She was already in her own posing kit, all leather pelmet and pointy boots, and as she stood before me, hands on hips, mock-glowering, I had a small moment when I saw Sam peeking out from her eyes, and I realised I could hardly remember my brother, for Sarah was just so, so right in her skin.
Cyclist
CHAPTER 1
“For Christ’s sake, Siá¢n, we’ll not get there in time! She’s going to be on her own!”
“Yeah, but she’ll have Arris there, aye?”
“Yes, but this is make or break time, na?”
My wife came out of the bathroom, a mascara brush still in her hand, one eye unmarked.
“Darling sweetest cariad, shut the fuck up or she’ll hear”
“And well? I told you what I thought, aye? Sar isn’t someone you push into things”
She smiled. “Which is why we just let her see what’s there, aye? And she’s a girl of sense and understanding, so she’ll see the right way, aye?”
I leant back against the bathroom wall, head resting on the light switch.
“Cariad, last time nearly broke her”
My love came to me, face down, the light scattering through the bright colour of her hair, and rested her head on my breast.
“Lainey, love, we both know this is right, aye? This is a good man. This is something that should… shit, you know what I mean. Look, this doesn’t need to be yes or no, aye? Just let her see she has a choice”
“Aye, I know, my love, but this is family. This is mine”
Softly. “Ours”
I kissed her. “Ours. Come on, move and shake, aye?”
It had been a long, long drive, Siá¢n feeding me bits of chocolate as we drove, quiet moments staring over cups of bad coffee in various M4 services, we were rolling down the steep hill past Lydden Circuit and then, finally, up to the bit of hard standing outside Sar’s place. My shoulders were in a clench, and my right thigh ached from the constant motorway driving. Siá¢n noticed.
“Rub it better later? Those Yanks, we need one of their cruise controls, aye? Save your legs?”
“Then I get no rubbing better?”
She grinned. “Don’t need an excuse…”
I creaked out of the car while I still could as my wife dragged out the bags from the boot. Arris’ car was there already, and as I shambled towards the door it opened. My sister stood there, and if I had had any doubts about what we were doing, it ended there. The only word available to me was ‘drained’. She dragged out a smile for us, though.
“Found a band on tonight, girls, down the sports club. Got your dancing shoes?”
Not really, Sar, but never mind. I realised she had probably forgotten exactly how long a drive it was, not having done it for so bloody long. She clung onto her smile.
“Tea?”
I laughed. “You really need to ask? Tea!”
In for five minutes only, it seemed, before we were being pushed to get changed again for the gig.
“Sar, why do we need to change? I mean, we’re not on the pull, are we?”
She was already in her own posing kit, all leather pelmet and pointy boots, and as she stood before me, hands on hips, mock-glowering, I had a small moment when I saw Sam peeking out from her eyes, and I realised I could hardly remember my brother, for Sarah was just so, so right in her skin.
She gave me her best Paddington stare.
“Are you sure you are a woman?”
That startled me, chiming with my thoughts about the boy who never was, but my wife broke the mood.
“I’m sure she’s a woman, Sar. I’d have noticed otherwise”
Arris came in just then, in some amazing boots, and… I had to remember my words about not being on the pull. I covered a pair of bulging eyes as she bent over, denim stretching in wonderful ways.
“For god’s sake, woman! Give a pair of old dykes some warning when you’re going to do that with your arse! Sarah, the restorative cuppa, please, my lady wife is taken with the vapours!”
The wife in question pulled my hand down for a better look, the sneaky cow, and then kissed my palm. Five minutes later, she sneaked out to send the confirmation text.
“Come on, love. Glad rags and handbags, got to be done, aye?”
Footpaths, high heels (I know, but it was just for the evening), arm in arm and Sarah showing some life again. Arris simply wouldn’t shut up about her kids, which hurt, especially as all she wanted to talk about was how great it was NOT to have them with her. Siá¢n nodded to me at one point, Sarah scanning the road as we crossed, and her phone was in her hand. I wasn’t sure which of us my little sister would want to kill, but her slow death couldn’t be allowed to continue. My wife is almost telepathic at times, and she just mouthed one word, silently.
“Ours”
It was a typical sports club, all widescreen and bar, but there was a dance floor of sorts, and the band weren’t bad. Sar took flight again, back in her natural environment, Arris grinning as she saw the life return to her best friend. I had an ambush from old memories, though, a night in Aberystwyth, two other girls with us and my sister so, so alive, more than she had ever been before. Once more, Siá¢n’s telepathy was at full power, and she broke the blackening mood with a kiss and a hug. I realised there was a bit more interest from some of the men than I really wanted, so I changed the subject my mind was hovering over.
“ETA?”
“Five minutes”
“She’ll kill us all, cariad”
“Nah, she can’t run fast enough in those boots. Ah. That him there?”
Aye, there he was. Arris had sent Sar for the drinks while she steered the big man around the crowd. A few words, a nod, and he bulked his way through the bar crowd. I got in close, just in case, as his hand came down on her shoulder, she turned, and sixteen different expressions fought for room on her face. She ended up bursting into tears, wrapping herself around him as if her life depended on being as close to him as clothing allowed. After a few seconds she turned to me, face glowing, eyes confused, and all I could manage to say was that he had obviously found her.
Talk about quick changes. She almost threw her purse at Tony, snarled out what drinks to get, and dragged Arris outside the club with a look that promised pain and mistreatment in the extreme. Out they went, Sar marching in obvious anger. I followed a little more slowly, to find her almost screaming at her friend, shaking in real anger, and then, as I arrived, Sar ranting about getting her life straight, she broke, ten years of shit coming out in tears and sobs.
I stepped in to hold my sister, and once more the memory of two lost girls came by.
““If you call the slow death you are living through ‘getting straight’, there are pigs flying out of Gatwick. And she hasn’t dragged others in, she has asked one rather nice one to say hello again. What you do after that is your call, but just think on this: if you didn’t want to talk to Tony, why did you just hand him all your money and credit cards?”
Arris was there too, almost incoherent in her apologies and declaration of love, but over her shoulder I saw my wife, hand in hand with the big man that we had hoped would heal our sister. What a bloody mess. Arris asked Sar if she wanted her to ask Tony to leave, but he disengaged and came over to us.
“She can do that herself, ladies. This is Sarah’s call. Perhaps we can talk together for a bit, see what she thinks?”
Sarah shuddered, and then glared and shook her head: go away for a bit. Tony handed over Sar’s bits and pieces with a grin, and I dragged Arris away.
“Leave her, girl. We can’t do this. Horses and water, aye? She has to do the hard bit on her own, or not at all. Bar, deliver their drinks, and leave them”
“What if it all goes even more tits up?”
I gave her my best copper’s grin.
“I’ll be in that window seat there, aye?”
“There’s someone sat there already”
“He’ll move. Trust me”
In the end, I had to give the seat up. Siá¢n took my place, as I couldn’t hold my emotions down any more. I watched them talk, relax, cuddle. I saw my sister coming back to more than a half-life. I needed to find somewhere private to cry. How I truly hated that bastard Joe, right then.
In the end, we danced, and he danced with us, or rather with her, and I saw something there, in both of them, an emptiness that matched, that I prayed would cancel itself out.
He came back for coffee. There were smiles, and hugs, but that night I couldn’t seem to stop crying as I lay with my sweet red-haired wife. Please, please, let this be an end and a beginning
CHAPTER 2
Beginnings…
I had watched my brother so carefully all those years ago, but now I could hardly remember him. Sarah was so clearly Right Here and Now that I sometimes found false memories arriving, where she had been a young girl rather than a non-boy. That first day, in a dress; I mean, I knew she was going down the girl route, but there she was, filling my eyes in stereoscopic womanhood.
Her two friends were astonishing, so full of life that I wanted to step back to avoid sparks from the little one. Sam, though, Sam in a dress, not my sort of thing at all but still a dress, he, she was making a statement that left no room for misunderstanding. After a couple of bad jokes I sent him. Sent her off to make tea.
The calmer and taller of her two friends, Jo, smiled at me in a way that let me see how safe my sibling was.
“Suits her better than some odd male drag, Elaine. We could see her the day we first met. She just needs a bit of a push now and then”
The little one was staring at me, head cocked to one side. I stared back.
“What?”
“You know what. I may be a little under tall, but I am not stupid. What you think, Jo?”
They exchanged a glance, and Jo smiled and nodded at her partner. “Does your sister know?”
Sister. “Know what?”
Becky bounced to her feet. “Oh for god’s sake, do you play tennis?”
I was lost, and it must have shown. She ranted on, grinning away.
“Wear comfy shoes, like me and my snoggums here? Ride on the other bus? Munch on---“
Jo put a finger to Becky’s lips. “Pause for a bit, sweetheart. Elaine, she has a nose for such things”
Becky giggled. “And a tongue and lips and---“
Jo gave her e very direct look, which seemed to cut the flow, and turned back to me.
“She forgets, sometimes, how lucky we have both been. Lucky in our families, in our friends. I am sorry if we have it wrong, sorry if we are causing any offence”
I sat there, still in my leathers, and looked at the midget, who was almost vibrating with tension. Sod it. I looked down, and then just nodded once sharply. Jo reached out and took my hand.
“Nobody else knows, am I right?”
Once more, I gave a single nod, gathering my courage. Becky was almost whispering now.
“I am really sorry too if I have been rude, but, well, I like girls, and I mean I like this girl, my girl, and but well I can still spot other girls and you don’t have to hide with us and can I tell Sar?”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but this is something I should do myself, aye? She’s on the way back, I can hear the cups”
Sam, Sar, came back in with a tray of cups. Becky uncoiled.
“We’re off to the Ship tonight!”
I noticed the emphasis on ‘we’, and gave her a Look. Sam shrugged.
“Sorry, we can find somewhere else if you want, it’s the TLGB night”
I thought the little one was going to explode, as she chanted “LGBT! LGBT!” and my… sister continued.
“…and if you’d rather not go and watch a lot of benders like us we can always go into town for a Chinese and then a drink in the Union”
The midget suddenly changed her chant to “Tell her!” and I realised I did indeed need to. I had a sudden flash of empathy and understanding for my sister, living a lie so many years. I saw her now, and the lie was unsaid. Sam had been a fiction, a mask, and this was her reality. I had hidden too, but while she had known her difference from infancy, mine had only spoken to me at junior school. More forcefully, of course, in senior school, from twelve years of age onwards, in the changing rooms and showers. Every girl I had ever crushed on, everyone I had walked to the edge of the cliff of revelation over, each one had smiled at some boy rather than my way. Both of us hidden away. No more. Two of us exchanged very pointed looks, and I realised that there was some strength in my sister that I had never seen before, and with that I realised that the word ‘sister’ was the only appropriate one. She raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t you look at me like that, girl, you knew exactly what I intended to do. You knew exactly what I HAVE to do. None of this should come as a surprise, but you have one for me, I feel. Would you rather talk alone?”
I gave the girls a glance, and saw Jo’s finger to her partner’s lips.
“Ych, no. These two turned out to be the first to know, actually. That midget has a way of getting you talking.
“I’ll have you know I am well over…”
“Four feet tall, I know. Look, brawd, what do I call you?”
“Sarah. Sar for short, it was something that sort of came out on my first day here.”
“Well, Sar, I would love to go along to your LTGB night. And if you can’t work things out from that, let me just add that our parents are looking unlikely to get grand kids”
She looked absolutely shocked, her mouth opening and closing a few times. “Fuck me…”
Joanna looked her up and down, winked at me, and very drily said “Not yet, Sar”
In the end, I hauled my panniers up the stairs and got out of the leathers, changing into some neat jeans and a softer blouse. On with the heels, and sod it, that was four of us. I mean, she had her own pair, and the girls had stuffed her front with something, which rather suggested that she had at least one bra. I made a conscious decision, right then, that my inner voice would work on its pronouns. She looked good. Too skinny for my taste, but definitely all girl where it counted. The pub was a pub, and it sold beer, but the mood wasn’t that of the Oak, or even of the pubs near work, near the Station. For a start, the two blokes in front of us at the door were holding hands, and so were Becky and Jo; we were in, there was music pounding away, and a pint with my name on it. Just the one. Driving the next day, and a new sister’s back to watch. It was fun, though, especially when Sar danced, for that drove any doubts from me. I danced as well, while Sar guarded the bags, and, well, it was that sort of night. I got my bum grabbed a couple of times, but somehow it was different. There were smiles, and shy, sly glances, and they were for the right reasons, and one of the pairs of eyes caught mine, and then we were at the bar together. Becky and Jo were tangled up in each other in a corner, and my new friend was looking over to Sar.
“Girlfriend?”
“No, sister”
Door locked on Sam, firmly and forever.
“Lots of lads here tonight”
Why did I say that? My new friend smiled.
“The ones over there are all from the rugby club. They like to perve over the dykes. The rest are all gay”
I grabbed my courage, and with it probably the worst chat-up line in history.
“I quite like perving over dykes myself. Elaine”
“Cathy. So do I…”
Later that night, in my sleeping bag by Sar’s bed, I listened to her well–refreshed snores and worked through the evening, moment by moment. My first smile back from someone I fancied, and the realisation that it was mutual. My first dances, both fast and very, very slow, though I think my pulse rate was far higher during the slow ones. The very, very direct invitation to continue the evening back at Cathy’s, a suggestion that left so much of me in a state of nearly painful regret, for I had a sister to protect. The realisation that Sam’s door was indeed locked, but mine was wide open, and nothing lurked beyond it but pretty eyes and a smile.
In the morning, we took the cliff railway up, and had a cuppa at the top. I’d fitted some walking shoes into my saddle bags, as well as a pair of jeans a little looser than the pair I had squeezed into the night before. Sarah was still in the dress, still with tits. I raised an eyebrow at the mix of frock and training shoes, and she gave me a truly challenging glare.
“I’m a student, we mix and match, aye?”
I knew what she was really saying, and I understood that she was following my mental door-locking with signals of her own. I stepped forward, and hugged her to me.
“Sar, don’t need to fight, aye? This is you, this is right, and I have your back, always. Sisters, aye? Always and forever”
There were tears, of course, but my fleece took them in as her arms did me. Two other women just watched and smiled.
CHAPTER 3
It became a routine for a while, the run up to Aber. I would finish work after the right combination of shifts and jump onto bike or into car, heels and other trapping gear packed ready in advance. Two and a half girls would greet me with hugs and squealing, and after I had replenished my depleted stocks of tannin we would be off and out.
I always got a smile from Cathy, as well as some of the others I came to know, and one Friday evening, as the music pounded, Sar dragged me into the ladies’. My mind answered its own question: where else would my sister go?
“Chwaer, you don’t have to hover over me all the time”
“I’m not hovering, Sar, I’m just being there if you need me”
“I don’t, Elaine. No, no, I didn’t mean it like that! Look. The girls here, aye? From the Uni, most of them. They know me, know about me, aye? Most importantly, they know I’m not interested”
There are moments when reality leaps into your face waving, destroying all your complacency. That was one such; I had come to terms with my sister as a woman, I had ceased thinking of her in any way as male, but there she was all but declaring her, well, her heterosexuality. It seemed there were still little pieces of Sam wedged deep into my mind, and that was one. It was even worse than imagining our parents doing the dirty with each other. Sar was shaking her head.
“I can see where your mind’s going, Elaine, and we aren’t in here to talk about me, so no, I haven’t, I’m not, and I have no plans to, right? Nor opportunity or anatomy. It’s you, mooning around like a moony thing”
I started to get something out, but before my mouth was fully open, her fingers were there, just like Jo with Becky.
“Pause, cariad. I’ve been watching, aye? She’s not always on her own, but she is tonight. I have the girls with me, so what could possibly go wrong? Here…”
She handed me a tissue. “What’s that for?”
She tenderly kissed my cheek. “To wipe my lippy off, aye? Not to confuse her? Now go. See you tomorrow if it goes well”
She took my hand and led me from the toilet, pointed me towards the bar and gave a little push. Cathy was there.
“Hiya Lainey, can you drink tonight?
“Aye, not driving tomorrow. Two nights I’m here”
“How’s little sis?”
I looked over to where she was gyrating with her friends, realising as I did how short her skirt actually was, and turned back to Cathy’s eyes.
“Not so little any more, I think. I think I need to step back a little”
Cathy smiled broadly, then parted her lips. The tip of her tongue briefly touched the upper lip and then withdrew, as the smile turned into a grin. She reached out for my hand.
“Fancy a change of air?”
It was a short walk before we were climbing the slope of Pen Maes Glas Road. Cathy put a key into a door before turning to me and saying something that almost made me love her.
“You sure your sis will be OK?”
I had a little trouble swallowing. “Yes. I am sure”
Sure about so many things, right then, and really sure that I wanted this woman so strongly I thought my heart would explode. She took my hand again, which she had only released to get her key, and drew me into her flat, drew me to her, eyes locked on mine.
“Traditional thing is to offer you tea or coffee, darling. Can I do the traditional thing afterwards?”
“After what?”
She lifted a hand to my breast, and I felt so, so stupid.
“Just ‘afterwards’, yes?”
The next day, after I woke them up, we four girls made our pilgrimage to the clifftop again, and there were knowing glances and shy smiles. Assumptions were being made, and obviously the right ones I found myself grinning and, more to the point, blushing. I held onto that memory such a short time later.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Becky had been clear about liking a girl in uniform, so I made it as perfect as I could. I was screaming inside, all the usual childish stuff about fairness, but it still came down to a wet and miserable day with the matching pairs of distraught families and coffins. I couldn’t tell Sar right then, but I was hearing hints that the driver had been watching a video, and I made a note to be at his trial and give the fucker the eye.
Sarah looked smart, in a suit clearly bought for the occasion, and I wondered if she would ever be able to wear it again. I looked at her, stared at her, and Sam simply wasn’t there. I mean, she had worn him for the occasional trips home, but this was simply a young woman I saw before me. The decision rose up before me. No way could I allow all the work her first true friends had ever done to be cast aside.
“We go now, Sar. We do it now. There is nothing we can do for the families beyond what we have said, aye? We don’t know them. But the girls knew you, they cared for you. We put things right, now”
She was away in her thoughts. Fuck it.
“Brawd!”
Her head jerked; attention caught. I softened my tone, but only slightly.
“Chwaer, we need to sort out a few things at home. You can either do it now while you still have the numbness, and the time left to hide at college, or you can do it when you come back from college, nowhere to hide and me not there to support you. Let’s just do it now, OK? I am angry enough to get you through this one, and I am not leaving you to him while I am off in Llareggub or wherever. Can you do this for me? For yourself?”
She seemed to find her feet fascinating for a while, and then her voice came back to her, bleakly soft. “You mean, like you subtly told me you were a dyke? Oh, bugger it, in for a penny. What can he do?”
“Speaking from unfortunate experience, kill both of us, but that’s unlikely. I am going to make a couple of calls just before we go in, OK?”
We drove out just as far as the first phone box I could find, and I rang work. Thankfully, Kevin was on the desk, one of the better lads.
“Kev? I need a favour”
“Problems at the funeral, Lainey?”
“Na, more possible ones at home, butt. Got a bit of a possible domestic ahead, need someone nearby just in case, aye?”
“What you up to, girl?”
Sod it. “Mate, you know I don’t exactly sing from the same hymn sheet as most of the other girls”
He laughed. “I think the whole station knows that, love! Ah. Would this domestic possibility concern that beast of a dad of yours? You coming out, aye?”
“More than that, Kev”
There was silence at the other end, as I watched my money counting down.
“Elaine…”
“Aye?”
“You know my cousin Elwyn, he’s Custody up at Aber, aye? He said, you know, things. Your brother, innit?”
The tears came, just when I didn’t need them. “Sister, Kev. These two girls, we just seen them burned, aye? They loved my little sis, and they did so much, so fucking much, and now they’re soot and shit and nothing!”
“Give me the number of that box and hang up, girl”
I did, and fought to get my face back under orders, and then the phone rang again.
“Two of the boys will be waiting on the junction. They’ll have a spare radio for you. Stop, pick it up, and any shit you just press the red button. Talk to me when you can, aye?”
“Aye, Kev. I owe you one”
“Not one you haven’t already paid in full. Talk to me after, aye?”
“Will do”
“And Lainey?”
“Aye?”
“We find a day, and we go out together and we get pissed together. Those girls got you this upset, they need a proper wake”
All I could do just then was hang up, but I knew he would understand.
I gave Sar an edited version of the chat, and drove her home. My right foot wanted to get heavy with anger and loss, but I held back, held to my task. I picked up my radio, and we parked outside the family home.
“Wait in the car”
I walked up to the door and slid my key in. Mam had clearly heard us arrive, because she was in the kitchen ready to make tea.
“Leave that please, Mam, we need to talk”
She looked hard at my red-rimmed eyes. “You OK, cariad? That funeral, they were Sam’s friends, na?”
“They were mine as well, Mam, in the end”
Dad nodded. "Bit odd, aye, double funeral like that”
“Not really, Dad. They were a couple”
Mam looked up. “Couple? You mean they were woman queers? And you left our boy with them?”
“The word is lesbian, Mam. So they would hardly have been a threat to a boy, would they?”
Dad muttered to himself. “Bloody unnatural, that. Women with women. Not right, not right”
The anger swallowed my restraint. “It’s not right they’re dead, is it? And if they weren’t right, then neither am I!”
Mam went pale. “You are saying these girls, that you, that they led you into---“
“Oh, don’t be stupid! I’ve fancied girls since I knew what it was all about, aye? Don’t give me that look!”
Dad was almost snarling. “And Sam? I can see there is more in your story than your own perversion. Are you telling me our boy is also a homosexual?”
I snarled back. “As far as I can tell, as straight, as heterosexual, as anyone could ever be”
Mam sighed in obvious relief, but a cruel streak held me just then. “No, I don’t think she fancies women at all”
Really nice touch, Elaine; how to handle a minor domestic by the book, not. I took a breath.
“I’ll call her in, but you keep your hands to yourself”
I went out and tapped on the car window, Sarah jumping in shock, and the next few minutes ticked every box I had been so frightened of. The shouts, the threats, the instructions to go and change into proper attire, and I had had enough. Two girls, dead. I pulled the rage back and started doing what I got paid for, and eventually people were talking rather than giving instructions and making statements.
“Listen, you have a choice, aye? You two need to understand one thing, and one thing only. Much as we love you both, we have a lot of problems ahead. You can either be with us, or you will be without us. Sarah here has been this way since she was old enough to know what a girl was, so don’t you dare come out with another comment about the University.
“What do you want? Two daughters, or none?”
I realised it wasn’t only Mam crying, as Dad rose from his chair and pulled her to him, tears falling freely from both of them. Sarah moved to go to them, and I knew what it was going to be: sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry, I’ll go and change…
I held her back, and saw Dad whisper something. Mam just nodded. Dad stared hard at me, muscles working in his face.
“Then two pretty daughters it is. I don’t like it, I don’t want it, but it’s the bed I have and I have no choice. I will not abandon a child of mine for anything”
Mam nodded again, and then tried on the saddest smile I ever saw her give.
“Just…please, don’t rub our noses in it”
I took my aching thumb from the red button on the radio, and went to heal my parents.
CHAPTER 4
A little later I left the three of them to find what accommodation they could, and it struck me just then how natural my sister was. I had almost threatened her into doing what we had just started, for I knew it would not soon be finished, but she sat there, skirt and heels and stuffed bra, and every move, every little nuance, was woman. If I could see that, then so must our parents.
Two boys were on the corner, just as Kev had promised. I tapped on the window, and one of them nearly spilled his drink as he poured from a thermos. Once the window was down, I handed back the radio.
“Ta, lads. False alarm, aye? But thanks”
One of the lads, Rod something or other, just nodded. “Kev says to give him a ring in the morning, eh? Once you’re straight, he says”
There was a distinct snigger from the other lad, but I let it go. I knew there would be much worse before they got bored.
“Aye, I will do just that. Straight away, aye?”
Pick the bones out of that one, sonny boy. It wasn't just my family who were getting the idea.
It was almost a stand-off the next morning. I assumed Sar had slept in her knickers, unless she had dug out some of her old pyjamas. We had come back in such a hurry there had been no time to pack, and unless she pulled on some old pair of trousers she was stuck with one sort-of formal outfit. Had to be done.
“Sar...”
Wince from my mother. Keep it together, Lainey, you get worse than this on a Friday down the Llew Las.
“We need to get you some bits and pieces, chwaer”
Another twitch, so I gave her The Look before pulling it back in quickly. This was my own mam, for god's sake. I reached out for her hand over the breakfast table.
“Mam, we settled that argument last night. This is just the mechanics. You spend more than a day in the same knickers?”
She cast a sharp glance at Dad. Men... and that broke the ice.
He laughed out loud, almost in relief. “So I keep the same pair on till I need to change, aye? What does... she need?”
Sar looked out from under her fringe, voice very, very soft, and gave a short list of items to make up a basic wardrobe, and I watched Mam's jaw tighten at some items in particular. Bras were the obvious one to raise tensions, but Dad astonished me just then.
“Elaine, you have a shift later, aye?”
“Aye, Dad. You knew that, why ask?”
“Not asking, cariad, just confirming. Will you be around the centre in Hwlffordd?”
“Aye...”
“Will you be able to meet a stiff-necked old man and his other pretty daughter for a cup of tea?”
He turned and looked hard at Sarah. “Whatever we have decided, it is clear to me now what you are, and I feel now have always been. Sioned, cariad, we never had a son, so we have lost nothing, aye? But others may be mistaken, and my daughter does not walk that path alone. There are shops for women there. I have a wife; I learn such things”
There was just a twinkle there, the hint of a real smile, and I knew that this was my father's way. Once he chose a course, it was the right, the only one. Whatever got in his way would be removed., as the Yanks say, with extreme prejudice. Sar just sat there, head bowed. I could feel the terror flowing through her. Dad looked at Mam, raising an eyebrow. She just nodded. The day's plan was sorted.
Kev was waiting by custody as I came in, an eyebrow raised in unconscious mimicry of my father.
“Well? Sorted?”
“All sorted, PC Watkins. Nothing to see, move along, aye?”
“Rod said a few things at relief... be aware, aye? Your brother, is it?”
I sighed. “Cuppa before we go out, butt? I'll talk you through the shitstorm”
“I'll square it with the Sarge. Rod does talk some shit at times, but you look tired. Got to be some truth in there somewhere”
Bacon sandwiches in the afternoon taste different to the breakfast version. Tea is tea, and mugs help to hide facial expressions. Kev waited till we were sat, and then just said “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well which bits are shit and which are true?”
“Well, then. I suppose I should start with myself, aye?”
“That you're on the other bus? Hell's teeth, Lainey, the whole station knows that. You're not exactly the fair flower of the West, eh?”
Just a little twitch as he said that, and in a rush I knew. Always loyal, always watching my back, always there, like the previous night, like he was just then. Why can't life be simple? He clearly caught my look, and the softest smile I had ever seen from him lit the room.
“That bus went ages ago, and as we have just agreed, it was the wrong one, innit? Sometimes we don't get to make the beds we sleep in, so shit, move on”
“Kevin, I'm sorry, aye?”
Still the soft smile. “So am I, Lainey, so am I, but that's the way things are, so what was it? Move along, nothing to see? Now, your brother...”
“I haven't got one”
“Ah. Rod was almost right, then. Haven't got one, or never had one?”
A long sip of tea. “Never, is what I think. We had a sort of shit day yesterday, cremating her best friends. Bit of a bad time, so she needs some support”
“And you did that by pushing ... her into the face of that old bastard of a dad of yours?”
“Had to be done, Kev. She needs to get her life on track before it's gone, aye? I've known this about her since she was tiny, and it's never changed, never gone away”
“So where they at now?"
“Dad and Mam've taken her to the shops. Knowing her tastes, she's probably in Dorothy Perkins or some such, if Mam hasn't dragged her into Marks', vetting her wardrobe, aye?”
He grinned. “You seem to say 'her' pretty easily, Lainey”
“Like I said, Kev, I've known this since she was in junior school. And, well, I watched her at college, and let's just say the only mistake I see there is the way she was born. We just have to let her out”
He was silent for a few minutes. “Lainey...”
“Aye?”
“Names. She gets a degree, gets it as Samuel, that's a lifetime of shit, aye? I know a brief...”
Clever boy. If only, but I wasn't, and we couldn't, and, well, shit. Nothing easy for this family.
“Kev... ta. Keep that thought in mind, aye? Now, fancy a piece of cake later? Meet them in the town, say hello?”
He reddened, and I had to ask. “So what else did Rod say? About my sister? Bloke in a dress? Pansy? Arsebandit gayboy?”
Kevin looked away, and nodded. I finished my tea.
“See what you think this afternoon, aye? But be nice”
I let him take my hand over the table. It seemed the right thing to do.
Mam and Dad were waiting in A Piece of Cake, Sar nowhere to be seen but a sizeable number of carrier bags by their table. I sent Kev to fetch tea and calories after a quick introduction.
“Where is she, then?”
Mam was twitching less now. “In the ladies', where else? Putting on a skirt I told her not to get. Too short, it is”
Dad laughed, and it was natural. “Two pretty daughters, I said, and Duw, the legs on the younger one! Sioned, let her have her fun, aye?”
Just as quickly he sobered. “Just as long as she has someone to watch out for her, that is. This copper, he knows about my Sarah?”
“Aye, Dad, I think the whole station does after last night. He's a good lad, though, knows what time to open his mouth and when to keep it closed. What's she bought, then?”
Mam was back in her element. “Decent underthings, aye? Always dress from skin out. Some nice blouses, though she wanted some T-shirt things that only came down to, well, THERE, aye? Chilly, if you ask me. Skirts, a couple of pairs of shoes, and not all heels for her. Does she live in those things?”
I thought of her in dress and trainers, at the top of the cliff railway with the girls, and my insides clenched just as Kev arrived with the tea and cakes.
“No, Mam, she spends most of her time in sports shoes. Kev Watkins, Mam and Dad, Twm and Sioned. Sar's in the ladies' getting changed. Mam, Dad, Kev had an idea about Sar”
Sar chose that moment to turn up, and I swear Kev's eyes crossed. I could understand his reaction, for what he was seeing was my little brother, but through my sister, in a T-shirt over a little denim mini. I gave her the Older Sister Stare.
“Aye, and when the wind comes in off the harbour you'll want fur knickers, sister dear! Kev... eyes off her legs and thoughts on higher things. Your brief, aye?”
He twitched. “Aye. Rod does talk some crap. Sar, I'm Kev, aye? Lainey's running mate, most days. She sort of filled me in. Sar, is it? Elaine told me. I am so sorry”
He left it hanging as Sar just nodded, then smiled again. “We had an idea, your sister and me”
I coughed. “Kev had a sensible thought, he means, which is possibly a first for him”
“Cheeky... no. Look, you are in this full-time, isn't it? Not what Rod was saying, not dress-up? Sorry, all, being a bit blunt, but this is something for your future. Get your degree as Sarah, not, what was it, Sam?”
Sar looked up, shyness washing away. “Can't get the change done without all sorts of stuff, years of real-life test rubbish, aye?”
Kev smiled at her, and I realised I should watch him a bit more closely. “No, Sar, not for a name change. Quick thing, it is, and unless I am out of touch the diplomas, degrees, certificates, whatever, they just have your name on, not which way you button your shirt. I know someone local, could sort it sharpish”
There were little movements at my sister's jaw line, and she flicked a level glance at Mam and Dad.
“I have a name, Mam, I have names. One sort of came about by accident, but I like it, and I made it my own, and that's how I want it, aye? I have a middle name I like, but, well, I would like to add two more. I am your child. You should have a say”
Dad took Mam's hand. “The middle name, cariad fychan?”
“Marie”
Mam nodded. “That is a good name. Sarah Marie Powell. These other two names, they would be of two girls you both knew?”
Sar nodded, the tears already falling. “Rebecca Joanne, aye”
Kevin found some paper serviettes as Dad smiled once more. “I can't think of a better memorial, girl. Those two, they found you, when you were lost. You hold on to their names, their memory, aye?”
Kev did indeed know a brief, and he was efficient, and happy with the witnesses, and Samuel never left the building he had entered. I took Sarah Marie Rebecca Joanne back to Aber two days later
CHAPTER 5
That was the start of a new life indeed. Each time I had visited her at university, she had been clearer and sharper in the focus of her femininity, truer to herself. Up until the funeral, it had all had to be folded away and kept in storage whenever she came home. Now, the bird was free, and I had to keep a careful watch on where and how high it flew. I had Kevin to watch, for starters. Then again, her tastes seemed to be heading more in the direction of the shortest skirts she could get away with. The genie was well and truly out of the bottle, and that container was in the local recycling bin and headed for a crusher
I ended up nagging Sar, much to my surprise. After all the drama of coming out to Mam and Dad, of beginning a new role at Aberystwyth under a new name, she was drifting. Always like that, my sister: no backbone.
“So when?”
“When I get round to it, Lainey. Got exams and that, studies, aye?”
"And time passes and you get more and more butch, isn't it? Look at our family, look at the men: you want to look like Dad in that denim mini you wear? Get it done now, get it underway, get the best you can. Sar, chwaer, cariad, I just want you happy, that's all. Well, happy and safe”
She had sighed, looking out of her window for a few seconds.
“Aye. Look, I just have the finals, then that's it. This is a long process, we both know that. Perhaps, as well, you can understand it's a bit hard talking to people about it, even doctors, aye? I have a sort of plan, Lainey. I get my result, and I have confidence in that one, OK? I get my ticket, I find a job, I talk to a local doc, one who'll be there for the thing, I only have to do it the once, aye?”
She looked back at me, eyes moist. “I don't go back to Samuel, ever. I have two friends to carry with me”
Backbone enough, it seemed. I was home the next weekend, and caught Dad before he could avoid me.
“Who, where and why?”
Mam scowled. “Not at work now, are we, Elaine?”
Dad grinned around his fat lip. “Traditional thing, aye, is to ask what the other bloke looked like. Cuppa?”
“Gwrs. Talk to me, Dad”
We took our seats in the front room, for once, and he smiled once again.
“Not past it yet, aye? Had to have a few words with some idiots, isn't it?”
I caught on. “About Sar, Dad? They saying things?”
He grinned, even though it clearly hurt his mouth. “Usually things like 'Please stop hitting me', girl!”
Mam turned her scowl on me again. “Two pretty daughters, he said, two we have, and that is our business, and that of nobody else”
Dad's smile faded. “Aye, your Mam is right. But, well, it's not just your sister, is it?”
Mam's expression grew even darker. “Won't say it to your face, to your uniform, is it? But they think they can say those things to my Twm, and keep their teeth, and wrong they are!”
I gave her my best plismon look. “And you, Mam, you are OK with fighting now?”
A flat stare, not a fluster of justification. “There is fighting for fighting, aye? That is wrong, sinful the Parch would say, but that is not what this is. This is fighting for protection, for honour, aye? This is for family!”
I sighed. “Mam, if you only knew how much rubbish I hear spoken about honour”
Dad sat up straighter, his voice almost hushed. “Aye, Elaine. I've read about that, about women murdered for looking at a man the wrong way, but that isn't what your Mam means. Call it dignity, if you want, but what it is, what it means, is a start, a beginning. Let one of them think he can get away with the words, then the actions follow. It stops. I stop it, aye?”
I took his meaning, and from then on made sure I was well away from any pub he frequented. I was always a loser in fighting temptation.
A few days later, I was out at a pub with Kev, as one simple way of keeping said temptation at bay. I'd left the bike and car behind, as for once I felt like getting a little tipsy. Life was not being kind to me, and Dad's fighting had struck home. What was I up there in Abergwaun but a figure to be pointed at, the local dyke on a bike. The family that got everything wrong, whose son minced around in a skirt, and the odd thing was that as that thought bit home, I loved Mam and Dad deeply. They hadn't taken easily to either of us, but they stayed true and firm and strong.
“What's up, Lainey?”
“Ah, butt, just life, aye?”
“Your Dad? I've heard, some of the boys, eh? Been a few in casualty, innit? How's the sister, anyway?”
I gave him my best stoneface. “And you ask why? You know what she is, nothing there for you, is it?”
He almost blushed. “Not like that, Lainey. I know, well, aye, but when I saw her that first time, it was like seeing you, just, well, a bit less butch, and that threw me, that I fancied the boy in the dress more than the woman in the uniform. She's very like you, mate, as you were when you had just started in The Job. Confusing, it was”
He looked down, and this time there was a blush showing. “Anyway, you know how I feel about you. No, listen, I'm a realist, I know what you are as well as you do. Just take this as I mean it. I will never, ever abandon you. I will do my best never to let you down. And I think I can take it as read that you are the same, that you would do that for me, isn't it?”
“What aren't you telling me, Kev?”
Definitely a blush. “I'm on a blind date tonight. You're the moral support”
“Fuck me backwards! Er, well, you know what I mean. Some warning, aye? Tell me, while we have time”
“Newspaper thing, Guardian, telephone number. Got talking, she sounded nice, sounds nice, and, well, I sort of arranged, sort of have a workmate along, sort of thing, public place, safety---”
“You are rambling, butt. What's she look like?”
“Dunno, do I? Says she has short brown hair, wearing a blue dress, carrying a Guardian, all clichés, I know---”
“Shush, Kev. Clock the bar, aye? Short dark hair, blue dress, newspaper in her hand, and the way she's looking round, she's trying to spot someone. What did you say about yourself?”
“I'd be with a mate, copy of the paper...”
“Well, where is it?”
“Under my coat. Wanted to get a look at her first, see if, you know”
“See if she was worth talking to or not, and if not, sneak out and leave her standing? What's her name?”
“Vicky. No, Lainey, don't!”
Ignoring him, I got up and walked over to the woman at the bar.
“Hello, are you looking for Kevin?”
She slumped. “You the workmate, or the wife?”
English. “You had that before, have you? Nope, the workmate, and on the wrong bus for him, isn't it?”
Suddenly, she started to laugh, and I liked her immediately.
“The joke is? And I'm Elaine, by the way”
“Let's go and meet Romeo, then. He hiding the paper in case he wants to do a runner? I'll explain the joke when we get sat down. Drinks first, though. Yours?”
I looked over to the table. “Pint of the Brain's for me and him, if you're offering”
She caught the eye of the barman. “Two pints of Brain's and two dry whites, please”
I led the way over to the table, suspicions raised by the extra drink.
“Kev, Vicky, Vicky, Kev. You can get the paper out now, butt, she's only got the one head. Men, who'd have 'em?”
Vicky took the offered seat. “Not you, at least”
Kev started. “Bit quick with the personal info, Lainey”
“Na, she thought I was your wife, out to scupper your search for a bit on the side. Vicky, he's single. Want me to sod off for a bit?”
“No ta. Nice to see a bloke with a bit of reality in tow”
She looked slightly hurt with that one. “What it is all about is a number of meetings where the solo bloke is a bit expansive with his background, a bit sort of expanded out of reality.. Wives, jobs, waist size, they all get adjusted to fit. So, I asked if he had a mate to bring along”
I laughed. “Let me guess. You did the same, a mate to distract the mate. And then his mate's a woman, so your mate will be a bit cheesed off”
Vicky laughed, and I liked her a lot for that sound. “No, that's what's creasing me up! I brought her because she's safe from all that. She's on the same bus you are! Ah, here she is. Kevin, Elaine, this is my cousin Sián”
CHAPTER 6
Vicky stood up to hand the new arrival her drink.
“Sián, this is the bloke in question. Kevin. And his workmate, Elaine”
The woman looked at me and grinned. “And you were expecting another hairy man, wasn't it? Dim ots, eh?”
A gog, from somewhere north-west rather than the Scouse Riviera. I smiled, realising we could probably talk behind the backs of the other two if necessary. I raised an eyebrow, and she nodded. Telepathy was clearly working, for she simply said “Ydw”
'Yes, I do'
Vicky was bubbling away, and I suddenly realised she was as nervous as Kev had shown himself to be. She looked over to her cousin.
“You won't have to take one for the team, love, with some bloke. Not unless you want to, that is: Elaine's one of your lot!”
There was a bright flash of pink from Sián's face. “Very open with the personal information, Victoria? How long you known these two?”
Vicky's face fell, and suddenly she was scurrying from the table. More telepathy, and I followed her cousin, pausing only for a quick word for Kev.
“Aye, you can have my pint if it takes too long, but I want fresh, and you do NOT fuck off and leave, bachgen!”
Women's toilets serve many purposes, and one of them is as a private space in which we can talk about things relating entirely to women. They served for other purposes at the Ship, of course, but not now, Lainey, not now. The two women were over by the frosted windows that let in a little of the street light from outside, Vicky clearly in tears while her cousin did tissue duty. Sián gave me a pointed look, then sighed.
“Vicky lets her gob run away with her when she's nervous. Sorry about that. Caused her a few problems. Shall we start from scratch?”
I held out a hand for hers. Firm pressure; the floaty frockiness was a front, then.
“What's brought this one on? Coppers are that scary?”
Sián kneaded her cousin's shoulder with her left hand. “Na. Victoria here has just had a bit of a time of it, aye? With men?”
I grinned, as best I could. “I wouldn't know about that, would I? Motormouth here has made that one clear”
Sián flushed again. “Aye, but it is the nerves with her. She has to compensate, and she takes it too far, so she compensates for compensating, and next thing she's on the wrong side of the road looking at the front of a lorry”
I couldn't help it, and shuddered. Sián clearly noticed. “OK?”
Deep breaths. “Aye, just, well, my sister and I lost a couple of friends that way. Good friends. Still a bit raw, isn't it? Now, Vicky, he doesn't bite, or so I am told, and he's good back-up when I have trouble, but I'm not doing a whitewash job, aye? There's more. I see this with the job, aye? You able to talk?”
She looked up. “He be OK on his own?”
“Man, in a pub, so as long as he doesn't run out of beer he's fine, and as he has permission to drink my pint that's sorted, aye?”
She gave a wry chuckle, and then a sort of wave of her hand to her cousin. The meaning was crystal: you do it, spare me this once. Sián took another, trembling, breath.
“Starry-eyed, isn't she, my cousin? Gets the qualifications that good girls get, or what my Uncle Christopher thinks they are, and she does her typing and her filing rubbish and she's off to the big city, do the PA rubbish, eh? Oh, shut up, girl, you know it's all sexist bullshit. She's read the books, seen the films, you know the crap they put out. She's Julia Roberts, the boss is going to be Richard Gere, or whoever, and she'll be there, and off come her glasses and it's open-topped Mercs and holidays in St Lucia and kids called Tarquin and Evadne or some other shit names”
Vicky was actually trembling now, and I felt the Job settle into my eyes.
“Vicky... how many times did he hit you before you left?”
She looked up at me again, and her voice was faint. “He didn't hit me, Elaine”
There was something worse there than the usual pain I felt with domestics. Sián took her cousin's hand.
“Vicky, cariad, you don't have to do this. No offence, Elaine, but Vicky, you don't know this woman”
This time, the other woman's stare was direct, but her voice was still hushed. “I think I do, love, I think I really do. I think she's had her own shit. Elaine... yes, she's right. I was all starry-eyed and stupid. Got the job, over by Snow Hill, Brum, yes? Importers, exporters, movers and shakers, and the owner's son, he's as smooth and easy to like as sin. Pakistani family, but oh-so-integrated, oh yes.
“He actually had the Mercedes, you know, an SLK, and the suits, and he knew the best clubs and restaurants, and there I am, bloody low-hanging fruit if ever there was. He's got the words, he's got the readies, I've got the Hollywood bullshit in my eyes. What could go wrong?”
Sián moved in to hug her, and Vicky clung to her as if she would fall without support. Another woman came in just then, took one look and nodded before leaving. Telepathy again.
Vicky drew a long, slow breath. “I think I was four or five months gone when I told him. No, Sian love, we've started this, get it out, yeah? They're coppers, need to know it all... Elaine, your mate, he's a good man?”
I thought for a while before answering, remembering the unthinking way he had sorted out our support that first evening, the radio he had found for me.
“Aye, he's sound. Bit disappointed I'm not on his wavelength, aye? But he's a good man. Vicky... what happened with the kid? Custody shit? I know some, er, cultures can be a bit awkward”
I was thinking of what I had said to Mam about 'honour' killings as I said that, and Vicky's reaction was tears. I waited patiently, something we have to learn, until she could speak without gasps. Her cousin was tight-jawed. Whatever had happened was not good. Another shuddering breath from Vicky.
“No, no custody issues. We can't get married with a bun in the oven, not the way at all, not traditional, is it? So we traditionally trot down to the family planning clinic, or rather I do, cause it would be shameful for him to be there, yeah, and I traditionally... I fucking traditionally kill our child, and then I find out that he is already traditionally set up to traditionally marry his fucking cousin from Lahore...”
She trailed off, and there was that hand gesture again as Siá¢n took up the flow.
“She took it hard, Elaine, and words were said, so she ended up out of a job, and needed to bolt, aye? So, I had to step in. Somewhere far enough away to be safe. Fresh start, aye?”
I was coming to a slow boil. “And unfair fucking dismissal? Breach of promise? Being a lying fucking sexist bastard?”
Vicky sighed again. “Doesn't work when you've been stealing from your employer, Elaine, and he had sorted that little game out, had it all prepared. Just in case”
Siá¢n was snarling now. “Aye, he stitched her up tight. 'Just piss off and don't come back and we won't have to get the nasty courts involved', the cachgi. Cachgi yn wir, yn siarad cachu dwyiaith, aye?”
I recognised the words of the song, a shit-dog, speaking shit in two tongues, and the pun was absolutely right.
“So where are you now, Vicky?”
Another long sigh. “My darling here found me a slot, Highways Agency in Carmarthen--”
Siá¢n and I spoke as one. “Yng Nghaerfyrddin!”
That actually brought a laugh from Vicky, and then we had to hug. She whispered in my ear.
“You sure this Kev is a good bloke?”
“He better be, or I will sort, aye?”
Repairs, faces washed–when had my own tears arrived? Back out to the token male, and some unspoken stuff between me and him. “Kev, drinks duty, aye, as you have had mine and I want a new one”
Once at the bar, I kept my face straight and voice neutral, the Job there for me.
“Nice girl, butt. Had some serious shit. Treat her nicely or don't even start with her, aye?”
“What you think, Lainey? I start, or I leave now? Seriously, it's one of the reasons I brought you along, innit. I trust you, girl”
I thought quietly. Not her fault, none of it, that was clear to me. Something about the two girls spoke to me of honesty, good faith given and used for toilet paper.
“Kev, stay for now, aye? Just, well, open eyes, open heart”
Drinks recovered, back to the table, where the girls had found their smiles again. I handed over their wines.
“Now, ladies, shall we begin the traditional game? Free bag of crisps to which of us can remember the stupidest driver!”
CHAPTER 7
It turned into a good solid evening, enough beer passing my lips to relax my tensions but not so much that all carefulness went back to the bar with the empty glasses. Vicky was far more entertaining than I had expected her to be after the revelations in the toilets, but Siá¢n still seemed to be on guard, paying careful attention to everything Kev came out with. The man himself seemed to think that he was the centre of the world, as why else would three women be so rapt?
“Where you from, Siá¢n?”
“Little place called Pont Cyfyng, just outside Capel Curig, originally. Not been back for a while. You two local, aye?”
I looked emphatically at my empty glass. “Aye, but he better move away a few feet soon. Kev, you are two pints ahead, and one of them was mine, aye? Hint hint”
He sniffed. “Like being bloody married, Lainey!”
“You wish!”
Vicky laughed again. “So I hear! Who's driving, cousin dear?”
A theatrical sigh. “Duw, mine's a diet coke then. Question's still there, Elaine”
“Oh aye. We're both from Abergwaun, no great distance”
“What's your family?”
I took a while to think on that one. “Mam and Dad still there, sister up at Aberystwyth. Got her finals now, aye? Then into the real world for her. Before you ask, cause I can see it in your face, the answer is yes. My parents know about me”
Kev was back with the drinks, and gave a little snort as he heard the exchange. “Lainey can be a bit in-your-face on that subject. Don't get on her bad side, girls. And especially not her Dad's. Not a man to upset, Twm Powell, innit?”
He took a sip, and waited for me to do the same, which was when he asked “Still keeping Casualty busy?”
He didn't get the result he was after. My beer stayed unsprayed, and my eyebrows gave him a warning. “Think he's run out of idiots, aye? And I told him: they want to say something, they can say it direct to PC Powell, aye? I'll give them their answer”
He was rolling, though. “Aye, but it's Sarah as well”
I gave him a quick head shake, but Vicky was alert.
“Sarah?”
Kev nodded. “Aye. Her, er, sister”
Don't do this to me, mate. “Aye, the one I mentioned, up at Aber doing drugs and stuff. Wants to be a pharmacist”
Vicky was still digging. “What about her that gets your Dad into fights?”
Thank you, Kevin. I looked for a way to steer around the crash, but there was none.
“Your mouth is far too big, PC Watkins. This is turning into some sort of true confessions shit. Look, Vicky, Sarah, aye? She changed her name last year”
“And?”
“She used to be called Samuel”
Siá¢n sniffed. “Tranny, is it?”
Not doing as well as I thought, were we? “No. We don't use words like that. She's my sister, full stop. Just needs a little adjustment. Kev, oh big mouthed one, describe my SISTER, please”
A hint of a blush. “Tallish, nice legs, nice bum, strawberry blonde, pretty, aye?”
I gave him the usual flat stare. “I like your priorities in describing her, butt”
I turned back to Siá¢n. “He fancies her as well, you see”
The redhead looked slightly adrift. “Aye, but I've read about them, and it's all learned, isn't it? You bring a boy up the wrong way, and it thinks it's a girl. Been proved, over in the States”
“Kevin, think carefully about this. Given what's been said, describe my sister”
He took a little time of his own just then, and when he spoke it was so softly I had to strain to listen.
“Ladies, I've known Lainey for a long time, and there is no way her family brings boys up as anything other than boys. Her Dad, her uncle, aye? Men's men they are, no truck with pansies or fairies. Sarah confuses me. I look at her and I see Elaine in her, just younger, and I have to be careful now, but she does have nicer legs. All I see is girl, and I know what she was registered as, and I know how she was brought up, but she's a girl, full stop. Don't know what you've read, girl, but it sounds like bollocks to me. Lainey, what's your Dad call Sarah?”
I straightened up and fixed the redhead with a very direct stare. “His other pretty daughter”
Kev nodded. “Says it all. Sorry, Lainey, your business. I should learn a bit of gob control. Siá¢n, Vicky, she gets very protective of Sar. You'll have to meet her, then you'll see what I mean”
Vicky looked hard at him. “So you are after another meet up?”
He grinned, almost back to himself. “Aye, but perhaps without the audience. I know a good Italian place”
I had to laugh out loud at that. “Not a curry, butt?”
Another grin. “Got to try and be sophisticated, innit? Girl from the big city, wants a bit of class. Wine in a basket, that sort of thing”
Siá¢n was all innocence at that. “Doesn't it leak out?”
Kev was obviously puzzled. “Eh?”
“The wine. Out of the basket”
“Oh god. Lainey, this one's worse than you. Girl, just one thing: let me be serious just for a second, aye? I can see you have some ideas, some preconceptions, innit? Let Sarah speak for herself. Give her a chance. Took me a little while to get my head around it, but it's what she is, what she was born for”
I coughed. “Lot of assumptions there, butt. When would Siá¢n be meeting my sis?”
“Diawl, mate, don't tell me you aren't thinking about asking her out? You've had your eyes below her face half the evening”
I don't blush that easily, but he had caught me. She did have rather a pleasant, em, aspect to her, and a sharp mind. If I could just get her away from talking such crap about Sarah, or perhaps even thinking it, I would most definitely be stuck for reasons to say no. The most important thing was Vicky's openness about her cousin. Aberystwyth had been such a special place, for the nights down at the Ship were specifically for girls like me. No dancing around except on the dance floor itself. No is she, isn't she; even the straight girls that came down out of curiosity and voyeurism understood whose space they were in, whose territory they were visiting, and taking offence at being chatted up wasn't an option. Abergwaun, though, even Caerfyrddin, they were different. Girls like me were in the minority, and, to be brutally honest, the ones who were open about it tended not to be my type. I mean, what I am is a woman, simple as that, but a woman who likes other women. I don't fancy blokes, and I don't fancy women trying to be blokes.
I used to hear the conversations at work, usually about male homosexuals, and it was always the same: which one's the butch, which the bitch? Straight people, men in particular, seemed to want everyone boxed off into the same place they inhabited, each couple as heterosexually constrained as possible, even if they were gay. I just fancied women, not pretend men, and that thought threw Sar up again, and she was pretending absolutely nothing at all. Pure girl, my sister.
“Elaine?”
“Uh? Sorry, Kev; miles away”
“Girls are asking if you want to eat, before the kitchen closes, aye?”
“You not have tea before you came out?”
There was a flicker in his eyes, and I realised he was actually doing his best to prolong the evening, rather than let it expire as drink limits were reached.
“They do a good mixed grill here. Just had a bit of rarebit before I came out, innit”
I laughed. “Ladies, his idea of cheese on toast is more like a bloody pizza than Tesco's ever sold. You fancy a bite?”
Vicky put on a frown. “But you said he didn't, Elaine...”
The meal was ordered, along with more wine, and Vicky was laughing again. It wasn't just the wine, either, for all the prickly jousting seemed to have released something that had been bound inside her. I spent a while watching, sitting silent, until I felt a nudge from Siá¢n.
“Ladies'?”
She led the way, to a comment from Vicky about doing things she wouldn't do, and I realised the other woman was after all feeling her drink. Siá¢n checked the cubicles were clear, and then turned to me, arms folded across her chest.
“Thank you for tonight. You saw her at her lowest, which wasn't the plan, aye? And I am sorry if I was out of line over your... sister. Just, doesn't sit well with me, aye? Women are women, they don't get made”
“That wasn't what you said, was it? That crap from the States, that was all about making boys into girls, girls into boys, aye? Talk to me. Not just Vicky with shit in the cupboard, is it?”
She sighed. “Not just now, aye? Your sister: could I meet her? See what you see, what your mate sees? And he's one of the good ones, isn't he? Won't hurt my Vicky?”
Ah. “You and Kev are the same, aren't you?”
“What do you mean?”
“He has always had a thing for me, he says, and Sar confuses the hell out of him. You and Vicky, aye?”
She sagged. “Aye. How could any girl not love her? I mean, apart from the straight ones, of course”
“She know?”
“Oh Duw, aye. Why else do you think she ran to me after, you know, arsehole with the sports car? We just found a way to work round it”
“You and Kev, wir. So where do we go from here?”
A long sigh. “Well, we make sure those two are safe, aye? Then perhaps, you might share a curry with me? But the wine comes in glasses, not a basket”
“Beer with a curry, girl”
“Oh you smooth-tongued sophisticate!”
She stepped forward and kissed my cheek, and for a moment those bits I had indeed, PC Watkins, been appreciating pressed against mine.
“Thanks for being his mate, Lainey”
When I eventually went home, I took her phone number with me, as well as an appointment at a local Indian restaurant for the next weekend. Kev was still smiling three days later.
CHAPTER 8
She was in another floaty thing. I don't wear that sort of thing myself, but I can appreciate it on another woman. There's a lot of crap spouted about women like me, women like us. Who's the 'man', which one's the 'woman'? It's not like that, at least with me. I just find men odd. Not exactly repellent, not truly disgusting, but just wrong, profoundly so. I wondered whether that was how Sar had felt, from the inside?
Siá¢n, though, she was definitely to my taste. I had never seen myself as fancying a redhead, but it was the woman herself who shone out. I waved to her, and got an answering smile. This could work.
That thought woke me up fully. I had danced around my sexuality all my life, only really accepting it when pressed by a lost friend who was well over four feet tall. The nights with Cathy had been fun, oh yes, but I was beginning to understand that I needed more. I looked at Mam and Dad and I wanted what they had, just dressed differently. They stuck together, they supported and cared for each other, and they loved in a way I could only dream of. I mean, I knew they argued, everyone does, but in the end they always kept their eyes on the important thing. Never let the sun go down on your anger, Proverbs whatever. As Siá¢n took her seat, I smiled again. She clearly assumed it was for her, but in reality I was wondering if there were any men left who felt able to tell Dad what they thought of his daughters.
“I am not having vindaloo, and neither are you”
I was a little puzzled. “Eh?”
“Makes me fart too much. Got the menu? Ta!”
A quick check that they had what she wanted, and the waiter was at her shoulder.
“You like to order drinks?”
She looked at me, eyebrows raised, and I took the hint.
“Two Carlsbergs, butt”
“Half pints?”
Siá¢n snorted. “A drink that's gone before you know you've started it? Na, pints, please”
As he went off, she grinned. “I saw what you were drinking the other night, aye?”
I grinned back. “Guilty. So what are you going for? Starter?”
“Na, get too fat if I eat all that. Girl's got to watch her figure, if she wants other girls to watch it, aye?”
I laughed out loud at that one. “Bit cards on table, isn't it?”
She smiled more softly. “I suppose so. It's a bit odd, this bit. Normally, I meet a woman, we get on OK, but I can't assume, can I? There's all that hinting and teasing out, and in the end she's straight, and it's almost a waste of time”
“Almost?”
“Aye, almost. Sometimes I salvage a friendship, sometimes all I get is advice on sex and travel”
The beers arrived, and she took a mouthful before continuing. “You haven't been there, have you? I mean, I watched you with Kev, all poise and confidence, but you haven't been out, have you?”
I felt my mouth twist. “No I haven't, not really. I mean, everyone knows which way I swing, but, well, the only swinging I've done was at Sar's place, and as that has always been at a lesbian and gay night, it's sort of, well, a better bet, aye? Unless the women are, you know, perving?”
“Fag hags”
“Eh?”
“Yank term for women who like to hang around with woofters”
“Ye gods, we are going to have to work on your tact, woman! Vicky out tonight?”
“She is indeed. I think your mate is smitten, been on the phone every day, aye? Gone to the pictures, they have, so I'm looking forward to her not remembering anything at all about what was on. He's a good'un, isn't he?”
The waiter was at my shoulder this time. “Aye, I think so. Ready to order?”
Mushroom rice to share, a Bombay potato, naan bread, a lamb dupiaza and a chicken Madras, and she insisted on asking for some Bombay duck.
“Too salty and fishy for me, girl”
“Well, you can have one of my poppadums then. Just don't take all the minty stuff”
Meaningless filler. Cards on table, indeed. “You still want to meet my sister?”
Another sip, a longer pause. “Aye, I do. You were a bit sharp with me–no, shush! I was saying what I thought, and you were defending your family. It happens. If I meet...her, I can make my own mind up. I know what I said, and if I was wrong, I can say sorry. To both of you, aye?”
“You were wrong”
The grin again. “I am a stubborn soul, Lainey. If I change my mind, it's cause I can see it was wrong. And only then”
The food arrived, and we turned to other subjects. They sounded just like the meaningless filler of earlier, but there was a deeper current in flow, as we danced around each other's lives and dreams. We ate, we drank a couple more pints each, and we found out who the other was.
“Lainey, your parents: they OK with your sister?”
“Ych, they are now, I think. I mean, everything about her fits, aye? Never did before. I mean, I've always known about her. It was my suggestion she do drugs at college”
Siá¢n started a little at that, and I raised a hand. “No, pharmacy stuff, Boots, Addison's style drugs”
I had to laugh. “See, I knew she would be going down the route she's on, so I suggested she get a weekend job at the chemist's, aye? Then she could nick the stuff she needed”
“Bloody hell, woman. How old were you?”
“Twelve or thirteen, I think”
Another sip, another long pause. “She was thinking of it at that age?”
“She was thinking of it from nappies, Siá¢n. Always known, she has. That's how I can take it so easily. It's a cliché, aye? I can't lose a brother I never had, so I'll love the sister that's always been there”
She looked away at that point, and I was shocked to see a tear hanging in her eyelashes. Sod it. I reached out for her hand, and she gripped mine like a lifeline.
“You OK to talk, Siá¢n?”
She nodded sharply, taking her napkin to her eye for a second and then grimacing at the mascara stain.
“Aye, I suppose. Elaine, your family, aye? They all so solid, so accepting?”
I chuckled. “Not accepting, girl, but they are realists, and they can see when things are set in stone, see the way the wind blows, and...”
Decision made.
“...and when you meet them you will understand. Not so with yours?”
A glare, fading. “No, not so with mine. Good Chapel folks, down at Zion or up at Bethel every Sunday, depending on who was leading the service. That thing we were talking about earlier, aye? I got it wrong in school, in sixth form. And the word got back”
“Ah”
“It's so common, aye? You get on so well, and you try and add the little touches, the odd hug, and then one day you see if you can take it on a little, give a little push, and she wasn't, and neither was she accepting, and nor were her parents. So I finished my A-levels and I left, simple as that”
She took a much longer drink. “Haven't spoken to them since. That was what got me about Vicky coming to stay. It's odd, aye? She knew I loved her, and I knew she couldn't give it back, yet she never dropped me, never threw it in my face, and she's only a cousin, aye? And my bloody parents, they just disown me, pretend I was never born!”
I realised she was close to full-on tears, so I just continued to hold her hand, which was rather nice, and spoke softly about Sarah instead. Gradually, Siá¢n came back to me.
“She'll be home soon, aye? Exams and then a job. Need to watch her, though. Skirt's a bit short, heels a bit high, that sort of thing”
Siá¢n sobered. “She into men or women?”
I remembered that conversation with our parents. “I don't think she fancies women at all. That's the worry, that she ends up meeting the wrong man, and he gets upset when he finds out, you know”
“You have her back, though”
“Aye, but that's easy at home, and easy for her in Aber. It's when she gets out and starts work, aye? I can't be there all the time, can I?”
She giggled. “I can see your mother now, Lainey. All the women in your family so maternal?”
And that was the evening salvaged. The table held all the cards we had needed to show, and she held my hand as we ate, and no we didn't, not that night.
It got better, and Kev was still smiling, as was Sarah when her results came back, getting a 2.1 with honours. She seemed to spend half her summer holiday searching through the papers and writing letters until the day finally came when she was offered an interview with Addison's, a very big chain of chemist's shops.
“What the hell do I do, Lainey? What do I wear?”
“You wear the stuff you wore for the girls, Sar. You have nothing else suitable”
“No, I mean, I can't pretend I'm real, can I?”
“What did you put on the application, chwaer fychan?”
“My details, aye?”
“No. What did you say you were?”
A very small voice. “Male”
“Then you have two choices. You go there dressed as you should be, and stare them down, or you run away and hide again. I'm not hiding you any more, so it's down to you”
In the end she went off dressed exactly as I had specified, and when she came home she was pissed. I cornered her in the kitchen as she tried to make some coffee.
“And?”
“They took me on! Morriston branch, start in three weeks. Just need to find a flat”
There was more there, but I didn't push. “What was the interview like?”
She leant back against the sink. “Odd, aye? Started out all Mr Powell this, Mr Powell that, and in the end it's all Ms and Miss. The leader, Duw what a cow I thought, and then she's complimenting me on my degree and my courage”
Yes, definitely more. I left it at that, though. She was moving on, and I remembered Siá¢n's crack about being maternal. Give her some space, Lainey.
In the end, she found herself a flat, and Dad and I helped her to move in, Mam looking wistful as her baby flew free.
Work continued, of course, as did the Kevin and Victoria saga, and Vicky's new confidence seemed to infect Siá¢n, for she was relaxing more and more, and, to be blunt, we had timed one evening for when Vicky was staying over at Kev's and, well, it was all I had hoped for up until I had to leave in the morning and it hit me very hard.
I was actually falling in love.
CHAPTER 9
Christmas was a good one, but quiet, and I was a little disappointed because I was still trying to live with Mam's request not to rub her nose in things. I was with my family, I was loved, and especially so by my father, but there was still a Siá¢n-shaped hole in things.
Sar was really settling into her new role, quite the lady chemist. Not quite 'the lady', though, for she was definitely finding a rocker image of her own, and it seemed to me that she was only in flats when on the bike. Mam told her off, very directly.
“Those shoes OFF in the house, girl!”
Perhaps, just perhaps, there could be room in her heart. Sarah was in such high spirits I almost forgot the lonely and frightened boy I had grown up with. She clearly loved her work, and our meals were spiced with stories of some of the oddest ailments and patients imaginable, so of course I had to compete with her in silly stories, which was exactly what I had been doing with another woman who wasn't at the table and couldn't be so.
Be strong, Lainey.
On Christmas morning we swapped our sister-gifts in private, which I thought made sense considering what I had bought her. I remembered that first shopping expedition with Mam, and I knew that older woman's tastes, which are, well, 'older woman'. I had walked into one of the bigger stores, where the bras are racked like so many empty glasses, and let my mind drift. Denim miniskirts, spike-heeled boots, strappy summer dresses... I simply let Sarah's tastes in outer clothing guide me towards something I hoped would feel nice next to the skin as well as speak to her soul about who and what she was. In the end, I still had to remember that any bra had to cater for the simple fact that her breasts were, just then, artificial, so nothing plunging or abbreviated. She was almost in tears when she opened the package, and I got the gentlest of kisses to my cheek. There was something else there as well, and while she told me all about her work colleagues, and especially a girl she called Arris, there remained something she was keeping back.
“Sar”
“Yes?”
“What else is there?”
She blushed, and took some deep breaths. “Well... at the interview, aye? There was this man...”
Shit. “What have you done, chwaer?”
She gave me a sharp look. “Nothing like that, aye? Just a bit snogging, and stuff...”
I pulled my fears back inside me and did my best to smile. “My little sister better be careful, growing up so fast, Aye? You'll get dizzy”
She turned it round. “What about you? Courting?”
That hurt, but in no way was that Sar's fault. I muttered that I might be, and Sar asked a question which showed just how well she knew me.
“What's she like?”
Suddenly, Siá¢n was there with me, almost as if real, and the smile and the soppiness rushed to my lips.
“She is absolutely lovely... and she's called Siá¢n”
Reality bit hard. “And I wish I could bring her home, just like any other child would their partner”
My sister is a lovely girl, as well as being my sister, and she slid over to me and held me properly. Her voice was soft in my ear.
“And how are they treating me these days? They have a lot more strength than you give them credit for”
I pulled back to look her in the face. “And how would they react if you brought a man home, aye? There are big steps and little ones, and if you take too many big ones too quickly you could fall flat on your face. Trust me, chwaer fychan. You are right about Mam and Dad, I can feel that, and we will get there in the end, both of us, but you need to be careful. You come out to the wrong man and you could get killed. I want a promise from you. Please, Sar, promise me. Nothing rash”
She gave me a sharp nod, and then Mam called up the stairs. The Christmas Dinner was served. I undid the belt of my jeans before we went down. I knew my Mother's cooking so well.
The spring came early that year, and so did my first big surprise at work.
“Lainey?”
“Kevin? What you want?”
“Help in organising something I want you at even if it will blow some people's minds, innit?”
“What the fuck are you on about, mate?”
“See this?”
A little box. A ring box. He flipped the lid open.
“Kev, it's empty... oh shit, mate! You asked her already? She said yes, didn't she?”
His grin was enormous. “Aye, and at some point, not that soon, but soon enough, I need a stag night, and while...”
He trailed off, swallowed, and tried again. “And while I would also have you as best man, best mate, best person I know, aye? I can't do that because there are parents and in-laws and shit involved. Bit of a step too far. But I want you to know what I think of you, I want everyone to see it as well”
“And you thought the best way to do that would be to get me pissed as a newt among a whole gang of men? Ah well, sounds like a plan to me”
I kissed his cheek. “Who else knows?”
“Her family, of course, and Siá¢n. I had to beg her not to tell you. I needed to do it all myself”
I hugged him as tightly as I could, trying to stop him talking himself out of what he had asked me to do. I could see it in his eyes, and my smile was real. He was worried that after he had made it very, very plain to me how he felt, I would be upset that he was 'betraying' me for another woman. Men. I will never, ever understand them.
Or fancy them. “Kev, mate, I am really, really honoured, and really delighted for you both. She is almost the sweetest woman I know, and you are nearly the best man. But you are the best mate anyone could ever have or hope for, aye?”
“Nearly the best man? Only nearly?”
I grinned again. “That's always going to be Dad, aye?”
He grinned back, confidence returning. “I will give you that one on points, aye, and from what I hear the odd knock-out”
Work went well that day., and that night I shared it all with my lover.
“Cariad...”
“Yes, Lainey?”
“Kev and Vicky, aye? They have an advantage over us”
“Yes. But I want to meet your family first”
“Pardon?”
“I said 'yes', Lainey”
I thought my heart would burst. She sat up and looked down at me.
“Elaine Powell, I love you. I know that you love me. Neither of us is any good at talking about that, and if Vicky hadn't been so gobby we may never have met, but we have, and things have happened, and I do not want to spend my life as someone visiting or being visited. Yes, I will marry you. Whatever it is called, however it is done, to me it will be a marriage, and I will have you with me whatever comes along.”
She gave a little teasing frown as I tried to find some words.
“That IS what you were asking, wasn't it, Lainey fy nghariad?”
I hit her with my pillow, and then, well, things went very marital.
Two days later, I was home.
“Mam?”
“Yes?”
“You know my mate Kevin?”
“The one that fancies you, aye?”
“That's the one”
“He's a good man. I heard about the radio, you know. People talk, and those two boys do a lot of that. He did that for you as a true friend, so neither your Dad nor I take offence”
“He's just got engaged, Mam”
She smiled. “That is good news for you, then?”
