CHAPTER 15
I slept surprisingly well, despite a few sudden wakings as something unspecified but nasty crawled into the back of my mind. Mam, as usual, had a fuller-than-full breakfast waiting, and I wondered how she always managed to be up before me, even on the earliest of shifts. Some sort of Mam-radar, I suppose. She sat with me as I ate my sausages and swallowed my tea, with a Look on her face that warned of something being grilled besides the sausages.

“Di, love?”

“Yes, Mam?”

“It’s those two pieces of filth again, isn’t it?”

I looked down, which was all the answer she needed, and she reached for my hand.

“I know, love. I know. I heard you at your cupboard last night. I know what you hide in there---I am your Mam, innit? Just be careful, girl”

“I am always careful now, Mam”

Her face twisted. “No, love, that’s not what I meant. I know you’re careful, just like I know my little girl is now more than capable of giving a proper slap to anyone that tries… you know what I am talking about”

She looked down at her tea for a few seconds, then back at me.

“If you have a chance, Di, a good chance, you wait, you make sure, and then you get those bastards locked up tidy. No mistakes, no loopholes. You…”

Suddenly, she was weeping. I got up and went round the table to her, holding my poor mother in her pain, my own tears there and hot in my eyes.

“Those bastards have had my little girl in her own prison, and I want her out, aye? You do what you need to do, but you do it careful-like, you make SURE there’s no way out for them!”

I just hugged her tighter, stroking her hair. Promise made, with no need for words.

I wasn’t the first one in, which was Candice, but she already had the urn heating, and grinned at me as I brought over some clean mugs.

“Don’t get too used to this, Di! Won’t have all the conveniences when we’re back in our normal slots, will we?”

“Had any thoughts?”

“Aye, actually. If these boys are hopping between the cities, there must be some cars tied to them. Get a hint, bet you we’ll catch more than one parked up together”

“Why not just the one car, mate?”

“Looks bad to Traffic. Car full of men, unless there’s a match on, rings all the right bells. We’d have some stop-checks recorded. No, I would guess they travel in ones or twos”

My thoughts from the evening before came back to me, about how my fellow team members had been selected, not just shovelled in, and I realised what that said about me. Just out of probation… bloody hell.

Blake arrived, followed by Dai Gould, of all people, who looked ill.

“Di! Can you do me a favour, you and the lad here?”

“What do you need?”

“There’s been another one”

Blake burst out with a “Fucking hell!” followed by an apology, and Dai just nodded.

“Nasty one, this time”

I couldn’t help it. “And the last one wasn’t?”

Shit, those were tears. Blake saw at the same time I did, and the two of us dragged him into the room next door. I put a hand on his arm.

“You OK, mate? What we got?”

“He’s had a real kicking, this one. Depressed fracture of the skull, the quacks say. Do you know the Cross Inn, out to Cowbridge?”

We both nodded, and he continued.

“Hotel down the little lane, old place, like a castle, on its own side lane, couple of cottages? Well, he was found down there. Naked, unconscious. Bloke who found him’s retired Met, secured the site and called 999. I need someone out there to do the necessary, and I thought it would be your turf. Got SOCO on their way”

I reached out and took his hand this time.

“What are you not telling us, Sergeant Gould? Dai?”

He looked straight at me. “Boy’s been gang-raped again, from the look of things. He’s called Omar Mohammed, from his wallet, which was dumped with him. He’s twenty-two, from Tiger Bay. I know all this because… I know this because he’s my nephew’s room mate”

Once more, Blake’s hand was on my arm.

“Dai, we’ll get on the way, straight off. You get yourself cleaned up, stay here and give the boss the necessary. Where’s the victim now?”

“Almost next door to the last victim. They were working on him last I heard. I’ve sent a couple of lads round to make sure Scott’s OK---that’s my nephew. Di?”

I looked at him, as he tried his best to stem his tears.

“Aye, mate?”

“Do your best, won’t you? I know you will, but I just need to take that promise back to my boy”

One morning, two big promises. Blake and I left him, and after a quick word with Candice we were in one of our newly allocated unmarked cars and making good time out of the city. Blake drove well, smoothly and bloody quickly, hitting the lights and noise only when he had to. I knew the pub, and the little lane that ran between two bigger roads, but I had never clocked the hotel’s drive before. It was narrow and tree-shaded, the tarmac damp and greasy, and I could see why it had attracted our villains. Just past a couple of houses there was a dank-looking cut-through back to the other lane, and a solid-looking man standing on its corner with one of our boys. Blake raised a hand in greeting, and got a wave back. He grunted.

“That’ll be our London boy, then”

He found somewhere on a driveway to leave the car, and almost immediately the associated front door opened.

“What do you think you’re doing in…”

Blake had his warrant card out ready.

