Dancing to a New Beat 40

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CHAPTER 40
Lexie looked worried, so I made sure I gave her a hug.

“It gets easier after the first one”

She pulled back from me, smiling in a twisted way.

“Di, love, you have only ever had ‘the first one’ yourself, and besides, you seem…”

She stopped dead at that, looked away from me, then continued.

“I know this is going to be the wrong question, but there are going to be more, aren’t there?”

I couldn’t deny that one.

“Rather looks like it, love. And it wasn’t my first. First that was set up like that, but I did a spell with Traffic when I first started. I will just say that some days were better than others, and leave it at that”

Adam-as-was sobbing by the roadside…

“Ah”

She looked down at her nails for a moment, before continuing in a much softer voice.

“I spoke to Jon, you know”

“And?”

“He was going to leave the team, wasn’t he?”

Careful, DC Sutton.

“Did he say that? That he wanted to leave us?”

I got a brief look from her before she dropped her eyes again.

“Yeah, he did. Well, no, he didn’t. That wasn’t what he said. What he… he said he didn’t think he was up to it. He didn’t want to leave, not the team. He just felt that he wasn’t good enough”

“And do you think he isn’t?”

Her gaze lifted to mine once more.

“That’s not the point, though. Is it? Do you think he’s good enough? Any of us ‘fresh meat’, as Sammy calls us?”

“You want an honest answer?”

“Only kind we should get, according to Rhys, so yes. Please”

“Has Jon spoken to you about the prison visits we did?”

She shuddered.

“He says you had to interview some really unpleasant men”

“That is ‘you plural’, Lexie. Both of us, and he did really well. One serial killer at the start, when Jon was really fresh meat, a gay man who’d been systematically raped in childhood, and then the rapist himself. He tried to make friends with us”

Another shudder, and she gave a series of rapid nods.

“Yeah, he mentioned that one. Creeped him out”

“Did Jon tell you he slapped him down so hard he should have bounced? Not only that, we got the convictions we needed, we got at least some peace of mind for more than a few of the bastard’s victims. That is what Jon did, and he is bloody good at it. Yes, he talked to me, and he’s staying. What makes you different?”

She was faltering, so I pressed on.

“You know what courage is, girl? I will tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t lack of fear, it isn’t ‘damn the torpedoes’. It’s making the hard choice even as you shit yourself. It is being nervous, being bloody terrified sometimes, and still stepping forward rather than running away. It’s making that choice when you have an easier alternative. You could have drifted along as a PC, but you chose to come to this team. And it is a team, love. We all have our moments, and it’s our mates who pull us through. Now, serious question: would you prefer to pass this job onto someone else? I can do it if you’d like”

Her head came up again, and her gaze was steadier, a slight smile trying to break free.

“I did think about it, Di, but, well. I have to do this, don’t I? I don’t want to leave you lot, but if I can’t handle this sort of thing, maybe I should. This is my sort of membership fee, isn’t it?”

“No. This is a team. Different people, different strengths. You are good for us, so don’t feel you have to do everything”

The smile broadened, and she pulled me into a firm hug.

“Let’s go and see, then. Thanks, Di”

She released me and rushed off on her date with Alun and a corpse. Watch her back, girl.

I settled down to work on the organisation charts, putting together the computer diagrams that we can now play with before transferring them to a real chart involving photos, notes and lengths of coloured string. I don’t care how good the software is, there is still no substitute for a big wall chart we can all gather around and fiddle with. Three hours after Lexie had gone, she was ringing in. Sammy gathered us around one of the spiderphones and switched it to speaker mode.

“What you got, mate?”

Her voice was slightly metallic, but clear.

“It’s a shooting. Victim is a male in his forties, usual style of clothing, and from what Alun calls his front patch he’s one of the Culhwch. Back patch is gone. Alun has a thought on that one. Al?”

“Aye. Ta, Lexie. Sammy? It’s in Wainfelin by Pooler. Place called St John’s Close, there’s a gate, and a track that has woods to one side. Tranch Wood. Victim was tied to a tree by baling wire. There’s not much of the head, but the FME says there’s evidence of blunt force trauma. Best guess is that he was coshed, tied and driven out to the scene. Patch cut off as a trophy and as a provocation. Gun seems to have been placed in his mouth before firing. There’s… you OK, girl?”

Lexie’s voice came back on.

“Yeah, I think I am, Al. Sammy, back of his head is all over the tree, and SOCO have recovered the bullet, so we have some decent evidence thanks to them playing games with him. Sammy?”

“Aye?”

“I think we’re about done here. Alun’s logged the ODFs”

He took the hint.

“Well done, you two. We’ll see you in a few, OK? Wash up once you’re back in the office”

They clicked off, and Sammy turned to the rest of us.

“Usual drill, mates. Who fancies doing a cake run? They’ll need to get the bad taste driven away”

Ellen volunteered, but we made sure we had a whip round for the cash. Team effort yet again. I rang the LIO to give him a heads-up on more Other Distinguishing Features work, and that thought made me wobble a little. ‘Heads-up’. Three bodies so far, all of them with smashed or otherwise ruined heads. I resolved to make sure Lexie stayed the course, or at least to give her what help I could.

