I considered going blues and twos, but I didn’t really want to exceed my authority – and I wasn’t sure it would be much help if I ran into the back of a trailer full of hay. I had a worst case scenario growing at the back of my mind, so I went straight to the half-timbered pile that was the Laceys’ home. And, sure enough, outside was parked a white BMW X5 Diesel with the right index. I drew up alongside and found Sharon Pike banging on the PVC door and screaming at the top of her lungs.

Before I could reach her, the door opened and Sharon Pike recoiled violently as a small pale figure stepped out to face her. Whatever she’d been planning to say choked off. And in the sudden quiet I heard the little girl say:

‘Why’re you hitting yourself?’

Sharon Pike smacked herself and the girl giggled and told her to do it again.

I reached them just in time to see Sharon Pike punch her own face hard enough to draw blood.

Some policing situations are the same wherever or whatever you’re dealing with. I put myself between Sharon Pike and the girl and spoke in my command voice.

‘Stop that!’

Probably-not-Nicole sneered at me.

‘I don’t like you. Go away.’

‘Stop it!’

‘Go away,’ she yelled.

‘Look me in the eye,’ I said, and waited until she reluctantly lifted her head to do so. ‘That doesn’t work on me.’

Not-Nicole squinted at me.

‘Why not?’ she asked.

‘Because I’m police and it’s my job to beat small children if they misbehave.’

‘You won’t,’ she said.

‘I can and I will if you don’t behave yourself,’ I said.

‘You wouldn’t!’

You think that because you are small I will not beat you. But I am your mother and I know what is best for you. And if I have to beat you, then that is what I will have to do – it’s true, I thought. As you grow up you turn into your parents.

‘Go inside and behave,’ I said. ‘We will talk about this later.’

She gave me a sullen look before turning and walking back into the house. She wanted to slam the door but she didn’t dare.

Sharon Pike was standing with the dazed look of someone who’s been hit by a bus. I decided to take her to the parish hall, which would be suitably neutral ground. As I took her by the arm, she gave me one of those vaguely thankful looks that you get from members of the public when they realise you’re taking them away from whatever mess they’ve got themselves into.