This chapter describes events after the incident.

This is the dress that Daphne was wearing that night. Modelled by Bev at the club.

The Welsh Mountain Ram 20

Briony... Betrayed wife and mother.
Sion... Her eight-year-old son.
Ellairy... Her nine-month--old daughter.
Arfon... Brionys’ abusive and unfaithful husband.
Dave Cadwalloder... Welsh bachelor hill-farmer.
Jenny and Lassie... Daves’ sheepdog bitches.
Laddie... Daves’ sheepdog.
Jessica and Pansy... Daves’ sows.
Angel... Daves’ mare.
Gabriella (Gabby)... Angels’ foal (Gift to Sion.)
Elsbeth... Briony’s sister.
Daphne... Daves’ ‘girlfriend’
Cledwyn... Farmer further down the valley (Neighbour.)
Blodwen... Cledwyn’s daughter.
Rachel... Daphne’s TV friend.
Shirley... Rachels’ GG wife.
Fajita... The maid.
James & Tara... Rachel’s teenaged children (16 & 15)
Billy and Janet... Manager and accountant at Daphne’s club.

The Ram 20.

Rachel cursed as she saw the blood. What made it appear worse was the little white tight-fitting dress. The red blood stain was intensified by the white back-ground. As Briony knelt at Daphne’s other side Rachel finally realised what had happened. Her earlier army medical career told her the truth but the fact still shocked her.

“Fuck!! It’s a bullet wound! She’s been bloody shot!”

Billy the manager was already radioing his bouncers to make their way to help Daphne then he amended his conversation as Rachel quickly assessed Daphne’s situation. A thin bubble of blood frothed out of her mouth and that told Rachel the bullet had penetrated Daphne’s plural cavity. It was a serious wound, a potentially fatal wound. Briony was close to panic but Rachel had dealt with bullet wounds throughout her army career,

“Tell the police in the rear function room. There’s been a shooting! It’s a chest wound!”

It was only then that the five realised the shouts and laughter in the street had turned to screams of panic. There had been some sort of organised shooting and several revellers up and down the street had also been shot. The fire-works and celebrations in the street had disguised the gun-shots until people realised their fallen friends had been hit.

Briony was now crying and praying as Rachel worked her arse off to try and do something about the chest wound under Daphne’s left arm.

“She looks as though she been hit by a bullet fired from the street it’s gone in under her left arm but it's not come out! God knows where the bullet’s lodged!”

By now Shirley was on the phone to the emergency services and trying to describe the carnage while the lady accountant Janet had dashed off to get some first aid equipment. She met the security staff and the deputy commissioner of police on the stairs and briefly described what had happened whilst adding that there seemed to be some people injured in the street as well. After that the situation was quickly taken in hand. Amongst the revellers some medical people were eventually found and order was slowly restored out of the chaos.

Fortunately the Police were able to quickly egress from the rear function room via the rear doors and with over sixty officers and spouses (many of whom were ex police,) they were able to dash around the city block at both ends and throw a fairly effective cordon to reinforce their armed colleagues who were struggling to restore order. After Daphne had been carried down stairs, the deputy chief constable decided to use the club balcony as a temporary control point for he could see the whole street and organise order by radio.

Eventually the wail of ambulances brought some calm as friends of the shot victims realised help was at hand. As the ambulances gently nosed their way through the cordoned revellers the crowd calmed down as they realised the police plan. Uniformed officers went amongst them to explain that there might still be gunmen in the crowd hoping to hide in the pandemonium. Revellers stood back to allow the medics rooms and the ensuing space enabled the police to restore order and organise the first vestiges of an inquiry.
As the unconscious Daphne was one of the last to be stretchered away, Briony finally lost it. She collapsed into a traumatised heap while a tearful Rachel and Shirley tried to comfort her.

Up on the balcony the deputy chief constable was silently thankful that he had been present with so many of his officers. Having over sixty extra officers with their warrant cards to convince people they had authority had made his job infinitely easier despite he and his officers all being in party clothes. One of his inspectors arrived with a megaphone and he was able to address the subdued crowd from the balcony. Order was restored and the police checks began. The chief constable turned to Billy and Rachel with relief.

“All I can say is thank God we were in the back function room. We might have trapped the gunman or gunmen in the cordon.”

“You were pretty quick,” Rachel replied.

“Yes,” the deputy chief constable replied, “but I’m thinking ‘not quick enough’. If this is a gangland thing, they’ll have made good provisions for escape. I think the CCTVs will tell us more.”

