CHAPTER 85
I left Chester with a real sense of hope, while wondering what else DI Mulready had in the way of evidence against Linehan or O’Sullivan. I suspected that my team had not been the only ones digging for things other than gold. There would still be a long way to go for Ben and Peter, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to end badly.

Sometimes, my job got to me. While it was all too often in ways that left me understanding how many demons rode on Annie’s shoulders, there were moments where I felt on top of the world. Wrongs put right, some of the demons slain, a little more brightness introduced to that world I lived in; that sense of hope rode with me all the way back to Cardiff, where I shared the results with Sammy over some of the pastries that had been calling my name from Frank and Gemma’s place, and somehow managed to fall into my bag.

With the chips/bread and butter tradition, and her cakes, I was going to end up like a whale if I wasn’t careful. I took a cuppa to an interview room for a wash-up with Sammy.

“So what do we have, Di? Not details, mate: just broad strokes and what our options are. Do we have a file the CPS will run with?”

“Absolutely, Sammy. Not ours to run with, though, is it?”

“I take your point, but you take mine, I am sure. Our case, no matter who fires the starting gun in court. What do you have?”

“Classic stitch-up, in summary. I am finding this a hard one, in some ways. I can sort of see why the people involved did what they did. Don’t approve of it, don’t bloody agree in any way, but I can see a sort of logic in the whole thing”

“Sympathy for the Devil, mate?”

I put on my own version of a feral grin.

“None whatsoever, Sammy. Nasty, bigoted shits, all of them, but what’s that stuff from the Equality Act? Proportionate way to achieve a legitimate end, or whatever? That was what they thought they were doing. They just utterly wrecked somebody’s life in the process. Reminds me: I need to let them know, but I’m not sure if I should wait until the CPS has finished buggering about”

I played with my tea for a while in displacement.

“I never know which way that lot of idiots will jump, so I have sort of decided to wait until the charging is done”

“What about waiting till the trial is over?”

I could feel what he was doing, testing my assessment of the case, measuring my judgement.

“No. The trial is a formality. Main man has coughed the lot, his handler no longer knows which century he’s in, and there’s so much documentary evidence they’ll need a forklift for the jury bundles. I will ring Peter and Ben once Cheshire confirm there are no issues with the charges. I might want to be at the trial, though, to give them some support”

I laughed as a rush of memory caught me, Sammy’s eyebrows rising in mute enquiry.

“Just remembering my own trial, Sammy. Ashley Evans, yeah? So many people there to support me, not left to face it all on my own, and it helped me realise how well-off I am. I was thinking I would offer the same favour to Peter and Ben, and then I realised they will probably have the whole Elliott clan down for their event. I now find myself in the really odd position of feeling sorry for a scrote! Linehan is going to be shitting himself!”

“Linehan?”

“Stupid little teenager who took the backhanders that put our friend in the crap. Not a teenager now, obviously, but you know what I mean. Anyway, case closed, job’s a good’un, all that shit. Change of subject: are you up for two months’ time? Our trip to Surrey?”

That brought a bark of laughter.

“You want me in a tent?”

“Absolutely! And I am told there is dancing!”

“Oh bollocks!”

“Team do, Inspector Patel!”

“What about the wife?”

“Bring her along. She’s seen you pissed before. I know this, because we have loaded you into a taxi on more than one occasion, so unless you have a VERY odd home life…”

A snort, and a happy grin.

“Oh, go on, then. Can’t be any sillier than that week up north. I will see about getting a tent”

As soon as I was back at my desk, I mailed him some links to the outdoor shop’s website. I made sure I put a read-receipt on the mail—get out of that one, Patel. A week later, they charged Linehan and O’Sullivan.

So it was that I found myself once more in a car peeling off the M25 onto the M23, Rhod asking loudly when we would be able to see the aeroplanes.

“In a few minutes on this next road, son”

There was a rustle from the back seat, so I looked over my shoulder to spot the expected guilty party, and I was not wrong.

