Power on Her Own by Judith Cutler

people offering you booze,’ she began, ‘you have to say something. Automatic. At least I didn’t say not while I was on duty!’
    â€˜That’s my usual line,’ Giles said. ‘But I usually get offered cups of tea. Stewed tea.’
    â€˜You’re lucky. I get to make endless cups of tea while people wait for you. A minister’s wife could get GNVQ’d in tea making.’
    â€˜To return to my original question,’ said Paul, ‘can I offer you a lift?’
    â€˜I’m six hundred yards down the road, but if you’re going that way, yes please.’
    They said very little – hardly had time, to be honest – but as he parked, Paul said, ‘I know this is a bit of cheek – I mean, I hardly know you – but I wonder if you’re busy in the evenings?’
    Kate could feel herself blushing: this was turning into a cliché. Hell! Had Maz set this up? She said coolly, ‘It depends how busy the squad is. It’s frantic at the moment.’ That sounded too equivocal. But she could hardly tell him she’d lost her man and didn’t want to be cheered up the way every red-blooded man would want to cheer her up.
    â€˜Well, it might not be too many evenings. It’s just that my lads need to study the community for their badges, and it’d be good to get someone from the police to talk.’
    â€˜OK. Give me some dates and I’ll see if I can fix it. Just me or a number of officers?’ Thank goodness she hadn’t snubbed him.
    â€˜Just you, I should think. For a start, at least.’
    They consulted diaries, found some spare evenings, closed the deal. And then there was a polite goodbye.
    At least she’d have something to tell Aunt Cassie.

Chapter Five

    Bloody car! It sat there on the road outside her house declaring as clearly as if it could speak that this was a nasty, damp Monday morning and it was damned if it was going into work. Kate had tried everything she knew to make it start. And now there wasn’t even time to call the RAC.
    Changing her jacket – already soaked through by the thin, vicious drizzle – for a raincoat, no time even to button it, she ran down to the High Street and the buses. Seven-forty-five! The traffic heading for town was solid as far as she could see. Ignoring the pedestrian lights, she dodged between cars and hurtled to the stop with the shortest queue. Two buses went past full. A third, its windows streaming inside and out, crept at last to the stop and took aboard more than it should; but in weather like this no one was going to moan about overcrowding, especially when the driver, already pulling out, stopped to let on a man with a heavy limp. Most people flashed passes; she had to fumble for her fare. She’d forgotten about paying on entry, assumed that she’d be given change, then remembered that Birmingham’s one-man buses didn’t rise to such sophistication. At least she’d only lost a few pence.
    Better find a rail to hang on.
    A sudden jerk flung her staggering along the aisle. The bus was moving forwards, was it? She grabbed the back of a seat more firmly. The conversation from its occupants – two teenage lads who should be offering the man with a stick a seat – was about how they’d scored with their women last night. She tapped the nearer one on the shoulder and pointed to the lame man. She half expected to be sworn at; but the lad got up promptly. The man nodded his thanks. She shifted her grip. Not so bad, after all, these Brummies.
    â€˜â€¦ did think about calling the police, but then, what could you say?’
    Kate’s ears pricked. She leant forward to hear better.
    â€˜I mean, it’s not against the law, is it, to buy a house and not live there? I mean, they keep it nice enough, no doubt about that, at least since we complained.’
    â€˜How did you complain if there’s no one living there?’
    Two