustained severe injuries. Mr Foot never regained his full mental faculties but he has maintained that his leg, far from having been blown off by enemy fire, was removed and eaten by one of his fellow soldiers. He has never identified the alleged perpetrator, and it has always been assumed that this story was a product of his unfortunate mental condition. Nonetheless, it is interesting that he should now allege that four missing persons have been eaten by the same man as the one he claims ate his leg, when he has never claimed anything like this for the last twenty years and more.

I request permission to interview Mr Foot further, and sequentially, to explore this avenue.

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22 May 2006

Chief Superintendent F Strong
Hartwickshire Police

Dear Fred

What in Christ’s name is this shit? We’re in the middle of one of the biggest investigations this force has ever seen and you send me some report from a shitty little DI about raving loonies in nursing homes with cannibal fixations?

The Home Secretary is, as you know, close enough to the Health Secretary to be his arsehole buddy, and has warned me that the repercussions of a balls-up would be far-reaching. I’m sorry to say this, Fred, but I’m not carrying the can for this on my own. Get me some results. A fucking body would be a start.

Regards

Jim

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23 May 2006

Chief Constable James Dredge
Hartwickshire Police

Jim,

I wasn’t going to bring this up if I could help it, but you leave me no choice. Remember that New Year’s party, 2002? Not the one at the office, the other one, afterwards? Of course you don’t; you were too pissed. Too pissed to see me there with the new camera I’d got for Christmas.

Take a look at the enclosed photos, Jim, and then let me know if you’re going to back off or if I need to have a little word with that Times journalist I’ve got cosy with.

I will produce something. At the same time, I will allow DI Shrike to continue with his investigation. Every little helps.

Cheers

Fred

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Email 30.05.2006

Recipient: strongman@hartpol.co.uk (CS Frederick Strong)
Sender: duffer@hartpol.co.uk (Superintendent David Duffy)
Subject: d i shrike

Sir,
DI Mike Shrike has vanished. he didnt report in this morning and no-ones seen hide nor hare of him since yesTERDAy. As you know sir he lives alone but his neybours havent seen him neither, he was lookin into this stuff about the war vetran geezer and left me a ansafone messege sayin the geezer told him the name of the bloke whot ate his leg and killed and ate the missgn persons. he didn’t say who it was tho but he said he couldn’t belive it. He said he was goin to look into it his self and let me no what he found. Sir I don’t no what to do.

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17 June 2006

IN STRICTEST CONFIDENCE

The Rt Honorable Christopher Stark, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department
House of Commons

Dear Chris

I am genuinely sorry that your Detective Inspector Shrike is still missing. From the profiles I have read he appears to be a dedicated police officer and an example to us all. It is also unfortunate that he should disappear in the middle of such a crucial investigation, when all available manpower is so desperately required.

This brings me to my next point. The investigation into the disappearances in my constituency has not borne fruit, and while I fully accept that this is through no fault of your own, I am anxious to draw a line under the matter. It is in no-one’s interests, least of all the country’s, to be distracted by a police investigation while important elections are underway. Furthermore, with violent crime on the increase in our provincial towns as well as inner cities, it seems to me imprudent to divert already-stretched police resources away from where they are most needed.

I therefore respectfully ask if you would consider closing the investigation on the ‘Edenglen Valley Four’. I do not of course wish to stray into your territory but might I suggest that if a little smoke needs to be put out to satisfy the press, could we consider something along the lines of DI Shrike’s having stymied the investigation through his unnecessary pursuits up blind alleys? Regrettable though this might be, it is unlikely that it will affect DI Shrike adversely as he is, as we used to say in the Forces, Missing In Action.

Lucinda and I look forward to seeing you and Jenny next week.

Kind regards

Colin

The Rt Honorable Colin Fenby, MP
Secretary of State for Health