By the time I moved to Holbrooke, I’d met every type of copper you could imagine. Not all police are motivated by a sense of justice, a desire to save lives or to protect the community.

In short, some cops are real bastards.

The police force attracts a range of people: those who like the idea of wearing black boots and hitting people; the ones who think the uniform might help attract chicks; and, worst of all, those who use the force to line their own pockets.

Where did I fit in?

In my early days, I’d fallen in with Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Walker: a huge, barrel-chested copper with a reputation for exposing corruption. We share the somewhat quaint notion that police should protect the vulnerable and innocent. Needless to say, in a city renowned for its corruption, that made us about as popular as two turds in a punchbowl.

Seeing the hunched and miserable woman sitting across the table reminded me why I’d become a copper. The tears had stopped and she was fretting with the fabric of her handkerchief. Her face was furrowed with wrinkles, one eye was cloudy with cataracts and, when she sobbed, her chest gave an alarming rattle.

Her name was Esther Brown. She wore a green shawl embroidered with flowers and vines over a threadbare woollen jumper. By the look of it, she’d recently lost weight, sagging flesh hung from her arthritic frame.

She’d been living in Holbrooke for just over a month. It was her childhood home, she explained, and she’d returned to give herself a new lease on life. “There’s not much they can do,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Cancer.”

Leading her into the station, I made a decision: despite the weird bullshit brewing in Holbrooke and the growing sense that I was woefully ill-equipped to deal with it, I was going to help her.

No point being a copper if you couldn’t help people like Esther.

“Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched, Sergeant?” she asked.

Her hands trembled slightly as she described her first morning in Holbrooke.

She’d woken abruptly in the early hours, disoriented by the unfamiliar house, and shuffled into the kitchen where she started to prepare a cup of tea. Sleep, she explained almost apologetically, becomes more elusive with age and she’d started to enjoy the quiet of her predawn ritual. It was in that silence, she’d been struck by the sudden, overwhelming feeling that she was being watched.

With trepidation, she parted the gossamer curtains above the kitchen sink, and peered into the dim street. She lived on Hope Avenue which ran parallel to The Esplanade. At that time of morning, she’d be able to hear the distant crash of surf and screaming gulls. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Esther could make out a dark shape just beyond a flickering street lamp on the corner.

It was a car.

She couldn’t see the license plate but, from her description, it sounded like a Datsun 1200. I jotted the observation in my notebook.

There was a man behind the wheel.

He was big.

Under any other circumstance, she explained, his bulky frame would have appeared comical in the tiny car. He stared at her impassively through the windshield and there was a faint flare of light as he sucked on a cigarette.

Over the next month, the visits continued: the same man, the same car, the same impassive stare. This morning, while she was preparing her breakfast, she noticed the car again.

“I’d had enough,” she said. “I wasn’t going to let some dickhead in a Datsun intimidate me.”

Mustering her courage, she burst onto the porch with her walking stick and a half-arsed plan to confront the man. Momentum carried her down the steps and into the street where she stopped, locked eyes with the figure behind the wheel and felt suddenly foolish.

They stared at each other.

The street lamp flickered.

The man took a long drag on his cigarette.

Then, Esther screamed like a banshee, raised her walking stick,  and descended on the car. The windscreen cracked and cobwebbed beneath the frenzied attack. The walking stick, which was currently leaning against the table, had a hardwood handle. Given a bit of momentum, it would do significant damage.

She was wheezing.

She was terrified.

But she was furious.

Inside the car, the man fumbled with his keys, started the engine and pushed his foot to the floor. The car roared, leapt forward and clipped Esther with its mirror. As she toppled onto the nature strip, she caught a brief glimpse of the driver and his distinctive red beard. Gasping for breath and furious, she took a moment to compose herself, then marched directly to the police station.

Although the old woman was shocked and rattled, there was an admirable look of defiance in her rheumy eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I said, flipping my notebook shut. “I’ll take care of it.”

The old woman gave a vengeful smile.