CHAPTER 40
Lexie looked worried, so I made sure I gave her a hug.

“It gets easier after the first one”

She pulled back from me, smiling in a twisted way.

“Di, love, you have only ever had ‘the first one’ yourself, and besides, you seem…”

CHAPTER 38
I managed to avoid another trip to the sluice room, but only just, and not for the first time I wondered how and why I had ended up in such a job. There was more, but Matt’s summary covered it rather neatly. Discounting the possibility of an utterly bizarre and complicated accident, our man had been beaten and badly wounded with axes. Not swords; Matt went into rather too much detail about the different wounds he would have expected if someone had been channelling some Japanese ninja film.

CHAPTER 36
I felt better after that, enough to talk at last to my husband. We lay in the darkness at Mam’s, our last night before we would decamp back to our old house along with the girls. Rhod was burbling away in his little pull-out bed, while I just lay wrapped around my husband, street lighting leaking enough around the curtains to see his expressions.

“Christmas, love. I had some news”

“That phone call?”

“Yeah…”

CHAPTER 34
Tammy was apologetic, her Sydneyside accent strong.

“Sorry, all, but we couldn’t carry big stuff, nor things that would crush, ey? So we got you these. Had to guess at the sizes”

CHAPTER 32
We went into overdrive that morning, most of the team joining with CID and uniform to carry out a fingertip search of the open stretch of grass that contained the circle, but there was absolutely nothing for us. Candice and Lexie took the lead with the young couple, and then, once the search was done, Jon and Ellen, Blake and Rob, in pairs, went to the hospital. Sammy had been very clear I wasn’t to go anywhere near what we were assuming were the shooter plus two. My boss took me to an interview room once everyone was off and running.

“Just need a quiet word, mate. A few things you should be aware of. Bring your tea”

CHAPTER 30
No, life didn’t slip into slow motion, I didn’t clock the number of the bike, and Paul didn’t dive across the pavement shouting “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

They rode past, something went flash-bang, Rhod woke up with a shout, and Paula spun off her feet with a grunt. Nothing dramatic, no cinematic clichés; just a woman on some concrete flags in a spreading pool of blood, I had an immediate thought, and it was stupid, and it was “How useless am I?”

CHAPTER 28
Ten days of an odd alphabet, odder plumbing, strange food and a sea that was visibly (and bloody tangibly) very different to that off Barry. I loved it, and of course it left me with a real dilemma.

The ‘Dom Rep’ would always be there in my heart, for we had married there. Cavallino had seen a sweet man ask me if he could make such a thing possible. Kos… Kos was our family doing a new thing as a family, setting precedents. I have read so many times in so many places that ‘you can never go back’, but that wasn’t my, our, problem. The number of places I wanted and needed to go back to was growing quickly.

CHAPTER 26
Paula looked round the table, her eyes lingering on Rhod, and I could read her mind. ‘Souvenirs’, Moira had said, and I had to assume she meant one or more varieties of hepatitis. I had read the briefings, spoken to enough girls; was it dirty needles, or simply taking the extra cash for bareback sex from dirty men? It wouldn’t have been HIV, because she almost certainly knew it is nowhere near as contagious as good, old-fashioned liver death.

CHAPTER 24
We left the CID and firearms boys at the Central nick after quickly putting together our statements. We may have been there to ‘observe’, but what we had observed still had to be noted.

Sammy met us in James Street, which was unusual.

“What are you doing in on a Sunday, Sammy?”

He grinned, as was his way.

“Bev Williams is in as well. Bloody good result, and he wants a word. A nice one, I believe”

CHAPTER 22
It wasn’t that easy, of course, as over the next few months our boy developed from what Elaine called ‘shit machine’ (“What? Not me! A friend said it, and she’s got three”) to someone more fully human.

That sounds callous, unmaternal, evil, pick your adjective; but I have heard it said that mother-love is nature’s way of stopping the new person from being smothered at birth, or at least at the first nappy change.

CHAPTER 20
The news was astonishing, and it was clear that somebody was playing office politics in a big way, because every aspect was covered by camera crews. It was forced entry, using Big Keys to break down doors, in Crawley, Newcastle upon Tyne and Belfast.

Blake said a dew choice words before shaking his head in disbelief.

“Got to go, love, but I am going to see what I can get out of Sammy on this. It’s bloody unreal!”

CHAPTER 18
St Fagan’s is and always has been one of my favourite places. The village is nice in itself, but what I have loved since I was a girl is the attached museum. It has changed its name several times, from Welsh Folk through History to National, but it remains, at heart, the same place where one can climb into the back of a pony trap and be taken for a ride past reconstructed old buildings from all over the country. There are tea rooms on site, serving proper Welsh dishes, gardens, singing birds, everything I needed to lift my soul.

