Dido went back to her 'panhandling' early the next morning. This time, she settled down outside the entrance to Farringdon Thameslink Station.

Her chosen spot was not that far as the crow flies from Moorgate, so she took a bit of a chance on that being an alternative route to work for her quarry.

After five wet and cold days sitting for five hours a day on the pavement close to the station, Dido gave up and decided to head back to John’s home for a bit, or R&R. Part of her ‘on the streets’ persona was that she could not be seen taking the tube, Thameslink or London Overground services in the centre of the city. To keep up that ‘show’, she took the No 63 Bus to Kings Cross Station.

As she got off the bus and looked around for her next bus, the No 259, she saw him on a No 214 bus that had just pulled away from the adjacent stop.

She turned away and swore several times. Her reaction made her miss her connection.

What made it worse was that the route the No 214 took started at Finsbury Circus, and she had used that very same bus route during her stint outside Moorgate Tube, which was less than 200m away from the terminus of the bus route.

Dido kept silently cursing herself all the way to John's home. Not only was she annoyed at missing him and that she had failed to use the camera on the phone that John had given her, but what was worse was the inevitable dressing down that John would give her when he found out what she'd done.

She would never tell him, but she looked up to this man who was nearly old enough to be her grandfather, who had taken her in and helped her when most people would not have even given her the time of day and had proved to be on her side in this quest. Then she changed her mind. John’s words, ‘learn from your mistakes’ and ‘don’t be afraid to admit that you got it wrong’, came to haunt her on her way to his home. She resolved to come clean.

To Dido's surprise, all John wanted to do was hug her.

“Aren’t you angry at me?”

“No, Dido, I’m not angry or pissed off or anything else. These things happen, but it isn't as bad as you might think at the moment. You have identified that the Moorgate/Barbican area is key to your search. That is a big positive step forward."

“But…?”

“No, but’s Dido. You have done more on your own than a team of detectives could in six months, given that the team would not have had a photo of him and only a vague sketch of his face.... yet, and it is highly unlikely that this man has a criminal record. At the moment, the odds are that you have not been recognised by him, so carry on with your operation, and you will get there."

“But…?”

“Time is on your side. As long as the prime suspect does not know that you are looking for them, they will make a mistake. Patience will win the day.”

Patience was not something that Dido possessed a lot of, but she was learning.

It was at times like this that John regretted that this was not an official investigation. If it was, then a search warrant would be obtained for the CCTV footage from the bus. Dido knew the date and time of the bus stopping at Kings Cross. If Dido saw 'him' from the road, then he would be on the bus CCTV as it covered the whole of the lower deck. He mentally sighed to himself. It wasn't official, and that was all there was to it…

Dido had been visiting John Proudfoot for more than six months when, over dinner one evening, he said,

“I have some news for you.”

“You have a hot date tonight, and you want me gone?” replied Dido slightly sarcastically.

John chuckled.
“The only hot person here is you, my dear. No, I engaged the services of a Private Investigator to go back to your life before you were abandoned by your parents.”

“Abandoned? Yeah, right.”

"Dido, I know what they did was about as bad as it gets. They did bad stuff and then legged it to pastures new, leaving you behind to suffer. I call that abandonment, ok?"

Dido decided not to get into an argument with her mentor.
“So? What did the private dick tell you that I didn’t?”

“Dido, I thought that having another view of your early life might give us a clue as to who the people were that sold you on to the traffickers.”

That period in her life was very much a blank.

“The report says that the local cops had their eye on you because of your dipping on the pier when suddenly you and your family were gone. It was as if you and your family had dropped off the face of the earth. The only clue was that your mother flew from Stanstead to Amsterdam and then on to San Francisco. On the same day, your father flew from Heathrow to Madrid and then to Miami. Because you were not with either of them, the local police assumed that you had gone to live with a relative. The report also states that your father was a person of interest in a series of betting shop heists on the other side of the Thames Estuary in Kent. Places like Gravesend, Dartford and Rochester.”

