CHAPTER 15
I was double-crewed with Kev in a car the afternoon and evening of their piss-up, and we were indeed kept well out of the area. The pub wasn’t somewhere Dad ever went, so rather than a repeat of the argument the night Sarah got raped, I simply stayed quiet about it.

Raped, that was indeed the word. The more I thought about it, the more the term fitted. Three men had raped my sister. There was no need for them to penetrate her to make it rape. The whole thing about rape, as I had already learned through some shitty, horrible cases, is that it is so rarely about sex. It is all about power, about control; magnification of one soul at the expense of the destruction of another. It left me almost shaking with impotence.

Kev noticed, and kept trying to lighten my mood. When that didn’t work, he tried simply changing the subject at random intervals.

“Rod’s up to something, Lainey”

“Aye?”

“Something secret squirrel. You know he can’t keep his gob shut, normal-like, innit? Well, he’s all puffed up with something, all grins and winks”

I remembered the little jibes about ‘straight’. “Aye, always a bit full of his own piss and wind. What do you think, butt?”

The radio crackled into life.

“Whisky two nine, whisky two nine, hotel control”

Kev was at the wheel, so I took the call. “Send, control”

“Got a shout for you. Multiple RTC, A4138 Pontarddulais Road, southbound just after M4 junction. At least one casualty reported. Ambulance and fire on route”

“Out of area, control?”

“Bit of a busy scene, two nine. Boss offered all hands to pump”

I did a quick route check. “ETA ten minutes, control”

“Thanks, two nine. One South Wales traffic unit already there, more on way. Listening out”

I turned to Kev. “Put the noise on, butt. Didn’t like the sound of that”

Twelve minutes up the motorway, and then off up the long slipway that’s actually more of a parallel road, before the bastard of a junction with the road we needed. Kev bullied his way through, but even with the lights and siren there were still drivers who seemed to be deaf, blind, stupid or a varying mix of all three. As we finally managed to get onto the southbound road, the ambulance came howling down from the other side of the motorway, and then there was the odd and very loud noise a fire engine makes when the driver just has to let an idiot know that pulling out of his way might be a good idea. The traffic was already piling up, and I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling.

Stationary cars, a long line of them. The ambulance’s own blue lights ahead, the fire engine pulling past. Two Heddlu De Cymru cars, one of them Traffic, and a solitary bike, whose rider I couldn’t see. Kev pulled up next to a South Wales lad.

“Where do you want us?”

“Hi, butt, glad for the extra hands, aye? Can you stick a block on on the other side of the road? Keep some of the idiots from trying to drive through? Oh, and any traffic experience? We’re a bit short”

I raised a hand. “Done Traffic, aye? Where’s your mate then?”

I pointed to the bike as I got out, pulling on the hi-viz. The Honda looked fine, so my sudden fear of a police casualty faded. The South Wales sergeant pointed to a figure sitting on a stretch of Armco, head in hands.

“Adam’s over there, girl. He’s had a bit of a crisis, aye? You’ll see why. Look, female casualty, shock, could use a woman to have a bit talk, come easier, aye? She should be in the ambulance by now”

I walked past the bike copper, and I was certain he was sobbing. Duw, what the hell was going on? You didn’t do that; you stayed strong, or you played strong, acted it out, and you let the shit hit you in private, or in the pub. You didn’t do it in public.

What a mess. There was a small car, Focus or something, front end a little bent. In front of it was a Transit, embedded in the back of a milk tanker, firemen cutting the cab roof away as paramedics talked quietly to the van driver, trapped in his seat. The first ambulance was there, rear door open, a woman’s voice alternately screaming and crying coming from it. And…

And on the road, in front of the Focus and covered by a blanket, but still clearly recognisable for what it was. A child seat. I could see at once what had happened, the damage patterns so obvious, as clear as writing. The car kisses the back of the van, through what? Mobile phone? Lighting a cigarette? What? The van driver steps on the accelerator in shock, and rams the tanker. The car driver…

Hold it together, Constable Powell. The car driver, clearly the woman screaming and crying in the ambulance, the car driver stamps on her brakes as her bonnet taps the van, and she doesn’t write off her car, but the child, in the nice safe seat, the top of the range model that she hasn’t actually secured to the car, the child seat flies past her head and through the windscreen and onto the road, and with it the child I just knew was still strapped into it.

