CHAPTER 58
I was back to the state of mouth Dad had commented on in the bell tower. Blake was sitting opposite me, rather than kneeling, and rather than a square box he had a little paper bag from the shop by the campsite gates, which I remembered included a jeweller’s. Apart from that, and the fact that my parents were sitting with us, it was as traditional as all hell.

My mouth, very simply, would not move in any organised way. Police, professional wasn’t working, but my mind was. From the way they were sitting, Mam and Dad must have been in on the proposal from an early stage, and I wondered if Blake had engineered the whole holiday so that it would be Venice, and therefore officially As Romantic As A Romantic Thing, before I clamped down on my racing thoughts.

Was he serious? Yes, clearly. Did I want this? My mouth took over, for it knew the answer before my mind did.

“Where are we getting wed, then?”

That broke my mother, and Dad just held her till she could function again, as my love did the customary thing with finger and jewellery. Naturally, our waiter saw, and had to ask if what he saw was what he thought. Blake was the one who answered.

“Thank you, Mario. Grazie, si? Di has said yes to my question”

He launched into a flurry of Italian, which lost even the Master of the Phrasebook, and bustled off. Before we could react properly, he was back with a man in a neater jacket, who turned out to be the ‘director’ of the restaurant. He shook hands and kissed cheeks, and one by one the other staff came up to do the same thing. Heads were turning all around us, so Blake simply stood and announced “Yes, I have just asked her, and yes, she has agreed!”

Applause from all around, before Mario returned with a bottle of fizzy Italian wine and the bloody on-site professional photographer, and the evening got very, very busy as well as memorable. I was still numb, which thought started me laughing, as I was now simultaneously engaged and disengaged, and the evening went on rather longer than I had expected. We said our good nights, and we made the promises to return followed by the stroll back to our little unit, where my body and brain finally got back together as Mam made a final pot of tea.

“You two knew, didn’t you?”

Mam nodded, as Dad reached for her hand, which he held to his shoulder as she stood behind him.

“I know your mother spoke to you, love, so we have nothing to hide. Blake, son, please keep silent, just for a bit?”

My other man just nodded, and Dad turned back to me.

“What she said, love. We have watched you, watched over you, worried about you, ever since you were born, and more so after that night. We saw our little girl lost to us, so hurt, so DAMAGED. Your career, well, so proud we were, but you still held the shadows in your eyes. Then this one brings you home one day, and, well, Mam says ‘he’s one of the good ones’, and he is, love. A man I am proud to call my friend, and we hoped, just a bit. Then he comes to us, and no, it wasn’t for permission.

“He simply said what we already knew, that he loved you. What he asked, though, was something else. He asked us if we thought it would be the right thing for you. That was his priority, love. That it be right for you. And that was what showed us the answer to his question”

He looked over to my fiancé (get used to that word, woman) and smiled. Blake was blushing, for god’s sake, but smiling with it.

“You know what really got me looking at you, Di?”

“My eyes? My smile? My supermodel good looks?”

“Daft girl. No. It was when you ripped me a new--- sorry, Dot. When you told me off that time. About the rape”

“Ah! Dad, that was just something silly I said”

Blake pulled me to him.

“No, love. It wasn’t. It was absolutely right. Mark, we had that long case, aye? The gang rapes? I said something stupid--- ‘makes it easier, now we know we’re looking for gay men’, and Di says, ‘don’t be so stupid, it’s all about power, not sex’, though, well, she might not have used those exact words”

Mam laughed. “I bet she didn’t!”

I shrugged. “I sort of said something about it not being about screwing but more about screwing someone up. Just, as Blake says…”

He squeezed me.

“Yeah, and I saw the strength in her then, and I will admit I wondered what it was that sparked the flame. Sorry, getting a bit poncey in my words. And that was what caught my attention, aye? Oh, as well as her eyes, smile and supermodel good looks, of course”

The night went as should be expected, but it was the morning that surprised me, when Mam came over to the shower block with me, and I realised that she was washing for exactly the same reason as me. I gave her the raised eyebrows as we dried our hair at the mirrors afterward, and she just blushed; blushed and grinned. What possible comment could I have made just then? Oh dear. I wasn’t being squeamish, but, well. Parents are not someone you ever feel comfortable thinking about in connection with sex. Ever. No matter how much you love them.

