A day or two of freedom and comradeship on the moors stretched before him, walking, riding and tracking wild creatures instead of predatory humans. And no Miss Jameson! Bliss!

Chapter Three

Paddington Station

‘Cupper tea, constable? You’ve got ten minutes before the Bristol Flyer gets in. Naw! Go on! Put your tuppence back in your pocket, love – it’s on the house. Drop of milk, one sugar was that?’

‘Thank you, Stan. I’d love one. But I’m paying all the same. Rules are rules.’ The insistence could have sounded prim but Woman Police Constable Lilian Wentworth softened her words with a broad smile. In any case, Stan the tea man was not about to take offence. Not from Miss Wentworth. From his stall on the platform he saw everything that happened on the station and he was always ready to oblige the boys – and the women – in blue with his impeccable information and advice. Especially the honest ones who did a good job.

He nodded his approval, accepted her pennies and handed over a mug of tarry tea. ‘Some of your blokes aren’t so particular!’ he commented. ‘In fact where’s that PC who’s supposed to be escorting you today? Useless great lummox. He’ll be in the back of the refreshment room, I expect, refreshing himself.’

He didn’t add ‘with a pint of brown ale’. Police Constable Halliday, six foot burly beat bobby, married, five children, a betting man, was always on the scrounge.

‘You’ve got that wrong, Stan. I’m escorting him. I’m responsible for my partner, they tell me. I may have to carry him home at the end of the day.’

Stan grinned at the thought. Lily Wentworth’s height was at the lower limit for acceptance on the force, he would have guessed. And, as far as anyone could judge, under all those layers of blue serge uniform, she was as slender as a whippet.

‘On Waifs and Strays patrol all week, then, miss? Looking out for runaways?’

‘That’s right. Makes a nice change from last week’s duty – Hyde Park! Six days on the trot from four in the afternoon till eleven in the evening.’ Lily Wentworth rolled her eyes to convey the horror. ‘On Public Order and Lewd Behaviour Prevention patrol.’

Stan grimaced in sympathy. ‘They give you women all the worst jobs. Did you catch anyone in … flag … in flag—’ Stan cut short his unthinking burst of curiosity.

‘Flagrante delicto? With his trousers down, you mean? I’ll say! I’ve seen more male posteriors in action than an army doctor. All shapes and sizes.’

Stan’s face creased with embarrassment at the answer he’d provoked. The women police were noted for their frank way of speaking. He’d never allow a daughter of his to join their ranks. Even if they’d take her. Mixing with rough, foul-mouthed coppers every day – that was no occupation for a girl. Some of the language they used flummoxed him, army veteran though he was. They didn’t swear – oh, no, far too ladylike for that. But they knew all the right words for all the wrong things. Things that, as unmarried ladies, they didn’t oughter know. And they didn’t scruple to use them. Sometimes they even expressed the inexpressible in Latin. Educated girls, the lot of them. Had to be. They stood up in open court, bold as brass, and delivered evidence that made the magistrates’ hair curl. The beaks sometimes had to clear the general public out of the courtroom before a woman policeman was allowed to open her mouth and give testimony.

‘We got a good bag. We netted a member of parliament, a duke’s valet and a lawyer – a King’s Counsel, no less! – and several professional gentlemen. They spent the rest of the night closeted together in a cell in the Vine Street nick!’ Lily’s laugh was suggestive of mischievous thoughts. ‘Can you imagine, Stan, how the conversation went?’ She put on a pompous Music Hall voice: ‘“I say, you chaps – regular customers at this establishment, are you? Well, I’m in a position to offer you sinners a little useful advice …” I blame the spring weather, Stan. It brings out the worst in men. Seasonal urges? If I were Commissioner, come March the twenty-first, I’d double the park patrols.’

Stan liked to listen to this girl. She didn’t have the pursed lips and strained vowels of other ladies he’d heard talking – the ones who sounded as though they were sucking on an ice cube. Her voice rushed along, reminding the Yorkshireman of one of his native moorland becks, going somewhere and carrying you along with it, frothing with good humour. He asked her a question to prolong the conversation. ‘Did they get away with it?’

‘Course they did. A clear case of collusion whilst in custody. The accused all denied the charges of lewd conduct. They claimed to be members of the Hyde Park Ornithological Society.’

‘Bird fanciers?’ Stan wheezed with the effort of suppressing a laugh. ‘That’s a new one!’

‘They told the magistrate how they were skulking in the shrubbery by the Serpentine – as you do when you’re innocently studying the antics of the golden-crested wren. Or was it the great crested grebe? One or two were a little under-rehearsed. Though one of them – impressively – managed to come up with Podiceps cristatus which earned him an approving nod from the magistrate. Abruptly, their peaceful activities were curtailed by the arrival of a pair of over-officious officers of the law (that’s me and Halliday). “Aha!” says his honour knowingly, “Custos officiosus! Dark blue plumage? Yes … Thick as sparrows on the ground, these days.” They all fell about laughing at his little joke and were out on the street again by noon. Not even a five quid fine. Waste of police time.’

The constable sighed and then added, her tone brightening: ‘But better than the arrests, we made at least ten interventions. Always better to prevent an attack than arrest someone for it afterwards, don’t you think, Stan? If there’s anything more satisfying than catching and thumping a rapist, it’s decking one before he’s had a chance to hoist his mainsail.’

Stan pretended not to hear. Chattering … pent-up … mind elsewhere, he decided indulgently. Expecting trouble. He’d noticed that while she sipped her tea, smiled and talked, her eyes never stopped moving, surveying the crowd gathering along the platform on to which the incoming train would spill its west-country passengers. And she’d positioned herself behind the tea urn out of sight of anyone coming on to the platform from outside. She was using him as cover. He didn’t mind.

The young woman seemed to have her own unorthodox tactics for crime-fighting. The male constables spent their time swaggering up and down on the platform. At the sight of the uniform, the pickpockets, con-artists and pimps melted away into the shadows, only to drift back unscathed the moment the tall helmet disappeared from view. WPC 1555 wasn’t walking about, flushing out her prey and sending it scattering before her. She was lying in wait. In her calculating watchfulness Stan saw something that reminded him of native hunters he’d seen in India in his army days. The village tiger trackers could sit for hours, days even, up a tree watching over the lure of a tied-up, bleating goat. When the moment came they would be instantly alert and firing. Stan’s tea urn was her tree and he was pretty sure he knew where she’d find her goat.

Smart girl, this one. And careful.

Stan looked surreptitiously at the slight form swamped by the heavy uniform and wondered how she managed with her unimpressive height and weight to convey such determination. The military cut of the jacket with its official Metropolitan Women Police Patrol badge was intimidating but it did not allow of easy movement. The high collar, Stan noted with a stab of sympathy, was, on this warm day, chafing her slender neck and raising a nasty red mark. The hat, which was held in place by a chin-strap, was a wide-brimmed dome like a riding helmet. It sat heavily on her head almost snuffing out the pretty face below.