CHAPTER 4
I lay with Blake that night, more at ease than I had been for years. So many of my worries had been eased by the trials, and now I saw an old friend happy and safe, and so clearly loved and in love. I mumbled into my husband’s chest without realising it, and he simply hugged me closer to him as Fritz rumbled from the top of my pillow.

“We need to report properly to Lainey, love”

“I texted her, sent a picture, yeah?”

“She’ll have questions. Best answered face to face”

“So, what to do?”

“Sammy’ll be fine. Just rock up at hers; she’s stuck indoors for now, isn’t it? Anyway, what did you think of it all?”

“Confused. Best word I can come up with, just for now. That man obviously cares for her, and Lainey’s uncle, bloody hell”

“Yeah, he’s a big lad, but he’s just like Lainey underneath that mullet”

“That’s not a mullet”

“Would be if he grew it any longer, woman. What I meant was that he’s switched on. He steered that meeting very sweetly. I know two of them stormed out, but he had the rest onside very nicely. Annie’s man, though, he’s got some real guts. I couldn’t see, once he’d sat down, but the look on his face when he came in the door was a classic. You doing the visit to Lainey? Easier for the team if one of us stays at work, aye?”

I settled down against him to get some sleep, my mind replaying that look on her face, the joy, over and over again. That idea ended as he kept talking.

“Di?”

“Yes, love?”

“I know it’s not been that long, aye? You and me?”

I chuckled. “Long enough to get married, husband of mine!”

“Well, just watching your parents, aye?”

“And?”

“Well, mine went years ago, you know that, so they’ve been, well… been there for me, and I hadn’t realised how much I missed that sort of thing”

“Dad sees you as his best mate, love. You know that”

“Oh god, aye. I’d just, well…”

“Spit it out, Sutton”

“We’ve got spare rooms now”

“And I am sure they will be more than happy to stay over now and then”

“Not what I meant, love”

“Well, what--- are you suggesting what I think you are?”

He squeezed me.

“Sort of traditional for married couples, Di”

I reached up to stroke his cheek, and my fingers came away wet.

“Blake? Love? Are you all right?”

He stroked my hair, his hand trembling slightly, and I wriggled round to kiss some of his tears away.

“Di, I didn’t realise how much I miss Mam and Dad, aye? And one thought leads to another, and it was just, well, if I can’t have them back, and I can’t, and Sean, well, obviously he can’t, can he?”

I knew exactly what he meant, and as I thought about it, and how my own parents had stood by me, through so much pain and nastiness, my answer was there fully-formed. I pushed him away slightly so that he could see my face in the dim glow of the street lights through our bedroom curtains, and then bent forward to kiss him properly, before sitting back up again. I kept my voice as gentle as I could manage, but I knew it held a quaver.

“In that case, we better get some practice in.

I was rather tired when I drove out to Carmarthen again the next day, Sammy having been as accommodating as ever, and found my way to her posh office. The receptionist picked up an intercom, Elaine’s voice tinny but just about audible in reply.

“Inspector Powell?”

“Yes, Adele?”

“Got a visitor for you”

“Send him in”

There was definite giggle as Adele put the handset back down.

“Think she’d have got past the sexism, wouldn’t you?”

I took her point, and opened the inner door. Elaine just stared at me, or rather my hair.

“Did you feel your intelligence ebbing as it set? ADELE! ANY CHANCE OF SOME TEA?”

That was loud. Adele called back through the still-open door.

“You have an intercom, Inspector Powell!”

“Er, sorry”

I couldn’t help laughing at Elaine’s embarrassment.

“I have seen all of her films as well, Lainey, but probably not for the same reasons as you, and no, dying my hair hasn’t crippled my mind. You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

She waved at the spare chair, leaning back in her own, staring at me and obviously choosing her words with care, her tone neutral, testing my response.

“What did you think of her?”

Sensible answer, girl.

“That’s the word, isn’t it? ‘Her’?”

She was nodding, and I stayed with the flow.

“I mean, I watched them… Blake and me got a table in the corner of the main room, and they’d all buggered off into the snug bit, but we could still see them from where we were. Hear a bit of it, too, especially when a couple of the men got gobby”

A tray of tea appeared from behind me, and Elaine started.

“Aye, my uncle told me about that. How did you… what did you think? Oh, ta, Adele, we’ll probably be at least a half hour”

I waited for her to sort the cups out while I considered my answer. Elaine was clearly on her side, accepting Annie as a woman, and I ran through my memories of Adam, his smile and cheeky, mischievous sense of humour.

“Lainey, she looked comfortable, innit? I mean, she was bricking it when she walked in, and I could see why, with some of the crap we heard, but she’s in a skirt and shit, and it suited her, and here I am calling her that and it is just so bloody natural to do it”

It was, I realised. It wasn’t just the clothes that had fitted. The whole person, the entire Annie, had seemed to fit. I took the cup from Elaine, and tried to slow my answers down to match the speed of my thoughts by taking a mouthful, which nearly scalded me. Idiot. In for a penny, though.

