CHAPTER 1
Bloody cold and wet, typical bastard weather when I had the stupidity to pick a bloody skirt. I mean, on a stag, in winter, in Wales---I should have known better. I walked as casually as I could back to the car, where Alun would hopefully have had the heater on. He had, and had also killed the interior light so as not to show out so badly when I opened the door.

“What we got, Di?”

“Definitely a meet coming. That’s another vanload of booze just gone in; they won’t want to risk keeping that on site too long”

“Dogs?”

“None there, or at least none that barked at me. Got three vehicles confirmed”

“Blake and Candice are five minutes off. Time to go and warm up, girl”

“Not you out in this in a skirt, is it?”

“Me? Not got the legs for one, have I?”

“Not what that PCSO says, mate. Your turn for the buns, innit?”

“You should pack your own like me”

“You mean like your missus does! Anyway, a dog roll tastes better fresh. Tony’s?”

“Aye, that’d be good. Quiet corners there, let us get our notes up to date. Thank god for car heaters is what I say”

“Polartec and Goretex for me, butt! Anyway, that them?”

My radio crackled just as the driver of the newly-arrived car gave a little nod, just visible through the rain and darkness.

“Golf Kilo three, on plot”

Alun was terse in reply.

“Golf Kilo two one, received. All yours”

Tony’s was a ‘diner’ according to its sign, but a greasy spoon according to our eyes and noses. That didn’t matter, for it was out of the wind and rain, it did pint mugs of tea and a bloody good fry-up. There is a traditional need for coppers worldwide to fur their arteries, and Tony’s was ideal for that. As part of the full ‘diner’ experience, there were ‘booths’ that allowed us a little bit of privacy. The owner clearly knew who and what we were, as he left us alone to get on with our work. He kept odd hours, tucked away near the Pontmorlais car park, to cater for the shift workers and delivery drivers, and I often wondered how and when he ever slept.

“What we got then, Di?”

“Three cars, as I said. One BMW old-style 5-series, the square one, a Volvo 800-series estate and a bloody stupid Yankpanzer”

“A what?”

“Never heard of a wankpanzer?”

“What? What you call a 4x4, innit?”

“Exactly”

“Oh…yeah, right! Which one?”

“Warrior. Bloody stupid name, innit? I mean a Landy would make more sense, and be better, and it’s a pukka military vehicle. Anyway. Pick-up, it is. Volvo’s got a dog gate in it, Beemer’s a soft-top. Oh, there was a P100 parked a little way off. That had a Truckman top, so I couldn’t see in the back. Not sure if it’s associated, but I had a problem with my shoe, so I had to bend down, yeah? Couple of scaffolding poles through the rear suspension, so it’s almost certainly one of theirs”

“Ah. What you think? Give Kent a ring?”

“Aye. I wonder what the ANPR might say there. I think I might drop in and see Chris as well. Can’t hurt”

“You up for April, then?”

“Aye. A wedding’s a wedding, and if I’m daft enough to wear a skirt, then it’s a better excuse than stagging a bloody Merthyr industrial estate. And put that bloody look away!”

“Sorry, love. I know. Just, well, still a bit off, back of my mind, see? Still got the Parch sitting there shouting about abominations”

“Well, you should know better”

He looked down at the steam rising from what was left of his tea, picking up a scrap of bacon that had escaped his roll and taking his time half-chewing, half-sucking at it before speaking again.

“Aye, I should. After all that, well, no excuse, is it? Just, well, nobody comes without a past, do they? Mine’s still got a few little claws in me”

Yes. The past still held us to it with little hooks and thorns, and I should indeed be a woman who knew that. A moment of trust, before the handful of hair pulled me into the car as the threat of the knife cowed me. The smell of the booze on his breath would certainly never leave me, nor the sound of his grunting as he tore into me.

Nor would I ever be able to forget the hospital, and my visitors, and never, ever, would I be free of that particular memory, the warmth of his piss on my back as he cleaned out ‘the spoodge’.

“Di? You OK?”

“Sorry, butt. Memories, innit? Spot on, you were, about the past and that, so let’s make it a brighter future”

“Fuck, girl, you been reading fridge magnets again?”

“Love you too, you tosser. Now, are YOU up for April?”

He looked straight at me this time. “Yes. Yes, I am, and so’s the missus. She said, ages ago, I take a long time to find out who my real friends are, and she says that Chris is one I should keep, and if it needs us to go to a fairy wedding to prove it, well, so be it”

“And whose turn of phrase was that one?”

“Er, well. She says something about fairy-tales, and I says no, just fairies, and it stuck. Anyway, he IS a bloody fairy!”

I laughed, and we spoke in unison: “But he’s OUR bloody fairy!”

He took another sip. “This lad, Di? He a good one?”

“Chris thinks so. You’ve met him, anyway, at the Christmas bash”

“Aye, I know, but that was just in passing, innit? Anyway, what the fuck do we do about a stag night? I mean, two stags?”

I started to laugh at that one, the memories of that night with Evans Senior scuttling off to the dark, small-hours place they usually hid in.

“Got no idea, have I? But we both know a woman who will!”

“Bloody hell, aye! Can’t be that much difference for dykes”

“Hint to self: enrol colleague on correct and appropriate terminology course”

“You going to give her a ring, then?”

“Got a family day in a couple of weeks, job allowing”

“Ych, not for me. Too many kids in one place for my liking”

“Ah, not a problem. They have a sort of netting play tent thing. If the weather’s fine we just zip them up in it in the back garden”

“What, so they all play nicely together?”

“Not at all. We stream live video footage and take bets on baby cage-fighting over the internet”

“You can’t be serious for long, can you?”

“Trust me when I say I can. Anyway, my notes are up to speed, tea’s cold, rolls are eaten. Get back and make those calls?”

“Sounds like a plan. Just need to stop by the shops on the way back for a few bits. This little job is getting in the way of a decent supermarket run”

I looked harder at him once more, and the shadows were darker in his eyes.

“Alun, aye? Things OK? The missus? Lynne?”

“Oh, love, no, not really. We saw the quacks again last week, and it’s not a good time. We’ve been putting a bit aside for this, and I think I’m likely to be a bit short for a while. Looking at electric wheels now. NHS can’t fund it at the moment, so we’ve been saving, innit? Give her a little more independence”

I tried a joke. “Let her out of the house and she might catch you with that PCSO”

He stood up, zipping his jacket. “Come on, soonest started back, aye?”

Not another word from him till we were both sat in the car, and then he turned to me, and I realised he was crying, the tears lost in the rain until we were in shelter.

“Di, love, you think she doesn’t KNOW about Cerys? It was her bloody idea!”

“What? Your wife sent you out shagging?”

“NO! No…”

He turned away, checking seat-belt, mirrors, seat position, the whole lot, before looking back at me.

“I was never a shagger, girl. Never one who could go out on the pull, at least not and get it to work, innit? Lynne and me, well, just one of those things. Always fancied her in school, just never got round to it, or never got the nerve for it. She and me, well, school reunion, innit, and we start talking about teachers, and practical jokes, and who was knocking off who, and that time Mr Purvis caught two of the prefects having a knee-trembler, and, well, I sort of admitted I’d never, you know, got anywhere, and she sort of smiled and said the same, and… And it was one of the best days in my life, and everything else, everything afterwards, it was right, and proper, and healthy”

“Alun, love, I know it’s not easy for you both, but…”

“Cerys was her idea, Di. Not the girl exactly, but someone who could give me what Lynne couldn’t any more. No. not right to put it that way. I’m fond of the girl, and she seems happy, and if she wasn’t I’d stop straight off, but originally, yes. It was Lynne’s suggestion”

“I’ve done some reading, Alun, on CFS and ME, once you told us”

“Oh, Di. That’s not it. It’s not ME, it’s not chronic bloody fatigue bloody syndrome. She’s got MS”

CHAPTER 2
I had no quick, amusing comeback to that particular little hand-grenade. I didn’t know much about the disease, but I had seen more than enough of its victims, and my memories of them left me with no illusions as to Lynne’s future. Poor bloody Alun; my opinion of his morals had turned such a somersault it was probably being greeted by people holding up score cards.

“Talk to me, mate. What we can do, like. What you need. Shit, you do know if the team heard, they’d do their best—we’d do our best to buy you a sodding chair!”

“I don’t like to impose, Di”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! What are we if not a bloody team?”

“Yeah, but---ˮ

“No but, butt! We sort this as a team. What exactly do you think Lainey would say?”

He grinned, which was better.

“Probably something about ‘boys and girls’, I think”

“Absolutely! What are we if not mates?”

I thought it through for a second. “Alun, just the one thing, and that’s an obvious one: who else knows so far? I mean, after a while, especially if she needs the wheels now, it’s going to be something even the thickest PCSO won’t be able to miss”

“Ah, just her Dad but, well, he’s not with us that often these days”

“Eh?”

“Early onset Alzheimer’s. Not the best family health record, is it, what with her Mam gone early? Wish I’d known before we got wed, I’d have called it off”

“No you bloody wouldn’t!”

He grinned again, which was even better.

“Alun, mate, had a thought. I was talking to Annie again last week, about Stuff, and we got onto how it was for her at work”

He squinted a little. “You not find that a bit awkward?”

I actually stopped to think at that comment. He was spot on, of course, but not actually right. Talking with her would always bring a little flood-tide of memories, but with my husband beside me and, more importantly, her own husband with Annie, it got easier. That phone call; that unexpected collision in Elaine’s front room—they had thrown me completely off my stride, but one thing the Job had taught me was balance. Not as in fairness, as I hoped I held to that naturally, but in footing, in stance. Our whacking and walloping courses stressed the importance of stance, foot position, centre of mass and so on, but the actual process of policing forced each of us to find a mental equivalent. Hand me a surprise, and I’ll deal with it, saving the ‘WTF?’ for a later, safer moment.

“Alun, what do you think? Really? Awkward as all hell, innit, at first? But she grows on you. You see her often enough and she’s just THERE, just so right in her skin. Don’t know how none of us ever spotted it while she was still over here. Anyway, not about her. Well, it is, in a way. She had to come out at work, just like you’re going to have to about Lynne, and the way she told it to me was all about control. About choosing what information came out, how it came out and when. You stop the rumours before they start, and you give out the facts you want to on your terms. That’s what she says she did”

“That work for her?”

“Well, up until the tabloids got her coming out of a trial in a skirt, but yeah. We need to decide how we’re going to do this”

“And who is ‘we’, Di?”

“Me, you and Lynne, for starters, mate. And I would really suggest you talk to Cerys, get her on side”

He was looking uncertain, so I squeezed his arm. “Mates, Alun. Team. Never alone, yeah? Now, let’s get out of this shithole and clear the paperwork”

It was a long drive down the A470, mostly in silence, but he started to open up a bit as we got closer to the M4. It was noise, mostly, filler about Chris and his wedding, stupid stag night suggestions and so on, punctuated by the whap-whap of the wiper blades clearing the windscreen and the steady whisper of the hot-air blowers fighting the damp and the chill. There seemed to be nothing outside the car in the gloom, nothing but a little piece of road illuminated in front of us, until we hit the streetlights again and the traffic started to build up.

Into the yard, the gate shutting behind us, and up to the team room after a stop at the greasy to pick up a cuppa and a ‘sod it I’ll have a’ sausage sandwich. We did the logs, we wrote up the file, and I made the calls to Dover Customs via the appropriate data-protection gateways, Your Honour, and no surprises were had there, apart from in the reaction of the lad at the other end of the phone.

“Bloody South Wales? What the hell are they doing out there?”

“What’s the problem?”

“State of the vehicles, usually, Miss”

“Di”

“Ta. I’m Ross. No, they have a really shit-state set of vans, that lot. Was the suspension jiggered at the back?”

“Yeah, couple of scaffolding poles through the springs”

“That’s normal for them, that or some wooden blocks. If you’d been able to check the tyres, they’d probably be massively over-pressure. Lets them overload the vans, three or four times max, without them looking obviously illegal, so they can max the profits from each run. You ought to see them when they pull away—almost pop a wheelie”

“Now I know this is going to sound naïve, but, well, MOT and insurance? They’d never get through a roadworthiness test, and without the MOT---”

He interrupted me. “They’d not have insurance, yeah? Next question?”

“Ah. Licences?”

He laughed. “If you’re lucky. Mate of mine, he used to work at the Tunnel, told me he had one lot of Volvo estates, six of them, years ago, and every single one had the same tax disc, just photocopied with a different registration number written in. He had another, a cut and shut, where the front and back halves still had their old number plates on. Different numbers front and back! That one, the only working brake was the handbrake”

“How the hell do they get away with driving those on our roads?”

“How many traffic officers has your force lost?”

“Ah. Yeah. So, what we got?”

“Um… Right. I’ve just sent you a screenshot of the vehicle’s travel, and I’m printing off the list of named drivers. The OCG is based in---”

“Organised Crime Gang?”

“Yup. Based in a lovely sink estate in Ashford in Kent. Two main families, plus hangers-on. Names you will be looking at are Crellin, Finch, Warren and Gurbuz”

“Sorry?”

He spelled out the last name. “One of Billy Crellin’s girls took up with the son of the local kebab-shop emperor. Not going to say ‘nasty piece of work, because they all are, and Cheyenne is just as unpleasant as her other half. Now, back to my original question: what are they doing in South Wales, or can’t you tell me?”

"Well, you are right there, but no big secret in that I believe they are supplying booze to an illegal establishment. Sorry, but no specifics”

“Want them targeted?”

“No, not yet. I’ll let you know what we get when I can, OK?”

“That will have to do, then. Oh, don’t bother putting the reg numbers through PNC—they only bought the van yesterday”

“What? How do you know it’s theirs, then?”

“No. Every time they’re asked, they’ve only EVER just bought the van. They don’t register them”

I said the polite things, and gave him the details he needed for the post, and finished the call. How the hell had we got into a situation where such criminality, such arrogant law-breaking, went unchecked? I had a vision of one of those vans crashing on the M4 at speed, tyres ready to explode, no working brakes, three times the safe load, no insurance, no licence…

Too close to what I knew Annie had been through. Job head back on, girl. Get the case notes done and get off home.

The house was in darkness, but I used the light on my phone to see me up the stairs after shutting the front door as quietly as I could manage. My little treasure was safely asleep, and I just stood watching him there, before closing the door halfway. I undressed as quietly as I could and slipped into my own bed, our bed, with my husband, who grunted and twisted just enough to pull me into a warming cuddle.

Sleep was some time away, because I couldn’t stop thinking of Alun.

Alun; and Ashley Evans.

CHAPTER 3
Blake was on early turn the next day, and after all the messing about in Merthyr I had the delight of a day off. I needed it, to be honest, but I didn’t exactly get a lie-in as my dear husband was never exactly light on his feet, nor subtly agile when climbing out of our nice, warm, snuggly bed. Just another hour… please…

“Mam!”

Deep joy. “Yes, Rhod?”

“Mam! No paper!”

“Hang on, love!”

I wrapped myself in my dressing gown, just knowing my hair was everywhere and trotted downstairs to where I just knew the last grocery delivery would be sitting unsorted in the kitchen. Yup. I grabbed a pack of toilet rolls and made my way back upstairs to the bathroom door.

“Open up, love!”

The door cracked just a bit and I passed a roll through, after starting the paper off. At five, our son was just starting to feel the need for a little privacy and body-modesty, so I didn’t push him, but I did feel a little wrench every now and again as my baby seemed to step a little further away from me each day.

“Wash your hands! And do your teeth, and that doesn’t mean running the brush under the tap!”

I went into his room to lay out his uniform, and he was back there in a suspiciously short time. Never mind, for today. I’d get those teeth after breakfast, sneaky mam that I was steadily learning to be.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

“Can I have porridge, Mam?”

The delivery should include milk. “I think so, young man. Downstairs, get changed after”

Microwave, fluffy oats and milk would probably give a traditional Scot apoplexy, but sue me. It was quick and warm, and the weather was shitty, so all I needed was to see he got something solid and warm inside him.

“Mam!”

“Yes, love?”

“What we doing at Christmas? Are we having a party? Is Aunty Lainey and Aunty Siân coming? And Uncle Chris? And Aunty Annie? And---ˮ

“One question at a time, love! Now, what is school doing? Are they having a party?”

“Yes, Mam!”

“When are they having it? Will you need mince pies and things to take?”

“Yes please, Mam”

“And when is it?”

“Friday”

“Next week?”

“No, Mam. It’s tomorrow”

Bite your tongue, Diane, before you say something little ears shouldn’t encounter. If I walked him in and then popped back for the car I’d miss the first school rush, and it wasn’t THAT late in the month, so there should still be supplies available. Bang went my idea of a lazy day’s reading and a long soak in a scented bath and… No. No resentment, not for the wide-eyed wonder shovelling down his porridge.

This time, I cleaned my teeth alongside him to avoid cheating, and left him to get dressed before the ritual of tying his shoelaces and brushing both our hair. School bag packed, out the door and into the flow of other parents escorting their own little treasures down the road to Ysgol Bryn Du, not that far a walk, really, but after the previous night I had opted for trousers, and I was glad of them. Rhod’s face was glowing by the time we arrived, and I could feel the flush in my own cheeks. See him in the gate to the duty teacher, back to the house, a slightly more relaxed cup of coffee and then out on the supermarket run that wouldn’t have been necessary if the little so and so had mentioned his sodding class party before we ordered the delivery I still had to put away.

I made up for it by accidentally having a piece of chocolate cake in the store’s café. Back home, sort the groceries and begin the e-mail job. I had a little list, of course, in addition to Rhodri’s set of names, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Annie who replied first, almost immediately, with a suggestion we switch to Skype. I sorted a fresh coffee before making the call.

Every time I saw her she seemed more relaxed, and as her impish grin filled my computer’s screen I asked myself the same question I always did: how the hell had any of us, all of us in fact, missed what she was?

“Day off, Di?”

“Aye; a long one last night. Just done the school run, and then had to do a supermarket dash, as a certain little sod didn’t tell me that tomorrow is his class party”

“Ah. Mince pies and sausage rolls?”

“Indeed, and some of those choccy bite things. So, you up for it this year?”

“Christmas? I would love to, but we sort of get booked up sharpish over here. Got a regular gig at the church”

“Didn’t think you were getting religion, love”

“Nah. It’s a music thing, for charity, aye? One night of sensible, then the vicar gets a load of ale in and we get silly”

“The vicar. Gets ale in. The vicar. And you all pass out in the pews?”

“No, it’s camping. It’s the vicar that married us, aye? Simon? My cousin’s husband? You know Merry; you saw her when you were sneaking around that tea shop, way back when”

“Yeah, but camping?”

“Church hall is open for brews and bogs and stuff, and some folk do sleep in there, but trust me, a decent tent, warm things to snuggle into and a portable heater”

She waited just long enough for me to raise cup to lips before saying “Called Eric”

Sod. “You are a wanton wench, Sergeant Johnson”

She laughed, and once again it was open and happy, and I sent a little prayer of thanks up for her husband.

“No, Di! Just a happily married woman. Seriously, though---would you like to come over for it? There’ll be a big crowd from down West, loads of kids, and as half of my family are teetotal there’s always someone safe for the kids’ sake. Eric and me, we’ve got a spare tent that’s big enough for you. Darren does his own thing, so we don’t need the space, and then there’s the Edifice”

“You said that with a capital E, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes indeed. Biggest tent I’ve ever seen that didn’t have a concert going on inside, aye? Friend’s in-laws. They should have room. Go on. You know you want to!”

“I’ll have to ask Blake, and then there’s Rhod, and he wants to see his aunties”

“Elaine and Siân? Already coming”

I felt almost as if the jaws of a rather attractive trap were closing on me. It would be good, and if the Powells were there, with Little Tone and Sassy, Rhod would feel right at home.

“Let me talk with Him Indoors and I’ll let you know, love. Now, any decent gossip? Salacious, I mean?”

I can think of much worse ways to spend a morning. The rest of the day went in general pottering, getting some of the laundry out of the way and packaging Rhodri’s provender for the next day’s celebration. All so normal, just like Annie, and just as surprising to me.

My school days had been as conventional as Rhod’s, and often just as cold as the previous night in Merthyr, as our uniform was most definitely conventional. Lightweight dresses in summer, heavier grey pinafores for winter, and frozen knees whenever the wind got up. Once we were over fourteen, we could opt for a skirt and blouse, and that was hilarious, in hindsight. All the other girls, just like me, had complained about how cold it got in the dresses, why can’t girls wear trousers too, eh Miss, and yet as soon as they were allowed to switch from dress to skirt said skirt ended up rolled round the waistband so as to be as short as it could be without showing one’s knickers to the boys.

Well, in most cases, that is. Some of my girlfriends delighted in teasing, and a flash of their knickers was all part of the game. We didn’t take it any further, well, all except Sherry Curtis, who had to leave school when she was fifteen to have her kid, but it was all as conventional as a kid’s Christmas party.

Reminder to self: take change of clothes for him when picking him up tomorrow.

No, it had been as conventional as could be. I had gone through the usual crushes, especially on Sherry’s brother, but then I suspected that had been true for every straight girl in school, as well as some of the younger teachers. I had been the good girl, though, too scared of Dad to stay out late, hanging round the shops and bus shelters with the boys who had been so cool to me as a teenager but now simply struck me as wasters and losers. I had, in the end, been too much of a mouse to risk anything, to take a chance at looking like an idiot in lipstick and microskirt. Head down, books clutched to chest, and pray that John Curtis wouldn’t catch me looking at his bum.

It had been raining that night, and I was on my way back from Saffron’s place, French books in my bag. GCSE exams were coming, and we both liked to practise the spoken part together, even though it usually ended up with us giggling and falling about her bedroom doing atrocious Inspector Clouseau imitations. I said goodnight to Saffron and her parents, pulled my coat tighter and set off on the mile and a half walk home.

A couple of street lights were out on one of the turnings, and I was indeed head down into the wind as I walked when the car pulled up.

“Excuse me, Miss! Bit lost round by here; could you give me some directions? Want to get off to the Tesco?”

I stepped over to the car, and the passenger window went down. As I leant in, just a little closer, a hand wrapped itself in my hair and jerked me half-way through the window. I could smell his breath, beer and curry and god knew what.

“I’ve got a knife here, you little whore. Open the door and get in or I will fucking slice your face off”

CHAPTER 4
He was a big man, and I thought I recognised him from somewhere, but my mind wasn’t working as he slid sideways in the car, pushing the door open and then reaching round it to take another handful of my hair.

I found myself almost spinning on the spot as he dragged me backwards through the now open car door. Something poked the back of my neck, and he was breathing hard, but his voice was under full control.

“Get your legs in and shut the fucking door. Do it now or I cut you”

My bladder wanted to let go, but my thoughts were so screwed up I could only worry about the shame of pissing myself, and of damaging the upholstery. I was in a car with a man threatening to cut my face off, and I was obsessively panicking about wetting the seat.

“Put the seat belt on, whore. Do it now.”

I did as he demanded, and then followed the next instruction, which was to slide my hands under the lap strap. He pulled the whole thing tighter, then pulled away from the kerb before stamping on the brake, which locked the belt’s inertia reel.

I knew that voice, but my mind didn’t want to play as he continued his little speech.

“A little drive, bitch, and then we’ll see how clean you are, you filthy whore”

He was making no real sense, but I had felt the knife, and I was seeing my blood already, feeling the slice, the stab. He drove on, steadily, not too fast, not too slow, careful at junctions, until we were away from the street lights, where his driving became just a little quicker. I realised he was also beginning to breathe more quickly and deeply, as all sorts of nightmares ran through my mind. In essence, they all came down to two questions: was it going to hurt, and would I see the next sunrise?

That first shifted steadily to a sharper thought: how much was it going to hurt?

He had something attached to the glove box that he was fiddling with, and as he got it adjusted to his satisfaction I realised it was a map-reading lamp on a flexible stalk. He tilted it up, and I was effectively blinded, my thriller-fed plan to check for signposts blown away in a haze of yellowish light. In the end, it simply added to the tears already falling from my treacherous eyes.

We drove for what seemed like an hour but was probably a lot less, and then we pulled up in a darkened sweep of tarmac, a car park somewhere, deserted. He killed the engine, and as it ticked away, cooling, I could hear just a hint of a rhythmic shushing. Waves on a beach.

“Don’t fucking move or you’ll feel it, bitch”

He was out of his door and round to mine almost before I could move, and as mine opened he took another handful of my hair, pulling my head straight into his crotch as he reached over me to unclip my seatbelt. I could feel something in his trousers, hard, pressing against my cheek through the cloth. I’d never seen one, much less felt one, but I knew damned well what it was.

He jerked me out onto my knees, the rough surface hurting like hell, and then all but dragged me over to a low wall, the rhythmic sound of shingle, pebbles maybe, in waves filling my ears now, a faint glow of white on breakers, and his first punch was to the side of my head. I stumbled, stars eclipsing the wave line, and stumbled into a low wall. My leggings went in a wrench of his hand, a seam cutting into me as it tore, and then my knickers, and as something hard pressed at me, something else, harder, went against the base of my skull. I froze, but he didn’t.

I was tense enough to snap, rigid in fear, but that didn’t stop the thing that tore into my insides, and it did bloody tear, but my screams didn’t get very far past the gloved hand over my mouth. He settled himself, and then hammered into me again, the wall’s coping stones sharp and cold against my naked belly, and it hurt even more as he started to move faster. Panting, grunting, he kept up a running commentary about dirty whores who liked it rough, and real men, how I was never going to have it better, how I was loving it.

At last he reached under my waist, pulling me back onto him, and there were a few last, short thrusts before he whimpered slightly and twitched, something warm filling me as he murmured “Fuck, aye!” and I knew that voice, I’d seen it somewhere, on local telly, and he was---

He jerked hic cock out of what was left of my privates, now public, and once more punched me in the side of the head. This time it was much, much harder, and I collapsed to the ground, sobbing. I felt rather than saw his feet move to either side of my head, and then he grunted once more as a long stream of his piss poured over me.

“Aaaaaah! Best way to get all the spoodge out!”

I heard his zip, then his steps as he walked away. A car door slammed and an engine started, wheels hissed, and that was it. I lay in the wreckage of my clothing, the smell and feel of his piss on me, filling my nostrils with its stench, as I sobbed my teenaged heart out.

I don’t know how long I lay there, but it was cold and wet both from the rain and the other, till a sweep of lights fell on me. Another car. The lights went out as it stopped, and three seconds later they went on again, directly on me. I heard voices, a young woman’s at first.

“There, love! There! That’s not rubbish!”

A man’s voice. “Fucking hell, Kerry! It’s a kid!”

Steps; I tried to curl up, cover my shame, but it hurt to move, and I didn’t want them to see me like that, naked in my shame and his piss, but they were gentle, and they had a rug, and thankfully it was the man who ran off and not the woman, who stayed and held me after covering me with a rug of some sort.

“What happened, love? Who did this to you?”

I could only sob in reply, but she was patient, and gentle.

“Hal’s gone off to the craft place, love. Lights on there, innit? Look, I’m Kerry. Can you tell me your name? Where you’re from?”

I managed to stammer out some sort of answer, and she muttered something about men, as I heard running footsteps again, and I knew it was him, coming back, and the name came to me, Evans, the councillor, and he was going to finish the job, show me the knife, but it wasn’t, it was the man, Hal, and he was breathless, but he said something about an ambulance before pushing what turned out to be his rolled-up jacket under my head. Kerry’s voice was soft, but with a real edge to it.

“She’s only sixteen, love. Been raped. We better make sure the ambulance boys call the coppers out”

Things blurred, but there were blue lights, and gentle hands with an odd muttered “Shit” and “Bloody hell” as I was lifted gently onto a stretcher of some kind, and then I felt the world moving, but it was spinning round me as well as rolling under the vehicle, the ambulance. I drifted off more than a few times, but I was awake in a distorted way at last, in a bed with nurses fussing round me.

“Hello, what’s your name, love?”

I found it somewhere. “Diane. Diane Owens”

“How old are you, love?”

“I’m sixteen, miss”

“Call me Janice, love. Now, what happened?”

I started to say something about a man, knife, punches, but I left the world again. There were some flashes, and she was doing something to my privates, and the name was there, Ashley Evans, councillor, and I must have muttered something, his name perhaps, and she drew her breath in sharply.

An hour or more later, I was shaken awake, rather roughly, and I opened my eyes to see two big men in suits, ties, damp raincoats still on.

“Diane Owens?”

“Yes”

He read out my address, and gave my date of birth as I simply nodded, his mate’s mouth twisting, either in contempt or disgust, I couldn’t tell, but it was something I could understand. I was filthy now. What else would a normal and decent man think?

The first policeman, for that was what they clearly were, sat on the edge of my bed and leant over me, the smell of alcohol and cigarettes on his breath.

“Here is how it is going to go, you filthy little whore. You are not going to come in here spreading shitty lies about Councillor Evans. You are going to get cleaned up, and you are going to wrap up your filthy whore’s cunt and take it home, and if we ever hear another lie from you or see you anywhere on the street we are going to pick you up for soliciting, and don’t forget, bitch, we know where you live. Got that?”

I nodded, and he stood, turning to his colleague. Who looked as if he wanted to spit on me.

“Pint, butt? Got a bad taste here, need to wash it out”

He turned back at the door.

“Oh, and that applies to your whole fucking family, whore”

They left me with my shame and tears, and when Mam and Dad came in I said nothing, for their sakes.

CHAPTER 5
Mam and Dad were by my bedside when I woke again. I had clearly lost it once more, and as I tried to sit up straighter the room danced around me, the walls moving up and down and my stomach matching them. Mam noticed and passed me the bowl that had been left on the bedside locker.

“What happened, love?”

I thought of the two coppers, shuddered, and shook my head. Not now, Mam. Dad wouldn’t let it lie, though.

“What did he do, love? Did he…”

Mam put a hand to his arm as the room continued to spin. Concussion, I learned years later. That bastard had really dealt me a good one before he left. I had a sudden urge to start scrubbing, get the stain off his piss off me, but there was no way I could tell Mam that. I saw Janice looking in from the doorway, and gave her just a little shake of my head. She was gone before Dad could turn his head. I looked over to him, and there was no way to stop myself from howling with grief and loss, and thank Christ all he did was reach for me and hold me as I sobbed. They were both silent till I had finished, his arms strong and close about me, and then Mam simply said, “Let’s get you home, love”

They were astonishingly good about it, in hindsight. I now wonder whether the two arseholes that had visited me might already have visited them, and dispensed further words of advice in order to ensure that lesser mortals could be sure they knew their place in the world. I learned a lot about that world in a remarkably short time, it must be said. The salient point was how powerless I was. Woman, pleb, not one of the Right Families, oh yes, I learned.

I picked up more lessons at school, as the story arrived there before I was back, and I had to fight my way past all the arsehole lads who just KNEW there was no such thing as rape; all it meant was that I was up for it, and they, or their dicks, were UP for me, and shouldn’t I be fucking grateful for their attention? After all, I was damaged goods now, wasn’t I? How generous they were being to me by offering me a chance not normally available to the shop-soiled.

Oh yes, I learned.

Four years of my parents avoiding the subject, until I could manage to get most of the way through a language degree in Cardiff. A girl called Bridget was my trigger there, my return to some sort of focus. She had picked up on the way I avoided the boys, the men, the cocks, and had assumed I walked a different path, as she did, but after a couple of evening sessions in the bar, and one disastrous night at an Italian restaurant, where her hand met my knee and my fist only avoided her nose because she managed to seize my wrist, she told me my fortune.

I had swung hard, but she had steered my hand past her face.

“No, Di! Stop! Friends, innit? What the fuck… oh”

She lowered my hand to the table, raised an eyebrow in query, and I shuddered before pulling both my hands into my lap.

“Di, mate, when? I know that look? I… Look, I shouldn’t say this, yeah? I’m not exactly unbiased, am I?”

“What are you saying, Bridge?”

She sighed. “I just thought, you know, but you’re not, are you? Not on my wavelength”

“In English?”

“Oh. For fuck’s sake! I fancy you, you stupid cow, isn’t that obvious? And I thought, and you aren’t, so sorry, OK? Just, you avoid the lads, yeah? I just did some thinking”

“What about?”

“How bad was it?”

I could feel myself start to shudder, and the decision I had made crumbled with the walls around my soul. She grabbed both handbags before steering me swiftly to the ladies’. So often my most important moments ended up arriving with a smell of bleach among sanitary bins, tampon dispensers and posters about GUM clinics and chlamydia. In a way, it summed up my life.

She was good to me, just then, letting me purge my hatred, both of myself and those bastards, and asking nothing more than the most necessary of hinting questions. My eyes opened then, just as they closed with tears and sobs, realising for the first time how utterly shattered they had left my self-esteem, my sense of worth, of personal value. My parents clearly knew what had happened, but never mentioned it. The boys at school—and most of the girls—had never stopped mentioning it in any way possible, from sneering looks to toilet and changing room graffiti, but until I found myself in Bridget’s arms, her shoulder wet with my tears, I hadn’t fully understood how badly that bastard had wrecked my soul.

I wound down at last, and all my friend said was that it explained a lot, and that it was time we sorted the restaurant bill, went back to the Union bar and tried to put a dent in their dry white stocks. She made no other suggestions, no judgements beyond a snide comment about being right in not fancying men, and gave no advice beyond urging me as gently as she could manage to talk to her if ever…

She left that one unfinished, but I took her meaning. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see you before you can see yourself, and that was one of those times. I found some vision of sand in my mind, mentally drew a line in it and resolved ‘no more’. Fuck them all, and the horses they rode in on, and—and I couldn’t help but start giggling at that one, and tears turned to snorts of laughter as I explained, and the laughter turned into a very attention-grabbing hangover the next day.

It was a new start, though, a new Diane Owens. I began looking for ways to fight back.

Things moved on, as things do, and with them my life. Dad’s job was the first thing, as his company ‘rationalised’ and closed its base near Barry after opening a new complex in the exciting, cosmopolitan and exotic concrete wasteland of Milton Keynes. There were the usual family discussions, but the thought of living in such a soulless place, never mind in bloody England, left me to complete my degree without the odd home comforts I suddenly realised I would miss,as my parents rented the old place out for six years and I found a dreary little flat. My plan was steadily evolving, though, especially after I read an archived edition of the Western Mail part way through my second year at University. My course had a module on journalistic language, covering story timeline conventions, selective coverage and so on, and the Uni library held an extensive collection of microfiche copies of several national papers and one local.

Something stank there, festering behind the usual sneering headlines, and I wondered exactly how closely a poor transsexual’s experiences had matched my own. I became absolutely certain when my digging found the follow-up story in the Guardian’s files, as Dyfed-Powys police settled out of court with no admissions, no prejudice and no declared defence. I was puzzled, though: if the bastards involved were my two, what had they been doing out of their area when they had told me my fortune in the hospital? There was more to this than one little schoolgirl and a big man with an overfull bladder and a BMW.

That crystallised my plan, and only a year after my degree was signed, sealed and presented to me in front of a horde of happy relatives that included my own two proud parents, I arrived at Cwmbran for the start of my new career.

The year between had seen a cleansing of my soul, as Bridget and I made our way across Australia by bus and hired van, sleeping (sometimes) under the stars, but more often in backpacker hostels and other cheap digs. We swam, we drank, we ate endless numbers of meat pies and pizzas, and we told a steadily-increasing number of hopeful young men of all nationalities to fuck off, sonny, not interested. Being with my friend was really honing my skills as a bitch, and our ‘working holiday’ brought back so much of my self-confidence I was beginning to see traces of the sixteen-year-old who had giggled at her friend’s Pink Panther accent.

Thank you, Bridget. Thank you for giving me back my life.

I lost her, in a nice way, not long after we came back to Wales, as our last couple of weeks in Australia had been spent in Sydney, and Sydney has Places for That Sort of Person, and despite my utter lack of any Sapphic inclinations, my aversion to men had rendered places for straight people rather irritating. In a gay bar, I was usually safe from male approaches, and the women seemed to assume the two of us were an item, so I could get on with our night out free from distractions. My uninterest, of course, wasn’t matched by hers, and two months after we had returned I was back out there, standing in the edge of the water at Bondi as she tied the bonds of sort-of-matrimony with a very girly King’s Cross barmaid called Tammy. That led to yet another memorable hangover, and when I say ‘memorable’ it is not meant to imply that everything that came immediately before it was actually remembered in its entirety. Oh, my poor liver.

So there I was, early one October day, outside a training and educational establishment in southeast Wales, signed, sealed and about to be delivered to South Wales Police.

Let’s see how your memories are for faces, you bastards.

CHAPTER 6
It wasn’t easy. A simple thing to say, but emphatically true. I wasn’t just trying to read, inwardly digest and retain such things as a shedload of criminal law, statute, call it what you will, as well as the serried hierarchy of what felt like a cross between some sort of monastic order, but deal with all sorts of fitness testing and ‘safety’ training.

That last went through so many different names, but in the end it came down to how I could stop, secure and transport someone without ending up in deep shit as a result. That sounds like some sort of mixed martial arts course, and in a way it was, with added batons and incapacitating sprays, but a sizeable chunk of it came down to communication.

Be aware of where your mates are, as well as the nice member of the public you are actually dealing with, and KNOW what all of them are doing. Don’t get into a corner, blade your body, use language everyone can understand. Use your voice as a tool rather than a weapon. And LISTEN.

In so many ways, it matched a lot of what I had picked up in Uni concerning the functions of language, and not just the voice. Stance, facial expression, all the non-verbal aspects that turn noise into communication. One of my instructors summed it up.

“Nine times out of ten, if his jaw’s flapping he isn’t actually hitting you, and trust me, as I speak from painful experience. Names really don’t hurt you, but a smack in the mouth or being sliced really does. Just remember this: when one of you is speaking calmly, and the other is screaming about what your Mam did last night, and who or what with, which one of you sounds like a tit? Not just to you, but to Joe Passer-by, all those who see us as automatically in the wrong.

“Just one thing: draw your lines. Never let them build up a head of stream, never let them think they have the control. If necessary, Section 5 is your friend. It’s nickable, so if you need to— IF YOU NEED TO--- use it to take control. A lot of the time they use the shouting to psych up before they get physical. Your arse is your own responsibility, but stull watch your mate’s. Don’t let them drive!”

And on, and on, and on. There was always the other problem, of course, just like at Uni, where there was more bed-hopping than the worst porn film could ever imagine, and I got all the same shit. Frigid, dyke, miserable, lezza, and then that changed when the ones on Bridget’s bus got the same message I handed out to every lad that tried: no ta, not interested, got to mug up on Driving Not In Accordance with a Licence.

It was hard work, and all the time I was lonely, but each time someone came at me, that was how it felt. No matter how they approached the question, it always seemed to me as if I was under attack again, and I did my best to steer round any invitations or social events, as well as all alcohol. No slip-ups, Di. Not again.

Mam and Dad were there for my passing-out parade, along with Bridget and Tammy, on their first return to Wales since their wedding, which is what they still called it despite the law. I finally relaxed that night, as my parents had taken three rooms at a local hotel, generous as ever towards my dearest friend, and we had a celebratory meal along with my first excess of alcohol since I had first walked through the door at Cwmbran. I had a slight hangover the next day, but simply lay for a while luxuriating in a wide and comfortable double bed. My parents’ other present was handed to me over breakfast, a holiday in Cuba.

“You are taking… er. You can’t be serious, Dad? You can’t spend this much!”

He smiled, taking my hand over the table, casting a quick look at Mam before speaking.

“A few things to say, love. You have made us both very proud, and we know you will make us even more so. What happened… Bridget, thank you. I think I see what you did for our girl, and that is something we will never forget. Our house, your house? You are welcome, you and Tammy, any time you want. And this isn’t a solo trip for Di, so don’t worry, as I suspect you do. We’re going along as well. Family holiday, innit? First one in years, and we know she has a passport!”

Mam fumbled in her bag before bringing out a square wrapped box.

“Oh, and an early birthday present”

It turned out to be a simple underwater camera, and Dad grinned.

“Got some coral bits offshore, love. Get some shots to send these girls, show you’re happy”

Tammy looked at Bridget and grinned.

“Cairns, then? Next time any of these are down our way?”

She then looked straight at Mam.

“I mean, thanks and all, but Milton Keynes? Anyway, family and that goes both ways, so when you come down under, there’s room at ours. Always and forever, mates”

Things got a little weepy then, but in the best way. Healing can hurt so much more than the injury itself.

We ended up flying from Gatwick, in the end, with Tommy Cook, if I remember it rightly, to the east end of the island, passing over what I later worked out was Bermuda on the way. The airport was Holguin, and it was a scruffy place, as was our resort, but it was comfortable and clean despite the wear evident on the walls. There were birds everywhere, including lots of what I was told were turkey vultures wheeling through the sky. The sand was pristine, full of burrowing land crabs, the water was warm and reasonably clear, there were indeed coral heads a little way off, clouded with colourful fish, and my new camera filled memory cards by the half-dozen. Mam spent most of the ten days we were there in a sun-lounger with a glass beside her, and this part of my healing became less painful with each smiling waiter or towel sculpture left on my bed by the cleaner. I realised then, if I hadn’t done before, how much my parents loved me as well as each other, and for an instant I felt worse, for I would never have an opportunity to be like them thanks to one bastard in a BMW.

Holidays end, though, and I left them at Gatwick station as they took the train up to London while I headed off for Southampton and the slow train to Cardiff. My new job was waiting.

It wasn’t a full-tilt charge into active policing, of course, for I had a probation to work through. It’s a bit of a faff, but it involved initial observation, in essence, accompanying established coppers and lending a hand as needed, mostly in the admin side of things, followed, what felt like aeons later, by real probationary stuff, assigned to a local station, still working with a mentor but in a radically different way.

My early baby steps had been made following someone around, and now they were following me. I was given a slot in James Street, with all the delights of city-centre policing. Drunks, more drunks, drunk drivers, punchy drunks, sleepy drunks, jovial drunks--- everyone seemed to be drunk, including the three who, on separate occasions, puked on bits of my uniform. Two years of drunks, two years of a single bed in a single room with, all too often, left-over takeaway food for breakfast, with that particular meal not necessarily being taken in the morning. I will be honest in saying that I enjoyed it, but I could really have done with a but less alcohol in my life, especially when it had been consumed by other people.

My boss at the time was a a wiry Asian with a flamboyantly broken nose called Sammy Patel, and the day he signed me off my probation he had me into his office.

“Oh for god’s sake, sit down, woman. Just us in here. Cuppa?”

“Please, sir”

“Sammy in here, Di. Sugar? Milk?”

“White without, er, Sammy”

“There you go. Ah… needed that. Now, how do you feel it’s gone?”

I wondered what traps he was laying, so kept it simple.

“Quite well, I think. Nobody’s raised any complaints with me, and the lads and lasses have all been very welcoming”

“You’re no longer new here, Di. Got your feet under the table proper now, tidy-like. I hear good things”

“Thank you”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you go fast stream?”

Because that might take me away from two bastards whose balls I wanted for my very own.

“Just feel better as a proper copper, Sammy. More real, more involvement with the community”

He stared at me for a little while, then just shook his head.

“Whatever. Anyway, how would you like to lose the uniform?”

“You what?”

“Dai and Bernie have both been very complimentary about you, girl. Dai Gould in particular says you go beyond, SEE beyond, the obvious. I don’t need to know why you chose the plod route rather than high flying, but I always look for officers with working brains, the ones who don’t take things at face value. What do you think?”

Plain clothes? Shit.

“Are you offering me CID, Sammy?”

“Not exactly, Di. Just some time there, do a bit more mentoring, see if you fit. I really think you’ve got the skills for it, and both your mentors feel you have the attitude”

He took a sip of his tea, looking over his cup at me.

“You don’t let things go, for a start, do you? They’re both gone now, girl”

“What the--- beg pardon?”

“Dai Pritchard and Bob Evans. Both gone. Your encounter with them wasn’t the first of their little games”

“How the--- I mean how did you know about them?”

“I have my sources, girl. And Bernie saw you searching the official address book. Look. They stuffed up once too many times, and their cards got marked. Someone else had a bit of an issue with them”

I was starting to understand now.

“Would this someone have a sister? Got a slapping, and then a hospital visit from those two?”

He raised both eyebrows, saying nothing but staring over his cup.

“Sammy, what the fuck were those two doing out of area?”

More silence, then a slow smile.

“As I said, you don’t let things go, and you see past the obvious. Civvies on Monday, then, and I’d avoid skirts for now”

So civvies it was, and a trouser suit from New Look, but I stuck with my issue boots. What was I going to do NOW?

CHAPTER 7
“Who the hell are you?”

What a lovely welcome.

“Diane Owens. I’m on secondment here”

“Ah! The fresh meat! Kettle’s over there; white, two sugars for me”

I looked at him, all hair gel and crap tie, trying to work out how easily I could get away with telling him to go fuck himself, and tried a different tack.

“Yeah, cold morning. I’ll do you one while I do mine, and it’s white without for me. You are?”

He laughed, and someone else called over a remark about how it looked as if I would fit in ‘right tidy like’.

“I’m Harry Preece. Like the style, girl! Don’t take just any old shit in this place. Oh, and it’s D.I. Preece”

Oh shit. “Sorry, sir!”

“Bugger that game. Welcome to real policing. Now, get my tea and bring it with yours and we’ll have a chat”

No separate glass-walled office, no name plate on a door, just a corner of a busy, noisy shared space with piles of paper everywhere. I joined D.I. Preece at his desk, on a chair he cleared for me.

“Potted history, Diane? Just the juicy and relevant bits”

I talked him through selected parts of my life, leaving out any reference to two other policemen and a relative, and he was already nodding.

“Sergeant Gould had a chat with me and Sammy Patel, and they think you have the right attitude for a challenge. Trust me, this work IS challenging. Not as many times rolling round the floor, but it’s not easy. Now, I’ve got you teamed up with Derek Bradford for this week. Detective Sergeant, he is. Ears open, gob shut for now, unless you have something relevant, and then keep that between you and Des, not in front of the punters. Just remember, that there aren’t many stupid questions, and if you ask one you’ll be told why it’s stupid. You right with that?”

“I think so. What have you got for me?”

“Ah, boring shit for now. Bilking at a couple of petrol stations. We need someone to look at a dozen or so bits of CCTV and catalogue what you were probably told to call ‘evidence’. More than that, I want you to look at the footage specifically for any patterns”

“Er, this been done already, sir?”

“Harry in the office, love. Yes, it has, but I want a fresh look at it, and it’s the sort of boring, mind-numbing shite I use to filter out the wasters and wannabes. Room in the corner, there. Take your tea, and Alun over there in the polo neck will show you how it works. ALUN! FRESH MEAT FOR YOU!”

That began a pattern of work I became very familiar with, filtering CCTV footage. In the end, I asked Alun if they had another screen, so I could compare stuff directly, and he just grinned and wheeled in the other monitor and DVD player, which had been sitting by the kettle with a couple of tea towels over it. I had clearly passed the first test.

I actually got engrossed in it, and my reporter’s pad--- not my pocket-book--- got filled up with all sorts of notes, including drawing, diagrams, all sorts of things that made so much sense at the time. What I did notice, though, was that a cup of tea appeared at my elbow every half hour or so. The shift finished before I was ready for it to do so, and I was astonished to find myself lying in bed that night, after a bath and a microwaved shepherd’s pie, still running CCTV comparisons against my closed eyelids.

Something had caught the back end of my consciousness, and it kept me awake most of the night, so much so I felt like shit when I turned up for work the next day, this time in some looser trousers and a skinny sweater of my own. Almost nobody else was wearing a suit, so time to relax away from the professional bitch kit.

Two hours in, and I had the first part of a pattern.

“Alun!”

“Yup?”

“Why is it always the passenger who works the pump? I mean, they don’t exactly drive off all hot and hasty, do they?”

He laughed. “Part of a MIPSY idea, Di”

“You what?”

“Term we use here. Always someone as knows the law better than we do, always someone that thinks they have the cleverest scam since Baldrick found a turnip that looked a bit like a willy. ‘Man In Pub Said You’ can’t get done if, don’t get points if, won’t blow over 35 if, all sorts of rubbish. Blowing on breathalysers, walking backwards into the room you’re burgling, all sorts of schemes to keep you safe from the law. That one is the ‘I wasn’t the one who drove off without paying’ defence”

“Ah. Thought I’d got something new”

He sat down on the edge of the desk.

“Di, you just have. Not new to us, of course, but new to you, and what’s important is that it is not only very relevant, but you picked it up yourself, no prompting, isn’t it? Now…”

He scrolled the video feed along just a touch, and zoomed the picture in.

“Look at the licence plate. See anything missing?”

“No… Wait. Trade name?”

“Aye, and no EU marker. Home-made, or at least made to order by someone else. Not the real ones, see?”

He was right, of course, and I felt stupid. When he pointed out that what I could see of the driver showed them to be in just about identical kit to the passenger, I felt even more so.

“Alun, how do we sort this one out, then?”

“Ah, girl, that’s the bit you haven’t done. Time and place pattern, that’s what you need here, plus anything that specifically ties either the scrotes or their vehicle to the scene. We get them once, we get them for one offence. Black Ford Focus, aye? No real plates, and at least four sets we know about? How do we pick it out, track it down? What’s distinctive about it”

Bloody learning curve, but it wasn’t that steep, and he did open my eyes, and that is how I caught the time they clipped the advertising board with their nearside front bumper hard enough to leave a little bit of plastic on the ground.

“Alun, can we go out? Want to look at a site”

“What you got, girl?”

“Might have a bit of the car. This video’s only three days old”

“OK. I’m driving, though. Have you noted which pump it was?”

No I bloody hadn’t, but I did, and shortly we were down at some horrible little backstreet filling station, where he said the words to the cashier and Smiled the Smile, and then together we gloved up as per the rules and bagged the jagged piece of black plastic that lay hard against the kerb of the island that carried pump number six.

“Tea and a bacon sarnie, I think, while we complete our notes made contemporaneously in accordance with yadda yadda. You’re not a veggie, are you?”

“Not at all!”

“Thank fuck for that. The missus went through that kick for a while, and it was utter shite at ours for a month till she saw sense. Now, I know a great little greasy spoon…”

It was a great little greasy, and the sandwich was just right, and years later I would realise how, where and when the pattern of my working life had been set.

No, there was no sudden swoop on the miscreants, no show trial with evidence dramatically produced, but a few weeks later, a legitimately-plated black Focus with a damaged bumper was spotted by a beat copper, who sneakily snapped a picture, and the damage matched our piece of debris. Two weeks and an addition to the NPR file later, and said Automatic Reader picked up the Number Plate in question, and when the nice traffic officer opened the boot there were three spare sets of number plates, all of which were on my video files.

Bish, bosh, and a guilty plea from the driver later, the passenger opted for what Alun called MIPSY, the Magistrates laughed, and did him anyway. We made our way back to the nick in Alun’s car, but for some reason he insisted on stopping at the Sainsbury’s just down the road.

“What are we here for, butt?”

“Ah, Di, traditional, innit? Cakes”

“Uh?”

“Your case, solved. You get to buy cakes for the office!”

“Sod that you are!”

“I’ll go halves with you, girl, if you want”

“Hang on, Alun. Did you say it was my case?”

“Yup, and you solved it. Well done. I like choccy cake, me”

Oh. My purse took a bit of a hit, but he was right, and as I loaded up a tray of drinks for the crew, later that evening in the pub, I felt I had found something I would really like to stick at. I still stuck to soft drinks, though.

CHAPTER 8
It didn’t last, of course, and I was back in uniform after only four weeks, but I learned an awful lot in that short time. Years later I was talking to an engineer about some car fiddle or other, and he told me that in his college they had a sign hanging in the workshop.

“I hear--- I forget.
I see--- I remember,
I DO--- I understand”

It was of a kind with the muscle memory they emphasised in our whacking and walloping courses, where we were taught, as Alun would say, ‘How to use reasonable force in accordance with yadda yadda’. The more I did something, the closer it got to second nature, and both Harry and Alun had the same little trick of letting me discover something before gently letting me see how much more I had found. It served me well in later years, but it was something that had been spectacularly lacking in my classes at Cwmbran.

Sammy was right, and this was where I was actually learning the job as opposed to practising for exams.

After four weeks of secondment, I was back in uniform and trying to hang onto the skills Alun had shown me in questioning and hang them onto the tricks Dai had taught me in defusing conflict and avoiding getting hit. Section 5…

Sammy had me in for a combination state-of-my-probation interview and how-did-it-go session a fortnight after I pulled on the stab vest again, and he was smiling throughout.

2Harry likes you, girl. Asked when he could have you back”

“Oh. What did you tell him?”

“Oh, that he could sod off and find some other fresh meat of his own. Not letting you go, am I?”

He must have caught my tells, because he held up a hand, quickly.

“No, no, not like that. Your career is your choice, Diane. We always try to fit round pegs to round holes, but you go where you can, not where we say, innit? I just think you’re enjoying yourself now, and I don’t want you diving into the first thing that catches your attention. Now, Dai’s got you crewed with him for the next three months. Area car, so you’ll get about a bit, but main thing will be supporting Traffic”

“I’ve only had the basics of that one, boss”

“Na, not doing it, are you? Just sometimes they need back-up, or just a hand sorting a crowd, so that’s your role, you and Dai’s. And it’ll give you a chance to see what they do in Traffic without having to sit a course. You might decide you fancy it”

I fancied CID, I already knew that, but I took his point and the front passenger seat in a marked BMW. Oh yes—and a slot on almost permanent night shifts, the bastards. My dear sergeant may have explained, but I didn’t really see it as an apology. I was there to learn, and while ‘shit happens’, it mostly happens at night. I will give him the kudos I owe him, though, for he knew every late-night and early morning establishment going in Cardiff and the area around it. In between pasties, or bacon sarnies, and gallons of tea, we covered pub fights, domestics, gobby drunks, stupid drunks, maudlin drunks, happy drunks who wanted to share their cider as well as more than enough sad bastards off their faces on less legal chemicals.

I got used to the smells of puke and piss, and on one shift picked up my first but my no means last black eye, which I don’t really believe was intentional.

Microwave meals and cocoa before trying to sleep through the daytime; I bought new and heavier curtains for the bedroom.

“Three One, Control”

“Control, Three One, go ahead”

“Dai, where you to?”

“Up by Bessemer Road”

“Can you attend an RTC at the Mail office? Junction Penarth and Sloper?”

“Three minutes, Control. How urgent?”

“Ah, one Traffic Officer on plot, but restless natives”

“Two minutes, then. On way. Listening out”

Bloody hell he was quick about it! In no time at all, with full light sand noise, we were pulling up by a Citroen Saxo with a marked Honda bike on its side behind it. Not on its side stand, but actually lying on the road. Shit.

Our mate was outside the Saxo, someone cuffed to the rear bent over the roof as pressure was exerted as per yadda yadda (sod you, Alun) on the rigid handcuffs that had been applied to the rear. Three other youths were shouting and weaving between the Traffic Officer and his bike, and I had a sudden suspicion, correct as it turned out, as to why his Honda was off its wheels. One of the shits was filming everything on a mobile phone, and as we left our car I could hear another of them expressing his firmly-held opinions as to how the law should be applied.

Dai had been terse in the car.

“Fasten everything up, girl, pockets, zips, the lot. Keep your baton away but be ready, and watch me if I go for my spray and get out of the way sharpish. You ready for this? Follow my lead, aye?”

“Aye. Your shout”

We bailed out of our car as he muttered “Get behind them, by the bike. Split their focus, and watch their hands. Ware sharps”

“Let him fucking go, you short-arsed cunt!”

Ah, the gift of tongues was present and fully operational. Dai muttered a quick call for a van, and we were in the middle of it.

“What we got, Adam?”

“Drink or drug driving, butt, I would say, but driver won’t deliver. NYC cap there floored the bike”

I moved round behind them, not before one noticed, though.

“Fucking bitch! Where you think you’re going?”

I saw the pipe wrench just as his arm went back, and it was indeed “I do---I remember” as I stepped quickly inside his fighting arc and struck his right shoulder with both open palms. Slap, wrap, attack, and I had the arm, spinning in place to haul him off balance and down to the ground, just as Dai pulled his spray and the van roared in.

“STAND STILL OR GET SPRAYED!”

For fuck’s sake, mate, it’s not a taser! Before the remaining two could bolt, they were grabbed by a couple of lads from the van, and Dai was straight across to me, wrist-locking my boy’s other arm and hauling it across till I could cuff him. He looked across to me, and in the faint light I could still see him raise an eyebrow. Oh, right. I took a deep breath.

“You are under arrest for assault and use of an offensive weapon. You do not have to say anything…”

I got him to his feet, and he was first into the little cell at the back of the van after a rub-down. We got another van and a couple of cars for the three other shits, the video phone got secured, Dai gave ‘Adam’ a hand hauling his bike upright, and I got to drive the Saxo back to the Nick. No worries.

Not really true, of course, for the shakes hit me as soon as the four idiots were gone. Dai noticed, of course, as did the Traffic lad, and both came over to me as I leant on the seized car.

“You right there, Diane?”

“Sort of, mate. All a bit quick, that. Didn’t see what he had till he was swinging. Nearly too late”

“Wasn’t too late, though, was it? Told you to watch their hands”

“Yeah, you did. Give me a minute, OK?”

“No problem. Diane, this is Adam Price, with Traffic. Adam? My probationer, Diane Owens”

The helmet was off now, and I could see a nice-looking lad with very dark hair, or so it looked under the street lights. A short man, only about five foot eight or so, but even in the heavy jacket I could see he looked quite fit, and when he smiled there was a most definite twinkle.

Oh, Constable Owens: I thought you were off men for the duration? My mind did a quick split-screen, and I told myself it was stress and the simple fact that he was about as unthreatening as a mug of cocoa, his compactness contrasting so starkly with Evans, Evans and Pritchard. Stop it, one half of me told the other, stop it now.

He pulled his lid back on after a quick “See you in Custody, and I set off for the nick, followed by Dai, in a shitty little car that had a screwdriver where the key should have been, hoping nobody else I knew would see me. Custody was a hoot, one of them (mine, naturally) trying to kick Adam as they went before the desk, but in the end the driver agreed to do the necessary on two machines. No booze in him, but he was more than just positive for cannabis and cocaine. Bish, bash, and thirty-four wraps of cannabis in the car together with ten of coke. More than a nice job.

Eight of us gathered in the canteen for the necessary and traditional cuppa and greasy sandwich, and I got a proper look at Adam, which only served to confirm my libido’s suspicions.

Heavy jacket off, he was very, very fit-looking, his wicking top leaving no doubt at all about that. Dark hair, remarkably pale skin with a pristine complexion and only a few years older than me. Dai kicked my foot gently under the table.

“Diane here’s sparkly new, Adam. Done some stuff with CID already, they liked her, so next time you might not see her dressed like this”

Dressed. Shit. I could feel the blush coming before it arrived, and managed to get away to the counter for some serviettes before they noticed. Or at least I hoped I had.

CHAPTER 9
I saw Adam quite regularly after that meeting. Not in a ‘seeing him’ sense, not over pasta with a cheeky little red or anything like that, just in passing. Once he had been pointed out to me, it seemed, my radar kept track of his whereabouts.

Alun was another whose face kept popping up in my line of sight as Dai and my other beat colleagues kept pushing me through more and more new experiences, some of which I wrapped up in my memory to giggle over later, some of which I am not ashamed to say came back a few times in the small hours to stand at the foot of my bed demanding my undivided attention.

It wasn’t all revelations about the seedy underside of life in Cardiff; after all, I had been given a crash course in exactly how shitty people could be, lying concussed in a hospital ward while two of Wales’ finest taught me about the world and its niceties. What it was, though, involved learning to maintain my balance in all senses, not leap to conclusions, not miss pipe wrenches in sweaty hands. Dai pushed that sense of balance almost to breaking point by taking me into more than a few domestics, including three stabbings, one of which was by a male partner, another involving a lesbian couple, which gave me a flashback to Bridget and Tammy.

No assumptions, PC Owens. Big world; eyes open, mind more so. Sammy kept the pressure up at a level that was almost more than I could take, but I took it, and our regular little assessment and discussion sessions became steadily more and more relaxed, his smile bigger each time below the wreckage of his nose.

Dai had me out with Traffic a few times, but thankfully not on the back of a bike, and I picked up stuff like the ‘Glossary”, the clipped, precise vocabulary used to direct other units through a pursuit. Limited words, strict phrasing, a calm and steady way of speaking, it was never something I could really settle into. I realised Traffic wasn’t meant to be my new home after a few three-up rides at speed through a busy city centre, a number of terrifying white-knuckle sessions along rural roads, and three separate faces where I got to see lips turn blue as life and awareness left the building, never to return.

All the time, my Traffic colleagues were like robots. “Not one not one, not two not two, three, committed A469 northbound, speed six zero, six zero, road conditions dry, traffic light, safe to continue” while I was being thrown against my seat belt, radio bruising my tit while the car bounced and clanged over road humps and speed cushions.

We were out one night, well to the West of our usual haunts, when the call came in.

“Kilo Two Two, Kilo Two Two, Control?”

“Send, Control”

“What’s your location, Bryn?”

“Bethel Chapel, Llangyfelach. Stationary”

That translated as ‘having a cuppa and a steak slice from the all-night garage’.

“Corsa failed to stop, Morriston. Can you assist?”

Barry was already spinning the car out of the side street as Bryn hit the noise and disco while keeping up his end of the conversation, and a few seconds later we caught the other lad’s transmissions.

“Pant Lasau Road, westbound. Speed five zero, five zero. Vehicle is three up, three up”

I knew that voice…

“Not one, not one, two, two committed. Llangyfelach roundabout. Not one, not one. Not two, not two. Not three, not three. Not four, not four. Committed Clasemont Road eastbound. Straight on at roundabout. Clasemont Road. Eastbound”

Our car surged as the calm, calm commentary continued, only a slight catch to Adam’s voice betraying what must have been physically hard work dragging such a heavy bike round bends and other traffic. Bryn called it in.

“Control, Kilo Two Two”

“Go ahead, Two Two”

“On our way. Should be with him in two minutes. Say again, ETA two minutes”

“Yes, I am pursuit trained and on a vehicle equipped for recording. Vehicle is a Vauxhall Corsa, licence plate number whisky fife fife niner tango kilo November. Eastbound on Clasemont Road. Speed is six zero, six zero. Three occupants. Male driver, IC1, white baseball cap, dark top. Right right right Mount Crescent. Right right right Penrhiw Road. Speed now fife zero fife zero”

“Traffic car en route, ETA two minutes, Five One Two”

Bryn looked over at Barry. “They’re doing the circuit, mate. Be a decamp soon. Control, Two Two. One minute off”

““Traffic eta now one minute, Five One Two”

We switched and turned through a maze of residential streets as the calls continued.

“Right right right Elan Avenue. Speed now four zero four zero. Stopping…. ready for decamp!”

Bryn grinned at Barry. “Told you!” and then realised that there was nothing more from Adam. The radio squawked again, but it wasn’t him.

“Five One Two, Control”

“Five One Two, Control”

“Two Two, nothing heard from Adam”

“Just round the corner now, Control—oh fuck!”

A second went by, before he caught his slip and wrestled it down.

“Fire and ambulance urgently, Control. Junction of Honeysuckle Drive and Elan Avenue. One car on fire. One bike also alight.”

Barry was already out the door but mine wouldn’t open. Bryn released it and I tumbled out, stupidly grabbing for my hat as Barry shouted “By that wall, butt! Di, extinguisher! NOW!”

Into the boot, two extinguishers, dry powder, shit, shit, the smell, the sound.

The smell. The car was roaring away, flames coming out of places that should have been solid, a motorcycle seemingly welded to its bonnet, and three…

Burning coconuts, oh fuck. Three up. Three in the car. Three coconuts. Bryn got in front of me as I rushed forward, seizing the extinguisher from me.

“No, Diane! Not this, OK? See to Adam, he’s by that wall, and stay away from the car”

A slumped body in scorched Hi-Viz yellow with a faceplate too blackened and half-melted to see through, smoke rising from odd patches of his jacket. I got a couple of fingers under the edge of his lid, don’t move the neck, leave the helmet on, feel for the pulse---thank god. Three minutes saw the ambulance, and two more the fire brigade, who must have used a Tardis or something to have been that quick,

Half an hour after that and there was a plastic tent over what remained of a small Vauxhall and a large Honda, and six hours later I was screaming awake from my first Job-related nightmare.

We had done the necessaries, my work head finally kicking in as training and concern for a friend finally broke through the wall of horror erected by three burning shapes, and the boys insisted I went with the ambulance. Bryn was absolutely straight to the point.

“This isn’t your place, girl. Not yet, anyways. You don’t want to be starting out on a fire, innit? You know the lad, Adam, don’t you?”

“Yeah, a bit. Sort of a mate, if you know what I mean”

“Aye. Well, you see him safe to a hospital bed and while you wait, make sure you get your pocket book straight”

“Uh?”

“Three fatalities, girl. Police pursuit immediately before. All of us will have to give statements, probably be interviewed”

“Shit! You think Adam’s in the frame and stuff?”

“Na, not a chance. I’ve already had a look at the road marks, and Barry’s got the camera. Looks like they put the car in a spin and came straight back at him. Bike’s halfway into the dashboard”

“Trying to kill him?”

He drew a long, slow breath. “Not important now, and hasn’t worked, and, well, all academic now, innit? Three of them all gone. Now, off with you, see our mate’s OK, and make sure you write down what you saw”

“What should I put in?”

“No. Not this time, girl. This is the real thing. You write your notes, as you remember them, as you saw it. No collusion, aye? No way of them getting at Adam over there. You do it right. Had your training, do the job, show us you’re someone we should be working with, and bugger off now and don’t come back till you know the lad’s OK”

He pushed me towards the ambulance, Adam already being lifted in on a wheeled stretcher and back board, helmet now off and replaced by a medical bracing frame, whatever it was called, and I rode with him to Morriston hospital where I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair drinking not-bad tea delivered very regularly by a smiling nurse, who explained that not only were we in the same club, but having my uniform in Casualty and visible to the usual idiots actually helped make their shift easier and more pleasant.

“Constable?”

“Doctor? PC Owens, this is PC Price. Er, Diane and Adam”

“Thanks, Diane. Can you tell me what exactly happened?”

Notes completed and signed off. I can do this.

“We got there a little while afterwards, Doctor. Looked like they turned round and rammed him”

“And the burns? Oh. I see. From the lack of any other casualties, I will assume then that…”

He paused as he saw me tremble, looked around for witnesses, and gave me a quick hug.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, Diane. Nothing at all. We have to care, in our jobs, for if we don’t there’s no point to it. Explains the burns, anyway. Look…”

He led me to a little side room with a sluice in it.

“Your friend has some superficial burns to his hands and nose, as well as three fractured ribs and a concussion. From the damage, I will assume he went over the top of the car when he was rammed. It’s the other stuff that worries me. I had a look at his protective clothing, and all the fire damage is to the front. What I will assume is that--- Adam?”

“Yes”

“That Adam went back to the car while it was on fire and did so to try and get the occupants out, and that when it went up he was beside it. How far away from it did you find him?”

“About twelve, fifteen feet”

“Right. I’ll schedule some spinal X-rays for him, and set up a check on his lungs for smoke damage. If I have it right, Diane, he’s a very courageous officer, but I will lay a pound to a penny he won’t see it that way. Watch he doesn’t do anything stupid. Please”

I made my promise, and bought some wine on the way back to the nick. It still didn’t stop the nightmare.

Promise to doctor duly made.

CHAPTER 10
Adam was awake when I went back in the next day.

“Hiya, girl. Hope you got chocolate there!”

“You allowed, mate?”

“Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, is what I say”

“Got a couple of bars of Bournville…”

He sighed happily as it melted on his tongue.

“Diane?”

“Yeah?”

“How much did you… When did you arrive?”

“Bryn and Barry got me out of the way, Adam, but, shit, I can…”

“Go on, girl. The smell? Is it the smell?”

I knew my voice was faint, but I couldn’t make it work any better than it was doing, just then.

“Yes. Exactly that. What happened, Adam?”

“Nicking fuel, girl. No, not like that job you got in the hair gel crew”

“You heard about that?”

He grinned. “Always keep an ear out for the new chums, see who’s going to watch their mate’s back as well as their own, aye?”

He frowned. “See those who don’t know a back needs watching at all. You are getting a reputation, Diane”

Again, he caught my expression, and quickly held up both hands, wincing.

“Shit! No, Di, not that sort of reputation. Clear sight, that’s you, aye? Seeing past the obvious? Anyway, fuel theft. They were siphoning it out of parked cars. Plastic containers all over the back seat…”

He drifted off, then came back with a visible jerk, tears hanging at the corners of his eyes.

“I got to the car after they knocked me off, aye? Kid in the back was smoking, I actually saw the rollie, joint, whatever? I saw it drop from his mouth…”

Abruptly, catastrophically, he broke, and I held him as best as I could, careful of his ribs, till he could speak again. I saw a nurse at the door, but she simply gave a wan smile and left us alone. I was beginning to see a pattern in all areas of what they call ‘the emergency services’, and it was all about tiredness. Not just bodily fatigue, but in failing reserves of all aspects of strength. Bryn and Barry had kept me away from the true depths of Adam’s horrors---how did they cope?

Adam was a little calmer now.

“Aye, rollie, or joint. Dropped into the fuel, or more likely what he had spilled on himself. Back of the car must have been thick with fumes, aye? Like a bloody bomb, it was, don’t know how far I was blown”

“Twelve, fifteen feet, mate”

“Ah, shit. I could see them, you know? Still see them in the car when it went up”

He paused, looking through me.

“Still see them sat there after it did, girl, before I blacked out. At least, that’s what I remember. Got a bit confusing after that”

“Not surprising, Adam. You cracked your lid against the wall you hit. Doctor says you had concussion”

He nodded, gingerly. “That explains a bit, aye? Anyway, lads OK? Who was it you said you were with?”

“Bryn and Barry”

“Sound lads. They’ll have done it right”

He started to laugh, almost a giggle.

“What?”

“Just thinking, Diane: when were these notes made, Officer? At the time? While you were airborne?”

The laughter turned into sobs again, and though I gave, and he took, the hug, I could feel he was actually wishing me gone, his fragile ego needing the space to drop the façade of strength and banter he was struggling to maintain. Remembering my own nausea and dizziness following a head injury, I simply left the big bag of mints on his side table and let myself out.

Bryn and Barry had been right about the need for a solid set of notes, as I found out during my interrogation by the Goon Squad a few days later. It really felt as if they were looking for someone to blame, anyone at all, as long as they were in a dark uniform with the word ‘Police’ on it. I will admit they got to me, really wriggled under my skin. I ended up doubting myself, the boys I had been with, even whether I wanted to stay in the job.

It was only the thoughts of a slight figure in a hospital bed that kept me plugging away. As soon as they had finished and scuttled off to whatever flat rock they lived under, Sammy had me into his office.

Door locked, mug of coffee in hand, he grilled me in his own way.

“They got to you, didn’t they? Got you doubting yourself?”

I just nodded, not sure I could speak in a safe way. If I started to talk I didn’t know if I would be able to hold myself to safe ground.

