CHAPTER 1
“Got your phone?”

“Yeah, of course!”

“Why’s it still sitting here plugged into the charger then?”

“Cachu! Ta!”

“And it’s raining!”

“Course it is! That’s why I’ve got my cagtrousers on”

I grabbed the phone from her, stuffed it into the map pocket of my jacket, grabbed my lid and was out of the door. When I had first started riding the moped to work, I had used an old open-face helmet that one of Dad’s friends had given him, but after the first month of a Snowdon winter, I had borrowed enough cash from my parents to let me switch to a much warmer full-face one. It steamed up, but with a decent neck gaiter on, it stopped my chin and throat from being stripped of skin. I call it a moped, and that is what it looks like, but it is really a Honda C90 stepthrough. Typical of Dad, he not only checked it over but insisted I get a full licence before I was allowed to ride to work.

“Wasn’t the same when I was a lad, love. You got a 250, stuck L-plates on it and never took a test. Now it’s a 125, and you need CBT, and that has a time limit, and…”

I didn’t point out to him that I had looked up the rules on Wiki, and it had been a limit of 125cc before he had ever been old enough to get a bike, because I knew he meant well. The other thing I avoided mentioning was that the TLA, three letter acronym, had a range of meanings. One was cognitive behavioural therapy; the other was cock and ball torture.

My parents may be dyed-in-the-wool hippy throwbacks, but they still had their limits.

The weather was closing in, which promised a fun ride to my first day of work for that run of shifts, but soonest started, soonest outside a cup of tea. The Honda started second kick, and I set off down Cefn Cwlyn to its junction with the A5 and turned left. Telford had worked wonders with the slope of the road, so the bike didn’t need to struggle, but that wasn’t the problem. The side winds could be bastards through the Valley, and there was regular rockfall from Pinnacle Ridge before hitting the flat bit by the lake. I didn’t anticipate finding a boulder in the middle of the lane, but a patch of gravel might see me off the bike.

Summer was always different, because then I started each run of days on the Surly. While it was always a grind up to Idwal Cottage, it was a fun descent on the homeward leg. I hadn’t yet managed to break fifty miles an hour, as a walking jacket was far from streamlined, but I was getting close.

Along past the hollow of Cwm Idwal, with a hint of a blast from the Kitchen, then round past the Milestone, which was a collection of waterfalls on the Soapgut side. Past both the campsites, the sidewind a lot stronger now, making me move almost onto the centre line to allow wobble room and---arse.

I swung over to the kerb and stopped dead, bracing for the blast as the foreign lorry hammered past in the other direction, curtains of spray shrouding the cab. Didn’t the idiot know there was an easier route? Probably on satnav. Check behind again, back onto the road, and finally, by the road up to Tal y Braich, the gusts were easing. I could feel the strain loosening in my shoulders as I started the run down into the village. Past the church, cut past the Pinnacles and Brigham’s and into the little corner in the yard they kept for me.

Ross was duty manager that day, face buried in paperwork in his little office behind Reception, grunting a greeting as I pulled my lid off after shaking as much of the water from my jacket and cagtrousers as I could manage.

“Morning, love! Got a mixed set of punters for you over the next run. Get settled, and I’ll talk you through. Might be issues”

I stood for a few seconds with my helmet in my hands, then understood.

“This be a group from Cardiff, Ross?”

“That’s them”

“I may have a head start on this one. Had a couple of phone calls beforehand, ah? I’ll dump my bag, grab a cuppa and be with you in a few”

“No hurry, girl. Nothing much doing in this weather apart from the climbing wall”

I took him at his word, and took my time, leaving my waterproofs to dry in the boot room and changing into a pair of hut slippers in my tiny room before coming back downstairs and grabbing a hot drink from the boiler.

“What we got then, Ross?”

He settled back in his chair as I slumped into the Inquisition Special, as he called it.

“Second part of your run of work, love. Here for six days, they are, and I do believe you took their booking”

“Bit more than that, Ross. I got a call beforehand, a heads-up from someone I know”

He sighed.

“Please tell me this isn’t going to be like that ‘sports club’ lot that turned out to be a stag weekend! Those lads from Macclesfield, remember?”

I snorted and shivered simultaneously.

“I should bloody remember; muggins here had to clean the puke out of the minibus. Almost put me off beer!”

“Yeah, well. Personal development, that was Chance to show your commitment, team spirit, stakeholder engagement…”

“You want me to drink this, or do you want to wear it?”

He couldn’t hold back his laughter, and, in the end, neither could I.

“So, love: you have advance knowledge, then?”

“Yeah. Taking you back a bit, but do you remember we had a group of girls here for a while? Two women looking after them one getting on a bit, they slept over the road in Joe’s cottage?”

“Oh! That the lot where not all the girls were, you know, where some of them might not have been girls at all?”

I gave him a Paddington.

“They were all girls, Ross. Don’t care what they started out as, officially”

He had the good grace to blush slightly, so I carried on.

“It was the younger of those two women, sounding us out, then she was the one, well, it was her phone the booking was made on, but it was a Hwntw who made the booking, and she’s a Gog. Scouse Riviera, I think, but still from up this way. Don’t think it was…”

I stood up and pushed the office door to, before settling myself back down.

“Stuff in confidence, Ross. Just us two for now, ah?”

“Sounds ominous”

I nodded.

“Not for us. Just need to be aware of what I was told. This is a police group”

“I know that. I sent South Wales Police the invoice”

“Yes, but you might want to look them up. Do you remember a series of gang rapes down Cardiff way, all the victims young gay men?”

“I think so”

“How about that dog fighting thing in Merthyr Tydfil?”

“That rings a bell. You saying that this lot were involved?”

“Big rape case in Cardiff? Multiple ones, by a local councillor?”

I saw his jaw tighten, and he nodded.

“Last one, Ross. Kiddy fiddler in a children’s home. Trial was in Chester. Man called Cooper”

“Fucking hell, yes. Should have been strung--- hang on. Are you saying that this lot were behind all of those?”

I simply nodded, then shrugged.

“Impression she gave me was that they were all starting to crack up”

“No bloody wonder. Puts a bit of puke in a bus into perspective. What are you saying?”

“Simples. I suggest we look at cutting them a lot more slack than we normally would. I…”

The memories were there, as always: a smile, the touch of a hand. The way the light caught her hair. Along with those memories came the pain, and I had to take a couple of seconds to settle the lie of a smile onto my face.

“I don’t suspect they’ll be puking in the buses or breaking the bunks, Ross. I just think we might want to avoid the usual ‘value for money’ chat”

He grinned at that one.

“Guilty! It’s just that we’re not that cheap, and I hate to see someone spend all that dosh on a climbing course or whatever, then not actually climb!”

He suddenly let out a bark of laughter.

“You know the picture that was in the Ogwen guide? That lad gurning away as he pulls over the easy bit at the top of Ivy Chimney? I was there that day, saw him and his instructor. All that money he spent, all a waste. Been better trying out a climbing wall than hiring a pro mountain guide. Yeah… just me, love. Old-fashioned, I am; if I am taking money from a punter, I just think I should give them some value in return. What are we going to do with these coppers, then?”

A knock on my parents’, our, front door, not far off eleven at night. Two coppers.

“Are you…? Do you know…?”

Find that smile again, woman.

“What are we going to do, Ross? Hopefully, stop the cracks spreading”