“Yes it is. Vicky is a lovely girl, and I think both of them are very lucky”
“This girl, this Vicky, she had a friend then? No, Elaine, that was you. Sometimes, when you are on a telephone, you forget how strong your voice can be. Who is she, my darling?”
I couldn't help what happened next, but it took me by surprise, and I simply burst into tears. It was like being a tiny child again as my mother held and comforted me. I spoke into her bosom, just like that child.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Mam”
“I know, cariad”
“But it's just so hard not being able to share things here”
“Lainey, sweet girl, we have learnt a lot from you. We are not so old, your Dad and me, that we are past that, aye? We can see new things, learn new things., accept...”
She was silent for a few heartbeats. “Accept that we have two pretty daughters, and that they should be happy, that they have the right to be happy. Who is this woman, my darling, for I know it must be a woman”
More tears. “She is called Siá¢n, Mam. She works with the Highways Agency”
“She is on shift work, then?”
“She is”
"Then we must look at your work pattern, and your Dad's, and find a day when all of us are free. I would meet this woman who has my daughter's heart”
She stroked my hair. “Some things, my darling, are simply there, and we must accept that they do not change, can not change. We see it with Sarah, and it is right and proper for her to be set free, to be what and who she must. We can not choose who we love. And your Dad... your Dad nearly walked away from me at the beginning”
“He what?”
I had sat up, and she smiled at me. “He thought I was too good for him, cariad, that I could never be satisfied with someone who is 'just' Twm Powell. How wrong could someone be? I know every inch of him---no, be silent! I know his soul, and he is deep, and a more loving man has never been born and never will be. You will bring Siá¢n here, and we will meet properly, as these things should be. What about her parents?”
“They disowned her, aye? Because, you know...”
“Then we will offer her new ones”
CHAPTER 10
I got the call a couple of weeks later. Shift patterns had been compared, but it was going to be a while before we had that window. Dad had had a long, long chat with Mam, and his response to me had just been a nod and the words “I will not see either of my daughters unhappy”
The call was from home. Sarah had turned up in a terrible state, and I knew at once what had happened. I got over there as quickly as I could, and she was a mess, her face clearly broken. The story came out amid sobs, and I felt my anger rise. Hold to the professionalism, Lainey, hold to family.
“It was such a good weekend, Lainey, and then he rings, and suddenly I could see what he was. I just wanted to tell him it was over, finished, aye? So we meet up, and he asks for one last kiss, and then he grabs me...here, where it's not real?”
She was shaking. “Next thing I know he's got his hand between my legs, and he's hitting me, and hitting me, and I wake up on the ground and someone gets an ambulance and....”
She went silent for a long time, staring past us all to another place. “Then there are two coppers there, and they tell me I am a dirty little shirtlifting pervert who got what he deserved, and if they ever see me again...”
My anger was almost coming out at that. I had to hold it down, do the right thing.
“Did you get their fucking names?”
Mam sniffed. “Language, Elaine”
“Shut it, Mam. And you? Where do you think you're going?”
Dad had risen to put his jacket on, a truly murderous look on his face.
“Little bastard needs some fatherly advice, aye?”
“No. Not now, not ever. We get the shit, but we get the coppers too. We get them clean, you understand?”
I thought quickly. Give Kev a ring, see what shits from CID had been sent down to deal with the assault, and start preparing their castration.
“Any witnesses to them being shits, Sar?”
“There was a nurse. She said she was shocked, she heard what they said”
“Right. I'll get Kev to speak to her, if you have her name, keep me out of it”
“She wrote it down for me?”
There was a rapid knock at the door, and I opened it on a pretty dark-haired girl of Sarah's age. I took a guess.
“Arris?”
She nodded, tears in her eyes. “How is she?”
“Shit state, woman. Come in”
She went straight to Sar, and wept gallons. I nodded to my parents.
“This is Arris, aye? Sar's friend from work she's always on about?”
Mam nodded again. “Then this is the first time my daughter has had a friend to visit. We shall have tea together. Twmi, lay the table please. We will be civilised”
The mood calmed down as Mam set out some bara brith and Welsh cakes, ever the traditional woman, and Dad sorted out kettle and cups. Sarah had clearly been treated well by Casualty, despite how she looked, and I guessed that the damage would heal. The wounds to her soul, though; they were something else. Arris looked across the table at her, eyes red-rimmed.
“Oh Sar, if I'd known it was him you were seeing, I'd have warned you off. All mouth and trousers, aye? And you are so new to this, you haven't learnt to recognise the bad ones”
Dad gave her a very hard stare. “What do you know about my daughter?”
“Just about everything, and I also love her deeply, as if she were my sister. Don't worry about me”
I left the room after a quick bite and picked up the phone.
“Kev, it's Lainey”
“Aye?”
“Got a big problem, butt. Sarah got read by the wrong bloke”
“Shit. How badly is she hurt?”
“Nose, cheekbone, aye? But they'll heal. There's more. She had two coppers up there, treated her like shit, blamed her for everything, aye? I want their names and I want their heads”
“Fucking hell, Lainey, what a pair of bastards! Which hospital?”
I told him. “Kev, there was a witness to it, a nurse. If I give you her name, could you get a statement?”
“I can do that, love. But I want to speak to the Inspector first, aye? Make sure it's all above board. We get these fuckers properly. Lainey, give her my love, aye?”
“Kev... thank you. I owe you. And... I took your example, aye?”
There was a chuckle at the other end of the line. “And she also said yes, aye? Silver linings, Lainey, silver linings. I'm off to get started. Talk to you when I get something”
“Thanks, butt”
“Any time, girl, and I mean that. Bye”
There had been some plotting around the table when I got back into the room. Sarah looked calmer.
“Lainey, I should introduce you properly, aye? This is Alison Parry, Arris, from work. She's the girl I took away for the weekend”
I gave Arris a welcoming hug. “I thought you weren't into women, chwaer?”
Make some jokes, lighten the mood before the family fell apart.
“Oh, not at all, and Arris is definitely into men, or rather having men into-”
Mam was quick off the mark. “Sarah Marie Rebecca Joanne Powell, we will be civilised in our house and before a guest!”
“Sorry, Mam, but, well, it was a good weekend, and this... I need to wash, aye?”
Raped, as good as. And she would already be blaming herself. Get her off that track.
“I have set wheels in motion, aye? Things will be sorted. All we have to do is find a way to deal with this Joe Evans”
Arris coughed, and gave a smile with absolutely no humour in it at all. This was not a weak woman, I saw, and under other circumstances I would have been very taken with her. She held our eyes, held her smile.
“I might just have something available”
I realised that, officially, I really didn't want to know any more. Some days later, Kev took me aside.
“I got their names, and I got her statement, and I think the Inspector is a little unhappy”
“With me or you?”
“No, them. Looks like one of them spoke to the Screws. You know what that rag can be like. Looks like they spoke to the locals as well, which fortunately will stuff their chances at getting paid for an 'exclusive', stupid bastards”
“Fuck. Who were they, butt?”
“Two wankers from CID in Abertawe HQ, Lainey. Names of Dai Pritchard and Bob Evans”
I woke up at that one. “Evans?”
“Lainey, come and sit down”
Evans.
“Lainey!”
He took me into an interview room, and made me sit.
“Evans, butt?”
He just nodded.
“He a relative, Kev?”
“His Dad's brother”
“How the fuck did that get past the bosses?”
“That is what the Inspector is trying to find out, Lainey, and that is why you really need to keep out of it. There's some really... irregular stuff going on here, and I don't think it stops at Detective Sergeant Evans' level. Not a word to Sar, aye? Inspector says he'll do his best, but I've already been warned off by the Federation rep. And there's more...”
He pulled some folded paper from his pocket. “Burn that after, aye? Little cunt had a sort of accident. That's a copy of his statement, that I was not given and did not pass on to you. Apparently, they didn't QUITE castrate him”
“Didn't quite?”
“He still has one left”
Under Kev's watchful eyes I read through the statement. The door answered and the first blow from the iron bar across the thigh, all the way to a moment that almost made me feel sorry for him. That phrase was there, though. 'Not quite'.
'Then the very big one, the one with the blonde moustache, pulled out a flick knife and said to me
ATTACKER 1: If you like having your cock sucked so much,perhaps if I cut it off now, and then you can have it to suck for your very own'
There was more, and as I read it my anger fought with joy. I wondered what Joe had done just then, whether he had pissed or fouled himself. Perhaps both. That piece of shit had truly got what he deserved, but it left gaps, risky returns that could land on my sister and my family.
“What is happening here, Kev?”
“Bit of fucking canteen culture, Lainey. They have been utter cunts, and caught at it, but we don't grass up our own, do we? All pull together to keep the good name of the Force, innit? The Brass are going to do something, anything, to keep this one out of the papers, and disciplining those two arseholes isn't what will work best to keep us all squeaky, aye? They're plotting, scheming bastards, all of them, but the Fed rep did say one thing. Sue them, sue the arse off them, and they will fold”
“What? Admit what those sods did?”
“Not at all. You know how it goes, girl. They'll pay up rather than have to front up. Gets Sar something out of it, innit. Gets her a new start if she wants one. And someone has looked after the first shit for us, and I do not need to know any more. And I am a very patient man”
“What do you mean?”
“One day, I will be in a place and at a time when I can return the favour Sarah's way”
“Why, Kev? Why so much for my little sis?”
He sighed and looked down, before his eyes came back up and looked directly into mine.
“Elaine Powell, you know that I love you. If things, if just ONE thing had been different, Sar would be my sister as well as yours. I am not trying to do Vicky down, for I met her after I already knew you, but the fact that I fell in love with one woman does not mean I fell out of love with another. As far as I am concerned, Sarah is and will always be my sister. Anyway, you will be my cousin soon, in a technical sense, so it is as real as it can be. You are both my family, and nobody touches you. Ever”
CHAPTER 11
Sarah was falling apart, slowly but inexorably. I had watched her as she exploded into life at university, then pushed her to make her life real. Her style would never be mine, but she had become the archetype of a hard-rocking biker girl. Not the cliché I had once heard described as a 'back warmer' by a certain type of male motorcycling sexist, but a rider in her own right. She had grown into exactly the right type of woman for that, long and lean, and the short skirts she liked worked well combined with her rather stunning legs.
Me, jealous? Confused, a little, though. I was looking at what had been my brother, and seeing a woman I would have fancied under different circumstances. She had grown remarkably in confidence, and the more I thought about Joe, the more I realised that she would most likely have come out the other side intact, but for one thing. Rather, but for two complete arseholes.
She was losing it, losing that swagger she had learnt. The papers had had a field day, and Dad's letter to the editor, and later the Press Complaints people, had brought nothing more than replies which made lofty comments about press freedom but actually meant that freaks should expect to be stared at. All of that correspondence was kept from my little sister, of course, but we couldn't hide the rags.
That was one silver lining, as Kev had predicted: the greed and haste of our dynamic duo to get money from the press had resulted in a lack of enthusiasm from the nationals, as the story was already old news in Llais y Sais and the Herald.
Kev was with me the first time, with Evans. I watched him enter the gents', which Kev had checked was clear. As my friend waited outside the door to block any interference, I entered.
“What the fuck you doing in here? This the men's!”
“Then what the fuck is a shit like you doing here? You listen--”
“Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?”
“The arsehole who shat all over my sister, that's who, and the arsehole who is due some shit of his own”
“Sister?”
That was a reaction that nearly sent me over the edge. It wasn't that he clearly didn't consider Sarah to be anybody's 'sister', it was more that he seemed to be asking himself “which one?”, as if there were too many to remember. It clicked: bully, habitual, casual and vicious. I gave him a flat, cold smile.
“Yes, my sister. I hear your nephew had an accident. Not badly hurt enough, aye?”
He paled. “You bitch, you did that?”
I held the eyes, held what I offered as a smile. “No, not me. Do they know where YOU live, yet? I will be watching you, Sergeant Evans, you and that other turd. I will be watching you very, very carefully. Oh, so is the Inspector. But I have far more patience, and so have my friends”
He tried a laugh, and moved towards me. I put one hand on my baton.
“Witness outside, aye? You want ordinary assault, or shall we make it indecent? After all, you are a real man, AYE? BACK OFF!”
He stepped back, frowning. “What the fuck do you imagine you are doing, girl? Walk in and threaten a superior? Are you really that thick?”
“Na, I know better. I'm not threatening you at all. I am simply letting you know that me, my mates, rather a lot of coppers, we have been pissed off by what you did, and the Boss is really pissed off, so here's how it is going to work. From now on, if any of us is in the area when it kicks off, you might find back-up a little slow in arriving. That's just a start, butt, because we are going to work on this, and we are going to work on you. Fucking canteen culture, aye? Stitch my sis up? Well, you are now going to eat a packed fucking lunch outside, cause the canteen is shut. And when you see that cunt Pritchard, tell him the same. I hope your neck is flexible, because you will be looking over your shoulder till I am done”
Out of the door and collect Kev, and keep moving. Shoulder numbers back on before the exit, round to the car, and breathe, breathe, as Kev drove us away. I sighed.
“Empty threats, butt, empty words. Why am I doing this?”
He stayed silent for a long while, until we came to a truckers' café. Unspeaking, he parked up out of sight round the back, and led the way in.
“Two teas, love. Lainey, want a bacon roll? Aye? Two, please”
We took our seats, and my stomach nearly recoiled at the grease. The smell still drew me, and I forced it down. Kev drew a long breath.
“Why are you doing this, Lainey? Because you have to. He attacked your family. Just... Look, don't take this wrong, aye? But I came with you today just to watch your back, because I knew you had to do it, as I said. But here's my advice, for what it's worth: leave him alone now, leave Pritchard. Let them do the worrying, let them take precautions against their imagination. Look, you're into bikes. Remember Ogri?”
“What the hell has a cartoon got to do with this?”
“Bear with me, girl. There was one strip where he had a pompous git on a Goldwing, all pristine and shiny, so he sneaks into his garage--”
“What? Wrecks the bike?”
He grinned. “No, that was the clever thing. He just put a bolt on the floor underneath it. Mr Gitty wheels his bike out, sees the bolt, spends all day stripping the bike down to see where it came from, innit? Same with those two: leave them alone now, aye? Let their own fear do the work, but just one thing: we watch Sar's back”
“Fear, Kev?”
He laughed, and now it was a happy sound. “Lainey, cariad, sweet girl; you really don't want to see yourself when you lose it! You frighten most blokes we work with, innit!”
He turned serious again. “Bolt is under the bike, now, so we step back, And, well, I hate to suggest this, but you have the advantage, even though he is a sergeant. He seemed to me to be a little free with where he was putting his hands when he passed you in the station, aye?”
I stared at him. I had suggested almost the same thing to Evans, of course, when he moved towards me, but this was planning a false accusation in advance. I mean, all the years of listening to idiots, not all of them men, tell me how rape never happened, how so many women were vindictive fantasists, and now my closest male friend was proposing exactly that. He read my face, and held up both hands.
“No, Lainey, not a load of crap to get him taken down, not that. We just keep it back if he starts to play hard, innit. Just in case”
“Perjury, butt?”
“Safety net, Lainey. And just this once, justice, aye?”
That thought stayed with me for months, as Sar went downhill in a steady, predictable way. Kev had kept digging, and more relatives had popped our of the woodwork, more members of the Evans clan, a councillor, a Justice of the Peace. It was like turning over a rock, and some of the crawling vermin had clearly complained as I was called in to see the Boss. He looked down at a piece of paper after locking the door.
“PC Powell, perhaps you might want to think about a few things before diving in”
I started at that, and he held up a calming hand. “No, Elaine, no. I am fully aware of what you and your family have been through. I have seen the statement from Nurse Vaughan, and I have received little bird reports of your visit to a male toilet. That stops, it stops now, all right?”
I sat silent as he paused for very obvious thoughts.
“Elaine, I have hopes for you. You are somebody I see as going well past Sergeant, but you need to learn to pause and think”
A fleeting memory of Rebecca on 'pause'--no. Concentrate.
He smiled. “Oddly, I rather suspect you have succeeded on that score. Thinking and planning, that is. You didn't actually touch him, did you? I will make it clear, if it isn't clear already: this conversation is not taking place. And he didn't touch you, did he? Neither decently nor indecently?”
“No, sir.”
“Wyn, just for today, Elaine. It would appear that his attitude to women is a family thing, so if he ever DID grab you, back or front, well, there is a principle in management. An officer may never have a complaint proven against him, but, well, if all the complaints received say the same thing, then we have what is called a pattern of behaviour. That can be addressed”
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Elaine, you should be aware that Sergeant Evans' family is somewhat entrenched around here. They are making noises. On the other hand, he has been rather free with the press, so we have him if we want him. Learn this lesson, Elaine: those above you can also be pissed off when someone acts not only like an arsehole, but also beyond what their profession, indeed the law itself, allows. The lesson is to let us do the poking of monkeys. Oh yes...”
He smiled. “I believe that Joe Evans met with a rather serious accident, and the messages I have been inundated with are mostly concerned with the odd fear that such misfortune may continue to fall on that family. Do not say anything, for I am not going to ask, as I do not wish an answer truthful or otherwise. Just listen.
“For some reason, Detective Sergeant Evans is looking for a move out of the area. It will look like a promotion. It isn't. I happen to know that the station he is hoping to join is of short life expectancy, so he will be made surplus rather more quickly than he expects. Pensioned off early, in other words, but away from your machinations”
“Does he know about the closure?”
A truly feral grin. “No, and neither do his relatives. They see themselves as clever, but all they are is mouth and money. Different force. Oh sod it, Elaine, I spoke to the other lot at length because nobody actually wanted Bob Evans, as he is rapidly gaining even more of a reputation than he already had. I did a deal with Heddlu Gogledd Cymru. They take him, but he's gone as soon as. God knows what they will want in return, but, well...”
He shuffled the papers again. “Thank you, PC Powell, please unlock the door on your way out”
I stood and went to leave, and as I put my hand to the door he coughed.
“Oh yes, and forget about DC Pritchard. He has an occupational health referral tomorrow. Issues will be found, and medical retirement will be the option offered”
I felt the anger rising again. “And that is it? After what they did?”
His voice hardened. “That, PC Powell, is indeed it. We will not tolerate vigilante work here. I have done my best, and two rotten coppers will soon be away from the good ones. You will go home and look after your sister, and she will heal, and that will be all. Leave it open on your way out”
I walked away, the words held down before I said what I would not be able to take back. I knew one thing, though.
At some point, some day in the future, however distant that might be, Bob Evans and Dai Pritchard would meet me again.
CHAPTER 12
It was so, so hard for so long afterwards. I knew who they were, I knew where they lived, I knew where they parked, but my priority had to be my sister. I was the big girl, the strong one, and I had Siân. Always there, always in support, I had her. Sar wasn’t alone, and far from it, for Mam and Dad would be there as long as they lived, and Arris was a true friend, but Sarah was fading steadily.
I caught up with her one day in Morriston for lunch, and she gave me a twisted smile. “They all know at work now, Lainey. All the crap in the papers, aye? No way they couldn’t know”
“They not a good bunch, then?”
A repeat of that smile, and weary, weary eyes. “In the shop, aye, but the customers… I’m not paranoid, Lainey, not silly, but they come in to stare. I’ve…”
She looked out of the café window, clearly looking for the right words, the ones to describe and not trigger.
“Elaine, some of them try and ask me out. I mean, what sort of man does that? They know what I am, aye?”
I took her hand. “No, chwaer fychan, no they don’t. They think they know, but they are wrong. They’re just queers who won’t admit it”
That brought a slightly better smile.
“And you call them queers, Lainey? You?”
I knew what I meant, but it took a while before my mouth could make better sense of it for her.
“Sar, look. There are people who are into men, and people who are into women, and they can be either women or men themselves, aye? There are even people who like both, but that’s not my point. I am talking about men and women who are looking for a man or a woman, and you are talking about men who are looking for a hole. It is only men, isn’t it?”
She nodded sharply.
“Sar, they’re not looking for a person, is it? Look, I know you, I know you better than anyone. You are a straight girl, aren’t you?”
“Thought that would be obvious. Wasn’t a woman put me in hospital, was it?”
I smiled. “See? No argument there. I called you a girl, and all you picked up on was being straight. These men, they don’t want a girl, they just want a well-presented place to masturbate in”
A twitch. “You saying…”
“Aye. Wankers, every one of them. Do wankers matter?”
She grimaced. “They do when they keep coming up to me, Lainey”
There was a short silence as she watched the cars in the street outside.
“Lainey…”
“Yes?”
“Addison’s, they’re a big company. Would Mam mind, you know, if I moved away?”
“How far is ‘away’ going to be?”
I knew she was lying when she said “Not that far” and it was clear there was more than thought already involved in her planning. Whatever she was up to wouldn’t be improved by nagging, so I switched tracks.
“You working on Sunday?”
“Not unless someone goes sick. Why?”
“Sunday dinner, at home, aye?”
Suddenly I received a real smile, and my little sister was back with me.
“You ready for that, Lainey?”
I nodded sharply. “Yes. I would have done it a long time ago, but, well, things happened”
“Joe happened, aye?”
“Aye. Joe happened. But there’s more to it than that, Sar. Remember what they said when we first told them? After the funeral?”
“Oh indeed. About not rubbing their noses in it, wasn’t it?”
“Exactly that. But then there’s you, and how can that not be seen? I can just about remember a frightened lonely little boy, and I think---shit, I know that Mam and Dad are the same. You don’t let them see anyone but Sarah any more”
She bristled slightly. “That’s because there has only ever been Sarah, aye?”
“I know, Sar. But being there, being real, you made it so much easier for me, aye?”
“And you thought, Sunday, you’d?”
“I did. You’ll love her, Sar”
I paused. “I do, Sarah. I really do. And she loves me. What she said the other day, well, she said she didn’t want to be forever visiting or visited, aye? I never believed all that rubbish, you know, one true love, just have to find them, innit, they’re out there”
She squeezed my hand. “Another girl, another planet?”
I laughed. “Spot on! And then Kev gets cheeky, and suddenly… suddenly I am looking at a real future, aye? Not just a series of one more day after another”
“And she’s there on Sunday? You sure Mam and Dad are OK with that?”
“Mam’s suggestion, Sar. You there?”
A much softer expression to her face now. “Elaine, cariad, I will always be there for you. You know that”
I fought down the worries that had been eating at me, about pills or a high building, and another needlessly early funeral, and brought out the brightness.
“I do. And you know it is the same for you, from me, whatever. You know what I mean. Wear something nice on Sunday”
“I always wear something nice”
“A version of ‘nice’ that covers your knees, then. I’m off; going to meet up with Siân, get a plan for Sunday, aye?”
An embrace and out of the door before I let slip what I had been afraid of.
Sunday came, and Siân drove us to the old house. For once, I actually rang the bell rather than walking straight in, and Dad answered. I saw his eyes flicker as he took in her hair and the floaty dress she had chosen for the meal, and then he smiled, took her hand and kissed her cheek.
“Welcome, welcome girl. Elaine, why the bell?”
“Stranger to the house, aye?”
He smiled at my lover. “Siân, you are not a stranger here, you are not to be a stranger. You have made my elder daughter smile, and that is all I could ask. Elaine, your mother is in the kitchen, you should join her”
“Duw, Dad, guests don’t do the work!”
“And you are not a guest, daughter. Next time, neither will this one be. Sarah is already there. In a dress that covers her more than normally. You spoke with her, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged. Want tea, cariad?”
As one, they said “Yes” and laughed. It was getting off to a good start, and I was seeing the future opening up. I joined Sarah and Mam and much more quickly than I had assumed we had the meal on the table. It seemed that either Dad’s push to domestic service had been symbolic, or that I had timed our arrival to perfection. There was silence for a short while as the first mouthfuls of lamb were chewed, and then Dad asked the big question.
“Siân, this is traditional for a father, aye? What are your intentions towards my daughter Elaine?”
So casual, that, so neat, to make it plain that he had two daughters. Siân twinkled.
“You have already asked me that, Mr Powell”
“Twm for now, girl. And that is Sioned beside you”
“Twm, then. We spoke of this while you were in the kitchen, Lainey. I said to your father what I said to you: I will be more than someone who visits or is visited”
There was a smile of recognition from my sister, and Siân continued.
“We would be wed, Twm, Sioned. I know the law calls it something else, but we will have our own words for it. I love your daughter more than life, and I believe she feels the same way. I would want the world to see what we can. Lainey says she told you about my own family, that they are far from happy”
Mam nodded. “Yes, she did. Please take this as I mean it, but the Gogs have always been a little, well, LIMITED in their outlook”
Dad grunted. “Aye. Imagine not being able to have a pint on a Sunday?”
Sarah laughed. “Not having one this Sunday, are you?”
“True, but if I wished to, I could. Now, your family: should we speak with them of this wedding?”
Bang. Straight to the point, no quibbles, no sophistry, no argument. How could I ever have doubted him? ‘Wedding’. I raised a hand.
“Dad, there is no halfway place we can stand here. They will either accept or they will not. This woman and I have talked, and we feel, well—“
Siân interrupted. “We feel we should give them a final chance. We travel up there when we have a date for… for our wedding. They are my family, they must have the chance to say yes or no. And with Elaine beside me, how could they say no?”
Dad nodded. “Sarah?”
“Yes Dad?”
“Do you not have your own questions?”
“Of course I have! Elaine, how many bridesmaids?”
Laughter, and teasing, and good Welsh lamb with all the trimmings. The afternoon was all we could ever have hoped or prayed for. We took our leave at the front door, and as Siân said farewell Dad simply put a finger to her lips.
“A favour I ask for, and a favour I grant. All up to you, girl. You look after my daughter here, you keep her smiling, and Twm and Sioned Powell will be there for you whenever there is need. And if… Sioned?”
Mam stepped forward and nodded to him. He smiled back, and turned to us.
“Siân, if you wish, we can be Mam and Dad”
CHAPTER 13
I drove us back, as Siân was having difficulty seeing through the tears.
“Did you know, Lainey? Did you know what they planned?”
“I had an idea, fy nghariad, but I didn’t think he’d be quite so blunt. Mam said it, aye? If you have no family, we will give you one”
“Where do these people come from? I look at mine, and, well, shit. There’s just no comparison!”
I sighed. “You haven’t got a Sarah, have you? She’s the difference. Accept a trans daughter, and putting up with a dyke is a stroll. And I really hate to say it, but Joe Evans almost did us all a favour. If anything really cleared Dad’s mind, it was seeing his younger child broken. I am so, so glad I managed to stop him going round to that bastard’s: he’d have killed him. No, Siân, they’re not special, aye? Well, they ARE special, you know what I mean. Most people are just as special, in that way. They just need a chance”
“That middle ground you spoke of?”
“Yes, exactly. There’s a lot in our training about what they call conflict resolution, aye? A lot of that boils down to empathy, stepping into their shoes for a bit”
That brought a laugh amid the sniffs. “You empathise with a purse snatcher or a flasher, then?”
“After I’ve locked them up, perhaps. Seriously, though, you have to. You work the same streets, you see the same people. They aren’t all arseholes, aye? We have a couple that steal stupid things, things to get them caught, and they do it when it’s crap weather, aye? Nowhere else to sleep, and it gets them fed. You can’t hate someone like that, can you? There are some, though…”
I thought of the other types, too many of them. Two of them were coppers. Push that thought back; their time would come, just like Joe’s but probably less violent.
“Siân…”
“Um?”
“I want us to try, together. See if we can’t bring them round. Give them their bite of the cherry, aye?”
“And if they don’t come round?”
“We deal with what we have to, cariad. No assumptions; just prepare for both options”
She spent the rest of the journey in silence. I decided to look up hotels in the area, without telling her. I owed her the effort, even if it came to nothing. What are we without family? I ended up running it past Kev, to see if he could get any ideas via Vicky as to how it might be best to play it. The first thing he did was laugh, and then lend me a book from his locker.
“Men’s bible, Lainey!”
“Eh? The Good Beer Guide? What’ll that do, then?”
He sighed. “Lists of pubs, girl. Some of them with rooms to sleep in and breakfasts to eat, innit?”
Of course. He squeezed my shoulder.
“I’ll see what Vicky says, aye? Your own girl possibly a bit too close to see a way past, but no promises. What’ll you do if they throw a wobbly?”
“Usual stuff, aye? Public place, in a crowd. Might get a bit embarrassing if they shout but, well, had worse with Sarah. We will cope”
I hit the bookshop that afternoon, and picked up an OS map of the area. I’d been there once or twice on school trips, but it was truly a foreign country to me. Find a decent spot to share our bed, find out how and where we could make it official, and when, and then face the dragons. I was ending up spending more and more of my, our, off-duty time at Siân’s, which meant seeing Vicky a lot, and, well, that meant Kevin as well. I heard that he was getting a lot of teasing about effectively sharing a house with three women, but being a man he simply grinned and claimed to be taking it as a compliment.
Three weeks later, I all but forced my girl into the car. Her courage was failing her badly, and it was me that had to do all the arranging. Kev’s book had come up with a pub, the Bryn Tyrch, only a mile or so from Pont Cyfing, and I had booked us in for the Friday and Saturday nights. No way would her family be doing anything other than bother their god on a Sunday, so it would be the day after we arrived. That gave us the chance to cut and run if it went really badly as well as an opportunity to spend time with her relatives if it went well, and pigs flew. We ran up the well-remembered road to Aberystwyth, then through Machynlleth and Dolgellau before taking Siân’s route through Ffestiniog and the Crimea pass to Betws. What a grim place Ffestiniog was, especially Blaenau, and I thanked my good fortune to have been given somewhere to grow up that was so much nicer. The rain didn’t help my mood, but as we came over the Waterloo Bridge it was starting to brighten up. The sun was out as we passed the Ugly House, and then Siân caught my arm.
“Over there, Lainey. Just over the bridge”
There was a left turn marked, just after the speed limit signs, showing a dead end road, which seemed apt.
“How far to the pub?”
“About a mile, mile and a half. There are three pubs, and it’s the third one. Parking opposite it”
One pub with a stagecoach outside was followed by another built almost into the hillside, and then a third after the Youth Hostel sign and the garage. The Bryn Tyrch. Someone clearly had a sense of humour, because even the pub sign had a mole on it—the name means, loosely, ‘mole hill’, though only loosely. We checked in, we dumped the bags, and I lay on the bed for an hour or two before we made our way down for a surprisingly good meal. The place was clearly popular with both locals and tourists, and as the dark closed in I listened to the odd Gog accent mixing with all sorts of English tones. Just before we headed back to our room there was a sudden exodus, and I remembered the YHA just down the road. Late night drinking clearly remained off their list of activities, which I found oddly reassuring. I took Siân back up to our room, telling myself that I would take my good feelings wherever I could find them. The next day was going to be hard.
Breakfast was excellent, and as soon as we had cleared our plates, Siân rang what was supposed to be her home. I got only half the conversation, naturally, and every now and again it wandered off into that peculiar version of the language they speak up there, verbs all wrong and vowels through the nose. Eventually, she hung up, resting her forehead on the wall for a full minute.
“Lainey, they will be here in an hour. Just Mam and Dad. I didn’t say I had company. Coward, I am, absolutely spineless”
I moved to hold her, to a tut of disapproval from another guest. Sod you.
“You are here though, fy nghariad. That’s more courage than most would have”
“Well, when I asked Vicky to tell them I was coming, I told her not to say anything about you. You must think I am ashamed”
“Why are you trying to talk yourself out of this, Siân?”
“Because I’m frightened, my darling. I don’t want to see you hurt, ever, in any way”
“With my job, it sort of comes along with the uniform. Do this for me, try, aye? Otherwise we’ll never know”
I took a seat away from her as the time approached, and watched as a tall man in a tweedy jacket and a flat cap entered, accompanied by a dumpy woman in the worst dress I have ever seen worn, with enough hair escaping her headscarf to show me her relationship to my lover. As arranged, one of the bar staff brought over a serving of tea, and it all looked very, very polite, if completely and utterly unnatural. I could only get a few snatches of their conversation, but there was no warmth there. Her mother’s face worked a couple of times, a swift grimace or pursing of the mouth as if a lemon had fallen into it.
Finally, she shrugged and visibly slumped, before looking over to me and raising her eyebrows. I took the hint and walked over. Siân was trembling.
“Mam, Dad, Elaine Powell, my intended. Lainey, Carwyn and Angharad”
I nodded and held out my hand. “Mr and Mrs Roberts…”
Angharad Roberts looked at my hand as if I had offered her a dog turd.
“Whore. Pervert”
There was no passion at all in her voice. It was flat and as calm as if she had been a shopkeeper telling me the price of a newspaper, but in the eyes I could see the hatred festering, waiting for the right moment to emerge. Mrs Roberts stood, pulling her shapeless coat closed around her, and turned to her husband. She was in full Gog flow, the accent making her very hard to understand, but her meaning remained clear. The meeting was a mistake, they had no daughter, and neither of us would ever contact them again.
Siân was sobbing as her father rose, and I almost expected to see her tears evaporating in the boiling waves of hatred coming from her mother. How in hell could someone feel that way, speak that way, to their own child? Carwyn turned to me as he fastened his jacket, and spoke to me in English.
“I will speak this way to make sure my meaning is clear. We will have no truck with perversion and unnatural fornication. We will have a daughter if she sees a way to repent her whoring and sin and make peace with her congregation and with her Saviour”
Angharad interrupted him, also in English. This time there was some passion in her words.
“I would rather the Creator had made me barren than to have given birth to such an unnatural thing. I will do my duty as a Christian. I will pray for you to be delivered from your sin, but I will also pray that if you not turn from your whoring that you are consigned to the deepest pits of Hell as soon as the Good Lord sees fit. And may His time run swiftly. Der ymlaen, Carwyn”
They walked out, and Siân turned to bury her face in the wing of the armchair. I moved to hold her, and she clung to my arm. Between sobs, the words came out.
“I knew this was a mistake, Lainey. I knew it!”
“Siân, we had to know, aye? We had to be sure. Come on; upstairs, away from the audience, aye?”
We drove back that afternoon, and I started looking at places for our wedding. It rained.
CHAPTER 14
Dad was a rock for the next few weeks. Siân took her parents’ rejection hard, which in one way I found surprising. After all, she had surely expected nothing really different?
“Lainey, Lainey, yes. I know. They said all that years ago. It was just, well, I hoped, I thought… I thought they’d see you, and it was like I thought about Vicky, aye? How could anyone not love you as soon as they met you? I thought that would be the difference, that would make them think!”
“Aye, cariad, but look at what happened to Vicky. Some people are just, well, stupid. Can’t learn, can’t change, aye?”
We were at her place just then, snuggled on the sofa with hot soup and fresh bread, and steaming mugs of tea. It was lashing down outside, and I was due off on late shift in less than an hour, so I was getting my warmth and comfort before I left.
“Lainey… your Dad, Mam, aye? They really meant what they said, didn’t they? Giving me a family?”
I kissed her cheek. “Set Dad on a course, he sticks to it, aye? Thinks it was all his idea. Different this time, though. This isn’t something Sar and I sold to them, this is all their own thing from the start. My Mam and Dad, they’re very deep people. Not like his brother, is it? Uncle Arwel, he’s about as open to new ideas as a lump of rock. That’s what makes me proudest of Mam and Dad, you know. Neither of their children fits into what they themselves were brought up believing, aye? Yet they throw it off, adapt”
She nodded. “That’s what hurts the most about mine, isn’t it? That they can’t do that, can’t think for themselves”
“Indeed. So we do what we can. Er… you may want to slap me”
“Why would I do that?”
“I spoke to the Registry Office, I checked with the family, and I already know your shifts…”
She put her bowl to one side and sat up straight. “When, cariad?”
“Er… six weeks on Saturday…”
She kissed me. “And I get a dress when?”
“WE get dresses, woman. Dad’s got the catering sorted, Mam’s got a friend who sews, we can trim or altermmmmmffff”
She let me go and smiled. “I will see you later”
What a wealth of meaning in that simple sentence. The shift couldn’t go fast enough.
A few days later, three of us went round to see Arris, who was cooking for us. It was a chance to push Sar along and stop her moping in that shitty little one-bed flat she had, Arris had been keeping in touch as Sarah had recovered, and again I felt a glow of pride in my parents as they had all but made her a member of the family. Siân parked up, and I noticed a motorcycle at the kerb, a big Moto Guzzi with enough padlocks and chains on it to secure a battleship. The owner was sitting in her flat, and he was enormous, with long blonde hair and moustache. A memory rose from Joe Evans’ witness statement: “Then the very big one, the one with the blonde moustache…”
No. I neither needed nor wanted to know. He smiled gently and went to embrace my sister. “Sar, love. So good to see you. You should come round more often”
Siân looked round at the clutter in the room, and pointed to a small pile of very large shoes. “And how often do you come round, big man?”
Sar switched to Welsh. “Four times when they first met, wasn’t it Arris?”
The dark girl blushed, and went back to English. “Steve VISITS as often as he can. We sort of clicked, yeah?”
Sarah laughed, and that was a welcome sound. “What are your intentions towards my friend here, Steve? The ones suitable for polite conversation, that is? Now you have your feet under the table, that is?”
Siân muttered “Ac yn y gwely…” (and in the bed) and Arris blushed again. Steve smiled. By his accent he was from somewhere in Eastern England, so he was unlikely to have caught the meaning.
“I get across whenever I can. This girl, we seem to have clicked”
He took Arris’ hand. “Early days for me and her, but it’s nice to meet a girl with no bullshit about her. Met too many women who have a fine eye on what is in it for them. This one, she runs to others first, looks after them first, worries about herself after. Rare quality, that”
I nodded. I remembered a distraught girl at the door of our house. “Aye, she does that. Now, to avoid embarrassing her any more, we, Siân and me, have an announcement. Steve, well, looking round here, we’ think we should include you, aye? We are getting wed, six weeks from Saturday, and we haven’t yet sorted out a guest list and stuff, formal invitations and that, but you would be most welcome. Er… there was another lad with you when you two met, aye? What’s he up to?”
Sarah gave me a sharp look, and I could read her mind. Stay out of it, leave me alone, but all I could see was showing her there were more people in the world, better people, than Joe Evans and his entourage. Steve, though, just shook his head.
“Bit awkward, that one. He’s sort of seeing someone at the moment. Seems to be going well. Don’t know if it would really work, you know, bringing girlfriend along to an old flame’s sister’s wedding”
Sarah spiked up again. “One weekend doesn’t make me an old flame, aye?”
Steve just looked at her for a while, then sighed and shook his head. "Where are you having this do, then?”
Siân laughed. “I’ve just realised that I’d like to know the answer to that one! Sneaky cow only told me on Monday!”
I smiled round at them. “That’ll be a yes from the two of them, then? Wedding—“
I held up a hand. “Yes, I know. It’s not a wedding in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of a lot of people”
My lover winced, and I took her hand. “I don’t care what arseholes think. Well, obviously I DO, but I won’t let them run my world. I love this woman, she loves me, and we are getting married. They can call it what they like, but Dad is calling it a wedding and Mam is talking about bridesmaids and wedding dresses. You up for that, Arris?”
“Absolutely! Is it going to be meringues and all that?”
Simultaneously, I replied in the negative just as Siân gave a very affirmative “Yes”
I raised an eyebrow, and she gave two back. “I’m a girl and I will do a girly wedding and it will be in a dress that I can keep and take out and look at years later and smile with the memories, innit?”
Arris laughed out loud at that one. “Not put a lot of thought into it, then? Seriously, all girls have their dreams, don’t they?”
I made a snap decision just then, but I really felt it was absolutely the right one.
“We have Sarah here, and there will be two cousins, Ellie and Karen, aye? That’s the bridesmaids sorted. Siân, I suspect you will be asking Vicky to stand by you? Aye?”
My lover nodded. “I know what you were thinking, Lainey, but he deserves it”
Arris was clearly puzzled. ”What?”
Siân smiled at me. “I think Lainey here was going to ask you to stand with her at the wedding. Am I right?”
I nodded. Siân grinned. “I wouldn’t be marrying you if I didn’t know you so well, my darling. Arris is part of our family now. That’s how you see her, isn’t it?”
Sarah was nodding in agreement. “Makes sense to me, and you don’t have family doing best woman, best man thing, aye?”
Siân took her hand. “Exactly. Lainey, it has to be Kevin. Sorry, Arris, but you’ll have to settle for bridesmaid”
I coughed. “Don’t I get a say in this?”
Siân laughed. “Not if it is going to be saying the wrong thing, cariad”
Steve gave the most theatrical of sighs. “Not even wed yet, and already they’re having a domestic. Come on; let’s get dinner on and drag this conversation back to the original bloody question. Where are you getting married?”
That brought a laugh from everybody. “Wedding at the office in the town hall in Abergwaun, aye? Reception at the rugby club. Dad’s got their big room sorted out. Just got to get suited and booted. My sweet woman, if you want to go all floaty white, that is what you shall do. I am doing it in uniform. It’s a day for Dad and Mam as well, and I want them to be proud of me. If, well, if Kev is going to be next to me, it makes sense as well”
Neatly outmanoeuvred by my friends and family, we settled down for the meal, and later, as we left, and Steve hugged me, I just whispered a quiet thank you.
Sarah dropped the next bombshell, though, a few days later
Dad was clearly not happy. “Canterbury? Why there, girl? Why so far away?”
She looked up at him, eyes steady. “Because it IS so far away, Dad. Look, you know I’ve been under the doctor a few years now, aye? All on course, all starting to work, at least, well…”
She waved her hands around her chest and grimaced. “I go there, I go as far away as I can, and maybe I can start fresh, lose the idiots who come into the shop just for the freak show. I was talking to that lawyer your Kevin took us to, and he says we should go ahead, sue the police, aye? Can’t hurt giving it a go”
Mam snorted. “And you would want yourself in the papers again? More men to come and stare, is it?”
I sighed. “Not what the Federation man said, Mam. They won’t want it in the papers, that’s the whole point. Imagine the headlines: police officers sell story of rape victim to gutter press, see pages one, two, three, continued pages whatever”
I held a hand up. “Call it what you like, it was rape. Sarah, when do you take this new job?”
“Three months, Lainey. Just in time for the Millennium. Someone is retiring, and they have me set to drop straight in. New life, new century, aye?”
“At least we have some notice, then. Make me a promise, chwaer fychan, just one: stop doing all this on your own, aye?”
My sister nodded, but I held absolutely no faith in her promise. I squeezed a day’s leave in when I knew she was off, and all but dragged her to Kev’s brief. Within three days, he had issued an initial statement of claim, which got me another carpeting from the inspector. This time, though, he was clearly on the defensive, and after he had finished and I was leaving I just caught his near-whisper.
“For what it’s worth, I hope she gets a good settlement”
I had just put my hand on the door when he raised his voice again.
“Constable Powell, you may not be aware of this, but Messrs Pritchard and Evans are having a joint leaving drink next week, at the Tudor Rose. I do not expect you or your friends or your family to be anywhere near the pub. Is that understood? Thank you for your time. You may leave the door open”
There were hidden meanings in that one, the most obvious being a warning-off from any of us returning favours, but there was a deeper hint. Wait and watch, Elaine.
CHAPTER 15
I was double-crewed with Kev in a car the afternoon and evening of their piss-up, and we were indeed kept well out of the area. The pub wasn’t somewhere Dad ever went, so rather than a repeat of the argument the night Sarah got raped, I simply stayed quiet about it.
Raped, that was indeed the word. The more I thought about it, the more the term fitted. Three men had raped my sister. There was no need for them to penetrate her to make it rape. The whole thing about rape, as I had already learned through some shitty, horrible cases, is that it is so rarely about sex. It is all about power, about control; magnification of one soul at the expense of the destruction of another. It left me almost shaking with impotence.
Kev noticed, and kept trying to lighten my mood. When that didn’t work, he tried simply changing the subject at random intervals.
“Rod’s up to something, Lainey”
“Aye?”
“Something secret squirrel. You know he can’t keep his gob shut, normal-like, innit? Well, he’s all puffed up with something, all grins and winks”
I remembered the little jibes about ‘straight’. “Aye, always a bit full of his own piss and wind. What do you think, butt?”
The radio crackled into life.
“Whisky two nine, whisky two nine, hotel control”
Kev was at the wheel, so I took the call. “Send, control”
“Got a shout for you. Multiple RTC, A4138 Pontarddulais Road, southbound just after M4 junction. At least one casualty reported. Ambulance and fire on route”
“Out of area, control?”
“Bit of a busy scene, two nine. Boss offered all hands to pump”
I did a quick route check. “ETA ten minutes, control”
“Thanks, two nine. One South Wales traffic unit already there, more on way. Listening out”
I turned to Kev. “Put the noise on, butt. Didn’t like the sound of that”
Twelve minutes up the motorway, and then off up the long slipway that’s actually more of a parallel road, before the bastard of a junction with the road we needed. Kev bullied his way through, but even with the lights and siren there were still drivers who seemed to be deaf, blind, stupid or a varying mix of all three. As we finally managed to get onto the southbound road, the ambulance came howling down from the other side of the motorway, and then there was the odd and very loud noise a fire engine makes when the driver just has to let an idiot know that pulling out of his way might be a good idea. The traffic was already piling up, and I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling.
Stationary cars, a long line of them. The ambulance’s own blue lights ahead, the fire engine pulling past. Two Heddlu De Cymru cars, one of them Traffic, and a solitary bike, whose rider I couldn’t see. Kev pulled up next to a South Wales lad.
“Where do you want us?”
“Hi, butt, glad for the extra hands, aye? Can you stick a block on on the other side of the road? Keep some of the idiots from trying to drive through? Oh, and any traffic experience? We’re a bit short”
I raised a hand. “Done Traffic, aye? Where’s your mate then?”
I pointed to the bike as I got out, pulling on the hi-viz. The Honda looked fine, so my sudden fear of a police casualty faded. The South Wales sergeant pointed to a figure sitting on a stretch of Armco, head in hands.
“Adam’s over there, girl. He’s had a bit of a crisis, aye? You’ll see why. Look, female casualty, shock, could use a woman to have a bit talk, come easier, aye? She should be in the ambulance by now”
I walked past the bike copper, and I was certain he was sobbing. Duw, what the hell was going on? You didn’t do that; you stayed strong, or you played strong, acted it out, and you let the shit hit you in private, or in the pub. You didn’t do it in public.
What a mess. There was a small car, Focus or something, front end a little bent. In front of it was a Transit, embedded in the back of a milk tanker, firemen cutting the cab roof away as paramedics talked quietly to the van driver, trapped in his seat. The first ambulance was there, rear door open, a woman’s voice alternately screaming and crying coming from it. And…
And on the road, in front of the Focus and covered by a blanket, but still clearly recognisable for what it was. A child seat. I could see at once what had happened, the damage patterns so obvious, as clear as writing. The car kisses the back of the van, through what? Mobile phone? Lighting a cigarette? What? The van driver steps on the accelerator in shock, and rams the tanker. The car driver…
Hold it together, Constable Powell. The car driver, clearly the woman screaming and crying in the ambulance, the car driver stamps on her brakes as her bonnet taps the van, and she doesn’t write off her car, but the child, in the nice safe seat, the top of the range model that she hasn’t actually secured to the car, the child seat flies past her head and through the windscreen and onto the road, and with it the child I just knew was still strapped into it.
I knew then why the woman was screaming, and absolutely understood why a young copper was sobbing his heart out on a stretch of safety barrier on a Glamorgan road. I went towards the ambulance, just as the screaming died away. One of the crew nodded to me as I came to the door.
“Sorry, Officer, but we have had to sedate her”
“Aye, makes sense. What about the kid?”
A shake of the head. “State of him, well, let’s just say best to leave the mite where he is for now, aye? We’ve got another two ambulances on the way. Tanker driver has back pains, and, well, see what the van driver’s like when they get him out. Shitty day, girl, shitty day”
The fire crew did their bit, and the driver was taken out on a back board and neck brace, as more South Wales boys arrived to measure and photograph and finally, finally remove one small object under a blanket. The bike Officer handed his helmet to a mate and left in a car, poor bastard, and I wondered, not for the last time, if we were paid anything near what the job cost us.
An arm went round my shoulders, and it was Kevin. With a start, I realised we had been there for three and a half hours. How time flies when one is having fun.
“Bite to eat, Lainey?”
I drew a long, slow breath. “Dunno, butt. Bit sort of bad taste, aye?”
“Cuppa, then, and see. That lad going to be OK? The one on the bike?”
“I really, really don’t know, Kev. That was a truly awful one. Let’s call in and let them know we’re mobile again, aye? Then, right, if there’s no shout, back to that café and you can get me a bacon roll”
Keep it light, put it behind me. Move along, Lainey, nothing to see.
That night, once the shift was over, was awful. I woke several times, and each time I surfaced I knew I was crying as clearly as I knew Siân was holding and rocking me. I tried to take comfort from her presence, but I kept hearing that woman’s screams, and although I knew my lover had seen some of the same things I had I prayed, as sleep finally took me, that she would never be faced with anything anywhere close to that scene.
I was out with Kev again the next day, tired from lack of sleep, but at least we were on late turn. Just before we left the station, he very, very quietly said “Take a look at the Custody log for last night, Lainey”
“Eh?”
Kev smiled in a very unfunny way. “You were right about Rod, girl. He can’t keep his gob shut. Inspector had him on a special last night…Oh, hello Rod”
Right on cue. “Hello, Constable Powell”
I gave him an eyebrow. "Very formal, Rod?”
“Getting in practice, isn’t it? For the disciplinary people”
“What the fuck you done, then?”
“Me? Pure as, isn’t it? Anyway, was working with the boss yesterday, can’t get into trouble like that, can I?”
He was beginning to really piss me off. “Rod, boy, whatever you have, aye? Spit it out or bugger off and annoy someone else”
“Not annoying you, girl. Look, you got a sister now, innit? Used to be your brother?”
I settled into just the right stance, the one that gave me a choice between punching his teeth out or kicking his bollocks up into his chest. “I have a sister, yes. Her name is Sarah. What?”
The stupid grin vanished. “She got shafted, innit? Pritchard and that cunt Evans, aye? Boss says to me, he says, you going to their piss-up, constable, and me, I say, wouldn’t give those two the steam off my own piss, aye? So he says good, he says, excellent, got a job for you”
Where was this going? “Carry on, Rod”
He grinned again, and this time there was no silliness there, no mirth. “Boss sorted out three of us, aye? And we draw two unmarked cars, innit? And some breathalysers”
I read the Custody log ten minutes later. “Wyn” had quietly staked out the Tudor Rose, as two Real Men, two Men’s Men, had celebrated their departure from our little community. When they had celebrated enough times, with enough glasses, the two pillars of society had set off for home, and being Real Men, of course, their driving could never deteriorate because of a little thing like alcohol. The inspector had indeed staked them out, and each driver was followed just far enough to find an excuse to light them up and set the standard script in motion.
“Keep blowing keep blowing keep blowing stop! The light has come on indicating that you have failed the roadside test and you are accordingly now under arrest…”
Rod’s grin was now savage. “He made sure he got Evans, and he nicked him himself. Look, Elaine, I don’t hold with you, or your, well, sister, aye? Old-fashioned, me, traditional. But I joined this job for a reason, and perhaps it was a kid’s reason, but still, aye? Protect the weak, look after the vulnerable. Those two…
“Inspector told the three of us to keep it quiet, aye? Not to tell you or Kev here. Those two arseholes, they’ll be gone proper now. You go home, you hug your sister for me”
CHAPTER 16
I didn’t have time to really poke around asking people what they thought of Evans’ and Pritchard’s fall from grace, but there were enough people seeming to go out of their way to give me a little nod or smile. I suppose that is what people like those two arseholes never see. I was sitting with my lover in a tea shop a few days later, and the man at the next table was reading the Daily Mail.
Like so many of his kind, ‘reading’ actually meant ranting to his wife about the stories that that particular foul rag is notorious for. One spoof headline read “Swan-eating illegal immigrants caused cancer by lowering house prices”, and that was the sort of thing this idiot was saying very, very loudly. It wasn’t just the opinions he was expressing, it wasn’t just the volume at which he was speaking, it was the certainty. Here was somebody who felt that he inhabited the Middle England (even though we were in Wales) of Daily Mail myth, and all of his nasty little prejudices were being reinforced by what he read.
To him, it would be inconceivable that anybody could possibly hold a different opinion, so when he spoke he would merely be reflecting the views of the silent majority around him. That was the world Evans and Pritchard inhabited, where OF COURSE Johnny Foreigner should be sent back home, women should know their place… and dirty little shirtlifting queers should understand that a good slap was all they should expect.
Siân spotted one of my unconscious signals, and took my hand.
“Your forearms were going, cariad”
Apparently, whenever I start to get stressed or angry, the tendons and muscles start to stand out on my arms. She stroked the offending limb with her other hand, and I heard a sharp intake of breath from my vocal neighbour. I gave him a smile that was probably a lot like Rod’s.
“Think carefully before you make any more remarks that could be construed as incitement to hatred, SIR. Yes, I am. Door’s that way”
I held his eyes till he folded and prepared to scuttle off with his ugly wife, and then turned back to my lovely woman.
“You sure about that one? How can I help if you won’t let me see it?”
“Got Sar on that job, aye, and your Mam, and Arris. Traditional, aye? You’ll see it in two weeks”
I felt the glare from the other table as he rose to leave, and couldn’t resist it.
“No sooner do I see it, then, than I get to take it off you…”
“Oh yes indeed, my darling love”
The couple left so quickly at that point that they knocked their tray off the table in a clatter of cutlery and breaking cups, and my own darling love laughed so much she snorted something nasty out of her nose.
“Lainey, fy nghariad, you are going to have to stop winding people up like that. I know he deserved it, but, well, your boss putting you forward for sergeant, aye? Responsible woman I am marrying, not wind-up merchant, aye?”
She waited till I took a mouthful of tea, the cow, before informing me that I could, indeed, wind her up later.
A fortnight to go, two arseholes gone from the Force, my wedding to come, and Sarah did a runner. I cornered her in her flat that Sunday.
“Why now? Thirteen days to the wedding, and you are off to bloody Kent?”
She was looking past me, which usually meant she was trying to build a better lie.
“I need to see if I can sort out a place to stay, aye? Only a few weeks to go till I start, need to get my feet on the ground”
“And you’ll be back when? Day after my marriage? A month after? Never?”
“I….”
She folded, all at once. I could see what she had been trying to do, how well she had deceived herself. Get an excuse to get away from us, lose her ticket or whatever, not have to sit through the sight of others becoming happier. She didn’t want to share our happiness simply because, in the end, she had none of her own to offer in return. Raped.
I held her for a while till it was time to clean ourselves, both pairs of eyes back under control, her shakes stilled.
“Chwaer fychan annwyl, this is not the way to go. I want you with me on the day, aye? We both do. And Mam, Dad, it would break their hearts”
She slumped into me. “And who should I be, that day? Sam? I can’t be Sarah here, can I? Not real, is it?”
“Ah. You run away, hide, nobody knows, never any friends, is that it?”
I understood her plans all too well. The rubbish she spoke about being Sam was exactly that, and we both knew it. There was no ‘Sam’, and there never had been. She was Sarah, had always been Sarah, would always be her. We had both known that from childhood. All she would do would be to live her life as Sar, and by life I understood she meant get up, go to work, come home---and lock the door to the world. She would cope by making damned sure she never had a challenge, never left herself vulnerable. The worst of all was that I knew that, in the end, there was nothing I could do to change her plan.
“Sar, would you like company on this, this scouting trip? I could squeeze a few days off?”
This time, she looked me in the eye, and I could feel the decision forming in her. Be strong, girl.
“Lainey, I have to do this on my own, and you have your wedding to prepare for. I promise… I promise I will be there for you. But I have to go. There is nothing here for me, aye? Nothing at all. Soonest started, soonest mended”
She left it unsaid, the answer to that other question: would she ever come home again once she left? I suspected even then that I already knew the answer. She took the train the next day.
She was back three days before the wedding, and I offered a little prayer of thanks to the chapel god I didn’t actually believe in that I had a sister who held to her promises. Clearly, my chapel god was a kinder one than that of Angharad Roberts.
Mam was fussing around me, right up until I told her to stop.
“Mam, this is my uniform, aye? I know how it goes on! Off with you and check on the, er, bride, aye?”
“Your sister and her friend are there, with your cousins, aye? Their job, not mine”
Her voice softened. “And her own mother it should be, not all from our family. I know what we said, your Dad and me, but this is when she truly becomes one of ours, even in name. Why that decision, Elaine?”
I sighed. “If you had seen the face of her Mam, aye? Heard her words? Siân warned me, but I had to be sure. The hate that woman gave us, Mam, I have never seen anything like that, and she was her mother!”
I paused as awful memories of the woman’s expression rose up. “It was Siân’s choice, Mam. I was all set for a fight over Roberts-Powell or Powell-Roberts, but she simply says ‘No. They have made their bed, and your parents have opened the door freely’. And… Mam, she also said that any child would take our name, let Roberts die out. They disown their child, they lose any grandchildren”
Mam was actually blushing at that one. “Lainey, how could there be any? Twmi and I, your Dad and me, well, what with Sarah being, you know, we had given up hope of such a thing. Is this something that you are already planning?”
“Mam, I can’t answer that one. I mean, Siân, aye? She loves the idea of children, but I am not so sure. This is all new, aye? We get grief just for being two of us; would it be fair to a child to bring them into that? I promise, though. We will talk to you before we make any final decision, aye? To you and Dad”
All of that was true. My bride-to-be had been the first to raise the subject, and the memory of that nasty little Mail-reading shit had been at the front of my mind. I could already see the headlines: child forced to have two mothers, child without a father, child of perverts. We had each other; that must be enough, and it was more than Sar had.
There was a knock on the door, and it was Kevin. “Car’s ready, Lainey. Looking good, girl”
“It’s just a uniform, butt!”
He grinned, and almost, almost, but I was indeed fully on that famous other bus, and I had what I wanted and needed just a short drive away.
“There are men who will pay very good money to watch someone dressed just like that! Come on; bride to see, beer to drink”
The ceremony was nothing special, I have to admit. I mean, it was a registry office, and strictly speaking it wasn’t a wedding, but, well, just ‘but’. In front of various friends, uncles, aunties and cousins, I stood with a beautiful red-haired woman in a dress of layered net and said what I meant, meant what I said, and joined our lives together forever. That: that was special.
There were only two fights at the reception, and Sarah left three days later.
CHAPTER 17
That was the last I saw of her back home. We met up at other places, such as the church in Reading where Arris married Steve, but never at home. She wasn’t out of contact, she didn’t disappear; letters and calls came regularly, but she stayed in England.
I was distracted for a while, for my sergeant’s came up almost immediately after Kevin and Vicky were wed. That made life interesting for a while, where ‘interesting’ means stressful, busy and confusing. Sweating blood studying, worrying about how chapel folk would have taken me standing beside Kevin, and recovering from a truly debauched stag night that finished up in someone’s living room. Whose exactly, I still can’t remember. I do know that I had some other girl’s knickers in my pocket.
It was so different to my own wedding, for the chapel gave space to sing, and as my father had made it very, very clear that Vicky was now part of our family what else could he and his brother do but join in the singing? My father has always been full of life, but when he sings he seems to grow even more alive, more firmly set in the world. Uncle Arwel is a simple man in all things, as is his son Hywel, until it comes to singing. Mam sang with them, and with other voices around them I saw Vicky’s eyes wide in wonder and delight.
Rod stood beside Kevin for the service, Siân and some of Vicky’s friends as bridesmaids. I had been asked, but, well, no. A married couple together in that role would have been too awkward for words, and words there would have been from the guests. I took my seat at the front and bathed in their happiness. Even with Kevin’s feelings for me, the two of them were clearly right for each other, as right as my lover and I were for each other.
Sarah didn’t come.
My examination was unpleasant, I can tell you, but it seemed to me that I did all right. I must have done, for I was offered a slot over yng Nghaerfyrddin, as we both always insisted on saying. That, of course, entailed a lot of searching, but we finally found a bungalow in a reasonable part of town out towards Cwmoernant. It all sounds so simple and quick, but it was a long and messy process only eased by the simple fact that both my wife and I had been renting, and her ‘subtenant’ had cleared off with some strange man. That meant we had no chain, as the estate agents call it, and merely had to give notice once the sale was agreed, mortgage arranged, survey done, black and white cockerels sacrificed in the heart of Pentre Ifan. That sort of thing.
I did do one thing with and for my sister when I found the time, and that was to see the litigation pushed ahead. It turned out that Kev and the Federation man had been spot on, and they folded immediately. Not good for the reputation of the Force, etc., and two more nails into the coffins of two ex-coppers’ careers. Sar spent most of her payment on a mortgage in Dover, and still didn’t come home.
I started out at Friars Park, with a move to Llangynnwr a few years later, so it was typical town centre work mostly. Plenty of theft, but not a lot of robbery; plenty of drunken fights and domestics but not a lot of rape. It was that sort of town. The one thing I did get to do, though, was plenty of getting around on the works Honda. The Gogs may have bigger mountains, but the scenery down West is just as sweet in my eyes, and the vistas are wider. We are the largest constabulary in terms of area, and that means a lot of twisty country lanes. Plenty of RTAs, then, which became RTCs, which is where my seasons of plenty could be rather unpleasant. I will never, ever forget that child seat.
Kev was back from honeymoon, but they were now living up in Aberteifi so it was a bit of a trek to see them. Siân made sure we put the effort in, though, and it was on one of their return visits that the next big news was revealed. Kev was insufferably smug, and Vicky even more drippy round him than normal, as we sat in the front room with snacks and wine. Siân just looked at her cousin and asked the question.
“How long, girl?”
Vicky smiled, and I could see so clearly what called to my wife. “Two months, Doc says”
Ah. I looked over at my old mate. “You ready for this, constable?”
A bright grin. “As ever, sergeant. Seriously, what parents are ever really ready, for their first one, aye? Second one, know what to expect, innit?”
Siân laughed. “And you’ll be up for a second after seeing what the first is like? Shouldn’t you be asking the woman involved first? I mean, not you that will be doing the giving birth, is it?”
I took a sip, thinking. After what had been done to Vicky, pregnancy and motherhood would clearly come with some messy and painful memories.
“Vicky, Kev: what are you hoping for?”
Kev grinned again. “Two arms, two legs and happy, aye?”
Vicky nodded, but then held up a hand, palm towards me. “Lainey, please, don’t think bad of me, but, well, we are also hoping that any child isn’t…. you know…”
I gave my wife a quick glance. “You mean you don’t want it to be like me and Siân?”
Kev grunted, but Vicky sharpened her tone. “No, that is not it. Kev is with me on this one, aren’t you, love?”
He nodded and took her hand as she continued. “Any child of ours we want to be able to love well and love deeply, and we don’t give a shit who. You two should know that. It’s just, well, your sister. No, Elaine, don’t get me wrong. I love her to bits, yeah, but, well, nobody should be given that hand to play. Can you understand that? We just want our child, our children, to be happy in themselves”
I was clearly getting paranoid, and I understood exactly what she meant. Sarah had suffered, would continue to suffer, for no fault of her own. Nobody should ever have to deal with that. My thoughts brought an idea.
“Vicky, aye? Got a bit of a notion, might help. Why don’t you have words with Mam, our Mam that is? I mean, she’s had two kids, obviously. Get some insight, some help”
She looked hesitant at that, and I could read her thoughts. Why would Mam want to get involved? Siân stepped in.
“Far as they are concerned you two are family, aye? Sioned and Twm would love a grand kid, and this could be something like it. Won’t hurt to ask, is it?”
Vicky’s voice was very soft just then. “They would do this?”
I took her hand. “I think they would love to”
I spoke to Mam the next day. Deal done.
The disciplinary hearing came and went, and canteen culture again played a hand as two fine and upstanding policemen retired on health grounds, pensions retained. It is one of the peculiarities of being a police officer that there is a strange sort of double jeopardy ruling in which criminal proceedings are balanced out against disciplinary ones, and the hammer doesn’t fall as heavily in the latter if it is emphatic in the first. Nevertheless, both were now gone. Job nearly done.
I must admit it became almost surreal when we went over to see the Barracloughs in Reading, as Arris had her own little passenger slowly growing inside her. Everyone around us seemed to be producing new life, and my sweet redhead was so wistful it hurt me deeply. We had found another guest on that trip, another big man with dark hair and beard, and even before we were introduced I had guessed who he was. I held out my hand to him.
“Thank you, Tony”
“What for?”
“Making my sister happy for a weekend”
He blushed. Really blushed. “Might have been a bit longer, but for her stupid joke”
“Eh?”
He laughed. “Told me she was a drug dealer, didn’t she? Me in Customs, well, not such a good thing to do, is it?”
“Well, you know better now”
“Yeah, and I am married now, and very happy, and… look, you know how it is? You meet someone, you don’t get it right, you meet someone else and it DOES go right, you don’t forget all about the first one, do you?”
Siân burst into laughter. “Oh don’t we just know that one! You, me, her mate Kevin, all singing the same song, isn’t it? And all happy now, aye?”
He sighed. “Aye. Er, yes. Look, couldn’t help hearing about Sarah, aye? About, you know”
I kept my tone neutral. “About how she’s not really a woman, is it?”
He fixed me with a flat and hard stare. “No. Your sister is a woman. She is a woman I care a lot for. If Steve hadn’t stopped me…”
I held up a hand to cut him off. “I am not going to go any further on that one as I not only have no need to know but I have a need NOT to know, if you get me. I read Joe Evan’s witness statement”
I looked across at Steve just then, and there was something very, very frightening in his eyes that made me wonder exactly what his history was just as I made a firm decision never to try and find out. Tony continued.
“We are where we are, Elaine. Times change, things happen, people move on. If things were different, I would look her up. They aren’t different. This is one case where I can’t help. I would just make things worse, from what Arris says. All we can do is be there, all of us, for when we CAN help. She has to heal herself”
I knew he was right, just as I knew that he would never be in Reading when she came to visit, for we all realised that would break her completely.
I was out for a pint a few days later with Kev, as Vicky was visiting Mam and Dad with my wife, and he dropped another surprise into my lap.
“Remember that lad by the M4, Lainey? The one with the shakes?”
Shakes? In my memories, which often visited me at night, he was sobbing.
“Aye, I remember him. What’s up?”
“Well, do you remember a few years back? Car rammed a bike and blew up?”
I did remember that one, as it was all over the grapevine at work. Three kids burned alive after a car chase, the policeman concerned rammed off the bike that ended up wedged into the front of the car, then blown halfway to Caerdydd as said car went off like a bomb while he was trying to get the boys out.
“Shit, Kev, same copper?”
“Same one, Lainey. He’s had a bit of a break down, they’re saying. He’s had to come off the bikes”
“Poor bastard. That was a truly bad one, though. Kids, aye?”
Kev took a long draught of his ale. “Aye, girl, and when you are about to be a parent, it gets even closer to home. I was lucky on that one, being sent down the road, innit”
A child seat on the road, covered in a blanket. Alternate screaming and sobbing from an ambulance.
“Aye, butt, you were indeed lucky”
I think that was when it all crystallised in me and I knew that Siân wasn’t alone in her desire, her need for children. The world and our friends seemed to be conspiring to show us what others could have. It was up to us to grab it for ourselves.
CHAPTER 18
Life became almost banal after that. There is a tendency for some people, especially the younger ones, to see settled domesticity as boring beyond words. They crave adventure, excitement, action. Well, I remember ‘adventure’ being summed up by someone sensible as ‘something unpleasant happening to someone else’. It was the same with the rookies, as too many of the boys were calling the new chums in the American fashion. They came straight from training and went out hoping for a ruck, for a fight or a foot chase, while I was just happy to get home to my wife without incident.
That’s the thing about being in the Emergency Services: said emergency almost always does consist of something unpleasant happening to someone else, but where we are concerned it happens right in front of us and asks us to clean up the mess, and some of those messes leave marks beyond the physical. I thought of that young copper, Adam whatever, each time I arrived at a smash.
Vicky and Kev had a little girl, pretty as a dew-dropped rose to them and as ugly as sin to the rest of us, but that is the way of babies. They called her Tara Elaine, which made me tear up quite a bit, and that was only made worse when Arris started what seemed like a production line of infants. Along with Steve, she stayed as true to her friendship with Sarah as I had known she would from the moment I had first met her. There is a lot of rubbish written about things like love at first sight, and Siân and I showed that. Her initial comments about my sister were, well, something we would both rather forget.
Sometimes, though, just sometimes, the knowledge is there in your head immediately. This is one of the good ones, this one has a soul and honesty, and that was Arris. In Steve she had found someone similar, another who made his commitments from the heart and held them there whatever happened. It was Reading where we met with my sister, for she would come no further west, and as she filled out softly in the right places her face set firmer into a maturity I would have preferred not to see. Siân summed it up in one word: cynical. So much grief, so young: what else could she feel but world-weariness and suspicion?
Still, for the two of us, life went on in a comforting and comfortable way. Every now and again I thought of how two dead girls had let me out, let me show who I was, and my reward lay beside me crowned with red curls. That was the thing: it was at night when those thoughts came, and it was her presence that kept me grounded in hope and safety. Without her, what would I be? It was in the small hours that I found the balance sheet before my eyes. It was almost like one of those religious arguments, in that I had to ask myself if my happiness justified their deaths.
Shut it, Lainey. Count your blessings and cling to the best of your memories.
Wyn was ‘Wyn’ more and more just then, and I was Elaine rather than Sergeant Powell. With the two festering excuses for humanity swept up and out of the force, I got to know him better as the years went by. It was, well, informative how he kept in touch even though I was working to a completely different management chain, which said so much about how he saw me and my family. It was Uncle Arwel who provided the missing pieces to the puzzle.
