I See You

by Clare Mackintosh

Kelly thought of all the crime prevention initiatives she’d seen rolled out over her nine years in the job. Poster campaigns, leaflet drops, attack alarms, education programmes … Yet it was far simpler than that; they just had to listen to victims. Believe them.

I think, in many ways, I was a very bad police officer. I was less interested in detection statistics and arrest rates, and far more interested in supporting victims and understanding how a crime had come to pass. Kelly’s relationship with her sister is interesting, because it forces Kelly to do her job in a different way. Not every victim of crime wants the same outcome, but they all want to be believed.