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Police

Radworth Road Police Station

Thornyholt Boulevard, at the Bestholme corner

A police officer in a hi-vis jacket marked OAKHAVEN POLICE and a checked bowler hat stands in front of a patrol car in blue and yellow checks, on a terraced street with a red car parked behind.

Where the game starts, though not in a way you chose. A car leaves this building with a young man in the back of it, drives the ninety-odd metres to number 6 Radworth Road, and puts him out on the pavement with a lecture and the terms of his licence.

It is called Radworth Road Police Station, and it stands on Thornyholt Boulevard, thirty-five metres up from the end of Radworth Road. The name will stand, whatever the letters say. Two storeys of red brick under a big hipped roof, a single-storey wing at the front with a blue nameboard and automatic glass doors, and behind them a front office, a report room, custody and two cells, with CID, the briefing room and the mess upstairs.

PC 3417 drives. His custodian helmet is too tall for the car with him in it, so it rides on the back seat next to you. PC 2814 sits in the front passenger seat and does the talking. Halfway there the radio asks for a car to some youths on the playing field off Tollerton Rise, and she tells Control they are on a drop-off at Radworth Road and will be ten minutes. It is worth knowing early that you are not the important job.

On the pavement she gives you the terms. You’re one of the lucky ones: you have been given a second chance. Number six is fully furnished and it is yours, the rent and the bills are paid, and all of that holds provided you get yourself down the job centre tomorrow and sign on. Don’t make her come and find you. PC 3417 has already told you on the way that her bark is a good deal worse than her bite, most days, and that the ones who make a go of it are the ones who get up in the morning. He wishes you luck, calls you son, and tells you he means it.

You will see the same car again. It lives in the station car park and goes out round the estate on a dozen different runs, so sooner or later it has been down every street: luck, not timetable. There is also an officer in plain clothes who walks the footways properly, waits at the kerb, uses the crossings and notices things. If you want to know which one he is, the descriptions agree on the boots.

A long street of red-brick terraced houses with wheelie bins by the front walls, and a police patrol car in blue and yellow checks on the road ahead beside a red car.
The same car, out on one of its runs round the estate.

Second Chance starts the day you get out. Before any job, any shop or any pint, the game gives you the back seat of this car, a copper’s helmet for company and a licence with conditions. If you came looking for a life after prison game, this is where it starts.

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