CHAPTER 6
It wasn’t easy. A simple thing to say, but emphatically true. I wasn’t just trying to read, inwardly digest and retain such things as a shedload of criminal law, statute, call it what you will, as well as the serried hierarchy of what felt like a cross between some sort of monastic order, but deal with all sorts of fitness testing and ‘safety’ training.

CHAPTER 5
Mam and Dad were by my bedside when I woke again. I had clearly lost it once more, and as I tried to sit up straighter the room danced around me, the walls moving up and down and my stomach matching them. Mam noticed and passed me the bowl that had been left on the bedside locker.

“What happened, love?”

I thought of the two coppers, shuddered, and shook my head. Not now, Mam. Dad wouldn’t let it lie, though.

“What did he do, love? Did he…”

CHAPTER 3
Blake was on early turn the next day, and after all the messing about in Merthyr I had the delight of a day off. I needed it, to be honest, but I didn’t exactly get a lie-in as my dear husband was never exactly light on his feet, nor subtly agile when climbing out of our nice, warm, snuggly bed. Just another hour… please…

“Mam!”

Deep joy. “Yes, Rhod?”

“Mam! No paper!”

“Hang on, love!”

CHAPTER 2
I had no quick, amusing comeback to that particular little hand-grenade. I didn’t know much about the disease, but I had seen more than enough of its victims, and my memories of them left me with no illusions as to Lynne’s future. Poor bloody Alun; my opinion of his morals had turned such a somersault it was probably being greeted by people holding up score cards.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER 75
Matthew was as solidly cheerful as I should have expected, and we made quite the show of old warriors at the top table. Some judicious work by phone had secured the attendance of all the lads from the show, and I found myself looking forward to watching it. I stayed off the booze as my guts were not feeling too well, but the food went down well, and of course I was with friends. Such a different night to a certain evening one February. Val was sitting at another table along with Susie and Andy, and there was a large group from the yard.

CHAPTER 73
I ended up walking past my car, my mind elsewhere. As Susie would put it, I was on autopilot. I had wondered, I had worried, but even with Andy’s nagging I had managed to put it to the back of my mind. Once again, I thought of Susie’s turn of phrase: I had been in that African river, de Nile.

CHAPTER 71
The rest of the interview was a bit of a blur, so I was surprised when it came to an end. Tom thanked us all and then one of his staff took us down to the staff canteen, where he joined us after about twenty minutes. Ernie nodded to him.

“When’s proper filming, then?”

CHAPTER 70
He was blushing again, but there was a grin behind the lowered head and shuffling hands.

“Yeah, can’t really hide that one, can I? We haven’t set a date, but, well, it was sort of obvious. Pete asked Laura, and I saw the way her mum was smiling, and it just made sense to follow the boy’s example. Too many wasted years…”

He faltered, just for a few seconds, but then the smile was back, twice as bright and utterly natural this time.

CHAPTER 68
The floods weren’t bad that winter, but as usual customer numbers collapsed for a couple of months. We kept ourselves afloat by doing that for others, with a steady succession of boats to hoist out and check for damage, fouling, caulking and the rest. Trevor and Ricky knew what they were doing with that, and it let Darren push ahead with his studies. If things went well, he would get his certificates in time for the school holiday period, just when they would be needed most.

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!”

CHAPTER 65
I was really at a loss without her, and when Pete left shortly afterwards to take his boy down I was almost lost. It was an education, in a sense. I had spent so long on my own after Tricia had been taken I had felt that I was comfortable in my solitude, that I didn’t need people around me. I realised just then, as the house emptied and the nearest of my friends headed south, that I had merely been numb, not comfortable. Just because you lose the feeling in a hand or other bit doesn’t mean it can’t get damaged, just that the pain doesn’t tell you if it does. That had been my life: numbed, no pain, but steadily being damaged by my isolation.

CHAPTER 63
She stayed quiet for a while, just staring at the doctor’s letter, till I decided I had to break the silence.

“Happen I’d better start looking at hotels down that Brighton, then”

She looked up, head tilted slightly. “No”

CHAPTER 61
“What brought this on, Pete?”

He was silent for just the few seconds it took me to realise how worried he really was.

“Ah, Gerald, mate, it’s how he is. Bloody stubborn, pig-headed, independent, call it what you will. I can’t tell him… Shit, mate, he thinks I’m lining him up here cause I don’t think he can cope on his own, find his own…”

Another short silence, and again I waited.

“I nearly said ‘find his own feet’, and that would… I’m not making sense, am I?”

CHAPTER 60
Ashley had been right, and there was no chance of a proper knees-up for the newly engaged, so we settled for a proper night in for the New Year. Work came back to haunt us, but in the end it was a relief getting back out of the house and seeing what damage the usual winter floods had done.

We were lucky that year, no wet feet in the King’s Arms, and the first few days of the year were spent setting out priorities for maintenance and refurbishment. Susie had somehow managed to find a source of Bolinder spares and reconditioned engines in Birmingham, and then added to her not-so-little coup by negotiating an incredibly cheap contract for traditional enamel ware with an artists’ studio in Camden.

CHAPTER 58
Harwich was visible from a long way off, or at least the big white reactor dome at Sizewell. There was nothing really visible of England apart from the dome for what seemed like hours, but eventually we were passing the moles or piers or whatever they are called and nosing up to the dock. There was the usual hanging about while sailors did sailor things, and then we were called down to our vehicles. Pete drove, silent that morning, and in a very short while we picked up the first motorway up past Cambridge, leading on to the A1 after a frighteningly busy dual carriageway to Huntingdon.