“I knew that he was into bad stuff, but he kept all that from me. All he wanted from me was a steady supply of cash to fund his criminal activities. The train that runs to the end of the pier was perfect for a bit of dipping when it was crowded at weekends in the summer. Out of season, the place was a bit of a ghost town. In winter, the only chance of a bit of dipping was when decent teams came to town to play Southend United.”

“The P.I. found that a family of iffy characters named O’Connell, who ran a couple of bookies in Essex, loaned your father money to set up his last heist, which went badly wrong when their getaway car was boxed in outside the shop by a council refuse truck. The O’Connell clan were, as we used to say when I was on the job, a family of considerable interest. Your father and the rest of the robbery crew got away by the skin of their teeth but without any of the cash that they had just lifted. The Kent Police knew who had done the job but had no evidence. The getaway car was towed but didn’t bring up any DNA, which was a real head-scratcher to the Kent Police. It turns out that your father owed the O’Connells around thirty grand plus interest when your parents disappeared.”

“So, the O’Connells sold me?”

John shook his head.
“They, like all good bookmakers, had laid off the debt to a Dutchman called Erik Van Dreart. He was a nasty piece of work. Customs and Excise had been on his trail for years. Lots of little bits of nothing, but they knew that just under the surface, he was a big-time smuggler but one who was always two steps ahead of Customs agents. It is more than likely that this Van Dreart sold you to the man who was responsible for your mutilation. That side of crime is very much ‘need to know,’ and unless you are on the inside, you don’t need to know.”

“Smuggler? As in illegal immigrants? And… you said ‘was’?”

John shook his head.
“Whatever was there to be transported from Rotterdam or Antwerp or wherever into the UK. Drugs, artwork, diamonds and yes, even people if they were paid enough. “

“Did he take me abroad? For the operation? I vaguely remember some language other than English when I was recovering.”

"That's where that bit of the trail goes cold. Erik Van Dreart’s body was found drifting off Great Yarmouth seven weeks after your parents went missing. That’s why I used the past tense.”

“What does all this mean to me?”

“Not a lot, Dido. I had high hopes that the P.I. would give us a lead, but they didn’t.”

“What about these… O’Connell’s?”

“That’s where it gets weird. A week after Van Dreart’s body was found, they sold up their shops and other property at a great loss and went back to the Irish Republic. These days, they are running a Garden Centre near the city of Cork and are not on the radar of the Irish Guarda.”

“It does not make sense?” said Dido.

“Same here. It is as if the departure of your parents was the catalyst for something that we have no clue about to happen in the criminal world and for the players to follow your parents out of the southeastern Essex area. The Essex CID probably know what happened, but short of going to them, we are not going to find out, and at this stage of the investigation, we don’t want to involve the cops now, do we?”

“It is strange… but there has to be more to it than that?”

“I agree,” said John.
“But for the time being, it is enough. If you remember your plan… digging into how you ended up with him was for when he was in jail.”

“I’d forgotten that, but yes. At least we know that my parents planned their exit from the country, and it seems to me that I was always surplus to requirements.”

Dido fell silent.

John sat watching her. While the news wasn’t that good, at least Dido had admitted that she was never part of her parents’ long-term plans when the shit hit the fan.

“What’s next?” she asked after a while.

“I had some dealings with the NYPD and the LAPD in my time on the force. I will make some informal enquiries about hiring a P.I. over there to try to track down your parents. It might not be easy as you said, they had planned their exit from the country before giving you to the O’Connells … and the USA is a huge place and has more than six times our population spread over a vast area.”

“Can we… can the Police go after them even though they are in Ireland?”

“If later investigations result in concrete evidence against them, then I’m sure that the HMRC would love to get their hands on that family. The PI estimated that they took off owing around a hundred grand in unpaid VAT and Income Tax, but that was just a guess.”

Dido pushed her plate away, her appetite gone for the moment.

“How much did this all cost you? It can’t have come cheap?”

“Dido… Leave the cost to me. It is my pleasure to do anything I can to help you get justice.”