We were at some family birthday or other in the Oak (where else) and he was asking the usual uncleish questions about work, incidents, arrests, everything apart from how Siân and I were getting on. That was a bit unnecessary, as she was snuggled into my side with a hand on my knee at that point.
“So how is that senior copper of yours? That Wyn?”
I had learned aeons ago that he almost always had a reason for raising conversational subjects from out of the blue.
“You know him, aye?”
He had grunted, taking a mouthful of his beer. Ever eloquent, even without words.
“Na. The boy, though, he plays with his son, aye?”
Hywel, and no doubt by playing he meant rugby. My uncle had taken another long draught of his ale.
“Aye, that thing with Sam, the boy wasn’t happy. Things got shared in the team, might have got back from young Iestyn to old Wyn, aye? Funny how these things turn out”
I gave him one of my better copper stares, but the effect was spoiled by the redhead cuddling me. He simply raised an eyebrow, as glacial and dangerous as an iceberg.
“Told you, girl. Had a word with the younger shit, aye? Left a warning with Wyn over the other two arseholes. His turf, as the Yanks say, his responsibility, but I got second bite at their cherry”
There are times when my own family frighten even me, and when he turned a flat stare on me and made a very direct comment about outsiders touching his blood kin, well, that was one of those times. He looked away, smiled horribly, and looked back.
“How is young Samuel, then, in that foreign country?”
I sighed, of course. “She isn’t Sam, and never has been, aye? You know what we say—move along, nothing to see? That is Sarah? For fuck’s sake, how can you talk like that about her ten seconds after describing how you threatened serving coppers?”
A cock of the head and a sigh of his own. “Lainey, I am a man of my times, aye? But family is family. I don’t do nancy boys, but he is MY fucking nancy boy, my blood, my kin, my fucking family, Hywel’s kin, aye? Listen. I know who you go and see in Reading, aye? I know who dealt with that little cunt. Wyn knows, but he has held it back, steered the investigation our way, aye? So you give him due respect. Now, the boy is supposed to be getting me a pint, but he is talking to some tart at the bar, aye? We will talk again, but that is enough said for today”
Indeed it had been. I thought long and hard about the worm cans that lay begging to be opened, and decided to close my eyes and leave them well alone.
That was an eye-opener, to say the least. Each visit to Reading afterwards left me wondering exactly how close Steve had come to being sent down for the ‘accident’ that had happened to Joe Evans. We still had to juggle, of course, for Sarah was there as often as Tony, and timing was indeed everything. We even met Tony’s wife Anne and their little boy Jim a couple of times, and I have to admit that hurt me.
I do not like men. I don’t mean that I don’t LIKE men, I mean that they are a foreign species in which I find absolutely no attraction. I look at Steve and Tony, or Dad, or Hywel or Ewi Arwel, and I see good people, people I love, but nothing that stirs my juices. I look at my wife and, well, I am lost.
I could look at Tony and Anne and their kid, and smile, but I could never see myself in her place, even though she was so obviously and so much in love with him. And then she was dead.
CHAPTER 19
I came back from a crap shift one evening, straight into a warm bath which was improved no end by my wife sponging the tension out of my neck and back as something heated in the oven. She had been on an early shift, and we were happily both off the next day, so the evening was hurs with no need to worry about early alarm clocks and units of alcohol.
I had the evening in question planned out in detail: something nice on the video, dinner on our laps before she came onto mine. An early night.
She was itching to say something, though, as she squeezed the lovely warmth from the sponge over my shoulders.
“What’s up, cariad?”
She straightened beside the bath, sitting back on her heels so she could look me in the eyes.
“I got a call from Arris, Lainey”
“And? Oh. What’s up? Not one of the kids?”
Her mouth twitched, and she looked down for a second. “No, not the kids. Remember Tony’s missus, Annie?”
“Course…oh shit, Siân! How?”
This was my beloved in the role I dreaded and detested, breaking the news nobody ever wanted to hear. She gave a deep sigh, and an attempt at a wry smile that fell at the first.
“They were off to Disneyland, Disneyworld, whatever. Florida, you know? All wonderful, proper family stuff, they get back…”
She trailed off for a moment, then looked at me, brow furrowed. “She was so pretty, Lainey, so full of life. If it wasn’t for you, and Tony, and her being straight, you know? You understand? I saw Vicky in her, aye?”
The tears came then, and I sat up, wet, naked, to hold her.
“Lainey, I hardly knew her. Why am I so upset??”
“You said it, cariad. You saw Vicky in her, wasn’t it?”
She squeezed me back. “More than that, my love. Mother, isn’t it? You know what I feel, what I want, and I watched her and Arris, and, well, no secret I had the jealousy, was it? It was just that I could almost forget that bit with the children. Mother and child. I’ve got neither, but I could do it through Annie, through Arris, and, shit. Just shit, aye?”
She dug her fingers into my back and fell silent. I waited till her tension eased
“And Tony?”
“Ah, Lainey, Arris says he’s broken. Little Jim’s not talking to anyone, Tony’s off work, staying with his Mam”
I understood that one. How could he stay in the house where wife and mother had left them? Siân was sitting up again.
“What happened, cariad?”
“Brain aneurysm, haemorrhage sort of thing. Jim… Jim was tickling her when it happened. I suspect he thinks he did it. Look, Arris asked a favour, aye? Leave it a while for Reading visits, see how they get on. I think they want to give the boys some space. She’ll give us a shout as and when”
“Anything that we can actually do?”
“No, Lainey. Don’t think so. Just space and time, aye? Oh, and Arris says not to say anything to Sar. Wouldn’t be appropriate, nor helpful”
“Siân, one day she will need to know we still see him, aye?”
“Aye. She will. Just not right now, OK?”
We were round at Kev and Vicky’s the following night, Little Taz becoming more of a person with each visit, and as she tickled Vicky I watched my wife, seeing how deeply Annie’s death had cut her. She kept it in, kept the smile in place, dealt with her own assaults from a giggling little girl and still the pain sat in her eyes. I have always been astonished at how deep my wife’s feelings swim, how slowly they burn, and for an instant I saw her face superimposed on that of the poor bike copper, that Adam, and realised that with her job there was a real risk of meeting a similar situation. I made a quick decision.
“Just had a thought, people. Can we wangle the same time off this Summer? See if we can get a villa somewhere?”
Vicky laughed out loud at that, Tara adding a little girl scream just to make her own noise and not feel left out. Kev reached down by the side of the sofa he was sharing with his family.
“Funny you should say that, Lainey”
He had a number of glossy brochures in his hand. “Got some deals on villas in Greece, aye? Tara’s still young enough to be out of school, and we thought we’d get a cheaper holiday in while we could”
Siân laughed, more happily this time. “Tell me you haven’t got one for Lesbos, Kev!”
“Might have…”
What a genius. We were booked up as soon as we had the leave arranged and a passport sorted, and no, I won’t go into details about the holiday itself. Yes we went to Lesbos, yes the plumbing was odd, but the food was superb and the wine better and a little girl got to make sandcastles with her dad while three women supervised from sun-loungers. I almost forgot about reality until two of us were sitting in the relative cool of the evening writing postcards. Vicky looked over her cousin’s shoulder.
“What about your Mum and Dad, Siân?”
My wife snorted. “You are joking, girl, aren’t you?”
Vicky sat down beside her. “No, I am not. Look, we all know what happened, we know what she said, but you have to rise above it. Trite, I know, but she’s still your Mum, and you shouldn’t throw that away. Sod it, girl, I know what you are feeling. I see how you look at Taz and me. Jealousy isn’t pretty”
“Envy, not jealousy. I don’t want you, is it, not any more, but I want what you have, and I can’t do that. So it’s do the best I can. Permanent Aunty, that’s me. But why should I write to her after what she said?”
Vicky took her hand. “She’s still your mother, love. Still your Mum. You don’t have to try any persuasion, any convincing, yeah? Just let her know you’re still alive, still her daughter. She has to take her own wall down: don’t build your own one. I got some more postcards and stamps, you can have some. Just write one to her. Ball in her court”
We posted it the next day. Nothing world-shaking, just a couple of lines about how much ‘Vicky’s little girl’ was enjoying the holiday. Ball in her court.
That villa became our holiday place for a couple of years, right up until little Tara was ready to start school and the costs accordingly shot up. It was always the same, with Siân having to spend more money on sun block that we did on alcohol, or so it seems. Vicky had heard of some odd Yank or German fashion thing, where you stood in a booth and got spray-painted with fake tan skin paint, and suggested we hire one and fill the tank with Factor 300 or whatever, and my wife threw a bread roll at her. Children.
In between the holidays and the occasional inconvenient spell of paid employment, we picked up our social life again. I had a little shiver of worry when I heard Tony was moving to Dover, but the state he was in hardly suggested he would be out clubbing and running into lonely biker chicks. What struck me as the months passed by was the change in him.
When we first saw him in Reading, after, well, just after, he reminded me of Sar. There was a dead void behind his eyes, an empty space where his personality had once shone. Jim was worse. Every time Arris, Siân or myself spoke to him, there’d be a blank look and silence. He only really came alive with the other children; even with his father he was subdued. Tony’s mood improved over time, as he shifted focus from family to child, from the life they had had to the life he needed to build, but I still saw my sister’s blank emptiness in him.
The decision was easier when that similarity became clear, I ran my idea past the other girls before broaching it with Steve, and then with Tony himself.
“Could I have a word, butt? Got a suggestion, might not be a good one but I mean it, we mean it the right way, aye?”
“Try me, Lainey. I’ll be nice, promise”
I smiled. “You always are, Tone. Look what you did for my sister, aye?”
The gentlest of smiles. “She is a sweet woman”
“Aye, Tone. And she’s living in Dover”
“You are kidding!”
“Not at all, butt. One day, you’ll run into each other, sure as eggs, aye? Don’t know what she’d do. Look, it’s been over a year since, aye? Shit, Tone, this sounds like I want to set you up. Not like that, not at all. Sar’s…”
Siân interrupted. We always were a double act. “Tone, you ought to see her. I mean, IF you saw her, saw what we do. She’s drying up, stagnating. No life in her any more, just works and thrashes her bike”
His head lifted. “She still rides?”
I laughed as best as I could manage. “Rock chick she sees herself, biker girl, aye? Tone, mate, look. We all love you both. We are all sick of seeing both of you fading away. It might not work, but perhaps, just once, we might try and push things in a better direction?”
He looked over to Steve. “You involved in this?”
The big man sniffed. “Don’t do women’s work, me. Doesn’t mean women’s work is unnecessary, though, does it? Girls are right, bro. I want my brother back. Girls want you back. Jim needs you back. Perhaps Sarah… Give it a go, Tone. Game theory, isn’t it? You’ve both already lost, so all that’s left is the possibility of a win. Look, I’ll babysit here, the girls get her out somewhere you just happen to be, see what it turns up. Get your Mum down for Jim, clear the decks. Fuck it. Wench, pass me the laptop!”
Twenty minutes later Arris was on the phone and the dice were rolling.
CHAPTER 20
The internet is a wonderful thing. I look back at how things were before we got it, and I simply do not understand how the hell we coped. Siân has a different take on things, of course. We might be a double act, but we don’t always sing in unison. Harmony, perhaps. Well, most of the time.
Steve came up with a rock night on at a sports club right next to Sarah’s place, and when Tony realised where she lived he laughed out loud, which startled Jim but warmed me.
“Bloody hell, girl, you say she’s working in Canterbury? If she’d been working in Dover she’d be going past our front door and Jim’s school every morning!”
I gave him the stoneface. I was getting quite good at that by now.
“Tone, that was one of my worries, that you’d bump into each other without a safety net, aye? Look, let me do the arranging here, let her think it’s her idea. Knowing her, she’ll be well up on who’s playing when and where. Told you: she’s a rock chick, likes to shake her stuff when she can”
There was a warmer smile on his face at that. “Yes, I remember. Oh indeed… What date?”
He fished out his diary. “Got a match on the Sunday… get Mum down. Sod it, I’ll have to talk to her properly. Arris? You arrange first, then the girls?”
I rang Sarah from home the next day. She rang me back an hour later to let me know that she had found exactly the Friday night music we had all known she’d spot, and it was all set. I was worried, and I had said so at length in bed the night before. My sister could be an obstinate cow, especially if she felt she was being pushed, even if that push was in a direction she desperately wanted to go. If she took our little plot the wrong way, it might break our family.
I hadn’t slept well in the end, so Siân did most of the first part of the driving, which was boring in the extreme. I had put up some proper sandwiches rather than rely on motorway services and their stupid prices, but we still ended up sitting in some crap place where the waiter/server/whatever seemed to think that making a latte consisted of nothing more than adding a lot of partly-warmed milk to a cup of filter coffee. Ugh. I know Siân was asleep when we pulled off the London Road for Sarah’s place. My phone bleeped, and I shook her awake to see what the message was.
“It’s from Arris, sweetheart. ‘All is in place. Me getting changed in bathroom’ she says”
“Can you shout Sar? Get the kettle on, get the taste of that so-called latte out of my mouth”
We were there. I have already described what happened next, and it still leaves me with wet eyes when I think back.
Tony had left at around two, but I could see there was a tug of war going on in Sarah’s head. I slept as well as I could, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the nights awake worrying about our plotting and its possibly toxic fall-out. Siân was still dribbling into her pillow when I got up, far too late for a guest. Sarah had been thoughtful enough to leave me a dressing gown on the back of the door, and thank god it wasn’t a girly frothy thing but a simple extra-large towelling robe big enough to swim in.
That brought memories up yet again, and I realised that the years of living, quite simply, as herself had given her utter relaxation in her role. I mean, it wasn’t a role, of course; she was simply a woman, full stop. It was her sense of style I was noticing now. She loved her heels, to Mam’s real and sometimes feigned horror, but she was a woman who went for neither froth nor what is often erroneously called ‘sexy’. I suppose her style could be summed up as ‘confident woman’, the mini-skirts and boots declaring that she had legs to be proud of and wasn’t frightened of being looked at because of them. Not tarty at all, not in the way such things so often were, but self-assured.
Of course, the three of us knew better, four if I included Sarah. I did what I had to in the bathroom and stumbled down to see if she was doing us breakfast. Guests have privilege, after all.
She was in the living room, bustling around with an air of tension as she stuffed bedding and other debris away. I was still yawning, and I knew my hair was all over the place, so the energy on display left me a bit sideways.
“What’s brought this on?”
Arris laughed happily. “Visit from the prospective mother-in-law in an hour and a half!”
Sarah hit her with one of the pillows. I noticed, as Sarah was going into an obvious fit of panic, that Arris was holding something behind her back. “Hush!” she called, and held out a blouse and some jeans.
“I know what you’re worrying about, girl. Just put these on!”
Twenty minutes later, I was trying to get some order into the bird’s nest of my sister’s hair before letting my wife do the same to mine, and at the appointed hour we heard the doorbell ring. The change in Sarah was absolutely amazing, and I realised that I was finally seeing the face she gave to the public, the woman who operated with confidence and efficiency. This was mini-and-boots, this was strutting dance. What it wasn’t was anything like the frightened and abused little girl who lived behind her eyes, the terrified new woman who had sat with me as I gave an ultimatum to our parents.
What a superb actress she was. I gave Arris a look as Sarah answered the door, and there was no need for words. Arris gave me a shrug and a half smile, and then we had company.
All confidence, no fear. “Hello Enid, Jim, kettle’s on”
I heard a rumble from the door and a laugh from my sister. “There’s the order. See you when you get back!”
Jim was a little larger than I remembered, but his grandmother was a lot smaller than I had expected, given Tony’s solidity. Sarah rushed off to the kitchen to get the teas, and Enid simply stepped up to myself and Arris, pulling us both into a hug.
“Thank you for this”
Siân looked over my shoulder. “They haven’t done anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done!”
Enid released us to hug my wife and give her a swift peck on the cheek. “He was smiling last night. That isn’t nothing. Thank you”
We settled back down as Sar brought in the tea and some squash for the little boy, who settled into some kid’s comic or other, and Enid was straight to the point. She was clearly a no-nonsense woman.
“I remember when Tony first met you, and he raved about this gorgeous girl he’d met in Wales, and how it was such a pity she was on the wrong side.”
Sar was almost blushing. “One silly joke when drunk….”
I realised I was missing something, but Enid just ploughed on.
“Yes, indeed. I should tell you now that Tony has indeed told me about you. All about you”
Sar’s face went abruptly from pink to bone-white. “Ah”
“You are not what I expected. I can’t see any man in you at all”
Arris broke the mood with some snorting that eventually turned into a raucous laugh.
“Cause she’s never had a man in her, poor girl!”
Enid moved across to Sarah and gave her the same firm hug she had earlier given the rest of us.
“Thank you. You have made my son smile, and I can’t see any way I could ever repay that in any way that would be in any way adequate. Oh dear, I am babbling”
I smiled, and took my wife’s hand. ““It has taken a lot of years to get my sister smiling again, and Tony has done that, so I think the accounts sort of balance out. We have given Sar her instructions and they are simple. Each day is a gift, to be enjoyed as it comes, and if things go well, then good, and if not, there is always another day. We are going to see where this goes, with no preconceptions. I say ‘we’ because it is about time this stupid woman recognised the fact that she is not and never has been alone.”
The older woman laughed with real warmth, and at that I was certain that she was one of the good people that Sarah had needed around her. I began to suspect that she would indeed be around my sister, and quite probably long term.
Tony was soon back, with fish and chips and a couple of pots of mushy peas. Sar got the kettle going again, and we ate in silence for a while, Jim’s eyes flicking from face to face. I realised he had said almost nothing since arriving, and as we piled the paper and plates in the kitchen a little later I prodded Sar.
“Got anything for the littl’un?”
“Eh?”
“Pudding, sweet, afters?”
“Ah, er, yeah…”
She had some rather expensive chocolate in the fridge, and there was a little moment of hesitation before she sorted her priorities. There was a grin, and off she went.
“Want a bit of chocolate for afters, Jim? Enid, can he?”
Tony looked up, and I bit down hard on what I was about to make a joke of, that it was mothers who spoke for children. The pain and loss in the room were palpable, clear in the silence of one little boy. The spell broke as Jim looked up and smiled in the most genuine way I had yet seen him do anything.
“Can I have chocolate, Daddy?”
“Yes, son. Say thank you nicely to Sarah”
“Thank you, Sarah. Daddy says I can”
Enid smiled again. “Elaine, have you seen much of the town yet? We are actually from Suffolk, so there are still things here Tony hasn’t bothered to show us. Hint, boy. Hint”
Jim looked up at that, a little stain of chocolate by his mouth. “Daddy, can we show them the ponies?”
Siân smiled. “Where are these ponies, little man?”
“My name is Jim Hall and they are on the cliffs by the ships!”
She was in a teasing mood. “English ponies can climb cliffs?”
“No, silly, they are on the flat grass behind the cliffs! Daddy, tell her!”
The big man smiled. “Langdon cliffs, girl. Right above the ferry port, the Eastern Docks. They brought some ponies in a few years ago, Welsh or Exmoor or some such. They crop the grass naturally, keeps it looking good but not like a bowling green. Good views up there, right over to France. Ah, we’d need two cars”
Siân laughed again. “Not far from here, are you? If I run you over, you can bring yours back here”
They were gone only five minutes or so, and on their return we filed out with the obligatory cameras and flasks of tea, as well as the rest of Sarah’s expensive chocolate. As we left the house, my wife nudged me, but I had already seen. Two people’s hands had brushed together and then immediately clung, fingers interlaced. It was only a short drive past a very big castle, but as soon as we were out of the car it was hand in hand once again, and as Tony began to name every single bloody ship in the harbour as well as those coming and going, the more sensible of us followed Jim as he showed us his promised ponies. A few minutes later, he tugged sharply at his Nana’s sleeve and pointed back past the rest of us to Tony and my sister.
I could see neither doubt nor fear in their kiss. Siân drove us most of the way home to Wales that evening. It was my turn, at last, to sleep.
CHAPTER 21
Work was a bit of a shock after the weekend. We had a couple of domestics that turned nasty, and that really brought a few things home to me. We had a remarkably strong family, all things considered, and clearly Tony’s much smaller one was just as strong. Enid in particular was someone I decided never to get on the wrong side of, which raised another thought: I was making so many assumptions about her son and my sister, particularly about the permanence of their new arrangement.
It was just that it seemed so absolutely right. I had watched her around Jim, for example, and there were so many things going on behind her mask of maturity and confidence I couldn’t be sure what the mix was. One thing I did know, of course, was that Sarah was a true Powell. When she took to someone, it was with a deep and fierce loyalty. She had rung me at home a couple of days after we got back.
“Elaine, you free to talk?”
“Just the wife about, you know that. Ah. Do I hear someone who wants to talk but can’t decide where to start?”
There was silence at the other end of the phone for a few seconds, before she spoke again in a very soft voice.
“Lainey, I think…”
“Yes? Fallen hard, is it?”
She was crying. I could hear the odd sniffle as well as the rustle of a tissue near the telephone.
“Talk to me, Sar”
“We went out together on Sunday. He had a match. Duw, you should have seen him! Like a bloody tank, he was!”
“That’s not it, is it? So you fancy big men; we know that”
“We had Jim with us…”
Another penny dropping. Just like Siân, like Vicky, she was feeling one of the deepest of needs. Steer away, Lainey.
“So it’s ‘us’ and ‘we’ now, girl?”
Another pause. Another softening of her voice.
“I really think so, Lainey. I mean… look, it was his mother, aye? She said I should take him a cuppa, and, well”
“Sorry, chwaer fychan, but what has tea got to do with this?”
“I gave them Sunday dinner after the match, so, well, I let him use the bath, and then Enid just says he likes a cuppa while he soaks, and…”
“Hang fire, Sar: his mother told you to go up while he was in the bath? Duw!”
She was silent again for nearly thirty seconds, but I could hear some gentle sobs. When she spoke again, there was real pain in her voice.
“It was so different, Lainey! I mean, Joe, he was exciting, aye? But this, Tony….”
She drew a long and rattling breath, words and thoughts catching unsaid in her throat.
“Lainey, is it possible to fall in love in two days? It wasn’t sex, not in any way, it was making love, and I’ve never….”
She broke off. I waited, but it went on too long.
“Sar?”
“Yes…”
“You’ve never loved, have you?”
“I love Mam and Dad, and you two”
“Not the same, girl, not at all. You’re frightened of it?”
“Bloody terrified! What do I know about doing it right? Look what happened when I tried before!”
I found my arms tensing, the tendons standing out as my wife entered the room. She put her hand to my arm, easing the rigidity a little but not entirely. Sodding rape victims, always the same: what did I do wrong, how did I cause this? Wind it back in yet again, woman.
“Listen to me, chwaer fychan. I have told you this enough times for it to have sunk in, but clearly you need another lesson: you were the victim of a manipulative, exploitative, cynical bastard, from a family of bastards. You were raped, in effect. There is only one person responsible for a rape and that is the rapist, got that?”
Siân took my hand as I dragged my voice back to the gentleness my sister needed.
“Tony is a good man. He has a strong mother. He has a lovely little boy. What isn’t there to love? So, yes, to answer your question, I think it is possible. But then you’ve actually had years, haven’t you?”
“Sort of…”
“Look, girl: Arris is as fine a judge of character as I’ve ever met. She clearly adores him, aye?”
“Yes, but—“
I interrupted her. “No but: she also adores you, if you can understand what I am getting at here. You are a fine woman”
“I’m not though, am I?”
Always the same from her, the lack of reality. We both knew what she was. Our parents knew what she was, Arris knew, and I was certain Tony knew, but Sarah still spoke against it. Not real.
“Not going there, Sar. Beat yourself up all you like, but you are the only one doing it”
Shit. Foot firmly in mouth. Funnily enough, she actually laughed at that one.
“Sar, sorry. You know what I really meant, don’t you?”
“Yes, Lainey. Thank you for having the grace to realise when you say what might be the wrong thing. Look… look, I want to try with him, really think I should try. It’s just, well, if I’ve got it wrong, what do I do?”
“Sar, do you really think you have it wrong? Really?”
A shorter silence this time, but without the sobs.
“No, I don’t”
"You have a chance at a life, chwaer fychan. Go out and grab it with both hands”
She actually giggled at that. “I, er, I only used the one, Lainey”
I had to explain my laughter to my wife, before the three of us settled down to a more normal chat about work and Vicky, Mam and Uncle Arwel. Sorted, for now, but that crisis of confidence was only the tip of something that ran far deeper in Sarah. I would have to watch her carefully, I realised.
A few days after that, my boss called me into his office.
“Afternoon, Sergeant Powell. Take a seat, Elaine. Tea?”
“Please, sir. What do you want to see me about?”
“Iwan in here, Elaine. I have a job for you. Wyn speaks highly of you, you know. Says you have potential for the next rung, and what I thought was to give you something to set in your CV, if you are willing”
“What sort of job, sir? Er, Iwan?”
“Big thing these days, Elaine. The Equality and Diversity Action Plan”
“Ah. This would involve me doing the action?”
“Sort of. You are as diverse as we can get, what with your own…arrangements, as well as your sister”
I prickled a bit at that, but I realised he meant no harm as he continued.
“Bit of a foot-soldier role, actually. There’s been a lot of reaction over the years to the Lawrence case, the allegations of us all being racists and so on. That’s driven a lot of work for some of us, but it’s been very defined in its area of concern. LGBT stuff, as they call it; that’s been left behind a bit. Ah, our tea. Shall I be mother?”
He poured. “There have been some gay-bashings in Swansea and Bridgend we suspect might be related, and the local lads have been just a bit slow in their priorities”
I felt a little bile rise. “My sister has never been gay, Iwan”
He gave me a very flat stare. “I know all about your sister. I am aware of subsequent events, one in particular. A line has been drawn there, Elaine. I can understand your concern, but this is not about her. Three men have been beaten rather badly, and the third one was also raped. We, that is South Wales and DP, have decided that we will tackle this jointly and in a two-pronged way. We have put together a task force to concentrate on the offences, of course, but we will also be looking at our own people. Those above me are concerned that the culture that led to the departure of two unwanted excuses for police officers still has roots in the rest of us, and a campaign of brainwashing has been ordered”
“You mean education and enlightenment, surely?”
“No, Elaine. This attitude is filth, dirt, a stain on their thinking. I want it washed out”
I laughed. “Sit them down and lecture them, then? They’ll be just the same after as before, except more resentful after being patronised”
He grinned. “Nope, not at all. I said a task force earlier, and that is what I want for this side of it. Discussion groups with ‘out’ LGBT people, not lectures. Let them meet the very individuals they despise. I have some civilians lined up, and I’d like you to take on some of the management. Booking venues, arranging dates”
“This because I’m a dyke, Iwan?”
“I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t, and if I also said it wasn’t because of your sister, but the main reason is a lot simpler and more complicated at the same time. You have potential. Wyn saw it, I can see it. I want you to move onward and upward, and this is prime CV material. That main reason, though, is that you have some of the best communication and people skills I have seen in years. If anyone here can do hearts and minds, you can. I’ll e-mail you the details later. And thanks in advance”
“You that sure I will do this?”
He grinned again. “Absolutely!”
So it was that three weeks later I was sitting with eleven others around a table in Abertawe’s main nick. Ten of the others were coppers from Heddlu De Cymru, the other being the Spectrum representative from the massive Driving Licence centre up the road. One of the coppers looked familiar; slight, dark-haired and very pale-skinned. I made the introductions.
“Hi, I am Sergeant Elaine Powell of Dyfed-Powys. This is Chris O’Connor of the LGBT group Spectrum, from over at the DVLC. Can we have some introductions?”
I looked directly at the familiar face, and suddenly it clicked. Crying by the side of the road.
“Sergeant Adam Price, South Wales”
CHAPTER 22
Sergeant, eh? He must have earned more respect from his bosses that I would have guessed from his breakdown. I had been told he’d had some bad ones, and to see him there with a set of stripes raised my own opinion of him considerably. We took the rest of the introductions, I gave out the prepared domestics speech about fire exits and toilets, which was a bit strange as I was actually in their building, and began.
“Right then, equality and diversity. Why is it such a big concern? Dai, was it?”
“Yes. Macppherson report, innit? That the Met are a bunch of racists. We all knew that anyway”
I looked him in the eye. “And there’s never anything like that round, say, Tiger Bay? No assumptions being made?”
“Well, maybe…”
“Yes, maybe. Now, there’s a lot of rubbish spoken about these courses, so I will set out my stall right now. Chris here and myself differ on one major issue, and on that I am fortunately singing from the management’s hymn sheet. Chris believes that the more diverse a workforce is the better it is. I think that’s coming at it from the wrong direction. Here’s my view: a police force should reflect the community it serves. It shouldn’t seek to filter its staff by any desired qualities beyond competence and honesty. At the same time, it should in no way hinder or deter recruits for any reasons beyond the two factors I identified. That sound fair?”
There were nods around the table. “Now, how many of you would describe yourselves, for example, as colourblind?”
All the hands went up. Trap baited and set. “So you treat everyone the same, regardless of race, colour, religion, etc? You never give anyone a black look?”
We were off, diving into the awkward maze of cultural and ethnic triggers, and before long I had them engaging properly. That had been my worry, that they would all come along as pressed men and women, ticking management’s box. Once I got them laughing they were mine, all mine.
I wound up the day with the obligatory tea and networking games, and found time to have a proper chat with Sergeant Price. He didn’t look well, but he was straight to the point.
“I thought this was going to be all about LGBT stuff, what with the Spectrum bloke along”
“Well, Chris and I do have that side of it a bit boxed off, as I am sure you are aware”
“Camp as a row of tents, aye?”
“That a bit of homophobia lurking in there, Adam?”
He sighed. “What, when I’m talking to one of the most out-there gay officers in Wales? No, just a description. I know, trigger words and that, but you see what I mean. I didn’t expect the range you covered, that’s all, when you are both diverse and equal the way you are”
“Well, the LGBT stuff is the main thrust of it”
He snorted. “Sorry, I have a bit of a warped sense of humour. Ever hear of Tom Lehrer?”
“Never. What I meant was that the recent little spate of people like Chris getting a kicking is putting us all under a spotlight, so we have to be seen to be equal and diverse, as I am”
I gave him a grin. “Are you also diverse and equal?”
“Na, got a girl over in England I’m seeing. Looking for a transfer over there”
“Away from the memories, is it?”
He gave me a sharp look, and I stretched the boundaries by putting a hand to his shoulder. “I saw you once, butt, by the side of a road. Dead tiny one, aye?”
There was a definite trembling in his body. “Aye, that one. Others, too. Fresh pastures should help, that’s what I’m hoping”
“Indeed. Best of luck, butt. Oh, Adam?”
“Yes?”
“Tears are nothing to be ashamed of. Shows you care, aye? Shows you are in the job for the right reasons. We’ll catch up some time, before you go. You can meet the wife”
He wobbled slightly, then nodded and left, and I realised he had been about to initiate a hug. I had been right, though, for I really felt he was in the job for all the right reasons. He just lacked some of the steel that a beat copper needs. There are too many times when the emotion has to be sent away while the nastiness is done or dealt with, and if you cannot wall away that part of you, even if only temporarily, you end up breaking.
Christmas eventually rolled around, and it was the quietest I can remember, partly because Sarah was still staying away. I wondered how much time she was actually spending in her own house, because every time she rang it was from Tony’s place, and the Christmas Day call was no exception. I had my suspicions.
“Well, makes sense, aye? Jim needs looking after from school, and it’s cheaper cooking for three together than for three separately”
“Really? That’s all you’re there for?”
This time, I could tell she was smiling. “Nope. You were so right, Lainey. I really think this is the real deal. He’s a bloody good man, and I’m…I’m a bloody lucky woman, aye?”
“So you might have forgiven us all for stitching you up, then?”
Genuine laughter, followed by a sigh. “I will never be able to adequately repay you for that one, Lainey, never”
Five days later she was back on the phone.
“Lainey…”
“Aye?”
“Siân there?”
I called her over, and put the phone on speaker. “All here now, Sar”
“Ok”
She paused. Whether it was done deliberately for dramatic effect or not, it worked. “I said ‘yes’, girls”
I muttered something about being puzzled, and my wife slapped my hand, laughing. “What’s the ring like, cariad?”
Fuck! How could I have been so stupid? I babbled out my congratulations, and Sarah giggled as she told us the details.
“So I didn’t actually say ‘yes’, but rather ‘yes yes yes yes yes’!”
She waited for the laughter to die down. “And we’re selling my old place. I’m selling… no, WE are selling. You have no idea how good it feels saying it like that!”
Two of us laughed out loud at that, and we joined hands. “Trust me, Sar, we already know how good that bit is! Have you told Mam and Dad yet?”
“No. Not sure how they will take it, aye?”
Siân gave me her warmest smile. “They will take it as they always do, with deep love and affection. You’re their other daughter, their younger daughter. Why wouldn’t they show the same love they showed me? They freely gave themselves to me as a Mam and Dad of my own. I will never be able to repay that. Would they do any less for you and Tony?”
I had a thought. “Sar, you are nervous, aren’t you? Hang on”
I dug out my mobile and rang home. Odd, that: home was here, with my wife, and it would always be home wherever we were together, but Home was still Home, where we had grown, where our parents lived their lives.
“Mam? It’s me”
“Is there a problem, cariad? You sound strained”
“Not a problem, Mam. Got Sar on the phone. She has news. News about her and Tony”
Mam was silent, and then I heard her talking to Dad with her hand muffling the phone, before she returned to me.
“Your father says that he does not believe the man you have described would do again what Sarah suffered. That means one thing, and one only. He has offered her his own life to share, which means you are both concerned at how we will react”
“You have it exactly right, Mam. He has proposed, she has accepted, she has a ring”
“Then your father and I are agreed. This is a very good man she has found, a very good man indeed, and we will both be proud to welcome him and his little boy to our family. Wait…”
There was more muttering from the other end, and a happy laugh from Mam.
“And Dad says he now has a grandson to spoil, so your sister has finally done her daughterly duty! Finish this talk with your sister, and we shall await her IMMEDIATE call to us. And tell her we love her”
“You can do that yourself when she calls”
“No. ‘We’ are four people. Tell her that”
I did as she asked, passing on the rest of their words, and as Sarah hung up I am sure she was crying. As I put the phones away, I saw that my wife was crying too.
CHAPTER 23
I slept that night much happier about our little game with my sister. I had passed the news on to Vicky, of course, and she had promised to let Kev know, and all were happy as happy can be, but for me the main feeling was relief. Matchmaking is a risky business, and it can so often end up with three people hating each other rather than what was hoped for.
I had known that Sarah was fond of Tony, of course, and I had actually known the man better than her, as I had seen so much of him when visiting Arris, but the moment that had driven my fears remained my sister’s demand that Arris “come outside”
Sar had changed over the years, changed deeply. Her confidence had grown immensely in every area but that of relationships. She was a strong, assured woman in every other way, and yet still one who thought of herself as tainted. So many years wasted. No more disasters, no more surprises.
I continued my little round of the various nicks delivering my multi-coloured roadshow for the next six months, and of course I had more than a few of the older guard, what Vicky had described as ‘traditional’. It was a parallel, in so many ways. Every time I saw Tony, I thought of Joe Evans, and every time I saw Vicky and Kev smiling at their daughter I thought of the ‘traditional’ man who had used her, lied to her and dropped her like something dirty. In both cases, too, their families were so deeply involved, and that gave me another insight to use at work.
There are so many factors that shape our opinions, and family is one of the strongest. Your ideas as a child, your vision of the world and what moves through it, are formed from what your parents say and how they act. Clearly, there is the rebellion of adolescence, but that is more about music and dress sense than whether or not the bumboys need a good kicking or that the nignogs should go home. I mean, most of the Irish families in Cardiff and the Valleys only came there as a response to the Great Coal Strike of the 19th century, and nobody ever told them to ‘go home’. Take some coloured lad whose family had been there for five hundred years, descendants of sailors, and it was all ‘go back to where you came from’. Neither historical knowledge nor logic have ever shone brightly from bigots.
I realised early on in my rounds that the subject ran deeply in my own soul, for everything that made me different, all that singled Sarah out, was that we weren’t ‘traditional’. I had been lucky, Sarah had finally found her own luck, and our parents had given so much love and luck to my wife that we were actually privileged. What must it be like to have to live your life hounded by others, or what might actually be worse, to have to survive by lying?
The boss called me into his office one early April day.
“Elaine, we have a new role for you”
I laughed. “My travel and subsistence bill got too high, Iwan?”
“Not at all, Elaine. We actually received a grant from the top for your little jaunts, so we have borne none of it. I have heard very good things about your work, so I’d like to pull you off it”
“Eh? I mean, I beg your pardon?”
He grinned, which as ever made me pay much more attention.
“The HDC have decided that the gay-bashing spate has gone on a bit too long, and they are setting up what our Yank cousins might call a task force to try and sort it. The victims have been quite consistent in how they have described the beatings, and it is looking more and more as if this is a planned and organised set of actions rather than just random collisions between gay men and drunken homophobes. So we’d like you to take a lead”
He leant forward. “I have indeed heard VERY good things about your seminar programme, Elaine. Word spreads. If you accept, you will be organising a number of rapid response teams and working closely with the CCTV control room”
“Bit beyond my rank if I have to pull it, Iwan”
Another grin. “That is why we are offering you temporary promotion to Inspector for the duration, Elaine. Wyn told me you were destined to fly higher, and I agree. This is your chance to get your foot on that ladder”
He must have caught something in my face. “No, Elaine, do not ever think that. I heard what your co-conspirator thinks, about deliberately pushing the rainbow boat out, and it is neither of those things. It is not because of your gender, it is not about your sexuality, it is not tokenism. You are simply the best person for the job, and Heddlu De Cymru know that, so for once accept a compliment without trying to find a ticking time bomb in it!”
A pause. “Do you want the job?”
I thought quickly. Did I want promotion, more money, a challenge and the chance to apply my baton to the body of some clones of the bastard who had put my sister in hospital before his family abused her even more? I gave Iwan my own grin, and he laughed out loud.
“Knew it! There’s the briefing. Come back to me in a week with some initial ideas, and I will get the ball rolling. Oh yes: your TP starts now, Inspector Powell. Thank you for this”
The sneaky bastard had already sorted out some new metalwork for my shoulders. I got a round of applause in the canteen later.
Kev was insufferable, telling me all sorts of off-colour jokes about what I could ’inspect’. Siân was just herself, with a smile and a warm embrace. Uncle Arwel was as direct as ever.
“So it’s nancy boys again, aye?”
“And that is a problem?”
“You know I don’t hold with them, girl, and you know damned well that I don’t hold with slapping someone for no good reason. I don’t care for what they do, aye? But nobody should get a slapping just for being a bit limp in the arm. Like our Samuel, isn’t it?”
I glared at him. “You want to drink that pint or bloody wear it?”
I got the eyebrow again. “I went and spoke to that little shit for him, didn’t I?”
“For god’s sake, there’s more to it than simply not hitting someone. You could try and be a bit more accepting of SARAH”
He just grunted and finished his beer. I loved my old uncle to bits, and he did have a heart of real generosity when he saw the need in others, but he would always be a pigheaded old bastard with some very traditional values, and by that I meant, of course, the same traditions I was fighting against. Never mind, in the end, I knew he would never deliberately hurt my sister. It was the unconscious harm he might do that worried me.
Working from the central nick in Cardiff was strange, for not only was it foreign territory filled predominantly with people speaking English but those English-speakers called me “Ma’am” and “Skip”. My office (I kept repeating those words to myself with astonishment) was a tiny cubicle squeezed in between the men’s toilets and the cleaners’ store, but I had access to meeting rooms as necessary. And one of those had been dedicated pro tem as a situation and planning room. I know, everyone has seen the same dramas and films, the same wall-maps and pictures of victims, and apart from not sticking up pictures of those assaulted the place ran very true to type. I plotted out the public toilets, and got a shock: there were actually very few of them. Now, I had heard of the custom of ‘taking a Macpiss’, where pubs and fast-food outlets are used for purposes of bladder relief, but it was still a surprise to see exactly why so many men decided to relieve themselves in back alleys.
That meant a simpler job for us, as we had far fewer bogs to stag than I had assumed. I spoke to the CCTV control room, and our maps sprouted symbols showing each relevant camera and its field of view. It struck me just then that it was evident exactly how little had been done to catch the bastards, how low a priority the beatings had been. Everything I was doing was so obvious, and nothing I was doing had even been started. I pulled in some PCSOs and got them to start the trawl for cameras on nearby local buildings, those operated by businesses rather than the local council. Soon, each public toilet was surrounded on the map by fan-shaped fields of view. Now we just needed something to attract my moths, or rather someone.
It had come down to that, in the end. We couldn’t guarantee that my unit would be on duty and nearby when any new incident happened, so we had to bring said incident to us. We needed bait, and the first name that I thought of left me giggling, for there was no way that Kev could pull off an adequately convincing vulnerability. That brought Uncle Arwel to mind, and then my cousin Hywel, his son, who was just as big, and of course I ended up imagining Dad trying to lisp. We wouldn’t need a task force, just an ambulance or some body bags.
I found myself laughing well and loudly for the first time in months, and one of the admin girls put her head round the door. “You OK, Ma’am?”
I grinned. “Just had some really funny thoughts, Julie. Tell me, you know a sergeant, Adam something or other, was on traffic, bikes, aye?”
“Sergeant Price? Gone now, innit. Moved over to Sussex on compassionate to get married. What you after him for?”
“Not a problem, aye? Just had an idea for a job he might have enjoyed. I’ll have another think. When did Sarge Price go?”
“Two weeks since. He’s a nice man, be missed, innit”
“I do believe you are right, Julie. Can I be cheeky and ask if there’s any tea on the go?”
She smiled. “Not like the men, are you, Ma’am, and no offence meant”
“None taken, aye”
“Just, well, with them it’s always ‘that’s two whites with sugar, one white coffee without’ and then back to whatever they’re doing…”
She started to laugh.
“And that’s funny?”
“No, Ma’am, it was just a silly thought. You know, ‘Men, who’d have’em?’, and then I remembered who I was talking to. Er, no offence, not really?”
I smiled at her. “None intended, none taken, aye?”
“I’ll get the tea. Sugar?”
“Na, dim diolch. I mean, no ta”
Once she was gone, I picked up the phone. Camp as a row of tents, those were Adam’s words.
“DVLA, Chris O’Connor speaking”
CHAPTER 24
“Chris, got a sort of a favour to ask”
He laughed, and I could hear Adam’s description of him in the way he did it. Absolutely and completely, which left me wondering how well I ticked the ‘butch dyke’ checklist.
“What have you decided to drop me into this time, Inspector Powell? Yes, I heard! I have my sources”
“Well, what we have---“
“Ma’am!”
I looked up to the door of my little office, where a rather young PCSO was looking rather pale.
“Hang on a sec, Chris. Yes?”
“Another one, ma’am. Didn’t want to say anything at the hospital, but, well, one of the nurses has had a bit of experience, and she, well…”
“Out with it, son!”
He took a long and rattly breath.
“Raped, ma’am. By three men”
I must have stared a bit too intently, because he started to justify himself. “I know some of the women’s groups say it isn’t, but it bloody well is!”
“Yes, son. I fully agree. Get the reception suite ready, please”
“Er, I already have, ma’am. Doctors are doing the DNA thing”
“Nicely done. I’ll finish here and get round to CID soon as, aye? This one’s mine”
I turned back to the phone. “Still there?”
“Oh yes. Can I hazard a little guess as to your plans to use me as a tethered goat? And please, no sheep jokes”
“Aye, Chris, that was what I was going to ask. We need to get the culprits out of the shadows. It’s easier to watch one man on the streets than every bloody public toilet or back alley at once. Thing is, it’s gone up a notch or ten now, aye?”
He sighed. “All the more reason for someone to put a stop to it now”
“You not worried a bit, butt?”
“Lainey, I may be a prancing nancy-boy queer poof, but I still have balls. My men prefer me that way, as it happens. Having balls, that is. You see---“
“Enough! Can you come over?”
“I will speak to those above and see what they say. Can you give me an appropriately worded e-mail just to cover it?”
“Will do. I’m off now to see what state this poor sod’s in”
“Later, then, I hope”
I ended the call and went looking for my team. It turned out the victim was staying in hospital for at least a second night, as his injuries were far from minor. Once in the meeting room, I looked round at what I had to work with.
“Right, boys and girls, this has moved onward and bloody downward. We have a gang rape this time, not just a beating. Diane, you take one of the boys up the hospital and see what you can get from him. Softly softly, aye? I want location soon as you can, and then…you, you, you off to pull camera footage. That leaves…aye, Alun and Blake, you tee up SOCO for when we know where we’re going. Yes, Blake?”
“Ma’am, doesn’t this narrow the field down a lot, now we know we’re looking for homos?”
Diane turned back on her way out of the door.
“You can be so fucking thick at times, boy! What makes you think they’re gay?”
“Well, bum sex, aye?”
Scorn dripped from her voice, and I knew I had picked the right one to speak to the victim first. “It’s not sex, you pillock, it’s RAPE. It’s about power, about humiliation, about destroying someone. They weren’t fucking him, they were fucking him up, right?”
She turned to me, a small tic working at the side of her mouth. “Ma’am, don’t ask me how I know this, but I’m willing to lay a pound to a penny that they pissed on him after, like. We’ll give you the gen as soon as we have it”
Half an hour later we had the address and Alun and Blake were ready with paper suits and heavy bags. I had to tell myself to sit down and let my team work; I was the manager, the coordinator, not someone detailed to go through rubbish bins or fish around the back of toilet bowls. I settled down with a cuppa and waited for the news to start filtering back and the picture to emerge.
Diane was back three hours later as the first discs were already being checked, and she gave us a time frame as well as a story.
“Name’s Vernon Pugh, ma’am. Twenty-two, from Cowbridge. Studying Art and Design at the Uni. Went out for the night, down the Smuggler’s, that pink pub on Charles Street, aye? Has a bit of a dance and a laugh, more than a few beers, comes out of the pub and does the usual—walks twenty yards and wants a piss”
She was trembling. “Di, hang on, get a cuppa, aye?”
“Ta, ma’am. No sugar”
I did the honours, and she continued. “You know the score. Rather than turn round and go back into the pub, they wander on, looking for a dark spot to let the waters flow. He picked the multi-storey. Suppose it explains why it always smells of pee. Anyway, he’s standing there in a dark corner on the third level, earphones in, music on, brain off, and the first one punches him in the left kidney. There’s the usual sequence then: he goes down, they use him as a football, he’s trying to protect his face”
She took a mouthful. “There’s a storage room by the lift. That’s where SOCO needs to go. They had the door open somehow, and they dragged him in there”
“They speak at all?”
“Oh indeed. Dirty little poof, fucking arsebandit, all the usual. Local boys, he says, at least not English or from down west. Valleys, he says. Anyway, one of them hauls his chinos down, and they take the piss out of his cock for being all shrivelled up and hiding, like, and then they haul him upright, punch him in the guts and he hears the first one unzip. One after the other. They all came, apparently”
Another long examination of her cup. “Then they took turns to piss on him”
She stayed silent for a while, then looked at me quizzically. “Ma’am, this is confidential, aye? Just us? No need to know crap, aye? How I know…. I was sixteen. I didn’t report it, just went home and washed and washed and washed. That’s what he did, but he was still bleeding from, well, down there, so he went to casualty and one or two of the nurses weren’t stupid, and the rest you know”
Another sip. “He was a local councillor, ma’am. I never did say anything. Big man, important man, connections, aye? And me a schoolgirl from Barry. Who would you believe, ma’am?”
What was it with fucking men? Hold it together, Elaine, and think of Dad, Tony, Steve rather than Joe Evans and some fucking councillor---
“Diane, just a guess of my own. Your man by any chance called Evans?”
Her face gave me the answer. “Di, we’ll talk some time, really talk. Now, from what you said, he’s probably douched or whatever to get their leavings out. DNA?”
“They are doing their best, but he really did scrub half his skin away trying to get their mark off him. He’s not in a good way, ma’am”
I thought back to my own mentor. “Elaine in here, Diane. Look, you have made contact with this kid. He will trust you, I hope, and please don’t take this wrong, but you will have far more empathy with him than most of the dinosaurs here. Will he give a statement?”
“Don’t know… Elaine. I will do my best on that one”
A knock at the door, and Chris was there. “Am I interrupting, Lainey?”
“No, butt. Diane here has just been filling me in on the events night before last. We’ve got three absolute bastards out there”
“At least three, you mean. Victim on my bus?”
I looked over at Di for the answer and she nodded. “Very much the gay young thing, the skinny type, aye?”
Chris nodded. “Twink, you mean. All the body strength of a wet dishrag. Where do you want me to start, girl?”
“Not just yet, Chris. This one has sort of dropped on us, so we will have a shake of the tree and see if anything drops out first. Boys are filtering the footage as we speak. Gang rape and pissed on, Chris”
He gave it a few seconds thought. “Where is he now, Lainey?”
“Back at Queen Street, oddly. Went all the way home first, then came back in a taxi after seeing his GP”
“Can I see him?”
“What exactly for, Chris?”
“Firstly, if I am going looking for these pigs, I want a decent briefing, and he’s the only one we can use right now. Secondly… secondly, but more importantly, if it were me in that state, I’d want someone to hold my hand”
CHAPTER 25
I gave Chris the details he needed, and he was off on his mercy errand. I called Diane over to my office door as I saw him off.
“Diane… this may sound like the most sexist request imaginable, but I want some cakes and some coffee sorted out”
“And you want me to do the runs?” she returned, with a sly smile.
“No, I want you to tee up a couple of PCSOs. What I am after is a couple of packs of filter coffee, milk, finger food. Once the footage starts coming in we are going to have a shitload of work to do, and I want people awake. This is your early warning: I am just about to go and ask for volunteers for working for the Queen. I’ll try and swing authorisation later, but this is live right now. Do you need cash up front? I’ve got forty quid here”
She laughed. “Definitely a step up from the last boss!”
“Well, hang on a tad, I want to brief the crew first”
We made our way down to the newly-christened incident control room, where my team was now gathered.
“Boys, girls, we now have a real lead on this one, but it has come a very shitty way”
There was a snigger from somewhere at the back, but it was quickly stifled under my glare.
“We have a young rape victim, with at least three attackers. They began with a severe beating, then multiple rape, and finally urinated all over the victim. Victim is twenty-two, and a local boy. Still awaiting his consent before we tell his next of kin. That’s right: best part of three days since he was raped, and he is still so ashamed that he won’t even go to his own mother for comfort.
“That is why Diane said what she did: he wasn’t just fucked, he was fucked up. Now, we don’t yet know how much we are going to be able to get from the victim, how much he remembers, whether he can ID anyone, but we have a lot of camera footage coming in. The pub has its own system, and I will be particularly interested in what comes off that. Particularly, people hanging around outside”
Blake had his hand up, so I nodded at him.
“Why they got outside cameras, ma’am?”
“They got twitchy after that nazi bombed the Admiral Duncan, lad. Anyway, they set it up to look both ways down the street, not just at the doorway”
Somebody muttered “Cost a bomb, that” and I replied with what passed just then for a laugh.
“I am sending out for coffee, cakes, whatever we need to stay sharp here, aye? You know the score: this is being done for the Queen just now. I will try and swing authority for overtime payments, but this is something we need to get done right now. The clock is ticking, and one thing I do NOT want is another rape, or worse, before we tuck this one away. Anyone not happy to stay on? Aye, Alun?”
“Missus will be late in, so I have to sort the kids, ma’am. If I can have half hour, just to get them round their Nan’s, aye”
“Nice one, lad. Anyone else?”
Nem con. I felt proud of my team, just then, felt like I was actually a proper leader, but I knew, or at least hoped, that they were really doing it for a broken kid lying in a hospital bed. I bowed my head.
“Thank you all. Diane, do the honours, aye? Anyone got a summary of what we have available?”
It was gruelling work. Not physically hard, just repetitive, and boring as hell, but a pattern began to emerge. Our boy left the pub, seen from at least six different angles, and showed up on two more cameras as a passing shadow in brilliantly white trainers. There was a flash of his oh-so-young face as he passed the pay station in the car park (mark that one for retention), one of him on the lift, and that was it. Then Blake spotted it. About five minutes after our boy had passed the camera the first time, there was a flash of white shoes just on the edge of the screen.
“Can you slo-mo that one, Blake?”
“Just a sec… he’s not walking, ma’am. He’s being dragged. Hang on… look. There”
Just the edge of another shoe, and part of a trouser leg, with the three stripes of Adidas sportswear running down it. Blake turned, grinning. “Latest Nike trainer, aye, and an Adidas shell suit, bottom half anyway”
I laughed. “No brand loyalty, these kids! You know what I want now, aye?”
It took six hours before we pulled a matching lower half from the Smugglers’ cameras, but it was there, along with half a shot of a face. The shit was wearing a hoody, but his chin had caught the light, and there was a goatee beard on it, and as he raised a cigarette to his lips there were at least four visible tattoos on his hand.
“Bloody well done, team. Get those enhanced and sort out a print of the tats. We’ve got a key to this one at last!”
It all sounds so simple, but so much of it is slog. I once saw a documentary on the solar system, and they showed how it was that they found Pluto. They flick two images backwards and forwards, two photos, and if there is something there it seems to move, because the pictures are taken hours apart. It’s relatively easy with that system, but before then it was like spot the difference competitions, looking for one small difference in two almost identical pictures without the flicker-box thing. That is what it is like with CCTV stuff, for you don’t always have a steady state to compare things with. It is hard, boring work, which is why Blake’s little clip was such a game changer. Now, we were looking for Something rather than just anything.
Diane called across. “Got him on two more, ma’am, one on the junction and another from the pub. Nobody next to him”
“Ma’am?”
“Aye, Alun?”
“Want me to pop down to the LIO and see what his little card index says?”
“Intel will be long gone now, butt”
“Aye, ma’am, but I used to work in there”
“And?”
The sod was almost blushing. “I sort of kept a set of keys…”
“What’s he got, then? Remember, this isn’t my nick, aye?”
He grinned. “Ray’s always been a bit of a trainspotter, innit, boys? Never throws anything away”
I nodded. “Bit of an asset in an intelligence officer”
“Aye, ma’am, but he had a real passion for ODFs. Tattoos in particular. He set out years ago to try and catalogue every tat on every scrote in the City. He got one lad with a scarf over his face for abusive behaviour at a home match, aye, just from the tattoo on the hand he was using to give two fingers to the camera!”
He paused, looking round the room again, like a cat with a very worried canary between his paws.
“Got descriptions of some, photos of some, drawings of the rest, aye? I could get these printed off and, well, as long as you can square my going into his stuff while he’s off. Oh, and not tell him I got the keys”
There was another reason there, but I left it aloe for there and then. “Go to, butt!”
Just then, our batphone rang. Diane took it.
“Your mate’s back, ma’am”
“Chris? Can you get him brought up? Ta”
Five minutes later and he was sniffing for the coffee and eying what was left of the cakes and other snacks.
“Dive in, butt. Girls, boys, gather round for a bit if you don’t mind. This is Chris, who has just spent some time with our victim. Chris, how is he?”
He cuddled his mug to his chin, looking down into the steam. “He’s a mess, people. If any of you have ever been in his position, you will understand. If not, well, it’s all his fault. He shouldn’t have gone out, he shouldn’t have pissed in a dark corner, he shouldn’t have come to Cardiff, he shouldn’t be gay, he shouldn’t be breathing. Everything is his fault. He--, no, that’s enough for now. He’s washed his hands raw; god knows what his private bits are like. He is going to need a lot of support, that’s obvious, but what I really think he needs most is to see three arseholes locked away for a bloody long time”
He took a long, slow drink. “They told him they know where he lives, where his family live, all the usual. He thinks they’ll do his kid sister next”
Shit. “Did they specifically threaten his sister, Chris?”
“No, Lainey. Just his family, but his paranoia’s on overdrive. We need to sort this out as soon as”
Blake coughed, “Who are you, exactly? I saw you on the sweetness and light seminar stuff, but I can’t remember what you do”
Chris smiled. “Oh, I’m the sacrificial goat you bloody well DON’T arrive too late for!”
CHAPTER 26
“Right, then boys and girls, we need to have a bit of a brainstorm here. We’ve got a bit of a lead from that camera footage, but unless Alun can pull off a match it gives us nothing more than evidence we can use after we catch the gentleman in question.
Now, what we have so far is nine assaults we can definitely link, plus five other possibles. They all involve three or more assailants, and apart from our rape they all take place in public toilets or nearby. None of the victims has admitted to cottaging, but in the immortal words of Saint Mandy, well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
“More importantly, none of the victims has described their new friends as cottaging themselves. What it has been is instant nastiness. As soon as opportunity presents itself, our villains pile straight in. The footage from the Smuggler’s shows they are picking their target and tailing it, so if we ever catch up with them I want phones lifted immediately. I am open to suggestions here, but there is one thing staring us right in the face: the assaults, at least the ones that fit this pattern, have all taken place in either Caerdydd’s pink corner or the equivalent area of Abertawe. That’s Cardiff and Swansea for you foreign speakers, aye? There’s been sod all in any of the towns in between, and that gives me thoughts and ideas”
Diane had her hand up. “The two cities do concentrate the pink punters a bit, ma’am, but I see your point. Are we looking at someone who lives in between, or are we looking at mates split between the two?”
Blake was nodding. “Split between, I think. What’s happened so far shows a lot of local knowledge, and you don’t get that by living in Porthcawl or Bridgend”
There was a quiet “No, you just get inbred” from someone at the back, but I ignored it. “Right, then. I think you’re on the money there, Blake. What I’m wondering now is work. If these lads are living so far apart, they won’t be working together, and if one or two are on shifts, that will limit the number of occasions when they are all off at once. Just a thought, aye, but Blake, can you look at the intervals between attacks, see if there is any pattern? Might come to nothing, but it’s a way in. Besides, if there is a pattern, it should let us know the best night to leave our goat outside”
Chris winced at that one, but he seemed to be gelling with my crew, which was good news. They might move just that little bit quicker if they saw him inside our group rather than as some random civilian. Our targets were well-organised, and if we were slow in reacting he could be very badly hurt.
“Alun, want to start on those files? Ta! Chris, this is not being reverse sexist or anything like that, but we’ve got the makings over there, and, well, if you want to hang around…”
He laughed. “Nothing else I can do to help! I could do a food run if you want. Your cakes have almost evaporated. I don’t know much about this stuff apart from what I see on the telly, but I suspect it’s going to be a long one. Oh, you DO keep going on about sexism, don’t you? Too much equality and diversity”
Blake called out “I could get to like this one, ma’am! Just not in that way!”
Chris grinned. “Oh, you’re just playing hard to get, big boy!”
Tea was made, and from somewhere down the road Chris managed to get a couple of loaves of bread, some margarine and several bags of chips.
“You could have picked up some dog rolls in the canteen, butt!”
“Na, proper chip butties, that’s what growing men need. There’s a chippy round Bute Street and they had some bread in the back. I was walking round the corner and the smell just came out and pulled me in. The other bag's got some pies and battered sausages”
There was a little ripple of applause, and he blushed. “Don’t see this as a regular thing, but what I saw in that lad’s eyes, shit. If I can’t help with the real work, well, just give me a shout for brews and stuff”
Diane came over and hugged him. “You’ll fit in just fine, Chris. Mine’s white without, just for the future”
He drifted off to make the tea. “Diane?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“What is it about Alun and those keys?”
She smiled in an evil way. “Young PCSO, innit? One of the lads told me he keeps a camping mat on top of the lockers, the dirty little sod, and when a night is a slow one he looks to liven it up a bit”
I tried not to laugh, but a snort slipped out. “I didn’t hear that, Detective Constable!”
“I didn’t tell you it, Inspector”
“Just tell him to keep it zipped while we’re on this one, aye?”
She shook her head. “No need, ma’am. He’s one of the good ones, just a bit of a randy sod. Ah, my cuppa. Ta, mate”
It was clear just then that I had picked exactly the right goat, for Chris was slipping seamlessly into the team. I’d have to nag them all about levels of confidentiality, of course, but as long as they liked him I could expect no slacking when and if we finally went live. I slept that night better than I had in days, spooned by my wife and with the first holes beginning to show in the bastards’ camouflage.
It was a bright morning the next day as I parked up and made a quick visit to Custody, as it was the quickest way into the back of the station.
“Ma’am?”
“Aye, Vic?”
“Sergeant Gould was looking for you, said to let you know when you came through. Front desk will be able to get a call to him, he was here only ten minutes ago”
“Thanks, Vic. Can you give them a ring to let him know I’m going straight to our room?”
“Will do, ma’am”
I made my way to our little empire, and Gould was there two minutes later.
“We’ve got another one, ma’am”
“Shit, already?”
“Sorry!”
“No, not at all. What’s the score?”
“He’s unconscious, ma’am. They’ve got him sedated for medical reasons. They did a real number on this one, and he’s got a depressed fracture of the skull”
“Shit and more shit. Where is he?”
“Three rooms away from the other poor lad, ma’am. Thing is, he was found out by Cowbridge, not far from the Cross Inn. There’s a hotel out that way, and they have a really secluded drive, almost a parallel road, see? I mean, the road itself is a lane, really narrow, lots of trees. Hotel guest saw the victim as they were leaving after breakfast, called an ambulance. Thing is, the member of the public is ex-Met, and they sort of secured the site, kept people off it. Bit full of themselves by all accounts, but it looks like we have tyre tracks at the scene”
“SOCO?”
“Already on their way, ma’am. I sort of took the liberty… hope you don’t think I’m treading on any toes”
“Not at all, Sergeant. This is the sort of thing that can open a case right up. I’ll detail a couple of the team to get out there”
“Er… I sort of already did that bit as well, ma’am”
I couldn’t hold the laughter this time. “Sergeant Gould, you are cooking on gas today! Can you write that lot up for me, quick summary for the records, and then do me a favour? Another favour, that is?”
“What do you need, Ma’am?”
“Brief the rest of the team with me. No Chinese whispers, just the straight stuff”
“Will do”
“Come on, then. They should be in, most of them. We had a long one yesterday”
I led the way into the room, and they were all there, which pleased me, apart from Diane and Blake, who I assumed were the two told off by Gould to get to the scene of the latest attack.
“Boys and girls, Sergeant Gould here has the SP for the latest incident, so rather than me cock everything up, he’s going to talk us through it. Sergeant Gould?”
“Ladies, gentlemen. The victim has been identified from his wallet contents. He is Omar Mohammed, twenty two, and from Tiger Bay. He was last seen by his neighbour going out to a gay pub in the city, a place called the Smuggler’s, which I assume you are all aware is a very pink place indeed. I have a couple of uniform at his digs, but I didn’t want to shake the pub up before you got to it. The victim was found in one of the private lanes by the Crossways hotel near Cowbridge at nine this morning by a retired sergeant from the Met. The victim was badly injured, and is now in dock with a depressed fracture of the back of the skull. There are ligature marks on his wrists… as well as a number of cigarette burns. He was partially-clothed when found, which was in a secluded and wooded lane. It was muddy where he was found, and our former colleague made sure to keep people away from what looks like a set of tyre marks. SOCO should be there by now”
“Thanks, sergeant. Anything else of note?”
“I’ve told SOCO to come directly to you, ma’am. I can’t get involved, you see: the neighbour is my nephew. And yes. He was raped”
CHAPTER 27
Sar was on the phone that evening, almost the moment I got in, bubbling away.
“Lainey, you will NOT believe this!”
“Sister, sweet girl, can I at least get a cuppa before you get into full flow!”
“Get Siân to get you one. There’s a lot to tell”
“I’ll put the phone on speaker then. Do you mind, cariad?”
My wife smiled and started the kettle going. “Right, Sar. Off you go”
Something was really getting to her. I’d never heard her quite as wound up as her voice was telling me she was.
“Lainey, you know I’ve got all booked up now? Wedding in June, surgery after Christmas, aye?”
“Yes. We are assuming we get the invitation to one but not the other”
She paused at that, and then her voice was quieter. “Always, Lainey, always. It’s just… look, one thing I always felt bad about, always hurt, was being a freak”
“You are not a freak, Sar”
“Hear me out, Lainey. It’s all about being unusual, abnormal, aye, and it’s, well, it’s Alan, my boss, and he half hears a conversation about the op, and he’s known since before I moved over there, aye? Well, there’s no easy way, but, well, she’s called Alice”
“Bloody hell, Sar! You infectious?”
Siân had caught the last exchange as she brought the cups in. “Who is it, Sarah?”
Her voice was clear but tinny over the speakers. “It’s Alan, the boss. Alice. But there’s more!”
I laughed in some relied. I had been half-expecting bad news, for it was hard to tell when Sarah got wound up by something whether it was good or bad, at least at first. She wore her heart on her sleeve. Siân, as usual, asked the sensible questions.
“How is she, Sar? What can we do to help?”
Shit. Sarah was crying at the other end. “She’s fine, thank you. Tony’s mam has been great, and so’s Jim, and, well, my man’s just how he always is. Just like you, Siân. Just, well, I was thinking I was one of a kind, aye? And then there’s Alice, and Janet…. And Stephanie”
I put a hand on my wife’s arm so I could grab some of the talking for myself. “Whoa, girl! Janet? Stephanie?”
“Jim’s been being picked up from school by Alice”
“By Alice?”
“Yes, she is going out now and again. She wants to go full-time. Anyway, Jim’s headmistress asks me if it’s a recreational thing, and so I explain, and she slips out that she’s, well, that’s Janet. And I sort of slipped as well, didn’t I? So I’ve gone from one of me to four of us”
Siân lifted my hand to kiss the palm before taking back the conversation.
“Four of you? That’ll be this Stephanie, aye?”
The tears changed to giggles. “Oh dear yes! Tony had this game up by Brum, aye? Sort of interregional championship? There’s this player, absolute mad thing, I’d seen Tone up against him before, no sense in his play, aye? He’s on Tone’s side this game, and he’s playing just the same way, and clattering people left, right, centre. Hits their full back, all legal like, hits him so hard he doesn’t get up for half an hour, and they give him man of the match…”
She was now laughing so loudly I thought the phone might break, or she might choke, or something else terminal for sister or electrics, but my wife was making the usual soothing sounds. Sarah eventually brought herself back to sanity.
“Yes, so they give him man of the match, and when he comes in he’s in three inch heels and a lavender ball gown, and he’s, she’s got TITS and she walks past the full back and he says ‘fuck me’ and she tells him she did and she’s called Steph Jones and she’s from just down the road from home and…”
Tears again. We waited until her small voice was back. “And it was never true, Lainey. I was never alone, never a freak. It’s more than just me”
She was silent for almost a minute, just the sound of her breathing to tell us she was there.
“Lainey? You still there?”
“Always there for you, chwaer fychan”
“Tone and I, we’re off to Australia, aye? With Jim? I’ve got rid of the flat and we’re going to have a proper holiday, just the three of us, before I go in for the surgery. I am absolutely sure about this, aye? That man is all I ever wanted, all I could ever dream of. I’ve got to be right for him”
Siân felt me move and clapped a hand over my mouth before I could get the words out about patriarchal bollocks and priorities, then turned back to the phone.
“Sar?”
“Yes?”
“Be right for yourself first, cariad”
This time I could feel the smile. “Being with Tony, being with Jim, being right for both of them, that IS being right for myself. I know that now. If you two and Arris hadn’t played that little game, I would never have realised it. I love you both. You know that. Now…”
She drew a long breath. “I want a family Christmas. In Dover. You two, Mam, Dad. And Alice will be there. Do you think Mam and Dad can deal with that?”
This time, my wife let me speak. “Absolutely, cariad, absolutely. We’ll be there. Oh, and this Stephanie? Where’s she from?”
“Oh, Treffgarne. Was called Steve Jones”
“I will ask quietly, aye? And we want postcards”
“Love you, Lainey, Siân!”
We said the words back in unison. It was most definitely a busy year.
SOCO’s report was in my inbox when I got to work the next morning, and for once it looked as if the tree was being properly shaken. I didn’t know whether it was because the latest victim was a neighbour once-removed of a policeman, and I didn’t care. I wanted this one given full attention.
The vehicle was a large vehicle of some kind, but not a 4x4. Tyre tracks had been left from both offside wheels, which gave a wheelbase in fitting with a Ford Transit, and the front and rear tyres were different patterns. That suggested an older vehicle rather than either a new one with original tyres or a hired one, in which the tyres came from a central supplier. A private vehicle then, or an older works one.
The way the wheels moved under steering had shown which way the van was parked, which had suggested another little trick to SOCO, as the driver’s door would have opened into the hedge. It was most definitely his day, for he had produced three bundles of fibres and two strips of paint scratched off the door. I couldn’t believe the next find, but it showed that our little ferret had really been earning his crust. There was a small cottage a little way further up the lane, with its bins out by the road. In the bin, tucked under an old copy of the Daily Express, was a condom. Used. DNA typing was underway on the fibres and both the inside and outside of the rubber johnny. Obviously, if the outside came up as Omar, then the inside gave us at least one rapist. Bless you, retired Met man!
Alun caught my eye when I walked into our incident room.
“Ma’am?”
He was holding an A5 piece of card. “I couldn’t sort out the LIO’s filing system, in the end. So I just asked him straight, innit?”
“Give his keys back?”
“Er, no comment on that one, ma’am. Look. This is a copy of one of his little drawings. He’s got photos somewhere, looking for this one now”
“He not file them together?”
