Now we get to the really, really interesting bit. (Sorry it's in sections but I don't have time to write the book in one).
Summer 1991. I drive out of the Station Gates but its tricky to pull out because a police car is parked in the most awkward spot possible but it looks like they are in a hurry because they are frantically trying to get their seat belts fastened and put the newspaper away. 3 miles later they manage to catch up with me, I had pulled over to let the blue lights through, but, oddly enough, they pull in behind and all but launch themselves at me to get me out of the car. Whilst one of them led me 10 yards away the other conducted a very systematic and thorough examination of the car, especially under the seats I noticed. Not unreasonably I asked them what the problem was only to be told be the visibly shaking constable that it was just a routine stop and search, mate!
So what is interesting about that I hear you ask. You see that car had been parking behind my Girlfriends house for the weekend with the windows open. The smell in the car was unbearable but untraceable. This led to me stripping the car out one bit at a time until I found the offending discarded kebab that my "mate" had stuffed under the seat because it was too much for him to eat. However, lying right next to it was a folding, locking, dagger twin edged and the sort of thing that is going to get you in deep guano for carrying a weapon. Unsure of its origins I placed it up in between the rafters of my garage. Funny that really, for the police to go after an individual on receipt of information and respond within the time frame means the information must have come from a very reliable and trusted source, someone who must have been very helpful to them in the past, probably on the payroll for snouts.
Now the plot thickens. It really does. In 1991 Terry Waite was released from captivity and with him came the most senior psychiatric doctor we had, Gordon Turnbull. I was already good mates with Gordon, he'd been to debrief us all after the Gulf War and was also intersted in one of my main hobbies, beer. I posed him a question that was to test all his knowledge of what nutcases do, why do you think all the condoms are going missing out of my girlfriends bin? Our derived answer couldn't have been further from reality. In fact, the Bath Rapists victims all have two lots of DNA on them, not one, one is female and the whole is dosed with a spermicide!! That was the reason for the tights, so nothing could be wiped off, and no finger prints either to boot, something well known to police.
Oh, and haven't even started yet. More tomorrow when I get time, but think on this, why will no senior police officer talk to me about this and why did my MP who was asked to push this at the home secretary, one Teresa May, conspire with the Chief Constable of Wiltshire to play this down and why did the same Chief Constable (Patrick Geenty) retire immediately afterwards. Strangely enough the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset (Gargan) similarly found himself ejected from the AOR by flashing pictures of some part of his anatomy to his girlfriend, prior to his phone being audited. Position untenable, out on his ear, certainly out of harms way. You would honestly think a Chief Constable might have thought that one through!!