Play@YSDC

8.15pm Thursday 11th March 2010, Eden Centre, High Wycombe

Nearly two hours since Regina Balfour was abducted.

Jocelyn Leigh and Simon Eagleton are led into the shopping centre by a uniformed police officer who introduces them to Detective Constable Kris Sapru.

Jocelyn,You notice something crawling on DC Sapru's jacket, like a small insect, maybe a louse

Everyone,This would be a good time to describe yourselves physically, introduce yourselves, and catch yourselves up on the investigation so far

”DC Kris Sapru,” said Kris, holding out his hand for a handshake as the two officers approached.

The sight that greeted them was of a shorter than average Asian man, somewhere in his late 20s. His dark hair was slicked back, semi-bouffant style. With sunglasses tucked in his jacket pocket, the overall effect was Bollywood meets Miami Vice... ... ...

"Jocelyn Leigh, MI5," says Jocelyn, shaking his hand. She is pretty and in her late twenties, and she has short auburn hair and wears an incongruous-looking black sequined dress with a far less fancy jacket over it. "We're here to assist you, DC Sapru. What have you found out so far?"

OOC,Luck roll (55% stat) arriving at the scene: [dice]0[/dice]

"Dr. Simon Eagleton, professor of criminal psychology at Middlesex. I specialize in cases that involve fringe religious beliefs and the occult." He's dressed in a hastily put together suit and looks to be in his mid 30's. His looks are rather bland, and save for his dark hair he is pale to a shade that suggests an unhealthy amount of time spent indoors.

‘Fringe religious beliefs and the occult? What’s going on there?’ thought Kris to himself, but he didn’t say anything.

Turning back to the scene behind him, he introduced Josie and gave a brief overview of the case. ”We had a call around 6.30pm to say a girl had been snatched. The perp tasered the mother and then took the girl outside to an accomplice who was waiting in a white hatchback. We have partial CCTV and I’ve instructed traffic to try to ID the vehicle, which left the scene. The perp returned with a knife and a pistol and terrorised members of the public who were shopping here. He was challenged and shot dead by PC Grey from the ARV, although it appears he may have been attempting to cut his own throat at the time.”

“We have CCTV footage of events as they happened in real time, if you wish to view it?”

"Thank you, I would," says Jocelyn. "I specialise in religious extremism and hostage negotiation, which is why I was sent. This doesn't leave this team, but the victim's father John Balfour came up on an extremism watchlist. I don't have any more details than that yet, but my boss will let me know when more information is available."

"As would I," Simon replies. He raises an eyebrow when hearing that Jocelyn also had experience in the matter, a bit surprised he hadn't worked with her before. Still, at least he would have someone he could bounce theories off of. If she could keep up.

"I've heard that as well, which is why I was brought in. Just hearing the description of the crime, it does seem a bit unusual. My first thought is child trafficking in some way, but they don't tend to be that public-- for obvious reasons. Perhaps some sort inter-faith dispute?" His mouth twitches, amused by the image. "I've not heard of Balfour's church before this, so it must be quite small. But these types tend to be very devoted to their faith-- the sort of individuals for whom minor doctrinal disagreements are akin to a holy war. Very possible this was the work of an individual who was intimately acquainted with the leadership and lost a power struggle or was shunned in some way. Would also explain why they did not flee when they had the chance-- fanaticism often overrides common sense."

Kris leads Jocelyn and Simon to the security office towards the front of the Eden centre. The security guard has made a tape of the abduction combining the feeds from several cameras.

The recording shows the aisles of what looks like a pharmacy or health food shop. A well dressed black woman in her thirties is browsing the shelves while a young girl, recognisably Regina Balfour from the press conference photo, is standing behind her wearing a backpack shaped like a ladybird. An older white man, probably in his late fifties or early sixties, walks brazenly and with purpose up to the woman while her back is turned. It is the abductor from the press conference photo and they can see the still was taken from this video. As he draws near he takes something out of his jacket, presumably the Taser, and fires it at her, causing her spine to arch before she falls to the ground.

He then grabs the little girl, who struggles and kicks ineffectually but drops her backpack. He walks towards the exit and momentarily leaves camera range but then returns still carrying the girl. He tries to retrieve the ladybird backpack from the ground but the woman manages to rouse herself enough to grab onto the straps, and a brief tug-of-war ensues. The man knees the woman in the face, but lets the backpack go as a bystander tries to intervene.

He then flees out of camera range with Regina; a security guard runs through the frame a minute later in pursuit.

A second security camera at the exit of the Eden centre shows more. The abductor knocks over a uniformed greeter with Regina obviously struggling and screaming. Outside the entrance a car can just be seen, it is a white hatchback, perhaps a VW Golf or Vauxhall Astra. He throws Regina into the back seat and it speeds off. Neither the driver nor the number plate is visible.

The abductor then pulls out what looks like an automatic handgun and a large knife and marches back into the store. He stabs the greeter in the kneecap as he goes in.

Several different video feeds then show him wandering through the shopping centre, gun in one hand and knife in the other, toppling displays, brandishing his weapons at customers, and generally causing a panic. Shoppers stampede toward the exit.

After about ten minutes two armed police officers enter the centre, they shout towards the assailant (there's no audio) but he turns and runs towards the back of the centre.

'At this point the AFOs shoots him while he's cutting his throat, would you like to see that too?' asks Kris, unsure how much exposure they've had to this sort of thing.

"No, but we'd best watch it anyway," says Jocelyn, bracing herself. She's seen the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, so she's sure she can manage this.