She managed a smile. He was willing to throw money at her case, but he was retired, and her memory of retired people was that they never had a lot of money to spare. That’s why she had never ‘dipped’ people who appeared to be over 60 years old.

“Thanks, John.”

“Now, Dido, ready to learn some more things?”

She groaned.
“What now? How to crack a safe?”

John chuckled.
“That will come later. The garage is not exactly the right place to store several different safes…”

“So?”

“Watching you painstakingly put the little bits of evidence together has been fascinating. What I am about to say may seem strange, so don’t even think about answering me right now. Sleep on it for a week.”

Dido was suddenly very alert.

“What I’m suggesting is that you consider a career as a criminologist. As I have said before, you have a talent as an investigator. The way you observe people is just unnerving. The descriptions you have given me of people going about their business are uncanny. When you told me about the priest with a bit on the side… Brilliant.”

Dido went rather red in the face.

“Dido, honestly, I would have loved to have had even one of you on my CID team. Many of the people in CID are next to useless when it comes to solving crimes. They might have been a great uniformed officer, but the skills needed in CID are far more diverse. Patience and observation are key skills that many who move out of uniform into CID simply don’t have. I blame TV for that, but I digress. What about it?”

“Stop right there, John Proudfoot. I know your little game. This isn’t the first time that you have mentioned something like this.”

“So? What it means is you are going back to school. You have missed so much, but with appropriate tuition, I am sure you can get the qualifications that you need to gain a place at university. The best criminologist I ever worked with in my time on the force got her degree from Cambridge after leaving school at sixteen and working on the production line of a biscuit factory in Wembley for three years. Then, she did an Open University Degree before going to Cambridge for her Masters. For someone who left school with three poor GCSEs, that is remarkable. I see that you have the ability to do the same.”

“Me? Getting a degree? Cambridge? Now you are kidding me…”

“I am perfectly serious, Dido. You have a good brain and an excellent memory, and you can manage a team, as is evidenced by the success that your Oxford Street Irregulars have had in recent months. I have seen you at work, and I am impressed even more so as it all appears to be so natural to you.”

“Thank you, John. You have given me a lot to think about, but I could never afford it in a million years.”

John smiled.
“Not even with those tips you get from people walking by you all day?”

“John Proudfoot!”

“Dido, it would be naive of me to think that you don’t pick up tips. Finding out about the Roman Catholic Priest with a mistress led me to think a bit more about all the data that was going into that pretty little head of yours. Tips about pending deals would be par for the course. It all depends upon what you do with it. Knowing you as I have come to do these past months, I would hazard a guess that you have found someone to take those little snippets of information and turn them into hard cash. The money belt around your waist is noticeably fatter than it was three months ago.”

John left the unasked question on the table.

Dido looked at her feet for several seconds.
“John, you are frustratingly good.”

“I didn’t reach the rank of Chief Super without having at least a little bit of talent.”

“You are only partially correct,” said Dido with a huge grin on her face.
“I have invested most of it through this broker I… I lured them into letting me give him a blow job. Then I told him how old I was. We came to an arrangement, if you know what I mean.”

“So? What is Dido worth these days? Just an approximation will do.”

Dido thought for a few seconds before replying.
“Cash? About eight hundred. Funds? About seventy grand, but I lost around three grand this week when the market dropped, and the pound/euro exchange rate went down as well.”

“Just be careful, Dido. This broker might just up and leave with your money. Does he know that you are a ‘non-person’ at the moment? There are risks, Dido. I get the feeling that you are too trusting of others.”

“I know. That’s why I am looking for another outlet for my information. Spread the risk, I think you call it?”

“Well done, Dido. Spreading the risk is good, but just be careful. On the street, you may have the advantage, but in the dealing room? They rule the roost. You have to play by their rules. It is a different game entirely.”

John smiled.
“And you can start spreading the risk by doing the washing up.”

Dido stuck her tongue out at John but took his hint.

