Confessions of an Undercover Cop. Ash Cameron

and the rear of the car parked in front of it. I didn’t look. I didn’t see. I strode on. I didn’t account for the tow bar. Smack! The hard ball of iron slammed straight into my left kneecap. Another sheer ice-sharp pain that I remember along with the scream. I clutched my stomach to stop myself being sick over the police car. In an instant, my knee swelled to three times the normal size.

      Garry shook his head as he helped me back into the vehicle. ‘How long have you been back at work, Ash?’ he said.

      ‘Six weeks,’ I grimaced.

      That was the first time I dislocated my left knee.

       Fitness test

      I’ve always hated running. When I joined the force I managed to run a mile and a half in twelve minutes. Women recruits had to do it in a maximum of thirteen minutes, thirty seconds so I was pleased. But I still hated it.

      These days police officers have to run after suspects while laden down with body armour, utility belts, handcuffs, radios, paperwork, CS spray, ASP (extending baton) and other heavy miscellany, so I suppose I should have been grateful I only had a truncheon, handcuffs, radio and a force issue handbag. In plain clothes it was a warrant card, handcuffs and if lucky, a radio.

      I couldn’t do it now, I’m not fit at all, but when I was, I caught many of those I chased. But there’s always some you can’t catch.

      It was a frosty morning about 4 a.m. when a 999 call came out about a suspect being disturbed burgling an empty house. We ended up chasing a guy through a row of enclosed back gardens. Then we arrived at a six-foot wall. My male colleagues legged it up and over with aplomb. I jumped up on top – and stayed there. The drop on the other side was more than eight foot. I was stuck. I couldn’t move because my skirt was hitched up thigh high, exposing my stocking tops and hindering me. To move I’d have had to pull my skirt up higher and slide one way or the other. It would never have happened if we’d had trousers.

      I watched the guys bobbing up and over fences and walls. A gutsy yelp told me they’d caught their man. I sat and pondered my fate, hoping I wouldn’t have to call for help. It was cold and painful and what if I ended up frozen there, on top of someone’s wall?

      I had to make a decision. Could I drop down one side? Could I get out of either garden without disturbing the occupants of the house? I couldn’t see clearly as it was dark and I didn’t have my torch because someone had borrowed it and forgotten to put it back. Or nicked it.

      I decided to go for the longer drop because although the garden was derelict, I could see a path at the side of the house that might lead onto the street. I flung my handbag down first and, cursing, I pulled my skirt up to waist level. I leant forward and gripped onto the wall, then swung my left leg round to the right. My beautifully polished toecaps scraped the bricks at the same time as the inside of my thigh grazed the top of the frost-embossed wall. Ungainly. Unpleasant. Painful. I swung round and hung by both arms. I closed my eyes and dropped down, hoping I would manage to slide down the wall and miss the prickly bushes.

      I managed but I snagged my stockings and gashed both knees. I felt around the cold earth for my handbag, snatched it up and clasped my sore palms together. If only my gloves hadn’t gone missing. I admit my eyes were stinging a little as I tried not to feel sorry for myself and hobbled through the overgrown garden to the path that led to the front of the house. Hurrah! I was on the street. At least nobody had seen me.

      The station wasn’t far, so I walked back instead of calling for a lift. I knew they’d be busy with the prisoner. I sneaked into the toilets, tended my bloody knees and the stinging rash on the inside of my thigh, and bemoaned the damage to my shoes. I’d spent ages bulling them up. Tired and emotional, I wept. So much for being a rufty-tufty policewoman.

      I cleaned myself up and went to the locker room where I changed my stockings and ran a black polish wipe over my shoes. It would have to do until I got home. I walked into the front office and Sergeant Matthews was by my side.

      ‘There you are, Ash! Where’ve you been? We’ve been wondering what happened to you.’

      ‘They nicked the burglar and I was way behind them so I walked back to the nick, sarge. I’ve been in the loo.’

      ‘Why didn’t you answer your radio? They’re all out looking for you.’

      ‘I never heard anyone call me,’ I said. When I thought about it, I hadn’t heard anything over the radio for ages. I looked down and it wasn’t on. It must have been knocked off when I climbed down the wall.

      ‘We had a 999 from a concerned woman. She said someone was sitting on her wall and she thought it was a police officer. A female officer.’ He looked at me, eyes raised.

      I looked back, eyes wide, lips schtum.

      ‘Ash?’

      ‘Well, I’m here, sarge. Might as well call the troops back,’ I said.

      I saw him look at my shoes. Then at my skirt covered in grubby brick dust.

      I turned my back and mooched around my in-tray, hoping he wouldn’t press it further.

      He didn’t.

      He called the lads to tell them I was in the station and the caller must have been confused, a bit of night-time eyes.

      In true back-covering protective fashion, he never mentioned it again. And neither did I, until today.

       On prescription

      I was minding my own business as I walked past Mile End tube station on my way to a briefing for a plain-clothes task I was involved in when a call came out that an intruder alarm had gone off at the chemist’s. I was directly outside. I knew there had been three false calls at the pharmacy recently because they’d had a new system installed and staff had accidentally pressed the button. I also knew how busy it was at work, with people off sick, on leave and in court, so rather than tie up a patrol car, and even though I was in plain clothes, I said I would see what the problem was, fully expecting it to be another false alarm.

      I was wrong.

      I entered the shop and it was empty but for an assistant, a pretty Asian girl. She was crying.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her.

      ‘You have to leave, quick, the police are coming,’ she whispered.

      I showed her my warrant card and said, ‘I am the police, what’s up?’

      ‘Are you on your own?’ she whispered as she pointed to the back of the shop. ‘He’s in there with Mr Simon, the chemist. He’s got a knife.’

      I looked through the open hatch into the small back store. Every shelf was packed with boxes and tubes and medicines teetering on top of each other. I saw Mr Simon standing in the corner and a tall man facing him with his back to me. The man had something in his hand but I couldn’t see what.

      I turned to the assistant. ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Maia,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s after drugs. He’s called Robert something and he comes in every day. He’s on a script.’

      ‘Maia, please call 999.’

      ‘I can’t. The phone’s out the back. That’s why I pressed the alarm button.’

      I handed her my radio. ‘Go out onto the street and use this. Press that button and tell them who you are and what’s going on. Tell them an officer is here and I’m on my own and that the man has a knife.’

      She took my radio, sniffled a bit and nodded.

      I went behind the counter and picked up a foot aerosol,