CHAPTER 48
“I keep forgetting how out of all this you are, Lainey. Must all be a shock, aye?”

“Talk to me, chwaer fychan. What in hell is going on with him?”

“Not just him, is it? She’s changed, has Alice. Really changed”

“Head injury?”

CHAPTER 47
We didn’t see that much of either my uncle or his trout for the rest of her stay, which can be fairly blamed on some of us having to work for a living, but over the next few months it was noticeable that unless Hywel had that friend of Sar’s with him, he was mostly on his own at the pub. At least, that was what I heard from Dad via Mam.

CHAPTER 45
“What’s happened, Tony?”

“Head injury, breaks all over. Hit by a car”

“Calm, love. Calm. Where is she?”

“Our local hospital. Mum’s with her, and Sar, but she’s in a right state”

“Tone, go and look after them, aye? I’ll make some calls. Who have you rung so far?”

CHAPTER 43
He did, or so Mam told me the day after.

“She’s really found a good man, Lainey. And that boy will grow up sound as well. We have hope now, after so long. Your Dad and I, well, Twmi can be very soft at times. We have sent flowers to Alison and her husband. They will understand why”

CHAPTER 41
The jury weren’t back until the following afternoon, and we lost a lot of our supporters as they had to head off for such things as paid employment or courses of study. Bevan and Wyn stayed, and of course Chris, but it was Blake who surprised me. I cornered Diane in the ladies’.

“Anything I need to know?”

CHAPTER 39
Sar was at him like a shot, telling him to watch his mouth round her little boy.

“Sorry, girl, I was looking for my nephew”

My little sister pulled a seriously vicious look onto her face.

“You don’t recognise me, then?”

CHAPTER 37
I left them to their chat, for there was nothing I could meaningfully add. I was still undecided about Joe Evans but after all I had been given sight of his witness statement. I had seen Steve in a very different light after that, and I knew that I was never going to dig any deeper. Leave that particular case deep frozen, Lainey.

Siân was off at the weekend, which chimed with my own self-planned working roster, and she was insistent.

CHAPTER 35
I was in work the next day, but in my own HQ instead of Cardiff. It felt strange, after so long in civvies, but the uniform was the thing that had helped me hold things together when life had thrown shit at me. That dreadful funeral, the confrontation with Mam and Dad, the ritual had helped me cope. Siân was on a stupidly early start, so I had to eat breakfast alone. I hated early turns, so as I was now effectively supernumerary, I had treated myself to a nine o’clock start.

CHAPTER 33
“Can you get the plate?”

“Not yet, Ma’am. Parked up too close behind the van. Two men, looks like. Another car joining them now”

Hansen. “What are they doing?”

CHAPTER 31
The drive over to the Channel coast was getting familiar now, but this time we had our parents with us. Our parents, not Siân’s, as that would have been a step so excessive I’d have lost control. I would never forgive her for what she had said and done, but I had agreed with my wife that we had to come to some sort of understanding. Our Mam and Dad, though, needed no such adjustment. Somewhere near Swindon, Dad turned round to face me.

CHAPTER 29
He was sitting up in the bed, and the evidence of the attack was clear in his face. Blake busied himself in setting up our recorder while I took the more comfortable seat by the bed.

“You must be Inspector Powell. Pardon me if I don’t get up”

CHAPTER 27
Sar was on the phone that evening, almost the moment I got in, bubbling away.

“Lainey, you will NOT believe this!”

“Sister, sweet girl, can I at least get a cuppa before you get into full flow!”

“Get Siân to get you one. There’s a lot to tell”

CHAPTER 25
I gave Chris the details he needed, and he was off on his mercy errand. I called Diane over to my office door as I saw him off.

“Diane… this may sound like the most sexist request imaginable, but I want some cakes and some coffee sorted out”

CHAPTER 23
I slept that night much happier about our little game with my sister. I had passed the news on to Vicky, of course, and she had promised to let Kev know, and all were happy as happy can be, but for me the main feeling was relief. Matchmaking is a risky business, and it can so often end up with three people hating each other rather than what was hoped for.

CHAPTER 20
The internet is a wonderful thing. I look back at how things were before we got it, and I simply do not understand how the hell we coped. Siân has a different take on things, of course. We might be a double act, but we don’t always sing in unison. Harmony, perhaps. Well, most of the time.

CHAPTER 18
Life became almost banal after that. There is a tendency for some people, especially the younger ones, to see settled domesticity as boring beyond words. They crave adventure, excitement, action. Well, I remember ‘adventure’ being summed up by someone sensible as ‘something unpleasant happening to someone else’. It was the same with the rookies, as too many of the boys were calling the new chums in the American fashion. They came straight from training and went out hoping for a ruck, for a fight or a foot chase, while I was just happy to get home to my wife without incident.

CHAPTER 16
I didn’t have time to really poke around asking people what they thought of Evans’ and Pritchard’s fall from grace, but there were enough people seeming to go out of their way to give me a little nod or smile. I suppose that is what people like those two arseholes never see. I was sitting with my lover in a tea shop a few days later, and the man at the next table was reading the Daily Mail.

CHAPTER 14
Dad was a rock for the next few weeks. Siân took her parents’ rejection hard, which in one way I found surprising. After all, she had surely expected nothing really different?

“Lainey, Lainey, yes. I know. They said all that years ago. It was just, well, I hoped, I thought… I thought they’d see you, and it was like I thought about Vicky, aye? How could anyone not love you as soon as they met you? I thought that would be the difference, that would make them think!”

CHAPTER 12
It was so, so hard for so long afterwards. I knew who they were, I knew where they lived, I knew where they parked, but my priority had to be my sister. I was the big girl, the strong one, and I had Siân. Always there, always in support, I had her. Sar wasn’t alone, and far from it, for Mam and Dad would be there as long as they lived, and Arris was a true friend, but Sarah was fading steadily.

CHAPTER 2
Beginnings…

I had watched my brother so carefully all those years ago, but now I could hardly remember him. Sarah was so clearly Right Here and Now that I sometimes found false memories arriving, where she had been a young girl rather than a non-boy. That first day, in a dress; I mean, I knew she was going down the girl route, but there she was, filling my eyes in stereoscopic womanhood.