Gerry didn’t think she was a snob, but she had been brought up in a nice Georgian semi in a suburb of Liverpool called Crosby, not far from the Irish Sea. She had attended Merchant Taylors’ Girls’ School before reading law at Cambridge. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a solicitor and, needless to say, her decision to join the police after university had caused a family row or two. She wasn’t certain why she had done it herself, only that she knew she didn’t want an academic career, and she didn’t want to be a lawyer. She thought that in the police she might at least get the chance to use her initiative now and then, find a little excitement, even danger, and that every day would be different. She could also use her IT skills. And Gerry wasn’t without ambition. If she did the right courses and was successful in her fieldwork, she knew fast-track promotion was a strong possibility for someone like her. The sky was the limit. She knew it sounded silly, and maybe joining the police was the wrong way to go about it, but she might even one day end up running MI5, like Stella Rimington, whose books she enjoyed. One of her friends had been recruited at Cambridge, and she remembered feeling jealous that she hadn’t been singled out, too. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t reading politics or Middle Eastern languages.

No matter how much she tried to be “one of the lads,” though, she knew she was posh when it came right down to it. Places like Wytherton Heights gave her the creeps. A big godforsaken ugly splodge of urban hell stuck between the beauties of the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales National Park, it might as well have had signs saying no go area in big letters all over it. Perhaps she was showing her upper-middle-class upbringing, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was the sort of area that boasted a tattoo shop or two as well as a kebab and pizza takeaway. As for whether it was home to a large Asian population, she had no idea, though she could soon find out.

Gerry felt immediately guilty for being so judgmental. She had always prided herself on being a nice, decent, thoughtful person, kind to all and sundry, but perhaps her short time in the police had changed her. DI Cabbot could be cynical at times, so maybe some of that was rubbing off on her. One glance at the Wytherton Heights estate on-screen was enough to tell her that she wouldn’t like visiting it.

But this wasn’t the time for self-analysis, she thought, getting to her feet. Like it or not, it was time to pick up her boss from County HQ and whisk them both up to Southam Terrace, Wytherton Heights. Maybe it would turn out to be a much nicer place than she thought.