‘Ladies, we have a very special guest with us today from the Deception Bay police. Detective Antigone Pollard is new here. She’s from Melbourne, but of course we all know her grandmother, Annie Pollard.’

The women clapped enthusiastically. Norma stepped aside and I took my place at the microphone. At a glance, it looked like all the local demographics were present: old, young, professional, retired. But as a police officer I knew that, regardless of position, any of them could fall victim to man’s inhumanity to woman.

‘Thank you so much for having me,’ I began as a small flutter arrived in my stomach. No matter what atrocities I dealt with at work, speaking in front of an audience always did what even the worst bad guy couldn’t—made me feel nervous. I cleared my throat. ‘I guess the most important message I want to talk about today is the safety of women. As you’ve read in the newspapers, there have been a number of incidents recently where women have been targeted in pubs and had their drinks spiked.’

‘Heard you put a stop to that with a karate chop,’ an older woman in the front row said with a chuckle. Her comment was followed by a hearty round of applause.

‘I can’t talk about ongoing investigations—and it was more headbutt than karate chop—but the point is, we all’—I emphasised the all to include myself—‘need to be careful. There are a lot of good guys out there, but among them are men who prey on women.’

‘What kinds of things can we do?’ asked Norma from her seat at the side.

‘Aside from teaching our young men not to rape women?’ I said. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself. I saw surprised looks from a number of women and hurried to explain. ‘When you think about it, we respond to attacks on women by telling women to alter their behaviour. But it’s not us who are doing anything wrong.’

Lots of murmuring and nodding.

‘Every time we hear a joke or a stereotype about women nagging or being inferior and we let it pass, every time we tell a girl to ignore inappropriate behaviour because it might be because a boy likes her’—I stopped and looked around the room; you could have heard a pin drop—‘we are suggesting the solutions lie with women. It’s almost like we take the actual cause out of the equation.’

A middle-aged woman in the front row raised her hand. I nodded in her direction.

‘I think you’re right, but in the meantime, is there anything we can do?’