CHAPTER 56
It wasn’t as quick as that, of course, but we did at least get the process started. It was going to be a long haul. They needed to do so many odd things with our bits I lost track, but that wasn’t the problem. We could sort out the fertilisation bit any time, but it was the implementation, the implanting, that needed thought. Would we have what would effectively be twins, or would we stagger it to spread the, er, labour?

See if we get a viable kid-to-be first, Elaine, then plan.

And life went on, in as prosaic a way as can be imagined when you know that your wife’s closest relative is slowly and steadily being eaten by her own body. We’d tried via Ambrose, but the refusal was absolute. It seemed that while my beloved was welcome as a tool to damage her own father she would never, as a pervert, whore, abomination, pick one from a long list, be welcome in her mother’s presence, and as for myself, even the thought was ludicrous. I was astonished she had even unbent enough for that wedding.

Things heated up again some months afterwards, when my mobile went off in the middle of a budgeting meeting, just as we repaired to the canteen. It was Di.

“Lainey? Where are you?”

“Canteen, Di—“

“Got a telly there?”

“Aye—“

“BBC1, now!”

I called over to one of the lads nearest, and he flicked the channels, and shit, I didn’t need an explanation. The pictures were all too familiar, and it was odd how my copper’s mind was already looking at the shape of what was left of the car. They showed the hedge, a birdbath, footprints…

Shit. That was dried blood.

I’d forgotten the phone, but Di was shouting for my attention.

“It’s Annie, Lainey! Not in the car, I mean, but—you got the news on? See the house? That’s her mate’s place, he’s in bloody intensive care. She’s…. that’s her blood, Lainey!”

Di’s voice was in one ear while the drone of the TV commentary was in the other, but over everything was a rising chorus of anger from my boys and girls. What the hell was that all about? I had thought all the Irish stuff was effectively done and dusted, but there it was in colour. Di was sobbing now.

“Nobody’ll tell me anything, Lainey! Not a bloody thing!”

“Di. DI! I will ask, aye? I have contacts. Go and get a cuppa or something and I will call you back when I have something, OK?”

I hung up before she could say more, and started to pay attention to the newsreader. Dennis Armstrong, that was the sick copper, the one blown up, and---ah.

“A colleague and friend of Sergeant Armstrong, Sergeant Anne Price, is also in hospital as a result of the explosion. No information has been released regarding her injuries, but they are not believed to be life-threatening. The Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism unit are leading the investigation, and are appealing for witnesses”

The piece finished with the usual telephone number details, and I raised my hand.

“Quiet, you lot! I’m going to make a couple of calls, so hush for now. Annie there was Heddlu De Cymru, aye?”

The phone rang and rang and I nearly gave up, but Alice caught it just as it slipped onto the answer machine.

“Sorry, I was in the garden”

“Alice, it’s Elaine”

“Hello, love! What can I do for you?”

“Ring Eric, aye? Annie’s Eric?”

“What has happened, girl? You sound frightened”

In the garden. Arse, she wouldn’t have seen the telly. “Get the news on if you can. Annie’s hurt, we need to see how badly”

Random noises at the other end, followed by a quiet but emphatic “Shit!”

“Elaine? I will call Sarah, get the number for you. You aren’t thinking straight, are you? Take your time. Breathe. Drink tea. I will call you in a few minutes”

We switched to the rolling news channel, then CNN, even bloody Sky, but there was nothing new, just the same photos of a ripped car and a trail of rusty brown footprints. I drank tea, and the budget meeting went into cold storage by unspoken agreement. Ten minutes after I had left her, Alice called me back.

“No joy on Eric’s number, which is not really surprising, but I caught Geoff, you remember him? Married to Steph, the tall ginger girl?”

“Mad fiddle woman? Aye!”

