Chapter 1
It was a windy September day, and PC Beth Green had just got into the station from being on patrol in the cold. She made her way up to the canteen, aiming to grab a nice, steaming cup of tea and a cake. She shivered as she stood waiting for her tea, but she finally wrapped her frozen hands round the mug and walked over to the nearest table. She sat down and let her muscles relax, if only for a few minutes. The first sip of hot tea was bliss, the second warmed all her body up. She took a bite of cake and looked around. She was the only one in the canteen, which was odd. She was about to get up and see if there was a briefing on or something when Leon put his head round the door.
"Beth? We've just had a shout. A woman's been mugged on the high street. Meet you in the car?" Leon asked. Beth sighed but nodded.
"Yeah, I'll be done in a minute." Beth called. Leon nodded and disappeared. Beth gulped down the rest of the tea, burning her mouth and throat slightly, and crammed in the last of the cake. She scooped her hat off the table and jogged out after Leon, back into the cold.
The car pulled into a space in front of a chemists on the high street, the blue lights reflecting off the shop fronts. Beth made sure her coat was zipped up nice and tight before getting out the car. A man approached the car, signalling for the officers to follow him. They walked into a small cafe, where they saw a shaken woman sat with her hands glued to a mug.
"I saw it happen with my own eyes! She'd just left here when a man just ran into her and grabbed her bag!" the man blurted out in a barely concealed excited tone.
"Is she hurt?" Leon asked, looking between the man and the victim.
"She was knocked over, but a passer by helped her up and sat her down in here, then I called you." the man said in a pleased voice.
"Thank you Mr...?" Beth asked.
"Lisbon, Uri Lisbon." Uri answered.
"Ok Mr Lisbon, have you got CCTV of the event?" Leon asked, leading Uri to the back of the shop. Beth walked slowly over to the woman, who had pale blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
"Excuse me?" Beth said quietly, causing the woman to jump, and the coffee in her mug slopped onto the formica table. The woman tried to get a napkin out the holder, but her hands were shaking too much. "It's ok, I got it." Beth plucked a napkin from the holder and wiped up the coffee.
"Thanks." the woman said in a small voice.
"What's your name?" Beth asked, pulling out her notepad.
"Tessa Nelson." she replied.
"Hi Tessa, I'm PC Beth Green. Mr Lisbon told me and my colleague that you've been mugged, is that right?" Beth asked gently. Tessa looked up, and Beth could see her properly. She had dark, purple bags under her eyes, and she was very pale looking. To Beth, it seemed that Tessa hadn't been eating properly. Tessa nodded in reply to Beth's question.
"I had literally just walked out the door when some guy ran into me and knocked me over. I dropped my handbag and he grabbed it and ran off." Tessa explained, looking back at her coffee.
"Do you know what he looked like?" Beth asked, pen poised.
Tessa thought back, but her memory had just gone blank, "I can't remember, I'm sorry." A tear dripped off Tessa's face onto the table, Beth handed her a tissue. "Thanks."
"That's alright. It's ok that you can't remember, but if you do, here's my card with my number on. You can give me a call anytime if you remember anything ok?" Beth said, pulling her card out her duty pouch and handing it to Tessa.
"I will, thank you. You've been very nice to me." Tessa said with a small smile.
"That's ok. Now, me and my colleague are going to try and get CCTV showing what happened. So can I have your address and number please, and if we find anything I can call you and let you know. Is that ok?" Beth asked.
"Yeah that's fine. My address is 13 Mayweed Close, and my number is 07951734908." Tessa replied.
"Thanks. At some point we'll also need to get a statement off you, but we can do that when you're less shaken up. Would you like a lift home?" Beth asked.
Tessa paused before answering, "Yes please, if it's not out of your way."
"Of course it isn't. I'll just go get my partner." Beth said with a reassuring smile as she got up and walked to the desk, looking for Leon.
"Is she ok?" Leon asked as he came out the back with a CCTV disc.
"She's a bit shaken up, but she said that she's unharmed." Beth replied.
"Can she remember anything about the attacker?" Leon questioned.
Beth shook her head, "No, but I think it's because she's trying to suppress what just happened. I gave her my card and took her details, and I told her we'd ring her if we got anything and that she'll need to give a statement soon."
"Ok then. Mr Lisbon was helpful." Leon said, rolling his eyes. Beth laughed, she knew the type that Mr Lisbon was; they thought that just because they had seen the event and called the police that they were heroes.
"I said we'd take Tessa home, are you all finished with Mr Lisbon?" Beth asked as they walked back to the table Tessa was sat at.
"Yeah, he said if he remembered anything else he would get in contact." Leon answered, walking out to open the car. Beth stopped in front of Tessa's table.
"Ready to go?" she asked her. Tessa nodded and followed Beth out of the cafe into the waiting squad car.
They pulled up in front of a small but tidy terraced house. The two officers got out of the car, making sure that Tessa was ok. Before Tessa unlocked her door, she turned around.
"Do you want to come in for a tea? You must be frozen from being out here." Tessa asked hesitantly. Leon and Beth looked at each other before nodding and following Tessa into her house. They walked through to the kitchen, where Tessa offered them a seat. The kitchen was neat, but Beth had noticed as they walked through the house that there didn't seem to be very many personal affects. She pushed that to the back of her mind as Tessa passed her a hot cup of tea.
"Thanks." Leon said gratefully, taking a long sip.
"No, thanks for helping me." Tessa said quietly, sitting opposite Beth.
"It's our job." Beth said with a smile, drinking her own tea.
"Oh." Tessa said, looking a bit put out. Leon exchanged a glance with Beth. The officers placed their cups on the table and got up, picking their hats up.
"We need to get back to the station to process this case, but thanks for the tea." Leon said with a small smile, indicating to Beth to follow him.
"Are you sure you can't stay longer?" Tessa asked.
"Sorry, we have to get back and try and catch your mugger. Take care." Beth said as she followed Leon out the house. They ran to the car, quickly pulling the doors shut, just sitting in the relative warmth of the car. They looked back at Tessa's house, where she was stood at the door, watching them.
"That was a bit weird." Leon commented, starting the engine and putting the heating on full.
"Hmm, maybe she's just in shock and latched on to us because we helped her." Beth said, not looking back at the house as they pulled away.
"Maybe, but I still think it was a bit strange." Leon replied.
"Let's just concentrate on trying to find her mugger." Beth answered, looking out of the window.
Back at the station, after another cup of tea, the two officers were sat in a room watching CCTV from outside the cafe where Tessa was mugged.
"Here we go, this is her coming out now." Leon said, his finger ready to push pause as Tessa's attacker came into view.
"Stop it there." Beth said, and Leon hit pause. The man who had knocked Tessa down had his hood up and his back to the camera. They couldn't tell if he was black or white, or how old he was roughly.
"Brilliant. Looks like we're going to have to go back out to the neighbouring shops, see if anyone saw what the mugger looked like, or if there's any more CCTV which can give us a better picture than this crap one." Leon groaned, sighing.
"Let's hope that Tessa remembers something as well, otherwise it looks like we're not going to be able to catch him." Beth said with a sigh, getting out of the comfy chair and walking back out to the patrol car.
As the officers were walking up and down the high street in the search of CCTV, Beth's mind kept wandering back to Tessa. There had been something not quite right about her, but she couldn't think what it was. She pushed it out of her head, chiding herself for probably seeing more to this case than there was. She brought her mind back to the present, concentrating on the task at hand. But even then, there was this niggling at the back of her mind, pushing her to connect the dots. Beth shook her head and followed after Leon, pushing the doubts and the niggling to the back of her mind.
