CHAPTER 75
It was a wrench leaving our little home from home. It had been a delight, locals and Brenin staff full of smiles and welcome, the experience made immeasurably better as I watched the strain drop from people’s faces and posture. It had been a release for all of us, and I am sure my own tells had been just as overwhelming. Bless you, boss.

The weather closed in as we left, almost as if the mountains felt we were spurning their affections, and as Hywel drove us home by way of ‘forn parts’ I played with my phone and looked up climbing harnesses for rather small people. Rhod would absolutely love the place.

Lisa rode with us, explaining how she wanted to allow Barry and Candice some ‘quality time’, which showed that she was attuned to the team vibe in at least one way. I watched her with Lexie, and it was still a dance between them, still a game of ‘am I really sure about this?’, especially from Lexie.

They still fell asleep cuddled together, just as I did with my own partner, until Hywel pulled up at some truckers’ greasy spoon for a break, which made me laugh. Pint mugs of tea, bacon sandwiches, all day Full English/Welsh (where were we, exactly?) breakfasts: Lisa wasn’t the only one who understood how we worked together. He grinned at us as he worked his way through a gargantuan mixed grill, complete with cheese-covered chips.

“Don’t know who would kill me first, Dad or Mam”

He caught the multiple raised eyebrows we gave him and shrugged.

“Mam is on a healthy kick, aye? Cutting down on the fried stuff for both of us”

Blake snorted, after a quick look at me, the cheeky sod.

“Let me guess, mate: your Dad would kill you out of jealousy?”

“Absolutely, mate! Now, we’re ahead of time, so I can do more than one drop-off. Let me know now, and I’ll work out a route for it”

Generous man. Generous bloody family, as I already knew from Elaine. Blake gave him our address while I popped into the little shop for a pint of milk.

One by one our friends were delivered to their homes, apart from a small group at the nick, and then we were in our own kitchen, with our own kettle, heating turned on to break the chill. As I brewed, Blake rang Mam to arrange delivery of child and cat. Once the tea was poured, we sat in peace, downloading the memory cards from both of our cameras.

Mam and Dad brought cawl and cakes along with boy and beast, and the mood stayed tranquil even as the two latter explored a home they actually knew so well. The pictures were shown, including some I had most definitely not known about, which included video footage of my attempts at skiing. Blake was chuckling.

“Don’t blame me, love! I was off in the quarries, wasn’t I? Hang on… Can you back it up a bit? OK… pause! Now, look in the window there. See the reflection? You should have spotted that one, supposed to be your job, isn’t it?”

A reflection indeed, of a certain Office Blonde and my camera, the cow. I made myself a promise: her time would come. Never mind; it amused Rhod.

“Why did you keep sitting down, Mam?”

Dad was musing over several of the shots, and I realised he was itching to get at his multiple guide books, which were at the old place, fortunately.

“Where’s the little kiosk gone? Dennis and Dafydd?”

I clicked forward to another shot.

“It’s just in a bigger building, Dad. They’ve expanded the car park as well”

“Not done anything to the fairy bridge?”

“Nope. Still there. Got a shot later”

I pulled out a shot of the approach to our climbing crag, as I really didn’t want Rhod asking about a place I could see as rather unsuitable for excited little boys.

“This is where we went rock-climbing, Rhod”

“Mam! The dog lady!”

My own mother gave me a Look at that, so I had to explain.

“Um, someone called her ‘barking’, and I can’t quite get Rhod’s head around the concept. That’s Steph Woodruff. Her husband is the dark-haired lad holding the rope. Blake, tell me you got some video?”

“Yup! Son, do you like this? Like to have a go?”

“Like at the swings, Dad?”

“Just the same, son. Just longer”

He looked over Rhod’s head to my father.

“They have a tiny little climbing wall in a park we take him to sometimes, as well as a rope net thing. Rubberised ground, so that kids bounce rather than break”

Dad nodded.

“Rhod, that’s where I used to take your Mam when she was little. Would you like to go sometime?”

“Will it be tents, Mam? With Sassie and Tone?”

I pulled him onto my lap.

“Dad and me are looking at tents, son. You really want to see the mountains?”

“Yes!”

“Then we shall go and see the mountains, but when it’s warmer. You asked to go camping when it’s warmer”

“Yay! Can I have a torch?”

“We shall see. Now, more pictures, OK? And we have some of Aunty Steph playing music”

It all met with full grandparental approval, Mam smiling.

“These are the people you stayed with at Christmas?”

“Yes indeed! I will admit, though, that Aunty Steph was a bit less restrained that time”

“Barking, Mam! He said barking!”

“Yes, Rhod”

“And Aunty Annie stands on one leg!”

Oh dear. I wondered if the school could manage an impromptu evening session, just to calm him down, but it wasn’t really an option, so I fed him more cawl, made him hot chocolate, and eventually got him settled in bed after a story about goblin trains and fairy bridges. I settled back down next to my bigger man, and Dad oved his conversation to a more serious tone.

“That boss of yours, Di. He knows his stuff, doesn’t he? With people, I mean”

Blake squeezed me before replying in my place.

