Dido left early the next morning to avoid speaking with John. She did leave a scrawled note on her neatly made bed that just said,

“Thank you for being there yesterday. Dido.”

John, for his part, could not help worrying about Dido. He knew just how fragile she was emotionally after her ordeal the previous day, but she was gone, and there wasn't a lot he could do about it. She was her own person. All he could do was be there for her when her PTSD returned. His years of dealing with officers with it had taught him that it was one of the most unpredictable ailments to befall the human race.

Later that day, John packaged up the tape of her statement and one copy of the transcript and took it into London and delivered it to a solicitor whom he had used in the past. One of the lawyers in the practice was also a certified notary. John had the package notarised by the man for a small fee. Then he went to a private bank in Mayfair, where he left the recording in the vault after opening a safe deposit box account. He was sure that there would be more packages to follow before they got anywhere near an arrest, let alone a conviction. Having these unedited and notarised statements would satisfy most requirements for a ‘chain of custody’. He kept one copy of each for himself. They would be deposited with a friend for safekeeping.

After a quick bite to eat in Holborn, he went in search of an old friend of his from the Met Police, former DCI Gary Shaw. Gary had been retired a lot longer than John, down to the injuries he had received in a bad road traffic accident while in pursuit of a man who had raped a woman in broad daylight. Since his retirement, he'd run a Private Detective Agency.

“This is a surprise, John. I thought that you were tinkering with that car of yours?” said Gary when John was shown into his office.

“She’s all done. I have shown her at a couple of events this summer. That wasn’t what I came to see you about. Here, take a gander at this….”

John passed over a copy of the transcript of Dido’s video recording from the previous day.

Almost immediately, Gary’s good mood disappeared. He read it through twice. The shaking of his head grew more profound during the second reading.

“Is this for real?”

“It is, I’m afraid.”

“Fuck. These people need to be hung, drawn, and quartered twice.”

“Very much my feelings. I had no idea what she was going to say when we started. If I had… I might have tried to stop her.”

Gary shook his head.
“You did right by not stopping her. This is dynamite,” then Gary hesitated.

“But there is no proof other than her body? Is that what you were trying to say?”

John nodded.
“You know me too well, John. What do you need me to do?”

“I’d like you to do a bit of gentle digging into the Southend connection. Discretion is the name of the game. I’d start with public records just to see if what Dido says has any credence.”

“Credence? Come on, John… you can do better than that?”

John smiled.
“Ok, perhaps credence was the wrong word. I just want to check out her family and what happened to them between 2000 and spring 2006.”

John reached into his pocket and took out an envelope, and put it on the desk in front of Gary.
“There is £500 in there as a retainer.”

“Put that back in your pocket, John. I owe you this for sorting out the debacle of my finances when Debs left me when I was laid up in the Hospital. I could easily have topped myself when I found out that she’d done a runner with all our savings and left me minus a right foot in the hospital, struggling to walk even two steps.”

John smiled.
“Then take the money for paying informants should the need arise. Something was going on between her family and at least one organised crime gang. I just need to know what happened to her parents. Extreme caution is the name of the game here.”

“Fair enough. I will take extra care with this job. If they did traffic Dido, as she said, there could be some well-connected bad guys in the loop here, and they won’t take kindly to someone like me coming in and upsetting their apple cart if you know what I mean?”

“I do, Gary. There is no rush. Dido is nowhere to be seen, but I expect that she is somewhere in the city searching for the man who had kept her prisoner. I did tell her that it was dangerous, but you know young people…”

Gary chuckled and smiled.
“At that age, they think that they know everything but know nothing. We were like that once, weren’t we, John?”
“We were, and we were lucky to have a Sergeant to beat it out of us before we did some damage. Dido is on her own. In time… and perhaps one day, she will let me inside the walls that she has built around her. Until then, I can just do what I can to help.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that she has become the daughter that you and Dorothy never had…”

“As you say, Gary,” replied John, smiling.
“But in truth, she is, and I owe it to her to try as best I can to make her as whole a person as I can and then, eventually, a valuable member of society. Yes, there is a long way to go, but now that the Cortina is done, I need a new project to keep me sane, don’t I?”

