CHAPTER 7
I was up early that Saturday morning giving my harp a quick cuddle before pulling on my climbing tights and a T-shirt over a sports bra. I wasn’t big there, but it felt like part of the uniform: fit, outdoor-sporty woman, ready to brave whatever crag the Woodruffs had in mind. I was munching toast while packing my gaiters into a day sack when Dad arrived, and he shook his head.

“You won’t need them, love. No mud to worry about. Harness, rock boots, hat, helmet and jacket. You can manage in trainers for the walk in as well. Want some lunch making?”

“Please!”

CHAPTER 5
I didn’t sleep well, unsurprisingly, and was up well before either Mam or Dad. Mam was down a little while later, and as we worked through cereal and toast, Dad arrived. While Mam left the subject of the previous night’s confessional strictly alone, Dad’s occasional glance my way left no doubt in my mind that they had discussed me in their own bed. He said nothing about it, though, but the force of his hug as he left the house was as plain an answer as I could ask for.

CHAPTER 3
I followed her down the stairs, and as I entered the kitchen she showed me a book sitting on the work surface.

“First things first, love. Put that on the table for now, and you do NOT touch it with dirty hands! Get this lot baking, and then I will talk you through it, or at least the appendices. Now, scones of biscuits?”

“Can we do the scones? I like the crumbling bit”

“Okay, but… hang on… yes, got enough. Let’s push the boat out!”

CHAPTER 1
“Got your phone?”

“Yeah, of course!”

“Why’s it still sitting here plugged into the charger then?”

“Cachu! Ta!”

“And it’s raining!”

“Course it is! That’s why I’ve got my cagtrousers on”

This is the very last bit of 'broken Wings' which I am posting as an epilogue. I already had this one in mind, but a Dear Reader's personal message helped clarify the structure--thanks.

I will add one small warning to it, which is a box-of-tissues alert.

CHAPTER 105
Charlie was almost insufferably smug for ages after her return, but I noticed how much she dialled down the gloating when any of the more vulnerable girls were around. Faye, in particular, was still settling into her new, and hopefully better, life, and seemed overawed at Charlie’s confidence, but it was Tiff who surprised me. Her own mood was simply one of serenity, and when I raised the subject with her in private, I was met by an astonishing level of maturity.

CHAPTER 103
I found my sleep a little broken for a few days, as more news reports came in and people were charged. The most disturbing part wasn’t the parade of blank expressions on the faces of people who took their entertainment in perverted ways, but the images that were broadcast over the BBC television news a few days later. They had a few talking heads from the Customs people, standing next to pallets of booze that had clearly been arranged to look as imposing as possible, but they also had Sammy, talking over footage taken from inside a warehouse that had been the centre of everything. Scaffolding with planks lashed across it formed tiered ranks of seating around a large circular space surrounded by wire fencing, the space itself floored with what looked like sand or sawdust.

CHAPTER 101
Two days later, I got the call from Rosie, and of course it came while I was up to my eyeballs. Nita had rung, and for the first time in ages it hadn’t been a social call but a new referral. I was in the van with Faye, fourteen, yet another who had been pursued on the internet after trying to build a new profile for herself. I picked her up at Nita’s office, which saved a lot of crap, Rosie’s call arriving just as I parked up there.

“You free later? With that copper?”

CHAPTER 99
Stupidly, I missed the Italian trip, for the simple but crucial fact that I didn’t have a passport. I had a list of documents that I would have needed for getting one, such as birth and gender recognition certificates, but there was no way I could have obtained a GRC in that time. I really felt stupid when I mentioned that to Cathy, and she muttered, very out of character for her,

CHAPTER 97
I turned to look back at Frank, who simply stood, mouth open.

“Myron?”

CHAPTER 95
As he settled back down beside me, mug of tea in hand, Gemma called over.

“Oy! Not going to help put the tent up?”

Hr turned onto his side to face her, waving vaguely at our little camp.

“I do believe mine is already up, serf”

CHAPTER 93
Kim was around early the next morning, which surprised me. I was getting ready to head off on the bike for the first of four days of longer delivery runs, out to Carmarthen, Haverfordwest and Llanelli, loading a flask of coffee and some ham and cheese rolls for my midday break, when she banged at the kitchen door. A couple of the girls were just washing their breakfast bowls as she entered, and the grin plastered onto her face lasted just long enough for her to say the words “Gemma let us know and… Oh.”

CHAPTER 91
Bert had his own sources of information, god knows where, and he simply told me to stay home until the funeral was done. No questions, no options, just a simple and clear instruction to take what time I needed. The papers were going ballistic over what sounded like open warfare at some MCC’s ‘family-friendly event, and among all the sensationalism were an awful lot of stupid editorials demanding that Something Be Done, and I was utterly in agreement with Bert regarding my fitness to drive.

CHAPTER 89
I sat down hard, and Jon’s words came back to me.

‘She was next to that big bastard’

It was a second before my hearing caught up with my thoughts, as the phone continued to shout at me.

“Debbie? Debbie?”

Class, woman.

“Here, Rosie”

“Where are you?”

CHAPTER 87
The news filtered back over the next few days, largely via Paul.

