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”

CHAPTER 59
I wasn’t great company for Blake that night, as my first act after getting into what was now clearly ‘our’ flat was to switch the computer on and start looking up news reports. I had half-heartedly started a search about the case that Woodruff woman had been involved in, but I hadn’t felt the need to know all of Adam’s pain back then. For some odd reason, that need was back, and it was hungry. I also wanted to see what he was dealing with right then.

CHAPTER 57
The water was nowhere near as warm as it had been in Cuba, but it was still delightful. The beach was clean, and both Mam and I had someone suitable for the application of sun cream. The stress of the flight, and the aftermath of the adrenalin-fuelled minibus ride, all evaporated under blue skies and on clean sand. Sparkling company that I am, I fell asleep. Dad woke me a little later.

We only spent a couple of hours there, as none of us fancied spending the whole of our holiday suffering from sunburn, so we settled back into our little chalet for a cuppa and some unpacking before setting out to explore the site.

CHAPTER 55
Life settled down for a short while after that, but it wasn’t exactly ‘normal, as it had changed so much. I felt all the hackneyed effects of the trial, as so many weights that had hung on me fell to the ground and disappeared from my world. To be honest, life would have been immeasurably better even without those gifts, for I had my man.

CHAPTER 53
“All rise!”

Finally, our day had come. All the research on the home hadn’t stopped, for I had what Alun was calling my minions still digging away, but this day was for me and Charlie. Get this out of the way, and we’d have Tiff’s to follow. We were quite a crew, almost all of the team, including Sammy, with Deb, a girl she introduced as Kimberley, and PC Welby. The tension in the three from the house was clear, and I could see how involved Paul Welby was in his work. Another one of our sort of copper.

CHAPTER 51
I won’t belittle the real pain and suffering we were told about, but it became routine after a while. I don’t mean that we got blasé, rather that each case Paul brought us went through what was becoming a very smooth and practised system.

Each one was, in the end, similar, and as the similarities piled up, so did the list of ‘further to’ charges awaiting Dai Pritchard, Bob Evans, one call-centre worker and two civilian employees in Cardiff and Swansea’s control rooms.

CHAPTER 49
My alarm’s tone was slow to permeate my consciousness, or, to put it more simply, my body was in a state of denial. Loud buzzing? Na. I’m asleep. Staying that way. Which is why, ever since the second day of working shifts, I put the damned thing well out of reach.

The light was showing around the edges of the heavy curtains I had bought after my first set of night shifts, and I knew it was really time to get moving, but there was a bloody great arm across me.

Rewind. Blake’s arm.

CHAPTER 47
I had a week off, in the end. It had been needed, but Blake had his own life and home, and after a few days of company and warm mornings he had to leave. I realised I was getting very used to his presence, the comfort of his arms, and at the same time I had a suspicion that it was moving towards normality, and not in any sense banal. Just comfortable, appropriate, right for me.

I rattled around the old place for a couple of days before saying sod it, and one bright morning smartened myself up and drove into work. I had my flat to sort, as well, so I did need to get everything back on track.

CHAPTER 45
Next thing I knew, it was morning, the daylight obvious even through the heavy curtains. Mam tapped on the door of Blake’s bedroom.

“Breakfast in twenty minutes, you two. Dad’s already off to work”

I found myself blushing, even though I had done nothing but sleep. Better get up and face the music. I left him to dress, just a kiss on the cheek so he wouldn’t have my morning breath, but it was a wrench to get out of the bed and his arms.

I could really get used to it.

CHAPTER 43
We were bright and early at the court the next day, which actually meant about nine thirty. We were down to the bare bones, just Elaine, the two of us and Alun, and wasted the morning on crosswords and an amble through the pedestrian area, avoiding the pub this time. The rest of the team were off with Sammy, something else going on, and Alun dropped a hint about picking someone up who may just have made the odd phone call to Pritchard.

At lunchtime, no verdict in sight, the two lads were gone. Lunch itself, a pasty and a cuppa, came and went, and then, finally, I got a text from the usher and we settled back into the public gallery as the jury returned.

CHAPTER 41
It got better and better as we counted down the days to the trial, and I ended up with statements from six more of the gang’s victims. Whatever the tariff said about their sentences after a guilty plea, it would end up in pieces once we were done.

Other things were better than I could ever have dreamt of, and no, I am not talking about me and a certain large man. It was Dad. He had really clicked with Blake, and I was almost feeling jealous, as the relationship was clearly mutual, and my own father seemed to be stealing time with Blake I wanted for myself.

Sod it! Life was good, not just bearable. I just wished Blake could have talked to me about the investigation.

CHAPTER 38
I had turned up at the Crown Court for that final day, all five having eventually folded at their Plea and Direction Hearing, and as the crimes were not just indictable to the higher court but appalling in their very nature, there was no messing about with magistrates and hierarchies. We walked in, dressed in our best civilian clothes, as befitted our new (for some of us) and officially recognised status as DC rather than PC. Sammy outlined the facts of the case, four men stood up behind their publicly-funded representative and said the G-word, and the reports that had already been prepared and read by the judge were properly taken into account as he delivered ten years to each of them.

CHAPTER 36
Deb stood up, pulling Charlie to her feet as well.

“Di, we just need to pop next door for a few minutes. Could you please wait here? No exploring?”

I nodded.

“Good. Oh, and what were you planning to do this evening? Do you have a cat to feed, anything like that?”

“No. I was just going to go home by way of the supermarket, pick up some drinking chocolate of my own, and slob in front of the telly”

“OK. Wait there, then, I won’t be long”