Wanted!

The resounding alarm of the pager alerted me to the discovery of a White-tailed Plover at Seaforth Nature Reserve in Merseyside on 27^th May 2010. This was a species I had missed in Scotland some years previous and was one I thought I’d have to wait another twenty years for a second chance at seeing. So obviously I was very keen to make plans to get up there for the next day. At the time, I was working in Southampton, so arranged for the next day off and found two willing passengers (Kelvin and Colin) and planned to convene with them at 2am the next morning.

I had promised to phone my girlfriend; who was staying up late in the library to finish an essay for a deadline due the following day, whilst on the way to pick up my companions at an arranged meeting place just a few miles away. I had fallen to sleep early as hoped to get a few hours in before the long drive, only to be rudely awoken by my (thankfully) persistent girlfriend at 2:45 wondering what had happened to her call. Christ, I had overslept!! I had numerous missed calls from Kelvin with several voicemail messages. My two passengers had left without me.

Nonetheless I was willing to do this journey alone, regardless of the cost. I got dressed within a flash and was out the door. I eventually managed to get in contact with Kelvin, who was gradually progressing northwards up the A34 not too far in front, so we arranged to meet at a service station 45 miles north at Chieveley as soon as possible.

My little blue Peugeot 306 only dropped below 90mph once - to the sight of blue flashing lights that were rescuing a driver from an overturned car (and clearly overweight boat on a trailer) on the central reservation. I was with Kelvin and Colin within 30 minutes. Kelvin had left his Ford KA under the flyover with several parked lorries, as the services only had a two hour limit on parking. I pulled into the empty services at the rates of knots, my passengers threw their gear into the boot, got in, and we raced off again at top speed to make up for lost time. My car rattled every inch of the way.

The remainder of the journey was fairly uneventful; we arrived shortly after dawn and were treated to decent views of the Plover, albeit between gaps in the heavy duty security perimeter fence. Everybody was happy and we headed back south again.

We made good time and were quickly approaching Chieveley. By 9:30am I pulled off the appropriate exit and proceeded in the direction of Kelvin’s car. At this point Colin joked “Ha Kelvin, it would be funny if your car was gone”.  As I made the final roundabout, everything went into slow motion at this point as the roundabout seemed to go on for an eternity and we were all expected Kelvin’s car to come into sight at any moment. It didn’t. His car was actually gone!

We drove up and down several times bewildered; I don’t know why, it wasn’t like his car was going to miraculously reappear, we just simply did not know what to do. Even the lorries had gone. We eventually decided to investigate at the services, a few hundred yards away. There was a police car; 'Ideal!' we thought. Kelvin leapt out of the car to locate the officers whilst I parked up. Colin quickly noticed that there wasn’t just one police car, but several scattered around the car park. That’s when alarm bells started ringing. We went to find Kelvin.

It was ridiculously crowded inside but it soon became apparent why, as half of the services had been cordoned off with red and white tape. Kelvin was impatiently waiting at the edge of the cordoned area trying to attract the attention of an officer. Eventually he grabbed one and began to ask questions about his little red KA, with Colin and I behind him, but promptly realised the seriousness of what was going on once we’d spotted a trail of blood droplets across the floor.

The Detective Inspector (or whatever he called himself) came out, told us he knew exactly what had happened to Kelvin’s car and was keen to ask us further questions. What were we doing at the Services? Why was the car parked where it was? Did we see anybody? And so on... Once he had come to the eventual conclusion that we were merely humble birders on a ‘twitch’ (the proof was in our notebooks), then he could eliminate us from his enquiries and so explained where the car was and what we needed to do to collect it. At this moment we were still oblivious as to what had happened, and so that’s what I kept telling the inquisitive (nosey) little old ladies who kept asking me what on earth was going on. Unbeknownst to us, the car had in fact been towed away and locked in a compound.

Some twenty miles away in the middle of nowhere, the KA was positioned outside waiting for us. It had a small dent in the boot but was otherwise fine. Kelvin signed the appropriate documents for the release of the car and claim for damages before we were free to go; it was only now we were given the story of what had really happened.

When I pulled into the car park that morning to collect Kelvin and Colin from the services, we were blissfully unaware of the armed robbery taking place inside at exactly the same time. It all began to make sense. The KA appeared on the cameras at the same time as the robbery and so was suspected of being the ‘getaway car’. Not a very fast one, that’s for sure. The blood on the floor was the result of a blow to the head of a checkout girl who was bludgeoned with a hammer (as far as I’m aware she was OK; recovering in hospital). But I can only imagine how suspicious we must’ve looked on the CCTV cameras as I pulled in at top speed to collect two guys, who threw black rucksacks into the boot of my car before speeding off again. It certainly explains why were being questioned so accusingly; we were 'wanted men' for several hours!