CHAPTER 60
I looked hard at them both, and it was almost as if they had clicked into sharper focus. They both passed well as cis women, which was probably down to starting their transition at a young age, but that wasn’t the point. If I hadn’t known about them, I would never have guessed their history, unlike with Gemma, who would never manage to look like anything other than herself. Her man didn’t seem to mind, though, and that was clearly down to the personality that had attracted her from the start.

Tiff and Charlie had another issue, I guessed, in that their luck in their appearance left them with the dilemma of deciding when to be open about how they had begun their lives. I could see a horrible set of risks bubbling away there, and once more blessed my own good fortune in life.

Charlie suddenly grinned.

“Got my own news, as well! Got a letter on Friday, from the clinic. All sort of fits together with last night”

She stopped speaking abruptly, and after a struggle, managed to get most of her next mouthful of tea down without spraying it into the air.

Tiff leant away from her, eyes wide in feigned outrage.

“Yeah? And? AND?”

“Got a date, isn’t it? March!”

I was lost, but Blake had clearly worked it out, roaring with laughter. I gave him a Mother Look until he calmed down, and he grinned as he spoke.

“Don’t you get it, woman? ‘Fits together’, aye?”

“No”

He turned to Charlie, grin switching to much gentler smile.

“Have I got it right, love? Where will it be?”

She smiled, and it was finally a simple, happy one.

“Brighton, place called Nuffield Health”

Realisation hit me like a train, and to my shame, rather than congratulating her, I corpse horribly as I finally got the reference to ‘fitting’. Such a huge step, but one so very obviously the right one. Tiff was sniffing almost as loudly as Charlie normally would.

“Gem is gonna be, like, SO pissed off, girl! Wonderful news!”

We did the group hug thing, and the Q and A session about what she needed, and how, and where, as Deb simply sat smiling in quiet but obvious happiness. I saw Annie’s face in my mind’s eye, and knew that this was absolutely right for Charlie. I took both her hands in mine once more.

“Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you”

“What for?”

“Blake and I were really worried we were bringing a pile of shit to you both, and at Christmas. You’ve just made our day”

“Well, they’ll make my day in March, along with a new vajayjay. You going to visit me in hospital? I will want satsumas and choccies, not grapes”

How on Earth did someone so young gain such resilience? She turned to Tiff with her own soft smile.

“Don’t worry, Tiff. You and Gem will be along soon. Gives me the test drive, yeah? So I can tell you all what you need to know before your turn”

She corpse herself immediately after that statement, and it was Tiff who kept her calm, explaining the mirth.

“Di, just ignore her. She just wants to make some stupid joke about test-driving it when she gets back. Don’t encourage her”

She looked around until she could find a simple way of changing the subject.

“Pierhead. Hot chocolate. Cheese and ham panini. My treat!”

There were no objections, and so we walked round the waterfront and past Ianto’s Shrine to the more gentrified shopping area around the giant chess set. Tiff’s choice of venue seemed to be based on whichever loyalty card she held (bloody hipster students!) but there were seats, it was warm, and they had a goat’s cheese and beetroot Italian hot sandwich thing that begged me to eat it. Bloody hangovers do horrible things to diets.

Promises were made, assurances given, and calendars amended. Blake and I left three happier women at the safe house, and then returned to our own little bubble of warmth.

The paid work started in earnest on the Monday, as we began a rolling programme of static observation ‘stagging’ the main venue in Merthyr Tydfil. Alun, of course, had done a drive-by, clocking any obvious cameras, entries and exits, and. most important of all, the location of a decent greasy spoon. I said so long to my husband, as Sammy’s splitting came into effect, but while I felt rather lost without him it left our boy with company and a sense of family as a presence rather than an absence.

It got to be a routine, which is always dangerous, as too obvious a pattern, too clear a set of habits, can leave a team showing out rather early. I spent most of my time with Alun, so much so I suspect the man who ran the Merthyr café clearly thought we were an adulterous couple. God alone knows what he would have thought if I had come in with a series of different ‘paramours’. I pondered working with Candice for a couple of shifts just to freak him out, but that would have been silly. Silly, and not P, P. But funny.

Routine it was, though, in the end. Drive up and get on plot, list any vehicles coming or going, snap any obvious faces, drink tea, eat bacon sarnies and write up our notes. We had a few repeats of that snogging moment when tracking the Evans crew, but Alun was always clean, even making a joke of the packet of mints he had started carrying around expressly for the purpose of not sharing any second-hand meals, or at least their flavour.

