CHAPTER 39
I had texted her in advance, of course, so she was waiting in the little café down the street, still acting in that filtering, shielding role I had recognised. That said, there was real warmth in her greeting to me.

“You got news for us, girl?”

“Oh yes! Best sort. He got nicked on Friday, after we had finished the trials and stuff with the other lot”

“Oh, we saw that on the news. Not what I’m asking, is it?”

“What are you asking, Deb?”

She busied herself pouring more tea.

“Sugar?”

“No. Sweet enough, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely! Now, let’s see if I can get this across. Not that good at explaining some things, am I? Anyway, think of bodice-rippers, just for now. No, you’ll see in a second”

I closed my mouth, and she continued.

“Get a plain girl, spends all her time in her room when she’s not at school, and she dreams. Gets the novels, reads the glossies dreams, yeah? She dreams of the big romance, The One who’ll pick her out of the crowd, ‘Pretty Woman’ stuff. Dreams. But every time she looks in the mirror, the dreams falter. Never happens to her, people like her. Then something hits the news, or she meets someone, and she sees someone she recognises, identifies with. Sees herself, if you get me?”

“Yeah…”

“Shush. Each of my girls is a victim, isn’t she? Same as you. Brutalised, cut off from life, beaten down but still breathing”

“Yes, but I’m not like them, am I?”

“Not a woman?”

“No. Yes. I mean, they’re all, you know?”

“Not really women?”

I stopped dead, seeing where she was going, and did something Dai Gould had taught me what seemed like centuries ago: pause, rewind what’s been said, replay it in slow motion, and respond to what you find. Don’t just plough ahead regardless.

Pretty little Tiff, stroppy Charlie, they were both so clearly girls, women, I could have no doubts there—I didn’t need to know what their knickers contained. Gemma…

“Yes, Deb. They are. I have no doubts there. But that’s not me, is it? I’ve not been through the shit they have”

She smiled softly at me.

“Yes, I know, nor the same crap I went through. I could talk to you about what happens to little girls in boys’ homes, but you do not need to know about that. They’re all dead now, anyway, and I’ve been to piss on their graves, so book closed, nothing to see. What it is with you IS the same as them, and that’s victim, someone weaker, someone beaten down. That’s why they relate to you, girl”

“I suppose so. But I think you’ve got something else in mind”

“I have. It’s simple, really: you fought back, and you bloody well won. The two coppers that abused you? Ten years, BANG goes the cell door! Your rapist? Nicked in front of his whole bloody workforce. Big man, cuffed and dragged off kicking and screaming”

“Um, I don’t think he was kicking and screaming, Deb”

She grinned. “Ah, we can all dream! And that’s the point: they see you, my girls, and they dream again. The mouse fights back, and this time it beats up the eagle. Hope, girl, that’s what you have given my girls”

I reached out to take her hand. Sod formality.

“I think you are the one who did that, Deb”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “No, I didn’t. I just gave them, give them, space, shelter. You show them life beyond the immediate. So what’s the news?”

“Told you already. You said they’d seen the news”

“No, you idiot! Your bloke!”

“Oh!”

“Yes, exactly. How did it go?”

I looked down at the cups, but the smile betrayed me, and she rose to come round the table for a hug. Sod formality once more, and the professional boundaries it rode in on. I gave the hug back in full, before she pulled back to grin at me again.

“That well, eh? Come on. Gem did some pastries for us all, and there’s some decent coffee for you”

No games with safe rooms this time, just straight into the first house and through to the dining room, where there were indeed pastries, and proper coffee, with six faces shining with anticipation.

“Where’s Gemma, then, Deb? Rude to eat her work without saying ta”

Tiff answered, far bolder this time.

“She’s at work. Nana got her a placement at a baker’s. They like her”

“Well, when she gets home, tell her these are great, and yes, Charlie, I can see you twitching. What?”

“We’ve got it recorded! Nana, the god box, please”

Deb passed her the remote control, and I settled down to watch the reports I had actually been too nervous to sit through at home. The announcer was, as usual, someone I couldn’t put a name to, but she was professional as well as accurate.

“We are outside Cardiff Crown Court following the sentencing of five men for a series of brutal attacks and rapes that caused a wave of fear throughout the gay community in South Wales. I am joined by Inspector Samir Patel of the Serious Crime Investigation Unit”

The recording paused, abruptly, as Charlie hit a button on the ‘god box’.

“Right, Di! Which one?”

We were all lined up behind Sammy, as covering us up would have been silly, given how many of us had been in the witness box.

“Er, that’s me, second from the left, in the blue jacket”

“No, you teasing cow!”

Deb coughed, and Charlie actually blushed.

“Sorry, Di. Which one is HIM?”

“Who?”

“DIANE!”

“You mean Blake?”

As one, all of the girls screamed that yes, they meant Blake, so I walked over to the screen and pointed. One girl made a “Oooh yes!” sound and then they all sat staring at me, eyebrows raised, waiting. I grinned at them.

“Later, yeah? Let’s see this bit; first time for me”

Sammy was as smooth as I would have expected, and as careful.

“Inspector, are you satisfied with the sentences awarded today?”

“Well, Cheryl, that is a matter for the courts to decide, and they have done so. I am satisfied that we have taken five extremely violent and dangerous men out of the community they inspired so much fear in, and that they will remain safely away from decent people for a long time”

“Two of those sentenced today were police officers, is that correct?”

“No. Two of them were police officers some time ago, and had ceased to be such before these events”

“The local press has alleged that they were the subjects of disciplinary actions at least ten years ago, Inspector. Can you explain what that means in this case?”

Smooth Sammy departed, I am sure quite deliberately, to be replaced by Feral Sammy.