“Well, it’s over now. They will go back, compare their notes, and then they will stay the fuck away from my people. Bryn and Barry did the necessary, Diane. They got all the evidence they could find, all the photos. We’ve got Adam’s commentary, and there was enough footage recoverable from what was left of his bike to confirm it. Thank fuck for digital memory is what I say! Now, about you”

He steepled his fingers and looked over the tips at me.

“Couple of bad ones, I hear, Diane. They don’t come much tougher than that, so we are having you indoors for a bit. Some more training stuff, I am afraid, wrap up the last bits in a more relaxed way without operational pressures getting in the way”

“What you got in mind, boss?”

“There are a number of required modules you have to tick off, and we’ll fit in a fitness test, keep that ticket up to date. Then I want you to take a little time off”

“What for?”

“Decide which way you want to go, Diane”

That was too close to my thoughts about chucking the whole thing in, and it must have shown in my face, for he held up a hand.

“No, PC Owens, not like that. I don’t want to lose you, get that thought put away sharpish. I mean time for you to consider where you feel your career should take you. I suspect Traffic is not exactly sitting at the top of your list of choices, am I right?”

I had to grin at that one, of course, and he smiled back.

“Go on, do the courses, take some leave, and have a think. I may have something coming up shortly that could be right down your street”

We shook hands, and I was shown out the door.

Courses. Modules. E-learning shit. Gym tests—it was all so humdrum after the car chases and fights, but Sammy was right. It let me breathe, let me take a proper look at where I stood so that I could see more clearly where I could go. Adam was back within a week, and on light duties round the station, so I spent many hours with him the other side of a bacon sandwich or at the next terminal. It was a revelation for me, finding someone I could actually talk to in all senses, on any subject.

One day, he brought in some photos, of brilliant sunshine against snowy peaks, a bicycle covered in luggage centre stage.

“Thought you’d like to see what I do on my days off, Diane. This is the Tourmalet”

“Uh?”

“Pyrenees, aye? Tour I did a couple of years ago, Atlantic to Med”

“You rode that across those?”

“Er, yes. Gorgeous views up there”

“You rode a pushbike with half your house slung over it, across a load of bloody mountains? With snow on them? Are you barking?”

He just grinned. “Well, according to some. Maria says I am, at least. Don’t know if I’ll get her on a bike”

Oh shit and bollocks. My dreams crashed abruptly, so I clung to my smile and tone of voice.

“Maria?”

He blushed. “Er, yeah. Girlfriend. Lives over by London, aye?”

“What’s she like?”

“Oh, nice. Small, dark hair”

I realised he was trying to close the conversation down, or at least that subject, and binned the question I had been about to ask him: would he like to go for a drink or a meal some evening? I suspected he had guessed where I was going, and deliberately stalled me. Not stupid, was Adam. I kept my smile going and switched subjects.

“I’m off home for a week in ten days. Spend some time with the parents. Where are yours to?”

“Ah, I’m from up by Brynamman way. Mine, well, few years gone now”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, mate”

“Na, not at all, Di. Just got no real ties over here now. Actually thinking of moving over by Maria, aye? Makes sense to me”

So much for a subject change. I steered it back to his injuries, and ten days later I was indeed back at the old house, once more in my own room, my own bed, and trying not to give too much detail of what I had seen, and smelled, one night in Morriston.

I actually felt refreshed when I got back to work. Not refreshed by the stay at home but rather by the fact of getting back to what I saw now as my real place in the world, and I saw how sharp Sammy was in his people management. He had me into his office a week after my return, seven days filled with more modules and manuals and, to my shock, Adam’s bloody departure. I cornered him at the bar where we were celebrating, if that was the word, his transfer to Sussex Constabulary.

“You kept that bloody quiet, mate! How about a bit more warning next time?”

Something was going on behind his smile, and I wondered, just for a moment, whether this Maria person had managed to get a bun growing in her small and dark-haired little oven before clamping down on my green-eyed thoughts and keeping it sweet for a friend. If I cared about him, surely I wanted to see him happy?

You bastard, Evans, you and all your fucking family. All I wanted to do was say to someone I really cared about that I did just that, really care, and I couldn’t, because all of the things other women learned they gained through experience and being bloody girls, through trial and error, and that bastard had ripped that away from me.

All I wanted to say to Adam was “Are you sure about this?” and “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll still be around” and what came out was “Do we get invitations to the stag night, mate?”

If I hadn’t hated the Evans family before that, by god I did afterwards.

Work felt odd for a while, without Adam about, but I kept at it and my probation was signed off by Sammy in a nice little ceremony in his office, Dai Gould in attendance, and I was let off the leash for a while as I double-crewed a number of pandas with a mix of mates, some closer than others. I was drifting a little, now, as I tried to make sense of my life once more, another potential anchor having been cut loose, when Sammy called me in again.

“Got a job for you, PC Owens. If you want it, that is”

“What’s the score?”

“Queer-bashing, girl. That’s what they call it, but we will refer to it as homophobic assaults, hate crime based on sexual orientation. You’ve had the diversity sessions, you know the words”

I remembered them well, with a blocky dyke copper and a really camp gay lad mincing about the room. Thoughts like that tickled me, especially with my memories of Bridget, and I grinned.

“What’s it we’re doing then, boss? Double-crewing all the gents’ toilets in the city?”

“Na, girl. Proper task force thingy, if that takes your fancy. Fresh team, CID bods mixed with people pulled off the beat. Civvies, of course, same as you did before”

He sighed, rubbing his nose, then looked at me again.

“Your best mate’s a lesbian, I got it right?”

“Er, yeah. Bridget. In Australia now. And before you ask, no I am not”

He nodded again. “I was wondering, but that’s not why they asked for you. Detail. You have an eye for it, and that’s where we need to go with this one. It is political, PC Owens, very direct words from above. The Pink Pound brings a lot of income into the city, and more of this sort of shit scares the punters away. Not good for business. You up for this?”

Long hours, absorbing work, no time to think of anything else? “Absolutely!”

“Monday morning, then. Nine sharp, front desk will have the room details once they’re sorted. See yourself out, Diane. Leave the door open”

I was halfway through it when he called “And thanks!” after me.

So, Monday morning, eight thirty, I was sitting in a conference room with a motley collection of other officers, Alun included, waiting for the off. Spot on nine o’clock, a familiar figure walked in, the chunky lesbian from the diversity sessions. She was so obviously a hard case, with a very direct, frightening stare, but then she grinned, and her face lit up.

“Gooood morning, boys and girls! Welcome to our little task force. My name is Inspector Powell, Elaine within these walls, Lainey if you ever get me down the pub. I will warn you now, don’t expect fixed shifts here. Vermin don’t work them, and it is vermin we are after. Anyone got a problem with that? No? Good. Now, who are you all, starting from you with the crap taste in ties?”

CHAPTER 11
Alun snorted at that, for he had one of those stupid cartoon picture ties on.

“Um, Alun Benson. I’m with CID here in Cardiff”

A skinny, butter-wouldn’t melt blonde. “Candice Warren, sort of attached to ASBO admin, out by Porthcawl. I do the antisocial order background stuff”

A sandy-haired man, well over six feet in height, solidity made flesh. “Blake Sutton. Beat officer, plod like. Out of Bridgend”

A bald lad, nasty scars by his left eye. “Rhys Perkin. I was on tactical support down to Tiger Bay”

The inspector’s gaze settled on me. Oh. “Er, Diane Owens. Sort of new. Just done probation”

“Aye, but what have you done so far?”

“Er, a couple of bits, some time in CID, and a bit with traffic. Been covering the City Centre, beat”

She nodded, and her eyes moved onto the next victim, another rugby-player type, in a polo shirt rather than jacket and tie.

“Rob--Robat Williams, ma’am. I was with the firearms unit in the city”

Another woman, a few years older than me. “Ellen Saker, ma’am. I was in Customs out by the airport for years, then switched”

“Aye? Why the switch?”

“Crap pay, shit prospects, bloody awful management. Oh, been with CID as well, doing financial crime. Fraud squad as was”

The Inspector just nodded, no comments, no bait taken, and I saw that she wasn’t taking any notes at all. She was either very good, or didn’t give a shit who she had to work with. I suspected that it wasn’t the second.

“Right, Rhys, was it? Over in the corner there are the keys to my car. In the yard; first job is to work out which one, and then bring up what’s in the boot and on the back seat. Er, Alun? Ellen? Lend a hand with that, please”

Once three of us were gone, she turned to the tables lined up along the dividing wall.

“Rest of you, we’ve got white boards, pens, shitload of newsprint, flip charts, that sort of stuff. Get it in some sort of order on the tables. When the others are back, we’ll get down to it, or at least what the yanks call the orientation rubbish. OK?”

They weren’t too long about it, and to my astonishment what they brought up were a mini fridge, a hot-water boiler, a kettle and a bag full of tea, milk and other basics. Inspector Powell grinned at our reactions.

“Well, start as we mean to go on, I always say! Someone pop to the canteen and liberate some mugs, someone else get the urn filled, and the kettle. Get that boiling while the big one warms up”

Her grin went as quickly as it had arrived. “Boys and girls, we have a shitload of work to get through, and this is my way of keeping us together, together and sharp. No formal tea club set-up, aye? Just top up supplies as you see the need, and feel free to bring in biccies. Look after each other, is all I ask, all we’ll need as a team”

She was certainly pushing the team ethos; it was almost like being back at Cwmbran. I felt, however, that there was more to it coming from someone like her. Something was driving her, and I was getting overtones of a very dark current beneath the boys-and-girls bonhomie. This Inspector bore watching.

It wasn’t long before the tea was made, and we formed a little group of chairs around a table with a pile of press clippings and crime reports. She was straight to the point.

“Now, I know that some of you will remember me doing the rounds of the stations doing peace and tolerance sessions, diversity and fluffiness awareness shite, aye? Well, this is partly to do with that. Firstly, cards on the table. I am indeed a lesbian”

Her gaze locked on Rhys. “And? Was that a no-shit-Sherlock I heard? Don’t worry, lad. Not going to bite your head off. Just setting some ground rules here. No backbiting in the team. You have something to say, it is something for the team. It isn’t something for outside it, outside the team, aye? We work as a team, we watch backs, we support. We have a big job here, and no shite about one woman, one man, sleuthing their way through to a last-minute Cluedo moment”

She sat for a few seconds, warming her hands with her mug, and then picked up Adam’s mantra.

“Back-watching, boys and girls. We do it for the general public, but without our own arses being covered we wouldn’t be able to. So watch your backs, watch your mates’ backs, and keep it tight. Not everyone in a uniform is on your side, aye?”

Fucking right, Evans and Pritchard showed that one to be absolutely spot on. I had a flashback to a day right out West, with Bryn and Barry, where we had had to help out with a Dyfed-Powys job, a possible hard stop, and the two D-P in attendance for the stop were my favourite coppers. I had managed to whisper to my two boys not to call me by name, and they had each given the other a flat stare before we got down to business which was, in the end, mercifully brief in duration. We left the punter in a D-P van and set off home, without a flicker of recognition from either of them. We weren’t more than a hundred yards away from our stop when Bryn turned in his seat, giving me the hairy eyeball.

“You know those two cunts, Di”

It was most certainly not a question, but I gave a nod as an answer.

“Stay away from them, girl. Not our people, those boys”

Not another word from him, but I got the drift in clear, and it was all about backs the watching thereof. We had just left tow of them that would not be looked out for, certainly not covered, but that was the last time I saw them before they ceased to be coppers, or at least creatures who described themselves as such.

My attention was snatched back by a direct question from the new boss, which I had missed.

“I said: do you have any problems with people on my bus, Diane? Not a test question, not one for your line manager. Just yes or no?”

“Er, no”

“You seem to be hesitating a lot today!”

“Just a lot to take in. Anyway, my best mate, lesbian, married to an Aussie girl, she is, so, no. No issues with comfortable shoes”

Her face worked a little at that, but she was smiling.

“Right, then. This is what we are here for. There has been a series of homophobic attacks across the region, centred mostly in Abertawe a Chaerdydd—Swansea and Cardiff for those who talk funny. By homophobic, I mean gay-bashing. Not lesbians, not bears, but Bright Young Things. Skinny boys, camp boys, Nancy boys, as my uncle calls them. It’s been going on for a while, and it is bad for trade. Yes, Alun, I am aware of the puns available, but here’s the bottom line. Yes, thank you again.

“Young men, scarcely more than adolescents, children, are being violently attacked for no other reason than whose hand they might like to hold. It was dressed up to me as being frowned on because it is bad for trade, bad for the pink tourism business. I will be honest with you: I don’t give a shit about that. We are here to protect, and children are not being protected. I know it is business interest that has shaken the tree here, but our role is much clearer.

“Children and young men do not get put in hospital just because of who they fancy. We can’t protect all of them, so we protect those we can. Yup, we may be a local police force for local people, but that is the core issue: those boys are our boys, and we cover their backs, we protect our people. Now, you’ve got your tea, I’ve brought in the first load of biscuits. Settle down, read the press cuttings, work through the files. You are looking for similarities, and that doesn’t just mean what they all have in common but what they might all LACK in common. And sorry, really sorry, if any of you feel you are being taught how to suck eggs. Now, I have a management meeting in ten minutes, but that isn’t what it sounds like. I am off to sort vehicles, for starters, and a couple of maps of CCTV coverage. Oh, and can one of you see if you can find out where all the gents’ public toilets are in the two cities? There are some Ordnance Survey maps in the carrier bag with the biscuits. Get them up on the wall, cut to fit, I don’t care. HDC paid for them, or will be once I get the claim in”

She was gone, and the team sat for about ten seconds before the first of us could find the words. It was Candice.

“Bloody hell, er, boys and girls! Bloody driven or what? Anyone got the scissors? I’ll get the maps up”

Alun stood. “Off to CID, Di. Make that call to the Council about the bogs. Blake, can you do the Swansea ring-round? I’ll kick the IT people on the way back. Fuck doing this with one phone in the room!”

I smiled, and picked up the first of the files. There were photos attached to it.

CHAPTER 12
I recognised a couple of the faces from news reports, articles in the local press and so on. Once more, Inspector Powell’s word of choice rose up: “local”. None of these, to my best recollection, had made anything more than the local news reports, certainly not the nationals, and the consistency was there in each picture, each black eye and fat lip. The boys had been attacked from the front, or at least after they had been grabbed. Pretty boys who had ceased to be so.

There were files as well as press clippings, and we passed around witness statements and evidential photos in near silence as the urn heated and Alun shepherded a couple of the IT bods as they plugged in new phones and Ellen cut and pasted the large-scale maps to the wall. Rob was muttering more than most.

“How long has this been going on?”

Candice shrugged. “Too long, from the looks of it. Surprised it hasn’t been picked up on before, number of cases there are here”

Rhys played devil’s advocate. “No way of saying whether they are linked yet”

He got a growl from Rob, and held up his hands. “No, mate, not saying that. Just, if this lot is all from one posse, then we need to be really careful tying it together, innit? Get a ringer in, one that’s not ours, aye? Wreck any prosecution. Who wants a brew? Oh, and let’s get a brew list done, who takes what, how they take it, aye? I suspect we’re going to be spending quite a lot of time in here to start with. Alun, your local bods: can we get some lockable sets of drawers?”

That first day went in fits and starts as team members came up with ideas for things they wanted, or realised we simply had to have, and by the time the Inspector was back the room had gone from random piles of Stuff to somewhere that looked halfway like a working office. I had even had my own brainwave, and over the following weeks, as Blake and Alun’s council contacts responded we had pins in the maps. Each one secured a little wedge of paper, showing CCTV cameras and their fields of view. Other markers showed the position of gents’ public toilets, and two days into our setting up I caught our boss shaking her head and sucking her teeth like a sit-com car mechanic.

“This is bloody ridiculous, Diane! What the hell’s happened to all the bogs? No wonder blokes piss up dark alleys—there’s nowhere else left!”

Oddly, all the excitement went out of the work after three days, as we got everything pinned up, stuck down, locked away or just piled into a cupboard. It wasn’t what I had hoped for, in that it was starting to get boring, but to be honest it was what I had been expecting. Hurry up and wait, drink coffee, crunch biscuits, and plot all the bogs, pink establishments and CCTV sites in two cities. Not the most stimulating of ways to fill my day.

The team was a hoot, though, someone, somewhere, having had a feel for congenial characters, and a real working system was taking shape as we discovered each other’s strengths, weaknesses and blind spots.

Things changed gear with a suddenness I had been half expecting, when our boss came stalking into what we were describing as our ops room, her face clenched.

“Gather round, boys and girls. This has moved onward and bloody downward. We have a gang rape this time, not just a beating”

I looked round the team, seeing similar expressions of anger and disgust, which I hoped wasn’t for the nature of the victim.

“Diane, you take one of the boys up the hospital and see what you can get from him. Softly softly, aye? I want location soon as you can, and then… you, you, you off to pull camera footage. That leaves… aye, Alun and Blake, you tee up SOCO for when we know where we’re going. Yes, Blake?”

The big man had hid hand up, just like a schoolboy, as I was halfway to the door with Rhys.

“Ma’am, doesn’t this narrow the field down a lot, now we know we’re looking for homos?”

I couldn’t help myself, and turned back to him.

“You can be so fucking thick at times, boy! What makes you think they’re gay?”

“Well, bum sex, aye?”

No bloody idea at all. I walked back towards him, feeling my face twisting as the memories came back. Whore. Slut. Another big man ripping into me. I tried to keep my tone within supportive team-member boundaries, but I suspected it was well outside them.

“It’s not sex, you pillock, it’s RAPE. It’s about power, about humiliation, about destroying someone. They weren’t fucking him, they were fucking him up, right?”

Inspector Powell was very still, watching me, so I tried to wind my neck in a bit. More memories danced for me.

“Ma’am, don’t ask me how I know this, but I’m willing to lay a pound to a penny that they pissed on him after, like. We’ll give you the gen as soon as we have it”

Rhys had grabbed a set of keys from one of our new drawers, and after a mercifully short session of ‘hunt-the-vehicle’ we were on our way to the hospital.

“Diane?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you do the lead on this one. I don’t want to stuff up. Not used to this, am I?”

“Bloody hell, Rhys, I am just off probation myself!”

“Aye, but you’re a girl. You’ll be softer than me. Might be necessary”

For god’s sake! I held my tongue with difficulty.

“OK, mate. Just, well, cover anything I miss, yeah?”

“OK. Sorry, Di”

“Oh, let’s just get it done. Be gentle with him, and we’ll be fine”

After a quick word with the staff nurse, ward sister, whatever the current name was, we were led into a side room to find a really skinny young man, eyes red from tears where they weren’t black with bruises.

“Hiya, I’m Diane Owens. I’ve come out to see if you’re OK, anything you need, sort of thing”

“You the Police?”

I shrugged, and nodded. “Aye, and this is Rhys Perkin, my colleague”

Rhys went to shake the lad’s hand, and I saw it was pink, almost raw, like an advert for a washing-up liquid. I remembered the tagline, about hands that do dishes being soft as your face, and in this case it was just about true, as his face was such a mess. I pulled out a smile; keep it steady, PC Owens.

“What do we call you, my friend?”

“Vern. Vernon Pugh”

“How old are you, mate?”

“Twenty-two, Miss”

“Diane. Di. Whatever suits best, yeah? And as I said, this Rhys. What do you do?”

“I’m at the Uni, doing art and design”

“Where you from?”

“Out to Cowbridge”

“Right. Do you think you can tell us what happened? You feel up to it?”

He nodded. “Night before last, it was. Went out to the Smuggler’s for a few beers, a dance, usual thing”

“Yeah. I know the place. Was it a good night?”

“Well, yeah, until, well”

“Don’t worry about that, Vern. We’ll get there. Can you talk us through it?”

He looked at the wall for a few seconds, then nodded.

“Typical, innit? I got out of the pub, just down the road, and I needed a wee. Cold air does that to me”

Rhys muttered 2Beer does that to me, and Vern flickered a faint smile. Nice one, Rhys.

“Yeah, same here, but too much beer, cold air, yeah? Needed a wee, and, well, am I going to get in trouble if I say where I went?”

Rhys smiled, and shook his head, going up steadily in my estimation.

“Well, I went into the multi-storey, didn’t I? Third floor, I think. Got my music on my phone, chilled, and somebody punches me right in the kidney. Left one, from behind”

He was trembling now, staring off into the distance, memories slicing into his soul.

“I go down, and they kick me round the floor, and they’re all snarling, queer, cocksucker, arsebandit, and I can hear because my buds have dropped out with the punches, and then they grab me and drag me over the ground. Some store room or something, By the lifts, I think…”

He was starting to shake again, and to my astonishment Rhys reached out to take his hand as tears started to fall. My mate’s voice was soft, gentle.

“Can you remember anything about them, Vern? Accents? Faces?”

“Oh, shit, sorry…”

“No, mate. No worries. Your speed”

A sobbing breath, tears clamped away for later. “Local. Not English, not gogs, not any further west than Swansea. One of them might have been Valleys. They… They pulled my jeans down, and of course my cock, it’s trying to climb back inside, along with my balls, and they see, and they’re laughing at it, and they’ve got my hair, and my arms, and there’s a workbench, and they drag me up…”

His voice was getting quitter. “And then one of them whacks me, right in the guts, and I fold up, and that’s what they want, cause I’m bent over the table, bench thing, and I hear their zips go down…”

His knuckles were white where he had Rhys’s hand, and he was starting to drone, the words tumbling out.

“And it’s one after the other, and there’s five of them. All banging away, all grunting and swearing, pansy, you love it, and it’s so painful, and I don’t think any of them used protection…”

Again, Rhys was gentler than I realised I could have been. “Did they all ejaculate?”

Vernon just nodded.

“So they all get up, and they’re leaving, and they say they know where I live, know my family, and I’ve got a little sis, she’s only twelve….”

Rhys was nodding. “Yeah, and what did you do afterwards?”

“I scrubbed myself as clean as I could, and I made sure the doors were locked, and then the next day I realise I need to see my GP, and he freaks and sends me straight here.

The words were still there in my own memory. Whore, slut, slice your face off, so I asked the question, knowing what the answer would be.

“Vern, after they had all finished, did you see where they went?”

“No. They just hit me again, threw me on the floor, and then they all pissed on me”

We thanked him, and muttered some platitudes to the nurses on the way out, or rather Rhys did, because I couldn’t actually manage to speak, let alone be polite.

Someone else was talking all the way back to the nick, but it was only in my memory.

CHAPTER 13
I was lost in my own thoughts for the first part of the journey back, only returning to the world about me when Rhys nudged me at some lights.

“You OK, Di? Bit quiet there”

“Ah, mate, just thinking. That lad’s in a bad way”

I could read his mind as he stared at me while the red light sat before us. She’s talking rubbish, it’s not the lad, must be more, leave it for now.

I tried to fill his silence.

“Gay boy, innit? But that’s not it; it’s what the attackers see. That’s the worry, that it’s not just the gay boys at risk”

His voice was flat as we pulled away through the green.

“And that’s worse? That it’s not just the queers who might get a kicking?”

Foot firmly in mouth, PC Owens.

“No, mate, that’s not what I meant. Just, bit harder for us to find the villains if we have to spread the net wider. Sore point with you, then?”

“It is, Di. Just remember that not all of us are twinks, skinny things like that boy”

I could only stare, mouth open, and he risked a little flick of his eyes towards me, before giving his attention back to the road.

“Not for the team, yeah? Not for them to know”

“Yeah, but, it’ll come out some day, surely?”

“Aye, but on my terms, if I can help it. Gob shut, please, Di”

“OK, mate. Your business”

“Thanks. Now, quick cake stop soon as we get back?”

“We got time?”

“What? Oh. No, I mean a stock-up. Got a feeling this day will be a long one. Get some bread and fillings for sandwiches, snack stuff, something to keep us going. Couple of big bottles of pop, that as well”

I was still a little away from things when we did get back, and mentally counting what cash I had, but Inspector Powell was straight into it. I got the impression she wasn’t one to mess about, and as she took our report in her little broom cupboard of an office I made a little prayer to whatever that I wouldn’t stuff up too badly and get on her wrong side.

“What we got, Diane?”

I took a breath. Get it out, girl.

“Name’s Vernon Pugh, ma’am. Twenty-two, from Cowbridge. Studying Art and Design at the Uni. Went out for the night, down the Smuggler’s, that pink pub on Charles Street, aye? Has a bit of a dance and a laugh, more than a few beers, comes out of the pub and does the usual—walks twenty yards and wants a piss”

I could feel the reaction, and realised my prayer hadn’t worked as the shakes set in.

“Di, hang on, get a cuppa, aye?”

I took a risk.

“Ta, ma’am. No sugar”

To my astonishment, she simply rose, went to the bubbling urn, and brought back two mugs. Deep breath.

“You know the score. Rather than turn round and go back into the pub, they wander on, looking for a dark spot to let the waters flow. He picked the multi-storey. Suppose it explains why it always smells of pee. Anyway, he’s standing there in a dark corner on the third level, earphones in, music on, brain off, and the first one punches him in the left kidney. There’s the usual sequence then: he goes down, they use him as a football, he’s trying to protect his face”

Tea. Wash away the bad taste if not the older memories.

“There’s a storage room by the lift. That’s where SOCO needs to go. They had the door open somehow, and they dragged him in there”

“They speak at all?”

“Oh indeed. Dirty little poof, fucking arsebandit, all the usual. Local boys, he says, at least not English or from down west. Valleys, he says. Anyway, one of them hauls his chinos down, and they take the piss out of his cock for being all shrivelled up and hiding, like, and then they haul him upright, punch him in the guts and he hears the first one unzip. One after the other. They all came, apparently”

You can do this, girl. Do your job.

“Then they took turns to piss on him”

She looked at me sharply then, checking round to see who might be in earshot, then back at me, eyebrows raised. Sod it. Rhys had coughed to me, I could do no less.

“Ma’am, this is confidential, aye? Just us? No need to know crap, aye? How I know…. I was sixteen. I didn’t report it, just went home and washed and washed and washed. That’s what he did, but he was still bleeding from, well, down there, so he went to his GP, who sent him to casualty and one or two of the nurses weren’t stupid, and the rest you know”

Drink your tea, cover your mouth.

“He was a local councillor, ma’am. I never did say anything. Big man, important man, connections, innit? And me a schoolgirl from Barry. Who would you believe, ma’am?”

Her face clouded, that anger I had seen before stirring in her eyes.

“Diane, just a guess of my own. Your man by any chance called Evans?”

How the hell did she guess that? More to the point, it seemed more like knowledge than guesswork. She set her tea down, and turned back to her desk.

“Di, we’ll talk some time, really talk. Now, from what you said, he’s probably douched or whatever to get their leavings out. DNA?”

“They are doing their best, but he really did scrub half his skin away trying to get their mark off him. He’s not in a good way, ma’am”

She smiled, and there was real warmth in there.

“Elaine in here, Diane. Look, you have made contact with this kid. He will trust you, I hope, and please don’t take this wrong, but you will have far more empathy with him than most of the dinosaurs here. Will he give a statement?”

“Don’t know… Elaine. I will do my best on that one”

I realised as I said the words that I meant them. What was there between her and Ashley Evans? There was something in the back of my mind, but I was still hearing that man’s snarl. Later, Di.

She told off some of the team to sort the CCTV footage, and then someone gave a rapid knock at the door, which Rhys answered, opening the door to a skinny man I eventually recognised as our leader’s running mate on the fluffiness courses. What was his name? Chris, that was it.

“Am I interrupting, Lainey?”

“No, butt. Diane here has just been filling me in on the events night before last. We’ve got three absolute bastards out there”

Where did she get ‘three’ from? Vernon had been very clear on the number.

“At least three, you mean. Victim on my bus?”

I caught her nod, and turned to the very, very camp man, knowing exactly what he was asking, as he made it so bloody obvious.

“Very much the gay young thing, the skinny type, yeah?”

He gave a sharp nod.

“Twink, you mean. All the body strength of a wet dishrag. Where do you want me to start, girl?”

That was to Inspector Powell—Elaine. Elaine in here. Start what?

“Not just yet, Chris. This one has sort of dropped on us, so we will have a shake of the tree and see if anything drops out first. Boys are filtering the footage as we speak. Gang rape and pissed on, Chris”

He gave it a few seconds thought. “Where is he now, Lainey?”

“Back at Queen Street, oddly. Went all the way home first, then came back in a taxi after seeing his GP”

“Can I see him?”

“What exactly for, Chris?”

“Firstly, if I am going looking for these pigs, I want a decent briefing, and he’s the only one we can use right now. Secondly… secondly, but more importantly, if it were me in that state, I’d want someone to hold my hand”

That was what decided me on liking him. Anyone who could cut to the really important stuff like that was somebody I might be happy to work with, but what exactly was his role? He wasn’t one of us, after all. I had a sudden suspicion, and put it away with my half-memory of Elaine for a better look later. Rhys went to run him out to the hospital, and Elaine turned back to me, with a wry smile.

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

Rhys had been spot on. I chuckled to myself.

“And you want me to do the runs?”

“No, I want you to tee up a couple of PCSOs. What I am after is a couple of packs of filter coffee, more milk, finger food. Once the footage starts coming in we are going to have a shitload of work to do, and I want people awake. This is your early warning: I am just about to go and ask for volunteers for working for the Queen. I’ll try and swing authorisation later, but this is live right now. Do you need cash up front? I’ve got forty quid here”

I thought about my worries for my own purse, and laughed out loud.

“Definitely a step up from the last boss!”

“Well, hang on a tad, I want to brief the crew first”

We went back into our conference room, now an ‘incident room’, and she waved everyone into a huddle, Blake and Alun back and a stack of discs on one of the tables.

“Boys, girls, we now have a real lead on this one, but it has come a very shitty way”

Alun snorted. Twat. Our boss glared in his general direction, then got back into her stride.

“We have a young rape victim, with at least three attackers. They began with a severe beating, then multiple rape, and finally urinated all over the victim. Victim is twenty-two, and a local boy. Still awaiting his consent before we tell his next of kin. That’s right: best part of three days since he was raped, and he is still so ashamed that he won’t even go to his own mother for comfort.

“That is why Diane said what she did: he wasn’t just fucked, he was fucked up. Now, we don’t yet know how much we are going to be able to get from the victim, how much he remembers, whether he can ID anyone, but we have a lot of camera footage coming in. The pub has its own system, and I will be particularly interested in what comes off that. Particularly, people hanging around outside”

Blake gave me an appraising glance, then stuck his hand up.

“Why they got outside cameras, ma’am?”

“I am told they got twitchy after that Nazi bombed the Admiral Duncan in Soho, lad. Anyway, they set it up to look both ways down the street, not just at the doorway”

It was always bloody Alun, and true to form he muttered “Cost a bomb, that”. Elaine coughed out a bitter little bark of laughter-that-wasn’t, and held up her hands again.
“I am sending out for coffee, cakes, whatever we need to stay sharp here, aye? You know the score: this is being done for the Queen just now. I will try and swing authority for overtime payments, but this is something we need to get done right now. The clock is ticking, and one thing I do NOT want is another rape, or worse, before we tuck this one away. Anyone not happy to stay on?”

Once again it was Alun, the laughter boiled off him and a far more serious expression on his face. After a quick whisper to me of “Better make sure Lynne’s sorted” he had his hand up again.

“Missus will be late in, so I have to sort the kids, ma’am. If I can have half hour, just to get them round their Nan’s, aye”

“Nice one, lad. Anyone else?”

I looked round the team, as it was rapidly becoming, and saw a few head shakes followed by a general one to the boss. She looked down at her feet, just for an instant, then back out at us all, the hint of a smile playing on her lips.

“Thank you all. Diane, do the honours, aye? Anyone got a summary of what we have available?”

I set off for the PCSO’s little room to start the cake and coffee run going, and when I returned there was near silence in our own work space. I looked round, saw the pile of discs, and dug out my laptop. It was just like being back on that bloody bilking case, but with the addition that I now realised it was a job I could not only do, but one I might actually be reasonably good at.

It still took bloody ages, though. The PCSO’s were as good as gold, and I noticed that cups appeared at elbows every so often, no need to ask, and when I looked up I realised that most of them were being prepared by the Inspector, following the ‘who takes what and how; list now on the wall by the urn and kettle.

Bit by bit, the evidence emerged, and it was Blake who seemed to have the eye for the work, to my great surprise. It had been easy to start with, as there were so many cameras by the pub, but after that we were really fishing at random. The one thing Vernon did have that was a help were his shoes, so white they were almost painful on the eye, and several times we got time and place just from two white dots in the darkness.

That got us the time for the cameras in the multi-storey, and we caught him as he passed the pay-station, and then by the lift, and then---then sweet F.A. I sat back from my little computer, back aching as I stretched my shoulders, and a number of rude words exercising my brain.

“Ma’am!”

Blake was standing and waving her over.

“Think I’ve got him!”

It was a few minutes after we had last spotted him, and once again it was the camera near the lift. The big man grinned at me as we gathered round his screen.

“What you said, Di, about them taking him into that store room? I think this is it”

Just a hint, just a couple of flashes of brilliant white, almost out of the camera’s field of view, but I would have bet Blake’s life it was Vernon. Elaine got as close to the screen as she could.

“Nice one, boy. Can you slo-mo that one?”

He fiddled with the mouse/

“Just a sec… he’s not walking, ma’am. He’s being dragged. Hang on… look. There”

Just the edge of another shoe, and part of a trouser leg, with the three stripes of Adidas sportswear running down it. Blake turned, grinning. “Latest Nike trainer, aye, and an Adidas shell suit, bottom half anyway”

Another bark from Inspector Powell. “No brand loyalty, these kids! You know what I want now, aye?”

Not the only one who wants it, those were my thoughts, and I went back to the footage from the pub. Candice got the next bit, after nearly six hours of slog and stop-go. Nike, and Adidas, and we started looking at the other cameras to try and find something above the waist.

Ellen struck this time, with a face, or at least a chin, one with a scrubby goatee beard, under a hood so that all we got was the mouth and chin, the awkward bastard. I gave up and went to get a sandwich, just as Ellen crowed in triumph.

“Got you, you twat!”

I scurried over as she froze the video, and there he was in the act of taking a big lungful of carcinogens from a droopy roll-up. The light was full on his right hand, and there were at least four tattoos there. The boss was almost dancing.

“Bloody well done, team. Get those enhanced and sort out a print of the tats. We’ve got a key to this one at last!”

I knew I had some other discs from that time, so I sat straight back down. I knew where he was standing, and when, and…

“Got him on two more, ma’am, one on the junction and another from the pub. Nobody next to him”

Alun came over for a peek, squeezing my shoulder in recognition.

“Ma’am?”

“Aye, Alun?”

“Want me to pop down to the LIO and see what his little card index says?”

“Intel will be long gone now, butt”

“Aye, ma’am, but I used to work in there”

And do other things, according to the rest of CID, but not now, PC Owens, not now.

“And?”

I suspected he was wishing he’d kept his gob shut, but he was clearly sticking to doing a proper job, bless him.

“I sort of kept a set of keys…”

“What’s he got, then? Remember, this isn’t my nick, aye?”

He grinned. “Ray’s always been a bit of a trainspotter, innit, boys? Never throws anything away”

She frowned. “Bit of an asset in an intelligence officer”

“Aye, ma’am, but he had a real passion for ODFs. Tattoos in particular. He set out years ago to try and catalogue every tat on every scrote in the City. He got one lad with a scarf over his face for abusive behaviour at a home match, aye, just from the tattoo on the hand he was using to give two fingers to the camera!”

The normal Alun was back, now, grinning in a nasty way.

“Got descriptions of some, photos of some, drawings of the rest, aye? I could get these printed off and, well, as long as you can square my going into his stuff while he’s off. Oh, and not tell him I got the keys”

“Go to, butt!”

He was off like a shot, just as one of our new phones rang, the general contact line, and I was the nearest. Short, sweet; I muted it and called over to her.

“Your mate’s back, ma’am”

“Chris? Can you get him brought up? Ta”

He was up straight away, looking vaguely ill but still ogling our edible treats, some of which were already going stale. The Inspector waved a hand at them, and he grabbed a cuppa and a couple of Jaffa cakes.

“Dive in, butt. Girls, boys, gather round for a bit if you don’t mind. This is Chris, who has just spent some time with our victim. Chris, how is he?”

As he stared into his cup, she whispered to me “Let him speak, aye? Fresh angle and all that”

I could see her point, and when he started speaking it was as if he was distracted, recounting a dream.

“He’s a mess, people. If any of you have ever been in his position, you will understand. If not, well, it’s all his fault. He shouldn’t have gone out, he shouldn’t have pissed in a dark corner, he shouldn’t have come to Cardiff, he shouldn’t be gay, he shouldn’t be breathing. Everything is his fault. He--, no, that’s enough for now. He’s washed his hands raw; god knows what his private bits are like. He is going to need a lot of support, that’s obvious, but what I really think he needs most is to see three arseholes locked away for a bloody long time”

What was this ‘three’ business’?

He took a long, slow drink. “They told him they know where he lives, where his family live, all the usual. He thinks they’ll do his kid sister next”

“Did they specifically threaten his sister, Chris?”

“No, Lainey. Just his family, but his paranoia’s on overdrive. We need to sort this out as soon as”

Blake was giving me all sorts of puzzled looks, but I was keeping my mouth shut as per Elaine’s instructions, and so he had to ask out loud.

“Who are you, exactly? I saw you on the sweetness and light seminar stuff, but I can’t remember what you do”

The skinny man smiled, in a very distracted way, and I suddenly understood what this was costing him in sweat and nerves.

“Oh, I’m the sacrificial goat you bloody well DON’T arrive too late for!”

CHAPTER 14
We bit the bullet that evening, and the Inspector sent us all home after a wash-up followed by a lock-up. I got the impression she didn’t exactly trust all of her colleagues, at least not all of the ones outside our little group.

It had indeed been a long one, and she was in our faces from the off.

“Right, then boys and girls, we need to have a bit of a brainstorm here. We’ve got a bit of a lead from that camera footage, but unless Alun can pull off a match it gives us nothing more than evidence we can use after we catch the gentleman in question.
Now, what we have so far is nine assaults we can definitely link, plus five other possibles. They all involve three or more assailants, and apart from our rape they all take place in public toilets or nearby. None of the victims has admitted to cottaging, but in the immortal words of Saint Mandy, well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

That was something that was warming me towards her, an absolutely irreverent sense of humour, even though there was so often a dark tinge to it. She carried on with her briefing.

“More importantly, none of the victims has described their new friends as cottaging themselves. What it has been is instant nastiness. As soon as opportunity presents itself, our villains pile straight in. The footage from the Smuggler’s shows they are picking their target and tailing it, so if we ever catch up with them I want phones lifted immediately. I am open to suggestions here, but there is one thing staring us right in the face: the assaults, at least the ones that fit this pattern, have all taken place in either Caerdydd’s pink corner or the equivalent area of Abertawe. That’s Cardiff and Swansea for you foreign speakers, aye? There’s been sod all in any of the towns in between, and that gives me thoughts and ideas”

I had my own ideas about that, still fermenting but slowly starting to make sense.

“The two cities do concentrate the pink punters a bit, ma’am, but I see your point. Are we looking at someone who lives in between, or are we looking at mates split between the two?”

Blake was starting to surprise me, and I realised that while he dropped in the occasional bit of stupidity he was not, in fact, as stupid as he looked and so often sounded. Note to self: people were selected for this team on ability. Remember that fact, PC Owens.

“Split between, I think. What’s happened so far shows a lot of local knowledge, and you don’t get that by living in Porthcawl or Bridgend”

Alun was on form though, muttering “No, you just get inbred”

Our leader smirked a little, but stayed on track.

“Right, then. I think you’re on the money there, Blake. What I’m wondering now is work. If these lads are living so far apart, they won’t be working together, and if one or two are on shifts, that will limit the number of occasions when they are all off at once. Just a thought, aye, but Blake, can you look at the intervals between attacks, see if there is any pattern? Might come to nothing, but it’s a way in. Besides, if there is a pattern, it should let us know the best night to leave our goat outside”

I sneaked a look at our fairy queen, and he did indeed wince a little. I had got the idea from his earlier comment that we would be running some sort of baited trap, and I really didn’t know if he would be up to it. There was cheek there, and bravado, but underneath it all I could smell the fear. I resolved to be as nice to him as I could, and made a little vow not to hang around if things went badly for him.

The Inspector looked round the room, clearly weighing up faces and jobs.

“Alun, want to start on those files? Ta! Chris, this is not being reverse sexist or anything like that, but we’ve got the makings over there, and, well, if you want to hang around…”

He laughed. “Nothing else I can do to help! I could do a food run if you want. Your cakes have almost evaporated. I don’t know much about this stuff apart from what I see on the telly, but I suspect it’s going to be a long one. Oh, you DO keep going on about sexism, don’t you? Too much equality and diversity”

Blake called out from my right.

“I could get to like this one, ma’am! Just not in that way!”

Chris became so camp I had to hold my jaw up to stop it hitting my chest.

“Oh, you’re just playing hard to get, big boy!”

Off he went as Blake and I started the tea-making. I whispered to him, so as not to show out to the others.

“Sorry for jumping down your throat earlier, mate”

He looked at me, head tilted to one side.

“What happened to you, girl?”

I just looked down, and he asked the killer question.

“How old were you, Di?”

I sighed. “Not now, Blake. One day, maybe. Work now”

He nodded. “No worries. I’m a good listener; might surprise you”

I was just collecting the empty mugs again when Chris came mincing back in with a heap of shopping bags.

“Got you bread, and butter, and chips! Oh, and salt, vinegar, ketchup, brown sauce, STUFF!”

Elaine looked surprised, but gratified.

“You could have picked up some dog rolls in the canteen, butt!”

“Na, proper chip butties, that’s what growing men need, and I like my men ever-so-grown. There’s a chippy round Bute Street and they had some bread in the back. I was walking round the corner and the smell just came out and pulled me in. The other bag's got some pies and battered sausages”

There was a little ripple of applause, and he blushed. “Don’t see this as a regular thing, but what I saw in that lad’s eyes, shit. If I can’t help with the real work, well, just give me a shout for brews and stuff”

Sod it, now was a good time, and I went to give him a squeeze.

“You’ll fit in just fine, Chris. Mine’s white without, just for the future”

He started on another round of drinks, and the boss called me over.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“What is it about Alun and those keys?”

Once again, sod it, so I just grinned and came out with it.

“CID gossip has it he has a young PCSO, innit? One of the lads told me he keeps a camping mat on top of the lockers, the dirty little sod, and when a night is a slow one he looks to liven it up a bit”

Ye gods she was doing her best to be super-professional, but she still slipped out a snort of suppressed laughter.

“I didn’t hear that, Detective Constable!”

“I didn’t tell you it, Inspector”

‘Detective’. Oh.

“Just tell him to keep it zipped while we’re on this one, aye?”

I needed to sort that one out sharpish.

“No need, ma’am. He’s one of the good ones, just a bit of a randy sod. Ah, my cuppa. Ta, mate”

I could get to like this one, exactly as Blake put it, but absolutely not in that way. A little flicker of memory, dark hair and a cheeky grin. I really hoped Adam had found what he needed. The more I heard about him, the more incidents I was given unpleasantly detailed descriptions of. How in hell had he ever coped?

Eventually, she called us together. The hot food was gone, and my bladder was complaining.

“Boys and girls, thank you. Good start at getting a handle on these individuals, but we have to call a halt. There is a lot to do, but we need to break on this one. Go home, get some sleep, stroke your dog, whatever. And let your minds wander. You will do some of your best work when you’re half asleep, and the free association starts. See you here at eight thirty tomorrow. Chris, you OK for that?”

He nodded. “Gave the bosses an edited idea of what’s going on, without the bait and trap stuff. Far as they are concerned, I am here to deliver sweetness and light to the victims. They’re fine”

She looked around, appraising, smiling slightly.

“Eight thirty it is then!”

I gave Chris a nod as I left, and for once went home to the family house after a quick call to Mam to let her know I was on my way. I had some scrap books I needed to check.

She was waiting in the kitchen for me, beans on toast on a plate as I walked in.

“Late night, love? Thought you were on a day shift”

“Ah, Mam, it’s this new team. We’ve got some really nasty stuff to deal with just now”

She smiled. "And you can’t talk about it, innit? Need to know, or whatever they say? If you tell me, you have to kill me?”

“Bout right with that. Look, all I will say is watch the news. Won’t be quick, but if we get this one sorted it will be a big story, aye? Now, sorry to rush off, but I am back in tomorrow early, so I need to get my head down”

She came round the table to give me a hug.

“Just promise me, love, promise me you’ll be careful? Safe?”

Can’t really do that, Mam. “I promise I’ll do my best”

She just nodded, her lips thinned, and I went off upstairs to my room, and immediately took down the scrapbook I had started on a certain set of bastards. Three of them, I realised, and the penny dropped as I pulled out the copies I had made from the archived papers.

There it was, as my traitor of a memory told me as soon as I was about to read it. One transgender woman, a savage beating, and compensation paid out by the Dyfed-Powys police for unspecified misbehaviour by two alleged policemen I knew all too well, and in the most personal of ways.

The victims name was shouting at me now: Sarah Marie Powell, and with her age…

Elaine’s sister, no doubt. Three assailants, she kept saying, and I had three of my own. Two coppers, and A.N. Other. My ‘Other’ was a certain councillor; who was her third name?

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”

CHAPTER 16
That one hit hard, and I remembered some of the things Dai Gould had stressed. Always look beyond the immediate, beyond those shouting the loudest. That advice on our first aid courses: the one screaming is the one who has the strength and the breath, the life, to be able to scream. Look to the quiet ones. Look at how the ripples spread.

I rang in to let the boss know where we were with the case, and she dropped the bombshell.

“Di, pause for a second, aye?”

“Yes, ma’am”

“The victim. You know Dai Gould, I believe”

“Yes indeed. One of my mentors”

“The victim was his nephew’s partner”

I felt the room spin. Room mate? Did Dai know me that badly?

“Fuck. Sorry, ma’am”

“Not at all, girl. Now, SOCO done their bit? Any issues?”

“One of the locals been a bit of a twat, but no, all fine so far. I think SOCO have gone a bit above and beyond”

“I suspect Dai let them know who was involved. They’re reporting straight to the team. Look, we’ve done all we can today, and the lad is out for the count. You and Blake go home, aye? Bright and early, nice and fresh; see if we can’t get this rolling. Alun’s still on the tats, we’ve got good stuff now. Go home. Fresh tomorrow, and remember what I said: you’ll do your best thinking when you are half asleep”

I had no argument with that one, so I rounded up Blake and Warren, SOCO and his ferret long gone, and under the hard gaze of the hotel woman we made our exit. Blake drove me steadily and smoothly, as ever, until I realised we were heading the wrong way.

“Mate? My car’s at the nick”

“You are not driving home after this, Di. I’ll pick you up tomorrow”

I wanted to argue, but in the end all I said was “You sure?”

“Yeah. Not a problem. Gives us a chance to get everything straight before we see the gorgon tomorrow”

“Gorgon? Elaine?”

“Bloody frightening woman, Di”

“Bloody good copper, Blake!”

Another quick glance at me. “Yeah, I’ll give you that one, but I’m not getting on her wrong side, girl”

He kept his eyes on the road, but talked quietly.

“Whatever happened to you, Di, not my business, is it? But you ever want to talk, I can listen. I’m not dealing with this case easily, and a different focus, aye? Makes it easier”

“You don’t like the gay stuff?

I saw his jaw muscles clench. “No, Di, not that. Just try and get this sorted: I know what I look like, I know what people assume, but I do this job for the right reasons, yeah? Protect and fucking serve, and some pieces of shit need fucking well serving. Don’t make assumptions”

“Shit. Sorry. Didn’t realise you were gay, mate”

He laughed out loud at that one.

“Straight, girl. Just honest. Remember that, OK? Now, where’s home?”

I directed him through Barry’s back streets, sending a quick warning text to Mam. On way home with company.

I was never one for text speak. She opened the door as we pulled up, and I saw her give him the once over.

“Mam? This is Blake Sutton, one of the team. We’ve had a busy one today, out on a job, so he’s given me a lift home. Pick me up in the morning for work”

“You two eaten?”

“Place we were at did us some sandwiches, but no, not really”

“You got time to eat with us, son? Dad’ll be home in an hour. Nothing special to offer you, just stew and mash”

The big man smiled. “Ta, Mrs Owens. That would be lovely. Just got a cat, back at mine, and I have a clockwork feeder thing just in case I’m late back”

She took us into the kitchen, rather than the front room, and stared at his shoes. Ah. I took mine off with a touch of embarrassment.

“Sorry, Mam. Out in the sticks today; hadn’t realised they’d got so dirty”

Two of us pulled off our footwear, and I had to hide a need to giggle as Blake was clearly trying to smell if his shoes and socks were in any way aromatic. That, more than his comments about his pet, told me absolutely that he lived alone.

We made small talk for a while, or rather Mam grilled him mercilessly about his home life, schooling, friends, family---I half expected her to start pulling out my childhood photos! We were saved by the bang of the front door, and Dad came in, and just like Mam he fixed Blake with his gaze almost as if tracking a target. Mam broke the silence.

“This is Blake, love. He works with our girl; had a heavy day today and he’s run her home rather than go all the way into the city and back. Tea will be ready in half an hour”

“Kettle warm?”

“I’ll do you a cup. You get comfortable”

He was back in five minutes, changed into a casual shirt, and once more Blake got the third degree.

“I was working the beat in Bridgend. New stuff for me, this work. Don’t know if I’m really up to it, to be honest. Di, now, she’s spot on”

I felt my face growing warm. “Don’t be daft, mate”

“No. I’m not. Mr Owens, we’re working on some very nasty stuff, things that would turn your stomach, aye? Diane here has just the right touch. Knows when to coax, knows when to slap down”

He turned to me with a grin. “You should have seen the face of that tosser—sorry! That idiot in the house whose fortune you told. Think you scared him out of a year’s growth”

He turned back to my parents. “That’s the thing in this job, knowing when to smile and when to do things another way. One of our other colleagues, Rob, he says she is great at the fluffy stuff as well. Not many of us can do both, Mr Owens”

Dad nodded. “Mark and Dorothy, son. Nice to meet you. Call her Dot, we do”

That came with a smile, and as guards were lowered, and Mam served the stew whose fragrance had been tugging at me since we first entered the kitchen. We kept the conversation away from work, although Blake did drop in a few of his more amusing anecdotes, while I gave back some of the sillier moments I had witnessed, particularly in my short stint with Traffic.

Blake winced at that one. “I couldn’t do that job, Di. Had to attend a few RTCs, a couple of fatals. Doing something like that, every day, well, don’t know how the lads in Traffic cope. There was one…”

He looked away for a few seconds before continuing.

“Crash out to the West, on the Pontarddulais Road, down from the M4, and it was a bad one. One fatality, and it was a baby. That’s all I want to say about it, but there was one of the Traffic lads there, and he just broke down. Sat by the road, helmet off, sobbing. I couldn’t do that job, not day after day, without being like that at every crash site. Heard the poor lad got rammed off his bike not that long afterwards”

I sat up straighter. “You knew Adam Price?”

Blake’s stare went straight through me, and I realised he was weighing me up as well as his next words.

“Yup. He’s gone off to England now, got married to some English girl”

“Maria”

“You know him as well?”

“Yes. Did some hospital visits after that ramming case. And, well, I was at the scene. My two mates, Traffic lads, they kept me well away from it. No, Mam. No more details, not over tea”

Blake nodded. “Yeah, I heard a lot about that one. Tell you what, though, I was surprised he got married. Always thought he was gay. Shows what a crap judge of character I am. Well, except about you, girl!”

Mam laughed at that one, breaking the mood.

“What’s this boss of yours like, then?”

He grinned. “Mover and shaker, Dot. I really think that when she sets her mind to something, it gets done. I like her”

I snorted. “You said she scares you!”

“Well that too. A proper copper, she is. I’ll do my best not to get on her bad side”

The mood was getting warmer with each smile, and after some fruit yoghurts mam had saved for afters we settled down in the front room, Blake and Dad in the armchairs while I cwtched up with Mam on the settee, but in the end Blake had to get home to sort cat and flat, and three of us waved him off from the front porch.

Dad was smiling.

“Nice lad, Di. You watch his back for him”

Blake was back nice and early the next morning, and once again the drive was smooth, controlled and as quick as the law allowed. I had been thinking as I ate my breakfast, and something had jumped out at me.

Elaine hadn’t said the SOCO would be reporting to her, but to the team. That said things to me about her attitude, and together with Blake’s praise of me to my parents I arrived at the team room with a resolution to do my best for her and the team. This was one of the reasons I was in the job, after all. The two others could wait.

We got into our room just as the first round of drinks was being prepared, and ten minutes after settling into our seats and warming up the terminals Alun came in. He looked grubby, and I wondered if he had spent the night on the camping mat in his trysting room. He was smiling, though, and went straight over to the boss.

“Ma’am?”

She looked up, and he handed her a little piece of card

“I couldn’t sort out the LIO’s filing system, in the end. So I just asked him straight, innit?”

“Give his keys back?”

“Er, no comment on that one, ma’am. Look. This is a copy of one of his little drawings. He’s got photos somewhere, looking for this one now”

She looked confused. “He not file them together?”

Alun gave a strangled laugh. “Data Protection Act, aye? He thinks if it’s hand-written it doesn’t come under the Act, so he files the photos, which come from a machine, in the most awkward way possible so he can claim to have forgotten them. On bloody Planet Intel, innit? Anyway, he’s chaining up his dragon or whatever looks after the photos, and he’ll have it for us in a bit. Now, look at this one. By the way, he files them alphabetically under body part types”

“What, ‘A for Arm, B for Buttock’?”

“Just about, ma’am, but each---member has the names in alpha order of those who’ve got some work there”

Bloody hell! Would it be w, c, d or p? I had to ask.

“Does he…?”

Alun grinned. “Aye. Under ‘P’ for, well, just under ‘P’. Anyway, look at this drawing”

We gathered round the desk with the Inspector to see what he had. I wouldn’t have called it realistic, just four simple hand shapes marked ‘palm’ and ‘back’ with simple drawings of any tattoos known to be present, each tat with a descriptive text linked to it by a ruled line. The card he held showed four tattoos on the back of a right hand, and they were marked ‘Bluebird, dragon, ostrich feathers, dragon’.

I shot over to the photo files, and scrabbled for the print-outs from the Smuggler’s camera. Shit.

“Yes, ma’am. See the feathers? I lay odds on that when the photo’s found we’ve got the watcher. Got a name on that card?”

Alun nodded. “Just a sec… Yeah, I do believe that is a match. Let’s see who we have”

Elaine reached straight past him and flipped the card, and every muscle in her face set tight. My own heart gave a lurch, and I had to look twice, but that name was still there, still shouting at me.

It’s a common surname, girl. It’s a Welsh surname, DC Owens. We are in bloody Wales. Nothing changed, and the name sat in my eyes.

Jamie Richard Evans.

CHAPTER 17
She was straight off home after the shift, wife to unchain, dragon to feed, as Alun cheekily suggested. We had sat at our little tables all bloody day without budging, it seemed, as Chris bustled about with cups of tea and coffee, plates of biscuits and so on, at lunchtime taking everyone’s order for a run up to the canteen.

I could see what he was doing as a support worker, but it was more than that. I don’t think it was a cynical ploy on his part, but his comment about goats and arriving late came to mind. Get involved with us, become part of the team, and we’d feel more inclined to be punctual when it was needed. Whatever his reasons, he did help us markedly through the day.

What we were doing was data analysis, which sounds boring, and is, but we needed to find out as much as we could about Jamie Evans, from vehicles he controlled to jobs he’d held, addresses he had occupied, any dealings with us, all of that. Candice was trawling her ASBO listings for associates and relatives, Ellen was straight onto HMRC for any tax and job records, and so on. Any and all angles, and it was a slog.

On one of my toilet breaks, right at going-home time, I ended up walking straight into the Super in the corridor.

“Sorry, sir!”

“No at all. DC Owens, isn’t it?”

“Well, PC, actually”

“The job you’re on, it’s DC for now. Anyway, how is it going? Don’t worry about ‘need to know’, this one’s my baby”

“Er, won’t Inspector Powell be reporting directly, then?”

He smiled, and there was real warmth there. This was another real policeman, I saw.

“Elaine can be a little intense, a little narrow in her focus, DC Owens. I like to get as many angles on things as I can. Talk me through it—oh, follow me”

He took me to a little room the nick kept for people who needed a space to unwind, and, ignoring the sign saying ‘do not lock door from inside’, proceeded to do exactly that before sitting down with me in the easy chairs.

“The station is a bit shook up, DC Owens. Diane, if I may. Dai Gould’s nephew makes it very personal for a lot of staff here”

“He’s a good bloke, sir”

“Yes, and well-liked. That gives us momentum, which we must take advantage of. What do you have?”

I talked him through the SOCO report and our other little snippets, and it was obvious he was well up to speed with most of them.

“This Evans fellow? What are you doing with him?”

“Data trawl at the moment, sir”

“Any eyes on him?”

“Not yet, sir”

“Do it. That is my formal authority to establish surveillance on Jamie Robert Evans. I ‘ll sort out the paperwork for you tomorrow, but please, get on him. Let Elaine know I’ve authorised it. Keep me up to speed”

He stood to leave, and as he unlocked the door turned back to me.

“And take some time to unwind. As a team, together, if you can. Keep that bonding going and you will do far better work than sitting in silence”

He was off, and after a few minutes thought I went back to our room, our own boss already gone.

“Boys and girls!”

That brought a laugh.

“Boys and girls, we have had a heavy day. I am back in my digs, so I am walking home. Anyone fancy a pint?”

Nem con, and after closing everything up we made our way with some deep sense of purpose to the Great Western, where we found a booth in a corner. Once I was outside half of my own drink, I gave them an edited-for-eavesdroppers account of my chat with the Super.

Rob nodded sharply. “Aye, get onto the bastard as soon as. Makes sense to me. Who’s up for a bit of a sit in a car with cold coffee and a peppered steak slice?”

Alun laughed. “Dunno about steak slices, but I am going to have one of the burgers”

Candice picked up the menu for a check on what they had to offer.

“Your missus not do the cooking to your taste, Al?”

His face fell. “Not that, mate. Lynne’s not really up to it these days”

Typically for a copper, Candice didn’t let it go.

“What’s up, Alun?”

He shrugged. "Don’t really know, girl. She gets tired very easily. No energy for anything these days”

I reined back my comment about energetic PCSOs. “Sounds like CFS, mate”

He nodded, as Ellen asked the obvious question, and gave the answer.

“Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, girl. One of her quacks was talking about ME—don’t even think of asking me to try and say that one. All we know is that she has no energy, gets tired as quick as, headaches, and they’ve done all sorts of tests and, well, fuck-all comes up. So, well, I like the food here, and it saves her having to wear herself out”

Another lesson to me in assumptions, followed immediately by a swell of questions from the team about what they could do to help. We really were building up to that concept—a team.

“Ran into the Super as I came on, people. Wanted to know what was going on. Said he likes to get as many angles as possible”

Rob laughed. “I’m going to take a guess here, as he did the same with me. Anyone he HASN’T tapped up?”

Once again, nem con. Cheeky Super. I laughed with the rest, and then raised our little friend’s needs.

“So that’s all of us, then. Now, he wants eyeballs-on with our mate. Ideas?”

It was Blake’s turn to laugh. “Not you then, Di! We want enough pieces left of him to arrest! You lot should have seen her on plot. That was one scared arsehole after she spoke to him. No, Di, we need someone at the hospital with the victim. You and Rob, I think. Both got the touch, there, and we want our other friend to be nice and relaxed. I’m up for it. Anyone else?”

Alun nodded. “Done the training, me. Can cascade it as necessary, but for now, aye. Me and Blake, if nobody has any other ideas?”

There was general agreement, Candice and Ellen offering to do the relief bit. As our food arrived (I had succumbed to the smell and the menu) I delegated myself as the messenger to our boss the next day.

Blake made a quiet comment as we tucked in. “Di, don’t take this wrong, but we want him in one piece. There again, if I have any say in this, that piece may be missing a few teeth”

I left that one to lie on the table as we ate.

As it turned out, I was first in the next day, my digs being so close. Chris was in five minutes later, Elaine in his wake. As he started rattling the kettle, I followed her to her little space.

“Super ran into me last thing yesterday, ma’am”

“I know what he’s like; he’ll be sounding out everyone on the team. What did he have to say?”

“I let him know we had a face in the frame at last”

“And?”

“He’s authorised proper surveillance, ma’am, on that Evans guy. See where he goes to after work be a starter”

“Who’ve we got on him then?”

Sucker punched.

“How’d you know I’d already… You can be a right sod, Inspector!”

“Where’s he to, anyway?”

I grabbed one of our local street-map booklets.

“Up in Llandaff. LIO’s got a little file on him and no, he isn’t related”

“To the LIO?”

Something that had been almost my first act on seeing that name, that surname.

“No, ma’am, to our favourite family, as I am sure you knew full well I meant”

Her grin was feral, and I immediately thought of Blake’s description of her.

“Not daft, are you? Who’s been detailed to watch the shit?”

“We had a natter down the pub last night, the team did that is. I’m not wanted cause I is a gurl and it might get rough, so Blake and Alun stuck their hands up”

Her face clouded,

“Really? Little bit of sexism?”

I couldn’t help it, and started to giggle.

“Not really… Elaine. They said first of all that I was the best one for the hospital stuff, dealing with the rellies and so on. Best for the boy as well”

“Still…”

“No, not at all. The rest of the lads thought I might be a bit too enthusiastic if it came to a ruck, innit? They want him conscious and in possession of all body parts, though Blake did sort of drop hints about not being too careful with his teeth”

Once again, I saw her own teeth, and there was no mirth there.

“When you see Blake, remind him that some of the wounds we’ve picked up are bite marks, and Evans is going to need his teeth for a match, aye?”

“Wilco, Elaine! Tea? Chris has already got the kettle going”

“Yeah, go on. And I want a timeline comparison ready. When we get other names and faces, I want to crossmatch them straight away”

“I think Alun has a programme for that. Analyst’s Notebook or some such name. Lets you plot timelines visually”

She nodded. “Get it done, girl, or at least started. Bedside?”

“I thought Chris might do some of that”

“Indeed. You not doing any of the staging, then?”

I shrugged. “I think so, but the team wanted to get a handle on his movements first. We will need to change, mix and match, regularly. I’ll let you know”

“Sounds good. Now, did the Super say he was doing the necessaries with the paperwork? If so, I’m off up there to do my own briefing. Sneaky bastard can’t keep going behind my back without consequences!”

There was still a smile there, though.

The week played out, Omar still in an induced coma according to Chris, whose absence from our team room was a wrench. I got to do my own sessions on surveillance, and Jamie Evan’s face became engraved in my little mental book of Things to Hate.

I was on stag with Alun one evening, parked up in the pull-in by the Spar shop just down from the Butcher’s Arms, when I saw the bastard coming straight towards us. Fuck. I grabbed Alun, and hauled him over so that his face was in front of mine.

“Kiss me, mate. No tongue, or I’ll cut your balls off”

Fist kiss, sort of, in forever, but that wasn’t the point. The piece of shit on the footpath walked right past us, just a leer as he clocked our embrace before turning his attention back to the roll-up he was making as he walked. Multi=tasking: how bloody clever of him. I caught a glimpse of the tattoos as he went past, or at least some of them, and blessed that LIO.

So that week went, small instants of terror inserted into long hours of tedium. We were still awaiting any results from the forensic lab people, but they said they had a number of different sets of DNA and promised a call as soon as they had any matches.

Rob and I had just handed over to Candice and Alun and on our way back to the city when my mobile rang.

“Hello, can I help you?”

Idiot. I should have looked at the caller ID before answering. Sloppy, DC Owens.

“Di? It’s Blake. Where are you?”

“On our way back to the office, mate”

“Omar’s awake”

Thank god. “How is he?”

“Shit state. Boss is on her way in, but she’s asked if you can sort out that tattoo file, bring it in? I’m going to call in the other two, take a step back from this one. We could have some more targets very soon, and we don’t want to show out by accident”

“Fair play, mate. I’ll see you as soon as, OK?”

“See you soon, then. Oh yes, got a question to ask. Got a couple of tickets from a mate, for the Blues. He’s had a family thing get in the way”

No, mate. No way. “Not that into rugby, Blake”

He laughed, and it was natural. “No, girl, not for you! Wanted to see if Mark… if your Dad fancied going”

“I’ll ask, OK? Now, let’s get this done. See you in a few”

I wondered if the sneaky bastard was trying to get to me through my parents, before letting it go. He seemed to be getting on well with Dad, and in a little flash of insight I realised how few friends my parents actually had. Mothers and fathers of sluts were not generally flavour of the month, were they?

Let it go, girl. Sort that file and see to a victim. Elaine passed me as I went back out to the car, her face like thunder and her manner even scarier than Blake’s description, but her voice was controlled, even warm.

“Ta, Di. See what he does when he clocks the picture, aye? Have you taken along some fake ones?”

“Got eight files here”

“Good. Not really evidential here, but it gives us what the Yanks call probable cause, aye? His parents are with him. Good people, girl. See you back as soon as you can manage. We need to get this disseminated and digested”

Shortly afterwards, I was at the door of a private room in the hospital. A very, very dark-skinned couple sat by the bed, Blake and Chris hovering nearby and a uniformed lad sitting just outside the door. I went to identify myself, and he grinned, shaking his head.

“I know who you are, love. Just get this one sorted, yeah? For Dai Gould?”

I nodded, pulled on a smile and stepped into the room.

CHAPTER 18
“Hello, Omar. I’m DC Owens. Diane, or Di, or whatever you feel comfy with. Blake being treating you well, or just boring you talking about sport?”

The slim young man was a mess, dressings everywhere I could see, and what were clearly his parents radiated a mixture of worry and anger. There were little touches by the mother to the father’s arm, and I stood for a couple of seconds trying to work out where the dominance lay, who had the lead in their family.

Chris piped up, camp as an entire Everest expedition, as ever.

“Drinkies, anyone? I’m going to troll off to the canteen!”

He took our orders and minced—really minced---out of the door as the father sat open-mouthed and the mother giggled. Omar shook his head, then winced.

“Is he always that over the top?”

I pulled another seat in from the corridor as I mulled over that one.

“Yes and no, Omar. Mind if I call you that?”

A smile. “I said to the others, yeah, it’s easier. Mister Mohammed makes me sound like my dad, isn’t it?”

His mother looked up, and I had been spot on with the dynamics.

"Hiya, girl. Debbie and Fahmi, that’s us. Done all the introductions, all the friendly rubbish, if you see what I mean. Not that friendly’s rubbish, but, well, business is what we need. Just that this needs sorting. What you got for us?”

Set your stall out, DC Owens.

“What I have are some pictures I would like to show Omar, er, Debbie, and see if he recognises anything”

Her face hardened, almost literally, as it set into planes and lines of tension. Fahmi’s gaze locked on me as his wife asked her question, quietly, politely, but with a very dark undertone.

“Would these be pictures of suspects you might have, Diane?”

“Need to know just now, Debbie”

“And you would like us to step outside for a moment while you show these pictures to our boy?”

“Er, yes”

“Well, as a simple Welsh couple, fully law-abiding in all ways, we shall have to assist you with this one, won’t we, love? We will get their names at the trial I am absolutely sure we will have, isn’t that right, Detective Constable?”

The two of them left the room as the breath I had been holding left me. Bloody hell---and Blake thought our boss was frightening! I put the files on the bedside unit, making sure that Evans’ was at the bottom of the heap.

“Omar, Blake tells me that you saw some tattoos on the hand of one of the attackers”

He nodded, once again gingerly, and I continued.

“Now, none of this is evidential, is it? I know Blake has got you to dictate what happened, and that is your evidence for court”

“Yeah, and that Inspector woman. This is going to court?”

“Well, yes, as long as we can get the lot of them”

“I meant you are taking this seriously?”

I looked at him, and saw myself in a bed with two arseholes telling me my fortune, and then a vague figure, Elaine’s sister, same process unfolding.

“Abso fucking lutely. Sorry. You really believed this would be allowed to go away without being sorted?”

He grinned, shyly. “Well, there have been so many other kickings, and nobody’s done anything over them. Just fairies getting a slap, innit?

I gave him my best Elaine-smile, as feral as I could make it. “Not this time, mate”

I turned to the pile of brown folders, and used the look away to compose myself.

“We have a number of leads we are following, so your cooperation here is solely to help us decide if it is worth pursuing them. I have a number of pictures of tattoos, and I just want you to let us know if any of them look familiar”

I started the process, and to my relief he seemed to be all there, switched on and paying full attention. My worry had been that the beating would have left him with issues, gaps that might leave him unable to give us what we needed, what he needed himself.

“No… no… God, those are shit, I hope he didn’t actually pay to get them done! No…”

We worked through them, one by one, until I arrived at Evans’ picture, and as soon as I brought it out, Omar started to shake. Chris had entered the room with our drinks partway through, and he simply reached across for the boy’s hand.

“Strength, love. We’re all here, yeah? All on your side. Talk to Di, now”

I looked him in the eye when he could regain the strength to raise his head again.

“You recognise that one, Omar?”

His mouth twisted. “Yeah, that’s the one. Not the biggest cock, but he still hurt”

Bastards. All of them. There was a knock at the door, and our uniform was there.

“Got a visitor, Di”

It was another young man, and I could see Dai Gould in him as I waved him over to the bed. We left Omar and Scott to comfort each other as we packed up for the return to the nick.

Bastards. I didn’t care whether Debbie and Omar believed us, I fully intended to get every single one of the shits.

Blake was quiet on the trip back, as I had to drive the three of us, Elaine having purloined the other car. I tried to break the silence in as gentle a way as I could.

“Dad says ta for the invitation. He’s off that day, as well”

“Really? Should be a good game, they’ve got the Scarlets”

“Don’t get him too drunk, mate”

“Didn’t have him down as a drinker, Di. Anyway, I am sure your Mam wants him back compos mentis”

I had put the call in, and Mam’s reaction hadn’t exactly surprised me.

“Yeah, she says she’s doing a roast for the Sunday. Asked if you fancied dropping by”

“I could be up for that. No tongues, though”

“You what?”

“Alun texted me. Watch your back with any female PCSOs, girl!”

“Sod!”

“Slapper!”

That little sally brought a welcome burst of levity, but I noticed Chris was quieter than usual.

"What’s up, mate?”

“Ah, love, just the mess they left that boy in. I mean, I have most certainly met my share of arseholes, and no, Blake, don’t even think of making that a joke. I have had my kickings, the abuse, the whole shebang, but what they did to that poor boy went so far beyond what I’ve experienced it made me shudder. There’s going to be a death if we don’t stop them”

Blake turned to him, sat as I was in the driving seat for one.

“Then we make bloody sure we stop it, Chris. That’s what we will do”

The Inspector collared me as we entered our room.

“How was he with the pictures, Di?”

“Don’t think the lad should ever take up poker, Elaine. He started shaking when he saw the Evans picture; I left him with his boyfriend, he was starting to get distressed again”

Everyone was back, and Elaine stepped into the middle of the room, holding a sheaf of reports. What had SOCO turned up?