“Dad, we do not need the road atlas. We have a satnav, and we have been there before, and we know the way”

“Yes, and what happens to your precious satellite stuff if you lose power? A map doesn’t run out of battery life!”

“Dad, if we run out of what you call battery life, it will mean the engine has stopped. If that happens, we won’t be going anywhere, so we won’t need a map, will we?”

Mam was giggling.

“Mark, love, understand that our daughter here is a mother now. That means she has special powers in arguing, powers men never get, isn’t it? Put the map away! How far now, love?”

“About fifteen, twenty minutes, I think. We go past the airport. Little loop, then we are there”

“What about a cuppa?”

Blake’s turn to laugh.

“I think, knowing Mrs Vicar, that there will indeed be enough tea to float one of the planes”

“Planes don’t float, Dad!”

My own father answered that one.

“Some do, Rhod. They call them flying boats”

And so it went, as we crested the couple of rises before the first sight of approaching and departing airliners seized my little man’s attention, and slowed Dad’s explanation of nautical aviation (and boasts about the capacity of his camp cooking equipment). The traffic was horrible for a mile or so before we cleared the airport, and then it was familiar: past the garage, past the church, turn down the back road to the pub, and find a slot to park in. As we passed St Nicholas’ church, I had noticed that the field across the river had been opened up for parking and camping, and there were already several tents in place.

I was feeling excited, in many ways. It wasn’t just the opportunity of meeting so many old friends again, and being able to introduce them to my family and to each other, but also another demonstration of Bridget’s answer to everything. This was living our lives well.

Out of the car and stretch all sorts of body parts, Blake hurrying off with the boy for an urgent visit to the pub’s facilities, and me and my parents left to start hauling out tents and kit. Where were the drudges I remembered?

Onto the grass, find the Edifice and pitch two tents nearby after effusive greetings from Jan and Bill. A couple of minutes later, and it was “Aunty Jan!” as Rhod piled into her for a hug.

“Hello, young man! Are you staying with us this time?”

“Can I, Mam? And Tone and Sassie?”

Jan was clearly as much in Mam-mode as myself, and in short order we had tents up, sleeping bags aired and a nest, small persons for the use of, constructed., which entailed an explanation to Small Person Number One that it was for that evening and not for Right Here and Now.

Children. Who’d have one?

We had set off as early as we could that Friday, the sun bright in our eyes for the first hours of the journey, and that morning’s promise was delivered with brilliant blue skies and a warmth that actually made the tent uncomfortable when zipped up. All three boys were now in shorts, having changed in the Edifice, before we answered Mam’s question with a visit to the church hall, where Mrs Vicar did indeed have a moderately=priced cuppa available for us, next to several trays of flapjacks and sponge cakes, which reminded me that this remained a charity event.

Merry was as sparkling as her name, and insisted on a hug on our arrival.

“My dear cuz is at work, Diane, but she will be here at four. Have you ensured you have a hat with you for tomorrow morning?”

“Eh?”

“My beloved will be holding a service at nine o’clock sharp, and you will be there, I have no doubt. You will needs be decent in His house”

I supposed that even though we were in the church hall rather than the church itself, it was still technically “His house”, so I kept the “WTF?” to myself. Annie hadn’t mentioned that bit, but then again, Christmas had involved carols, and a service, so why should this one be any different? I had packed a sun hat, so it would have to do. I made polite comments to Merry while wondering if I could manage to sneakily oversleep.

And sod the worries about turning into a whale: I bought several pieces of sweet naughtiness, along with our drinks, and we left the hall to walk straight into Elaine and her family, which released us from a small boy’s attention for the rest of the day.

“Elaine, Siân: Mam and Dad, Dot and Mark. Just got here, Lainey?”

“Aye. Settled the kids into their nest, saw you were already in place. Feels strange, aye? Being here before the usual suspects?”

“Well, be a few more over later. Team do, isn’t it?”

Elaine is a woman of strong emotions, which she can rarely disguise, and that time was not one such moment, as a grin split her face. I nodded.

