CHAPTER 49
I got another call from Steph a few weeks later, keeping me up to speed with Adam, and it was a hard one. Another of us had been shot.

I mean, I didn’t know the victim, and it was another force, but he was one of us, and a shooting always brings home to every copper how much they are putting themselves out in front of everyone else as a target, in this case literally.

“How’s he holding up, girl?”

“She, Inspector Powell. You should know better”

“Sorry, given my own circumstances I should, aye? Anyway, the shot lad’s out of danger?”

“Yes. Elaine, it’s not that. It’s kids. There are kids involved, and it’s far from nice”

Steph brought me up to speed, and it certainly wasn’t pleasant. “The rapist?”

“Firearms team”

“Good. What can we do?”

There was a sigh at the other end of the line, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost a whisper compared to her normal exuberance.

“I am lucky, you know. Lucky I found my Geoff, my family, lucky in so many ways. You just add to that. I don’t know how I keep finding you people, but think on what you just said. Your first thought was to ask what you can do, and it was ‘we’. You did that unconsciously, just assuming the rest of your lot would do the same. That’s what saved me, Inspector Powell”

“But you…”

“You have no idea, Elaine, so we’ll leave it at that. What can you do? Well, she’s got friends, which is a start, but more of them never hurts, and then there’s the children”

“The girl?”

“You know I’m not really in the loop there, but, well, don’t think it’s good. I’ll let you know as and when, aye? Bugger. Geoff will know we’ve been talking”

“That’s a problem?”

She chuckled. “Never ever, girl”

The next few weeks were simple routine, and by that I mean the Chinese water torture of sodding budgets. I knew Wyn and a the other managers had been right about what I needed for that next step, but really, a five year projection on tyre purchases for the vehicle fleet left me wanting to up sticks and join Siân’s mother on her bloody island. I never seemed to leave work any more with the feeling I had actually achieved something. As Steph so eloquently put it, bugger. I followed the news from England, though, and despite Steph’s heads up each revelation cut me to the quick. Some day, my lovely wife and I would take those final steps with our brother in law, some day we would try for that new life we needed, and at the same time there was a woman happy to sell hers for profit. Why couldn’t the firearms boys have made a little detour? I lay at night in my lover’s arms unable to tell her what left me so tense, but she knew it wasn’t her, wasn’t us, and simply held me to her, held the demons away.

Sar was on the phone before that Christmas, which made me realise how fast the year was speeding past me. Tyre wear, bollocks.

“Steph introduced me to your mate, Lainey?”

“Eh?”

“Annie Price. Bit butch, could do with losing some more weight, but not too bad, all things considered”

“This is Adam we’re talking about?”

“Oh, he’s buggered off permanently! She is now cohabiting with some bloke called Eric”

“Eh?”

“Seems there a bit of a ‘click’ at that weekend Steph took her to”

Ye gods; that was going to leave Di even more confused. I wasn’t actually keeping on top of it myself. I didn’t hear anything ese, though, till after that Christmas, which was spent with Kev and Vicky for once, though of course we called in on Mam and Dad. And Arwel and Alice.

She was most definitely settling into her skin. Miles and years away from the little man hiding in Canterbury, and to my surprise I realised that I had never really met her former persona, her lifelong pretence. She was an elderly housewife, or “kept woman” as she insisted on calling herself, and the two of them bickered continually. There was never anything unpleasant in it, nothing malicious, just teasing and affection from both sides of the marriage. They were clearly comfortable with each other, and she worked well with her stepson. I didn’t need to know anything more about the whats and the ifs; the fact that my uncle’s frown was now usually a disguise for a twinkle. I looked at them, I thought of a little girl in a caravan, and I realised why I did the Job and who I did it for.

It was the New Year before I got the next shock/

“Inspector Powell”

“Elaine?”

“More news, Steph? The trial?”

There were two or three minutes of silence at the other end. “Done and dusted, Elaine. Not nice. Not talking about it. Now, want to meet Annie?”

“What do you mean?”

“Engagement party”

“Fucking hell!”

What the hell would Diane say? Could I tell her, safely? Should I?

“Spill, Woodruff”

“Not much to tell. I suspected something with the man when I first met him, and then, well… Look, I had promised to keep a lid on it, but it’s out now. Have a look on the internet at some of the red tops. They went into a real feeding frenzy over her.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Steph?”

“We took him to Shrewsbury, but she came back”

I clicked away at my computer.

