His colleague made his way cautiously into the living area. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, a cry could be heard above him, and he took the steps in twos. His colleague swore: it was a blatant procedural error, but in the heat of the moment, few men could ignore a woman in distress, and they all knew it.

‘Patrol 357, urgent request for support.’ He gave the address again and continued his search of the downstairs. A figure emerged, rushing down the stairs; the PC swung around a fraction of a second too late and was caught by a fist in the face. It startled him, but he was incapacitated for only a half a second before he gave chase. He was the quicker of the two, and the man hadn’t made it out of the back door before the officer was on top of him, using his specialist training to disable him and cuff him. He left him on the floor, face down, while he took to the stairs to assist his partner.

There was another scream, and he rushed into the bedroom to find a woman being held by a second man, who was brandishing a knife. His partner was negotiating with him calmly.

‘Come on, pal. You’re already going down for breaking and entering; you don’t want to go down for anything else.’

‘Fuck off, mate. You need to let me past.’

‘You know I’m not going to do that.’ He spoke into his radio, whilst holding up his hand in a peaceful gesture. ‘Patrol 357, request hostage negotiator.’

‘You don’t need one of those, mate. Just let me past with the girl and I won’t hurt her.’

‘I can see she’s hurt already.’ The woman was bleeding from a cut on her head, and her clothes were roughed up and in disarray. ‘Miss… is it Matilda? Tilly?’

She nodded.

The man tightened his grip on Tilly’s neck and held up the knife. The second officer shifted in the doorway and caught her attention. He held her gaze while his partner continued to speak to the man.

‘You’re not going to get past us. It’s over, pal.’

‘Don’t “pal” me, you fuck.’

‘It’s gone wrong. Whatever you were planning to do, it’s not going to work. You might as well accept it and take the lesser charges. I don’t know what you want with the young lady, pal, but she’s—’