John didn’t wait for an answer. He took the transcript from Gary but left the envelope on the table. He had placed a single sheet of paper inside the envelope. Written on it were all the details that Gary would need for his investigation.

Once John was back on the street, he almost went in search of Dido but decided against it. There were more things he could do in the background that might help her in the long run.

Dido spent two fruitless weeks outside Moorgate tube station without seeing her target. Finally, she had to admit to herself that John was right about small bits of information all needing to come together to create the big picture.

After she'd come clean to John, he just smiled. He had several different smiles. This one didn't say 'I told you so', but 'well done for learning that lesson'.

"My thirty-odd years in the force taught me that investigations are not like they are presented to us on TV. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, we don't crack a crime in under an hour. It normally takes weeks, months, and even years of painstaking and often soul-destroying work before you even get a whiff of a solution. There was a series of murders that were only solved almost thirty years after the last victim had been discovered. I know that is not the sort of information that you were expecting, but it does give credence to the saying, ‘Rome was not built in a day’.”

John smiled. Dido didn’t seem convinced.
“It is the job of the lead officer to keep morale in those under them up despite setbacks just like the one you have just admitted to. Keep this up, Dido, and we’ll make a cop-out of you yet.”

“Now, who’s telling porkies?”

“Not me. I mean it, Dido. It is already clear to me that you are an extraordinarily smart young lady. Plus, you are very streetwise, and Operation ‘Redress’ will be a nice addition to your CV when we get him and his friends sent down for a large number of years.”

“What’s with this ‘Operation Redress’?”
John could tell that she wasn’t impressed.

“All major investigations are given names. I thought that ‘Redress’ would be a good name for this one.”

“Redress? What’s wrong with ‘Retribution’ or ‘Revenge’?”

John shook his head.
“There is a dictionary on the shelf in the library. It should be right by my desk. Look up the definitions of all three and think about what your ultimate goal is. Revenge or Retribution is, in my mind, too immediate. He, whoever he is, needs to pay for what he did to you in public.”

“I don’t know who he is,” countered Dido.

“You will find him. Then again, and again, and again until you get a handle on how he moves around the city, where he works, what his job is and even where he likes to get his lunch. Remember that every time you encounter him, that is one of your nine lives down the drain. Sooner or later, he will recognise something about you, and your number will be up. There is no doubt that he has connections to some bad people. How else did he procure you? Those people would only be too glad to dispose of this homeless woman for a suitable sum of money. To them, it is just business.”

Dido was frustrated but understood his reasoning.

[the next morning]
Dido came into the kitchen carrying the dictionary.
“I did as you wanted me to do, and ‘Redress’ is a good name. Not as obvious as the others.”

“Thank you, Dido. Coffee or Tea?”

Dido gave him a stern look for all of two seconds. After a brief shake of her head, she said,
“Tea, please. Some of that Darjeeling that you have in the green tin.”

Dido was starting to learn how John would say ‘we are cool’.

December that year.

Dido had become something of a regular visitor to John’s home. He tried his best to get Dido interested in some sort of education, but her search for the man who had imprisoned her always got in the way. John didn’t mind that much. He was content to sow a few seeds here and there and wait for them to germinate. He was playing the long game.

Dido had taken John’s words of caution about her nine lives and the risk of being recognised. She had coloured her hair blonde badly. Her roots were very obvious, but it seemed to change how she appeared to people in the street.

On one visit, Dido confessed that she survived on the streets by not relying on the results of her panhandling but from a little ‘dipping’.

“My father taught me from an early age. Then he’d send me to the Pier in Southend on busy weekends, and I’d come home most days with a few hundred quid. Now, I only take the cash. Any wallets I lift are put through the letterboxes of banks or solicitors. There are still plenty of blind spots in the City of London where the CCTV cameras can’t see you drop them off. Outside the square mile and especially to the north in Hoxton or around Old Street or the Angel, it is even easier.”