He laughed. “Data Protection Act, aye? He thinks if it’s hand-written it doesn’t come under the Act, so he files the photos, which come from a machine, in the most awkward way possible so he can claim to have forgotten them. On bloody Planet Intel, innit? Anyway, he’s chaining up his dragon or whatever looks after the photos, and he’ll have it for us in a bit. Now, look at this one. By the way, he files them alphabetically under body part types”
“What, ‘A for Arm, B for Buttock’?”
“Just about, ma’am, but each---member has the names in alpha order of those who’ve got some work there”
Diane had caught the last. “Does he…?”
Alun grinned. “Aye. Under ‘P’ for, well, just under ‘P’. Anyway, look at this drawing”
It wasn’t lifelike, just a set of four outlines of hands marked front and back, left and right. Crudely drawn depictions of the tattoos were labelled neatly with full descriptions. This card noted four tattoos on the back of the right hand, which were neatly labelled “Bluebird, dragon, ostrich feathers, dragon”
Diane had the print from the CCTV image. “Yes, ma’am. See the feathers? I lay odds on that when the photo’s found we’ve got the watcher. Got a name on that card?”
I flipped it over, and the anger rose up as Diane’s breath caught.
Jamie Richard Evans.
CHAPTER 28
Siân was insistent that night.
“Just because one of them is called Evans it means nothing! How common is that name, especially round here?”
I pushed my empty plate away. “And how many pies has that bastard family got fingers in? No. I know you’re right, but it would be so, so nice to get another of the bastards nailed. That family should never have been allowed to breathe never mind breed”
She laughed, which broke the mood that had been building in me all day.
“Sometimes, Lainey, you come out with something that just cracks me up. That was a good one. Now, you off this weekend? Vicky’s coming over with the little one. Kev’s pulled a set of lates, so he can’t make it”
“Depends, cariad. If things take off here it might get a little hurried, aye? The attacks are getting steadily more serious. Somebody’s going to end up dead”
“How is he, Lainey?”
Whatever I had, my wife shared, good or bad. Good or bad.
“Omar. He’s the latest. He had a depressed fracture of the skull, plus lots of other nasties, big and little. They’ve had to repair, well, down there, and there were the burns. He’ll scar, no doubt. It’s his head, though. They’re keeping him under for now, see how his brain goes. That’s the shit I have to tell his parents, aye? That we might not be able to give them their son back, not as he was. I want this lot, Siân, I really do”
She reached across and took my hand, needing no words.
Diane was first in the next day, with a message from the Super.
“He’s authorised proper surveillance, ma’am, on that Evans guy. See where he goes to after work be a starter”
“Who’ve we got on him then?”
“How’d you know I’d already… You can be a right sod, Inspector!”
“Where’s he to, anyway?”
“Up in Llandaff. LIO’s got a little file on him and no, he isn’t related”
“To the LIO?”
“No, ma’am, to our favourite family, as I am sure you knew full well I meant”
I grinned. “Not daft, are you? Who’s been detailed to watch the shit?”
“We had a natter down the pub last night, the team did that is. I’m not wanted cause I is a gurl and it might get rough, so Blake and Alun stuck their hands up”
“Really? Little bit of sexism?”
I got a grin back. “Not really… Elaine. They said first of all that I was the best one for the hospital stuff, dealing with the rellies and so on. Best for the boy as well”
“Still…”
“No, not at all. The rest of the lads thought I might be a bit too enthusiastic if it came to a ruck, innit? They want him conscious and in possession of all body parts, though Blake did sort of drop hints about not being too careful with his teeth”
That attitude had to be wound back straight away. “When you see Blake, remind him that some of the wounds we’ve picked up are bite marks, and Evans is going to need his teeth for a match, aye?”
“Wilco, Elaine! Tea? Chris has already got the kettle going”
Things slowed down over the next week. Everything had seemed to blow up at once, and then we were dropped back into the classic hurry up and wait game. The boys rotated faces and cars as they watched Evans, even resulting in the farce of Alun and Diane needing to snog when our little predator walked right past their car. That incident kept the team laughing for three days, and I resolved, if the gossip was ever safe to release, to keep an eye on the PCSOs to see if any were too obviously out of sorts with Diane.
We were still awaiting a DNA match, but the good news was that the boffins had managed to get some from both in and on the rubber, as well as some from one of the fibre bundles from the hedge. It seemed the driver had torn more than his sleeve getting out of his van.
And Omar woke up. Chris had a bedside watch along with Blake that day, and the news was good.
“Ma’am, he’s talking and he’s coherent. They have some sort of shrink going through the questions, and he says the lad’s almost completely there”
“Almost completely?”
“Aye. He’s got what he calls retrograde amnesia, from around when he was hit, innit, and there’s---. Look, he might need pads for a while. Hasn’t got full continence back there, if you see what I mean”
Bastards. “When can we speak to him, Blake?”
“Doctor says two days but Omar, shit, he says do it now, do it right. He’s a fighter, ma’am”
“His parents?”
“Oh, Mam’s all quiet tears, but Dad, hell, he wants blood. He also wants to meet you”
“What for?”
“To shake your hand, I think. Seems as if his boy’s had a few kickings before and the local boys weren’t exactly the most active of investigators. Sees you as shaking the nick up and doing the right thing for a change”
After what one local nick had done to my sister, how else could I ever act? “Nice one, Blake. I’ll make my way over this afternoon. Tell me, do you think he’ll freak at a male Officer sitting in with me?”
My boy laughed happily. “Ma’am, he’s already trying to chat Chris up! I think we have a really strong one here! Oh, and I’ve done all the statement-taker stuff, so if you want I’ll witness for you”
“Thanks, butt. So good to have some decent news for a change. See you in a couple of hours, aye?”
“Will do, ma’am. Oh, and the lad says he’d kill for a pint, which, in his own words, would be better than being half-killed for one”
I rang the front desk after that. “Sarge Gould in?”
“Saw him head up to the greasy, ma’am”
“Ta. If I miss him, get him to hang on and give me a shout”
“Will do”
I found him sitting in a corner with a couple of the boys from his relief, getting outside a large bacon roll. He looked up as I slid into the seat across from him.
“Omar?”
There was dread in his voice, so I smiled. “Just woken up. He’s fine”
His shoulders dropped along with his head. “Shit, shit, shit. I was really worried, you know, have to tell my boy his mate’s, you know? Done too many of those, and it’s not the same with family, is it?”
“Sergeant…”
“Dai, ma’am, if you prefer”
“Dai. I just ask that you don’t let this one out just yet. Same with the rest of you, please. I’m on my way to interview him, and I don’t want anybody spooked”
Dai looked up. “Can you take him a message, ma’am? From Scott, aye? My nephew?”
“Oh?”
“Just tell him Scott says sorry, innit?”
Yet again I realised how much was going on beneath what I was actually able to see. I squeezed Dai’s forearm. “That’s not sexual harassment there, lad. Just to let you know I will pass it on. Tell Scott, by all means, and he’d be welcome at the hospital, aye? But ask him to keep schtum for now”
“Thanks, ma’am. Appreciated”
Omar was in a private room in the high-dependency unit, which was almost as hard to get into as our Custody Suite. I had a portable tape unit with me, which Blake took, and then Chris introduced me to the parents. Mr Mohammed had the long features and prominent cheekbones of his Somali heritage, which made me wince at what they might have done to his boy’s face.
“I am Fahmi, and this is my wife Dahabo”
She grinned at me from under a loose scarf. “Call me Debbie, girl. Everyone else does”
Her husband shone a smile at her, brilliant against his dark skin. “That is what I first saw in her, Inspector Powell. No shyness there at all, just a bright and generous soul. The opposite of those that met my son, yes? Can we talk together?”
A nurse found us a quiet spot, and Fahmi simply opened up. I got almost the full life story, and it was an epic. The arguments, the accusations, the revulsion, all of those things I had seen with Mam and Dad, and then the same process of acceptance and pride. It seems people are bigger than their prejudices, bigger than the tabloids give them credit for. I had to ask, of course.
“Does it not cause problems, you know, in the Community? Omar’s… orientation?”
Fahmi laughed, and again it was my Dad I heard. “A couple of people needed a talking to, but this isn’t the old country, is it? It’s not even the old Wales! Not fresh off the boat, me. Proper Tiger Bay family we are, me and Debby here and the boy. And that Scott, he’s a good lad. Such a pity they fell out”
“Ah. I have a message from him for Omar. Scott’s uncle is at the nick”
“Dai? Good bloke, him. Sound, he is. Been worried all to hell”
“Well, I’ve asked him to let Scott know, if that’s OK with you two, but I will ask that you keep quiet about this one for now. We have a number of lines of inquiry that we are following up, and we don’t want to scare anyone off before we catch them”
Debby touched my arm. “That other gay boy there, that Chris. He’s not police. Will he be safe?”
“Safe?”
She frowned slightly. “We are far from stupid, and we’ve all seen the films. He’s the bait, isn’t he?”
I raised both eyebrows. “You think I can answer that one?”
A far gentler smile. “No. But we will send our prayers for his safety. Now, go and see what our son can tell you, and catch these men in such a way that there are no mistakes, no loopholes, no get-out-of-jail cards. So that we do not need to consider how things are done in the old country, because we are no more than a simple, ordinary law-abiding Welsh couple who would never consider such a thing, innit?”
We shook hands and I went to meet their son.
CHAPTER 29
He was sitting up in the bed, and the evidence of the attack was clear in his face. Blake busied himself in setting up our recorder while I took the more comfortable seat by the bed.
“You must be Inspector Powell. Pardon me if I don’t get up”
There was a grin fighting its way out through the dressings and bruises. Both eyes were now open, but I could see where they had been swollen shut from the beating.
“How are you feeling, Mr Mohammed?”
“Omar, please. Mr Mohammed makes me sound like my Dad”
“OK, Omar. First: did they give you the message from Scott?”
That was when the dam went, not burst, but simply no longer there. I kept my face as still as I could till he was ready to speak again, remembering other…other people, other human beings I had dealt with who had been raped.
“Your time, Omar. No need to rush, no need to worry”
“Ah, Inspector—“
“Elaine, Omar. And this is Blake”
My man gave a little wave. “Hiya. Nearly done, butt”
There was some blue tissue roll by the bed, left by a cleaner, and I tore some off for Omar to wipe his face.
“Such a stupid bloody argument, innit? Nothing big, nothing important, just what we watch on the telly. And so I do the stupid flounce out, off down the pub, and I don’t even get my second pint in. All over Pobol y Cwm, aye?”
I tried a smile. “Scott likes that?”
He gave me an old-fashioned look, some of his spirit coming back to him. “No, dydy Scott dim yn siarad yr iath, ie?”
Blake started to laugh. “He got you there, Ma’am! Assumptions, now!”
I glared at him, but I was too close to laughter to make it real. “Well, Tiger Bay was never exactly a hotbed of the language, was it? And anyway, that programme, they’re from all over, all different accents, aye? Silly, it is!”
I let out a snort, and then gave the boy a genuine grin. “When did you start learning?”
“Couple of years ago. Spent some time in one of the Welsh halls, till we found a flat. Scott’s just got the English, so he spends his time watching Corrie and bloody Emmerdale. They drive me up the wall, those two. Anyway, so there’s me wanting ess bloody pedwar eck, and he wants ITV, and, well, I threw all my toys out of the pram and off I trot”
“Omar, we’ll want to get this lot down on tape, aye?”
“Uhuh, but just for now, yeah, just a message to Scott if you can. Just tell him I love him, yeah, even if he does have shit tastes in telly. What do we have to do here?”
I looked at Blake, who nodded and gave me a thumbs up.
“What we want to do, Omar, is to get down as much as we can of what you remember. We’ll put it on tape, then sort out a transcript for when we catch the people who did this to you”
He looked at me in a very, very direct way. “Not just me, though, is it? Been more than a few boys had a kicking recently. I want them caught and I want them locked up. You know what gives me nightmares?”
I could imagine, I thought, but he was still speaking.
“The thought of it being Scott rather than me, that’s what. He’s not as strong as me, see? I… sod it, can we start?”
So off we went, Blake doing the formal introduction bit and most of the actual interview as I held back to add the odd clarification, and I was impressed how well Blake handled the interview. Sensitive, steady, calm, never less than professional but still showing a tenderness beyond what I had expected. He led Omar out, down the street to the pub, saying hello to the odd friend, but that first pint thrown down his neck as he still seethed from the argument. Slower with the second pint, and with the third the realisation that there were things more important than television.
“So I went off home, see, out down the road, and three pints and the fresh air hits me…”
What is it about men and their bladders? Can’t they plan ahead?
“So I assume you found a dark alley or side street for the purpose?”
Another sharp look. “No. What do you take me for? There’s a building site just round the corner from the pub, they got those plastic toilet thingies like they have at festivals. I popped into one of those. I do what I need to, I come out, and somebody punches me in the stomach, and then I think that was when they clubbed me on the head”
Blake looked up from his notepad as Omar fingered the dressings. “For the benefit of the tape, Omar Mohammed has been treated in this hospital for a depressed fracture of the skull. Do you feel fit enough to continue, Omar?”
“Yes, ta. Next bit’s not really all there, see? My memory’s a bit full of holes. If I simply tell you things I do remember, will that do?”
Blake nodded. “This is your evidence, Omar. You can only tell us what you remember. I’m sure it will make sense in the end”
The boy nodded, and winced. “Still hurts like hell, Elaine. Would you mind if I get the nurse in for some painkillers? I won’t take them till we finish; don’t want to lose anything else”
He buzzed, and we suspended the interview and paused the tape while she came in and went off to collect the necessary. One plastic beaker of pills was left by the bed, and we continued.
“I can remember being carried, dragged somewhere. More than one of them. I think two at least had hold of me, and one was in front, a driver, I think. He opens up some sort of van, and the other two throw me in, and then its doors shut and punchbag time. I was out of it for most of that, I think, and I wake up and it’s pain, and one of the bastards is putting his cigarette out on my back and I see his hand….”
He was staring into his past. “He’s got tats on his hand, lots of them, shit ones, no pattern. All separate, yeah? No structure, no unity? No fucking class!”
He was crying again, but waved Blake away when he went to pause the tape.
“I’m naked, now, and the first one, he’s not that big, but he’s not subtle, he just pushes straight in, and then I’m face down on some old sacking while the bastard rapes me, and I can feel him come, you know, all grunting, and he pulls out and I know I’m bleeding, and the second one’s at me, and he bites me on the shoulder as he fucks me, and he IS big, and that’s when it really hurts, and all the time they’re telling me what I am, what a piece of nigger shit, how I should be taught a lesson about how men act, and this is the lesson, and men, real men, don’t let themselves be fucked…. And I don’t remember if there was just the two, or if there was anyone else, because they beat me again, and I remember it was dark, and bloody cold, and I didn’t have any clothes on…”
Another, much longer, pause. Blake reached for the tape player, but Omar shook his head again.
“I can sort of remember the ambulance, and there was somebody else before that, and it was daylight just then. It’s all little flashes from then on. Sorry. Will I be able to see Scott?”
I touched his hand. “Omar, I think we’ve got as much down as I think is reasonable, and I don’t want to distress you further. Blake’s going to do the formal bits with the tape, but if you are OK, I’m going to give the nurse another shout when he’s done, aye?”
They signed it all off, and I went back out to the nurses’ station, where the girl from earlier was writing some notes. She looked up at my approach, eyes flinty and mouth set hard.
“Tell me you are going to lock somebody up soon, girl. Promise me that”
“I really, really hope so, love. I really do. There’s a lot going on I can’t talk about, aye?”
Her expression was feral. “Need to know, is it? How is he?”
“He’s taking the painkillers you left him. Bit distressed, aye?”
“Ah, those are antibiotics. I’ve got the approval for a bit more than that. I’ll be down once I get it signed out”
“Can I borrow a phone? He wants to speak to his other half”
“That one there will get you out. Dial 9 for an outside line”
Dai was in, and an hour after the nurse gave Omar a dose of morphine, her face far gentler than it had been at her desk, another young man was by the bedside. Blake and I cleared up our kit and left a uniform outside the little room. This was getting personal.
That night, it was my wife holding me while I wept. She didn’t need an explanation.
It was my sister I kept seeing in that hospital bed.
CHAPTER 30
Sarah was on the phone the next day, ringing me at work, which was unusual.
“There’s only four weeks, Lainey! Have you asked Mam and Dad?”
“Yes. And yes. And yes”
“Uh?”
So ladylike, so graceful. “Yes they’ll come, yes we will too, and yes they know about Alice”
“Lainey, there’s knowing about and there’s being OK with, aye?”
“Sar, what Mam said was that if they had really understood about you they would have made it right earlier, so how could they be less generous to another woman who has suffered the same pain. That’s what she said, her words. The four of us will be there, so put the worrying head away and make sure you’ve got enough food in. Got to go now; got a meeting”
“Love you, Lainey”
“Same here. See you soon, aye?”
We had built up a hell of a lot over the last few weeks of observation, and Omar’s evidence had made some of our suspicions turn into reality. I had sent Diane back with a copy of the tattoo file, and she said his eyes had widened as soon as he looked at it.
“Don’t think the lad should ever take up poker, Elaine. He started shaking; I left him with his boyfriend, he was starting to get distressed again”
We had the full team in, Chris in attendance as well. I coughed for order.
“Right, boys and girls, we have had some very valuable confirmation of the identity of one of the rapists, and that is our little friend Evans. His tattoos have been confirmed by the latest victim, and this morning we have received a positive on his DNA from the fibres and blood from the hedge. The DNA traces on the used condom have unsurprisingly come from Omar, but we also have a match on of all things a taxi driver who was arrested three years ago for indecent assault but never charged”
Diane looked up sharply, and I gave her a little head shake. “No discussion today on that one, boys and girls. We all know what the CPS can be like. Our second suspect lives over on the East of, er, Swansea. His name is Manfred Hansen. Now we have the name, I want his face looked for in the camera footage from the obs teams. Let’s put him together with Evans, and then we can look for a pattern of movement. I want all the times and days they have been seen together. And two of you find out who he cabs for and what his vehicle is, and feed that into the mix. Boring work for now, but we have an opening on this one. Let’s make the most of it”
That bit took a week, no less, as so much of the footage was too grainy for our embryonic facial recognition programmes to help with, but in the end we had times and dates and the start of a pattern. I readied a submission for the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system. If Hansen was coming to Cardiff regularly, the ANPR on the M4 would be able to pick him out. I didn’t want him put on until we were ready to move, of course, and that moment was definitely getting closer.
Siân was on days, and so were Vicky and Kev, so that evening we had a chance to do some catching up, which, of course, meant fawning over the child and handing over the presents for the forthcoming holiday. We had readied a couple of spare beds, and a proper roast dinner had been followed by bread-and-butter pudding, custard and the latest Pixar offering for some of us and wine for most of us. Normal, banal, domesticated, and almost everything any of us had ever wanted. Happily slumped on two sofas and an armchair, we were, at least in my case, half-watching the film when the phone rang. Siân picked it up.
“Hello, can I help you?”
Her jaw dropped, and holding her hand over the phone she mouthed “It’s Mam!”
Shit. I was hit by a tidal wave of worry. “What’s happened?”
“Not Mam, not YOUR Mam—MY Mam!”
She took her hand away from the phone, and her voice chilled perceptibly. “No, I won’t. We have guests here, and they don’t all speak it. What do you want?”
Her face fell. “Vicky, can you please take our princess here for a drink from the kitchen? Ta. Mam, I am putting this on speaker phone so that MY WIFE can get involved”
Tinnily, from the phone, came her mother’s voice, this time in English, the Gog accent clear over the tiny speaker.
“It is your father, ah? I must speak to you of him. These others are not kin”
“These others, Mam, are my cousin, her husband and MY WIFE. They are kin. If you want to talk to me, do so or go away. I have not forgiven what you said, and nor will I”
There was a long pause before the woman I thought of so badly started speaking again.
“I will assume that if it is your cousin it is young Victoria. If that is so, then she is indeed family. I will speak, then. It is your father, Siân, and no, it is not that he is dead although in my sin I have wished that upon him. He has… he has sold our house. He has then spent the money on another, ym Mae Colwyn. Er, in Colwyn Bay”
My wife was still bitingly frosty. “And this changes what?”
Another long pause. “He has been good enough at least to leave me half of the proceeds. I am not involved in this… adjustment of circumstances, ah?”
“He’s left you?”
“He has succumbed to the temptation of the sins of adultery and fornication”
Kev had to leave the room at that point, trying, far too hard than was good for his health, to hold in his laughter. Even Siân was starting to show cracks.
“Who is he adultering and fornicating with, Mam”
“It is Delyth Siencyn”
“The organist? Bloody hell!”
“Language, girl”
“Oh bugger off, you wouldn’t be calling unless you wanted something, so I’ll talk the way I want, ah? And what do you want?”
“Siân, it is our home he has sold, ah? It is where I live. There is nobody else I can turn to”
“What about the rest of the congregation?”
“They have turned their backs on me. They say I have sinned”
I mouthed the words at my wife, and she lipread them perfectly. “What did you do, Mam?”
Another pause, then a clearly-audible sound of someone sighing as they prepare a confession.
“I pumped twenty gallons of slurry from the cow yard through her letter box. I have been handed a community service order for twenty hours and a cleaning bill. But in two weeks I will have nowhere to live”
Eyebrows raised, my wife turned to me. “Mam, I will call you back. I am not alone in this. I must discuss it with my wife. While you wait for me to call, think on my words, ah? You will take us as we are AND NOT COMPLAIN or we will not be able to help you in any way. Do you understand?”
“I will await your call”
They hung up, Siân muttering. “Just before bloody Christmas as well! What the hell did she expect?”
Suddenly she started to laugh. “Twenty gallons of cowshit through her front door! I know whose trailer it will have been, as well!”
It started me laughing. “It’s an old joke, aye, but I’ll still say it: remind me never to upset you. Mother and daughter, indeed!”
She sobered, as the others came back in. “What do we do, cariad? I know what she said, but I can’t leave my own Mam like that, can I? I mean, I said it, we’re family, kin, flesh and blood. That doesn’t change. But what she said, the two of them, that day; those are words I will never forget or forgive. You are my family now, Lainey, you first and before all others. I said that at our wedding, and I keep my promises”
Vicky took her hand. “Love, Kev and I had a chat in the kitchen. We could help, and she is family, as you say. We’ve got a spare room. It could do as a sort of halfway house, just so she gets used to the two of you”
I reached out for a hand from each of them. “You sure about this?”
Vicky nodded, and nodded her husband to her for a hug. “We’re sure. We owe you both so much. We can’t guarantee we’ll change her views on the world, but we can give it our best go. Want to call her back?”
The numbers were dialled. “Mam?”
“Aye?”
“I have Vicky here, along with her husband Kevin. They are offering you room in their house for now”
“They are? That is true Christian charity”
Kevin broke in. “Not in my case. It’s just common humanity, and paying our debts to a couple I love as much as I do my wife and daughter. You will not badmouth them, you will not criticise them, you will not chastise our child for being a child. If you can deliver that, then we have a deal. Tell me, though: you have half the price of a house to set you up. Why would you need your daughter’s help?”
Oh shit. She was crying now. Vicky shushed her husband, as the old woman gave her reply.
“It is just that I am so, so alone”
She made her promises, and the deal was done. Two and a half weeks later, we had a pattern for my other issue, and we knew when we would try our little bait and trap. I made sure my asp was working properly, and three of the lads drew Tasers.
“Why not me, Elaine?”
“Because, Diane, the boys think you’d be too gung-ho to use one, besides the fact that you’re not certified to carry it. Now, I am off to England for Christmas, but I will be back for the New Year’s delights. Boys and girls! Your ears for a bit. Now, I know this is going to piss you off a bit, but I don’t want to try our luck on that night. I know it’s the only time some of you are lucky enough to pull, and that’s what the problem is. Our targets are likely to be out on the pop themselves, and we would be setting our bait in the middle of a lot of potential victims. I will be doing the night shift into the New Year just in case, but I don’t anticipate any attacks that night.
“Our boys seem to meet up mostly on Thursdays and Fridays, at least the two we know about. This is the hard bit. I want the team stood to on both those evenings following the New Year, and we will have the ANPR switched on for Hansen on the M4. I want four unmarked cars around the area fitted with ANPR as well, and there will be two carriers for the rest of you plus uniformed support. Bring a flask and sandwiches, and before then, have a nice Christmas”
CHAPTER 31
The drive over to the Channel coast was getting familiar now, but this time we had our parents with us. Our parents, not Siân’s, as that would have been a step so excessive I’d have lost control. I would never forgive her for what she had said and done, but I had agreed with my wife that we had to come to some sort of understanding. Our Mam and Dad, though, needed no such adjustment. Somewhere near Swindon, Dad turned round to face me.
“What’s the lad like, then?”
“Side of a house, Dad. Big, he is. I think Sar likes her beefcake”
Mam laughed. “Growing up with the men in our family might have shaped her tastes a bit, Twmi”
He smiled. “Nothing wrong with looking like a man, if that’s what you are, aye? It is only now I can see clearly how she never was one. We have been blessed, both of us, in our daughters”
He said no more on that, until we were finally parked on one of the side streets in Dover. As we left the car, he turned to me and took my shoulders in his broad hands.
“We will do our best, Elaine, but if we do this wrongly you must tell us, and tell us immediately”
I smiled at him, the love almost bringing me to tears. “Never, Dad. Never have you done it wrong. Now, I want tea. I sent the text, so it should be ready”
I gave the door a good knock, and there she was, looking as much at home in her domesticity as any other woman, a smile glowing on her face.
“Mam, Dad, welcome! Come in! Siân, how’ve you been? Tea’s in the pot, Lainey!”
“You got the text, then?”
“Indeed, but I delegated. Jim’s made it”
She led us into the living room, where Tony was standing ready to face his examination, Jim beside him. That must be his mother, I thought, and, ah yes. A wig, beard shadow. Put those thoughts away, girl, and play nicely. Sarah made the introductions, and Dad shook Tony’s hand.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, son. Both of my daughters have sung your praises, so I am glad to finally meet the lad who has brought the smiles back.”
I caught Sarah preening at that, and then Mam went one further by sitting down with the two other older ladies and making her own introductions, all as if Alice wasn’t so clearly a man in a dress and wig. My sister and wife shot off to the kitchen to gather the tea, while Jim showed Dad where he was sleeping, which rather oddly was under the stairs in a cupboard. Harry Potter clearly had a lot to answer for.
It was all so normal, even allowing for the cupboard camping, and within ten minutes Dad was “Granddad” and Mam “Nana Sioned” as the little bundle of energy launched into a garbled account of their rather amazing trip to Australia. Sarah, of course, had the pictures, and after a while proved her domestic goddess status in the best way, with food, wine and beer for the boys. I had some very ungenerous thoughts about my mother-in-law just then, and then Mam brought out her little present for Jim.
It was a chocolate selection box, and he received such a stern lecture from my sister that I nearly choked trying not to laugh. It was uncanny: she was not only acting exactly like Mam, she even sounded like her. When Dad started laughing, I lost it, and she turned round to us with a puzzled expression.
“What?”
I looked at Mam, who was also losing her battle with the giggles.
“Chwaer, you sounded so much like Mam just then!”
That did it, and with my parents I let the laughter out till my sides hurt. I had been so worried about this, for while it is one thing to accept that your son has always been your daughter it is another step entirely to see her so completely and clearly a woman. I had been nervous about Alice, too, but Mam was clearly finding her wavelength. This was going to work. The result was sealed when Sarah put the little boy to bed, and then returned to ask if “His Granddad” could do the story for him. To my horror, when Dad returned from that duty he was crying. He closed the living room door behind him, and held a hand up for silence, as Siân turned the telly off. Mam reached out for his hand as he started to speak.
“I need to say something, here and now. Years ago our lives took a blow I thought we would never recover from. My daughter came home, and told me she was a homosexual. That hurt me, but it hurt Sioned more. She couldn’t see where she had gone wrong, that her daughter had turned out queer. Yes, that was our word. What had Sioned done? She obviously hadn’t been enough of a mother, enough of a woman, for our daughter.
“Then Elaine brought our son to us, in a dress, and it was my turn to feel what she did. How could I have been a good father if he wasn’t just turning his back on acting as a man should but on the actual fact of BEING a man? It was Elaine that banged our heads together, and I remember what I said that evening.
“I have two pretty daughters, I said, and Sioned and I decided that we would do our best to be proud of them. They were, they are, our flesh. Then that bastard nearly destroyed our pretty little girl”
I was watching Tony at that point, and there was something that passed between the two men, something black. Dad paused, staring at him.
“Someone did the world a service a little while later, didn’t they?”
Tony looked down at his feet, but I could see his knuckles whiten. Dad nodded.
“There has remained, however, one sadness in our lives. Elaine and her lovely wife seem to have decided not to go down that path, and obviously my little girl cannot”
Mam passed him a hanky, and I felt my wife’s hand clench a little. Dad wiped his eyes, and continued. “Tonight, however, it seems we have become grandparents, assuming your approval, Tony.”
Sarah’s man looked up, and gave his own gentle, loving smile.
“Of course, Twm. It’s what we would want, and Jim seems happy”
Tony stood, then, and suddenly he and Dad were hugging each other. Fortunately, Mam had more tissues, for we all needed them.
The next morning, it was Tony who knocked on our door to let us know he had tea for us. Siân gave him her puzzled face.
“What the hell are you doing up this early on Christmas Day, Tone?”
He grinned. “Small boys and cold knees in the back, love. He’s down with Sar opening his presents. You two are going to have to work for your keep, though. We’re not made of tea!”
“And what do our duties consist of?”
“Giving me a hand with the breakfast”
Siân looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Can we do that?”
Tony laughed. “When I said we’re not made of tea, I was going to add that we WILL be made of sausages, bacon, beans….”
I laughed. “When you put it like that, big man!”
“Yeah, well, Sar’s got a lot to do. She’s doing her first ever full Chrimbo experience for dinner, or so she tells me. She’s really been fretting about this”
Siân gave my hand a squeeze. “Being a real woman, aye?”
He nodded. “Always there with her, that bit of doubt. We going to make this a good one?”
I nodded back. “Absolutely. Now, leave us to drink up, and we’ll see you in kitchen hell in ten, aye?”
The day was indeed a delight. We had a little trip out along the coast, Jim all wrapped up in new cycling kit, and a dinner that was surely everything Sarah had hoped for. Tony’s own mother Enid seemed to have clicked with Mam, and between the two of them they lifted Alice up into older lady status. I caught Sarah chuckling at one point, and to my own enquiring look she merely said “Three old ladies in search of a lavatory”.
On Boxing Day, we went out to Canterbury, to see where Sarah worked, and that produced a very quiet argument between her and Alice, which Alice won. I was more than a little worried, for I could see what lay behind the façade, and if I could, so could others. I kept my best copper head on, and got Tony to use his own experience to watch the blind side. The moment came in some play park, where the other women were all sat on benches as my wife and I watched Jim run around with some other lads he had encountered. Tony and Dad had gone for coffees when a stranger came and sat right next to my sister. Stranger to me, that is, for she clearly knew him, and from their glances the conversation was all about Alice. I checked round us for any other men, thinking of what I was dealing with back home, and then relaxed as I saw that three old ladies approach the bench. Introductions made, and a peck on the cheek for each of them, Alice included. I kept a little distance so as not to put any more pressure on things, and had to hold myself back as a few of their very quiet exchanges grew a little more heated, which was when Alice stepped up to him and took him in her arms. I could see Mam’s face clearly, and her expression was terrifying. Stay back, Lainey. Give them room.
Dad and Tony came back, and I decided that was the right moment to approach. Sarah introduced the man as Andy, a colleague, and that said all I needed to know. I mouthed “You OK?” to Sarah’s friend, and got back a sharp little nod. We ended up in a burger bar, with Andy and his two nephews, who were the ones Jim had been playing with, and by then I was sure it was all safe. Which allowed two of us to hit the Monsoon shop across the way where the magic word ‘Sale’ was casting its spell.
It was later that evening, a sober one as we were due back the next day, that I got the fuller story.
“Before I was there, Lainey. Andy’s got the reputation, aye? Shagger, ladies’ man, all that sort of thing, and he turns some woman down and she does the rape accusation bit. Nearly goes down for it as well, but Alice has the alibi, even bloody security camera footage, so he gets out and she gets sacked”
There was fear mixed in with her anger, and I understood how close this felt to what that bastard Joe Evans had done to her, how the police had treated her.
“He safe, chwaer?”
“Safe? I think, I really think, he’d die for her. People can surprise you, aye? And I wish you didn’t have to go back so soon. This has been my first real family Christmas. It shouldn’t be over this soon. Mam and Dad could have stayed on”
I hugged her. “Dad’s already said his piece, chwaer. He wants his favourite grandson to visit him at home. Let’s give your men the rest of their family, aye?”
I thought hard, but in the end it had to be said.
“And I think that family includes Alice now”
CHAPTER 32
It wasn’t that bad a drive back, especially as Dad spent most of it asleep. He can be more than a little helpful with advice about my driving at times, the satnav being replaced by the frontseatnav, and his snores were more easily ignored. It is still a bloody long way, though, but as they had left the parental car at our house I didn’t need to make it interminable by going all the way out to Abergwaun. I did the ritual of the milk in the last petrol station before home, and once in Siân did the dance of the kettle.
“Do you think the curry house is open tonight, love? I can’t be arsed with cooking tonight”
She stuck her head round the kitchen door and showed me the phone. “Already ordered. Got jalfrezi, bhuna and bits. I know what you like—mix’n’match? He said forty-five minutes. Time for a quick shower”
She brought the tea over, and then kissed me on the mouth, which was very, very nice.
“Thank you for sharing with me, my sweet”
I laughed. “We always share our curries, aye?”
“You know full well what I mean. That was a proper Christmas, family, the whole thing. I looked at that Alice, and thought of my Mam, and, well, thank you. Now, shower, and on your own it will be otherwise the food will end up left on the doorstep”
Promises made, promises kept later upstairs, but no lie-in in the morning as we both had work. The kitchen still held the smell of the curry, and I had the obligatory moment of worry about whether I would release any of it at work. Sod them, I thought: they’re coppers, they’ve had worse.
That week held absolutely nothing for us, as it seemed the shits we were looking for were indeed having a break for the holidays, but I did end up picking up some crap over THAT night shift. Why does ‘celebrating’ seem to have to involve hitting people for no valid reason? None of it was that serious, thankfully, and certainly nowhere near what had been done to Omar and the others, but still. I had to sort out four lots of Inspector’s Bail, and I realised in the middle of the third one that it was even more of a cliché: new bod gets New Year’s Eve while the regulars go out on the town with everyone else.
Chris was back with us on the Tuesday, and we had a slight argument, which in the end he won. I wanted to plot up on the two nights, awaiting a ping from the ANPR before putting him in play, but he would have none of it.
“Listen, Lainey, all we know is that we’ve put faces to two of them but they are at least three strong and most probably four. What happens if I get clocked going into the trap, eh? They could have one or two watching and only call the others out if they see a possible target. If I’m not there, they might hit someone else, and I couldn’t live with that, girl. They’re getting worse each time”
“So what are you saying? You sit there all evening, on the off chance?”
“Yes, basically. I sit there, I make it clear I’m alone, and I trawl the pink pubs. Full-on aging twink, yeah?”
“You’re not bloody aging, butt!”
He laughed, a little nervously I thought. “For a twink I am positively ancient! We don’t have the greatest of shelf lives, do we? Now, we doing this or not?”
I sighed, but he was right. We had our own surveillance, but clearly so did the opposition. Setting him in place early would make sense.
“And I’m not wearing a wire or whatever it’s called!”
“And why the hell not, Chris?”
“If they get me like they got Omar, they’ll find it. The way they’re going, I’d wind up dead for that. I’d rather not, OK?”
We were in the briefing by then, the team laughing happily as he played his prima donna role. Diana stuck her hand up.
“Aye?”
“Transponder, Ma’am. Tracker device, same as on a car. What you wearing, Chris? Would it involve a belt?”
She was holding up some sort of rainbow-coloured belt made out of what looked like tape. Chris’ eyes lit up.
“Of course! Super tube!”
The two of them caught my frown, and Diane—DIANE!---actually giggled.
“Not a climber, then, Ma’am?”
It was Blake who explained it all. “Rock-climbing stuff, Ma’am. Used to make slings for people to tie onto the rocks, comes in big rolls, you buy it by the metre. Buckles are sold as well, just takes a bit of needlework. Tape’s tubular, innit, let us fit a transponder inside. Chris thought what with the rainbow colour and that, LGBT shit, aye?”
I looked round the room with a sense of something close to love. “None of you lot been off at all over Christmas?”
There were a couple of blushes, and some averted gazes, before Diane took the lead.
“Sergeant Gould’s boy, Scott, yeah? Sent us a thank-you card for what we’ve done. I mean, I know we haven’t done it yet, but you know what I mean. We sort of agreed to put some er…”
Suddenly there were snorts as people tried not to laugh, and Diane pointed at Chris. “You said it, you can tell her!”
The man was grinning happily. “Lainey, you know there’s no paid overtime for this? You told us that”
“Yes, I remember. What’s the joke?”
A beatific smile. “No joke. This lot simply agreed to… do it for the Queen”
I had to laugh, but I did call him a cheeky sod with an infantile sense of humour. I had a reputation to uphold, after all. Diane revealed the other aspect of their plotting.
“Hands free kit is what he suggested. We can’t put a mike on him, so he dials one of us when he goes outside, and just leaves the phone on. Anything happens, we hear it. Nothing suspicious, all normal, nothing to trigger their extras, yeah?”
Once more, I looked round the room. “Boys and girls, you make me very proud indeed. It’s go then for Thursday evening. Those who’ve drawn Taser authority know the drill; the rest of you make sure you’ve got fresh sprays and full restraint kits including the straps. This is it, this is where it stops for people like Omar, aye?”
Blake pointed. “For people like our mate there, you mean?”
I nodded. “Aye, for people like Chris it is. Clear the decks as much as you can, and I’ll go and set up the ANPR”
I slept badly the next two nights, fretting about him. I mean, he was a volunteer, but he wasn’t trained, wouldn’t be equipped in any way apart from that belt. He could end up very badly hurt, not to mention the fact that I was amazed the DVLA were allowing him so much time off to work with us. Some serious strings were clearly being pulled, and I resolved to press Wyn about it once we were done with the case. Thursday afternoon, though, I had more immediate matters than Chris’ employment, as we plotted up around the Pink Pubs of the city. The ANPR was on line, Traffic cars waiting at a couple of the most likely junctions, the unmarked cars were in place and uniformed support were sitting with flasks and sandwich boxes in odd corners of the back streets. No radios in use for anyone involved in the city centre, but they were all on and charged.
“Away you go, lad. And, well, stay safe, aye?”
Eight o’clock, and he was in the first pub, the Red Lion. Two cokes later, and the ANPR went off, triggering a call to my works mobile.
“We have a positive on Hansen’s car on the M4, Ma’am. Just turned down the 4232 by the Travelodge, according to Traffic”
Twenty minutes later “Ma’am, CCTV operator’s seen Evans’ van in Tredegar Street”
“Thank you, Control”
I rang a couple of numbers to pass on the news, and then Chris himself.
“The rats are on their way, butt. You sure about this? Still time to get out”
His voice was faint. “Absolutely, girl. I have my pride, and I don’t mean the march. I’ll ring when I leave”
He hung up, and I rang again. “Control, how’s the tracker looking?”
“Well, he’s in the Red Lion, Ma’am. That right?”
“Spot on, Control”
“Thank you. And we now have CCTV of Hansen’s car parked behind Evans’ van. They’ve just been joined by a Range Rover”
CHAPTER 33
“Can you get the plate?”
“Not yet, Ma’am. Parked up too close behind the van. Two men, looks like. Another car joining them now”
Hansen. “What are they doing?”
“New arrival and driver of Transit are at the Range Rover, talking to the occupants, looks like. Driver of second car now at rear of Range Rover---ah. Baseball bats, Ma’am, putting them into the van through the side doors”
That made sense, in a criminal way. If Evans got a pull in his van, he would have no way of explaining away the bats as sporting equipment, but in the boot of an upmarket car, with the ‘right sort’ of driver, it could pass easily as being left over from a game. I rang Diane on one of the spare phones.
“Diane, got both vehicles parked up on Tredegar Street. Range Rover with them. Can somebody sneak the licence plate number for Control? Find out who the hell the others might be? Don’t show out, though”
Another incoming call, from Chris. “Hello, darling, you’re not here so I’m trolling off to the Smuggler’s. Ring me when you get this!”
I passed the word, and ten minutes later Diane called in the Range Rover’s number.
“Ma’am, well, I don’t need to run this one. I know it”
“What the fuck? Sorry, what do you mean?”
“Elaine, it’s Dai Pritchard’s car. And it’s three up”
“Got any faces, butt?”
“Not yet. Don’t want to spook them”
"Dead right. Pull back; we have them on the CCTV”
Bloody hell: that bastard was involved, then. Was it Bob Evans with him? Shit. My phone went again: Control.
“Driver of the van is walking away. Heading towards the main road; dark hoody, hood up”
“Thanks Control. The others?”
“Driver of the first car is getting into the Transit cab. Side door of van is open---two, three males now exiting Range Rover. Now in back of van, doors shut. Three males, two heavyset in dark hooded tops. Third one is smaller. Baseball cap and dark hoody”
Back to my other phone. “Chris, leave the phone on. They’re all on plot, five up”
“Diet coke, ice and a slice, watching my figure if I want someone else to watch it, ta!”
“You on silent mode, butt!”
“You’ve got the idea, love!”
He was talking to a barman, I realised. “Leave it running butt, and I’ll keep you up to speed. We now have ID on two of them, probable on a third, possible on the fourth, and I have a nasty feeling about number five. Keep it tight, aye?”
“No, love, just the coke tonight. Two vodkas, and I’m anybody’s, but I prefer to pick the body before I have the drink!”
Ye gods. Were men always that in your face? The phone, again.
“Ma’am, got Evans in situ at the same spot as before, eyeballs on the Smugglers”
Stupid, stupid man. “What’s up with the van?”
“Wait one, Ma’am”
She spoke to someone beside her, the words indistinct, but I caught the word ‘park’.
“The van has pulled off, Ma’am. They are following it as best they can. Nobody’s left at the cars”
“Keep me posted, Control”
“Absolutely. Ma’am, we want this one. For Dai Gould, innit”
“Thanks, butt”
“Ma’am?”
“Aye?”
“Same bloody multi-storey car park as before!”
“Thanks, Control. Stay chilled, aye?”
“Sorry, Ma’am”
I started the others moving in, and then rang Chris. “Jackals are waiting, butt. Evans is at the end of the street, others have the van in the multi-storey”
“Yeah, I did the Pride. Talking of walks, I need some fresh, yeah? No, that wasn’t a come-on. I’ll be back though, darling!”
It was like listening to golden syrup, he was that saccharine. I wondered who or what he was talking to, and for a few moments asked myself if I was ruining his night, but his voice came back, terse and clipped.
“Going out the door now, Lainey. Going for a piss in the carpark”
“Be fucking careful, Chris”
“That’s your job, Lainey”
I heard the street sounds through the phone, the shouts and jeers of a normal night in Cardiff, and then a hollower, quieter sound, as he entered what was clearly the stairwell of the multi-storey.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, Blake?”
“Control on this one. Evans is following on foot, just about to enter the stairwell. Van’s just driven off”
“Eh?”
“They haven’t got the van on camera. They haven’t got the occupants. Fucking blind spot!”
Shit! “Get the ANPR on it now!”
“Already done”
Suddenly, Chris’ phone came to life with shouting and grunts, and the sickening sound of what could only have been one of the bats. Sod the phones. I grabbed the radio. “All units, the car park, GO GO GO!”
I was out of the car and running, Blake passing me, asp sliding out with a loud click, up the stairs, nobody there, a torn scrap of rainbow belt on the floor by a puddle of piss and a splash of blood. The tracker was useless now. “All units! Back to your vehicles. Tango One has been removed!”
Fuck fuck fuck. Back on the phone. “Control, find him!”
“ANPR ping, Ma’am, west out of city centre. Will vector the plain units. Two traffic cars en route”
What had they done to Chris already? I knew what they had planned, of course, the route they had already taken, but, shit.
“Tie the fucker properly, butt! Cunt just tried to bite me!”
Chris’ phone was still on. “Control? GPS tracker on Mr O’Connor’s phone?”
“Wait one”
Wait a bloody eternity.
“Lansdowne Road, Ma’am”
“Thanks, Control”
“CCTV just picked it up at junction with Cowbridge Road West”
“Get the Traffic boys to stay off the blues and twos, Control. What’s their driving like?”
“Steady, Ma’am. Careful, like”
“OK. We will form up in convoy in the unmarked cars. Get Traffic to sit behind us. We’ll look for a place for a hard stop, and they can come through and light them up, aye?”
“Aye. Yes. Just lost the GPS, Ma’am”
And the sound from his phone. Arse.
Blake took us smoothly through the city, blues on behind the front grille, and the calls came in one by one. We ended up four hundred yards behind the van as it made a very steady and utterly legal course towards Cowbridge, and then Control called in again.
“Both Traffic units are behind you now, Ma’am”
“Thank you Control. Could you alert the air unit just in case?”
"Already done, Ma’am, and I will have a dog unit with you in about---ah, he’s tagged on with the second Traffic car now”
“You are a star!”
“Needs doing, Ma’am”
“Listening, thank you”
I turned to my boy. “Blake, start closing the distance. Time to stop this lot”
For once, given the way things had fallen apart so quickly at the beginning, it went absolutely by the book. Two traffic cars howled past us, lights and sirens going, and as the van slewed to a screeching halt Blake ran our car up the footpath to the side door of the van. I don’t know which of us got there first, but two of the Traffic boys were smashing every window they could get an asp to and someone from the front passenger seat was removed and sprayed in what was feeling like slow motion. I got my hand to the door handle on the side of the van, but it wouldn’t open. The back doors went just as Blake slid over the passenger seat and popped the side door’s lock, and I saw a pale flash of naked skin as I backhanded the first man I met with my own asp.
Shouting, barking, some screaming, and five bodies leg-strapped on the road. Fuck their comfort, fuck them all. He was breathing, that was the thing. Diane took my arm as I looked for someone else to hit.
“Ambulance on way, Ma’am. We might want to sit the prisoners up. Positional asphyxia, yeah?”
I wanted to say no, let them bloody well suffocate, but she was right. Work head on, Lainey Powell, work head on. “How’s Chris?”
“Bruised. He’s already making shit jokes about getting a bit of rough, and doing it for the queen, but he’s really shaken”
“Who’ve we got? Let’s get the formal bit over with, once I catch my breath”
They were searched on the ground, then sat up, and I dug out my torch.
“Right! I am Inspector Elaine Powell of the Dyfed-Powys Police, on secondment to South Wales, just so you know. All five of you are under arrest on suspicion of kidnap, rape, grievous bodily harm, assault, and that will do for Custody purposes. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand? Yes? OK, let’s see who you are!”
Matthew Hansen.
Jamie Richard Evans.
Dai fucking Pritchard, who tried to spit at me.
Bob Evans, as I should have guessed. He called me a number of things
Number five. Shit. I gave the cunt as sweet a smile as I could, while paramedics went to help Chris.
“Hello! We haven’t met, but I believe you might know my sister”
Joe Evans.
Work head, Lainey. Work head. “Get them into vans, get them back, and no accidents with them, boys and girls!”
Joe fucking Evans.
CHAPTER 34
Back to the nick in a convoy of marked and unmarked vehicles, recovery on the way to pick up the Transit for forensics, Blake on the radio to organise a tow for the other two vehicles. I called the radio room on my mobile.
“Hi Jan, Inspector Powell here. Can you call the duty Super out? I’ll need a word. And the on-call CID Inspector”
“Soon as I hang up, Ma’am. That boy going to be OK? We were getting a bit edge-of-seat here, innit”
“He should be, Jan. At least, well, he should be. We’ll be straight out, doors to kick, once this lot are in, but if you can detail someone to relieve the detail at the hospital?”
She laughed. “You won’t believe this, but we’ve got people in off their rest days wanting to help. They’re arguing over who gets to kick Bob’s door in. Hang on; got duty Super at the door. You hang up; he’ll ring you”
I hung up, and the phone rang five seconds later. “Elaine Powell”
“Bev Williams here, Inspector. I couldn’t stay away, I’m afraid. This operation has got the whole team, the whole force praying for a good result. Your young friend, Chris?”
“Chris O’Connor, sir”
“Yes. He has made a huge impression on everyone here. Add in Sergeant Gould’s involvement, and this case has become intensely personal for our little family. Now I believe you were after me for some reason”
“Aye, sir. It’s about family. You will be aware of my connections to two of the persons arrested”
“I am so far only aware of Hansen and Evans”
“Dai Pritchard and Bob Evans were with them”
“Fuck! Sorry. Unprofessional. I follow your logic, but you weren’t actually involved with their arrests, not so?”
“There was another one there, boss. You will have heard about my sister”
“Your sister? The transsexual—oh, please. Not him?”
“Indeed. Joe Evans. You can see my concerns, sir”
“Absolutely right. Jan tells me you have called out the duty CID man. Well done. You will remain on hand to brief and assist as necessary, but—did you carry out the formal part of the arrest yourself?”
“Yes sir”
“Then after the initial statements at Custody you remove yourself to your incident room. You brief the CID man, you make sure that the search teams are properly organised, you leave this case packaged for a handover, and you go home and stay there until recalled. Understood?”
“Yes sir”
“And Elaine? Brilliant work. I can think of no better words just now, but please take some time to thank your boys and girls before you go home”
“Thank you sir”
Arse. I knew he was right, but it felt like I was deserting those same boys and girls. We rolled into the yard, three of the vans staying sealed as Hansen was first to the desk, Jamie Evans waiting in the little room with the posters. We worked through the ritual, Hansen looking terrified as he clearly saw his future, which didn’t involve getting off this particular sexual offence.
Jamie Evans, who it seemed was the recipient of my backhand at the van door. He decided to be a twat.
“I want her done! Hit me in the fucking face, the bitch!”
The very, very big uniformed lad who had his arm was almost the size of Steve, and I saw the same smile as he bent down to rumble a quiet warning under Section Five. He gave just a little twist to the cuffs, and Evans saw the light. Two down.
Bob Evans said nothing he wasn’t asked to, and then it was Pritchard’s turn, and he also knew better. I had saved the best for last, and it didn’t disappoint.
“Listen to the account of this Officer, Mr Evans. Inspector Powell…”
“You mentioned your sister…”
Careful, Lainey. “Yes. Sarah. I believe you have met, but that’s not relevant just now”
“Oh shit!”
He was trembling now. I turned away from the turd and began my account. “While maintaining observation on a Ford Transit van, licence plate number…”
Belts and shoes were off, doors slammed after our guests were first stripped for a search before the quack gave them a once over. I had a quick word with the Custody man.
“Not happy with a couple of these lads, Neil. Best to have cameras on. Not that I’m teaching you to suck eggs, butt, just I don’t want any easy ways out for these people. I have to step back, aye?”
“That bit about your sister? What’s that then?”
“Joe Evans there, he beat the shit out of her some years ago. That compromises me, aye, so I’ll hand over to another skipper”
“Your sister: that be the trans…sexual out to Swansea? Got a load of compo from your lot”
I sighed. This was getting repetitive. “Yes, that one”
A sharp nod. “He gets treated exactly by the Codes, then. Super denied intimation before you arrived, by the way, so I will assume I may expect some other customers”
“Depends on who’s home, aye? Now, I’m off to do a handover and say thank you to the team. Then I am off home to see the missus, though that might be after a quick stop at the hospital, see how the boy is”
"We heard, Ma’am. Well done. Enjoy your time off, be one less worry, innit?”
I made my way to the ops room, where what was left of the team was waiting, tea already brewed. The CID bod was Samir Patel, who seemed sharp and quick to pick up the gist of our case.
“The Super gave me a very full briefing, Elaine. You are absolutely right to be stepping away from this one. Any hint of bias would get the jury all sideways, perk up any bigots, innit”
“Aye, Sammy. Now, I’ll wait until we get any search results in, and then it’s hospital and home”
“You get hurt?”
“No, Chris. He got a beating, went off in an ambulance”
“Ah. I’ve detailed some of your lot on a chip run, so settle down and we’ll get this signed over”
“Chip run? That was Chris’ game”
“So your people told me. Right…”
We worked steadily in near silence, my pocket book filling with my account of events that I was recording while they were still fresh in my memory, your honour, and the calls came back from the house searches one by one. I don’t know what it said about their Manly Pride, but the only one who didn’t live alone was Hansen, and his beloved was now in Swansea main nick for throwing a teapot at a Dyfed-Powys girl as well as for possession with intent to supply of some nasty powder or other.
I really couldn’t care less, for I was tired, feeling the down side of the earlier adrenalin excesses, wanting to cuddle up to my wife and worried sick about Chris. In twos and threes they came back, as uniforms and SOCO took over the drudgery, and bags of doughnuts and cakes materialised.
Blake and Diane stepped up to the middle of the room, and as Blake held up both hands for silence, Diane began to speak.
“Boys and girls!”
That got a laugh, and I suddenly asked myself how many times I had used that phrase to them. She continued.
“Boys and girls, this has been a real team effort. Some of us have come out of it with a few lumps, but nothing like poor Chris has ended up getting. So let’s give some credit where it’s due. There are five utter shits locked up downstairs, another in Swansea—Abertawe for those who speak in funny ways”
More laughter. I felt my face growing warm.
“Someone came here, with Chris, and shook the tree. She let the light in and showed us what was going on and being bloody well ignored. If she hadn’t come along, we might be looking at one or more murders, so let’s show our gratitude. Inspector Powell!”
Applause, shouting, banging on desks. I stood up, looking round the room, picking out at least two black eyes. I sought the words.
“Boys and girls…”
Pause for the laughter.
“Some years ago, my little sister met a man she thought was a good one, but she was wrong. When he found out something personal about her, when she went to tell him that she was finished with him, he put her into hospital. That man had an uncle, and he was a policeman, and with another copper they went to see my Sarah and it was like an old-fashioned rape case”
I deliberately kept my eyes away from Diane at that one. “All three of the bastards are now downstairs. While I am properly grateful to Providence that I was allowed to lock the fuckers up---sorry, Diane did say I talk funny, so pardon my French. While I am glad I got to nick them, it leaves me vulnerable to accusations, it leaves the case open to mudslinging by their defence. Samir here, Inspector Patel, is taking over lead. Everything is signed over, and I am stepping down. I won’t be out of touch, but I won’t be at work here. I’ll probably head back to Gaerfyrddin.
“It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with you all. You have made me proud. This job is about protecting our people, and every one of you has gone above and beyond. Thank you all. If any of you are ever down west, you WILL stop by, aye? AYE?”
There was a roar back of “Aye” and I bowed.
“Now, I am off home to see the missus and relax, but first I want to stop by and see how Chris is!”
Blake laughed, along with several others, and pointed past me. I turned, and Chris was there, a paramedic pushing him in a chair.
“Needed some photos taken for the file. Couple of bites, my darlings, and two cracked ribs, and they want me back in for concussion watch, but, here I am. Typical! How can you eat chips without bread and butter? I go away for five minutes and the whole place goes to ratshit!”
He was crying, though, and so was I, and, well, so were most of us.
Once again, that night, without words being needed, Siân understood.
CHAPTER 35
I was in work the next day, but in my own HQ instead of Cardiff. It felt strange, after so long in civvies, but the uniform was the thing that had helped me hold things together when life had thrown shit at me. That dreadful funeral, the confrontation with Mam and Dad, the ritual had helped me cope. Siân was on a stupidly early start, so I had to eat breakfast alone. I hated early turns, so as I was now effectively supernumerary, I had treated myself to a nine o’clock start.
There was more than a little surprise evident as I walked in the door, and I made the necessary call at the Super’s office. He actually got out of his seat as I opened the door, coming forward to shake my hand.
“Bevan Williams filled me in, Elaine. Very, very well done. I see that Wyn was spot on about you. Now, talk me through it, but first---Linda, could we have some tea please? Ta!”
He sat us down in the comfy chairs he kept to one side of his desk, steepled his fingers and looked at me from under his eyebrows. It was like being back at school, and I chuckled at the thought.
“Something tickled you, Elaine?”
“Indeed, sir. I was just wondering what the chances were that I would end up nicking three of the people I dislike most in the world, and then cursing the fact that I can’t do the interviews”
He laughed out loud at that one, just as the tea arrived. “I rather think that the courts might like to have somebody left to try, Elaine! The word is that you have a rather effective backhand”
I hardened up at that memory. “No offence, sir, but they had just beaten the shit out of a friend, and they had worse things planned. It was a hard stop in the true sense”
“Indeed, and I am grateful that on this occasion we didn’t have a camera crew along for the ride. Never mind that: how is the young man?”
“He took a beating, sir. Couple of ribs, bites, but we got him out before, well…”
“Before he was raped or worse, you mean? Yes, exactly. Bev is looking into bravery awards, things like that. Reaction is just coming in, but over the next two or three days you may well get doorstepped. Usual drill, Elaine”
“Aye, sir”
“So, talk me through it”
“Pretty straightforward, sir, after we got the breakthrough out by Cowbridge. That gave us two of the names, so we just had to work through the routine stuff. I had a bloody good team, and many of them—no, all of them went above and beyond. That was what cracked this one, a good team”
“I have already received a number of telephone calls, Elaine. Not all of them have been positive. Some of them were from relatives of two of the arrested men. Intimation was allowed after the house searches, you see. I have a meeting with a Councillor Evans later today. Ah”
He had clearly picked up on my expression, as I immediately thought of Diane.
“Elaine?”
“Sorry, sir. Just that I have heard things about him and let’s just say his family seem to share their family values as a family should”
“Oh?”
“I have a friend who met the good Councillor when she was sixteen. Old-style investigation”
“Ah. I will bear that one in mind, thank you”
“Beg pardon?”
“Cold cases, Elaine. Modern thing. Old files can be looked at again. I was a younger man when that one happened, new to the job. Things are different now, yes?”
He left the rest unsaid, and I resolved to have words with Diane as soon as I could.
“So what does the Councillor have to say?”
“Police conspiracy against his family, all based on your perverted brother’s attempts to trap his young relative into unnatural and perverted sexual practices”
I nearly sprayed my tea, holding the laughter back just in time. “Duw, boss! He is living on some other planet, aye?”
I got a very warm smile. “Oh indeed, Elaine. You know how it goes in court: if there is no defence, sling mud. Now, I will await interview results with some interest. Apparently, Inspector Patel decided to allow them their rest period before interviewing them. He is of the opinion that a sleepless night considering their future will not have been unhelpful. And Hansen’s also likely to be charged with possession with intent, cocaine. The box they kept the gear in had his prints on it”
He took a sip of his tea, and then gave me another warm smile. “Things just get better and better, don’t they? Now, what are your plans? Beyond revision, that is”
“Sir?”
“Wyn and I had a long chat, and Bevan was singing your praises, so we have sort of moved and shaken. You are down for a slot in a promotion board, make you substantive rather than acting Inspector. You have exams to cram for. If you want the promotion, of course”
I was stunned. I had thought of permanent promotion, of course, but this was so quick. I had got used to the work, and come to like the independence, but still!
“You keep your temporary grade pro tem, Elaine. You are already off the relief pattern, so there is no need to do anything other than days, weekdays at that. Take it as a thank you for what was surely a thankless task well done. Bev will be doing the public announcement this afternoon, so watch the news tonight. I rather suspect my Councillor will go, as they say, ballistic”
He stood up to show me the door. “I remember Diane’s case, Elaine. I am not the man I was back then. I will do what I can. Watch the news tonight”
I went to my little room and started to hit the books. Bloody hell! The day went in a blur of backslaps and congratulations, and the only thing to blight it was a call from my wife to ask when we were going to visit her cow of a mother. Into every life, etc.
Nevertheless, I was still surfing the good mood when I got home. Siân had done us both a superb shepherd’s pie, and slipped some tasty bottles into the fridge, and so the evening became a simple episode of domesticity, as far as the six o’clock news.
“Five men have been arrested as a result of investigations by South Wales Police into a series of serious assaults on young men in the Cardiff and Swansea areas. Superintendent Bevan Williams made this announcement forty minutes ago”
They cut to the familiar view of the front of the nick, Bevan Williams in full formal uniform, holding his prepared statement.
“Last night was the culmination of a painstaking investigation into a number of homophobic assaults and rapes of young men in Cardiff, Swansea and surrounding areas. Five men were stopped by Traffic Officers in a van in the West of the capital, a sixth man being found tied up in the rear and showing the evidence of a serious assault. During the arrests a number of Officers also suffered injuries. Enquiries are continuing. Thank you”
He answered no questions, simply turning to go back into the police station. No names, no pack drill, just the bare bones.
“Why are they not giving out the names, Lainey?”
“Still getting evidence, aye? DNA sweep of the van, looking for any traces of Omar or anyone else. Bite impressions—yes, they did. And for Omar at least, they’ve still got his clothes, aye? Still a lot of work to do to close the lid on this lot, and I can’t help”
Still, I settled down for a cuddle, which lasted only as far as seven, when the doorbell went. Arse.
It turned out to be Dai Gould, looking sheepish.
“What you want, butt?”
“Well, I got your address from a mate in your force, Ma’am. Sorry. I can leave if you want”
“Don’t be silly, Dai! Come in, have a cuppa. You saw the news, then?”
“Didn’t need to. All through the nick, innit? Just, not on my own, am I? Got some friends with me. Parked them up in town, so they didn’t get your address unless you were OK with it”
I grinned at him. “These friends, they be your nephew, then, and Omar?”
“Aye. And, well, Fahmi and Debbie as well, aye?”
“This is most irregular, Sergeant Gould, so give them a shout and we’ll get the kettle on”
I shouted a warning from the door and waited while he parked up properly, then introduced him to Siân. Quarter of an hour later, we had four more in our front room and I had to bring chairs from the dining room. Debbie had flowers for me, and all of them had brought smiles.
It was Omar who had done the decent thing, and got a couple of cases of good ale in.
CHAPTER 36
That was a good night, and what was most evident was the release of tension in our guests. Scott dropped a bombshell of sorts, in letting slip that the Smugglers was going to rename one of its bars after me, and I determined that I needed to Have Words to stop such silliness.
It did let me realise one thing, though, and that was the depth of fear that had been sitting on Cardiff’s gay community. Everyone seemed to have known someone who had been attacked, or to have had friends in common, or once seen one at the bar. In reality, there hadn’t been a lot of attacks, but the number was outweighed by the dread that one, or one’s friend, might be next.
Back at work, and the Super dropped another bombshell on me: meta-analysis of RTCs in the Red Roses/Pembroke Dock area.
“Sir, I am not Traffic!”
“Doesn’t matter, Elaine; this is right up your street, picking out trends and common factors. You proved that over in Cardiff”
I muttered something about rewarding the wicked, and he laughed in my face, the sod.
“Trust me, you will actually find this interesting, but I am giving it to you for two reasons. Firstly, it is an excellent piece of developmental work for your Inspector’s interview, and secondly it will keep you too busy to bother Sammy Patel and his team”
“HIS team, sir?”
He laughed again, with a real twinkle in his eye. “Also helps with the anger management issues, Elaine!”
“I don’t have bloody—oh, you sod. Er, sir”
He just winked. "Stop by any time for a coffee, Inspector, and I promise I will keep you up to speed, but please leave Inspector Patel to his own devices, and the team to him. You left them with a firm idea of where to go, so just leave them to get there without a backseat driver. Look: this is YOUR result, and nobody is taking that away from you”
“My team’s result, sir!”
“And now you see why we think you are right for the promotion. There are files awaiting you, Inspector. Join me for lunch?”
There are times when a superior rank shows you that they are out of touch with everything apart from politics, and then there is the opposite, when you see why they are where they are, how clear their vision is, how much wider its scope. He was absolutely right, and as I began to see patterns in the Road Traffic Collisions and single vehicle incidents, patterns that I traced down to a combination of lighting, road surface and the closing times of two rural ‘music’ pubs, I studied relentlessly for the grilling I would get for that promotion they seemed to assume was a given.
I got the word on the other grillings a week later, when Diane called round at my little office. Her greeting was a warm one, a crushing hug, and it brought home to me how much I had missed my team. We had been a shining demonstration of the old adage about strength and sums of parts, and I did indeed miss every one of my crew.
“I’ll get straight to the point, Lainey. Oh, bloody good coffee, this”
“The point, Diane?”
“Oh yes. Hansen tried to claim he was only a driver, right up to when we mentioned the DNA from Omar’s rape, as well as the bite marks, some of them. You’ll laugh, but, well, I am absolutely sure the tape caught his brief saying ‘Oh fuck’ when we disclosed it to him. Hansen then went on some snivelling rant about how his partner was abusing him due to her addiction to Evil Drugs, and how the balance of his mind was disturbed, and his brief kept saying that he advised his client not to answer, and in the end just sat there with his head in his hands”
She chuckled happily, taking a sip of the Super’s little gift to me. “Thing is, his partner, aye? Adele Hughes? She comes out of it the next morning, off her face when she was nicked, innit, and she gives chapter and verse about where he gets the speed and the coke and the smack from, and she stitches her beloved up like a bloody kipper! So we put it to the boy himself, and mention the prints and bugger it, I almost felt sorry for the brief!”
I tried to be fair. “Duty solicitor, aye? Got handed it like the proverbial shitty stick”
Her expression changed abruptly. “That’s the thing, Lainey. No duty solicitor, innit? Fucking Councillor Ashley Evans’ own legal people, innit? Ashley bastard Evans!”
Ah. “Would he be…?”
“Another rapist? What do you think?”
“Sorry, Diane”
She showed her teeth to me. “Yes. Not the same idiot girl now, am I? Anyway, Pritchard and the other bent bastard, they go no comment, no surprises there, and Jamie Evans, well, he decides to be a twat, all sorts of threats about doing you for assault, and Blake, oh dear me, he remembers what you said about leaving them their teeth for matching the bites…”
She had to stop for laughing at that point. Once she had her control back, almost, she continued.
“You broke his cheekbone and nose, Lainey. Hell of a wallop!”
“Well, Chris was, you know, and—“
“Yes, we all know, and chwarae teg to you. I learned that one for you, Elaine. Fair play indeed. So Blake’s all dead pan, and he just says that you were complying with your own briefing, that reasonable force be used up to the limitation of getting bite impressions, and his have come back, and, well, gives him a Special Warning and asks for him to account for his teeth having been in the shoulders of at least four men and, well, reality hits him, aye? I thought the brief was going to puke, he was that green. That one’s broken too, innit. The last one…”
She took a longer drink this time. “Elaine, what happened with him? FME says he has a lot of scars, old ones, and you can see in his face, one of his eyes droops, innit? He’s had at least one really bad kicking? And he knew your sister, you said?”
Careful now, Lainey. “I gave you the story there already, Diane”
“No you didn’t, Inspector Powell. You gave me half a story”
Shit. “You know about my sister Sarah?”
“We’ve spoken before, innit? She’s a transsexual, got done over by Pritchard and the other arsehole”
“About right. She was going out with Joe Evans for a while, or rather he was using her for a bit of fun, aye? Well, one day she wakes up to what he really is, and she goes to tell him so long, that’s it, goodbye, aye?”
“Aye. Yes…”
“And he gropes her, finds out she’s not what it says on the tin, and then he beats the shit out of her, puts her into hospital, which is where she meets the other two, who tell her her fortune. That’s all”
Diane sniffed. “Then totally by coincidence Joe Evans gets the kicking from hell. Don’t answer that one, I don’t need to be told. He kept asking where you were, and every time there was a noise at the door he jumped. Gave us some version of how the balance of his mind was disturbed by having had a kicking because he rejected a nancy boy, and he just had to hit back, and you know how it is. Couldn’t we understand that? I think he’s not the full box, Elaine. Honest opinion, he’s going to be sectioned. No!”
I sat back down, shaking. There was no way I was going to see him walk, but Diane had her hand up. Calm.
“Inspector Patel thinks we can get him banged away on public safety grounds. That’s him down. Hansen’s folded, Jamie Evans hasn’t got a snowball’s and he knows it, and while the other two shits will still push for a trial, there’s more. That Range Rover, they had cuffs and leg-straps in it. And we have their DNA, or at least Pritchard’s, from Omar’s clothing. They’re both swimming, but it’s in shit creek. Job’s a good’un”
“Diane, thanks”
“Give your Sarah my love, Elaine”
“I don’t think I will, Di. Don’t take this the wrong way, but, well, old wounds, still healing? If it doesn’t make the national news, she doesn’t need to know. I will make one prediction, though: our two ex-colleagues will plead when it comes to the day. Now, are you willing to have a little chat about something else? Ashley Evans?”
Her face tightened up. “What about him?”
“My Super has been getting more than a few phone calls, same with the boss over your way. Persecution of his family, police vendetta, all that. My boss is displeased”
“Well, that’s not our fault---“
“Shut up, Di. Please. The boss was talking about cold cases. His words. Things have changed, attitudes have changed. He would like a chat with you”
“You mean?”
“Aye. If Ashley fucking Evans thinks his family’s being picked on, let’s show him what that means. You with me?”