“Right… I wrote all this down… OK. Dennis is on critical, respirator, whole shebang. They’re running a sort of tag-team round him, which is where Steph was when I called. Annie’s on another ward. She’s cut her feet—“

“I saw the footprints on the news”

“Yes, exactly, but she seems to have had a bit of a breakdown. Catatonic, comatose, whatever the word is. No prognosis, so I doubt you’ll catch Eric at all. Look, I hate to say this, but for once there is absolutely nothing either of us can do except wait”

“Yes, but—“

“Elaine! You cannot heal the whole world! Now go back to work, home, whatever. Geoff has agreed to give one of us a shout if there is any news. There. Is. Nothing. You. Can. Do”

She actually hung up on me, politely. I dialled again.

“Lainey! Hi!”

“What’s Kev on today, Vicky?”

“Hell! What’s up, girl? He’s day off, in the garden with the offspring. I’ll shout him—hang on”

He was on the phone in about twenty seconds, and I ran through the story again as Vicky tuned in their own TV.

“Shit, Lainey, who the hell goes about setting bloody car bombs these days?”

“Not a bloody clue, have I?”

He took a couple of audible breaths, almost sighs, then he spoke again, and his voice was completely different, softer in tone.

“Lainey, can I be really personal?”

“You always bloody are, Kev!”

“Please, just this once, go home. Speak to your boss, aye? But go home. You are losing it, girl”

“I am not bloody losing---“

God knows where the tears came from, or what happened to my legs, but suddenly it was all too much and I just had to sit down. There were chairs, obviously, but the ne I landed in felt as if it was about to break, I hit it that hard. Kev was right, a small and still rational part of my mind was saying. Suddenly, it had all become too much. Not just Annie, but Chris, Omar, Di, all of it was just too shitty for words, and it was as if the differences I had believed I had made were paper masks over the grinning demons that filled the world around me.

I spoke to the boss, and after a quick look in my eyes he organised a car to take me home, where I sat staring at the walls for what Siân told me was at least twenty hours.

What broke me out of my mood was Alice, who simply drove down to our place, pushed my wife out of the kitchen and calmly began domesticating our routine. Cups of tea, little snacks, and plates of comfort food like beans on toast and bacon sandwiches. If my doubts about her and my uncle had ever been planning on showing their faces again, she showed them the door in the clearest way possible, and I saw why he loved her.

That was the trigger that brought me back to the here and now, or rather there and then: the realisation that I couldn’t always see people as clearly as I thought. My old bastard of an uncle… The phone rang as I was half way through revising my opinion of him, and it was Sar.

“News, Lainey, good news. Annie’s back with us. Sore feet, some minor burns, no worse than a bit too much sun, aye? She’s fine. Just had a… had a bit too much of old horrors. She’s got a really strong family round her, that one”

I had to poke her on that one, and she just laughed down the phone. “Yes indeed, chwaer fawr, our family as well, aye? Now, Steph’s lot are doing a shift system with her mate, but Annie’s back home tomorrow, and all I am hearing locally, their locally, that is, is that ‘enquiries are continuing’. I spoke to her, aye? Let your people know she’s fine”

“And her mate? The one who got blown up?”

Sarah sighed. “Not good, Lainey. Steph says he’s on a ventilator, out cold still. His missus is a wreck, apparently. No. Before you ask, no. There is nothing you can do but send your best. I just have a feeling there’s something else going on, aye? So give my love to Alice, rest and watch the news”

I had meant to say something about the doctors, about IVF, but it didn’t seem at all right. I rang Diane instead.

“Hi, Blake. She there?”

“Aye, Inspector”

“You know better than that, butt”

“Lainey, she’s not good. Have you got anything, any better news?”

“That’s what I’m calling for. She’s awake. She’s… well, she’s fine. Tell Di that, and hold her for me. She’ll…”

“Lainey”

I fought back my sobs. “Aye”

“No shame, girl. No shame at all. That’s what makes us good coppers, aye? We care. Now, you take care; I’m going to take my wife somewhere I can hold her and let her know it’s all going to be OK”

“You are a good man, Blake”

“Got a lot to live up to, innit? Talk later, love”

We ate our nursery food, we watched the news, I stayed off work, and then we saw the raids.

What the bloody hell was going on? Why Belfast?