“Even Sammy, and he should have the wife with him”

“Oh, such rich opportunities for blackmail! No, Inspector Powell: not appropriate. Naughty woman! Mature mother and plasmon, aye? Now, serious stuff. Mark and Dot, was it? Has Di explained to you where this weekend comes from, and why?”

Her grin had gone, and I fully understood why. She took my nod of permission, and turned away, gesturing for my parents to follow her.

“Mark, Dot, I need to tell you a little story, but I will show you someone first…”

People were now arriving in a reasonably steady stream, which included clumps of colleagues, and I was so busy saying hello and directing people to available spaces around our tents that I almost missed the return of my parents.

Mam was wiping her eyes, while Dad was tight-lipped with anger. He shook his head, looking off past the church for a few seconds before turning back to me.

“Light and darkness, love, isn’t it? We find out how lucky we really are on days like this. I think Mam and I will be at the church tomorrow. For the service, yes? And… and I will continue to wonder where your friend Annie finds her strength. Distraction. I need to cleanse my mind. Aeroplanes? How do we see the planes?”

That one I could remember, so we gathered three hyperactive infants together, while Blake remained on meet and greet duties, and with Mam and Dad I led them by way of the number 100 bus and a ‘secret stairway’ to a ‘goblin train’ and the inevitable multiple trips back and forth. We picked up some odds and sods such as milk and child-cleansing stuff from the airport shops before heading back to the airport and our first night under canvas as a family.

There may have been other events before then, such as our walk into the edge of the town to the ‘Taj Balti’ Indian restaurant, and the actual evening itself, but that was our endpoint of the day. Other events…

Our team arrived in clumps, as I have said, and some clumps contained couples. Alun had booked himself and Lynne into a guesthouse almost directly across from the church, but the others had tents, and some of them knew how to put them up. What was worse was that some of our friends thought they knew how to put theirs up, and also how to put up those of other people. I suppose that was our first real entertainment of the day, as a newly arrived Eric, Annie, Darren and Steph moved from tent to tent, somehow managing to stifle both laughter and swearing in equal measure. Sammy surprised me with his facility, as did his wife, who seemed to have a real eye for structures. I caught her shaking her head at one incredibly inventive piece of complete incompetence, and managed to put my foot so deeply into my mouth I couldn’t see how I would ever extract it.

“Hi! Diane!”

“Sonia. Duw, how do they do it? I thought they’d already found all the wrong ways, and then, bang, along comes another!”

“Surprising, that. Don’t see that many women so clued up on tents”

“I’m not. I’m just a civil engineer by profession”

Come friendly ground and open up… Somehow, I managed to rescue myself from my sexism, turning the conversation onto safer, but still dodgy ground.

“I am told it’s all dancing tomorrow. Square dance stuff. Don’t know what I’ll be like at that. I was just thinking it might be like the tents. You know: all sorts of different, um, interpretations of the instructions”

Sonia’s grin was so clearly like Sammy’s I managed to relax.

“You got the video camera ready, then? How’s it go? Fun and profit through blackmail?”

I knew Sammy; I should have expected nothing else from his other half. The afternoon continued, up until our little feeding trip, and people arrived, greetings were given, to friends, team-mates, odd individuals half-remembered from Christmas, including the French ones, and I was starting to get a little lost. Eric and Geoff were setting up microphones and speakers in the hall, a bar was clearly already in place next to an obvious outdoor dancefloor and the weather gods continued to smile down on us. Mam and Dad had found Arwel and his wife, Rhod was immersed in a horde of other children, some of whom spoke English, and I had found a piece of wall to sit against as I simply basked in warm sun and contentment.

Safe. Surrounded by friends, old and new. I sat and watched more trays of food being carried from a white van into the hall, and it was a stupidly long time before I recognised the two porters as Frank and Gemma’s boyfriend.

There was enough space to either side of me, so I simply sat where I was as I was joined by Tiff and Charlie, and I closed my eyes once more in the warmth of that sun and the people I loved.