Yeah, like they were ever going to believe her. Then Brant would come sniffing as he always did with the new ones and he’d turn on the full Celtic charm. Few could charm like that devil. She’d succumbed herself and more than once. He’d fuck them over every which way till Tuesday and they’d come back for more.

She dressed in her uniform and stood back to survey what she saw. A black woman dressed in the clothes of the enemy, that’s what a black man had told her in Brixton market. She’d tried to rationalise it, told him that at least this way they had help in the ranks, knew how weak she sounded and saw his lip curl with disdain. He rapped:

‘Yo be fooling your own self, girl.’

More and more, she was coming to believe he had been right. Using a brush, she flicked flecks of white off the tunic, and ran a hand through her frizzy hair. Once, in a moment of madness, she’d had all the kinks ironed out and that had hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

Rosie had been alive then and when she’d seen the result, she’d wailed:

‘Oh, big mistake! Are you trying to pass for white?’

That hurt and in more ways than she’d ever admit. Rosie had been her best friend, a WPC on the ladder up. They’d called themselves the poor man’s Cagney and Lacey, and had shared the chauvinism they’d had to endure on a daily basis. Then one day Rosie had gone on a routine call, a domestic, hardly even worth writing up. The guy, a junkie with Aids, had bitten her. Tormented as to how she’d tell her husband, she’d slit her wrists and taken a long, hot bath; was dead before the water went cold. Falls had sworn then that she’d never get close to another cop, it was too risky.

She arrived early at the station and at the door, a fresh faced young woman in uniform eagerly approached, asking, ‘WPCFlass?’