CHAPTER 37
I must admit I have had many evenings a lot worse than that one, and very few better. By the time I got home (by way of the all-night shop for a tin of cocoa, of course) my laughter had toned itself down to smiles, but only just. Whatever Deb was doing was working. Only a few of the girls had given me any idea as to what had happened in their past, but they were all transgender and each one had been hurt,

There was one other factor in common, though, and that was the simplicity of their smiles, as broad as my own. Deb seemed to have found a way of easing their pain, if not completely healing it. I knew from my over own experiences that such things never did heal, but they could scab over, become tolerable. I thought of Chris, and shuddered at what his own mental scars must be like. Was he sleeping yet?

Deb seemed to be operating just like the room I had been left in, a way of allowing some space between safety, privacy, and the outside. She hadn’t pushed the girls, but when they had arrived at a consensus and agreed way of dealing with me and my work, she had facilitated it. Management bullshit bingo, or so it reads, but there is no other way to describe what she was doing without such terms. Every single one of them had wounds, and wished their authors could receive our fullest professional attention, but in turn none of them trusted us to deliver our side of the bargain.

They would give their evidence, sign statements, only after they had seen and heard cell doors slam on five charming men.

I had an office day in the morning, so I popped round to see Sammy and let him know what was occurring, as the phrase goes. His sense of humour was as bad as I had come to expect.

“They converted you yet, girl?”

“Never been big on church, Sammy!”

“Cheeky! Got anything so far?”

I thought that one through, as completely as I could.

“Complicated. I can’t really tell all of it, cause I made some promises”

I was half expecting an argument about competent needlework, and stitching villains up properly, but instead he just nodded.

“Sounds good, girl. Can you give me a general idea, and then go and have a chat with the boss after a session with Alun on humint?”

“So that…?”

“Alun has a sound head for snouts, and he can fill you in on the official rules for the Care and Feeding of Human Intelligence Sources. And I’d like Iwan to sign it off, so we have no shit from the CPS. Assurance in place, all that sort of thing. I do not wish to know details, but can you give me some hints as to general nature of whatever you’ve dug up?”

I shrugged. “Two things, really. One is that there are other victims”

“We know that!”

“No. There are others who we never knew about. Not just the assaults that weren’t solved, but others the victims never reported. Several of them want to come forward, or so some of my new contacts are now telling me. I want to do some evening work in the bars—no, not like that! They run some multi-agency sessions, bit like an open night at college, come in and see what we can offer. I take a bundle of cards, leaflets, and they get a face to talk to. That’s not all, though”

He obviously picked up on some tells or other indicators, and led the way into one of the interview rooms after a quick look up and down the corridor.

“Diane, mate, I am going to make an educated, experienced, whatever you want to call it guess here. So don’t say a word, then I won’t have to deny it. I’ve seen this before. You’ve got other victims who’ll only come forward after a trial, and a successful one at that. Am I right?”

I made a pantomime of nonchalant whistling and looking into odd corners of the room, grinned nastily, shrugged and said “I couldn’t possibly say, Inspector Patel”

He grinned back.

“OK, girl. Chat with Alun, then I will tell the Super you are coming to see him. My official word now: you will document each and every conversation with your informants, as per the guidance that Alun is going to cascade train you in, and I am going to look forward with great anticipation to seeing the sentences we will no doubt see delivered extended greatly for further offences of a similar nature. Do you mind?”

He held his arms wide, so I accepted his hug, squeezing him back in the way he deserved as a bloody decent man and copper.

“Make me proud, girl, or even prouder than you already have”

Ten minutes later, Alun took me to a quiet office, dragged over some A4 notebooks and started my training on human sources of intelligence. The Super was as straightforward as I had come to expect, and after all imaginable boxes had been appropriately ticked, I was off and officially running.

The year was slowly turning from constant grey crap to the white bells of snowdrops and crocus orange, and when the daffodils finally shook their heads free we were in trial mode.

I shouldn’t say this, but where Sammy had been meticulous in his public ‘need to know’ attitude to my work, I wasn’t quite as reticent with Mam and Dad. Things came to a head one Sunday afternoon, a decent dinner well and truly disposed of and a six-nations match about to start on the box. I had been sorting the last of the dishes in the kitchen as Mam did a tray of tea for us and a couple of cold beers for the boys, right up until I simply said “You can put that cup away and dig another beer out for me! I am not watching a Welsh match with a cup of tea in my hand!”

She laughed, grabbed another bottle from the fridge and took it all into the living room. When I followed, the assumptions were clearly at full throttle, my parents once again in the armchairs while my big man took up a little more than half the settee. What the hell. I just gave them all a smile and sat down next to him, and it was so, so easy to lift my head so that his arm could drop onto my shoulders.

Dad grinned, Mam smiled, and Blake just gave me a squeeze before handing me my beer. Nothing earth-shattering, no huge swell of emotion that I could let out even in such a close family setting, but it was an afternoon that showed me where my life could go and how much better it was getting. I made a decision that came remarkably easily.

Dad settled himself into his chair, feet up, even though we all knew that he would be sitting bolt upright for most of the match, and, as a good Dad should, changed the subject.

“Your old boss over for Monday, then? For that bastard’s trial?”

“Oh, yes. She will be there, whatever happens. He’s the last one left, anyway”

Sean had done some superb work, as promised, and when the flashy law firm had walked away, every one of the five shits we had nicked had gone guilty, and, whether or not it was politically driven, the sentences handed down by the judge had been almost as brutal as the crimes they had committed.

Almost.

Blake laughed. “You should have seen the look on Ashley Evans face when we knocked on his office door! Di, you haven’t heard all the detail, so I am not telling you this, am I?”

“Certainly not, love, and most definitely not to these two uninvolved members of the general public”

I realised he had stopped talking, and I twisted my neck to look up at him, giving silent thanks to a cheeky girl with permanent sniffles. Mam and Dad had their eyes locked on me as well, Mam just looking smug, so I shrugged as well as I could, given the weight of his arm on my shoulders.

“And? Yes, I said it. Now, details, boy, and get them done before kick off!”