CHAPTER 29
Routine settled back onto my life like a slightly damp raincoat. Warm, comfortable, but still a little irritating round the edges. I moved Rhod from a cot-style seat to an upright one, but, memories and nightmares tugging at me, I made bloody sure the thing was securely attached. Not in the front, either; I had read enough reports of what happened to a child seat when the passenger airbag was triggered. Wherever my little boy went, his seat went with him, and I am sure I annoyed my parents by insisting on my own inspection of how they fitted it to their own car. I didn’t care, or only a little, because my boy was going to be as safe as I could make him.

I got one surprise one Sunday in mid-September, with an e-mail from Tammy on behalf of her and Bridget. I shouted into the kitchen, where Blake was making paper boats with Rhod.

“You got anything planned for Christmas, love?”

“That should be ‘we’, and no, apart from dinner with Mark and Dot, of course. What’s up?”

“Bridget and Tammy are coming over for a fortnight, that’s what. Tammy’s asked if they can be cheeky”

“Spare room cheeky?”

“Yes. It’s not going to mean babysitting them every day. I was going to ask if it’s OK to get them a key cut”

“This is the girl at our wedding, aye? The one who looked after you for so many years? I think you can guess my answer to that one!”

“I know, love. Just like to make you think your opinion matters sometimes”

“Cheeky cow! Anyway, Ellen has been asking about Christmas as well. Wants a proper team blow-out”

“It’s only September!”

“Well, you are asking about Christmas”

“Yeah, but that’s because I got a flipping e-mail ten minutes ago!”

“Women and logic. Hmmm”

“Men and nit-picking!”

Naturally, we couldn’t keep the exchange going as we both ended up laughing, and even though our littlest family member couldn’t understand what was funny, he still joined in the laughter out of pure happiness. Once it wound down, I asked about Ellen’s proposal.

“Ah, she is saying that we haven’t been to the Elaine Powell bar for a while. I suspect Chris is on the case”

“Ah. He thinking of making it official, then? His engagement?”

“I suspect he is. Safe space and all that. Speaking of which, I’ll ask around the team. Just us, and we know what to expect. Bring in family, friends and that, and the dynamics change. If Chris is going to bring his beloved, it might be OK for the Sheilas”

“Fair point. This family stuff is complicated, isn’t it? I’ll see what Mam and Dad are up to, if they can take Rhod for a night”

“I would make that at least two, Di. I suspect that doing justice to your Mam’s dinner would be easier without the hangover I am certain we will end up with”

I gave him that one; Chris could never be described as a ‘lightweight’ when it came to parties. I rang Mam ten minutes later.

“Well, where are you storing everything, love? For the morning?”

“Sorry, Mam?”

“Whatever your party dates, he has to wake up to tree and presents on the day. Are you doing it here or at your own home?”

Family life was getting more complicated by the day. Simplicity, please!

I ended up almost wishing the year away, which got easier when the sunny weather broke with a vengeance. Rain, wind, sleet as early as sodding October; I was glad to spend so much time indoors, time that was spent juggling another old rape case, which was going absolutely nowhere, and a contrived insolvency linked into stolen plant and computer equipment. That one left me giggling, as the main man in a chain of collapsed building companies rejoiced in the name Robert Hadley-Crooke, so of course he became ‘Rob Crook’ to us. Not the world’s greatest joke, but you take what you can get when you are ploughing through lists of serial numbers and calling them out to your brother-in-law. Not exactly ‘deep joy’, but it was better than being out on the streets. That made me think of a car park by Dunraven, and then Paula.

Sod it. I finished the list for Sean and dashed off a quick e-mail to Paul Welby.

‘What you and Paula up to at Christmas?’

He replied almost immediately, which showed that he was another who had been spared the delights of a Welsh Autumn.

‘Nothing planned’

I grabbed the phone.

“Mam?”

“Yes, love? Anything wrong? Rhodri OK?”

“Oh, yes. Sorry”

“Yes. You don’t usually ring from work”

“Ah, it’s just that I had a quick thought, random idea, flash of whatsit. We have seven of us due for Christmas dinner, haven’t we?”

“If Bridget and Tammy want, yes”

“Could you squeeze another couple in? Not asked them yet; wanted to make sure first”

She was silent for a few seconds, and I began wondering if I had overstepped her hospitality tolerance, just as she spoke again.

“I think so, love. We’d need a couple of extra chairs, but the table would pull out, and if you bring Rhod’s own table set… Who is it?”

“One of my colleagues and his fiancée”

“Have I met them?”

“Um, they were at the trial, Evans Senior, innit? Paul and Paula”

“Ah. The prostitute woman”

Oh dear. Keep your voice level, DC Sutton.

“The rape victim, Mam. The woman who was raped by Ashley Evans. One of the GIRLS who were raped by him”

She was silent for long enough for me to start wondering if I had pushed too hard, too far, but then she gave a long sigh.

“I should know better, me. After what they said about you when, then, you know. Not the right word, was it?”

“I prefer ‘the author’, Mam. It says more about her”

“You are right, love. I’m sorry. Just, well, we are all what we are, how we were brought up, isn’t it? Product of our times, aye?”

“Yes, Mam. Thank you. I do understand, you know?”