CHAPTER 16
I don’t know why, but for some odd reason our return home was followed by a prolonged session of rather energetic intimacy, to smother everything in euphemisms. I lay in his arms afterwards, sweat and other things drying, and discussed options.

“When are we telling your parents?”

I thought for a second or two, but the answer was an obvious one.

“I don’t think we should do, at least not right away. I want to see the doc first, just to make sure”

CHAPTER 14
Jon drove off smoothly, trying to draw as little attention as possible, and spoke to me from the side of his mouth.

“Stevie says they’ll drop Deb off at the station, so we can pick her up there”

“You OK, mate?”

He was silent for a minute or so, concentrating on the directions from the satnav and the road ahead.

CHAPTER 12
There was murmuring from the jury, but His Honour stared straight at them so intently it stopped dead. He turned back to the Clerk, and nodded.

“In the matter of… How do you plead?”

Cooper shot our group a furtive glance before looking down at his hands again, then, standing in the dock he gave the first of a complete and unbroken series of almost inaudible responses. “Guilty’, ‘guilty’, ‘guilty’--- no exceptions. The only deviation was when Deb’s pain was aired again; he looked up again, over towards her, and I swear I saw his eyes wet.

CHAPTER 10
We spent an hour or so with the others, Inspector Weir excusing himself after a few minutes, and I was pleased to see the mood lifting as the biscuits, and a couple of plates of muffins, vanished. Three older men chatted comfortably to one side while the Elliott family gradually moved from Stevie’s slow boil to Jon’s star-struck questions about a retired footballer. I ended up chatting to Stevie’s son, who seemed remarkably grounded.

He grinned at me when I commented on his calm, and after a wave at his dad’s chest, pointed out that being adaptable was a bit of a necessity.

CHAPTER 8
Jon and I took more than five hours to get to Carlisle, the journey including a change at Crewe. I had heard that name so many times, including in music-hall songs, and I was expecting something a little better than what we found. A mix of old train carriages sparked some interest as we came in, but the reality was simply a large warehouse affair with a lot of glass in the upper parts. It was well-kept, the correct spot to wait for our reserved places was marked on the platform and there were places to grab a snack, but we had to wait over thirty minutes before our connection, and it dragged. There were a large number of bricks in the wall the other side of the tracks, and I am sure I counted them all.

CHAPTER 6
I was called into the Super’s office two weeks later, and as I had expected Bev had Sedgewick and Weir with him. There was the usual ritual of greeting and coffee before I was asked to deliver my updates.

“Rather a lot of the former residents are no longer with us, gents. Ion and I have managed to speak to nine survivors, and I am sorry to say that six of them are not willing to cooperate”

CHAPTER 5
Once more, the pattern of my days was set by lists, names and club numbers, as we called criminal records. As with one nightmare of a prison visit, the pattern of offending seemed to be clear, just--- thankfully--- nowhere near as extreme. It fell into particular areas of social failure, and they all clung to the coat tails of self-destruction and lack of any sense of self-worth. Addictions of various kinds, steady theft and criminal damage habits seeming to be as much of a compulsion as drugs or alcohol.

CHAPTER 3
My life was painful for the next week, just for starters, and of all people Candice was the worst.

“Di. Love, I’ll be around, don’t worry. There are some lessons you’ll need to get sorted before you can get back to work properly, isn’t it? Now, we’ll start with this”

She held up a ballpoint from our stationery cupboard.

“This is called a ‘pen’. You use it for writing, and this is the end that makes marks—Ow!”

CHAPTER 2
Dad, of course, was the one who gave us a hand moving, after we finally found a suitable place up by Radyr. Blake and I were both renting, so it was Dad who helped with the deposit, Dad who helped with the fees, Dad who helped with the physical moving and so on, and Mam who ensured that we had all the little things that are always forgotten for a new home. I am embarrassed to say that the last included toilet paper. I had heard stories about people finding the only acceptable use for the Daily Mail, cutting it into squares, but just ‘no’. I mentioned that thought to my new husband, and he just laughed, pointing out that the whole purpose of toilet paper is wiping stuff off, not rubbing it on.

CHAPTER 61
We had opted for the breakfast, which was decent enough as it went, and with it being midweek the place was almost empty as we ate. Jon was very quiet.

“You OK, mate?”

He chewed a mouthful of toast as he considered his reply.

“Di?”

“Yeah?”

“He bloody terrified me”