CHAPTER 30
Sarah was on the phone the next day, ringing me at work, which was unusual.

“There’s only four weeks, Lainey! Have you asked Mam and Dad?”

“Yes. And yes. And yes”

“Uh?”

So ladylike, so graceful. “Yes they’ll come, yes we will too, and yes they know about Alice”

“Lainey, there’s knowing about and there’s being OK with, aye?”

“Sar, what Mam said was that if they had really understood about you they would have made it right earlier, so how could they be less generous to another woman who has suffered the same pain. That’s what she said, her words. The four of us will be there, so put the worrying head away and make sure you’ve got enough food in. Got to go now; got a meeting”

“Love you, Lainey”

“Same here. See you soon, aye?”

We had built up a hell of a lot over the last few weeks of observation, and Omar’s evidence had made some of our suspicions turn into reality. I had sent Diane back with a copy of the tattoo file, and she said his eyes had widened as soon as he looked at it.

“Don’t think the lad should ever take up poker, Elaine. He started shaking; I left him with his boyfriend, he was starting to get distressed again”

We had the full team in, Chris in attendance as well. I coughed for order.

“Right, boys and girls, we have had some very valuable confirmation of the identity of one of the rapists, and that is our little friend Evans. His tattoos have been confirmed by the latest victim, and this morning we have received a positive on his DNA from the fibres and blood from the hedge. The DNA traces on the used condom have unsurprisingly come from Omar, but we also have a match on of all things a taxi driver who was arrested three years ago for indecent assault but never charged”

Diane looked up sharply, and I gave her a little head shake. “No discussion today on that one, boys and girls. We all know what the CPS can be like. Our second suspect lives over on the East of, er, Swansea. His name is Manfred Hansen. Now we have the name, I want his face looked for in the camera footage from the obs teams. Let’s put him together with Evans, and then we can look for a pattern of movement. I want all the times and days they have been seen together. And two of you find out who he cabs for and what his vehicle is, and feed that into the mix. Boring work for now, but we have an opening on this one. Let’s make the most of it”

That bit took a week, no less, as so much of the footage was too grainy for our embryonic facial recognition programmes to help with, but in the end we had times and dates and the start of a pattern. I readied a submission for the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system. If Hansen was coming to Cardiff regularly, the ANPR on the M4 would be able to pick him out. I didn’t want him put on until we were ready to move, of course, and that moment was definitely getting closer.

Siân was on days, and so were Vicky and Kev, so that evening we had a chance to do some catching up, which, of course, meant fawning over the child and handing over the presents for the forthcoming holiday. We had readied a couple of spare beds, and a proper roast dinner had been followed by bread-and-butter pudding, custard and the latest Pixar offering for some of us and wine for most of us. Normal, banal, domesticated, and almost everything any of us had ever wanted. Happily slumped on two sofas and an armchair, we were, at least in my case, half-watching the film when the phone rang. Siân picked it up.

“Hello, can I help you?”

Her jaw dropped, and holding her hand over the phone she mouthed “It’s Mam!”

Shit. I was hit by a tidal wave of worry. “What’s happened?”

“Not Mam, not YOUR Mam—MY Mam!”

She took her hand away from the phone, and her voice chilled perceptibly. “No, I won’t. We have guests here, and they don’t all speak it. What do you want?”

Her face fell. “Vicky, can you please take our princess here for a drink from the kitchen? Ta. Mam, I am putting this on speaker phone so that MY WIFE can get involved”

Tinnily, from the phone, came her mother’s voice, this time in English, the Gog accent clear over the tiny speaker.

“It is your father, ah? I must speak to you of him. These others are not kin”

“These others, Mam, are my cousin, her husband and MY WIFE. They are kin. If you want to talk to me, do so or go away. I have not forgiven what you said, and nor will I”

There was a long pause before the woman I thought of so badly started speaking again.

“I will assume that if it is your cousin it is young Victoria. If that is so, then she is indeed family. I will speak, then. It is your father, Siân, and no, it is not that he is dead although in my sin I have wished that upon him. He has… he has sold our house. He has then spent the money on another, ym Mae Colwyn. Er, in Colwyn Bay”

My wife was still bitingly frosty. “And this changes what?”

Another long pause. “He has been good enough at least to leave me half of the proceeds. I am not involved in this… adjustment of circumstances, ah?”

