The car window wasn't just cracked. It was properly smashed.

Yaz leaned closer to examine the point of impact. Blunt object, round. Golf ball sized, but a golf ball wouldn't do the kind of damage she was looking at. Not unless it was fired from a cannon. No, this was something else.

Something like...

"...a hammer!"

Yes, something like a hammer.

Wait...

She whirled. Her police cap threatened to fly from her head, but she kept it in place with sheer force of will. "Oi!" she yelled at the two women in the middle of the street. "Back off now, the pair of you!"

The pair stepped apart. "But she..." one said at the same time the other started "You don't..."

Yaz held her hand up. "I don't care. Do you two not have better things to do than have a fight about parking spaces? I know I do. There's crime - actual crime - I could be dealing with."

The women glanced at one another, then turned their burning faces to the ground. They mumbled apologies like schoolchildren.

Yaz pointed at one woman. "Now you're going to pay for the damage to the car. And you–" her finger tracked to the other woman, "-are going to promise never to park there again. And once that's done, we'll agree that parking here is awful and that the council should do something. How's that sound?"

More mumbled replies, but it was the best she was going to get.

"Great." She started for her double-parked police car. "If I have to come back here, so help me, I'll throw you both in jail."

She slammed the car door and headed back to the station by the most fuel efficient route she knew.

The station was a squat grey building in the middle of a council estate. A smattering of police cars filled the spaces in front. There was an empty spot almost at the front doors. As Yaz drove toward it, she caught sight of PS Sunder standing in front of the station's main doors. He took a bit of apple as he watched her park.

"Trainee Constable Khan," he said when she got out of her car, "can I have a word?"

Trainee perhaps, but Yaz knew a rhetorical question when she heard one. "Yes, Sarge." She approached, ready to follow him into the building.

But Sunder stayed where he was, chewing his apple like an angry cow. "Where are we, Trainee Constable Khan?"

"Sheffield, sir." Yaz kept her answer from becoming a question. A couple of other uniformed officers passed them, eyeing her with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation.

"That's what I thought. Is Judge Dredd a member of the police force in Sheffield?" He took another bite.

"No, sir."

"Then why is it, Trainee Constable Khan, that I've just had a complaint from a woman in Grimesthorpe about, and I quote, 'Little Miss Judge Dredd' who threatened her with jail time after her car was vandalised in a legal space on the street?" He pointed the apple core at her as he spoke.

Yaz forced her hands not to ball into fists. "The situation was more complicated than that, sir. If I could just explain..."

Sunder's face softened but he cut her off with a shake of his head. "Yaz, I get that you're frustrated. You're a smart kid, but you're still learning. You're going to have to accept that being bored is part of the job. You can't go running around by yourself, dishing out the law however you see fit."

"Sir, if I could just..."

"Two years' probation, Yaz. Probabtion's two years for everyone. You've got less than six months of it left." Sunder threw his finished apple in a nearby bin. "Trust me. If you keep your head down, the time'll pass soon enough and you can get on with proper policing. For now, though, go join PC Wright on patrol."

Without waiting for a reply, Sunder marched into the police station.

Yaz stared at his back.

This wasn't fair. She was ready for 'proper policing' now.

Why couldn't any of them see it?