CHAPTER 49
We drove away as quietly as we could, and it was a few minutes of travel before I asked the obvious question.

“What about Deb?”

Paula laughed, but it was strained.

“Oh, she’ll be fine. They’ll take her back to the club. Proper bunkhouse and stuff there. One of them will see her home tomorrow. I think Rosie and her have a lot of catching up to do”

CHAPTER 48
That night, I lay once more with my lover, safe in our home, in my family, and tried to find the words for him. I had already walked him through my interview, but that was a doddle in comparison.

“I want in to see Lexie afterwards, love”

“How is she? I haven’t had time to pop round since she woke up”

“Gemma’s taken over her diet”

CHAPTER 46
“Why did you agree to act as a negotiator, when you have not been trained in such work?”

I could see that the two of them weren’t interested in the easy questions. I gathered as much logic as I could find.

“I don’t think there was any real choice. We had an armed man taking shots at people he didn’t like, time was crucial to clear the roadway outside, as there was a high probability that the rallygoers would contain gang members, and we couldn’t risk moving the crowd while there were live rounds being discharged. Morris had been very specific in asking for me”

CHAPTER 44
“Please explain, for the benefit of the tape, what you mean by ‘patch’, Diane”

“Um. Colours. Club emblem worn on the back of a cut-off. Sleeveless jacket. Very important thing for that sort of club”

“Thank you. What significance did you take from that?”

CHAPTER 42
We spent a long time in bed that night as a family, Rhod deciding that he wanted a cuddle in the night, which limited the conversation a little, though Blake did steer us through it with some artful use of euphemism and long words. I wanted our little boy to sleep soundly that night, even if I couldn’t. My sleep wasn’t encouraged by the fact that Rhod’s entry had allowed a small furry buzz-machine into the room, so our bed was rather full.

CHAPTER 41
That didn’t last long, of course. While the seeming pause in hostilities held, we buckled down once again to pick up the cases we had been dealing with before the morgues started to fill with dissected bikers. Our out-of-area role meant an increasing number of cases being referred to us, so much so that Bev had insisted we appoint what he called a triage officer, a role that dropped neatly into Ellen’s lap. Sammy, feral for once in the sense of blackly humorous, gave his own definition of ‘triage’.

CHAPTER 39
I had been suspecting something like that, of course, but it was still a lot to take in, so I sat for a few seconds listening to the grown-ups talking. Sammy cut to the crux of it.

“Where does that leave us?”

Brad’s mouth twisted, eyebrows up, and he shrugged, palms out. It seemed to be his little habit.

CHAPTER 37
We were back in the office on January 3rd, and I spent the morning going through the parish notice e-mails, or, as we called them, after the head admin woman who issued them all, ‘Weller Deletes’. Open—scan—delete. Several were attached to a read receipt system, so I then took a while longer deleting the out-of-office auto-replies to the auto-replies to…

It filled the morning for me, between sessions of team brew-ups and runs out to the local supermarket for biscuits and muffins.

CHAPTER 35
Dinner wasn’t just good, it was excessively so. Mam had prepared, with some help from me, a meal that consisted of just about every traditional ingredient she could fit onto the plates, and plentiful in terms of quantity as well as variety. By unspoken agreement, pudding was left for teatime. Beer and wine were not.

Dishwashers are wonderful.

CHAPTER 33
I couldn’t fault Ellen in regard to her sentiments, and that served even more than before to show me how strongly the team held me in its collective arms. Candice had commented on my persona at the beginning: “Don’t touch me!”

CHAPTER 31
My safety training was kicking in, and I knew in the back of my mind that I was already firing off target acquisition glances, seeking the right place to hit first, who to attack as a priority, but the rational part of me was folding quickly in fear and certainty. I was dead.

I rose from the block I was sitting on. The pub was too far away, and there were no lights in the Norwegian church. The four huge men were too well-spaced to allow me to have any chance of making a run for it, and I had no kit with me. Dead.

CHAPTER 29
Routine settled back onto my life like a slightly damp raincoat. Warm, comfortable, but still a little irritating round the edges. I moved Rhod from a cot-style seat to an upright one, but, memories and nightmares tugging at me, I made bloody sure the thing was securely attached. Not in the front, either; I had read enough reports of what happened to a child seat when the passenger airbag was triggered. Wherever my little boy went, his seat went with him, and I am sure I annoyed my parents by insisting on my own inspection of how they fitted it to their own car. I didn’t care, or only a little, because my boy was going to be as safe as I could make him.

