Thank you to all my amazing reviewers! Shade O'Killer, chironsgirl, L.A.H.H., NormalityIsNonexistent and Torchwood Cardiff.
I'm taking the advice about 'making up your own police procedures', since I know very little about how the police actually work on the arrests and convictions side of things, mostly due to never having been arrested or convicted. So apologies for any glaring errors and feel free to enlighten me.
Before anyone assumes otherwise, I do not own the Cardiff Metropolitan Police, and doing so is probably illegal.
Under Arrest
Recorded home interview, 6th November 1pm
PC H. Green and PC M. Parsons
PC Green: Ellen Carson, yes?
EC: Yes.
PC Green: And how old are you?
EC: Fifteen.
PC Green: Your mother contacted the police because she believes you were attacked.
EC: I don't know. I can't remember.
PC Parsons: Can you tell us where you were last night and anything else that seems relevant? I know you have had a blow to the head, but anything you can remember might be useful in establishing what happened.
EC: Couldn't I just have tripped up and banged my head?
PC Green: The doctor's report strongly suggests that you were hit from behind while upright, and the evidence points towards a human hand, probably a man's from the size.
SC (EC's mother): Do you have DNA traces?
PC Green: Unfortunately not. But the CCTV footage we have tells us that Ellen was in the Plas area between 5 and 7pm.
EC: I can't remember that.
SC: You said you were meeting friends. Did you?
EC: I'm not sure. I don't think so.
PC Parsons: (to SC) Could you ring round Ellen's friends ask if she was with any of them last night?
PC Green: Now, Ellen, were you meeting anyone else? Anybody you might not want your mother to know about? Anyone you'd never met before?
EC: I don't think so. I think I was just looking out for someone, not trying to meet them.
PC Green: What's the last thing you can remember?
EC: When I got sent home from the tourist office. Where I'm doing work experience. But the whole week seems kind of fuzzy.
PC Parsons: Work experience? What were you doing?
EC: I was at the tourist office. Not the big one – the little one down by the Bay. But there wasn't much to do. Weren't that many tourists either. But the ones we did get stayed for ages. They… they were a bit weird, some of them.
PC Green: Anything particularly unusual?
EC: A few foreigners, but that's normal, I guess… And one man who kept swearing at me and saying horrible things about Cardiff and Wales.
PC Green: Got a name?
EC: No. Sorry
PC Green: That's fine. What about a description?
EC: He was quite small, I think. Sort of scrawny. Had dark hair. And very rude. Even my boss had an argument with him.
PC Parsons: Your boss?
EC: Mr Jones. I think his first name was Ianto. He was… average. Polite. Neat. Always wore a suit.
PC Green: An-
EC: He was odd. Definitely. He was always watching me. I suspected… I can't remember what it was now. I just felt that something was wrong. Like, on the first day he'd leave me there while he went to get coffee, but yesterday he almost never left.
PC Green: Why do you think he watched you?
EC: I don't know. It was creepy. At first it was just like he was looking out for me, so I didn't mess the office up or anything, but later it was like being under surveillance. He has cameras too.
PC Green: And then he sent you home early? And you wandered about outside the office for a few hours?
EC: I think so. I'm not sure now.
PC Green: Did he ask you to wait for him?
E.C. I can't remember.
PC Green: Right.
SC: Her friends all say they never saw her.
PC Parsons: Mrs Carson, how did Ellen get home last night?
SC: You brought her back. The police. That's why I called you back in this morning.
PC Green: I can't remember seeing a report about that.
PC Parsons: Did you get the officer's name?
SC: There was a police woman and an Asian, Chinesey sort of woman who she said was the person who found her. She showed me a badge or a card or something, but I was, well, what with Ellen lying there unconscious and everything…
PC Parsons: But did you get a name? Then we can double-check with the records from last night. I'm surprised we haven't been referred to them already.
SC: Copper, or something. No, that can't be right. Cooper, I think.
PC Green: That'd be… Gwen, wouldn't it? She left, what, years ago.
PC Parsons: Could be a cover identity then.
SC: You mean they weren't real police? The people who brought her back weren't the police? What if it was them who hurt her? I offered them tea! What if-
EC: I am still here, you know.
Cardiff Police Headquarters
"Hannah, you're right. There's been no Cooper registered here for months. And no report has been filed from last night."
"I thought so. Looks like they were using a stolen ID then."
"We should bring in that Jones bloke. She obviously wasn't comfortable with him."
"I did some research on him. He seems like an odd man. A recluse. He runs that old tourist office down by the Bay, so he can't see people that often. I mean, who'd want to work down there?"
"Anything on the criminal record?"
"One minor conviction as a teenager. Nothing much."
"Aha!"
"What?"
"Lucy's been looking through the CCTV – she's found more footage of Ellen, heading towards the tourist office, round about 7 o'clock."
"Ok. At that time of night? Does anyone else follow?"
"Nope. That's all she found."
"Can she send us a copy? I want to check later as well."
"Can't. The system deleted it."
"What?"
"Yeah. I know. Just what we needed."
"Ok. I'll sign the arrest warrant, then."
Police interview transcript 17439b
Date: 6th November 4.45pm
Interviewers: PC H. Green and PC M. Parsons
PC G: Ianto Jones?
IJ: That's me.
PC G: You work at the tourist office by the Plas?
IJ: Yes.
PC G: Do you work there every day?
IJ: Four days a week, usually.
PC G: And for the last few days you worked with Ellen Carson as a work experience student, am I right?
IJ: Yes.