“Try the Sun first, Lainey. Search for ‘Pickstock’ and you should find it”

“Hang on… shit! She looks, well, shit! I’m…”

“Three weeks Saturday, Elaine. My place, or rather ours and our neighbours’. Tents for some, but there are plenty of hotels and that about, being so near the airport”

“What…?”

“Just bring friends, Elaine. The more the merrier. I told you, she can use them. The press got right on her back, and she really needs the boost. Got to go; shift in an hour. Text me when you know, OK?”

“Shit and bollocks, girl! You can’t just leave me with that to explain to people!”

There was another little moment of silence. “That’s the thing, Elaine. She still has people who know her back home. If any of them pick up on the papers, she’ll end up with even more grief. Best if we can manage it ourselves. Got to go, aye? Speak soon”

Click and gone, and I wondered if she had timed the call to give her an excuse to hang up. Nothing for it. I sat for a few minutes to find the words, then picked up the phone again. I seemed to be living on it.

“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”

“This work or private, Inspector?”

“Sort of both, aye?”

“OK… know the Cross Inn, over to Cowbridge? I’m sort of free Thursday night”

“Sort of?”

“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?”

She chuckled. “You don’t change, do you? Seven thirty do you?”

“Aye. See you then”

I opened up the internet article again, where my old acquaintance Adam stood, dark hair shaggy to his collar, in what was clearly a skirt suit and heels, the photographers having taken as many shots of him as they could manage.

Stop that, Lainey. HER. Of all people, I should be able to pull out the correct pronouns. I started to print off three of the reports, photos included. It had to be done.

Thursday turned out to be a miserable evening, wet and windy with waves of rain coming in over the Ogmore cliffs, and I was there at least fifteen minutes before Diane and Blake arrived, finding a table not too far away from the open fire that livened up the bar cum restaurant. They were holding hands, that was my first observation, but both smiled at and for me, and I received two pecks on the cheek, two tight hugs. Diane was to the point.

“What you got, Elaine?”

“Get the food ordered first, aye?”

Blake laughed. “And the pints!”

“Pint, butt. I’m driving back, aye?”

He sighed and went off to the bar, as I pulled out a small folder of printed A4 sheets. Diane’s eyebrows rose, but I could see no easy way into things. I handed her the folder.

“Our friend Adam Price, Di”

“Oh?” She pulled out the first sheet, and gave a strangled little “Shit!”

Blake was on his way back, and I could see the hesitation in her, the need to protect a friend, but she kept the papers out and handed him a copy of the Sun’s front page.

“What’s this, love?”

Her voice was hushed. “Remember I had a friend, Blake, went off to England? Had a break down?”

“The traffic lad? The one you fancied?”

“That’s the one”

“What… bloody hell!”

I realised Diane was crying, gently and without fuss, and passed her a couple of the paper napkins from the place settings. “You OK, girl?”

“Sort of, Lainey. Sort of. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? Do I take it you’re in contact with… her?”

“No, not exactly. Sarah is, and some mutual friends. I’m seeing her in three weeks”

No easy way, Elaine. “At her engagement party”

Words came and went in her mind, but none of them made it to her lips. A good copper, my Diane. Eventually, she found the right ones.

“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?”

I nodded. “What’s the man like?”

“My friends speak highly of him”

“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?”

She suddenly looked very hard at me, head cocked a little to one side, leaning right over the table.

“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?”

I nodded. “Not me so much, but she has a lot of decent people looking out for her. Look, want to send her your best?”

She looked at her own man, thinking for a moment. “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”

Blake laughed, putting his arm around her. “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”

She slapped his arm. “What about my hen night?”

“You can take her wife, so they can compare notes for fun and profit through blackmail”

Two jobs done in one evening. I wished them well, naturally, but considering the sort of people we had on the cold case team, I was wondering how ‘pink’ the stag night might turn out to be. I needed to ring Chris, and Omar, and Fahmi, and… Not my stag night, but it was definitely one whose outcome I would influence.

Three weeks later I was walking with half the family down a gravel driveway between two large detached houses, Sar leading the way as Arris’ and Steve’s kids ran ahead. There was a marquee in one of the back gardens, a row of ‘festival’ style toilets, various people including Steph, a dumpy woman in heels and a little black dress, and…

I brought my gaze back round, giving her the best smile I could.

“Sergeant Price! Looking good, girl!”