“Right, boys and girls, we have had some very valuable confirmation of the identity of one of the rapists, and that is our little friend Evans. His tattoos have been confirmed by the latest victim, and this morning we have received a positive on his DNA from the fibres and blood from the hedge. The DNA traces on the used condom have unsurprisingly come from Omar, but we also have a match on of all things a taxi driver who was arrested three years ago for indecent assault but never charged”

I glared at her. What fucking reason had they come up with for dropping that one? The boss gave me a little gesture, no, leave it for now, before she continued the briefing.

“No discussion today on that one, boys and girls. We all know what the CPS can be like. Our second suspect lives over on the East of, er, Swansea. His name is Manfred Hansen. Now we have the name, I want his face looked for in the camera footage, and from the obs teams we’ll be putting on him. Let’s put him together with Evans, and then we can look for a pattern of movement. I want all the times and days they have been seen together. And two of you find out who he cabs for and what his vehicle is, and feed that into the mix. Boring work for now, but we have an opening on this one. Let’s make the most of it”

A week later, after some stupendously boring reading, photo comparisons and visits to a number of Local Intelligence Officers (“No, ta; just leave us with your files, we know who we’re looking for, and you don’t need to, just yet”) we started getting a much, much fuller picture. Ellen had his employers, Candice had a record on Hansen’s wife, and working patterns started to gel. That one oversight, the condom, had given us the shit, and Evans’ carelessness with a thorny hedge had tied him directly to the vehicle. After those seven days of slog, we had two names, a car and a transit van. There were still three bastards more to pin down, but nothing yet to go on.

I could have screamed with frustration. Thankfully, we had a decent weekend, for once, Dad coming home a little merrier than I remembered seeing him. It wasn’t quite at the ‘you’re my beshtest mate’ stage with Blake, but they were clearly happy in each other’s company, a win for Cardiff not hindering the process. Mam took one look at their grins and laughed.

“I think tonight is a trip down the chippy by way of the off-licence. Son, there’s a spare bed if you want”

CHAPTER 19
I collared Mam in the kitchen after the two men had gone out for the supplies.

“What are you up to, Mam?”

“He’s one of the good ones, love”

“You’re trying to fix me up, aren’t you?”

She sighed. “Sit down, girl. Come on. Get your tea and sit down”

I did as she asked, and she turned her face to me, brow furrowed.

“How many friends have you brought back here since, well, you know? Apart from Bridget?”

“I haven’t really had time, what with studies, and training and that”

“Rubbish, girl! What about Saffron? After that day, you closed them all off!”

No, mother dear, the whole school closed me off, apart from the boys who thought I was ‘open all hours’ for them. I kept that thought from her and concentrated on my tea.

“Did you ever look up and see what was happening to me and your Dad? Wasn’t just you they turned on, was it? Anyway, it’s not just you the lad’s here for. Dad likes him too. You may have missed that bit, but we haven’t exactly had the easiest of times with the neighbours. I think your Dad’s got a mate again, and although I do love you, my darling, love you with all of my heart, I loved him first, and he’s been hurting ever since that night. I am NOT throwing you at Blake!”

She took a sip of tea. “Though you could do a lot worse, girl. Now, you need to know a couple of things”

From one of the drawers, or rather, to my astonishment, from underneath one, where it had been hidden away, she brought out a folder, and in it were press clippings, notes, letters. At least one of the envelopes was a creamy beige, bearing the portcullis of Westminster. Mam caught where my eyes were looking.

“Yes, we wrote to the MP, and he did nothing. Said it was in the hands of the police complaints people, leave them to their internal stuff, load of tripe like that. But your Dad, he wouldn’t let it go. Kept tabs on those two bastards, those policemen. You weren’t the only girl they did that to, and it caught up with them. What?”

She’d obviously caught my wince. “I know there was another woman, Mam. Sarah Powell, innit?”

She nodded. “And your boss is?”

I sighed. “Her sister. She got a pay-out from their force. Mam?”

“Yes?”

“I met them again, while I was still new. We, Bryn and Barry and me, when I was doing Traffic, we got called to help out of area, a stop needed doing. The boys warned me off them, said they were cu--- said they were people I should avoid. They were right”

She nodded. “You know they were both sacked?”

“No, I didn’t. What the hell for?”

She passed me another clipping, this one just a little box, then another one, and each told the same story, of a roadside breath test failure and a driving ban and fine. I looked back up to her sad, weary smile.

“Their own force made sure they were gone, love. There is nothing left for you to chase, not now. We need to move on, all of us, and your Dad is doing that now, and that is because you have finally brought a friend home. I am not belittling your pain, Di, just saying that it’s more than just you. Perhaps, together, yes?”

Ripples, spreading. I couldn’t hold the tears any more, and nor could my mother, but we had a table properly set, complete with glasses for the ale and wine, as she wasn’t going to have people slumped in armchairs drinking from cans, was she? Both men were back in twenty minutes, the smell of the chips grabbing my attention, and when Blake spotted the plate with the bread and butter he roared with laughter, before putting on the campest lisp imaginable, although it sat oddly with his deep voice.

"Darlings, one simply cannot eat chips without bread and butter, but it must be cut square, don’t you know?”

Dad looked up at him in shock, so I explained.

“Lad we work with, gay as a gay thing. Chris. Really good lad. Trust me, this one’s not like him! Can’t even do the voice”

My friend (yes, friend) laughed again. "You still thought I was, though! Mark, she apologised to me the other day, ‘sorry, didn’t realise you were a bender’, innit?”

“I did not say bender!”

Mood broken. The pattern of our evening was set, and we finished up slumped before the telly, Blake and myself in the armchairs while Mam did the cwtching on the settee with Dad. Healing was at least starting, if not yet fully underway.

We were back at work the next day, driving in separately to avoid eyebrow-raising and gossip, and the drudgery continued, although the room was enlivened by a bouquet of flowers from Omar’s parents. Chris was the one pulling favours, though, in a series of phone calls and visits that led him to give us a little speech.

“Darlings, I have been speaking to colleagues and managers at my own office, and they have been most helpful. Lainey, we need an appropriate data gateway signed off for this”

She nodded. “Can do, butt. What can you get me?”

He grinned. “Already got it, my sweet. Just need some paperwork before I can let you see it. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency would not DARE to stoop to such things as leaking data to others without all the necessary authorities in place, would they?”

He put a folder down on one of the tables.

“Oopsies, I appear to need to go to the little boys’ room for a few minutes. Later!”

He gave a little finger wave, and moved off only as far as the tea urn, where he started making a round of drinks. Elaine went to her little space, no doubt to set up the necessary paperwork, and Rob was first to the bundle.

“You little beauty, Chris! Boys and girls, this is all the registration details of our two villains. Addresses, points awarded, everything!”

Chris looked across from our mini-kitchen.

“Then I suggest you start looking for ways to put them together”

That set the pattern for our work for three weeks, and as December wound down to Christmas, Elaine called us together for a team meeting. She laid out our results in a way that showed the links rather than just recounting what we already knew.

“I want three of you to sign out tasers, and that means you, Blake, Rob and Candice”

I was a little put out at that selection.

“Why not me, Elaine?”

“Because, Diane, the boys think you’d be too gung-ho to use one, besides the fact that you’re not certified to carry it. Now, I am off to England for Christmas, but I will be back for the New Year’s delights. Boys and girls! Your ears for a bit. Now, I know this is going to piss you off a bit, but I don’t want to try our luck on that night. I know it’s the only time some of you are lucky enough to pull, and that’s what the problem is. Our targets are likely to be out on the pop themselves, and we would be setting our bait in the middle of a lot of potential victims. I will be doing the night shift into the New Year just in case, but I don’t anticipate any attacks that night.

“Our boys seem to meet up mostly on Thursdays and Fridays, at least the two we know about. This is the hard bit. I want the team stood to on both those evenings following the New Year, and we will have the ANPR switched on for Hansen on the M4. I want four unmarked cars around the area fitted with ANPR as well, and there will be two carriers for the rest of you plus uniformed support. Bring a flask and sandwiches, and before then, have a nice Christmas”

I looked over to Chris, and saw a shudder pass through him.

“You OK, mate?”

He shook his head. “Not really, Di. This is getting too real too quickly. You do know why I am really here, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Sacrificial goat, innit?”

“Yes. Trouble is, I don’t do violence, or pain. Just getting a bit too three-dimensional now, too up close and scary”

Blake was at my shoulder again. “You do know that you don’t have to do this, don’t you?”

Chris gave him a flat stare, all the camp playfulness gone.

"And when some other boy gets beaten and raped, and I could have stopped it, how am I supposed to feel? No, we run with this, but please remember that I am shitting myself”

Blake stepped forward before I could and gave him a hug, so I joined them both. It seemed the right thing to do.

The next day, I took an unmarked car for a drive up one of the streets mentioned in Mam’s press clippings. As I cruised past a driveway with a Range Rover on it, I clocked the face of the man washing it. Pritchard. I made a mental note of his number and carried on driving, looping round to the main road back to Cardiff.

Elaine was gone the next day, off to her Christmas with the family, but the rest of us were in on time. Once Chris had sorted out our beverages, Candice stepped forward, and after the obligatory ‘boys and girls’ said her piece.

“I’ve been having a natter with Chris this morning, and I think he’s right. I know I am not the only one to see how nervous he is on this one, so I think we should let him have his say. Chris?”

"Thank you, my love. Now, Lainey says we won’t be working the holiday shifts, but that’s not the point. Soon as she’s back, we need to move on this one before our targets get frisky again. I am willing to do whatever it takes so that I don’t have to see another Vernon, another Omar, in hospital. Or worse. Are you all with me? All happy to…do it for the queen?”

He was right, naturally. We had a vote, for the sake of some sense of formality, but the result was inevitable. We’d all be in work for as many days as we could manage, doing it for the queen himself.

The next day, another surprise, which seemed to be rapidly becoming the pattern of my life.

“Di?”

“Yes, Blake? White without, it’s on the sheet”

“Cheeky cow. Christmas”

“Yes. I know. It comes round each year, same date”

“Your Mam and Dad. They’ve asked me to come for dinner. Spare bed”

Deep breath. Think of my parents.

“I see. Then let’s make it a good one, mate"

CHAPTER 20
It turned into a busy pre-holiday session, just when most of us would normally have looked to start winding up our work ready for a few days of sloth. Rob in particular had us drilling with taser deployment, even those of us not licensed to carry them, while Blake refreshed our comms skills, if that is the word for hammering us into exhaustion.

A lot of what both of them were doing was instilling automatic reactions into us, so that our responses would bypass our conscious decision-making and become reflex. It was similar to what we had all done in our safety training, but far more intense, the focus a lot narrower. At the same time, well, not at exactly the same time, we worked to tie down as many details as we could concerning our two lead names, including who they lived with and even how up to date they were with their council tax.

Blake was another surprise, or rather Blake had yet another one for me, in that while we had our arms-length contact with HM Revenue and Customs, his brother only actually worked for the buggers. We drafted several more Data Protection Act applications, just, you know, on the off-chance. Whatever it took, those boys were receiving as full attention as we could manage.

In the end, Candice talked sense into us, and while we knew Elaine would be back for the dreaded New Year’s night shift, we assembled in a horrendously busy Chinese restaurant and ate Stuff while drinking Tiger beer, and our team bonding solidified properly.

The only down side to that was with Chris, who refused to come out with us.

“My darlings, for once, I know you are all bobbies and peelers with big truncheons, but THINK. What happens if they are actually out tonight, and they see me out with you all? What do we do then?”

He was right, we had to agree, but we only did so after a prolonged argument. He really felt like part of our team, and a team do without him was simply a ‘do’, no team involved. As it was, it ended up as an event that skirted the slippery edge of ‘debauch’ but only just. We had silly games, someone produced a Sweary Fairy Tiara that required extremely foul language from the wearer, and Songs were Sung. That was our New Year’s Eve. Christmas had been very different, not just from NYE but also from those I had lived through for the past several years. Blake was with us.

For years, I had lived through each year, not lived them. I had managed to get from one end to the other, January to December, without concerning myself too much about the intervening twelve months. Christmas at our house had always been observed, because that was the way Things Are Done, but I am sure Mam did the dinner on autopilot. Dad did a tree, the three of us put up decorations, ate the dinner, watched ‘The Great Escape’ or ‘Sound of Music’, took the decorations down and went back to work. Suddenly, Dad had a mate to invite over for the day, Mam had someone to natter with while she opened a very dusty bottle of sherry, and I had a dilemma.

What the hell could we talk about? Work was off limits for obvious reasons, Rugby only went so far and the story of my life was simply not going to make an appearance. There was no way I was going to dress up, ever.

“You’re not wearing those, love”

“Why not, Mam?”

The things in question were an old and softly comfy pair of track-suit bottoms and a sweat shirt from Cardiff Uni. And slippers.

“We have a guest, love”

“He is just a workmate, Mam!”

“Here. Try these, I’ve just ironed them”

Shit. At least the slacks were well worn-in, and the top was more of a long-sleeved T-shirt than a dressy blouse, but still.

“And brush your hair!”

So much for a slouch on the settee to whatever Bond film would be on. Whatever; Blake was round at 12 on the dot, and my mother went into hyperdrive. Whatever the other effects of Blake’s visit may have been, one very welcome result was a bloody good meal. We sat at table, we ate, Dad and the big man talked rugby, and Mam smiled. It got to me, in the end, because it was an absolutely bog-standard, unexceptional and ordinary Christmas dinner of the sort we hadn’t had since I was sixteen, and if I hadn’t hated the entire Evans family before we sat down, it was certainly a fact of my life when we moved to the living room.

Mam had offered to do the pud, and all three of us groaned.

“Ok, then. We’ll have it as part of tea. Beer, boys?”

Blake looked at Dad for a lead, and Dad simply grinned and said “That would be lovely, Mam. Er, love”

I beat her to the kitchen, and poured two bottles of ale into glasses only after I had made sure my own softer drink was in front of me. Tightrope walking isn’t easy at the best of times, and with a drink in me it might have been impossible to pull off safely. My swift move also made sure I got an armchair rather than being marooned on the settee, as I suspected I might doze off given the load my stomach had taken on.

In the end, I gave up on that idea, and simply got up, tugged Dad off the settee and into the armchair, and slumped against Mam. I can’t remember which Bond it was, whether film or actor, but it wasn’t spoiled by the constant low conversation between the two men concerning the cars, guns and stunts, impossibility thereof. I do remember one scene, where the Bond actor in question used a perfectly normal bit of rock-climbing gear that had been dressed up as a secret invention by whichever Letter of the Alphabet was supposed to do the hardware, but it dragged me into the conversation. Dad had been a climber in his youth, and before those wonderful things had happened in my life would take me on camping trips to the North, where he taught me the basics.

Afterwards…

After things had changed, he took me away a couple of times, camping in the big site near Capel Curig, or one of the little ones in the Ogwen, but it was never the same. I could never let go of events enough to indulge the there and then, just as I couldn’t for the here and now, but I had still enjoyed my times in the mountains, and it turned out that Blake had been a very keen climber before the job took over his life. I was glad, as it gave us something in common that was risk-free, away from work and personal history, and of course one set of tales of Silly People in Mountains took us straight through to stories of the fools encountered at work.

I realised I was enjoying myself. More than that, I was actually relaxed. We had a bloody good dinner, followed by a delightfully normal evening of telly-fed slumping and silly jokes finishing, without the usual complaints, in a cut-throat game of Scrabble, which Dad won, but only just. I should have been allowed a triple word score, but the other three ganged up on me, so I resolved to look for a copy of the Official Scrabble Word List or whatever the name was for the next time, and only then did my mind put its train of thought into a proper sequence.

Blake fitted. He simply sat down, smiled, relaxed and did his Blake thing, and he took tension out of the room, and the realisation that I was assuming a ‘next time’ would come was the first real surprise. The second was that I didn’t actually object to the idea. I was almost looking forward to it.

So it was dinner, tea, silly film, daft game, a moderately indulgent quantity of alcohol and a decent night’s sleep. He stayed over, we went to work the next day, got utterly shit-faced on New Year’s Eve and reassembled on January 2nd.

It seemed my family was getting a life again.

Those memories were there in colour as I packed the car so many lifetimes later, and so few years. I had indeed run the idea past Him Indoors, and the thought of such a silly idea as Christmas camping set him planning. Rhod was as excited as a dog with two noses and three tails, so there had, in the end, been no alternative. Annie had promised us space in the big tent she had mentioned, and had some spare sleeping mats and other bits. I bought my little man a proper sleeping bag to go with our heaps of quilts and pillows, the satnav was set and we were off.

Motorway. Traffic. Bridge. More motorway. Crap food. Even more motorway. Thank god for electronic tablets loaded with child-friendly animated sedatives and a husband who could drive smoothly, as well as knowing the way.

“Mam! Mam!”

“Yes, love?”

“Aeroplanes! Coming down!”

“Aunty Annie lives near a big airport, love”

“Can we go and see the planes, Mam?”

“We shall see. You can ask Aunty Annie if it’s allowed”

“Will there be fighter planes, Mam?”

“Don’t think so, love. It’s an airport for people who are going on holiday?”

“Are we going on holiday, Mam?”

You devious little sod. “Not that sort of holiday, Rhod”

I smiled to myself. “Ours is a holiday with our family, love"

CHAPTER 21
We made our way round the series of right turns Annie had advised, finally ducking down a back street behind the church we weren’t staying at, oh no, and in the dusk saw a small sea of canvas, a lot of which was glowing from within as people used torches or lamps to sort their bedding out. That had always been one of my favourite parts of camping with Dad, where I would walk back from the toilets or a shower, usually in rain, it being North Wales, and our tent would be glowing in just that way, a little jewel of warmth and shelter that was so much more than a bag of cloth hung on a framework of sticks.

We parked up next to the pub, and as I did the obligatory arrived-safely-no-Rhod-wasn’t carsick call to Mam, Blake started looking around for familiar faces while ensuring our little explorer didn’t go off seeking unfamiliar ones. I wandered over towards the church hall, which had lights and an open door, and realised there were young people everywhere, from toddlers to teenagers. Annie’s cousin was inside the building, shepherding people around a table of cups and hot drink makings. I got a blank look, immediately followed by a smile.

“Ah! You are the sneaky one! Diane, isn’t it? I will call my cuz”

I had to laugh at that.

“One afternoon sitting in a café and I get a nickname!”

“Well, wait there, and I will sort your en-suite accommodation”

She handed her apron to a tall girl with a rather large nose, gave her my tea order (how did she know that?) and trotted off out of the hall, and two minutes later Annie was wrapped around me in welcome, grin in place.

“How was the drive, butt?”

“Long!”

“Oh, try it from Pembrokeshire some time. Lainey and that lot aren’t here yet, but Jan and Bill have the Edifice waiting for you. Bring your tea”

She led me out into the gathering dusk, and there was indeed an Edifice there, and yes, the capital letter was appropriate. It was a tunnel tent big enough to stand up in, but what seemed like forty feet long, though I am sure my measurements came from surprise rather than sober assessment.

“Jan? This is Di. Di? My friends Bill and Jan. They’ve got a room for you in their hotel here”

The man, Bill, was grinning, and there was warmth in his smile. Any doubts I had about Rhod’s safety would have evaporated at that, if I hadn’t already realised that my old friend would deliver us only to people she really trusted.

Annie turned away, calling back to me over her shoulder.

“Got a lot to sort out, Di, a lot more arrivals, aye? The other two in the pub carpark?”

“Yes”

“I’ll get a drudge to bring them over, and see you later, aye?”

She was gone before I could reply, and Jan just smiled gently.

“So much energy in her now. Not like how she was…. You’ve known her a long time, she says”

“I have that. Um, before, well, you know”

Jan nodded. “Before she stopped being stupid, you mean? I suppose we were lucky, being there at the time. Oh, come in and sit down”

There was actually a dining room in the beast of a tent, with a table and proper chairs, and as we took our ease in apricot-coloured light with a warm mug each, a succession of teenagers came in, each laden with some of our bedding or one of the holdalls with our clothes and other necessities. My two men followed them in, Rhod’s mouth wide open as he looked at the size of his temporary home.

“Mam, can we get a tent like this?”

I pulled him over to stand by my chair, so that I could hug him.

“Why would we need a tent this big, son?”

“For camping, Mam!”

“Who would we be camping with, Rhod?”

“Sassie and Tone!”

Jan laughed.

“Hello, little man. Who might you be?”

He looked at me. “Can I say, Mam?”

I got a little look from Jan as she clearly put ‘careful’ together with ‘coppers for parents’, and I gave him a squeeze.

“This is Aunty Jan, and with Uncle Bill, this is their tent, love. You can say who you are”

“Hello Aunty Jan I am Rhodri Adam Sutton and this is my Mam and my Dad is bringing our stuff”

She smiled at him, as Blake carried in the last of our bags. “Well, Rhodri Adam Sutton, Sassie and Tony are staying with us in this tent. It has four bedrooms. That means we can have a choice of where we sleep”

“Mam can we sleep in a bedroom Sassie and Tone and me?”

“Calm down, love. Shall we wait until they get here with their Mams and see what they say? Now, has your Dad taken you for a wee yet? No? Dearest darling sweet, he’s starting to hop around!”

Off they went, and I tried to match Jan’s comment about drudges to collect our things, but it just turned into mutual laughter.

She gave me another smile, a soft one rather than a grin.

“You are so like her, you know, so like Annie. Born to be a Mum, weren’t you?”

I raised an eyebrow, but she just held up her hands. “No, not getting into any of that stuff. She was, and she is, so end of. How do you want to play the rooms? We can put the three little ones between you and the girls, if you want, so they can come in for a cuddle if they need to. Makes it an adventure for them. Shall we start sorting the bedding?”

The more I spoke to her, the easier it got, and I realised that if Annie had come over to Sussex for what were, in the end, completely bogus reasons, she had fallen on her feet in a way that was simply better than anything she could realistically have dreamt of. We sorted the beds, gathered our warmer clothing and ambled back to the hall, which was slowly filling with people as well as the smell of hot food. So many people, all of them, it seemed, needing to say hello to Annie as well as her cousin, and a tall redhead, who was eventually tugged over to me for an introduction.

“Diane, Steph. Steph, Di. No, she doesn’t play anything””
The taller girl laughed. “You’ll be the one staying with my in-laws, then? Jan and Bill?”

I nodded, somewhat blown away by the sea of strange faces, as well as a hubbub of conversation in at least three languages. She noticed.

“Don’t worry, Di. No harm here, and after a while you’ll get to know who’s who. Lainey’s texted to say she’s ten minutes off, so that’ll be someone you do know. There’s enough spare aunties to keep the kids safe, so don’t worry. We’ve got the cage and the satellite link set up ready”

“Uh?”

With a perfectly straight face, “Oh, we stream organised infant cage fighting n the internet for the gambling income, but that’s not till tomorrow evening”

Once again, a snort of laughter, and she was away to sort something else out as my two arrived for their tea. My little man climbed onto my lap, while my big one sat with an arm around my shoulders, and whispered into my ear.

“I think we made the right decision for Christmas, love, but I’ll be buggered if I can remember any of their names”

I sat up, speaking normally, but squeezing his hand first.

“What do you two think of the bedrooms?”

“Can I have a torch Mam?”

“Not tonight, love. It might keep other people awake”

As well as you, of course, so I set out to get him as tired as I could.

Shepherd’s pie, vegetable lasagne, hot drinks, and just as we settled down with our plates Rhod was off and squealing as Lainey and Siân joined us with their two. Greetings, grunts of satisfaction as cuppas were produced, and three smaller persons all but tied to their seats until fed and watered. After a long and clearly needed sip of her tea, Elaine smiled at the two of us.

“Good call with the bedrooms, Di. Darren and Shan have set everything out, and if we get all three worn down to exhaustion we’ll be able to get some sleep of our own. Tony’s Mam has agreed to babysit for tonight, and Alice will cover tomorrow, so we have a chance to let our hair down”

Blake looked up from his second bowl of lamb and mash.

“Rhod wants to see the planes, girls”

Elaine nodded. “Steph can advise on that one. Now, I need a wee, and these three need to make the rounds. Children! Can you see this badge I have?”

Three nods.

“If you go running about, you are all right near the tents, or in this hall, or in the church, aye? If you get lost, just look for anyone with a badge like this, and tell them who you are, and they will look after you. Got it?”

Three nods, and she looked at me for confirmation.

“Right, you three! Finished? Off you go!”

Peace, calm. I looked at her badge, and she shrugged.

“So many kids these days, so we set up a creche sort of thing, like one of those shopping centre lost child places. Now, the Dover crowd will be here in twenty, and Arwel and Kev’s in an hour, so the kid count will go hyperbolic. I hope you’ve brought your dancing shoes!”

CHAPTER 22
It was drizzling the next morning, Christmas Day itself. The rain made a soft hiss on the fly sheet, sibilant underneath the semi-stifled giggles coming from the next ‘bedroom’ as three little people planned their day. Blake was warm beside me, as was the bedding around me, and the only thing that drove me up and out was Bill’s shout of “Kettle’s on, you lot!”

The evening before had been a real mixture, as the vicar, Simon, led us through a proper carol service with the place packed out. All of us plus his regular congregation really strained the fabric of the old place, and I am sure some of the singing had inflicted structural damage.

Not like that, though Rhod’s enthusiasm for the songs he knew didn’t quite match his command of such things as tune or actual note required. He wasn’t alone, of course, and he was happy, so I had nothing to complain about. The damage I anticipated would have come from the singers provided by Lainey’s and Annie’s families, who were both there in force and seemed to be endowed with rather a lot of men with loud voices.

Loud, and bloody harmonious. I managed to record some of it on my phone, sending it as a mail attachment to Mam. Her text back was as immediate as such things could be.

Wonderful, love. Maybe we come next year.

Snacks, beer and proper socialising followed, and for a while a small number of our friends and their own played a variety of instruments at one end of the hall. Nobody got silly, and as fatigue hit three little people, Blake and Siân delivered them to the care of Tony’s mother and the warmth of their beds.

Blake was grinning when he returned.

“Little sod wanted to know how Santa would get in without a chimney to come down”

Elaine snorted. "We told our two we’d sent a forwarding address to the North Pole”

My husband nodded. “Yeah, Sassie explained it all to Rhod, so of course he wanted assuring we’d done the same thing, so I said yes, of course. What’s the plan?”

Siân tossed back her mop of red curls, raising the back of her hand to her forehead in a very silly way.

“Well, one of us here did most of the driving this time, so her wife will be giving her a neck rub while plying her with white wine, of course”

My old boss snorted again. “I hear and obey, oh mighty one!”

We were gathered round a couple of tables, along with Lainey’s mates Kev and Vicky, their own two offspring similarly disposed of, and when Elaine returned with a tray of drinks that seemed, amazingly, to be bloody free, I asked the important question.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow, butt? Rhod wants to see the planes”

She handed round pints and wine glasses just as Vicky placed two bottles of pinot grigio on the table, and moved her chair so she could start on the neck massage Siân had demanded.

“I think Steph has some ideas on that one, but there’s another thing we want to do, and that involves a short drive. Do that in the morning, get back here, bus to the airport before Christmas dinner. Kid’s hospital come down for that one, so we do that about five o’clock. Then the evening is ours. Bit traditional, that. Bit mad, as well”

I was intrigued. “Mad?”

Elaine grinned over her wife’s shoulder. “How well do you know Annie?”

I grinned back. “Well, intimately wouldn’t be quite the right word, would it? So let’s just say rather well”

“I think you may get a surprise tonight”

“I got a surprise a few years ago, Lainey!”

She actually cackled, rubbing her hands in an evil way. Until Siân complained.

“Oy, serf! Neck!”

Such a gentle, comfortable evening. Enough alcohol to ease conversation, more warmth than I could ever have hoped for. We left three filled stockings in the children’s bedroom just before we all settled down for a surprisingly good night’s sleep.

The drizzle eased as we got ourselves moving, helped in that process by the smells coming from the church hall: bacon, sausages, coffee, a full breakfast appearing in much the same way as the previous night’s booze. Once refuelled, the big-nosed girl stood up in the middle of the crowd.

“Good morning! I am Sophie, if you do not know me already”

A contralto voice, surprisingly musical, and a very strong French accent. Her English was good, if a little formal.

“We know there are people who wish to observe the aeroplanes, and my brother and I have a place we love where they may be viewed from afar”

The tall redhead, Steph, stood up next to her.

“Yes, and I have a magic goblin train for little people who want to see them closer. So eat up, and then we will drive out to Sophie’s place for a nice walk before returning here for a bus ride to the airport and the magic train. Any takers, meet in the car park in thirty minutes”

“Mam! Can we see the goblins and the aeroplanes?”

His face was shining, and only partly with grease from his breakfast.

“I think faces and hands need washing, and teeth brushing, before we can go. Dad, shall we go for a walk?”

He nodded. “I shall see to faces, hands and teeth then, Mam, while you sort out welly boots, hats and gloves”

We made quite a convoy as we set off from the church, and after a slightly complicated drive, we climbed a long hill to a major roundabout, doubling back on ourselves to find a car park on the edge of the Downs. A little footbridge took us over the road we had climbed and into a wood, the trees stark and bare. I don’t know how many of us were there, but I lost count of the number of children. So many of our group were cuddling up I had a little moment of soppiness and had to wipe away a tear.

Sophie, the tall French girl, was arm in arm with a tall blond man, while the cliché Frenchman she had introduced as her brother was snuggled up to a stunningly beautiful blonde of his own, their children rampaging through the undergrowth. There were at least three couples I assumed to be lesbians, as well as a herd of Welsh men and women, strolling, chatting, pointing out the birds; smiling. We came out of the woods through a little gate to find a great sweep of green space and a little belvedere, where we gathered. Sophie clapped her hands, and I understood immediately that she was a teacher. She simply had that way about her that showed how well she understood children. She pulled her brother to her side, kissing his cheek with real affection.

“My brother, Roland, he brought me here a long time ago, and it was the saving of my life, so we try the best that we are able to do to come here at the feast. For those who wish, if you regard just---there!”

Rhod grabbed my leg.

“Mam! I can see the planes coming in!”

He was right. Our position gave is an uninterrupted view right across the land below to what I realised were the South Downs above Brighton. A steady procession of airliners came past from the left or took off to the right, and Rhod’s joy was lifted even higher when the tall blond man, who said he was Benny, handed out a few sets of binoculars and showed the littler ones how to use them.

The older folk produced flasks, the kids played at being planes again, and as their energy ran down and our fingers chilled we made our way back through the woods to our vehicles. A drive back, parking up and straight back out after a toilet visit, and this time our guide was Steph and our group almost entirely composed of children. There was a bus stop just across the road from the church, and after ten minutes we proceeded to fill the number 100 bus. Off at the ‘South Terminal’ stop, children gathered in pairs by the busy road, up three flights of stairs via what Steph called her secret door.

That took us to what looked like a long corridor extending from a glass wall, and as we assembled the doors nearest us opened on the shuttle connecting the two terminals. Steph was clearly in charge.

“Right, you lot! I am Mrs Woodruff! This is the train that takes people backwards and forwards between the two terminals. Underneath us are lots of goblins, all sitting on bikes. They have to pedal very hard to move the train, and they all have to start together. Now, look out the front. Can you all see the tracks? You all need to hang on tightly, and when you see the green lights come on between the rails, that is the signal for the goblins”

[‘Please stand clear of the closing doors’]

“Mam! Mam! Green!”

Off we went, and for a minute or so we got views of the parked airliners, as well as some speeding along the runway, and of course we didn’t get off at the North Terminal but rode the shuttle back, which gave us views of the approaching planes, and…

I lost count of the number of times we did the trip, and was beginning to cool towards Mrs Woodruff, the sod, until she finally led us off the train and into the concourse proper, where there was a coffee shop, with tea, and NO cakes. I gave her the sort of Look Elaine had taught me, and she just grinned.

“Tires them out, love, and lets them sleep. Trust me, you don’t want them lively tonight”

So we gathered them up, Steph led the way once more to a bank of lifts, down we went and through a bicycle parking area to another bus stop. Another 100 bus, another short ride, and another bus stop right next to the church. This time, what greeted us was the aroma of roast turkey and all the necessary ancillaries, accompanied by the vicar’s wife holding a bundle of aprons.

We did the meal together for the hospital children, and then the bloody dishes, before we settled down with those same dishes refilled for our own dinner, and I was steadily getting blown away by it all. We were a large group of people, gathered from at least three countries, many of whom didn’t actually know each other, or barely, but the feeling of community, of affection, of bloody LOVE, was undeniable. This was everything that bastard had taken from me at sixteen, this was everything my parents had thought lost.

This was the man beside me, in so many different faces, so many different personalities. I found myself tearing up again. We ate, we laughed, we groaned in repletion as children who should have been unable to move after their own meals simply defied both physics and biology and ran shrieking through the hall and the safe spaces outside it, and we cuddled up to those who mattered to us.

Full dark outside, and tired children went to bed with grandmothers and older aunties to watch over them as Simon the vicar unveiled the lumps that had been sitting quietly at the end of the hall, revealing several bloody beer barrels. He grinned and shouted something about love and happiness, right here and now, and as the first pints were poured it was to the sounds of a number of instruments tuning up. That surprised me, and I was even more surprised to see Annie on stage in a little black dress and heels, which seemed rather out of place, and carrying a flute.

Folk music, in the end, with Steph on violin and Eric, who I realised I had hardly said a word to, such are the joys of motherhood, on guitar. Elaine’s sister brought round more plates of snacks as the music stirred some aimless sort-of-dancing, and I noticed her own outfit of T-shirt, denim mini and heeled boots. Hmmm.

The music was actually quite infectious, and hubby duly dragged me up for a dance, which was quite nice right up until I realised Eric had swapped his guitar for an electric bass, both Steph and Annie had somehow plugged their own instruments in, and a man the size of a chest freezer was on stage with them. Ye gods, he had lungs!

“FINISHED WITH MY WOMAN CAUSE SHE COULD NOT HELP ME WITH MY MIND!”

Black Sabbath? In a bloody church? The instrumentation was unconventional, the singer was bellowing (tunefully) rather than screaming, but it damned well worked, and it set the mood for the rest of the evening. They worked through stuff I half-recognised, mixed in with stuff I didn’t know at all, but the common theme was utter insanity in the playing. The teasing redheaded Mrs Woodruff was gone, replaced by a raving lunatic in a swirl of auburn hair as she did Stuff to her violin rather than just played it, Eric was the epitome of a rock guitarist, all power chords and cock, and Annie strutted.

All the painful shyness I remembered, all the gentle smiles and impish sense of fun, all evaporated like a snowflake on a bonfire as she did indeed strut, doing incredible things to her flute that easily matched Steph’s endeavours before taking everything more than a stage further, eyes closed, damp hair sticking to her face. I had my dancing shoes on, as Elaine had demanded, so by god I danced.

We danced, we drank, we grazed on plates of nibbly stuff, and after it all I took my husband back to our little bedroom, where we made love, in all senses of the word, as quietly as we could as the love and life of that evening cleansed my soul.

CHAPTER 23
I wish I had known those people years before, or people like them, who could have brought my parents out of the pit along with me. What I was learning, in the end, was that it wasn’t about individuals as such but about a way of thinking. We had English, Welsh and French there, all together and smiling. It sort of flew in the face of so much of my experience of policing, and then another thought struck me, no doubt triggered by the kids in wheelchairs and leg braces we had just shared dinner with.

There had certainly been little love lost a few years previously, as we waited for the right moment to send out our goat. Christmas may have warmed me, but I was left confused, even after coshing my brain so thoroughly on New Year’s Eve. Elaine was back bang on time, as ever, looking refreshed, and she very quickly saw straight through us all. Blake and I had come up with a couple of tricks ready for her, though. We had indeed tied our two known pieces of excrement down to Thursdays and Fridays, and there was absolutely nothing reported over the holidays that fell into our own area od work.

On Tuesday, we picked up a bit of a heated discussion coming from the Dragon’s Den, as Alun called it when he wasn’t saying Gorgon’s Grotto, and Elaine walked into the team area with Chris still hotly disagreeing. She wanted to plot up in response to an ANPR ping telling us the targets were moving towards us, and Chris was disagreeing in a surprisingly non-shrill way.

“Listen, Lainey, all we know is that we’ve put faces to two of them, but they are at least three strong and most probably four or five. What happens if I get clocked going into the trap, eh? They could have one or two watching and only call the others out if they see a possible target. If I’m not there, they might hit someone else, and I couldn’t live with that, girl. They’re getting worse each time”

His face showed how much he meant that one, memories of the occupants of a couple of hospital beds clearly burning him as painfully as they did me. Elaine frowned.

“So what are you saying? You sit there all evening, on the off chance?”

“Yes, basically. I sit there, I make it clear I’m alone, and I trawl the pink pubs. Full-on aging twink, yeah?”

She tried to make it a joke. “You’re not bloody aging, butt!”

Chris gave an absolutely fake laugh. “For a twink I am positively ancient! We don’t have the greatest of shelf lives, do we? Now, we doing this or not?”

I looked round the team, and saw nothing but fixed and intent expressions. He wasn’t finished, though, and flounced down into a chair.

“And I’m not wearing a wire or whatever it’s called!”

“And why the hell not, Chris?” snapped my boss.

“If they get me like they got Omar, they’ll find it. The way they’re going, I’d wind up dead for that. I’d rather not, OK?”

Our own laughter at his performance sounded just as forced to my ears. Enough. I stuck my hand up for attention.

“Aye?”

“Transponder, Ma’am. Tracker device, same as on a car. What you wearing, Chris? Would it involve a belt?”

I brought out the little idea Blake and I had come up with over Christmas dinner, and Chris’ eyebrows shot up in recognition.

“Of course! Super tube!”

The boss glared at me, and I couldn’t help it and corpse like a stupid schoolgirl.

“Not a climber, then, Ma’am?”

Blake reached across and took our little present from me.

“Rock-climbing stuff, Ma’am. Used to make slings for people to tie onto the rocks, comes in big rolls, you buy it by the metre. Buckles are sold as well, just takes a bit of needlework. Tape’s tubular, innit, let us fit a transponder inside. Chris, we thought what with the rainbow colour and that, LGBT shit, aye?”

Her mind suddenly started working, and for about ten seconds she just looked round the team, face by face.

“None of you lot been off at all over Christmas?”

Nobody could answer that one, but we all nodded, one by one, as she tried to pretend she was unhappy. Idiot that I am, I tried to break the silence.

“Sergeant Gould’s boy, Scott, yeah? Sent us a thank-you card for what we’ve done. I mean, I know we haven’t done it yet, but you know what I mean. We sort of agreed to put some er…”

I couldn’t say it, as despite all my training I was continuing to corpse, as were almost all of my mates. I gave up and pointed at Chris.

“You said it, you can tell her!”

He was never, ever camper. “Lainey, you know there’s no paid overtime for this? You told us that”

“Yes, I remember. What’s the joke?”

I knew the punch line was coming, and almost left the room to avoid it. H didn’t disappoint.

“No joke. This lot simply agreed to… do it for the Queen”

The boss snorted again. “Christopher O’Connor, you are a cheeky sod, and bloody childish with it!”

I took the belt we had made (well, Mam had sewed it) back from Blake and held it up.

“Hands free kit is what he suggested. We can’t put a mike on him, so he dials one of us when he goes outside, and just leaves the phone on. Anything happens, we hear it. Nothing suspicious, all normal, nothing to trigger their extras, yeah?”

She looked down at her hands, shaking her head gently, then looked round the team again. Her face set, cords standing out on her forearms.

“Boys and girls, you make me very proud indeed. It’s go then for Thursday evening. Those who’ve drawn Taser authority know the drill; the rest of you make sure you’ve got fresh sprays and full restraint kits including the straps. This is it, this is where it stops for people like Omar, aye?”

Blake pointed across the room. “For people like our mate there, you mean?”

Our leader gave one sharp nod of affirmation.

“Aye, for people like Chris it is. Clear the decks as much as you can, and I’ll go and set up the ANPR”

I worked as best as I could over the next day and a half, going home to Mam and Dad rather than sitting fretting in my digs. All I could see each time I closed my eyes was the lad’s face, and in one nightmare I found myself next to an autopsy slab, drains and hoses ready to sluice away the detritus but nothing on top apart from a rainbow belt.

I felt like shit on Thursday morning, though I managed to get through our preparations, as did the rest of the team. We worked in silence, checking our kit over and over again and making sure we all had our personal numbers loaded into our phones. This was it, we hoped, as various vehicles left the nick in ones and twos to find spots to lurk around the city. We had Traffic well out of the way of the expected routes into town so as not to spook our targets, and I was pleased to see Bryn and Barry in the second row of the mass briefing Elaine held.

“Afternoon, all. Some of you may have worked out what we are about here, but I ask---I demand---I beg. No discussions about this, please. We get one bite at this, two if we don’t show out. This will hopefully end what has been going on here and in Abertawe, Swansea for the language blind. It does not matter right here and now what your views are on Nancy boys, shirtlifters, poofs, queers, whatever: they are people. They are victims. They include some of our own, like Dai Gould’s boy, and I know full well what you all feel about that!

“If we do nothing, or cock this up, one of those boys, one or more, will end up on a slab. We have a chance to sort it. We stop it, we stop it now, we stop it for good. No radio use apart from routine calls. No radio use concerning this operation until you hear me break silence, and even then, THINK about what you say, what it might reveal. Not all coppers are honest, I am sorry to say. Automatic Number Plate Recognition is now on, watching for our target vehicles, and each of your vehicles has a sealed briefing to read when you are on plot. This lad here—stand up, Chris---is ours. Do not lose him. Do not bring him back broken. And good luck”

The lads and lasses walked out, muttering among themselves, and as the evening darkness closed on us, she sent our goat on his way, with a hug from each of us before she added her own.

“Away you go, lad. And, well, stay safe, aye?”

Chris set off to get something to eat before the pub crawl he was due to start, and Blake and I headed off to our own plot, not far from the pink pubs. Elaine kept us up to speed with texts, and we got the message just after eight that our boy was in the Red lion. Twenty minutes later:

Hansen 4232 by Trvldge

Twenty minutes later

Evans van Tredegar St CCTV

My own phone rang immediately after that, and it was Elaine, clearly doing the rounds to keep us all on track. Only ten minutes later, she called again.

“Diane, got both vehicles parked up on Tredegar Street. Range Rover with them. Can somebody sneak the licence plate number for Control? Find out who the hell the others might be? Don’t show out, though”

I looked at Blake, and he shrugged. “Not the sneaksy one, am I?”

I bundled up, scarf over my mouth and coat good up in the cold weather, honest guv, and strolled up Mary Ann Street before ambling in all innocence down Tredegar and taking another left back down to my starting point, where we were plotted up in the bays just off Bute Terrace. God, they were close. On a hunch, I looked up at the pole holding the camera, and saw the box nod, just once. The operator clearly had me.

I didn’t dare look at it as I passed, but I recognised the fucking car as soon as I saw it, memorising the plate just to be sure. The corner of my eye caught at least three shapes inside. Bryn and Barry had been absolutely right in their opinion. I got back to our vehicle, slamming the door a bit too loudly. Blake gave me the stare.

“What’s up, girl?”

“Fucking bad taste in my mouth, mate. Hang on while I call this in”

I pulled out my mobile, swearing quietly but steadily. Calm down, DC Owens.

“Ma’am, well, I don’t need to run this one. I know it”

“What the fuck? Sorry, what do you mean?”

“Elaine, it’s Dai Pritchard’s car. And it’s three up”

“Got any faces, butt?”

“Not yet. Don’t want to spook them”

"Dead right. Pull back; we have them on the CCTV”

Blake listened impassively, and as I hung up I looked at him. Another flat stare.

“Di, I won’t ask. Not yet, yeah? But when this is done, we go, and we sit down, and we talk”

CHAPTER 24
Almost immediately my phone beeped at me, which saved me from talking to Blake.

CCTV 5 up bsbl bats.

Oh. Baseball bats. I showed the text to my companion, and he grunted.

“We’re on, then. Buckle in”

I caught his mood, and put my seat belt on.

Goat in Smugglers one tango obsing

“Chris is in the Smuggler’s, Blake. One of the targets has eyeballs on it”

“Hang on, girl. I might have to move. Keep me up to speed”

A long wait to the next update left me fidgeting in my seat, and Blake put his hand on mine and squeezed. I glared at him.

“I know, girl, but chill. There is sod-all we can do right now but be calm and wait. We do this right? For Dai?”

Dai fucking Pritchard in my case, but I knew he meant Dai Gould, so I just nodded and gave him a squeeze back.

“Aye, mate. For Dai”

Van 4 up multi stry goat on way

“This is it, Blake. They’re parked up in the same place as before, idiots. Chris is on his way”

“Hang on, then”

As smooth as ever, as quick as all hell, we were on the road as Elaine sent a series of short but clear texts, and as we parked up again just round the corner from the huge glorified urinal, she undid the passenger door and waved me into the back seat.

“Lost fucking signal, girl. You still got reception, Blake?”

“Aye, three bars, clear as”

His phone rang just then, and after very few words from him, he turned to Elaine.

“Control’s on this one, Ma’am. Evans is following on foot, just about to enter the stairwell. Van’s just driven off”

“Eh?”

She was wound up so tight I thought she would snap, and I realised Pritchard’s involvement was doing to her exactly what it had done to me. Blake stayed outwardly calm as she switched her own phone off and on again.

“They haven’t got the van on camera. They haven’t got the occupants. Fucking blind spot!”

“Get the ANPR on it now!”

“Already done, they said”

Whatever she had done to her phone had worked, as it came to life in the most sickening of ways, shouting and grunting followed a couple of solid thumps that I realised were from the bats we had been warned about. Shitting hell. Elaine grabbed her radio, shouting “ALL UNITS CAR PARK GO GO GO!”

She was out of the door, face contorted, and sprinting as if the Devil was coming up behind her. Blake and I were almost as quick, and he passed her on the car park stairs, asp out and ready as I tried to force speed I didn’t have out of my legs.

I caught up with them as Rob and Candice arrived, two pools of liquid on the floor in front of them, one of them dark and sticky. Blood, obviously, and beyond it was what was left of the belt Mam had sewed so carefully.

Fuck!

Elaine was fiddling with her radio, muttering in between gasps, and I turned mine up as well, just as she reined herself in and reached for her work mobile instead.

“Control, it’s me. Find him”

She looked around us as the whole team gathered by the two pools, and turned the phone to speaker mode. Tinny, but it worked.

“ANPR ping, Ma’am, west out of city centre. Will vector the plain units. Two traffic cars en route”

Almost immediately her other phone came to life, and she hit speaker mode on that as well.

“Tie the fucker properly, butt! Cunt just tried to bite me!”

Elaine looked round us all again, before grabbing the work phone again.

“Control? GPS tracker on Mr O’Connor’s phone?”

“Wait one”

It felt like forever, but they came straight back.

“Lansdowne Road, Ma’am”

“Thanks, Control”

“And CCTV just picked the van up at junction with Cowbridge Road West”

Elaine looked round again.

“Go! Move!”

We clattered back down the stairs, and she was still shouting directions to the nick

“Get the Traffic boys to stay off the blues and twos, Control. What’s their driving like?”

“Steady, Ma’am. Careful, like”

“OK. We will form up in convoy in the unmarked cars. Get Traffic to sit behind us. We’ll look for a place for a hard stop, and they can come through and light them up, aye?”

“Aye. Yes. Just lost the GPS, Ma’am”

She almost screamed, then caught herself again before stuffing both phones away, the one tied to Chris now silent. A glare at Blake.

“Get us there, boy, and fucking sharpish”

I wasn’t buckled in before he took off, and I suspect Elaine’s door wasn’t actually closed, but we went bloody fast on blues but no twos until we were nearly at the road in question, and I saw the team cars slot in behind us one by one.

Her breathing was like a train, but she was still doing her best to be calm.

“We’ll look for a place to do this, butt, and then I want it done neatly. Hard stop, full impact, aye? How far ahead are they, Control?”

Tinny over her mobile, but it lost none of the tension I could feel coming from the radio room.

“CCTV has them about four hundred yards ahead of you, Ma’am”

She lowered the handset and took several deep and slow breaths, clearly trying to centre herself, find the calm she needed.

“Both Traffic units are behind you now, Ma’am”

“Thank you Control. Could you alert the air unit just in case?”

"Already done, Ma’am, and I will have a dog unit with you in about---ah, he’s tagged on with the second Traffic car now”

“You are a star!”

“Needs doing, Ma’am”

“Listening, thank you”

Our leader was coming back to us after the panic I had seen in the car park, thank the gods. I made sure my cuffs were loaded, the sound of the ratchets unnaturally loud to my ears, and ran my hands over my stab vest, checking yet again that everything was there and ready for use.

Elaine took a few more deep breaths, then turned to Blake.

“Start closing the distance. Time to stop this lot”

We slowly edged up towards the van, and as the road straightened, Elaine took the radio.

“Marked units, stop them, GO GO GO!”

Two Traffic cars howled past us, blues and twos on, and I clearly saw Bryn’s profile in the passenger seat of the first one, asp already raised. Blake lit up our own sound and light show, as did all the others, and I saw that Barry wasn’t subtle in stopping the Transit, clearly making contact as Bryn’s door burst open. I was out and running as soon as our own car stopped on the footpath beside the van’s nearside, and nearly did myself an injury on Elaine’s door. All around was the sound of smashing glass, breaking windows, as I somehow managed to get past her. She was tugging at the loading door on the side, obviously focussed on getting to Chris, but I had the front passenger door in my sights.

Its window went in with one swing of the asp, and I grabbed the handle just as someone tried to come out, and he simply came with the door I hauled open, and that is when I dropped my bloody baton. I took a big handful of his sleeve, grabbing for my spray, and gave him a sizeable sample right in the bloody face as Blake shot past me.

Down to the ground, go for the pin, there’s my stick, give him a good one across the back of the thighs, where’s fucking Chris? Bryn arrived and got some cuffs on the bastard, and things finally began to slow down. Screaming, dog barking, my breath thundering in my ears almost as loudly as my heartbeat, and Barry holding me.

“He’s alive, girl. Work mode now, yes? Police, professional. Breathe and focus. I have called in an ambulance for him”

Bryn called from where he had my man in ground pin and cuffs.

“Barry? Look who it is!”

He turned the bastard’s face towards us, and Barry shone a torch on it.

“What a fucking non-surprise. I always knew you were a cunt, Pritchard”

He turned to me. “Go and have a talk with your boss, Di. We’ll make sure this one is properly secured”

I turned away, before I saw anything I didn’t have to, and found my way to the back of the van, where Rob was cradling Chris. He was a mess, blood pouring from a number of cuts to his face, and I reached out for his hand.

“Hello, my love. I was never really one for rough trade, you know but well, for the queen I’m anybody’s”

He couldn’t manage more than that before the tears came, but he was trying. I got out of the van again, stepping past five cuffed and leg-strapped figures lying face down, broken glass crunching under my shoes, and found our boss. Police, Di, professional.

“Ambulance on way, Ma’am. We might want to sit the prisoners up. Positional asphyxia, yeah?”

She looked ready to explode, eyes going everywhere, and I could read her mind: let the bastards suffocate, but she obviously had her own ‘police, professional’ tape loop going, and gave the word for our catch to be moved into safer positions.

Finally, she drew a long, shuddering breath. “How’s Chris?”

I shrugged. “Bruised. He’s already making shit jokes about getting a bit of rough, and doing it for the queen, but he’s really shaken”

“Get him off in the ambulance as soon as, girl. Right, let’s see who we’ve got, and get the formal bit over with, once I catch my breath”

As soon as they had all been properly searched, all pocket contents and anything else of interest bagged, they were sat up, and she produced her own torch.

“Right! I am Inspector Elaine Powell of the Dyfed-Powys Police, on secondment to South Wales, just so you know. All five of you are under arrest on suspicion of kidnap, rape, grievous bodily harm, assault, and that will do for Custody purposes. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand? Yes? OK, let’s see who you are!”

She walked down the line of prisoners.

“Matthew Hansen, I believe”

“And you are Jamie Richard Evans”

“Lift his head—Oh! Dai Pritchard. Not nice, Dai. Candice! Got a spit kit?”

“So you must be… Hello, once more, Robert Evans”

“Fuck you, you fat dyke!”

“Not nice, MISTER Evans. Not nice at all, so you can take this as your one and only warning under section 5 of the Public Order Act. I believe you may be familiar with the law”

There was utter contempt in her voice, but I felt that she was trying to cover up her gloating. What shocked me was that neither of my former acquaintances seemed to recognise me.

One left, and when his head was lifted to the light, Elaine froze. Nearly five seconds passed before she spoke again, and her tone was fittingly glacial.

“Joe Evans. Hello! We haven’t met, but I believe you might know my sister”

CHAPTER 25
Another twenty minutes saw our prisoners separated and stuffed into the backs of a number of vehicles for the return to the nick, Chris long gone in the ambulance as a paramedic stayed with us to look after one of the five who had apparently met Elaine’s asp face-first.

She was a strange mixture of nerves and seething rage, and as we sat in the car I took the risk and squeezed her shoulder. She simply laid her hand on mine and squeezed back before taking her mobile out and once more switching it to speaker mode. As Blake finished calling out recovery for the other vehicles and the van, she rang Control.

“Hi Jan, Inspector Powell here. Can you call the duty Super out? I’ll need a word. And the on-call CID Inspector”

“Soon as I hang up, Ma’am. That boy going to be OK? We were getting a bit edge-of-seat here, innit”

“He should be, Jan. At least, well, he should be. We’ll be straight out, doors to kick, once this lot are in, but if you can detail someone to relieve the detail at the hospital?”

There was no other word for the sound from the radio operator but chortle.

“You won’t believe this, but we’ve got people in off their rest days wanting to help. They’re arguing over who gets to kick Bob’s door in. Hang on; got duty Super at the door. You hang up; he’ll ring you”

Blake pulled out to join the convoy, and her phone rang again.

“Elaine Powell”

“Bev Williams here, Inspector. I couldn’t stay away, I’m afraid. This operation has got the whole team, the whole force praying for a good result. Your young friend, Chris?”

“Chris O’Connor, sir”

“Yes. He has made a huge impression on everyone here. Add in Sergeant Gould’s involvement, and this case has become intensely personal for our little family. Now I believe you were after me for some reason”

“Aye, sir. It’s about family. You will be aware of my connections to two of the persons arrested”

“I am so far only aware of Hansen and Evans”

She paused, head turning to look at Blake and myself, before returning to the conversation. Something was clearly up.

“Dai Pritchard and Bob Evans were with them”

“Fuck! Sorry. Unprofessional. I follow your logic, but you weren’t actually involved with their arrests, not so?”

“There was another one there, boss. You will have heard about my sister”

“Your sister? The transsexual—oh, please. Not him?”

How the hell was her sister involved? My spine felt the chill arriving. Surely not?

“Indeed. Joe Evans. You can see my concerns, sir”

“Absolutely right. Jan tells me you have called out the duty CID man. Well done. You will remain on hand to brief and assist as necessary, but—did you carry out the formal part of the arrest yourself?”

“Yes sir”

“Then after the initial statements at Custody you remove yourself to your incident room. You brief the CID man, you make sure that the search teams are properly organised, you leave this case packaged for a handover, and you go home and stay there until recalled. Understood?”

Her head dropped.

“Yes sir”

“And Elaine? Brilliant work. I can think of no better words just now, but please take some time to thank your boys and girls before you go home”

“Thank you, sir”

Blake was calmness incarnate as he drove, and that extended to his voice.

“Inspector. Elaine. There are just the three of us here. Please talk to us”

She looked round once again, and I was shocked to see tears.

“Blake, butt, please leave it, just for now. Di knows the details, I’m pretty sure, but not now, aye? I’m going to have to leave the team, and that is a bit painful. What I’ll do… Look, get these bastards banged away, then debrief, aye? I’ll explain then”

He smiled, taking his eyes off the road just long enough for her to see it.

“You’ll never leave this team, ma’am, not really. Tissues in glove box”

They sat outside in their little cells or the back seats of marked cars until we could feed them past Custody, one by one, Elaine’s professionalism back in place along with savage delight in the arrests. I stood to one side as I actually had no prisoner, while Elaine gave the account of the arrest for each one. Hansen was first, and he was in a state of utter terror. One-word answers to the Custody Sergeant, shaking like a leaf. Bang as his cell door shut on him for the first of what I assumed would be a very large number of times.

Jamie Evans, he of the tattoos, was very different, as Barry brought him in, Bryn in close attendance.

“I want her done! Hit me in the fucking face, the bitch!”

Barry smiled, in an evil way, and as he spoke clearly in giving the shit his warning about swearing, section 5 and so on, I saw him twist the rigid handcuffs just so till Evans squealed and shut up.

Bob Evans was terse and careful, eyes down, but Pritchard was looking round the suite as if seeking an escape route. There was a moment when his eyes locked on mine, and as I smiled at him, one not involving any warmth, I saw a little flicker of recognition, so I gave one of those little bows of acknowledgement. His eyes widened as his memories clearly caught up.

Sleep on that one, you bastard. I realised I would have to do some stepping back of my own.

The last one was named as Joseph Evans, and I could see a slight resemblance to Bob in his face, or rather what was left of it. He bore the marks of either a very bad accident or a truly savage, enthusiastic and creative beating, one side of his face, his eyelid, drooping. Elaine’s manner changed once again, this time to brittle, bright and friendly, although I could see every tendon in her forearms standing out like a bundle of steel cables. The Custody Sergeant went through his routine preamble, but Evans wasn’t listening, eyes locked on Elaine.

“You mentioned your sister…”

Bright, brittle, utterly false. “Yes. Sarah. I believe you have met, but that’s not relevant just now”

“Oh shit!”

She quite deliberately stepped away from him, turning her back, and the smell hit me first, I saw a puddle spreading around his feet, and the darkness on the front of his trousers told me what my nose already had: Evans had pissed himself.

Elaine finished her account, detention was authorised, Evans was taken away and after a very quiet word with the Custody lad Elaine walked off, leaving a call over her shoulders of “Debrief, fifteen minutes, team room”

Not another glance at Joe Evans. I knew who he was by then, my mind doing its own ‘police, professional’ bit for once, and left a civvy worker to mop up Joe Evans’ leavings. I collared Blake, gathered our kit and we made our way to our own space, team room, operations room, whatever: our shelter from the shit we had just waded in. Ellen had the urn and kettle both going, plasters across her knuckles and a weary look in her eyes. I caught her looking all over the ‘kitchen’ table and realised she wasn’t seeing things clearly enough as the tension evaporated.

“Tea bags are here, love. It’s done, we’ve got the bastards, yeah? All of them!”

Another bloody colleague in tears. “Did you see what they did to Chris? Did you?”

“Yes, love. Tea, yeah? Medics have him, and we have the shits who did it, so breathe… sod it, come here”

That wasn’t the only mutual hug or mutual comfort given. As I held Candice in her turn, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to find Sammy smiling at me.

“I was right about you, then? Bloody well done, all of you! Got a spare cup?”

Typical of his management skills, we were back to ‘police’ professional’ in a matter of minutes, if a bit red in the eyes. Soon we had all of the team together again, everything signed over to the relevant people as the vehicles were searched and section 18 authority given for a number of doors to be kicked in, those about to do the kicking given a briefing and sent on their way. Sammy sat quietly sipping his tea as the team worked in near silence to get our notes done. When I finished, I sat up with a groan, and Sammy called across.

“Anyone else finished?”

Candice stuck her hand up, and he smiled.

“Chip shop round the corner, my friends. Get some chips and that in? Cakes and biscuits? Going to be a long one”

Candice laughed, her mood lifting.

“That was Chris’ game! Ellen, you done? If I hit the chippy, you do the 7-11, get some of the usual crap? And we need milk”

Off they went, and eventually Elaine joined us again. Sammy called over from his comfortably relaxed position by the kettle, within easy reach of a refill. Not stupid, my old boss, not at all.

“Elaine? The Super gave me a very full briefing. You are absolutely right to be stepping away from this one. Any hint of bias would get the jury all sideways, perk up any bigots, innit”

“Aye, Sammy. Now, I’ll wait until we get any search results in, and then it’s hospital and home”

He sat up straighter.

“You get hurt?”

“No, Chris. He got a beating, went off in an ambulance”

“Ah. I’ve detailed some of your lot on a chip run, so settle down and we’ll get this signed over”

“Chip run? That was Chris’ game”

“So your people told me. Right…”

The evening developed as the searches were done, and reports came in steadily as we each fed Sammy our own parts in the events. As I gave him my own account, he sat up straight as something came over his radio earpiece, and he grinned.

“Mates! You’ll love this bit!”

We gathered round, and he shouted to Elaine where she was in her little ‘office’ making sure her own notes were up to speed, which turned out to be an apt metaphor.

“Mates, they’ve just put Hansen’s door in, and it was priceless. Got some assistance from your force, Elaine, and his other half threw a bloody teapot at the head of one of your girls”

Elaine sat up straighter. “Got our girl’s name, Sammy?”

“Not yet, Lainey. She missed, anyway, and that’s not the main thing. There was a box under the bed, and they’ve got deal bags, mini scales and a Quantity of White Powder, Your Honour”

Alun burst out laughing. “Nicked for possession with intent?”

A very broad grin and a wink were the only answers we needed, and Alun chuckled evilly.

“For once I am actually looking forward to an interview!”

Gradually, we all returned. SOCO were on the cars, uniform and other bods were sorting property from the houses, and I had managed to get outside some muffins and a steak pie as well as the chips, and about a gallon of tea. The decks were about as clear as they would get, so I called over to Sammy as he took the handover from Elaine.

“When do you want us to start the interviews, Sammy?”

“Tomorrow”

“What? Er, sorry. Why?”

He looked at Elaine for permission, and she shrugged. “I have to step down from this one, Sammy. You know why. Your call; but I am with Diane here. Why wait?”

“You ever watch that stupid film with that Aussie, Yank knob in it? ‘Freedom’ or whatever?”

Candice called out that she liked that film, and it was called Braveheart, and further that she wouldn’t climb over Mel Gibson to get to anyone in the room, and what the hell did that have to do with anything anyway? Sammy grinned, and it was unlike anything I had ever seen from him. There was utter contempt behind it; hatred, even.

“Mates, in that film he gets sliced and diced at the end, innit, and part of the game is what they call the ‘showing of the instruments’. They get all the slicey, pointy, hurty tools out, show them to him and tell him what they’re for. Lets the anticipation build before he gets hung, drawn and quartered”

I automatically came out with “Hanged” and Sammy dropped his smile.

“No. ‘Hanged’ is for people, ‘hung’ for objects. Look at it this way: we interview them straight away, while they’re all hyper and ready to fight, or we let them have their statutory rest period, sleeping like babies, not staying awake all night shitting themselves about what we might ask. So, Inspector Powell, in the nicest of ways, please piss off home, hug your missus, listen to some music, whatever. We’ll keep you up to speed, but we need you out of here before it gets seen to be smelly, OK?”

I beckoned Blake with my head, and he took the cue seamlessly. I followed him to the centre of the room, and as he held up his hands for silence, I began.

“Boys and girls!”

Elaine looked embarrassed, but the rest were laughing, so I clung to my courage and carried on.

“Boys and girls, this has been a real team effort. Some of us have come out of it with a few lumps, but nothing like poor Chris has ended up getting. So let’s give some credit where it’s due. There are five utter shits locked up downstairs, another in Swansea—Abertawe for those who speak in funny ways”

Keep your eyes away from Elaine, DC Owens.

“Someone came here, with Chris, and shook the tree. She let the light in and showed us what was going on and being bloody well ignored. If she hadn’t come along, we might be looking at one or more murders, so let’s show our gratitude. Inspector Powell!”

That brought exactly the reaction from the team I had hoped for and, in reality, expected, and as the shouts and banging on tables died away, our boss stood up.

“Boys and girls…”

She waited for the laughter to die down again before continuing.

“Some years ago, my little sister met a man she thought was a good one, but she was wrong. When he found out something personal about her, when she went to tell him that she was finished with him, he put her into hospital. That man had an uncle, and he was a policeman, and with another copper they went to see my Sarah and it was like an old-fashioned rape case”

Oh shit! I knew Pritchard and Bob Evans had been involved, but no! That little shit who had wet himself? No wonder she was getting away from the case. If Joe Evans was the one who had attacked her sister, she simply had to bail. I really didn’t see how she had held back from giving him a serious use of reasonable force in the arrest. She caught my stare, and quite deliberately looked away from me.

“All three of the bastards are now downstairs. While I am properly grateful to Providence that I was allowed to lock the fuckers up---sorry, Diane did say I talk funny, so pardon my French. While I am glad I got to nick them, it leaves me vulnerable to accusations, it leaves the case open to mudslinging by their defence. Samir here, Inspector Patel, is taking over lead. Everything is signed over, and I am stepping down. I won’t be out of touch, but I won’t be at work here. I’ll probably head back to Gaerfyrddin.

“It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with you all. You have made me proud. This job is about protecting our people, and every one of you has gone above and beyond. Thank you all. If any of you are ever down west, you WILL stop by, aye? AYE?”

We all shouted that word back, and she bowed her head.

“Now, I am off home, as Sammy has commanded, to see the missus and relax, but first I want to stop by and see how Chris is!”

My big friend laughed out loud, nudging me, then pointing past Elaine to the door, where a wheelchair was being pushed in by a green-uniformed paramedic, Chris slumped a little to one side as he was brought back to us. He did his best to strike as arch a pose as possible, but he was clearly in considerable pain, although he managed to give us a twisted smile.

“Needed some photos taken for the file. Couple of bites, my darlings, and two cracked ribs, and they want me back in for concussion watch, but, here I am. Typical! How can you eat chips without bread and butter? I go away for five minutes and the whole place goes to ratshit!”

Elaine stepped over to him and gently, so gently, kissed him on the cheek, before walking out of the door and out of our team. She took with her one of the tissues Candice was handing round, as I busied myself making a cuppa for the goat we hadn’t arrived too late for.

CHAPTER 26
In the end I went home quite late to my digs, but I managed to get a text off to Mam.

Watch news tmrw. Got big result. Can’t say more. You’ll know it when see it.

Sammy wanted us all back in for eight, and I managed quarter past the hour, my whole body aching as if I had kept fighting in my sleep, and come second. A couple were in before me, but I wasn’t the last one to arrive. Alun looked even more rumpled than he usually did, so I assumed he had spent the night in the LIO’s room, and both Ellen and Rob were sporting black eyes. I had clearly been lucky.

Sammy was pristine, and chirpy with it, the sod.

“Morning, all! Now, the brief will be in at oh nine hundred, and it is indeed one brief”

Ellen called out “What about conflict of interest, boss?”

“That’s for the shyster to decide, mate. Here’s the thing: it ain’t the on-call bod, the duty solicitor. They’ve got a private law firm doing the twisting and wriggling for them. Apparently, two of them have a relative with money, a local councillor, and he’s stumping up for it. Be aware he is also raising merry hell with the brass, so sweet and sensitive in the interviews”

He let that one sit for a few seconds before grinning. “No, fuck it. Get them shitting themselves properly. It’ll be no surprise to you that people in the nick have been going above and beyond for us all night and, among other things, we have bite impressions and comparisons, including matches for Hansen and Jamie Evans, and a statement from Customs down to the airport”

Blake was smiling at that one, so I slapped his arm as Sammy continued.

“DC Sutton has a brother there, apparently It is in the nature of their work, my friends, that they deal with drugs, and while we still need proper forensic statements on the contents of Hansen’s little box of delights they have told us what the drugs are with their field test kit. We have Hansen’s prints on the box as well, and inside it amphetamine, cocaine and crack. And more of his fingerprints. And DNA, oh dear me”

Ellen’s turn. “Hasn’t SOCO been to bed yet?”

“No, not at all. People are really pulling hard for this one, and my lot are being a lot less free with words like ‘woodentops’ for their uniformed colleagues. Oh, and Dyfed-Powys have already interviewed Adele Hughes, Hansen’s cohabitee. The one who threw the teapot. She has given chapter and verse about his dealing, where he gets the gear, the whole thing. Even if we don’t get him for the rapes and assaults, he’s going inside”

I had my own question. “Do you think, really think, he’s going to get off on that lot?”

Once again I saw the savage grin he had never shown when I was working in CID.

“No, I don’t think so, but that is up to you lot. Make sure you stitch them all up right proper. I mean, interview them effectively and coherently so as to properly gather evidence in order to establish their culpability or otherwise”

He waited for the laughter to die down again, and I put my hands up for quiet.

“Mates, I have an issue with the interviews. It’s the two bent ex-coppers, Bob Evans and Dai Pritchard. I have previous with them, so I need to stay away”

Sammy and Blake both gave me level stares, and then Sammy nodded.

“OK. Take one of the others—lad sat next to you, aye? You do the others. I want consistency here, I suspect two of them will go no comment, Diane’s two friends that is, so that will give us spare time to go through all the other evidence and tackle disclosure and the other crap, as well as get full statements out of the way. Di, you and---Blake? Blake. You and Blake sit down with me, and we’ll sort tactics. The two girls? Er, you know what I mean. Candice, is it? Ellen? You do the two shits from out West. They’ll go no comment, as I said, so I am sorry if I am teaching you how to suck eggs, but take them through everything, then special warning, I put it to you, back of a van, with others, beating a lad to shit, all that. Oh yes…”

He looked round the room once more. “You will want to ask Dai Pritchard what the fuck he was doing with handcuffs and works leg restraints in his Range Rover”

He turned away to check the urn for hot water.

“Oh yes, and I will be doing a run up to the greasy if anyone wants anything, before I settle down to tackle timelines and disclosure schedules. Yes, I know, but I want nothing wrong with this one, and I am not afraid to get dirty hands. I’ll give you a heads up when the brief’s done his bit, then I think it’s Hansen and Pritchard first”

Blake sat by me as I started on the paperwork we needed for the interviews.

“Di?”

“Yes?”

“I am going to take a bit of a punt here, but please don’t shout me down. And answer me only if you want to. Pritchard and his mate: you met them just like Elaine’s sister did. Am I right?”

Police, professional, DC Owens. I kept my eyes down.

“Yes. Exactly the same way”

“But you’re not… you’re not a… Are you?”

“No, Blake. All girl, me, from birth”

“Ah. Sorry”

He was silent for a few seconds as I wondered how much I should tell him.

“Di?”

“Yes?”

“How old were you?”

“Barely sixteen, Blake”

“Who was it?”

“That arsehole I believe is paying for the brief. That’s it, OK? No more talk on this one”

He squeezed my shoulder, nodding. “I have a phone call to make, girl. In private”

Eleven o’clock saw us into the first interview, Hansen’s, and I could smell the money coming off the brief. I went through the preliminaries.

“Good morning Mister Hansen. I am DC Owens, and this is DC Sutton. We shall be conducting an interview which will be tape-recorded, and at the end of the interview we shall seal one of the tapes in your sight. You and your representative can have your own copies, and that will be explained formally on the tape”

“Yeah, I know the score, like”

I made sure they had all their needs sorted, toilet, refreshments, then showed them the sealed packs of tapes before putting them into the machines.