We said our goodbyes and strapped ourselves into the taxi, and tried not to scream as we were driven to the airport for our return, and everything was unremarkable after that. Especially after we all seemed to fall asleep during the flight. I know my parents were both snoring all the way from Bristol to Cardiff, which left me briefly wondering how much energy Dad had found--- No! Do not go there, DC Owens!

Home. Tea. Proper milk. Our own beds, and of course he ended up just about moving in to both places as I made sure we pushed ahead with the property search. I mean, we were official now, which was the first thing anyone saw when we went back into work a few days later. No ‘How was the holiday’, no ‘Nice tan’, nothing at all like that.

Candice was at the urn when we entered our office together.

“Cuppas, you two?”

Blake called out a ‘Yes please’ as I sat to begin the horrible job of logging onto my computer and filtering out all the meaningless junk that was officially classed as necessary and appropriate official communication and prioritising the real stuff. Candice brought over my tea, and set it down by my left side to avoid my mouse mat. As I moved the cup a little further away, she screamed.

“You bitch! And you, you sod! Why weren’t we all invited?”

Heads were turning, so she just pulled my arm straight up and began making exaggerated pointing gestures at my ring. That led to everyone in the bloody room demanding the full story, until Blake shouted for quiet.

“How old are you lot supposed to be? Someone shout Sammy while I log in the standalone”

One thing that should be obvious, given the nature of our work, is that there are things we need to look at that we do not wish to let anywhere near our IT systems, and so we have a single computer linked to absolutely nothing, our ‘standalone’. We also keep a CD/DVD/ROM, whatever they are called, machine for downloading media such as memory cards and sticks. As the computer powered up, Blake was running SD cards through the machine and pulling out compact discs.

“Got a load of pics here, people! Grab a cuppa and we’ll show you where we were. Hi, Sammy. Pull up a pew”

That man looked down at my hand, grinned and hugged me, no words being necessary, and we wasted half the morning scrolling through our holiday snaps.

‘Wasted’? No. Not in any way. Back to work, and Candice was still stirring.

“Oy! Lovebirds! Sent you both an e-mail with some links to wedding venues”

Cow. But I have to admit she did have some good ideas buried in the dross about Las Vegas Elvis chapels. Package deals as well. Hmmm…

It took, in the end, nearly a month for people to stop using our engagement as the first topic of any conversation with us, and that other word slowly stopped being a big thing.

‘Us’.

Well, it never would cease to be a big thing, but I slowly grew used to the concept. The longest job, of course, was at the safe house. Every single person wanted to know absolutely everything, and work on Deb’s old place took a little bit of a back seat.

I remember one weekend, though, where we were sitting in the back garden at the old house, one of Mam’s roast dinners settling nicely as Blake and Dad talked scrums and scrummagers, and I looked through the venues once more.

Mam saw, and whispered to me “Don’t worry about costs, love. Well, not too much, isn’t it? We’ve been saving for years, what with just you to look after. Now we know, aye? Know we didn’t put money aside for nothing. Dad and me, we liked this idea”

It was a package deal, going from Bristol again, but to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Flights, hotel and a ceremony on a beach…

I had never been a really girly girl, and after that bastard had violated my life, I had never let myself go, never seen myself as able to dream of the sort of thing Mam was showing me. Damaged bloody goods, shop-soiled, all those stupid, self-hating ideas had ridden on my shoulders like the Old Man of the Sea. Mam had more, though.

“Been talking with the boy, we have. What we thought was, if we do this as a family holiday, then we don’t do another big Summer one, works out about what we’d pay, anyway, just for an ordinary break. Just need the dates”

I smiled at her.

“So all that stuff about saving up, then?”