Five minutes later I knocked on the Super’s door. “Boss? This is the young lady I mentioned to you”
CHAPTER 37
I left them to their chat, for there was nothing I could meaningfully add. I was still undecided about Joe Evans but after all I had been given sight of his witness statement. I had seen Steve in a very different light after that, and I knew that I was never going to dig any deeper. Leave that particular case deep frozen, Lainey.
Siân was off at the weekend, which chimed with my own self-planned working roster, and she was insistent.
“Got to be done, Lainey. We have to get it out of the way, and if we go up on the Saturday we’ll still have the next day to recover if it turns to rubbish”
“Aye, cariad, but she’s still a cow, aye? I know she’s your Mam…”
“And you know that all I ever wanted was to have her at our wedding, have her accept you, aye? Love you, now, that’s flying pigs territory---what?”
“Am I THAT unlovable?”
“No, I meant---oh, you sod! Come here!”
I like it when she tries to apologise. It’s very nice…
We set off on a reasonably dry Saturday morning, the snow blinding on the hills, and made our way on wet rather than frosty roads to Kevin and Vicky’s house up by Aberteifi. The main routes around there tend to follow the coast, and the back roads are twisty and narrow. The forecast was set fair, so I didn’t worry about the weather and anyway, my wife spent her working life driving the same roads. I still put a shovel into the boot, just in case, as well as a flask of hot chocolate, which somehow got drunk before we were halfway there. Little Taz was first out of the door when we pulled into their driveway, and to my surprise was followed by Angharad Roberts, who took hold of the back of Tara’s coat. As I stepped out of the passenger seat, I heard her murmuring something about running in front of cars.
“Mrs Roberts…”
That was a moment I will never, ever forget. The same flat gaze, the same opinion clearly sitting in her eyes and burning to leave her tongue, but this time she held it back.
“Miss Powell. The little one has been sitting by the door awaiting your arrival with some impatience. Victoria has similarly had the kettle hot for at least an hour so as to be able to offer a warming drink. Siân. Ah. O see you have already had a warming drink”
Mt wife looked at me, puzzlement clear on her face, and I saw, and laughed.
“Choccy moustache, cariad”
Mrs Roberts winced at that. Live with it, it isn’t going away any time soon or any time at all.
“Tea then, Mrs Powell?”
“Indeed, Mrs Powell!”
We entered to a flurry of hugs, Tara wanting to tell us all about some girl at school while Siân did the listening-to-excited child duties, and I mentioned that we had some bits and pieces in the car. Kev winced.
“Wrapping paper?”
“Wrth gwrs!”
“Vicky, love! Got a bin liner?”
He turned back to us. “Tara gets a bit excited with presents, it goes everywhere”
I squeezed his knee. “And you would be without her in a shot, aye?”
That soppy grin once more. “Never, and you know that. Funny how one simple night out can change a life, innit?”
I smiled over at my wife. “Aye, you are not wrong there, bachgen”
Her mother rose. Obviously suffering in silence, and turned towards the kitchen.
“I will see how Victoria is coming along with the tea”
As soon as she was out of the room, Kevin shot me a whispered “She doesn’t know what to do, Lainey! Hasn’t changed her mind, is it, just worked out which side has the butter on”
Oh really? Keeping her mouth shut would be a good start. Vicky returned with the pot and cups, and I called over to the little girl.
“Taz? Want to help Aunty Siân get some stuff out of the car?”
As soon as they were out of the door, I turned to the old witch. “Right, a few pointers for you. This is not our house. This is the house of people who have been generous to you beyond belief. You will not insult us. You will not criticise us. You will not so much as sniff at any display of affection, because I am with people I love and I will show them that I do. You will comply with those conditions or two of us will leave”
I stared at her, watching for any tells, any signs that she was about to treat us to one of her opinions, and then it clicked. She was the title of that Spanish film, Alma Dover or whoever: she was that woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. So many years of certainty, almost of power, lost when Carwyn ran off with some other godbothering hypocrite, all those certainties evaporating.
Stop being a cow, Lainey. Deep breath.
“Exactly how much cow poo DID you pump through her letter box, Angharad?”
Kevin sprayed his tea when she produced a tight little smile and the words “Nowhere nearly sufficient, eh?”
I looked over to Vicky. “And there’s you two worried about a bit of paper, aye?”
Vicky grinned. “It’s rather less smelly, love! Anyway, what’s this Kev tells me about you breaking a big case?”
“Ah, not me, aye? Had a team, they did the work, and a very brave young man to work with us”
Mrs Roberts raised an eyebrow. Sod it. “There was a series of rapes. He helped us catch the rapists”
“How did he do that?”
“By acting as bait”
I sat and awaited the ‘rape is of women’ bullshit, but she surprised me.
“This young man, was he also a pervert? I mean, a homosexual?”
“Yes. And?”
“Was he hurt for his courage?”
My mouth dropped open, and she saw.
“It is for the Lord to punish sin, not man. I will not consort with perverts…homosexuals…but chastisement is for the Lord. Kevin has explained to me the violence done to young men, and even in their own sin and fornication they are not for mere mortals to punish”
“So you would not throw their perversion, their sin in their faces if you met them?”
“I would explain their error to them, yes”
Was she mental, unhinged, or simply inhabiting some other planet? I imagined her meeting Chris: you are a very brave man, I hope you weren’t hurt too badly, but you’ll be burning in Hell after you die. Kev saved me from opening my mouth and slipping both feet in.
“Got word you have a tasty back-hand, Lainey! She broke nose and cheekbone on one of them”
I snorted. “Joke’s all around the nick, aye? Don’t knock any teeth out, we need them for bite comparisons, and…. Kev, five of them, they’d already beaten nine colours out of Chris, they had him in the back of the van, aye? One of them comes at me as we try and get in, and, well, I missed his mouth. And you know who two of them were, I am sure of it. Aye?”
He gave me a show of his teeth that certainly wasn’t a smile. “I know who three of them were, Lainey, and so does Angharad. I explained it to her”
Vicky mouthed the words “No he didn’t” at me, which confused me until I realised what she meant, which was that he had kept Sarah’s secret safe. I looked at my---my mother in law.
“One was the man who beat my sister badly. Two others were ex policemen who abused her in hospital and then lied about it. The investigation is not only ongoing, as they say, but we may actually get someone for another rape, one from some years back. It is now out of my hands because of Sarah”
Angharad Roberts looked at me, long and hard. “I can see now why my daughter chose you as her companion in sin. If she is to continue her unnatural behaviour, it is best she does so with an honourable accomplice”
Bloody hell, my head hurt. I was saved by the return of the other two girls, and I realised that Siân must have deliberately stretched the time for collection of the bag of presents. She had said it so many times before, about Vicky, about me: how could anyone not love us? This had been her chance to give me the start of an opportunity to get her mother moving in the right direction. No, I didn’t see her coming on side, but at least I had been able to try.
“Mam! Mam!”
“Yes, Tara Elaine?”
“Look what Aunty Elaine got me!”
Kevin snorted as Tara pulled out the ‘junior policewoman’ costume Siân had found somewhere in the city, and I fixed him with an accusatory raised eyebrow. “Well? You always say you love a woman in uniform, and now you’ve got four of us! Here, catch this!”
“What’s in it?”
“Open it and see”
I kept my mouth shut as he started to leaf through his new copy of ‘The Good Beer Guide’, as any mention of it being a man’s bible would surely not have gone down well. Matching fleece jackets for all three of them, and a joking subscription to The Guardian for Vicky, and we were left with one square parcel, which Angharad Roberts was definitely not looking at. Siân looked down at her feet for a few seconds.
“Mam, Elaine and I are a couple. That will not change. I know, I am sure that we will never receive your blessing, or even your approval, but then we do not seek that. What we would have is an end to open hostility. I see you have managed to learn at least a few things from these lovely friends of ours, from your own family, eh? But we, Elaine and I, my wife and I—no! That is who she is and will ever be. No, we would offer more, if you would unbend. This is for you, from both of us”
Both sets of hands were trembling as her mother took and opened the parcel, and I saw the old woman’s jaw drop slightly before she drew once more on her self-control.
“I already have an older edition of Strong’s Concordance, but the other book…”
It was an odd religious book Siân had suggested, ‘Englishman’s Greek Concordance and Lexicon’.
The old cow was almost smiling. “There was not an edition in Welsh?”
CHAPTER 38
Events continued to take their own course in another station, as I was definitely being kept well clear of any involvement in the case, and more importantly away from any possible perception of involvement. I got hints, though, and as the trial was approaching I was ‘asked’ to attend an interview with the IPCC, the body that oversees complaints against us. If I had realised what was to happen only a week after my interview, I would have found it very difficult to answer their questions with a straight face.
Councillor Evans had made the complaint, about inappropriate victimisation of his family led by a police officer who held a grudge and indulged in malfeasance in public office in order to pursue a private agenda for---etc. I answered all the questions, gave almost all of the facts (Steve’s involvement slipping my memory) and was released, the IPCC deliberated, and returned a ‘no case to answer’ decision, and a week later Bevan Williams arrested the bastard for rape and perverting the course of justice. Three days later, and the charges were expanded to bribery, false accounting, VAT fraud… I forget the rest. Another strike for my team, and this time I did get some unofficial intimation of what had happened, via Wyn.
“You have a very, very good team there, Elaine”
“I know that very well!”
“Did you know that your boy Blake’s brother worked for HMRC? Did you inculcate a ‘no shame at all’ culture into your boys and girls?”
“Not exactly, boss. What I did teach them is to be open to all sorts of information, to find the indirect route if the one going straight ahead is blocked. We did a bit of that for the rapes”
“Well, they impressed Heddlu De Cymru. The team’s not being disbanded, and we’re discussing a combined command system. All of the Welsh forces are going to fund them jointly, plus some English ones if we sell it to them the right way. You are leaving a legacy, Inspector Powell”
He took a long sip of his tea, choosing his next words with obvious care.
“Joseph Evans will not stand trial, Elaine”
“Why the fuck---sorry, sir. Sorry”
“No need, Elaine. They took the precaution of having him properly assessed, and he’s been sectioned. It would appear that the attentions of persons who will forever remain unknown left him several sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic. Unfit to plead due to being of particularly unsound mind. He’s gone to secure accommodation, Elaine, and I think he is destined to stay there. Did you not notice the smell at the Custody desk? He lost bladder control when you spoke to him, it seems”
“What about the others?”
“Hansen has gone guilty, looking for the usual reduction, as has Jamie Evans. Our two ex-associates are still arguing, but they are in for a surprise in a day or so”
He was smiling now, his teeth showing in a nasty and predatory way. “Bob Evans and that fellow Pritchard were being looked after by Ashley Evans’ legal people. It appears that as his assets have now been frozen under the Proceeds of Crime Act—“
“No!”
“Oh yes, Elaine, oh yes. I did mention your boy’s brother, didn’t I? Anyway, as is usual with the hangers on, they cease to hang on when their wages dry up. Professional embarrassment, they are calling it. Evans and Pritchard have gone from QC to Duty Solicitor and whoever is next in the cab rank. Goose nearly cooked, girl, nearly roasted and ready to carve. Oh, and stay away from that hospital in the capital. We had a real find there: somebody used a rape kit on your young lady, and had a sufficiently suspicious mind to keep it safely stored, just in case. Apparently, some of their own family lost out on some building business one day”
Ye gods, was there nowhere that didn’t have some sort of back-handers involved? “Wyn, why do I feel as if this is still dirtying me?”
“That’s the reality of politics, Elaine. Who you know, what you’re willing to pay on the side. All we can do is try and keep our heads out of it and swim to the best of our ability. The more you rise, the more it smells. Enough. We have done what we can. The rest, well, we can live with it. I believe you have an event coming up in England; I saw the leave request”
“Yes indeed. My sister’s wedding”
No real need to mention the surgery she was due to undergo.
“Joe Evan’s former acquaintance? Good. It seems some finer things can grow out of the shit we have just been discussing. Will it be a big event?”
“Hoping so. Just got to try and get the rest of the family on side, aye? Be a lot more hard work ahead, aye?”
“Aye indeed. Elaine, just this once, take whatever time off you need. The trial will go ahead, or the two idiots will plead, but put that to one side. Ashley Evans’ arrest has opened such a can of worms that your team will be hard at it for months, and that should be seen as a compliment. Include it in your CV. And I am putting you down for a commendation, or to be precise I am countersigning Bevan Williams’ submission. I may have to wade through the mire of the political side of things, but I will always value a good, honest copper, for you are few and far between. Enjoy the wedding, and good luck with your family”
I got the word a few days later, after I saw Mam and Dad off for England. Sister and bits doing well, though Mam did have a few choice observations about Sarah’s own choice observations and the language she used to make them. I simply smiled, and said nothing.
Not that long later, and I was at the ticket barrier at Abertawe station awaiting my little sister, who duly appeared in yet another short skirt and heels, but with the added accessory of a little boy attached at the right hand. She complained I hugged her too hard, but I will admit I got carried away.
She was absolutely glowing. Even with the stress of travel following such seriously invasive surgery, she looked happier than I had seen her in over a decade. I gave a smile to Jim.
“Hiya, Jim! Welcome to Wales!”
“Hi Aunty Elaine! You coming to Mum and Dad’s wedding?”
“Of course, little man, she came to mine so it is only fair”
‘Mum’ indeed. I sneaked a look at Sar’s face, and dear gods was she smug. Smug and soppy, and clearly delighted at what he called her. I led the way to the car, and after a decent bit of rurality and some teasing of her stepson by Sar, we were home to tea and some special biscuits. I hauled Sar’s bags up for her while she discussed plans with Mam. This was to be her attempt to get the family onside, the side in question being in a church and at her wedding. I took the opportunity upstairs to make a quick safety net call to Kev, only to find Dad at the bedroom door. He sighed.
“You think that of your uncle, Elaine?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Not really, Dad, but one thing I have learned over the last few years is not to leave anything to chance, aye?”
“Like you had that radio when you first spoke to your Mam and me?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Dad, I can’t think of a finer man than you, but, well… sometimes you need a little time to think before you are my Dad again. That’s all I want with Uncle Arwel, aye? Just a second or two to let his head get past his reflexes?”
“That’s the reason for Jim as well, isn’t it?”
“Partly, aye? Just a little brake on the more vocal ones. But you do know why he’s here, don’t you? Why he WANTS to be here? It’s because you are family, and he holds to that, holds to it very, very strongly for such a young man”
He laughed, tensions easing. “Aye, and like your own girl and hers, aye? We know full well where that woman is living. Vicky is like a saint for her cousin”
“She is, Dad, and Kev no less”
He looked a little wistful at that. “He would have made a fine husband, Elaine”
“He has, Dad. Just not with me. Not for me, is he?”
He delivered a better smile. “Aye, and as you have blessed us with our daughter-in-law, we can’t complain. Now, it is to the Oak tonight, aye, and see how things go”
“Any trouble, Dad, and we are leaving. Jim comes first, aye?”
He nodded sharply. “That is as things should be, Elaine. As they should always be”
We went down to join the rest, and Dad just hugged my sister till he was happier. Siân joined us a bit after six and we made our way down to the pub, an historic old place and somewhere I hadn’t had to visit too often to settle a fight or clear away a D and D. Uncle Gethin and Aunty Gwen were already there, and when they called Sarah by her old male name I nearly lost it. I realised I was not being very successful in being the steady Elaine of my professional life, just as Siân mentioned my forearms. Relax, Lainey.
I think that the trigger was the name. All I could think of for a few choice seconds was Joe fucking Evans and how he was getting off so easily from the punishment he merited. I think Sarah felt my tension, for she was already using Jim as a shield. He had picked up a very few phrases in Welsh from Sar, mostly simple things like ‘How are you?’, and that definitely seemed to be breaking the ice.
“Where the fuck is he then?”
Shit. Uncle Arwel had arrived.
CHAPTER 39
Sar was at him like a shot, telling him to watch his mouth round her little boy.
“Sorry, girl, I was looking for my nephew”
My little sister pulled a seriously vicious look onto her face.
“You don’t recognise me, then?”
His jaw dropped, and before Sar could make it any worse than it already was, Dad pushed Jim at the old sod and sent them both to the bar. I gave Sar a Look: pull your horns in right now. Dad was the one to calm her down, though. A few minutes later, uncle and nephew (it was the obvious word for Jim) were back, and Arwel sat for a short while clearly weighing his words with care. A quick check on Jim, and then straight to the crunchy bits, but making sure it was in the old language.
“You look just like a fucking woman”
“That’s because I am a fucking woman! Want me to show you my fanny?”
Mam’s hand was on my arm, my wife’s on my thigh, pushing me back into my seat. Mam sighed, and did her best.
“Arwel, stop it. This is what our daughter has been for twenty years, on the outside, and all her life inside. She has come to try and get some sort of reconciliation with her family, because she has proper values, and will request the same courtesies from you”
Arwel grunted, eloquent in the extreme, and spread his arms wide. “Just, I was expecting some pansy, in a dress or something, not a woman with a kid”
His head jerked up, and he fixed Sar with a deeply puzzled look. “How the…hell did you get a kid?”
She couldn’t do subtle, never in any way. She held up her left hand and flashed her engagement ring.
“Jim is my fiancé’s son. This is why I wanted to talk to you, and why I want to see my cousins while we are here. Tony and I are getting married in June, and I want my family to stand with me.”
Still digging, still the same old questions. “This Tony bloke, then, does he know you’re a boy, then?”
I could see her starting to boil over. “Arwel, two things here. Firstly, Tony knows everything about me, apart from what an arsehole you can be. Secondly…”
Mam put a hand to Sarah’s arm that time, but she just jerked herself free.
“Do I look or sound like some fucking ‘boy’?”
Arwel laughed out loud. “Ych, definitely a Powell, then, with that temper!”
He turned and glared at me, and there was something deeply frightening in his eyes, before he turned the same look on Sarah. “This man then, this Tony. Tell us about him, then. He better not be like that little turd Twm told me about”
Sarah winced, and started to give a sanitised version of events involving a little shit who wet his trousers in Custody, as I kept my mouth firmly shut. Arwel sat, stone-faced, while Aunty Gwen tried to make her sniffles sound like a cold rather than emotion.
In the end, the old sod just grunted again. “This…accident that your little cunt had, did your…fiancé have anything to do with it?”
“Not at all, but it’s possible he knew a man who did”
“Good. It saved me paying him a visit properly, though I did have a few words of my own with him later”
It was Sarah’s turn to look shocked. Arwel just took a long sip of ale before replying, with an air almost of wounded innocence. “What? I didn’t touch him! Just told him that once he had healed I was coming for his other nut. He moved away after that, sharpish like”
I very nearly let the cat out of the bag just then, but I had sworn to keep Sarah out of that one. I murmured to him “Don’t make this awkward for me…”
He winked. Shit. Relax, girl. Sarah was coming down from her fighting stance as well, looking completely at a loss.
“Why, Uncle Arwel? I thought you hated me!”
“Sarah, I hate nancy boys”
Oh, thank all the gods. Siân squeezed my leg, Mam winked at me, and Dad just kept his stare on me. You would think that of your uncle? I realised Sar was almost in tears. He wasn’t finished though, as he had to give it one more go at digging his own grave.
“I know it’s not pee-cee or whatever, but I can’t be doing with all that fairy stuff. If you are going to fancy blokes, then fancy real blokes, not some mincing woofter. That’s what I thought you were, but you’re not, are you? It’s like Elaine, she fancies women, not pretend blokes, I mean, look at Siân there, nobody would put her down as a dyke now, would they?”
My wife muttered “I will bloody well put you down, you…” but he was still on a roll.
He lowered his voice. “That boy, he calls you Mam, yeah?”
Sarah almost preened. “Mum, actually”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be Mam by the time he leaves here. Look, love, you’re family. We’ve fucked about too long for this. Yes, I’ll come and stand by you, and if that man of yours doesn’t do right by you I will talk to him too.”
He looked across the table “Gwen, Gethin, are you two going to be sensible here or keep playing arseholes?”
That was it, I realised. It was ever the same with him; once he chose a course he not only stuck to it but he acted as if there had never been an alternative, as if he had never held any other view on the matter. Sarah had thrown Jim at Aunty Gwen to pick what he liked from the bar menu, and after we had all made our own choices, Sarah was off to the bar, looking a little shell-shocked. I caught just the hint of a grin as she left the table, and took the opportunity to return my wife’s affection with a little squeeze of her knee. That brought me a little dig in the ribs.
“What?”
“Sarah’s got a problem”
Arwel was already moving, as some wanker made his objections to the local language very clear and very loud. My sister took the opportunity to let out some of the venom that her uncle had turned aside, snarling at some pasty-faced tosser in a Manchester United shirt. The accent was from somewhere in southern England, though, which just added to his well-crafted impression of being an arsehole.
Sarah was in combat stance, just like that time when we brought Tony back into her life, and I wondered where my timid little sister-brother had gone over the last two decades. Found her heart, clearly.
“Tell me, how do you know what we were speaking before you came in? This s a Welsh pub, in Wales, and we speak Welsh here, just as they would speak French in a Calais pub. Does your paranoia extend to France as well?”
“Unless you want a slap, darling, I would shut it”
I was out of my seat at that, hand curling for the baton I didn’t have with me, but the old monster was at her shoulder, and the tosser’s life expectancy was evaporating.
“Unless you want to do it without teeth, I suggest you don’t talk to my niece like that”
I got to the bar, and gave the landlord my best “You OK with this?” eyebrow raise, which brought a twitch to his mouth that needed no translation: I am going to enjoy this bit. I turned back to the Englishman and kept my voice as calm as I could.
“I suggest you finish your drinks and head for the ferry. I could start listing the public order offences you have already committed---yes, I am a copper–but the paperwork is a bitch, and I might need to visit the ladies’ and leave you with my family.”
Best feral smile, Lainey. I swept an arm to indicate the other customers, who were now hanging onto every word. “Oh, did you notice all the other sheepshaggers who were listening to you? Now might be a really good time to leave. Don’t hurry back”
I made the obligatory public announcement. “Fun’s over, ladies and gentleman, arsehole is leaving the building”
My expression, or perhaps those of around a dozen local men that were locked on him, got the idiot moving. I followed him and his friends to the door and made sure I clocked the vehicle. There had been quite a few empty glasses on his table, and they hadn’t been cokes or lemonades. Out with the phone, hit the speed dial.
“Kev?”
“Hiya, Lainey. How’s it going?”
“Tell you later, mate, but for now it all looks better than I had hoped for, better by far. Got an issue in the pub. Gobby Sais decided to express his views a bit loudly. Blue Mondeo, 57 plate, just leaving the Oak. I think he’s had a few; on his way to the ferry”
“I do believe I may just happen to have a breath kit in my car…”
“Oh good”
I swear he was almost giggling, and knew this would be one tug he would thoroughly enjoy. I went back into the pub, to find Sarah walking back to the table with Arwel’s arm around her shoulders. Job done.
The evening carried on without the tension that had opened it, Jim clearly making as much of a difference as the ranks-closing over the English idiot. Our three cousins drifted in later, and Sarah got to play the proud bride-to be, which she did with gusto. I knew she loved Tony, of course, but what was coming from her in waves was pride. She’d found her pearl, and with it came the bonus of a little boy who was starting to tire. We decamped back to Mam’s house for holiday video show from Sarah’s Australian expedition, but just before that I was cornered by Aunty Gwen’s girls Ellie and Karen. I’d had promises from them of best behaviour, and they seemed to be holding to it. Ellie was straight to the point, as our family always was.
“She never was Samuel, was she?”
“No, Ellie, not at all. Now you are seeing what I was trying to explain for so long”
“Aye. I see it now. This man she’s engaged to, what’s he like?”
I shrugged. “I think he’s wonderful, for a man. Not my cup of tea, aye? Sarah will have some pictures, I’m sure. All I’ll say is that he’s more like Hywel than like your Dad, in looks. Big man, aye?”
Karen chipped in. “He got family, Lainey?”
Ellie snorted. “He got brothers, you mean?”
I let the laughter pass. “Just Jim and Tony’s mother, that’s all. He lost his wife a few years ago, and her parents are gone, so just the three of them”
Ellie was nodding. “Aunty Sioned will have said it already, won’t she? About giving them a family?”
“She has, and so’s Dad, same as they did for Siân”
Karen snorted. “I heard about what her Mam did, dear god”
“Her Mam’s a cow, but, well, still her Mam, aye?”
Both girls were nodding at that. No disagreement was really possible, after all. I would never, ever forgive her for what she had done to my wife, but life had to go on. Ellie was musing.
“I could never understand Sam, back when he was here. What it is… what I think, now, looking at her, looking at her with the boy, it’s like Sam was never real, never completely there. She’s, well, she’s here now, and she’s so right in your face. I wouldn’t like to get on her wrong side, Lainey!”
I looked them both in the eye in turn, as I asked the question. “Do you think you will?”
Two cheeky, happy grins, and a chorus of “Nope!”
Karen explained further. “We get our cousin back, and an excuse to go overboard on the shopping, and a wedding to dress up for. Sounds good to us!”
There was beer at the house, and food, and there were pictures, and Karen was jealous as soon as she saw the groom in his rugby shorts. My phone went off half an hour after we got home, and it was Kevin.
“Hiya girl! What an arsehole he was!”
“How’d it go, Kev?”
“Caught up with him on the approach road to the ticket booth. Decided to tell me I could piss off as he was on private land, so we had a short educational session, and then he blew 42”
“Nice!”
“Gets better. Got him on the evidential one back at the nick, and I don’t know what he’d been drinking, but he argued and argued, aye? So it’s still going from belly to bloodstream, and he blows 48 and 46. His mate took the car, said he’d still get on the boat, so we waited till he started the engine… He’s done 50 and 51 on the evidential, the fuckwit! Lainey, what did they do?”
“Threatened my sister, Kev. I got to them before Arwel did, though”
“Lucky for them!”
“Kev, as ever, thanks”
“No need, Lainey”
“There’s always need. Anyway, got the family here, got a wedding to plan. This is a good world after all”
“Good and getting better, love. Look, you’ll be first to know, innit? Vicky’s, well, we think she’s about two months. Get your Aunty practice in, Lainey!”
“Give her our best, Kev. Congratulations. You are a good Dad, and you know it, so don’t even start to argue, aye? I’ll let Siân know, if that’s OK?”
“Course. We’ll catch up soon, Inspector Powell”
He was off. I broke the news to Siân in bed that night, and it nearly broke her.
There had to be a way.
CHAPTER 40
Sarah had mentioned the others like her that she had come across, and I had been doing my own digging for any info, good or bad, on one of them. She was from somewhere over our neck of the woods, which meant there was a risk of ‘history’ with some of the other wedding guests, and I rather preferred relaxing outside a few beers rather than dealing with their effects on idiots.
I ran what I had unearthed past Sarah, and we agreed to follow our own routes via our own men, or our cousin Hywel in my case. He was so much his father’s son they gave me double vision at times, and while neither was in any way stupid they had always been quick to raise a fist when they thought it right or necessary. Arwel’s threat to that idiot in the pub hadn’t been empty.
Sister and nephew were off again far too early for Mam’s liking, and I made sure I kept the phone lines warm for her as Spring came and Vicky expanded. That brought a real disappointment, for it turned out that she was a little more advanced than anyone had realised, the due date falling very near to Sar and Tony’s own special day. Nothing was ever going to be simple, it seemed. And there was a trial, of course, to attend.
One trial, one only. Evans and Pritchard had folded in the end, encouraged by the rapid evaporation of their defence team and the realisation that the particularly shitty time an ex-copper would expect in prison would be that much longer following a verdict rather than a plea. I hate court, especially Crown, for the witness box is a frightening and lonely place, but on this occasion I had been looking forward to it. I mean, what bloody defence could any of the bastards have reasonably offered? I felt for Chris, I really did, and would not have wished cross-examination on him, but his part in things and the circumstances of the arrest left very little room for escape. They duly came in, pleaded, got remanded in custody for reports, and all except Joe Evans got ten years. Bish, bosh, and a team do in Cardiff’s pink pubs that somehow left a lot of gaps in my memory.
No, this was another trial, and while HMRC and the fraud squad were taking their time and exercising due diligence with regard to Ashley Evans’ financial affairs, Bevan was moving the other matter along nicely. I sat in Cardiff Crown Court one blustery March day, in civvies in the public gallery, a plump Victoria on one side and my wife on the other, as Ashley Evans stood in the dock to face a charge of rape.
“Ashley Aaron Evans, you are charged…”
“How do you plead?
He stood straighter at that, but his eyes roamed the public gallery till he saw me, and his jaw set.
“Not guilty, obviously”
His Honour Justice Meredith looked over his glasses at him. “We shall let the members of the jury decide how obvious your guilt or innocence may be, as that is their place. My place will be to provide guidance as necessary. We shall move to the opening addresses, if you please”
So it went. Diane was first in the box, and I sent her some strength with a smile and a sharp nod. Oath taken, circumstances related, and I realised how little she had actually told me about that night.
“Why did you get in the car, Ms Owens?”
“When he stopped I thought he was asking for directions, but he grabbed my hair when I went over, made me open the door. Said he had a knife”
“Did he?”
“I didn’t see one”
And so on. “Ms Owens, please understand why I am asking this next question. Were you a virgin at the time?”
Defence was on his feet, but our man was still speaking. “Your Honour, it has been alleged in the past that rape victims have undergone no less than a second violation when they are cross-examined in Court, as witnesses. There is a pronounced and, indeed, justified opinion that they are considered less of a victim if they are seen to be of somewhat laxer morals than some may consider to be consistent with good character. That question is intended to intercept and neutralise such a risk before it may cause undue harm to someone who is no more than an innocent victim of crime”
Meredith nodded. “Proceed”
Diane was looking down as she gave her answer. “Yes, I was a virgin before that day”
On with the tale, the drive out to the old Dunraven place, the slaps and threats, the smell of him and the pain, the piss warm on her back when he had finished.
“He said he always liked to piss the last bits of spoodge out, stop it staining his clothes. That was his word: spoodge”
“What did you take that to mean, Ms Owens?”
“Semen”
“What did you then do?”
“There’s the car park there. Someone pulled in, a couple, they’d come for a bit of, you know, and they got me to hospital. Nurse called the police, and she did things with a swab and a camera”
“Did the police attend?”
“Yes. Two policemen”
“What did they do?”
She looked down at her hands again, which were on the edges of the lectern, knuckles white.
“They told me to shut up and piss off home if I knew what was good for me”
“The policemen said that?”
“Yes, in those words”
“Do you recall their identities?”
Her head came up at that, and I got a brief glance my way, and the Diane I knew was there, the one who had laid into the boys when they talked about homos, the girl who really, truly knew what rape was.
“Yes. I had to work with them later, but I don’t think they remembered me”
Oh shit. Surely not? Our man asked for their names once more, and yes it was, Evans and Pritchard, and I could just see a little case of perverting the course of justice rising up through the filth of the trial. Our man looked up at Meredith again, and I could feel the effort to keep the gloating from his voice.
“If it pleases the court, the two men are at present serving ten years for other rapes and assaults”
Diane spelled out the family links, and after a reasonably restrained cross-examination she was stood down. Next up was the nurse.
“Janice Evelyn Jeffries, Hyfrydle, Whitcliffe Drive, Penarth”
“What is the nature of your employment?”
“Retired now, housewife, innit? I was a nurse in Casualty back then”
“By that, I understand you are speaking of the events of the fourteenth of April nineteen ninety two?
“Aye. Yes”
“What was the nature of your duties that evening?”
“I was triage nurse in Casualty. What they now call A and E, aye? Anybody comes in gets assessed, treated according to urgency”
“Thank you for the explanation. So you would have seen everyone brought in to the unit?”
“Cept when it got busy, and there’s three of us on, and my break of course, but aye”
“Do you recall dealing with a teenaged girl called Diane Owens?”
“Yes. The one who’d been raped by Ashley Evans”
“OBJECTION! It is not for the witness to make such assertions”
Meredith turned to Mrs Jeffries. “I understand how you must feel about such matters, Mrs Jeffries, but I must indeed ask you to leave the verdict to the jury. Pray continue”
A rustle of papers and a cough. “You do remember Diane Owens?”
“Yes, very well. She was in a real state, some hair torn out, bruising to her arms, and, well… she’d a lot of damage to her privates. I got a rape kit out, took some pictures”
“Are these the photographs you took?”
“Yes. That’s them”
“If the court will accept…thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, they are in Bundle A. Mrs Jeffries—“
“Janice, please”
“Janice. What happened to the rape kit?”
“I kept it at home in my freezer”
“Why? Why not deliver such evidence directly to the police who were in attendance?”
“What? After what they said to that poor girl? Watch it disappear so they could pretend it never existed? Do I look stupid?”
“What have you subsequently done with it?”
“Had some real coppers came round, like that cold case thing on the telly, proper policemen, innit, not like those arseholes. Sorry, Your Honour. They got me to sign a statement that I’d given it to them, nice young men. Blake and Alun, they were, don’t recall their surnames”
Good boys.
“No further questions for this witness at the present, Your Honour”
“Can I say something else? Please?”
Meredith frowned. “Something relevant, and perhaps free of profanity?”
“OBJECTION! Witness has not been asked a question”
Frost was palpable in the stare from the Bench. “That was a question from me. Proceed, Janice”
“Thank you, Your Worship. Honour. Just, I’m retired, innit, but I still keep up with my old colleagues, and there was another incident with those two ar—coppers. Was a young girl, not a real girl, though, got a kicking when the bloke she was with found out, he was an Evans as well, and Carol Vaughan, she was there, and it was the same thing, fuck off home, sorry, it’s what they said, fuck off home and keep your mouth shut. Whole family, all the same”
Meredith kept his voice level and low. “These would be the same two policemen who attended Ms Owens?”
“Yes”
“Thank you, Janice. Is Counsel now finished?”
“Yes, Your Honour”
A nod to the Defence.
“Janice—“
“Mrs Jeffries”
The tiniest of smiles from the Bench. “Mrs Jeffries, what is the nature of your husband’s profession?”
“He’s a builder. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Indulge me. Would he perhaps have been in competition with other local firms for contracts?”
“Of course”
“Such as the business owned by the Defendant Ashley Aaron Evans?”
That was the tactic, then. Leave Diane relatively unscathed to avoid losing jury sympathy and mudsling at the main witness. Janice fought back, though, and left the Box with honours just about even. Blake and Alun were next, and then a young man from the forensics lab, who said two things.
There was DNA recoverable from the sample, from two individuals. One was Diane. The other was in the Dock. The Defence argued at length about chain of evidence, commercial jealousy and old grudges, but I was seeing the jury’s eyes tighten with each attempt. They retired, and we went for a meal in the cafeteria and then a pint.
There’s a device used in a lot of films where people join a group one by one as it passes along the street, and that was us. Blake linked arms with Diane, Alun with me, and we were steered directly into the nearest pub, where Chris was waiting along with five other victims of the Evans family, Fahmi, Debbie, Bevan, Wyn…
Diane looked proudly around the lounge. “See this, Lainey? These are survivors, these boys. How could I not do the same? Soon as the jury retired we put the call out, people awaiting the word, innit? This is all your doing, all of this. Even if the bastard walks—“
“He won’t”
“Thanks, Blake. I don’t think so either. His counsel wasn’t exactly walking on water, was he? Funny, that, with all the money he—er---no longer has access to. Anyway, Inspector Powell, we’ve said it before, but there are movers and shakers, and you have moved and shook. Elaine Powell!”
They drank the toast. The jury went to their hotel without a verdict.
CHAPTER 41
The jury weren’t back until the following afternoon, and we lost a lot of our supporters as they had to head off for such things as paid employment or courses of study. Bevan and Wyn stayed, and of course Chris, but it was Blake who surprised me. I cornered Diane in the ladies’.
“Anything I need to know?”
She blushed. “About three months now, seeing how it goes”
“It doesn’t go anywhere till after the verdict. Got me?”
“Yes, Ma’am”
She grinned happily. “Well, it goes to Tunisia in a couple of months, anyway!”
I gave her the obligatory hug, and Blake the eyebrow when we came out, and the kid blushed, for god’s sake. We regrouped the next day, and it was no real surprise that there was now a verdict. I suspected that some of the jurors may have wanted to get the Crown’s money out of the event, with a night in a decent hotel seen as the least they could expect for their inconvenience.
“And have you elected a foreman?”
A skinny man with a dreadful combover replied that they had indeed, found a foreman, and I had to stifle a smirk as I imagined him in some builder’s yard or factory in a scruffy overall.
“And on the charge of rape, how do you find the accused?”
“Guilty, eleven to one”
Meredith coughed. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your service in this matter. You are dismissed. Ashley Aaron Evans, stand. I have given considerable thought to the sentence appropriate in this case, and it will be fifteen years. Fifteen years in which you may consider the damage that you inflicted on the life of an innocent girl, who has shown remarkable fortitude in her recovery from your crime. She serves to counterpoint in her dedication to serving her community the sheer depth of depravity that has been demonstrated by you and your relatives and accomplices. Take him down”
I was ready to rise for his departure, but instead he looked directly at me as Evans was removed.
“Inspector Powell, DC Owens please approach the Bench”
An odd instruction, but he was smiling, and not in a predatory way. He nodded over the usher as we came onto the floor of the Court from the public gallery.
“Norman, be so good as to show these good officers to my chambers. I will attend directly”
Up the stairs, and out through a door I had never, ever passed before, and ten minutes later our judge was with us, wig and robes gone and a tray of tea and biscuits before him.
“Thank you, ladies. I apologise for keeping you here, but I am a curious old man and while I do my best to remain abreast of all events surrounding those I am called upon to try, I feel there is rather a larger picture here than I am yet aware of. This other young lady?”
I couldn’t avoid it. “My sister, your honour”
“Ah. A transsexual if I recall correctly. I remember the newspaper reports. These police officers: they would be involved in the recent series of rapes of young men in the Cardiff area?”
I nodded. “Absolutely, your honour. My team did a superb job, but I had to take a back seat when, well, one of the culprits was another member of the family, and, simply put, my sister had met him”
“Ah. Rather compromising. Tell me, why was there only the one crime laid before Mr Evans senior’s jury? I would rather have expected a perverting the course to have accompanied it”
Diane smiled. “Oh, I can answer that one, your honour. We’re still awaiting HMRC’s trawl through his finances to come to a conclusion, but we rather felt that it would be nice to get the lovely man banged away while they took their time. My boss has got someone on the perverting case already, but we also want to get the other two men tied into it. Get them for Lainey’s sister, too, get them nice and tight and stitched up and key thrown away. Er, your honour”
He laughed warmly. “So further enquiries are in progress? Excellent! Now, shall I be Mother? Milk?”
We left there an hour later in a slightly shocked state. I had never been spoken to by a judge that way, never seen one as clearly involved in a case. Diane was sensible enough to see that it was something we didn’t really need to share, and I even hesitated before telling my sweet red-haired woman. We lay in bed that night, and one thing led to another as I mentioned the Blake-Diane thing and Siân filled me in on the latest Vicky gossip, which of course led us on to the elephant in the room.
I held her to me as her tears dried, and she murmured how well she knew that she wasn’t alone in her need. Vicky, little Jim, drip by drip it was wearing away her soul, and mine with it. She moved herself round to a more comfortable position, her head on my shoulder and right arm across me.
“There is a way, Lainey. I mean, not like Kev, aye? Not into men, are we? Or letting men into us”
I always knew when she was getting serious, for the crap jokes would come out, anything she could use to avoid the point. She got there, though.
“We could ask for a donation”
“Ah. Kev would do that?”
“No, cariad. Wouldn’t be fair, aye? Vicky and him, joined at the hip, and I know she loves us both, but it would still be a kid, or kids… It would still be a kid that could have been hers, theirs together”
“You’re thinking about Tony, aren’t you?”
A very, very soft “Yes”
She lifted her head up to look me in the eyes, arguments marshalling in her own, and I put a finger to her lips.
“I understand, cariad. Sarah can’t, aye? He’s got Jim, and, well, we will have to work out the basics, all that shit. What if he wants access? Or custody? What do we tell the little ones?”
She smiled. “We talk to our sister, and we talk to the man who has shown how big his heart is, aye? We let them choose. And if we do… if we do get what we need, then how could we not be proud to tell any child who their father was, and show them Tony, and say ‘That is what a man can be, should be’. But we speak to them as a couple. This is about family”
“Not long to the wedding”
“We ask when we go over there, then”
She giggled. “Catch them with their guard down, aye? Elaine Powell, have I said that I love you recently?”
I kissed her, which seemed appropriate, and, well, I put the laundry on before I went off to work the next day.
I got a cryptic text from Sar a few days later, which I managed to puzzle out as there being no worries about Steph-the-former-Steve in respect of Hywel, which removed one worry, but when the day finally came for our trip to Dover I was a bag of nerves. We sent a few days helping Mam and Dad to get Sar’s marital-to-be home in some sort of order, but I couldn’t relax, and Sar noticed.
She caught the two of us while Dad was out and Mam in the kitchen, and it was the new Sar that spoke, the hard-edged and almost aggressive one
“What is up with you two? I am the one who is supposed to be nervous, but you two are twitching every time I get anywhere near you! Talk, or I cut off the chocolate supply”
I looked at my wife, and she was almost in tears. I took her hand and gave it a squeeze: partners now, partners always.
“It is not the easiest subject in the world, chwaer fychan. You do know, I mean you joked about it years ago, that neither of us is really in line to give them grandkids. Yes, I know they have taken Jim to their hearts, but… shit, we’ve been talking, the two of us, and well, we might be dykes, but we are still women. We don’t go all bloke just because we prefer someone a bit less hairy.”
“So?”
“I think you’ve sort of guessed….”
“You want a kid. I can’t see why you are so nervous, it’s a great idea”
“Actually, we were sort of hoping for a matched pair”
She gave us a delightfully warm smile, the whole of her face lighting up. “You will make two old people very happy if you do, girls. What are you going to do? Sperm donor?”
“Sort of…. the turkey baster route and a friend suits us better. We get to pick the genes, sort of thing”
Just a moment, and then the entire Royal Mint clearly dropped for her.
“You are fucking joking!”
“No, Sar, we aren’t. I can’t think of a better man, in so many ways. Obviously, there would be no financial cost to him, and any child would be a Powell”
She sat, stunned, for a minute or two, obviously working out all the angles. This was a woman transformed from the wreckage we had pulled from a two-bedroomed flat. She set her face, stared hard at me, then gave a sharp nod.
“Girls, I’ll run it past him, but, really, I don’t know what the answer will be. I find it odd enough, and it’s not my precious bodily fluids you are after”
She went off to help Mam, and I disengaged Siân’s hand from mine in the interests of maintaining the circulation. Watch and wait, love, watch and pray.
The rest of the family arrived next day, Uncle Arwel having secured a bloody bus for the purpose, and we then met up with more of Sar’s own friends, including a brunette called Bev who was apparently seeing that lad Andy we had met in Canterbury. That of course meant a hen night, and it was in Folkestone, just along the coast. I had to cover my wife’s eyes again when Ellie appeared, as I could see absolutely no reason that she was able to keep her chest inside her top. I caught a look from Arris just then, and it was clear she remembered that day we had brought my sister back from the darkness. I reached out to her for a squeeze of her hand, and she simply nodded and said “Circles, Lainey. Cycles. We live for the highs, and we keep each other sane for the lows. You getting pissed tonight?”
“Absolutely!”
Our uncle dropped us off in Folkestone, and Sar led the way to the obvious starting point, a Wetherspoon’s that had probably been an old bank, and the drinking began. I could see the plan unfolding, with an all-you-can-eat buffet place just down the road, and blessed my, er, years of professional experience. We were only one drink in when Sar screamed and leapt from her seat, which brought a rather more professional reaction from me, but she was pushing her way over to a tall and bony redhead in a green dress over cropped leggings.
“Steph! Sut wyt ti?”
Ah. Hywel’s old opponent, no doubt. Sar was bubbling away.
“Everyone, this is Steph, colleague of Tone’s, from down West by Treffgarne, aye? Steph, my big sis Lainey and her wife Siân, my best friend in the world apart from Tone Arris, and the rest can introduce themselves if they can be arsed. Pint?”
“Wrth gwrs. How much for the whip?”
One of Sar’s friends jerked at that, and Sar gave her the most innocent of smiles. “Whip round, Anne. Kitty for the beer. Tenner for now, Steph. Anyone else?”
The rest is a sort of blur for some reason. My sister, the clever girl, had allowed two days for the hangover to clear. I needed both of them. Never, ever again, Lainey: do NOT try to keep up with Customs Officers in a drinking session.
Mam still did bacon sandwiches.
CHAPTER 42
Now, that was a wedding. The only tradition not observed seemed to be that of a fight among the guests, but I could most definitely live without that. My Uncle Arwel and his Boy had even had their hair cut! The girls looked gorgeous, and so did my wife, Steve was both touching and funny in his best man’s speech, and whoever came up with the idea of putting him in a kilt was inspired. The vicar, oddly, in an Anglican church, was a Roman Catholic, but he was sharp, and funny, and his own humour meshed well with that of Steve.
Speeches, nosh, booze, and time for the wedding dress to disappear. My little sister obviously intended to get deep down and seriously dirty, and the dancing began as she intended it to carry on.
She had done the polite thing, and actually spoken to my mother-in-law, who was staying in a guest house on the Folkestone Road, as far away from the pubs as we could find one, the miserable hypocrite. Sarah had insisted she be invited, but thank god she wasn’t hanging around for the Satanic Rock Rituals and alcoholic over-indulgence the rest of us were so eager to start. Of course, in her case ‘over-indulgence’ meant any consumption at all. Dim ots, and good riddance for a few hours at least. The disco was not too bad, the priest dancing in a bloody proper waltz with little Jim’s head teacher, and even the men were up. What exactly Dad and Uncle Arwel thought they were doing I don’t know, but it looked almost painful.
Arwel ended up sending a lot of time chatting with Alice, of all people, which pleased me, as she was one of my main worries. I had to drive the newly-weds to the airport the next day, so I was counting units to stay under the limit, and that in turn meant I had most of my work head on. It didn’t stop me from taking a little walk outside as my sister danced with her husband; there was a little recess away from the street lights where I could let the tears out.
Sam had never, ever been real. I had known that for years, but Sar had almost slipped away from me just as she showed how much a fiction my ‘brother’ had been. I watched them now, eyes only for each other, and it was so right it hurt. There were other couples in there just as close and clear in their affection and love, but this was my sister and my new brother. Sar had done the impossible, in taking away Mam and Dad’s son and handing them back a daughter and a new son, not to mention a grandson as a bonus.
Siân found me, as always, and held me close. I was supposed to be the strong one, but it was ever the other way with her, my love, my bedrock. She wiped my face before kissing me.
“Come on, cariad. That priest, Pat, he’s seeing the kids away, eh? Band’s about to start, so we need to have a bit of a bop and put the smiley face on. Sarah’s day”
She was right, of course. I stole another kiss and she drew me back into the sports club.
I forgot my worries when I saw what was happening on the little stage, where Sarah’s ginger friend was standing holding a violin, nodding as the band cranked out the intro to a track from one of my sister’s favourite albums, till she tore into a truly superb lead break, bouncing off the guitarist. Absolute class! It was a rocky enough tune to get most folk onto the floor, apart from Hywel, who seemed to have gone missing, and Steph was tearing up the track as if she was on serious drugs. Bugger me, she was good, but there was something in her face that scared me, a palpable, almost violent, hunger.
When she did Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ I just HAD to get up and get into the music. I mean, I’d paid good money for worse gigs! I looked for Sarah a few times, and she was gone, gone, gone, head back, eyes closed, and rocking out. I was surprised to see her husband sitting it out, just watching her with the softest, dampest smile on his face, but most definitely with his eyes on her arse.
Steph finished her little set, bowed to the applause and then earned another round with a public display of affection with her husband that was utterly immodest, and I got a nudge in the ribs from my sister.
“Hywel’s pulled”
“Eh?”
“Didn’t realise Suzy was so loud. They’re getting to know each other in the ladies’. Siân, you have a filthy mind and you are absolutely correct”
All traditions observed indeed! I had a quick look round for any issues as the band finished, and---Arwel? Kissing Alice’s cheek? Oh shit. I mean, he had to know, but, bugger.
“Siân, you OK for a bit?”
“Aye, Problem?”
“Don’t know yet. Be back in a minute, aye?”
I collared him over by the bar, as ever, even if it was now closed.
“And? You know about her”
“Eh? Who?”
“Don’t be an arsehole. Alice. You kissed her”
He gave me a Look that knocked my own into a dark corner, shaking in its inadequacy.
“Aye, I did. And? I had a good night tonight, and she is an easy one to talk to, especially when the Boy is off with some tart or other”
“You know what she is. You trying to piss her about?”
He sighed, and shook his head. “Lainey, come and sit down. Still got a pint to finish, aye? Sar’s day, no spoiling it, innit?”
I followed him to his table, where he pushed a stool over to me before settling down onto another and picking up his drink. As he sipped, he gave me a sideways look over the rim of his glass, conversation halted for the beer.
“Elaine, what is Alice? Man or woman?”
“You know the answer to that one”
“Man or woman?”
“Bloody woman, all right?”
He took another sip. “Aye. Looks like a man in a dress, wir, but talks like a woman. Whose day is this, if not Sarah’s? Do you see me wanting to spoil it all for her?”
“No, but—“
“Remember what I said back at the Oak, aye? Can’t be doing with nancy boys. Can’t deal with that silliness, and I look at Sarah and she is so right in her skin, true to herself and that man of hers, he is a good man, and I am proud to count him nephew. This Alice, she looks like shit, doesn’t she? No, just nod”
I did, and he smiled. “Sar’s day it is, and a friend of my girl she is, this Alice. So I will deal with her as I find her, and there’s no nancy there, no man, so forget your work for tonight and trust your family. Aye? AYE?”
Defeated, I nodded, and he took another sip.
“Still wouldn’t give her one, though. The Boy finished, you think?”
I gave up. He lived in his own world of skewed morality and byzantine logic, but if it kept Alice safe, fine. I got back into my best smiling mode for my sister’s sake, and helped her sort out the taxis and other transport for our very extended list of family and friends, before we set off on the short walk back to the marital home.
Big men can sometimes be so tender, and as I watched Steve and Tony it was as if the world had decided to remind me that just because I didn’t fancy them, men weren’t something to be despised or hated, and that brought thoughts of how impossible it could ever be to hate Dad, and once more I looked at Arwel’s behaviour, and wondered.
I got a shock when we arrived, because the babysitter seemed to have had other ideas on his mind, rather frowned on in a priest, but we covered him with a blanket, him and the head teacher wrapped round his sleeping body, and took ourselves off to bed after a quick check on the children. I don’t know what exactly was niggling me, but my dreams were clear and memorable, and involved Uncle Arwel and Alice, the latter in a full-steam meringue of a wedding dress, and I resolved to drink more next time and leave someone else to do the taxi service. Breakfast was a busy time, but we had thoughtfully invited Mam to the do, so everything was done with speed and efficiency, as well as in some considerable quantity. Janet, Jim’s head, seemed a little embarrassed, and there was obviously a lot unspoken between the priest and my sister, but it was their business. We got through the morning, the newlyweds said their farewells, and I got us out of the town. Once I was on the A2, I couldn’t hold it any more.
“Fuck me, chwaer, what the hell was going on there with the priest?”
“Two lonely people getting some warmth, was all”
Her husband nodded. “I can see now where I was getting the ‘bollocks’ signals from. I think she was about to have a breakdown, that’s why I was thinking there was a lie in there. Poor girl”
‘Bollocks signals’? Sarah sighed. “What to do, love? I think we have no choice but to keep quiet and let them sort it out”
He was nodding again, and Siân slipped her own oar in. “I don’t know them any better than you, but they obviously care for each other. Nothing we can do but step away a little and watch their backs for them”
I looked over at Tony, sat in front with me for the legroom, and raised an eyebrow before turning my attention back to the road.
“Bollocks, big man?”
“Yeah. She was very quick to tell all to my lovely wife here, and it didn’t sit right with me. Why was she opening up so quickly after so many years living in stealth? I didn’t trust her, that’s all”
My own wife squeezed his shoulder. “Not everyone’s as lucky as Sar, aye? Not too many men around with the depth of soul you have—no, take a bloody compliment, aye? I mean, apart from Dad, and that Geoff…”
And could that include my uncle? Watch and wait, Lainey, as ever.
I got us to the airport without too much time sitting in motorway queues, and found the short-term car park, which would be fine as long as neither of us wanted to eat for the next month, the charges being what they were. Couple checked in, bags dropped off, a hug before security, and my wife had the tissues.
Bring her back safe, Tone.
CHAPTER 43
He did, or so Mam told me the day after.
“She’s really found a good man, Lainey. And that boy will grow up sound as well. We have hope now, after so long. Your Dad and I, well, Twmi can be very soft at times. We have sent flowers to Alison and her husband. They will understand why”
“And you got the discount from Ellie?”
Mam laughed happily. “And you assumed your mother was stupid as well as old, aye? Now, we have also spent time with that Alice, and Sarah seems to have been fortunate in at least some of her friends. We would do something for her”
“You say ‘her’ so easily now, Mam”
“Eh? And she is something other than a woman. Arwel was asking after her this morning”
Tread gently, girl. “And?”
"He would have our grandson visit for a longer stay than last time, to show him where his family is from”
“And you say that so easily as well, Mam”
She was quiet for a while, and then much softer in her speech. “It was always the worst thing, Elaine. We were slow to see, slow to accept, but Sarah is what she is and as she should be, aye? Samuel was never really there, and, well, how could we not love Siân as you do? But you both brought a halt to our family, an end, and it hurt. And suddenly, there is my Twmi, with a boy who needs a story for his sleep and a shoulder to ride on, and all things are as they should be. Yes, Elaine. Our family, our grandson”
She paused, and then softly added “And leave your uncle alone, girl”
Shit. “When are they coming?”
“In a few weeks, once they can arrange the time off. Sarah has already had a holiday, of course! We will let you know when we find out. Arwel has Plans”
Oh did he? Leave it, Elaine. I was back to work, now, back in my old place, my lovely team under new direction, but the legacy of the two cases was some serious waves. Someone in the Assembly had clearly been watching too much television, or perhaps just enough, and they were being groomed and funded exactly as the hints had been, a national resource for us and available (for a small fee, naturally) to assist the benighted foreigners the other side of the bridge. As for myself, I could have screamed. Administration. I ask you!
Wyn had sniggered. “Think about it, Elaine. I told you that I see you progressing, I said it years ago, and I was right. I know you are a street copper, as they might say in America, a thief taker, but this is CV material. A Chief needs to have many strings. You’ve effectively written the book on the investigation side, but it’s all about budgets”
My body language must have been obvious, for he sighed and shook his head. “Elaine, it IS all about money. You made that unit, you showed what could be done, and they’ve got their own national budget now. What happens when some politician decides that our time is better spent on vote catching, aye? Cyclists on the footpath, noisy parties?”
“I’d argue hard against that. We’re not politicians”
“Elaine, we are not, but our masters are. If you are to progress you need to understand the ins and outs of administration. If you are to argue effectively against some reptile of a vote grabber, you need to know how it works. That’s why you are now going to handle the force overtime budget”
There was more to the conversation than that, but a lot of it was spoken entirely within my own head, including all of the swearing. I could see his point, of course, but that hardly helped. I went home that evening ready to kick the cat we didn’t have.
He was, of course, right. The actual financial mechanics were handled by civilian support staff, and that left me free to concentrate on priorities. By that I actually mean deciding what area was more important than another, and realising that ‘important’ didn’t always mean what I thought it did, and that I couldn’t always get my own way.
I was deep in the middle of some argument about ‘bobbies on the beat’ on foot rather than in cars, explaining yet again how having a foot patrol near a pub where a brawl was likely didn’t help when the actual fighting started at another pub five or more miles away, when the phone rang on my desk. Yes, I now had a bloody desk, in an office, with a name plate on the door.
“Inspector Powell? I have your mother for you”
“Thanks, Adele. Hi, Mam, They set a date then?”
“Detective, aren’t you? Yes, they will come in ten days, and they will be bringing friends. That woman who plays the violin, and that other woman who got to know your cousin at the wedding. Suzy”
She dropped her voice, as I suspect Dad may have been nearby. “In the ladies’, wir! Hywel has no shame!”
I laughed out loud at that one, imagining my mother’s blushes. She might be able to cope with transsexuals, accept them as women, but she was still a woman of her time, and a modest one.
“Where will they stay, Mam?”
“Well, my daughter, son in law and our grandson will stay here, of course! There will be that Alice, Hywel’s … friend and Tony’s Mam to put up”
“Siân and I can cope, Mam. Can you let Sar know?”
“Sarah had other news as well. I believe you remember that man we met in Canterbury at Christmas, Andy? His woman is pregnant”
Hit me where it hurts, Mam, just one more time. “This is the man who was so nice to Alice?”
“Yes. They will be married before the child is born, so he is as moral as people are today”
I could say nothing to that one, given the circumstances of so many of our family. I sent my wife a short e-mail after we finished the call, and then rang Hywel.
“I want some promises, dear cousin. You watch your Dad round that Alice, aye? And you watch yourself round that Stephanie”
“Bloody hell, Lainey. You think we’re both thick, or what?”
“I know you two. You might not be that stupid, but you’ve never let thought get in the way of anything you do”
“Oh, bugger off, aye? That girl, Suzy, you said she’d be over too?”
“Of, for fuck’s sake! Sorry, Adele!”
Her voice was faint through the door. “Too many years on the bike, Inspector, aye? Forget the volume control”
“Aye. Sorry. Hywel, don’t get me swearing, my secretary doesn’t like it. What’s with this Suzy?”
“Don’t know yet. Find out when she comes. Got space for her if she wants, aye?”
“Oh, fu-- add her to the list, aye? Think before, that’s all I ask. What’s the plan?”
“Dad’s got the Rugby Club to save us some space for a meal, and he wants to do a grand tour thing, down Bosherston and that. Show his boy the best bits”
“His boy?”
“Aye, Jim. They bringing the dog?”
“Priorities. I should think so, as there’ll be nobody at the house, Alice and Enid coming, innit?”
“Aye. So your turn, girl, to keep your mouth shut and your nose out. Time for you to show Dad some bloody trust, aye?”
“She’s still---“
“Shut it and leave it, Lainey. Dad’s business, his alone”
Ten days would pass far too slowly, I realised. I ended that call and the phone went as soon as I put the handset down. Who the hell was it now?”
“Call from Cardiff for you, Inspector”
“Ta Adele. Inspector Powell, how can I help you?”
“Lainey!”
“Diane! Thank everything, a voice of bloody sanity at last! I heard about the national funding. How is everybody?”
She nattered on for what seemed like an hour about the team, and obviously one in particular, and jobs they had been given. I got the usual second-hand greetings from everyone, including Chris, and then there was a pause in her prattle.
“Diane, I know that sort of pause. I know you. There’s something else, isn’t there?”
There was a long sigh at the other end of the line. “Aye, Lainey, you do know me, far too well. Yes, and it’s not good. Do you remember a Sergeant Price?”
How could I ever forget that one? Kevin had been so lucky in where he ended up that day, far away from the screaming and that tiny, tiny corpse.
“Di. What’s happened to him?”
“Got the word back from his new nick, innit? Had another really shitty one, and broke down. Gone indoors after gardening leave, aye?”
Gardening leave: where to lose someone you want to keep when keeping them at work will make their loss a certainty. “What was it, Diane? An RTA?”
“That’s why I’m calling you, Lainey. Someone you know was involved in it. No, not like that! She organised finding the people to blame, or at least helped a lot. Woman was chased off a motorway bridge, over the rail and under the traffic. Adam was on scene”
I suddenly realised she was weeping. “He’s a good man, Lainey. This happened ages ago, and nobody here knew anything. How do we lose a friend like that, lose them so easily? The shit he’s had. Look, you know that Woodruff woman, aye? Could you have words? She lives near his nick. We don’t want to ring up, stir things, aye? Just let him know he’s not forgotten”
Oh shit. My plate was getting very full indeed. “I will do what I can, Di. Give my best to everyone, aye? I’ll try and arrange a trip over, have a few beers and a curry, catch up. Do it soon, aye?”
“Yeah. Sorry”
“Never, ever say that for being the person you are, for caring, aye? Soon, girl”
I sat for a while, remembering a fellow police officer sat by the side of a busy road, sobbing, and resolved to see what I could do for him. Shitty, shitty world.
The appointed day duly arrived, and after unloading the Old Biddy car, as Alice called it, we were off round the rugby club, and it was a lovely warm evening. Siân kept breaking into giggles at Sar’s friend, who had gone all out on the seduction front, and I am sure her feet were in agony by the end of the night. I totally disregarded Hywel’s instructions to have a go at his dad, but all I got was a flat stare, and then he simply walked past me. When my uncle was like that, it was impossible to talk to him, Stiff-necked old bastard.
Aunty Gwen and Uncle Gethin were better, and the way they fawned over the newlyweds was astonishingly normal. I took a few minutes to get Sar and Tony to one side, Mam’s news slicing into my heart. Tony was clearly shocked. Sarah was as direct as ever
“We need to talk, you three, while we have the time and are sober enough. Tony, I’m going to get straight to the point: these two are broody, and are hoping to sort that out. They want to know if you will consider knocking them up”
I had to laugh at that one. “You don’t mince words, do you, chwaer fychan?”
Tony was pale under his honeymoon tan. “Can I assume that this little project will not involve me actually doing the, er, knocking? Do I get a say?”
I stood as calmly as I could while Sarah went through the proposal. Tony was quiet for a couple of minutes, and we left him to think it through. He had a question.
“What happens if I decide I would like to be a dad to my own child? I would love to help, obviously, or perhaps not so obviously, but…”
My wife was crushing my hand. I gathered my words carefully, for that had always been the critical issue.
“You would always have access. We would sign any agreement you wanted, we just think that if we are going to pick any man, we want one we know, trust and love.”
To my astonishment, he was close to tears. “You know who Jim is? He is the only thing I have left of my Annie, and if I could have given him a brother or sister …we were never given the opportunity. If he could have a cousin, or two, perhaps….”
He shook himself. “Let me think. This is a big thing, and if we do it, it must be right. Look, there’s Steph. Let’s go and feed, and please, for now, change the subject”
Crap again, two to head off, father and son, and now she was here. Before I could get there, Hywel was speaking to her, and there was a kaleidoscope of emotions running over her face. Her husband tensed, and I knew that expression from too many fights, but suddenly Hywel was hugging her, and I wound back the work thoughts. By the time I was with them, they were deep into rugby anecdotes, and Hywel took his chance to flash me his own flat stare: how dare I distrust my family?
I managed to get Steph to one side, eventually, when she stopped talking rugby with Hywel and visited the ladies’.
“Got a question for you, girl. Had a call a few days ago, from a colleague. She tells me you were very helpful in a murder case over---shit, I’ll hold your hair”
I put some paper towels under her knees while she was sick again, and then dug some wet wipes from my handbag. “You OK now?”
She was horribly pale. “Mel Stevens. I was sick at the trial as well. Please don’t bring this up---I mean mention it—to Geoff”
She shuddered again, wet eyes off in the past. “It was awful. What’s your interest, Elaine?”
“Colleague was at the scene. Just heard he had a breakdown, aye?”
She nodded. “Not surprising. She was a mess even before the lorries and cars hit her. Please, not today. If I can, I’ll ask about your friend, but let’s leave her in peace for today. Please”
I made my promise, and we walked back out into the sunshine, the details of that woman’s death left for another day. Poor Adam.
CHAPTER 44
In the end, our visitors did indeed get Arwel’s Grand Tour and I stayed as far away from Alice and Arwel as I could, even tugging Sar away once or twice. Nothing to see, move along now. I got the call two weeks after they had all gone back East.
“Inspector Powell, how can I help you?”
“Sut wyt ti, Elaine?”
I switched languages. “Sh’mae, Steph. Beth wyt ti’n eisiau?”
“Did some asking round about that copper friend of yours. Bit of a mess, but by luck she’d already ended up with my old shrink, therapist, woman called Sally. Sal doesn’t break too many confidences, but she has stretched it a bit this time. Slow suicide by lifestyle, she says”
“Shit. He’s a good man, Steph. I was at one of his nasties myself, and when I say nasty you don’t really need any more detail than that”
“I was at the trial for the last one, Elaine. I had more detail there than I will ever want again”
“What’s the score then?”
“She’s got a friend, stepped in and sort of shook the tree. Scary woman, but her wife is a doctor, old friend of Sal’s, and Sal got her husband involved, he knows a bit about PTSD stuff. She’s coming back, Elaine”
Something in the conversation wasn’t making sense. “Steph, you are losing me. I assume from what you said that his friend is on the same bus as me and Siân, aye?”
“Yes, exactly”
“And the friend’s wife called your shrink in as a favour? And using her husband to help? Right so far?”
“Absolutely”
“Well, who in hell is coming back from where?”
There was a call from the front of my office. Adele.
“I know Welsh swearing as well, Inspector Powell!”
“Mae’n flin ‘da fi! Er, sorry! Steph, I’m lost here. What’s happening with Adam? Is he out of the woods?”
“She’s called Annie, Elaine”
I apologised to Adele once more after a word left my lips without asking my mind for permission.
“Steph, you are serious?”
“Absolutely. She’s been fighting it all her life, same as the rest of us. Doesn’t leave much room for dealing with what you call her nasties. Sal’s got her talking and her mad friend is doing the lifestyle and exercise thing. That’s what I meant about ‘coming back’. That was one thing I was going to ask as a favour: Sarah. At some point, I think it might help her if he can see how many of us can come through and find a decent life”
Not the girl who went off that bridge, though. I kept that thought to myself. “Lots of stuff going on at the moment. I’ll let Sarah know nearer the time, aye? I know my sister, and she’ll be like a mother hen, rushing straight in. Let Adam—Annie—let her find her feet first. You talking to her?”
“Going to get her to come round for some music at some point. Supposed to be hot stuff with the woodwind; see if we can’t find something we can play together. What?”
I had started to laugh as she said that. “Something you can beat her into submission with, aye?”
She sniffed loudly. “So I get a little absorbed in my playing. Don’t get many complaints”
“You mean you don’t hear them on whatever planet you go to!”
She started laughing as well. I liked this woman; there was a real soul to her.
“Steph, I know I don’t need to ask, but please: keep an eye on her. She’s one of the white hats”
“Elaine, I promise. She’s in good hands with Sal and Stewie. I’ll keep you up to date. Got to go’ due on shift in an hour”
“Please, Steph. Call me if you need me”
Bloody hell. I dialled again.
“Serious Crime Review Office…”
“Di? Lainey. Just been talking to one of my sister’s friends. Can you talk?”
“No worries, Lainey. Just me in today, all the others out on an old rape case”
“Nobody we know and love?”
“Need to know, Inspector Powell, need to know, but no. There are more arseholes in the male population than that family”
I had to laugh at that one. Sometimes life and the Job brought you blinkers. “Had a word from someone in England, aye?”
“Aye. Yes. About Adam?”
No, not now, girl. “Absolutely. No secrets; you were spot on, Di. Bad way, aye? Turned out the friend was involved in the same mess afterwards, so she needed no telling about the choice of outcomes”
“Management bullshit from you now, Inspector Powell?”
“Well, goes with the turf, I’m afraid. They’ve got me doing the overtime budgets”
“Ouch. This friend?”
“Girl from over here, friend of Sar’s, aye? Sound as. Anyway, seems Adam has his own friends, and good ones. You were right to be worried, girl, but he’s getting back up now. They’ve even got him lined up to play folk music”
“Thought you said they were friends, Lainey. Bloody hell!”
“Whatever it takes, aye? Want me to pass on your regards?”
“Er… I’ll think on that one”
“Talk to me, Diane! Ah. A good bloke, you said? Bit more than that?”
She sighed heavily at the other end of the phone. “No, not really. Well, not actually, but I did sort of hope, innit?”
“And Blake? They’re not exactly from the same mould, is it? What I remember of Adam he wasn’t exactly Mr Six Pack, and Blake, well, no midget, is he?”
“Ah, Lainey…”
“Di? You OK?”
“Lainey, a second or two, aye? Thank fuck the rest are out. Look, it’s self-confidence, innit? Blake, well, if it wasn’t for what we’ve been through, us, you, the team, no way could I go near him. Big man, big personality”
“Hard bastard, aye?”
“Aye. But that’s not what he is, is it? I mean, he doesn’t hang back, and he takes no crap, but he’s Job, he’s serve and protect, and I mean protect, aye? You should have seen his face when he realised who that little shit was, the one who pissed himself. He worships you, Lainey. But Adam… When he was here, it wasn’t like that. I mean, he was always fit, lovely bum with the cycling, but it wasn’t that.
“Shit, look. After what happened to me, that bastard, someone like Blake, I couldn’t even have spoken to him, innit? Adam, dunno, you could just talk to him. He was almost like a girlfriend, that way. I mean, I don’t mean, I mean not like Chris, aye? I don’t mean gay man stuff, and anyway he got married to that English tart, so he wasn’t, but, well. I could have, yeah? I just didn’t have the guts to ask him, and then it was too late”
“And Blake? Second best, is it?”
“You are a teasing cow, Inspector Powell. You know that. Just, you wonder, aye? What ifs? Well, it’s academic now, but, well, I cared for him here and that doesn’t go away. Just let me know he’s OK when you can”
What to say? Well, not now. Later, perhaps, but Annie had her feet to find and a life to begin again. I promised myself I would be there for that as I gave the same thoughts to Diane, but carefully censored. I ended up thinking of Tony’s comments about his own Annie, and my sister, and how he would make no choice between them, no preference, because such a thing was moot and would always remain so. He had loved his first wife, he loved the second one.