“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that, especially as you only took the cash. I hope that the rest of the wallet gets reunited with their owner. At least you are trying.”

“But…” said John, smiling.
“As you seem intent upon a little bit of crime, it might come in useful when you find where he lives to be able to, shall we say, investigate a little further if you get my meaning.”

Dido looked at John and raised an eyebrow.
“You mean lock picking as a way to break in?”

John’s smile and nod of the head gave her the answer.
“I know how to pick some locks. My rat of a father had started to teach me before he got in way too deep with the wrong people.”

“Didn’t you try to pick the lock on your cell?”

“If I had something to use as a pick, then I would have. They never even let me have anything sharper than a plastic knife, and then, I was watched while I ate the crap that they called food. I know now that it was little more than baby food. Then they added all the hormones to it. I only found out about them by accident. That’s why I have these beauties.”

Dido cupped her ample breasts.

“How about I set up some locks for you to pick when you are here?”

“Why? Why should I learn to commit a crime when my goal is to bring a criminal to justice?”

“As you say, he is a criminal. As a Police Officer, I found that in many cases, I had to think like a criminal to catch them. Picking pockets is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. A few steps up the ladder is the ability to pick a lock quickly and quietly, which is a great tool to have in your pocket. Then there were the jobs that we did where it was advantageous to make a silent entry to the premises that we were going to search, legally, of course. Picking a lock or two made that possible. Going in with a heavy door opener was not always the best course of action. In my mind, catching them in the act rather than trying to escape or destroy evidence was always more satisfying.”

Dido frowned.
“Besides, a little look-see to confirm that we have found the right house before calling the cavalry to make an arrest would save an awful lot of egg on an awful lot of faces should the police raid the wrong address. And… such a raid could give him the heads-up and allow him to dispose of any evidence and skip the country. That is something that we don’t want to happen now, do we?’

Dido had learned to read John's facial expressions.
“What aren’t you telling me?”

John chuckled.
“Ok, there is something else, but one step at a time, ok? You have poo-pooed my attempts to get you back into some form of education… Think of this as crime school.”

“John… sometimes you are the most frustrating person I know.”

“How many people do you know… besides me, that is?”

“Ok, you win. Lock picking it is.”

John didn’t move.
“What else?” asked very impatiently.

“I have something for you. It is on the shelf behind you…”

Dido turned around and found a phone, two spare batteries and a charger.

“I know that it is not the latest model, but it will allow you to call me, and its battery lasts days. I took the liberty of putting my mobile and home numbers into the directory. It is a Pay-As-You-Go device, and as you come into cash, a top-up can be bought for ready money from many convenience stores. It has a camera, so if you see him, be careful, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Just knowing who he is would be a huge step forward, but possibly some steps backwards.

“Backwards? Why?”

“If what you said about the people who came to visit you, he is probably a person with influence and/or contacts. At the moment, Dido, just be extra careful, ok?”

Dido sat looking at the phone for almost a minute.
“Thank you, John. I don’t know what to say.”

“Er… You said ‘thank you’. That is all I need.”

Dido blew John a kiss. He went red in the face.

“Lock picking, Dido…”

“Yes Boss.”

Dido went back to the apartment over the garage while John went off to do the weekly grocery shopping.

A week later, Dido was helping John wash the dishes after lunch.

“How is the lock picking going on?”

"Nice try, John. You know very well that I have not had time today to try those new five-lever locks that you have set up for me in the garage."

She had already learned the basics of lock identification, which pleased John. It confirmed his view that Dido was a smart cookie and someone willing to learn new skills.

“Well? There is no time like the present now, is there? While I cook dinner, you can try them and, at the same time, think about your plan to find out where he travels from each day. If you want to involve that little gang of dippers, then even better.”

Dido stood in front of John with her hands on her hips.