“There will be a loud noise as I switch on, but that is to allow the blank part of the tape to spool through. Ready?”

I clicked the tapes in and pressed the starter, and after the beep had finished “This is an interview of… it is being conducted in… the date is… the time by my watch is… present are… can you state your name please? I must remind you that you are under caution, and that you do not have to say anything…”

“Good morning, Mr Hansen. We are here to talk about the events leading up to your arrest last night while driving a white Ford Transit van”

I gave the licence plate number. “Is it your van, Mr Hansen?”

“No”

“You were driving it, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, for someone else”

“Who?”

“Jamie Evans”

“What was your job?”

“I’m a taxi driver”

“No, Mr Hansen. Perhaps my question was unclear. What was your role in the group of people we stopped in the van last night?”

“He said just to drive, not look in the van, innit? Just a driver, me”

“When we stopped the van, there was a young man in the rear. He was bound, and had been beaten badly. What do you know about that?”

“Don’t know nothing”

“You didn’t hear anything coming from the rear of the van? The load compartment?”

“Minding my own business, innit”

“OK. Now, that van was also at a lane near the Crossways hotel. We have a quantity of forensic evidence to show that”

“Not me”

“Another young man was found at the site, also beaten. He had been raped”

“Don’t know anything about that, do I?”

“OK. Mr Hansen, on…”

I rattled through the preamble to the Special warning, the solicitor’s eyes hard on mine.

“A used condom was found in a wheely bin a short distance from where the victim was found. DNA analysis of the item shows it to have that of the young man on its outside, and on its inside there is a match for your own DNA. I am now requiring you to account for that. If you fail to do so, a judge may direct the jury to draw such conclusions as appear proper to them”

The solicitor looked up again from his notepad. “I advise my client not to answer that question”

Just before he said that little formality, I clearly heard him mutter something else, and it was ‘Oh fuck”

I added “And your bite impression matches bites on the shoulders of two male victims of serious assault. Same warning”

Advised not to answer? The scrote began a rambling, whining series of excuses, all about how his partner was a junkie, and he wasn’t thinking straight, and, and, and, as his brief kept advising him, politely, to shut the fuck up.

Blake smiled, leaning forward ever so slightly.

“Your partner be Adele Hughes?”

“Yeah”

“We searched your house, Mr Hansen, and recovered a number of items, which initial tests suggest are cocaine, crack cocaine and amphetamine sulphate”

“Yeah, that’s Adele’s, right junkie, done my head in!”

“The thing is, Mr Hansen, Adele not only says it’s all yours, but she told our colleagues where you get it from”

The solicitor sagged, and as Blake added “And the box holding the drugs has your fingerprints on it and inside it”, the suit’s head went into his hands.

‘Oh fuck’, indeed. There wasn’t much else to hit him with, so we left him with his brief to consider his plea, after doing the business with the tapes.

The solicitor was out reasonably quickly, and Candice and Ellen rattled through two completely ‘no comment’ interviews, exactly as Sammy had predicted. Once the brief was free again, amazingly still officially seeing no conflict of interest, I asked Blake who we should do next.

“The gobby Evans, girl. Get the crunchy ones done as soon as. I suspect the pissy one is going to be hard work”

“Mate, I am surprised that brief is till doing this on his own”

“Grab a brew?”

We ducked into the little tea room, and he shut the door.

“I have thoughts on that one, Di. He is being paid by their relative, innit? Well, I think they’ve cut their losses. He can see where this is going, so why waste time and money on more than one brief? Now, Jamie Evans. Where are you starting?”

“Why do I start?”

“Because you do sweetness and light, and you are fucking evil with it. I do bombshells, and it helps keep me from laughing if I have my gob shut”

I grinned, and he gave me a one-armed hug.

“Ring your Mam after, let her know you’re fine”

“Yes, Dad!”

Jamie Evans was a twat, as expected, and wouldn’t shut up even as his solicitor kept advising him to do so, finally giving up as I detailed the DNA from the hedge, and the tyre prints and paint scratches tying it to Omar’s attack. In the end, as he sat there with a mass of dressings on his face from what he told us clearly and profanely were a broken cheekbone and nose, the brief gave up and sat with his arms folded.

“That fucking bitch hit me in the fucking face! I want her fucking done1 She can’t do that1 I’m going to have her fucking done!”

Blake smiled, and once again leant forward, only slightly, but Evans jerked backward in obvious fright.

“Mr Evans”

“Yeah?”

“The Inspector gave clear instructions before the arrest, and she was complying with them. Those instructions were not to damage any teeth, for bite impression evidence. That is why she left you yours as you attacked her. I was right next to you when you did that. Now, I will give you a special warning, as the law requires, but it will be so that you can explain, for the benefit of the tape, why your teeth seem to have bitten into the shoulders of at least four victims of serious assault. Now, that special warning…”

Once again, we left another owner of a twitching sphincter with his solicitor, and I burst out laughing once we were in private after doing the formalities with the Custody Sergeant.

I realised Blake was staring at me.

“What?”

“You know more about the last one, don’t you?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes, I do. I don’t want to tread on Lainey’s toes, mate, but, well, what do you know about her sister?”

“Gossip says she wasn’t always a girl”

“Well, I am pretty sure she always considered herself one, but, well, yeah. She was seeing this Joe Evans, and as Lainey says she dumped him, he groped her and found some bits he wasn’t expecting. Beat the crap out of her, and she goes to hospital. Bob and Dai there, they turn up, out of fucking area, because they are Dyfed-Powys and not South Wales, so someone has given them a shout. Same with me, yeah? Bob is Joe’s uncle. The one who… me…”

He stepped forward, and I let him hug me.

“The one who raped me was Ashley Evans, a councillor, and I got the same treatment. Go home, whore, shut it, we know where you live. Sarah, Elaine’s sister, yeah? She sued, and they folded. Big pay-out”

I had my head on his chest, so I could hear the breath sighing in and out.

“So you’ve been after these bastards for over a decade”

“Yeah. Suppose it’s why I joined up”

“Di, it’s over now. For you both, innit? You and Elaine. Time to get on with life”

I gave him a squeeze before stepping away.

“Still got one to do, mate”

“Yeah, Di. And then we go after the other one”

CHAPTER 27
“Good morning Mr Evans, I am DC Owens, and this is DC Sutton”

Evans jerked his head, and I realised he was trying to see out through the doorway, probably checking nobody else was there. When we sat down, he was clearly sitting as far back as the chair would allow, even though it was fixed to the floor. Not good.

Our interview rooms are largely soundproofed, but you can still feel vibration from outside, such as another door slamming. Blake gave ours a push, it latched, and our boy jumped. We sat down opposite lawyer and arsehole to begin the dance, and before we could finish introducing the process, Evans asked if we could lock the door. Please.

Blake looked at me, clearly in my role as dispenser of sweetness and light, and raised an eyebrow. In my turn, I looked straight at the prisoner and gave him an appropriately sweet and light smile.

“No. Sorry. Rules”

Blake went through the preamble with the tapes and introductions, while I studied the pile of shit in front of me. He looked fit, and I suspected he might once have been quite good-looking, but that had gone. Odd parts of his face looked adrift, his nose bent slightly to one side, and one lower eyelid drooped. That wasn’t what made him look so wrong, though: it was his constant twitching. Every time Blake moved, he would start, and when my colleague sat still Evans kept his eyes on him, real ‘rabbit in headlights’ stuff.

His brief just looked tired, which was hardly surprising. What was even more surprising was that Joe Evans made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to deny any of his actions. He simply tried to justify them as reasonable things to do.

It was surreal. In the end, after confirming everything evidential we needed, the two of us sat back and let him talk.

“Yeah, I mean, what would you do? They’re everywhere. I know you can see in my face, innit? One of them, they nearly got me, didn’t they? Sneaky, nasty queer, dressed up, made me think they were a girl, got me to let them do things with my cock, sex things…”

A door banged outside, and he jumped again.

“Yeah, and when I found out, I gave him a slap and then his friends… They were going to cut bits off me… They’re everywhere and they want me, and where’s that Inspector? Please don’t let her find me!”

He was crying by then, and his brief held up a hand. I nodded.

“Mr Shortall? You wish to add something?”

“My client has a short prepared statement to offer”

“Go ahead, sir”

“It is very simple. Joseph believes that he only engaged in the violent actions now under discussion because he remains unable to think in a clear manner following a very serious assault by a number of men upon him. In short, he states that the balance of his mind is so disturbed that he cannot be held responsible for said actions”

That did it for me, so we wrapped up the process and left Evans in the room to talk to Shortall. Once more, a broken man jerked as we opened the door, and as we walked out he called after us.

“Pleas don’t let her get to me!”

Crump of the closing door. Blake looked down at the tapes he held, shaking his head.

“Jesus fucking wept, Di. If that is what happens to you when you get on Elaine’s bad side… Come on. Let’s get this lot off to Sammy and see where we stand. And ring your Mam”

We made our way to the team room, where Sammy was welded to a computer keyboard showing a whole set of timeline graphics. He sat up as we approached, rubbing his neck with a wince.

“Used to have to do all this by hand, but sod that for a game of soldiers. Talk me through it all, but grab a brew first. One for me too, if you don’t mind”

Once we were sat down with our cups, he talked us calmly through the interviews before nodding and summing up.

“Right, then. This is how I see it—oh, call the others over, aye? I can’t be arsed doing this over again. Mates, if I tell some of you things you already know, tough. This is a summary. Listen, gobs shut, try and see if we’ve forgotten anything. In this job you can get too close sometimes, wood and trees, innit. Here’s what we have.

“Hansen is stuffed. He’s tried the defence of evil junky girlfriend, but she’s stitched him up nine ways from Sunday. There’s also the bite impressions, his DNA on the rubber johnny, and his dabs on one of the bats. Yup, not just a driver.

“Jamie Evans has left his teeth in too many places, it’s his van, and there’s all the evidence from Crossways to link it to Omar. We’ve got Omar’s statement for the tats on his hand, as well.

“Joe Evans may be barking, and I am expecting him to plead that one. I suspect he is going to be sectioned, and given his activities, and the fact he has clearly admitted to carrying out a number of very fucking violent attacks, I think he will not be coming back into circulation in any part of the foreseeable future. The other aspect of his interview is that he has implicated every other prisoner as being clearly and jointly involved. He has completely screwed them all. Blake, Di, great work on those interviews.

“Now, our two specimens of vermin formerly employed by Dyfed-Powys. You two, by the way, not putting down your interviews, but we knew how they would go. Good work in getting all the crunchy stuff into the interviews, and with Special Warnings too. The jury will love a lot of that! And I haven’t even mentioned the CCTV footage or the ANPR results associated with it. That is what I have been tabulating all day”

He paused to take a drink, and looked round us all with a grin.

“Lainey really got you all on song, didn’t she? I am bloody well enjoying working with you all. Now, house searches. This is what you won’t have heard yet. It turns out that Bob Evans had some receipts, stuffed in a kitchen drawer. One of them was from Decathlon. You know the place, big sports shop?”

Ellen perked up. “Let me guess, boss. A receipt for equipment required to get involved with a certain Yank pastime?”

“Yup! We have him tied to the recent purchase of the bats, and not only that---we have the shop’s own camera footage from the till when he bought them. Nice Barbour jacket he was wearing”

Rob started laughing, real relish in his voice, but Candice asked the killer question.

“There’s something else, isn’t there? Something big. Off their phones?”

Sammy shook his head. “No, not yet. I’m hoping for stuff from their mobiles, but that will take some time. No, it’s Dai Pritchard’s place. One of my old lot did the search there, and he’s really, really sharp. Going up the stairs to the bedroom he thinks one of the steps sounds different as he stands on it, and it is actually something he has encountered before, spinning a paedo’s drum. So he lifts the runner and kicks the step, shines a torch on it, and there’s a little drawer there, innit”

Another sip, trying to hide his grin.

“Dai has a souvenir cupboard. Bits and pieces from several people he’s met in car parks, it appears”

Once the laughter died down, he looked around us all, with affection.

“SOCO are doing their bit, and we hope to be able to link most of the items to young men who ended up in hospital. For starters, he had Omar’s Cardiff Uni gay society membership card”

He stood up and started to clap, a proper round of applause.

“Mates, we will have most of this bagged away by eight, if none of you mind making it a long day. Then it is waiting for the other stuff to come in. Curry and beer?”

Nobody declined, funnily, and the day went quickly as the momentum helped us through. We were on a roll, and any other evidence that came up was going to be window-dressing at worst, confirmation of other stuff at best. I did do as Blake said, though, and found time to ring Mam.

“Thank God, love. I was so worried. We saw that boss of yours on the telly, and what with the stuff Blake said, you know, that boy? Is he all right?”

“Mam…”

“Oh, love, I know you can’t say anything, but Dad and me, we’re not daft, are we? Seen all the films and that. We guessed what he was there for”

“He’s fine, Mam. Bit bruised, but he’s OK”

“And Blake? Nothing happened to him?”

I laughed. “He’s fine, Mam and I would say that he actually happened to some other people, if you see what I mean”

She laughed as well, and there was clear relief in it.

“What are you doing tonight, love?”

“New boss has—no, there’s a reason for a new boss, nothing to worry about. I’ll explain when I can, OK? New boss is actually my old boss, Sammy, and tonight it’s beer and curry. Celebration thing for the team”

“Something you’re not telling me, love?”

“When I can, Mam. OK? Oh, I need something in Welsh, something like ‘nice one’ or ‘well done’ if you can”

“Chwarae teg, love. Means fair play, but more as in ‘nicely done’. That do you?”

“Perfect, Mam. Got to go now. Sorry”

“Never say sorry for things done for the right reason, my darling. Talk to me when you can, and love from both of us. Give it to Blake”

“Love you, Mam”

“I know”

I had to wipe my eyes after that, and when we did hit the pub I recovered by getting almost as raucous as we had been on New Year’s Eve. Beer and wine flowed, we had a superb curry with all the traditional extras, and I found the courage to take someone’s hand below the table.

Blake just smiled back at me.

“Time and patience, girl. Time and patience. Oy! I had dibs on that onion bhaji!”

Time I had in plenty. How much patience did he have?

CHAPTER 28
I didn’t have that bad a hangover, but there was a smell about me even I could detect, which meant my curry had left traces. I showered and brushed my teeth twice, before heading in to start the day’s work.

To my surprise, Chris was there again, moving very stiffly but actually on his feet.

“I have decent biscuits, my love! And milk!”

I moved towards him on reflex, and he raised a hand.

“No hugs, sweety, I’m a bit sore. Will be for a while, but that’s all, thank god. Urn and kettle are both on, and I have sent Ellen away to brush her teeth. What WERE you eating last night?”

“Er, sorry, mate. Bit of a celebration. Job’s a good’un, as they say, especially after the interviews”

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised, and I shook my head.

“No, Chris. You haven’t exactly been in a good place for an interview or statement, so I am not going to discuss it with you. Get your version down before you hear ours. Anyway, you must know how it goes. Charge or release as soon as enough evidence is in place for the choice to be made. You are the last bit for that”

It was true, as far as it goes, and I knew Sammy had been skating close to the edge. The official test results in Hansen’s powders really affected only him, but the evidence provided by our goat involved all five.

“Bugger it, Chris. You up to the formal bit when Ellen’s back? Yes? I would really like it done as soon as, but only if you feel you can. You are the one who got the kicking, innit?”

She was with us only a minute later, and we went off together to one of the interview rooms to lead Chris through his statement, which Ellen typed into her laptop as we spoke. It sounds a simple process, but it isn’t. A skilled statement taker has a way of talking through events the witness thought were clear, and showing them things that they had almost forgotten, or had never realised they remembered. It’s not prompting, saying things like “it was a red car, wasn’t it?” but leading memories into the open air.

“What caught your attention? What was it about the vehicle that made you look up?” are typical tricks to bring sound and vison of past events back to life, and it is an art I will never have. Ellen, however, was a star, and as we walked Chris through the evening’s horrors, I swear I could smell the piss in the car park stairwell.

Chris answered the questions, I converted each response to statementese, and Ellen typed them up, frowned and asked another question.

“How did you realise you weren’t alone, Chris?”

“When I was grabbed---no, that’s not right. I can remember hearing some heavy breathing, and then rapid footsteps. All echoes in the landing, everything booming and amplified. Yeah, footsteps, then panting, like someone running, and then… No. They punched me in the right kidney first, then I think it was a stick or something, right across the back of the thighs. Bloody well hurt, both of them. I went down, hard. Got gravel rash to my knuckles”

“What happened then, Chris? Could you see who it was? Any one thing that stuck in your memory? Sound, smell?”

“Oh yes!”

He started to laugh, winced, tried to stop and ended up moaning.

“Bloody ribs! Ow ow ow. Yes, ladies: who did the sewing on the belt? One of them grabbed the back of it to haul me up, and all the stitching on the buckle just went ‘Pop!’ and the belt pulled out of the loops, and my poor face went straight into the concrete again. Not nice, not at all”

He sat up straighter, something returning to him with a sizeable impact.

“Yes! Two of them spoke just then. I’d forgotten!”

Ellen smiled at him. “What did the first one say?”

He tilted his head to one side, staring into the distance, or at least the corner where the walls met the ceiling.

“The belt pulled all the way out, and I went bang into the floor, and one of them said ‘You not want that, Dai?’ and then a second one just hissed at him, and hissed is the word, real contempt in the way he said it, and it was just ‘shut the fuck up, you idiot’, and then I was hit a couple of more times”

“Where were you hit, Chris?”

“First one was a kick to my side, then I was hauled up to my knees, and someone hit me in the side of the head”

“Can you say what hit you, Chris?”

“Fist, I think. I was getting a bit confused by then”

My respect for him could hardly go up, but it was trying. Punched, kicked, walloped with a baseball bat, and he owned up to ‘getting a bit confused’. Ellen continued drawing him out.

“I was groggy by then, lost count of the number of times I was hit, but I remember they put me in a vehicle. I could hear the door when it opened, and it was a sliding door, a big van sort of thing. There’s a sliding noise followed by a bang as it goes into place, shuts. There was only the one sound, when it shut. It must have been open already. They put me in the back, and someone grabbed my face, so I thought I’d try and bite him, leave some evidence in his skin, but one of them, same one who’d told the other one to shut up, he just says ‘tie him up properly, shit tried to bite me’, and one of them taped over my mouth… Yes, I could feel the van going round and round. Multi-storey exit, you know? Like a huge spiral till you’re on the street again.

“So it does all that, and they’re just holding me face down in some blankets or something, and the van stops a couple of times, probably for traffic lights, and once it’s moving steadily they’re punching and punching, and they ripped my top off, and there’s a bite, in my shoulder, and another one, and then someone’s pulling at my jeans”

He stopped just then, tears forming, and I opened my mouth to say something about taking a break. Chris just looked straight at me as Ellen handed him some of the blue tissue from a roll she’d brought.

“No, Diane, I get this done now, we get it done together, and then we take their lives away”

He shook himself, almost a shudder.

“No, my darlings, I don’t mean kill them. Just make sure that whatever useful, enjoyable, decent in their lives is taken away, and that they don’t walk free again until they are completely fucked. Me, vindictive?”

He took a couple of deep breaths. “Am I allowed to say how I felt, ladies? Is that allowed in my testimony?”

Ellen reached across to take his hand.

“It’s essential, my love. We don’t just tell the jury what they did, but what they did to you. How did you feel?”

“Bloody terrified, isn’t it? I didn’t know where you all were, there was nothing anywhere around me but the van. No rush, no hurry, just rolling along smoothly while they punched and bit, and ripped my clothes off, and they were all talking then, and it was swearing, poof, filthy shirtlifter, fucking arsebandit, paedo, on and on, and I thought…”

He was crying now, full throttle.

“I thought I was going to bloody well DIE, and it was the worst moment of my whole bloody life, and then suddenly there’s sirens, and a bang on the van---did one of your boys ram it? And there’s shouting, and glass smashing everywhere, and the interior light goes on in the front of the van.

“I managed to get onto my side, rolled over, and I can see! And there’s bats and other things, baseball bats, and one of them is grabbing for one, so I managed to kick him in the leg, and suddenly…”

He broke down just then, for a couple of minutes, and once again I moved to say ‘time out’. In his turn, he shook his head again, wiping the tears.

“Someone came over the back of the front seats, and I looked up, and it was my lovely Big Boy, and I don’t care if he’s playing hard to get, right then Blake was MINE, and he punches one of them as he unlocks the side door, and it whips open, and there’s LAINEY, and she’s like Ripley in ‘Aliens’, all snarl and fury, and… And I am safe, and it’s over, and the paramedics are lovely, and there’s me, feeling ashamed because I thought you’d lost me”

We sat together in silence for twenty seconds or so, Ellen still holding his hand, before she smiled gently at him.

“I think we have all we need, Chris. Take Di out and feed her biscuits and stuff, and I’ll pull this into shape before I print it off. Be with you in a few, aye?”

An hour later, after she had printed out the agreed statement and Chris had signed it, Ellen took him for a walk as I read their words out to the team, their faces hard. As I finished, Sammy grinned, once more in that feral way.

“Friends, I prepared the charge sheets yesterday, just in case, no assumptions, flying pigs, yeah? I do believe we now have enough evidence to make a decision on charging or releasing them. Alun, you’re nearest the phone. Give CPS a shout for me? Get them to agree, and then we can go down and fulfil our very brave goat’s request. When we are done they will know exactly what being fucked feels like, and not in a nice way. And Blake? Your brother will be with us tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 29
We settled down to sorting out more of the shitstorm of paperwork, and I caught Blake looking at me, which destroyed my concentration. I could remember everything from the night before, including the hand-holding, but I was sober now. Let it ride, DC Owens, let it slide, and he’ll do the same. Booze and stress, that’s all it was. Sammy ruined that plan.

“Di? Blake? Could you two do a run up to the greasy before we sort out the charging? I need cholesterol, and I need it now! Couple of dog rolls for me, and I’ll shout for whatever the others want”

Shit. No escape, though, so I took his cash and the team’s orders, and the two of us set off for the canteen.

“Di?”

Sigh. “Yes, mate?”

“Don’t worry about me. You take whatever time you want, whatever you need. No assumptions from me”

Right then, it would have been all too easy to pour out a decade of hate and pain, but not there, not then. Police, professional. I simply nodded and opened the canteen door.

There were around fifteen of our colleagues in there, and to my horror, as soon as the nearest clocked us, they started to clap, to stand and applaud. I felt my face burning as I scuttled to the counter, head down, but Blake just stopped in the middle of the room and held up his hands.

“And there’s nobody here who wouldn’t have done the same, innit? We just got this one right, so let’s not get silly. But thanks”

I spotted Bryn and Barry in a corner, so handed the list to Blake before walking over to them. Bryn stood and hugged me, followed by Barry.

“That was bloody well done, girl. We clearly trained you well. How’s the boy?”

“Bit shit state, Barry. He got a right kicking from the bastards”

Bryn shrugged. “He’s alive, and they are locked up. Focus on that, aye? Told you those two were cunts. I get the impression you already knew that, though. Nice recovery on the asp, girl, but I think you used the whole can on his face! Not seen that much snot for years!”

That broke the mood, and I was able to laugh at last.

“What did you see, mate? Oh, your statement done, before we get into that bit?”

He held up a small bundle of envelopes.

“Me and the dwarf here have got all the Traffic boys’ statements here, copies of pocket book entries, the lot. The lot. Thought we’d drop by with them after a bite”

I grinned at them both. “Aye, and you hadn’t heard we’ve got a tea urn?”

Bryn, laughed in his turn. “And decent biccies, we hear! Dai Gould’s been making the rounds, stirring up the relief to get all their paperwork done, so expect a small avalanche of brown envelopes soon”

“Ah, not being funny, mate, but you know what CID are like; they want everything just so”

Barry just grinned, shaking hid ==s head.

“You know your new boss pulled his old lot in? They’ve been running a twenty-four-hour vetting service on statements. Not seen everyone pull together like this since Adam got rammed off his bike”

“You heard back from him at all, mate?”

He grinned at me. “You didn’t do poker face that well when you first came, girl! I’ll ask, yeah? Sure I can find someone who knows someone, isn’t it?”

“Ta, mate”

Order filled, Blake and I took our leave as well as their bundle of statements, and back at the room ran into Sergeant Gould, who was carrying an even bigger bundle and a couple of cardboard boxes.

“Kettle on, Di?”

“You bloody well know we’ve got an urn! And biccies!”

He smiled. “And I’ve got cake, from Debbie. Sends all their thanks and prayers. Made it herself---she’s bloody good at it, too, so I am most definitely here for a piece rather than some pathetic biscuits. Coffee and walnut, and lemon drizzle, that’s what she said”

He settled himself in a corner with the boxes, producing a stack of paper plates from somewhere, and smiled at the ‘who takes what and how’ sheet before making another round of drinks for us all. For our part, we settled down to copy all the statements and begin the job of collating and comparing them. Sammy’s old lot seemed to have done an excellent job.

That man was in his usual place, bent over a computer terminal and muttering to himself. That ended in a bark of glee.

“Mates, got more forensics in. Off Omar’s clothing—Dai Pritchard’s DNA on it. That’s him stuffed right tidy!”

After the noise died down, Sammy looked round at the team, rubbing his neck.

“I really need to get my posture sorted. Doing my back in, all this computer work. It’s just all so….PC!”

Rob called him a bastard while the team groaned, and Sammy just bowed in acknowledgement.

“Blake, you brother is due in an hour, so Dai, can you bugger off for a bit? Send our thanks for the cake you haven’t already eaten, but we have a bit of need-to-know coming up. This could be very, very tasty. No offence, mate”

Dai just grinned. “No offence taken, butt. I will assume this is yet more nails for their coffins, so I’ll be gone once I’ve finished this cuppa”

“Got an hour, mate”

“Aye, Sammy, but you’ll want to brief this lot first. I’ll give your best to them all”

Once he was gone, Sammy walked out into the middle of the room.

“Mates, we’ve got this lot stitched up right tidy now, but there’s always room for more on top. You will know that we’ve been getting calls and snottagrams, or at least the bosses have”

Rob called across “Aren’t you a boss, then?”

Sammy nodded in recognition. “Yes, and don’t ever forget that, little man!”

He was grinning, though, clearly joking, but he wasn’t finished.

“No, not my level, not even the Super, but right up to the top, to the Complaints Commission as well. There’s a local councillor, got some influence, pulls a load of strings, innit? He’s the one paying the expensive suits and shysters. Claims it’s a vendetta against his family. Now, some of you already know this, so bear with me. This is not to leave this room.

“Inspector Powell, Elaine, explained what went on with her sister. Joe Evans, the one who pissed himself, beat her up so badly she was found unconscious by the roadside and taken to hospital. That, as she explained, is why she has had to move on. While her daughter was in hospital, she was visited by two police officers, and we nicked them with Joe Evans. They told her her fortune, in a nasty and threatening way, while she was lying in hospital. Thing is, they are not, or rather WERE not, South Wales boys but Dyfed-Powys, and they had fuck-all business being on our turf.

“They went too far on that one, and after a few too many fast and loose games, they were managed out”

I couldn’t hold my tongue. “They were sacked, you mean”

Sammy stared at me, and yet again it was flat and appraising.

“Yes, girl. They had a leaving do and decided to drive while pissed, and purely by chance, some of their former colleagues were waiting for them to leave. Coincidence. Could have happened to anyone”

He waited once for the muttering to die down.

“Family values, mates. The complainant, the one paying for the suits, is Ashley Evans, and both Rob and Joe are members of his family. So young Blake here had a thought about where the money is coming from, and he has a brother who works for HMRC, and so a hint may have been dropped. Unofficially. Got that bit? It is now official, because someone decided to have a look at some local builders for a tax assurance exercise, and, well, his firm stinks. Blake’s brother Sean is due here shortly, as are some of Ellen’s old crowd from the financial team. Rhys, could you pop down to the front desk and bring in Sean when they ring?”

Rhys nodded, and Sammy continued.

“Simples, really. We cut off their funding, get them onto duty solicitor rather than posh law firm. Not that that is our reason, of course, We are merely responding to allegations of criminality, Your Honour, and any fall-out is merely a coincidence”

The phone went, and Rhys was out the door at a nod from Sammy. Sean turned out to be a little smaller than Blake, but not by much, and I caught him looking at Candice quite intently; obviously a randy sod. Ellen’s old colleagues stopped by twenty minutes later, and they began their discussions.

I will be honest, it was all right over my head, so I just left them to get on with it. I didn’t need to know the details, or the methods; I just wanted to see our prisoners well and truly stuffed.

By the end of the day, our part of it all was done and dusted, and I was slowly sorting my things out for the run back to my digs, my shoulders aching as much as I assumed Sammy’s were. Blake came over with his phone out, and I saw Sean’s eyebrows go up slightly. Ah.

“You been talking to your brother, Blake?”

He actually blushed.

“Er, yeah”

“Talking about Candice? Office blonde, was it?”

“No. Not at all. Look, got a text from Mark. Your Dad. Says to come to tea if I want, usual spare bed stuff”

“Usual?”

“You know what I mean. You OK with that?”

“Do I get a choice?”

He mulled that over for a few seconds.

“No, not this time. Lift in and back?”

I gave in. “All right, then. Let them know. I’ll grab my stuff and be off in, what? Ten minutes?”

“Yeah. Do me”

On a hunch, I pulled my phone from my bag, and the text was there, from Mam, suggesting exactly what he had described. I was outnumbered.

I had to ask, so once the car was rolling I grilled him about his brother.

“What was all that staring at Candice crap, mate? And the eyebrow thing?”

“Um, I sort of told him about the team. Said what good sorts you all are”

“Bollocks you did. What was really going on?”

“Er…”

He shut up for the time it took him to deal with a set of lights, and then continued speaking, eyes fixed on the road as they always were when he drove, smoothly and safely.

“Di, I told my bro that I liked someone on the team. You know I do. You know it’s you”

“Blake, I can’t, you know…”

A rare glance sideways.

“I know, Di. I know. That is why I don’t push anything. Thing is, I didn’t say who it was, so, with Candice being, you know…”

“All hair and tits and sweet girly girl? He should have seen her going after those arseholes in the van, might put him off rather a lot!”

“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you about that in a bit. I think he realised he had the wrong girl when I showed you the text from your Dad”

“Ah. So he’ll know you’re not after her then. Don’t think she’s seeing anyone, so---what?”

He had laughed out loud at that comment, which broke my flow.

“What’s the joke, mate?”

“Sean’s on the same bus as Chris, Di!”

“Oh fuck. Sorry, mate. Just a bit up my own arse at times”

His tone changed. “Hard not to be, in your position. Now, a quick one and one makes two, OK? I know about Elaine’s sister and three of those shits. This is how I see it. I know what happened to you, back when you were a kid. I am guessing that the big man is the bastard paying for the brief, so we will leave it at that. Sort of not shooting blindly here, but I will assume you were visited in the same way Elaine’s sister was---shit!”

He found a lay-by somehow, and parked the car before turning to me, where my bloody treasonous emotions had knocked my off balance and the tears had struck without warning. Turning towards me, he unclicked our seatbelts and pulled me to him, strong arms around me till I could speak. Once I was back, he simply let me go, opened the glove box and passed me some tissues.

“Sorry, girl. If you’d rather I dropped you off and went home, that’s fine”

I said nothing, so he carried on, filling the silence.

“Yes. No point pretending, is there? Yes, I like you, and it’s a hell of a lot. You’ve got soul, girl, heart and soul. The way you’ve been treated, and you just fight back. Yes, I am fond of you, and yes, in that way, but I am not going to push you, and I don’t want to lose one of my truest friends. So just say the word, aye? And I will back off”

I looked at him, filling his side of the car to overflowing. Everything Adam wasn’t, and everything Adam was. Everything that Ashley Evans had been, physically, but nothing that the bastard’s soul held was anything like this careful, gentle, caring man. I sat quietly, thinking through my life and what three utter bastards had done to it.

Before I knew it, I was laughing, and he turned back to me, worry in every line of his face, so I put a hand on his arm.

“It’s OK, mate. Just a memory, yeah? I was on stag with Alun, and we had to pretend, you know?”

“I heard”

“Yes. I know. It was good gossip. But, here’s the thing. We drove back from our stint on stag, and I was thinking, you know, all those years since the car park by Ogmore, that bastard Ashley Evans, all that time, and it was my first kiss. And it was play-acting, with a colleague, so it wasn’t, not really, not a kiss”

“And?”

“And… I got to thinking about what they’d stolen from me, so much of my life. So… So could you just bloody well lean over here and give some back? And kiss me?”

CHAPTER 30
He sat unmoving for a few seconds before reaching across to take my right hand with his left.

“Are you sure, Di? Don’t want you thinking I’m putting pressure on you. I’m not, not at all”

My insides were melting with terror, but I had made my decision. Heart, he had said, heart and soul.

“Shut up and get on with it, Blake!”

He reached round with his right hand, cradling my cheek, and…

Ten years of shit didn’t magically wash away, nor did I heal in some miraculous way, but it was warm, and it was affectionate, and three arseholes were now in cells. I let him choose when to end the kiss, but I had my hand on his cheek, so he couldn’t pull back, couldn’t drop the soiled goods. Instead, I kept my eyes on his, not allowing the tears to force their way out again.

“Thanks, mate. You have no idea what that means”

A wry smile. “Then some day, you tell me, OK? Now, are you all right to go home? No assumptions from me here, but, well, thank you too”

Change the subject, girl. “Your brother is really gay?”

“Yeah. And?”

“What the hell is Chris going to be like, big boy!”

That brought the laughter we needed, and he put the car back into gear and pulled away again.

I opened the front door with my key and the aroma was there, and I recognised the tang.

“Hiya, you two! Coats and shoes off; Dad/s in the front room”

“I know that smell! Three mustards?”

“You have it, love”

I explained it to Blake.

“Beef stroganoff, or Mam’s take on it. Crème fraiche with three different types of mustard, strips of decent beef, very nom, innit?”

We entered the front room, where Dad was working through a crossword, telly on. He stood to hug and shake hands, before waving at the settee. Assumptions were clearly in place, but leave that for now.

“I recorded the news, love. Wait till Mam’s in, please. A lot to talk about, I would guess. Beer, son?”

I held up a hand, like a schoolgirl in class.

“What about me, mister? Don’t I get a beer?”

Dad looked at me, a half-smile on his face, head tilted slightly.

“Of course, love, but you need to pop upstairs and wash your face. You’ve been crying; I can always tell”

I did as I was told, knowing he would be ripping into Blake in a gentle way as soon as I was out of the room. A quick splash, shit my eyes are red, leave off the mascara just in case, and back down to an odd atmosphere. Mam came in just then, meals plated and steaming, and without a word the two men settled at the table as Mam and I joined them. Dad had the remote control for the telly in his hand, and clicked it as I took my seat.

“Before we eat, love, we need to talk about this. I recorded the news twenty minutes ago. Hang on…there you are”

The recording started with the Super, in full posh uniform, giving a bare-bones account of the arrests, the same piece I had already seen, and then cut to the exterior of the Smugglers, and inside it, several customers’ faces blurred out. A woman reporter gave the story her full furrowed-brow-serious attention.

“For the last year at least, there has been a climate of fear across LGBT communities in both Cardiff and Swansea. More than a dozen young men---”

A dozen? What took them so long to respond?

“---have been violently assaulted in or around the two cities’ gay villages. The attacks have increased steadily in their seriousness, and recent incidents have involved gang rape. Myron Prosser is the landlord of the Smugglers’ Arms, a popular gay and lesbian venue in Cardiff. Myron, how has this affected the community?”

“Well, Julia, it has been devastating. We are very much a community, and each attack has been on someone known to us, many of them our friends or relatives. It has been dreadful. We wondered how it would end. Would we be looking at a funeral?”

‘Julia’ turned away from him and back to the camera.

“Yesterday, Superintendent Bevan Williams of South Wales Police announced that arrests had been made in respect of the wave of attacks, and today he released the details of five men who have now been charged with offences including grievous bodily harm and rape. He stressed that inquiries are ongoing. With me now, to discuss the case, is Inspector Samir Patel, who coordinated the team that was tasked with ending this nightmare. Inspector Patel?”

Blake laughed out loud. “He never does get a suit that fits, does he? Shit, look---sorry Dot! They were listening to you, Di!”

The caption to Sammy read “Inspector Samir Patel, Serious Crime Investigation Unit”

“I thought that was your line, mate”

Blake laughed even louder, Dad hitting the pause button.

“Di, girl, all I did was add the topping—you served the idiot the main course! Oh, and this is lovely, Dot”

Mam grinned. “One of our girl’s favourites, it is. What did she do?”

“Told someone his fortune in a very direct way. Some idiot who didn’t seem to understand what we were up to, or maybe wouldn’t understand it, deliberately, like”

Mam nodded to Dad, and he started the recording again. Sammy was as smooth and slippery as a diesel spill on an icy road.

“I wasn’t behind the team, Julia. I took over after the arrests, as the original team leader was on loan from our colleagues in Dyfed-Powys. I did, however, inherit an efficient and dedicated team, and all credit should go to them for this result”

“Inspector, there have been suggestions that these assaults have not been taken seriously”

Sammy smiled. “I will simply say that today’s result shows how incorrect those suggestions were”

“Who do you have in custody, Inspector?”

“Well, Julia, I will have to limit what I say for obvious reasons related to the criminal justice process. I do not want to prejudice their rights to a fair trial”

“Thank you, Inspector Patel”

Her voice continued as the screen cut to a montage of five faces I knew all too well.

“The five men now charged have been named as Jamie Evans, Matthew Hansen, Joseph Evans, Robert Evans and Dafydd Pritchard. All have been remanded in custody while investigations continue. Julia Morrison, BBC Wales, Cardiff”

Dad turned the telly off, and as I took another mouthful of Mam’s treat he asked a simple question.

“What have you told your friend here, love?”

“Everything, Dad. All of it”

He looked Blake in the eye, and the bigger man had to drop his gaze to his plate.

“Yes, Mark. She’s told all. We are sorting it, OK?”

“Good. Both of you: bloody well done. That boy you mentioned, is he all right?”

I grimaced. “Took a beating, Dad. It really shook him up”

Blake started to laugh, as the tension eased.

“Not the only one to get a good hiding!”

Mam perked up, an evil smile on her face. “Those two coppers?”

Blake laughed again, happily, and it struck me how much of it he was doing. “She got Pritchard. Dragged him out of the van, sprayed a full can of incapacitant in his face, smacked him over the legs with her stick. Not one to hold back, our girl!”

Dad looked at him again, picking up on the one word, but Mam was in full flow.

“Where did you grab him, love?”

“By the sleeve, Mam”

A chuckle from my right.

“What, mate?”

“Aye, she had his sleeve, but I needed to get the back door open, and he was in the way, so I sort of found a couple of things of his to tug on…”

He only just got it out before he burst into loud guffaws. We all let it run its course, and he calmed quite quickly.

“Elaine, though. Our old boss---I thought she was going to kill someone. Lad came at her, reaching for one of the bats, he was, and she just hit him in the face, bloody good backhand she has! Sorry, people. Over tea, not really the right place. Look: there’s a lot we can’t tell you, but… It’s almost over. I won’t be giving away anything before court, but they are all, they all have so much evidence against them that they don’t have a snowball’s”

Dad’s mouth twisted. “Still one left, isn’t there?”

Blake smiled, and this time without warmth.

“Oh yes. Ashley sodding Evans. I have him in my sights, and so does my brother and his colleagues. End of discussion on that one, OK? Just watch and wait”

Mam was insistent, though.

“And what about you, love? You still got the heart for this? Get that bastard what he deserves? You with Blake on this one?”

I made my decision, and looked across at my big boy, putting my right hand palm up on the table between us, and he took the hint, and my hand.

CHAPTER 31
I looked down at his hand, and then at his eyes, trying to hold my courage close and tight so that it couldn’t escape. Blake just nodded, and turned to my parents.

“Baby steps at the moment, Mark, Dot. Di’s the one in the driving seat”

That gave me something else to talk about, which I urgently needed.

“I’ll leave you in that seat, mate. Mam, when I was riding with Bryn and Barry, that spell I did in Traffic? When they went for it, I just shut my eyes and hung on, but this lad, he is SO smooth, and I think he’s even quicker than those two. When he wants to, he can REALLY cover the ground”

Once again, that laughter, something I was starting to enjoy hearing.

“Barry wasn’t hanging around with that stop, was he? Did you see the damage to their car’s wing? I thought he was going to push the van right into ours”

I found myself laughing, and with a squeeze of his hand I gave my side.

“Dad, we had to stop it in a hurry, so we had some unmarked cars followed by two marked ones from Traffic, so when Elaine said the word, they came past like shi--- like bats out of hell. Blake here, he runs us onto the verge, gets right by their front nearside so they can’t run. I doubt this one saw, but I nearly did myself an injury on the front door, Elaine was out that quick! Did you clock Bryn, mate?”

“Eyes on the road, Di”

“Yeah. Well, he already had his asp---his baton, Mam. He already had it out and ready, not wound up at all, was he? U thought they’d given the van a good clout! Did the trick”

Dad was sitting quietly just listening, and after I had turned to throw a grin at Blake, he said his own piece.

“Thank you, son. Really thank you. For the first time in far too long, something for her to smile at, for us two as well. Thank you”

He sighed, taking off his glasses to wipe his eyes.

“No assumptions from me, son, but wherever this goes, whatever happens with the two of you, you will always find our door open. Dot? You think we can have pudding?”

“I hadn’t done any, love”

“Then, if it is all right with everyone, the pub down the road does a very good line in afters. You up for that, you two?”

And so our quiet night in turned into a reasonably refreshed session in the local pub, a large part of it gathered round the video pub quiz machine arguing and groaning over the answers. That may sound odd, but Mam worked the controls as Dad stood behind her, arms around her waist, and I just leant back into Blake, as he gave me back my life, and only a second after that thought I realised it wasn’t just me. My parents were being healed as well.

Breakfast was smiles again, smiles and more laughter. Two men argued about rugby, two women grinned and pretended to be bored. Another smooth ride into work, and a very knowing smile from Candice, who was filling the urn as we walked in together.

“Took you two long enough! Brew in a bit, if someone could pop out and grab some milk. Those people with your brother, boy, they drink tea like it’s going out of fashion”

I grabbed my purse. “I’ll do it, girl. Anything else we need?”

“Some biccies be good. I’m off with Rhys, once he’s in. Got some ‘further to’ statements to get from some of the medics for Vernon and Omar, and then we’ve got a pile of work to do with the other victims”

At least a dozen, those had been the words on the telly.

“That been divvied up? The news last night was saying at least twelve”

Yeah. Rob and Alun are off to a couple now, and Sammy’s left us a list of who’s got what today. Not like paperwork, really, is it? I mean, it is paperwork, writing and that, but each one of them, well, I can’t help seeing that bastard Evan’s face, grinning”

I grinned in turn. “Which bastard Evans, Candice?”

“Does it bloody well matter? They’re all bastards. Tell you what; when we’ve got this one wrapped up, someone really needs to pop up to Carmarthen, let Elaine knows how it’s going. Oh, hi, Ellen. Busy day for you as well?”

The new arrival dumped her bag and coat next to a terminal and came over to the urn. Candice shrugged.

“As soon as one of these two gets their arse down the shop for some milk we’ll have a brew”

“Ta. I think I’ve got numbers printed on my eyeballs, so if there’s a chance of a black coffee, it’ll help me kick-start my brain. You two stopped dancing round each other, then?”

Was I making it that obvious? Sod them all; I was out the door like a shot.

Weeks of hard work followed, and while it wasn’t as exciting as the initial investigation had been, or the arrests, it was still absorbing, as were the three additional rape victims who came forward following the BBC and newspaper reports.

Vernon Pugh had washed himself raw in shame, and I had thought his reaction extreme, but here were three young men so wound up in fear, pain and shame that they hadn’t even seen a doctor. I should have hit Pritchard a few more times when I had had the opportunity. Candice had been spot on. Bastards, all of them.

Blake was distant throughout, but not in a bad way. He didn’t grab at me for a cuddle, nor snatch a kiss, but didn’t step back when I stepped forward, clearly not bothered by being with soiled goods, and at the same time letting me find my own way at my own pace. He smiled a lot, and more and more it was with the family. He and Dad were clearly good mates by then, and Mam seemed to enjoy cooking for more then the three of us.

Finally, FINALLY, we had the last statement sorted, the disclosure bundles signed off, all the exhibits labelled, and Sean and Ellen were muttering happily at their shared desk as they finally got a handle on Ashley Evans’ business dealings. I got permission from Sammy, and drove the long, damp miles to Carmarthen.

Elaine’s new office was much bigger than she had been given in Cardiff, compete with a PA and room for guests to sit. Somebody clearly held her in high opinion in Dyfed-Powys, and there was no way I would argue against that.

“Di!”

Sod protocol---I gave her as solid a hug as I could manage. She returned it with interest, a broad grin on her face, and set a coffee machine going, a real filter thingy with ground coffee rather than some granules from a jar. Once we were settled with our cups, I decided to get right to the important stuff.

“I’ll get straight to the point, Lainey. Oh, bloody good coffee, this”

“The point, Diane?”

“Oh yes. Hansen tried to claim he was only a driver, right up to when we mentioned the DNA from Omar’s rape, as well as the bite marks, some of them. You’ll laugh, but, well, I am absolutely sure the tape caught his brief saying ‘Oh fuck’ when we disclosed it to him. Hansen then went on some snivelling rant about how his partner was abusing him due to her addiction to Evil Drugs, and how the balance of his mind was disturbed, and his brief kept saying that he advised his client not to answer, and in the end just sat there with his head in his hands”

I covered my face with the cup, really enjoying the aroma.

“Thing is, his partner, aye? Adele Hughes? She comes out of it the next morning, off her face when she was nicked, innit, and she gives chapter and verse about where he gets the speed and the coke and the crack from, and she stitches her beloved up like a bloody kipper! So we put it to the boy himself, and mention the prints and bugger it, I almost felt sorry for the brief!”

Elaine shrugged. “Duty solicitor, aye? Got handed it like the proverbial shitty stick”

U couldn’t hold the anger down at that.

“That’s the thing, Lainey. No duty solicitor, innit? Fucking Councillor Ashley Evans’ own legal people, innit? Ashley bastard Evans!”

She stared down into her own cup for ten, fifteen seconds, and when she spoke it was almost a whisper.

“Would he be…?”

I gave my anger its head. “Another rapist? What do you think?”

“Sorry, Diane”

U saw Blake in my mind’s eye, and I wasn’t a whore, not soiled goods, and I could feel myself snarling.

“Yes. Not the same idiot girl now, am I? Anyway, Pritchard and the other bent bastard, they go no comment, no surprises there, and Jamie Evans, well, he decides to be a twat, all sorts of threats about doing you for assault, and Blake, oh dear me, he remembers what you said about leaving them their teeth for matching the bites…”

Blake in my thoughts, laughter bubbling up, memories of an angry rapist with a bandaged face.

“You broke his cheekbone and nose, Lainey. Hell of a wallop!”

“Well, Chris was, you know, and—”

I groped for Mam’s words. What were they? Oh yes.

“Yes, we all know, and chwarae teg to you. I learned that one for you, Elaine. Fair play indeed. So Blake’s all dead pan, and he just says that you were complying with your own briefing, that reasonable force be used up to the limitation of getting bite impressions, and his have come back, and, well, gives him a Special Warning and asks for him to account for his teeth having been in the shoulders of at least four men and, well, reality hits him, aye? I thought the brief was going to puke, he was that green. That one’s broken too, innit. The last one…”

I knew I had to be careful. She held secrets on this one, I was sure, and it would be all too easy to break them, and if that happened she would be broken as well.

“Elaine, what happened with him? FME says he has a lot of scars, old ones, and you can see in his face, one of his eyes droops, innit? He’s had at least one really bad kicking? And he knew your sister, you said?”

Her whole manner became guarded. “I gave you the story there already, Diane”

“No you didn’t, Inspector Powell. You gave me half a story”

She sighed. “You know about my sister Sarah?”

“We’ve spoken before, innit? She’s a transsexual, got done over by Pritchard and the other arsehole”

“About right. She was going out with Joe Evans for a while, or rather he was using her for a bit of fun, aye? Well, one day she wakes up to what he really is, and she goes to tell him so long, that’s it, goodbye, aye?”

“Aye. Yes…”

“And he gropes her, finds out she’s not what it says on the tin, and then he beats the shit out of her, puts her into hospital, which is where she meets the other two, who tell her her fortune. That’s all”

And that’s not all of it, is it, Inspector Powell? Careful, DC Owens.

“Then totally by coincidence Joe Evans gets the kicking from hell. Don’t answer that one, I don’t need to be told. He kept asking where you were, and every time there was a noise at the door he jumped. Gave us some version of how the balance of his mind was disturbed by having had a kicking because he rejected a nancy boy, and he just had to hit back, and you know how it is. Couldn’t we understand that? I think he’s not the full box, Elaine. Honest opinion, he’s going to be sectioned. No!”

She was out of her seat, and I am sure I saw the same face that Jamie Evans had, just before she had broken half of his own. I had my hand up—calm, cool, Inspector; police, professional.

“Inspector Patel thinks we can get him banged away on public safety grounds. That’s him down. Hansen’s folded, Jamie Evans hasn’t got a snowball’s and he knows it, and while the other two shits will still push for a trial, there’s more. That Range Rover, they had cuffs and leg-straps in it. And we have their DNA, or at least Pritchard’s, from Omar’s clothing. They’re both swimming, but it’s in shit creek. Job’s a good’un”

“Diane, thanks”

I chose my next words with care.

“Give your Sarah my love, Elaine”

She thought for a few more seconds of silence.

“I don’t think I will, Di. Don’t take this the wrong way, but, well, old wounds, still healing? If it doesn’t make the national news, she doesn’t need to know. I will make one prediction, though: our two ex-colleagues will plead when it comes to the day. Now, are you willing to have a little chat about something else? Ashley Evans?”

What was she on about? “What about him?”

“My Super has been getting more than a few phone calls, same with the boss over your way. Persecution of his family, police vendetta, all that. My boss is displeased”

I knew all that, and I was probably feeling a bit defensive.

“Well, that’s not our fault---“

“Shut up, Di. Please. The boss was talking about cold cases. His words. Things have changed, attitudes have changed. He would like a chat with you”

You are joking, Inspector Powell, I thought, but she clearly wasn’t.

“You mean?”

“Aye. If Ashley fucking Evans thinks his family’s being picked on, let’s show him what that means. You with me?”

I sat in silence for my own thoughts to settle. I had joined the force, taken on The Job, in order to find and destroy two pieces of filth masquerading as police officers, and that had turned out so much better than I could have dreamt. Who was Ashley Evans, anyway? Did he have this woman on his side?

Did he have Blake?

I nodded.

“Come with me, then. Adele? Just off to see the Super, aye?”

We walked twenty or thirty yards through the building to another office, where Elaine had a quiet word with another PA, who made the necessary call and then ushered us into another comfortably furnished room. A tall man stood up to shake Elaine’s hand, and she turned to indicate me.

“Boss? This is the young lady I mentioned to you. DC Diane Owens, Superintendent Elias”

He smiled at me, really smiled rather than just arranged his lips for courtesy’s sake.

“Welcome, Detective Constable. Elaine has been bringing me up to date with events in South Wales. Would you be happy to give me a run through?”

I could and did, with the generous application of rather a lot of censorship. He nodded.

“I was a lot younger ten years ago, Diane. A lot less sure of myself. Too easily influenced by heads that may have been older, but not necessarily wiser. I remember your case”

He looked at me in silence for a short while, and then asked one simple question.

“What can you and your team tell us about Ashley Evans?”

CHAPTER 32
I looked at him, and there were no indications as to which way he was jumping. Police, professional, woman.

“I can personally tell you more about him than I would like to know, sir, but I can’t break confidence on what my team are doing”

“Not even on my direct order?”

Breathe, Calm. "No sir. Not even on your direct order, not without the authority of the people who may or may not own the information”

He suddenly grinned, turning to Elaine.

“When I said you had inculcated a ‘no shame’ attitude in your team, I see you picked the right people. Thank you”

Turning back to me, he smiled in a much warmer way.

“Absolutely correct, Diane. If I may call you that, and within these walls I am Iwan. This particular investigation goes beyond common criminality, and into very personal territory. Absolutely correct of you to maintain confidence, and I will be approaching Bevan---Bevan Williams, your own Super, that is; I will be approaching him directly. Before that, if you feel you can, please talk us through your own experiences. I know the general details, just as I believe I am aware of the reasons there was no prosecution at the time”

The last three words leapt out at me. Could he mean…?

I talked them through that night, with frequent pauses, and by the end of it all, Elaine had moved over to lay her arm over my shoulders as a comfort, and the little pack of tissues I kept in my handbag was almost exhausted.

“When he finished, when I was lying on the ground, he pis---urinated on me”

Iwan smiled again, and there was something behind it that made me want to trust him, to open up my wounds again.

“You can say ‘pissed’, Diane. I think we will all have heard a lot worse”

“Pissed, then. All over my back. He said it was the way to get all the spoodge out”

Elaine twitched at that.

“Same word my sister says Joe Evans used. Family thing, obviously. Omar described much the same thing. Omar Mohammed, Iwan, our breakthrough assault”

“Ah yes. Do you feel up to more, Diane?”

I considered that for a little while, and realised that for the first time, telling that story was actually doing me good, cleansing those wounds I had reopened.

“Yes, and thank you both. I need to get this out so we can finish this job”

The Super nodded. “Thank you. I understand… No. No, I do not understand what you have been through. I have never been there, never been raped. But I can do my best to do what I should have done about it years ago. Elaine, your sister Sarah, yes? Visited in hospital by Robert Evans and Dai Pritchard?”

“Yes indeed, and much the same treatment as Diane got”

I looked up. “Shut your mouth, go home, we know where you live, be grateful we don’t arrest you now?”

Elaine smiled, nastily. “Yes indeed, girl. They didn’t even know whose sister she was till I had a couple of words with them”

Iwan laughed out loud, and this time it was happily.

“Oh yes indeed! In the men’s toilet, wasn’t it? I am told she scared nine particular shades of excrement out of them. She has that effect on some people, I am informed”

I laughed in my turn. “Oh, absolutely. You should have seen her when we stopped that van!”

He buzzed his PA. “Could we have some more coffee, for three, please?”

He turned his eyes on Elaine. “That is indeed what your sister received from that fine pair, wasn’t it? Before they stupidly went to the local press for money?”

Elaine nodded. “Diane, please bear with me here. You know how my sister began life, aye?”

“She’s a transsexual, isn’t she?”

“She’s a happily married woman with a wonderful husband and a fine son, butt. Boy’s her husband’s, obviously, but to him she is his mother, his Mam. She’s a contented woman, Di, but before she got there, she was dead in the water, dead behind her eyes. That family screwed her over and stole a decade of her life. Thank god for her friends, and thank god for the man she married. He is a real life-saver. They did much the same to you, I would guess. You and your parents?”

I wanted to spit. “Yes indeed. Their daughter the whore, margarine legs, keep your lads away from them, never know where she’s been, or who or what with. I needed the Job, innit? Gave me something to pull myself back up with”

I looked back at Elaine.

“They never gave up on me, though, never believed all the crap people were saying. I think it nearly broke them, but they never turned against me, never lost faith”

She nodded. “Like my parents, our parents, aye?”

I took her hand, gave it a squeeze.

“Just one thing that’s been bothering me. Well, a lot of it’s been bothering me, but you know what I mean. Mam kept a load of clippings, on me and Sarah’s cases. She says the two of them were sacked”

Iwan smiled tightly. “Not exactly. They were convicted of drink-driving, and in accordance with normal disciplinary arrangements, they were encouraged to seek early retirement on medical grounds”

I nodded again, like a stupid toy dog. “Yeah, but sacked, in essence. Mam doesn’t differentiate on that one. Gone, and good riddance, she says. No, what I am confused by, or perhaps intrigued, concerned, disturbed, yeah? All better words. What the hell were those two shits doing in South Wales territory? Not their turf, not their bloody job!”

Iwan reached behind him for a slim file of papers that was lying on his desk.

“That is something that concerned both Bev and myself, and we made enquiries. Those enquiries have been underway ever since we first heard of the involvement of the two, and we are particularly examining who was on duty in the control rooms at Swansea and Cardiff on those evenings. If they don’t turn out to be related or otherwise connected, I will be rather astonished. I will also be looking at charges relating to perverting the course of justice, conspiracy and so on. I do believe it is time for some bloody spring cleaning!”

He dragged over a spider phone and dialled a number.

“Yes? Superintendent Elias here, Dyfed-Powys. Would it be possible to speak to Bevan Williams? Yes, that’s the one”

He muted the handset and turned to me, eyebrows raised in query. His meaning was obvious, so I just smiled and nodded in consent.

“Bev? Iwan Elias here. I have a favour to ask. Would you mind if we went to speaker? I have some colleagues here? Yes? Wait one”

He fiddled with the machine, muttering under his breath until Elaine reached past to hit the right buttons, and my boss’ voice came though clearly.

“Can you all hear me?”

“Yes” from all of us.

“Is that Elaine I can hear? How are you?”

“Fine, Bev. We’ve got DC Owens here, Diane”

“From Serious Crimes?”

“That’s the one. Been giving me an update on the rape and assault investigation”

“Thank you, DC Owens. How may I help?”

Iwan took the lead. “Bev, it is a matter of confidentiality and information sharing. You will be aware of Diane’s previous encounters with persons of interest in this case?”

Superintendent Williams roared with laughter. “You always were one for calling a spade a soil rearrangement device, Iwan? Persons of interest? Arseholes up to their necks in it, I would say. Diane?”

“Yes, boss?”

“I am aware of your previous dealings with three of the men we are investigating and yes. I am being kept fully up to speed on how things are proceeding with Ashley Evans. Your friend’s brother has filed an application under section 41 of POCA. Er, sorry, Diane. Not your field as such. HMRC are looking to obtain a restraint order under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Freeze Ashley Evans’ assets, in short. See how influential he and his family can be without readies”

“Thank you, boss”

“Don’t mention it. Iwan, how can I help?”

2Hopefully that will be quite simple. I am looking to open a perversion and conspiracy to pervert case, and I believe that it will also involve a cold case thingy in regard to another rape, some years ago”

“Whose?”

“Diane’s”

He looked across at me for assent once more, and I gave it.

“Raped by Ashley Evans, when she was only sixteen, Bevan”

I heard his breath hiss, and then, after a few seconds, he replied, his voice flat, dangerous.

“What do you need, then? Diane, I ask you this as a concerned manager, and, I think, a friend rather than a colleague. Are you up for this? I do not wish you to be hurt again”

Elaine’s hand in mine, Iwan’s on my shoulder. No more fucking victim from me.

“Absolutely, boss. Long overdue, innit?”

“OK, then. Iwan? You will have all assistance we can give you, and naturally it will be a two-way street. I will ring Sammy Patel once I hang up here”

He paused again.

“If necessary, we’ll lock up the whole fucking family”

CHAPTER 33
That was a phrase that had lived in my mind ever since two men had visited me in a hospital bed. I thought it through for a while, looking at Elaine. She didn’t let me down, and I knew then, if I hadn’t before, that she never would. The hint was taken.

“Bev?”

“Yes, Elaine?”

“We do have another way into this one, one I am keen to follow rather than the usual way”

“You mean?”

“We don't just stick his name in the press and see who else comes forward with their own accusations. No, I am concerned about my sister. I believe Di is with me on this one. Sarah has taken a very long time to get over what they did to her, and If we go all-out on the publicity regarding Ashley Evans it may rebound on her”

Williams’ voice was softer. “I remember hearing about that one”

“Aye, bastards had it all over the local press, the idiots. Means a lot of the evidence is public domain now. What we do have is a nurse, one of those who witnessed Pritchard and Bob Evans’ little bit of social work. Could we start there?”

I found my voice again. “I had my own nurse”

Iwan looked across, and I realised that the three of them were starting to forget I was there.

“What do you mean, Di? Precisely?”

“I had my own nurse. Janice. I don’t know the rest of her name, but she wasn’t happy. I remember her doing… I remember some sort of procedure in, that part---down there, yeah. I was a little out of it, because I was only sixteen, and a very big man had just punched me unconscious. There were two people, a couple come down to the car park, probably for a bit of fun of their own. Hal and Kerry”

Iwan was still staring at me. “You can remember all this? Still?”

I shrugged. “Hard to explain, really, but while the details are all mixed up, some of them are very, very clear”

“Iwan?”

“Yes, Bevan?”

“I think we should follow Elaine’s route to see who we can pull out of the woodwork, and then look for the nurse involved in her treatment. I have one particular suggestion, well, two, but they come to the same thing. Firstly, we dig into the logs of emergency calls that night. Then, I think we need some sort of team approach to this. Can anyone suggest a unit that has expertise in bringing together disparate strands of investigative techniques to crack multi-layer cases?”

Elaine’s boss started laughing. “You empire-building bastard, Williams! I loan you my best Inspector, and you cream off the kudos, sod that you are! No, sorry, but not sorry, if you catch my meaning. You are right, but Diane remains central to this investigation, and in particular to our concerns. Do you have other work for her in the meantime?”

He turned to me. “Your team will be ideal, young lady, but you will not be involved in the investigation. Sorry, but it has to be done”

Elaine had her hand up. “If I may, Iwan?”

“Go ahead”

“Di, love, there is no way anyone would ever think of taking you off the team, not with what you have achieved there, and in particular in the way in which you have done it. Look at me, aye? Kicked into touch as soon as we realised who was involved. I didn’t, I don’t like it, but it had to be done. Has to be done. Now, there’s something else going on here, and I suspect the team will be staying in existence, and Iwan was talking about ‘cold case’ work. Am I right, Bev?”

“Absolutely, Elaine. I see a future for them, and one rather wider than a single force can use. What better team to look into an old rape case. I have a role for you, Diane, pro tem. We can discuss that when you return, but I stress the temporary aspect. I want you back in place as soon as we can arrange it without buggering up your own case”

Once again, Elaine’s hand was up, and Iwan just looked at her with a grin of real affection.

“No, Elaine, you can’t go back there. You were on secondment, and if South Wales want to build empires, they can use their own assets. I need you here. I suspect you had something else, though?”

“Yes, boss. Sorry, boss. Three bags full, boss”

“Oh shut up and get on with it, woman!”

“OK. One thing we really need to do is avoid sending any signals out. We can be reasonably certain they have somebody, some relative, either in a main control room somewhere, probably in Abertawe or yng Nghaerdydd”

Pause for laughter, and a grin from her.

“We need to pull the 999 records for that night as well as for several others, in several areas. We don’t need to look at the smoke screen stuff, just the time and place we are interested in, so it will look like a huge pile of work, but that’ll not be the case. We don’t alert whichever mole they have”

I caught a mutter of ‘rat’, but couldn’t be sure which man it was from, but she was right. I put my own hand up, and Iwan nodded.

“Do I not get to do anything in this?”

Elaine and Iwan both said ‘No’ at the same time, while Bevan Williams clearly said “Yes”

We all turned to the phone, and he continued.

“Diane needs an involvement, and that is largely as a sounding board, someone who can help steer the investigation. Diane, you will need to be cut out of the loop at times, and you will not be with the team, but you will still be involved. You will avoid any involvement with witnesses, for example, and any statements apart from your own, but you will not be left to fester in the dark. Are we all in agreement?”

We were.

2Then I have a meeting coming up in ten minutes, so I will be off. Diane, I will give Inspector Patel your new AND TEMPORARY assignment when I am out of the meeting, but I have one important question to ask. Are you up to briefing your team on this one?”

I didn’t have to think too long before giving my assent, and after a little more socialising, at a level I had never thought I would ever be involved, I set off home.

I stayed in my digs that night, the solitude helping me to find my centre, focus on my strength. One of the bastards had recognised me, I thought, so it would probably be general knowledge by now, but sod it. Let them sweat on it.

Into work the next morning, urn and kettle on, Samir straight over.

“You, me, Super’s office soon as, girl. Got clean knickers on?”

“Cheeky Inspector! I’ll just dump this and be with you”

A nod to the others as they came in, and off through the maze to Bev Williams office, his PA waving us straight through.

“Hello, Sammy! Diane! Has she filled you in at all, Sammy?”

“Not a word, sir”

Remember that. Not ‘Bevan’ today.

“Good, good. Diane, I assume you will only wish to give one briefing on this matter”

“Please, sir”

“Right. Sammy, a number of things. Firstly, do you have any objections to staying where you are at the moment?”

“You are keeping the team going, sir?”

Bevan smiled. The Superintendent smiled—keep it straight, DC Owens.

“Absolutely, Sammy, and we already have a new job for you, once everything is handed over from the current one. Diane will brief you in a few minutes, but she will be working elsewhere temporarily. You will understand. I have a file here with the crunchy parts of the new investigation laid out, and you will be amused to know that it ties in with what you are currently doing”

That nasty smile of Sammy’s made an appearance again.

“Would this involve a certain councillor Evans by any chance? Sir?”

Williams’ grin was just as vicious. “Oh, most definitely! Diane, DC Owens, your own role, for the duration of this one. Sammy, I have set out hard limits in the file. They must not be breached. Otherwise, keep this young lady involved and informed, and consult with her about relevant details and so on. Chatham House rules, of course: keep it in the team and no further, and she remains part of the team. Your role, Diane”

“Yes, sir?”

“Building on the work you have already done, it will be outreach with our pink community. They are aware of the work done by the team, and the results have been announced. I know there are likely to be a number of victims who never came forward, as well as other issues of criminality. For now, you are their conduit to us. You go out, you meet them, become visible. Show them that they are not some form of second class citizens. Does that suit you?”

I didn’t need to think about that one, so I just smiled and nodded, and he shook my hand.

“Brief your team then, DC Owens. And Sammy?”

“Sir?”

I have a personal interest in this, and so do the complaints bods. You are likely to be interviewed. Their only concern is historical, if you follow me”

“Oh yes indeed! Di?”

When we got back to our team room, everyone was in, and Sammy, after a flick through the file, some quiet swearing, and a nod to me, went to the middle of the room.

“Mates!”

Once we had silence, he began.

“Diane and I have just had a meeting with the Super, and we have a few announcements to give you. Firstly, a huge pat on the back for all of us for a successful job, and before you say it, that includes Inspector Powell, so have a little bask in glory!

“Part two is simple: you all have a choice to make, and I am going to be pushy here. I want a show of hands before we go any further, and there is a reason for that. The boss has decided that there are a lot of old investigations that never went anywhere, or never got started, what the yanks call ‘cold cases’, and he’d like them looked at. Serious stuff, serious offences, nothing trivial, though that sort of thing might give us a way into the heavy stuff. He wants to keep the team going.

“That is what the show of hands is about. You have a choice of staying with us, or returning to your old slot. Hands up if you want to stay”

After a couple of whispered conversations, we got the expected result: every hand up. Sammy gave his nasty grin again, and I stood. I locked eyes with Blake for a second, and he just nodded and mouthed ‘go ahead’.

“Hiya. I knew none of you would want to drop out. This is a bloody good place to work, am I right?”

Pause, let them show their agreement. Take it step by step.

“Because of reasons that will become clear in a second, I am leaving the team, but only temporarily. I will be working on liaison with the LGBT community here in the city, and possibly across the force. We all know there are other victims out there, and not just from the bastards we have banged away right now. That’s part one.

“Part two is… The next bit is a lot harder for me, so please be patient”

Deep breath, a glance at my big boy for confirmation and strength, and dive into it.

“When I was sixteen, a man stopped a car to ask for directions, or so I thought. I was dragged into the vehicle, driven out to a quiet spot, raped, pissed on and beaten unconscious”

Look round the room. Not just Blake, but strength from them all. Wait for the swearing to die down.

“I was then visited in hospital by two coppers and threatened with all sorts if I complained. Yes, Ellen, those two fucking arseholes. Nice description. Anyone guess who the rapist was? Yes, Alun”

“I don’t think I am wrong here, girl. Ashley Evans?”

I nodded, and he swept his gaze round the room.

“I think I can speak for the team here, Di. I am going to relish this one”

He stood up, came over and hugged me, as did all of the others, one by one, and once we were done, Candice looked round us all in her turn.

“That was a bloody stupid question, Sammy. How could anyone ever want to leave this lot?”

CHAPTER 34
The Smugglers’ was busy even on a lunchtime. I had kept it simple, in a sweat shirt and jeans rather than office smart, and I didn’t look too much out of place. I made my way to the bar.

“Diet coke, please. Slice but no ice”

“Pint? I mean, it’s not a pint, but it’s a ‘large’, and it’s close enough”

“Ye please. Is the landlord about, bar manager, whatever you have?”

“Landlord’s out the back. You got a problem, love?”

I smiled. “No, not at all. It’s a business thing”

“I’ll give him a shout. MARLENE!”

I must have looked puzzled, because the plump man in the T-shirt who was serving me laughed.

“She does the DJing for the drag night, love. You’re new to this sort of place, aren’t you?”

I thought of Bridget, off in points south.

“In this country, yes”

“Well, we only bite if asked very nicely, love”

I remembered Elaine’s instructions regarding teeth and shuddered. Marlene proved to be a tall and fit-looking man in his fifties with plucked eyebrows and a very business-like manner.

“Hello, Todd here says you want a word. Business, he says”

I pulled out my warrant card but kept it shielded from other eyes.

“Detective Constable Owens. Could we have a quiet word?”

“Oh, sodding hell, it’s not that tit who was flogging E in the bogs, is it? He’s barred now!”

“No, Marlene, if I may. It’s business, and sort of pleasure together”

“Oh, get her! Todd, going to be upstairs if anyone else wants me! Come through, Constabule. Bring your drink”

He led me up a tight little staircase and into a small but neat flat, and the camp manner fell away as he invited me to sit.

“What in hell do you want, girl? We’ve had a bit of a shitty new year, as you well know. Please tell me it’s not another load!”

I smiled again, doing the sweetness and light Blake had mentioned so often.

“No, not at all. I really think it’s good news. Now, you will be aware of a number of recent arrests?”

He snarled at that. “Utter bastards! What they did to poor Omar, and the state of little Vernon Pugh… Hang on. Was that your job?”

I shrugged. “Yes. Well, me and my team’s, to be exact”

His breath went out in a rush, and he was stammering.

“DC Owens, I am so sorry! If I had known… Have you eaten today? Want a cuppa? Coffee? Sandwich?”

Keep the smile going, Di.

“I’m fine, ta. If you have any questions that don’t cause problems, I would be happy to answer them. Just remember that a lot of stuff is yet to go before the courts so, you know”

“I do know, Constable”

“Diane, or Di, please”

He smiled back with real warmth. “Thank you. I do have a couple, love. Firstly, we hear that your team was led by someone on our bus”

I laughed. “Trust me, if Inspector Powell was on anybody’s bus, she would be driving it. She’s a real mover and shaker and, yes, she is gay”

I had taken the precaution of having a chat with Elaine about local gay culture before coming out (don’t smirk at thinking that, DC Owens) as I was long out of touch with it, and she had laughed when I asked her permission.

“You really think there is anyone in Wales that doesn’t know I’m a lesbian? Course you may, Di!”