“She’s straight as well, innit? That bloke you mentioned, yeah?”

“Eric”

“That’s the one. Well, he came round later, and it was like in that war film, you know? Ice Cold in whatsits?”

“Alex”

“Yeah, that one, when they get their beers at the end, and they sit there, and they hold off JUST that little bit, and, well, that was her when he walked in”

She smiled, face soft.

“He’s a good man, Di”

That got my mouth moving a bit too quickly, as I snapped back “He fucking better be!”

“Never thought of you as a mother hen, Di… oh. Not you as well?”

“What? Oh. No, not yet, but we, well…”

I couldn’t help it, and I started sobbing. So much of other people’s shit had passed me by, starting with my own parents’ pain, and with Blake’s own tears the night before, I was out of strength. No police, professional mantra was helping just then. I wrestled the sobs halfway to death, then grabbed my handbag for tissues.

Elaine looked shocked, and there was real concern in her voice.

“Talk to me, Di? Blake?”

Oh yes, Blake, in so many ways, but not as she seemed to be hinting. I tried to straighten her out, which thought set me coughing and hiccupping.

“Oh, Lainey, yes, and no, and all sorts of shit, yeah, and it’s not him, but…”

Tea. Displacement activity. It was cool enough at last to drink, which seemed to stop my hiccups. This time, I just let the words come as they needed to.

“No, it’s not Blake in one way, Lainey, but it is, and what it is, yeah, is the difference. Evans ruined me, you know? I mean, he took everything I am, every bit of brightness, and he pissed on it, just like he pissed on me, and it’s, it’s sex and love, and trying to take the sex bit part from the rape bit and it’s not working, and then Blake says, well, not important really, is it, and he just waits, and it’s so different and, shit, it’s like… it’s like when we finally get together, and he’s so gentle, and it’s like washing the piss off me all over again. Remember that first lad we saw? The one who’d almost scrubbed his skin off? That was me. I…”

I lost it again for a few seconds, but she was as patient as ever.

“It’s breaking the association, Lainey. It’s washing that bastard out of my dreams in a sort of shower of Blake and…”

Did I just say what I had? Oh shit!

“No, not like that! Bollocks, you know what I meant!!”

Once again, she understood immediately.

“He’s brought you home, love”

“That’s it! Abso bloody lutely! I mean, after all, I should know, of all people I should bloody know what rape is really about, but things look different from the inside of it. I didn’t realise, didn’t really know, how much he had fucked me up, not until he went down. It doesn’t go away, Lainey, and, well, Blake. Just Blake, yeah?”

She nodded, and once more I could speak sensibly. My thoughts of Annie from the night were clear, even when hazed over with the other memories of our ‘practice’.

“Then, there we are, in the caff, watching Ad—Annie, and that man walks in, and I see the same in her as I know is in me, the cold beer, the lifeline, yeah? She’s a bloody lucky woman, and she’s a woman full stop. Lainey?”

“Aye?”

“You did right to let us know, me and my Blake. I mean, I know what shit she went through, but the smile on her face said all I needed to know, and it was just like the two of us”

More tea. Time to sum up, even without a jury, and that was Elaine’s way. She didn’t judge in words, but she had morals, a moral code, that was entirely concerned with doing the right thing. Get it right, DC Owens. Sutton.

“I mean, you can’t get rid of your past, but you can stop letting it run your ‘now’, innit? Just, helps to have the right man or woman along to keep your head clear”

Back to my tea.

“Anyway, whatever, as they say. You’ve guessed what Blake and me have decided, and I will tell you one thing, if we get there, no bloody godmother rubbish, you are getting aunty duty, you and your missus”

There was a real twitch to her, just then, and I had a flash of intuition, remembering that woman in the court with her, clearly pregnant, and how her face went whenever she spoke about her sister and nephew. I kicked myself mentally. She was just like Blake, seeing families all round and watching them from outside. So easy to see her as the hard case Inspector and forget the woman. What the hell had I been crying for, when I had it all now? I felt like an idiot, so I dragged out my phone to change a dangerous subject.

“Sod all that stupidity, Lainey. We got some pics, and this is my favourite. It’s when he walked in, and just stood there while her whole bloody family stared at him. This pic is the moment she saw him”

Sunlight through clouds, laughter after pain. Sheer, simple delight in another human being’s presence, their love. Elaine sat and looked at it for an age, smiling again, and I made the joke.

“You trained us well, Inspector Baggins! Sneaksy!”

I sorted the other pictures for her, and at her request sent them to her own phone.

“Thanks, Di. Really. Any time you need help, if, aye? Aunty Elaine? Already am, with my family…”

I left her after a little while, making my way back along the motorway to Cardiff, for once feeling absolutely futile. I could see what she wanted, what she needed, but it was a problem I had no answer for.

Those thoughts went onto the back-burner after I got into the office and Jon handed me the latest files on Mersey View. I might not be able to help Elaine, but I was going to do my best for Deb.