“Sometimes, John Proudfoot, you are the most frustrating person I know. Can I do nothing to surprise you? How did you know about them?”

"That’s the second time you have said that to me recently. I will take that as a compliment. As for the dippers, anyone with a trained eye could see you direct them as they worked Oxford Street.”

Dido glared at John.
“Dido, I'm here to keep you as honest as possible. The way that you have whipped that bunch of misfits into shape is admirable. Before you came along, they were just a bunch of chancers. Now? You have forged them into a formidable team."

“You know this how?”

"Constable Patek, whom you seem to know quite well from the conversations that he told me about. His father was my driver before I retired, and I spoke at his son's passing out event at Hendon Police College. I ran into his father at a reunion two weeks ago. He mentioned this young woman who seemed to be picking pockets right under the noses of the local bobbies on the beat. He described you perfectly.”

Dido shook her head.

“I put two and two together and followed you one day last week. Once the rush hour was over, you headed for the west end and met up with your team in a room over at a garment wholesaler in Great Portland Street just south of New Cavendish Street. I saw you move effortlessly from a panhandling homeless person to a small-time crime boss. Dido, you are far more talented than I could have ever imagined."

"Retired? Sometimes, John, I don't think that you are."

“I was fully retired until you came into my life. You have given this old dog a new lease of life. Just remember that I’m here to help you in any way I can. Just keep yourself safe… for me. I want this man and anyone else who abused you put away for the rest of their natural, but it has to be done properly understood.”

“I know. Evidence has to be properly obtained, or some scumbag lawyer will make a song and a dance of it and get it thrown out when it comes to trial.”

“Exactly.”

“Then why am I learning all those dark arts… other than to make sure that we get the right house?”

John sighed.
"Sometimes a case will get to a point where it stalls. You know 'who did it', but you don't have the legal proof to make an arrest and then charge the culprits. As I have said before, a little off-the-books look and see can help a case no end. I mean, look, but don't touch. Then, an anonymous tip-off and we… as in the Police, would go before a magistrate and get a warrant to search the premises. The most important thing is that you leave no trace of your visit that could come back to cause the case to be thrown out later. As long as the 'visit' was not sanctioned by the police, it is just one criminal who, in the act of committing a crime, found the Crown Jewels and told the cops. I'm not a cop any longer, so? Besides, a huge number of tips get phoned into Crimestoppers by criminals. Those calls are not traced or recorded. Those crooks often discover nasty things about other crooks that make their stomachs churn. Paedophilia and child exploitation are just two of the crimes that get reported that way.”

“And that is highly illegal, is it not?”

“It is, but if we can put the real bad bastards away, then we are doing society a favour. Besides, more often than not, those little look-and-see operations end up with nothing. As I said earlier, that, in turn, saves the embarrassment of an Inspector going through all the trouble of obtaining a warrant and finding nothing at all. Failed warrants don’t look good on the Chief Super’s desk on a Monday morning if you get my drift. A warrant that fails to turn up anything makes the magistrate less likely to grant that Inspector or Chief Inspector a warrant in future if the supporting evidence is even the slightest bit flimsy. Human nature aligns perfectly with the saying, ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ besides, undies do that all the time.”

“Undies?” asked Dido.

"Undercover officers. They have to ignore crimes going on around them to get the real dirt on the top dogs. Sometimes, they even have to take part in a crime just to gain the trust of the real bad guys."

“I think I am starting to understand this crime-fighting malarkey!”

“Dido, malarkey is not what I would use to describe the job of keeping the public safe from the likes of ‘him’.”

“Have it your way, John.”

Then she disappeared towards the garage, leaving John to prepare dinner. He watched her go and wondered how much of this lesson would stick.

His observations of her on the streets of Westminster had impressed him. When he added in the information that Constable Patek had given him strictly off the record, his opinion of her had risen considerably. At least some of his words had stuck in her memory. John was under no illusion that a lot of water would have to flow under a lot of bridges before she could rest easy.