Page 130 of Slack Tide Kill

It was a formal complaint to Rogers' superior, NCA Deputy Director James McMaster.

'McMaster is a political beast,' one NCA insider told this paper. 'He knows which way the wind is blowing. When Rogers started generating headlines, his first instinct was to manage the story, not back the officer.'

McMaster declined to comment.

But Rogers did not stop. While the establishment circled its wagons, she was building a picture of the Rook family operation – a systematic pipeline of small boats operated by cross-Channel trafficking gangs. They deposited their human cargo on the Dungeness beach in the early hours, and the Rooks collected them.

These young women were then forced to perform in illegal livestream operations at the Rooks' farm.

One of these brave small-boat survivors described conditions as, 'Terrifying. They took our passports. They forced us onto camera. I did not want to do these things.'

Rogers uncovered all of this in less than 24 hours, where Kent Police had failed for years. When she confronted the Rooks at their farm – alone and unarmed – eldest brother Roarke Rook attempted to throttle her to death in the marsh.

He failed, and fled into the labyrinthine waterways of Romney Marsh.

Again, Rogers did not stop. She tracked Roarke Rook down within 24 hours, and when he produced an illegal shotgun and opened fire on her vehicle, Rogers made a split-second decision.

She drove her Mustang directly at his boat – breaking his arm in the collision, and saving the lives of everyone in that car.

THE COST

None of this was without consequence.

Rogers has been throttled, shot at, doused in freezing marsh water and pepper-sprayed in the face. She sustained injuries in the course of these events that would have hospitalized most people for a week.

She did not take a single hour off.

She also lost a colleague. PC Emily Chakrati, 27, of East Hythe, died in an explosion connected to the case on Wednesday. Thanks to Officer Rogers' selfless heroism, there was only one casualty.

You read that right. Rogers literally ran into a suspected bomb site and risked her own life to drag her partner to safety, seconds before the blast. DCI Gloria Mayhew – believing Rogers' actions too impulsive – actually fired pepper spray into her face to stop her.

Rogers' partner survived. Emily Chakrati did not. If not for DCI Mayhew's intervention, perhaps this promising young officer would still be alive…

In any case, the loss of Chakrati is devastating. It is also, sources tell this paper, being used by certain senior officers as a means of pressuring Rogers towards a despicable ultimatum: resign now or we will destroy your career.

The existence of this ultimatum heaps shame upon us all.

AND THE KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing.

The cockle-eye killer – the person responsible for the deaths of Jason Harrow, Nancy Cagen, and Tom Richter thirty years ago – has still not been caught.

The Rooks are in custody. That is not small. What Rogers achieved represents one of the most significant takedowns of a small-boat trafficking operation this coastline has ever seen. The young women removed from that farm are safe. For that alone, she deserves the gratitude of this nation.

But a vicious killer remains, somewhere in Romney Marsh right now. Reading the news, watching this investigation from the inside. Waiting.

And the woman best placed to find them is being told to hand in her warrant card.

We ask one question of Deputy Director McMaster, of DCI Mayhew, of whoever holds the levers of power in this decision.

Is this really how we treat heroes in this country?'

Nausea ran through Sally's body now. In every way that the Gaze's last piece had torn her down, this one lionized her. It amped up every feasible positive, from the 'charity obstacle race' she'd been running before the investigation began to the near-savant levels of human warmth she'd displayed when 'bonding' with eyewitnesses like Nancy Cagen.

It was a pantomime; pulp bullshit that painted her as some kind of saint, an exploitation of the case every bit as bad as the original podcast. She was not a selfless Sherlock Holmes for the modern age. She was no avenging angel.

But she'd enabled this. She should have realized that any good story needed its share of villains, and Brown had found plenty. Not just the Rooks. Also McMaster. Also Mayhew. Also every other police officer in Kent…