Back to Marlene.

“Yup she’s a lesbian, married woman, but straight as they come, professionally, that is”

“Please give her our thanks, as a gay venue if not as actual representatives of the community. No, there’s more. You had a twink on your books, pretty lad. Some of our boys put two and two together after the arrests, and Omar and Scott have dropped hints”

“Yes. Chris. A very, very brave man”

“How is he?”

“Got a bit of a kicking, I’m afraid, but he’s as well as could be expected. No. Stupid phrase. He is recovering well, and he is a strong man, inner strength, if you take my meaning?”

Marlene reached out for my hand.

“Can you pass him a message for us?”

“I can do”

“Any time he wants to come here, his first drink is free”

“Thanks. I’ll tell him”

“Do you have any real news on the five you nicked?”

“Er, enquiries are continuing”

He laughed out loud, with real joy in it.

“And you have them well and truly stitched up, am I right?”

“You might be, a spokeswoman did not say”

“Wonderful. Sure you don’t want something stronger? Or is it duty head on today?”

“Very much so, Marlene”

“So what are you really here for?”

“Simple as simple can be. Those five aren’t the first, nor are they likely to be the last. I know you set up your cameras after the Admiral Duncan, so I know you understand what I mean. Oh, and thank you for the footage. You gave us a real breakthrough, though I can’t go into details!

He nodded. “That means a lot, Diane. Really?”

“Yup. You gave us our first name. We got a lot more later, but your cameras were our first opening. So thank you. Now, I said they weren’t the first, and we are still digging into earlier assaults, trying to see how many crimes we can put to them. We need people to know they can come to us and be taken seriously, and we need them to understand that will remain true. That’s why I’m here”

“Outreach, then?”

“Yes indeed. A face and a way of contacting us. Anonymity if necessary. I am doing the rounds of the gay villages here and in other cities, and for the near future I will be the SPOC, the single point of contact, and no, I am not putting on pointy ears. We are getting some business cards, posters and leaflets printed, so would you be happy to put some out for us?”

“Of course, Di! Could I make a suggestion?”

“Go ahead?”

“We host occasional information evenings. Terrence Higgins, Stonewall, Albert Kennedy Trust, that sort of thing. Would you like to do a table some evening? Just sit and answer questions, give out info?”

“Love to. Give them a face to go to”

“Yes. Too many of the boys in particular haven’t had the best experience with authority, so it would certainly repair some bridges. Some of your boys aren’t exactly diverse in their thinking”

Yes. Indeed, and two of them were on remand now. “I can understand that. Anything else?”

“Yes. If there does turn out to be a trial, could you let us know where and when, so we can all take popcorn?”

A laugh, a hug and on to the next place.

I did a few more pubs, with similar results, and ended up wondering how Chris’ liver was going to survive, before doing the final piece of work for the day. It was a nondescript door to a bog-standard end-of-terrace house, no signs, no little plaque by the door, and I checked my notes twice before ringing the bell. When the door opened, the security chain was on. I couldn’t see anyone, but someone spoke from the shadows inside.

“Hello. How can I help you?”

“Could I speak to Deb, please?”

“Who wants her?”

“Diane Owens”

“Hang on”

The door shut, and I waited for enough time to be about to give up, when a tall woman came round the corner.

“You Diane Owens?”

“Yes”

“Got some ID?”

Out came my warrant card again, and it was given a serious going-over.

“Seems OK. What do you want?”

Milk of human kindness a bit lacking, then.

“Could we have a talk?”

She stared at me for five or ten seconds, then shrugged.

“Café down the road. You can buy me a cuppa”

She led the way, I did the honours, and we found a table right in the back next to the door to the toilets. Brilliant. The place was clean, though, and the tea welcome after several glasses of fizzy stuff.

“So what do you want?”

Sod it. It had been a long day.

“Well, for starters, I would quite like to know why you have so much hostility towards me, but I don’t want to waste your time. OK? So I will simply tell you why I am here”

“No. You are CID. I can tell. I want to know which of my girls you are after”

“Why would I be after anyone?”

She took a sip of her tea and sighed.

“Because we have a beat officer, Paul Welby. He’s our lad, we know him. You are CID. Your lot chase people”

“I am chasing nobody. Well, I am…”

“Knew it!”

“Not your people, OK? Look, here are my cards on the table. I am with, or I was with the Serious Crimes Unit—no! Let me finish. Please sit down!”

She had stood straight up, and it took a few seconds for her to decide to stay and listen.

“Look, that is not why I am here. I was working with them on a big case, and that’s taken a new direction. I can’t stay with it, because I have an involvement in it that means I have to step away. I’ve been given a job that sort of stems from the case we’ve just finished. It is not chasing someone, it is an offer of help”

“Talk to me, then, but make it quick”

Pulling teeth? Blood from a stone.

“I am here to speak to LGBT people about issues they have, so that they have a face, a name to come to, a dedicated officer”

“We have Paul”

“Yeah, but this ties in with the case we have just tied up. There were a lot of victims, and we believe there may be quite a few more, people too frightened, or who don’t trust us, to come forward”

“Not bloody surprising, is it? Money bloody well talks, and your lot have always followed the money and the bloody tabloids”

I took a slow breath. Police, professional, DC Owens.

“Not this time. Evans, Evans, Evans, Pritchard and Hansen”

I left that one to sit between us as her eyes widened slightly.

“You are talking about the beatings? The gaybashing?”

“And the rapes. I was one of the arresting officers”

“I hope you beat the living shit out of them!”

“The minimum of reasonable and absolutely necessary force may have been employed in their arrests”

She barked out a laugh, and everything suddenly fell into place. I had been given some clues before the visit, of course, but there were her hands, chin perhaps a little square… She caught the direction of my gaze, and glared.

“So? One word about trannies or drag queens and I am gone”

“You pass well”

“And that is meant to make a bloody difference? Why the hell should it?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t for me. Back to business. We suspect there are other victims, as I said, and we want them to see that they can have justice, just like any other man or woman”

Ten years of being soiled goods rose up in me, right then, in a surge of bile and anger.

“We show them they are worth just as much as anyone else, that’s what”

She sat quietly again, staring at me, then spoke, very quietly.

“You really do believe that, don’t you?”

“I have my reasons, very good ones”

“Who are you after?”

“I told you, I’m not after anyone”

“Liar. It’s not one of my girls, I know that now. You’re after somebody related to…”

Her eyes went wide, as her voice went to a whisper.

“You are after that cunt of a councillor! Sorry, I don’t normally use that word, but, well, in his case I can’t think of another that fits better. That’s two of his little tribe you’ve got banged away, including one of the reasons I have difficulties trusting you lot”

I was beginning to realise exactly how sharp the woman was, as several expressions crossed her face in turn.

“Bloody hell. You said you have to step away? And you haven’t admitted it, but you are looking to lock up Ashley Arsehole Evans, so that means… Shit. Shit with sugar on it”

I got the glare full on once more, but this time there was a touch of tenderness in it.

“How old were you?”

I sighed, and vowed not to take up poker.

“Sixteen, Deb”

“Cunt, Sorry, but if you can find me a better word, I’ll gladly use it. Drink up. I have someone you need to meet”

CHAPTER 35
She led the way back to the terrace, but instead of taking me to the front door she took me down the back alley between the two terraces, squeezing past a big white van, which she introduced, with a grin, as her ‘Tranny van’. I noticed that she used three keys to get through the door to the back yard, and the wall was topped with barbed wire, two cameras visible either side of an upstairs window. The actual back door was just as secure, and when we came through into the little lobby, I noticed a couple of steel bars ready to brace the door. There were also three fire extinguishers standing against the wall. I raised my eyebrows in query, and she shrugged.

“Some people don’t like us. What can you do but follow the Boy Scouts’ motto, and be prepared?”

She opened the door to the back room, just a crack, motioned me to stay back, and shouted.

“I have someone here to talk to us. She is safe. No threat, nothing to worry about. We’ll give you one minute to decide to stay here or go upstairs”

She shrugged yet again, clearly for my benefit, then waited for her watch to count down the seconds. As they ran out, she turned to me.

“No judging, no comments about passing, no staring. Got it?”

I followed her into a reasonably large living room, four girls waiting for us, eyes fixed on me.

Girls. They weren’t, not really, I thought, then I took that thought and emptied a can of PAVA spray into its face. There were four girls there, one in a dress, two in skirts and tops and the last in pyjamas with a teddy bear print. Their size or otherwise didn’t matter. Don’t stare, girl. Deb pointed to me.

“Girls, this is Diane. She’s a copper, but one of ours, I believe. No threat”

The girl in PJ’s glared.

“Why should we believe that, Nana?”

Deb sighed, and her shoulders slumped.

“I know, Charlie, but please, just this once? I have talked through it all with her, what she’s after. I believe her. Di, take a seat? Tiff, could you put that recording on, the one from the news?”

The Charlie girl, who did look quite good for a—stop that, DC Owens! Charlie moved to one side with a sniff, and I took a seat as the television flickered into life, and I was suddenly watching Bev Williams and then Sammy going through their paces for BBC Wales. I had a sudden and clear understanding of where this was going.

As each of the five were introduced onscreen, the four girls shouted abuse at them, the loudest being reserved for two of Dyfed-Powys’ far-from finest and, astonishingly, Joe Evans.

“Switch it off, Tiff. Girls, Diane here arrested that lot. Show some manners now, OK?”

What a transformation! I found both Tiff and Charlie staring at me, and the latter asked, in a very small voice, “Who nicked Pritchard?

“I did”

“Did he get fucking hurt?”

Deb interrupted. “What was it you said, Di? Only the most necessary and appropriate levels of force, or something?”

Sod it, once more. “I may have hit him several times with a steel baton after giving his face a full can of pepper spray, but that’s what happens in the heat of the moment, Your Honour”

Charlie threw herself at me, hugging, and kissing my cheek.

“I am so, so sorry, Diane! Nana, I should know by now, aye? Not to doubt you. I am so sorry”

Tiff, who was in a blue dress that actually suited her quite well (stop it!) was very, very softly spoken.

“Who arrested Joe Evans?”

“A friend”

I took a guess, and added “He can’t hurt you again, girl”

Her face twisted, and tears rose in her eyes. “Tell me he got hurt”

I shook my head. “Not that day, but I think someone else had been there before us. He’s not well. When my boss spoke to him, he pissed himself”

Charlie snarled “Yeah, makes a fucking change then, on the floor instead of on you, yeah?”

I had to ignore Deb’s warning and stare, and ‘Nana’ noticed.

“Can you three, not Charlie, please do me a favour and go off next door?”

She turned back to me. “We actually have two houses, with a communicating door. Gives us more room, and two more alternative exits, just in case. Don’t look at me like that, OK? Some families don’t take to their kids being trans. When I say ‘don’t take’, think of the way you described arresting those bastards. Reasonable force? Necessary etc? Same here. Two of my girls gave up and went home, and I still put fucking flowers by their graves. That is why we do what we do, Diane”

“It’s that bad?”

“Oh, I would say you have no idea, but I already know you bloody well do. Charlie? Check the door, please”

As soon as she was out of the room, Deb whispered “If you don’t want me to mention your rape, say so now. You OK with it? Right. Stay quiet”

Charlie came back in, nodding to Deb.

“They’re all gone, Nana”

“Good. Charlie, this is Diane. She is your sister. She was sixteen. Di, this is Charlie. She was only thirteen”

I was lost for words at that. Fucking thirteen? I knew what Deb meant of course, so when I recovered control of my mouth, I asked the obvious question.

“Ashley Evans?”

“Fuck, yeah. You too?”

“Walking home from a friend’s place, French study session”

“Parents out, taking a chance for a walk around the block in the dark, dressed… Dressed as I should have been if life wasn’t such a fucking pile of shit. Did he piss on you afterwards as well? Get rid of the spoodge and the shit? Sorry, you were born with a fanny, weren’t you? He’ll have put it in there, won’t he, the cunt?”

She stopped, as if a switch had been thrown.

“Sorry, Diane. Really sorry. Not your fault, is it? Just, well, not used to this. Too used to being a piece of shit to everyone. ‘Cept Nana, of course. Sorry”

I did what I had to, and slithered across the settee to hug her, getting the full flood of her tears in return, before she started to laugh, and had to explain about the unintended pun, which just led to more serious sobbing. I could do mothing other than hold her till she was quiet again, herself once more.

Once she was back in control, she looked directly at me.

“What are you looking to do, Diane?”

I shrugged, French style, arms wide and hands flying.

“Put Councillor Evans away for as long as I can, assuming he is guilty, naturally”

“No bullshit, please”

She held a hand up to stop me replying.

“I know you can’t say so, but you want him locked up big style. You want him hit with everything you can find. Am I right?”

I sat silently as I considered my options. There was only so much I could safely tell her, but some things arched over all of the victims, including myself.

“Charlie, I am going to explain a few things, then I need to ask you some questions. As you are the victim here, I can do it informally. You can do it with Deb here, or in private. You can do it anywhere, or in any way, that lets you feel safe or comfortable. First, though, I need to explain a few of the rules that I am bound by. That OK?”

The girl nodded, then turned to her…. What? Carer? Guardian?

“Nana, could I be really cheeky and ask for a hot chocolate?”

The older woman smiled, and there was true affection in it.

“Course you can, girl. Di? You want anything?”

Why not? “Could I have the same, please? Haven’t indulged myself in ages”

“Five minutes, then. I’ll leave the kitchen door open in case you need me”

Unspoken, unnecessary, I understood that as ‘so that I can hear what you say’. I had no issues with that, and fully understood her attitude. I turned back to Charlie.

“I was sixteen. He threatened me, said he had a knife, dragged me into his car by my hair, drove to a quiet spot, raped me, pissed on me and then punched me unconscious. I was then visited in hospital. That is all you need to know. That means I can no longer take a direct part in the investigation, partly because there are things I am not allowed to know before any trial takes place. Things that relate to my own experiences. What I am doing, though, is a bit like one of those silly old films, where the hero has a servant passing him loaded guns”

She laughed, surprisingly. “Like in Zulu, where the two wounded men drag themselves around with a box of bullets?”

“I would have thought that film was a bit before your time!”

“I’m a Welsh girl, and there’s singing in it!”

I grinned. “I know the bit you mean. It always makes me think of that poster, with the eagle or whatever and the mouse”

“What’s that one?”

“It’s a great big bird of prey, all talons and sharp beak, and there’s this mouse—it’s drawn, not photos, yeah? There’s this mouse, and he knows he’s about to be ripped to bits and swallowed, so he’s just standing there, resigned, and giving two fingers to the bird”

Deb reappeared just then, setting a tray with three mugs down on the coffee table.

“I remember that one! Says a lot, that picture”

I picked up my mug, savouring the rich smell and the warmth.

“Yeah, but we’re not like that anymore, are we? And I do say ‘we’, because both of us have been there. This time, they’re getting more than two fingers. Anyway, as I was saying, spot on, Charlie. I’m pulling out the boxes of bullets, the ammunition like, and I have some very, very good colleagues, friends, who have the guns to fire them. You can be one of the bullets, if you want. But it has to be your choice. Now, what happened after you were attacked?”

“Parents kicked the little pervert out, didn’t they? Mam and Dad didn’t want no nancy-boy pervert showing them up. I… Nana, please”

Deb took her hand.

“Charlie lived rough for a while. About a week, wasn’t it? Yes?”

A sharp nod.

“Then she ended up in a ‘relationship’ A chaser spotted her, took her for a burger, warm up the poor street kid”

I didn’t know that word, and it must have been obvious, as Deb’s mouth twisted.

“Chaser. Tranny chaser. Men who get off on trans girls. Usual grooming process, usual sequence of concern, affection, undying lurve, sex, control, violence and a lot of the time punting the girl out to friends or customers. Chasers”

Charlie found her voice once more. “Yeah. He had me in a flat, bedsit place. I went out the window, in the end”

Deb slipped onto the sofa, putting an arm over the girl’s shoulders.

“She ran into one of my other girls, just by chance. Kimberley. She’d already moved on, but she hadn’t forgotten me”

“Nobody could ever forget you, Nana”

“Thanks, love. That, Di, is how Charlie ended up here. It’s what we do. Trans girls only, they get a place of safety, and we do our best to keep the chasers away. I vet their internet use, for example. Too many of the bastards trawl things like Facebook looking for victims. Every so often, I take a walk round the city, seeing who’s new. I know the areas the street kids hang around, and the older ones know me, know what I do, so they sometimes send girls to me when they see me”

I turned back to Charlie.

“You better now?”

“Yeah”

“What happened after Evans had finished with you?”

“Man out looking for somewhere to let his dog have a sneaky shit, saw me in the bushes. Called an ambulance”

“Police?”

“Two of them came to the hospital, called me a whore and a slut, threatened my family. I’m pretty sure that was at least one of them you nicked”

Oh, you pieces of filth. That was something we would most definitely feed into the investigation as to their source of info, whoever it was that had been alerting them every time someone called Evans put his hands or cock where they weren’t welcome. Police, DC Owens. Professional.

“Charlie, what I will need from you is simple, and that’s date and times. At some point, I would like you to have a chat with a couple of my colleagues, and get all that down on paper, so we can use it properly. Would you do that for us? For yourself? Oh, and changing the subject, while she’s not here. Joe Evans and Tiff?”

Deb grimaced. “That one with the droopy eye? Chaser. Trawls the night clubs, that’s where Tiff met him. Very free with his fists”

And none of that had ever, to the best of my knowledge, made it as far as South Wales Police’s ears. Just like myself, I realised, they had hidden rather than fight, but at least I had come through it. I made a decision.

“Charlie, if I do this, would you be happy to give evidence? I fully intend getting Ashley Evans charged with my rape, and if we added yours it would really ice his cake”

She shook her head. “Nobody wanted to listen when he did it, so no, not like that”

“You’ll let him get away with it?”

“No. What I will do, and I will talk to Tiff, is to wait and see you do him for yours. If you nail him, then I know he’s vulnerable, him and his family. “

I thought that over, and though I really wanted to present the good Councillor with an overflowing plate I wasn’t going to push her. One more thing.

“Charlie, this may not be an easy thing for you, but one of the things that has haunted me all these years is big men. I have never forgotten, you know? Big bastard rapist, sort of puts you off bulky men. One of my colleagues, though, I can’t imagine anyone gentler. Big man, gentle man. He really cares about people. He’s called Blake, and he is one of the reasons I am only just starting to heal, seeing him as something other than muscles and size. It might help you as well”

She cocked her head, smiling gently.

“And you’re in love with him?”

There was only one possible answer, and I gave it.

“I think I am, Charlie”

CHAPTER 36
Deb stood up, pulling Charlie to her feet as well.

“Di, we just need to pop next door for a few minutes. Could you please wait here? No exploring?”

I nodded.

“Good. Oh, and what were you planning to do this evening? Do you have a cat to feed, anything like that?”

“No. I was just going to go home by way of the supermarket, pick up some drinking chocolate of my own, and slob in front of the telly”

“OK. Wait there, then, I won’t be long”

I spent the time getting my diary up to date, a mind-numbing job indeed, checked my texts, redid my eyeliner, so on, so forth. Nothing very exciting, apart from wondering what I had just admitted to both Charlie and myself.

Shit.

Deb wasn’t that long, but there was sod-all to interest me in the living room before her return, apart from the complete upheaval of my life.

“Come through, please”

The understairs cupboard was gone, in its place the door that Deb said connected the two formerly separate properties. On the other side was what clearly served as a communal dining room, an impression I gained from seeing a large table with place settings, and seven or eight young people sitting at it. Deb walked to its head, waving me to stand by her.

“Diane, we have just had a house meeting, a short one, on very short notice, as you have bowled us a bit of an off-break---sorry, I used to be a bit of a cricketer. What I mean is that this is all a surprise, but we have rules. Nobody just walks in without agreement from al residents. Think of the room I left you in as a sort of waiting area”

I wasn’t completely surprised, following Deb’s description of the chasers and Charlie’s of her parents, and it made sense.

“I will assume then, seeing as I am standing here, that I got the nod, so thank you all. I am honoured”

Tiff blew a raspberry, and one of the bigger residents giggled. That brought a proclamation from Charlie.

“Yeah, Di, you locked up some of our bestest besties, innit? So yes, you are bound to be welcome. Especially those two coppers, and that little wonky-eyed bastard”

She paused for yet another sniff of contempt, and then Tiff asked a question I couldn’t safely answer.

“What happened to him, anyway?”

I remembered something I had read years before, about lying. If you have to lie, keep it small and close to the truth.

“I have heard rumours, that he gave someone a kicking, and they had a friend who took exception to it”

Yet another snort of contempt from Charlie, as Tiff just shuddered.

“Tiff, someone didn’t take enough exception. Told you we should have put a contract on him”

Deb held her hands up.

“Enough! Yes, Diane. We’ve had a vote, and the girls understand where you’re coming from, and the price you’ve paid, so be welcome. We will be eating in an hour or so, and we would be really happy if you would stay for a meal with us all. We’ve also raised the issue of dealing with our own issues, and, despite Charlie’s suggestion, doing so without any bloodshed. Well, unnecessary bloodshed. So, if you will, be welcome. It’s just a big tray of lasagne, with garlic bread and some mixed salad. Bit better than a mug of hot chocolate by yourself, and as I’m not the cook, it’ll be safe to eat”

They all laughed, Tiff unwinding enough to make a rude comment about the intersection of Yorkshire puddings and Deb’s culinary skills. I laughed, as was expected, and asked who had been the actual cook.

Deb pointed to a girl who must have been over six foot, short dark hair clearly in the early stages of being grown out, wearing a stained T-shirt and a long paisley skirt.

“You can thank Gemma for the food, Di. She was doing a catering course at a sixth form college in Gwent when she decided she had to transition. Don’t mind if I tell her the rest, Gem?”

“Go ahead, Nana. Give her an idea, won’t it?”

“Yes. No doubts on that one. Di, she was living at home, usual family home, finished ordinary school. Always liked helping Mam in the kitchen”

“Yeah, didn’t work out what I was doing till I was about eleven, aye? And then it’s so clear, so obvious. Couldn’t be a girl, could I, so I did what I thought girls did, sort of sneak up on being one for real. Got to like it, so when it’s careers time, and Dad says I need to get a proper job, and he’s got a mate who wants a labourer. I sort of sold him on Gordon Ramsey and that, all the swearing, you know? And I make that mistake, and believe my own bullshit”

The others seemed to know the story, or be waiting for some sort of ritual question and answer, so I played along.

“What do you mean, Gemma?”

“Well, I really thought it would be a course full of… other girls, and I could relax, and we all dream, and mine was of somewhere I could let go of Graham and let them see ME, and of course that didn’t happen. I mean, the course was fine, but there are all sorts of things at a big college, and the lads on them…

“I got tripped a lot, doors slammed on me, that sort of thing, and then some of them must have followed me home, or found someone that knew, and we started getting notes through the door, so I got shown it. Dad just drove me into Cardiff one day, dropped me outside a pub called Smugglers something, said ‘You’ll find your new family in there. Don’t fucking come back’ and drove off”

Deb walked round the table for a hug.

“Found her in a homeless shelter. Lad who runs it knows me, and has an eye for spotting her sort of girl. Got me to her before the predators. Reminds me: you OK for his party? I can run you over in the Tranny van, if you want. Save you struggling”

She smiled, and her face was transformed.

“That would be lovely, Nana! The cake’s small enough to carry, but I’d be wetting myself it would get wrecked on the way. I’m doing the catering, or some of it, for Mervyn’s sixtieth, Diane, saying thank you best way I can”

I looked round the table at all the faces, and realised that they were all the same.

“You’ve ALL been kicked out of your homes?

Charlie gave the answer.

“Yeah, everyone ‘cept Tiff. She ran away. When Daddy dearest realised what she was, he decided he really liked the idea. Then that shit Joe Evans picked her up. That about right, Tiff?”

The other girl nodded, then lifted her gaze from her knees.

“Not tonight, Charlie, please? Let’s see what Di has to say, and anyway, Gem’s done us all a meal I just know will be lovely, so let’s not spoil it. Diane, what’s this man of yours like?”

Deb smiled.

“Part of the discussion, Diane, and I am sorry if I broke confidence, I explained a little of your story”

“Not a problem, Deb. I am actually beginning to see it as a sort of blessing in a bloody good disguise”

Charlie was straight onto that one.

“You see it as a BLESSING?”

“No, not really, but you work with what you’ve got, and if I can use what Ashley Evans did to me to bury him, then it’s more than fine by me”

Tiff smiled, and asked again.

“So what’s he like, Diane?”

“He’s called Blake. He is a Detective Constable, just like me, and he is a very big man, and very fit. He is also very, very gentle when he needs to be”

Tiff smiled once more, and I could see what the chasers must have seen in her, and I understood who one of them must have been. Gemma and a couple of the others began serving the meal, and it was indeed very tasty. If she baked as well as she cooked, then I could see a very lucrative life ahead of her. In deference to the earlier request, the conversation was steered away from the less pleasant stuff and instead ranged over celebrity gossip, soap stars’ beach bodies (of both sexes), chart music, and, just when I was losing the will to live, rugby. It was like being back in Saffron’s bedroom, at fifteen or sixteen, before that man had wrecked everything.

“No football supporters here?”

All eyes in the room locked on me, as Charlie (who else?) muttered “Bloody stupid game!” before putting down her fork for a lecture on the sort of people involved in each pastime.

“What it is, Di, is that football attracts all the twats on testosterone, all the ones with no brains. They all think with their cocks, and they’d rather fight than play. You can see it in the interviews. ‘Yeah, John, I was sick as a parrot, game of two ‘arves, boys is done well good’, drivel like that. The boys love that shit. Rugby, though, players have got brains, can explain things. And they’ve got Georgie as well”

Everyone turned and grinned at Gemma, who was blushing bright pink, especially when Charlie pretended to swoon like some Victorian maiden.

“Oh, Georgie? Take me! I am yours to do with as you wishest!”

She sat back up, the grin turned my way.

“Gemma has a thing about George North. Think it’s his size. I prefer to take my beef by the mouthful rather than the whole bull at once”

Gemma threw a piece of bread at her, laughing.

“You are just so shameless, Charlotte!”

Real happiness, just then, shone from their faces, and I understood what Deb was getting from her work with her charges, just as Tiff finally asked her question.

“So, Diane? When was it you realised you were in love with Blake?”

I found myself laughing, the answer obvious

“As soon as Charlie asked me, that’s when!”

CHAPTER 37
I must admit I have had many evenings a lot worse than that one, and very few better. By the time I got home (by way of the all-night shop for a tin of cocoa, of course) my laughter had toned itself down to smiles, but only just. Whatever Deb was doing was working. Only a few of the girls had given me any idea as to what had happened in their past, but they were all transgender and each one had been hurt,

There was one other factor in common, though, and that was the simplicity of their smiles, as broad as my own. Deb seemed to have found a way of easing their pain, if not completely healing it. I knew from my over own experiences that such things never did heal, but they could scab over, become tolerable. I thought of Chris, and shuddered at what his own mental scars must be like. Was he sleeping yet?

Deb seemed to be operating just like the room I had been left in, a way of allowing some space between safety, privacy, and the outside. She hadn’t pushed the girls, but when they had arrived at a consensus and agreed way of dealing with me and my work, she had facilitated it. Management bullshit bingo, or so it reads, but there is no other way to describe what she was doing without such terms. Every single one of them had wounds, and wished their authors could receive our fullest professional attention, but in turn none of them trusted us to deliver our side of the bargain.

They would give their evidence, sign statements, only after they had seen and heard cell doors slam on five charming men.

I had an office day in the morning, so I popped round to see Sammy and let him know what was occurring, as the phrase goes. His sense of humour was as bad as I had come to expect.

“They converted you yet, girl?”

“Never been big on church, Sammy!”

“Cheeky! Got anything so far?”

I thought that one through, as completely as I could.

“Complicated. I can’t really tell all of it, cause I made some promises”

I was half expecting an argument about competent needlework, and stitching villains up properly, but instead he just nodded.

“Sounds good, girl. Can you give me a general idea, and then go and have a chat with the boss after a session with Alun on humint?”

“So that…?”

“Alun has a sound head for snouts, and he can fill you in on the official rules for the Care and Feeding of Human Intelligence Sources. And I’d like Iwan to sign it off, so we have no shit from the CPS. Assurance in place, all that sort of thing. I do not wish to know details, but can you give me some hints as to general nature of whatever you’ve dug up?”

I shrugged. “Two things, really. One is that there are other victims”

“We know that!”

“No. There are others who we never knew about. Not just the assaults that weren’t solved, but others the victims never reported. Several of them want to come forward, or so some of my new contacts are now telling me. I want to do some evening work in the bars—no, not like that! They run some multi-agency sessions, bit like an open night at college, come in and see what we can offer. I take a bundle of cards, leaflets, and they get a face to talk to. That’s not all, though”

He obviously picked up on some tells or other indicators, and led the way into one of the interview rooms after a quick look up and down the corridor.

“Diane, mate, I am going to make an educated, experienced, whatever you want to call it guess here. So don’t say a word, then I won’t have to deny it. I’ve seen this before. You’ve got other victims who’ll only come forward after a trial, and a successful one at that. Am I right?”

I made a pantomime of nonchalant whistling and looking into odd corners of the room, grinned nastily, shrugged and said “I couldn’t possibly say, Inspector Patel”

He grinned back.

“OK, girl. Chat with Alun, then I will tell the Super you are coming to see him. My official word now: you will document each and every conversation with your informants, as per the guidance that Alun is going to cascade train you in, and I am going to look forward with great anticipation to seeing the sentences we will no doubt see delivered extended greatly for further offences of a similar nature. Do you mind?”

He held his arms wide, so I accepted his hug, squeezing him back in the way he deserved as a bloody decent man and copper.

“Make me proud, girl, or even prouder than you already have”

Ten minutes later, Alun took me to a quiet office, dragged over some A4 notebooks and started my training on human sources of intelligence. The Super was as straightforward as I had come to expect, and after all imaginable boxes had been appropriately ticked, I was off and officially running.

The year was slowly turning from constant grey crap to the white bells of snowdrops and crocus orange, and when the daffodils finally shook their heads free we were in trial mode.

I shouldn’t say this, but where Sammy had been meticulous in his public ‘need to know’ attitude to my work, I wasn’t quite as reticent with Mam and Dad. Things came to a head one Sunday afternoon, a decent dinner well and truly disposed of and a six-nations match about to start on the box. I had been sorting the last of the dishes in the kitchen as Mam did a tray of tea for us and a couple of cold beers for the boys, right up until I simply said “You can put that cup away and dig another beer out for me! I am not watching a Welsh match with a cup of tea in my hand!”

She laughed, grabbed another bottle from the fridge and took it all into the living room. When I followed, the assumptions were clearly at full throttle, my parents once again in the armchairs while my big man took up a little more than half the settee. What the hell. I just gave them all a smile and sat down next to him, and it was so, so easy to lift my head so that his arm could drop onto my shoulders.

Dad grinned, Mam smiled, and Blake just gave me a squeeze before handing me my beer. Nothing earth-shattering, no huge swell of emotion that I could let out even in such a close family setting, but it was an afternoon that showed me where my life could go and how much better it was getting. I made a decision that came remarkably easily.

Dad settled himself into his chair, feet up, even though we all knew that he would be sitting bolt upright for most of the match, and, as a good Dad should, changed the subject.

“Your old boss over for Monday, then? For that bastard’s trial?”

“Oh, yes. She will be there, whatever happens. He’s the last one left, anyway”

Sean had done some superb work, as promised, and when the flashy law firm had walked away, every one of the five shits we had nicked had gone guilty, and, whether or not it was politically driven, the sentences handed down by the judge had been almost as brutal as the crimes they had committed.

Almost.

Blake laughed. “You should have seen the look on Ashley Evans face when we knocked on his office door! Di, you haven’t heard all the detail, so I am not telling you this, am I?”

“Certainly not, love, and most definitely not to these two uninvolved members of the general public”

I realised he had stopped talking, and I twisted my neck to look up at him, giving silent thanks to a cheeky girl with permanent sniffles. Mam and Dad had their eyes locked on me as well, Mam just looking smug, so I shrugged as well as I could, given the weight of his arm on my shoulders.

“And? Yes, I said it. Now, details, boy, and get them done before kick off!”

CHAPTER 38
I had turned up at the Crown Court for that final day, all five having eventually folded at their Plea and Direction Hearing, and as the crimes were not just indictable to the higher court but appalling in their very nature, there was no messing about with magistrates and hierarchies. We walked in, dressed in our best civilian clothes, as befitted our new (for some of us) and officially recognised status as DC rather than PC. Sammy outlined the facts of the case, four men stood up behind their publicly-funded representative and said the G-word, and the reports that had already been prepared and read by the judge were properly taken into account as he delivered ten years to each of them.

Joe Evans was already in a secure establishment by then, and I really doubted he would ever be allowed to see its outside, never mind pop down to a local club looking for easy pickings and vulnerable young girls. There was, however, one moment I really enjoyed.

Pritchard and Evans, R, were looking at our little party, possibly trying to see if there was any possibility of a friendly nod, a bit of warmth from a fellow copper, and that made it clear to me how deep their corruption lay, how it was in their bones. They still had that assumption they remained in some sort of Job club, whereas the only relevance that would now have was how they would be treated by their real fellows and peers, the other criminals they were about to be banged away with.

Pritchard had spotted me, the recognition now clear in his eyes. ‘Not sixteen now, am I?’ was the message I sent back to him, and he had, in his turn, nudged the other bent bastard and whispered. I took real pleasure in how Evans’ head had jerked up, eyes wide as he stared at me. I really, really wanted to wave at him, but I kept it down to the smallest of smiles and the slightest of nods. Chew on that, you piece of filth.

As my colleagues had said, five down, one to go.

That night went almost exactly as I should have expected it to. After a few ‘liveners’ in various establishments properly licensed for the provision of alcoholic beverages, and a half-time visit to a chip shop (“No! Bread and butter, NOT cut!”) we ended up in the Smugglers.

We were all there, the whole team, Chris included, and then, at eight o’clock our old boss walked in, grin in place.

“Bloody typical of you lot. Start without me, why don’t you?”

I gave Elaine a hug, as did every other member of what was still, in essence, her team, and led her by the arm to the bar, where Chris was in some discussion with another skinny bloke that seemed to involve one hell of a lot of arm waving and chin-cupping.

“Marlene—what you want, Lainey?”

“Pint of whatever’s had the dead rat in, girl”

I turned back to Marlene, who was in full drag, with a wig that added about a foot to her/his height.

“Real ale, Marlene? What you got?”

“Butty Bach do you?”

Lainey nodded, and my dragged-up friend cocked a perfect eyebrow.

“And who the fuck might you be, love?”

I had got used to the act by then, so I just smiled.

“Marlene, Elaine, my old boss. Elaine, Marlene, it’s an act, so don’t bite”

Marlene reached across the bar to where I was holding a tenner ready.

“Put that away, Di. This girl doesn’t pay. Ever”

He turned his smile to my friend.

“You are Inspector Powell, isn’t it? The one who got this lot moving?”

“Er, yeah, but we’re a team”

“No. You are a team that someone got moving, and there’s that lad over there, hoping to get lucky tonight, the one who put his bloody life on the line for a bunch of benders and shirtlifters that nobody else gave a shit about. So thank you, Elaine, Inspector, Powell. And you don’t pay here. Ever”

She started to protest, and Marlene just turned away and served someone else. I suppose that was the first time I saw Elaine start to crack

The evening carried on traditionally, and if Ellen and Rob weren’t playing hide the sausage later that night, I would be astonished. Alun was as disgustingly funny as ever, Blake as dry, and Sammy so pissed we sent him home in a taxi.

Tension, released.

I ended up cuddled on a settee with Elaine, who was getting really, really smashed.

“Sar would be so chuffed, Di, so fucking… fucking triumphant, aye? That fucker Joe Evans, he’s gone, never coming out again, Is he?”

“How is she, Lainey? Your sis?”

“So, so lucky, girl. Got a bloody good bloke, and me, I’m a dyke, aye? And I can say that, don’t hate men, just don’t… Aye, and she gets to be a mam, and, well… Di, she’s happy. Found her place in the world, and if I ever, ever had any doubts about whether she was my sister, I watch her be a mother…”

There was something going on with that one word, but it wasn’t the only thing. My boss, my friend, was vulnerable. Her comments about ‘three attackers’ clicked, and I realised where her focus was. We had each had three, mine being two coppers and a councillor, hers being the same two coppers and Joe Evans, but I had met Deb and her girls. And Blake. Shit; lighten the mood.

“Lainey, how’s Sarah handling being in England?”

“Ah, fallen on her feet, aye? Already met some other girls like her”

“Really? Trans women?”

“Yup! Steph, Steph Woodruff, she says. Used to play rugby against her cousin, got to chat…”

“Marlene! Could you call a taxi? Where you staying, Lainey?”

“Travelodge, down the front, aye?”

“Time for offskis, I think”

She looked at me, and my heart nearly broke. Something was going on, and whatever it was had teeth and claws that were hurting my friend. Leave it, girl, for another day. The taxi came, she left, and Blake and Rhys asked, separately, if she was OK. My team was a damned good unit.

I clung to what we had. Five down, one to go.

That was my mood as I settled against a big man in my family home, waiting for the match to start on the television, and only the warmth of his cuddle and the delight in my mother’s eyes was keeping me from running away.

Dad was different, in that he just looked content. Smug, of course, just like Mam, and content. It was Dad who broke the short silence that followed my comment, as three other people tried to follow my lead in leaving my declaration in peace so that it might grow.

“So come on then, lad. What happened? They’ll be on the anthems soon!”

Mam giggled. “Priorities you have, Mark!”

Blake chuckled, and I could feel it as I sat comfortably against him.

“Well, it was funny! Between these walls only, aye? He’s got the big office, and it’s odd the way he’s got it set out. There’s a big open-plan space, with a private office at one end, which is obviously his, but he’s not there. He’s got a desk in the main room, and he’s sat there. You know what I thought?”

I poked him. “Match. Get to the chase”

“Seriously, I thought of one of those old Victorian places, like in Scrooge, where the boss sits at a high chair at the front, so he can make sure everyone is a good little drone. That man is so bloody arrogant…”

I elbowed him again.

“Right. So we walk in, and it’s me, and Alun, cause we’ve done the leg work with Janice and that—tell you when I can, Di love? And we have Rhys for the scary stuff, and Candice for the fluffy… What’s funny?”

I stopped my laughter by force of will.

“Mam, Candice is the Office Blonde, innit? Looks like butter wouldn’t dare and stuff, and when we took those boys down, you should have seen her. Bloody frightening. I think what he means is that he took RHYS for the fluffy stuff, and Blondie for the scary”

Blake muttered to me “Talk about Rhys later, girl” before getting back to his story.

“So we’ve gone to Sammy, our boss, gone as a group and said ‘No, you are not coming out on this one, it’s our day to play’ and he complains he never got to nick the others because Elaine was in the driving seat”

“Front passenger, actually!”

“Do you want to hear this or not? Anyway, we walk in, and we’ve actually sat there from before work starts, so we can see him go in, be sure he’s there”

Dad was puzzled. “Why not just go to his house?”

Blake laughed out loud, and there was absolute delight in it.

“Alun’s idea, wasn’t it? Says he’s such a big man, such a mover and shaker, let’s pick him up while he’s moving and shaking. Give his minions a real treat! So, we watch the employees go in, we see the man himself do the same, and then we tag behind another employee, who must have been running a little late. Rhys flashes his warrant at the front desk, and we just keep moving. Evans is sat at his desk, office girl delivering his tea and biccies, and it’s like Reservoir Dogs, ‘Let’s go to work’ as we walk towards him. Every bloody eye on us, and he’s obviously not in the best of moods after my brother’s lot freezing all his bloody money, so he shouts out ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

“Alun and me walk right up to him, and Candice is on my right, so I just say ‘I am Detective Constable Sutton, Serious Crime Investigation Unit, South Wales Police. Ashley Evans, I am arresting you on suspicion of rape and grievous bodily harm’, and I caution him, and then Candice tells him that she’s going to handcuff him for his safety and ours, at which point he tries to pull his arm back, so Rhys steps forward. I tell you what, love, that scar of his, I thought it was going to light up! Anyway, there’s Evans cuffed, and we smile at his employees as we take him out. Alun. Always Alun, yeah? He says ‘Sorry for the disruption, please carry on with your day and don’t mind us’, and I am sure I heard cheering after we shut the door on the way back to the cars”

He stopped to take a mouthful of his ale, and sighed happily.

“That was a morning I really, really enjoyed. I am going to leave it there, as we have a match to watch, but there is one thing more. The Crown Prosecution Service was cooking on gas, and with the other evidence—no, not today, Di, aye? Well, he’s been charged with kidnap, rape and GBH. Once HMRC are done we anticipate a raft of financial stuff, fraud and that, and once THAT is put to bed, Sammy wants us to start work on conspiracy to pervert and that. Er, perverting the course of justice, Dot. We have another line we are following, and that is all for today. The charge should be on the news later”

He took another mouthful.

“Oh, apart from that word. I assume you—no. I KNOW you meant it, Diane Owens, and I meant it too. Now let’s shut up and enjoy the game”

Cuddled up for an afternoon? Like hell; he was worse than Dad. In the end, I sent him to swap with Mam and take the armchair, while she settled down with me. The other two were too busy jerking around and shouting for it be in any way comfortable, so Mam did that job, and finally, finally I could see my life opening up again.

I slept that night in a real state of confusion, and sleep was not an accurate word. Mam had asked me in a surprisingly direct way if we wanted to change our night time arrangements, or, as she put it so simply, which bed did I want??

My own bed, on my own was the answer. I knew what she meant, but I could still feel Ashley Evans on me, still feel him IN me, and I was terrified. Not of Blake, never of Blake, and that was the most confusing part of my chat with my mother.

“I don’t know what I want, Mam! All I do know is I never want to upset that man, and if…”

She just held me for a while.

“Love, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. And you know what I mean. Take what time you need. He’s such a sound man, is Blake. Your Dad and me, when he brought you home that first time, we saw how he looked, looked at you, yes? We hoped, we… That pig, he ruined your life, and not just yours. I don’t want to belittle what you went through, I want to show how much more harm he did, how wide the damage went. You have more you’re talking to, haven’t you? More women?”

I hugged her tightly, telling her that I couldn’t say and knowing that I had given her the answer with that refusal.

I made a point of kissing my man properly before breakfast, but in front of my parents. Mam was absolutely correct. I would take the time I needed, and I could now see that I did have the time to take.

My first visit that morning was to Deb’s place.

CHAPTER 39
I had texted her in advance, of course, so she was waiting in the little café down the street, still acting in that filtering, shielding role I had recognised. That said, there was real warmth in her greeting to me.

“You got news for us, girl?”

“Oh yes! Best sort. He got nicked on Friday, after we had finished the trials and stuff with the other lot”

“Oh, we saw that on the news. Not what I’m asking, is it?”

“What are you asking, Deb?”

She busied herself pouring more tea.

“Sugar?”

“No. Sweet enough, aren’t I?”

“Absolutely! Now, let’s see if I can get this across. Not that good at explaining some things, am I? Anyway, think of bodice-rippers, just for now. No, you’ll see in a second”

I closed my mouth, and she continued.

“Get a plain girl, spends all her time in her room when she’s not at school, and she dreams. Gets the novels, reads the glossies dreams, yeah? She dreams of the big romance, The One who’ll pick her out of the crowd, ‘Pretty Woman’ stuff. Dreams. But every time she looks in the mirror, the dreams falter. Never happens to her, people like her. Then something hits the news, or she meets someone, and she sees someone she recognises, identifies with. Sees herself, if you get me?”

“Yeah…”

“Shush. Each of my girls is a victim, isn’t she? Same as you. Brutalised, cut off from life, beaten down but still breathing”

“Yes, but I’m not like them, am I?”

“Not a woman?”

“No. Yes. I mean, they’re all, you know?”

“Not really women?”

I stopped dead, seeing where she was going, and did something Dai Gould had taught me what seemed like centuries ago: pause, rewind what’s been said, replay it in slow motion, and respond to what you find. Don’t just plough ahead regardless.

Pretty little Tiff, stroppy Charlie, they were both so clearly girls, women, I could have no doubts there—I didn’t need to know what their knickers contained. Gemma…

“Yes, Deb. They are. I have no doubts there. But that’s not me, is it? I’ve not been through the shit they have”

She smiled softly at me.

“Yes, I know, nor the same crap I went through. I could talk to you about what happens to little girls in boys’ homes, but you do not need to know about that. They’re all dead now, anyway, and I’ve been to piss on their graves, so book closed, nothing to see. What it is with you IS the same as them, and that’s victim, someone weaker, someone beaten down. That’s why they relate to you, girl”

“I suppose so. But I think you’ve got something else in mind”

“I have. It’s simple, really: you fought back, and you bloody well won. The two coppers that abused you? Ten years, BANG goes the cell door! Your rapist? Nicked in front of his whole bloody workforce. Big man, cuffed and dragged off kicking and screaming”

“Um, I don’t think he was kicking and screaming, Deb”

She grinned. “Ah, we can all dream! And that’s the point: they see you, my girls, and they dream again. The mouse fights back, and this time it beats up the eagle. Hope, girl, that’s what you have given my girls”

I reached out to take her hand. Sod formality.

“I think you are the one who did that, Deb”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “No, I didn’t. I just gave them, give them, space, shelter. You show them life beyond the immediate. So what’s the news?”

“Told you already. You said they’d seen the news”

“No, you idiot! Your bloke!”

“Oh!”

“Yes, exactly. How did it go?”

I looked down at the cups, but the smile betrayed me, and she rose to come round the table for a hug. Sod formality once more, and the professional boundaries it rode in on. I gave the hug back in full, before she pulled back to grin at me again.

“That well, eh? Come on. Gem did some pastries for us all, and there’s some decent coffee for you”

No games with safe rooms this time, just straight into the first house and through to the dining room, where there were indeed pastries, and proper coffee, with six faces shining with anticipation.

“Where’s Gemma, then, Deb? Rude to eat her work without saying ta”

Tiff answered, far bolder this time.

“She’s at work. Nana got her a placement at a baker’s. They like her”

“Well, when she gets home, tell her these are great, and yes, Charlie, I can see you twitching. What?”

“We’ve got it recorded! Nana, the god box, please”

Deb passed her the remote control, and I settled down to watch the reports I had actually been too nervous to sit through at home. The announcer was, as usual, someone I couldn’t put a name to, but she was professional as well as accurate.

“We are outside Cardiff Crown Court following the sentencing of five men for a series of brutal attacks and rapes that caused a wave of fear throughout the gay community in South Wales. I am joined by Inspector Samir Patel of the Serious Crime Investigation Unit”

The recording paused, abruptly, as Charlie hit a button on the ‘god box’.

“Right, Di! Which one?”

We were all lined up behind Sammy, as covering us up would have been silly, given how many of us had been in the witness box.

“Er, that’s me, second from the left, in the blue jacket”

“No, you teasing cow!”

Deb coughed, and Charlie actually blushed.

“Sorry, Di. Which one is HIM?”

“Who?”

“DIANE!”

“You mean Blake?”

As one, all of the girls screamed that yes, they meant Blake, so I walked over to the screen and pointed. One girl made a “Oooh yes!” sound and then they all sat staring at me, eyebrows raised, waiting. I grinned at them.

“Later, yeah? Let’s see this bit; first time for me”

Sammy was as smooth as I would have expected, and as careful.

“Inspector, are you satisfied with the sentences awarded today?”

“Well, Cheryl, that is a matter for the courts to decide, and they have done so. I am satisfied that we have taken five extremely violent and dangerous men out of the community they inspired so much fear in, and that they will remain safely away from decent people for a long time”

“Two of those sentenced today were police officers, is that correct?”

“No. Two of them were police officers some time ago, and had ceased to be such before these events”

“The local press has alleged that they were the subjects of disciplinary actions at least ten years ago, Inspector. Can you explain what that means in this case?”

Smooth Sammy departed, I am sure quite deliberately, to be replaced by Feral Sammy.

“Further investigations continue in this case, Cheryl. I cannot discuss them, for obvious reasons. We are, however, aware that there are other victims of their crimes who have not come forward, and we would urge them to do so. Justice has now been done in this particular case, and seen to be done. Adding a little more to the total would be very welcome. Thank you”

“Thank you, Inspector Patel. Cheryl Manning, BBC Wales, Cardiff Crown Court”

Charlie paused the video, and as one, the whole group gave me a very formal three cheers and then swamped me with hugs. Deb called out “Don’t spill her coffee!” and they peeled off me. Charlie was waving her control again.

“Part two! Shush!”

It was a studio news scene this time, the usual suit and tie.

“The prominent local Councillor and builder Ashley Evans, who was arrested on Thursday by the Serious Crime Investigation Unit of South Wales Police, has been charged today with kidnap, rape and grievous bodily harm. A South Wales spokesman made the following announcement earlier today”

Cut to the oh-so-familiar steps of the nick, and Bevan Williams in best uniform once more.

“Following a long and difficult investigation, Ashley Aaron Evans of Maescoch farm, St Lythans, has been charged with the rape of a woman aged sixteen. He has also been charged with her abduction and grievous bodily harm to her person. Associated enquiries continue”

Turn, walk away, and on to the next news item. So typical of Bev, but I knew the effect his announcement would have on other women and their families, because if Evans had been so smooth in the way he snatched me I couldn’t be his first. Nor the last; I just needed to look across the table to know that for a fact. I drew a slow breath.

“Yes, girls. I do know about the arrest, but I can’t say too much about it just now. You will understand why. We are just looking to get other people to step forward, and that is why Bevan Williams there made that announcement, and my boss Sammy did the other one. Will you talk to us, now, or pass the word around for anyone else they hurt to come and see us?”

Charlie sniffed, as ever.

“Sorry, Diane, but we had a chat, all of us. None of us, not one, we can’t risk that pig getting off, so we HAVE to wait. Let him get locked up, we’ll talk. Otherwise, not safe, is it? Not being funny, but, well, this is probably the only place any of us has been safe. Ever. Not that we don’t trust you---we do, otherwise you wouldn’t be sat here with us now. We just need to know it’s safe to go after him”

She sniffed again, and the serious face went.

“So who nicked him?”

“Can’t say. But I might know him…”

They all understood, and there was more cheering, before Charlie asked her next question.

“Were you there when they knocked on his door?”

I put my best poker face on.

“Couldn’t be, could I? I’m too involved as the victim. Anyway, they didn’t pick him up at his home”

This time it was Deb who swore, before being pelted with rolled-up paper tissues from the pastries.

“Sorry! Sorry, girls, but Diane: please, please tell me you nicked him at work!”

“Not me, but yes”

“In front of all his staff?”

“Yup!”

There was utter pandemonium in the room, Tiff sobbing and even Charlie dabbing her eyes, and once it had calmed down the prickly little woman simply said “Once he’s done for Diane, we go after the fucker together. Right girls?”

After their noisy agreement, she turned back to me, voice smoother, teasing.

“And that other thing, Diane. A certain young man we have now seen”

“And lusted after!” came from the back of the room, and she turned to grin at whoever it was.

“Na, Di’s got that job! So, DC Owens, we put it to you that you have to bloody well tell us how things are going”

What to say? Sod it, I thought, deciding to be open. After all, it was these girls who had opened my eyes, as much as one big nab, and as I thought about him opening his heart, I understood that the girls were also doing so, just as much as Blake.

“Well, you know full well it’s down to you lot I have found my courage, don’t you?2

Charlie, of course, shouted out “Bollocks” before Tiff shushed her.

“No, Charlie, Di’s story, and I get what she means. Let her tell it her way”

I raised my cup to her in acknowledgement, and looked into the corner of the room once again, studying how the walls and the ceiling came together.

“It was the day of the match. So we had a family dinner, me, my Mam and Dad, and Blake. He’s sort of best mates with my Dad, anyway. We’ve had the meal, and my parents are making all sorts of assumptions, leaving us two the settee while they take the chairs. He’s giving us a sort-of-cleaned-up story of the Ashley Evans arrest, nothing that breaks confidentiality rules and stuff, and he’s explaining why he can’t tell more, and asks if we get it, and… And so I say ‘course I do, love’ and they all shut up and stare, so I do the ‘yes I said it, no biggy’ thing, and we sit and watch the game”

Tiff was smiling now.

“You left a bit out, Diane”

I couldn’t help it, but they still had the paper napkin things, and they did the job, and I found a small, damaged girl sitting on my lap, arm around me as she dried my tears.

“What did Blake say, Di?”

“Well… Thanks, Tiff. He… he just did what I did, slipped that word into his conversation, and of course I noticed, and my parents, and he stops, and he says, ‘About that word. I assume you—no. I KNOW you meant it, Diane Owens, and I meant it too. Now let’s shut up and enjoy the game’. And so we do, and that’s it, and I had a thought, and it’s something I know you’ll understand, because I was talking to Deb, and she nailed it.

“All of us here, yeah? All of us. All victims, all had shitty lives, and now seeing them getting better. Just need a push, sometimes, just need our eyes opening. You girls did that for me. And the thought I had, it was about how things sometimes need time to get better, and after talking to you, I can see not just that there’s a better future possible, but that I have got a future. So, thank you all. And thank Gemma for the treats. Would it be wrong to ask where she works, so I could get some of her cakes to take unto the team?”

I disengaged from Tiff, and rose to my feet.

“I still have rounds to do. There are other people out there with wounds from those bastards, so if I can manage it I shall take a future along for them as well”

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.

CHAPTER 41
It got better and better as we counted down the days to the trial, and I ended up with statements from six more of the gang’s victims. Whatever the tariff said about their sentences after a guilty plea, it would end up in pieces once we were done.

Other things were better than I could ever have dreamt of, and no, I am not talking about me and a certain large man. It was Dad. He had really clicked with Blake, and I was almost feeling jealous, as the relationship was clearly mutual, and my own father seemed to be stealing time with Blake I wanted for myself.

Sod it! Life was good, not just bearable. I just wished Blake could have talked to me about the investigation.

Things got easier between us, and though we did our very best to keep it from the rest of the team, I am absolutely sure they guessed, or at least suspected. Speaking of the rest of the team…

We were in my flat, snuggled up after a decent Chinese meal, trying to watch some stupid film or other, and he nuzzled my neck.

“Rhys, love. We said, I said, we needed to talk about him”

I paused the film. “And?”

“He’s hiding something. Sort of goes with our job, but there’s something going on with him That’s spoiling his concentration”

I chose my words carefully, as saying ‘bent’ would have been far too close to the truth.

“You don’t think he’s, you know, on the take?”

“Na, not him. Know what his home life’s like? He never lets on, not really”

I turned round in the chair so that I could see his face better, judge his tells with more accuracy.

“What are you fishing for, love?”

He was starting to get embarrassed now.

“Forget I asked, OK?”

“No. There’s something on your mind, so please share it”

“Well, I was just wondering if he had a thing for Candice, and she let drop that she’s sort of seeing someone, and I don’t do the fluffy stuff like you do, and I didn’t want to see him hurt!”

I couldn’t help it, and burst out laughing, and as I did so I realised I was about to break a confidence. Blake deserved that respect, and I owed him more than that myself.

“Blake. Mate. You are completely off plot there. He most definitely does not have a thing for Candice. Not at all”

Sod it. “He’s gay, love”

His mouth worked a couple of times, and then he just shook his head and grinned.

“I very nearly said it, didn’t I? Fuck me, that was right there waiting to come out, and…shit”

I settled back against his warmth.

“I just broke a promise there, so no gossip, please. And another thing: don’t talk such crap about not doing the soft stuff. Look what you’ve done for me, for a start, and then shut up while I watch the rest of this. Oh, and I think it’s just what we’ve been digging up that’s knocking him to one side a bit”

“Yeah, suppose so. Same with you, really. All a bit too close to home”

“Yeah, well. Now shut up”

Not the most subtle of tactics, but they worked. I didn’t really want to get into a deep discussion of a mate’s private life, so simply shut up, settled down and watched the film.

It was becoming really difficult to see him leave at the end of each evening we spent together, but I couldn’t handle anything more. He did so much for me, and one huge thing was simply leaving when I needed him to. I felt safe with him, and not just in the sense of a man being a safe person to be with but in how he kept the world outside from hurting me. Simultaneously, though, I wanted more from him, but every time I considered taking things further I felt Evans in me, the heat of his piss on my back, and my desires froze and shattered.

Bastard. His trial couldn’t come soon enough.

Blake surprised me in a nicer way a in a team night at the pub a fortnight later, when I had to slap him for staring at Rhys too obviously, and I had to whisper a warning.

“They don’t get issued with a bloody barcode, boy. Remember that you officially don’t bloody well know, aye?”

“Yeah, sorry. Had an idea I wanted to run past you—hang on. Yes, Miss Blonde?”

Candice was doing her own staring.

“You two. How long?”

He just shrugged, so I did the words, as he had said so clearly I was better at it.

“Not that long, since you ask. Not for public”

“Dead bloody right, with the trial coming. No crap about improper associations to get that sick fucker off”

I nodded. “Point taken, girl. I have some more stuff to do afterwards, should have some other victims teed up”

She snarled. “Let me guess: don’t want to risk it until they are sure he’s already banged away? In case he gets off?”

I sighed. Yeah, exactly. More girls who’ve been broken by him. You think he might get off?”

She stared at Blake for a few unspeaking seconds, before turning back to me, voice a lot softer.

“I am boing to be vague, girl, because it’s doubly awkward now, but your boyfriend here, and Alun, they’ve got some really crunchy evidence. He is going down, like a fucking lead balloon. Besides which, if he doesn’t, if there’s some dark fucking miracle of a defence trotted out, then I will deal with him myself, and cut his fucking tackle off”

Blake grinned.

“Now you are seeing exactly what the man himself did, love!”

That word, of course, was caught in mid-flight by Candice, who took me by the arm and pulled me to my feet.

“Come on, girl. Ladies’, now”

For once, it was empty, and as she checked the cubicles she called back over her shoulder.

“It’s the shagging, isn’t it? You can’t, can you?”

She walked back to me, hands up, placating.

“Not trying to get in your face girl, just know I understand. I had an ‘uncle’ for a while, Mam’s boyfriend, aye? Leave it at that, OK? Never went beyond… No. Just understand, even with that level, that limited abuse, I DO understand. Took me ages before I could let go of it, relax with a fella, so yes, I get it. What’s Bog Boy doing?”

I reached out with one arm for a hug, and she stepped into it.

“He is being exactly as you’d expect, girl. A very, very gentle man is my Blake”

“Yeah, I know. You are bloody lucky, Di, and I think the two of you are well-suited. Just don’t make it too obvious, isn’t it? And, well, let things happen when they do. Don’t try and force anything. I should know, because I did exactly that, and it turned to a right pile of fucking shit on me. Lost a good friend that time, so patience”

I had to ask, of course.

“What if he doesn’t have enough of it? Patience?”

She raised both her eyebrows. “Then he’s not who we both think, is he? Now, get back, find out what he’s plotting”

I dropped back into the booth we were occupying, making sure my hand didn’t drop onto his knee.

“What you got in mind, Blake?”

“Summer holidays, lo—Di. Sod it, I can’t do this, Candice, drag the others over from the dart board”

Rob, Rhys, Ellen and Alun, for once no Sammy or Chris, clustered round the booth, just long enough for Alun to remark “If this is the confession that you two are loved up, then get it over with so we can finish the game. We are neither blind or stupid. Just tone it down till the trial’s over. We’ll get you a ‘happy shagging’ card later. Who’s got the whip?”

Before I stopped laughing, my hand was back on Blake’s knee. Bastards, all of them.

My own man chuckled.

“That didn’t go quite as I expected! Now, where was I?”

“Summer?”

“Yeah. Holidays. Fancy a break somewhere a bit warmer than Glamorgan?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well, there’s a deal on an all-inclusive in Tunisia. Beach, palm trees, all that sort of thing. Might get offered enough camels for you to make the trip worthwhile. Ow! That hurt!”

Candice laughed happily.

“Done mu share of domestics, so calm it down, you two. Yeah, meant to be nice there, some big resorts and good beaches. Just be eyes-open on the politics, bit messy down there”

I wasn’t quite sure, but then he added something that answered Candice’s question earlier, and I knew I did, indeed, have the right man.

“Need to check with your Mam and Dad first, of course, find out when they’re free”

Sod propriety; I gave him a proper kiss.

That trial finally came along in March, and I spent far too long completely out of contact with the team, up until I was called into the courtroom in Cardiff.

He was just as big as my memory told me, but I now had a big man of my own, bigger in every way possible than Ashley Aaron Evans could ever aspire to. Cling to your hate, girl, but keep the heat down. Listen to the wig, answer the jury.

I looked over to the public gallery, and heat was replaced by warmth as I saw Elaine there, flanked by two women, one dark and the other red-haired. One of them just had to be her wife, and when the dark-haired one moved, and I saw the bump, I knew our leader had a thing for redheads, or at least one in particular.

They brought me the bool and the card, and I swore the oath and gave my details, and then the very, very smooth man I had talked with for an hour before the start eased into his part of the game. He asked me all the questions the jury needed to set the scene, to take away the image I was trying to project of a successful adult woman, and replace it in their minds with a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl scurrying home on a wet night after studying French verbs with another child.

“What happened on your way home, Ms Owens?”

“I saw a car stop. Thought he was lost, and when he wound his window down I assumed he was in need of directions”

“So you approached the car?”

“Yes. Leant into the window to see if I could help”

“What happened then?”

“He, the driver, grabbed me by the hair and said ‘I’ve got a knife here, you little whore. Open the door and get in or I will fucking slice your face off”, so I got in”

“Why did you get in the car, Ms Owens?”

“He said he had a knife”

“Did he?”

“I didn’t see one”

“Would you recognise him again?”

“I recognise him now, sat in the dock. The accused, that’s him”

“Please not that the witness has specifically identified her attacker as Ashley Aaron Evans, the accused.

“What then happened?”

“He made me open the door and then pulled me in by my hair. He told ne ‘Get your legs in and shut the fucking door. Do it now or I cut you’. I felt something at the back of my neck and assumed it was the knife. He told me to put the seat belt on, and made me put my hands under the lap strap. He pulled it tight, drove off, and then braked hard so that the inertia reel locked.”

“Pray continue”

“He drove off from Barry, and kept calling me a whore and a bitch. I remember him saying he was going to see how clean I was”

“Do you know why he said that?”

“No, and he called me a filthy whore immediately afterward”

“How did you feel under such circumstances?”

I wasn’t going to cry, not for that bastard.

“I was absolutely terrified. I remember wondering if I would actually see the sun again, be around for it to rise again. I really thought he was going to kill me”

“Could you see where he was driving?”

“No. He had one of those flexible lights, the ones for map reading, in the glove box, and he tilted it up, so the light shone right in my eyes”

“Would it therefore be fair to say that his actions seemed well-planned?”

“Yes”

“Where did the drive finish?”

“The car park by the old Dunraven place, by the cliffs”

“Did you recognise it?

“Not in the dark. The couple who found me told me where we were”

“Ah. We shall come to that later. What did you notice about the place?”

“I could hear waves, a rhythmic shush, shush”

“What then happened?”

“We stopped, and he said, ‘Don’t fucking move or you’ll feel it, bitch’ and got out of the car”

“What did you take him to mean about feeling it?”

“The knife. He got out of the car, came round to my door and opened it, then grabbed my hair again. He pulled me out of the car with it”

“And?”

“He pulled my face right into his crotch. I could feel he had a large erection. I was on my knees then, where he had pulled me. He then dragged me over to what felt like a low wall of some kind. I was wearing leggings, but they didn’t protect my knees much. I still have a number of small scars there”

He looked at me, and there was real concern there.

“Ms Owens, do you feel able to continue? If you become distressed, please do not hesitate to ask for a pause in the proceedings”

“I am fine, thank you. Anyway… He did have something still, and it was hard, and he kept it against the back of my neck after he punched me in the side of the head”

“He struck you?”

“Yes, punched me in the right side of my head. Left me groggy, and he then ripped my leggings and knickers apart. I could see the waves then, just the faintest of white from the surf. I got another wound from one of the threads in my leggings, it didn’t snap but cut into me. Then he raped me”

“He penetrated you?”

“Yes”

“With his penis?”

“I assume so. I couldn’t see”

“Ms Owens, please understand why I am asking this next question. Were you a virgin at the time?”

The Defence wig went ballistic, shouting out an objection, but our man had prepared me for that question, and as he explained to the Judge that he was simply avoiding any nastiness in the cross-examination, Defence were told to shut up and sit back down, and I answered the question truthfully.

“Yes, I was”

“Did he ejaculate, Ms Owens?”

“Yes. I felt it”

“What did he then do?”

“He pulled himself out of my vagina, and then punched me in the side of the head again, but this time it was much harder. I think I may have lost consciousness for a second, but only that. A very short time. He left me lying face down on the ground, and then… Then he stood over me and urinated on me He said it was the best way of getting the spoodge out”

“What did you take that to mean?”

“Semen

“What did you then do?”

“There’s me in the car park there. He’s driven off. Someone pulled in, a couple, they’d come for a bit of, you know, and they got me to hospital. Nurse called the police, and she did things with a swab and a camera”

“Did the police attend?”

“Yes. Two policemen”

“What did they do?”

The anger was rising just then, as I thought of the other two bastards, the two that my three bastards shared with Elaine’s trio. Focus, girl. I found myself gripping the edges of the witness box, knuckles white, and I had to work hard to release the tension.

“They told me to shut up and piss off home if I knew what was good for me”

“The policemen said that?”

“Yes, in those words”

“Do you recall their identities?”

I looked up again, sparing one glance for the bastard in the dock.

“Yes. I had to work with them later, but I don’t think they remembered me”

“Do you recall their names?”

“Oh yes. Bob Evans…”

I paused for a second, just to see what the jury would do, and yes, that was a classic ‘sharp intake of breath’.

“… and Dai Pritchard”

What a wonderfully snide grin that was from our barrister. He turned to the Judge again.

“If it pleases the court, the two men are at present serving ten years for other rapes and assaults”

Back to me. “I am aware that Evans is a rather common name in Wales. Are you aware of any actual family connection in this instance?”

“yes. Bob Evans is Ashley Evans first cousin. There were two others called Evans arrested with Bob and Pritchard, for rape and assault, and one of them was Bob’s nephew”

"Thank you, Ms Owens. I have no further questions for this witness at this time, Your Honour”

To my astonishment, and relief, the Defence cross-examination was almost non-existent. That told me one thing: whatever Alun and Blake had turned up was heavy indeed. I was discharged, and that meant I could sit in the public gallery and find out.

I had something more important to do right then though. I really needed to wash my hands.

CHAPTER 42
I didn’t make it back to the courtroom as I spent quite a bit of time on my knees, trying to throw up my breakfast along with all the years of hate and fear. So many hackneyed images still hold truth in them, and mine was that of pushing against the locked door, which opens suddenly, and collapse is inevitable.

I could still feel his eyes on me, and the worst part of it all was that he didn’t seem to recall me immediately. I could almost read his mind: ‘Which rape was that one? Oh, yes. All coming back to me now’.

If he had glared or blustered it would have been easier, but he didn’t. I wasn’t the avenging crusader coming for my just revenge, I was simply one of a number of girls he had met at various times, in various places, but all in the same manner. I couldn’t stay on my knees with those thoughts, as it was too reminiscent of that night by the sea, and so I squirmed round to sit on the toilet and sob my heart out. At least I had plenty of tissues.

Bastard.

Someone tapped at the door of the cubicle, asking if I was all right in quite a strong North Wales accent. I muttered something reassuring.

“That is Diane in there, ah? Your crew is all a bit worried about you. Came to check”

I unlocked the door so I could see the speaker, and it was the pretty redhead that had been sitting with Elaine.

“You’re, um, Elaine’s missus?”

She nodded. “I’m Siân, aye. You look a real mess, girl. Let’s get your face washed. Here…”

I could not object to her hug, which was most welcome, and she had some cleansing wipes and other stuff in her bag to help with my sore eyes.

“We were expecting you back for the good stuff, Di, but we understand. Not an easy thing to do, so well done you for sticking it. What it did to our sister, duw!”

“She the one who was done over by Joe Evans?”

“Yes, and two of the other pieces of shit you locked up. Sarah. She ran away, ah? All the way to Dover, and we don’t, we can’t blame her for that. You, girl: you fought back. No shame in a bit of tension release, a bit of reaction. Anyway, that bastard is completely screwed now, and you missed it”

“I think I’ll cope”

“And bloody celebrate, I think. You deserve it, and so do those two boys. Come on, cuppa and chat. The others will be out in a while, so you need to be sat up and smiling for them”

The court’s café was almost empty for once, and as an indulgence I had cocoa again, Siân slapping my hand when I went to pull out my purse. We found a seat, and she started to grin.

“Your boys found a real star, ah? Janice Jeffries”

“I know that name”

“Nurse at the hospital when you were treated, after. The one who did the swabs and pictures”

“They got all that as well?”

She laughed, happily.

“Oh yes! And she’d kept the swabs in her freezer, and when it was sent off for testing, bingo! Enough of his bloody ‘spoodge’ left there to get a perfect match for his DNA, and yours, of course. Defence got nasty with her, and she bit back, you would have loved it. Then the Judge slaps down the Defence! Thing is, turned out that Janice knew one Carol, who was the nurse for our Sarah when she got the same sort of hospital visit you got, so the jury got to hear about THAT. That man is going to prison, girl, we all know that, so, once more, well done you. I am going back to my wife now, and we’ll be getting something to eat when they break, so put on your happy face, or your bloody smugly-satisfied one, ah? And we will see you out the front in a few ”

She gave me a quick squeeze and was gone, leaving me with no doubt whatsoever about why Elaine had married her. At some point, I realised, I would like to meet their sister.

They eventually trooped out for lunch and, sod it, I let Blake take my arm, as Alun linked with Elaine, and I don’t know who was doing the pushing, pulling and steering, but we ended up in the big pub on Greyfriars, where there was a crowd waiting for us. Chris, Dai Gould, his boy Scott with Omar, and Omar’s parents, one of Elaine’s colleagues who introduced himself as Wyn, even the bloody Super, Bev Williams, and Sammy, grinning away as ever.

Fuck you, Ashley Evans. You did your best to steal my life, and these people gave it back to me. I gave my man a squeeze, as I saw once more how I had a real future now.

He whispered in my ear “Jury’s retired, love. Don’t know if they’ll be back today”

“That’s quick!”

“I don’t think their brief’s got any arguments left. Cutting his losses, and I think he’s wondering if he’ll get his fee. That nurse sank him. Stroppy cow, but our stroppy cow! Tell you about it later, but now you understand why we had to kick you out. Over, aye?”

“Not quite, love. Who sorted this lot out?”

“We had people warned, and then as soon as the jury went out we put a call out so that we could celebrate”

“Not really over yet, love”

“Trust me, it most definitely is”

I squeezed his knee, before standing up after whispering “Back me up, please?”

I stood looking around the group we had gathered, real warmth in my heart. So many of them had suffered because of a few evil men, and if it hadn’t been directly, as with Omar and myself, it had been only once-removed, seeing their family and friends broken and soiled. Sod formality, sod ‘Police, professional’.

