CHAPTER 22
It was drizzling the next morning, Christmas Day itself. The rain made a soft hiss on the fly sheet, sibilant underneath the semi-stifled giggles coming from the next ‘bedroom’ as three little people planned their day. Blake was warm beside me, as was the bedding around me, and the only thing that drove me up and out was Bill’s shout of “Kettle’s on, you lot!”

CHAPTER 20
It turned into a busy pre-holiday session, just when most of us would normally have looked to start winding up our work ready for a few days of sloth. Rob in particular had us drilling with taser deployment, even those of us not licensed to carry them, while Blake refreshed our comms skills, if that is the word for hammering us into exhaustion.

CHAPTER 18
“Hello, Omar. I’m DC Owens. Diane, or Di, or whatever you feel comfy with. Blake being treating you well, or just boring you talking about sport?”

The slim young man was a mess, dressings everywhere I could see, and what were clearly his parents radiated a mixture of worry and anger. There were little touches by the mother to the father’s arm, and I stood for a couple of seconds trying to work out where the dominance lay, who had the lead in their family.

CHAPTER 16
That one hit hard, and I remembered some of the things Dai Gould had stressed. Always look beyond the immediate, beyond those shouting the loudest. That advice on our first aid courses: the one screaming is the one who has the strength and the breath, the life, to be able to scream. Look to the quiet ones. Look at how the ripples spread.

I rang in to let the boss know where we were with the case, and she dropped the bombshell.

CHAPTER 14
We bit the bullet that evening, and the Inspector sent us all home after a wash-up followed by a lock-up. I got the impression she didn’t exactly trust all of her colleagues, at least not all of the ones outside our little group.

It had indeed been a long one, and she was in our faces from the off.

CHAPTER 12
I recognised a couple of the faces from news reports, articles in the local press and so on. Once more, Inspector Powell’s word of choice rose up: “local”. None of these, to my best recollection, had made anything more than the local news reports, certainly not the nationals, and the consistency was there in each picture, each black eye and fat lip. The boys had been attacked from the front, or at least after they had been grabbed. Pretty boys who had ceased to be so.

CHAPTER 10
Adam was awake when I went back in the next day.

“Hiya, girl. Hope you got chocolate there!”

“You allowed, mate?”

“Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, is what I say”

CHAPTER 8
It didn’t last, of course, and I was back in uniform after only four weeks, but I learned an awful lot in that short time. Years later I was talking to an engineer about some car fiddle or other, and he told me that in his college they had a sign hanging in the workshop.

“I hear--- I forget.
I see--- I remember,
I DO--- I understand”

CHAPTER 6
It wasn’t easy. A simple thing to say, but emphatically true. I wasn’t just trying to read, inwardly digest and retain such things as a shedload of criminal law, statute, call it what you will, as well as the serried hierarchy of what felt like a cross between some sort of monastic order, but deal with all sorts of fitness testing and ‘safety’ training.

CHAPTER 5
Mam and Dad were by my bedside when I woke again. I had clearly lost it once more, and as I tried to sit up straighter the room danced around me, the walls moving up and down and my stomach matching them. Mam noticed and passed me the bowl that had been left on the bedside locker.

“What happened, love?”

I thought of the two coppers, shuddered, and shook my head. Not now, Mam. Dad wouldn’t let it lie, though.

“What did he do, love? Did he…”

CHAPTER 3
Blake was on early turn the next day, and after all the messing about in Merthyr I had the delight of a day off. I needed it, to be honest, but I didn’t exactly get a lie-in as my dear husband was never exactly light on his feet, nor subtly agile when climbing out of our nice, warm, snuggly bed. Just another hour… please…

“Mam!”

Deep joy. “Yes, Rhod?”

“Mam! No paper!”

“Hang on, love!”

CHAPTER 2
I had no quick, amusing comeback to that particular little hand-grenade. I didn’t know much about the disease, but I had seen more than enough of its victims, and my memories of them left me with no illusions as to Lynne’s future. Poor bloody Alun; my opinion of his morals had turned such a somersault it was probably being greeted by people holding up score cards.

CHAPTER 69
It was an even longer drive up this time, as our two charges needed extra special care. More stops, partly for them, but also because I seemed to tire more easily as my body adapted to being drained of its precious bodily fluids every few minutes, or at least one fluid. Siân was glowing, despite our interrupted sleep, and I am sure I must have looked insufferably smug.

CHAPTER 67
Things settled down a little after that, but the changes in my body kept the days from dragging. Both of us were waddling, and an endless round of blood tests, ultrasounds and so on stopped us from becoming housebound.

CHAPTER 65
Once again, we trooped into the court, taking our little block of seats, and once again we got to see the unusual spectacle of a defence barrister doing precisely sod-all.

Angharad had delivered a whole salvo of bombshells, if bombs came in salvoes, rhat is, and I would have expected any honest lawyer to have picked it all apart, chewing away on everything from the fact that she seemed to have no evidence other than her memory to the vindictive nature she had demonstrated in her outbursts.

CHAPTER 63
The cross-examination by the defence was a farce. I couldn’t see where it was going, but Delyth seemed to dismiss it out of hand. It didn’t involve Scripture, therefore it was beneath contempt. I was caught squarely between enjoying seeing her slapped down and at the same time stitching up Carwyn. My head span.

CHAPTER 75
Matthew was as solidly cheerful as I should have expected, and we made quite the show of old warriors at the top table. Some judicious work by phone had secured the attendance of all the lads from the show, and I found myself looking forward to watching it. I stayed off the booze as my guts were not feeling too well, but the food went down well, and of course I was with friends. Such a different night to a certain evening one February. Val was sitting at another table along with Susie and Andy, and there was a large group from the yard.

CHAPTER 73
I ended up walking past my car, my mind elsewhere. As Susie would put it, I was on autopilot. I had wondered, I had worried, but even with Andy’s nagging I had managed to put it to the back of my mind. Once again, I thought of Susie’s turn of phrase: I had been in that African river, de Nile.

CHAPTER 71
The rest of the interview was a bit of a blur, so I was surprised when it came to an end. Tom thanked us all and then one of his staff took us down to the staff canteen, where he joined us after about twenty minutes. Ernie nodded to him.

“When’s proper filming, then?”

CHAPTER 70
He was blushing again, but there was a grin behind the lowered head and shuffling hands.

“Yeah, can’t really hide that one, can I? We haven’t set a date, but, well, it was sort of obvious. Pete asked Laura, and I saw the way her mum was smiling, and it just made sense to follow the boy’s example. Too many wasted years…”

He faltered, just for a few seconds, but then the smile was back, twice as bright and utterly natural this time.

CHAPTER 68
The floods weren’t bad that winter, but as usual customer numbers collapsed for a couple of months. We kept ourselves afloat by doing that for others, with a steady succession of boats to hoist out and check for damage, fouling, caulking and the rest. Trevor and Ricky knew what they were doing with that, and it let Darren push ahead with his studies. If things went well, he would get his certificates in time for the school holiday period, just when they would be needed most.