CHAPTER 41
As we walked off towards a nearby pub, Elf and Wildcat drifted back so that they were walking either side of me.

“Elf says good things about you, Jen. You ever ride?”

“No, not my thing, really”

“Well, be welcome at the clubhouse---ah”

“Sorry?”

“Over there. Silly wankers”

There was a scuffle going on, and I saw a number of lads in tracksuits getting punched, rather hard from the look of it, then running away in clear panic.

“That’ll please my brothers. We had word the shits might try and spoil your day, so the boys thought, well, fresh air, healthy living, perhaps some nice birds to spot, but oh dear, somebody needed telling properly”

She laughed suddenly, the cynical mock-innocent expression replaced for an instant with something more like that of a happy child, and then she pointed.

“And look at all of those coppers who have decided that they haven’t seen a thing. Warms my old heart, that does”

Once again, my memories got derailed, and all I could think of looking at her was that she wasn’t like Angela, for when this woman rushed head-on at a threat, she clearly knew exactly what she was going to do when she reached it. I also imagined that said threat would be neutralised quickly and effectively. She was most definitely not a woman to upset or offend.

Rae did hire a car a few days later, and we had a very emotional farewell before they left on a tour of as much of Britain as they could fit in. I felt rather lost without them, but promises were made, and I felt they would be kept.

The sentences had come in for the shits, and while far below what I would have preferred, they were at least all custodial, the two main shits picking up seventeen years each.

Back to work it was, no longer just the NHS taxi work, and we started to pick up some of the nastier stuff I’d avoided during my enforced break, especially after the weather started to turn. One particularly unpleasant job involved what turned out to have been another of Debbie’s girls, as yet another inquest revealed, a very, very young teenager found under a bit of carpet in a skip, overdosed on heroin from the looks of it.

There was also a growing problem at the Smugglers, which seemed to be getting under Marlene’s famously thick skin, as one after another of her ‘little boys’ was grabbed for the purposes of the donation of a free and gratis no-strings-attached kicking. I was hearing all sorts of stories, and when It moved onto gang rape, I started to feel sick, as well as grateful that I was sort of excused men.

We were parked up to the West of the city, as was Tom’s habit when he could get away with it, when the call came in.

“Foxtrot one five, foxtrot one five, Central”

Tom answered for us, as usual.

“Go ahead, Central”

“What’s your location, Tom?”

“Forage farm shop. A48 Cowbridge bypass”

“Can you make to the Midway Hotel. Near the Cross Inn, Llantwit Major Road, parallel lane to the cut that runs over to Llysworney”

“On way. Work the satnav, please, Jen. Details of casualties, Central?”

“One adult male. Unconscious but breathing. And naked”

“Oh!”

“Informant is MOP, former police, name of Malcolm Blackwood. Waiting on scene”

“On way, central. Buckle in, woman. Don’t like the sound of this one”

We got there just before a local marked car, a solid-looking man waving his arms at us in a clear ‘stop’ gesture. As Tom pulled up, he was at our window, a strong London accent obvious.

“Sorry, mate, but there’s tyre marks and shit all round him, and I don’t want to lose any forensics. Used to be a Met detective sergeant; bit sort of work head moment. He’s over here”

Blackwood had done what he could, covering the lad, who was black, with a blanket I assumed was from the hotel. As he guided us into position away from the marks, the local car pulled in behind us.

It was like that joke about how the shortest measurable interval of time is that between the traffic light ahead of you going green and the (pick your city) taxi driver behind you blowing his horn. The front door of a nearby cottage flew open, and a breathless, red-faced man burst out, immediately into full speed as he told the coppers to move their car. One of them climbed out, shaking his head, as his mate pulled the car a little further forward; our man held a hand out to the new uniform.

“Malcolm Blackwood”

“Oh, Mike, that’s Warren parking the car”

“Fine. Now, I’m no longer in the force, so excuse me”

He turned to Mr Redface.

“I have already told you to fuck off once already. So fuck off”

He turned to me then, as I stood with my Big Green Bag.

“Over here, son; er, darling. I’ll show you where to avoid”

Pulse was strong, thankfully, and oxygen levels were adequate, but his temperature was a bit low.

“Tom! Space blanket, please!”

I made a sort of tent of the thing as I did a visual exam, and once again I had to wrestle down shock, for I knew the man’s face, one of the gay couple Dai occasionally turned up with. He’d been at the funeral; what was… Omar. Fuck. He was covered in bruises, plus ligature marks where his wrists had clearly been tied. Cigarette burns mixed with bite marks, on his shoulders. On a hunch, I moved him just enough to see his backside, and the damage was bloody obvious, literally so. Pupils reactive, but a slight mismatch to his head shape left me more than worried, and I suspected at least one broken rib.

“Tom?”

“Yeah?”

I ran down the list of injuries, and we got out the backboard, just in case, before adding that I knew the victim, yet again.

“Two friends of Dai Gould’s, butt. Get down the Smugglers”

“Hang on---that’s his nephew’s bloody boyfriend. Give Dai a heads-up?”

“Aye, but on the QT, okay. Chance of a hand from the plod, get him onto the trolley be good. I want his head looked at as soon as possible”

We got him lifted and secured, and the curtains on Chez Redface kept twitching, but we had more important things to worry about. One of the coppers, Warren, rode with us to St Dai’s, where Omar was straight in for a scan, which confirmed my worries about depressed cranial fractures, and he was put into an induced coma until they could prep for the necessary delicate work.