Then we had Christmas, in a sodding tent in Surrey, seeing my old/new friend and her own crew take flight as high as that of the airliners at Gatwick. Such a contrast in how people took their delight in the world. Annie and the others flew on music and dance, love and life, and here we were staging people whose idea of a good time was allegedly seeing two animals rip each other apart. The contrast wasn’t the worst part of it all, but it did sit our customers in a particularly vile light.

And back to Merthyr bloody cold Tydfil.

There were regular vehicle numbers coming up now, and Sammy amended our observation pattern to allow each of us some office time, which for me meant hours of the old free-association thing I was told so often was my forte. Shortly after New Year, a couple of pieces fell into place.

“Sammy!”

“Yes, mate?”

“Got a glitch in this one. This number, yeah? Mazda pick-up. Blue”

“And?”

“That’s the DVLA info, and I have these records of it… here. And a pic”

“Yup, blue. And?”

“And this one, in white. Same number. Two hours apart”

“Cheeky fuckers! What does that give us?”

“Apart from an insight into their criminality, and an excuse to stop them on the road, not much apart from what Border Force told me. They use the reg number for what they call roll-up, where they show how many times a day the innocent cross-border shopper goes over to collect some cheese, baguettes and Nutella for their own personal consumption”

“Sarcasm suits you, woman! Pattern of criminality established, then. What’s the rest?”

“Uh?”

“You will have more for me, Di. I know you”

“Ah, yeah. There’s been an increase in the number of deliveries. Alun and I thought that just before Christmas, but things have really shot up now. New year will explain some of it, but not all. ELLEN!”

She ambled over, holding a file she had shown me only an hour earlier.

“Got a nice tickle here, Sammy. It was Sean’s idea originally, but it was one that I took and grew in my own special and talented way”

Our boss was grinning, and it was, of course, Feral Sammy that held court just then. Ellen looked almost as predatory.

“Went through business rates stuff at the Council, and got a list of all lock-up units in the area. Lexie did the biz on it with some tech tool she wrote, and we have a warehouse unit. Rented to the same boys that have our two venues. Took the liberty of checking for CCTV, and there’s a Council one just outside the gate. Di here’s been looking at the footage. That right, Mrs Sutton?”

“Shut up, Mrs Williams!”

“Bitch!

“Cow!”

Sammy managed to stop laughing just long enough to get us back on course, and I took point.

“Something me and Alun picked up before Christmas was the increase in number of deliveries. The footfall of customers doesn’t seem sufficient for what’s coming in. There certainly wouldn’t be the space to store it all as well as still have room round the bar, so we went looking for a depot. It still doesn’t explain the quantity, though. As I said, NYE won’t be the reason. I think…”

I caught myself as well as the grin from Ellen.

“WE think there’s a meet coming up. It will be a weekend, most probably”

Sammy nodded sharply.

“That’s news we needed. I was on my way to see the Super to give a sitrep, and I needed something concrete. He’s got customers piled up wanting to use our services, and while he is happy to keep us live on this case, he needs ways to tell them to piss off. Politics, as usual. What will we need if it goes off?”

That was typical of the man, as he knew full well what we would require, but he simply wanted to let us tell our own story and build our own case. Ellen nodded to me: stay in the hot seat.

“We are not really going to know if anything is starting, or when, Sammy. Bit short of humint on this one. They’re almost as tight-knit as the Culhwch. Just a lot less surveillance aware”

I took a breath, and started to lay it out for him.

“As many dog handlers as we can get, just without their own dogs. As many carriers and plod as can be spared. And a vet or two”

“And a go signal?”

I shrugged, and then committed myself.

“There are kennels out the back of the main venue. They will want their own dogs established early, getting to know the pit. I did some reading. Nearly did some puking as well, but that’s what we are here for. Big money on this game, gambling for high stakes on the dogs. Add in the blood, it is big news. People who run these events have their own dogs, and they bet on them, and they want to win, surprise surprise”

I handed off to Ellen, who grimaced.

“Home turf, Sammy. Home advantage. The bastards have their dogs imprinted on them, just like pets. Daddy gives me treats, oh how I love Daddy, woof woof! So they bring their own dogs down, let them get the idea that the pit is their home ground. Their owner might even camp out with them so it sticks in their little doggy brains that bit more. Makes them fight that much harder for Daddy, cause Daddy lurves them”

Sammy looked between the two of us, eyes cold and hard.

“So we await the dogs, then? And then hit them at the weekend?”

Ellen and I nodded together, and she added a simple prayer.

“Can we hit them just as hard as we hit the Evans lot?”

Feral Sammy was front and centre at that as professional Sammy left the room.

“Fuck, yeah!”