“Di, I promise. Are you sure you don’t want me to pass on your best?”
“No, Lainey. Just, well, just tell him he’s not been forgotten over here, and that people still like to know old friends are OK. If you can do that, perhaps he’ll understand”
“I’m sure he will”
“Thanks, love. I mean that word, Lainey”
“I know, Di. We’ll catch up properly. Get Chris and the rest all together, go out and repaint Cardiff”
“Pink or red?”
“Do I care which, as long as there’s beer involved? Later, Di!”
Oh for the simple life.
Steph rang again a month later. “We had that musical session, Elaine. She’s good. Bit rusty, but real talent”
“How’s she doing?”
“Oh, Sal and Stewie have her well in hand, and her girlfriend is definitely worth getting to know. Solid girl, that one. Really cares for Annie”
“Thought you said the friend was married?”
“Eh? Oh! No, girl friend, friend who is a girl, I meant. No, from what I saw Annie’s most definitely a straight girl. In fact, if I wasn’t married, well, I’d be tempted. She brought tow blokes to the house for the session, the strumpet”
“Seriously, Steph? How is she doing?”
“Simple terms? She picked up what I only heard described, and she’s still with us. Real strength there. More than that, she’s got a solid base of friends. I’ve got her lined up for a sort of dance concert thing, so steady as she goes for now. What is it you aren’t telling me?”
“Quite simple, really. Person who gave me the news is, was, one of my coppers, and she had the hots for him when he was here. Her”
“Er, no. Not a snowball’s. Look, do you want to come over some time, meet her?”
“Not just yet, aye? Let her find her feet first”
I closed down that call, and the bastard rang again. “Inspector Powell”
“Lainey!”
“Tone?”
“Can you get over? Alice is hurt!”
CHAPTER 45
“What’s happened, Tony?”
“Head injury, breaks all over. Hit by a car”
“Calm, love. Calm. Where is she?”
“Our local hospital. Mum’s with her, and Sar, but she’s in a right state”
“Tone, go and look after them, aye? I’ll make some calls. Who have you rung so far?”
“Just you, Lainey. She’s—“
“Tony, love, get back to your family, aye? I will sort”
“Thanks, love”
I rang off before I officially heard his tears start and dialled the first number.
“Lainey? Problem?”
“Aye, my sweet. Can you get a couple of days off, now-ish? Alice is in hospital, hit by a car. We need someone to get over and I can’t get out of a meeting today”
Siân was silent for a few seconds. “Sounds bad. We were going to be out with Kev and Vicky tomorrow. I’ll sort that one out; what about your uncle?”
“What about him?”
“Bloody hell you can be blind sometimes, and deliberately it is I am sure! He can drive me; you follow when you can. I’ll call him myself. Shit!”
Another call, and Mam was clearly straight into tears. One old woman had obviously touched my family more deeply than I had realised, and not just my uncle.
“Elaine, your Dad and I will drive over as soon as we can, aye? Have you told your uncle yet?”
“Siân has that in hand, Mam. I’ll get over tomorrow; things I can’t get out of”
“Give them our love. Now, go and do what you need to but keep us up to date when you can. And don’t push your uncle”
I was out of touch after that, the miles unwinding behind me as I drove east. Sarah’s mate Andy was at the house with his new wife, and to my astonishment he threw himself at me for a hug before bursting into tears. They had Jim with them, and a noisy dog, but there was a darkness in their eyes that spoke of pain and fear. Bev, the chunky brunette, filled me in.
“Siân’s up the hospital with Arwel. Still early days, but I think Tony’s mum is near collapse. We’re about to eat, so we’ll go up together if you like”
“What actually happened?”
“Car jumped a red, knocked Alice into the middle of next week. Lots of breaks, but she hit her head on the door pillar and, well, there’s damage”
Shit and damnation. "How much?”
“Don’t know. Andy, put kettle on? Ta”
She waited till he was gone, and then whispered to me “Alice saved him from a false rape claim some years ago. He would do anything for her, anything at all, and…”
Her own tears were hanging. “I knew I had found a decent man, Elaine, but now I know I found a GOOD one, yeah? Keep it light, please”
As he returned from the kitchen, she spoke normally. “Shit driving the car punched Sarah in the face, so she’s a bit bruised, but there was a copper on scene and they used what they said was reasonable force, if you catch my drift. Alice is a popular woman in Canterbury”
“I will demonstrate reasonable force, aye?”
Andy laughed, which seemed to ease his soul a little. “Think your uncle’s got that one covered, Elaine! Scary man! Now, practicalities. Not being funny, but are you here for a while? We both have work to cover, and Jim, well, he’s lovely, but…”
Bev took his hand. “Not like that, Elaine. We’ve set up a sort of watch roster, one or more of us at the bedside all of the time, but it is nice to be at home, and…”
“No worries, and thank you. Jim’s grandparents are over in a couple of days, and me and my lovely girl will be here, so thank you. True friends you are”
Andy looked at his own woman and smiled, before turning back to me. “Family is what we are, Elaine. If it wasn’t for Alice, some of us might not be here. Oh, I was going to talk some crap about paying debts, but families don’t have debts, do they? You should just be there when you’re needed, when you can be. Now, I think my job is to go out that door. Chip run: what do you want?”
Jim came in with two mugs of tea. “Can I have nuggets, Uncle Andy?”
“You can, young man. Elaine?”
“Haddock, if they have it. Want some cash?”
“And how much have you just spent on petrol, you and your uncle? Back in ten”
Jim went for the other cup, and I looked at Bev and gave her the best smile I could find. “Good men are hard to find, but, well, aye”
She timed “And even better when they are good and hard” for my first sip, the cow.
Mam and Dad were true to their word a couple or three days later, and I was able to take a step back. I hate hospitals, I really do, for every time I enter a ward it is Sar I see in the bed, or Omar, or Chris. I have visions of Diane there, too, and the hatred for that entire family brings bile to my throat. I wanted to know about this driver. I wanted his balls, and I wanted to get to them before Arwel did.
When I first entered the little room Alice looked a mess, which is a really obvious thing to say, but it was true. Her head was immobilised and covered in yards of bandage, there were wires and tubes everywhere including down her throat, and pieces of miniature scaffolding were sticking out of her limbs. My wife was with me, and her arms were warm, and her hair was familiar as I buried my face in it, and they were the only things that kept me from my own tears. Family, Andy had said. My sister had a black eye and a fat lip, but she wasn’t the broken doll that Joe Evans had left behind, the debris Pritchard and his bastard friend had spat on. Sarah was fighting now, clearly scared but still showing that steel her uncle had spoken of.
Family.
There was a PC there when I arrived, 4632 Gilmore, and Tony introduced us.
“Dawn, this is Sarah’s sister Elaine. Elaine, Dawn is Sar’s local neighbourhood officer”
I gave her the raised eyebrow and she twisted her mouth. “Yeah, I was the one on scene, evil little bastard. Got there just as he smacked Sarah in the mouth”
I could feel the grin, and it was feral. “Reasonable force necessarily employed as per ACPO guidelines?”
“Absolutely, and sprayed the fucker at the desk. You’re Job”
“Inspector Elaine Powell, Dyfed-Powys”
“Ma’am!”
“Oh, stop that! Lainey to friends, aye? What we got, girl?”
She grinned herself, just as ferally as I had. “Oh, a very, very full book that he isn’t going to walk away from”
“Can he actually walk now?”
“I suspect that he might find it difficult for a few days. Your sister did try to punch him in the nuts, actually. Feisty little girl. And that uncle of yours, dear god. I’m trying to get him and Sar’s hubby to come to court, just to frighten the shit out of him. You got any others like that?”
“Oh yes indeed. I shall speak to people. Now, work head on, aye? What do you need?”
“Got the statement from Sar already, and mine’s done, and Barry’s, he’s the PCSO. Got a trawl on for shop cameras and already got the street CCTV. All covered, really. Just need some help from the Big Guy up top with Alice. I mean, look at this lot: positive bloody wave city here!”
“Thanks, Dawn. Really thanks”
“No need, Inspector”
“Lainey. And yes, there is always need. Always say thank you, it’s never unnecessary”
“Yeah, well. Alice has always been a favourite of ours, always one of the good guys. You get a bit jaded in Canterbury, what with the tourists and the thieving Froggy school kids, so you value the sound as a pound ones on your beat. You know that, yeah? Alan, Alice, whatever. He was always out of kilter a bit, but she’s sorted. A good woman, just, sorry about the pun, just need the doctors to make her better. I’m off. Going to let ‘er indoors give me a back rub in the bath and order a takeaway”
Her eyes flicked to my wife, and she grinned, cheekily this time, and was gone.
No, Inspector Powell, put those thoughts away. Both of you most emphatically spoken for! I settled down for the first of several days of shift work watching over our family. When she woke and spoke for the first time, it was even harder, for it seemed that it was only their fears for Alice that had kept my sister and her mother-in-law upright, and when those strings were cut they collapsed. It was Arwel who truly surprised me, for I caught him outside the ward with a tissue to his eyes.
“You, café, now”
He looked at me through red-rimmed eyes and muttered something about sisters and a double act, but followed me to the Friends’ place and let me buy him a cuppa. I did my best to pull my horns in, but I can’t have been too subtle, for he simply reached out to my lips with one blunt finger to silence me.
“Girl, you and your sister are two of a kind, aye? Never know when to leave well alone. So for once, listen. I was wrong about Sarah, and I knew that as soon as I saw her in the Oak with the boy. I said I was wrong then, and I still admit it now. She opened my eyes, aye? So think: if I can see Sarah, why shouldn’t I see that other woman, see her as she is? Yes, I know what she’s got in her knickers, but so what? A man gets older, he sees more in a woman than a shag, and a shag gets less important anyway. That Alice, she can think, aye? Don’t always agree with her but she fights her corner, makes sense sometimes. She’s good company, girl, and that’s important”
I went to speak, and the finger was back. “No, Lainey. My speech, aye? I lost my girl, the boy lost his Mam, aye? Fair put me off the idea for years, sharing, cause when you share, and it goes, it fucking well hurts, and so you avoid that pain and you do the big strong man routine, aye? But who do I talk to? The boy’s too young, stupid ideas, rubbish music, and the lads in the pub are too thick to shit, and nobody ever CHALLENGES. Alice is, well, she’s what I need in many ways”
“She’s still a man, Uncle”
“No. She isn’t. I mean, yes she is, and don’t think that doesn’t leave me squirming, aye? But she’s as real as Sar, as real as your missus. I… I don’t know if I can do this right, girl, but if I can it will BE right, and I can’t risk losing that and yet I don’t know if I can really forget about, you know what. Look, get Sarah off my back, aye, and climb down yourself. I promise one thing: I will never hurt the old woman”
“Thank you. I’ll try”
He grunted, and checked the café for listeners. “If ever the chance is there, I’m going to kill that driver, though”
CHAPTER 46
Alice kept us on the edge for quite a while, including one particular day when she arrested, which left my uncle shaking and shaken. I stayed as long as I could manage, but in the end I had no choice but to head back west, this time with my wife beside me, which did ease the strain of the driving. I love my sister to distraction, but why she had to pick the other side of Britain to live…
No. I knew exactly why, and he was banged away in more than secure premises and probably doped to the eyeballs. Out of sight; leave him out of mind. That thought drew a snort from me, which I had to explain to my wife, and she started the run of bad jokes that always showed that she was worried.
“Vicky’s due any day, Lainey. That’ll bring another comment from my mam, innit?”
“She can sod off, aye? Show some bloody gratitude is what she should do. Kev and Vicky have gone above and beyond, aye? Even Sar, having her at the wedding! Not in the mood now, not at all. I’ll end up saying the wrong thing, and with her even bloody breathing is wrong. Look, let’s get home, check on them later. Don’t want to drive angry, do I?”
Siân just squeezed my knee and left the subject alone, but she was straight to the phone when we arrived.
“Water’s bloody broken, Lainey!”
She turned back to the phone, and it was in Welsh, which meant that it could only be her bloody mother at the other end. That made for a shorter conversation by far, and she joined me on the sofa just after I had put two mugs of tea down.
“Kev’s in with Vicky, Lainey. He’s going to ring us when he’s got news. Ta. Needed this”
I began to have some reservations about our own plans as the hours went by. Obviously, this wasn’t Vicky’s first, but she still took what seemed like an age before Kev was able to announce the arrival of their seven pounds six ounces son. I could hear his own strain in his voice, but he was clearly fighting it with a strong dose of elation.
“He’s perfect, Lainey! And we’ve already got his name sorted!”
“Aye?”
“Er… Kevin Twm”
“Tom?”
“No, love. After your Dad, if you don’t mind. Can’t call him after you, that might cause him a few problems”
“Christening for this one?”
“With Siân’s Mam in the house? What do you think? Yes, got the local chapel warned, and there’s a pub just down the road for when you’ve had enough tea or orange squash”
“Everything planned, then. Well done that man”
There were some odd squeaks at his end, probably a trolley going down the corridor, and then he was almost whispering. “Your ma-in-law’s been getting mail, Lainey. Particular mail”
“Bondage Weekly? Whips Are Us? Broomsticks and Cauldron? Muckspreader Monthly?”
“Er, em, no. The return address is on that place down from Anglesey. The other island”
“Môn” I said automatically.
“No, the other one. Little place. Forty thousand saints or whatnot”
“Enlli? What the hell for?”
“It took me some digging, but it’s a retreat place. Godbotherer Butlins, like”
“Bloody specialised holiday, Kev”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Lainey, I don’t think it is. I think she’s looking to do a flit”
“Flit?”
I was turning into bloody Echo. “What do you mean flit, butt?”
“Ah, woman, you can be so blind sometimes. Think of what she had to do just to have somewhere to live, the humble pie you fed her, you and Siân. Me too, to be honest. She hasn’t changed her views, not one bit, just learned how to keep it zipped when people are around. She dotes on Taz, really does, but you two just rub her face in it. You should have split up years ago, you and Siân, and she can’t see why you haven’t”
I drew a breath to tell him exactly why, and he shushed me. “I can see how you two are, aye? So can everyone else. She just has this big filter in her head; computer says no, but just the Bible in her case. It’s not that she won’t see, Lainey, just that she can’t. Sorry, but we’ve had this all the time. Low grade niggle, innit, but still a niggle”
Shit. “Sorry, Kev, if we had realised…”
“Not at all, love. She’s been good with the little ‘un, and I’m sure she’ll be good with the boy. I mean, she’s saved us a lot of hassle with Vicky in hospital, babysitting and that, but, well, every now and again something will be said”
“Does she need help packing?”
“Fuck me, Lainey, you really don’t like her, do you?”
A memory of that pinched face, the damning words. “Why do you think Siân took my name, Kev? Things were said that can never be taken back. I won’t wish ill on anybody---“
Anybody not called Evans, that is.
“---but well, if we can help her find somewhere that suits, it’s best for all of us, aye? Don’t you agree?”
I had another thought. “Kev, you know what the links are like to that island?”
“Ferry, innit?”
“Aye, and really, really nasty currents there are. Got Hell’s Mouth just along the coast”
“No, Lainey, that would be too much”
“Eh? Oh! No, Kev, just if she changes her mind she’ll find coming back tricky. Don’t want her drowned, aye?”
“I will take that one under advice, Inspector Powell. Now, dates…”
I rang Mam immediately afterwards.
“Kev and Vicky have a little boy, Mam. Seven pound six. And they’ve got the name already. Kevin Twm”
There was a catch in her voice. “This is after your father, Elaine?”
“Yes”
“We thought… We thought, all those years ago, we said it then, that we would have no more, no grandchildren, and now we have one, and this, this is an honour, this is almost another for us, with the name. I am sorry, cariad, but I will have to go. I will tell your father, and he will be proud”
She hung up abruptly, clearly to spare me from hearing her sob. My own tears needed wiping as well.
In the end, the christening went as well as it could, given the po-faced nature of the celebrants in Bethel Chapel, and we made our escape to the Prince of Wales a couple of hundred yards down the street. It was warm enough to sit out in the garden, which allowed us to take the children, Taz fussing around her new brother as if she’d just been handed the world’s most wonderful dolly to play with. We didn’t spend all day there, which was fortunate as one of us wasn’t walking too well, and she had arrived with Uncle Arwel. They had slipped in at the back of the Chapel just before things got properly underway, and as she was in a wheelchair she needed the space. I only spotted her when we turned to leave, and Arwel was already pushing her down the path.
“Alice? How are you feeling?”
“Hiya, Elaine, Siân. Arwel does a good job of pandering and pampering, doesn’t he? And in answer to your question, a lot better than I was. The Meccano’s gone, for a start. Still got to be careful, no standing, but as I have my portable seat and a Great Big Man to do my bidding, what more could a girl ask for?”
Arwel grunted as he picked up the pace, drawn by the lure of the pub. “You do half talk some rubbish at times, woman. Man can’t go turning up at church on his own, someone will try and set him up. Miserable bunch of teetotallers, that lot”
Despite his words, there was a twinkle back in his eyes that I had thought lost forever in those dark days at the hospital. He grinned again. “She can hardly go up to the bar, aye, so I get to go through her purse, see how much cash she’s got”
Alice laughed. “Bugger off, Arwel! Lainey, he hasn’t let me pay for a bloody thing, not since picking me up from home, not even something towards petrol”
We entered the pub garden, and I nodded to the obvious door. “Ladies’, Alice, or Disabled?”
“I don’t need--- ah, if you help me into the Disabled I can do what I need to do”
I got the key from the bar and wheeled her in, and as soon as the door shut she turned on me. She was polite, pleasant and friendly, but it was most definitely a Turn.
“Not now, Elaine, and I’ve said the same to your sister. Arwel and I will work this out, one way or the other, but WE will do so. There is a chance here, a chance that could be smothered”
“A chance for what, Alice?”
“Do you love your uncle, girl?”
“Oh god aye. He can be bloody irritating sometimes, but there’s no bigger heart, unless it’s Sar’s, aye?”
“Aye. Yes. He is a man of heart, a very deep man. If, well, if things had been different, my cap would have been firmly set at him”
“What do you mean by ‘would have been’, Alice? From what I have seen of you, the way you look at him, there’s certainty there in you”
Still sat in the wheelchair, no need for the facilities, she cocked her head. “That is the point, Elaine. Look, the more I settled into being me, the easier it got, for it wasn’t starting anything, more stopping something else. Stopping the acting, in fact. What Arwel has seen is me, not Alan. He sees me very clearly indeed, and that is why I need to hold my horses very firmly. Others will not see clearly, and that will have an impact on him, on his life”
“So what does that mean for you, Alice? You looking to pull back?”
“Do you really think I could? Elaine, here is my confession. Not for the first time in my life, I am in love with someone, and if you see what I mean I really hope it will be the last time. There is no uncertainty in my heart, none at all. That is where I stand”
“You have told him this?”
“No, and I will not do so. He will make his own choices, come to his own understanding and decision, or he will not. If I tell him what to do, in any way, what happens after a year or two if he has second thoughts. No, the Arwel I know, the Arwel I love, as you know very well, will always think things through before he makes a choice in his life, and that choice will be his and his alone”
She looked away for a few seconds, before turning back to me, dabbing at her eyes with a square of toilet paper. “Elaine, the only people who have talked sense in this one have been Enid and your mother. You and my dear Sarah are so much alike I despair. Could you just let an old man and an old woman be foolish for once?”
The crying started in earnest when I hugged her.
Arwel was waiting at the table with a pile of cutlery, paper napkins and every sort of condiment imaginable.
“Thought you two’d died in there, aye? Lainey, I’ve ordered you a pie on the advice of that one with the hair you might know, and I’ve got the trout some scampi and chips. She’s been on a sea food diet since coming out of that place, aye?”
Alice sighed. “See food and eat it, he says. Do I get a say in this one?”
“Here’s the pudding menu, woman”
“Yes, but what are you having?”
“Mixed grill, with the cheesy chips”
Alice shook her head. Ruefully. “I will have to start working on your diet, Arwel. Don’t want you popping your clogs on me”
Once more, he grunted. “Knew there’d be a downside to courting”
Pull back, Elaine. Let them find their own way.
CHAPTER 47
We didn’t see that much of either my uncle or his trout for the rest of her stay, which can be fairly blamed on some of us having to work for a living, but over the next few months it was noticeable that unless Hywel had that friend of Sar’s with him, he was mostly on his own at the pub. At least, that was what I heard from Dad via Mam.
I was also getting regular little updates from Steph about Sergeant Price.
“She’s got taste, Elaine. Not a bad musician, either”
“Taste? Music?”
“Men, girl. I mean, she dragged two of them round to ours when we tried her at the music, and they were both very easy on the eye, but one of them, if it wasn’t for being married, oh yes!”
“You are a hussy, Steph”
“Nope, just a lech of refined sensibilities”
She laughed, and then took a second or two to form her next sentence. “That’s the thing, Lainey. She slipped up on the phone, and the one I sort of fancy overheard”
Before I could get anything out, half-formed suspicions of another Joe uncoiling in my mind, she shushed me, literally.
“I know what you’re thinking, but this is different. She’s known him ages, Geoff rates him as well. I trust his judgement; it’s usually spot on”
Something else was there in her tone, something dark, but she perked up again immediately.
“Anyway, they’re coming with us in August to Shrewsbury. Place I met my beloved, so you never know”
There I was, fresh from being lectured about interfering, hearing another woman effectively admitting to stirring things with the biggest spoon imaginable.
“What are you up to, Steph?”
“Er… Look, there is something there. I see it. Geoff sees it. I mean, once you get Annie out of work mode, get her relaxed, what she is is so bloody obvious I don’t know how she’s managed to stay the course. I’ll be honest…”
Once more she paused, and I heard a distinct catch in her breath. “Elaine, what she’s been through she should be dead. Simple as. She has more strength than I have, that’s for sure, but she’s nearly broken. Shit, I don’t think she’s actually got any wiggle room left. Reserves all gone, aye?”
I made myself laugh. “Your hubby will complain if I get you doing that, aye?”
“Oh god, that’s not just you, that’s her. Welsh as Llanfair PG, she is. It’s infectious. Anyway, need to go. Work in an hour”
“No problems there?”
“I have a team around me, Elaine. No; no problems”
We hung up, and I savoured that word. I missed my team dreadfully, and at the same time I knew they had to be left alone. They were something I had created, a difference I had made to the world, a change for the better. Arwel and Alice were almost a metaphor for them: let them fly free.
Life settled down to a steady grind of 9 to 5 Monday to Friday budget allocations work, playing Management Bullshit Bingo in innumerable meetings and somehow seeming to spend less time with my wife than I had when we were both on shifts rather than just her. The only let-up was managing another villa trip, this time with both children in tow. Actually, the way Kev behaved around his kids, perhaps I should say ‘all three’.
Angharad Roberts was gone when we returned, just a short note on the dining table thanking Vicky and Kev for their kindness. By the back door were two bin liners full of clothing, with another note asking for them to be delivered to a local charity shop. How deep was the commitment needed at that place? Needed or demanded? I had a vision of her becoming some sort of Chapel-flavoured nun, and that wasn’t how it was done in Wales.
As I stared at the bags, an arm went round my waist, but it was Vicky rather than my wife.
“She talked a little, Lainey. Just sometimes, usually when we were out at the park with Taz. She is…”
Vicky was groping for words, so I supplied them. “Mean-spirited, a bigot, a miserable two-faced cow?”
“Well, yes, but there were times, times she’d be looking at my girl and I think she was remembering hers. I’d catch a look, a little crack in her shields. I think she really misses Siân”
“Then why did she act the way she fucking did when we met? Sorry, shouldn’t swear”
“I don’t think she really has a choice, love. She has her principles, and can’t let them go”
“Are you really defending what she did? What she said?”
Vicky sighed and turned her gaze on some imaginary stain on the work top. “No. I couldn’t do that. But I really think she wishes things were different. If Siân hadn’t been the way she is, for example, if you’d been a man”
“She would still have found fault!”
Her eyes went to mine, tears hanging. “And how much of what she did and said was driven by that arsehole of a husband? Did you know he was fully biblical? No thicker through than his thumb, wasn’t it?”
Oh hell. Vicky wasn’t finished, though. “He even had sodding books about it! What to make the rods from, where to strike, how not to leave visible marks for the authorities to get upset about. Shit, Lainey, you’ve seen enough domestics. Did you really believe it was just knuckle-dragging thickos that smack their women about?”
She slapped her hand down on the work top in obvious anger, and then turned to stare hard at me again, the tears falling. “He had books on it, he had found bloody WEBSITES. It’s big in the States, Lainey. Christian fucking domestic discipline they call it. Traditional as, and Bible-sanctioned. I rather suspect it wasn’t just her ex that did it: I think it was a family sport. Her dad’s dead, though, so I can’t go round and put his bloody windows in. Remember that Essex girl joke about two black eyes? Told twice, wasn’t it?”
I stepped forward and she almost fell into the hug I offered. The tears were flowing well, and she simply held on to me for twenty or thirty seconds till she could find her voice again.
“I thought I had it bad, Lainey, with that one arsehole. Yes, he killed our baby, but, well, look what I have now. Who could ask for a better man than my Kevin? Two lovely kids, a man who would give me the world if he had it, and all he has ever asked in return is that I love him back. You’ve got just the same, except for the kids, and Angharad, well, what has she got? One moment of satisfaction with a slurry trailer. No family, no child. Nothing but her bloody religion, and look what that’s done to her!”
She held her silence again for a little while, then whispered into my breast.
“I really hope she finds some piece in that place, Lainey. I really do. I think… sod it, I KNOW that if we see her in a little while, she’ll be a different person. Sorry I went on so much. Sorry for the stupid tears”
I realised my wife had been absolutely right about her cousin: how could anyone know her and not love her? At the same time, I felt the anger that always lay so close to the surface simmering again. It was always men, men with a need to stand above and piss down on those below them. Not all of them, by any means, for my own extended family bore ample evidence that most men were nothing like Carwyn Roberts, or the Evans family, and I fought the anger down with a mental photo album of Tony and Dad, Arwel and Geoff, wondering how much of this crap was learned and how much of it was passed down genetically from arsehole to son and whether it mattered. The end result was the same.
Vicky whispered once more. “And I’m sorry about talking about you two and kids. I know what you want, so it wasn’t fair to say that. You can always share ours, yeah? Any time you want”
I squeezed her as hard as I could without breaking anything, long enough to frame my words properly.
“Siân and I have been making enquiries, love”
She pulled back so she could see my face. “What? Adoption?”
“Er, no. Our own”
“Oh! Ah, you were thinking of Kev, weren’t you? Does he know? Have you discussed this without me?”
“Vicky, my sweet, we haven’t discussed it with him because we aren’t looking at your hubby. We have someone else in mind. It’s Sar’s hubby, Tony, we’re thinking of. And he’s agreed”
“Oh wow! When are you…?”
“Nothing is decided yet, Vicky. I mean, we need to consider whether we’ll be doing this like synchronised swimmers, or in tandem, sort of thing”
She was hopping now, tears forgotten. “Synchro, of course! Ooh! I get to be an aunty!”
“Not strictly, girl”
“Who cares? Aunty Vicky, yay! Seriously, it will be great to hear my own name again. It’s always ‘Mam’ or ‘Mummy’ now, even from ‘im indoors”
“Oh dear. My parents were never like that, except when Mam was telling us off and threatening us with Dad”
“Was he---“
“No, he never did. I don’t remember him ever hitting me, nor Sam, aye? He just has a way of explaining the detail of what you’ve done wrong that makes you want to dig a hole and crawl into it. He can still do it to me”
“Sam?”
“Sar as was, aye?”
She nodded. “Lainey?”
“Aye?”
“Thanks. Thanks for an awful lot. If… if it doesn’t work with Tony, Kev will try. No--- I am not saying it like that. If you are happy, I will tell him about it, and I know my lover very well. He will say yes off his own bat. But not the traditional way”
I pulled a sour and disgusted face, we both laughed, and we steered the conversation away from shoals. Six months were to pass before Sarah gave me the news.
“The daft old bugger’s only gone and proposed to her!”
“And?”
“She’s said yes, of course. Can you tee up the cousins? We need to organise a hen night!”
CHAPTER 48
“I keep forgetting how out of all this you are, Lainey. Must all be a shock, aye?”
“Talk to me, chwaer fychan. What in hell is going on with him?”
“Not just him, is it? She’s changed, has Alice. Really changed”
“Head injury?”
“Oh, nothing like that, Lainey. No, it’s all perception and focus with Alice. I mean, well, look at what she was like the day she got that car smacking shit out of her. She was singing as she left me, world opening up for her, first surgery scheduled. She was different after she woke up, and I don’t mean messed up. Just seemed to shift her priorities a bit. Threatened the GP that she’d clear off somewhere foreign to have the op done if she wasn’t signed off for it here. Oh, yes: that was Arwel’s little trick, aye? She’s had the op, now, so in theory she’s all legal, or will be, so he stuck a ring on her finger while she was still out from the general. Wasted no time, our uncle”
I tried to think of the right words that didn’t include terms such as ‘idiot’, but Sar beat me to the punch.
“Lainey, I know. You don’t have to say anything, because I said it all and the two of them shot me down in flames. You saw him in the hospital, aye? That was bad enough, but when she went under voluntarily I thought he was going to break. I don’t think he’s been straight since Aunty Hannah went, to be honest”
“Aye. We had a long chat when I was over there, when she was ill. You been told to mind your own business as well?”
“Oh yes. They’re all in on it. Moot now, though, what with her saying yes and all that. Anyway, isn’t likely to happen for a while, what with needing the Gender Recognition people to say yes and all that. Trouble is that she’d already thought of that before she went under”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she can’t get married yet, but she can still have a civil partnership thing like you and Siân did”
“Would Arwel accept that?”
“Lainey, when Alice sets her mind to something, it gets done. There’s talk about legalising gay marriage, anyway”
“Yffern, don’t say that around Arwel!”
“No, no, it’s the other bit of it, aye? They do that, they’ve got to let people with CPs change them into marriages. Wouldn’t make sense otherwise”
“And?”
“She gets her certificate and they swap the CP for a wedding. Dissolve one, tie the knot again, and Arwel just says aye, that gives me two pissups and the trout gets two for one with the wedding, aye”
“Sar, you can’t get your voice anywhere near deep enough to impersonate him, and it’s probably hurting your throat. Explain, please, in words of two syllables or less”
“Easy, aye? They get legal protection as a couple while Alice is legally male, so if her health goes again he gets a say. When she’s legally female, the CP has to be dissolved, so they then get wed properly. That is how she’s sold it to him. They’ve already got a date”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, when?”
“Third of next month in Canterbury. Get your drinking head on, girl”
There was more, dates for a girls’ night out and so on, but it was slowly starting to make sense to me. The state she had been in after the crash still gave me the horrors, and I worried that somewhere in her mistreated brain there was a time bomb waiting to go off. The two of them were not only right in their preparations; I was steadily coming to see that they were right for each other. I had seen her as a soft and vulnerable person, and each decision she took showed me how wrong I had been.
In the end, we didn’t get THAT drunk, apart from Enid, Tony’s mam, who got more than a little tearful a couple of times, but there were more than enough friends of all ages around to hold her hand. It was a short ceremony, but I was astonished by the aftermath, which involved a formal blessing in a proper Roman church by an honest to goodness man in a long dress and a funny collar. I collared him afterwards, the same priest we had found asleep and entangled that night in Dover, and he was very clear in his views. The same man who had actually presided at my sister’s wedding.
I normally find that most priests of organised religions are very clear in their views and that said views are clearly confused, as well as vicious and hurtful. Angharad Roberts was still a fine and shining example of love and tolerance, of course, but Pat seemed to have found a way of remaining sensible.
“I didn’t think you Papists went in for this sort of thing, Pat”
He was sipping something that clearly wasn’t apple juice, Tony beside him as Arwel and Alice occupied the rest of the guests in congratulations and photography.
“I married your sister, Elaine”
“And Sarah is a woman and Tony a man”
“And what’s Alice, Elaine?”
He dropped his voice. “And what was Sarah? I have no doubt about what Sarah IS, fuck me no, and that is the key. I said to Sarah once that there were limits to me, bounds over which I would not step, and one of those was marrying two people who were not of different genders”
“She told me. You said ‘born’, if I remember rightly”
He got a truly evil grin on his face. “Absolutely, woman! Now what gender was your sister born?”
“They put boy on her birth certificate”
“Not the question I asked, was it? Has your sister ever been a boy?”
I thought about that answer, and I could see his point clearly. No meat on a Friday, so eat fish. It comes out of the water, you like the taste, you want to eat it on a Friday, so class it as a fish and you are sorted.
“She’s never been a boy”
“And she’s got it. Elaine, I could not bless your own union. You are a lesbian, and that is against His Holy Word. I do not condemn you, I am simply a member of a club with a lot of bylaws. Does that concern you?”
“We want a wedding some day, a marriage not a social contract, aye? What’s your point?”
“You will not get that here, and nor will I perform such a sacrilege. That’s my hard line. Now, thinking of what I said about your sister, was my old mate Alan ever fucking real? I’ll put that another way: was Alice ever a boy?”
I had to shake my head in admiration. “How the hell do you keep your brain from tangling itself in knots?”
“First Corinthians, thirteen eleven. Childish and bloody stupid thoughts have been put away. I try to see the reality, not the surface. Too many people in this world, including those in my line of work, forget the second commandment”
That threw me, and he caught my expression. “No, woman, not images and idols; that was the old book. Matthew twenty-two, thirty-six to forty. The one about loving your neighbour. Supposed to be the foundation of the Church, but gets overlooked a bit too much. Now, got a couple of quid? I need to top up the swear box”
I handed him the coins, and he winked as he put them into a small plastic bag with quite a few other coins.
“Elaine, be sure of one thing: once my old friend has gained official recognition of something I should have realised years ago, I will be more than happy to see the two of them back here, or in any of His many houses, to do the real thing. God makes marriages, not man. There’s Janet free at last; catch you again, girl”
Where do these people come from? Angharad Roberts used exactly the same source material as Father Pat, and the two results could not have been more different. Then again, Carwyn Roberts had helped his wife along that path with something other than kind words and loving kindness. I resolved to ring a contact in Heddlu Gogledd Cymru when I got a chance.
If he had been able to cow my harridan of a mother-in-law, what might he be doing to a certain former Chapel organist?
CHAPTER 49
I got another call from Steph a few weeks later, keeping me up to speed with Adam, and it was a hard one. Another of us had been shot.
I mean, I didn’t know the victim, and it was another force, but he was one of us, and a shooting always brings home to every copper how much they are putting themselves out in front of everyone else as a target, in this case literally.
“How’s he holding up, girl?”
“She, Inspector Powell. You should know better”
“Sorry, given my own circumstances I should, aye? Anyway, the shot lad’s out of danger?”
“Yes. Elaine, it’s not that. It’s kids. There are kids involved, and it’s far from nice”
Steph brought me up to speed, and it certainly wasn’t pleasant. “The rapist?”
“Firearms team”
“Good. What can we do?”
There was a sigh at the other end of the line, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost a whisper compared to her normal exuberance.
“I am lucky, you know. Lucky I found my Geoff, my family, lucky in so many ways. You just add to that. I don’t know how I keep finding you people, but think on what you just said. Your first thought was to ask what you can do, and it was ‘we’. You did that unconsciously, just assuming the rest of your lot would do the same. That’s what saved me, Inspector Powell”
“But you…”
“You have no idea, Elaine, so we’ll leave it at that. What can you do? Well, she’s got friends, which is a start, but more of them never hurts, and then there’s the children”
“The girl?”
“You know I’m not really in the loop there, but, well, don’t think it’s good. I’ll let you know as and when, aye? Bugger. Geoff will know we’ve been talking”
“That’s a problem?”
She chuckled. “Never ever, girl”
The next few weeks were simple routine, and by that I mean the Chinese water torture of sodding budgets. I knew Wyn and a the other managers had been right about what I needed for that next step, but really, a five year projection on tyre purchases for the vehicle fleet left me wanting to up sticks and join Siân’s mother on her bloody island. I never seemed to leave work any more with the feeling I had actually achieved something. As Steph so eloquently put it, bugger. I followed the news from England, though, and despite Steph’s heads up each revelation cut me to the quick. Some day, my lovely wife and I would take those final steps with our brother in law, some day we would try for that new life we needed, and at the same time there was a woman happy to sell hers for profit. Why couldn’t the firearms boys have made a little detour? I lay at night in my lover’s arms unable to tell her what left me so tense, but she knew it wasn’t her, wasn’t us, and simply held me to her, held the demons away.
Sar was on the phone before that Christmas, which made me realise how fast the year was speeding past me. Tyre wear, bollocks.
“Steph introduced me to your mate, Lainey?”
“Eh?”
“Annie Price. Bit butch, could do with losing some more weight, but not too bad, all things considered”
“This is Adam we’re talking about?”
“Oh, he’s buggered off permanently! She is now cohabiting with some bloke called Eric”
“Eh?”
“Seems there a bit of a ‘click’ at that weekend Steph took her to”
Ye gods; that was going to leave Di even more confused. I wasn’t actually keeping on top of it myself. I didn’t hear anything ese, though, till after that Christmas, which was spent with Kev and Vicky for once, though of course we called in on Mam and Dad. And Arwel and Alice.
She was most definitely settling into her skin. Miles and years away from the little man hiding in Canterbury, and to my surprise I realised that I had never really met her former persona, her lifelong pretence. She was an elderly housewife, or “kept woman” as she insisted on calling herself, and the two of them bickered continually. There was never anything unpleasant in it, nothing malicious, just teasing and affection from both sides of the marriage. They were clearly comfortable with each other, and she worked well with her stepson. I didn’t need to know anything more about the whats and the ifs; the fact that my uncle’s frown was now usually a disguise for a twinkle. I looked at them, I thought of a little girl in a caravan, and I realised why I did the Job and who I did it for.
It was the New Year before I got the next shock/
“Inspector Powell”
“Elaine?”
“More news, Steph? The trial?”
There were two or three minutes of silence at the other end. “Done and dusted, Elaine. Not nice. Not talking about it. Now, want to meet Annie?”
“What do you mean?”
“Engagement party”
“Fucking hell!”
What the hell would Diane say? Could I tell her, safely? Should I?
“Spill, Woodruff”
“Not much to tell. I suspected something with the man when I first met him, and then, well… Look, I had promised to keep a lid on it, but it’s out now. Have a look on the internet at some of the red tops. They went into a real feeding frenzy over her.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Steph?”
“We took him to Shrewsbury, but she came back”
I clicked away at my computer.
“Try the Sun first, Lainey. Search for ‘Pickstock’ and you should find it”
“Hang on… shit! She looks, well, shit! I’m…”
“Three weeks Saturday, Elaine. My place, or rather ours and our neighbours’. Tents for some, but there are plenty of hotels and that about, being so near the airport”
“What…?”
“Just bring friends, Elaine. The more the merrier. I told you, she can use them. The press got right on her back, and she really needs the boost. Got to go; shift in an hour. Text me when you know, OK?”
“Shit and bollocks, girl! You can’t just leave me with that to explain to people!”
There was another little moment of silence. “That’s the thing, Elaine. She still has people who know her back home. If any of them pick up on the papers, she’ll end up with even more grief. Best if we can manage it ourselves. Got to go, aye? Speak soon”
Click and gone, and I wondered if she had timed the call to give her an excuse to hang up. Nothing for it. I sat for a few minutes to find the words, then picked up the phone again. I seemed to be living on it.
“Lainey! Hi! How is it all over there?”
“Hiya Diane. Look, got any free time next couple of days? Need to run something past you”
“This work or private, Inspector?”
“Sort of both, aye?”
“OK… know the Cross Inn, over to Cowbridge? I’m sort of free Thursday night”
“Sort of?”
“Um, Blake and I are sort of, you know, saving on rent, and if I drive, he can have a pint”
“What about if he drives so you can have one?”
She chuckled. “You don’t change, do you? Seven thirty do you?”
“Aye. See you then”
I opened up the internet article again, where my old acquaintance Adam stood, dark hair shaggy to his collar, in what was clearly a skirt suit and heels, the photographers having taken as many shots of him as they could manage.
Stop that, Lainey. HER. Of all people, I should be able to pull out the correct pronouns. I started to print off three of the reports, photos included. It had to be done.
Thursday turned out to be a miserable evening, wet and windy with waves of rain coming in over the Ogmore cliffs, and I was there at least fifteen minutes before Diane and Blake arrived, finding a table not too far away from the open fire that livened up the bar cum restaurant. They were holding hands, that was my first observation, but both smiled at and for me, and I received two pecks on the cheek, two tight hugs. Diane was to the point.
“What you got, Elaine?”
“Get the food ordered first, aye?”
Blake laughed. “And the pints!”
“Pint, butt. I’m driving back, aye?”
He sighed and went off to the bar, as I pulled out a small folder of printed A4 sheets. Diane’s eyebrows rose, but I could see no easy way into things. I handed her the folder.
“Our friend Adam Price, Di”
“Oh?” She pulled out the first sheet, and gave a strangled little “Shit!”
Blake was on his way back, and I could see the hesitation in her, the need to protect a friend, but she kept the papers out and handed him a copy of the Sun’s front page.
“What’s this, love?”
Her voice was hushed. “Remember I had a friend, Blake, went off to England? Had a break down?”
“The traffic lad? The one you fancied?”
“That’s the one”
“What… bloody hell!”
I realised Diane was crying, gently and without fuss, and passed her a couple of the paper napkins from the place settings. “You OK, girl?”
“Sort of, Lainey. Sort of. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? Do I take it you’re in contact with… her?”
“No, not exactly. Sarah is, and some mutual friends. I’m seeing her in three weeks”
No easy way, Elaine. “At her engagement party”
Words came and went in her mind, but none of them made it to her lips. A good copper, my Diane. Eventually, she found the right ones.
“Is this a fall-out from his… her breakdown?”
“No, Di. I think this is a large part of what nearly broke her”
“She’s a straight girl, then. Like your sister, yeah?”
I nodded. “What’s the man like?”
“My friends speak highly of him”
“Then I hope she gets all the happiness she needs. Poor sod! All that time, and I’m saying how easy Adam is to talk to, and no bloody wonder, I was talking to another girl. Blake, love, don’t get me wrong, I can talk to you, but girls, well, it’s different, yeah?”
She suddenly looked very hard at me, head cocked a little to one side, leaning right over the table.
“Promise me, Lainey. Promise me you’ll watch her back. She’s one of the special ones, and no, Blake, I didn’t mean it like that. You have her back, girl, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Not me so much, but she has a lot of decent people looking out for her. Look, want to send her your best?”
She looked at her own man, thinking for a moment. “No. Her celebration, her special day. If she’s fragile, it might freak her out, old sort of girlfriend sending a message as she gets hooked up to a bloke, aye? Just promise me she’s safe”
“I’ll do my best”
Blake laughed, putting his arm around her. “Your best is all anyone could ever need, Inspector Powell. Now, we have our own news, for six months from now. We are off to the Dominican Republic and, well, I think you can guess. I want you on my stag night”
She slapped his arm. “What about my hen night?”
“You can take her wife, so they can compare notes for fun and profit through blackmail”
Two jobs done in one evening. I wished them well, naturally, but considering the sort of people we had on the cold case team, I was wondering how ‘pink’ the stag night might turn out to be. I needed to ring Chris, and Omar, and Fahmi, and… Not my stag night, but it was definitely one whose outcome I would influence.
Three weeks later I was walking with half the family down a gravel driveway between two large detached houses, Sar leading the way as Arris’ and Steve’s kids ran ahead. There was a marquee in one of the back gardens, a row of ‘festival’ style toilets, various people including Steph, a dumpy woman in heels and a little black dress, and…
I brought my gaze back round, giving her the best smile I could.
“Sergeant Price! Looking good, girl!”
CHAPTER 50
She looked like a rabbit in headlights, checking around for someone to support her.
“Inspector Powell, aye?”
Sod it. I initiated a hug; get the personal space closed down before she runs, Lainey.
“Annie now, isn’t it? Sar told me the story, no way I could miss out on this one, so we brought the family, aye? You know Siân, my missus?”
“Sort of, never really met. Looking good, Elaine”
“Looking fat, you mean. Her cooking, it is, too much loving whatsits. Now, you have a few here you don’t know”
“I know Jim. Jim, he’s out in Steph’s conservatory. Wipe your… too late.”
Sar’s boy was off like a rocket, and that thought made me smile. So definitely hers, now. Adam, Annie watched him go, and there was just a slight twitch to her expression before she sighed.
“Ah, boys. Who’d have ‘em?”
I called over the rest of our party.
“This is my uncle Arwel, and his wife Alice, his boy Hywel and Suzy, Alison and Steve, their little sods are the ones who ran off after Jim. It’s cold, girl…”
“Oh, sorry! Cuppa?”
“Wrth gwrs.”
Sarah and Tony begged somewhere to go and change, for they had of course come by bike, while the rest of us were led to the kitchen, overflowing with cheap mugs and plates. ANNIE busied HERself with the necessaries as I watched her, and each moment made it easier. I could still see Adam, for she didn’t look that convincing, which was the thought I pulled myself up on. Sam had looked more than a little silly the first time I saw him in a dress, and I was trying to filter what I saw of Annie through that memory. I sipped the tea, looking at the empty beer bottles already there, and sighed. Best to keep a work head on for this one.
“Who’s who, girl?”
Her head jerked at that. Still sensitive, still vulnerable. She waved a hand vaguely towards the garden. “Neighbours, friends, colleagues. You know Steph’n’Geoff?”
I winced, but it made sense. She carried on after a chuckle at my expression. “Even got my shrink here, and, er, my fiancé of course. I’ll introduce you, but he’s a banjo player, so count your fingers.
Siân snorted up half her tea. “I thought it was their fingers you had to count, aye? And toes. Real purty mah-outh and all that?”
Annie laughed out loud at that one. “Eric’s going to love you two! Now, I’ll introduce you to a few, and then it’s party duties for me, aye?”
Eric turned out to be exactly what I had expected following Steph’s revelation of extramarital lusting, a skinny and undertall man. He settled back against the sink, clutching his pint as if he was about to meet the Inquisition, eyes flicking from me to my wife and back again.
“Let me guess: you want to make sure she’s all right? Vet me and so on?”
“Siân, cariad? Want to make sure Arwel hasn’t eaten anyone? Ta!”
She gave a sharp nod, and swept out after our family, and I turned back to Eric, softening my voice.
“No, butt. Just wondering… Look, I was at one of her nasties, aye? Still gets to me every now and again, when I let it? Just need to know she’s safe, aye? She still has friends back home, and I said I’d make sure”
He dropped his head, then looked back up at me. In a very soft voice, he asked which one I had witnessed. I took my time, and a mouthful of tea, to find the words.
“Has she described any of them to you?”
“Oh god yes. Usually after they wake her up, yeah? Elaine, isn’t it? Elaine. How the hell is she still alive after all that shit?”
“Has she mentioned a dead child, Eric? I was at that one. She…”
A figure sat at the edge of the road, tears, shakes. No, he didn’t need that much information, but he was nodding. “The car seat, yeah. Probably the worst one, after the fire, and after Melanie. You probably heard about that one even over in Wales”
“The bridge?”
“Yes. It’s what brought Steph into our life, and she’s been a godsend, but that was the one that took her indoors, which is one of the very few decent things to come out of that particular incident. Bastards. Sorry, but we’ve just been through something else, yeah, and, well”
“Shot copper?”
“Least of it, Elaine. Fagin group, using an underage girl to pay for some, er, assistance. We’ve got the boy, witness like, staying next door. Jim’s with him now”
I took some more tea to get rid of the sudden bad taste I had found in my mouth. I had, of course, followed the case, but having it presented to me like that was different and far more painful, more intimately disturbing.
“The boy you mentioned?”
“Darren? Coming on in leaps and bounds. Absolutely worships Annie. He’ll be on the controls of some game or other with Jim. Look, this is depressing, going over shit like that. Have I passed scrutiny?”
“Do you care for her? Really?”
Suddenly he grinned, and it was a transformation. “How many times have I been asked that? Look, such a good mate, over so many years, yeah, and suddenly all the crap she’s been hiding under is stripped away, and before you ask, no I didn’t”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t see it straight off. Not easy for me, straight bloke, yeah? But, well, she is just so…”
He groped for the words for a couple of seconds. “Just so bloody ANNIE, if you see what I mean. Look, they’re going to be doing their thing in a bit, and you have to see them in action. Beer? Wine?”
“No ta. I’ve got to keep it together tonight There’s another reason I’m here, a bit, well, can you keep a secret from her?”
“No”
“Good answer. OK, I’ll just say that there are a few people back home who care deeply about her, and I will be reporting back. Simple, aye?”
“Male or female people?”
“You should be in my job, boy. Both, I suspect”
“Ah. I see. Then I absolutely do not need to know anything more. All I will say is that I believe she is finally seeing that this can be a good world to live in and, well, shit… I love her, love her deeply, and that is all you need to know”
Suddenly we were hugging, and he had a few tears, and fuck it, so did I.
The two women were just setting up as I went out to rejoin my wife, leaving one sweet man to wash his face and recover his smile. Various instruments were laid out in the marquee, and a thin-faced boy was talking with various members of whichever set of people they belonged to. Steph caught my eye, and I whispered quietly to her “How mad tonight?” to get the response “Depends on Annie” and a wink.
Eric finally reappeared, giving me a squeeze as he passed, and introduced the musicians with a grin, and off they went, and she was good, really good, her personality so different as she stalked the little stage area with heels and flute. It was mostly tumpty-tumpty stuff, but people were dancing to it, and the players were clearly enjoying what they were doing, but it all changed when they did a longer piece, quite dark in mood, with some really subtle playing by the boy on an Irish drum thing. What caught my eye was the look on their faces as they played, eyes closed in almost every one of them, and the slow return to normality and delighted animation afterwards. They were seriously good, all of them.
A few minutes later, though, Annie turned to the other drummer. “Jan, get some sounds on the system, aye?” and walked over to some new arrivals after another quick word with the boy. A few words with the newcomers, and she started off over the grass in stiletto heels, for fuck’s sake. Had nobody warned her? I started to laugh, and I couldn’t hold it in until a hand came down on my shoulder. It belonged to a very tall woman with pillar-box-red hair, who muttered “Not now, girl. She’s doing it deliberately. You are?”
“Elaine. Colleague from down home, aye?”
“Sar’s big sis?”
“Aye. And you…”
I caught something in her expression. “Ah. The one in comfy shoes been looking after her, aye? Ginny?”
“Fuck yeah! Now, we’ve got something unexpected here. Did you see the girl that’s gone with Annie?”
“Aye”
Two and two added themselves together in my head, and my respect for the new woman increased dramatically. I looked up at Ginny, and I didn’t need to ask, because she just sighed and said “They started on her when she was only nine, girl. Fucking nine. So do me a favour, cause I can see you is being all teetotallous tonight, and just help me watch some fucking backs? Den’s getting pissed, so’s Stewie, and I don’t think one little girl is doing ‘man’ this evening”
So I did, and it went well, right up to the point where Jan the other drummer starting hitting some cow bell thing, and Hywel began singing Jethro Tull, and then the Metallica he and Steph had done at Sar’s wedding, and it was loud, and all three soloists were astonishingly good, and I just had to get down and as dirty as I could.
And a little blonde rape victim was there with us all, showing the world she was still alive.
CHAPTER 51
I wandered into the kitchen a bit later in search of a coke, and as I came out I spotted a figure standing in the driveway under one of the large horse chestnut trees.
“What’s up, Tone?”
The porch light caught his face as he turned, and it was definitely wet.
“Talk to me, cariad. What is it?”
I went over and wrapped him in my arms. “Tony?”
His breath caught as he drew it in, and I realised he was close to sobbing. “Tone? Speak, please”
“Thought you didn’t do blokes, Lainey”
“You’re not a bloke. You’re family”
“Ha ha”
“No, seriously. Family is what you are, so share, aye? Families share”
A long pause, then he spoke, quietly, bleakly.
“It was different when we met her, Lainey. Not as in your face, yeah? Not as clearly herself, and tonight, well, there she is in widescreen, HD, whatever you call it. So Annie, yeah?”
“And… Is that somehow a problem, love?”
Another pause. “No, Lainey. It’s just… It’s just the name, yeah? Would have been my Annie’s birthday last week. Tonight’s just, you know, brought it home to me, and then I look at Sar and I think, should I feel this way, should I still be thinking of another woman when, you know, and the way she is with Jim and how he is with Sar, and just, fuck. I should be able to let go, surely?”
I pulled him to me, kissed his cheek. My own tears were there now.
“You think we don’t miss her too, Tone? There was so much life in her, love, she couldn’t be forgotten. You think Sar doesn’t feel guilty?”
He turned in my arms, concern for his wife lifting him from part of the cloud that had buried him.
“Guilty? Why?”
“Look at her, cariad. She is what she is, and she’s always seen herself as less than that, aye? Not real, not whole, so she hides herself away for years, dying slowly, and suddenly you’re back in her life, and Jim, and she gets her moods, we all do, and what she sees then is that she cashed in on someone else’s misfortune”
“Bollocks did she! I mean, what she’s done for me, and Mum, and Jim, Jesus bloody wept, she’s--- She really feels that way?”
I made it more of an embrace, and it was odd, because he was so much bigger than me it was like a role reversal, and I almost whispered into his chest.
“Not so often these days, love. Jim has done a lot of good there”
“He’s a good lad”
“And where does that come from? From you, you and the other Annie, and your Mam. That’s where. And Jim, well, that’s Annie there, in the flesh, aye? Something precious, something from both of you. That’s what we see, that’s why the two of us asked you for such a huge gift, because we see a real man, a human being who cares and isn’t ashamed to admit it. I have known you a long time, Tony, and if me and Siân hadn’t seen that in you, we would never have let you anywhere near our sister, but we did, and we were bloody well right.”
There were far more tears coming from him now, so I settled against him and added some of my own.
“Look, big man. We’ll just stay here quietly for a while, remember her, aye? Then we go back to the living and we do our very best for those we love. OK?”
He nodded, and we stood for a while in silence before he squeezed me and kissed me gently on the mouth, beard tickling my face.
“Thank you, love. Come on; I have a wife and son to see and some beer to drink”
Sod it. I kissed him myself. “No tongues, ever, aye?”
That brought the much-needed laugh, and we went hand in hand back to the party, where that huge, gentle man found a beer and a seat where he could rest and smile fondly at his wife’s backside as she danced her heart out.
We packed the older ones off to the Travel Lodge far too late, but they had some pass code thing, and Suzy and Hywel weren’t far behind them. Sar and Tony had already left Jim in the hands of a couple who I assume included the young girl’s social worker or other minder, and when I made my sobriety-induced rounds, she was buried under a pile of duvets with Steve and Arris’ lot. I stayed out of sight s best I could, but there was a sound that warmed my heart, especially after those moments with my poor brother-in-law, and that was giggling. If someone so abused could still find that in her, there was hope for the world.
My wife, though, was not someone I could slip past, and as we lay in our bag she came straight to the point.
“You’ve been crying, cariad. I can always see it in your eyes. Anything I should know?”
I tried to slip past her, nevertheless, and of course it didn’t work. She was persistent.
“When I say ‘anything I should know’, Lainey, it means I should know everything, aye? What is it?”
“Oh hell, Siân, it’s Tony. Did you know it would have been his Annie’s birthday a week ago?”
“Oh hell indeed. I didn’t think… is he OK?”
“I think so, cariad. Just needed to do the unmanly thing a bit, you know, out of sight. He’ll be fine”
“You sure of that?”
I realised I was. “Aye, I am. Chwaer fychan has her issues, but this is one thing she’s done well at. He’s stuck on her; just a matter of helping him understand he’s guilty of nothing but being a good man”
So she smiled, and kissed me, and, well, there was stuff for breakfast in the morning and we were able—eventually—to borrow a shower. We had another long drive ahead of us, but that was a given with how far Sar had run. I offered up a little nod of thanks to whatever that she had run, in the end, right where she needed to be. Sometimes this life wasn’t so shitty after all.
I collared Annie as we were all packed up, and had my own little moment with that name. She was so much like my sister, for now she was able to be herself it was clear what she had always been, and old Adam blurred in my memory. She was woman, and I’d seen her raw, I thought, and any temptation to giggle at that dreadful pun was wiped out by the memory of a woman, alternately sobbing and screaming while another woman just sat on a crash barrier and wept.
I had to haul back the strength of the hug I gave her as we left, for whether she realised it or not, half the world seemed to have their hopes invested in her. Her tall friend Ginny was more than a little protective, and in an unhinged way that actually scared me a little. Tony had dropped down on the same side, while Sar and some of Annie’s girlfriends quite clearly saw her as a project, a work in progress. She was safe, that was the main thing, the tale I could carry back for Diane. Even Hywel had picked up on her vulnerability, though. He had collared me just after they had all rolled up from the hotel.
“She still has kin back home, Lainey?”
“Aye, I think so, but don’t know who”
“Yet, aye?”
“Aye. I’m going to do a bit of digging, see if there’s a way to help if she needs it”
“She’s got a good man there, aye? Steady, he is. Bit skinny, though, like that Geoff”
“That Geoff broke his hand punching someone, aye?”
He laughed. “And with how hard his missus used to hit, Duw, I won’t be making assumptions about Eric, aye? We just keep our powder dry for the new girl. Agreed?”
“Agreed”
So I held Annie, and tried not to let my anxiety show too much, but she was a copper and she could read me just as I read her.
“Why the concern, Elaine? I’m fine here, especially with this lot around me”
“We try and keep tabs, Annie, keep a check on our boys who move away. Girls. I should know this by now, what with the old and young trouts”
“You call your sister a young trout?”
I found a grin from somewhere. “Aye, why not? No, Annie, when you went, we all knew you were on the edge, and seeing you like this, well, it’s good, aye? Promise me you’ll come over our way some time. A girl has to go home, especially if it’s her first trip”
She laughed, and there was only a little apprehension there. “Aye, I still have some family down West. Be nice…”
“Be nice to have family at your wedding, aye? I mean, this lot, they’re family, in a way…”
“Aye. But not blood, that’s what you mean, and you’re right. Look, I’ll let you know, aye? And thanks for everything. Sarah, Alice, they give me hope, aye?”
“Aye. Look, if you don’t mind, photo with the four of us? Alice? Do the honours?”
So it was that a week later I sat with Blake and Diane in some coffee place or other, toasted sandwiches to hand, while she worked through some of the photos I had downloaded onto my laptop. Two caught her eye: the one with the four of us together, cuddled in pairs, Annie’s hair all over the place and happiness shining from her expression, and one particularly dramatic shot of her, heels and LBD powering her flute through some tune or other while Steph matched her for apparent insanity.
Diane cuddled up to her man. “You know, Elaine, sometimes I get things right, even if only by accident. Thank fuck I never made a proper pass at her!”
CHAPTER 52
Life was almost back to normal then, and I was up past my ears in sodding budget allocations. I had some hopes, though, as my seniority slowly grew, and kept my eyes on the job adverts.
I was looking for somewhere further West, ideally either just up the road from Mam and Dad or near Kev and Vicky. There was no way I was ever getting back to the old team yng Nghaerdydd, because what I had started had become very, very desirable, and much more influential and far more senior men were queuing up to take the command, and yes, as far as I could see they were all men. Ah well.
The year was evaporating. As I got older, time seemed to find a higher gear to run in, and almost before I knew it we were running up to stag and hen parties. I say ‘almost’ because I had actually organised them both, and I hate to admit it but I had deliberately broken the rule that said the two events should be and remain entirely separate events. Siân would lead the flock of hens round one part of the capital, while my herd of stags followed a route clearly laid out by Chris and Omar, because I don’t think there was a single pink pub they intended to omit. Blake had set one condition.
“I am not wearing sodding fancy dress, got that?”
We gathered at the station one evening a week before the couple were due to fly out to the Dom Rep, as they called it, because the assumption seemed to be that seven days would be the minimum required for the hangover to subside. Diane had surprised me with a wedding invitation for the two of us, and when I ran the dates past my boss he just smiled and showed me the draft e-mail he had already prepared giving me the time off. I had clearly trained my boys and girls more than adequately!
Chris had been the first to arrive at the station, and he was sat outside by the car turning circle wearing the tightest trousers I had ever seen on a man and a shocking pink T-shirt reading “Talk to the hand”. It wasn’t until I got closer that I saw the much smaller printing that made the slogan actually read “Talk to the tits and the hand will slap your face”
I raised an eyebrow, and he grinned. “Got a job lot for the girls, but there was one left over, and so…”
I gave him a hug, and as we broke and there was Omar, Scott and Fahmi, Blake approaching across the pedestrianised area, Alun, Kev, Rod in tow, Bev, Wyn, Dai Gould and so many others. I felt I had come home and yet at the same time realised they, we, had all moved on. We had a quorum, I stood up.
“Boys but not girls!”
Laughter, so I grinned back. “I must inform you that the liver is evil, and so it must be punished! Let us all now proceed in good order to an appropriate place of correction”
And so it was, up Churchill Way and pub after pub, the Kings, downstairs to the Eagle, beer flowing, Minsky’s for some silliness including a bloody drag act,, a pause for chips with bread and bloody butter and finally, finally, as I was starting to feel more than a little relaxed, we rolled into the Smuggler’s, where the hens already held court in a large part of the main bar. I called over to Blake “Who’s got the whip?” and someone from the crowd shouted out that he had the chains, as Blake in turn just grinned and pointed over my head to the bar. There was a sign there.
“Welcome Blake and Diane. You and your friends leave your hands out of your pockets”
I did my usual eyebrow thing to the barman and he gave me a sharp look.
“Your mate Chris, there, him and all the others, girl. Omar and Scott organised a fund raiser for the party. You all looked after us, Inspector Powell, and yes we all know who you are and what you did. Drinks are all paid for and we have a special licence, so no rush”
He handed me a pint of Felinfoel with a grin. “I was told what you drink as well!”
For some reason my memories of the rest of that night are hazy in many of their details, but in the end it all reminded me of Tony and Sarah. He would almost always find a seat somewhere and smile fondly while she shook her body about, Here, Dai, Fahmi and Debbie sat with me and the wife as we watched the youngsters doing their thing, and it was all wonderful and not to be eclipsed until ten days later as Siân and I stood on a Caribbean beach while two of my boys and girls exchanged rings and vows under a brilliant blue sky as waves hissed up the sand. It wasn’t our Greek villa, we didn’t have the children with us, but I still felt almost like a mother to both of them. I let myself bask in a little pride, a little arrogance, almost. That throng at the Smuggler’s, this couple kissing under a white awning on a tropical beach, they were my work, my gift to the world, something I had done that made it a better place.
Of course, that brought on the other concern, and I resolved to try and push things along with Tony. If I could do this for others, then I could do it for myself and my wife,
It was a real shock to my system to return to the budgets again, and I realised I was actually only living when I got out of the office. It wasn’t me, that was definitely true. I kept looking through the jobs that came up on the intranet, but it just wasn’t happening for me. It was such a bloody grind I wasn’t sure I would be able to be there for Annie’s visit to try and get her family onside. That one hurt, and it was something I ran past the newlyweds at the same pub in Cowbridge where I had first handed them the news about Annie.
“Not driving tonight, Blake?”
“No, we took a room, innit?”
Diane was slumped comfortably against her husband, and it was something I realised I had never seen in her before: relaxation, utter and complete. She had always had an air of tension, of a bowstring just before the arrow is released, and I thought back to that day in the hospital when Blake had interviewed Omar with such tact and gentleness. I dropped my little hand grenade.
“Annie’s coming over by here in a week”
Diane sat up straight, looking up at Blake. “Could… could I see her?”
“That be a good idea, girl?”
She grimaced, and Blake took her hand. She squeezed his in turn, the ring bright against the tan of her skin.
“No, it wouldn’t. I just thought, you know, sneaky like. I mean, we did sort of get good at that, didn’t we?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Well, I know you, Lainey, we both do. You said you had your back, so we assume you’ll be watching her back, innit? Just in case?”
“I can’t be sure I’ll be free to do that. Tied up in bloody office work, can’t sneak off like I did for the wedding. And you call me sneaky, arranging it like that, aye?”
Blake laughed. “We do know you, Inspector Powell. Very well indeed. Lainey, if you can’t go you will have sorted a substitute, innit? Who you delegated the duty to?”
“Sod it, I trained you two far too well. Siân, cariad, you sure you are happy to drive?”
She simply laughed and went to get me another pint. I turned back to the others.
“She’ll have a friend and her husband with her, and if I can’t make it, well, I will sort, aye. Now, what are your thoughts on this?”
Diane squeezed Blake’s hand again, and he nodded. “Thought I’d go blonde for a while, Lainey, that and some specs. She’s going to be so wound up with nerves she won’t see past the stress blinkers. Just need to know where and when, assuming it’ll be somewhere like a caff or a pub”
“Sure? You know that—“
Siân put her hand over my mouth. “Diane deserves this, Lainey. Di. You just want to see she’s happy, don’t you?”
Diane nodded, Blake’s arm now around her shoulder. “Yes. Happy and safe. Then I can relax”
In the end, Annie made it over to Gaerfyrddin, where I’d found her just the right place in a little hotel, as our own spare room wasn’t exactly spare at the time. I mean, it was a room, it just didn’t have any actual room in it. I’d set up a weights machine in there, and a stationary bike, and everything else we were accumulating. I realised just then that it was another symptom of our hiding from our need. A spare bedroom that could be used as one would have shouted ‘nursery far too loudly.
Annie did her bit with the one relative she had hopes for, and it seemed to work, but what I had feared did indeed come to pass: the real family meeting was set for Abertawe on the evening when I would be chairing some dire session of management bullshit bingo. I made the calls, and Dad and Uncle Arwel were as reliable as ever. Once sorted, I made that other call.
“Di? The Tawe Teas place in, er, Swansea. Five o’clock. Promise you’ll be careful?”
CHAPTER 53
I got the feedback from Arwel the day after, and it sounded better than I had expected. It seemed that Miriam, the cousin I had first met, the one Annie had held out such hope for, had been even more devious with her family than I could ever have imagined, and I did wonder whether she fancied a job with my old team. It was the other girl I was concerned about though, and I was jerking to each ring of the telephone, expecting it to be from Diane.
“Inspector Powell?”
“Yes, Adele?”
“Got a visitor for you”
“Send him in”
She sniggered as she put the phone down, and my office door opened on Diane. I gave her the eyebrow.
“Did you feel your intelligence ebbing as it set? ADELE! ANY CHANCE OF SOME TEA?”
“You have an intercom, Inspector Powell!”
“Er, sorry”
Di snorted. “I have seen all of her films as well, Lainey, but probably not for the same reasons as you, and no, dying my hair hasn’t crippled my mind. You know why I’m here, don’t you?”
I settled back into my chair, trying to read her tells. “What did you think of her?”
My friend took a few seconds to frame her thoughts, then shook her head. “That’s the word, isn’t it? ‘Her’? I mean, I watched them… Blake and me got a table in the corner of the main room, and they all buggered off into the snug bit, but we could still see them from where we were. Hear a bit of it, too, especially when a couple of the men got gobby”
“Aye, my uncle told me about that. How did you… what did you think? Oh, ta, Adele, we’ll probably be at least a half hour”
I poured as Diane visibly struggled to find exactly the right phrase.
“Lainey, she looked comfortable, innit? I mean, she was bricking it when she walked in, and I could see why, with some of the crap we heard, but she’s in a skirt and shit, and it suited her, and here I am calling her that and it is just so bloody natural to do it”
I handed her a cup, and she took a sip, winced at the heat and then fixed my gaze again. “She’s straight as well, innit? That bloke you mentioned, he came round later, and it was like in that war film, you know? Ice Cold in whatsits?”
“Alex”
“Yeah, that one, when they get their beers at the end, and they sit there, and they hold off JUST that little bit, and, well, that was her when he walked in”
“He’s a good man, Di”
“He fucking better be”
“Never thought of you as a mother hen, Di… oh. Not you as well?”
“What? Oh. No, not yet, but we, well…”
Suddenly my girl was crying, great racking sobs that brought Adele to the door to see what the fuss was before closing it gently and then loudly banging the outer door as she found some excuse to leave the office. Di grabbed for some tissues from her handbag, and slowly, slowly, wrestled her self-control back into existence.
“Talk to me, Di? Blake?”
“Oh, Lainey, yes, and no, and all sorts of shit, yeah, and it’s not him, but…”
This time, the tea was cooler, and she managed a proper mouthful. Her voice was soft, but I could tell how her distress still howled for attention.
“No, it’s not Blake in one way, Lainey, but it is, and what it is, yeah, is the difference. Evans ruined me, you know? I mean, he took everything I am, every bit of brightness, and he pissed on it, just like he pissed on me, and it’s, it’s sex and love, and trying to take the sex bit part from the rape bit and it’s not working, and then Blake says, well, not important really, is it, and he just waits, and it’s so different and, shit, it’s like… it’s like when we finally get together, and he’s so gentle, and it’s like washing the piss off me all over again. Remember that first lad we saw? The one who’d almost scrubbed his skin off? That was me. I…”
She started waving her hand about, looking for the words, so I waited, and they finally came.
“It’s breaking the association, Lainey. It’s washing that bastard out of my dreams in a sort of shower of Blake and…”
This time, it was laughter. “No, not like that! Bollocks, you know what I meant!!”