Ellen brought cake back, as Alun returned Lexie, and I left her to sit with Jon until she could face the rest of us, and received a sharp little nod from her before she murmured that Alun was a diamond. I squeezed her arm as we sorted the team’s brews.

“Teamwork, girl. Now, I have a dibs on that last apricot Danish, so eyes and hands off!”

We had a few days of calm after that, before another flurry of activity. Arson at a tattooist that already sat in our little spider’s web of coloured string, another suspicious fire at a bike breaker’s whose card was a foot to the right of that of the tattooist’s, a couple of serious beatings of members of associated MC’s on both sides, but thankfully no more headshots. One day without serious incident led to another, and apart from some low-level violence that was only ‘low’ in comparison to what had nauseated me in Newport, things were cooling down, or at least appeared to be doing so. Naturally, I didn’t believe it, but we eased down from our war footing onto a more normal office routine, and I was able to spend a little more time watching Lexie, alert for any fall-out.

She seemed to be coating, which reassured me. Whoever had done the selection process for our fresh meat appeared to have done a more than reasonable job, which might be a first, given how HR usually works.

A month went by with nothing more than a few beatings and the dissolution of one local MC, and I started to relax. The back of my mind was still shouting at me, but if there was nothing actually going ‘bang’ for a few days I certainly wasn’t going to object.

They went ‘bang’ in a way not long afterwards, with a call from Siân.

“Hiya, Diane. Can’t talk too long, got the rounds to make”

I started to chuckle, and she asked what was funny.

“Siân, love, I’m just guessing here, isn’t it? Vicky and Kev? Me and Blake?”

“Explain…”

I carefully rehearsed what I would say, ensuring no mention of Annie and her revelation, and softened my tone.

“It is, isn’t it? Kids? I couldn’t miss how you were feeling, could I? Both of you, isn’t it? Can I assume you’ve done something about it?”

She was silent for a moment, but I caught just the hint of a sniffle.

“Lainey’s out, Di, but you’re right. Always been painful for us, ah? I mean, we never begrudged Vicky, or you”

“Couple of men involved, love, but that’s your problem, isn’t it?”

She sighed, deeply, and I realised she had been hoping to avoid a longer chat, to sidestep any engagement by doing a hit-and-run news drop. I pushed, just a little.

“Would you be going for IVF, love?”

Sniffle turned to snort.

“You are so bloody sharp, DC Sutton! But not as sharp as you think!”

Shit, once again.

“Just you, or…?”

Her voice was breaking, but it wasn’t with grief.

“Both of us, Di. Both of us have caught. We’re going to be mothers…”

She did break, just then, and it took a while before she could string a proper sentence together.

“Diane, ah? Never thought we could, did we? Always had the need, always wanted, but never believed it could happen, and now it’s both of us. You have no idea…”

Sod you, Siân Powell.

“Trust me, Siân, I know. You know what I went through. I never, ever believed I could get there, so a little less of the assuming, OK?”

“Sorry, Di”

“Oh, don’t be daft. This isn’t a point-scoring thing, it’s a delight, a celebration, isn’t it? Now, you have others to tell, but I am honoured you included me and Blake. And Rhod, of course. So e-mail us any details, especially due date, and get on with spreading the good news, woman”

“Thank you, Di”

“Not at all. Give Lainey our love, and once more, that’s all of us”

She said her goodbye, voice breaking again, and I sat for a moment feeling smug and fuzzily happy. If anything could help Elaine out of her emotional pit, motherhood was a good bet.

Motherhood… I did my best to move that idea on in bed that night, and got no complaints from Blake, and for one night at least we forgot all about work.

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Can't help feeling smug

The kudos count when I finished your latest still showed 0, and after clicking, it still came back as "only you voted". but it is still less than 15 minutes since posting. I have never before managed this level of immediacy. This time is because I hit it lucky, because my aim is never to miss one of your contributions, and always to catch up if circumstances have caused a slip.
Keep them coming
Best wishes
Dave

Speed

(:-)

This story does keep my

This story does keep my interest, because of a) the two main characters, b) the interaction between various characters within the story; which helps it to move along, and c) because their new lives are becoming more interesting day by day and I want to see how they fare each day.

Thank you

Years ago on this site I wrote that I can't do twisty plots, but I like to create people, characters, and let them tell their own story. Once you have established a person on the page, they almost write themselves. As an author gets deeper into a character, they get to feel how that person would react.

Everyone is obviously a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, desires and motivations. Once they are clear in the author's head, the rest is easy. Those motivations do not need to be spelled out for the reader, but must be clear to the writer, as with one of my more enigmatic characters, a very, very large fair-haired biker who lives in Reading. I know his back story...

It;s strange how bodies,

The Bristol Channel does strange things to drifting bodies. They turn up in the strangest places often many miles from where they were dumped. Several bodies presumed to have entered at the Severn bridge and even at the river Avon have ended up in Carmarthen Bay.

bev_1.jpg

Practicing

joannebarbarella's picture

Maybe the best part of pregnancy is practicing |-)) to get there.