I’m looking for a woman whom I think I might like a lot if I could only get to know her. (Yes, I’m afraid I’m the kind of person who says ‘whom’.) I did once ham-fistedly try to approach her, and ended up, briefly, as a suspect in a serial murder case. As a result, and most inconveniently for me, I now feel unable to consider dating anyone who hasn’t at one time or another become entangled in a nationwide hunt for a serial killer. I’m told I’m too fussy, but I disagree. I don’t think a basic level of shared experience is too much to ask for.

Enclosed is a drawing of the woman I’m looking for, penned by a talented police artist from the Culver Valley, though not an official police sketch artist of the kind that drew me.

Let me explain: I went to Spilling police station in the hope of persuading someone there to pass on my phone number and a message to this woman, since I knew they’d have her contact details. Sadly for me, they weren’t inclined to help me (well, they said they weren’t allowed to, to be fair) but then the strangest thing happened. It would have been enough to make me start believing in fate if I weren’t far too sensible.

As I walked out of the police station, there was a man – a PC in uniform – walking ahead of me, talking on his mobile phone very loudly and confidently. He seemed to be in the middle of a long-distance job interview with a graphic design company. As I listened to him going into great detail about what a design whizz he was, and how brilliant he was at drawing, I had an idea which I could see at once was either totally brilliant or a hideous embarrassment that I’d regret for the rest of my life.

I waited for the policeman to finish his phone call, then approached him and asked him if he’d be willing to do a one-off piece of freelance work for me. It involved drawing, I told him. I should stress that I wouldn’t usually approach an officer of the law in this way – normally I’d assume they were too busy catching criminals – but this man did not (I mean, really did not at all) seem too busy with policing. And as it turned out, he was happy to help me – and I was delighted to discover that he’s every bit as good an artist as he’d boasted he was to the graphic design firm, as you can see from the attached sketch. I felt a bit sorry for him when we said our goodbyes and he asked me rather desperately if I thought I might have some more freelance assignments for him in the future.