I knew then why the woman was screaming, and absolutely understood why a young copper was sobbing his heart out on a stretch of safety barrier on a Glamorgan road. I went towards the ambulance, just as the screaming died away. One of the crew nodded to me as I came to the door.

“Sorry, Officer, but we have had to sedate her”

“Aye, makes sense. What about the kid?”

A shake of the head. “State of him, well, let’s just say best to leave the mite where he is for now, aye? We’ve got another two ambulances on the way. Tanker driver has back pains, and, well, see what the van driver’s like when they get him out. Shitty day, girl, shitty day”

The fire crew did their bit, and the driver was taken out on a back board and neck brace, as more South Wales boys arrived to measure and photograph and finally, finally remove one small object under a blanket. The bike Officer handed his helmet to a mate and left in a car, poor bastard, and I wondered, not for the last time, if we were paid anything near what the job cost us.

An arm went round my shoulders, and it was Kevin. With a start, I realised we had been there for three and a half hours. How time flies when one is having fun.

“Bite to eat, Lainey?”

I drew a long, slow breath. “Dunno, butt. Bit sort of bad taste, aye?”

“Cuppa, then, and see. That lad going to be OK? The one on the bike?”

“I really, really don’t know, Kev. That was a truly awful one. Let’s call in and let them know we’re mobile again, aye? Then, right, if there’s no shout, back to that café and you can get me a bacon roll”

Keep it light, put it behind me. Move along, Lainey, nothing to see.

That night, once the shift was over, was awful. I woke several times, and each time I surfaced I knew I was crying as clearly as I knew Siân was holding and rocking me. I tried to take comfort from her presence, but I kept hearing that woman’s screams, and although I knew my lover had seen some of the same things I had I prayed, as sleep finally took me, that she would never be faced with anything anywhere close to that scene.

I was out with Kev again the next day, tired from lack of sleep, but at least we were on late turn. Just before we left the station, he very, very quietly said “Take a look at the Custody log for last night, Lainey”

“Eh?”

Kev smiled in a very unfunny way. “You were right about Rod, girl. He can’t keep his gob shut. Inspector had him on a special last night…Oh, hello Rod”

Right on cue. “Hello, Constable Powell”

I gave him an eyebrow. "Very formal, Rod?”

“Getting in practice, isn’t it? For the disciplinary people”

“What the fuck you done, then?”

“Me? Pure as, isn’t it? Anyway, was working with the boss yesterday, can’t get into trouble like that, can I?”

He was beginning to really piss me off. “Rod, boy, whatever you have, aye? Spit it out or bugger off and annoy someone else”

“Not annoying you, girl. Look, you got a sister now, innit? Used to be your brother?”

I settled into just the right stance, the one that gave me a choice between punching his teeth out or kicking his bollocks up into his chest. “I have a sister, yes. Her name is Sarah. What?”

The stupid grin vanished. “She got shafted, innit? Pritchard and that cunt Evans, aye? Boss says to me, he says, you going to their piss-up, constable, and me, I say, wouldn’t give those two the steam off my own piss, aye? So he says good, he says, excellent, got a job for you”

Where was this going? “Carry on, Rod”

He grinned again, and this time there was no silliness there, no mirth. “Boss sorted out three of us, aye? And we draw two unmarked cars, innit? And some breathalysers”

I read the Custody log ten minutes later. “Wyn” had quietly staked out the Tudor Rose, as two Real Men, two Men’s Men, had celebrated their departure from our little community. When they had celebrated enough times, with enough glasses, the two pillars of society had set off for home, and being Real Men, of course, their driving could never deteriorate because of a little thing like alcohol. The inspector had indeed staked them out, and each driver was followed just far enough to find an excuse to light them up and set the standard script in motion.

“Keep blowing keep blowing keep blowing stop! The light has come on indicating that you have failed the roadside test and you are accordingly now under arrest…”

Rod’s grin was now savage. “He made sure he got Evans, and he nicked him himself. Look, Elaine, I don’t hold with you, or your, well, sister, aye? Old-fashioned, me, traditional. But I joined this job for a reason, and perhaps it was a kid’s reason, but still, aye? Protect the weak, look after the vulnerable. Those two…

“Inspector told the three of us to keep it quiet, aye? Not to tell you or Kev here. Those two arseholes, they’ll be gone proper now. You go home, you hug your sister for me”