“What about your armed officers? They will have held most people back.” Billy suggested.

“Yes, true, but this was a well orchestrated attack. I suspect some of the so-called revellers were accomplices.”

“Yeah,” Shirley observed. “Now you say that, there did seem to be a rise in the sounds of the fire-works. Maybe they were sounding off bigger bangers and fireworks to hide the sounds of the shots.”

“Well our CCTVs will tell us that,” Billy declared a little proudly. “We’ve got audio as well on some of the door cameras to record any verbal abuse and stuff. If you send some of your officers down to Janet in her computer room, she should be able to pull stuff up. All the cameras are interconnected to her server. She’s a wiz with ‘puters.”

The deputy chief constable grinned.

“We’re already on to that but Shirley’s remark will alert us to what to look out for. Thanks.”

He eventually left the balcony as the crime scene control unit arrived and the friends were left to contemplate events.

“I’m going around to the Emergency Unit at the hospital.” Briony declared.

“Which one,” Rachel cautioned her, “there were a lot of ambulances in the street, they’ll have been despatched as per the triage requirements and surgical availability.”

“The police aren’t letting anybody out through the cordon at the moment and it stretches around both blocks, on our side of the street and the other. All the back entrances are covered.” Billy added.

“Bugger!” Briony cursed as she dug out her mobile. “Anybody know the hospital number?”

“You’re not listening Bri’” Shirley advised her sympathetically. “We have no idea yet which hospital she’s gone to.”

“Damn!” Briony cursed and burst into tears again.

“The police will have a better idea once they’ve got things organised out there.” Rachel reassured her. “They’ll be interviewing us shortly anyway, we’re prime witnesses.”

“What shall we do then?” Shirley wondered.

“We could organise cups of tea or coffee for anybody who needs them.” Briony suggested.

“What, the whole street? There’s thousands out there and the police have closed all the bars.”

“All the more reason,” Briony pushed her argument.

“We won’t have enough cups and stuff,” Rachel remarked.

“I’ve got plenty of paper cups, tens of thousands of them in the store-room,” Billy advised. “If we can’t supply everybody with tea or coffee, we can supply water. This is going to be a long night and people are going to get cold waiting in the street. They’ll want to come into the clubs to keep warm.”

“Will the police let them,” Rachel wondered. “If there is a gunman still out there, he could get rid of his gun in one of the clubs. They’re dark enough.”

“That’s a thought,” Billy realised as he radioed to Janet to switch on all the lights.

Immediately, the street outside the Melancholy Pussy was illuminated by a bright pool of light. The police quickly realised the benefits to having extra light so every other club was made to follow suit. Soon the gay village was ablaze with lights. People started to find their friends and a mood of calm ensued. It was a deceptive calm though because many were angry at the attack. Several times, the deputy chief constable had to sally forth from the control vehicle to scotch malicious rumours by megaphone.
Eventually, a young police woman approached the friends to ask them for the statements. In truth there was little they could tell for nobody had seen anything suspicious until Daphne had been hit and fallen. After a frustrating period Briony finally managed to
ask some questions of her own and get a bit of sense out of the chaos. The list of hospitals could only be whittled down to two because apparently two Daphne’s had been shot, Daphne Cadwalloder on the balcony and another girl further down the street. Briony was going frantic with worry but eventually the friends were released from interviews and allowed to cross the cordon. Billy had to remain as manager of the club and Janet was too busy with downloading CCTV material to worry about anything else.

As they emerged through the cordon they were immediately approached by a media surge demanding to know what had happened. They tried to push past the crush but there were too many microphones and cameras to escape. Briony’s tear stains were quickly seized upon and dozens of cameras started flashing in her face. Then a police officer seized the initiative and forced her way between the invasive cameras and Briony. She gave Briony her cap to hide her face and eventually a Police Car took them back to the hotel. It was impossible to get a taxi because of the chaos and demand. Once back at the hotel, Briony was able to locate Daphne’s car keys and borrow the Landrover to visit the hospitals.

Inevitably, as Sod’s law dictates, the first Daphne had been declared DOA and there were several minutes of agonising waiting until the dead girl was confirmed as a Daphne Wilkins and not Daphne Cadwalloder, AKA Dave Cadwalloder.

Briony felt the wave of nervous relief then the deep sorrow for the girl’s parents who were probably dashing to the Accident and
emergency department. As she, Rachel and Shirley sped away the saw a tearful couple accompanied by a police officer entering the
A&E. Briony wanted to stop the car and get out to hug them but she still wasn’t certain about her own Daphne.

