CHAPTER 61
There was no way I was going to survive another debauch, especially so soon after both Christmas and our team party. I really wasn’t up to another set of ambush memories biding their time to emerge at the most inopportune moments possible, thank you very much. Besides, Rhod was due his own moment with my parents, and so our New Year’s Eve was spent with family, a small boy assured he would be allowed to stay up and hear the bongs finally succumbing to slumber and falling asleep cuddled up to his Bamps.

He had done his best at diminishing the traditional pile of snacks, both savoury and sweet, before fitting himself under my father’s arm. Some things remain inevitable. We woke him, as promised, in time for Big Ben and a rendition of Auld Lang Syne that gave me painful insights into what my performance must have been like at the karaoke session. For a soprano (or alto, contralto or even a bloody baritone) I made a great set of stickle bricks. He was asleep again before the end of Jools Holland’s show, Dad carrying him up to bed for us, but the little sod was still bright and early on January 1st, so we had to drive down to the coast and skim stones together.

We avoided Dunraven and Southerndown Beach in unspoken agreement. New year, new hopes and dreams, but old and enduring loves to comfort us.

Back to work, trying to come up with some sort of solution to the major obstacle to our investigation: when. It was similar in many ways to the messy raid on the biker rally, but at least there we had known when things would kick off, just not quite where. Here, we knew exactly where, down to the last rivet in the aluminium skin of the warehouse, but we hadn’t a clue as to the ‘when’.

We weren’t messing about with helicopters and sneaky squaddies this time, but resource management was still difficult. There was no way we could pull half the plod in the Force, and all its dog-handlers, to sit on stand-by every weekend. Coppers have lives outside work, and so do all the other criminals that operate in our part of the country. Even with the lead time that Ellen had identified, we were struggling.

Six days after NYE, my mobile jumped and shivered in my pocket as a text arrived. I was only paying half of the attention it deserved, which was a pity. It was from Deb.

Need to talk. Someone wants see you. Call me. Deb.

I dialled her number, and she picked up immediately.

“Hiya Deb, and happy new year etc. What’s up?”

“How busy are you today, girl? Can you get some time off? I don’t mean off work, I mean out of the office”

I ran through my schedule, took a quick look at my calendar.

“Yeah. Can do”

“Call you back in ten, then”

Click. What was she up to? I called across to Sammy to explain, and he looked worried.

“Problem with one of the girls, Di?”

“No idea. Find out more when I find out more, I suppose.

Ring.

“Hi again, Deb”

“Can you pick me up in an hour, Di? By the café? Can’t tell you what for, but just you this time, OK?”

“I can that. You have me worried, love. One of the girls?”

“No, nothing like that. Look, I have a new resident to get settled. See you in an hour?”

“Yeah, OK”

I was there very early, my palms sweating as I sat waiting in the car. Deb was normally far more open about things than she was being that morning, and anxiety was almost a default setting for me when she slipped out of her normal ways. I almost missed it when she appeared, jerking back to full attention only when she pulled the door open, slipping into the passenger seat after setting down a rucksack behind us.

“You know Rhiwbina Hill?”

“Ribena? Yup, berry well”

“Shit jokes, Di? Nothing to worry about. Girls are fine. I just have a favour or two to sort out. This one’s for you. Partly”

She looked off out of the window for a few seconds, then turned back with a tight smile.

“Ribena Hill, then, into Fforest Fawr. I’ll direct you from there”

She was silent for most of the ride, only coming to life as we passed the big house right on the edge of the woods.

“Keep straight one, Di. I’ll tell you when”

It is a narrow road, dark and damp under the trees even without the leaves the new year would bring, the occasional large residence looming through the bare branches. Passing places came and went before Deb raised an arm.

“Here. Doesn’t look like much, but there’s a bit of hard standing just behind that bush with the yellow leaves on it”

I parked as she directed, and turned the engine off.

“And?”

“We wait”

We didn’t wait long. I heard them before I saw them, and the noise told me what and who it might be, in general if not specifically. Two Harleys rolled up next to us, each carrying a full-patch biker, but it was a club I didn’t recognise until the obvious leader took off their helmet and shook their hair free. The colours read ‘Y Falkiri MC’ and I knew the first rider, her face burned into my memory. As she stamped towards us, I looked straight at Deb, who shrugged.

“Wildcat wanted a word. I think you should listen carefully and bloody politely”

Fuck it. Class, they called it. I stepped out of the car; she wasn’t going to have me in a subordinate position.

“Hello, Wildcat. Didn’t think there were women’s MCs”

“Shows how fucking. much you know, copper. Us for one. Little Sisters in Kent. There’s a few out there, but a lot more posers. Fucking dykes on bikes, aye? What are you doing in fucking Merthyr?”

