Their relative success formalized the idea of law enforcement for payment, and helped accelerate the professionalization of policing.

Their deaths were sobering not merely because of the searingly unbearable wrench of losing those two wonderful people, but because it left me exposed as rudderless.

Some of the horses were looking hidebound, and I promised the sergeant that I'd buy a couple of hundredweight of linseed for them when I went on leave. Linseed was a cosy idea; it reminded me of peacetime conditions.

Was he the reason for the bitterness that seemed to marble her character?