“I know, love. After everything that’s gone on, I suppose we should, I should, be a little more… We are what life makes us, love”

“We are indeed”

“I wonder sometimes, just now and again, how you would have turned out without what that man did to you. You were always so full of laughter, as a girl. Always joking”

“I can only just remember”

“Not complaining, am I? You fell on your feet, with the career, and our son-in-law, and Rhod. No complaints there at all. I just wonder, isn’t it? What if?”

She gave another deep sigh.

“Then I think of that woman, Paula, and I tell myself I should be even-handed. She was at a good school when he attacked her, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, Mam. It’s funny, but I had to tell Blake off when we first met, comment he made, and I had to spell out what rape is, not about fu---. Not screwing but screwing up”

She laughed, and it was happier, more relaxed.

“You’ll be watching your language around our boy, then?”

“Oh dear yes!”

“Well, you go back to your two friends, and you say yes, Mark and Dot will be happy to have them for Christmas dinner, and I will do my best to choose my words”

“Thanks, Mam. I love you”

“I know you do, love”

We ended the call, and I sent a mail to Paul and suggested he rang rather than groping via e-mails. The phone went twenty seconds later.

“Hiya, Di. What are you suggesting?”

“Crimble dinner at my parents’ place”

“You serious? With … With Paula’s history?”

“Mam says she will be happy to host the author lady and her fiancé”

Once again, I had the silent treatment before he came back to me.

“Who else will be there?”

“My parents, me and Blake and our little boy, and an old friend and her wife who are visiting from Australia”

“Do they all know about Paula?”

“I don’t think Rhodri is quite up to speed yet”

“Be serious, Di. They have no problems?”

“Paul, I think what they have problems with is the arsehole that put both of us in hospital, isn’t it?”

Once again, I sat through the silence.

“Di?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I will ask her, OK? Nearer to the day, give us some idea about what we need to do, what we should bring”

“From experience, and knowing my men, some beers and a sense of humour would be good. We will be trying to leave a hangover behind, if what I think Chris Connor is planning goes the way I expect it to”

He chuckled, clearly far more relaxed than he had been.

“Oh yes: you up to a meal at Deb’s place next week? Friday evening? I suspect Gemma has some news of her own”

“No!”

“I think yes. He’s been getting quite keen on her, and she does like her beef”

“Hang on… just looking at my calendar. OK. I am off, but hubby is on a job. Just me, then. I might bring my boy along, if that’s OK”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, just something I read recently. Deb keeps men well away from the house, unless, yeah? And there’s this group of so-called feminists who told a woman her son wasn’t welcome at an event because he was, and I quote, a penis-bodied rapist”

“You are joking!”

“Nope. The kid is two years old”

He snorted at that.

“Odd, isn’t it? Some of the people you’d expect to be open, adaptable in their thinking, they’ve got the most locked-down and closed minds of all. And then there’s your parents. Shit. Getting maudlin, now. See you Friday, Di?”

“See you Friday, mate”

It turned out to be a superb evening, Gemma clearly smitten and her huge boyfriend remarkably subdued. I suppose that was natural, considering how outnumbered he was, as the only two ‘men’ beside himself were Paul and my littler one. Charlie and Tiff were at their teasing worst, and I almost felt sorry for the lad. For her part, Deb simply sat and smiled.

“This is what I work for, you know”

“What? The course of true love?”

“No, Di. Not specifically. I just try and give the girls some room to grow, a safe space to start living”

Her face darkened a little.

“And somewhere to run back to if it goes to shit, aye?”

“You think it will?”

“Really? In this case? No, I don’t. I have had some free and frank talks with that young man, making sure his eyes are as open as possible, and no, I don’t have worries about him. Worries FOR him, those I have. Man with freak for partner, aye?”

“Deb, well, yes. Couple of things, though. Look at Paula there: even someone with my Mam’s background, all that weight of convention, even Mam is now calling her ‘that author woman’, and Gemma is going to stay ‘that bloody good pastry chef’. People can adapt”

I thought for a couple of seconds, then took the plunge.

“I have a friend, Deb, not one here, and she’s trans. Married now, and I watched her with her family, with her man, and not only was it right and fitting but it was accepted”

She looked at me with a slight smile.

“Copper? Over to Sussex?”

“You know about her?”

“Let’s just say I keep a very, very keen eye on the news. Never know what will come out. Car bomb woman?”

“Yup. I knew her when she worked over this way”

My friend looked at me for three or four seconds before smiling more broadly and simply saying “Ah”

I smiled back.

“Ah, indeed. Bloody good job I never pushed it. Now, I am stuffed, Rhod’s just about asleep, so I think it is time to disengage him from your girls’ love and affection and get him home to bed”

I did the necessary cleaning of left-overs from his chin and strapped him into his pushchair before pulling on my coat, and by the time Paul and Paula joined me at the front door he was slumped and dribbling slightly, which meant I would probably have a few tears when I put him properly to bed. So many of the girls looked so wistful it was almost painful to see. A quick round of hugs, and we were out of the front door and walking round to the main road and the car park near the tea shop where I had first met Deb. Such a short time, so many changes.

Paula was arm-in-arm with her fiancé, chatting happily about a follow-up to her book, when the passenger on the black moped shot her.