 |
 |
Born and raised on the Wirral Peninsular Thurstan Braxton Baddeley had a happy if unremarkable middle-class childhood in the affluent village of Caldy.
At 19 years of age, fuelled by his enjoyment of the Army Cadets, he’d walked through the gates of the Army Selection Centre in Sutton Coldfield, fresh-faced and eager.
Three days later, sporting confirmation Army barbers knew nothing of the real world, he walked back out carrying a bag of damp sandwiches, packet of stale crisps and a travel warrant for the Royal Military Police Training Centre in Chichester. The year was 1986.
On completion of his training, armed with one stripe, he was posted to West Germany where almost immediately he came into contact with members of the SIB; army detectives, civilian clothes, collar-length hair, long sideburns and, more often than not, a moustache. As soon as he saw them he knew he had to join ‘the Branch’.
After two years hard work, Corporal Baddeley and his new moustache were selected for the prized 6 months attachment with an active SIB Section.
He’d shone and promotion to Sergeant soon followed. The work was interesting and varied: thefts, burglaries, serious assaults, robberies, rapes and murders. He’d found a home.
When his father died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-eight, his mother was left rattling around the large five bedroomed house with its views over the Dee estuary lost in her grief, something which pained him deeply to see. His new posting to Catterick didn’t suit him, it was too sedate and, feeling he should be there for her, he reluctantly left the Army and returned home. Despite everything he tried to do for her, without the only man she’d ever loved, the man she’d adored, his mother struggled with daily life. During the course of a year, she slowly deteriorated until one night she slipped quietly away in her sleep.
Accepted by the local Police Force, he’d explained his circumstances and they’d been very understanding but were now pressing him for a date he would turn up for training. There was no cause for him to delay any longer, she was gone, and he missed her and his father immensely, but it was time to re-enter the world. Selling the old home, he bought a smaller new build for cash, banked what remained and reported for duty.
During his first two years, he managed not only to distinguish himself amongst his peers but also attract the professional admiration of the local Detective Inspector who recommended him for the Trainee Investigators Programme.
He was a ‘natural’ and, confirmed as a member of the CID, was back in the land he loved.
There were, however, two major differences between his former job and his current one. Firstly, he no longer had a ‘captive audience’. In the Military, apart from the occasional ‘dawn swoop’, all he had to do in places like Germany and Cyprus, once he’d identified his prey, was to contact their Unit and request the suspect’s attendance at the SIB offices. Sometimes his suspect would have gone AWOL, in which case he’d wait until the uniformed Military Police personnel picked them up in a routine sweep of known haunts and visits to the homes of the bar girls to whom they seemed drawn like moths to a flame. The more serious offenders who were devious enough to have left town were circulated to the relevant Police authorities. In civilian life, he didn’t have that hold over them and was often surprised any of them turned up at all. Mostly they didn’t, so with a colleague or two he would go out and fetch them in, if they hadn’t already been arrested by a Uniform for some other offence.
The second difference was the volume of work. It was a lot higher and seemingly ceaseless. It was his version of cocaine and he thought he’d never tire.