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…”

CHAPTER 38
The pistol kicked back in my hand, hurting the web between my thumb and index finger, and the muzzle jerked up and to the left as the man in battledress flew backwards off his feet, so much blood coming from him in a great splash, gaudy on the snow, and someone was on my bed, holding me as I felt half a shout leave me.

CHAPTER 36
It was cold enough to bring half s shout from my lips, and without any conscious thought my arms were already flailing around for something to hang onto. That brought my mind back, but I was arguing with myself, in panic looking for a handhold to keep my face above the water as my shoes and clothes dragged me down into the murk of the Ouse, and at the same time cursing my lack of forethought in not stepping off a bridge away from the bank, where my cowardice could be ignored and the water take me where I belonged.

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.

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.

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.

A PLACE BY THE SEA
The stone flew past her head immediately after the word. She’d spotted the kids sitting on the wall as she came round from the Co-op, but there was no other way back to the flat, sitting as it did at the end of a cul-de-sac. It was one of Billy Shaw’s boys, she was pretty certain, but she didn’t know the other boys, nor the girls standing by them laughing at how macho they could be. The rucksack should protect her back, she thought, so best just keep her head down and get in the door as quickly as she could.

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.

CHAPTER 32
My dreaming grew worse for a while, but Tricia was always there, and as she grew I found myself so tense with fear of harming her or our child that the nightmares only stayed away because I never really fell asleep.

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?”

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.

CHAPTER 30
It started quietly, but it gathered speed as it continued. Bob didn’t say anything, but I caught little hints in the pubs and when I visited his place. The odd snide remark, almost always from the younger drinkers; the bit of broken glass he’d missed picking up from his carpet. It was harder to miss the dog shit smeared over his street door, though. His float was kept at the dairy overnight, so they couldn’t get at it, but I soon realised that it was a steady and concerted campaign.

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?”

CHAPTER 27
They had taken the best part of three hours, and Staff Sullivan had done us proud with a private room to sit with Bob. He had even found us a tray of tea, proper Army brew. Bob had sat silent, staring at his cup, till Matthew laid a hand on his shoulder.

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”

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.

CHAPTER 25
Ernie wasn’t too full of gossip that night, and we spent it going over old, old tales of our times in Normandy and further on. The toast, in essence, was ‘absent friends’, and several times we found ourselves sitting silent, as if by mutual agreement.

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.