“She hurts, Debbie, but she’s still with us. She’ll be ready for visitors tomorrow, doctor says”

We were all in the back dining room, except for Kim, Gemma and Alicia, and I saw several of the girls sit up, Charlie and Tiff whispering to each other. I knew exactly what it would be, of course, and over the next week we operated a rotating watch over Paula. By ‘watch’, it seemed to consist largely of watching her eat a large number of Gemma’s best treats. And by ‘rotating’. It was mostly Charlie and Tiff that were involved. A few nights after our first visit to the hospital, I had a different sort of visit, as once more a nondescript figure in raincoat and baseball cap was at my back door.

CHAPTER 85
I spent some time as the days lengthened once more working with Heidi and the local colleges, and to my delight we found a couple of vocational places for Charlie and Tiff, while Clara settled into her own A-level preparations, and we lost Alicia.

CHAPTER 83
It was quite a bright Thursday, and I wasn’t on shift. Charlie and Tiff had some excuse or other for skiving, something about having finished and passed their A-levels, so we were all at a loose end. What to do? Decision made, two girls on the bench seat of the Transit, one on a seat in the back, and round to Diane’s. She would definitely have biscuits, because I made sure I put a couple of packs into my rucksack.

CHAPTER 18
Sam and Rosie, naturally. That word sat in the front of my mind as I watched them run across the field, and it was another little barb in my soul. Up and down, my mood; the slightest little thing derailed me.

‘Naturally’. I wasn’t natural, of course, not what they thought I was, not a real girl in any legal sense, but that wasn’t the issue just then. It was how they were acting without a script, natural children behaving naturally. Such things had been beaten and raped out of me in Mersey View, and in other supposedly safe spaces before my entry into that particular circle of hell. I watched two other children of around my age, I saw them dance and laugh, and when I matched them, I had to think it through beforehand.

CHAPTER 80
With a shout from Stevie of ‘Don’t be a stranger, lass!’, I stepped out of the bus and into the car, Jon in the driver’s seat once more. As I settled down in the back seat, Di called to me over her shoulder.

“Hiya, Deb! Hop in. I was just about to start the third degree on Jonny boy here. About a certain fellow officer who officially officiates in our office, sort of thing”

Rhys, of course; you teasing cow. I wondered what Jon felt about being the butt of her humour, but he seemed fine with it. I picked my words carefully, thinking of Gemma’s uncertainty.

“Yeah, some of the girls will be a bit disappointed. Gemma in particular”

CHAPTER 78
I spent the next hour catching up on so many things with Benny, together with his husband and Roger, who drew me out of myself with his absolutely shameless camping. I actually found myself smiling, then laughing out loud, as he told stories of his life with his late husband. I caught a hint of tears from Peter every so often, but when Roger described their wedding, we were all roaring with laughter.

“So there we are, outside our delightful little Danish lattie, and I pick up darling Simon, and I nearly put my back out, and of course he has to do the same, across the threshold, and we have a toast, of course, with decent bubbly”

CHAPTER 76
A fortnight later, and I was sitting awake in my bed at two in the morning, shaking, my laptop screen glowing beside me on the bed. Paula had been as good as her word, and the first chapter had landed in my inbox ten days after that evening meal with the new girl, and the woman had clearly been listening carefully to me. The first part followed the scheme I had suggested, but as Paula came back out of her opiate haze, the bright and potentially high-flying mind was lighting up.

CHAPTER 74
Life seemed settled at last, especially for Charlie and Tiff. They were still rationing their trips outside, but at least Charlie had started wearing something other than night clothes, and when we made our Summer expedition, they came with us, as did Gemma and Kim.

This time, Lim was driven up by Phil, and there were happy grins and congratulations from Cathy and my original Nell. As for Alicia, she rode up with her father, and when Owen the barman commented on how nice it was to have his guitarist back, and Alun made a comment about looking after his daughter, Alicia beamed for days. The weather blessed us for several days, and there was one shining moment that lifted my heart even more than Alicia’s wide smile at her father.

CHAPTER 72
Paul kept me up to speed, in a very unofficial way, especially when two of Di’s mates started the process with Paula. He was clearly fretting, worried about whether she would be able to cope with the sort of thing I wasn’t sure Di had managed without being hurt. That said, I couldn’t be sure Charlie would be able to take it, but she was now insistent that she was to, as she put it, rip a new arsehole in Ashley Evans’ face. While I wondered about her sense of anatomy, I understood her meaning perfectly. Paul, though, was already suffering. He did put my mind at rest on one issue, however.

“No, Debbie. Got a room rented for her”

“And who’s paying for it?”

CHAPTER 70
I had a day off after that chat with Nita, and as Spring was now with us, I made sure the girls were okay before riding down to the little bit of a wetland nature reserve that had been made close to where I had first met Bert.

The migrants were passing through, some of them coming to stay somewhere in Britain, others heading even further, using Cardiff as a refuelling point on the way. I settled down with scope and flask, and as I scanned the reeds and water, I found my thoughts running through Diane’s behaviour. We had talked, to her obvious embarrassment, about the girls, and about them actually BEING girls, and she had confessed to me how steep the learning curve had been for her. I suspected that the only reason she was able to adapt at least a little had been the shared pain.