“Oh, silly girl! Us along, that’s no honeymoon! We wondered if you’d like to go back to the other place. Cavallino, Venice, aye? We’d give you that as a gift, for getting our little girl back. I mean, we’ve already made a profit on her!”

“Beg pardon?”

“That boy over there, aye? Dad’s happy, I am happy, and my little girl--- are you happy, love?”

“Stupid bloody question, Mam!”

A really broad grin.

“Thought not! Now, this is going to take some planning, and not just for us”

“Why not?”

A shake of her head, and a sigh.

“And you wouldn’t want to have that friend of yours by you? Bridget? I don’t mean we’ll pay, is it, but she needs to know to start her own saving”

I wasn’t just discovering the love of a good man, but being reminded of the love I already held, that of my parents. Within two weeks, after some delicate conversations between two of us (and just the two of us, mother dear) we had the date, set for Spring.

If that sounds really hurried, rushed even, that wasn’t how it felt to us. What it did feel like was right, appropriate, fitting. I had absolutely no doubts about him, none at all, and that included any doubts about his feelings. While my rediscovered little girl was still dreaming about a white dress and a tropical beach, my professional policewoman was simply stating the fact that it did not matter, in the end, whether we married or not. He was mine, and I was his. Case closed.

The booking was a complicated one, and we ended up with a list of names to work through, and that was when I realised, once again, that my police head wasn’t as clear as my arrogance believed. Before I could ring Elaine, though, she rang me.

One Tuesday, I grabbed the ringing phone, and it was her.

“Lainey! Hi! How is it all over there?”

“Hiya Diane. Look, got any free time next couple of days? Need to run something past you”

There was something off there.

“This work or private, Inspector?”

“Sort of both, aye?”

I clicked open my calendar, then waved to Blake and passed him a quickly scribbled note.

‘Lainey? U free Thursday?’. He nodded, and I turned back to the phone, watching him for problems as I spoke. Something was up with her, so get out of area.

“OK… know the Cross Inn, over to Cowbridge? I’m sort of free Thursday night”

“Sort of?”

How to explain? Sod it.

“Um, Blake and I are sort of, you know, saving on rent, and if I drive, he can have a pint”

“What about if he drives so you can have one?”

That eased my worries a little, hearing her sense of humour in place, and I sniggered.

“You don’t change, do you? Seven thirty do you?”

“Aye. See you then”

She hung up, and Blake asked the obvious question.

“She’s got a problem, love?”

“Sounds like it. You OK with this?”

“Of course. Watching your own back, watching your mate’s, aye? Where’s this place?”

“End of the road we found Omar. First thing that came to my mind; I just felt we needed to give her some privacy, just in case”

“You are worried, then”

“Just a bit. There have been times, yeah, when she’s looked on the edge. Something, yeah? Anyway, we can worry about that on Thursday. Got a place I want to look at tonight, by the way”

The next couple of days went by without incident, the ‘place’ turning out to have a damp problem, which would only have been made worse by the totally crap weather that Thursday evening. We parked up outside the pub, rain gusting past us, and found our wat past a welcome open fire (what happened to the bloody Summer) to where our friend sat at a table for four. I had already checked the menu board outside.

I noticed her gaze lock on our linked hands, but that was just normal for us now, and we did the usual friendly greeting. Worry was still haunting me, so I simply asked her outright.

“What you got, Elaine?”

“Get the food ordered first, aye?”

My man laughed. “And the pints!”

She shook her head, sadly.

“Pint, butt. I’m driving back, aye?”

Off he went to the bar, and I slipped into the seat opposite her. Something was very, very wrong, and I began a slow rise to panic. Her wife? Her sister? She shook herself, and pulled out an A4 folder, not too thick. Hesitantly, she handed me the bundle.

“Our friend Adam Price, Di”

I wanted to scream out ‘Oh fuck! No!’ but managed to strangle that at birth.

“Oh?”

