IN IPSWICH, it gets dark quickly. Drive in any direction out of the city, and the brightly lit streets rapidly turn into black roads, high hedges and big empty fields. Ipswich is countryside that happens to have a town in the middle of it.

And it's the countryside that the killer seems to love. It makes perfect, murderous sense. Take a woman to any of the rolling hills, in the dark, and no one will see you strangle her, and no one will hear her scream. A serial killer's paradise.

Any woman's nightmare.

In the city, the people are friendly and terrified.

There is some sense of relief at the announcement that the police have narrowed their search to between 50 and 100 suspects. But there's still one man, killing women, on the loose.

A community protection cabin has been set up in a busy shopping area, and Crime Reduction Officer Keith Bennett cheerfully tells the Sunday Tribune that they've just sold out of personal alarms. And it's only 3pm.

"We sold 1,600 today, " he said. "The demand has been totally unprecedented. It's a broad mixture of people buying them, from elderly women to middle-aged men, to young girls. We've also given out tens of thousand of safety leaflets. People are just very anxious to know how to protect themselves."

In the time he is talking, three more people approach the cabin, looking for alarms. They're told to return tomorrow. A short way down the street, one of the main taxi companies, Hawk Express, is being overwhelmed with bookings from people who don't want to walk anywhere alone. "As of Monday, the pick-up of work has been colossal, " said owner Kim Morphew. "There is fear out there. Women have been phoning up to ask if our drivers are vetted by the police. We have been reassuring them, because taxi drivers have an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check. We have also told our drivers to wait outside until the women are in their house and have closed the door."

Hawk Express has also set up a text-back service which sends a text describing the type of car, colour and registration number to the passsenger. It provides a degree of safety and consolation amidst speculation that the serial killer may be a taxi driver, familiar with the local roads, working irregular hours, known by the prostitutes.

Self-defence FOR those not keen to take their chances with a text message, a marital-arts expert has stepped forward to offer free self-defence lessons for women this weekend. Mick Blackwell lives in Nacton, where the body of Anneli Alderton was discovered last Sunday, so he is particularly keen to do something to help. Blackwell told the Tribune that there had been a great response to the free classes.

"We're running them all day today and tomorrow, " he said. "We've got around 30 to 50 people for each class, and I'm focusing on breakaway techniques rather than any specific marital arts."

Other locals chose to show their support in a different way, most notably a specially organised service in St Peter's Church in Copdock on Friday night. The ceremony was organised for all the dead women . . . one of whom, Anneli Alderton, was three months pregnant . . . but specifically for Tania Nicol, whose body was found at the bottom of the hill in Copdock Mill.

Buffeted by the wind and cold, and cloaked in heavy blackness by 5.30pm, St Peter's told a grim story about Tania's final moments, towering over where she was eventually found. The little church, on high ground and surrounded by tombstones, was starkly isolated. The locals made hymn booklets, brought candles to be lit by those attending and assembled a picture board of the girls. For all the effort, the turnout was poor. The small seating area didn't even fill, despite a large media presence taking up a substantial amount of room. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe not.

'They are us' EITHERway, Reverend Chris Wingfiled spoke with passion about the women. "Those who live in a place of risk, born out of necessity, may seem to us like strangers, " he said. "Far from it, they are our daughters, our nieces, our cousins, our sisters, our friends. But for a simple twist of fate, they are us."

The small congregation responded in kind, joining in the prayers and the hymns with a determined enthusiasm that filled the church with voices and song.

It sounded like a much larger crowd. Following the service, one of the church wardens, Liz Bennett, told the Tribune that all of Ipswich was supporting the women and their families. "I haven't heard anyone condemn them, " she said.

"Two of the bodies were found on my patch, and that does make you very aware of going anywhere alone. The countryside doesn't have many lights, and we don't know if he's stopped yet. We have to remember the girls, and be extremely careful."

While Bennett's assertion of widespread support for the women does not exactly tally with the low numbers at Friday night's service, there is certainly a resolute local campaign to honour the memories of the dead prostitutes.

The provincial paper The Evening Star is running a joint campaign with Ipswich Borough Council to create a lasting legacy to the women who were killed. Together, they've set up a memorial fund called 'Somebody's Daughter', and the paper is making daily appeals for prayers and monetary contributions, and has opened an online book of condolences. Also, at a Leeds United game in Ipswich yesterday, the crowd held a one-minute silence in memory of the girls.

The game programme contained personal safety information and the police used the opportunity to appeal for information about the murders before the match began.

'I knew these girls' ALL the public displays of support for the women and their families were particularly welcomed by a reformed drug addict and former prostitute Jenny. The young mother of two worked in the red-light district in Ipswich until two years ago.

She was friends with three of the dead girls. "I knew these girls, " she said. "I knew three of them personally, but I knew all of them, in a way. I just feel so sad. They're not just prostitutes. They're people." Jenny described how her own addiciton to crack cocaine led her to lose her home, her children, her family and her self-respect. "The need for drugs just takes over, " she said. "I didn't see my mum. I didn't speak to her. Deep down you are ashamed of what you're doing, but it's almost impossible to stop. It was when my friend got murdered three years ago that I got really shook up.

But it is so hard to get away. Your whole life is involved in the drugs circle, all your friends are junkies. You really do have to lose everything before you force yourself to sort it all out."

Jenny has now regained custody of her two children, and is looking forward to spending her first Christmas at home in years. Her mother Tasha cannot wait. "It's the best present ever, I am just so proud of her, " she said. "I'm so happy that she will be with us, sitting down, eating dinner. I feel so horrible for the families of those girls.

It can honestly happen to anyone. By the grace of God, it didn't happen to Jenny."

Deserted red-light district JUDGING by the empty streets in the red-light district, the working girls of Ipswich are all determined it won't happen to them either. It's Friday night, and shining fluorescent under the street lights are three police cars, two police vans and one large police cabin, parked on the streets where the prostitutes normally conduct their trade. There's not a single woman in sight.

In the town centre, however, late-night revellers appear determined not to give in to the threat of a serial killer. Pals nightclub is packed with young people wearing Santa hats and party gear. Half the crowd are men, and half the men are in the 30- to 40-year-old age group. A whole room full of suspects.

The manager of the nightclub, Andy Burford, said that he and managers from other nightspots in the town had met with Suffolk police on Wednesday to discuss making the safety of female customers top priority. "We have made arrangements with a cab company to make sure they will pick up from right outside our door, and we also have male door staff who will wait with women until they are picked up, " he said.

Outside Pals, at 11pm, a police van cruises by slowly. It pauses at a parked car just 100 yards away from the nightclub, and then pulls to a stop. Three policemen get out, dressed for the cold and carrying torches. They peer into the car, and question the lone man sitting inside. Five minutes later, satisfied he's not the killer, they resume their patrol of the town. But he could have been the one.

Anyone could. That's the feeling. That's the fear.

It's widely acknowledged that the Suffolk police have a mammoth job on their hands. Five murder investigations in 10 days, and the world's media watching every step. Yet the police remain open and friendly to the press, having even decided to share their own canteen with journalists at the police headquarters in Martlesham.

Perhaps as a result of this, there has been little criticism of the police from any quarters.

Indeed, such is the concern for the men and women of the force, that the police chaplain, Bruce Wakling, has written a prayer in their honour. "There's not much else I can do really, " Wakling told the Tribune. "I just want them to know that I, and the community, are praying for them. They need all our prayers right now."

But the prayers are too late for five young women who died at the hands of a man who still runs free. Their bodies continue to be subjected to forensic and toxicology tests, in an attempt to find out why they died, why they didn't seem to struggle, and who exactly the monster is that killed them.