CHAPTER 40
It got almost routine after a while popping round the various support groups and clubs to leave cards, leaflets, posters and so on. It was the evenings that got interesting, as I encountered more and more of a world I had never really understood or, if I was truthful, suspected actually existed, despite all the times I had dabbled in it with Bridget. She was gay, in the same sense, I assumed, as was Elaine, a sort-of-straight. Both women were absolutely not into men, but in every other way they were as conventional as my parents.

The clubs really opened my eyes, and I suspect the difference was down to the fact that they were clubs largely for men. My five friends had been fixated on one sort of victim, one specific target, and it was twinks. Skinny, mainly young, camp men, and the lesbian community held none of them, by definition. So I sat in noisy bars, and at tables by the entrances of dark and sweaty clubs, and watched men.

Their drives seemed so basic, so urgent. I know men think with their cocks, but there’s usually a bit of a brake applied in heterosexual couples, basic biology being what it is. The gay clubs were nothing like that. Ellen had spoken of the 2 AM Trawl in straight clubs, where the men who had been choosy in their search for a knee-trembler at the start of the evening dropped their standards from “Pretty face, nice legs” to “Got a pulse”, and in some of the clubs I visited that ‘trawl’ seemed to start as soon as the place opened.

They weren’t all like that, of course. A lot of what I saw was totally abandoned solo dancing, sweaty young (and not-so-young) men giving themselves to the groove, or whatever they call it. Whatever they went for, though, always seemed to be done at full throttle, no half measures.

I did get a lot of interest from them, just not THAT sort, and after a couple of weeks I began getting little hints dropped, that the man speaking to me might have heard, on the grapevine, see, not me, just a mate knew someone, isn’t it, and while I may not have been the most experienced of bobbies I knew full well that I was getting to the victims at last. The twitches from some of them were too clear to be caused by anything other than clear and unpleasant memory. The first admission of victimhood was from a young man in a popular place called “Halfway to Paradise”, that catered exclusively for the sweaty young dance-till-you-drop young male set.

He looked about twenty-five, and was the usual twig of a boy, in a white T-shirt over shocking pink running shorts. Subtle, he wasn’t. He came over to where I was sat at the reception and asked, almost in a whisper, “Are you Diane?”

I smiled at that, as I seemed to be the only woman within miles, and unless someone was being creative with their choice of first name, there wasn’t really a choice of possible Dianes.

“Yup, that’s me. How can I help?”

“Could we…could we just go into the bogs? No, not like that! There’s a disabled one over there…”

He was trembling, so I nodded to the doorman, who produced a RADAR key. I unlocked the door, letting him go in first so that I had a clear exit, just in case.

“As I said, how can I help?”

He said nothing, turning away from me and slowly pulling his shirt over his head until I could see his left shoulder, which bore a scar. It was healed, but I could see all too clearly that it had come from a bite, and I was instantly willing to bet that I knew whose teeth had been there.

“Thank you, my friend. You may have made my hanging around gay clubs worthwhile. Please don’t hear this as a dismissal, but what would you like me to do about it? That’s a genuine question, because it is why I am here. But pull your shirt down first, please, then we’ll see if we can find somewhere nicer to talk. Did you want to stay here?”

He finished dressing, and turned back to me.

“Silly, really, but I wasn’t in the mood for tonight. A mate said you were here, and I saw the news, the trial, so, well, I came out just in case…”

“I think I know somewhere we can get a cuppa and some privacy, if you’d like. Hang on…”

I pulled out my mobile, hitting a speed-dial button that would have confused hell out of a lot of people.

“Smugglers!”

“Hiya, Marlene! After a favour”

“Sorry, love, but I don’t swing that way, and your boy’s a big lad”

“My boy?”

“Oh come on, sweety, don’t try and tell Aunty Marlene you’re not playing hide-the-sausage with the beefcake Blakey Boy?”

“Well, I am not, so tough. Need a favour for work, please. Somewhere private for a chat with someone, where we won’t be disturbed?”

“Ah. You’ve found another one, then?”

“Yes. Don’t want to just swan in with him, make him another target, so if I send him down ahead of me?”

“Done deal, girl. Tell him to ask for me at the bar, and I will sort. Want tea, coffee or cocoa? And what’s his name?”

I thought back to the safe house, and had to ask for cocoa, naturally.

“What do we call you, mate? Just a name so they can recognise you”

“Er, Timmy”

“Marlene? He’s called Timmy”

“Send him down this way, then, you can use my lattie”

“What?”

