She groaned, stuck one leg out into the cold air of her bedroom, shivered and quickly slipped her feet into slippers before her toes could become icicles. She shrugged thankfully into her warm quilted housecoat (a Christmas present from her father) and padded rapidly downstairs as another spate of knocking echoed through the household.

She went to the door and cautiously opened it. She recognised the blond, good-looking man on the doorstep at once and scowled at him, shivering as the wind blew some flakes of the softly falling snow onto her slipper-clad feet.

‘Mornin’, sunshine,’ PC Rodney Broadstairs said with a wide, unrepentant grin. ‘Get dressed, darlin’. The big cheese wants you at the station right away.’

Trudy sighed but nodded. ‘Give me five minutes,’ she muttered.

Reluctantly, she let him in to wait in the kitchen. It wasn’t much warmer in there than it was outside, since neither of her parents had risen yet to light the fires, but at least the penetrating wind didn’t reach that far into the Lovedays’ small council house.

When she came back down again, she discovered that he’d at least had the decency to make a pot of tea – even though she suspected that it was probably incidental that she got to benefit from it too. He was already on his second cup. Still, she was able to gratefully gulp down several hot mouthfuls of it before she had to dash out to the police-issue Land Rover that was waiting outside.

Even though she’d now passed her driving test (thanks to her friend Clement Ryder, giving her driving lessons) she knew that Rodney wouldn’t let her drive it, and went straight to the passenger seat and climbed aboard. She sat beside him, shivering in her winter uniform and winter coat, and blowing on her hands to try and keep some feeling in her fingers.

The ancient vehicle had been requisitioned from who-knew-where (since a lot of the police cars were all but useless in streets where the council had been unable to clear the snow) and its heater definitely wasn’t working. And from the way that Rodney had to struggle to keep it on the icy roads, she wondered nervously what other, more vital bits didn’t work either!

Every now and then they saw cars abandoned in snowdrifts, where their unlucky owners or the AA had failed to dig them out. In St Aldates, a milk lorry was stuck, and the driver and one or two others (irate customers?) were trying to dig it out.

‘Any idea what the inspector wants?’ Trudy asked tiredly, tucking a stray strand of her long dark hair back under her police cap.

‘He didn’t say,’ Rodney said shortly.

Trudy wondered if he’d been one of those stuck with the night shift, and wisely kept silent. She wasn’t up to coping with Rodney’s continuous complaints today.

*