“See this, Lainey? These are survivors, these boys. How could I not do the same? Soon as the jury retired we put the call out, people awaiting the word, innit? This is all your doing, all of this. Even if the bastard walks—ˮ

On cue, my man called out “He won’t!”

I grinned back at him. “Thanks, Blake!”

I turned back to her, Siân’s hand in hers, and tipped my head in a clear bow.

“I don’t think so either. His counsel wasn’t exactly walking on water, was he? Funny, that, with all the money he---er---no longer has access to. Anyway, Inspector Powell, we’ve said it before, but there are movers and shakers, and you have moved and shook. Elaine Powell!”

The others repeated the toast, and we drank to the woman who had shown me a future so much better than my past. I just hoped she could cope now that her own locked door had sprung open. I needed to watch her back, as she had watched mine, but at least I now knew she had a partner we could both rely on.

‘Wife’, Diane Owens. The word is ‘wife’.

We lost our happy crowd quite quickly to their day jobs and lives, and as we settled down for a relaxed afternoon outside the horrible place that is a Crown Court, Elaine followed me into the ladies’.

“Anything I need to know?”

I knew what she meant, but my face betrayed me, and I could feel the burn.

“About three months now, seeing how it goes”

“It doesn’t go anywhere till after the verdict. Got me?”

“Yes, Ma’am”

I couldn’t help it, and my blush was overtaken by my grin.

“Well, it goes to Tunisia in a couple of months, anyway!”

She laughed, and after a mock frown swallowed me in a crushing hug. Elaine Powell was monstrously strong for a woman, and in a happy moment of mind’s eye and memories I watched her backhand swing--- No. Not now.

When she came out, she glared at Blake, and my big boy actually turned pink. Who would ever have guessed that?

“Well, jury’s gone off to their hotel, so we’re back here tomorrow, assuming they convict. Your Mam’s offered again, Di, so if you want we’ll get off to hers?”

Elaine looked worried at that.

“Remember?”

I nodded. “It’s why I’ve stayed out of touch with the team for a while, Elaine. Been on other stuff, digging out more victims”

“Really? Any takers?”

“About half a dozen, so far”

“Oh. Dear. Me. How. Sad. Never. Mind. I’ll look forward to a bit of sentence adjustment in the future, then”

Blake drove me home, and we kept everything quiet until both Mam and Dad were ready, and all my man said was “It’s over”

Mam took his hand.

“What did he get?”

“Jury should be back tomorrow, but he’s cooked. I can tell you a bit more now--- we found the nurse who looked after our girl that night, and she’d kept the rape kit she used. Didn’t trust the police not to accidentally lose it. She got attacked by the Defence, on grounds of sour grapes, commercial competition and stuff. Her old man’s a builder as well, isn’t it?”

Dad reached for my hand. “How was it, love? For you?”

I shook my head. “Not good, Dad. Had a bit of a collapse after--- no, love, Elaine’s missus sorted me out. I’m fine. What it was, Dad, was how he looked at me, Ashley Evans. I was expecting him to glare and that, and all I got was as if he was trying to remember who I was. How many bloody girls has he attacked that he can’t remember them individually? That was what hurt, yeah? I wasn’t a victim, not a person, not someone he got the lusts for. I was just one more time he’d scratched an itch”

I linked my fingers with Dad’s.

“Thank you both, yeah? Thank you for everything you’ve done, thank you for never, ever doubting me, for standing by me. Thank you”

He smiled, as gently as he could.

“We’re your parents, love. What else would we, could we do?”

“Mam, Dad, I am slowly building up a list of people who have also met several of the people we have locked up. Some of them, well, their parents aren’t exactly as strong. I have one runaway whose father was the problem, just for starters. No more on that one, OK? Just accept my thanks”

Blake took my other hand. “Our thanks, Dot, Mark. We would like to say thank you, if we can”

Dad’s smile was still soft.

“No need, son”

That one word said so much, and my big boy smiled on hearing it.

“Au contraire, as the Frogs would say. There’s always a need to say thank you, so hear me out. We were talking about a beach holiday, for all four of us, and I was thinking of Tunisia, but one of our lot warned me off on safety grounds, so I dropped that idea”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“I was actually looking forward to that, love. Camels and stuff!”

“Well, I thought of something else, one of the lads in the Central nick mentioned his own plans. It’s a holiday camp type place, like Eurocamp, yeah?”

Mam sniffed. “In a tent, is it? No ta!”

He shook his head. “No, they’ve got mobile homes, cabins, aye? With air con. This is the thing: the place is an old German holiday camp, so everything’s clean and new, two water parks, private beach and that, and all the catering is Italian”

Dad was obviously confused.

“Why Italian?”

“Because the place is in Italy. That’s the point. It’s only a short bus ride and a ferry away”

“From here?”

“No. How would you like to see Venice?”

Mam’s eyebrows went straight up.

“Ooh! Always wanted to go there!”

Blake nodded. “And this way, we wouldn’t have to pay stupid prices. Get the computer on, and I’ll show you where it is. We can fly from Bristol, then there’s a coach transfer a short one. Done my homework, aye?”

I looked at him as he paused.

“What’s up?”

“Um, if we go for this, the cabins are four berth, unless you use the kitchen area, foldaway bed there. There are two bedrooms, to a cabin”

Mam laughed. “Di, love, he’s asking whether he should look to book one cabin for all of us!”

My decision was instant.

“Well, it’d be cheaper for one, wouldn’t it? I suppose we’ll just have to share!”

I kissed him, of course. We went onto the net that evening, and they had room, and we had a holiday ahead.

CHAPTER 43
We were bright and early at the court the next day, which actually meant about nine thirty. We were down to the bare bones, just Elaine, the two of us and Alun, and wasted the morning on crosswords and an amble through the pedestrian area, avoiding the pub this time. The rest of the team were off with Sammy, something else going on, and Alun dropped a hint about picking someone up who may just have made the odd phone call to Pritchard.

At lunchtime, no verdict in sight, the two lads were gone. Lunch itself, a pasty and a cuppa, came and went, and then, finally, I got a text from the usher and we settled back into the public gallery as the jury returned.

“And have you elected a foreman?”

They had indeed, and as I looked at him I wondered what sort of process the jury went through to pick him, as he wasn’t exactly imposing. He was clear, though, and he was obviously neither stupid nor complacent, especially in the way he looked at the dock.

“And on the charge of rape, how do you find the accused?”

“Guilty, eleven to one”

Blake, all the others, had been right. Got you, you piece of shit.

The judge coughed., before launching into a speech so practised, smooth and utterly damning he had to have prepared it the night before. He had known, just as Blake had, that Evans was done, and whatever reports he had needed had been read, inwardly digested and accounted for, ready for the verdict.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your service in this matter. You are dismissed. Ashley Aaron Evans, stand. I have given considerable thought to the sentence appropriate in this case, and it will be fifteen years. Fifteen years in which you may consider the damage that you inflicted on the life of an innocent girl, who has shown remarkable fortitude in her recovery from your crime. She serves to counterpoint in her dedication to serving her community the sheer depth of depravity that has been demonstrated by you and your relatives and accomplices. Take him down”

That was the time, finally, when the bastard found some hatred for me, and thus time I had my glare ready to give back. Enjoy it, you arsehole, and I will be back soon to hand you some more. There are other girls waiting to remind you what they look like,

I half felt Elaine getting up, ready for the ritual of His Honour’s departure, but instead he looked straight at the two of us and smiled. as Evans was removed.

“Inspector Powell, DC Owens please approach the Bench”

What could he want? We worked our way through to the floor, and he signalled the usher.

“Norman, be so good as to show these good officers to my chambers. I will attend directly”

‘Norman’ opened a little hatch affair by the bench, up we went, through the Magic Judge door and into an office. The judge disappeared through another door before returning after a few minutes bereft of wig, robes and all that rigmarole, and the usher left us a tray of tea and quite posh biscuits. His Honour motioned us both to sit.
.
“Thank you, ladies. I apologise for keeping you here, but I am a curious old man and while I do my best to remain abreast of all events surrounding those I am called upon to try, I feel there is rather a larger picture here than I am yet aware of. This other young lady?”

Elaine looked at me, shrugged, and very softly said, “My sister, your honour”

“Ah. A transsexual if I recall correctly. I remember the newspaper reports. These police officers: they would be involved in the recent series of rapes of young men in the Cardiff area?”

I took her hand as she nodded.

“Absolutely, your honour. My team did a superb job, but I had to take a back seat when, well, one of the culprits was another member of the family, and, simply put, my sister had met him”

He was so relaxed it was hard to remember where we were, but the sense of focus that came from him was powerful. He was clearly aware of almost every little detail behind the case, and I wondered whether we could put in some sort of request, a block booking, for the trials to follow. Somehow, I felt that he would appreciate meeting Ashley Evans again.

“Ah. Rather compromising. Tell me, why was there only the one crime laid before Mr Evans senior’s jury? I would rather have expected a perverting the course to have accompanied it”

I couldn’t hide my grin, with the preceding thought still fresh.

“Oh, I can answer that one, your honour. We’re still awaiting HMRC’s trawl through his finances to come to a conclusion, but we rather felt that it would be nice to get the lovely man banged away while they took their time. My new boss has got someone on the perverting case already, or so I believe, but we also want to get the other two men tied into it. Get them for Lainey’s sister, too, get them nice and tight and stitched up and key thrown away. Er, your honour”

He laughed warmly. “So further enquiries are in progress? Excellent! Now, shall I be Mother? Milk?”

We left there half an hour or so later, Elaine almost in shock, and after another cuppa (and a quick call to the office with verdict and sentence) she was off back West.

Our separation was as quietly emotional as ever, her hug not just a formality. There was a real connection between us, and I didn’t see it ever failing. She simply looked me in the eyes for a while, smiling.

“Off to Sarah’s wedding soon, girl. This, this just makes it all that little better, that bit cleaner, aye?”

I nodded. “You’re not telling her, are you? About all this?”

She shook her head. “No. Not now. She has a bloody good man, and the past is the past. I’ll let them find their own feet for now. And right now, she’s happy, and that is what’s important. You do the same, you and Blake. He’s another very good man”

“Didn’t think you were into men, Lainey!”

“Just because I don’t fancy them doesn’t mean I hate them. Not all of them, anyway. The wife told me what state you were in, by the way”

“Sorry about that, Lainey”

“Don’t apologise, girl. You gave the case and the jury what was needed when it was needed. That’s what counts, that’s what screwed Evans and all the rest. Don’t ever lose that passion, Di. And you’ve met the missus now, so I think you can see why I am more than happy where I am”

I drew her back for another, final squeeze. “I can indeed. Say thanks for me”

“I will do. Stay in touch!”

And she was gone. I made my way back to the nick, where Sammy and the team were awaiting me, and the hugs continued.

Job done, and beautifully so.

Rhys seemed particularly happy to see me, and that was explained very quickly.

“We have been multitasking, Di! Not just the boys with your nurse, and Ellen with lover boy’s brother, isn’t it?”

I think I blushed, and he patted my arm. “Oh come on, it’s been obvious for ages. Not teasing, am I? He’s a good bloke, just got one fault”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“He’s bloody well straight, that’s what! Anyway, we have three names in the frame, and Ellen and Sean have a case ready to roll for the frauds, so all is ticking along nice and tidy”

“In the frame for what? Sod it. SAMMY!”

“Yeah, mate?”

“Could we have a team wash-up, catch-up sort of thing? I’ve got stuff to share, and I want to see what the others have got”

“Sounds good. Gather round, er, boys and girls”

Alun shouted out “Not your line, is it?” and happy laughter followed. At that moment, I couldn’t think of a better place to work.

Sammy ducked his head. “OK! Start with Blake and Alun”

Blake called out “All done and dusted. Ashley Evans, fifteen years”

There was a round of applause for that one, and he bowed.

“Ellen?”

“Er, right. Some of this is difficult to explain, but it involves VAT and the 714/715 scheme. In plain English, it seems Evans---Ashley Evans---has not just been suppressing his takings, lying about how much work he’s done, but also playing fast and loose with the Revenue’s scheme for accounting for self-employed subcontractors. Sean’s boys are on a feeding frensy on that one. Looks like big money”

“Good, good. What is it they say? Every little helps? Rob, Rhys, Candice?”

Blondie was grinning at me. “Ooh, happy-happy here! We need to sort calendars, people. Got three more scum, hangers-on and Evans relatives mixed, one in the call centre for 999s, two in Swansea and Cardiff control rooms. We will be looking to set up a synchronised nicking session at some point in the very near future, and to teach egg-sucking, all phones, computers, notebooks, laundry lists need to be secured. We believe we can tie in both senior Evans and that arsehole Pritchard for Perverting the Course, which means we should get the rest for Conspiracy”

“Nice one. Di? You’ve been out of the loop for a bit. Got anything nice?”

“Oh, yes indeed. I have four further victims of the gang, just for starters”

Sammy raised an eyebrow. “Starters? This from the outreach stuff? And just for starters?”

“Yup. Four young lads, Chris-alikes, twinks, yeah? Same thing as almost all the rest I’ve found: nobody wanted to come forward till they were sure the people who attacked them were going down properly”

“What else?”

I had been thinking hard, but it had to be brought up, offered as a thank you to one brave woman.

“Next one is historic sexual abuse. I have a victim, but she says the culprits are all dead. I’m not certain on that point, so I am taking it slowly”

“Best way, girl. Next?”

“Sensitive stuff again. You will all remember what happened to Inspector Powell’s sister Sarah. She gets married shortly, by the way”

I got the nods.

“Well, I have one transgender girl who left home after parental abuse. Well under age. She was picked up by someone we know and love, and if I say he had, and I quote, ‘a wonky eye’, and add ‘a bladder weakness’…”

I waited for the chorus of comments to die down.

“Yup. Joe Evans, trawling night clubs for trans girls, grooming, all that shit. Seems as if he didn’t want to stop at Sarah Powell. And, as they say, there’s more. It looks like two former colleagues we all love most sincerely may have been involved, and with my last item as well”

Once more I waited for silence.

“Girl of thirteen, trans once again. Out for a walk one night, parents away, so taking a chance, innit, in a skirt”

Candice was purring, and not with pleasure.

“Sorry to interrupt, girl, but let me guess. Big man in a car? Best way to get all the spoodge out? Doing a fifteen stretch as of today?”

I showed her my teeth. “Got it in one. There may be others”

She snarled back. “There will be once the news gets out. How the fuck has all this gone on so long?”

Sammy raised his voice to cut us both short.

“Well we have three arrests to prepare for that will help explain that. In the meantime, Bev Williams has made a very clear statement that affects everyone here, so go away and have a think, then come back tomorrow and just say ‘yes’, OK?”

Rob was the first to ask, and Sammy grinned happily.

“The team is not being disbanded after this extended investigation, but established as a permanent unit. Some of you need to think about taking your sergeant’s, as we will have extra bodies as we need them. The ‘yes’ is for you to tell Bev Williams that you want to stay on this team permanently, and while I know what you’ll all say, I will add that I want none of you leaving. So, call today a day, and offski. See you all tomorrow, and back to the grind. Well done for today, well done for the whole thing”

I slept in my little flat that night, for once relishing the solitude. I think Blake and my parents understood. I needed them all not long after.

I was in the Greasy, sorting out lunch before getting back into an info trawl around boys’ homes in the area, with a plate of calories and a cuppa on the table in front of me, when Barry slumped into the seat opposite.

“Got a moment, Di?”

He looked drawn, and my excuse for a spider sense was prodding me. Something was badly wrong.

“What’s up, mate? You do not look happy. Not Bryn?”

He shook his head, and I spotted deep pain in his eyes. This was definitely not going to be a happy chat.

“Di, I said I’d do you a favour, isn’t it? Over to Sussex, aye?”

My stomach lurched, Oh, fuck.

“Please tell me he’s not…”

He reached over the table for both my hands.

“No, love, he’s not been hurt. Not that way, not physically. Shit. No easy way to do this, I’ll just have to get it out in one. Just let me speak, aye? I should be good at this, knocked at enough doors after, like. He’s had a complete breakdown, been moved indoors, Custody”

“What happened?”

“Told you, shush. Close to home for me, this one. Girl got killed down to Crawley, beaten up by a gang of men, chased, all the way to a bridge, over the motorway. Chased off it, pushed, doesn’t matter. Busy road underneath, and, well, Adam was on scene. One too many, girl. We all have that place, and this one was so nasty, it did for him”

“Where is he? Is he back at work?””

“That’s the thing, Di. This was ages ago. How the fuck did we lose contact with one of our own, lose it so badly? Made the local news big style, just not here. Some local people got involved, stirred it up, got enough info for the local boys to convict the killers. Main one was someone called Woodruff”

“The killers?”

“No, woman who stirred the pot, got the investigation started. You’re shaking, love. Shit, here, use this”

I don’t know what the other people thought of me as I broke down in Barry’s arms, but I was past caring.

CHAPTER 44
I didn’t notice, but Barry had fumbled his mobile out of his stab vest pocket.

“Yeah. Barry, Traffic, Yeah. Can you get up the greasy? I think one of yours needs taking home”

He then just sat and held me till Sammy was there, with Blake and Candice, and I wondered what had bloody happened to ‘Police, Professional’ as the team blonde walked me into the ladies’.

“This getting to be a habit, girl. No. No shame, is it? We’ve just had a shitty case, and you’ve now been through it twice, so sit, breathe, come back to us. When you’re ready, talk, yes?”

I could feel my whole body trembling in waves, like the dry sobs of a six-year-old after a tantrum, and if I could feel it, she certainly could.

“When you are ready, girl. Not before. All the time you need. Breathe, and then we’ll get you back to our place. Among friends, yeah?”

I pulled the shakes into me, away from my body by pure bloody-mindedness, and when I was able to stand alone she led me by the hand to our little world, a place without burning cars, dead babies and girls shoved off bridges.

Dear god, what state must she have been in? How many vehicles?

No. Not now. If it had poleaxed Adam. I didn’t need to know the details

Tea was in my hands, an arm around my shoulders, concern in the faces I trusted so well, and Candice asked me, softly, if I wanted to talk.

“Sorry, mates. Just had some shitty news, and on top, yeah? Just took my balance away”

Sammy was there. Gentler than ever.

“Yeah, Barry gave us the gen. You cared for that lad, didn’t you?”

The tears were back. “Fuck, aye! Decent bloke, decent copper, and he just kept getting hammered! I was at one of the really bad ones, yeah? Dead baby, mam screaming and sobbing at the same time, and then he’s in hospital, more shit. Why is it always the good ones, Sammy?”

He sighed. “Because the bad ones, the lazy ones, the bastards like the two we locked up, they’re always able to find something else to do that keeps them out of the way, keeps them safe. I remember Adam, and he was never like that. Nor are you. Trouble is, it leaves scars, and they need time to heal. You haven’t had that, have you? You missed half the bloody trial, for starters! Now, drink your tea, leave your computer off and your desk alone. Blake will take you home, and you come back here only when he’s happy”

I started to protest, and he just put a finger to my lips.

“We all know about you two, and the trial’s over, so fuck’em. You go home, you take the time you need, and you bring DC Owens back to her mates with a clear head and no shame in her. Got me? Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Slap me if I’m cheeky, but I think she needs to go HOME home, not to a flat. Could you give her parents a shout, just so they know to expect her? And you, you come back only when you know she’s OK. Call it special leave with pay for short-term care of a family member”

“But I’m not…”

“Oh, piss off, lad, and stop arguing. You two are just about family, so you’re both signed off until as and when. Got me?”

He turned back to me, his voice soft again.

“And as for family, this here, this team, we are all family. No embarrassment in families, no shame, no apologies for being human, for caring, for being an honourable, real police officer. Go home. Wash, breathe, whatever you need, and come back to us with a smile. Got me? Right. Get rid of her, Blake”

My gentle man left me in silence for the first ten minutes of the drive, but it was me that had to break it.

“Sorry, love”

“No apologies. We agreed”

“No, I meant about Adam. I should have mentioned him”

He smiled, in one of those lightning-quick glances he gave so rarely when driving.

“From what I gather, you didn’t even go out together, so what’s to tell?”

“I nearly asked him out once”

“So?”

“He was already looking to get over to England, get married? I would have looked really stupid”

“Don’t think so, love. If he was sound enough for you to like him that much, he’d have understood”

“Yeah, but I should have told you!”

“Diane Owens, I know all that I need to know about you, all I need to love you, and I do, heart and soul, aye? Anything more is a bonus, something for the future, for us together, aye?”

He pulled sharply into a lay-by, and killed the engine, turning in his seat to face me.

“Whatever we have, we’ll share. Whatever’s to find out, discover, we’ll discover together. I know who you are, and that is all I need. So think about what Sammy said, and we will move on. Now, should we stop at the supermarket on the way in? Pick up some beers, and more bloody hot chocolate? What started that kick off, anyway?”

“Talk while we drive?”

And give me a chance to pull some of my emotions back, before I dragged him out of the car and, well, stuff.

I knew, right then, as I had never known before, that I had the right man there with me, teasing, gentle, mine.

We did the rounds of the massive place off Stirling Road, and picked up the drinks plus a beef joint for a family meal, along with the bits and pieces to go with it, and he laughed as he made sure he had enough toiletries for himself, as well as a pair of pyjamas.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting to do this, was I?”

“Well, you’ll need something for Venice, isn’t it? Hell, I’ll need a passport!”

“Details, details. We can pop round the Post Office, get a form while we’re off, aye?”

“Yes, master!”

He kissed me, just then, and I found my smile again.

Mam was in when we arrived, and just took me in her arms for a while before doing the same with Blake.

“What’s with all the bags?”

“Di insisted on a shopping spree, Dot. Typical woman”

“Well, get it into the fridge. Kettle’s on”

She turned to me.

“And you, no silliness with running back to work. We sit tonight, we talk through what we do now. Door is closing on all that nastiness, so we see what we can find for the future. Dad and me, we’ve got a few classes planned. Basic Eye-tie, isn’t it? And Dad, typical man, so one up to the girls, Blake, and your ‘typical woman’ rubbish. Dad’s been buying bloody guidebooks!”

From one family to another. Dad brought in fish and chips (and we buttered some bread, of course), we had a couple of beers each, and Blake talked them through the trial with relish and no little humour. I found myself wishing I had been in the right state of mind not just to see Janice Jeffries’ starring performance, but actually to have said thank you properly. Blake was almost telepathic.

“I’ll run you out to see her one day, love”

Dad looked hard at Blake when he had finished his account.

“Not wanting to ask, am I? But this isn’t finished, is it? No, say nothing, son. I don’t want to put you in an awkward position, so I will say what I think, and you can answer how you like”

Both of us nodded, and Dad continued.

“What happened was slick. That bastard wasn’t just doing something for the first time, he had it down pat. He’d done it before, and I will bet he did it again. You don’t have to say. But this is what I believe, and it’s that there are more victims in the pipeline waiting their turn to piss on him like he pissed on my little girl. So you two take your time, catch your breath, whatever you need. This home is your home. Always been hers, son, so it’s yours now”

Blake was blushing, so I mentioned the new pyjamas, and Mam asked me if my boy knew where the laundry basket lived. Mood broken, but not forgotten, never forgotten. I would have to remember to ring Deb to apologise and let her know how it had all gone, so that we could do as Dad had guessed. I started to laugh at the thought of Charlie confronting Evans, and in doing so I realised she was no different to me. I had smiled and nodded to Pritchard as his eyes widened.

Not the same little girl now, am I? Neither was Charlie.

“Di?”

“Oh! Sorry, Dad! I was miles away”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Yes, definitely. I was just thinking about what you said”

“Ah. I will look forward to when you can tell us, then. Now, I got this map of the lagoon from…”

Mam was right. Men, books and maps. Two of us cleared away the wrappings and condiments, and then we settled down in front of the telly, which ended up tuned to some fly-on-the-wall documentary about Customs, largely filmed in Gatwick, before Mam stuck in a DVD of one of the Harry Potter films.

Lightweight, comfortable, comforting, and exactly what I needed.

Something was niggling at me, though, something in the back of my mind.

‘Woodruff’, Barry had said. The woman who had stirred up the local force. Not the commonest of names, and I had heard it somewhere else, recently…

The character Dad insisted on calling ‘Hermy-wan’, or on really bad and silly occasions, ‘Hermy-wan Kenobe’, was lecturing the ginger one on some magic trick or other, and it came back to me. A very refreshed Inspector Powell, talking about her sister, and it was there.

The ‘girl like her’, used to play rugby against their cousin. Something Woodruff. Could it be? I needed to talk to Barry first, then Elaine. If Elaine knew her, she might be able to find out how Adam was doing.

Oh. I had missed the end of the film, and my parents were getting up ready to hit the sack. Leave it till tomorrow to think about, DC Owens. I kissed them goodnight, did the same to Blake, and settled down in bed after all the necessary washing and brushing that I might occasionally ‘forget’ when in my flat but didn’t dare at home. Light off, I could still see the faces. Pritchard, starting to sweat as he realised who I was, and Ashley Evans, who was simply having difficulty remembering which one I was. Elaine, flushed, slumped and talking with a soppy smile about her sister.

I didn’t see Blake’s face, though, because it was dark when I slipped into his room at two o’clock in the morning and stood by his bed, not knowing what to do.

He did, though, and pulled down the cover as he slid across to the other side.

He was warm, and gentle, and simply held me till I slept.

CHAPTER 45
Next thing I knew, it was morning, the daylight obvious even through the heavy curtains. Mam tapped on the door of Blake’s bedroom.

“Breakfast in twenty minutes, you two. Dad’s already off to work”

I found myself blushing, even though I had done nothing but sleep. Better get up and face the music. I left him to dress, just a kiss on the cheek so he wouldn’t have my morning breath, but it was a wrench to get out of the bed and his arms.

I could really get used to it.

Downstairs, after beating my hair into submission, Blake only five minutes behind me on the stairs, and Mam had left a pot of tea and some sausage sandwiches.

“I’ll be back after work, love. You two got a plan for the day?”

Blake answered for us, especially after I looked at him and nodded.

“Dunno, really. Sammy, the boss, he just said to take a breather, come back once she’s found her feet again”

“I haven’t lost them, Blake. Still at the end of my legs, isn’t it?”

“Silly woman. Anyway, I had a few ideas. I’ll see what she thinks later. What are you up to this evening? We got a joint in, and I’d be happy to do it. Got a serving wench to do the drudgery…”

I made a feint to slap him, but he had me laughing too hard I couldn’t even pretend to be serious about it.

“We’ll cope, Mam, and doing a proper dinner sounds like a good idea. It’ll save you working tonight, and, well, it’ll be nice to say thank you”

She pulled on a smile with her coat, ready for work.

“No need, love”

I thought back, and gave her my own smile.

“There’s always a need, Mam”

Once she was out of the door, I turned back to my man.

“You up for a little drive this morning, love?”

“Should be. Where to?”

“If you don’t mind, somewhere with old ghosts that need exorcising”

“Ah. Whenever you are ready, then”

He knew what I meant, and after I had finally tamed my hair under the shower, I packed a small rucksack with a flask of tea, my camera and, on impulse, a pair of binoculars belonging to Dad. Jeans and trainers for today.

Blake drove us out along the B4265, past the airport and St Athan, and as we skirted Llantwit Major I started to shake. Not professional, DC Owens, not at all. He noticed, of course, and at Wick he pulled into the car park of the Lamb and Flag.

“Cuppa and a break, love. How are you doing?”

“Seems so much further, Blake. Don’t know if it’s the daylight, or what”

“Well, no hurry, love. Drink your chocolate. And tell me why”

“Pardon?”

“Why hot chocolate?”

“Oh, right. Simple, really. It was with the girls, the ones I’ve been talking to?”

“The ones who aren’t really?”

“Trust me, love, they ARE really, yeah? Anyway, I just thought, well, it was a cold day, and it seemed right, and it still does. Sort of like being at home, being a kid again”

He nodded. “Being safe, you mean?”

“Partly, I suppose, but more… More winding the clock back, going back to before, well, before HIM. Before the place we’re heading for. Can you understand that?”

He nodded. “I can. Shall we get it out of the way, then?”

“Yeah. Come on. We can skim stones on the beach”

I took his hand as he led me to the car, and then we were on the final run-in to that place, looping round through St Bride’s and past the Golden Cups to that car park There were only a few other cars there, two people walking down the ramp to the mass of stones and shingle that edged the sand after the spectacular layer-cake effect of the horizontally-bedded rocks. The tide was partly in, so the sand was just about covered, and as we stepped out of the car I could hear the shush-shush of the waves on the loose stuff. In the distance, the hills of Exmoor stood out, patches of snow bright under a clear blue sky.

I walked him forward to the edge of the car park, where the low wall ran along to the gate at the start of the ramp.

“Here. Here’s where he raped me. Punched me, bent me over the wall. And here. Hit me again, really hard… so here must be where he pissed on me”

It was stupid, I knew, but I couldn’t help looking at the tarmac, trying to find a mark of some kind, maybe a brown speck of my dried blood or the yellow of his urine, but of course there was nothing apart from tyre marks and a few pieces of windblown litter. I stood for a few minutes of silence, putting things, places, in order, and then pulled him into a hug.

“Come on! Stones to skim, boy”

“Going back to childhood again, then? Like the cocoa?”

“Absolutely! Then I want a walk up to the top, through the gardens. I’ve got a flask”

I pulled him through the gate down the ramp to the surf line, and we bounced our stones as best we could, Blake teasing me about how women could never throw, each of us seeming to spend more time looking for the ‘right’ stone for the other, and arguing about who got the most skips, before we left the waves to their rhythm, each one pulling back a little more of Evans from my soul, as we set off up the hill past the other car park and through the walled garden to the shelter across from the little tower. I unpacked the flask as Blake spread a travel rug over our knees and handed me a small packet of biscuits.

“Saw you pack the flask, love, so thought we’d need these”

There were birds about, chaffinches I think, and as we ate I scattered some of the biscuit crumbs for them. Keeping my eyes on them, I tried to clear my thoughts by way of words, and it was easier to do it watching the birds than Blake.

“It was hard, love. So hard, those first few days afterwards. I thought it would get better, back in the real world, but it just got worse. I know Mam and Dad got a lot of shit, their daughter the whore, so on”

“Didn’t people understand what had happened?”

“Nope. Some people’s lives are black and white, no uncertainty anywhere. They see everyone else like that. No prosecution, no rape. That was their opinion, and they felt very free to share it. Nearly broke Dad, in hindsight”

“He came through, though”

“Only just. Without Mam, I don’t know what would have happened. They even moved away for a while, with Dad’s work. Bloody Milton Keynes!”

“Biut you stayed?”

“Sort of. I mean, they rented the old place out for a while and I took digs while I was at Uni, but I think, if it wasn’t for Mam, I’d probably have ended up leaving as well. Dad wanted to sell up, and she put her foot down. ‘We’ll come back one day’, she said, ‘and I don’t want someone else’s memories when we do.’ Strong woman, my Mam”

“How long, love? How long were they away?”

“Six years. Time for me to get college out of the way and get my feet under the canteen table at work”

I turned to look him in the eye.

“Left me very self-reliant, Blake. Got me into all sorts of habits, solitary stuff. I need to break away from that, so, well, thanks for last night”

I shuffled over to him and his cuddle, the tea steaming away as the birds took the last of the crumbs.

Refreshed in so many ways, we walked out of the gardens and over to the cliff-edge viewpoint that looked out over the Ogmore cliffs and the sinuous lines of the rock pavements below them. The wind tore at my hair, and as with the waves, each gust dragged away a little more of that night. We followed the path round past the remnants of the old hotel before finally looking into the visitor centre. The flask was empty.

Blake held it up to one of the staff,

“Anywhere nearby we can get a cuppa? That wind is really raw!”

The mumsy woman in the ‘official’ sweatshirt smiled at him.

“Not a lot of people about today, son. Give me five minutes and I’ll fill your flask. That do?”

I smiled back.

“That would be lovely! You here all the time?”

“Na. Part time, me. Retired years ago, and this place keeps me busy. Been working here off and on, as a volunteer, for about twenty years now, so when I left the school I just did a bit more of this”

Blake was holding one of the leaflets, about fossils.

“You were a teacher?”

She laughed. “Na, dinner lady, me! How I know how to make a decent cuppa. You got milk, sugar?”

“Yes, honey!”

“Cheeky! I’m Mavis. Nice to meet you”

“Blake, and Diane. Same here. It not get a bit quiet here, this time of year?”

She waved us to a little table, pulling a couple of chairs with her.

“Hang on, I’ll just get the tea”

She was back quite quickly, and to my delight she hadn’t just filled the flask but brought out three steaming cups.

“To answer your question, son, yes, it does. Nice to take out time for a chat, days like this. Get’s really boring otherwise. I’ve got one of those electric book things, but it’s nice to sit down with someone real”

I smiled at her openness and easy manner.

“Better than school dinner queues, then?”

“Oh, hell, aye! Some of those kids…”

“Any juicy stories about this place?”

“Aye, indeed! The old hotel, last of a series of places up there. Hill fort out to Witches Point, and Romans were here as well. There was one right villain by Dunraven, though…”

She was a gifted storyteller, and we made the appropriate oohs and aahs as she told stories of men with debts resorting to setting false lights to wreck and rob ships, of famous and not so famous people who had been wounded in the wars and spent their convalescence in the old hotel.

“Then there have been a few nastiers, isn’t it? Cliff’s high enough, and we have had a few people who find things a bit too much. Not nice. Then there was that rape”

Everything clenched, and Mavis obviously noticed. She looked harder at Blake.

“I saw you… You were on the telly when they arrested that pig, what’s his name? Evans?”

Blake’s voice was soft. “Ashley Evans, yes. Not coming here again for a long, long time, is he?”

Her whole face screwed up, the hatred plain.

“Aye, and I’ll push him off the edge myself if he does, the bastard! State of that girl, and the way it left the couple who found her. He needs putting down, that man! I would pull the bloody lever myself if--- Oh. Oh. Then…”

She was staring at me, and her mental arithmetic was clearly accurate as she took my hand.

“Well done, girl, Diane. Well done. I am right, isn’t it? It was you I called the ambulance for?”

I looked at Blake, wondering why she hadn’t been called for the trial, and he shrugged.

“Couldn’t find any records of who was actually on that night. If we had, trust me, Mavis, we’d have had you there. Not pulling a lever, is it, but as good as we could offer you”

She was shaking her head, tears visible.

“You were in such a state, love. What that man did to you… What do you do now, this lad, he’s a copper, I know that?”

Blake took my other hand.

“She works with me, now. Taking a break after the trial”

“You take all you need, girl. Bloody well done, is what I say! Now, got some biscuits out the back”

Once again, ripples. I may have been the victim, but those who suffered were far more numerous.

We took our leave of Mavis, with all the appropriate promises, and Blake was smug in the car home.

“Sense of self-worth coming back big style now, girl?”

I squeezed his thigh as he drove.

“Thank you, love. Really thank you. That was unexpected. Bonus, yeah? But I’m feeling a bit embarrassed. There was us, thinking we were all so shit-hot at this game, and look at what we missed. Next time, be sharper”

“Always the best sort, though, the nice surprises. Bonus is the right word. Now, what about Elaine? You were muttering her name last night”

“Was I? Oh. I think I know why. Barry says there was a woman who pushed the investigation along, that woman off the bridge, yeah? Unusual surname she had, and when Elain was out the other night…”

“You mean when she got pissed?”

“Yes, when she got pissed. She said her sister had met some… had met some people, and one of them was called Steph Woodruff, and I am pretty sure that was the name Barry said for the woman who stirred up the Sussex lot”

“Give her a shout when we’re in?”

“Yeah, but first I want to get into the shops, down by King Square”

“Didn’t you get enough retail therapy yesterday?”

“Post Office, child. Passport form, and a pic if they have a machine”

“Ah!”

So he did, and there was, and we packed everything neatly together till we could get the time to fill in all the necessary bits and find what might be needed. Home, kettle on, and he pushed me into the living room and handed me the phone.

“Do it, then maybe you won’t talk tonight.

Cheeky assumption, but I couldn’t see me sleeping anywhere else but next to him. I took the instruction, and the phone.

“Ta, Adele. Inspector Powell, how can I help you?”

“Lainey!”

“Diane! Thank everything, a voice of bloody sanity at last! I heard about the national funding. How is everybody?”

National funding? What the hell was she on about? I gave her the gossip, permanent unit status, the usual small talk added on, said hello from everybody on the basis that if they had known I was calling her, they’d have done just that, and then I ran out of steam, or of diversions from the real reason for the call.

“Diane, I know that sort of pause. I know you. There’s something else, isn’t there?”

There was indeed, and it was starting to bring the shakes back. Some copper I was turning out to be.

“Aye, Lainey, you do know me, far too well. Yes, and it’s not good. Do you remember a Sergeant Price?”

Absolute silence for about ten seconds, but I could hear the catch in her voice as well as her breathing.

“Di. What’s happened to him?”

“Got the word back from his new nick, innit? Had another really shitty one, and broke down. Gone indoors after gardening leave, yeah?”

“What was it, Diane? An RTA?”

“That’s why I’m calling you, Lainey. Someone you know was involved in it. No, not like that! She organised finding the people to blame, or at least helped a lot. Woman was chased off a motorway bridge, over the rail and under the traffic. Adam was on scene”

Piss off, tears! They ignored my orders, and I could feel, hear my own voice cracking.

“He’s a good man, Lainey. This happened ages ago, and nobody here knew anything. How do we lose a friend like that, lose them so easily? The shit he’s had. Look, you know that Woodruff woman, aye? Could you have words? She lives near his nick. We don’t want to ring up, stir things, aye? Just let him know he’s not forgotten”

And I think she stirred them up, as Barry said, so she might know more.

“I will do what I can, Di. Give my best to everyone, aye? I’ll try and arrange a trip over, have a few beers and a curry, catch up. Do it soon, aye?”

“Yeah. Sorry”

“Never, ever say that for being the person you are, for caring, aye? Soon, girl”

I hung up after she went, disturbed by the speed at which she cut the call, and wondered what else she had seen of Adam. What I had encountered was bad enough, and both my friends in Traffic had held me well back from it.

Ripples, so many of them, breaking over so many people. I stood and walked past the kitchen, up the stairs to Blake’s bedroom, where I moved his things to mine. I had found my breakwater.

CHAPTER 46

The roast was a little overdone, but the roast potatoes and other trimmings were spot on. It was almost like a Christmas dinner, as after arguing on the shop about what would actually go on the plates we had simply agreed to do everything.

Dad liked it, from the way he cleared his down to the pattern on the china, so I counted it as a success. Mam cleared the dishes away, leaving them to soak, and we settled down in our usual places on armchairs and settee. Dad broke the comfort of our well-fed silence.

“You look a little out of sorts, son. What’s up?”

Blake shrugged. “Just finding out how new to this work we really are, Mark. So many things we could have worked on that we missed”

Mam’s face twisted. “And that man isn’t in a cell, then? Not doing fifteen years away from decent folk? And those two coppers?”

“Yes, but we met someone today, and they could, should have been spoken to, as well as a couple of others. Sloppy, we were”

Dad shook his head. “No, son. Mam’s right: he’s inside, and if I have it right, our little girl here is digging up more to throw at him. He’s done, and you two have a lot of other work coming your way, so just put this one to bed and get on and do the best you can for the next job. You were out to Dunraven today, then?”

I found my voice. “Yes. Turned out the woman in the tourist centre was the one who called me an ambulance”

Dad smiled, and it was soft.

“Then you’ve helped somebody clear themselves of some pain today, seeing you up, proud, fighting back. That’s a good thing. Look to the good stuff, aye? Mam, they haven’t seen the paper, have they?”

He threw over a copy of the Western Mail. “Page 8, love”

I flipped through to where he indicated, and there was the answer to Elaine’s odd comment.

A spokesman for the Welsh Government today announced the establishment of a task force to investigate current and historical serious crime cases, following the successful conclusion of an investigation by South Wales Police/Heddlu De Cymru into a series of violent sex attacks in the Cardiff and Swansea areas, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of five men. The Serious Crime Investigation Unit will remain based at Cardiff, under the management of South Wales Police, but will be available to adopt cases across Wales. The Cabinet Secretary’s spokesman stressed that as the unit was staffed entirely by serving police officers rather than requiring new appointments, there would be no impact on day-to-day policing.

I had wondered when it was all going to end, when I would be put back into uniform now the investigation and its extras were done and dusted, but this was a surprise. I hadn’t been looking forward to losing my team, and for once it seemed the senior managers were on my side. I turned to my comfort blanket.

“Elaine said something about this, love. National funding. You happy staying with the team?”

“You do ask some stupid questions, love. Now, we have a passport form to complete, and we need to sort out who signs the picture. Mark, you should have seen her in the photo booth! Spent more time primping than a primpy thing!”

I huffed. “Yeah, well, don’t know what your photo’s like, but this is ten years that picture will be in my passport, and I want it to look decent, innit? Now, as he mentions that, Mam, don’t we need to go shopping? New swimming cossie and all that? Don’t know if the one I had in Australia’d be fit for anything now!”

I didn’t need to say that after that trip with Bridget, I hadn’t actually had a proper holiday. Never mind; I had one to look forward to now.

“Blake, love? Fancy a run out day after tomorrow? I need to see some people, and I’d like to give them a chance to say hello to you”

I was off work, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stop by to see friends. I sent Deb a quick text as soon as I had Blake’s agreement. Two mornings later, waking up safe and comfortable each time, we took our seats in the little café. Blake looked round, after getting us a cup of tea and a bacon roll each, checking the clientele out.

“She’s not here, love, and we’ve already had breakfast”

“Aye, but I never could resist the smell of bacon. If you don’t want yours, leave it to me. I am guessing we are in here so she can vet me, aye? Safe house?”

“Dead right. They are really, really careful who gets in. She’s not been specific, but I gather they have had a few problems before. There’s a local lad tasked with a liaison role, feed any problems back up the line, but I suppose it’s better to have nothing to report in the first place. Ah. That’s her coming down the street now. Grab another cuppa for her?”

Deb came straight to me with a hug and a smile, and of course the cup of tea Blake brought over was accompanied by a bacon roll.

“What? If she doesn’t want it, I’ll have it”

Deb grinned. “You can sod off, son. My name is on that one! Nice to meet you at last, anyway. We all watched the news. Couldn’t hear much of it, the girls were shouting so loud. Di, thanks for this. We’ve already had a house meeting. Two of the girls will stay in their rooms, but the rest are dying to meet him”

“Thanks, Deb. We’re both off work just now, but I thought he’d be great for doing the statements. I still have to stay clear of the formal stuff, being so involved”

She nodded. “Yeah, we all understand. Anyway, get this down me and back to the house. Gemma’s brought some stuff home for you”

I looked over to Blake, who was just finishing his roll.

“Think he’s had enough calories today!”

“No, Di. She’s done some pastries and stuff for us all, but she’s brought you a box full, for you to take home. Family and that, as a thank you”

I could see little flickers in Blake’s face, as he digested her comments along with his second breakfast.

“Deb, Di? How many are we looking at here? How many victims?”

She stared at him, face carefully expressionless.

“Well, DC Blake, just for starters we have three rapes and a kidnapping. Will that do?”

That brought the flickers into the open.

“I think that will do for starters. I am going to be open and honest here, Deb, and say that I would love to see them banged away until they are so old they can’t hurt anyone ever again”

She nearly spat, as the emotion broke through.

“Well, I want to see them die in prison!”

It was Blake’s turn to snarl. “No, why should they spend their last years safe, secure and at our expense? Why should we keep the wolves off them?”

Deb’s jaw dropped, and then she laughed.

“I like your style, boy! Come on; the girls are all impatient”

Down the street and in the back door to the little kitchen, Gemma waiting for us with a large cardboard box. Deb waved her away.

“Want to let the girls know we’re coming through in five, Gem? Ta!”

She turned back to Blake.

“This is like an airlock. Gives them time to sort their heads out, or leave if they don’t think they can handle you. We don’t get many men in here, for obvious reasons, and certainly not in the main room. You are being honoured, son”

She counted the minutes down before leading the way to the connecting door, Blake’s eyes everywhere.

“Two houses together, aye?”

“Oh yes. Gives us the room we need, as well as two extra escape routes, if and when”

She left that one hanging, and apart from a raised eyebrow to me, so did Blake. The dining room was full of noise, but when we entered it managed to get even louder, with cheering as well as greetings to me. Deb held up both arms.

“QUIET!”

Calm descended, and she grinned. “Sometimes they listen to me, it seems”

She turned back to the girls.

“You’ve all seen this man on the telly, so you know who he is. He and Diane are off work at the moment, so this is a social visit, sort of get to know you thing”

“Why are you off work, Diane?”

Charlie, of course.

“Honestly? It was the trial. All a bit much for me, in the end. Got a result though, didn’t we?”

I waited patiently for the fresh wave of shouting to die down.

“Now, Blake’s off work to look after me, but he’s a good lad—you all know that, and I certainly do. So, at some point we want to give you an opportunity to talk to us formally. No compulsion, no forcing you to do anything you don’t want to. They are all going nowhere for a few years, so we have time to get together and add more than a few years to their sentences. Not asking anyone to commit themselves now, is it? Just saying you can hit back now, if you want. Not just them, either. We are here to listen. Oh, and who’s got the kettle duty?”

Gemma laughed happily. “Well, I’ve done the cakes, so someone else can do it. Megan?”

A dumpy girl I hadn’t seen before called over to me “Cocoa for you? And the man?”

I looked at him, and he nodded.

“Two cocoas, love, and he’s called Blake. Charlie? Tiff? Want to say hello?”

I introduced the two girls to a very quiet and softly-spoken partner, and asked the necessary question.

“Do either of you mind if I give him a quick idea of what happened to you?”

Tiff shook her head, while Charlie, as ever, sniffed.

“Not if it gets him more shit, no. Do it, Di”

“Thanks. Jump in if I get it wrong. Love---”

I saw them perk up at my very deliberate use of that word. Brutalised, raped, whatever had happened to them, they remained young girls dreaming of better, brighter things.

“Love, this is Charlie, and Tiff. Tiff had problems with her father, for starters. A little bit too interested when she let people see she was a girl, so she had to leave”

I kept my face turned away after that, for the expressions chasing themselves over his own face were disturbing.

“Obviously, she couldn’t stay at home, and she ended up being picked up by Joe Evans. Charlie here also met him, and some of our other friends. How old were you, love?”

“Fucking thirteen, Di”

“Thanks, girl. Blake, she was out for a walk, and she met Ashley Evans. Same as with me, in essence. Found in some bushes by a dog walker. Off to hospital, and had a visit from you know who, both of the bastards. So, she gets kicked out of home, ends up on the streets, and gets found by someone who looks after her, or so she thinks”

“Wonky-eyed cunt!”

A low rumble of a voice.

“Joe Evans?”

I pulled Charlie over into a hug.

“The very same, love. He gets her into a room, and I rather suspect he was looking to punt her affections out round his friends. Sorry, Charlie, if it sounds like I’m making a joke out of it, but it’s not easy for me, either”

No sniff this time. “Went out of the window, I did. Don’t know where I’d be now if I hadn’t, and Nana, of course. Enough, Di”

“Tiff?”

“Yeah, go on”

“Tiff was at home, and worried about how her Dad was reacting”

She was never forward, but this time she put her hand on my arm.

“Better if I tell this, Di. The girls all know my story. I was fourteen, came out to my parents. Mam wasn’t too bad, even took me shopping, and Dad seemed fine. At first. Then he started buying me clothes as well. Charlie?”

The other girl pulled her into a cuddle, and Tiff continued, speaking into Charlie’s chest.

“Not going into details, not now, but a lot of what he bought me was underwear. Stupid stuff. And then he wanted me to wear it for him… After, I told Mam, and she just shouted at me, called me a liar. She said, ‘Haven’t I done enough for you, you pervert?’, and I couldn’t take any more, couldn’t face another Daddy’s Girl night, so I left. I didn’t have any money, well, only a tenner…”

Her voice faltered for a moment.

“Same thing as Charlie, yeah? Wonky Eye picked me up in a Maccy D’s, last of my cash, nowhere to sleep, and he had a spare room. I didn’t get out of the window, though, not then. I still met Pritchard, though. And a couple of his mates”

Blake had my hand by then, and I thought he was going to crush it. His voice was still soft, though, his self-control as solid and safe as the way he drove.

“Thanks, girls. If you want, and only when you do, I’d like to put this down on paper. What we call a witness statement. We have other people we are looking at just now, but could you let me have the dates, especially your rape, Charlie. We need that to tie up some loose ends with some other people, and then… Then, there are some adjustments that need making to a number of jail terms”

CHAPTER 47
I had a week off, in the end. It had been needed, but Blake had his own life and home, and after a few days of company and warm mornings he had to leave. I realised I was getting very used to his presence, the comfort of his arms, and at the same time I had a suspicion that it was moving towards normality, and not in any sense banal. Just comfortable, appropriate, right for me.

I rattled around the old place for a couple of days before saying sod it, and one bright morning smartened myself up and drove into work. I had my flat to sort, as well, so I did need to get everything back on track.

There were only three in the office when I stepped in, Sammy, Rob and Alun. He was his usual self.

“The prodigal returns! We saw you didn’t kill off the fatted calf; he’s off out on an interview or six, with Candice. Some of your humint sources want to get things down on paper. Tea?”

“Yes please, mate. Hiya, Rob, Sammy. What’s the gossip?”

Sammy smiled. “Well, before that we have a formality”

“Uh?”

“Return to work interview, girl! Get it out of the way, bring you up to speed”

He took me over to his little space and logged onto his computer.

“Give me a sec… Right. All sorted? Back with us?”

“I really think so”

He rattled over a few key strokes.

“Right, that’s the official bit done. Back in, fit to continue work. Keeps the dragons off our backs. Now, news”

“Yeah! Elaine said something about national funding?”

“Oh yes indeed! We are now officially a permanent unit of appointment, under South Wales management but as a sort of annex. Our role is to take on historic cases across Wales, for all the forces. You up for that? Lots of reading, quite a bit of legwork?”

“I think so. Just historic shite, though?”

“That will be our main remit, but there’s more. Organised crime, in particular, but the stuff that doesn’t trigger the big boys as well as the stuff that drifts across boundaries. Oh, yes: where did that name come from? Serious Crime Investigation Unit? I know Bev Williams and the rest have been using it all over the shop, but who came up with it?”

“Don’t know, really. It was either Blake or me, when we found Omar. We had that idiot in the cottage, so it seemed heavyweight enough to get him out of our faces. Worked for us”

Sammy laughed. “Blake assures me you didn’t follow that one up with ‘Now fuck off!’ so I have no issues with it. Problem is the politics, mate. There’s been so much sodding argument, bloody empire-building arseholes thinking we’re stealing their turf, treading on their toes. They don’t like us using ‘investigation’, and we even had people chucking their toys because of the word ‘Serious’. Seriously, girl… You can laugh at that one, cause it was a joke”

I gave him a forced smile, as I struggled to keep the laughter down.

“So, what the hell are we, Inspector Patel?”

“What do you mean ‘We’, DC Owens? I don’t recall seeing your application cross my desk”

There was a twinkle in his eyes, though, and he slid a sheet of paper to me.

“Just sign there, mate. Ta! Welcome to the Serious Crime Review Office. Now, a few bits of news. We are staying here, rather than in the central nick, as those empires I mentioned have been a little twattish. We ARE getting new rooms here, as well as more staff, and we will be getting some stand-alone terminals, just in case. HMRC have asked to come along for the ride, so Sean may well be here even more than he already is. The remit is to look at what they call cold cases and do to them what we did to the Evans crew, coming at them from all angles”

That really did appeal to me, and I knew a number of little girls and young men who would also be rather pleased with the idea. Sammy simply sat there smiling as I worked the implications through in my head.

“Still need you to stay out of the way for some of this, girl. We had a Deborah Wells on the phone a couple of days ago, and that’s where Blake and Candice are. She won’t let them in the house, did you know that? Says her girls know him, they know you, but Candice is a stranger”

“Where are they doing it, then?”

“Old local nick, mothballed years ago. Just empty rooms and a public phone. Bit grim, but it gives them privacy. This one involves Evans Senior, or so Blake says, so you stay well away from it for now. Oh, and we’ve had four of your young men now come forward. Statements done and dusted, so what we need is the follow-up stuff, sorting out any admissions records at hospitals, GP’s records and so on. They’ve all signed permission over to us for that one”

“OK. Got a bit of a request on that first one, anyway. Deb was raped herself, as far as I can read the hints she gives, but she’s quite clear about where the villains are, as, in her words, she’s been to piss on their graves. I just thought I’d look at a bit of digging—no, not that sort of digging, you teasing sod! Put that look away!”

He gave a little mock-whistle exhibition of utter innocence.

“Who, me? What are you thinking? Seriously?”

“Possibly breaking confidence here, but bear with me. She was in a boys’ home---yes, they all are, but you know that. I gather it was an organised thing, which means other victims. So, two things. Firstly, she says they are dead, but we can’t be sure of that one. If we can find anyone around still, then they are clearly connected to serious crimes that need a review”

“Sounds good to me, girl. The rest?”

“Yeah. It’s a word she’s quite fond of, and if there are other victims it works for them too. Requital, that’s what she says. Like her girls: not just revenge, yeah, but validation, letting them see they’re not forgotten, still people”

He turned serious.

“You’ve been giving this one a lot of thought, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I have. I think it goes back to my own case, obviously. My own rape”

There. Said it.

“And there was that first lad we met, Vernon Pugh, the one who’d scrubbed himself all over, and the other lads I found. All of them the same. Their fault, their failing, their bloody crime. If we can lift some of that self-hate, then I’d like to give it a go”

Sammy smiled in the gentlest of ways, as I so rarely saw from him.

“And there you have it, Di. That is all the reasons you are right for this job, and why that signature was a formality. Would you mind a bit of informality?”

I guessed what he meant, standing up with him as he came round the desk for a hug.

“Welcome back to the team, girl. Really welcome”

He let go and stepped back, grin returning.

“Oh, and I think we need a cake run. You up for it?”

Cheeky as ever, but I did the necessary after a quick check on our tea and coffee reserves. Back in, terminal on, and armed with a file from Sammy I started the grind of working through possible admission dates for Casualty/A&E and our young men. Rob was on the ball, and as my attention was lost in timelines and geography, cups of tea materialised next to me at regular intervals. In between, I ran a number of internet searches on Deb. If I could manage it, I promised myself, she would have her requital.

The day evaporated, rather like my tea, and in the end the office was buzzing with conversation and comparison of notes as the others returned, each with a greeting to me, the warmth of my welcome clearly shared with Sammy. I closed the terminal down after the obligatory mass save of files, and turned to the team as they demolished the cake supply I had left for them. Candice swallowed, looked at Blake, and gave me a grin.

“You dug up some right ones for us, Di! That Charlie, bloody hell, is she one hard little girl!”

I shook my head. “Strong, I think, but not hard. She throws that stuff out as a shield. What did she say?”

The Office Blonde held up a hand. “Nope, not doing that bit. Chinese walls for now, isn’t it? Anyway, you already had her story, so you know. That man is a real piece of shit”

“Well, I shall await the issue of charges then. Put your teeth away, woman. Not being funny, but this one is personal, so I’ve got the gloating duties”

“Yeah, Di, and that’s now a team responsibility. Oh, and one I can talk about: little Tiffany. She’s given up Joe Evans for all sorts of nasties including rape, and she’s done the same for Dai Pritchard. That is three at least who are going to see their futures shorten dramatically. What have you been working on, though?”

“Ah, the lads who met Pritchard and the others, the ones who came forward from the Smugglers and that?”

“Yes?”

“Got all the dates, so just working through a mixture of stuff including Pritchard and the other bastard’s shift pattern”

A thought surfaced.

“Oh! What exactly has gone on with the three bodies I heard about? Call centre, control room shit and that? And what about Sean, and the financial crap? And---”

She was laughing happily/

“Oh dear, so many questions! Don’t take so long off, woman, and you’ll be able to keep up. Firstly, three bodies on suspension from work and bail from us. We are awaiting telecoms forensics on their mobiles, but we’ve already got the details of address searches through Equifax and electoral rolls made on their log-ins. They are tied up tidy to Sarah Powell’s hospital visit, for starters, as well as to another visit you may be aware of. Inquiries continue, need to know, wait quietly, etc”

She took my hand.

“Just wait, love. They are toast, and they know it. The others aren’t going anywhere, so no worries. Now, we are going to have a livener after work, aye? You up for it? And welcome home”

What other answer could I give, and where else would I, could I sit that evening except comfortably against my man? The conversation, by custom and practice, stayed well away from shop, and so I was able to make a whole series of sexist comments about men, travel, maps and guidebooks, while Blake returned the favour.

“Self-catering accommodation, it is, so dunno where you get the idea you’ll be seeing any sights. There’ll be cooking and cleaning to get done”

I was home again.

CHAPTER 48
I was home, in several different ways, including the return to my flat in Cardiff. Mam and Dad understood, just as they could see how I was healing, and why. Each day was a reminder of how the way my work is depicted on large and small screen is so completely wrong.

It isn’t boring, though it sounds like it should be, for it involves an awful lot of reading, inwardly digesting and cross-referencing. I imagined Sean’s boys felt much the same, and the closest experience I can give as an example is in solving a particularly complex cryptic crossword. Everything is there; you just need to find out why.

I gathered little snippets and hints of progress on other cases, despite Candice’s Chinese walls, and it was satisfying in the extreme. Our friends, it appeared, were most definitely ‘toast’, and Blake was very bullish indeed about his brother’s work. Toast, with decent marmalade, to really stretch a metaphor.

I kept in touch with Elaine, partly to see how she was getting on, and partly as a concerned friend. She had been on the edge all the time she worked with us, and my mind couldn’t let go of her clear obsession with ‘three villains’. What had happened to her sister had so clearly scarred Elaine it was frightening. I don’t know whether it was my own status as victim that gave me the insight, but I wasn’t sending it away as unwanted.

Keep an eye on her, DC Owens.

I had spent a while on Deb’s history as well, and while the Crown Prosecution Service was considering the charges we were stacking up against our little group, only some of whom were already banged away, I had found the reports on two possible children’s homes whose dates matched Deb’s age, and the first one left me wanting to close the file, and after washing my hands never, ever open it again. It involved not just sexual abuse, but actually renting out those lucky enough to reside there to friends of the managers.

The post-mortems on the numerous bodies found buried on the premises were enough to leave me sleepless for a week, but Castle Keep boys’ home in Carlisle was not the place I was seeking. That one turned out to be Mersey View, near Runcorn.

I had a moment of dislocation as I recovered from the abomination that was Castle Keep and started to unpick the history of Mersey View: why did these hellholes always have a name suggesting airy lightness, scenery and freedom?

I realised, as I pushed the Castle Keep file away from me, that Blake was at my shoulder.

“You all right, love? Bit green round the gills?”

“I’ll be fine. That one’s just a bit of a horror show”

Before I could stop him, he had picked it up and was flicking through it, his face going pale as he read, before he closed it with a shudder.

“Jesus fucking wept, Di! What is it with people?”

I drew a long breath, struggling to keep it a sigh rather than a sob.

“Not all, love. That’s just a bloody good reminder of why we do this, isn’t it? The only good things in that file are the facts that it is closed and the people who ran it are never coming out of prison. The other one; I think that’s Deb’s place”

He leafed through the second file.

“Cheshire? I thought she was Welsh?”

“Yeah, but she’s a Gog, innit? All scouse and gobbly goose accent. I suspect she’s down here to be as far away from it as she can be, while still living in Wales. Got a lot to do with this one, but I’m reasonably sure it’s where she was. Trouble is, it’s English, and THAT means it’s outside our remit. We’ll need to feed it up the chain, see what they think”

Another long breath, not a sob. Not now, not today.

“Let’s have a quick word with Sammy about this, then I want to go and see Gemma”

“What for?”

“Did she do any cakes or that while you were at the house?”

“Ah! Cake run for the team?”

“I think so. I also need to get the smell of that other file out om nostrils, or I’ll be sick”

I left Blake to dispose of the excrement and ambled over to Sammy.

“Oh mighty lord and master!”

“What do you want, serf?”

“Serious point. I think I’ve managed to tie down the home that Deb was abused in, but it’s actually in Runcorn, so I don’t know if our remit covers it. You said we were an asset for Welsh forces, and it’s Cheshire, so…”

“Ah. Tell you what: drop me a quick note to give a handle to things, and I’ll run it past the brass. Could actually be useful to them, way Bev Williams was talking. You don’t look happy, girl”

“Ah, the file on the Runcorn place was shitty, but there was another one I looked at, and it left me wanting to puke”

His mouth twisted. “I saw the name on that one, and while I ‘m that old, I can remember my old boss talking about it. Big news, back in the day. What do you want to do? I mean, right now. You need to step away from the desk for a few minutes”

“Already sorted, if you don’t mind. One of Deb’s girls is a pastry chef, well, a cook full stop, but she does bloody good cakes”

A beaming grin. “Can’t think of a better or more productive use of your time and the team’s resources, DC Owens! I would quite fancy---No. Surprise us, yeah?”

It was a bit further to the shop where Gemma worked than to our usual source of calories, so Blake came with me as driver, as well as because it was simply nice to have him along. We found some on-street parking, much to our astonishment, and ambled round to check out the window display.

There were all sorts of nice treats in there, most of which suited our needs, so we joined the queue, the shop being rather busy. The woman at the counter was bright and cheery, though.

“Hiya, what can I get you?”

“Hello. Is Gemma in today?”

Her face clouded. “Problems?”

I smiled back.

“Not that I know of. We’re friends of hers”

“Ah! Just, sometimes, she gets a bit of, you know?”

I nodded. “We know all too well. If she’s in, could you just tell her it’s Di and Blake?”

“Just a sec, then”

She popped her head through a door, obviously to the kitchen area, and in a very short time Gemma was in front of us, in kitchen whites and hairnet, a broad smile splitting her face and flour on her left cheek.

“Hiya, you two! Business or pleasure?”

“Absolutely pleasure, I hope, woman!”

I saw how that one word affected her, and she stood perceptibly straighter.

“Let me guess: office cake run?”

Blake laughed out loud. “You know us so well! Di tells me you have fed her up with all sorts of nice things, and we just thought we needed to spread the word. We have seven of us in today, so what can you suggest?”

“Oh. Are you after something to slice, or something for people to grab with a cuppa?”

He looked at me, and I shrugged, leaving it up to him.

“Both really, I suppose”

She turned to her colleague.

“Judy, could you box me one of the lemon drizzles while I do some of the pastries? Seven, you said, Blake?”

“Aye. Oh, Judy, is it? You got a business card, anything like that? If our boys and girls enjoy this, it would be nice to tell them where we got the cakes”

The older woman handed us two boxes across the counter along with a handful of leaflets.

“Look at the queue behind you, son. That’s all from word of mouth, and that’s her doing. Get the next customer, could you, Gem? Ta!”

As Gemma took the next order, Judy leant towards us, her voice hushed.

“Yes, I know, and so od my regulars, and nobody cares, because she is so right as he is, isn’t it? But she gets the odd visit, when her dad’s had a few, or if somebody’s feeling stupid, so sorry if I was a bit off”

My man smiled, twice. The first one was a warm one, intended for Judy, and then while that smile stayed on his lips it left his eyes. He passed Judy a business card.

“Here’s who we are, Judy. Gemma is a friend, and no lie there, aye? You get anything more like that, you pass me or Di here the details, and we will sort it. That’s a promise. Now, Di tells me her pastries and that are special. Are they?”

“Bloody hell, aye! She has a real talent, that one. Our takings have gone right up since we took her on. Speaking of which, and not being funny, she needs to get back to it. Thank you both, though. Good to see she has proper friends. You come back any time”

I grinned at her.

“And spend more money on cakes?”

Judy smiled back. “No. Just stop by if you’re in the area, and there’ll probably be something new we’ll need a guinea pig for”

She shook our hands over the counter after I paid, and we were off back to the office. The cakes lasted about fifteen minutes, but then Alun was out. One of the leaflets took up a permanent place on our team notice board.

Another week of digging followed, and I was starting to get a handle on Mersey View. Deb had been there, as had a whole telephone book full of ‘other boys’, but I held back from making contact until Sammy was able to give us a nod or a shake of the head. I wanted to get rolling, really dive in and see what I could give back to ‘Nana’, but until I was given a green light I had to hold back. I still sorted names into order of priority, though, still laid out who I really wanted to talk to when, if, I could.

Not that long afterwards, the bulk of the team away talking to some woman out by Newport, my phone went, so I picked it up and answered on autopilot.

“Serious Crime Review Office…”

“Di? Lainey. Just been talking to one of my sister’s friends. Can you talk?”

“No worries, Lainey. Just me in today, all the others out on an old rape case”

“Nobody we know and love?”

I knew exactly what she meant by that, and once again had a little twitch at how obsessed she was with the Evans crew. I kept my tone light.

“Need to know, Inspector Powell, need to know, but no. There are more arseholes in the male population than that family”

She did laugh at that one, so not as bad as I had expected.

“Had a word from someone in England, aye?”

Oh hell.

“Aye. Yes. About Adam?”

“Absolutely. No secrets; you were spot on, Di. Bad way, aye? Turned out the friend was involved in the same mess afterwards, so she needed no telling about the choice of outcomes”

That must have been the Woodruff woman. Keep it light, DC Owens.

“Management bullshit from you now, Inspector Powell?”

“Well, goes with the turf, I’m afraid. They’ve got me doing the overtime budgets”

“Ouch. This friend?”

“Girl from over here, friend of Sar’s, aye? Sound as. Anyway, seems Adam has his own friends, and good ones. You were right to be worried, girl, but he’s getting back up now. They’ve even got him lined up to play folk music”

FOLK music? I wondered how much of a breakdown he had suffered.

“Thought you said they were friends, Lainey. Bloody hell!”

“Whatever it takes, aye? Want me to pass on your regards?”

That left me stalled. What did I really want from Adam? Water under the bridge, but he was still someone I had cared about, and that thought told me I still did care about him.

“Er… I’ll think on that one”

“Talk to me, Diane!”

Her voice softened as she continued. “Ah. A good bloke, you said? Bit more than that?”

I couldn’t stop the breath that surged out of me.

“No, not really. Well, not actually, but I did sort of hope, innit?”

“And Blake? They’re not exactly from the same mould, is it? What I remember of Adam he wasn’t exactly Mr Six Pack, and Blake, well, no midget, is he?”

How many more old wounds would she reopen?

“Ah, Lainey…”

Bloody tears. Why now, for fuck’s sake? Why not stay back till after she hung up?

“Di? You OK?”

“Lainey, a second or two, aye? Thank fuck the rest are out. Look, it’s self-confidence, innit? Blake, well, if it wasn’t for what we’ve been through, us, you, the team, no way could I go near him. Big man, big personality”

“Hard bastard, aye?”

I thought on that one for a few seconds, but what I saw in my mind’s eye was a big man with a little girl, that gentleness.

“Aye. But that’s not what he is, is it? I mean, he doesn’t hang back, and he takes no crap, but he’s Job, he’s serve and protect, and I mean protect, aye? You should have seen his face when he realised who that little shit was, the one who pissed himself. He worships you, Lainey. But Adam… When he was here, it wasn’t like that. I mean, he was always fit, lovely bum with the cycling, but it wasn’t that”

I found my life assembling itself as I spoke, new ways of thinking rising up through the slime left on me by Ashley Evans, and I made a decision as I spoke to one of my dearest friends. Thank you, Elaine Powell. I tried to put some sense into the words that followed, but it wasn’t easy, and there was something else in what Elaine was saying, something she wasn’t telling me.

“Shit, look. After what happened to me, that bastard, someone like Blake, I couldn’t even have spoken to him, innit? Adam, dunno, you could just talk to him. He was almost like a girlfriend, that way. I mean, I don’t mean, I mean not like Chris, aye? I don’t mean gay man stuff, and anyway he got married to that English tart, so he wasn’t, but, well. I could have, yeah? I just didn’t have the guts to ask him, and then it was too late”

“And Blake? Second best, is it?”

That started to drive away the black clouds.

“You are a teasing cow, Inspector Powell. You know that. Just, you wonder, aye? What ifs? Well, it’s academic now, but, well, I cared for him here and that doesn’t go away. Just let me know he’s OK when you can”

She was quiet for several seconds. Definitely something she wasn’t telling me.

“Di, I promise. Are you sure you don’t want me to pass on your best?”

I made another decision, equally as important to me.

“No, Lainey. Just, well, just tell him he’s not been forgotten over here, and that people still like to know old friends are OK. If you can do that, perhaps he’ll understand”

“I’m sure he will”

“Thanks, love. I mean that word, Lainey”

“I know, Di. We’ll catch up properly. Get Chris and the rest all together, go out and repaint Cardiff”

Make it a joke, Diane.

“Pink or red?”

“Do I care which, as long as there’s beer involved? Later, Di!”

What was going on with Adam? Leave it for now--- water under the bridge, exactly as I said. I closed down my terminal and went round the corner from the station to pick up some bits and pieces of shopping I would need.

Poor, poor Adam.

As the working day came to a close, and the team reassembled. Sammy called us into a meeting.

“Busy day, mates! Now, some news. The first of our new tranche of new chums is arriving tomorrow. There will be four of them, and what I would like is for each of them to shadow one of you till we get an idea as to how switched on they are.

“Part two: Di has identified a cold case with particular relevance to our team. The problem is that it is in a heathen country to the East. Bev Williams, being a devious sod, is empire-building, and what he thinks is that we can widen our scope, offer our services for the cold case stuff. Expect some politics on that one, and I will keep you up to date as we go.

“And, he says with a flourish, the CPS have been busy indeed. Ashley Evans was charged earlier today with VAT fraud, income tax fraud, conspiracy to defraud and money-laundering. Oh dear, you may say, oh dear, how sad, never mind. Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Say thank you to your little brawd when you get time, him and his boys, and that brings me to the final part of all this. We have a bloody busy day ahead, and I want to divvy it up a bit. Rhys, Alun? You have two people to charge with perverting and conspiracy to pervert. Rob and Ellen? One more, same shit, in Swansea. I suspect they’ll all be remanded, given the nature of the charges, but let me know if they get bailed as soon as and we’ll see where they go. I am not completely satisfied they’re the last ones. Then there are five more people to charge”

That feral, savage grin was back in place.

“Blake, Candice. You have a whole raft of charges for four people currently in custody. Four male rapes each for everyone except Ashley Evans and the nutter, as Joe Evans is to be assessed again before any further action. What I would like, but it’ll be down to the Prison, is of you bring them out in sequence, so they have to trot in four separate times rather than doing each one for all four at once. Make the bastards sweat.

“Then Pritchard and Evans are to be charged for two separate rapes of underage victims. That is the two little girls Blake and Di met. That makes four charges for Hansen, Jamie Evans and Bob Evans. One charge for Ashley Evans. Nine charges for Pritchard”

My face gave me away, and his snarl got nastier.

“That little girl didn’t manage to get out of the window for some time, Di. Not for nearly a week”

I couldn’t say anything, for that last bit, on top of the way that file on Castle keep had soiled me, was too much for words. Sammy was still doing perky sadistic bastard, though.