“So fucking eloquent, the filth! Home, pad, flat, lattie, place I live over the pub”

“OK. Two secs. Timmy, do you know the Smugglers?”

“Yeah, course”

“You go ahead, and I’ll follow after I clear up here, take me two or three minutes. Go to the main bar and ask for Marlene”

“You not know anyone less scary?”

“I FUCKING HEARD THAT, OWENS!”

The voice was tinny over the phone, but I could still hear it as shouting, as I heard the roar of laughter that followed it, which brought a chuckle from Timmy. I sent him off ahead, and gathered together my little pack of publicity material before following him out of the club, leaving a little wave for the doorman, who was definitely one of the better ones.

Marlene was waiting for me outside the pub, and took me round to a side door that revealed a flight of stairs up to the flat. I could actually smell the chocolate before the living room door was opened, and as I went in she mock-scowled at the young man.

“Knickers and tights drying over the bath, four, count them, FOUR wigs on stands, a four-foot teddy in the corner, and hot cocoa to drink made with my own fair hands, and he thinks I am fucking scary! I ask you, Di, what can you do with the youth of today? Intercom there, for the bar. Press three when you’re done and Ill pop up and get you. And you, Master Timmy: no perving in mu knicker drawer!”

She was off, grinning happily once she had her back to him, and slipping me a wink. I savoured my drink for a while, before saying, simply, as gently as I could, “Want to tell me about it, Timmy?”

“Can you let me tell it my way?”

“Absolutely, mate. Happy to listen, whatever you want to do. That all right?”

“Yeah. Saw you on the telly, you know”

2That would have been with my team. They’re a good crew”

“Yeah, must be. Did they get hurt?”

“The rapists or the team? A couple of us got some bruises, two black eyes, and one of our friends got a serious kicking, but he’s back out of dock now”

“I think I sort of meant both. Did they, the bad guys, did they get hurt?”

I gave him the proper reply, “Only the most necessary of reasonable force and appropriate techniques were employed in their arrest, Timmy” while at the same time nodding ‘yes’ vigorously. And he started to weep. Tears seemed to be a commonplace in my new life, so I left him to sob them out, passing him a tissue. Too risky to offer a hug in the circumstances.

“What can you tell me, mate? Your story, your pace”

It was the same dreary tale I had read so many times, from so many victims, in predictable detail, except for the location, which had actually been in Swansea.

“Yeah, I moved down here after, get away from them, never see them again, isn’t it, and here they are, doing the same bloody thing, different pubs, same bastards. And there’s me, I said nothing, did nothing, didn’t want the… the shame of it all. Fairy gets fucked, probably enjoyed it, isn’t that what they always say?”

“One of them bit you, though?”

“Yeah. That one seemed to really get off on it, lots more banging and grunting, the bastard. So, there it is. Not nice”

“Would you be willing to give us a statement, Timmy?”

“What for? Too late now, isn’t it?”

“No. We just arrested someone, and charged them, for a rape that happened ten years ago. I’ve got at least two other historic rapes I am looking into. Thing with yours is that we don’t really have to go looking for suspects, and you’ve got decent evidence”

“Eh?”

“When we went to arrest that gang, my boss told us to leave them their teeth, so that we could take impressions to match against bite marks. We still have the impressions. You might hate your scar, but it is still really, really clear. If we get a match, we get, almost certainly, a result”

“What does that mean?”

“What can we hope for? They are banged away for ten years, which is a crap sentence, nowhere near what they deserve, but they did fold and go guilty, so they got a shorter term than we liked. If we start adding victims to the list, they get more time added on, and it doesn’t look good for coming out on licence if they haven’t coughed to all the times they’ve played football with a poor young man’s body. The more we do that, the more people like you should be willing to come and talk to us, and so it goes, till they end up with so much time to serve that the bastards will never again see what it’s like outside bars”

His mouth hung open.

“You really, really dislike them, don’t you?”

“Yup! Don’t you?”

Timmy gave us a statement three days later, and he knew two other young men who did so over the following fortnight. Once we finished with Ashley Evans, I would be sitting down with a couple of young girls to get their statements.

That evening, I dug out notepaper and envelope, and after a few false starts I finally had a letter written to Bridget. I was free, I felt, only the formality of that turd’s trial to come, and I needed to thank my lifeline properly.

I may have mentioned a large and gentle man in passing. Just as a footnote, you understand. I have absolutely no idea how the picture of him, printed from a screengrab of the BBC catch-up service, might have fallen into the envelope.