I heard through the grapevine a couple of days later, or maybe through the Daivine, that they had a new team tasked with the beatings, and I simply hoped they would do their job rather than the usual shitshow of mock concern that never, ever brought a decent result. Dai collared me in the pub a few nights after that, along with the other lad, who was his nephew Scott, and I got a little more detail.

“Omar’s awake again, Jen. I owe you one”

“Friends don’t keep score, sergeant”

“Yeah, well, still angry that they tried to do an Adam Price on you at the inquest. There were seven kickings at the funeral, by the way”

“Sorry?”

“I didn’t see anything, because I was too busy watching a plane heading for the airport. Just coincidence my eyes were pointing towards the cemetery gates. It was rather funny, those bits I didn’t see at all. When we lift that sort of punter, there’s often a load of ‘I’ll fight you all!’ and ‘What are you going to do, fatty, baldy, shorty’ and so on. I’m pretty sure at least two of the idiots tried that on our local version of Hell’s Angels, and forgot that they don’t work the way we do. Oh dear… And Mrs Jefferies has been nicked”

“What for?”

“Handling stolen goods. A little bird told us about another lock-up, and this one was full of more of those stolen trainers, plus another load, of air fryers from a different theft. Silly cow decided that she liked the look of the fryers, so got one from the lock-up for herself, and one for her sister. Left her dabs all over the inside of the place. Just watch yourself round that part of Splott. Now, Scott and me are just off to the hospital. Thanks again”

“Give him my best, please”

“Will do”

As he left, Amina wandered over, glass in hand.

“Mind some company?”

I shook my head, waving at a free chair.

“Lil not on tonight?”

“Night off, Jen”

There was something off, but I left her to it. Her business.

“Mum sends her best”

“Your Mum’s been bloody feeding me, woman. Every couple of days, and it’s ‘Oh, you’re in, I made this, just happen to have some left, thought of you’. She’s checking up on me, Amina”

“Well, she is a nurse”

“And I don’t need nursing. Sorry. I mean, I am grateful for it, and it’s tasty, but I’m not broken”

“No, you aren’t, not now. Strong woman, you, but we were both worried, it was so close. And I hear you had another one”

“What have you heard?”

“Dai Gould’s sort of nephew-in-law. All sorts of rumours”

“Don’t do rumours, me. Clinical confidentiality and that”

“Not asking, Jen. We both know what’s been happening, even if we’re, you know, safe from it by definition. Anyway, change subject. Lil”

“What about her?”

“Well, sort of nothing about her, now, not involving me, anyway”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, why? What’s happened?”

She simply stared at her drink as I realised that she hadn’t really come over to check on me but rather because she was the one hurting, the one needing care. Story of my life and career, in effect. She found her voice, in the end.

“It’s you, Jen. You and Ange. I’m… I know I come across a bit brash, aye, in your face”

“Just a bit. But?”

“I’m, I dunno; a romantic? That’s been, well, when I came out, Mum and me were daggers drawn for ages”

“And your Dad?”

She gave me a nasty grimace.

“Fuck him, and his bloody cousin-wife. No, not a snowball’s chance of him being sound. Mum, though, she came round, and we had talks, and then of course, she’s making plans for Amina without Nigel. Thing is, both of us, we’re really vanilla. Woman should be with a man, or adjusted a bit for my case, obviously, but it’s all about getting to be crumblies together. The One True Love, and so on, and that’s both me and her, Mum, but of course Dad’s an arsehole, so she’s doing the living vicariously thing through me, and---I’m gushing, aren’t I?”

“Not really. I get your point”

“Just another couple, aye, properly, even if we use the same loos. Mum gets that, so she’s sort of doing the ‘there’s a nice boy’ routine on me, but with women, and then I end up meeting Lil”

“Lil not meet with her approval?”

“Not at first. Bit old for me, Mum says, but Lil, Lil is sweet, though, she grows on you, and Mum gets turned round, but… It was you and Ange, Jen, showing me exactly what I needed. So I pushed it a little with Lil, about maybe moving in together”

“We didn’t”

“Oh, come on. You had bolshy landlords, but you were looking for somewhere. Lil won’t even do that. She’s… Look. Think of someone who’s applying for a job. They get the date for the interview, they go down, and walk straight past the office cause of nerves. Lil’s the sort who won’t even get the courage up to post the application letter. I gave her an ultimatum, aye? After a pep talk, I mean. Told her how sweet she is, why I’m looking to take things up a notch, but no. Failed relationships, Jen, and it’s always her fault. She said something about not wanting another job of sorting out possessions”

That cut me deeply, as it matched my own little session far too well. Keep it steady.

“So where are you now?”

“Oh, done, it looks like. I have tried every way I know to lift her up, to show her who she is, but nothing changes. I have a horrible vision of her when she’s old, all alone, nobody to smile at in the morning or fight for the last biscuit”

“How do you feel?”

“I don’t really know. I mean, was I falling in love, or was I simply, you know, projecting my dreams onto her? Mum’s been smug, all ‘told you so’, and she’s not helping things”

“Well, is there, you know, something you might do, whatever?”

“That’s the thing, Jen. I mean, I even got a list of flats to look at, and Lil was all, ‘I’m just a barmaid, poor income’, so I did the same with some better jobs, and bang, she’s in her bloody shell again. Look… Nothing’s your fault, it’s really a sort of collision thing, my dreams and her, I don’t know, inertia? Anyway, there is one thing I know you can do”

“Which is?”

“Just remember that there’s no, I don’t know, beef here. Please don’t feel you have to take sides, cause there are none. There’s just, well, the way things are. We’re still the same people, me and her, just separately now”