CHAPTER 27
I really don’t know where that year went, but the school holidays were soon on us and so was our boy’s first ever trip abroad. We had taken a load of pictures of him, trying to get something suitable for his passport, and in the end the best we could manage made my son look rather like a white Malteser.

We flew from Cardiff this time, meeting the others at a coffee shop before check-in. It was slightly odd, as I remembered Vicky from the trial, but had never really got to know her husband Kevin, and then there were two hyperactive children to engage with, Tara Elaine and Kevin Twm. Bags dropped, kids supplied with amusements, queue through Security, and then sit and wait, then wait some more.

CHAPTER 25
Waterstone’s may be a huge and faceless chain of book shops, but I have always found the staff quirky, especially in a University town like Cardiff. I suppose a lot of jobs in what is referred to as ‘retail’ are like that, more so when the items sold are niche stuff. There is a cliché image of record shop employees, or employees in goth or hippy clothing shops, merging with the merchandise, and while I will leave the comparison there (and avoid all mention of employees in, er, ‘Adult’ shops), Cardiff Waterstone’s is absolutely in that league.

CHAPTER 23
Late Spring saw Rhod walking, after a fashion, and myself back at work, which was both a delight and a pain. A delight and a pain in both cases, I should add, for while my boy was most definitely becoming his own person, his new-found mobility was a mixed blessing indeed.

I had never lived with a cat before, so I had been most attentive when Blake had talked me through Cat Defence for Beginners.

CHAPTER 21
They wheeled me off to the maternity ward, or somewhere, and all I remember is watching the lights pass overhead. I was utterly exhausted, but they got me in, after some rather painful cleaning up, and Mam had a new nighty for me, which made an amazing difference.

Hang on. Mam?

“When did you get here?”

“Three and a half hours ago, love. I stopped to get you some fresh stuff. Thought you’d want it”

“Yeah, but I only went I there… Mam, how long was I messing about? Labour?”

CHAPTER 19
The drive back was just as long, obviously, but it was extended by our Tesco run, and there was a new cat toy I just had to buy, but yes, the Sutton stocks of bacon and sausages were given a major boost. Most of it would end up in the chest freezer, of course, but as long as Mam gave us a little notice we would be properly prepared this time.

It is an odd thing, catering for your own parents. You feel the bar is set at a very high level and no matter how well you prepare, in your heart of hearts you just know that failure is inevitable. My parents would never say so, and objectively I realise they wouldn’t actually think it, but paranoia is a given when your mother sits at your own dining table.

CHAPTER 17
I grabbed the phone and hammered in Blake’s number, getting it wrong four times before screaming at it. I found myself holding it in mid-air, tensed and ready to hurl it at the wall, as Fritz sprinted off into the kitchen.

Police, woman; Professional. Pull it back and breathe. I slowed my actions down as best I could, tapped in my husband’s mobile number, and got his bloody answering service.

Breathe, woman, centre yourself, and don’t look at the bloody television.

CHAPTER 15
Jon and I went round to the safe house early the next week, at Deb’s request, and after catching up on all the gossip over plates of meat pie and potatoes, Charlie held up her hand.

“Di?”

“Yes, love?”

“That was a great idea of yours. Deb explained it, so we all went out to Penarth together. Even Paula. We each found one, but me and Tiff, well, we had a bag of them”

CHAPTER 13
Sedgewick led the way out of the Court.

“There’s quite a nice place a little walk away. Far enough from the Court for us to avoid the usual idiots, and it has outdoor seating we can use”

CHAPTER 11
We spent two weeks on the initial aspects of Meadowcroft, and while we were not precisely surprised at what came out from under a Bradford stone the team’s reaction was a revelation.

Reality had descended on us in a big way after the whirlwind of our original tasking, for the police drama depiction of dedicated sleuthing is utter rubbish. We don’t spend months on one case, patiently sifting evidence before moving to a conclusion, but rather take on a job, a case. Then another. And another.

CHAPTER 9
“Good morning, Mr Cooper. I am Detective Constable Owens, and this is my colleague DC Philips. We will be conducting an interview, and it will be recorded on tape. I believe you are familiar with the process”

He sat opposite us with the duty brief, and my first thought on seeing him had been ‘used up’.

CHAPTER 7
That first chapter was painful to read, but it had a style that drew both of us in; either Paula had real talent or she was being helped by someone else who did. The more I read, however, the more I heard her voice speaking the words. The structure was another thing, where she introduced herself in a short descriptive passage about looking for trade on a miserable February evening in a shitty part of Cardiff, before cutting to a typical school day, and then…