Chief superintendent spoke as they strode around (7)
I believe the answer is:
stalked
'they strode around' is the definition.
The definition suggests an adverb but the answer is not.
'chief superintendent spoke' is the wordplay.
'chief superintendent' becomes 's' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'spoke' becomes 'talked' ('talk' can be a synonym of 'speak').
's'+'talked'='STALKED'
'as' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stalked that I've seen before include "Pursued (someone) to an obsessive degree" , "Tracked stealthily, game or victim" .)