I sat in the car for a while listening to the rain dinging off the roof of the Asbo and glaring at the red metal doors of the fire station. When you’re a young copper, the old sweats like to scare you with the horrors of the Job. Eviscerated motorists, bloated floaters and little old ladies who had ended their days as a protein supplement for their house cats were common themes – and so was the smell of burnt human flesh. ‘You never get the stink out of your nostrils,’ the old sweats would say and then, without fail, go on to tell you that it was worse when you hadn’t had your dinner. ‘Because then your mouth starts watering and then you remember what it is exactly that you’re smelling.’ As it happens I was feeling a bit hungry and the memory of the smell was definitely taking the edge off my appetite. Still, I don’t work well on an empty stomach so I bailed at the Bricklayers Arms and found a place that sold industrial strength vegetable samosas – the kind that are spicy enough to anaesthetise your sinuses – and had a couple of those.
What do You think about Broken Homes (PC Peter Grant)?
