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steered through the town with one hand on the wheel whilst leaning across to the glove compartment into which he had fitted, quite unofficially, a tape cassette player, and rigged up a couple of small speakers behind the door panels. He switched it on and slotted in a tape he had made direct from the record of a live Rolling Stones album. As the opening riff of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ blasted out, he veered onto the bypass from the Queens Square roundabout and to the accompaniment of Mick Jagger’s sneering lyrics sped towards Greater Manchester in an effort to alleviate the stress he was feeling. That tightness in his chest, like a devil with sharply filed fingernails was squeezing his heart and lungs.
    Taking a cop car for a razz with the Stones blasting out was always a good way of easing stress and tension.
    Unfortunately when he was two hundred yards up the bypass and committed to driving away from the town, unable to turn off for at least three miles, an urgent voice from Rawtenstall comms came over the PR, that of WPC Wade.
    â€˜Report of an armed robbery in progress at Crawshawbooth Post Office, Burnley Road … shots fired. Patrols to attend,’ Jo said, sounding shaky and excited, trying to hold it together. This was a big ask for any young officer.
    Henry immediately responded – with a bit of a white lie. ‘Romeo Seven from Rawtenstall town centre. ETA three minutes.’ He knew the exact location of the post office – in the little village of Crawshawbooth which straddled the main road between Rawtenstall and Burnley. This location was a good thing in some respects, mainly because it meant that the villains could only escape in a car in one of two directions – north towards Burnley, or south, back towards Rawtenstall – and Henry had a good idea they would be coming in his direction. That said, he needed to get off the bypass somehow and get back to Rawtenstall.
    Other patrols shouted up. There were only two single-crewed mobiles available and both were en route, as was DI Fanshaw-Bayley, who was turning out from the police station with a detective constable.
    â€˜Shit,’ Henry said, frustrated by his geographical predicament.
    But a lot of other things were also going through his mind.
    Firstly, there was every chance that this robbery was being committed by a violent gang of very mobile armed robbers who travelled up from Manchester and targeted business premises in the Rossendale area. So far they had hit six shops and post offices and had used stolen vehicles, later found abandoned and set alight, before – and this was an assumption, not a certainty – piling into a legitimate or maybe another stolen car or cars to make good their escape. The police believed that the gang, consisting of four or five very hyped-up men, had always returned to Manchester after committing their offences. This meant there would be a good chance of them coming back in Henry’s direction.
    Next, in concurrent thought, Henry wondered about the delay. Often, something reported as being ‘
in progress
’ had already happened because of the time lag between someone actually picking up a phone and calling in. So he wondered if there was actually any point in tear-arsing up to the scene when it might be more prudent to hang back and take up a position from which he could monitor all the traffic coming through Rawtenstall centre and going onto the bypass. Even if the robbers had swapped cars, even if they had split up into more than one legit vehicle, Henry could at least try to spot possible offenders and if nothing else, he could note down car makes and numbers.
    Not as exciting as rushing to the scene, maybe, but just as important.
    Then a calm voice came over the air – that of Ridgeson, the station sergeant, whose deep, calming, authoritative tones of vast experience echoed Henry’s thoughts.
    â€˜Romeo Seven,’ he told Henry, ‘do not attend