“South Wales Police, Serious Crimes Investigation Unit. DC Sutton, and this is DC Owens. We’ll be as quick as we can”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but turned away immediately and led me towards the bruiser in the fleece jacket waiting on the corner.

“Don’t discuss, Di. Just speak and leave. Hi, DC Sutton, DC Owen. Hiya, Warren”

A firm handshake. “Morning. Malcolm Blackwood. Was a sergeant in the Met, detective sergeant. You have got some right cunts around here, haven’t you?”

In your face, not much! Blake was stolid, though.

“Blake and Diane, mate. What have we got?”

The uniform, Warren, pointed down the dark little cut-through.

“Mike’s off with the ambulance and the victim. Malcolm here’s kept the site from being disturbed, apart from what the paramedics had to do for the victim”

I had a flash of memory; Vernon Pugh, hands red-raw from scrubbing.

“What state is he, mate?”

“Oh, absolute mess, Di. They did a right number on him---bites, fag burns, really went to town”

“SOCO’s on the way, mate. Want to take Malcolm here and get a statement down? Taken any notes, mate?”

The Londoner grinned and pulled out a little notebook. “Like to do a bit of bird-spotting after brekky. Got some bits down here”

“Nice one. We’ll liaise with SOCO, and then it will be door-knocking”

He grinned. “Give that one where you’re parked a bloody good kick. He made them move the marked car down to the hotel. Said it was blocking his fucking drive. What a knobber!”

Warren led him off, and Blake turned to me.

“Not egg-sucking class, Di, but can you start off a note book? Get all the times down, sweet as you can, and I’ll have a general walk round. If he comes back out of that house, you tell him to fuck off for me. I’d just end up being a lot ruder”

SOCO was with us only fifteen minutes later, and he’d brought a mate. Cameras, plaster of Paris, evidence bags, they went at the site like two ferrets down a rabbit hole. I didn’t see or understand half of what they were doing, right up until the assistant SOCO or whatever he was opened the wheely bin next to our parked car, and the door to the house burst open again.

“What the hell are you doing in my bin? That is my property! Do you have a warrant?”

I put on mu sweetest smile, and resisted the temptation to use Blake’s suggested words.

“As we have explained, we are investigating a serious offence here. Specifically, a man has been very brutally attacked and we are examining a crime scene. Your cooperation would be appreciated”

The junior ferret just looked up at him as he placed something into an evidence bag.

“Yeah, the victim might still not survive, even though he’s in intensive care, and I have just found something rather important here, so, well, just fuck off now or get nicked, OK? “

There was a bang as the door slammed again, and the young technician grinned at me.

“Always wanted to say that! Now, I want this bin secured. Look what I got!”

In his clear bag, as yet unsealed, was a brown envelope, which he opened to show me a clearly-used condom.

“I don’t think this has come from that idiot, butt. If we’re lucky we’ll get two sets of DNA off it. Harry’s got all sorts of shit over there, where they had the van”

I looked up at that, remembering Candice’s comments about cars.

“Van? How’d you know?”

“Ah, tyre marks. Harry’s dead good at that stuff. Wheelbase says something like a Transit, and the tyres are a mismatch, so it isn’t a hire van, nor a works one for a bigger company. You can see where the steering was, pointing out this way, innit? Driver’s door was against the hedge, so he’s giving that his fullest attention possible. Think we have a very, very full day ahead. If someone can do a tea and bun run, it would be appreciated”

I gave Blake the raised eyebrows, and he nodded. We were most definitely on the same page that morning. I started off down the road to the hotel, which was an amazing building. The front door was set in an angle of the old house, and I entered to find an amazing wooden staircase to one side, and the smell of cooking to my left. I rang the bell at the little desk, and a compact woman came bustling out of the dining room, reading me in nothing flat.

“You be with the police, dear? Mr Blackwood’s in the dining room with the other man”

She led me through the door, where Warren was getting outside a bacon sandwich as he took Malcolm through his statement.

“No grease on it, mate!”

He grinned, and the little woman was at my shoulder again.

“Fancy a cuppa, dear?”

“Oh, please! I was actually going to see if I could sort something out for the other lads”

She smiled, in complete contrast to the man up the road.

“Leave it with me, dear”

“Let us have a bill, OK?”

“No. Mr Blackwood has given us some hints of what is happening, so, well, no. You just make sure you catch whoever it is that is doing it. We have a grandson at the University, and he’s, well. We have heard stories. You stop it, girl. You stop it before someone ends up dead”

She headed off to the kitchen, but stopped and turned back towards me.

“We thought, all of us, we thought nobody cared about people like our little boy. We thought…, well, Detective Constable. We just thought. You go out and prove us wrong”