“That, of course, leaves DC Owens, whose connection to the prisoners is clear. I ran it past the CPS, and while it is best she does not get involved in laying charges, such a raft of paperwork will clearly need an extra pair of hands to carry it about. Di: back seat on the charging of those six, but please feel free to stand next to Blake and Candice and offer the world your sweetest and lightest smile”

He put down the paper he had been reading from and rubbed his eyes before offering us a much more genuine smile.

“Mates, this is it, in essence. This is where we nail the cell door shut for each of these shits. You have all gone above and beyond here, and, depending on whether they are stupid enough to go for trial, it’s over. We get it done and dusted, and we go out as a crew and we celebrate. I am proud to work with you”

I left the others to discuss the logistics of travel for the following day, and packed my things, making sure I got what was left of the lemon drizzle cake. I collared Blake as soon as he had finished with Candice, and he gave me such a look, so full of concern and love I could have wept, and I knew my decision was right.

“Di?”

“Yes. Love?”

“You want company tonight?”

“Please”

Packed up, everything in the office closed down, he drove us to my flat by way of the local Chinese takeaway, and we sat on my little sofa watching some crap or other on the TV while I assembled my courage.

“Blake, my love?”

“Yes?”

“Could you grab my handbag for me?”

He picked it up and held it out to me.

“Could you open it for me, Blake? There’s something in there for you. For us”

“You’re trembling, Di”

“Just open the bag, Blake”

“Oh. Ah. Di, love, are you sure?”

I shook my head, taking the pack of condoms off him and pulling him to his feet.

“I don’t really know, love. Can we please go and find out?”

CHAPTER 49
My alarm’s tone was slow to permeate my consciousness, or, to put it more simply, my body was in a state of denial. Loud buzzing? Na. I’m asleep. Staying that way. Which is why, ever since the second day of working shifts, I put the damned thing well out of reach.

The light was showing around the edges of the heavy curtains I had bought after my first set of night shifts, and I knew it was really time to get moving, but there was a bloody great arm across me.

Rewind. Blake’s arm.

I couldn’t help it, and the tears came. The alarm, still beeping away, had clearly woken him as well, and I can only guess he felt the catch of a sob in my body.

“Di? Love? I didn’t hurt you last night, did !?”

I pulled his arm to me as I pushed myself back into his embrace, remembering how slow, how gentle…

“Sorry. Just putting everything together, what with what Sammy said and that, and realising it’s not over, not really”

I felt him tense, and pulled his arm even tighter around me

“No, Blake, not like that. It’s all cliché stuff. One door closes, another opens. I mean, what Sammy said, doors shut on them, all that stuff. Please don’t tell me I’m being silly, but all I have had in my life has been trying to get back at those three shits, and bang, it’s done. And it’s all past stuff, things that have happened, done and dusted and gone. I never really had anything in front of me, it was always a push from behind”

“And now?”

Typical of him to leave it hanging like that, but there was more, and so I turned in his arms so that I could see his eyes and the worry in them, and tried to soothe it away with a smile.

“Not like you are thinking, love. It’s a future I see now, isn’t it?”

I let that sit for a second before adding “With you, if you want”

He kissed me, all morning breath and stubble, and it was al the answer either of us needed.

The cheeky bugger still grabbed the shower before me as I crossed the room to shut the bloody clock off. I spent my time in the shower singing.

Candice was waiting for us, ostentatiously looking at her watch and tapping her foot, which set me blushing and her laughing, but her first hug was for Blake, and she gave him a little whispered warning he later relayed to me.

“Hurt her, and I will kill you”

Standing quietly behind her, looking a little nonplussed, was a young man in a leather jacket, Candice turned and beckoned him forward.

“DCs Di Owens and Blake Sutton, this is Jon Philips, a new chum. Sammy’s sending him along to do the heavy lifting with the files and stuff”

“I thought that was my job, woman!”

“Na, leave that to the youngsters. You’ve just got the sweetness and light job for Ashley, Dai and Bob. Very important, that bit”

I looked at the young man, trying to get a feel for him. Jon not son, Jon not son, you’re not that old, DC Owens.

“You know what today’s job entails. Jon?”

“Er, I got some bits and pieces through the grapevine, but not all of it”

“Well, it’s part of this team’s role. We sorted a case involving a series of assaults and rapes, and then we decided to see what else our friends had done. That gives us a raft of further charges to hand out, but this raft isn’t going to do any bloody floating, if you catch my drift”

He smiled, and I liked him immediately. “This be the men who did over all those twinks?”

“Oh yes indeed. You know that story?”

“Been all round the village---er, yes, I am. Sorry if that causes problems”

Candice snorted. “Given who started this team, I hardly bloody think so! Anyway, Jonny boy, there’s more than that. Two of them are also to be charged with other rapes, this time of very young girls. We haven’t told them why we’re coming, just getting them to Cardiff Central Nick for the day. I am very much looking forward to seeing their faces again, just this once. Di, Blake? I’ve got the X5 booked out, so plenty of room. You want to drive, mate?”

Blake nodded, and she handed him the pouch with the vehicle log and keys, turning back to the young lad.

“He’s a proper driver, Jonny boy. Watch and learn, aye? We offski then, you two?”

It’s not that far from our base in James Street to the Central Nick, and I was able to sort a few things out with the Office Blonde, in particular why we were doing this particular job in a police station rather than at the prison. She laughed happily.

“Girl, you know what a sadistic bastard he can be?”

“Yeah, course”

“Well, just felt they’ll have settled into the prison by now. Sort of at home, especially on the nonce wing, and he wants them to be as fucking uncomfortable as possible. Sod what the courts give them, he wants them to HURT. Jonny Boy, that is why they will be charged sequentially for each rape and assault rather than each one getting all his charges in one go”

She turned back to me. “Hansen, Jamie Evans, Pritchard, Bob Evans. Bastard Senior can sit and wait for all of it to be done, and then it’ll be his turn”

The boy was smiling. “I like his style! Who’s doing what?”

She held a finger up to my lips. “Blake and me, tag-teaming each one. Little Miss Sunshine here for public gloating. You for enigmatic face-memorising and headfucking duties. Got that one?”

He laughed, happily. “I really do think I’ll like this team!”

Round the back of the Central, park up and in, with a quick word of explanation to the Custody Sergeant, who said he had a number of briefs outside, called in from the duty solicitor list. No expensive suit today, Ashley? Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

I was beginning to think in bloody catch phrases. Bugger.

Hansen was first in, and I had the full sunlight and sugar smile waiting, as the first charge was laid, and to my delighted surprise ‘Jonny Boy’ had exactly the right expression of silent threat and face-memorising to bounce Hansen away from any balance he may have managed to find.

Jamie Evans, who cast his eyes all over the room, I assume trying to spot Elaine.

Bob Evans, who got the full force of my own smile while trying to stay as far away from me as he could but still had to stand by the desk.

Pritchard, and back to Hansen, and round and round. Halfway through the parade, one of the briefs asked Candice why we simply didn’t charge each one of them with all his alleged offences at once.

“Oh, I am terribly sorry, but that’s just how the files were stacked when I picked them up in the office. I mean, as you can see, I am blonde, and I didn’t want to risk a Blonde Moment and miss one. We’ll just work through them steadily, and that’ll be it, sir”

Pritchard, again, for the last of the assaults on young men, and Candice was utterly evil in how she did it. The last of that suite of charges laid, Pritchard had turned to walk off with his brief when she purred, “Oh, one more thing, Mr Pritchard!”

He turned back to her, looking puzzled, and I saw the lawyer’s shoulders sag as he recognised what her sharp little smile and new bundle of papers suggested. She rattled through the dates and place and times, and then:

“…you are charged on each occasion with the rape of a child under fifteen years of age, being Thomas Wesley Black, known as Tiffany”

The brief’s eyes closed at that, Jon’s own eyes boring into Pritchard’s, and I stepped forward to say my little piece. Sweetness, light and fucking hatred in every syllable.

“That is right, Dai. It’s funny how the past catches up with you, isn’t it? Sometimes we have to wait a while, but patience is such a virtue, don’t you agree? You can go, for now. I am sure the nice man here will want to see what your intentions are for the Plea and Direction Hearing. We’ll see you there”

Utter terror was there for the first time. I had seen him in fear, as well as in arrogance, but behind the fear, just this once, was despair.

I turned back to the Custody Sergeant, deliberately looking away from Pritchard’s departure.

“Can we have Ashley Aaron Evans now, please?”

The big man came in with a uniformed lad, and I turned to give him one of those utterly insincere smiles.

“Hello once again, Councillor Evans! This may take a little while; did you perhaps wish to use the toilet before we begin? Ease your bladder, perhaps?”

Oh yes, you remember me now you piece of filth, and now I know, really know that there are men, real men, in this world, in this room, men who show you up for what you are…

Wind it in, DC Owens. Police, Professional. Don’t overstep.

“My colleagues have something to put to you, MISTER Evans. Officer Sutton?”

Once again, the charges were laid, and they were grievous bodily harm and “the rape of a child under fourteen years of age, being Charlton Dilwyn Surtees, also known as Charlotte”

He turned back to me, face red.

“Who the fuck are you talking about, you little whore? Yes, I remember you! Loved every minute of it, didn’t you?”

The brief was quickly at him.

“Mr Evans! Please stop. Audio and visual recording, and you have been cautioned!”

“Oh, piss off! Fucking conspiracy, the whole thing! Who the fuck is Charlton Surtees?”

Candice pulled me back, but gently.

“She is a very brave transgender girl, Evans. She was thirteen at the time you attacked her. I am sure you will remember her when you are in front of a jury again, but I suggest you follow the advice of your legal advisor here, and consider the wisdom of making any further such remarks. Oh: one more thing”

She nodded to the Uniform, who started to lead Evans away, and as he was going through the door, in her sweetest voice, “As you see, our enquiries continue, Mr Evans”

The door slammed, and the Sergeant turned to us.

“I think I need a cuppa. You lot as well”

We followed him through the door into the main part of the nick, and he led us up to their own Greasy, where he bought a round of teas and got straight to the point.

“You are the lot who caught those sods for all the other stuff, aren’t you?”

We all nodded, even Jon, the cheeky so and so.

“I thought so, but there was a lot more going on there. What was all the extra chat about?”

Blake looked at me for permission, but I shook my head. My turn, my life, my responsibility.

“It was something that came out in my trial”

I caught the Sergeant’s puzzled expression, and held up a hand.

“No, not me on trial, Ashley Evans. I was someone he had raped. I was sixteen”

“Sodding hell! No wonder he didn’t like you!”

“Yup. And Pritchard and Bob Evans were along for a bit of perverting the course. That reminds me. Candice? Charlie’s visit? In hospital?”

“Awaiting CPS, Di. And the other arrests”

“Ta! I did wonder. Anyway, Sarge---”

“Kieran”

“Ta! Anyway, Kieran, it was something I saw in his face at, well, MY trial: puzzlement. He knew who I was today, because I banged him away, but during the trial it was all sort of ‘Which one was that, then?’. As if there were more, and he was trying to place me from a list of victims. Charlie’s the first one so far to come forward. I really expect more”

He reached across the table to shake my hand.

“Thank you. Thank you all. Sometimes it is worthwhile doing this job. Not often, aye? But today, oh yes indeed”

Print-outs collected, notebooks completed, and back to James St, Jon so quiet in the back of the Beemer. Eventually, though, he found his voice.

“Di?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you always that bloody frightening?”

The other two laughed, and Blake just called over his shoulder, “She had a bloody good teacher, Jon! If our old boss had been there, they’d have been mopping up piss all day! Reminds me, love. Er, Di? We need to see what’s happening with the other little shit. He may be excused sharp things right now, but he still needs putting in the frame”

Neither Candice nor Jon missed his slip, and as I took the risk to squeeze his thigh, our Office Blonde reached across the seat back to stroke my cheek with real affection, before turning back to the new chum.

“Jonny Boy? New Chum? How are you at organising stag and hen nights?”

He laughed, and once again I felt that he might just fit very nicely into our little family.

“Depends on how Pink you like them, Candice!”

Life was good, and getting better.

“Blake, LOVE? Drop these troublemakers off and go and see Deb?”

“Yeah, let the new boy learn about the paperwork, aye?”

“Oh yes indeed”

We did indeed drop them off, and collected Blake’s car for a drive out to the safe house, and on the way, just on the off-chance, you understand, I took him past some estate agents.

If I could help it, that morning’s waking would be the pattern for my future.

CHAPTER 50
I rang Deb as Blake drove, and she was on form.

“They been buried yet?”

“Not yet, Deb. But we’ve issued the shovels”

There was quite a pause,

“Will my girls be safe?”

I thought for long enough to be sure.

“Yes. I do think so. The bastard was surprised enough, well, almost to say ‘which girl?’, but he’s not quite that stupid”

“Which particular bastard?”

“Charlie’s. Tiff’s all but shat himself”

“Oh good. You coming over?”

“Yes, if that’s not a problem”

“Never for you, girl. Just that we have our regular liaison night with PC Welby this evening, so you might have to watch what you say”

“No worries, Deb. Kettle on? We’re about ten minutes away now”

“Just you and the big man?”

“Just me and Blake, yes. I would like to talk to you, as well, if I can”

“What about?”

“Girls first, if you don’t mind”

“Intrigued now. Tea or cocoa?”

I turned to my driver. “Tea, coffee or chocolate, love?”

“Has Gemma been baking?”

Deb heard that, and confirmed that they would have a selection ready. Blake grinned and opted for tea.

“My waistline will end up knackered otherwise!”

We parked up, Deb waiting by the back door, and once again we were taken straight through to the big room, where what must have been the whole sort-of-family was waiting, with the exception of Gemma, who Deb explained was still on her way from work.

“Paul will be along in an hour, Di, so anything private, please het it done as soon as, OK?”

One of the girls brought us our drinks as a sea of faces shone eagerly and impatiently at us, and the connecting door banged shut on Gemma’s arrival with three cardboard boxes. We were ready.

“Grab a seat, woman, and we will tell you as much as we can about today’s work. Tiff, Charlie? Important question: are you both happy that we share this with everyone here?”

There was a ripple in the group as hands reached out to the two, and Charlie answered for both.

“We talked it over, me and Tiff, and yeah. If they go for a trial, we need to stand up and tell our stories, make sure they go down hard, so go on. Tell us how it went”

Blake settled back in his chair, doing his best to look as non-threatening as he could manage.

“You will all understand Di here has to take a back seat, what with being a victim. We had so much paperwork, though, we needed some extra hands to carry it. Oh dear. How sad--- sod it, you’ve got me saying that now, you so and so! Anyway, we worked through all five for a mix of charges including assault occasioning actual or grievous bodily harm, indecent assault and rape, and we deliberately kept Pritchard till last.

“We’ve got our dear, sweet Candice to read the charges, Office Blonde, aye? And another one of ours not saying anything, just giving each of them the hairy eyeball, while my lover here is smiling sweetly, all innocence and venom at the same time. And we finish up the last of the charges for the attacks on young men, and Candice lets Dai Pritchard turn away, lets him move towards the holding room again, and she says, ‘Oh silly me, how blonde I am, one more thing, Mr Pritchard’, and he stops dead”

I slapped his arm. “She didn’t say all of that! It was just the ‘one more thing’ bit”

The girls were laughing now, all except Charlie and Tiff, who were staring silently at Blake. He kept the cheery style going, though.

“And then Candice reads the charges for all of the rapes Tiff told us about, and he’s gobsmacked. Then this one, bloody hell! She gives him such a false smile, and it’s all about how the past catches up with you, and how great a virtue patience is, and how she’ll see him at the plea and direction hearing and I tell you what, ladies, I think he might even have shat himself”

Tiff had collapsed in tears, several friends supporting her, but Charlie was still in focus.

“No charges for what those two fuckers did at the hospital?”

Blake reached out for one of Gemma’s treats.

“Still with the legal people. We have three other people on remand for conspiracy, the ones we believe gave Bob and Dai the heads-up each time. They will probably give us the go-ahead tomorrow, and we’ll do another visit. This is lovely, Gemma. Didn’t get much of the last lot, our team being such gannets”

I sniffed, deliberately mirroring Charlie. “I took the last of the lemon drizzle back to ours!”

There was another ripple in our audience as that sank in, and he grinned at them all.

“Yeah, we are, and she’s got me looking in estate agents already. It’s all your fault, you sods, clearing people’s minds. Terrible! Anyway, that’s almost everything. Just one left”

“Cunt!”

“Can’t disagree with that one, Charlie. Di? Your turn?”

I swallowed the bite of apricot pastry and looked hard at the girl, who showed me her teeth.

“You know, girls, it was funny, at the trial. When he raped me, no false courage here, it was a huge thing in my life. I went so long feeling his eyes on me, his hands, personal stuff I don’t want to get into, but some of you know exactly what I mean. And there I am, in the witness box, and his expression isn’t an ‘oh shit’ but more of a ‘which one is this, then?’, so I am thinking there are other victims out there waiting to be found. You were just the first, Charlie, and I don’t mean that ‘just’ as a slight, yeah?”

“I get what you mean, Di. What happened?”

“He was brought out, and I didn’t want him to feel we were being oppressive—Blake! Got a tissue, anyone? Ta, Gemma! Anyway, we wanted him to feel he was being properly cared for, so I said how nice it was to see him again, or something like that, and asked him if he needed to use the toilet, perhaps to ease his bladder”

Pause, another bite.

“This is really good indeed, Gemma. I’ll pop round for some to take home”

Deb laughed. “This is worse than bloody ‘Millionaire’, Di! Get to the point!”

“Oh, yes. Where was I? So, Blake reads the charge out, and I am sorry, Charlie, sorry to you as well, Tiff, but we had to use your legal names. And he says, ’who the fuck is that?’, and that told me, really told me, there are others to come. Then, he laid into me, telling me how he DOES remember me, how I enjoyed it, we all know the words, so enough”

My smile had gone.

“Then Candice rips him a new arsehole, as his brief keeps telling him to shut up, and she tells him about a very brave little girl, and how he will probably recover his memory when he is in court again. So off he goes, and she calls after him, all sweetly false and reminds him how our enquiries are still going on, and she is spot on. I see two very brave women in front of me, and I tip my hat to them”

I stood, and started to clap, Blake joining me, and then the whole room, before Charlie started waving for silence.

“Not true, though. We hid, and we didn’t do anything till someone else did the hard stuff, Di, the really brave stuff! We wouldn’t do anything till we knew those bastards were properly banged away, and that is all down to you, DC Owens”

She turned to look at Blake.

“Yeah, you as well, you and your team, but you’d have had nothing without this woman, so, let’s give credit where it’s due, OK? What happens now?”

He shrugged. “As Di said, P and DH, plea and direction hearing, where they tell us how they intend to play it. I suspect we’ll have a whole raft of guilty pleas, and one contested trial. Joe Evans is in the nuthouse, so he has to be assessed—yes, Charlie, he is a wonky-eyed cunt, but he’s going nowhere, and that is looking to be permanently. If the CPS get their finger out, we’ll have extra charges for Bob and Dai, and if it’s a job lot at the hearing they’ll probably plead for all of them. That just leaves us the chief pig. I think he’ll fight. Sorry, Charlie”

She shrugged, and gave me a soft smile. “With examples like Di here, and your mate Chris, well, what else can I do? I’ve got friends here, now. Not on my own against him any more, am I?”

I went around the table for a hug, then turned to Deb.

“How long before your copper mate arrives?”

She checked the clock. “Twenty minutes or so”

“You got time for a private chat?”

I got that old look of suspicion from her, the one she had given me on our first meeting.

“Yeah. The airlock do?”

I realised she meant the buffer room in the other house.

“Be fine, yeah”

“Come on, then”

She led the two of us next door, and rounded on me as soon as we were sat down again.

“What are you up to now? Which can of worms now?”

“Mersey View, Deb?”

It was the first time I ever saw her lose her composure, but she snatched it back.

“You have been digging, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I found two possibilities, that one and a place in Carlisle, called Castle Keep”

“Shit. You have no idea what went on at that place!”

“Um, yes. Yes, I do. I wanted to throw up reading that file, but it did one thing for me, and that was to show me how many people get scarred by that sort of thing. You told me all of the offenders were dead, but I would like to see what we can find. It’s also a duty I feel I have, and that is to give that requital you talk about to any other victims. Was anything done while your rapists were alive?”

I had chosen that word deliberately, and it struck home.

“Not a fucking thing, Di”

“Well, it is your call, Deb. I have to get permission to carry on with any investigation, as it is out of area, but I will only ask for it if I have your consent”

She sat for a while, mulling it over, as Blake quietly set about making us all some more tea.

“Do you think there is anything you can get from it, Di?”

“Don’t know, Deb, but that is what we do now, my team. Old cases, old files, things that should have been properly sorted and weren’t. Things like Ashley Evans”

She barked out a laugh. “Properly sorted now, eh? Or he bloody well will be shortly. What choice do I have, though?”

“It’s entirely your choice, Deb”

“Not really, Di, not with those two showing me what courage is, and you as well. Fuck it; if you get the nod, I will talk to you. Chapter and verse, and it’s a long bloody book. Now, Paul is due. Come and say hello?”

I looked at Blake, and he nodded, so we followed her once more through the connecting door, where a middle=aged constable was getting outside of one of Gemma’s works of art. On seeing that, I started to laugh.

“Blake, all those Yank films were right, isn’t it? Just not doughnuts here!”

Gemma called out “I will NOT lower myself to frying those horrible things!”, and the ice was broken. I held out a hand.

“PC Welby?”

He took it, after a quick wipe of the crumbs from his own.

“Aye. Paul, please. You be the DCs, then? Owens and Sutton?”

“Di and Blake, yes. Just been updating the house on our investigations”

He nodded. “Part of what I wanted to talk to them about tonight, isn’t it? Gemma, love, the missus will love some of these. Could I order ten for Tuesday? I’ll call by”

“Course, Paul. I’ll let Judy know”

“Ta. Now, Di? People about here are really chuffed you have nailed Councillor so-bloody-important Evans, and in my role as Community Officer said community has some people looking for the right people to talk to”

“What about, Paul?”

“Oh, building work, mostly. Work not done to suitable standard, overpayments, pressure to pay cash, subcontractors not getting paid at all, all that sort of thing. Not happy, is it?”

Blake nodded to me. “I’ll have a word with Sean. Paul, he’s being done for fraud and money-laundering at the moment, so we have a team from Revenue and Customs on him. I’ll pass your details to them, if you like”

“It’ll do for starters! Got more, though”

“Go on”

“Spent ages talking to these girls, and others as well. Been telling Tiff and Charlie in particular they need to sort the great man out right tidy, and I get nowhere till you get things rolling. They haven’t been the only ones. The BBC’s had the news out on the extra charges for all of them, radio, telly, internet, isn’t it? I’ve had three calls already this evening”

I felt my pulse rate going up. Police, Di. Professional.

“What about, Paul?”

“Women who want to talk to someone about Ashley Evans and his problem keeping his flies zipped”

CHAPTER 51
I won’t belittle the real pain and suffering we were told about, but it became routine after a while. I don’t mean that we got blasé, rather that each case Paul brought us went through what was becoming a very smooth and practised system.

Each one was, in the end, similar, and as the similarities piled up, so did the list of ‘further to’ charges awaiting Dai Pritchard, Bob Evans, one call-centre worker and two civilian employees in Cardiff and Swansea’s control rooms.

Similarities. That bastard clearly liked his victims young, and I found myself shuddering at how we had referred to John and the other new chums, as ‘fresh meat’. I remember Rob’s report on one of the victims, a prostitute working the back streets around Splott, and as Rob put it, only slowly getting what was left of her life back together after a long time on heroin and then methadone.

“Di, I just kept remembering what you said, about fucking people up. She was seventeen, that’s all. One bastard, and that’s her life down the toilet. How in hell have you managed?”

“Good people about me, mate. A bloody good friend, right at the start, and, well, focus. Did you know I met Bob and Dai again on a shout, once?”

“No, I didn’t. Did they clock you?”

“No, not at all, but one of the lads I was with, he warned me off them, sharpish like. That’s the thing with these women, if you get me. Everyone knew the two bent bastards were rotten, but they thought they were untouchable. Get away with it enough times, and you get a reputation for being able to, well, get away with it. People give up. Ashley Evans is the same., untouchable. Then, bang, he’s inside, serving time for rape, and that’s followed by two more charges, and women start to think. Perhaps he’s not untouchable after all”

He grimaced. “Aye, girl, but he’s ruined everything about her”

“I know, but he did leave her something, and that’s courage, so let’s give her some hope to go with it, yeah?”

“Cuppa?”

“Please”

He sat down again a minute later, our urn being a godsend on office days, and at that I realised how much I missed Elaine’s sharp focus. Rob had done a good job with the woman, though.

“Di?”

“Uh? Sorry, thinking, yeah?”

“Aye, I do that. This job takes over sometimes. Anyway, what do you think they’ll do? Plea-wise?”

“Ah, I think Bob and Dai will fold. Ashley, well, I think he’s just so bloody arrogant we might get a trial. Your girl up to that?”

He suddenly grinned. “I do, girl, and I tell you what, she’s not daft. Already preparing a VIS, and I suspect it will skin him alive”

I hadn’t felt up to giving a Victim Impact Statement myself, as apart from the fact that I would appear to the jury as having fully recovered, most of the actual impact had been in my inability to form relationships, and that was laundry far too private to wash in public.

“Rob?”

“Aye?”

“Are we starting to get callous about all this?”

“Really?”

“I was just thinking about how quick this is all going”

“Ah. No, love, I do believe we are simply getting efficient at it. Doesn’t mean we care less, just that we know what we’re trying to do. So, what Sammy said, aye? We give these women, these victims, our best efforts, and then we go out and do a proper night’s team bonding”

“You mean get pissed?”

“Not necessarily. Just give ourselves some fresh air. Anyway, change the subject. My missus was really taken with that cake shop you found. Wants to know if they can cater for a works do”

“I’ll ask. Don’t know how wide their range goes. I’m sure they’ll be interested. Anyway, got a meeting in twenty minutes, so ta for the tea, and the update”

He started to move away, and I called after him.

“For what it’s worth, mate, as long as Charlie can cope, I would love to see that bastard opt for a trial. Let the world see exactly what a shit he is”

He grinned. “Nothing personal at all there then, Detective Constable!”

I smiled to myself as I closed down the work I had been doing. No, nothing personal, which was why I was still being kept at arm’s length. He knew I was there, though, waiting and smiling.

My meeting was with Bevan Williams, and he had a tray of coffee prepared, and with it, to my astonishment, was one of the cardboard boxes from Gemma’s shop. He caught my raised eyebrows.

“Yes, DC Owens, word has got around the station. A remarkably good little find, and it has been shared throughout the Force. Now…”

He turned to another Super, who stood to shake my hand as Bev made the introductions.

“DC Diane Owens, Superintendent Andrew Sedgewick, Cheshire Constabulary. We are seeking to arrange a little mutual cooperation. Do sit, Di. Milk? Sugar?”

“Just milk please, sir. Would this be about that children’s home?”

Sedgewick nodded. “Aha, Mersey View. What can you offer us?”

I had been expecting either a generically posh accent, or something Scouse, but he was neither. He was from somewhere a lot further north, or at least sounded like it. Focus, DC Owens.

“What we have, sir, is fall-out from a couple of investigations we have been running, as well as part of our remit as a review office”

Sedgewick laughed. “No management bullshit bingo please, Diane. I know the score with the work you’re doing now. Why Mersey View?”

“Ah. Cards on table stuff?”

“Absolutely!”

“OK, then. We are finalising a messy case involving a serial rapist, combined with corruption and perverting the course of justice. One of our sources, indeed two of our victims, are in a safe house in the city. The source is the warden, for want of a better word. She made some statements, just passing remarks, not formal stuff, about being abused in a boys’ home when she was a child”

“A boys’ home? Oh. I see”

Something lurked behind that comment, but I left it.

“So I did a little digging into her background, just in case”

Bev laughed, happily.

“Di here is very, very good at ‘just in case’, Andrew. I have learned to trust her instincts”

“Thank you, sir. Anyway, I came up with two possible, and one of them was Mersey View”

Sedgewick stared at me, face neutral.

“Would the other one have been in Carlisle, by any chance?”

“Yes. Castle Keep. You know it?”

His mouth worked, the façade cracking just a little.

“If you have read the file, you will understand. I was very, very new to the job just then. I spent many hours digging in the grounds”

“Oh”

“Yes, DC Owens, ‘oh. You will understand, then, why this case has aroused my attention. We need to know exactly how far any abuse went, how many victims, if there was any collusion and so on. I still have bad dreams from the other place, and if there is the slightest chance we harboured similar abominations in Cheshire, I want it checked out, and I do not care how many years ago it may have been”

“My informant not only said that the culprits were dead, but that she had visited and, er, refreshed their graves”

“Pissed on them, you mean?”

“Oh yes. Feisty woman”

“Well, I understand. What I am concerned about, after the welfare of any victims, naturally, is finding out whether any of my people were involved. When can you start?”

“Sorry?”

Bev passed me the box of pastries.

“You are out of the picture with the real work on Ashley Evans, Di, so I pushed along your request, and as the Review team has now been expanded, we have some man-hours available to cover another case. You won’t need to travel, not unless we get some witnesses up there, and Andrew has offered all necessary assistance. That file on my desk contains a list of all staff known to have worked there until its closure, and he has some larger files stored electronically, for which I am grateful, listing those we are aware of who passed through the place as, um, guests. I know it’s a bit arid, but it’s a starting point”

“I suppose I can start by chatting with my source, sir. Big job!”

“Well, you are the one who proposed it! Bloody good, these pastries!”

We finished up, and I gathered up the staff files for an initial sift. If Mr Sedgewick had done some of the digging at that Cumbrian hell-hole, he had my respect as well as my profound sympathy.

I rang Deb, of course, and an hour later I was sitting opposite her in a corner of the little café.

“What you got, Di? Evans giving up?”

“Not at all, so far, and that’s part of what I wanted to run past you. If it goes to trial, how will Charlie cope?

“Dunno, in all honesty, but I watched her after your trial. She worships you, girl. I said to her, ‘you’re sisters, you two’, and she sees you as the one who fought back. She was unsure, you know? Scared? Wanted to see if you could win before she jumped in”

“I know that, but she’s still got the courage to fight back”

“She has now, now she’s seen you do it. I think she’ll cope. Anyway, that’s not all you’re here for”

I covered my grin with my cup and after a sip I admitted she had me bang to rights.

“Mersey View, Deb. We’ve moved on. Got the local force’s agreement to look into it. Are you with me on this one? Charlie’s found her strength; how’s yours?”

She spent a minute staring out of the window before turning back to me.

“What the hell, girl. What’s in the folder?”

“Staff lists”

Her eyes closed as her head dropped, before she raised it once more.

“OK. Let’s see who I can remember”

As my reporter’s notebook started to fill with her memories, I almost wished I had never started the investigation and thanked god I would have Blake with me that night.

CHAPTER 52
“I was never a real boy, and that didn’t go down at all well in Connah’s Quay. Not the done thing there; men are men and sheep bloody run away to England. I am babbling, aren’t I?”

“No, Deb. You tell it your way”

We had left the café, and the airlock room was cleared for us by the girls. I had sent Blake off to look at some more properties, just to get him out of the way while the older woman gave me her potted biography.

“I was nine when they kicked me out, Di. Every time I wasn’t butch enough for Dad, he’d give me a session with his belt, so I’d run off, into Chester, mostly. I’d ride the train, fare-dodge? Then window-shop till I was picked up by your lot, and back home, more of the belt, so eventually I found somewhere to hide. Gone overnight. Dad went mad, and then they refused to take me back”

“That actually legal?”

“Christ knows, but that’s what happened, and I ended up in care, in bloody England. Got a number of sets of fosterers, but they were just like Dad. No blacks, no dogs, no Irish, no Nancy boys. Never lasted long anywhere at all. By the time I was ten, they’d given up. I was never a boy, not really, and while I was only a tiny kid, I have always been a stubborn cow. Looking back, I must have seemed like a nightmare to the poor carers.

“That is why I ended up in that place. Pardon me if I don’t go into details just now, because it is going to take time to build up to it. All I will say is that there was abuse, and it was from the staff, and… and if you were lying in bed… You could hear the floorboards creak as the bastards walked down the corridor between the dorms, and you’d hold your breath and pray they would keep walking, because that meant it wouldn’t be you that night but some other poor kid, and then you’d feel guilty all the next day as somebody else cried into their breakfast, but you’d still thank god it hadn’t been your turn”

I could feel my fingers cramping as they tried to crush the barrel of my pen.

“How many times, Deb?”

“Fuck knows, girl. I lost count after the first three years of it. I ran off, of course, but they kept bringing me back. I got so that police officers weren’t exactly on my Christmas list. It did end, though”

“Somebody listened?”

She looked at me from the corner of her eyes, clearly amused in some dark way.

“What? Listen to a kid? In a home? In that place? No fucking way, girl! We were rubbish that needed sweeping off the streets, and as long as we were out of sight, job done. No. Nobody listened, not till my third escape attempt. I’d got as far as Shrewsbury that time, sneaking onto trains and riding the odd bus until the conductor got curious, if there was one, then legging it.

“I’d got out of the station, and the platform staff had given up chasing me. I wanted to get away from the town proper, just a bit, as it was just getting into blackberry season, and that gave me something I could eat. I was always bloody hungry, even in the home. Not much for portions size, the bastards. Anyway.

“I found a footpath, down some steps, along by the river. Seemed reasonably out of the way, not by a road, so I started checking the bushes and hedges down there, and of course it goes right down by the agricultural showground. Lots of people, and I thought I’d made a bad choice, but it turned out OK. Loads of fast food stands about because of the show, so I had a sneaky look in the bins. Half a burger, some cold chips, stuff like that”

“You were scavenging from dustbins? Shit!”

“Girl’s got to eat, Di. What else could I do?”

I was praying, just then, that I would never discover, first-hand, what a girl might have to do.

“What happened after you’d fed, Deb?”

“Ah, it was the start of a long weekend, bank holiday, so they were going to be there for days, and there were trailers around, and horse boxes. The showground has its own loose boxes, so I found an empty trailer and made a sort of bed in it. I knew I’d have to move after a couple of days, before I ended up being spotted, but just for a couple of nights it was fine. Some old rugs and a ripped horse blanket did for my bed, and I had good pickings from the bins, what with all the drunks. Name of the horse was written on the box, so I took an old bucket, covered it with a rag, and if they stopped me at the gate I’d just say I was off to groom the beast, or something. Didn’t last all weekend, though. Somebody saw me”

She was staring off into the distance now, and there were the tears I had been expecting.

“I was just settling down on the third night, expecting to have to move on the next day, just getting comfy, and there’s someone at the trailer, and she just calls out, ‘Kid? Got some hot food here, if you want. Better than from a bin’, and I could smell the stuff, and my body starts betraying me. You ever been hungry, girl? Really hungry?”

“Not like that, Deb”

“Aye. Hope you never will be that hungry, girl. Anyway, there she is, bag of chips and a meat pie, and I swear I don’t remember eating it. It was there, and it was gone. And she had a can of pop as well”

None of this had any real bearing on the case, but I had her talking and, to be honest, I wanted to hear the story. Focus on the ‘hell-hole’ later.

“What did she do, Deb? Hand you in?”

She looked straight at me, smiling gently.

“No, girl. Lorraine never did. Don’t want to--- no. They’re both long gone, credit where credit’s due, credit for being a decent bloody human being, both of them, Ken and Lorraine Petrie. They ran a stall, aye? Sold all the usual tat, worked everything from agricultural shows to biker rallies, with an old Commer van and a fair-sized trailer for the frame and tarp; the stall, you know? They had a lock-up with a little flat over it, but that’s all to come. They sold different tat depending on the event, proper old-style travellers…

“So Lorraine gets me talking, and then she’ sees how I’m sitting, with the fistula, the tears and that, and she takes me to their van, and she’s so gentle when she treats what they’ve done to my backside. And she talks to her man, and tells him there’s no way I go back, and so I end up spending the next few years on the road. By the time I am sixteen, I’m driving the van, and…”

She stopped, abruptly, struggling with her tears before giving up and letting them flow.

“Thing is, they could see what I was, and they didn’t let it get in the way of looking after me, fucking well LOVING me, aye? Everything my biological parents could have been, damned well should have been, those two were. They kept me safe for years, they taught me how to live, how to bloody well love. And the people at the shows, especially the biker events, they didn’t give a shit about convention. I was just Ken and Lozza’s kid, didn’t matter what sex, nobody gave a shit. Once I hit eighteen, Ken says OK, you are safe now, and he goes with me to the Council down by Cannock, where they had their place, and he says to them, ‘found this lost kid, like to see they get their records sorted out’. Lied through his teeth, he did, but nobody gave a shit. Soon as he had that bit done, he got me legal for driving. That was my job, afterwards. HGV, full ticket. Those two paid for it, all the training, and all that time with the van and trailer made it a doddle.

“I said to him, one day, just before he went, why that? Why driving? And he just said, cause you like the travelling, and you get the chance to be on your own, be yourself, and if you intend doing the change-over thing, you’ll need money of your own. Can’t say he was wrong. By the time I was twenty-eight, I’d got there. Had to take time off work, to recover, didn’t I, and you know who was there for me. Those two gave me a life, Di. And they showed me what people should and could be”

“Did you ever go back, see your parents?”

She glowered at me. “Ken and Lorraine WERE my bloody parents! Sorry, mustn’t snap. Anyway, that’s me. I didn’t mean to gush, or snap, just, well, you are pushing some very old and painful buttons”

I took her hand. “And you know what I had in my life, Deb, so we’re even on part of it. I’ve also found someone to show me, isn’t it? Should, could?”

She laced her fingers in mine.

“Yes indeed, girl. That boy is a keeper. We’re not very good at getting it right first time, are we?”

I had to smile at that one. “I think, both of us, we’ve always had it right. It’s just that a lot of folk we both know have got it wrong. Not our fault, is it? Not Tiff’s, nor Gemma’s, nor Charlie’s, neither”

“I suppose so, girl. At least we can both recognise the good ones when they come along. Now, I want to wash my face, repair the war paint and that, and then, what I want to do is read through that staff list and see who I can remember”

That set the pattern of my life for the next few months, as I did as much research on the backgrounds of the care home staff, as well as a monumental amount of digging into what felt like half the children in Cheshire. The state of the girl Rob had brought in from the cold gave me some clues, and I made sure I ran criminal record checks on each one. The common ground Deb and I had identified was damage, people who had indeed been fucked up. Bit by bit, the names were coming together, and that was largely down to a lesson Sammy gave me.

He had walked past my desk one afternoon, eyeing the stack of files weighing it down, and tutted.

“Forgetting something, DC Owens?”

I grunted something non-committal, that probably made no sense at all, but what sense it did make would have been ‘what are you talking about?’

“We have a raft of new chums who need breaking in. For god’s sake, delegate some of this. I know what you are like, but save your energy for the analysis, not the data mining. Let them do the legwork; you do the clever bit I know you are good at. OK? I’ll send Jon over for starters, as you two seem to get on, and I’ll tee up a couple of the others when they get back in. That’s not an offer. It’s an instruction”

He pulled a chair up next to mine.

“What we got, so far?”

“Um, child abuse, multiple victims, in a private care home, historic stuff”

He shook his head in a tired way.

“What the hell was it back then, back there? All around the North East and the English North West. You can’t walk half a mile without finding another group of nonces. Anyway, you are going to have to delegate. We’re warned for court in six weeks. Ashley Evans first; the CPS want his other rapes established as fact before we go after the perverting the course charges, as he’s in the frame for those. Gives the motive”

He looked into my eyes, and there was real concern there.

“Your young girl going to be up for this? Is she strong enough?”

“I was, Sammy. She will be. I’ll be there to pick up the pieces, whether or not she copes”

“I would expect no less. Brief Jon, get him moving, and then go home and cuddle your man, whatever. Just come back tomorrow with a smile. This is finally, finally the real home stretch”

“You said that before”

“Yup, I did, but I had forgotten what a little ferret I have in you. I’ll send Jon over”

He was, as ever, right. I started Jon on the necessary searches, and packed up for the trip home. On the way, I stopped at the safe house, and began the process of teaching a little girl how not to be eaten alive in Crown Court.

CHAPTER 53
“All rise!”

Finally, our day had come. All the research on the home hadn’t stopped, for I had what Alun was calling my minions still digging away, but this day was for me and Charlie. Get this out of the way, and we’d have Tiff’s to follow. We were quite a crew, almost all of the team, including Sammy, with Deb, a girl she introduced as Kimberley, and PC Welby. The tension in the three from the house was clear, and I could see how involved Paul Welby was in his work. Another one of our sort of copper.

I wasn’t sure how the hell it worked, but His Honour was once again Meredith. I can only assume that the cases, the multiple rapes, were being treated as continuations of the first one, offences being taken into account, in effect. Either way, while I had no doubts about Meredith’s ability to steer a clear and balanced path, he was already aware of the nature of the person in the dock.

In swept our judge, as blank-faced as ever, and the charges were duly presented for Evans’ delectation and response. There was a litany of names and dates.

“…the rape of…”
“…infliction of grievous bodily harm to…”
“…abduction of…”
“…threat to kill…”

Eleanor Mair Askew.
Jasmine Skye Lenihan.
Paula Amanda Cairns
Charlton Dilwyn Surtees, known as Charlotte.

All were met with a snarl of “Not guilty”.

Laying the extra three charges before Ashley Evans had been an anti-climax, as his solicitor had clearly managed to get through to him, and as Blake had read them, and OI had smiled, the bastard had simply glowered and gone no comment in response. Disclosure had been simple, for once, as the events were so long ago there was little evidence apart from memory. It seemed I had been remarkably lucky in Janice Jeffries.

“Ms Askew, I must apologise, but it will be necessary to go over some very unpleasant events”

“I know that. About time I got this out of my system, and him done”

“Thank you for your help in this matter. Can you tell us if you recognise the man in the dock?”

“Yes, I can. He’s the bastard who knocked two of my teeth out when I was fourteen”

“I would like to take you back over that incident, if I may…”

So it went, each woman finishing up with their own version of “and he said it was the best way to get all the spoodge out”

All the defence could do in each case was to try and attack the quality of their memories, their ability to recall and, of course, the reason they had never brought charges. In a way, it was hilarious, because after Eleanor had been the first to describe a little bit of community policing by two of Dyfed-Powys; finest, the defence really was showing how well he knew he, or rather his client, was stuffed. He did try, though.

“Ms Cairns, what is your occupation?”

“On the game, isn’t it?”

“For the benefit of this Court, and the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, could you be more specific?”

“I’m a tom. A whore. A prostitute. OK?”

“Were you working the night you met the defendant?”

“Working? You mean looking for trade? It was two days after my seventeenth birthday! I was on my way to a fucking clarinet lesson!”

Meredith was quick to stop the momentum building on that one.

“Please, Ms Cairns, and yes, I understand the stress you will be feeling. In order to limit such stress…”

He had given a very direct stare to the Defence at that.

“…and avoid distressing questions that may be reminiscent of the unpleasant way rape trials were accustomed to proceed…”

Another Look.

“…could you please confirm, for the jury, and myself, what your occupation was at the time?”

I felt like kissing him at that, for it left me so much happier at how Charlie might be treated. Paula looked at Meredith, and all but collapsed.

“What was I doing? I was in sixth form college, at Howell’s!”

Oh dear god. One of the seriously good independent schools in Cardiff, known more for turning out future high-fliers rather than heroin-addicted prostitutes. Oh shit. Meredith stayed with her, though.

“Once more, and for the benefit of the jury, and so as to CLOSE this line of questioning, and please take the question as I intend it to be taken: would it be fair to say that you were merely a school student at the time and not involved in sex work?”

She nodded, tears flowing.

“Thank you, Ms Cairns. May I take that as a yes?”

“Yes”

“learned Counsel has, I would suggest, had a full answer to his question, and will now pay heed as to the vulnerability of the witness, who is not on trial in these proceedings”

“I am grateful to Your Honour. Er, no further questions for this witness”

Paula stepped down, and Candice was straight out of the court along with Deb’s Community PC, and I had a mad mental blip of ‘Hey, Paul, hey, hey Paula’ before I slapped the Police, Professional buttons.

“Call Charlton Dilwyn Surtees”

I reached across for Deb’s hand, and found that Blake had mine, as Jon squeezed my shoulder from the row of seats behind. He was clearly a quick learner. Charlie was looking as demure as possible in a neat skirt and blouse, blazer over the top and flat shoes, rather than her accustomed PJs.

“Please take the book and read out the words on the card”

“Please state your name and address”

“Charlotte Diane Surtees. Don’t want to give my address”

Our man was on his feet, explaining how she was in a refuge, a place of safety, sixty-seven other terms that all meant “No, not saying where you can find me”

I looked over at Deb, and she read my mind, whispering “Take it as a compliment, girl. She might change her mind before she can make it official”

Our man was teasing her out.

“You are listed as Charlton Dilwyn. Could I please ask, for the benefit of the jury, that you explain the change? In your own words?”

I could see she wanted to sniff, but the coaching I had given her seemed to have taken. Look AWAY from the lawyer for the answer, which goes to the jury. Look back for the next question, and once again answer to the twelve good people and true.

“Well, I’m a trans girl, yeah? Seeing the gender clinic down to Exeter for now, till they open one in Cardiff…”

I watched another lesson surface: keep it short.

“Yeah, officially a boy, but they got that wrong, so it’s being sorted”

“So, while your name remains officially Charlton, until you are of an age to change it, your preferred form of address is Charlotte. Is that a fair summary, Ms Surtees?”

I could have kissed him as well. Just one little title, and he lifted her up. She actually smiled.

“Yeah. I usually go by Charlie. You can call me that if you want”

Meredith looked up from his notes.

“I am grateful to the witness for her explanation. For the benefit of these proceedings, and for the record, this witness will be referred to as Charlotte Diane Surtees”

I passed Deb a tissue.

Once again, our man danced his witness through the date and time. And made sure her thirteen years of age were dangled before the jury.

“Why were you out at that time of night, Charlie?”

“It was a chance I didn’t get that often. Mam and Dad were away, and I had a stash, yeah? Clothes? For me, not for the boy they said I was?”

“So you took the opportunity to dress appropriately, as you saw it?”

“Not as I saw it, as it should have been all the time!”

Calm, girl.

“I understand. Why go outside?”

“Oh, it’s like it makes it more real. Makes you feel like you’re normal, makes you…”

She hesitated, just for a moment, head down, and then looked straight at the jury.

“Makes you feel real. Gives you hope that one day, that will be the way you always are”

“thank you once more, Charlie. Now, what happened that evening?”

“Big car, big man. Stopped to ask for directions, I thought…”

I knew every moment of the rest of her testimony, partly from how I had worked through it from her statement but also because it mirrored my own rape so well.

“Then he hit me really hard, and I see stars, and he’s pissing on me, talking about getting the spoodge out. Next thing I know, I’m in some bushes, and there’s a man with his dog, and an ambulance and hospital”

“Was there any police involvement?”

“Oh, yeah! Two coppers come round, Evans and Pritchard they said their names were…”

I was watching the jury then, as those names hit them for the fourth time, and despite Meredith’s stoneface, I knew full well that he remembered those names from my own trial.

“Could you identify the man who raped you, Charlie?”

“Yeah! He’s that cunt in the dock!”

She waved her hands.

“Sorry, sir, Your Honour. Just, it’s taken me years to find the courage, yeah? Bit emotional?”

Our man looked at the judge, who nodded slightly.

“Thank you for your assistance, Your Honour. May it be noted that the witness has identified the defendant Ashley Aaron Evans as her assailant. Charlie: what then happened?”

“Mam and Dad kicked me out, isn’t it? Nasty little queer. Ended up sleeping rough. I…”

The usher had a box of tissues, and then a glass of water.

“Spent a while with no money, and then… Someone showed me how you could… Sorry. Got to make a joke out of it, only way. You can eat as long as you’re willing to eat, yeah? Suck someone’s cock, get enough for a couple of days. Sorry to be blunt. And then I did something stupid”

“Which was?”

“Local club. Thought I’d get in, no charge for girls, yeah? See if I could get warm, get pissed a bit before I had to suck another pissy cock, and at the same time it was somewhere I might find one…”

She looked over to is, eyes pleading, before remembering my coaching and turning back to the jury.

“I was hungry, yeah? Hungry and cold, and there was a man there, and he seemed nicer than the others, even though he had a wonky eye. Said he had a flat I could stay in”

“Can you remember his name?”

“Yeah. Joe. Joe Evans”

Meredith looked up sharply at that one, and I thought for a second he might intervene, but he seemed to have his own version of my ‘Police, Professional’ button, and was pressing it firmly.

“So, I went back to his place, and he had a separate bedroom, and food, and it was warm, and it was dry… and then on the second night, I hear a voice, and I recognise it, and I sneak a look down the stairs, and it’s that cunt---sorry, sorry. Just, well, not good. It’s the copper from the hospital, one of them. Pritchard, yeah? And he’s coming up the stairs, and he’s already bloody UNZIPPING, so I went out the window, god knows how I didn’t break anything, and I ran like---I ran as fast as I could, and I hid, yeah? I was lucky, though. Met someone, and they knew Kimberley, yeah, up there?”

She pointed at us, and the other girl waved back.

“Yeah, and Kim knew Nana, who runs the house and… sorry. Do I need to say any more stuff? I don’t know if I can”

I wanted to jump the rail to hug her, but it had to be done, and by her, and thank fuck the duty barrister was dancing to his minimal fee rather than his client’s wishes. Being slapped down by Meredith was very clearly not on his list of desirable outcomes. I suspected, knowing Evans, that the barrister didn’t actually give a shit about his client. I gave myself a silent warning to prepare for an appeal on that basis, but he was utterly and completely damned.

Meredith summed up, the jury retired, and I followed Nana as she went to comfort her child. Before I left the public gallery, I made sure to smile at Ashley Aaron Evans, and made equally sure that he saw.

CHAPTER 54
I caught up with Deb in one of the little patches of green around the outside of the court, where she and Kimberley were wrapped round a sobbing Charlie, Paul, Paula and Candice not too far away, as the former high-flier-to-be puffed frantically on a cigarette, and I wondered how her addiction was treating her at that exact moment. Blake was at my shoulder.

“You’ll be thinking how lightly you got off, won’t you, love? Compared to the others?”

I reached for his hand, and it was there, along with a little of my resilience.

“You are turning into a mind reader, DC Sutton. Look at that woman, yeah? What I said? Fucked up, completely”

“Yes, but she still came out and said what she needed to. Put that bastard away for life, I suspect. Look at her now, talking to Candice, and think what she was like before, and take some pride in things”

“What for? Wasn’t me in the box this time”

“No, it was four women who wouldn’t have been within a mile of it without you stirring things up. You take credit where it’s due. Anyway, what’s the plan?”

“You were a bit lost in there, weren’t you? Too busy giving that arsehole death rays from your eyes It’s late, love. Meredith’s packed the jury back in its box for the night. We need to chill for a bit, and then I think it’s your place tonight. Early night, back here in the morning. Sammy’s taken the others off; just us here, and those two over there”

I looked where he indicated and about a hundred yards away I could see the other two victims. They had a quick chat together, then started over towards us. Eleanor Askew held out her hand.

“Thank you, DC Owens. We know who you are, isn’t it? Jasmine?”

“Yeah. You are one brave woman”

Charlie looked up from her embrace.

“Sisters, yeah? That’s what we are, all of us, that’s what Nana here says. All of us sisters, and that woman over there with Candice”

Eleanor smiled, and if I hadn’t already known she was missing teeth I would have spotted the falseness of her dental plate.

“I stayed on, Charlie. I wanted to…”

She paused, looking around, spending a few seconds staring at Paula, before continuing.

“I wanted to forget it all, yeah? Ever since that day, it’s all I wanted. Got a family now, two little kids of my own, but every time I look in the mirror I see where my teeth were, and I think of my babies… And then you come along, DC Owens”

“Diane, please”

“Thank you, Diane. I saw the papers, and I heard they were looking for others who’d met the bastard, but without you there’d be none of this. Thank you. As I started to say, I was going to do my bit and then sod off. Only so much I thought I could take, and then I heard Jazz here, and then Paula over there, and I thought Nell, you’ve got to see this to the end, got to bloody well know, isn’t it? And then this wonderful woman stands up and hits that piece of shit right where it hurts most. Well done, Charlie. Thank you. Sisters, yeah? Could I hug my little sis?”

I left them to it, and walked over to the wreckage next to Candice and Paul.

“How are you doing, love? Well done in there. Thank you”

She ground her cigarette out on top of a waste bin, laughing as she did so.

“Look at me, aye? All law-abiding now, not even littering. All this bastard’s fault”

I held out my hand, and she took it with both of hers.

“Those two, and that little girl, they’ll have said it. Well done, Diane. I will call you that. We’re sort of related, one cunt removed”

“I think the others said that a lot more politely.”

“Bet they did! Habits, you pick them up round where I’ve been working. That right, mate?”

PC Welby grinned back at the smile she was beaming at him at such intensity he should have started tanning. I kept my questioning light.

“What are you up to now, Paula?”

“Ych, Paul here’s been on my case, good lad that he is. Got me a sort of programme. That right, mate?”

“Yeah, Di. Halfway house sort of thing. Paula’s agreed to do a drug-dependency course. Off the smack for some time now, and she’s been reducing the methadone level for some time. Been a bit of a ride, hadn’t it, girl?”

“Yeah, didn’t think I could stick it, too painful, isn’t it? Easier just to… Then Paul here shows me the papers, says ‘this remind you of something, mate?’, and there’s the first trial, yours, and he says, ‘there’s some strength for you, isn’t it?’ and so what can I do?”

He smiled, and it was most definitely ‘good cop’ time.

“She seems to be sticking the course, Di. Got real hopes she can turn her life around”

“Yeah, yeah. I need something strong, though. No! I mean a coffee. That your boyfriend?”

I nodded.

“Good bloke, him. So very, very gentle, and patient, aye, but I’m watching your face. Diane Owens. Shit… I sometimes forget, so easy to do: not just me he ruined. So, anyone buy me a coffee?”

“Hang on, yeah? Be right back”

I walked back over to the other little group, smile in place.

“I don’t know what you are all planning, but I intend to pop off with Paula there for some coffee and most probably, knowing this one, a bacon sarnie. Anyone with us?”

I didn’t want to put pressure on them. She was an addict, a whore, an example of what most people would consider vermin. Ball in their court. Nell didn’t disappoint me.

“Another sister, yeah? I have my car, is people need a lift. Where to?”

Charlie sniffed, but this time it was from her tears, not her disdain.

“Could we go down by the Bay? Ain’t been there in ages, not felt safe”

So much unsaid, and not needing to be spoken. We parked down by the Norwegian church, where there was space enough for once, Deb disappearing but turning up again ten minutes after we had settled at a table outside the coffee and ice cream place by the lock. She had texted me with a drink order, so when she arrived we had it waiting, while she in turn had a very familiar cardboard box.

“Anyone in possession of a bladed article in a public place?”

It was, of course, one of Gemma’s speciality cakes. Paul had a multitool, and the presence of his uniform seemed to deter the café staff from enforcing any ‘only our food’ rule. The Spring sun was out, the coffee was more than acceptable, I was with the most wonderful man I had ever met, and Ashley Aaron Evans was looking down the barrel of a sizeable sentence. The girls were chatting away, Candice was looking smug, and the cake was exactly as I would have expected. Even without the anticipated bacon roll, it was a good moment in my life. One snapshot:

“Charlie?

“Yeah?”

“When did you decide on the name?”

“Er, last night. Tiff was talking about names in court and stuff, and when she found out my middle deadname she said it was a sign, and so I made up my mind last night”

“Bit of a surprise for me”

“You’ll get over it, sister dear”

In twos and threes we separated, each of us now with a life to get back to, and all agreeing to be at the court the following morning. I took my man back to the flat, once again by way of a couple of estate agents, and I am not ashamed, though perhaps a little embarrassed, to recall how, ahem, aggressive I was when it came to bedtime.

I was free, or nearly so. Over to you, Justice Meredith.

It was, of course, almost an anti-climax, as the jury didn’t return until the afternoon, but I did get hugs from three more people, who turned out to be Nell’s husband Warren and Jazz’s parents Mike and Andrea.

I caught Paula looking wistful at that, so I made a point of taking her hand as we drank yet another dire cuppa in the court’s café.

“Dum spiro, spero, girl”

“What, Di? Oh! I’d almost forgotten that one! Our Latin master was always saying it. Where did you get it?”

“Ah, I did languages at Uni. Always liked the little aphorisms, a world of thought in as few words as possible, yeah?”

That brought a grin.

“Like FTW, I suppose”

“Yeah, but probably best to leave it as a TLA considering where we are”

“Don’t know that one, Di”

“TLA is a TLA for TLA”

I paused, just long enough.

“Three Letter Acronym”

That brought a real laugh.

“Paul’s been on my case again, Di. Wants me to start some A-levels. There’s a support scheme for people who… A rehabilitation scheme to help those who’ve got a bit of an unfortunate history”

“You going for it?”

She shrugged. 2Dunno. I want to try and get clean first, before I make any plans, but, yeah. And I want to do something else. Write. Can’t say I haven’t got a story, can they?”

I squeezed her hand.

“Here’s one reader, if you get it done, girl”

She laughed. “Blackmail now, is it? Anyway, that your man waving?”

“Yeah…Blake? What’s up?”

“Jury’s back. Need to get moving so we can get seats”

The ushers had been nobbled, it seemed, and there was a block of seats reserved for five women in the front row, which was in a different courtroom to that of the first part of the trial. The others took up station behind us, the call was given to ‘rise’ and Meredith made his customary sweeping entrance.

Our former councillor was in the dock, and when I saw the armoured glass around it, I realised they were taking no chances, whether to protect him from angry citizens or us from him I didn’t know. He looked different to his normal self as he stood, and it was a few seconds before I realised why.

Fear. The bastard was finally, finally, frightened.

“And have you elected a foreman?”

This time, it was a middle-aged woman, and as the questions were asked in their customary order, I could almost read her mind: we could have done this yesterday.

Over and over again, the same words.

“Guilty”

“And is that the verdict of you all?”

“Yes”

I realised that Paula was finally crying, Jazz cuddling her as she sought a tissue for her own tears. Meredith looked over to us, with the slightest of nods. He took his time about the rest, though.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged. This court thanks you, each and every one, for your service. I would ask, however, that you remain in place while this matter is completed”

He turned his gaze on Evans.

“Stand, Evans”

What followed was sufficiently caustic to have removed patches of the pig’s skin, and Meredith was clearly just hitting his stride when he pulled himself up short, once more looking across to our sisterhood.

“I will not continue to list your crimes, Evans, nor recapitulate the horrors that these brave women have been forced by you to recount in this court. They have endured enough. I note that those who gave evidence so bravely in this matter have been joined by another of your victims, Detective Constable Owens. Without her courage, her example, her dedication to true public service, it is unlikely that justice would ever have been served in the way it has been this afternoon. DC Owens, this court thanks you, as well as the brave women who sit alongside you, all of whom have endured awful events and injury inflicted by an evil man. Does learned counsel have any mitigation to offer?”

“No, Your Honour”

“Thank you. Evans, I have already been given reports resulting from your previous trial. Accordingly, I am able to complete proceedings today. The charges laid before me, and of which you have now been convicted, fall into two groups, being the primary offences of rape, and what I do not consider to be in any way secondary in anything but listing. For the sake of completeness, which will be academic on this occasion, I sentence you to two years for each of the offences of abduction, bodily harm and threats to kill.

“For the offence of the rape of Eleanor Mair Askew, you are sentenced to life imprisonment, minimum term twenty years. For the same offence, in re Jasmine Skye Lenihan, Paula Amanda Cairns and Charlotte Diane Surtees, in each case the same sentence. Those sentences to commence on the completion of the term you are currently serving for the rape of Diane Owens. Take the prisoner down”

Off went Evans, despair replacing fear now, and as Blake murmured “Trial starts next week for perverting the course, and week after for the fraud stuff. He was told last night”, Meredith raised his left hand to us all, five fingers spread wide, and after a word from him to the usher, that woman passed us the message: see me afterwards.

Up we stood, out we went, and then once more we were in his little room, tea brewed, and served by him along with the justice.

CHAPTER 55
Life settled down for a short while after that, but it wasn’t exactly ‘normal, as it had changed so much. I felt all the hackneyed effects of the trial, as so many weights that had hung on me fell to the ground and disappeared from my world. To be honest, life would have been immeasurably better even without those gifts, for I had my man.

That was where and how I fully understood how crippled I had been as a human being. I would never, ever, be free of the damage done to me, but Blake’s presence numbed it, sent it into the background as a distraction rather than the straitjacket it had been ever since that night.

The trials went ahead, with a flurry of jail sentences for perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to do so that put three new chums, of a far less appreciated kind than Jon and co, away for five years each, and added the same term to our original gang’s very just desserts. As for my rapist, well, let me just say that Sean and his friends stripped him to the bone, and while the sentences were academic, considering what he was already serving, they were still hefty.

That left Pritchard, and even though he had gone guilty, which saved little Tiff so much grief, she still made the trek to the court, deb and Charlie with her.

“Di, I got to do it. Got to let him see? Got to see, as well. See myself”

And so it was that I took the now-familiar seat in the public gallery to see a man who had frightened me so much locked away from decent people till he was incapable of any further harm, and to draw a line under so much of the pain that had dominated and controlled my life.

I didn’t know the judge that day, but she had clearly been warned we would attend, and while she didn’t quite have the flair for verbal excoriation that Meredith had shown, she did her best, and it was more than adequate.

The charges were read, Tiffany named correctly, and Dear old Dai looked up at the public gallery, just to check. I had to do it, and so I gave him a little wave, just to say ‘Hi!’. Tiff saw, and did the same, and I saw his face changed as he realised his life was ending.

Literally: life, minimum fifteen years. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, going down the garden to eat porridge…

Deb slapped my wrist.

“No. Keep it together. For the kids”

She half-dragged me to the café, and they did hot chocolate. I realised Tiff was staring at me, along with Charlie, and Deb turned to them in explanation.

“I think your sister here is feeling a little bit, girls. Time for you to be strong, aye? Ice cream?”

They took me by the arm and before I knew it we were in her car and heading back to the coffee and ice cream place by the lock. Orders filled, sat on the blocky benches looking out over the bay, the wind clearing the smell of Evans’ piss from my nostrils, I realised how close I had been to breaking down.

It was over. That was it. Every single one of the bastards was finally locked up for what seemed like forever. What did I have left, now? Tiff cuddled into me.

“He looked smaller, di. Not as scary”

Police, professional wasn’t working, so I pulled out ‘bloody good man to hold me tonight’.

“Sorry, love. Not being very good today, am I?”

The slender young girl, squeezed my arm, looking up into my eyes with a smile.

“Yeah, we know, but we’ve done it, now. You’ve done it, sister of mine. Without you, nothing, yeah? Nana was saying how easy it gets, just being the victim, hiding in your little hole, in the house like we been doing? Not being you, just being …. Look. She said we are all people in a book, a film, and we can either let ourselves be the victims, the extras, yeah? Someone else’s story? Or we can be the main feature, the one the story’s about. You did that, Di”

Charlie was to my other side, sniff firmly and explosively in place.

“Yeah, and you nailed it, woman, and you did the showdown, and you got the fella, and…”

I realised she was crying, and that overrode my self-pity, soft touch that I am.

“What is it, love?”

“Promise us you ain’t just going to fuck off, yeah? Ride off into the bloody sunset like in some stupid film?”

I hugged her, pulling Tiff to me as well.

“Shit, girls, look at me, yeah? Just getting myself on my feet again after, yeah… My strength, comes from you. How could I give that up? How could I cope without it?”

I made a snap decision.

“We are planning a celebration, me and my team, been on the cards ages. Just needed to get the trials out of the way, get it all finished. You want to come? I know you aren’t eighteen yet, not all of you, but it won’t just be a piss-up. You up for a family night out?”

We started at Las Iguanas, where the girls, Deb, Tiff, Charlie, Gemma and Kimberley. Joined us. The three youngest looked terrified, but my boys and girls were everything I had come to expect, and as the boys in question began the traditional iron-palate competitions of who could eat the hottest food, the youngsters relaxed. We were interrupted twice.

“Darlings! Lovies! Bitch!”

That last directed at me.

“Beg pardon, Chris?”

“Di, dearest sweet, I had such PLANS for that big boy of yours, but you appear to have ruined EVERYTHING!”

Tiff was laughing so hard she nearly inhaled her coke. Still ubercamp, Chris struck a stupid pose, then dropped the act, taking her hand.

“Are you Tiffany?”

“Er, yeah”

“I met the same man you did, brave girl. Have a hug?”

That set the tone for the evening, even though Deb took them home a little later. Sammy went at the same time, on the grounds of being management, Candice argued the point.

“Yebbut, later, Lainey, yeah?”

“Chain of command, girl! Anyway, got a meeting tomorrow, big one. Di, talk next week? That place by Runcorn?”

I almost sobered, and he saw.

“No, nothing urgent. Just need to clear some points. Night, all! Don’t get too sober!”

Down to the hard core of practised pissheads, along with most of our New chums, we worked our way through a selection of licensed establishments, before Chris started steering, and of course we ended up in the Smugglers’. Jon was at my shoulder for a lot of the time, the one that didn’t have my lover against it. He was very, very drunk by the mid part of the evening.

“Di, yeah? This is, shit, this is what I done… what I wanted to do when I joined stuff, yeah? All proper shit, proper copping. Policing. Those little girls, I know they’re boys, I mean not boys, know what I mean, I mean girls and shit, I’m pissed, aren’t I?”

I had to laugh.

“I do believe you may be, mate. No shame on a night like this”

“Arse. Don’t want to go. Help me stick to cokes and shit? This, this is making me, making, those girls, that cunt…”

I agreed, and I could see his point. Drunk as he was, the mood was delightful, and dropping out early would have been a shame. It was also clear what a lesson he had received. So much of the training I had gone through at Cwmbran had been theoretical, even if based on reality. Once out with Dai, or Bryn and Barry, I had soon realised how real people got really hurt, how the ripples spread. I did my best to help him stay the course, and then, as we settled into a corner of the Smugglers’, the call came.

“How much is the whip?”

Candice was the first to respond.

“Lainey! Yay!”

Our old boss was there, smiling happily, with her wife beside her, hand in hand. We went through a round of greetings before the pub’s PA system kicked in. It was Marlene.

“That woman next to her with the red hair can fuck right off! If she gets her purse out, Marlene here will get fucking pissed off. Elaine Powell, you do NOT fucking pay in my pub!”

My friend, just grinned, as Siân guffawed, saying something to Elaine in Welsh. Lainey turned to the bar and shouted out her order.

“Then I will have a pint of whatever the dead rat was last in, and a large white wine!”

The girls were so right. Time to write our own scripts.

CHAPTER 56
I found work a little bit of an anti-climax after that, and it took me a little while to calm down. Life had been edge of the seat for so long I was finding it difficult to relax in the office. Fortunately, or not, Jon and the New Chums had been piling up the information on Mersey View’s former staff and ‘guests’, and their computer skills were well above mine. I had expected a great pile of A4 paper, and instead received two USB memory sticks.

“Staff on the red one, Diane, and inmates on the blue. Set them up as spreadsheets, so if you get into Excel and…”

“I can handle that bit, mate. I just need to settle down and start looking for connections. Anything significant, juicy?”

“Er, yeah. Got one link, really weird. Two of the former staff moved on, to another care home. Charles Cooper and Donald Renfrew Hamilton. They were jailed back in the seventies, or at least Cooper was. Hamilton would have been, but he as found drowned in a nearby river”

“Oh? Accidental?”

“Given what else happened there, I doubt it. Real can of worms, that place”

“Where was this?”

“Carlisle”

“Oh shit. Castle Keep, by any chance?”

“You know it?”

“I started to read the file, because I thought it might be the place we were after, but I couldn’t finish it. The Super I was talking with, Cheshire force, yeah? He knows far more about it. I’ll see what he says. You are saying both men worked at Mersey View?”

“Yup. Both moved on when it closed, both to the same place, both places concerned being, you know, not exactly happy camper stuff. Bloke who ran the Carlisle place is in Broadmoor”

“Any word on the ones who ran Mersey?”

“Oh yes. Husband and wife, John and Marie Parsons. Both snuffed it years ago”

“Prison?”

“Hell, no. Nursing home. Both went on the same day, of, er, absolutely natural causes relating to sleeping pills”

“Ah. What are you thinking, Jon?”

“Had a look through the reports, archived papers and shit, and it looks as if someone was pushing for an inquiry into the Mersey place, and the Parsons decided to jump first”

“So what do we have left? Apart from the Cooper person?”

“Quite a few inmates. You were right about most of them, but one or two seem to have made a decent fist of things, afterwards. I was thinking about that one. Could be awkward”

“What do you mean, Jon?”

I knew exactly what he meant, but I wanted him to work it out for himself.

“Decent life, family, job, and we waltz in asking them about the time they were banged up with nonces?”

“Absolutely, mate. Thoughts?”

“Sneaksies, you mean? Yeah, got one. Approach them at work, say we want to see if they remember an RTC or something. Saves getting their families worried, and we make sure their boss is told they are just a possible witness”

“Nice idea. I see you are picking up the team vibes nicely!”

“Not my idea, Di. That was from Lexie over there. Oh, another thing”

“Yeah?”

“Rhys. He’s gay, isn’t he?”

“Not for me to confirm or deny, is it? Could ask him, couldn’t you?”

“Don’t need to, really. My gaydar is usually spot on. You know if he’s seeing anyone at the moment?”

“Oh, you randy little sod!”

He laughed, pleased with what he clearly saw as a compliment.

“Guilty! Cuppa?”

“Ta! Getting back to work, I will drop a note to my Cheshire contact, see what he says”

As I composed the e-mail, copied in to Sammy and Bev Williams for approval, of course, he put the cup down by me before settling down at his own terminal.

‘Sneaksies’. He was most definitely fitting right in. Bev’s reply was almost instantaneous, just a quick note added to mine as he forwarded the original message to Sedgewick.
The man himself was across at the nick only two days later, and once more I found myself drinking posh coffee with Sammy and the two brass.

“Talk me through it, if toy would Di”

“Aye, sir. Simple, really. We’ve found about twelve former residents, not sure of the final tally. Our team is still digging and may well turn up some others”

He shuddered at that phrase. Bad choice of words, DC Owens.

“The other thing I wanted to ask about was the staff. I wanted to keep it off the audit trail, just in case”

Sedgewick shot Bev a sharp look, and my boss shrugged.

“I trust her instincts, Andrew. Diane, what do you have for us?”

“Donald Renfrew Hamilton and Charles Cooper”

Sedgewick dropped his head and raised a hand to rub his eyes.

“Where do those two… individuals fit into this investigation, Diane?”

