The Human Condition

nodded as he slowed the patrol car down and coaxed it gently over a speed bump.

    `You get used to it,' he said. `Believe me, you'll spend plenty of time down here. It only took me a few weeks to get my bearings on this beat.'

    `Get much trouble down here?'

    `Virtually all the trouble we get starts down here,' the grey-haired policeman sighed wearily. `Every town has an estate like this. It's a dumping ground. It's where the scum and the unfortunate end up, and the scum don't think twice about praying on those folks who can't look after themselves. And even if the trouble doesn't start here, wherever it kicks off it's usually people from round here who start it.'

    `Nice,' Culthorpe muttered as the car clattered over another bump.

    `Not really,' Glover mumbled. `Right, here we go, Acacia Road . Sounds okay but...'

    `...but it isn't,' Culthorpe interrupted, finishing her colleague's sentence for him. The car stopped. She climbed out and looked down the length of the desolate street. Ten or twenty years ago this might have been a decent area, she thought. Today, however, it was anything but decent. Unchecked weeds sprouted wildly between the cracks in the pavements where overgrown and unruly front lawns had spilled over the remains of collapsed walls and fences. The battered wrecks of old, half-stripped down cars sat useless outside equally dilapidated houses. Uncollected and overflowing black sacks of rubbish had been dumped in piles waiting for a council collection that would probably never come. Acacia Road was a grey, dead and depressing scene. Culthorpe's throat was dry. Not long out of training, an uneasy mixture of nerves, adrenaline and trepidation filled her stomach.

    `Which number was it?' Glover asked as he walked around the back of the car to stand next to her.

    `Forty-six,' she replied. `Come on then.'

    The male officer began walking down the road. Culthorpe followed, checking the numbers on each one of the dark, shell-like buildings as she walked. They passed number four (which, as it was between numbers twenty-two and twenty-six, was most likely actually number twenty-four) and increased their speed. Thirty-eight, forty, forty-two, forty-four and then they were there. Number forty-six. The number had been daubed on the wall in off-white emulsion paint next to the boarded-up window in the front door. From the end of the path they could already hear the argument taking place inside. She noticed the remains of a large piece of furniture in the middle of the overgrown lawn. The front bedroom window had been smashed and a pair of thin, grey curtains blew out in the early morning breeze like a dirty flag. It didn't take a genius to work out what had happened.

    `What gets me,' Glover moaned as he forced open the garden gate (the bottom hinge was broken and it scraped noisily along the ground) and began to walk up the path, `is the fact that these people are even awake at this time. You know, most of them are usually off their faces on booze or drugs and they don't open their eyes before mid-afternoon. Bloody hell, these people shouldn't even be awake yet, never mind having a domestic before eight o'clock in the bloody morning.'

    `Probably still up from last night,' Culthorpe suggested.

    `You're probably right,' Glover agreed. `Bloody dirty bastards. More bloody trouble than they're worth...'

    Culthorpe smiled to herself. Glover was a far more experienced officer than she was, but even after just a couple of days working with him she had already learnt to read him like a book. As he got closer to an incident and became more nervous, she'd noticed, he started to swear. She, on the other hand, became more controlled and focussed as dangerous situations approached. It was the idea of conflict that she didn't like. Once she was actually there in the middle of the trouble doing something about it she could handle herself as well as the next man. In fact, she could usually handle herself better than the next man.

    `What's this bastard's name again?' asked Glover, nodding towards the grim building they now stood outside.

    `Shaun Jenkins,' Culthorpe replied. `The call came in from his partner, Faye Smith. Said he was threatening her and the kids.'

    `And how many kids was it?'

    `Three,' she replied as she reached up and banged on the door. `Open up please, Shaun. It's the police.'

    No answer. Culthorpe hammered her fist on the door again. She could hear something happening inside. A child crying and then