CHAPTER 66
We were back up in Merthyr by Monday lunchtime. Sammy had already briefed, within limits, the CCTV operators, and Jon and Lexie were tasked to spend the rest of the day sitting on folding chairs in the control room watching the screens. My aversion to a certain greasy spoon seemed rather lightweight compared to the hell of boredom that awaited them, but at least they would be in the warm. As for us, I had a flask of hot chocolate, Alun one of coffee, and I had made sure I had fitted a trip into Frank’s/Gemma’s place on the Saturday. We were well prepared.

No need for bacon sandwiches, or so I kept telling myself. The weather was utterly crap again, and I was glad of a chance to stay in the car. The heating made it a little stuffy, though, even after we had turned everything off. Warm the car up, then turn the ventilation off with the heating. Not a comfortable place.

“Di?”

“Alun?”

“That the Volvo again?”

“Um… yes. Sun shades up at the rear windows. I think we could be on. Watch the back while I get the camera… Got it. See anything?”

“Looked like a box or a cage in the back. Kiddy sunshades on the rear side window”

“Yeah, and like that’s a good look in this bloody weather. Hang on while I zoom in on these…”

I fiddled with the digital zoom on the picture, praying I’d got the damned thing sufficiently in focus, and the image contracted onto the rear window of the estate car, and there it was. What passed for daylight had clearly caught a pair of shining eyes and a mouthful of teeth around a lolling tongue. A dog. I started on my notebook entry just as Alun alerted me to a second and third Volvo estate, each with the rear load area obscured by the sort of cartoon-themed detachable sunshades used to keep children cool in cars on hot days, which that one certainly wasn’t. I wasn’t so lucky with the camera that time, but each of the estates had a similarly square shape in the back. I picked up my phone and scrolled to ‘P’.

“Patel!”

“Di. Got at least three so far. Volvo estates, each with what looks like a dog cage in the rear. Positive sight and snapshot of a set of pointy teeth in the first one”.

“Get out then, mate. See you back here soon as, and we’ll start drafting the briefing. Any chance of a walk past before you get rolling?”

“I’ll give it a go. Weather’s bad enough I can keep my hood up. What do you want?”

“Siting of the Volvos. Fire doors are at left of the main building as you look from the gate, I believe?”

“Yes”

“Then just a quick eyes-on of where the cars are standing. They’ll be using those doors for access rather than the front roller doors. Then get away, OK?”

“Wilco, Sammy. Shouldn’t say this, but we’ve still got some pastries left”

He laughed. “Eat them before you come in, or I will! Shout when you’re a few minutes off, and we’ll do a dog and bacon roll run to the Greasy, OK? I am going to have a quick word with the fresh meat in the control room, so wait until you see one of the cameras nod before you walk”

I gave Alun the summary, then squirmed round in my seat as I fitted my Bluetooth buds into my ear and dialled his number.

There. Just a hint of movement, but clear enough. Don’t look at the cameras as you walk, DC Sutton. I popped the passenger door, and the wind almost pulled it from my hand. Out, hood up, start walking as Alun’s breathing hissed in my ear. There was a little newsagent about fifty yards after the gates, and I headed there, hood drawcords cinched tight to my head and the rain beating into the jeans I was wearing.

Bloody windy, cold and wet. They would want the dogs into the warm as soon as they could,

Past the barred gate, head down, corner of the eye taking in what it could, and fuck that was a big dog. Keep walking, woman, keep it steady.

“Dog sighted. Walking on”

Into the little shop, bell dinging as I went in, an elderly woman in a cardigan behind the counter and more variety of porn on display than I had seen in years, everything from ‘Asian Housewives’ to a magazine whose cover seemed to promise a world where lingerie was made only for women in excess of twenty stone in weight. Sod P, P, I had to ask, as I spotted and grabbed the latest edition of Private Eye. I got it on subscription, but never mind.

“Two pound, love”

“There you go. Awful day”

“Aye. Anything else?”

“No ta. Just a question. I might be a bit, lived a sheltered life, isn’t it, but I thought all the porn had gone onto the internet stuff. Couldn’t help noticing, aye? All the mags?”

She laughed in the horrible way heavy smokers do, that sound of bubbles bursting through a gallon of something sticky and revolting.

“Better than it used to be, love. Wrappers on them now, with stuff on to cover up the worst bits. Anyway, internet? Lads who work round here like to read on the job”

She caught something in my look, and laughed again.

“No! Not while they’re working. While they’re doing their other business. Can’t fold a laptop up under your jacket when you want a quick one in the gents’, can you?”

A third laugh, the relish in it making it even more disgusting.

“Wishing you hadn’t asked now, aren’t you? Want a bag to keep that dry? Got some old ones under the counter”

“Please!”

I scurried back to the car, one more flick of my eyes through the gates picking up the ‘Yankpanzer’ now standing next to the Volvos, tailgate down. Wildcat’s warning had been spot-on.

Into the car, hood down, phone off.

“Alun, mate, I do not want to spend any more time in this place!”

Bye, bye Merthyr, at least until Saturday.

All of the team were waiting when we got in, and a phone call from near the City Hall had secured the promised hot food. Alun and I had decided on generosity, team spirit, or stupidity, and left several of Gemma’s finest in the box for the others, and as I got outside a far better bacon roll than I had ever had at Tony’s Diner, Sammy did the summing up.

“We all know what we’re looking at by now, so Di, Alun? Tell us what we have”

I swallowed the chunk of warmth I had just bitten off and looked round the room, just as Blake entered.

“Dot’s got the boy, love. What’s occurring?”

“Right… Alun spotted the first of four vehicles so far, and they are all known to us already. Three Volvo 800 series estates, one Warrior four by four. All three of the estates had the load space windows obscured with child sunshades, the sort that fixes to the inside of the glass with suction cups. We could make out a large and square object in the back of each of them, and as the first one went past us, I managed to get a snap. Candice, could you just warm up the standalone and put this up for us?”

I handed her the camera’s memory card, and once our ‘odd material’ testing computer was running, she brought the image onto the screen.

There were several hisses as breath was drawn in sharply. Looking at those teeth on the camera’s little display was bad enough; the larger screen made it ten times worse.

“Once all three Volvos were in, I walked past to buy a magazine at a shop a little way past the gates, and when I came back the Warrior four-wheel-drive was in place, tailgate down. I didn’t see anything more on that pass, though the fire door was open. When I walked past on the outward run, one of the dogs was just being taken into the shed. I am going to say, quite simply, that it probably weighed as much as my hubby there. Mastiff or some cross-bred derivative, at a guess”

Sammy was grimacing.

“Jon? Lexie?”

My boy looked at the young woman, her hair still short and untidy after the horrible events on the Cowbridge road, and she waved him on.

“Um, yes, Di. We got you and Alun on plot, and all four vehicles entering. Discs saved, of course. Couldn’t get a clear view of the dogs, but, yes, there were four taken in, various sizes, but nothing small”

He looked over to our boss.

“What’s the plan, Sammy? How do we time it?”

Neither feral nor cheeky was visible just then. Sammy was clearly not a happy policeman, and I couldn’t work out why. Everything had gone smoothly, thus far. We had the venue, we had the organiser, we had the booze deliveries, we even had four of the presumed fighting dogs confirmed as being on plot, but something was not sitting comfortably in his mind.

He stood up abruptly.

“Candice, can I have that memory card? Settle down, write your notes, get the package finalised, and relax. I am off for a word with Bev Williams. And leave me one of those apricot things”