It was another half hour of struggling through the traffic caused by the emergency before they finally arrived at Q.E., hospital and eventually learned that Daphne was in I.C. The receptionist was sympathetic but unable to permit Briony to see Daphne.

“I’m sorry, close relatives only, spouse, parents, children or siblings.”

Briony became agitated as she explained that Daphne had no parents, no siblings, no children and no spouse. It was nine o’clock that morning before the hospital relented after their own exhaustive searches had revealed no close relatives. By then, Briony was almost too afraid to visit IC after the turmoil of her vigil. When she finally did pluck up the courage she felt no better.

Daphne was almost invisible under the jumble of tubes, wires and monitors. As she sat tearful and apprehensive, the consultant appeared silently at her side. It was several seconds before Daphne realised she was there. She was interrupted from her fearful introspections and startled by the rustle of paper towels and the tap being used by the surgeon as she washed her hands.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” Briony blubbered, “I was miles away. How is she?”

“Not good I’m afraid.”

Briony greyed with fear.

“Will she live?”

“Probably, but the bullet entered from below and at the side under her left arm. It passed up through her ribs and just nicked her lung then split as it hit the inside of her scapular. One part lodged under her clavicle while the other part embedded itself in the top rear first rib.”

She paused before continuing.

“We removed the fragment from the top rib but the fragment in her clavicle is still there. It’s too close to a bundle of nerves and the brachial artery. We need to do tests before we go digging for it.”

“Tests?” Briony choked.

“Yes. I’m afraid the lady will have to be conscious and we can determine if there’s any nerve damage. There’s a lot going on around the clavicles; the shoulders, arms, hands and fingers motor functions you understand. All the nerves and blood vessels pass very close to the clavicles and they’re very vulnerable to damage if we go cutting around there. Plus of course there are the ligaments. She’s lucky the artery wasn’t cut. The fragment is very close and it’s got sharp edges. If it had not split on impact with the scapula, it would certainly have cut the brachial artery. The clavicle stopped the fragment but now the clavicle is broken and there’s pressure on the nerves. We’ll just have to wait until the drugs wear off and she wakes up. She’ll be in considerable pain and we won’t know the extent of any nerve damage until she tries to move her arm, hand and fingers. That will be very painful.”

“When will she wake up?”

“Not for a few hours yet. I’ll be back this afternoon; I’m going to get some sleep now because I’ve got a heavy work-load on this afternoon. This lady is not the only gunshot victim in here; it must have been carnage last night.”

“It was doctor; I was there.” Briony replied.

“So was my son,” the consultant added, “fortunately he’s okay. So this lady is your partner?”

Briony nodded and felt a quiet satisfaction that she was actually proud to admit it.

“Yes, she’s going to be my husband.”

The consultant nodded and smiled.

“I’m glad for you, I did notice when we operated on her. Is she transvestite or transgendered?”

“Transgendered but she’s not yet sure about ‘going all the way’.”

“Fascinating, well, you’ve got my full support, I know how hard it was for my son. He was a year into his university course before he plucked up the courage to tell me he was gay. When he finally told me, I felt more guilty than him; I wondered what sort of ogre he thought I was. His admission actually brought us closer together; no secrets now, no unanswered questions. We are tremendously close and his grades have rocketed now that side of our relationship as mother and son is sorted. Well, I’ve got to go, I must get some sleep. See you this evening with more answers I hope. If I were you, I’d get some sleep yourself.”

“I will be, just as soon as I’ve seen my children. We’re staying at the Royal Hotel.”

“Oh; very nice. See you later then.”

“Thanks and good morning.”

The consultant left and Briony went to see Rachel and Shirley. They were at the hotel entertaining Sion who knew nothing of the shootings. As Briony entered, Sion bolted across the room to greet her while Rachel and Shirley asked.

“How is she?” They chorused simultaneously.

“Alive, still unconscious, they’ll wake her this afternoon to run tests on her arm and shoulder. There may be damage to the mobility in her shoulder arm and hand.”

“Shit! That’ll fuck her up for farming.” Rachel cursed. “She’ll have to employ a labourer full time.”

“Maybe, well I suppose there are plenty of LGBT people looking for work,” Briony supposed.

“It might come to that.” Rachel replied thoughtfully.

“I’ll know more by tonight,” Briony finished as she stumbled into her bedroom and slumped tearfully onto her bed. She was exhausted.