John just got back to reading his newspaper. Dido’s intelligence was there for everyone to see when she chose to reveal it. He wondered just how long she could continue with her double life. He’d seen undercover officers get badly hurt when their cover story slipped just a little bit. With this man… He was under no illusion that he’d have her killed if he discovered her aims for him.

While he mulled a few troublesome clues in the cryptic crossword, he made a decision that would make or break their relationship. It was time to let Dido know about Fox. When she was done clearing up the kitchen, she stuck her head around the door to the lounge.
“All done. I’m going to put on some washing, she said, smiling.

John folded up his newspaper and put it into the wastebasket.

“Dido, come and sit down for a minute. I have something to tell you.”

“Ok, grand master, I am all ears?” she said jokingly.

“What I’m about to say is not a laughing matter. I have tried to find the right time to tell you this, but the longer I keep this to myself, the harder it will be.”

“This sounds serious?”

“My dear Dido, it is very serious.”

He leaned forward.
“When you showed me that photo of the man who had kept you prisoner, I recognised him in a flash. He and I have crossed swords on more than one occasion.”

“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Dido, please listen and think before you respond. Please try to put yourself in my shoes. Ok?”

“I’ll try.”

Good. The man who kept you prisoner is Thomas Fox. He is one of the top barristers in the City of London and is also a Professor of Law at the University that is close to where you have seen him. His client list is like a who’s who of organised crime in the country. He has contacts everywhere. I have been grilled by him in the witness box more than once. He is a man that is not to be trifled with.”

Dido went white in the face as she tried to take in what he’d said.

She sat looking into space for several minutes.

“I… When you told me who he was, I could have happily throttled you. Then I tried to put myself, looking at the other side of the coin as you have been telling me for ages, and I do see your dilemma. I don’t like it that you held out on me, but I understand your reasons.”

“That is progress, is it not? A while ago, the old Dido would have stormed off in a huff. You are still here, which is progress in my book.”

“If this man is who you say he is, then he is a formidable foe. I can see why being a bull in a China shop would not work.”

“Tomorrow, he is appearing at the Old Bailey in Court 12. He is defending a very nasty man who slit the throat of a competitor just for fun. Why don’t you get those clothes clean and go to the court and sit in the public gallery? Watch and learn. Then, we can talk again about how we can go about taking him down. We have a name but little else. You were held outside London. Exactly where that is is still very much a mystery. There is so much more to learn before we can even think of making a move against him.”

“We? This is my battle, John, mine and mine alone!” said a forceful Dido.

John shook his head.

“As I said, he and I have crossed swords in court. My last case was one where he defended a murderer. Our case was not as solid as it should have been. He tore three of my officers apart on the stand. Taking him down would mean that I could go to my grave a happy man. Taking him down has to be a team effort. You and me. Only when we are good and ready will we involve the authorities. We don’t know who is in the pay of criminals who might just tip him off.”

“You weren’t held prisoner for years!”

“True, but isn’t it reasonable to assume that you were not the only one he has held? He could well have someone else in the same place as you were. Don’t they deserve justice as well? Tipping him off could result in him disposing of his current captive. It is not just about you now, isn’t it?”

Dido sat thinking again.

“Ok, you win…”

“No, Dido, it is not a case of winning anything until he and all those involved in this crime are behind bad for a very long time. Given who he is, you can’t do it alone. How about it, eh?”

“Ok, but don’t ever do that again… got it?

“I won’t, but it is a two-way street, isn’t it?

“What do you suggest?”

“We have regular progress meetings. I’ll set up some whiteboards in the library that we can use to plot progress. We run this just like a proper police investigation. That way, we will have a case ready to turn over to the Police and CPS at the right time. This is not going to be a short-term task. That man is a formidable enemy. If we underestimate him, then he could fly the coup, and we won’t get justice.”

“I need to think about this.”

“I would not expect otherwise.”

Dido left John alone. He knew that he could have handled that reveal a lot better, but it was done now, and they had to move on. Fox needed to be taken down. Fox was hated by law enforcement.