PC P: What time did you leave work last night?
IJ: About four, I think.
PC G: Is that your usual time?
IJ: No. A bit earlier than usual. One of my friends called me up because he was feeling ill.
PC G: I see. Who was this friend?
IJ: Jack Harkness.
PC G: And how long were you with him?
IJ: All evening, pretty much, until I went home at 10 or so.
PC P: Can he confirm that with us?
IJ: Probably. I can give you his phone number if you want.
PC P: Good. Does he have an address?
IJ: Ah…
PC P: You went to his house but you don't know his address?
IJ: He's visiting from America and staying over at another friend's house. Toshiko Sato. If you give me a piece of paper I can write her address down for you.
PC G: Can she confirm where you were last night too?
IJ: Should be able to.
PC G: Alright. We'll leave this for a minute while we check.
15 minutes
PC P: Well, isn't that interesting? Your friend Mr Harkness tells us that you were helping him look after an ill Miss Sato. Was that actually the case or have you both just failed to consolidate your cover story?
IJ: -
PC P: Miss Sato, incidentally, appears to know nothing about either of you having stayed over at her house. Like Mr Harkness she thinks you were all at his, non-existent house.
PC G: Mr Harkness was the person we allowed you to contact to say that you were being taken into custody, is that right?
IJ: Yes.
PC G: That would explain the mismatch. Not quite long enough to agree what you were saying. Or had you prepared one earlier and one of you forgot?
IJ: -
PC P: And Ellen Carson says she thinks she recalls seeing you and at least one other person in the Plas after you had supposedly left for your friend's house. Who else was with you then?
IJ: -
PC G: Please answer our questions, Mr Jones. Ellen needs to know what happened, and we don't want to get the wrong man.
IJ: Is this the good cop bad cop thing? I didn't think you actually used it.
PC P: Miss Sato is Japanese, isn't she?
IJ: Sorry? Yes, she is. Why?
PC P: Do you know where she was and who she was with last night?
IJ: After I left? No.
PC G: I think we've already established that you were never at her house. Did you ask her to help you get Ellen home afterwards? Offer her money?
IJ: No. After what?
PC G: Do you know anything about a faked or stolen Police ID?
IJ: What? No. Look, I never saw Ellen last night.
PC P: You were both in the Plas last night. Next to the tourist office. Was she waiting for you?
IJ: How should I know if she was?
PC P: Why did you attack her?
IJ: I didn't.
PC P: Are you sure? Someone hit her over the head, knocked her unconscious. Are you sure it wasn't you? Or was it this Harkness bloke who keeps popping up, trying to fake you alibis?
IJ: I-
PC D: Ah, special ops.
PC G: Sorry, Andy? Wh-
PC D: Special ops, I said. Whole thing's being taken over.
PC P: But you're not special ops.
PC D: No-
- : I am. Sorry to mess this whole thing up for you, Hannah.
PC G: Gwen! I haven't seen you in ages! So this is special ops, is it?
GC: Yeah. I'm sorry. It's not quite what it seems.
PC P: So what is it then? Or is it too 'special' and 'secret' for us lowly police officers to know?
GC: Please don't be like that, Mark. It's the drugs investigation, ok? Ellen stumbled across it while she was doing her work experience, and got hurt. I took her home,-
PC P: So the identity card was yours?
GC: Yes. My ops one, well… I would have helped clear this whole investigation up today, but, well-
PC P: What?
GC: I was working undercover yesterday and it didn't go as planned.
PC P: Let me guess. You got drugged.
GC: Sounds about right, yeah.
PC P: Voluntarily, or-?
PC G: So where does Jones fit in?
GC: He's part of it, yeah.
PC P: Part of what? Special Ops or the drug cartel? Not that it makes much difference.
GC: I'm not at liberty to say.
PC P: Exactly.
GC: Mark, please! I just need to take him and go.
PC P: Fine.
GC: And thank you for your help.
PC P: Yeah right.
"That was all total lies, wasn't it?"
"Nope."
Andy turns to Ianto. "You mean you did knock her out?"
"No, that was Jack. It was necessary."
"Right. Necessary. So what was the truth?"
"That Gwen and I are both 'special ops'."
"That was just a suggestion. We could have put you in handcuffs and they would have been fine with that too."
"And that Gwen was the one who took Ellen back and that she was off her head at the time."
"She was?"
"I was mildly drugged."
"Mildly? I saw you when we got you out of that place. You should never have gone on a clean-up mission."
"Jack sent me. And I didn't mess up as badly as he did. Anyway, who's the person who just got you out of a sentence for assault?"
"The person I rescued when I found them drugged up to the eyeballs with experimental alien substances the other day. I say 'up to the eyeballs', but then you were upside down at the time…"
"Bloody aliens. Who told them that the female of the species goes the other way up from the male?"
"Owen?"
"Probably. He was spouting all sorts of nonsense."
"Sorry?"
"Oh sorry, Andy. Look, we need to go anyway, because there's some crisis somewhere else now. It's been one hell of a week. Thanks for helping out."
"Yeah, it's fine. If you need me-"
"I'll call. Police diversions on this crashed spaceship might be good."
Ianto puts on a serious face. "Thanks for helping bust me out of prison."
"That's fine. It's becoming a habit with you lot. I'll send my love next time Jack ends up in the cells."
"He'll like that."
"Ianto-?"
"Yeah. See you Andy."
"See you." The two of them have already gone. He yells after them anyway. "I'll erase the police report, shall I? And get rid of the arrest warrant? Ah, sod it."