I had my own words, just for once. “He’s brought you home, love”
“That’s it! Abso bloody lutely! I mean, after all, I should know, of all people I should bloody know what rape is really about, but things look different from the inside of it. I didn’t realise, didn’t really know, how much he had fucked me up, not until he went down. It doesn’t go away, Lainey, and, well, Blake. Just Blake, yeah?”
I just nodded. Let her speak, girl.
“Then, there we are, in the caff, watching Ad—Annie, and that man walks in, and I see the same in her as I know is in me, the cold beer, the lifeline, yeah? She’s a bloody lucky woman, and she’s a woman full stop. Lainey?”
“Aye?”
“You did right to let us know, me and my Blake. I mean, I know what shit she went through, but the smile on her face said all I needed to know, and it was just like the two of us”
Once more, she busied herself with her tea, and then delivered the summary.
“I mean, you can’t get rid of your past, but you can stop letting it run your ‘now’, innit? Just, helps to have the right man or woman along to keep your head clear”
Another sip. “Anyway, whatever, as they say. You’ve guessed what Blake and me have decided, and I will tell you one thing, if we get there, no bloody godmother rubbish, you are getting aunty duty, you and your missus”
That little barb was soothed when she produced her phone, and to my delight she had captured exactly that ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ moment that she had described, Annie looking up from a crowd of strangers, her cousin beside her as her smile transformed her face.
Di grinned. “You trained us well, Inspector Baggins! Sneaksy!”
That visit left me on a high, and I was fairly fizzing with happiness as the weekend came round. Both of us had both days off, so after our Saturday morning supermarket run we took a drive out to Three Cliffs (nobody seems to have agreed a real name for it, so I just call it Traeth Pennard) and then settled down to our first proper two-of-us debauch in what seemed like ages, and we were both rather fuzzy the next morning when the doorbell rang. Who the hell?
There was a small, spare man at the door, a cheap anorak over jumper and corduroy trousers, all in muted colours, earth tones. He looked nervous.
“Pardon me for disturbing you on a Sabbath morning—“
I started to shut the door before he could pull out a sodding pamphlet or tract, and he raised his voice, just a little.
“I am looking for Siân Roberts”
My wife called over my shoulder “Powell, aye?” and our visitor looked very uncomfortable.
“Um, yes, your mother thought you might say that”
CHAPTER 54
Siân’s tone was clipped and precise.
“Who are you and how do you know my mother?”
“Do you mind if I come in?”
“Answer the question first”
The scruffy man sighed.
“My name is Ambrose. Brother Ambrose”
“Cachu! Un o—“
“I only have a few words of that, I’m afraid. I’m from Guildford originally”
“Can I assume then that you are one of those sky pixie botherers from her bloody Bible Butlins?”
“If you mean to ask if I am from the retreat, yes. May I come in? It would be unseemly to keep shouting at each other like this in public”
I nodded as Siân muttered something else that kept its distance from courtesy, so as Brother Ambrose entered, I gave her a Look. “I think we need some tea, cariad”
She went to the kitchen, but I received my own Look back with interest. What the hell were we supposed to call him? Ambrose? Brother Ambrose? Bro? Oy, you?
“Come in and sit down, Mr Ambrose”
“Thank you. Just ‘Ambrose’ will be fine”
“Tea?”
“Water will be fine”
One of those. Oh dear. He clearly caught something in my eyes.
“No, nothing like that. I am just getting… Age sits on some of us more heavily than others, and I have had several cups of tea already today, and, well, it is a potent diuretic, and…!
“Oh! Top of the stairs on the right, if you need it!”
“Perhaps later”
My wife was at the door, two cups in her hands. She had obviously been listening.
“Why are you here?”
She was wound up as tightly as an adder waiting, wanting, to strike. I lifted a hand.
“Sit, Cariad. Ta for the cuppa. Now, it is a fair question, Ambrose. We haven’t heard from her in ages, then here you are. Not her, no, Siân, shush. So why now, why you? Oh, hang on”
I popped into the kitchen, drew a glass of water, and brought it through to him. My wife had him fixed, target acquired, missiles locked, fangs out, metaphors mixed all to hell. I handed him the glass and he nodded a thank-you.
“Miss… Mrs Powell, your mother has had a difficult time recently…”
I suddenly saw that face again. Rather have been barren. Whore. Pervert.
“Ambrose, she has made life rather difficult for many other people, not least the two of us. You will understand if we don’t exactly flow over with the milk of human kindness towards her, aye?”
He sighed. “Um, this is difficult. Did… Did you know that your father used to abuse her?”
Siân snorted. “Domestic fucking discipline? Aye, we found that out, through my cousin, ah? Biblical bullshit, right up your street I would have thought”
He looked pained. “No. Not at all. We are a contemplative order—“
She was starting to tense up. I know that my forearms are the tell she looks for, but my darling wife has her own temper, her own tells, and a serious shit storm was about to break over Ambrose’s head.
“Sackcloth and bloody ashes, is it? Or scourging, bit of whipping?”
“SIÂN! ENOUGH!”
She glared at me, and I took her hand. “Look, my sweet woman, I know. We were both hurt by her, aye? But this man isn’t her, is he? Give him a chance to speak, just for a while, aye? Find out what he has to tell us, then we can make our minds up properly, aye? Evidence first. It’s a crash site, we look first, judge later”
She was trembling, but she nodded, wiping a tear away from her left eye. I turned back to the spare little man. “And?”
He sighed. “I should explain. We are a Christian order, only about thirty years in existence. Our focus is contemplative, and as the Buddha teaches—“
“What the fuck?”
It just came out before I could stop it, but, well, what indeed the fuck? He lifted an eyebrow.
“We are a Christian order, do not be mistaken, but our Lord has nevertheless given many insights to those who came before His time on Earth as well as many who followed in latter days. If a man speaks Truth, should we disregard it purely because he has not been Saved? If we can accept the words of the Jews, why not those others who may have been vouchsafed a glimpse of the Godhead?”
Utterly barking. He continued, in a gentler tone.
“Buddhism speaks of respect for all living things. They justify it by mumbo-jumbo, of course, reincarnation, karma, and so on, but there is a Truth behind their misinterpretation, and there are lessons we can take from that. We are an Order that seeks to live as harmoniously with Nature, with the Lord’s creation, as we can. Mrs Powell, Siân, if I may, that is why your mother remained with us”
She picked up on that phrase immediately. “Remained?”
He nodded. “Yes, remained. It is not why she joined us in the first place, but it is why she has remained. I should stress at this point that I am merely a messenger here, not an advocate for any cause. I merely deliver her thoughts to you”
She still had the lock on. “Yes, but why did you say ‘remained’, ah?”
“Oh, it was not why she came. Not at all. Your mother was a little narrow in her interpretation of Our Lord’s message of grace”
“Up her own arse, you mean!”
“Oh, most definitely. Being where we are, we have some experience of Chapel people. They mistake physical rigour for spiritual and intellectual discipline”
That word again. I gave another squeeze to my beloved’s hand. “We heard about the d-word, Ambrose. You said ‘abuse’, though”
“Er, yes. Your father-in-law was a follower of a sterner tradition, but, well… This is a difficult subject for a celibate to comprehend, but it would appear that Mr Roberts performed his acts of domestic discipline more for the purposes of personal gratification than of the proper functioning of a Christian household”
Before I could spit the words out, he was holding up his hands, glass beside him on the coffee table.
“No, I do not use that term by way of approval but as a nod to the sophistry that lies behind the sickness of such distortion of Scripture. There is never a good reason to strike another”
I had a sudden flashback of a hard stop on a van, Chris in the back, a face, the swing of my asp—no, Ambrose, can’t agree on that one. He caught my expression, and I am sure he shuddered.
“Your mother came to us for all the wrong reasons, Siân. I believe I can guess what sort of establishment you thought we were, how we mortify the flesh, cleanse the soul of impurity, but that is not us. We simply remove distraction, we talk, we enlighten. Yes, more from the Buddha, I am afraid, but he spoke some truths and I do believe that they came from the Spirit. It took rather a long time for Angharad to reach her own lace on that Damascene road.
“We had to let her see for herself how it is not the place of others to prevent error, to curtail sin, that it must come from within the individual’s soul, that it must be heartfelt and voluntarily done. There were times when she could be a little too eager to, ahem, offer advice to others. That was something her brothers and sisters in Christ had to help her with, showing loving-kindness and faith in our Lord”
Enough was enough. “Look, Ambrose, neither of us is religious, not in any way, so could you simply tell us, in plain English, why you are here and what she wants?”
Another sigh from him. “Simple terms? She repents her behaviour and would be reconciled with her child”
Siân sprayed half a mouthful of tea. “As fucking simple as that? After what she said, she simply goes happy-clappy lord above all’s fucking fine in the garden? Coming up fucking roses, is it?”
H gave a twisted smile. “No, not as… simple as that at all. Unless you count months and months of contemplation and discussion as being ‘simple’, no, it hasn’t been simple. She has been horribly hard work. I should know, for I was the one handed what you may regard as an excrement-adorned stick, asked to study with her, talk with her, debate with her. No, it has not been simple, not in any way, and without the strength the Lord has given to me, I would cheerfully have walked away from her and left her to wallow in her error. She has not been an easy person to talk to, not until… not until we spoke of you”
I looked across, and she was frowning, puzzled. Ambrose nodded.
“Yes, Siân, you. You remain her daughter, her only issue. As long as she was still enfolded in Carwyn’s perversion, she was certain in her error, sure in her mistaken beliefs. Once she was shown a better path… No. There was nothing so simple. It was not quite kicking and screaming, but she was brought to understanding, shown the alternative, and in the end she was dwelling amongst those who were living and breathing that different way. She had seen your cousin and her husband, loved their children, and despite her rather perverse views on how to show love, she remains a mother”
Siân was spluttering now. “But…”
“If a child can grow up and become mature, why cannot an adult? Look, she suspects something of you. Is she correct?”
I looked at my wife, and she nodded, so I asked the what and why question, and he smiled. There was a definite twinkle there now.
“Your mother suspects that you wish to become a mother in your own right, and perhaps both of you together. We had a long, difficult but eventually fruitful discussion about that issue, if you will excuse the unintended pun. Your mother would see her grandchild or grandchildren. She would be reconciled with her daughter. She would… oh, Lord, how I wish You had found me an easier task, but I am Your servant, always and forever, and Your will is as it should be.
“Siân, I do believe we have managed to work through to some sort of understanding of how love is given by Our Lord to humanity, and while your mother has what would most politely be called ‘reservations’ about men, she seems to have found a sufficiently fitting Scriptural explanation of how two women may, well, cleave together as one spirit. Her statement is that she will accept you, Elaine, as her daughter-in-law, as her daughter’s spouse. And as a result…
“I can only quote her words to me, yes? She said, one day as we sat by the edge of the sea, and the birds called over breaking waves of a day the Lord had given us, she said “That woman my daughter consorts with, she is wanting a child, just like my own daughter. There are ways, medical ways, and I would wish them both well in their desire’ and then she said more”
My wife gave my hand such a tight squeeze I had to look at her, and there were tears pouring from her eyes. I handed her a tissue from the box on my side table before turning back to Ambrose.
“More?”
“Yes. She said she would acknowledge any child, from either or both of you”
Really? Big fucking—no, I pulled that back. This was actually a very big deal, and it would take a lot of thought before we could get ourselves back on an even keel. He wasn’t finished, though.
“She was very clear, in the end, clear in her understanding. She realised you would need the, er, assistance of a man for the, ahem, necessaries, and she recommended Kevin, who I believe is your cousin’s husband. Oh, and she said that if Kevin wasn’t suitable or available, you should use ‘that man her sister married, he has a good boy, makes fine children.’ I assume you know who she meant”
CHAPTER 55
I really, really couldn’t accept that in any meaningful way. Miserable bigot goes to stay with Magic Monks, and lo and behold she is turned back onto the fluffy paths of rainbow unicorns, kittens and righteous tolerance. No, not likely at all. There were better-documented cases of airborne pork. Ambrose had a wry smile on his face, though.
“She also predicted that you wouldn’t believe her, either of you. I can see a lot of her in you, Siân: the stubbornness for a start. Look, my cards on the table. You are not the only ones who do not believe her. I gather that neither of you share her faith—no, please. Distorted, unpleasant, confused, call it what you will, she still has faith. Still a deep belief in our Saviour, strange as her image of Him may be. Please…”
He stopped, sipping his tea as a clear hesitation movement, then grinned directly at me.
“Do you always watch people so intently, Inspector?”
I gave him the teeth of a smile and no more. “Always, Ambrose. It comes with the job. Particularly, it comes with staying in one piece. My wife and I are quite attached to that concept”
He didn’t even flicker at the w-word, so I let him gather his arguments again. He shook his head as if to clear it, then continued.
“No, I do not believe that Damascene conversions are as common as some evangelicals may claim, especially those of a trans-Atlantic persuasion. There is something else going on with Angharad Roberts, and I do not yet know what it is. All that I can do is my duty, and pass on her message”
Siân sniffed loudly. “Cheaper by post, ah?”
Ambrose smiled again, and I had to admit that the more I saw of him, the more I found myself thawing.
“Ah, Siân, by duty I do not mean job description. I am referring to my duty to others, to humanity. This is not a small issue, is it? Now, your sister-in-law, I believe she had a Roman Catholic wedding-“
“Like hell she did!”
My wife pushed me back as Ambrose once more shook his head. “Your mother is very good at seeing external surfaces. Please enlighten me”
Thawing was stalled for a while. “We had a good friend of hers officiate at the service. He happens to be a Catholic priest, or was, anyway. So?”
“Angharad listens, listens intently. Her interpretation is a filter, though, one of confirmation bias. Are you familiar with that one?”
Siân laughed. “Aye. When you see lots of cars being driven badly, you notice the BMWs because you already know they’re driven by idiots, and so you disregard all the non-Beemers because they don’t fit what you’ve already decided. You’ve got my mother spot on there!”
I snorted. “Aye, but BMW drivers are still arseholes, and I am beginning to suspect that your mother is…”
I waved a hand in the air, and Siân took it, taking it to her lap to ease the strain in my forearm. I tried again. “Look. Either Mrs Roberts is not as big an arsehole as we thought, or there is something else going on, and that would mean that she is an even bigger one than we could imagine”
Ambrose coughed. “Not necessarily, Inspector Powell”
I made the choice. “Elaine, please”
“Elaine. Look... There are many reasons people come to our little space of contemplation and calm”
Siân muttered “And bloody awful weather”
He nodded. “Yes. Yes indeed. Some come for a short space, some for longer, and some join us indefinitely. Your mother is in the last group, I feel. The reasons vary, but we are occasionally used as a sort of Betty Ford for the less well-known and, indeed, less well-off. We therefore have a type of local Customs control. No alcohol or other substances that harm, no links to addiction such as gambling, so on. As a result, we notice what does arrive on the boat, and for your mother it is analgesia. Do you have any idea why she would require such?”
My wife shook her head. “Mam was always like that idiot nun in India. You know: pain is god’s way of teaching people some lesson or other. She never used them”
I shook my head. “Only lesson pain ever taught me was that it bloody well hurts. What are you saying, Ambrose?”
“Would you have more tea? Please?”
I did the honours, for it was clear he wanted a moment alone with my lover. I did the domestic goddess bit, realising how even such a silly joke would have driven Angharad into paroxysms of rage and disgust, and when I rattled the tray back into the living room the other two had a couple of OS maps of North Wales out. Ambrose was sadly shaking his head.
“How many years, Siân?”
“Oh, seven or eight, tops. She was working with Ysgol Bro Hedd Wyn. Gwyn y byd, ond pa hyd, bloody aye”
I put the tray down. “Hedd Wyn as in…?”
“Ellis Evans, yes”
“Yffern! Sorry, Ambrose. Are you familiar? Famous poet, killed in the Great War, World War One, aye?”
“Not really, no”
“What Siân said, the Welsh: the world is a pure and clean place, but for how long? And then they put that obscenity right where he lived. What’s she got?”
He started to crumble at that, and my wife was quicker with the tissues than I had been with the tea. We gave him a minute, but he was a strong little monk.
“Ah, we don’t know, because she will not speak of it, and I have been forced to read and research when I have had time. I do not wish to breach confidence. It isn’t the confessional, we don’t do that, but there is always medical confidentiality, and simple trust between two people. I have discounted mammary because of her age, but looking at the statistics it is most likely to one of the leukaemia types or pancreatic”
In the twenties, a part of what is now the Snowdonia National Park was flooded, one of many such areas, but this time for electricity generation rather than English water needs. Then, at the end of the fifties, some bright spark decided that if they enlarged the reservoir there would be enough water for a nuclear power station, now disused. All the efflux was pumped straight back into the lake, and is still there, radiating nicely. Siân was singing quietly.
“Ac yn Nhrawsfynydd, ar lan y llyn, yr oen yn araf marw…”
“Pardon?”
“Sorry, Ambrose. And in Trawsfynydd, on the edge of the lake, the lambs are slowly dying. Song about Hedd Wyn, Meic Stevens I think, or Mabsant, not sure. Shit shit shit. Who’s she seeing?”
“She isn’t”
“Oh for fuck’s sake—sorry! If she’s got cancer she must be seeing somebody!”
“She isn’t. I suspect the pain-killers are being sourced in an unorthodox manner. Before you ask, I think I have some idea of what she is doing, and in old-fashioned terms it is simply preparing to meet her maker”
I made some sort of strangulated noise, for words had just failed me for the first time in aeons, but both of the others were shaking their heads. My wife took my hand again.
“No, cariad. She really does believe, just as this man says. Just as our friend here says, that is”
She turned to Ambrose. “You are our friend, aren’t you?”
He smiled warmly. “I do believe I am now. But still… Still I have no idea why her sudden thaw. There have to be strings somewhere. Always, with her”
I watched at least four emotions cross Siân’s face at once just then, which was interesting professionally, and she finished with a shout. “Ha! Strings! That’s it!”
She looked at our frowns with evident irritation. “Strings. Bows, ah? Full quivers?”
I started to ask what exactly the fuck just as Ambrose spoke up. “Are you talking about ‘quiver-full’ families, Siân?”
“Abso bloody lutely! Elaine, it’s an odd religious nutters’ idea of having loads of children as arrows to fire for god’s holy etc, and what’s going on here… Look, cariad, who does Mam really hate?”
“Me”
“Well, yes, but apart from that, MORE than that, who does she really, absolutely hate, despise and wish to dump shit on? Again? Dad, that’s who! I’m just guessing here, so bear with me. If she snuffs it, he gets a claim on whatever she leaves. Only other claimant is me. With me so far? So she needs ammo, arrows to fire at Dad. Kids, isn’t it?”
She turned back to Ambrose. “And I’ll bet she’s not going to be proclaiming that marriage is for a man and a bloody woman this time, not when it works to his disadvantage. Better than a trailer load of slurry through the letter box! Fuck it”
She twisted round in her seat and grabbed the phone, and to her obvious surprise it was answered after only three rounds of press-1-fors.
“Hi? Who am I speaking to, please? Ah! Julia, its Mrs Siân Powell. I’d like to book an appointment for me and my wife to come in and discuss a referral for IVF. Yes. Yes, I did say wife. Ta! We’ll wait on the post, then”
She hung up, looking a little flushed. “Well? I don’t care. For once I am totally in agreement with Mam: fuck him!”
CHAPTER 56
It wasn’t as quick as that, of course, but we did at least get the process started. It was going to be a long haul. They needed to do so many odd things with our bits I lost track, but that wasn’t the problem. We could sort out the fertilisation bit any time, but it was the implementation, the implanting, that needed thought. Would we have what would effectively be twins, or would we stagger it to spread the, er, labour?
See if we get a viable kid-to-be first, Elaine, then plan.
And life went on, in as prosaic a way as can be imagined when you know that your wife’s closest relative is slowly and steadily being eaten by her own body. We’d tried via Ambrose, but the refusal was absolute. It seemed that while my beloved was welcome as a tool to damage her own father she would never, as a pervert, whore, abomination, pick one from a long list, be welcome in her mother’s presence, and as for myself, even the thought was ludicrous. I was astonished she had even unbent enough for that wedding.
Things heated up again some months afterwards, when my mobile went off in the middle of a budgeting meeting, just as we repaired to the canteen. It was Di.
“Lainey? Where are you?”
“Canteen, Di—“
“Got a telly there?”
“Aye—“
“BBC1, now!”
I called over to one of the lads nearest, and he flicked the channels, and shit, I didn’t need an explanation. The pictures were all too familiar, and it was odd how my copper’s mind was already looking at the shape of what was left of the car. They showed the hedge, a birdbath, footprints…
Shit. That was dried blood.
I’d forgotten the phone, but Di was shouting for my attention.
“It’s Annie, Lainey! Not in the car, I mean, but—you got the news on? See the house? That’s her mate’s place, he’s in bloody intensive care. She’s…. that’s her blood, Lainey!”
Di’s voice was in one ear while the drone of the TV commentary was in the other, but over everything was a rising chorus of anger from my boys and girls. What the hell was that all about? I had thought all the Irish stuff was effectively done and dusted, but there it was in colour. Di was sobbing now.
“Nobody’ll tell me anything, Lainey! Not a bloody thing!”
“Di. DI! I will ask, aye? I have contacts. Go and get a cuppa or something and I will call you back when I have something, OK?”
I hung up before she could say more, and started to pay attention to the newsreader. Dennis Armstrong, that was the sick copper, the one blown up, and---ah.
“A colleague and friend of Sergeant Armstrong, Sergeant Anne Price, is also in hospital as a result of the explosion. No information has been released regarding her injuries, but they are not believed to be life-threatening. The Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism unit are leading the investigation, and are appealing for witnesses”
The piece finished with the usual telephone number details, and I raised my hand.
“Quiet, you lot! I’m going to make a couple of calls, so hush for now. Annie there was Heddlu De Cymru, aye?”
The phone rang and rang and I nearly gave up, but Alice caught it just as it slipped onto the answer machine.
“Sorry, I was in the garden”
“Alice, it’s Elaine”
“Hello, love! What can I do for you?”
“Ring Eric, aye? Annie’s Eric?”
“What has happened, girl? You sound frightened”
In the garden. Arse, she wouldn’t have seen the telly. “Get the news on if you can. Annie’s hurt, we need to see how badly”
Random noises at the other end, followed by a quiet but emphatic “Shit!”
“Elaine? I will call Sarah, get the number for you. You aren’t thinking straight, are you? Take your time. Breathe. Drink tea. I will call you in a few minutes”
We switched to the rolling news channel, then CNN, even bloody Sky, but there was nothing new, just the same photos of a ripped car and a trail of rusty brown footprints. I drank tea, and the budget meeting went into cold storage by unspoken agreement. Ten minutes after I had left her, Alice called me back.
“No joy on Eric’s number, which is not really surprising, but I caught Geoff, you remember him? Married to Steph, the tall ginger girl?”
“Mad fiddle woman? Aye!”
“Right… I wrote all this down… OK. Dennis is on critical, respirator, whole shebang. They’re running a sort of tag-team round him, which is where Steph was when I called. Annie’s on another ward. She’s cut her feet—“
“I saw the footprints on the news”
“Yes, exactly, but she seems to have had a bit of a breakdown. Catatonic, comatose, whatever the word is. No prognosis, so I doubt you’ll catch Eric at all. Look, I hate to say this, but for once there is absolutely nothing either of us can do except wait”
“Yes, but—“
“Elaine! You cannot heal the whole world! Now go back to work, home, whatever. Geoff has agreed to give one of us a shout if there is any news. There. Is. Nothing. You. Can. Do”
She actually hung up on me, politely. I dialled again.
“Lainey! Hi!”
“What’s Kev on today, Vicky?”
“Hell! What’s up, girl? He’s day off, in the garden with the offspring. I’ll shout him—hang on”
He was on the phone in about twenty seconds, and I ran through the story again as Vicky tuned in their own TV.
“Shit, Lainey, who the hell goes about setting bloody car bombs these days?”
“Not a bloody clue, have I?”
He took a couple of audible breaths, almost sighs, then he spoke again, and his voice was completely different, softer in tone.
“Lainey, can I be really personal?”
“You always bloody are, Kev!”
“Please, just this once, go home. Speak to your boss, aye? But go home. You are losing it, girl”
“I am not bloody losing---“
God knows where the tears came from, or what happened to my legs, but suddenly it was all too much and I just had to sit down. There were chairs, obviously, but the ne I landed in felt as if it was about to break, I hit it that hard. Kev was right, a small and still rational part of my mind was saying. Suddenly, it had all become too much. Not just Annie, but Chris, Omar, Di, all of it was just too shitty for words, and it was as if the differences I had believed I had made were paper masks over the grinning demons that filled the world around me.
I spoke to the boss, and after a quick look in my eyes he organised a car to take me home, where I sat staring at the walls for what Siân told me was at least twenty hours.
What broke me out of my mood was Alice, who simply drove down to our place, pushed my wife out of the kitchen and calmly began domesticating our routine. Cups of tea, little snacks, and plates of comfort food like beans on toast and bacon sandwiches. If my doubts about her and my uncle had ever been planning on showing their faces again, she showed them the door in the clearest way possible, and I saw why he loved her.
That was the trigger that brought me back to the here and now, or rather there and then: the realisation that I couldn’t always see people as clearly as I thought. My old bastard of an uncle… The phone rang as I was half way through revising my opinion of him, and it was Sar.
“News, Lainey, good news. Annie’s back with us. Sore feet, some minor burns, no worse than a bit too much sun, aye? She’s fine. Just had a… had a bit too much of old horrors. She’s got a really strong family round her, that one”
I had to poke her on that one, and she just laughed down the phone. “Yes indeed, chwaer fawr, our family as well, aye? Now, Steph’s lot are doing a shift system with her mate, but Annie’s back home tomorrow, and all I am hearing locally, their locally, that is, is that ‘enquiries are continuing’. I spoke to her, aye? Let your people know she’s fine”
“And her mate? The one who got blown up?”
Sarah sighed. “Not good, Lainey. Steph says he’s on a ventilator, out cold still. His missus is a wreck, apparently. No. Before you ask, no. There is nothing you can do but send your best. I just have a feeling there’s something else going on, aye? So give my love to Alice, rest and watch the news”
I had meant to say something about the doctors, about IVF, but it didn’t seem at all right. I rang Diane instead.
“Hi, Blake. She there?”
“Aye, Inspector”
“You know better than that, butt”
“Lainey, she’s not good. Have you got anything, any better news?”
“That’s what I’m calling for. She’s awake. She’s… well, she’s fine. Tell Di that, and hold her for me. She’ll…”
“Lainey”
I fought back my sobs. “Aye”
“No shame, girl. No shame at all. That’s what makes us good coppers, aye? We care. Now, you take care; I’m going to take my wife somewhere I can hold her and let her know it’s all going to be OK”
“You are a good man, Blake”
“Got a lot to live up to, innit? Talk later, love”
We ate our nursery food, we watched the news, I stayed off work, and then we saw the raids.
What the bloody hell was going on? Why Belfast?
CHAPTER 57
In the end, I spent two weeks off work. My bosses were very clear in their instructions, and I was told that it was being recorded as ‘gardening leave’ rather than sickness absence, to avoid the stigma such things bring. Effectively, I was suspended on full pay, but without the implied misbehaviour.
Wyn called round more than once to share a cuppa and eat us out of biscuits, Di and Blake were there, Kev and his family naturally; even Chris came over one afternoon with some scandalous videos and pictures of his latest holiday in Gran Canaria. What is there to say? I am gay, but to me it’s just a simple part of my life, my soul, and those two things are completed by one lovely red-haired woman, whereas Chris is so in-your-face about it he almost outshines the rainbow.
Wyn it was who put everything into words. He had always been such a steady hand, right from the early days of Sarah’s troubles, but more than that it was a communion. He was a man who had come through the same shitty world as myself, and anyone who didn’t develop coping strategies in such places would have been lost. That, I understood instinctively, was what had so nearly broken Annie as Adam, and continued its corrosion of the woman herself.
“It’s a distancing thing, Elaine. The trick is not to let things get TOO distant. You care; it’s what makes you such a good copper. Trouble is, you have to learn when to let go. I did a little digging, aye? I understand you first met her at an RTC?”
“Er, no, not exactly. I met Adam-as-was when I was doing that diversity tour stuff, with Chris O’Connor? The nasty stuff was later. It was a particularly… It wasn’t nice”
“I heard. What is it that’s brought her back? I’ve been following the reports, oh, and did you know she’s up for a gong? Above and beyond, aye? Anyway, my question. What is it that’s got her back with us, stable? “
“Family, I suppose. Got a good bloke, proper partner, aye?”
“Indeed. What she has is people like you, people who care, people who strive their hardest to make a difference. The danger for that sort of person is in their inability to let go. It’s a cliché, I know, but you can’t save the world by yourself, you can’t win everyone’s battle, so pick those where you can make a difference. Look at it this way: one person can’t push a runaway car back, but a shove to the side, or a grab at the steering wheel, that can avoid a disaster. Pick your battles, Elaine”
“Aye, but…”
“No buts, girl. Oh, and I got some news before I came over. Her friend is off the ventilator, awake and talking. One less for you to worry about. Got more tea?”
So typical of the man. He effectively tells me off, puts me in my place, then drops a little sweetener to show me that said place is not actually a bad one. I rang Sar that evening, and heard a tale of exhaustion and collapse combined with happy tears. The smiles curdled when I found out exactly what had been going on, and why Belfast, and that was when I very nearly prayed that whatever deity might exist could make room in the same part of hell for the Cuthberts to join the Evans clan.
I really think, almost to my disgust, that it was my revulsion at their crimes that broke the spell of my near-collapse. After what they had done to little Chantelle, they still held the arrogance to try and lash out at those who had intervened? Bastards! That, it seemed, was my coping strategy: anger. Note to self: don’t let it override sense.
I went back into work after sixteen days of unusual absence, and of course the work had piled up, and naturally there were budgets to collate, apportion and correct, and, and, bloody etc. I was a little irritated that nobody even mentioned my time off, and I must have muttered something a little louder than I had meant to, for Adele simply rose from her desk, came into my office and shut the door behind her.
“I’m going to forget my place for a moment, Inspector Powell, and I am going to say a few things. Nobody is avoiding anything. We know you, we know how you care. Some of the boys have worked with Adam, Annie, whatever they call themselves now, innit? What happened is no small thing. You are not Superwoman, though you do a bloody good job of copying her, and nobody thinks less of you for having a bit of time off. If you had broken a leg chasing a robber, it would be the same. Industrial injury, innit? So stop putting yourself down or I will put in for a move!”
Told off by my own PA, what else could I do but start to laugh, which got her giggling, and then of course we had some tea as my understanding crystallised. The boys and girls weren’t avoiding the subject to spare my feelings, they were doing it out of respect for a fellow copper, maybe even for a friend. I think I became a little bit more human that day, for between them, Adele and Wyn had put me back on my feet. I didn’t think any less of Annie for her collapse, so why should I condemn myself?
Siân noticed my mood when I got home, and simply smiled and got on with our evening meal. She only raised the subject in bed that night.
“Rebooted then, fy nghariad?”
“Eh?”
She put on a silly Brummy accent. “Have yow troid switching it off and on again? Rebooted, that’s you”
I snuggled into her warmth. “More like booted up the arse. Even Adele had a poke”
“You really need to watch your metaphors"
“What? Oh! Sorry!”
“Never mind. I was worried about you, you know. I… a confession. I called Wyn up, thought he might turn you round a bit”
“That’s not a confession, Siân. That’s what lovers do, aye? And have I told you recently how much I love you?”
“You could show me…”
I did my best.
The year hurried past us, in a whirl of meetings and conferences, trips up to see Mam and Dad, and the occasional visit from Ambrose, who was clearly determined to see that we were kept abreast of Angharad’s condition even if she was doing her best to exclude us. That Summer Kev managed to go above and beyond, and Di and Blake’s new arrival Rhodri Adam was able to join us all in a huge villa on Kos, with its own pool. If I couldn’t heal the world, by god it was doing its best to heal me. A month or so later, I had my camera ready again.
I would never, ever tire of those old hymns, and our family blended with Annie’s to drown out much of the organ. None of us were religious, except Mam and Dad, but I could never deny the magic that lived in the old tunes. It is a commonplace to describe brides as radiant, and mine certainly had been, but Annie dimmed the sun, and bugger propriety, I caught her as she looked towards Eric, and he looked back and smiled, and, well, a week later I sat with Di as she fed little Rhod and we both cried as I shared the pictures. Di looked up at me, smiling through her tears, and yet again I was shown that a cliché is often that just because it is so true.
“This isn’t such a shitty world after all, is it, Lainey?”
CHAPTER 58
It was an odd year, in the end. Annie was clearly settled entirely into her new life, and each time I saw her she seemed somehow shorter. I realised she was like my forearms, that tell Siân was always so quick to spot. As she caught life up after so many years of pursuit, the tension was leaving her body. Even though she was like Alice in her devotion to heels, her physical presence diminished as her personality was finally allowed out to face the world.
We spent more time over there once her friend Dennis was back on his feet, and we spent a lot more under our doctors, literally some of the time as it seemed to involve a lot of beds with stirrups. We had discussed all the differing methods at length, and in the end what seemed to speak to us was insemination rather than in vitro.]
I obviously don’t mean in the, ahem, conventional way, as not only would Sarah have killed all three of us (well, at least two of us) but while I can’t speak with certainty about another’s feelings I am almost free of any doubt on my wife’s opinion on sex with a man, and it is like my own. I don’t hate men, and never have, but I find them and their anatomy profoundly foreign. I had been pestered at school, having to punch one or two of the more irritating little hormonal bastards, but in most cases it was their willies doing the thinking for them, not their brains. I only ever had to hit them once, though.
No, I didn’t hate them, and examples like Dad and my uncle, Kev and Tony, not to mention Eric Johnson, bore that out. I just had no desire to become intimate with them in that particular way. So, while we were going for insemination, it would be by way of a different conduit. That was part of our fun and games with the doctors, because neither of us wanted to risk multiple pregnancy using fertility drugs, which meant that they needed to find just the right time, mood, season, phase of the moon, whatever, to give us the best hope for conception. That again raised an issue, for if we weren’t both dancing in time, we would end up giving birth at different times, and we really wanted to do it all together, like everything else in our lives and life together.
Christmas came round again, and Sarah was on the phone a month or so beforehand.
“Got a proposal for you, Lainey”
I laughed at that. “You’ve already had our proposal, chwaer fychan! Has he, you know?”
She laughed, raucously even for her. “Oh yes indeed, all packaged up, chilled down and sent on its way! We… Let’s just say the collection of the necessities wasn’t exactly unpleasant”
“You are a strumpet, Sar!”
A simpler, cleaner laugh. “Nope, just a very happily married woman with healthy appetites that are shared by my hubby. Trust me, it didn’t involve work, but rather a lot of heavy breathing did take place…”
She drifted off for a few seconds, and my mind showed me the old Sar, broken so badly I thought she must die. Anthony Hall, you are a life saver as well as a life giver.
“Lainey?”
“Aye?”
“What you up to at Christmas?”
“Both of us have it off, Sar. I mean, I’m off shifts, and Siân’s pulled some swaps. What do you have in mind?”
“That vicar, Simon, aye? My little boy’s been stirring, and there’s a couple of nights camping, charity do, music”
“Beer and food?”
“Oh yes! Devious little sod’s already been on to Alice and the rest. You on?”
I nudged my wife. “Sar’s asking about Christmas. Just say yes”
“Yes”
I turned back to the phone. “Aye, that’s us in. Mail me directions, just in case, aye? Got to go, wife’s poking me in the ribs”
I hung up and turned to my red lady. “Ow! That hurts!”
“Well, I agree with you on general principle, but that doesn’t mean I always trust you, Lainey! Speak and divulge!”
“Tony’s done the necessaries, and Sar’s, well, I suspect, sod it I bloody well know it was a joint enterprise”
“You mean she, er, had a hand in things”
“I suspect it wasn’t just a hand, cariad. Anyway, what you agreed to was Christmas. Trip over that way”
“Dover?”
“No, Horley. That vicar, aye?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Er, camping”
“Ah. That means shopping. You seen the state of that tent?”
Argument would have been a waste of time, so our next afternoon off was spent at the big outdoor shop in town, where she settled on a solid little dome/tunnel hybrid. By ‘little’, I mean it was a three-person tent by description, with a decent porch at each end.
“Sleeping bags, cariad?”
“Nope. We’ll take duvets and proper pillows. Couple of those thermal blankets’ll do for rugs, though… ah. This is what we want, eh?”
Thermal underwear. Wonderful. Thanks, Sar; I am turning into a crumbly. In the end, we couldn’t resist a new fleece jacket each, and a couple of silly hats to go with them, and some fleece gloves, and, well, that was the pub and the Italian restaurant avoided till after Christmas.
The car knew its own way after so many trips, but we were in convoy. No surprise at that one, for any event in my sister’s life could never be complete without Arris’ presence. I was in full philosopher mode by the time we took a break at Leigh Delamere to let smaller people stretch their legs and larger ones to relax their bladders and top up their tannin levels. The tea was die=re, and I wondered what the car park attendants would say if I simply sparked up our camping stove in the car park. Arris’ brood was bouncing, each of them too full of energy to have been comfortable for any longer. I realised how ole they were getting, their own clocks ticking—no, stop that. Arris caught me staring.
“Aye, not kids any more, but always my babies. Do me a favour, and help keep an eye on Ali when Jim’s about”
I gave her the eyebrows. “Dark horse, that little man. Bit like his dad, very deep”
She nodded. “Very serious about things is Jim. Thinks a lot, but not too much, if you get me. He’d make a great accountant, eye for detail that he has”
I laughed. “Or a copper, aye?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. He doesn’t have the cynicism, or the edge you have, you or his Mam. He’s more like his Dad”
Thank you, Alison Barraclough, for such casually-spoken acceptance of my sister. I kissed her cheek in thanks.
“Stop that or you’ll confuse Steve! No, on second thoughts…. Confuse him all you like so I can de-confuse him later!”
She was even worse than my sister.
Back on the road, dreary motorway finally ending, round the end of the airport, down the little lane and of course the people we wanted to see most were all in the bloody pub. That meant I had to join them, and that meant a pint, and THAT meant self-control because one of us had to get the tent sorted. I was only slightly surprised to find my devious old uncle had somehow managed to secure a room in the pub. At Christmas. He should play the lottery.
Tent up, bedding arranged, tea from an urn run by Annie’s cousin Merry, who seemed to be somewhat focussed on the vicar Simon, and then rounds of so many people I either knew or knew of. Annie, of course, was the person I most wanted to see, and when I found her she was with her Geordie friend and his wife, and of course their own child, together with that lad Darren and a young girl so much happier than when I had first met her.
It was a different feeling, now. Things were moving for me and Siân, there was a door opening for us, just as it had for Chantelle, and the sight of mothers and children no longer sliced me to the bone but raised questions. What did they do when…? How did they handle…? I realised I was studying them rather than envying each woman with pain and bitterness, and life was now there for all of us. I realised I had something that just had to be done.
“Annie? Can we have a chat? Private, aye?”
She looked a little worried at that, so I gave her a better smile, and I walked with her over to the military-style gravestone that sat in a sunny corner of the churchyard.
“Boy seems quite attached to you, Annie”
She grinned “Sons and mothers, Elaine”
“Oh?”
“Adopted, now, aye? Very proud of him, I am. He saw it before I did, and he had the strength of character to show us both where we stood”
I laughed. “Funny, that. I look at you now, born to be a Mam, aye? And I think back to when we met”
She grinned. “Good actor I was back then!”
“Too good, girl. Look… Oh, there’s no easy way to say this. Do you remember a girl, PC, went to CID, Diane?”
The smile went, out like a match dropped in water. “What are you telling me, Elaine? Who’s hurt her?”
I put a hand on her arm. “No, not hurt, woman. Nothing bad, nothing at all. Remember when we met?”
“Aye, you were doing that diversity stuff”
“Aye indeed, but I followed up with that project, special team, aye? She was one of my girls”
Annie gave me a very prolonged stare. “You mean one of your team, not one of your, you know, girls? Shit, sorry, I know you’re not like that, just, well, bit sideways with hearing that name after all the stuff that’s gone on since. I thought she was going to ask me out, once”
I nodded. “She was, girl. Very fond of you, she is”
“Oh?”
There was a ton of meaning in that one syllable. I took her hands in mine.
“Annie, my sweet woman, she knows all about you, and she still loves you, just not that way, aye? Told me she understands now why you two got on so well”
“Good job she never actually, you know…”
“Indeed. Married now, she is. Kid”
I had some pictures of Rhodri Adam on my phone, along with Diane and Blake, of course, from our holidays, and Annie’s face worked in little twitches as she scrolled through them. I took the phone back, and selected the picture of Eric’s smile I had snatched at their wedding.
“I showed her this one, among others”
She was weeping now. “Elaine, what did she have, boy or girl?”
“Boy, Annie. Rhodri Adam”
I don’t think she was collapsing, but the cuddle was necessary, my fleece taking her tears.
“Lainey, that’s two kids with that name”
“Well, take it as it was meant, woman”
“Could I…no. Should I?”
I understood, and dialled the number, putting the phone on speaker mode. Diane’s voice was thin but clear.
“Lainey? You OK?”
“Aye, Diane. I’m over in Surrey, with a friend. Phone’s on speaker mode”
I heard her breath catch. “Adam? I mean… Annie?”
CHAPTER 59
Annie’s face worked once more in little twitches, her breath catching.
“Diane? What….”
“Lainey’s told me it all, or I suppose what she thinks I should know, A—nnie. I didn’t want to rock your boat, and, well, Elaine, this is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? Not quite what we agreed, not at all”
I knew, just then, that my wife was at my shoulder, just before she murmured “Leave them to it, woman, and we shall have a little word”
I stepped back with her, leaving Annie with Diane and my phone, and Siân began stripping skin from flesh.
“Confidences, eh? Promises made? Other people’s secrets? Getting carried away with things, or just still not thinking straight?”
“I just thought—“
“No. You didn’t think. You let momentum take over, eh? Why didn’t you ring Diane up first, and bloody well ask her if you should do what you just did?”
I tried to stammer something out, but she just muttered “Come here” and took me into a hug, a cuddle a mother would give to an upset child. Her words were soft in my ear.
“Lainey, cariad, I know you meant it for the best, but you have to think on how many lives are involved here. You can’t just steam in like that. Look, what’s done is done now, aye? So let’s leave them to it, let them dance their own dance. We’ve got things to do, people to outrage. Just, tonight, this weekend, talk to me before you get a head of steam up”
She took a long, slow breath. “Wyn was clear, when he spoke to me. You’ve almost had a collapse, he said, and I said it to you: you can’t look after the whole bloody world, and when you try, the way you are now, you’re going to put your foot in it. So stay with me tonight, cariad, smile, dance, but stay by me. Agreed?”
Shit. Even Adele had seen it, and she wasn’t even a copper. I looked over to Annie, and she was just finishing with the phone and walking towards us, eyes sharp under her dark hair.
“That wasn’t agreed beforehand, was it Elaine?”
“ER, no”
“Well, dim ots, as you would no doubt say. We’ve made our peace, aye? And Diane says she knows why you did it, but, well, she’d rather you hadn’t”
Annie looked away, shaking her head, then snapped her gaze back round.
“She wanted to let me have room for my new life, she said, no old ghosts at the banquet, no past monsters coming back to haunt me, and the thing is, that’s what my life has been like for years. Night terrors, aye? Old stories that never got stale”
She shook her head again, almost in disbelief. “We’ll have to go out there some day and meet them all again, no doubt. I don’t know how that will go: BFF or just remembering to send a card at Christmas? She’s been following things, aye, wanted to know all about Den, so I don’t think it would be down to tokenism. Just, Lainey, sweet woman, I know how you meant it, but ask first, aye?”
Yet another shake of her head. “Come on. Time for tea and church stuff.”
She reached out a hand for mine and led my wife and me back to the crowds. The church was indeed crowded that evening, even with what seemed like half our family in the choir stalls, and it was very clear now exactly how well the vicar was getting on with Annie’s cousin. We had hymns, good ones, and we had sermons, from the Vicar and Tony’s little Irish friend, that were cogent and altogether too sensible for them to be anything religious, and there was beer. I decided to leave my self-control in the hands of my wife for the evening and simply try for a good night. As usual, Steph had brought a collection of musical types, one of whom started up some sort of cat-strangling thing, and I knew I would be given ample opportunity to switch my brain off properly.
That lasted right up to the point when Tony shouted for his wife, and then my sister called out to what sounded like every woman she knew, and in the tone of voice I hadn’t heard since I’d reintroduced her to Tony. Shit. I hung back slightly, looking to my wife for the nod, but I caught on very quickly. I mean, the girl may have been French, but she was clearly one of what I was almost thinking of as ‘us’. And as her story was revealed, I felt the same taste in my mouth as the Evans clan gave me, the same slow and steady burn of anger. Siân’s hand was stroking my forearm, but all I saw were ripples, spreading out from the original stone.
Those sermons had spoken of love and friendship, of giving yourself to those who needed it, and I knew that was my weakness. I was trying too hard, sense lagging behind enthusiasm, but it was ripples. So many of the people here had been touched by the death the Vicar had mentioned, including lovely Annie, who had so nearly broken. The savagery given out to Omar and Chris hadn’t just hurt them but also everyone in South Wales whose sexuality might be, or seem to be, in any way unconventional. Debbie and Fahmi, families, Sgt Gould, bloody ripples.
Sar’s face was set, and I while couldn’t see Sam there I could see Dad, off out the door to give Joe a lesson in life that would probably have ended up in terminating it.
Bigotry. Hatred. Fists and feet. There was a quick conference, a women’s issues session, and a group of them whisked the French girl, Sophie, away, as the boys dragged her brother off to the pub.
Siân still held my arm. “No, cariad, leave the men to their space. The women will do their bit, but there are kids and other folk here. Keep the smile going so they don’t pick up on anything odd. Got me? Now, smile and mingle”
They were back in half an hour or so, and it all went well in the end after a few hiccups. What surprised me was, in the end, unsurprising. That sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. The details of what my friends and family did, Steve in particular, may have been surprising, but why they did them and when were exactly as I expected. Steve, for example, taking Sophie into a waltz he performed better than some professionals, to a lovely lilting tune played by our resident musicians; nothing in our history would ever have led me to suspect he had such a talent, but the warmth he brought to it was what I knew and loved.
That evening came to an end, and as we headed off to our tents Annie stopped me for a hug, whispering in my ear “I know why you did it, love. So does Diane. Don’t worry and sleep well”
In the end, I did, but it took me a while to get off. Morning was a bloody cold draught in my face, followed thankfully by a warm wife and a warmer cuppa.
"Hint for today, cariad: not to talk about us and kids, aye? Hospital group for lunch. You’re on table duties”
“What about you?”
“Kitchen!”
“Bloody holiday time!”
“Just for the day, aye? Proper party tonight. So get up and out, and I’d put the thermals on before you do”
I grinned at the memories. “Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have been so keen for me to get them off last night!”
“Sod you, Powell! Church hall, aye? Breakfast about to be dished up”
So we had a proper breakfast, and a lot more tea, and the kids came in their chairs and with their sticks, and I understood why Siân had vetoed discussion of our own plans. Keep it upbeat, Lainey, keep it away from worries. A little before the charity meal, Sophie was taken away for a while, and when she returned the girls had obviously given her a bit of a makeover, her confidence still absent despite their work. They didn’t leave her to the jitters, though, and by the time we sent the last of the hospital buses on its way she was entrenched with our friends and family.
That night, watching her trying to outdance my sister, I wondered where those jitters and inhibitions had fled to, for she went as mad as any of them. Except, of course, for Steph and Annie. I didn’t ask my wife for permission when I sent Diane the picture of a sweating woman with a flute, on one leg. In heels. I knew I’d collar Tony in the morning.
CHAPTER 60
It went better than I had expected, at least as far as his embarrassment went. He actually seemed to be looking forward to it, so after an obligatory bit of teasing about how the pot had been filled, he started in on his own questions.
“I don’t know, Tone. Thing is, we’re looking at a sort of simultaneous birth thing. If we can manage it, that is”
Sar erupted in a really unflattering fit of laughter, gasping something about the Olympics between snorts and guffaws. Three of us waited patiently until she could speak with some form of coherent grammar and sense.
“Just, Olympic sport, aye? Just not for sperm!”
She was off again, and this time Siân went with her, a large penny clearly dropping. Tony and I waited patiently until my wife managed to snort out “Synchronised swimming!”
I do wonder, sometimes. Regularly. When their fits had eased, I continued.
“Tone, we’ve both had a quiet word at work, and they’re OK with the leave. Nothing lined up for us, nothing like that job yng Nghaerdydd waiting in the wings, aye?”
Indeed there wasn’t I had collared Wyn, as a friend rather than a senior officer, for advice on how to approach my management, and he had simply smiled and said “It’s sorted, Elaine. Or it will be. I’ll have words, but they owe you more than one, and as this is one you owe yourself it will be fine”
Siân had reported a remarkably similar conversation with her own bosses, and all we needed was a nod from our medics for the when and the where. Sar had even sent us a small box of test kits, more as a joke Christmas present than anything else, and yes indeed, it was as sorted as it could be.
Tony’s laughter brought me back to the there and then.
“Honestly, even with the wife, I still have to decode what you three say, even in bloody English. Easier for the lad, but it still sounds like you’ve got a peg on your nose!”
“Screw you, Hall!”
“Not quite, love! Anyway, Sar had another idea. Darling?”
My sister was nodding. “Aye, chwaer fawr. You know Bev, know what she does?”
That would be the chunky brunette married to her workmate. “Aye. Law, something like that?”
“Absolutely. If you are OK with it, we could have a quiet word, get a contract drawn up. I know none of us need it—“
Siân muttered “Family, ah?” and Sar nodded again.
“Aye, but that’s not the point. She can draft up something to keep the outsiders where they belong, bloody well outside. It was something that came up when Tony and I were getting together, about what might happen if he and Enid went, accident, aye? That’s why we got wed”
The big man had a proper laugh, not the snorting that had convulsed two women. “My cunning plan worked! Get her thinking it was for practical reasons, and she’s mine, I tell you, MINE, mwahaha!”
Sar slapped his arm. “Behave, you. No, girls, really. If you agree, I’ll ask Bev for some proper advice, and then we can get rolling. Of course, there is the other question…”
I had to ask, and she leered. I mean, she really leered!
“Will you need any more pots filling? I mean, it’s a tough job, but, well, I’m up for it. And he better be”
I was almost, but not quite, stunned by that. What the hell had happened to my frightened little girl? The answer was clear, standing beside her trying to control his own laughter as she snuggled into him, pride and naughtiness competing for her smile. The deal, and the weekend, were done.
Hurry up, hurry up and wait, the old army complaint was never so apposite as it was that year. Spring surprised us by showing itself only in its departure, the winter having dragged on for far longer than it was supposed to, grey morning after miserable grey evening until it was finally and surprisingly green. I had almost missed the snowdrops, but the cherry and apple blossom was clearer. So was the word from the clinic. We had a programme and a set of dates.
One strange aspect of human beings is not the synchronised swimming that had so amused my sister but rather the synchronisation of monthly cycles that occurs when women live together. Siân and I were no different to any other women (although, naturally, my subjective view of her disagreed with that statement) and we had come to a common schedule. Considering the tempers we both had, it was a bloody good job neither of us was prone to PMS. I won’t go into the process, which was both clinical and remarkably impersonal in its nature, but all was redeemed by the staff who dealt with us. I had been anticipating a little homophobia, some disagreement on the rights of people in comfortable shoes to take spaces in maternity wards away from Proper Women, but it simply didn’t happen. We were treated well; more than that, we were treated with real warmth, both in the sense of medical treatment and in that other sense of simple and usually uncommon humanity. Eat your bloody heart out, Evans clan. Swivel on it, Pritchard.
In the end, Sarah had to keep her hand in more than once, but, but…
We were in Dover again that September, Uncle, cousin and ‘trouts’ in tow, as the older sod called Suzy and Alice, meeting with Sar’s friend Bev for the legal bit. Summer had followed Spring in failing to make any noticeable impact on us, and for the sake of our visits to the clinic we had turned down Vicky’s usual invitation abroad. Bev was in Sar and Tony’s front room while her husband kept their kid amused walking a hyperactive dog, and it turned out to be a simple process.
“I spoke to a colleague who usually does the business side of things, Elaine. There’s a way of drafting contracts, set phrases and that, which you don’t see so much in family law. I’ve also got a mate in Middle Temple I studied with, and they’ve had a look”
I answered my wife’s puzzled look with a quick “Barrister, cariad” before asking the obvious question: how much for the big wig? Bev just laughed.
“Old flame, old fling, yeah? Pro bono for Our Girls in Blue. Free, Siân, apart from a notional pound to seal it. Tone, I think this is all you asked for. Want me to go through it? Girls?”
Tony shook his head. “Quick summary’ll do, if you don’t mind?”
The two of us gave a quick nod and Bev started.
“Simple stuff, really. Tone is absolved of all financial responsibility for any child produced, which keeps the CSA off your backs. He is also barred from making any decisions affecting them without the explicit and prior consent of both of you, or the survivor if it comes to that. I’ll be honest, according to Jolyon, if a court got frisky, a lot of this could be ruled out, but he says it shows clear intent on all parts by all parties, and that is something they wouldn’t be able to strike down.
“Now, this is the bit I was unsure about. The bit about any child being acknowledged by both biological and both actual parents-stroke-guardians is simple, but it’s the mortality crap that we need to be clear on. This is what we have, and I’m going to have to be blunt here. Girls, you both go and any issue reverts to Tony and Sarah”
All of us were nodding as Bev looked round the room, and she smiled tightly. “That’s fine. It’s the other step that I don’t want to get wrong. Tone, if all four of you go, why Wales?”
He took a while to get his thoughts straight, my sister keeping her powder dry but holding tightly to his hand.
“It’s really simple, Bev. Mum said it ages ago: Kim and I were all she had left, after Annie went. Unless something horrible happens, she will go before we do, and that means nobody over here. And it’s Twm and Sioned as well. They made it very clear that they are family. Twm said it, that speech he made, about becoming a grandfather. Mum was very clear on that point, that we are one family now. God forbid, but that’s where Jim would go, if… Well, just if. Practicalities, really, but out of love rather than needs must. My darling here has done that, brought us more than we could ever have hoped for. Enough said”
I remembered another day, when two people I loved had opened their arms to my own lover, and knew, absolutely, how right he was, and with that, I nodded. Bev smiled.
“That’s what I thought. Hang on a sec…”
She picked up her mobile. “Andy, love? Want to bring them all back? Ta!”
She hung up. “One of you get the kettle going? Guest on the way”
Andy was at the door in five minutes, and to no great surprise he had an ex-priest in tow. Pat shook hands all round before settling down with the mug Sar handed him.
“I have an idea what this is about, ladies. Bev needed a witness with an unblemished character, but unfortunately they were all out, so you’ve got me. Ready to go? Oh, Tone: I have some more of the Jameson’s, so let me know when”
I signed, my wife signed, Tony signed, and two others affixed their names as I handed Bev a fiver for formality’s sake, and we were set. Sarah rose, kissed both of us, and handed each of us a test kit.
“Why do you think we’ve been plying you with tea? More than one toilet, off you go!”
In the end, I sat there in that profoundly undignified posture for at least five minutes before my bladder would cooperate, knickers and jeans round my ankles, arse cheeks slowly going numb, before I was able to dip the little plastic wand thing into the necessary flow.
I sat for another ten trying to get my mind to accept the result. Siân’s scream had already told me we were synchronised in more ways than our periods, and that Sar’s joke about Olympic events was spot on.
Bless you yet again, Anthony Hall.
CHAPTER 61
I wandered back along the hallway as my wife thundered down the stairs, and beat me to the living room. As I entered, everyone seemed to be wrapped around everyone else, but all eyes turned to me. I kept the glum face on as long as I could, but Sar wrestled the test wand out of my hand.
“Yes! Two-nil!”
Siân looked at me past Tony’s bulk.
“Really? Both of us? Oh, Duw!”
Pat was grinning, as ever. “Tone, babies’ heads to wet!”
The big man laughed. “You know where I keep it, mate!”
“Oh yes indeed! Who’s driving?”
Bev grunted. “Suppose I am. Got our own to get back for, so no debauch, Watson! And none for you two”
I shook my head. “Decent wine, good ale, none of that stewed seaweed for us”
My wife laughed. “Remember when we met? Baskets?”
Pat grunted some sort of query, and I explained.
“Both of us were taken along as shotgun on a friend’s blind date. Not the same friend. You know what I mean! And we had jokes about posh Italian food, wine in a basket. Bottle in a basket, aye? And this one jokes about it leaking out, and she bloody well does it with a straight face!”
Sar laughed, openly and happily. “She hasn’t changed much, then!”, and I almost cried at the thought. My sister saw, and answered my blinking with a much softer smile.
“I remember, chwaer. ‘She’s called Siân and she’s lovely’, wasn’t it?”
I held my tongue to keep my dignity, and just nodded, reaching out for both their hands. Tony reached across to their phone and passed me the handset.
“I think you have a call or two to make, love”
I raised an eyebrow, and he almost matched Sar’s smile in gentle warmth.
“Your Mam and Dad, for one. Then I think your friend might want telling”
Mam it was who picked up.
“Mam…”
“We know, my darling”
“Eh?”
“What you are hoping for. You have a sister, aye? I remember that day, when you told us we would not have grandchildren”
“My test was positive, Mam”
There were some odd noises, and then Dad was there.
“Your Mam is sobbing, cariad. This is good news?”
Deep breath. “Yes, Dad. Both me and Siân, both of us”
I could hear his own deep breaths from the other end of the line, and something muttered to Mam.
“Is there a speaker setting on that telephone, Elaine? I trust you are with your sister”
“Tone? Speaker phone? Ta!”
He was measured in his delivery, and I could hear murmurs from Mam in the background, clearly approving of his words.
“Tony Hall, I wish all here to know how I feel about you and your generosity of spirit. You first gave us back our daughter, and then you honoured us with your child. The service you have now done for our other daughters is a pearl beyond price”
Sar got up at that, running out to the kitchen, but Dad obviously couldn’t see.
“You will be in our prayers, and our door will always be open to you. Know something else: we will establish a trust for these children, so that they may be certain of at least part of their future”
Tony made an attempt to speak, but Dad just raised his voice.
“There are such things as higher education, son, and they cost money. And yes, you are our son”
Tony was crying now, without shame. “You do know that I do this, did this, because I love your daughter so much? And for what she has done for all of my family? Sod it, you know that I love both of you as well?”
Mam replied to that. “It is not seemly, according to the stupid, for men to express their love for each other so openly. But you should know something else: we set up a trust for Jim, for the same reasons. There will be no division, no favouritism between our grandchildren. Now, girls, you should speak to Victoria and Kevin”
I laughed at that, some of the tension easing. “That’s what Tony said, Mam!”
“He is a man of uncommon good sense, then! Twm?”
“Aye, Elaine. He chose one of my pretty daughters as his wife, after all”
Mam laughed down the phone, and then turned serious. “Siân, there is another you must tell. Your own mother has a right to know”
She was spot on, of course, and while we passed on the news to Kev and Vicky, Tony dug into the internet to find a contact number for the retreat. I took my sister out into the kitchen for a quick chat while he ran the search, and gave her the stare.
“What was all that about? Rushing off?”
She was giggling. “Couldn’t help it. First there’s ‘service’, and then ‘pearl’, and all I could think of was ‘servicing’ and ‘pearl necklaces’!”
After I got my own snorting under control, we hugged ad went back to the living room, where Tony had a number for us.
“Can I help you? Gaf i eich helpio chi?”
Their Welsh was polite, but didn’t sound local, so I stayed in English. “I am trying to contact a man called Ambrose? I am Elaine Powell. It concerns Angharad Roberts”
“Ah. Please be so kind as to wait while I seek him”
He wasn’t English either, from his accent, but within a few minutes he had Ambrose for us.
“Ambrose? Elaine Powell”
“Ah. You wish to know how Angharad is…”
“One thing, aye. We also have news for her”
He sighed. “You know she will not speak to you”
“I know, my friend. You don’t mind if I call you that?”
It had come to me as I spoke. He had never judged, always been open and honest, and the word ‘revelation’ came to me, aptly.
The news was full of reports of people who professed religion, waved their faith as a banner, and yet were the most unpleasant people imaginable. People who spoke in one breath about their god’s love, and in another about hell. People like Angharad Roberts. Pat shook that picture, and people like Simon the vicar, Annie’s family. Mam and Dad, they showed how false it really was. Yes; Ambrose was our friend. He was as gentle as ever in his reply.
“Thank you, Elaine. That is beyond a compliment. You wish to know how she is?”
“Yes. And we have news, which I hope she will see as good news”
“Ah. She continues to decline, Elaine. It is nothing spectacular, nothing involving great changes, but there is a limit to how long she can continue to survive on simple analgesia. What is your news for her?”
“We are pregnant, Ambrose, Both of us”
“May the Good Lord be praised. I will let her know. Do you have a date, for, well, delivery?”
“Don’t know for certain, but I would guess something like seven or eight months”
“I will be blunt, Elaine, and I can think of no other way to put this than without some strong language, but she is a bloody-minded and stubborn woman”
“Oh, how well we both know that!”
“I mean to say that she remains with us, in my view, simply because of that stubbornness. As long as she has something to live for, she clings to life”
There was a pause, and then he spoke again.
“No. That is not quite correct, for ‘something to live for’ has a positive meaning that is lacking in these circumstances. She has also instituted proceedings against your father-in-law”
“Eh?”
“You are not the only person I have been speaking with. I have attended several meetings at a chapel in Colwyn Bay, for example. The Parch there has been most enlightening, to a certain organist in particular”
“Eh?”
My eloquence was stunning. Ambrose carried on, though, a little hint of steel in his voice betraying the strength of the gentle, scruffy man.
“I believe someone else may have been speaking with Heddlu Gogledd Cymru, but I would not hazard a guess as to their identity. His trial starts in six weeks’ time ay Caernarfon Crown Court”
“Let me guess, Ambrose: assault?”
“Yes. And what I believe they call ABH. Oh, and rape”
“What the fuck? Sorry!”
“Apparently… Elaine, Angharad spoke to me, but I am not her confessor, for we do not follow that path. I must, however, retain some confidences, but I believe you and her daughter are aware of Carwyn’s interest in domestic discipline?”
“Domestic fucking abuse, you mean! Sorry, again”
“No matter. I hear worse, and I understand. It seems that Carwyn’s glorification of the Lord did not just extend to the mortification of the flesh--someone else’s flesh, that is—but also to Genesis 1:28”
“I don’t do bible quotes”
“Usually given as ‘go forth and multiply’, Elaine. His sadism aroused him”
Oh for fuck’s sake. We were still on speaker, and I looked quickly round the room, seeing shock mixed in a couple of cases with obvious nausea.
“Angharad will attend, she says, and will give evidence for the Crown. That is what I meant about ‘something to live for’. If you would see her before she departs from this world, that may be your last chance”
Siân raised her eyebrows, and I nodded to her, receiving one back.
“Yes. We would both like to attend that one”
“I will send you the dates and times, but I am sure you have access to Court lists”
“Indeed. This is one trial I want to be at. Thank you, Ambrose”
“No. Thank you. You may not have been able to reach the heart of Angharad, but you continue to show the people around you how life should be lived. Christ is in you, Elaine, even if you do not understand that”
“Ah, my friend, we will just have to agree to differ on that one. Do what you can, and unless something goes wrong, we will see you in a few weeks”
Neither Siân nor I found much sleep that night.
CHAPTER 62
“All rise!”
We’d found a space for the car, but it was of course at stupid prices, which hurt. While I was locking it up, a PC came over to us, walking quite quickly.
“Inspector Powell?”
“Aye?”
“Want to follow me? We’ve got you a slot in the station yard”
Once again, the local boys were looking after me, and I had an awkward thought about freemasons before looking at the parking charges and wincing. Besides, the trial had been listed and adjourned so many times that Siân and I were both starting to show quite well, and walking any distance was becoming a pain, so we followed the panda round to the nick, parked up and took a gentle walk through the woodland to the court.
Ambrose was there, looking rather neater than I was accustomed to, and as we passed an interview room I caught just a glimpse of Angharad Roberts waiting for her moment.
“All rise!”
The judge entered, the jury were seated and the familiar dance began. I had been surprised that Carwyn had taken it beyond his initial plea and directions hearing without holding his hands up, given what must have been a very heavy load of evidence against him. He sat in the dock as we waited for the opening statements, and there was just a flicker in his face as his gaze swept across my wife and then myself. No obvious expression to his face beyond a blank dismissal of our existence. His reaction to hearing the charge was equally dismissive. “Not guilty”, with the muttered addition of “Naturally”
Consistency is sometimes reassuring. To be dismissed as irrelevant by someone like him was actually a boost to my self-confidence. Twat. My dearest took my hand, her grip threatening the circulation.
The openers were for once interesting, and just for once I was allowed to sit in and listen to everything. The prosecution laid out an unpleasant collection of hints for our delectation, while the defence were more open in their attack on the convicted criminal Angharad Roberts. Delyth Siencyn was the first witness to be called, and I was astonished to hear her affirm rather than swear on the book. She was younger than Angharad or Carwyn by around ten years, and a drab little thing, her movements reminding me of a sparrow. Her testimony was in Welsh, and for the benefit of the jurors who weren’t fluent there was an interpreter, which meant that the tone of her responses was a little filtered. Her body language, though, was clear.
“Delyth Ebrill Siencyn, Heol y Nant, Bae Colwyn”
“Ms Siencyn, could you tell the court how you know the accused?”
“We were at the same chapel, in Bethesda. I played the organ”
Siân leant into me to whisper in my ear.
“Mam and Dad thought the local one was too soft on sin”
That fitted. The prosecution continued, and I found it interesting to see how the interpreter kept a level tone even as the former organist’s mood started to ramp up.
“Could you tell the court how you ended up living so far away”
“It was Carwyn. Carwyn Roberts, there in the dock. We set up a home together when he separated from his wife”
“What was her name?”
“Angharad”
“Do you know why they separated?”
“Carwyn said that it was because his wife had driven their daughter into unnatural acts of sin and fornication”
The defence rose, languidly remarking that they objected to the inclusion of hearsay, and the judge nodded. Prosecution bowed, and continued.
“Ms Siencyn, did you know their daughter?”
“Yes. She’s the red-haired woman in the stalls there, sitting with her fellow pervert”
The judge’s rebuke was a lot sharper this time, and even though the interpreter’s delivery was flat, the message was clearly received. Up bobbed our man.
“May it please the court, the daughter in question is in a same-sex civil partnership, fully in compliance with the law of the land. We will hear evidence later from Angharad Roberts herself which will clarify these matters. Ms Siencyn, you left your home to cohabit with the accused. I must admit to some confusion here: surely your faith would militate against such an action?”
That brought a twitch to her face, and a sharp sideways look at Carwyn.
“Carwyn, Mr Roberts there, he is very good at explaining things”
Her face tightened in a remarkably nasty way.
“Very, very good at it. Very good at… at finding just the right verse to show how things should be. I took some time before the Lord showed me how much Carwyn’s explanations were sophistry and deceit”
“Ms Siencyn, if I may…”
The wig took her back, and I was impressed by his skill in steering her memory along such a convoluted track, but in the end, as a fully paid-up diversity-spreading copper, the pattern was clear: grooming. What he had done differed in detail, but the method was exactly the same as that used by an internet-infesting nonce. First, find someone vulnerable, then let the target reveal their concerns. Sympathy, apparent empathy, a reinterpretation and finally, after as slow a build-up as necessary, a solution can be offered that will end all the confusion, erase the pain.
“Ms Siencyn, surely your faith precludes what must of itself be defined as adultery?”
“Genesis 2:18 and Luke 20:34 to 36”
“Ms Siencyn, for the sake of the jury, who may not be as godly as yourself, as well as for the records of this hearing, please explain the references”
She looked him up and down, dismissing his worth in an obvious sneer, and I decided right then that Carwyn was welcome to her.
“The Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. That is Genesis 2:18. The Apostle Luke tells us that Our Dear Lord said that the children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they which shall be accounted worthy to attain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: neither can they die anymore, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of god, being the children of the resurrection”
“Thank you. Would it be possible to elaborate on how those verses were interpreted?”
She shot a glare of utter hatred at Carwyn, before returning to our man, and once again the almost-bored tone of the interpreter belied the venom in her voice.
“Simple, isn’t it? Even the Godless can see the meaning!”
“Pray humour me”
“Adam wasn’t married, was he? Nobody to do that but Our Lord above, so was that adultery? No! And for those who have obtained God’s Holy Grace, who are deemed worthy for His Estate, no marriage either. Our Lord could see that we were simply following his revealed plan, and as Genesis 2:18 reveals, it is not good that the man be alone, and he could not stop with a whoremonger and facilitator of perversion, could he?”
The judge coughed once more, and she ducked her head as if expecting a blow.
“What happened then, Ms Siencyn?”
“Well, he left that den of—Carwyn left the marital home and joined me, and then we departed for a new address in Colwyn Bay. I mean, we couldn’t stay in my place any more—it was unfit”
“Why was that?”
