He flicked the switch on his transmitter and called Able Baker four. The monitor speaker crackled and Simms's voice answered.

"Hello Control… Vicarage Terrace? We can be there in four minutes."

On the other side of the panel, P.C. Lambert uncupped his hand from the mouthpiece. "Mrs. Uphill? Sorry for the delay. Stay put, Mrs. Uphill, a car's on its way round to you now. Don't worry, we'll sort it out."

He dropped the receiver back on its rest and shut the sliding panel, then he and the controller, each in his separate room, logged the incident and settled down to wait for the next call. A pretty boring Sunday up to now. The station sergeant thought he'd take advantage of the lull and have his tea break.

"Sorry about this," shouted Jordan, swinging the area car through mazes of side streets choked with parked vehicles. "It could take some time. Would you like us to drop you off somewhere?"

Clive shook his head. He was in no hurry to get to his digs. He'd be spending the rest of the dreary evening there anyway, and it was barely past seven now. If they didn't mind he'd like to follow the call through with them.

"You can point out where we go wrong," said Simms, scribbling the details on his log-sheet.

The car. curb-crawled Vicarage Terrace looking for number 29 among the darkened porches. This probably wouldn't take more than a few minutes. Usually the lost kid and the police turned up at the same time, the kid to be walloped and hugged, the police to be apologized to:

"Now say you're sorry to the policeman." To which the police usually replied, "That's what we're here for, madam. Glad it's turned out this way."

Usually… not always.