Chapter 27

Bingo

He started with Thames Valley Police; told them he was an ex-colleague trying to trace him for a reunion being organised. Although there were and had been several officers with the name Barker, none of them fitted the profile.

The woman at Essex Police told him she would get back to him, she had paper files she might have to go through should the details not be on their new system which was not fully up to date and still being worked on.

He’d started to think he’d been forgotten but two days later she called, apologising for the delay. Yes, she’d found a record which could very well be the person he was looking for. It was an officer who’d transferred to them and shortly after went on a secondment leading a small Caribbean island’s equally small drug squad.

On his return, he’d lodged the notification he’d changed his name by deed poll. Unenrolled she’d said, she’d seen this type before, so there most probably wasn’t an official record in Government archives.

When she’d told him the new name, he’d asked her if she was absolutely sure and even had her spell it out. Yes, there was no doubt, she told him. It was there on the copy in front of her. He’d stayed with them for another two years then he requested to transfer to another Force for a career opportunity and stated he had family in the North. She couldn’t decipher which Force because someone had spilt something on the form, probably years ago. It had Police in the title though, she could see as much. No, definitely not Constabulary. No, she couldn’t send him a copy.

Thurstan was shaken, and because he hadn’t much to do that afternoon, he was roused to take the rest of the day off, using hours he’d worked which the job owed him.

He had some tins of Guinness and a bit of Bushmills left over. It was a nice day. He’d sit in the back garden and think this one out.