Dead at First Sight

55 Tuesday 9 October

PC Holly Little, accompanied by her partner, John Alldridge, drove the Mondeo north from the Clock Tower, heading slowly up Queen’s Road. The B-Section Response crew was on lates this week, the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were the busiest nights generally in the city of Brighton and Hove. That was when everything tended to kick off, but equally, as the two experienced officers well knew, you could predict nothing. It was the big buzz of the job for all officers working response, that you didn’t know what was going to happen in five minutes’ time.

Or in this case, thirty seconds.

A female voice from the Control Room came over their radios. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five?’

‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Alldridge acknowledged, calmly.

‘We have a reported panic alarm from a residence that’s had a previous homophobic attack. Five-seven North Gardens. Can you attend, please, Grade One.’

‘Five-seven North Gardens, yes yes,’ Alldridge said. ‘On our way.’ He leaned forward and switched on the blue lights and siren.

‘Just off the top of this road,’ his colleague said, accelerating hard and pulling over onto the wrong side of the road to overtake a bus.