I had grown accustomed to the MC way in my limited dealings with them: straight to the point, no messing about, no games. They spoke, they said it once, and if you weren’t listening they dumped you as either stupid or rude. Still: what did she know?

“What do you mean Merthyr?”

“Fuck off, woman. Want me to list your car numbers?”

She held out a hand without looking, the other patch passing her some sheets of A4, and I realised it was most definitely me on a back foot. I shook my head.

“Not telling you, woman. No can do. My own fucking class, yeah?”

Suddenly the old warrior grinned, winking at Deb.

“I was right about this little piggy, then, Debs. She has got a pair, hasn’t she? And I don’t mean the ones hubby carries about for her. Got the stuff?”

Deb laughed, and it was happier in tone than I would have expected.

“In a rucksack, love. Got a mix”

“Aye, but the brown stuff?”

“Give me a minute!”

I understood in the end, as Wildcat’s sister opened some panniers on her bike to pull out four folding camp stools, and Deb started pouring what smelled like hot chocolate from a couple of large flasks into four mugs. We settled down next to the car, nothing audible on that windless day but the ticking of cooling engines and sighs of appreciation, especially after Deb reached into the rucksack again and produced an all-too-familiar cardboard box.

Wildcat smiled, and it was with some warmth.

“You’ve done well with that girl, love. Real talent. Lad’s got no black marks so far, either. You found your place in the world, didn’t you?”

Deb nodded, her own smile not quite so assured.

“Took me a while, though. You heard about Cooper?”

The biker flicked me a Look that could have cut steel.

“Oh yes. But absolutely not until afterwards, isn’t it, copper?”

I had a number of thoughts in quick succession, but I managed to keep them from my mouth, filing them in the secure location I reserved for ‘Steve and Alison Barraclough’. I limited my reply to the obvious.

“If you want to discuss that rapist, I might just have to go and walk off some of these calories”

The other biker laughed out loud, and both of the other woman stared hard at her till she subsided into snorts and catches in her breathing, but I caught a wink from her. I wasn’t entirely without support, then. Her President licked the last jam and crumbs from her fingers and turned back to me.

“Listen and inwardly digest, copper. I am a girl, and I like girl things, including rainbows and kittens and unicorns, aye?”

I had just enough time to think “WTF?” before she started again.

“I like dogs. I REALLY like dogs. My Carling and me, we breed…”

Just the slightest crack in her armour, but she closed it up with an almost audible snap.

“Pig and I, me now, we bred, breed wolfhounds. Got three at home, no fucking puppy farm. Proper licensed breeder and dealer, that’s me. Elf here, it’s bull terriers”

The other woman held up a hand.

“Not fucking chav staffies, copper. Bull terriers. Best breed there is, even if the Prez here disagrees. Rockrose has a deerhound, then there are collies, all sorts”

Wildcat let her speak without interruption, and I watched the interplay closely. There was a clear hierarchy in place, but as long as Elf was talking sense, her leader left her to it. It spoke of a deep mutual respect I found myself envying, before I considered what I myself had in family and team. The older woman nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, dead right. Apart from that bollocks about long-nosed bandy dwarf dogs. Anyway, as I said. I am a girl, and as a girl I love my fucking dogs, and the idea of watching one of mine while he rips another one to shitty giblets makes me unhappy. That is why you have been sitting around in Merthyr, DC Sutton. Isn’t it?”

“I couldn’t possibly comment”

“Ha! Take it from me, then: I do not fucking approve of dog-fighting. This is my turf, and it does not fucking happen here”

I drew in a slow breath.

“Then it’s not the cheap drinking dens, then? Not the competition with your own places?”

Wildcat simply stared at me for about five seconds, as I tried to work out whether I had overstepped her tightly-drawn boundaries of respect and class.

All of a sudden, she was laughing, eyes smiling at Deb.

“Fuck, love! I was right about this one, aye? Balls as well as class!”

Her gaze swept back to me, a rather theatrical butter-wouldn’t-melt look of innocence appearing on her face.

“Told you, copper, didn’t I? Of course it’s also about the customers. I’m a girl, remember? We multitask!”

She was immediately back into business mode.

“I am not speaking to coppers, got me? But if, as a poor little girl of sensitivity and soppiness, I hear that someone may be about to mistreat some poor little puppies, I may just mention the date and place to a friend. In advance. Thanks for the cake, Deb, and the hot choc. Got to go now. Things to do, people to see, straights to outrage”

If I hadn’t stood, I am sure the stool would have gone from underneath me. Two bikes rumbled into life, and then were gone. Fuck. I found my mobile and rung the office.

“Sammy? Di. I think I have some arms’ length humint. Need to know, OK?”