Free Cold Pursuit by Judith Cutler

look. ‘So what’s worrying you?’
    ‘Jill Tanner.’
    ‘Want to tell me about it?’ He cut the engine, turning to face her more fully. ‘I can tell you she’s dropped in on me a couple of times and didn’t seem to know when to go, if you see what I mean. The first time was at your behest, mind, to ask how I’d feel about your going on TV. The second – and third, come to think of it – she was on about quite trivial procedural issues.’
    ‘Maybe she fancies you.’
    ‘She can fancy away to her heart’s content.’ He patted the back of her hand to reassure her.
    ‘Or maybe she’s finding this job too much for her. I don’t know why. I’ve seen her tackle far worse cases before and not turn a hair.’
    ‘And I thought that was how she fixed her coiffure!’
    ‘But clearly the troops aren’t happy – she’s made a couple of weird judgements and doesn’t seem to be throwing herself into it. I’ll have to talk to her in the morning.’
    ‘Poor you. I never like having to chew someone’s ears off.’
    She turned her hand to squeeze his, but then realised that that wasn’t a good idea. ‘When I was in a mess, you didn’t chew my ears off. Youchanged things. That’s what I might have to do. But how to do it without her losing face I don’t know. OK, guv, let’s hit the road. The sooner we’re in a work-free zone the better.’
     
    And so they would have been had it not been for the news, which carried reports of two more sexual assaults, this time right in the middle of Jill’s own manor, Ashford. TVInvicta News’s tone nicely balanced restraint and triumphalism. Mark didn’t argue when she picked up her car keys; he might have done had she known she was going to walk round Ashford’s streets herself.
    It was a long time since she’d been on night patrol, and then of course she’d been with a colleague and the full issue of equipment. Now she was a lone woman, middle-aged and not at her fleetest. She was being bloody stupid, but she had to get the feel of what was going on. She checked for CCTV cameras, peered into corners, disturbing not masturbators or potential rapists but a prostitute and her client and a kid sleeping rough. The first two got an earful, backed by her ID – at least she’d had the sense to bring that. The latter got the Sally Army’s address. Suddenly she realised she had to walk down that nasty little alleyway linking the high street via the public car park to the police station car park, and she strongly wished she hadn’t. Not a flasher. A group of kids. All with mobile phones. For two pins she’d have turned tail and gone the long way round. That was whatviolence did to you, wasn’t it? Even the fear of violence? She’d been reduced to being Ms Average.
    Well, she’d better reclaim the streets for Ms Average. Head held high, she plunged out of the light into the darkness.
    The kids swore a lot, but not necessarily, she supposed, at her. If she assumed it was, she’d be lost.
     
    ‘Ashford’s was a much more serious attack,’ Jill admitted to a feverish incident room the next morning. ‘Contact was made – enough to constitute indecent assault. But we have no DNA, because this time the scrote wore surgical gloves. And a condom.’
    Tom asked, ‘Does this mean it’s the same scrote that got wiser or that it’s a different one? After all, previous attacks have involved him smearing semen on his victims.’
    ‘A fact that has never been revealed to the public,’ Jill emphasised.
    ‘Has anyone thought of the effect all this must be having on the ordinary woman in the street?’ Fran asked. No one knew of her little adventure, and she’d prefer to keep it that way. All the Ashford team knew was that their governor had joined them in a cuppa and asked about their kids.
    ‘Since when did the ordinary woman last feel able to walk round towns at night?’ Jill countered. ‘There’s the perennial problem of streetlights and CCTV and nimbyism: I had a