He shrugged. ‘No, not at all. You asked me to tell you the truth, so I did. Personally I don’t think it’s fair on you to be put in a position where you will be out of your depth – but as I said, my hands were tied by the top brass.’

‘Is that why no one on the team knew I was starting today?’

‘Partly, but I can assure you none of them know the real reason you’re here. If I’d told them before you started there would have been uproar and I’d have had a barrage of questions wanting to know why . . . I probably still will, especially from the Colonel.’

Jane remembered Kingston asking her if she was Tennison when she first met him on the stairs that morning.

‘Does DI Kingston know about me being an experiment?’

‘Yes, but he’s the only one besides me. He believes what’s done is done, therefore we should accept it and move on.’

‘What will you tell the rest of the team if they ask why I was accepted for the squad?’

‘I know you’d like me to say it was on merit, but they’ll smell a rat as soon as they find out your length of service. They’ve got women in traffic patrol now, mounted branch also and in the dog section as handlers, so I’ll say the Metropolitan Women Police Association made a complaint to the Commissioner that none of the central squads had any females on it and—’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Thinking they have a token female in the office should fill them with bags of confidence about my detective abilities and leadership skills. It’s not much better than telling them I’m an experiment!’

‘Don’t get me wrong, Tennison. I don’t have a problem with woman police officers in the CID, and I appreciate they can often resolve a difficult situation with the least possible upset or confrontation – but that’s not a lot of use when a violent criminal is pointing a gun at you, is it?’

‘I won’t know until it happens – will I?’ she said, making it clear that she was staying put.

‘It won’t happen, because you won’t be on the front line during a pavement ambush.’

‘I want to be treated the same as my male counterparts—’

‘You’re not firearms trained—’

‘Then maybe you could send me on a firearms course . . . as another experiment,’ she added with deliberate sarcasm.

Murphy shook his head. ‘I don’t want my men worrying about your safety in an armed situation as it will reduce their effectiveness and put their lives at even greater risk. Even if the suspects weren’t armed, you’re not as strong as a man and could be badly injured in a one-on-one arrest situation.’