Calm, girl. Police. Fucking professional. I unfastened the folder and pulled out a slim bundle of press clippings and photocopies, the first of which was from the Sun. My heart somersaulted. I was expecting a picture of a smashed bike, a burned car, a fucking funeral procession, and what I saw was a dumpy woman in a skirt suit with a skinny man and…

“Shit!”

I knew my mouth was open, words once again disappearing as my eyes slowly made sense of what I was seeing. I knew that face, and I rewound Elaine’s words.

‘Our friend Adam Price’

Lainey looked over my shoulder, and I knew it was my man, and I wrestled with myself before I found my focus. I was his, he mine, case closed. He sat next to me after handing round the drinks, and once his hands were free I passed him the newspaper clipping.

“What’s this, love?”

No easy way here, girl.

“Remember I had a friend, Blake, went off to England? Had a break down?”

He smiled, which lifted my heart.

“The traffic lad? The one you fancied?”

Straight to what he saw as the important question.

“That’s the one”

“What… bloody hell!”

His mouth fell open just as I knew mine had, and I realised I was weeping, Elaine passing some paper napkins from the place settings.

“You OK, girl?”

Was I OK? I took the papers back from Blake, flipping through some more pictures and reports on what was looking like a seriously unpleasant case.

“Sort of, Lainey. Sort of. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? Do I take it you’re in contact with… her?”

‘Her’ was the only word I could see as being appropriate; Adam didn’t look right, exactly, but… she looked comfortable in the clothes.

Lainey considered my question for a few seconds, and once again I could feel the tension in her, and this time the reason was clearer: how much could she safely tell me?

“No, not exactly. Sarah is, and some mutual friends. I’m seeing her in three weeks”

‘Mutual friends’ I suspected included the Woodruff woman. Elaine wasn’t finished though, and dropped another bloody hand grenade into the conversation.

“At her engagement party”

What the bloody buggering bollocks? I looked at the pictures again, the skinny man beside her, the name… Anne Price. P, p.

“Is this a fall-out from his… her breakdown?”

“No, Di. I think this is a large part of what nearly broke her”

“She’s a straight girl, then. Like your sister, yeah?”

That was slowly working into my consciousness. Woman. Girl. Straight. Engaged. Not so bloody different to me, in the end.

Elaine nodded, and I opted for doing what had to be the right thing.

“What’s the man like?”

That brought a real smile, the first from her that evening.

“My friends speak highly of him”

I made my decision final.

“Then I hope she gets all the happiness she needs. Poor sod! All that time, and I’m saying how easy Adam is to talk to, and no bloody wonder, I was talking to another girl. Blake, love, don’t get me wrong, I can talk to you, but girls, well, it’s different, yeah?”

Sod it. Put her on the spot; nothing I could do from so far away.

“Promise me, Lainey. Promise me you’ll watch her back. She’s one of the special ones, and no, Blake, I didn’t mean it like that. You have her back, girl, don’t you?”

Another of her nods, this one sharp, firm, certain.

“Not me so much, but she has a lot of decent people looking out for her. Look, want to send her your best?”

Blake was watching me carefully, and I could almost read his mind. How damaged was… Anne Price? Do the right thing, girl.

“No. Her celebration, her special day. If she’s fragile, it might freak her out, old sort of girlfriend sending a message as she gets hooked up to a bloke, aye? Just promise me she’s safe”

“I’ll do my best”

I could feel my lover relax, and let him cwtch with me. He was also rather good at changing the subject.

“Your best is all anyone could ever need, Inspector Powell. Now, we have our own news, for six months from now. We are off to the Dominican Republic and, well, I think you can guess. I want you on my stag night”

Cheeky sod! I gave him a slap on the arm.

“What about my hen night?”

“You can take her wife, so they can compare notes for fun and profit through blackmail”

Yes, I did love him, and without reservation, and my sneaky mind added ‘without competition, now’, and so I told it to sod off while he did the food ordering, I did the drinking and he brought out his laptop to do the holiday snaps thing again.

I suspected the stag night would end up in a certain bar in Cardiff, but did I care?

Anne Price.

Annie, Elaine said. Annie to her friends.