“Further investigations continue in this case, Cheryl. I cannot discuss them, for obvious reasons. We are, however, aware that there are other victims of their crimes who have not come forward, and we would urge them to do so. Justice has now been done in this particular case, and seen to be done. Adding a little more to the total would be very welcome. Thank you”

“Thank you, Inspector Patel. Cheryl Manning, BBC Wales, Cardiff Crown Court”

Charlie paused the video, and as one, the whole group gave me a very formal three cheers and then swamped me with hugs. Deb called out “Don’t spill her coffee!” and they peeled off me. Charlie was waving her control again.

“Part two! Shush!”

It was a studio news scene this time, the usual suit and tie.

“The prominent local Councillor and builder Ashley Evans, who was arrested on Thursday by the Serious Crime Investigation Unit of South Wales Police, has been charged today with kidnap, rape and grievous bodily harm. A South Wales spokesman made the following announcement earlier today”

Cut to the oh-so-familiar steps of the nick, and Bevan Williams in best uniform once more.

“Following a long and difficult investigation, Ashley Aaron Evans of Maescoch farm, St Lythans, has been charged with the rape of a woman aged sixteen. He has also been charged with her abduction and grievous bodily harm to her person. Associated enquiries continue”

Turn, walk away, and on to the next news item. So typical of Bev, but I knew the effect his announcement would have on other women and their families, because if Evans had been so smooth in the way he snatched me I couldn’t be his first. Nor the last; I just needed to look across the table to know that for a fact. I drew a slow breath.

“Yes, girls. I do know about the arrest, but I can’t say too much about it just now. You will understand why. We are just looking to get other people to step forward, and that is why Bevan Williams there made that announcement, and my boss Sammy did the other one. Will you talk to us, now, or pass the word around for anyone else they hurt to come and see us?”

Charlie sniffed, as ever.

“Sorry, Diane, but we had a chat, all of us. None of us, not one, we can’t risk that pig getting off, so we HAVE to wait. Let him get locked up, we’ll talk. Otherwise, not safe, is it? Not being funny, but, well, this is probably the only place any of us has been safe. Ever. Not that we don’t trust you---we do, otherwise you wouldn’t be sat here with us now. We just need to know it’s safe to go after him”

She sniffed again, and the serious face went.

“So who nicked him?”

“Can’t say. But I might know him…”

They all understood, and there was more cheering, before Charlie asked her next question.

“Were you there when they knocked on his door?”

I put my best poker face on.

“Couldn’t be, could I? I’m too involved as the victim. Anyway, they didn’t pick him up at his home”

This time it was Deb who swore, before being pelted with rolled-up paper tissues from the pastries.

“Sorry! Sorry, girls, but Diane: please, please tell me you nicked him at work!”

“Not me, but yes”

“In front of all his staff?”

“Yup!”

There was utter pandemonium in the room, Tiff sobbing and even Charlie dabbing her eyes, and once it had calmed down the prickly little woman simply said “Once he’s done for Diane, we go after the fucker together. Right girls?”

After their noisy agreement, she turned back to me, voice smoother, teasing.

“And that other thing, Diane. A certain young man we have now seen”

“And lusted after!” came from the back of the room, and she turned to grin at whoever it was.

“Na, Di’s got that job! So, DC Owens, we put it to you that you have to bloody well tell us how things are going”

What to say? Sod it, I thought, deciding to be open. After all, it was these girls who had opened my eyes, as much as one big nab, and as I thought about him opening his heart, I understood that the girls were also doing so, just as much as Blake.

“Well, you know full well it’s down to you lot I have found my courage, don’t you?2

Charlie, of course, shouted out “Bollocks” before Tiff shushed her.

“No, Charlie, Di’s story, and I get what she means. Let her tell it her way”

I raised my cup to her in acknowledgement, and looked into the corner of the room once again, studying how the walls and the ceiling came together.

“It was the day of the match. So we had a family dinner, me, my Mam and Dad, and Blake. He’s sort of best mates with my Dad, anyway. We’ve had the meal, and my parents are making all sorts of assumptions, leaving us two the settee while they take the chairs. He’s giving us a sort-of-cleaned-up story of the Ashley Evans arrest, nothing that breaks confidentiality rules and stuff, and he’s explaining why he can’t tell more, and asks if we get it, and… And so I say ‘course I do, love’ and they all shut up and stare, so I do the ‘yes I said it, no biggy’ thing, and we sit and watch the game”

Tiff was smiling now.

“You left a bit out, Diane”

I couldn’t help it, but they still had the paper napkin things, and they did the job, and I found a small, damaged girl sitting on my lap, arm around me as she dried my tears.

“What did Blake say, Di?”

“Well… Thanks, Tiff. He… he just did what I did, slipped that word into his conversation, and of course I noticed, and my parents, and he stops, and he says, ‘About that word. I assume you—no. I KNOW you meant it, Diane Owens, and I meant it too. Now let’s shut up and enjoy the game’. And so we do, and that’s it, and I had a thought, and it’s something I know you’ll understand, because I was talking to Deb, and she nailed it.

“All of us here, yeah? All of us. All victims, all had shitty lives, and now seeing them getting better. Just need a push, sometimes, just need our eyes opening. You girls did that for me. And the thought I had, it was about how things sometimes need time to get better, and after talking to you, I can see not just that there’s a better future possible, but that I have got a future. So, thank you all. And thank Gemma for the treats. Would it be wrong to ask where she works, so I could get some of her cakes to take unto the team?”

I disengaged from Tiff, and rose to my feet.

“I still have rounds to do. There are other people out there with wounds from those bastards, so if I can manage it I shall take a future along for them as well”