“Angharad Roberts. That was why. She pumped… she put a hose through my front door and pumped in a whole trailer load of cow manure. Slurry. Wet. Horrible. We had to move”
I swear the interpreter’s eyes closed at that, and even though his voice and tone never varied from their anodyne drone, he must have been within a gnat’s hair of corpsing. Several of the jurors, however, as well as most of the public gallery, had less restraint. Even the judge’s mouth quirked at the edges, just a little. He let the laughter subside, and then nodded for the wig to continue.
“Yes, we called the police, and she was arrested. Served her right, the… Anyway, we moved”
Our man looked at his notes for a few seconds, then asked the killer question, his voice gentle, soothing.
“What broke the spell, Ms Siencyn?”
Whatever it was came to life again behind her eyes, and she started to tremble. The judge nodded at the usher, and a glass of water was produced, along with a box of tissues.
“I didn’t realise… I didn’t see, for some time, but I should have. He had his mail redirected, you see, and there were publications that came, magazines”
“What sort of magazines, Delyth?”
She was trembling now, the glass raised to her lips in displacement threatening to overflow down her blouse.
“American magazines. Christian magazines from America”
“Bible study works?”
“Domestic discipline”
“Please tell us what that means, Delyth”
“Ephesians 5:22 to 24. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, and is the saviour of his body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Proverbs 13:24. He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Proverbs 23: 13 and 14, withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell”
Our man looked sharply at the interpreter, who turned to the judge.
“May it please the court, your Honour, but I was a bible student before I started this job. I am rendering Ms Siencyn’s words into those I remember from King James’s Authorised Version of the Good Book. If you would prefer, I can speak them more plainly”
Once more, a nod from the judge.
“Not necessary, and we thank you for your explanation. I would venture that the phrasing in English is in keeping with the flavour of the witness’s testimony?”
“Yes, your Honour”
“Pray continue in like manner, then. Proceed”
“Delyth, please could you let the jury know, in as simple terms as you feel you can, how this affected you in your life together”
The trembling intensified, and she looked down at the microphone that gave the court her testimony. Long, slow breaths, each with a catch at the end of it.
“The needs of the flesh are not ‘needs’, exactly. They are not necessary, not in that sense. The Saints of old did not succumb to them, and I do not feel their tug in my heart, nor in my flesh. I recognise that men are formed of simpler clay, as Adam was, and while I… while I joined with Carwyn Roberts as a consort and a wife in God’s sight, I did so that a man I thought Godly could be free of the seduction of the earthly, the call of the flesh. I… I felt that an occasional deliverance would suffice for his needs”
I could see the jury nodding, and knew they were on the same track as me. Let the old bastard have the occasional shag, and that would keep him quiet. She hadn’t finished, though.
“I was mistaken, for his needs were stronger than I thought, and the man weaker than I had considered him. I found my duty to be onerous, then insupportable”
‘Duty’. I thought of my sister, and her delight in her huge man, of my beautiful wife, of the way she smiled at me when…
‘Duty’, for fuck’s sake! What happened to love, passion, simple sodding affection?
“Delyth, may I ask… a delicate question? We may assume, no doubt, that there would therefore have been moments when Carwyn Roberts’ needs of the flesh were not coincident with your own. What happened on such occasions?”
“Plastic piping”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Carwyn’s magazines explained in elaborate detail how discipline should be applied to one in need of it. There were warnings about interference from worldly authority, Caesar’s men, who would fail to comprehend the wisdom, necessity and holy authority of discipline. The magazines gave advice on what instruments to apply and where to apply them. Plastic piping was one such item. It leaves less evidence than other scourges”
“Delyth, please explain further”
“When I would not consent to the gratification of his flesh, Carwyn would mortify my own”
“In simpler terms, please, for the ladies and gentlemen of the jury?”
She took longer over this one, and there was an instant where she tried to speak to the interpreter as if he was merely a bystander. He turned to the judge with a shrug.
“Your honour, I have explained to the witness that I cannot do as she asks and discuss her words before I translate them”
“Thank you for your service, Mr Norley. Please remind the witness that a question has been asked”
She winced at that, and began to speak again in a low monotone, Norley translating in the same manner.
“You wish it in simple, base terms? Then hear my words. When I did not wish to consent to Carwyn’s low needs, he would beat me. Once he had beaten me sufficiently, he would sate those needs. In sating them thus… You wish it in simple terms. Each time Carwyn used my flesh for and as his own, after such a beating, he would be louder and more vocal in the act. And not as long in the performance of it”
Siân slapped my arm, and I realised I was crushing her hand, for the faces I saw before me, while multiple, mostly had the name ‘Evans’ attached to them, Evans and Pritchard and all the other bastards we had taken down that night. I felt the swing of my asp, that backhand stroke into the face of a rapist, and I wondered how Carwyn Roberts would enjoy some fucking discipline of his own. I despised Delyth Siencyn, but in this particular part of her story she was simply another victim, like Diane, like little Chantelle. Bastard.
What the hell was Angharad going to tell us?
CHAPTER 63
The cross-examination by the defence was a farce. I couldn’t see where it was going, but Delyth seemed to dismiss it out of hand. It didn’t involve Scripture, therefore it was beneath contempt. I was caught squarely between enjoying seeing her slapped down and at the same time stitching up Carwyn. My head span.
She was an obnoxious cow, with a seriously shit viewpoint, but at the same time a rape victim. It was hard, to put it mildly, but I dragged out my memories of Omar, Chris and the other victims. Too many folk would happily have seen them as ‘deserving’ of the violence that had struck them, so why should I allow myself to use the same sophistry with Delyth Ebrill Siencyn? Obnoxious, unpleasant bigot, but still, still, a victim. Work head on and balance in place, Lainey.
Eventually, the defence withered under Delyth’s contempt, and we were on to other witnesses, and that was a shock, for I had only really been expecting Angharad, er, recorded-delivery victim and Carwyn, along with whatever official and expert testimony that would have trailed along as usual. We got those, which included medical reports, police officers with interview and custody records and so forth, but there were three other women in the box to tell similar tales of Holy Writ and Holy Whip. Siân was scribbling on a scrap of paper— ‘Mam’s been busy’.
The evidence was the same or similar in each case, and I had a flash of memory of Carwyn playing second fiddle in Capel Curig as Angharad’s tongue had flayed us. Had he wound her up and pointed her like some odd self-guiding weapon, or had it been her one little indulgence granted by the Lord and Master as he sat smugly considering what to make his next flogger out of? Either way, I felt like an idiot for not spotting who had actually been in the driving seat that day. Two of his victims, in fact, were allowed to give evidence from behind screens so as not to destroy their good standing in ‘their faith community’, and I felt my wife rubbing my forearms as they corded up with the hate I was feeling.
I had had to pull myself back from dismissing Delyth Siencyn’s pain out of hand, but there it was in the open: the families of these women, their friends, neighbours, co-religionists, would see them as whores, as being to blame for their own suffering. I turned my hand over and took my beloved’s in it.
Fuck you, Carwyn Roberts.
I didn’t sleep well that night, a meal in a local Italian place (memories…) not sitting too well in my stomach, and I was awake at 0400 searching the news on the hotel’s wi-fi. I took nothing in, could make no sense of it, but it occupied my hands and my eyes for the hour or so it took Siân to rouse. The breakfast would have been a good one if I had managed to taste any of it, but I forced it down as fuel, and we were back to the court early.
“Hiya, Lainey, Siân!”
“Vicky? What the… what are you doing here?”
“Kev’s on sprog watch, but we both thought you two should have some company”
“How’d you know?”
She sighed. “Haven’t you two looked at ANY of the local papers? Like a rash, this story: all over them. Me and ‘im indoors thought you might need some company”
“Sweety!”
That voice I knew as well, and it was Chris, and with him Blake, offering the same excuse as Vicky had for Diane’s absence, and we had to buy a round of crap coffees in the horrible little place inside the court, where a table had been kept by sodding Dad and Uncle Arwel. Chris did the honours while I did the introductions.
“That boy there. He’s a nancy-boy, isn’t he?”
Predictable as ever.
“Don’t start, you old bastard”
“Not my point, girl. He’s the one with that work you did over to Caerdydd, aye?”
The Nancy-boy in question was just returning with a tray of drinks, and being Chris, of course, a selection of muffins, Danish pastries and biscuits. How in hell he kept so slim, god only knew.
“Boy, my name is Arwel Powell, this girl’s uncle. You be the lad that she put out as bait?”
“Er, yeah”
“Here’s my hand, then. That was well done”
He switched straight back to Welsh. “I know a lot more about that little hob than you think I do, girl. You haven’t told Sarah, have you? About the little shit I spoke to? Or those two arseholes that used to be policemen?”
“No, Uncle. And I should tell you that this other lad, his wife, well, she met the same family a few years ago, in the same way the skinny boy here did, in the same way as my sister”
“Ah. Now, you know your Dad told me about your mother-in-law, so we are here as family should be, aye?”
Dad nodded. “As my brother says. We said, your Mam and me, we said that Siân here has us as family. We will do as family should, do it for her, for you, for these lives to come. Now, your uncle hasn’t told me everything, and I do not wish to know more than I need, otherwise I might let it slip to my other pretty daughter. Now, this boy?”
Back into English. “Chris O’Connor, as my Uncle said, he’s my Dad’s brother, and this is my Dad, Twm Powell. Chris, as you seem to be aware, put himself forward to draw out some violent rapists for us, and took some bruises himself”
“I’m not usually into such rough trade, my loves”
“Not now, you sod! And this is Blake, who worked with me on that case and others involving some of the same family, and, everyone, this is Vicky, our cousin”
She looked up at that, and smiled. “Got my own history of being used, so what else could I do but make sure my family gets some strength on a day like this? Got any blueberry ones there, Chris?”
“Here you are, my love!”
The tannoy went off just then, announcing ‘all parties in…’, and we trooped off to the public gallery again, my wife and I flanked by our two big men, the others behind, and to my surprise the first witness called was Ambrose. He too the book, and read from the card.
“Jeremy Michaels, Ynys Enlli retreat. I am in monastic orders, and I would humbly ask that my vows be respected and that I be addressed as Ambrose”
The judge looked down at him, and asked in a much gentler voice than I had heard from him so far, “Brother Ambrose?”
“No. your honour. Merely Ambrose, if that would be allowed”
The judge looked over the court. “As you wish, Ambrose”
Prosecution bounced up. “How do you know the accused, Ambrose?”
“I do not, sir. I know his wife, Angharad Roberts, who is a resident at our retreat. I also functioned as what might be called in other sects a confessor”
“She confessed her sins to you?”
“No, sir. She confided in me. We are a contemplative order, and we offer space to others to examine themselves and their lives, as well as their relationship with our Lord and Saviour. We do not judge, and we, man, cannot absolve any sin, for that is purely between the individual person and their Lord above. Besides which, what is sin?”
The barrister coughed. “Perhaps not a question for this particular trial, despite the weight of Scripture already produced”
He led Ambrose down a clearly well-prepared path of evidence depicting Angharad’s arrival and slow acceptance of her fate, and then surprised at least me.
“She was filled with regret about her family life, and said to me…”
The defence was halfway to his feet, obviously about to shout out an objection, but Ambrose just smiled at him.
“I believe that for me to recount her description of events may be regarded as hearsay, so I will confine myself to what I did. In response to her clearly expressed regrets about her experiences as a mother, I made approaches to her daughter Siân and her wife Elaine, whom I can see sitting in the public gallery. Angharad wished a rapprochement of sorts, if not a reconciliation, and that is when she began to speak to me of her own married life. Of her husband’s, um, special interests”
Once more, defence bounced halfway up, to be met by another smile.
“All I did in that matter was to persuade Angharad that she should speak to the North Wales police, and when I spoke to them, they surprised me by, well, not being surprised”
Siân shot me a look, and I shrugged, trying not to blush. It seemed my little hints up North hadn’t gone unheard after all. I always had been a fan of the long game. That was it, for the other evidence. The scene had been set, and after lunch, it would be Angharad, and possibly Carwyn. My appetite was still crap.
Arwel, naturally, found us a pub that did food, and the weather was fine enough to sit outside, so three big men and one twink wrestled some picnic tables together as the rest of us gathered menus and put in orders. I noticed Chris had turned the gay young thing down a bit, but I was still waiting for Arwel to say something in his usual way. It simply never came. It was Blake who broke the mood.
“You two are waddling well!”
Vicky grinned. “Fat and happy, eh, girls. Twm?”
“Aye indeed! Sioned is already knitting bootees and blankets”
My uncle rumbled a laugh. “Aye, the old trout’s been at it for months. Can’t move in the spare room for baby things. I asked her how she knew whether to do blue or pink, and she just said, ‘I’ll do green and lavender and any extras we can hold for the cousins or the young trout, if she and the boy decide, aye?’”
He looked over at Chris once more, and for once is voice was quiet, soft.
“So what happened then, boy?”
Chris shrugged. “Simple, really. We had a whole string of violent attacks, and they were getting worse, more extreme, every time. Nobody seemed to care, but then over comes our heroine here, Lainey, and it seems her bosses sat up and took notice. Oh, I don’t do that sort of thing, I work with the DVLC. I just issue driving licences.
“Anyway, she’s a mover and shaker is Lainey, and so she does the team thing, and gets some proper coppers in, coppers who bloody well care, like this big boy here, and it’s worse than we thought, deeper in corruption and collusion… And I saw that, and I thought, this is going to be just like it always is, a few poofters getting a slap, not real people. The authorities will make a bit of noise, say the right things, tick a few boxes, right up until someone ends up on a slab
“That was her strength. She took her team, and she let them see that we are real people, not just mincers and benders to stare at down the Gay Village. I mean, we got a sort of lift, in a nasty way, when one of the victims turned out to be one of theirs, once removed, sort of”
Blake nodded. “Aye. One of the victims had a close relative in the Force, and that shook a few people up. Brought it home, like. But it was Lainey here, who made her girls and boys see what it was really about. Brought me my own rewards, too. Wife, kid, all that I owe to Lainey here”
I couldn’t let that one go. “Blake, lad, you got them yourself by being the sort of person our team needed, aye? Anyway, thanks to all of you for coming today. Dad…”
I had to let him know.
“Dad, there was a lot of what went on I haven’t let Sarah know, and I know you said you didn’t want to know, but, well, I think you should”
He stared at me for a few seconds. “I know that two of the people involved were the so-called policemen that abused my daughter in hospital after that little bastard beat her up”
Blake nodded. “Same two who did a similar job on my wife before we met, after she was raped aby another relative, another member of that sodding family. We made sure he went down for a long stretch as well”
Sod it. In for a penny. “And that little bastard, Dad. He was one of the ones we nicked when Chris was abducted”
Chris was grinning. “I wasn’t up to much just then, but I still heard her. ‘Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met, but I think you know my sister’ or some such”
Blake was grinning in an even nastier way. "Aye, and when she gets him to the Custody desk, and he really understands who she is, whoops, mop and bucket for the puddle of piss!”
Arwel was laughing heartily at that, while Dad chuckled. The old monster leant forward to shake Chris’ hand, then Blake’s.
“He did seem to have a bladder control problem, then”
Oh. I remembered his comment—told him he was coming back for the other nut.
Dad reached out his own hand. “That is the one thing that has been a constant in our daughters’ lives—they have found true friends, people I am proud to meet. Thank you, from both of us. Now, I do think we should get back to the court. There are things I want to hear”
CHAPTER 64
I was still puzzled by the defence, as they seemed to have done nothing at all in the way of cross-examination. No smoke and mirrors, no mud-slinging (Angharad had already collared that role) and no awkward questions at all. They had reserved their energy for procedural tics, such as the objections to Ambrose’s perceived delivery of hearsay.
We had a couple of medics up first, who delivered number of anodyne statements about bruising and welts, before the ushers started moving equipment around. It seemed that my mother-in-law was no longer able to walk, and when she entered it was indeed on wheels, with a young nurse beside her who took up station on a folding chair just behind the old witch.
Angharad looked dreadful, flesh vanished from her face and her hands palsied as she took the book, but her voice was still strong, that odd Gog accent quacking away. She gave her evidence in English, and I could only assume that she wanted to avoid the drone of Delyth’s go-between. It was an odd dance, for all my training had been to avoid engaging with the shysters, while Angharad’s gaze could have skinned the defence. Her words to us in Capel Curig came back to me, and I had a fleeting moment of sympathy for the barrister, who I am sure I saw twitch, just a little, as we were led, once again, through the labyrinth of Scripture.
“How long were you married to the defendant, Mrs Roberts?”
“I am still married to him. It is a sacrament not to be dissolved by a mortal man. His fornication and adultery have not altered that state, ah?”
Get your stall set out early, Angharad, why don’t you?
“Ah. Could you tell the court how you met?”
It was a pretty dreary story, of eyes meeting over Job, or perhaps during a debate on the relative levels of abhorrence to be reserved for varying types of abomination; I am afraid I tuned out for a lot of it. Despite Mam and Dad being as solidly Christian as I would ever see, and Pat and Janet’s logic games, I had done my best to steer very, very clear of Chapel concerns and involvement, especially once I had realised the way my affections led. I suspect I was nodding off when Siân elbowed me in the short ribs.
“You only had the one child, then, Mrs Roberts?”
“Yes. A pervert and abomination, whoring herself in unnatural ways. She is sitting over there, with that other pervert, her partner in sin”
No real change to her, then, as she pointed at us, despite all that Ambrose and Vicky must have been doing to show her another and different way of thinking. Ouch.
“So just the one child, then. Did you wish for more?”
Just a twitch, a quiver to an eyelid, but he had her.
“I could not hope for such a blessing, as my womb was clearly cursed”
“Cid Carwyn Roberts express any such desires, a wish for other children?”
She stared at the barrister for several long, glacial moments. “That man never wished for the blessing of children at all”
“But you had a child, Mrs Roberts”
“I do believe that may have been due to his laxity in avoiding such an event. He was not pleased”
“Why was he not pleased, Mrs Roberts?”
“In his words…”
The bravado was cracking at last. It was the first time I had seen her hesitate, other than when she had first called Siân for help, and when Kev had read her the Riot Act over her attitude to his family. She struggled for a while, but the wig kept on at her.
“In his words, Mrs Roberts?”
She looked up sharply at him, little patches of red igniting in her cheeks.
“In his words, you ask, ah? In his words our Lord had created him with needs, and my pregnancy was a spiteful act to deprive him of his rights, ah? He would be sated, with or without the…inconvenience, just as…”
Her head ducked, for a couple of seconds. Was that bloody shame? SHAME? From Angharad sodding Roberts? Her next words were spat out, and this time her glare was directed squarely at her husband.
“Eve’s Curse, ah, Carwyn? The monthly visitation?”
“Carry on…”
“Carwyn saw such things as menstruation and pregnancy as deliberate acts intended to deprive him of his marital, his conjugal, his God-given rights as a man. He would not be thwarted, ah? Not be diverted from attaining his… his grat-if-ic-A-tion. He would assert himself at such times”
“Could you describe what such, er, assertion involved?”
Yes, it was shame that burned in her, and I found myself revisiting the mental slap I had given myself over my own dismissal of the rape victim Delyth Siencyn. This was the other side of rape, where the victim throws blame in entirely the wrong direction.
Her voice was softer. “Assertion. Yes… Assertion. Carwyn would assert himself, with rope and rod”
“What would he do with a rope, Mrs Roberts?”
“Bind me. The rod was for chastisement”
“For clarity, Mrs Roberts, to ensure this matter is clearly understood by the jury, please define what you mean by chastisement?”
“He would strike me”
“With his hands?”
“No. With a rod, a garden cane at first, but later he would use a length of plastic piping. So as to leave fewer evidential marks, ah?”
“Ah indeed. And what would then ensue?”
“He would sate his lusts upon my body”
“On or within, Mrs Roberts?”
Jesus fucking wept! Did a barrister just ask my mother-in-law if her husband fucked her or wanked on her? Siân had a tight grip on my hand, nails digging in, and as Dad took mine I saw that Vicky had my wife’s other hand.
“You are referring to Onan’s sin? No, for that would never have been a virtuous act. Within”
She looked away, into a private world. “No, always within. Even when I was unclean”
Her mouth worked for an instant, jaw locking, lips twisting.
“At those times he would find another avenue. That of Sodom”
Once again, we got the glare, but it was softer by the slightest of margins.
“I often wonder, ah? If my daughter would have been a pervert if such acts had not befallen her mother as she grew in the womb. If I could…”
All at once, she broke. Racking sobs, tears, the works; all of her defences shattered and fell away.
“After Carwyn went a-whoring, I was homeless, and I found I did have some family. Victoria and her husband Kevin—Victoria, she sits by my daughter now. Victoria and Kevin, they are not Godly, but they are as moral as this sinful world gives us these days, they gave me shelter, ah? And they had a child, a little girl, Tara, and I could see what might have been, if I had not been sinned upon and within, if the fruit of my own womb had not been born to and of that sin and abomination. And that loss… I understood at last what that man had done to me. But it is not finished, Carwyn”
She looked directly at him, as he seemed to study an odd corner of the ceiling, and the venom came back to her voice.
“Do you see, dearest husband? Cariad? Do you see how our daughter, even in her unnatural fornication, is growing? Do you see the same in her partner in filth? Those are children to come, dearest husband mine, and they are kin together, kin to each other, in blood, and do they will be kin to me, and all that I have and all I can take back from you will be theirs, ah? While you rot in prison, our daughter will atone for her sin!”
The defence was a bit slow on that one, her outburst stunning just about everybody, but the judge was on top of things.
“Mrs Roberts, please do not address the defendant again. That is not a part of your role in these proceedings”
“I beg your pardon, your honour”
He looked over at the prosecution. “Do you have more relevant evidence to put to this witness?”
The wig sighed. “I believe we have covered the essential aspects of our case here, your honour”
“Then we shall adjourn these proceedings for one hour”
“ALL RISE!”
We stood, he stood, and once more we made our way to the little café. My wife was trembling, Vicky and Chris both wrapped around her, but Blake looked odd, and after a few seconds of thought I realised it was shame. He caught me looking at him, and shook his head.
“Lainey, what is it with bloody men? I mean, all that shit we worked on, and that bastard with Di, and, well, MEN!”
I shook my head, and he grinned, wryly.
“Don’t even think of saying ‘what would I know about men’, Lainey!”
I just looked around our little circle, and then back at Blake.
“Look around you, mate. Look at yourself, look at my Dad and Uncle Arwel, aye? Look at bloody Chris there, and then think. That you can ask a question like that says all that needs saying. Hang onto that, aye?”
He nodded, but tears were hiding.
Once again, I was wondering what other little delights awaited us. Either way, I intended to make bloody sure, that evening, that my wife knew I loved her.
CHAPTER 65
Once again, we trooped into the court, taking our little block of seats, and once again we got to see the unusual spectacle of a defence barrister doing precisely sod-all.
Angharad had delivered a whole salvo of bombshells, if bombs came in salvoes, rhat is, and I would have expected any honest lawyer to have picked it all apart, chewing away on everything from the fact that she seemed to have no evidence other than her memory to the vindictive nature she had demonstrated in her outbursts.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. As he droned on about something else with no real relevance, the judge removed his glasses to rub his eyes as Angharad sat patiently in her chair.
“Would Counsel please approach the bench?”
The defence man shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at the Dock, and complied. There was a little to-and-fro I couldn’t hear, the defence shrugged their shoulders, and returned to their seat. For his part, the judge called out to Carwyn.
“Mr Roberts. Learned counsel has informed me that you have imposed constraints on the defence you wish him to offer. I will confess I am at a loss to understand why. My function here is to ensure that each side presents their case in as full and fair a way as possible, so that no shadow may fall on the correctness or otherwise of any verdict that may be arrived at by the good ladies and gentlemen of the jury. So far, there appear to have been a significant lack of any energy or rigour in the case presented by your counsel. Do you have an explanation that does not touch on matters better reserved for the witness box and the oath?”
The bastard just looked at him, face blank, and then gave a slight smile.
“I will deliver my defence myself, your honour”
The judge shook his head as if to clear it.
“Does learned counsel have any further matters to put to the witness?”
“No, your honour”
“May she then be discharged?”
What I thought of as our man bobbed up as well, both sides agreeing that yes, they were finished with the old wreck and she could head off back to her place under a bridge. The nurse fussed around her for a little while, before Ambrose walked across from the public gallery to take the handles of her chair and wheel her out. As he started, she reached back to put a hand on his, whispering something to him, then turned to look across at the two of us. Her face worked a few times, and then there was just a ghost of a smile, her head cocking slowly to one side, and the glint of a tear, before she turned away again as the monk pushed her out and away from the court.
Siân squeezed my hand.
“I have to go to her, Lainey. Just this once. I might never see her again, and….”
She was off and away, hanky out as she hurried off. Vicky leant across to me.
“Leave her, love. Not now. I’ll go and check in a minute, OK?”
I was caught. Vicky hurried off, Blake sliding into her seat as Dad shuffled over, and Carwyn made his way to the dock.
“Do you wish to swear or affirm?”
His glare could have withered grass.
“What precisely do you anticipate a good Christian would reply?”
‘Jesus wept’ was my first thought, but I kept silent as the thin man swore his oath on his book, first checking it, no doubt to confirm it as an acceptable version. Our man was straight at him.
“I will be as direct as I can, Mr Roberts. On any occasion, any at all, have you had sexual intercourse of any kind with your wife Angharad Roberts?”
“That answer should be abundantly obvious, as our daughter the whore and pervert sits in the public gallery with her accomplice in perversion and fornication”
His head turned towards me as he reached out to point. His composure cracked just a little as he saw I was without the wife.
“Well, was sitting”
Our man nodded.
“Can we take your answer to my question as being a yes, Mr Roberts?”
“You may”
“Thank you”
“Has such intercourse always followed upon her clear consent?”
“Ephesians 5, verses 22 to 24. Wives should submit to their husbands”
“That was not my question, Mr Roberts. Has such intercourse always followed on her clear consent?”
“I have already given you my answer, and it is from a higher source than you could ever seek to use against it”
The judge looked across at Carwyn. “Answer counsel’s question, bearing in mind the oath you have taken”
Carwyn stared back, a flat, almost emotionless glaze to his eyes, before turning back to our man after around five seconds.
“My wife’s consent or otherwise is irrelevant, both within the nature of the marital contract and as declared in Scripture”
A sigh, as the prosecution shook his head, before trying again.
“Mr Roberts. I put it to you that on a number of occasions you engaged in sexual intercourse with your wife not only without her explicit consent but actually following her explicit and clearly-expressed refusal of that consent. Is that correct?”
“her consent or otherwise is not relevant”
The judge almost barked his next words.
“Roberts! These proceedings will not be reduced to a farce. You were cautioned on your arrest, and in interview, and if you continue to show contempt towards this court I will fulfil the warning you were given, and direct the jury to draw such conclusions from your failure to answer as will appear appropriate to them. Have we reached a state of understanding in this matter?”
Our man smiled ever so lightly. “Be aware that the law on rape within marriage was amended in 1991. Yes or no, Mr Roberts?”
There was a twitch to his mouth this time, but Carwyn converted it into a sneer.
“Yes”
“And in the case of Delyth Siencyn, may I remind you that the marital rape exemption would not have applied due to their being no state of matrimony in existence at any time”
“In the eyes of the Lord…”
“ROBERTS!”
The judge was leaving no doubt in anyone’s eyes or mind that he was severely unhappy with the trial’s progress, and in a moment of insight I realised what my bastard of a father-in-law was trying to do. This wasn’t about relying on words in a magic book, invoking a higher power, but actually about getting the presiding judge so pissed off with his behaviour that he would have a case for appeal on the grounds of judicial bias. In the meantime, of course, he was more than happy to drag his victims into open court for more fun. I was beginning to see what had finished and polished Angharad’s character, if not actually formed it, and it was a profoundly strange experience to find myself coming to terms with her thinking. I was always sympathetic to the victims of crime, but my mother-in-law had always driven that from me. Now, at last, I was beginning to see the woman behind the harridan.
The case rolled on. Questions were asked about rape, about violence, about buggery and bodily harm, and Carwyn replied with religious quotes. The Judge intervened each time, the question was rephrased, and eventually the admission was made. Eventually, indeed, it was over. The only surprising thing, in the end, was that Angharad had obviously told the Heddlu Gogledd Cymru about his little library, and our man produced several magazines and textbooks as exhibits. That was the only moment I saw the Defence try and earn their fee by seeking to argue that the papers be excluded.
Naturally enough, the judge rejected his application, and our man seemed to take relish in reading out selected quotes. I noticed that of the three passages, dealing with selecting the right ‘rod’ to use so as to leave the skin of the victim unspoiled, two concerned the ‘disciplining’ of children.
I had a bad moment then, seeing Chris nearly naked in the back of that van, Omar in hospital, a lad with skin scrubbed raw, and hearing again the comments from Kevin to Angharad about letting their child be just that, naturally, happily, without chastisement.
It ran down, finally, and the judge simply adjourned for half an hour for what he actually referred to as a comfort break before the closing addresses. I suspected that ‘comfort’ in his case would involve a large number of very deep breaths to call back his temper. I found Vicky and my wife waiting in the little café again, Siân’s eyes red raw. I simply walked over and stood by her. Letting her arms go around my hips before pulling her head to my belly, her ear to the new life growing there.
“She’s… she’s breaking, Lainey. Ambrose would have her away to the island again, but he says, he says she can’t stay there. They don’t have the facilities for… for a terminal case. He knows a hospice, down by Cricieth and…”
She broke down just then, for about a minute, and Vicky pushed a chair under me so that I could hold my wife, my love, properly when she was in such need. Vicky was only a little brighter.
“She’s nearly gone, Lainey. Nothing much left of her. All covered up with the blankets and that, but when you get closer, close enough to see her hands, her throat, well. Kev’s sorting a place for her at the hospice and we’ll get her transferred, hopefully later today. They’ve got her in a little ambulance outside at the moment”
“Vicky, you can’t keep doing all this for us”
She gave me a sudden glare. “And why the hell not? You gave me the best man in the world, and my own family, not to mention the best wife in the world for my favourite bloody cousin! We’ll sort it. And when… when it’s all done, all finished, we take the children…”
She stood up at that point, looking down at the two of us huddled together, and indicated our bulging middles.
“We take all of our children, and we go and find a decent villa, and we celebrate life together. Now, Siân love: do you want to stay with your Mum, just for now? Lainey, they’ll be back in for the wrapping up or whatever it’s called. You need to be there, you need to show that bastard what life is, what love means”
Blake was at my shoulder, as well as two other big men. My ‘boy’ squeezed my shoulder.
“Yes indeed, Lainey, and to show him what it really means to be a man”
They took my hands and drew me away from my lover, back to see the door finally close on Carwyn Roberts.
CHAPTER 66
We went through the same performance yet again, bobbing up and down as the judge entered and took his seat. I really missed my wife’s presence beside me, her strength being all that had kept me from screaming at the miserable old bigot, but I had boys and girls with me, and that meant I had my own responsibilities to face.
Work head on, Lainey, work head and work face for the world to see. The evidence was done, the witnesses discharged, and the summing up delivered. Wife and mistress raped repeatedly and violently; devout and faithful man following the scriptures and vouchsafed word of the Almighty. I am sure I caught the judge’s head shake slightly in disbelief. I realised with a profound sense of shock that Carwyn actually did believe in the claptrap he was coming out with, that he was answerable only to a higher authority. And I wondered if the judge might take the easy route and bang him away with others of his kind, those inhabitants of alternative realities. His own summing up and directions to the jury drove that idea away.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience and attention in this matter. You must now retire and consider your verdict. There are a number of charges here, and I hesitate to us any word that may reduce the perceived severity of the actual offences. Assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and rape. Given the… unusual nature of the defence offered, I will specifically remind members of the jury that the sole considerations to be borne in mind are twofold: did the accused carry out the acts alleged, and are those acts in contravention of the law of England and Wales. No other legal system is relevant here.
“So consider simply the factual questions: did Carwyn Roberts bind and beat his wife Angharad, and Delyth Siencyn? Did he indulge in sexual intercourse, including buggery, without their consent? Did he, indeed, indulge in such actions with their clearly expressed dissent? Remember that while such rather unusual activities are as such no longer illegal in this country, the overwhelming consideration is always consent.
“Please retire, elect a foreman and consider your verdict. This process is adjourned”
“All rise!”
Blake passed his mobile number to the usher as we left, and as a group we wandered off into Caernarfon to find something to improve the taste in my mouth. There was a Mediterranean place not far from the Castle Square that Vicky spotted, and with a grin and a remark about getting practice in we found a sizeable table for our group, om an upper floor where we could actually see the castle. By unspoken consent we stayed off the subject or the trial, almost delighting in explaining the menu to the older ones to a chorus of remarks about decent pints and pork scratchings. It was Italian rather than Greek, but I didn’t care. We were away from that place for a while, back in our little huddle of warmth and love, even though I had to keep an eye on how Arwel was towards Chris. Some of his comments were just a little too direct, but the lad fended them off neatly by turning the conversation to children.
“Got the names sorted, Lainey?”
“Er, yes. Not for public yet, aye?”
“We’re not the public, though, are we?”
“By that, I mean everyone who isn’t me and Siân, aye?”
“Spoilsport!”
And so it went, after tagliatelle and penne, tiramisu and gelato, and a decent pot of tea. Arwel was, of course, muttering about the pub just down the road when Blake’s phone chirruped at him. He read the message and raised his eyebrows.
“That was bloody quick! Jury’s back in an hour, just getting a bite first”
So it was in, up, down and wait once more as the formalities were observed. I had absolutely no doubt as to the verdict, but hadn’t a clue as to how the judge would deal with the possible outcome of the defence offered.
Yes, they had a foreman, a man in a suit with some sort of regimental tie on; how predictable for Caernarfon. Yes, they had a verdict, yes it was the victim of them all, and of course it was the verdict we all expected. It was, I felt, the only one possible, and Carwyn was guilty of all charges.
That was the first time I ever saw him come close to any real emotion, and I wondered how he had been, what expression his face had carried, if any, as he had whipped and raped. Had there been anything there, any humanity at all, even at his climax? I remembered the blankness of his face in Capel Curig, and shuddered.
“Roberts, stand”
The judge’s sharp instruction snatched my attention.
“You have been found guilty of crimes of a truly abominable nature, and in the process you have expressed no remorse of any kind. Has Counsel any mitigation to offer? No? I am unsurprised, given the attitude displayed thus far. I…”
Carwyn’s sneering voice called out “I wish to appeal the verdict as perverse”
“Silence! Counsel, while you are still involved with this person, please endeavour to explain the procedure to him AFTER the conclusion of these events. Now, I have been perplexed, and indeed I will admit to some irritation, in response to the defence offered and the manner in which it has been delivered to this court. It would be perfectly acceptable to proceed directly to a sentence, but given the nature of the crimes committed by you, Roberts, I do not wish any possible doubt to remain as to the verdict arrived at by the good ladies and gentlemen of this jury.
“Roberts, I do not actually believe there is any aspect of imbalance in your state of mind. I rather believe you are merely an extremely selfish, unpleasant and arrogant rapist and misogynist of the worst kind, a sadistic and violent abuser of women in whole and as individuals. I will, however, close that avenue and you are referred to the appropriate authorities for an assessment of your mental state. I suspect I already know the reply they will give, and I will therefore look forward to passing the sentence I have already decided upon, which will be fifteen years of imprisonment. Counsel will explain the procedure for appealing against this verdict. Take him down”
We stood again, the robes swept out, and an arsehole of the finest was taken away through the dock door. I almost giggled, because one of the first things said to me in the job, aeons ago, had been a simple and pithy piece of advice: don’t piss off the judge. Clearly nobody had managed to get that advice past Carwyn’s ears, and for once I was grateful for his arrogance. Stew on those words, you bastard—you’ve got fifteen years to do so.
I must have said the last few out loud, because Chris frowned at me.
“Surely half, with good behaviour, Lainey? Seven and a half?”
Blake was grinning. “Good behaviour includes accepting guilt, mate! Now, Arwel, time for a beer?”
“Absolutely, son. I see my niece here trained her boys and girls properly, aye? You’ll be drinking some rubbish with umbrellas, Chris?”
“Umbrellas? Bloody pint of lager for me! I may be the only gay in Gwynedd, but my taste buds aren’t camp”
Blake laughed. "Only bit of you that isn’t, then”
“Don’t you know it, big boy”
It was just as I expected, the tension released, they went off on a wave of silliness and bad jokes. We still had a duty, though.
“Lads, don’t forget: got to check on the wife”
Vicky held up her phone. “Had a quick chat with her, love. Ambrose has got her Mum off and away, and she’ll be back with us as soon as we let her know where we’re going to be”
Arwel held up his own phone. "Had a look on the web, aye? Y Llong a’r Castell, aye? Don’t like their spelling, but it’s supposed to be a proper pub”
He obviously picked up on the stares that were coming his way. “Don’t look at me like that, I run a business, aye? Me and the boy? Got our own website! Now, up this way…”
I had a brief moment of regret as we entered the pub. The Ship and Castle, the same name as a pub in another town, another life, so far in the past, but I could still hear the girls’ laughter, still feel the weight of Cathy’s gaze. So long ago—then I was swept back to there and then, as my wife joined us and I knew that all was as it should be. Cathy had been Cathy, but Siân was my life and my soul.
“And?”
“All sorted, ah? Ambrose has taken her off to Cricieth, and, well…”
Vicky and I got her to the ladies’ for privacy and repairs, but she was almost in a state of collapse. I held her, both of us wrapped by our cousin, till she could stand unaided. I stroked the red cascade of her hair.
“I’m driving back, cariad. You relax, have a drink, and, well, we’ll set some time aside for her, aye?”
“I don’t know if she’ll see us both, Lainey”
“Not the thing, is it? Your Mam. That doesn’t change. We go up together, and we give her the option. If she’s still not happy, I can always go off and sit by the beach or wander round the castle”
She pulled back, just enough to look me in the eyes.
“What did I ever do to deserve you, my love?”
I gave her my softest smile. “Just being there for me to love back, cariad”
CHAPTER 67
Things settled down a little after that, but the changes in my body kept the days from dragging. Both of us were waddling, and an endless round of blood tests, ultrasounds and so on stopped us from becoming housebound.
The runs up to Cricieth became a routine as well, despite the dreadful roads we had to use to get there. There are fast roads linking the South and North to England, but sod all to take you the length of our own country. I had mates in Cardiff, including many of my boys and girls, who would cross into England to use their roads rather than struggle through the Welsh Desert of Powys.
It went as I had expected. We drove up, taking a comfort break each time on the sea front at Aberystwyth, largely to allow me some memory time, and then another at the Cross Foxes to let our shrinking bladders get rid of the tea we had consumed at ‘Aber’. The more my bump grew, the less I could hold my water, and as the Foxes stands in the middle of a vast sweep of sod-all near Cadair Idris it was just about the only way to avoid what Arris’ kids called CBT, or ‘cold bum toilet’. I really didn’t want to spend any time squatting behind some random tussock in the rain, and I know for a fact that Siân shared the same aversion.
The weather always chose our route for us, after Dolgellau, either over the tops towards Angharad’s old home and murderer Trawsfynydd in the occasional sunshine, or down the Mawddach to the sea and then up past the grim castle of Harlech to Porthmadog and the beach car park at Cricieth. It was always a hard drive, for apart from some of the deceptively dangerous straights near Bronaber it was all twisty stuff, and my legs would be cramping. Each time I drove that road, I ended up thinking of Annie, as I had seen her at the side of the road one awful day, and I thanked everything I could that my life had mostly been spared the sort of horrors that had so nearly destroyed her. Then I would catch the reflections of a cloud of red to my left, as Siân bent to change a CD or fiddle with the heater, or I would feel a little movement within, and my spirits would soar again.
My life was most definitely a good one.
The hospice was off the road out to Llanystumdwy, in the shelter of a stand of mature oaks. No real sea view, but calm and secluded. I would drive in, drop my wife at the door and then make my way back to the shore. At that time of year, I could usually find a space in the big car park east of the castle, or sometimes on Marine Terrace, and I would sit for a while watching the waves and the tourists drinking their flasks of tea while sitting in their little metal cocoons. If the weather wasn’t too rubbish, I would wander along the beach, watching for porpoises, skimming stones and searching the tide wrack for whatever might be there. Sometimes, I just copied the tourists, sitting with a cup of tea from one of the cafes, drinking in both the warmth and the views of the distant mountains, and missing my lover’s presence dreadfully. After a couple of hours, my phone would chirp and I would drive slowly back to collect her, and then try and break her bleakness with something that suited us better. Often, we took a room in Porthmadog, spending the next day wandering around Portmeirion or taking a ride on the little train to a place that reminded me every time how much nicer a life we had living away from a slate quarry.
I know now what I was doing, and it was counting my blessings. I had had an easy life, in the end, we both had, compared to so many people we knew. Vicky had taken enough, and my dear sister. Alice. Diane, thanks again to that bastard family. Poor, poor Annie, so much piled on her, Pelion on Ossa, that I still couldn’t see how she was still with us. That moment with Tony, there in the dark, sharing tears for his lost wife.
My own wife, there in the hospice, watching her mother’s body eat itself, as new life kicked inside me, inside both of us. No; life had not been cruel to me, not at all.
We would drive back after each visit, the road seeming to unwind so much quicker than on the way up, almost as if home were drawing us both back. Siân would be silent for most of the way, opening up slightly as we came over the last ridge and started the run down to the south coast. No words, but there would be her arms around me in the car park, her hand on my knee as I drove, both hands in mine across a café table and her head on my breast along with her tears as we slept that night.
Her waters broke before mine, and I forced myself into work mode as best I could. Grab bag, Mam on call, Dad to drive the shuttle service, and of all people to turn up it was Annie and her husband.
I was in the kitchen, taking a break from the hospital while picking up all the little things I had, of course, forgotten to put into the grab bags we had been preparing for weeks, when the bell went. I opened the front door to find her and Eric looking slightly frazzled, and before I could say anything sensible, they were in the house, Eric demanding I tell him where the kettle was kept.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She smirked, trying a mock frown as Eric came back in from the kitchen. “Some greeting from a so-called friend, aye? Here we are, travelled half the world to get here and help, and what do we get? Even have to make our own cuppa!”
Eric slipped onto the sofa beside her, hand squeezing her knee. “Sarah told us, Lainey. Tony can’t get off the shifts this week, so she gave us a shout. We’ve got Darren looking after Chez Johnson, and Steph’s keeping an eye out, so that’s sorted. How’s Siân?”
“Not really at the hard bit yet. Just sorting the last bits out, the ones we forgot”
Annie looked across at her husband and laughed. “Just like going camping, aye? Always forget something, even when we make a list. Anyway, it’s been a team effort over there, and as is getting traditional, Naomi’s sent this over”
It was a small video camera, and Annie was still talking, still explaining it all in far too much detail, and I realised how nervous she was.
“She did it for Den, and she’s given us full instructions, and, well---”
I held a hand up. “Pause, woman. I get it. Eric, she’s wound up tighter than tight, aye? What’s up?”
He sighed. “Always the same with her, Lainey. Mother to the heart, my sweet girl. I had to argue with her for an hour to get her to leave Darren on his own. Never changes, this one. Now, there’s a number of reasons we’re here, not just the camera. Sarah’s worried, but not just about Siân. You’ve got to be due just about the same time, haven’t you? And you’ll be stressed, so, well, just in case. We’ve got the option of a week, and if you’re happy, and got a spare bed…”
He was looking nervous. “Eric?”
“Yeah?”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“Er, well, we haven’t. Sar rang Steph first, and, well, she couldn’t, shifts all wrong, so, well, this morning”
“Are you telling me you got a call first thing today, and you dropped everything?”
“We made a couple of calls, and work was OK for both of us”
“You dropped everything for someone who isn’t even family?”
Annie looked up, face twisting slightly. “After what you did for us, for my own family, my actual blood kin, you ask a question like that? I always thought senior management was a bit dense, out of contact with reality, aye? Bugger it. Do you have a spare bed for us, and can you give us the what’s where tour of the house, just in case?”
Oh, hell. I thought back to my blessings-counting and added a few more to the credit side.
“OK. I’ll show you your room, and the necessities. Where we keep the spare bog roll, for starters. Pour the tea, Eric, while we sort out the car”
I showed her into one of the spare bedrooms, smiling inside, and as we carried their bags in from the car, she dropped another little grenade.
“Simon wants to know as well”
“Pardon?”
“Simon the vicar. Merry’s hubby, aye? Wants to know if you want a service, christening, aye? He knows you’re not, well, not on his bus, so he said if you want he can do it as a Humanist thing. Kids need names, he says, and they need to know where they come from”
That did it, and mu strings were cut as the tears came. So many fucking blessings. Annie just held me, whispering “I know, love, I know. Not alone, aye? Never alone”
It took a few minutes, but I got there in the end, back to some semblance of control, but far from the model hostess.
“Come on, my sweet woman. Let’s go down, sort him out, and get that tea. I’ll need to get back up the hospital soon. Make sure she’s fine, aye?”
He had the tea poured, and made no comments about the red in both our eyes, but he kissed Annie with some real tenderness, handing me a smile of understanding afterwards. I needed the tea, especially as the doorbell rang a minute later.
“Hiya Lainey. We heard, so we’re here to see if you need anything”
Blake and Diane.
Chapter 68
“Kettle on, love? We’re gasping, hint, hint”
I had no choice, and stood aside. “Tea’s already made, should be enough for two more, but I’ve already got visitors”
Blake nodded. “Yeah, couldn’t miss the other car in the drive. Who’ve you got?”
Diane was pushing past. “Yeah, cuppa be great. Grapevine’s been working overtime, so we know about Siân. Got his Mam on babysitting duty, innit, so we’re free to do the same for you—oh fuck!”
She’d got as far as the living room door, and came to a sudden stop. A few moments of utter silence, and then, in a very small voice, “Hello, Annie”
An even smaller voice in reply.
“Diane”
She shook herself, reaching behind her for her man’s hand.
“Annie… Annie, love, I’d like you to meet my husband. Blake, come in. Please”
Arsebollocks. I followed them both in, and Annie was standing, trembling, unsure, as Eric looked up, clearly puzzled, from his seat on the big sofa, till she reached back for him, just as Diane had done for Blake. He stood, and as I had learned to expect from him simply wrapped her up from behind, his eyes sharp over her shoulder and his voice flat.
“And you are?”
Annie reached up to lay a calming hand on his.
“Diane, love. I used to work with her years ago. She’s not a threat”
There was a short pause before she added “And how did you know my name?”
Blake was as true to his own nature as Eric to his, and he led his wife over to the spare armchair, settling himself into it and pulling Diane down onto his lap to hold her close and tight.
“Can one of you please pour us some tea? Lainey said there was some made”
Eric kissed Annie’s cheek and almost forced her to sit down before heading into the kitchen for cups. Annie looked at Diane, still trembling, eyebrows raised.
“And?”
Diane looked at her knees. “I’ve sort of been keeping an eye on you, Annie”
The trembling slowed, and Annie’s face hardened, as Di raised a hand to calm her. “No, Annie. Not like that. Lainey let me know”
I looked hard at them both in turn. “I stuffed up, aye? Siân’s already been on my back about it, others too, so I’ve already had my telling off. Oh, sod it. You know I couldn’t make that day you met your family?”
“Aye, but you sent Twm and Arwel, and… oh, hell. Where were you, Diane? Blake? That was you, wasn’t it? Clapping?”
The big man nodded. “She went blonde, Annie, just for a week. Your playing, shit, you’re bloody good. Couldn’t help myself, could I? Anyway, didn’t think you’d noticed”
“You weren’t the only one clapping, were you?”
“Not really, no. Whole café caught on, in the end. Look, well…”
He pulled his wife’s head down to his shoulder. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, none of you. I have a lot to live up to here, but I do my best, and it seems to work. I’ll just say this once, get it out. My wife always had a thing for you, just never knew why it never came back her way. When she found out why, it did a lot for her. No, love. Shush. Has to be said, OK?”
He kissed the top of her head before looking back up and around the room. “My darling here had some bad times when she was younger. No, I’ll tell this, love. She was raped. Simple as. Self-esteem, self-worth, both raped at the same time. Took me a long time to get through to her, and all she could talk about was you. Thanks, Eric”
He sat Diane up straighter before taking the cups and handing one to her.
“Took me a long while, as I said, and all the time it was trying to find out why she was so down on herself. Have you told them, Lainey?”
Oh, hell. Why today? In for a penny.
“You two, Sar doesn’t know all of this, aye, so please, confidential as, OK?”
I got the nods and some more puzzled looks and continued.
“Annie, how much has she told her about that trouble she had?”
“The beating, from that Joe Evans? And the two coppers in the hospital—oh, fuck! I saw the names in the Llais y Sais. Sorry, didn’t realise. Read it on a trip back home, Aunty Esther takes it, don’t know why. That queer-bashing crap, aye? Evans and Pritchard, they were coppers, weren’t they?”
“Yup. And Joe Evans beat Sarah up”
“He wasn’t there as well?”
I nodded. “He’s been sectioned. Apparently, he pissed himself at the custody desk when he clocked who I was”
“Same family?”
“Oh yes. Same group of shits”
Annie looked hard at Diane.
“I am going to take a stab in the dark here, but I think I’ll be spot on. How old were you, Di?”
She looked as if she wanted to spit. “All of sixteen, Adam. Annie, sorry. Yes. The same fucking family. Locked up now, all of the shits”
Annie stood up, walked across the room and knelt down to cuddle her. “You too love, you too. Locked up, I mean, all these years. Thanks, Blake, for letting her out. I’m so sorry I didn’t see”
Di tried to laugh. “And it would have worked how, exactly?”
They were both weeping by then, and, well, so was I, and the two men looked more than a little damp-eyed. Eric tried to change the subject a little.
“Tony wants a call as soon as, Lainey. Says he’s not worried, not really. Can I use yours? Mine’s out of juice”
“On the side there. Just, aye? No mention of what we just told you. Sar doesn’t know, and I’d rather she didn’t find out”
“No worries”
He made the call as the rest of us held our peace, sticking to anodyne comments about the drive and how all was well, before turning to the other couple as he hung up.
“What’s your plans just now? I am assuming you were intending to do what Annie and I had planned, and look after the two fat ladies till they’re a bit slimmer?”
Blake laughed out loud as the mood broke.
“Mate, I thought I’d like you when I saw you face down that crowd in the café! Here, take my hand, and let’s sort this out as best we can. Oh—love, bathroom. Get a towel!”
Diane started up. “Shit! Lainey, got a bag ready?”
“Uh?”
“You not feel—oh, hell. Your waters, love”
Oh indeed. I realised immediately what she meant, and realised I’d best stay in the chair so that we only had it to get cleaned and not the carpet as well. Blake was absolutely in work mode right then.
“Our car, Lainey. Eric, you come with us, leave these two to sort things out between them. Where’s the grab bag, Lainey? Used to this, I am, so once cleaned up we are offski. Got the number?”
“Book next to the phone”
“OK. Annie, you or Di give the hospital a ring, Eric and I will get the sumo queen here up to her new bed. MY mobile is actually charged, so we’ll ring when we know. Neither of you is to talk to Sarah about you know what, OK?”
I looked over to Di, and she grinned. “Well, you bloody well trained us all, girl! Just a second”
She grabbed me for a none-too-gentle hug, and we were joined by Annie as Eric appeared with the grab bag and Naomi’s camera. Blake grinned on seeing it.
“Nice one, mate! Got some footage of ours, a bit messy, but, well, got to be done. Inspector Powell, your carriage awaits”
Each man grabbed a quick kiss from his wife and I was hurried out of the door. I stopped them with a shout of “Hang on! Spare keys in the kitchen drawer next to the knives!” before I was grabbed and pushed into the front passenger seat of Blake’s car on top of a pile of towels. I called out to Annie, standing by the door.
“Shit, girl, I’ve been so rushed I haven’t told Mam! Can you let them know? They’re due tonight for Siân, but they don’t know about me! Number’s in the book by the phone”
“Will do! Now, go!”
We were off, only a short drive to Glangwili fortunately, as I was starting to feel uncomfortable. So this was it. Two of us doing things together, as always, but I wondered how much truth there could be in the idea of stress-induced labour. The hospital had obviously taken the message from Annie to heart, and there was a bed in a side room next to the one holding my wife.
“Eric?”
“Hi, Siân. Blake’s sorting the car parking voucher”
“Oh shit! Annie and Di, cariad?”
“Aye, my sweet. Sort of collided at ours. Think they’re fine. The lads are both sensible, aye? They… they know about Joe Evans, but they’ve both promised. Annie’s given Mam and Dad a ring”
“Eric?”
He stepped over to her. “Yeah? You need something?”
“Yes. Bit of an imposition, I know, but I’m a bit tied up here, and it’s no mobiles. And I bet my lover here hasn’t done it”
She grabbed a piece of tissue from beside the bed, and a pen from her handbag, and handed him the resulting note.
“My Mam, eh? She’s in a hospice, that’s the number. Angharad Roberts; she needs to know the situation. Unless you’ve already done it, Lainey? No?”
“Sorry…”
“I know, cariad. Now, those two be OK in our place? How long you here for, Eric? Oh, hi Blake!”
Eric shrugged. “Told my bosses it was family, and they’ve given me an open-ended ticket, as long as I call in every couple of days to sort any crap out. Annie’s lot are being generous, too. Oh, and Naomi’s sent a camera for you”
She laughed. “Aye, and who’s going to be taking any videos with both of us on our backs panting?”
Blake held up a hand. “Either me or the missus, if you like. I mean, we’ve both been there before, like, just from sort of different viewpoints”
I nodded. “That would be good, mate, but what if it’s both at once?”
That question was answered a few hours later, when Dad came into our ward.
“Mam’s at your house with the girls, Elaine. Hywel has sent this for you”
Another camera! I started to laugh, and felt a twinge, and oh shit that hurt. I grunted something, and Siân made a rude comment as my Dad and the other two started moving all sorts of lockers and chairs out of the way before pushing the two beds together. She took my hand and laced her fingers into mine.
“Try timing the gaps, cariad. I think we will need two cameramen, or women, whichever”
Dad looked around. Eric smiled, and showed him his little box of electronics, and said something about some delegation of duties being needed. In the end, it was Dad who took the lead.
“Your sister gave us our first grandchild, Elaine, and Sioned and I came late to that one. We are here now, and I would be here for our second and third. I will brook no argument. Alice will be over tomorrow, and Arwel has splashed out”
“Eh?”
“He wasn’t sure how many friends you would have staying, so he has hired one of those camping wagons. He said some very rude things about tents”
Eric guffawed, tension easing immediately. “And there’s my darling packing tent and bags just in case! Never thought of that, she’s too much of a proper camper”
Shit. Like a cramp, but only for a moment. The doctor was at the door now.
“Have to clear some of you out, I am afraid. We have to do rather a lot pf preparation with the expectant ones, who I assume are actually the ones in the beds. Now, who’re the fathers?”
He looked round the room before spotting the way my lover held my hand. “Ah. Can’t have you in together, I’m afraid. Anyone here doing birthing partner?”
Dad and Blake held up their hands as the latter handed Eric his car keys.
“Don’t crash it, mate. You fully comp?”
“Er, yeah. Shit. Better get back to them make sure they’re still in one piece. Or at least that they’ve got tissues enough”
It was Dad’s turn to laugh. “Sioned’s already sharing hers, Eric. We have the number. If we need anything else, we’ll call, aye?”
Eric shook his hand and Dad held it for more than a few seconds.
“I will make that call, girls”
Dad turned to look at Siân. “Your other Mam?”
That one word broke my lover’s dam, and as the tears came she just nodded, and Dad nodded back.
“Fit and proper, aye. Expect Victoria or Kevin some time tomorrow. This is a good time, a family time, aye?”
Ouch. The doctor pushed him out, and then there were nurses, people who did Stuff, and kept times and measured things, before I was torn from my lover and wheeled down the corridor.
I will not go into detail, but it wasn’t magical, not at all. It was sweaty, painful and bloody hard work, and went on far too long, and then…
Then there was a wail, and a few words from the nurse, and a small, damp person was placed on my breast, just for a minute, as I found myself sobbing as I knew that I had been right after all, that there had to be a way, and there had been, and it was here, clutching at me, wanting to know where it was.
It. The doctor or whoever, they were all in masks, smiled, or at least his eyes crinkled above the mask.
“You have a son, Mrs Powell. Seven pounds twelve ounces”
Oh, god. A son. I looked over to Dad, who was obviously crying. He looked at my little man, and asked the obvious question.
“Does he have a name, cariad?”
“Yes, dad. We spoke about this. He will be Anthony Twm Kevin”
The big, hard man just nodded. “Dw’i’n deall”
I understand.
Little Tony got wrapped up safely, warmly as they wheeled me out to the ward again. It was three more hours before we heard about Siân, and it was the news of a girl. Ten toes, ten fingers, both of our children perfect in every way, and after a little while for tests of all sorts, we started to get our rounds of visitors. God alone knew where they were staying, but half of Heddlu De Cymru were there, all my boys and girls, Fahmi, Debbie, Chris, Wyn, Dai Gould, and then there was our family.
Kevin was almost in tears when he heard about our boy’s name, and Vicky told me later that the tears had come in floods when she had him alone. There were congratulations galore, and the main one was to my wife, about the other name. There was no real argument there, for we had agreed the choices well in advance, and our daughter became Sioned Angharad Sarah.
Our little room filled steadily over the next few days with cards and soft toys, and Eric told us the front room at home was similarly stuffed with babygros and blankets, bootees and bonnets. We had the talks and the lectures, the blood tests and baby books and then, at last, we were free.
CHAPTER 69
It was an even longer drive up this time, as our two charges needed extra special care. More stops, partly for them, but also because I seemed to tire more easily as my body adapted to being drained of its precious bodily fluids every few minutes, or at least one fluid. Siân was glowing, despite our interrupted sleep, and I am sure I must have looked insufferably smug.
These were ours, not on loan, not to be gathered up and removed at the end of each day. I know our friends and family didn’t feel like that, had never felt that way, but as for myself I knew that I could at last look them in the eyes fairly, Arris, Vicky, Diane, Mam. I was a mother, we were mothers, and in the end I still felt a twinge of guilt and sympathy for my sister and for Annie.
Sarah and Tony had made it across three days after we were home, Jim riding pillion behind his Dad, the big man in tears as he cradled two tiny figures, sobbing their names as Jim cuddled him from behind along with his own Mam, my sister.
So much water under the bridge, so much change since we were little girls, or rather sister and sort-of brother. I had wanted to include something of her friends in the children’s names, and if they had both turned out to be girls, Rebecca and Joanne would have had another wriggling little memorial along with Sarah to keep their names alive, but it wasn’t to be. Our parents had to be there, in the end, and their other parents, because Tony and Sarah could never be separated, and naturally enough there was no fucking way Carwyn would ever have contact with them in any manner whatsoever, let alone see his own name live in them.
This was our first trip to see their other grandparent, and it was hard work, harder than it had ever been. Feeding, changing, simply taking our own rests, more than enough to worry us without my nightmare memories of Annie sobbing at the roadside to keep my driving safe and steady.
That was another worry safely pushed aside, for I knew in my heart I had skated far too close to the edge with Diane. Leaving her and Annie alone in our house had been unavoidable, but I had worried about it almost non-stop until our return with the new people. Dad had driven us home, as a proud Bamps, and I had a slight attack of the giggles when I spotted a couple of tents on our back lawn. We came in the door, and there were Di and Annie slumped against each other on the settee, laughing happily at a photo album. I gave them a Look.
“Make yourselves at home, why don’t you?”
Annie just grinned, as did Di, and I saw they had been doing more than a little female bonding while I had been sweating and straining. Di looked at her new/old friend, then back at me.
“Been interesting, Lainey. Once we got past the what the fuck stage—er, I suppose I should start watching my language now. Little ears, innit?”
Annie giggled, actually bloody giggled, like an overgrown school-girl.
“I think these two might be a bit young to worry about language just now, but, well, Lainey? Remember Ginny?”
I laughed as I took a seat, Little Tony cradled to me. “How’s it go? Fuck, yeah? Sorry, Mam!”
She nodded. “Friend of mine, Di. Bit larger than life!”
Siân guffawed. “A bit? Ooh, mustn’t do that, bloody stitches”
I took her free hand. “Aye, very much larger, that is, Annie. And?”
The dark-haired girl was doing her best to keep her face straight, but it wasn’t working too well.
“She and her wife adopted a young girl, and the first time Ginny got excited, she almost strangled herself. ‘Fuh—lip yeah’, it was! All the habits of a lifetime’s insanity had to be tied down and sedated”
Mam tried to frown, but it wasn’t really a serious attempt.
“Little ears may not be old enough, but these ears are. Now, Elaine: what are you going to do about your mother in law?”
Her choice of words was telling. She didn’t say ‘Siân’s Mam’ or anything like that, nothing with any warmth to it. Mother in law, a cold, factual description of her as a role rather than a person. I squeezed my wife’s hand.
“She deserves to see her grandchildren, and before you say it, yes. They will both be her grandchildren. She is what she is, but I married her daughter, and family is family. We know that, here, in our family. Look at how many are here, look how strong we are together. All I want to do is clear it with the other two people involved first”
Mam looked confused, just for a second, and as her face cleared she just nodded.
“You are right, Elaine. They are as much one as you two are. I see I brought up no stupid children”
Diane just raised her own eyebrow, and that set her and Annie off again, giggling like teenagers. Annie managed to rein herself in, with just a couple of hiccups.
“Elaine, we’ve done quite a bit of talking, the two of us, once we got past, as Di put it, the double-you tee eff stage. A lot to share, aye? And then she was telling me all about that unit you set up. Very well done, Inspector”
Di nodded. “Got a lot of work on now, Lainey. Can’t share details, naturally, but they’ve got us another string to our fiddle. Not just the cold case stuff we did but more of the sort of sub-NCA stuff. National Crime Agency, Sioned. We are picking up some of the nasty organised stuff that isn’t quite big enough to rattle the politician’s cages. Done quite a bit with HMRC and Trading Standards, especially round Christmas. Nothing changes there, aye?”
Annie nodded. “And we’ve sent Arwel and Alice out on a mission”
The door banged, and as if answering to their names, the older two were there, the smell of fish and chips. Blake called from the kitchen.
“Bread and butter are on their way, boys and girls!”
That set the tone for the next few days, a steady feast of smiles and warmth, love and good humour, family and friends. Arwel and Alice were no sooner off back home than Arris and her family were setting up on the back lawn, and I lost track of exactly how many times the babies’ heads were metaphorically wetted. What the two of us did do, though, was eat. I was ravenous so much of the time, and that seemed to be exacerbated by the lack of sleep the new arrivals gave us. In the end, both of us began expressing our milk so that our family could take over some of the feeding duties, and I developed an even greater respect for Mam and Dad, for they had coped with both my sister and myself with nobody but themselves to rely on. I gave Sarah a smile one morning as she stumbled down for breakfast.
“Lainey, bloody sight easier getting kids the way I did. Less mess, more sleep!”
“Tea?”
“God, yes. How do you stay asleep when it’s not your turn?”
“Ear plugs”
She shook her head. “Annie suggested that. Anyway, Simon was asking, she says”
“Eh? Merry’s man? The vicar? Oh, morning Tone”
He settled into a chair and poured his own drink. “Thank fuck Di and Blake have gone home. I couldn’t cope with those little shit machines from a sleeping bag”
I asked him the same question. “Simon?”
He sipped, then sighed. “Aaaaah. Yeah, Simon. He wants, or he’s offering, to do us a christening, or naming, or whatever. I wasn’t, we weren’t sure if you had something planned over here, so we made no promises”
“By we, you mean the two of you?”
He shook his head. “No. The three of us. Jim’s brother and sister, so we thought he should get a say”
He was forever full of surprises, but each one let me see why my sister loved him so much. He carried on explaining.
“Steph and the Woods have already made the usual offers, as has Dennis. We’ve coped before. We just need a yes or no. Your choice”
“Oh shit. I will have to delegate this one. Mam!”
She came in from the living room, Little SAS in her arms attached firmly to a bottle.
“Yes, cariad?”
“Mam, christening, aye?”
“Simon will have offered, isn’t it? Miriam’s husband? He’s a good man, Elaine. I can’t think of a better one for the task”
I just shrugged. “All right, then. You can tell him it’s a yes. But we need to speak to Siân’s Mam first”
I looked at my own mother, and corrected myself. “Her other Mam, that is”
So it was that we found ourselves parking outside a North Wales establishment for those awaiting death, unloading two new bits of life to challenge it. This time, I didn’t leave my lover and head off to the beach car park but followed her in through the heavy oak doors. The receptionist, an Oriental woman of some kind, clearly recognised her, and beamed with delight on seeing the carry cots.
“Mrs Powell! Congratulations! And you must be the other Mrs Powell. Can I ask…?”
Siân smiled back. “One of each, Carmen. One of each. Want to be introduced?”
“Oh yes please! What are their names?”
“That one is Anthony Twm Kevin, and this one is Sioned Angharad Sarah”
Carmen’s smile drained from her face. “You honour your mother, Mrs Powell, even when—no. I am speaking out of place. But you are indeed a different person. She does not know how lucky she is in you”
“Thank you, Carmen. I appreciate that, and you are not in any place, as you put it. I appreciate your concern. How is she?”
“Please wait a moment. Hannah? Can you take the desk?”
Another tiny woman came out of a door just behind, and then Carmen led us into a small sitting room.
“Mrs Powell, Mrs Powell”
I held up a hand. “Siân and Elaine, please”
She gave a little bow. “Thank you. I am honoured. I will be blunt. I have no idea how she is still with us. She has a fight in her of a strength I have rarely seen, but it cannot last. There is only so much the spirit can do for the body, whether it is hers or the Holy one. Ambrose is with her at the moment. Do you wish to wait for a private moment?”
Siân shook her head. “No. He is a good man. I will share… we will share the moment with him”
“Come, then. We will use the lift; safer for the little ones”
There was a smell on the upper floor, a hospital smell, underlain by a sourness. It wasn’t the same as our little room off the ward at Glangwili, and I wondered whether my preconceptions were affecting my nostrils. Death’s waiting room.
Ambrose was kneeling by the bed, praying quietly, a bible open before him, and Angharad…
What was left of her was wrapped in tubes and wires, and when I say ‘what was left’ it was entirely bone and stretched skin. This was what my wife had been seeing while I walked the beach and looked out over the sea to distant mountains? I put Little Tony down and moved to hold my wife.
“Mam? I’ve brought visitors”
Ambrose stood and moved aside, and I saw fever-bright eyes open as machines made noises and pumps whirred. A paper-thin voice rustled over their murmuring and bleeping.
“You have brought your partner in sin this time?”
Cow.
“I have brought my wife, Mam. And our children. Your grandchildren are here with us”
She tried to lift her head as her mouth worked, and Ambrose stepped forward again.
“Grandchildren? Please…”
Siân nodded to me, and we took our infants from their cradles, holding them before her as Ambrose cradled her head so she could see. I decided I wasn’t going to stay silent this time.
“They are Anthony Twm Kevin and Sioned Angharad Sarah”
“Which one comes from my daughter?”
Siân put a finger to my lips. “No, Mam. They are ours, ours together”
“Angharad…”
She took a little while to find another breath, a claw-like hand reaching out so, so gently to touch each child’s face in turn.
“You…you honour me, even when…”
Siân nodded, red hair falling forward to cover her tears.
“Yes, we did. Are you not still my Mam?”
“They will be baptised?”
I made a snap decision and nodded to my wife, who simply said “Yes, Mam”
What was left of the old woman reached out to touch her daughter’s hand, and as she said one last word, the machines started to make louder noises, and Ambrose went to stand against the closed door, and I realised it was to stop any medical staff from entering. He looked at me, a weight of ages in his eyes.
“Finally. It is finished, as our Lord said. She had one request, ladies, and it is one I will arrange, given no objections. Simply put, she wishes to go home to the retreat and rest with us. We have a space for her, a place for her. Are you willing?”
My wife looked at me, and she knew my answer, and then Carmen had tea for us as Ambrose finally let the medics begin the long job of removing all the equipment from what had been my mother-in-law. I led her from that place an hour later, after everything had been signed and sealed, and we drove Ambrose to the station before settling ourselves into the beach car park I had occupied so often, before we began the long, silent journey back home.
A week later, the children safe with Mam and Dad, we stood on a windy knoll on a bleak island as what was left of her mother joined others of her creed to rest with their god. Ambrose was so much happier, which seemed odd at a funeral.
“Oh, dear ladies, it has been a hard path to walk with her. She was a stiff-necked old harridan, but inside, there was so much love struggling to get out. I find myself rather lacking in true Christian charity and love for that man she married”
I just grinned. “As I am not bound by any religious views, I can be clearer in my condemnation, my friend. I hope he rots, the bastard. Now, what are you doing in a month?”
“What are you asking, Elaine?”
“We made Angharad a promise. Would you stand for her, stand as a godfather to her grandchildren?”
First his jaw fell, then his tears, and finally the strain from his posture, and yes, yes, he would be honoured.
The choir was as thunderous as ever, making two little people yell in their turn, but Merry was there, eyes shining, along with Mam and a horde of aunties, all ready to fuss and soothe. Ambrose was sanding to one side, along with Kevin, Vicky, Di, Blake, Annie, Eric, Arris, Steve, Steph and Geoff. Simon was grinning happily, as he so often was. He said the words, about his dearly beloved, and how true that was, and said the names, and wet their foreheads.
I held my wife and our children, and I thought of that lone last word of Angharad’s.
“Love”