“I believe they worked at Castle Keep”

No tone at all in his reply. “Yes”

“Well, before they moved to Carlisle, they were both employed at Mersey View”

“That would be absolutely in keeping with their character. Well, Alf’s gone, and so is Don. Some sort of swimming accident, rather oddly while he was supposed to be on remand. That just leaves Charlie, then”

There was emotion there now, and it was disgust.

“DC Owens, I am going to skate over the details for now. You already know some of them, so I will give you a… a flavour of what we found in that place. In short, organised rape of the inmates, including punting them out to friends and customers, accompanied by corruption in the local constabulary, and topped off by the permanent disposal of boys who got past their sell-by date. Sorry to be so flippant, but we dug up several former inmates, their deaths having taken place over a very long period.

“Charles Cooper. Yes. Charlie particularly liked the fringe benefits of his employment. Sorry, but I will leave it there, except to say that if those two people were working in Mersey View, then anyone who was there as a resident has had an early foretaste of hell”

He looked down at his knees again.

“What do you propose we do, Diane?”

“Well, sir, I have been giving this one some thought”

Bev gave a sniff, almost like one of Charlie’s. The other Charlie’s, that is.

“I would naturally have expected no less. Go ahead, Di”

“Well, sir, it was just a thought when I opened this case again, a favour for a brave woman. It has taken me a long time to get over my own past…”

Sedgewick shot Bev a glance, and my boss made a little gesture— ‘no now’.

“It’s all about closing a door on the past without something being there all the time to push it back open again. That’s what I got, that’s what I wanted to offer Deb, and then I got to thinking, what about all the others who suffered there?”

Bev gave me an appraising stare.

“You are assuming there was criminality there, Diane”

“Given what I read about that place Mr Sedgewick was at, and the little Deb has vouchsafed--- did I just use the word ‘vouchsafed’? Oh dear me! Anyway, what Deb told us, I just thought if it has scarred her so much, then perhaps we can help her heal, and all the others we can find. I am not hoping for a load of prosecutions; just that we might perhaps identify enough villainy to get a proper inquiry started. Public service, it’s what we are for, isn’t it?”

Bev looked at his mate, then back at me.

“No timescale, then?”

“No. This will be a long and steady one, but if at least one of the abusers is still alive, then I would like him to have his own life stirred up a bit. Let some people sleep easier”

“Andrew? Opinions?”

“You want frankness, Bevan?”

“Please”

“I will make a confession, then. I was a very young officer at the time, but what I saw in that place, and in the other properties, has never left me. One very determined family broke that place open, but so many other hellholes, like Bryn Estyn and Mersey View, were left to run their course. My confession is a simple one: my own sleep might just be improved. That is all I need say. Diane, we will make all we have available to you on Mersey View, and I will be speaking to my former colleagues in Cumbria.

“You are absolutely correct, DC Owens. Public service is not defined by the number of arrests and convictions, nor should it ever be. Thank you”

I left Bev’s office almost in shock, for what I had seen in Sedgewick came so close to my own experience, and mirrored Adam’s, that I felt vindicated. Not just me, then

I put it on hold a little later, because I had some place in Italy to head off to. Before that there was shopping to do, summer clothes to buy, swimming costume, sandals, and that was just Dad! He had worked through so many guide books and maps I wondered how much he would end up paying in excess baggage charges. The day came, and it was Blake who did the driving, at a stupidly early hour, down the M4 to the new Severn crossing by Caldicot, over into England and then down the M49 until peeling off for another scenic section right under the Clifton Bridge. Dad was glued to a map for the whole trip, to absolutely no surprise on anyone’s part, and kept feeding us gems of irrelevant information, such as the fact that somewhere to our left was a place called ‘Catbrain’.

Thanks, father dearest. Just the sort of image we needed for a bumpy flight. I changed the subject.

“Last trip we did, love, and Mam, stop looking so smug whenever I use that word!”

“Well, looks like Dad and me were right, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, shut up, or I’ll spike your rubber ring! Where was I? Oh, yeah, last trip we did was to Cuba, after I graduated. Not really had a proper holiday since”

“Let’s make this a good one then, LOVE”

Cheeky sod. The flight was on time, even though they didn’t announce the boarding till the very last minute, and my big boy had paid for allocated seats so that Mam and I could sit by windows. He ended up sitting two away from me on his own, because the leg room was better on an aisle seat, but the flight was only two hours fifteen minutes, plus the messing around before take-off. I had ten days to have him next to me, so I suspected I would survive.

We took off smoothly, made our way down to the Channel and then over France and I was told Switzerland, but as we hit a solid layer of cloud before we were even over the French coast, I saw sod-all. That changed as we cleared the south of the Alps, and suddenly there were snowy peaks behind us and dazzling reflections off to the side from a stupidly blue sea.

We turned in a huge curve, and Mam, who was on the left side, was oohing and aahing all the way down, while I got to see fields. Bugger. Down with a bump, off into the terminal, and after a short wait, we had our luggage. It was almost painless, up to the point where Dad said “We need a number 10a, then we change at Lido di Jesolo for a 23a. That drops us off at the gates to the site”

Blake grinned.

“Na, don’t think so. I am not sitting for ages on a town bus. Hang on… you looking for a Mr Sutton?”

That last was to a bored-looking local, who had just lowered a little sign bearing the word ‘Satin’.

“Si. Mister Satton”

“That’s me. Union Lido?”

“Si, si!”

Blake grinned at Dad. “As I said, Mark, sod sitting on a local bus for hours. I booked us a transfer!”

Our driver, Paolo, wasn’t anywhere near as smooth as the big man, of course, and, after we had finally left the long and boring road that went on for too many miles past utterly flat fields and endless stretches of marshland, and entered the edges of a town Dad confidently named as Jesolo, I got more than a little apprehensive. Paolo seemed to have two speeds only, one of which was flat out, the other stationary, and he was clearly intent on keeping transition between the two states to as short a period of time as possible. I closed my eyes several times; riding with Bryn and Barry had been a doddle in comparison.

Eventually, though, we were there, and after our driver had explained in rapid-fire Local Foreign to a man on the gate, he drove us far more slowly and carefully towards a huge water tower in the middle of the site, where we offloaded, paid our driver/psycho nutter and took stock of our surroundings. At the foot of the tower was a supermarket, where Mam disappeared to pick up some milk, and waiting for us were some very cheery Teessiders. They did all the necessary paperwork in nothing flat, and we were shown to a white prefabricated building as they chattered on about social events, travel to Venice, site facilities and probably the fountain of youth and the Holy Grail, but I could see Mam hurrying back with the milk.

Yes, we had teabags in our luggage, and the kettle went on almost as soon as we were left to it. My parents looked into the two bedrooms together, laughed out loud, and with even more insufferable smugness put their luggage into the one with twin beds.

I drank my tea, gratefully, foe even with the foreign milk it was just what I needed. It was still afternoon, and I had a new swimming costume, and so had Blake, so with a bag full of every sun product known to Man we made our way through the maze of roadways on the site until a gate let us put our feet onto sand.

Ashley Evans was done and dusted, and along with him his cousin. Pritchard’s life was effectively over. There was a blue sea in front of me, and a brilliant sun still high in the sky, and people I loved by my side.

Time to start living again, DC Owens!

CHAPTER 57
The water was nowhere near as warm as it had been in Cuba, but it was still delightful. The beach was clean, and both Mam and I had someone suitable for the application of sun cream. The stress of the flight, and the aftermath of the adrenalin-fuelled minibus ride, all evaporated under blue skies and on clean sand. Sparkling company that I am, I fell asleep. Dad woke me a little later.

We only spent a couple of hours there, as none of us fancied spending the whole of our holiday suffering from sunburn, so we settled back into our little chalet for a cuppa and some unpacking before setting out to explore the site.

It was ridiculously clean, and full of little surprises, including a place that sold roast chickens and boxes of mixed salads, served by a man with the hairiest arms I have ever seen. I started to giggle, and realised that Mam was too, and when she leant over and said something about the beard nets some of the supermarkets gave their more unshaven male employees, I was lost, and so was she.

We staggered on, our men giving each other sighs of ‘Women! Pah!’ and after a little pool that held a few turtles, terrapins, tortoises, lizardy things with big shells, whatever they were, we came to a sort of traffic island of delight, or rather Italian ice cream. Some things are obligatory, and so we did. Dad, of course, had the phrase book, pocket dictionary, etc, etc, and he worked through the labels on the various tubs, explaining the flavours whose printed ‘English’ translations were more optimistic than accurate.

“English soup? What’s that there then? Hang on…”

Yet another book came out of his little rucksack, a ‘menu master’ according to the cover.

“Right… hang on… Oh! It’s trifle! Have to try that one! Don’t know that one, though. Ace?”

Mam grinned. “Caught you out, then, love! And for once I know the answer, and not from a book, is it? Was on a carton near the milk in that shop. It’s a fruit juice, and there’s some in the fridge now. Says it’s apples, carrots and oranges, it does, so I thought it might be nice at breakfast tomorrow. Blake can try that one, I’ll have the raspberry there, next to the lemon. Di? What you having, then?”

“Apple. Sounds interesting!”

Of course, once we had our ‘gelati’, each of us had to try a little bit of them all, and I heard more laughter from my parents than there had been for what felt like centuries. That evening, we ate in a first-floor restaurant open to the breeze, with views out over the beach and the Adriatic. The food was tasty, and plentiful, and on the way back we stopped at one of the supermarkets for some wine and beer, so that our first evening there could finish the way these things should do: comfortably slumped with each other as the sun went down and any cares we had were sent home.

Dad had us out of bed very early the next day, and I dashed off for a very necessary shower while Mam set out a breakfast of fresh rolls, cold meat and cheese, with glasses of the juice she had bought. The bed had been comfortable, and Blake had been affectionate, and, well, a shower. When I returned, Dad was just filling his little rucksack again.

“Get that eaten, and walking shoes on, love. Done some research, I have…”

He waited for the three of us to stop laughing, smiling fondly.

“Do I care if you think it’s funny? Bus leaves the gates in twenty minutes for a place where the ferries go from. Get there early, and we have a treat a lad from work told me about. Chop chop!”

I ended up eating a cheese and ham roll as we walked to the bus stop, but I didn’t care. The bus was on time, the road was arrow-straight, and the trip was short, to a place called Punta Sabbioni, I think, where there were acres of car parking and even more acres of parked cars, for they overflowed the space available. Our bus driver let us off at the ferry terminal just before a series of tour buses started to disgorge what seemed like half the world, and so we ended up at the front of the queue on the landing stage.

Our ferry looked like something out of an old film, and I had a flash of recognition, and with it even more giggling. Blake gave me a puzzled look, and I managed to stop laughing long enough to explain.

“Looks like a ship, yeah? Just a lot smaller? Never rode one of those roundabouts when you were little? At the funfair? All the miniature vehicles the kids can pretend to drive? It’s like one of them!”

I was laughing at the stupidest things that morning, and I could feel why, as my body lost its tension. Writing my own script indeed, girls. Blake, without needing to be told, trotted straight up the stairs to the top floor, or upper deck as Dad insisted I call it, where we had bench seats under a sort of veranda. The ferry, a ‘motonave’ according, once more, to Dad set off over the lagoon, past a very odd sight.

There was a sand bank to one side of our route, and a family had clearly earmarked it as theirs. A blank piece of dry sand, in the middle of a sweep of water, and they had simply driven their boat out to it, pulled it out a little bit, and set up chairs and tables for a picnic. The presence of a lot of waterborne traffic all around them didn’t seem to bother them at all.

Meanwhile, Dad was scanning the approaching buildings with his pocket binoculars, and I heard him give a little grunt of relief.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“Ah, love, always a little worry here. There’s two big sailing yachts tied up right by my church, but no cruise ships. They bring them right into the lagoon, stupid things. Do a lot of damage, just by the water they push about. See the big tower? Just to the right of that thing that looks like St Paul’s?”

“Yeah”

“That’s where we’re going. St Mark’s bell tower. When we get off, we go as quick as we can, straight to the tower. Get there ahead of the crowd if we can”

That was when it struck me, as it clearly had Mam: this was Venice. This was all the pictures we saw in Italian restaurants, on packets of pasta, all the shots we saw on travel shows on the telly. Bloody Piazza San Marco!

‘His’ church indeed!

We did as we were told, not quite running for the tower, but moving smartly, especially after a pigeon decided to sit on Mam’s head. It was the Grand Canal! There were GONDOLAS! I don’t know why, but while Cuba had been wonderful, there was just something about being in such a famous place that left me feeling as if it wasn’t actually happening.

We made it into the door to the tower, Dad holding some Euro notes ready while repeating something like ‘Quattro per l’ascensore, per favore’. The young man sitting behind the desk just smiled.

“Thank you. Four adults, yes?”

Money taken, change given, and into a lift. Dad, you absolute genius!

All his planning, the early start, it all led to a bright jewel of a morning, where we beat the arriving hordes to take a lift to what must have been the highest point in the whole city, and all I can say is that the views were everything Mam in particular could ever have wished for. I think she nearly filled an entire memory card in a morning. Dad even managed to spot the water tower by our chalet, just to pin us to the map. Mam was in absolute heaven.

“Blake, son, you are an absolute genius! And Mark, thank you. This is wonderful, this place! The views, oh!”

I was looking at some of the beams, rafters, whatever they were called.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

“How old is this place?”

“About a century, love”

“You what?”

“Ah, all that studying was clearly wasted, with such eloquence! It fell down in 1902, and had to be rebuilt. I think the original was started about the time the English were being beaten by the Normans”

“Wow!”

He started to pint out all sorts of features from his guide book reading, but, perhaps fortunately, we were interrupted by a young woman wearing the same sort of shirt as the lad who had taken our money for the lift.

“This is your first time in the city?”

Mam laughed. “Yes! Is it that obvious?”

The girl shrugged. “It is a thing I am used to! For all of you, first time?”

We nodded.

“You would like I take a photograph for you? All four?”

Mam handed her the smoking-hot camera. I assumed it must be hot, with the number of shots she had taken.

“That would be lovely, Miss!”

“Okay---we take the picture from this side? View of la Salute is beautiful, and not light for the horses”

For once, I knew what she meant, and we moved round so that what Dad had called ‘St Paul’s’ was framed in the opening.

“We have the husbands in the back?”

I didn’t argue as what she meant was clear, and as she cheerily snapped a number of shots I knew that at least one would end up printed and framed.

She smiled once more, handing back the camera, and then dropped her voice to a whisper.

“The Piazza, do NOT eat here! Too… too much for the rich, yes? There is a place by Rialto, with flowers, simple food if you wish and sit by the canal. But go to Sospiri before Chinese people come”

Blake had to ask why, and she gave a shrug of exasperation so theatrically Italian I wished I had been recording a video.

“They have the tour groups, si? With the little flags they wave to herd their groups. All ‘this way, quick-quick!] That is always bad at the Ponte de la Paglia, where the view is of the Sospiri. Now, ey! Now, they have a loudspeaker, an amplifier, on a belt, here at the waist, and they don’t shout, they boombox! We have asked the Government of the City to stop this. It is so rude! You go now, they come later, you have a good day, maybe go to Torcello”

She was off, and Mam was shaking her head.

“Where does she get the energy? And what’s Sospiri?”

Blake answered that one.

“Bridge of Sighs. Got that map, Mark?”

“Hang on---ah. Just down from where we got off the boat”

“Right. Do that, then, and off to the water bus. Number 1 vaporetto, I believe”

I shut my open mouth.

“What? He might have bought all the books, but there is a thing called the internet! Do the Sospiri, then up to the Rialto by boat. We could walk it, but this is the nice way. Oh, and Dot? For you”

He handed her a small paper bag.

“Thought you might appreciate this”

Another memory card for her camera. He had clearly planned so bloody carefully he was putting Dad to shame, and I had a surge of emotion at how lucky I was.

I will be honest: The Bridge of Sighs wasn’t that amazing, but we managed to avoid the massed foreign tour groups, two of which arrived as we turned round and headed for the waterbus stop. They were exactly as our young friend had described them, moving in a loose herd behind a middle-aged woman waving a little flag and shouting into a microphone connected to a small loudspeaker mounted on a shoulder strap. Low impact tourism it wasn’t, and I was struck by the complete disregard they showed to everyone around them. On balance, I was much happier with my group.

The bus was a long and low-slung thing, and as we squeezed on we were followed by a little dog. Off we went, and two stops later the beast casually got off again, nobody paying any attention, as if a dog taking a ferry ride on its own was perfectly normal. Our bus made its way slowly up the canal, passing expensive-looking speedboat things Dad said were water taxis, and of course gondolas.

“Love, the book says nobody can decide which is the quickest route to extreme poverty: a water taxi ride, a gondola ride, or a coffee by St Mark’s when music’s playing”

I saw the next bridge over Mam’s shoulder, but there was no way she could get a snap through the crowd, so we jumped off when the bus docked and walked back a little bit, so she could photograph the Rialto. To be honest, it looked rather scruffy to me, but there was a restaurant nearby, windows filled with potted geraniums and looking back at the bridge. The food was a little expensive, even for omelette and chips, but the location was superb, and I realised Mam hadn’t stopped grinning since breakfast.

That set the pattern of our days. We did six visits to Venice in the end, including trips to the glass factories on Murano, which I hated, so pushy, and in utter contrast we had the painted houses on Burano and the tranquillity of Torcello.

Above all those details was the simple delight of getting lost in the scruffy maze that is Venice. We even got to ride in a gondola, after Dad’s research found out that they operated as pedestrian ferries in some places. No serenade on the Grand Canal; instead, some rapid oaring by a wiry man across a narrow canal. It was still Venice, though, and still a gondola. We didn’t give a damn.

On the holiday home site, we swam, lazed on the beach or by one of the pools, cooked some meals, ate out delightfully on several nights and just got on, in a true spirit of utter dedication, with the business of having a bloody good holiday.

Mam and I had our books, Dad and my other big boy had their mysterious male-bonding rituals, and Mam had to buy another memory card. Far too soon, though, we were at the end of it all, cases packed with everything apart from what we would need that evening and for the trip home that would come the following morning.

We ended up in the restaurant with the terrace, served by people we now knew by name. Our desserts had waited until the wine was finished, and our coffees were enlivened with a free round of Sambuca, each shot glass holding three coffee beans toasted in the blue flame lit by Mario.

“My friends, is three, always. For the health, the wealth and the happiness!”

We could, and did, drink to those.

Mam sat smiling, slightly sozzled, if the truth be told, and Dad just looked at Blake, who looked slightly worried. He took a couple of deep breaths, then reached over to take my left hand in his own.

“Diane, love?”

“Very formal, DC Sutton!”

I found myself giggling, as I realised Mam wasn’t the only slightly wobbly one. He shook his head.

“I went into the little shop by the gate, aye? And…”

He looked over at Dad, who nodded once, slowly.

“Di?”

“Yes, Blake?”

“Would you like to be a DC Sutton too?”

CHAPTER 58
I was back to the state of mouth Dad had commented on in the bell tower. Blake was sitting opposite me, rather than kneeling, and rather than a square box he had a little paper bag from the shop by the campsite gates, which I remembered included a jeweller’s. Apart from that, and the fact that my parents were sitting with us, it was as traditional as all hell.

My mouth, very simply, would not move in any organised way. Police, professional wasn’t working, but my mind was. From the way they were sitting, Mam and Dad must have been in on the proposal from an early stage, and I wondered if Blake had engineered the whole holiday so that it would be Venice, and therefore officially As Romantic As A Romantic Thing, before I clamped down on my racing thoughts.

Was he serious? Yes, clearly. Did I want this? My mouth took over, for it knew the answer before my mind did.

“Where are we getting wed, then?”

That broke my mother, and Dad just held her till she could function again, as my love did the customary thing with finger and jewellery. Naturally, our waiter saw, and had to ask if what he saw was what he thought. Blake was the one who answered.

“Thank you, Mario. Grazie, si? Di has said yes to my question”

He launched into a flurry of Italian, which lost even the Master of the Phrasebook, and bustled off. Before we could react properly, he was back with a man in a neater jacket, who turned out to be the ‘director’ of the restaurant. He shook hands and kissed cheeks, and one by one the other staff came up to do the same thing. Heads were turning all around us, so Blake simply stood and announced “Yes, I have just asked her, and yes, she has agreed!”

Applause from all around, before Mario returned with a bottle of fizzy Italian wine and the bloody on-site professional photographer, and the evening got very, very busy as well as memorable. I was still numb, which thought started me laughing, as I was now simultaneously engaged and disengaged, and the evening went on rather longer than I had expected. We said our good nights, and we made the promises to return followed by the stroll back to our little unit, where my body and brain finally got back together as Mam made a final pot of tea.

“You two knew, didn’t you?”

Mam nodded, as Dad reached for her hand, which he held to his shoulder as she stood behind him.

“I know your mother spoke to you, love, so we have nothing to hide. Blake, son, please keep silent, just for a bit?”

My other man just nodded, and Dad turned back to me.

“What she said, love. We have watched you, watched over you, worried about you, ever since you were born, and more so after that night. We saw our little girl lost to us, so hurt, so DAMAGED. Your career, well, so proud we were, but you still held the shadows in your eyes. Then this one brings you home one day, and, well, Mam says ‘he’s one of the good ones’, and he is, love. A man I am proud to call my friend, and we hoped, just a bit. Then he comes to us, and no, it wasn’t for permission.

“He simply said what we already knew, that he loved you. What he asked, though, was something else. He asked us if we thought it would be the right thing for you. That was his priority, love. That it be right for you. And that was what showed us the answer to his question”

He looked over to my fiancé (get used to that word, woman) and smiled. Blake was blushing, for god’s sake, but smiling with it.

“You know what really got me looking at you, Di?”

“My eyes? My smile? My supermodel good looks?”

“Daft girl. No. It was when you ripped me a new--- sorry, Dot. When you told me off that time. About the rape”

“Ah! Dad, that was just something silly I said”

Blake pulled me to him.

“No, love. It wasn’t. It was absolutely right. Mark, we had that long case, aye? The gang rapes? I said something stupid--- ‘makes it easier, now we know we’re looking for gay men’, and Di says, ‘don’t be so stupid, it’s all about power, not sex’, though, well, she might not have used those exact words”

Mam laughed. “I bet she didn’t!”

I shrugged. “I sort of said something about it not being about screwing but more about screwing someone up. Just, as Blake says…”

He squeezed me.

“Yeah, and I saw the strength in her then, and I will admit I wondered what it was that sparked the flame. Sorry, getting a bit poncey in my words. And that was what caught my attention, aye? Oh, as well as her eyes, smile and supermodel good looks, of course”

The night went as should be expected, but it was the morning that surprised me, when Mam came over to the shower block with me, and I realised that she was washing for exactly the same reason as me. I gave her the raised eyebrows as we dried our hair at the mirrors afterward, and she just blushed; blushed and grinned. What possible comment could I have made just then? Oh dear. I wasn’t being squeamish, but, well. Parents are not someone you ever feel comfortable thinking about in connection with sex. Ever. No matter how much you love them.

We said our goodbyes and strapped ourselves into the taxi, and tried not to scream as we were driven to the airport for our return, and everything was unremarkable after that. Especially after we all seemed to fall asleep during the flight. I know my parents were both snoring all the way from Bristol to Cardiff, which left me briefly wondering how much energy Dad had found--- No! Do not go there, DC Owens!

Home. Tea. Proper milk. Our own beds, and of course he ended up just about moving in to both places as I made sure we pushed ahead with the property search. I mean, we were official now, which was the first thing anyone saw when we went back into work a few days later. No ‘How was the holiday’, no ‘Nice tan’, nothing at all like that.

Candice was at the urn when we entered our office together.

“Cuppas, you two?”

Blake called out a ‘Yes please’ as I sat to begin the horrible job of logging onto my computer and filtering out all the meaningless junk that was officially classed as necessary and appropriate official communication and prioritising the real stuff. Candice brought over my tea, and set it down by my left side to avoid my mouse mat. As I moved the cup a little further away, she screamed.

“You bitch! And you, you sod! Why weren’t we all invited?”

Heads were turning, so she just pulled my arm straight up and began making exaggerated pointing gestures at my ring. That led to everyone in the bloody room demanding the full story, until Blake shouted for quiet.

“How old are you lot supposed to be? Someone shout Sammy while I log in the standalone”

One thing that should be obvious, given the nature of our work, is that there are things we need to look at that we do not wish to let anywhere near our IT systems, and so we have a single computer linked to absolutely nothing, our ‘standalone’. We also keep a CD/DVD/ROM, whatever they are called, machine for downloading media such as memory cards and sticks. As the computer powered up, Blake was running SD cards through the machine and pulling out compact discs.

“Got a load of pics here, people! Grab a cuppa and we’ll show you where we were. Hi, Sammy. Pull up a pew”

That man looked down at my hand, grinned and hugged me, no words being necessary, and we wasted half the morning scrolling through our holiday snaps.

‘Wasted’? No. Not in any way. Back to work, and Candice was still stirring.

“Oy! Lovebirds! Sent you both an e-mail with some links to wedding venues”

Cow. But I have to admit she did have some good ideas buried in the dross about Las Vegas Elvis chapels. Package deals as well. Hmmm…

It took, in the end, nearly a month for people to stop using our engagement as the first topic of any conversation with us, and that other word slowly stopped being a big thing.

‘Us’.

Well, it never would cease to be a big thing, but I slowly grew used to the concept. The longest job, of course, was at the safe house. Every single person wanted to know absolutely everything, and work on Deb’s old place took a little bit of a back seat.

I remember one weekend, though, where we were sitting in the back garden at the old house, one of Mam’s roast dinners settling nicely as Blake and Dad talked scrums and scrummagers, and I looked through the venues once more.

Mam saw, and whispered to me “Don’t worry about costs, love. Well, not too much, isn’t it? We’ve been saving for years, what with just you to look after. Now we know, aye? Know we didn’t put money aside for nothing. Dad and me, we liked this idea”

It was a package deal, going from Bristol again, but to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Flights, hotel and a ceremony on a beach…

I had never been a really girly girl, and after that bastard had violated my life, I had never let myself go, never seen myself as able to dream of the sort of thing Mam was showing me. Damaged bloody goods, shop-soiled, all those stupid, self-hating ideas had ridden on my shoulders like the Old Man of the Sea. Mam had more, though.

“Been talking with the boy, we have. What we thought was, if we do this as a family holiday, then we don’t do another big Summer one, works out about what we’d pay, anyway, just for an ordinary break. Just need the dates”

I smiled at her.

“So all that stuff about saving up, then?”

“Oh, silly girl! Us along, that’s no honeymoon! We wondered if you’d like to go back to the other place. Cavallino, Venice, aye? We’d give you that as a gift, for getting our little girl back. I mean, we’ve already made a profit on her!”

“Beg pardon?”

“That boy over there, aye? Dad’s happy, I am happy, and my little girl--- are you happy, love?”

“Stupid bloody question, Mam!”

A really broad grin.

“Thought not! Now, this is going to take some planning, and not just for us”

“Why not?”

A shake of her head, and a sigh.

“And you wouldn’t want to have that friend of yours by you? Bridget? I don’t mean we’ll pay, is it, but she needs to know to start her own saving”

I wasn’t just discovering the love of a good man, but being reminded of the love I already held, that of my parents. Within two weeks, after some delicate conversations between two of us (and just the two of us, mother dear) we had the date, set for Spring.

If that sounds really hurried, rushed even, that wasn’t how it felt to us. What it did feel like was right, appropriate, fitting. I had absolutely no doubts about him, none at all, and that included any doubts about his feelings. While my rediscovered little girl was still dreaming about a white dress and a tropical beach, my professional policewoman was simply stating the fact that it did not matter, in the end, whether we married or not. He was mine, and I was his. Case closed.

The booking was a complicated one, and we ended up with a list of names to work through, and that was when I realised, once again, that my police head wasn’t as clear as my arrogance believed. Before I could ring Elaine, though, she rang me.

One Tuesday, I grabbed the ringing phone, and it was her.

“Lainey! Hi! How is it all over there?”

“Hiya Diane. Look, got any free time next couple of days? Need to run something past you”

There was something off there.

“This work or private, Inspector?”

“Sort of both, aye?”

I clicked open my calendar, then waved to Blake and passed him a quickly scribbled note.

‘Lainey? U free Thursday?’. He nodded, and I turned back to the phone, watching him for problems as I spoke. Something was up with her, so get out of area.

“OK… know the Cross Inn, over to Cowbridge? I’m sort of free Thursday night”

“Sort of?”

How to explain? Sod it.

“Um, Blake and I are sort of, you know, saving on rent, and if I drive, he can have a pint”

“What about if he drives so you can have one?”

That eased my worries a little, hearing her sense of humour in place, and I sniggered.

“You don’t change, do you? Seven thirty do you?”

“Aye. See you then”

She hung up, and Blake asked the obvious question.

“She’s got a problem, love?”

“Sounds like it. You OK with this?”

“Of course. Watching your own back, watching your mate’s, aye? Where’s this place?”

“End of the road we found Omar. First thing that came to my mind; I just felt we needed to give her some privacy, just in case”

“You are worried, then”

“Just a bit. There have been times, yeah, when she’s looked on the edge. Something, yeah? Anyway, we can worry about that on Thursday. Got a place I want to look at tonight, by the way”

The next couple of days went by without incident, the ‘place’ turning out to have a damp problem, which would only have been made worse by the totally crap weather that Thursday evening. We parked up outside the pub, rain gusting past us, and found our wat past a welcome open fire (what happened to the bloody Summer) to where our friend sat at a table for four. I had already checked the menu board outside.

I noticed her gaze lock on our linked hands, but that was just normal for us now, and we did the usual friendly greeting. Worry was still haunting me, so I simply asked her outright.

“What you got, Elaine?”

“Get the food ordered first, aye?”

My man laughed. “And the pints!”

She shook her head, sadly.

“Pint, butt. I’m driving back, aye?”

Off he went to the bar, and I slipped into the seat opposite her. Something was very, very wrong, and I began a slow rise to panic. Her wife? Her sister? She shook herself, and pulled out an A4 folder, not too thick. Hesitantly, she handed me the bundle.

“Our friend Adam Price, Di”

I wanted to scream out ‘Oh fuck! No!’ but managed to strangle that at birth.

“Oh?”

Calm, girl. Police. Fucking professional. I unfastened the folder and pulled out a slim bundle of press clippings and photocopies, the first of which was from the Sun. My heart somersaulted. I was expecting a picture of a smashed bike, a burned car, a fucking funeral procession, and what I saw was a dumpy woman in a skirt suit with a skinny man and…

“Shit!”

I knew my mouth was open, words once again disappearing as my eyes slowly made sense of what I was seeing. I knew that face, and I rewound Elaine’s words.

‘Our friend Adam Price’

Lainey looked over my shoulder, and I knew it was my man, and I wrestled with myself before I found my focus. I was his, he mine, case closed. He sat next to me after handing round the drinks, and once his hands were free I passed him the newspaper clipping.

“What’s this, love?”

No easy way here, girl.

“Remember I had a friend, Blake, went off to England? Had a break down?”

He smiled, which lifted my heart.

“The traffic lad? The one you fancied?”

Straight to what he saw as the important question.

“That’s the one”

“What… bloody hell!”

His mouth fell open just as I knew mine had, and I realised I was weeping, Elaine passing some paper napkins from the place settings.

“You OK, girl?”

Was I OK? I took the papers back from Blake, flipping through some more pictures and reports on what was looking like a seriously unpleasant case.

“Sort of, Lainey. Sort of. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? Do I take it you’re in contact with… her?”

‘Her’ was the only word I could see as being appropriate; Adam didn’t look right, exactly, but… she looked comfortable in the clothes.

Lainey considered my question for a few seconds, and once again I could feel the tension in her, and this time the reason was clearer: how much could she safely tell me?

“No, not exactly. Sarah is, and some mutual friends. I’m seeing her in three weeks”

‘Mutual friends’ I suspected included the Woodruff woman. Elaine wasn’t finished though, and dropped another bloody hand grenade into the conversation.

“At her engagement party”

What the bloody buggering bollocks? I looked at the pictures again, the skinny man beside her, the name… Anne Price. P, p.

“Is this a fall-out from his… her breakdown?”

“No, Di. I think this is a large part of what nearly broke her”

“She’s a straight girl, then. Like your sister, yeah?”

That was slowly working into my consciousness. Woman. Girl. Straight. Engaged. Not so bloody different to me, in the end.

Elaine nodded, and I opted for doing what had to be the right thing.

“What’s the man like?”

That brought a real smile, the first from her that evening.

“My friends speak highly of him”

I made my decision final.

“Then I hope she gets all the happiness she needs. Poor sod! All that time, and I’m saying how easy Adam is to talk to, and no bloody wonder, I was talking to another girl. Blake, love, don’t get me wrong, I can talk to you, but girls, well, it’s different, yeah?”

Sod it. Put her on the spot; nothing I could do from so far away.

“Promise me, Lainey. Promise me you’ll watch her back. She’s one of the special ones, and no, Blake, I didn’t mean it like that. You have her back, girl, don’t you?”

Another of her nods, this one sharp, firm, certain.

“Not me so much, but she has a lot of decent people looking out for her. Look, want to send her your best?”

Blake was watching me carefully, and I could almost read his mind. How damaged was… Anne Price? Do the right thing, girl.

“No. Her celebration, her special day. If she’s fragile, it might freak her out, old sort of girlfriend sending a message as she gets hooked up to a bloke, aye? Just promise me she’s safe”

“I’ll do my best”

I could feel my lover relax, and let him cwtch with me. He was also rather good at changing the subject.

“Your best is all anyone could ever need, Inspector Powell. Now, we have our own news, for six months from now. We are off to the Dominican Republic and, well, I think you can guess. I want you on my stag night”

Cheeky sod! I gave him a slap on the arm.

“What about my hen night?”

“You can take her wife, so they can compare notes for fun and profit through blackmail”

Yes, I did love him, and without reservation, and my sneaky mind added ‘without competition, now’, and so I told it to sod off while he did the food ordering, I did the drinking and he brought out his laptop to do the holiday snaps thing again.

I suspected the stag night would end up in a certain bar in Cardiff, but did I care?

Anne Price.

Annie, Elaine said. Annie to her friends.

CHAPTER 59
I wasn’t great company for Blake that night, as my first act after getting into what was now clearly ‘our’ flat was to switch the computer on and start looking up news reports. I had half-heartedly started a search about the case that Woodruff woman had been involved in, but I hadn’t felt the need to know all of Adam’s pain back then. For some odd reason, that need was back, and it was hungry. I also wanted to see what he was dealing with right then.

Blake was making tea, so he missed me swearing to myself. Annie, not Adam, if I was a friend. She, not he. All that time with Deb and her girls should have taught me better. Get a grip, DC Owens. I started the trawl, and a few minutes later my man brought me a cup of tea, looked at the screen and squeezed my shoulder in understanding.

That case in Crawley, off the bridge, was worse than I had imagined, worse, I think, than I could ever have imagined. A woman had been hunted down, literally, after a savage beating, cornered on a bridge, and then off it and under the wheels of any number of vehicles. I sat for what felt like hours simply staring at the killer’s mugshots and seeking any sign at all of remorse, of regret, but there was nothing there. Literally nothing, for most mug shots were blanks in terms of expression and personality. In this case, however, the court reports made clear that there really was nothing in their eyes, nothing resembling remorse, that is.

The reports on the other case, though, made my skin crawl. And I recognised the culprits. Not personally, but as I read a revolting story of organised criminality paid for with the bodies of children, I saw Evans and his crew in the faces of the defendants. What was wrong with this bloody country?

I only realised I had said that last out loud when Blake reached past me to close the laptop.

“Enough for now, love. And in answer to your question, look around you. Good people everywhere, aye? You, for a start. Come on, bed. Office tomorrow, aye? Next time you open that laptop, I want to see you looking at dresses. Not being shown up on my wedding day”

“Cheeky bugger!”

“Yeah, but you love me”

No doubt there, of course, but even though I always felt so safe in his arms I stayed a long way from sleep that night. Poor, poor… Stop it. Poor, poor woman. At some point, I would have to meet her, I realised, but not soon. Let the girl build a life again before shaking it up.

I was really glad the next day was a Friday, because I was fit for absolutely nothing. I spent quite a while collating the various reports on surviving guests of Mersey View, but for obvious reasons I kept well away from the Castle Keep file. I had endured more than I felt was bearable reading about damaged children. I did what I could, but my heart was away with my concentration. I made it as far as one o’clock before I switched everything off and grabbed my jacket.

“Sammy?”

“Yes, Di?”

“Off out for a bit. Going to run some stuff past Deb”

“OK. Bit quiet today, want to go straight home afterwards?”

He grinned before continuing.

“Not as if you haven’t done enough extra hours, girl. Go on: POETS”

“Uh?”

A theatrical sigh. “What do they teach the kids these days? Piss off early, tomorrow’s Saturday! Oh, and Bev Williams has dropped me a line: wants a catch-up next week. Got time?”

I grabbed my diary.

“Hang on… Yeah, Wednesday or Thursday do him?”

“I’ll let him know. Don’t eat too many cakes, Mrs Sutton”

Cheeky sod, as always. I sent a text to Deb as the car warmed up, and she replied immediately, asking to meet at the café rather than the house. Odd.

I drove over there and found a seat in a quiet corner of the place, ordering a jacket potato with chilli on an impulse driven by the smell from another table, Deb sat down opposite me as I was finishing up, and she passed me another cup of tea.

“Sorry to be late, Di. Got a new girl in, and she’s a bit nervous. Self-harmer as well, so I don’t really want her alone too much”

“Oh, sorry, mate. I can leave you to it if you’d like”

“Na, no need. Got Kim back for a little while, and Tiff’s doing good work with her”

“Tiff? Really?”

“You’d be surprised, Di. She’s really opened up since the trials, really relaxed. Not looking over her shoulder all the time, isn’t it? Anyway, what do you have for me?”

“Ah, yes. Part of the investigation, aye? Not the girls, but that home you were at”

Her knuckles whitened on the handle of her cup.

“And?”

“John and Marie Parsons”

“Killed themselves, didn’t they? They’re in the big place off Ivy Street. I’ve been there. I watered their graves”

“I know, Deb. Don Hamilton and Charlie Cooper”

She started to shake at that, and I instantly regretted being so blunt, reaching out for her hand. She grabbed mine as if she was drowning, tears welling up.

“They’re dead, though!”

“Hamilton is. Cooper’s still alive”

“Where is the fucker now?”

“Locked away where he can’t hurt anyone. Apparently, Don fell into a local river. By accident. Didn’t get back out again”

Police, professional, DC Owens. I realised I was getting flippant as I tried to avoid the meat of the conversation.

“Short form, Deb. Both moved on from Mersey View to another place, which, from all the accounts I have read, was even worse. He is doing life, and I believe the two who actually ran the place are in a secure mental home, if they are still with us. I haven’t checked that one yet”

“When can I see Charlie?”

“No. Not going to happen like that, Deb. I will let you have your call on this, but with limits. I am working up a list of former residents, as you know, and I will be taking their wishes into account. As far as I can see, nobody ever actually investigated Mersey View properly, so this may spark one. What I don’t want to do is cause any more pain to the people who have already been hurt by the Parsons and the rest. Sorry, but it’s not just yourself. I am telling you this because I see you as a friend”

She brought her other hand across, holding mine with both of hers.

“You never let go, do you?”

“What do you mean, Deb?”

“You never let go of being a proper police officer, one who cares. You could have ploughed on with all this, got an inquiry rolling, all the rest, and yet here you are, checking to see what bloody collateral damage it might cause. Thank you, Di. Promise me you will never change, aye?”

Finally, I felt able to smile properly at her.

“Do my best, woman!”

Another squeeze of my hands before she rose.

“Sorry, but got to get back and let Kimberley get away. Once we have this new one calmer, I’ll introduce you. Mersey View? Well, all I need to say about Charlie is that he is another rapist. When we get time, though, I will sit down with you and give a statement. Do with it whatever is right for the other victims, OK?”

She left the café for the short walk home, and I took a little while to think about the way the damage spread. That image was in my mind once more, the ripples spreading from one pebble.

When I saw Bev the next week, he had Sedgewick with him once more, along with an Inspector I didn’t recognise. Coffee was sitting on his little table.

“Welcome, Diane. You know Andrew, of course. This is Liam Weir, from Cumbria. Shall we get straight to it after I pour? Sugar, Liam?”

“No thank you, sir. Just milk”

Bev handed me my cup, and did his usual steeple-finger pose.

"Diane has been looking into some old cases, Liam, as part of our serious crime review function. One has led us to a children’s home near Runcorn, and that has led us to your area”

The very young Inspector nodded, mouth twisting.

“Yes indeed. Castle Keep. Well before my time, but it still leaves a very unpleasant taste. It went national in the end; the culprits even tried to shoot the main witness”

Bev looked up sharply at that.

“Really? How did that turn out?”

“Oh, motorcycle with a gunman pillion. Tried to shoot the lad while he was in a car, but he had a bodyguard. He shot back--- this was well before Dunblane, remember. He shot back, and the bike crashed. Both assailants dead. One of them at least was a serving police officer”

“Ah”

Bev turned to me. “You will see exactly how large this can of worms is, Di. Andrew assures me that the rot has been cleared out, from top-down and ground-up. There remains a legacy, however. What are your plans in this case?”

That threw me even more than Deb’s comments. The thing that hid inside his simple question, though, was tacit approval of any decision I might make.

“Sir, I am still gathering information. I have, thus far, only actually spoken to one survivor of Mersey View, and she remembers Cooper and Hamilton very well. She was profoundly distressed by their mention, but has agreed, in advance of asking, to provide a witness statement. I intend to speak to others as and when I can locate them, but my plan, such as it is, is to let them drive. They may wish to have a proper investigation, and finally clear the air; they may wish to let sleeping dogs lie. Their call, I would suggest”

The three of them were nodding, but I had to add the last bit.

“At the moment, gentlemen, I will just say that I have had more than enough of cases involving children, but this is one I feel we should clear up. There have been too many places like this, and I would like that to be underlined in red. Break down some complacency”

Deep breath.

“If possible, I would like to speak to Cooper. I rather fancy helping him lose some sleep”

CHAPTER 60
I spent quite a while thinking about that one, and especially tactics. I held no great hopes of producing a wave of new suspects, but what I did want was to see if I could close off past nightmares for other victims.

That was what had happened with me, in the end. I had spent so many years fixated on Ashley Evans and his corrupt running mates that it had poisoned everything I did. Walk down a street? Look over my shoulder. See a big BMW? Look to see who was behind the wheel. Think about entering a loving relationship with a decent and similarly loving human being?

No. Forget that one. Impossible. Shop-spoiled. Damaged goods.

No, that last wasn’t swept away by Blake, but his honesty and patience had let me open up from the primed hand grenade I had been, the snake coiled and ready to strike. More than that, though, was the closure, as the American psycho babble goes. All three were inside, and unlikely ever to come out again, and as they were enclosed, I was able to unfold from my coiled defensiveness.

That, in essence, was what I was hoping to be able to deliver to a few other broken toys.

Jon had the first possibilities identified a week later, and I let him do the driving across towards Evesham and the grim hole that is Long Lartin prison. I was more than a little worried about him, because while I saw myself as a well-matured hard case, he was still squeaky new.

“You be OK in there, mate?”

He tried to shrug while driving, which was silly.

“Going to have to be, isn’t it? Why did you pick Bowles for the first chat, anyway?”

“Well, if he goes well, everything else will be a piece of cake”

“And if it goes completely to shit?”

“Then the others will seem even easier, won’t they?”

He laughed, but nerves were still there.

“You and Blake are bloody well suited, Di!”

I laughed in my turn.

“Oh, I think I know that bit better than you, mate! Ah—there’s the turn off”

I thought it was an odd place to hide a prison, in an area of what passed for rural tranquillity and not that far from Worcester and, of all places, Stratford. Bloody Shakespeare country, but barred rather than Bard.

I tried that joke out on Jon, and he told me I was perverse. Ah well, his loss.

Entry to the prison was the usual palaver, with a tsunami of warnings about grooming and contraband. We found ourselves in a private room rather than the open space I was used to from my vast experience of seeing prison visits in TV dramas, and there were two Prison Officers present when a third brought in Arthur Henry Bowles.

He was a big man, tattoos spilling out from under the cuffs of his prison uniform jacket, and he took a look around the room before stepping in. I saw his gaze linger on Jon, just for a couple of seconds, then move on with obvious dismissal.

Not important. Not a threat.

He held me in his flat stare for a bit longer before speaking.

“And what the fuck do you want?”

One of the POs muttered his name, and received the same non-verbal treatment a flat, emotionless stare that seemed to measure the man’s future and find it lacking happiness. Bowles turned back to me.

“Well?”

I found my professionalism.

“Mersey View, Arthur”

His eyes flickered, and he looked at the seat in the back of the room before raising an eyebrow to one of his escorts, who nodded.

“Go ahead, Bowles”

Once the prisoner was sitting, Jon and I took our seats, and then Bowles simply asked, very, very politely, for a favour from the guards.

“Could I please have Mr Withers here, Mr Conway?”

Conway turned to his mate, who nodded once, and then vanished for about five minutes, Bowles simply staring at the little table all the time, unspeaking. Mr Withers turned out to be an older PO, and at the door he gave Jon and me another careful once-over with his eyes before turning to the two others.

“Harry will be fine, boys. I’ll give a call when we’re done, yeah?”

Conway shrugged. “Your funeral, mate”

The door was shut, and Withers sat down next to Bowles.

“You OK, Harry?”

“Not sure yet, Mr Withers. These two have some shit for me, I think”

Withers turned back to us, and once again his focus was on me rather than Jon. I was a little worried how the poor boy’s ego was doing, but I was busy being as Police, Pro as I could manage. Bowles broke the spell.

“They mentioned a place, Mr Withers”

“Ah. That place?”

“Yes”

Eyes back on us.

“What on Earth do you two want with my prisoner?”

Jon started to speak, and Bowles just held up a hand.

“No. Organ grinder, not monkey”

I gave my boy a quick ‘not now’ glance, and opened the file I had. Not ‘Arthur’. Don’t risk ‘Harry’.

“DC Diane Owens and DC Jon Philips. Mersey View, Mr Bowles. We have some questions we hope you can help us with”

His jaw clenched.

“They are both dead. Both of them. I did their stones”

“Beg pardon?”

He looked at Withers.

“Not been charged for that, have I?”

“Not hearing you, Harry. Not for now”

Bowles turned back to us.

“John and Marie Parsons. You obviously know what they were. Did some masonry work on their stones. Corrected their epitaphs”

Jon looked up, and had to open his mouth.

“What about the staff?”

“At the graveyard? Did get charged for that one, didn’t I, Mr Withers?”

“Yes, Harry. GBH and false imprisonment, if I remember correctly”

Once more, the older man turned to look directly at me.

“Cut to the chase, Detective Constable. What. Do. You. Want?”

Keep it steady, girl.

“Nothing that will harm Mr Bowles, that is for sure. We are from the Serious Crime Review unit with South Wales”

Bowles looked up at that.

“I’ve never been to South bloody Wales!”

“Not what we are hoping you can help us with, Mr Bowles. Our job is looking into older cases of serious crime, what are sometimes called cold cases. For a number of reasons, we are now looking into two children’s homes, one of which is Mersey View. We are identifying victims”

Withers actually lost some of his cool at that, but Bowles seemed to lose it all.

“They are all fucking dead! Those two bastards are gone!”

“Charles Cooper, Mr Bowles”

He went white, something I had read many times but rarely actually seen, and to my horror he started to cry.

“Oh fuck… Not Charlie…”

I kept it level.

“Don Hamilton”

“Oh fuck!”

Withers reached across to him and took his hand.

“Harry, mate. You’re safe here, and we won’t let them in, OK?”

Back to me once more.

“This better be bloody well worth it!”

I waited a few seconds as Bowles brought his breathing back from the verge of sobs.

“John and Marie Parsons are dead, Mr Bowles, but in the course of our investigations we have come across another victim of that place. They have changed their name, but you may remember them. I can’t tell you more just now, but what we are hoping to do is shine some light on what happened. We have two aims here, and one of them is to give some victims a little peace”

Withers was almost snarling now.

“Bit late for that now, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t actually think so. The victim we are working with is already saying they are feeling better. Our other aim is simpler, and that is to bring this sort of crime into the open, so that it is less likely to happen to other children. You were a child then, Mr Bowles”

The big man looked back at me.

“Charlie and Don?”

I could actually hear the apprehension in his voice, so I made myself smile.

“Don and Charlie moved on after the Parsons went, Mr Bowles”

Let the smile sour.

“Unfortunately, they moved on to another children’s home, and I gather that what happened to kids there was rather worse than what happened at Runcorn. A senior officer I am working with had the job of digging for bodies there”

Let that sink in, just for a second.

“Don is dead, but Charlie is in Carlisle prison. I would like to make sure he never leaves it upright”

Bowles turned to Withers, and nodded at him.

“Would you mind staying for this, sir?”

They still held hands, almost father and son, grown man and terrified boy. Withers brought his other hand across to pat Bowles’ as he held it.

“No problem, Harry. Just remember: this is voluntary. Isn’t it, DC Owens?”

“Absolutely. Any time he wants, this is over. I just hope we can give him a little bit of peace”

Withers sighed, his defences dropping a little.

“Harry bloody well needs some, Detective Constable”

“Di, please, and that’s Jon”

Withers grinned.

“He’s Harry, and I’m Colin, just in here, OK? First nasty one for you, Jon?”

My boy nodded, clearly not trusting his voice, and Withers, Colin, grinned again.

“Thought so. You up for this, Harry? Seriously?”

“Yes. Kids, Mr Withers”

“OK. Just go easy on the fresh meat”

I forced as genuine a laugh as I could and started.

“Our first complainant told us a lot about what went on there, Harry, wheat happened to her specifically. We hope to speak to several others to get their own accounts, and then build up a case against Cooper”

Bowles looked puzzled for a second, then smiled, and there was real warmth there for the first time.

“Billy got away, then. All the way away”

He turned his smile on Colin.

“Billy, Mr Withers. Can’t remember his surname. Her surname. She gone all the way now, Di? Proper woman?”

“I think we might just be talking about the same person, Harry, but obviously I can’t give details”

“No worries, Di. Just so good to hear one of us made it. Call her she now; I’ll try and remember that. She was… she was popular with Don. Do me a favour?”

I smiled back at him.

“Pass on your regards?”

“No. Couldn’t do that to her, could I? Let her know her old friend is… Well, rather you didn’t

I nodded, and he continued.

“This is what it’s about, isn’t it? Letting people like Billy have some peace at last?”

“And people like yourself, Harry. Don’t lose sight of that. What we would like, if you don’t mind, is for you to give us an interview, not a caution thing. This sis about gathering stuff to drop on Charlie’s head, and the more we can get, the worse it will be for him”

He looked at me, and once more it was clear that he had a seriously sharp mind.

“You’ve been there to, haven’t you?”

I nodded. “Yup. All banged away now, just like Charlie, and my colleagues have found other victims that have seen them locked up for what will most likely be the rest of their natural etc. They got peace, and same with me. Thank you for understanding”

“OK, Di. Where do we start?”

“Shall I get the fresh meat to unseal some tapes?”

We left there several hours later, as Colin made a point of shaking our hands, and w
Hen we got back to the car I took one look at Jon’s colour and drove us both up the A46 to the Premier Inn, where, after a quick call to work, I booked us into a couple of rooms before taking the young man into the pub next door.

Not once di either of us raise the subject of the life sentence Bowles was serving for the abductions, rapes and murders of three young men. Some things were best left to lie.

CHAPTER 61
We had opted for the breakfast, which was decent enough as it went, and with it being midweek the place was almost empty as we ate. Jon was very quiet.

“You OK, mate?”

He chewed a mouthful of toast as he considered his reply.

“Di?”

“Yeah?”

“He bloody terrified me”

“So he should, mate. Nothing to be ashamed of there”

“Yes, but he’s a victim as well”

I used my tea to give myself a few seconds before answering.

“Yes, he is. It doesn’t excuse what he did. It certainly doesn’t explain it. All it does is set it in context. I know what you’re thinking, and it goes like this: would he have done what he did without what was done to him as a kid. Am I right?”

“Sort of, I suppose”

“Well, that’s moot. He did it, he got caught, he’s unlikely to get out. What is the role of prison, DC Philips?”

“Er, punishment, deterrent, public safety and rehabilitation”

I nodded. “That bit about punishment, though, is not about retribution, vengeance, is it? It’s really supposed to be part of the deterrent part. That Prison Officer, Colin? He understands that bit, and the rest of it as well”

“You think he’s trying to rehabilitate Bowles?”

“Fuck, no. I think that bus left years ago. What I suspect is that he’s simply trying to protect him, show someone a bit of humanity. I don’t know about rehabilitation, but, well, stranger things have happened with other offenders. No; Colin’s nursing Bowles. Decent man, him”

“I, you know, I couldn’t do that, not with what he did”

I gave him yet another shrug.

“Not many people can, mate. That is what makes proper old-school PO’s like him so valuable. I think they will have real problems with Bowles when Colin retires. Anyway, as I said, the rest will be easier now he’s out of the way. Get that eaten, and we’ll get back to the nick”

So it proved over the next month or so, as the team worked its way through a list of low-order offenders and the occasional addict before finally arriving at the last name on the list, one Benjamin Nicol, now resident in Southport. That one meant a complicated train ride, as it was more than a little drive, and while Jon had handled his end well at Long Lartin I really didn’t want him faced with a mammoth drive if Nicol proved to be as disturbing as Bowles.

What a complicated bloody trip! Cardiff Central to Manchester Piccadilly and then on to Southport meant an hour sitting in Manchester, but the alternatives involved change after change, and I really couldn’t be arsed with that faff. I made sure I had enough on my e-reader to fill the time, and packed an overnight bag. Our management booked us into another Premier Inn place out by the seafront, and I resigned myself to another night without hubby, who had drawn an interview in Manchester itself, so at least we got to ride up together, along with his own fresh meat, Abby. The cheeky sod had popped down to the old place the night before, though, and cadged a packed lunch for us from Mam, and in an inspired diversion on the way home he had stopped to say hello to Gemma. The box of pastries he brought back was a simple and unconnected coincidence, Your Honour.

They left Jon and myself in the depressing place that is Manchester Piccadilly, where we slumped in a couple of uncomfortable seats with a coffee each before our train was finally called for boarding. It wasn’t a comfortable one.

My mood wasn’t improved by Southport, which simply did not appeal. We had come through delightful places like Wigan, but Southport looked brittle. We walked from the station alongside a lot of the usual shops, and came out by a monument of some kind, with various colonnades near it. All very civic-pride, but the people hanging around certainly didn’t match the ambitions.

Down another street and over a main road took us to a more traditionally ‘seaside’ area, with ‘attractions’ and ‘wonderlands’ and the start of Southport Pier, complete with electric train, and as we turned away from it Jon directed us to a bridge over what was marked as ‘Marine Lake’. There was a blocky building ahead, in a wasteland of car parking, and my boy shook his head.

“That is our hotel, Di. We are really living the jet-set dream, aren’t we?”

We arrived, checked in, and went to see the sea. That turned out to be an interminable wasteland of mud and dead seaweed, flocks of birds here and there and the pier going out to ‘sea’ for what seemed like half a lifetime’s walk. No wonder they had a train on it.

The wind cut like a knife, and for an instant I wished I had pushed Jon onto the train with Abby and kept Blake. I knew where I wasn’t coming for my honeymoon. Jon stood beside me, eyes damp from the wind, and suddenly grinned.

“You’re going to hate me, Di!”

“What are you thinking, fresh meat of mine? Better be good!”

“Um, just how much this place reminds me of Barry”

“Oh you sod, Philips! What you got there?”

“Bins, Di. Bird-watching for the use of. And then that thing over there, of course”

“Eh?”

“Look up the coast. No, that way. North. Use these”

Blackpool Tower was what he meant, and I decided that if that place was anything like Southport, I had seen all I needed of it. We ate that evening in one of the block of food outlets opposite the hotel, a place called something like ‘Genghis Khan’s Stomach Invaders’ or ‘Kung Fu Eat Till You Puke Oriental Buffet’, and it was as shit as it sounded. I spent the night dry-mouthed and sweaty, and while the breakfast was as adequate as it had been at Evesham, I wasn’t in the best of moods when we made our way to Leicester Street, which seemed to be filled with guest houses and small hotels. The Nicol place was a ground-floor flat in a large converted house, and the speed with which the door was answered made me realise how nervous the old man must be.

He was fastidious in appearance, with a tie and blazer along with a neatly-trimmed moustache giving just an air of the Fawlty Towers Major, but his manner was much softer.

“Detective Constable Owens? Do come in”

The flat was spotless, and while I am not a fan of ‘pastel’, that was the only word that fitted. A tray of tea was waiting on a coffee table, and sat behind it was another older man, as neat as Nicol. He rose to shake our hands, with a slight frown.

“Hello. DC Owens? Philips? I am Ben’s husband, Peter Nicol-Clements. Ben has told me a little of what you wish to speak of, but I am unsure if it is a good idea, given, well; given the issues involved. Please feel free to do what our American cousins would call making your pitch, and we will consider it. Oh, do sit. Ben, love? Their coats?”

Nicol bustled around us, tells off the scale with nerves as his other half poured, and then we settled back with a welcome and warm cuppa. I opened the batting.

“Mr Nicol…”

“ben, please, and this curmudgeon is Peter”

“Thank you. Di and Jon for our part. Are you happy discussing this matter before your husband?”

“Everything is always done with or beside my husband, Di. Ever since we met. This matter will be no different”

I turned to the other man.

“How much has Ben told you?”

“Everything”

Ben took his hand.

“Not everything, my dear. Not everything”

Peter looked worried at that last comment.

“And we have police officers here with us? Is it something that you did, love? Something else they locked you up for?”

There was hatred there, not for his husband, but something and someone else was being triggered. To my surprise, it was Jon who interrupted, and I noticed how he was letting himself slip into a slightly camper pattern of speech. Nothing at all like Chris and his rainbow explosion of a personality, but just enough to be read.

“No, Peter, it is nothing that Ben has done, nothing like that. We are aware of what he was charged with, of course, but trust us, that matter is closed”

Peter snarled back, “That matter, as you call it, was a travesty. That little bastard was lying and how it ever got to court, never mind a conviction…”

H stopped, breathing deeply, and I took my chance.

“Mersey View, Ben. That is what we want to ask you about”

Peter looked up, eyes narrowed.

“That was the foster home you mentioned, love. Why are they asking about that?”

Jon flashed me a look, and it was a clear one: Ben had obviously not told his husband anything, never mind ‘everything’. My boy turned back to the couple.

“I see we might have opened up a wound, Ben. We can leave it there if you wish”

Ben stared at his hands and drew a long, slow breath.

“No. Thank you, but no. This is something I should have been open about from the beginning”

Jon looked hard at the second man.

“I need to make it very clear that Ben has done absolutely nothing wrong here. This is a criminal investigation, but he is a victim, nothing more”

Ben shook his head.

“Let me tell it, please. Peter?”

“Yes?”

“You know I was in care for a couple of years?”

“Of course”

“Well, Mersey View was the place I was sent to. There were other places of a similar kind”

“Go on”

“Kincora. Bryn Estyn”

“Oh god. Not… You should have told me, love!”

“It’s not an easy thing to admit, my darling. Being shop-soiled, yes? Damaged goods…”

I jerked at those words, the same ones I had used to beat myself up with, and Ben looked hard at me, at my shudder.

“Ah. You too, young lady? I see now why you were chosen. And was it a deliberate choice to send another such as us to accompany you? Yes, Jon, we can both see. Our compliments to your superiors for their sensitivity. The police were never like that in my previous experiences of their kind attention to my life. Peter, this will be a long day, so please, be patient. It will be a rough ride for all of us, I feel”

He turned back to me.

“I know that Mr and Mrs Parsons are both dead. What has stirred the pot, my dear?”

“We are a unit dedicated to reviewing old cases, and this one has arisen as…”

Fuck Police, Professional, just for once.

“My own assault opened up a can of worms that led to a large number of arrests for other rapes and assaults. We have a collection of utter bastards locked up now, but it still hurts. It hurts me, personally, less to know the men involved are going to see their own lives go to waste as they wasted so much of my own life. Partly as a result of our investigations, the subject of Mersey View came up, and there are people we have met that we would like to offer a similar release to. Jon and I have spoken to several other victims already, though we can’t name them, obviously. The problem is that matters didn’t end with the closure of Mersey View. Some of the staff moved on”

Ben’s eyes opened wide.

“Who?”

“Charlie Cooper and Don Hamilton”

I was used to that reaction by now, but it was never an easy one to take.

Ben shuddered. “Peter, my love, you understand now what went on there. Yes, like that place in Wales. Charlie and Don were… They were exactly what you might assume them to have been. Where did they go to, Di?”

“Carlisle”

This time, it was Peter whose head jerked.

“Please tell me it wasn’t to a place called Castle something or other”

“Castle Keep, yes. I am afraid so. You know about it?”

“Oh yes. I followed the reports I had a couple of friends from London who knew about it. Benny, love, no shame, no fear, but we clear this mess up now. Today, if we can, if you have the strength. Jon, my dear, you mentioned two names?”

“Er, yes. Sorry; used to being sort of second fiddle to di”

“Your time will come, I am sure. Now, these two men?”

“Um… Hamilton is deceased, but Cooper is in Carlisle prison”

He looked across at me, and grinned.

“My companion here says she wants to make sure he loses sleep big-time”

Peter looked across the settee and took his husband’s hand.

“Then, Benny my love, shall we do just that? What Roger told me about that other place, well, there are ghosts that need laying. You have a recorder, Jon?”

We left Ben and Peter to console each other afterwards, and splashed out on a taxi back to the station, where the long ride back to Cardiff awaited. Jon was pensive.

“Penny for them, mate?”

He shook his head.

“Ah, just a silly thought, Di. I want to see that bastard, want to watch him squirm, isn’t it? But I just wish we could let him meet Ben, or Deb, or any of the others. Let them see their demon for what he really is. A nothing. That’s what I know we’ll see when we get to him, yeah? Just another sad little shit with no future, but a fucking nasty past”

He looked over towards the departure boards.

“Can I get pissed on your stag night, hen night, whatever? I have had more than enough of this case”

CHAPTER 62
We did let things lie for a little while, as there was another event looming: a wedding. Candice had made the usual and expected noises about Hen Night Armageddon, with flights and matching T-shirts, and I simply told her to get stuffed. We were already down for a long-haul flight for the wedding, and I really didn’t fancy wasting any more time or money in airports. There was also the matter of the fresh meat, for while I didn’t want to leave them out of the team-building exercise (debauch) they were still ‘stranger’ enough for a holiday together to feel uncomfortable.

Something else came up a while before our appointed liver-destroying session, and it was a matter that left me profoundly confused. Elaine had asked to meet up for a chat, and as was usual with her it was what she was not saying that brought my agreement. Blake drove us out to Porthcawl, where we found a café on the seafront and waited for Elaine. When she appeared, she was carrying a laptop bag and looking a little worried.

That, on its own, set my alarms going. I had come to depend on her as the steady one, the calm head in every crisis, even if she had let her temper off its leash during that particular arrest, but every now and again she showed cracks in her armour. I had first noticed it with her focus on ‘three suspects’, but the vulnerable moments were steadily increasing in frequency.

Leave it for now, DC Owens.

“Hiya, Lainey. Toasties are nice! Grab a cuppa first, yeah?”

She grinned, and it was almost the old Elaine.

“Send the hired help, girl. Tea and a ham and cheese, Blake? I’ll sort you out after, aye?”

My man just grinned.

“You’ll sod off with that game, Lainey! Friends don’t run tabs”

Once we were all settled again, she started stringing power cables and other crap for what was indeed a laptop, and once her sandwich was delivered, she gave me a searching look.

“Got some photos from over in Surrey, Di. Up to you if you want to see them”

I did my usual trick for reassurance, taking Blake’s hand and receiving a squeeze in return. He gave our answer.

“This be from that engagement party, Lainey?”

“Yes. I wasn’t sure if Di would, you know… Just in case. They are here if you want”

I made my decision, and she turned the laptop so I could see the screen as she navigated the pictures, and it was obvious she had played with the order they were in, and I had to wrestle down the urge to skim through to the important ones because, in the end, they were all important. She started with a picture of a tall and bony woman with auburn hair, a shorter man snuggled up to her.

“This is Steph Woodruff, the one you heard about, aye? And her hubby, Geoff”

Blake snorted. “You are joking!”

“Nope. Just happened that way, though they are as much a double act as the names might suggest. This is my little sis Sarah and her two men”

I had to smile at that, because the picture in question showed a little boy laughing happily as his parents grinned for the photographer. Sarah looked happy, while her man just looked smugly satisfied with life. I pointed that out to Blake.

“That be us in a few years, love? Smug?”

He squeezed my knee.

“Smugger, Di. Much smugger”

Elaine laughed, nerves easing, but her tells still twitchy. “Right, then: our Uncle Arwel and his missus Alice, Steve and Arris, Annie’s best mate Ginny…”

She paused on that last photo, a tall woman with Post-Office-red hair, and I caught the slightest tremble of her hand before she clicked on to an astonishing photo of a dumpy and dark-haired woman in a little black dress and heels. She was clearly on some sort of stage together with the Woodruff woman, and where the redhead was sawing at a violin with her hair flying free, the brunette’s own hair was soaked with sweat as she did something to a flute.

Annie, obviously, Adam as was. Elaine had to fill our silence.

“Both of them get a bit manic when they play. This one is our cousin Hywel, doing Jethro Tull with them. That was a bit bloody special, aye? And this one…”

A very large settee, with Siân slumped against Elaine while Annie, hair a mess, was in a similar position with a slim man, her hair a mess and all four people with the same soppy grin of utter contentment.

“That’s Eric. Her fiancé. Good bloke, he is”

I looked across at my own fiancé, raising an eyebrow, and once more he just smiled and pulled me to him, so we could match that position of relaxed happiness. Elaine passed the computer to me, and I spent a few minutes with Blake simply flicking through the images. What struck me was how utterly right they felt, how real Annie was, and it came to me that I had no reason to mourn Adam because he had simply thrown off a little bit of camouflage and stepped into the real world. She looked happy, full of fun and, in a couple of the last frames, completely and utterly lost in love with her man.

I closed the laptop in the end, so we could concentrate on other gossip, and our toasties, and as I handed the device back to Elaine I found myself grinning, tension eased.

“You know, Elaine, sometimes I get things right, even if only by accident. Thank fuck I never made a proper pass at her!”

Thank everything. One more worry lifted, and just in time for the hen night.

I really missed Bridget’s presence on the actual day, for she and Tammy would be flying directly to Punta Cana and stopping off in Wales would have been stupidly expensive. I would have consoled myself with Elaine’s presence, but my bastard of a future husband had claimed her for the stags. We compensated for that by claiming reciprocal rights on her wife.

Siân was a real surprise, so different to my previous encounters with her. Then, she had been a carer, picking me back up as I collapsed at the rape trial, and I had seen why she loved my old boss as well as why Elaine was as stuck on her as that picture had hinted: she cared. Now, though, she was unleashed and, to put it bluntly, bloody raucous.

We made quite the group as we made the rounds of licensed establishments, with Abby and Lexie from the fresh meat teaming up with Candice, Omar’s mum Debbie, Deb, Kimberley, Gemma, Charlie, Tiff… I lost count. Candice got the ball rolling, though.

“Ladies! Our boy Chris, who is good with colours and knows what he has in his wardrobe, has found these for us! Get ‘em on, girls!”

T-shirts, of course, all the same, all in shocking pink, and all with the cheekiest of slogans: they read ‘Talk to the hand’ from a distance, but close to, legible only by peering at the chest from a foot or so, the full wording was ‘Talk to the tits and the hand will slap your face’.

Not for the first time, I wanted to grab our camp friend and ask him exactly how old he was.

Of course we all wore them. Some things are traditional, and they served to give normal punters a bit of a warning as we approached. Eventually, minus the youngest girls and Omar’s mother, we ended up in the obvious place. There was a new sign over the door to the main room, reading ‘Elaine Powell Bar’, and a sign over the actual bar itself:

‘Welcome Blake and Diane. You and your friends leave your hands out of your pockets’

Marlene was on form, microphone in hand as she muted the disco.

“About fucking time! How am I going to afford my next fucking holiday when you cows spend all your money in other pubs?”

Siân shouted back “What fucking difference does it make when you tell us we can’t pay?”

Marlene roared along with the punters, and strode down the steps in incredibly high heels to hug her way round the group, and our debauch really took flight, right up until the arrival of the stags and Elaine’s equally subtle bellow of “Who’s got the whip?”

Once again Marlene was on the ball.

“Well I’ve got the chains, darling, but I’m a bit tied up right now!”

I was very, very drunk by the end of the night, and when I say ‘night’ it was actually some time in the morning. I remember thinking ‘never again’ as I sat up in bed once my body had finally accepted that morning was fully there, and looking over to Blake, still asleep beside me.

‘Never again’ was right, for I already had the one I needed.

Our flight was on time, we had no problems with security, Mam and Dad didn’t faff, our hotel wasn’t a building site, it wasn’t pissing down with rain and nobody got food poisoning, the beach we were to wed on was pristine and…

The evening before, separated from my man for all the traditional reasons, I took a walk out to the wave line as the night gathered its depths to itself and the world around me. I needed some time to think, and it had to be by myself, as I tried to explain to Mam. She just smiled.

“I understand, love. Don’t go too far”

I stood in that darkness, lit from behind by the lights of the resort, watching the waves advance and fall back, remembering another night with that rhythmic shush, shush. Shop-soiled. Damaged goods. Hot piss on my back, Ben and Peter crying together over much the same thing. A serial killer sharing our pain. A young man scrubbed so raw he was bleeding. An educated and intelligent girl as an addict and street prostitute. Deb hearing the landing floorboards and praying the creaks would go past to someone else’s room.

So much shit, so freely and casually delivered, and in the end we survived, and one by one the predators found their own cages as ours opened. Fuck you all, you bastards, I am still here!

I realised there was someone beside me, and I turned to see Bridget’s gentle smile.

“You right, mate?”

I laughed. “Yeah. You know, you sound more and more Aussie every time I speak to you?”

“Yeah, well, been there a while now. What else would you expect? Old ghosts?”

“Yes. Not cold feet, Bridge. Not about that man”

“He’s a good’un, all right. You’ve been thinking about that bastard who raped you, haven’t you?”

I sighed. “Yeah. Others, as well, but mostly him. Hard not to”

“Well, you know what they say? The best revenge is a life well-lived. Now, I’ve got some pebble here. Shall we start?”

“Eh?”

She sighed, and handed me the first stone.

“Di Owens, this is a piece of shit called Ashley Evans. You want him?”

“Hell, no!”

She took it back from me, then hurled it as far into the sea as she could with a snarl of “Fuck off and never come back!”

She had quite a pile of stones with her, and one by one we worked through my demons, as well as some of hers, until we stood panting and laughing. Bridget turned to look behind her, and the old and gloriously impish sense of humour was there in full.

“You got undies on, Di?”

“Of course!”

Off came her dress.

“Last one in’s a wimp!”

Life, well lived.