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high praise for this one. Now, when he’s past us on the way to his ship, we go and get him. Get him before he gets back to his boat – I’m not sure what the law is about arresting foreign nationals on board their own ships. But the arrest is yours, so do it on British soil.’
    But as the tall, young Dutchman passed us with a carrier bag full of his ill-gotten gains, he heard our movements. He started to run. Even in those clumsy clogs, he covered the ground at a remarkable speed, and he sounded like a horse at full gallop. I was sure we’d get more complaints about galloping horses, but right now Blaketon and I were hard on his heels.
    The Dutchman beat us to his ship. He slithered down a harbourside ladder and reached his boat as we reached the harbour’s edge. Then, before our very eyes, he threw the offending bag into the harbour, where it sank immediately.
    ‘Our bloody evidence!’ snapped Sergeant Blaketon.
    But the youth was doing something even worse. As Sergeant Blaketon stood and watched, he removed both his clogs and threw them one by one over the side of the boat. Each landed with a splash. One filled with water and sank, while the other sailed away into the darkness.
    ‘He’s thrown his clogs away!’ gasped Sergeant Blaketon.
    I felt very sorry for poor Oscar Blaketon at that point, for we could not prove our case. But I do know that someone from CID had a word with the captain, and all the shops, save the final one, had their goods returned. The sixteen-year-old boy was a kleptomaniac. There was no prosecution because of international complications but the shop-breakings did come to an end. And so did reports of horses galloping through Strensford at night.
    But Sergeant Blaketon still hasn’t obtained a real Dutch clog for his mantelpiece.

3
    He that is robbed not wanting what is stolen,
    Let him not know it, and he’s not robb’d at all.
    William Shakespeare, 1564–1616
    When patrolling the quiet streets of Strensford during those warm summer nights, my mind turned frequently to the initial police training course I had undergone. I recalled the essence of lectures about all manner of fascinating things, and one of the subjects was crime. It was a subject which intrigued all the students, and some went on to become clever detectives.
    One aspect of crime which was discussed at length was that which is known in Latin as mens rea . It is a curious phrase which refers to the state of mind of a criminal, his criminal intent in other words. It is that guilty or blameworthy state of mind during which crimes are committed. During our lectures, we were given questions which endeavoured to show us the difference between an intent and an attempt to commit crime. We were told that a person’s criminal intent was rarely punishable – a man can intend to commit burglary, rape or murder, but the mere intention to do such a thing, however serious, is not in itself a crime. On the other hand, an attempt to commit a crime is illegal.
    We wondered if a person could be guilty of an attempted larceny when it was impossible to commit the full crime. One example of this is a pickpocket who dips his hand into a man’s pocket to steal a wallet, but the pocket is empty. Thus he cannot complete his intended crime. So is he guilty of attemptedlarceny? If the pocket had contained a wallet, then most certainly the attempt could be completed, if not the full crime …
    Many academic questions of this kind were discussed, and it is fair to say that few of us ever dreamed we would be confronted with real examples of this kind of legal puzzle. In the world of practical policing, crimes were committed, criminals were arrested and proceedings were taken. The academic side of things was left to the lawyers.
    At least that’s what I thought until I came across Hedda Flynn.
    Although my time in Strensford was short and somewhat fragmented, due to the shifts I worked, I did begin to recognize those whom I saw regularly. In the