“He’s left you?”

“He has succumbed to the temptation of the sins of adultery and fornication”

Kev had to leave the room at that point, trying, far too hard than was good for his health, to hold in his laughter. Even Siân was starting to show cracks.

“Who is he adultering and fornicating with, Mam”

“It is Delyth Siencyn”

“The organist? Bloody hell!”

“Language, girl”

“Oh bugger off, you wouldn’t be calling unless you wanted something, so I’ll talk the way I want, ah? And what do you want?”

“Siân, it is our home he has sold, ah? It is where I live. There is nobody else I can turn to”

“What about the rest of the congregation?”

“They have turned their backs on me. They say I have sinned”

I mouthed the words at my wife, and she lipread them perfectly. “What did you do, Mam?”

Another pause, then a clearly-audible sound of someone sighing as they prepare a confession.

“I pumped twenty gallons of slurry from the cow yard through her letter box. I have been handed a community service order for twenty hours and a cleaning bill. But in two weeks I will have nowhere to live”

Eyebrows raised, my wife turned to me. “Mam, I will call you back. I am not alone in this. I must discuss it with my wife. While you wait for me to call, think on my words, ah? You will take us as we are AND NOT COMPLAIN or we will not be able to help you in any way. Do you understand?”

“I will await your call”

They hung up, Siân muttering. “Just before bloody Christmas as well! What the hell did she expect?”

Suddenly she started to laugh. “Twenty gallons of cowshit through her front door! I know whose trailer it will have been, as well!”

It started me laughing. “It’s an old joke, aye, but I’ll still say it: remind me never to upset you. Mother and daughter, indeed!”

She sobered, as the others came back in. “What do we do, cariad? I know what she said, but I can’t leave my own Mam like that, can I? I mean, I said it, we’re family, kin, flesh and blood. That doesn’t change. But what she said, the two of them, that day; those are words I will never forget or forgive. You are my family now, Lainey, you first and before all others. I said that at our wedding, and I keep my promises”

Vicky took her hand. “Love, Kev and I had a chat in the kitchen. We could help, and she is family, as you say. We’ve got a spare room. It could do as a sort of halfway house, just so she gets used to the two of you”

I reached out for a hand from each of them. “You sure about this?”

Vicky nodded, and nodded her husband to her for a hug. “We’re sure. We owe you both so much. We can’t guarantee we’ll change her views on the world, but we can give it our best go. Want to call her back?”

The numbers were dialled. “Mam?”

“Aye?”

“I have Vicky here, along with her husband Kevin. They are offering you room in their house for now”

“They are? That is true Christian charity”

Kevin broke in. “Not in my case. It’s just common humanity, and paying our debts to a couple I love as much as I do my wife and daughter. You will not badmouth them, you will not criticise them, you will not chastise our child for being a child. If you can deliver that, then we have a deal. Tell me, though: you have half the price of a house to set you up. Why would you need your daughter’s help?”

Oh shit. She was crying now. Vicky shushed her husband, as the old woman gave her reply.

“It is just that I am so, so alone”

She made her promises, and the deal was done. Two and a half weeks later, we had a pattern for my other issue, and we knew when we would try our little bait and trap. I made sure my asp was working properly, and three of the lads drew Tasers.

“Why not me, Elaine?”

“Because, Diane, the boys think you’d be too gung-ho to use one, besides the fact that you’re not certified to carry it. Now, I am off to England for Christmas, but I will be back for the New Year’s delights. Boys and girls! Your ears for a bit. Now, I know this is going to piss you off a bit, but I don’t want to try our luck on that night. I know it’s the only time some of you are lucky enough to pull, and that’s what the problem is. Our targets are likely to be out on the pop themselves, and we would be setting our bait in the middle of a lot of potential victims. I will be doing the night shift into the New Year just in case, but I don’t anticipate any attacks that night.

“Our boys seem to meet up mostly on Thursdays and Fridays, at least the two we know about. This is the hard bit. I want the team stood to on both those evenings following the New Year, and we will have the ANPR switched on for Hansen on the M4. I want four unmarked cars around the area fitted with ANPR as well, and there will be two carriers for the rest of you plus uniformed support. Bring a flask and sandwiches, and before then, have a nice Christmas”