CHAPTER 31
I looked down at his hand, and then at his eyes, trying to hold my courage close and tight so that it couldn’t escape. Blake just nodded, and turned to my parents.

“Baby steps at the moment, Mark, Dot. Di’s the one in the driving seat”

That gave me something else to talk about, which I urgently needed.

CHAPTER 29
We settled down to sorting out more of the shitstorm of paperwork, and I caught Blake looking at me, which destroyed my concentration. I could remember everything from the night before, including the hand-holding, but I was sober now. Let it ride, DC Owens, let it slide, and he’ll do the same. Booze and stress, that’s all it was. Sammy ruined that plan.

“Di? Blake? Could you two do a run up to the greasy before we sort out the charging? I need cholesterol, and I need it now! Couple of dog rolls for me, and I’ll shout for whatever the others want”

CHAPTER 27
“Good morning Mr Evans, I am DC Owens, and this is DC Sutton”

Evans jerked his head, and I realised he was trying to see out through the doorway, probably checking nobody else was there. When we sat down, he was clearly sitting as far back as the chair would allow, even though it was fixed to the floor. Not good.

CHAPTER 25
Another twenty minutes saw our prisoners separated and stuffed into the backs of a number of vehicles for the return to the nick, Chris long gone in the ambulance as a paramedic stayed with us to look after one of the five who had apparently met Elaine’s asp face-first.

She was a strange mixture of nerves and seething rage, and as we sat in the car I took the risk and squeezed her shoulder. She simply laid her hand on mine and squeezed back before taking her mobile out and once more switching it to speaker mode. As Blake finished calling out recovery for the other vehicles and the van, she rang Control.

“Hi Jan, Inspector Powell here. Can you call the duty Super out? I’ll need a word. And the on-call CID Inspector”

CHAPTER 23
I wish I had known those people years before, or people like them, who could have brought my parents out of the pit along with me. What I was learning, in the end, was that it wasn’t about individuals as such but about a way of thinking. We had English, Welsh and French there, all together and smiling. It sort of flew in the face of so much of my experience of policing, and then another thought struck me, no doubt triggered by the kids in wheelchairs and leg braces we had just shared dinner with.

CHAPTER 21
We made our way round the series of right turns Annie had advised, finally ducking down a back street behind the church we weren’t staying at, oh no, and in the dusk saw a small sea of canvas, a lot of which was glowing from within as people used torches or lamps to sort their bedding out. That had always been one of my favourite parts of camping with Dad, where I would walk back from the toilets or a shower, usually in rain, it being North Wales, and our tent would be glowing in just that way, a little jewel of warmth and shelter that was so much more than a bag of cloth hung on a framework of sticks.

CHAPTER 19
I collared Mam in the kitchen after the two men had gone out for the supplies.

“What are you up to, Mam?”

“He’s one of the good ones, love”

“You’re trying to fix me up, aren’t you?”

CHAPTER 17
She was straight off home after the shift, wife to unchain, dragon to feed, as Alun cheekily suggested. We had sat at our little tables all bloody day without budging, it seemed, as Chris bustled about with cups of tea and coffee, plates of biscuits and so on, at lunchtime taking everyone’s order for a run up to the canteen.

I could see what he was doing as a support worker, but it was more than that. I don’t think it was a cynical ploy on his part, but his comment about goats and arriving late came to mind. Get involved with us, become part of the team, and we’d feel more inclined to be punctual when it was needed. Whatever his reasons, he did help us markedly through the day.

CHAPTER 15
I slept surprisingly well, despite a few sudden wakings as something unspecified but nasty crawled into the back of my mind. Mam, as usual, had a fuller-than-full breakfast waiting, and I wondered how she always managed to be up before me, even on the earliest of shifts. Some sort of Mam-radar, I suppose. She sat with me as I ate my sausages and swallowed my tea, with a Look on her face that warned of something being grilled besides the sausages.

“Di, love?”

“Yes, Mam?”

“It’s those two pieces of filth again, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 13
I was lost in my own thoughts for the first part of the journey back, only returning to the world about me when Rhys nudged me at some lights.

“You OK, Di? Bit quiet there”

“Ah, mate, just thinking. That lad’s in a bad way”

I could read his mind as he stared at me while the red light sat before us. She’s talking rubbish, it’s not the lad, must be more, leave it for now.

I tried to fill his silence.

CHAPTER 11
Alun snorted at that, for he had one of those stupid cartoon picture ties on.

“Um, Alun Benson. I’m with CID here in Cardiff”

A skinny, butter-wouldn’t melt blonde. “Candice Warren, sort of attached to ASBO admin, out by Porthcawl. I do the antisocial order background stuff”

CHAPTER 9
I saw Adam quite regularly after that meeting. Not in a ‘seeing him’ sense, not over pasta with a cheeky little red or anything like that, just in passing. Once he had been pointed out to me, it seemed, my radar kept track of his whereabouts.

Alun was another whose face kept popping up in my line of sight as Dai and my other beat colleagues kept pushing me through more and more new experiences, some of which I wrapped up in my memory to giggle over later, some of which I am not ashamed to say came back a few times in the small hours to stand at the foot of my bed demanding my undivided attention.

CHAPTER 7
“Who the hell are you?”

What a lovely welcome.

“Diane Owens. I’m on secondment here”

“Ah! The fresh meat! Kettle’s over there; white, two sugars for me”

CHAPTER 4
He was a big man, and I thought I recognised him from somewhere, but my mind wasn’t working as he slid sideways in the car, pushing the door open and then reaching round it to take another handful of my hair.

I found myself almost spinning on the spot as he dragged me backwards through the now open car door. Something poked the back of my neck, and he was breathing hard, but his voice was under full control.

“Get your legs in and shut the fucking door. Do it now or I cut you”

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?”

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.

CHAPTER 1
Bloody cold and wet, typical bastard weather when I had the stupidity to pick a bloody skirt. I mean, on a stag, in winter, in Wales---I should have known better. I walked as casually as I could back to the car, where Alun would hopefully have had the heater on. He had, and had also killed the interior light so as not to show out so badly when I opened the door.

“What we got, Di?”

“Definitely a meet coming. That’s another vanload of booze just gone in; they won’t want to risk keeping that on site too long”

“Dogs?”

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.

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”

CHAPTER 76
I walked up to the side door again, letting myself in and going directly to the vestry, where Ruth, naturally, had the kettle on ready. She already knew my habits, and I had a sudden warm memory of Wilf’s. Time for a brew?

The doctor had been as gentle as she could be, but her message couldn’t be mistaken.

“So what’s plan, then, Doctor?”