Simon nods, impatient to get to work. He's seen a lot of grizzly images in his line of work, and it never particularly bothered him. His motivation was solving the case-- and finding little Regina Balfour of course, likely in that order.

The security guard plays another video. The camera centres on the back of the shopping centre, with the frontage of a pet shop in view. After a few seconds the abductor is seen running into shot. He is still carrying the knife and gun. He looks around then takes the knife and cleanly and calmly slits his own throat in one action. A torrent of blood spurts from the wound. Despite having seen this already Kris feels himself involuntarily recoil.

Jocelyn & Simon,Roll Sanity

The man stumbles backwards and crashes through the window at the front of the store. Knowing the armed officers opened fire they can see that the man was hit a second or two after cutting his throat, causing him to fall backwards, and the window was likely shattered by another shot before he fell into it.

After a few moments a police officer enters the shot, looking down at the body and obscuring the view from the camera. Blood can be seen spreading out along the floor as the video ends.

Jocelyn is able to watch the video without being affected too badly.

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 60) for seeing the video: [dice]0[/dice]

”Obviously, the matter will be referred to the IPCC given that there was a fatal incident involving armed officers,” said Kris.

San 70%,[dice]0[/dice]

The video barely phases Simon either.

"They should have not shot him. He was already dead due to slitting his own throat, but perhaps we could have learned something first. I suppose they did not have a chance to think about that, though."

Josie Long, the crime scene investigator, waves to Kris. 'Thought you'd like to see this' she says and hands him a handgun inside an evidence bag. It is quite light. The slide seems to be made of metal and the rest of a tough plastic. The magazine has been removed and sits at the bottom of the bag. As Kris looks closer he groans inwardly, the magazine doesn't hold bullets but little plastic pellets, it's an Airsoft gun.

'That doesn't look good for Ollie'says Josie, 'but tell him not to worry, based on all that blood from the neck wound this guy was probably dead before the rounds hit him.'

'Also worth you knowing, there's no fingerprints, either on the weapons or the dead guy's fingers, burnt off, probably with acid. There's dye marks as well, on the scalp and face, probably dyed his hair and beard black. Got yourself quite the mystery here Kris. If we find anything else I'll let you know.'

DS Bates comes into the security office, 'You still here constable? Clock's ticking.' She looks at Jocelyn and Simon 'Our colleagues from the Security Service I presume, I'm DS Bates,' and she shakes their hands.

'I've gone over what we've got from the witnesses with uniform, a few people outside reckon it was an IC1 female, twenties or thirties, driving the getaway car. The little girl was definitely struggling and screaming for help when she was out in the back seat. No one got a numberplate but traffic have gone over some of the external CCTV from the buildings outside the centre and they reckon we're looking for a newish white Vauxhall Astra, and they've got a partial registration but no visuals on the driver. They're checking the automatic number plate recognition cameras.'

'Several people inside the centre, including that poor woman that got stabbed, have said the abductor could have easily gotten away but deliberately came back into the store. They also don't think we was trying to kill anyone, just cause as big a distraction as possible.'

'I'm going to lead on the search, looking for the car, checking the ANPR, circulating descriptions, I want you to focus on figuring out who these people are and what they want.'

'The Balfours are still at the station, we haven't got much out of them that's of any use but you're welcome to have a go, Burke's been talking to them and he's not exactly the subtle type.'

'Any questions?'

Everyone,Investigation is all yours, what do you want to do?

"Sounds as though someone did their homework," Simon remarks on the dead man's preparations, a note of admiration in his voice. "Perhaps he has a law enforcement background, or military or some such. I don't believe he could have done all this with just a few hours of googleing. Of course the bigger question is why? What sort of man is fanatical enough to pull something like this and not take the easy opportunity to escape?" He muses on the puzzle for a moment.

Psychology 75,[dice]0[/dice] Just if I can get any insights based on what little I know about the dead man and his possible state of mind or motivations.

"One of us should speak with the Balfours. I'd like to accompany you."

"I'd like to talk to them too, if that's okay," says Jocelyn. "Maybe we should interview them separately. Which direction was the Vauxhall Astra heading when it left, and from which direction did it come?"

'The more the merrier' says DS Bates, 'but remember, DC Sapru is in charge.'

She pulls out a map of the local area and shows Jocelyn where the car approached the Eden Centre from the southeast along the A40 (Abbey Way), pulled up outside the centre off the roundabout, and then continued northwest along the A40 (Oxford Road).

OOC,I've uploaded that map to the maps forum, if you want to get a closer look at the overall area just use google maps, this is set 10yrs ago but that shouldn't make any difference for our purposes. FYI the police station is on the map, bottom right, 5min drive, 10min walk, start of Crendon St

“Erm, yes,” said Kris, who had started to feel rather sidelined as Lucy spoke to the others.

“I’ll drive us to the station,” said Kris , “Unless you need me to stay here?” The last question was to Lucy Bates.

He turned to Josie. “Can you get me the suspect’s vital statistics - height, hair and eye colour, tattoos - as soon as possible and we can run it through the PNC and see if we get a match?”

'Not much more to do here' says Bates, 'you head to the station. One more thing, witnesses heard three or four shots, Ollie is in deep shit!'

Josie nods to Kris, 'sure, but this guy doesn't look like the usual suspects.'

"I'd like to run it through MI5's database too," adds Jocelyn. "Also facial recognition. This guy went to a lot of trouble to keep from being identified. That means that once we find out who he was, it'll answer a lot of questions." She follows Kris to the car. "Thanks, let's go."