“I’ll speak to that one, love. Mark, he does. Too many of us were starting to crumble, so he did something to stop up the cracks”

Mam reached over to take my father’s hand.

“Better than that, son. All too often, it’s just papering over cracks, not fixing them. That’s our girl again, isn’t it? Finding the good ones”

I had no argument against that one, because it was so clearly true. We laughed and nibbled our way through the evening, as, in my own view as an acknowledged expert in the matter, a representative group of those ‘Good Ones’.

There were more good ones to see at work, and round Deb’s place, which brought more work, of course. I don’t mean paid work, but that which comes with the not-so-simple process of trying to be a decent human to others around you.

Sammy had kept his promise, and while the files that came our way may have lacked excitement, they were also wonderfully devoid of shootings, mutilations and extreme cruelty to any form of living thing, unless such a class includes honesty, probity and truthfulness. There were several bribery and corruption/malfeasance in public office affairs, plus a long-running ‘crash for cash’ insurance scam, an internet stalking case that went back ten bloody years (did they even HAVE the internet ten years ago?), and three of what Sean called ‘roll-ups’.

It was returned backscratching, in essence. His employers had been so helpful in a couple of our cases, what else could we do but return the favour? In the end, building on work already done on the Geoghegan affair, one of those files took on a life of its own, as we went from vanloads of cross-Channel booze to a shopping list of offences that seemed absolutely unlimited in their variety.

Untaxed and uninsured vehicles, with unlicensed drivers.
Cut-and-shut and otherwise unroadworthy vans, as the Dover boy had hinted.
Forged and counterfeit (there is a difference) MoT and insurance documents.
Benefits fraud on an industrial scale.
Illegal drinking dens (we left someone else to do the ‘heavy lifting’ that time).
Counterfeit goods, from perfumes to headphones, DVDs to razor blades (I learned an awful lot about the Gillette marketing model for that one)
Human growth hormones and anabolic steroids for bodybuilding, plus a lot of powerful prescription drugs like Valium and Temazepam.

We handed off one particular result to Avon and Somerset, which was another eye-opener. Apparently, ‘unmanufactured tobacco’ (leaves in simple terms) has no duty. The gang was bringing it in by the ton, running it through the necessary shredding machine and then repackaging it in counterfeit wrappers before feeding it to dodgy suppliers who were happy to punt it out as the real thing. What amazed me there was the utter lack of discrimination of so many smokers: as long as it contained nicotine…

An educational process indeed.

The weather was improving steadily at last, so one weekend such a delight to be back on office hours again!) we took the boy out to the huge outdoor discount centre in The Avenue, just off the Newport Road, to do our tent shopping, which could have been a disaster. Thank you, Dad, for the advice beforehand.

“Mam! Lots of bedrooms!”

“Di, love, if we get one of those… and…”

I turned to the two of them ready and willing to lay down The Law as Revealed By Mark Owens.

“OK, but we need to get a few things straight. One: this is a tent for three of us. Not a house, not a canvas palace. T wo: I can remember lying in our old tent listening to the gusts as they came up the valley, and holding onto the ridgepole with Dad so that it didn’t snap. Three: storage at home. So we are not going for an Edifice, or a semi-gazebo with windows. Something like THAT is what we need. Now, I am not going on a holiday with my two men to sleep alone, so with that one we can cuddle up in our bags. And it’s got two doors. And the poles are aluminium, and it’s geodesic, and it says you can buy a groundsheet to go under it to save wear and tear and…”

Thanks, Dad. I had written his advice down and then spent three days memorising it, so no contest. When we left, it was with the tent I had sneakily spent a fortnight researching online, as well as three sleeping bags, little pillows, a small stove (No, boys, my idea of a holiday may include tea in bed but it does NOT include cooking all the meals) and a few little things like folding table and chairs, lantern and, being neither inexperienced nor stupid, some seriously toxic midge spray.

I also succumbed to three head torches, which pleased Rhod far more than the tent.

Early March, we tested it all out at a place recommended by Annie, and it was a delight. Near Llanddeusant, north of the Black Mountain, it had a feeding centre for red kites attached, as well as a caravan park, which allowed my little man to show some amazing arrogance for the first time, as he declared such devices as “Not real camping, Mam!”

It turned out be the place where Sarah Powell, her husband and the Barracloughs had all met for the very first time, and I understood their love for it. Even without such memories, it was one of the most beautiful locations I have ever seen. There were decent facilities for us, including a very sheltered pitch to ease my fears about wind, a café, and to Rhod’s delight, that place to feed the kites.

He went absolutely hyper when we were joined by Lainey, Siân and their children, but we had a big field, no main roads, and air so fresh it seemed to stun the children to sleep at bedtime.

What Sammy had started for us in Snowdonia continued working in the Black Mountain. I had my family around me, in all senses, and I was at peace, which was priceless.

Blake couldn’t understand why I started laughing when that word came to mind, so I had to explain, and so for one night out of the three, Rhod got to sleep over with Sassie and Tone while I healed some more with my husband.

I was in a good mood indeed when we returned, and it was still with me a fortnight later as I drove across to Surrey with Charlie.