How lates it was, how lates.

TFW an officer who can handle absolutely anything calls up for urgent assistance, then stops answering the radio.

Dread. Cold dread.

He’s fine, because every cop with a vehicle went to make sure he was, and enough of them had Taser.

Still a shitty five minutes, though.

The rest of the shift was about the patient questioning, accurate form filling, careful bag sealing and detailed evidence gathering that catches serious offenders and makes sure they stay caught.

It was also about the widening cracks in an organisation under strain.

We were due to hand our job over to night turn.

That didn't happen, because they were wiped out shortly before they started by an attempted murder.

All of them?

Well yes, since there were only six to start with.

One victim and two prisoners left *no one at all* (except the Duty Officer, who was a little bit busy) to respond to 999 calls across the entire division.

We called a specialist CID unit for advice. The DS we spoke to at 2330 had been on duty since 0700.

At midnight we went upstairs to divisional CID.

It was packed, because early turn (started at 0700) were still there and weren't going home for a while yet.

We stayed on, because there was no one else. I got home 14 hours after I left, and I was not the last of my team to leave.

That's what it took to barely, just barely, get the Job done in a smallish county Force on an unremarkable Tuesday night in February 2021.

It's not always a very exciting or glamorous cop show, but everyone, whether they think about it or not, whether they like it or not, needs it to stay on the road.

That comes at a price, paid by the men and women who keep it there. And that price is going up all the time.