Wild People

‘How are you going to do that?’ she asked.

And that was the only time I really saw her. I looked down at her then. In the pale second-hand gleam of a headlight reflecting off a car’s side window. A wan teenager with a sharp nose and a curled wisp of damp hair dangling over her forehead under the hooded top. Curiosity framed in her expression.

‘Do what?’

‘How do you know there are others to bring in?’

‘Are you saying you were on your own out there?’

‘I’m not saying anything.’ We had passed out of the light and I couldn’t make out her face any more, but from her tone I got the impression that she wasn’t being cute. Simply matter-of-fact. Saying it as it came to her. Knowing that it was up to us to do the work.

She also hadn’t seemed concerned. This only came back to me now. She had just been arrested, but she showed no sign of anxiety. No nervous bravado reaction, no fear, only curiosity.

I stopped at my car and opened the rear door for her. Another opportunity missed. I could have used the interior light to study her. But I didn’t, I used it to make sure she fastened her seat belt.

‘Put your seat belt on,’ I instructed, and she complied.

I flashed on the ways I could have fucked up. But I wouldn’t have driven too fast on that road. I didn’t know it well enough. And it was dark, and it was one of those rains that filmed the windscreen. I would have been extra careful.

‘I’m Glyn Capaldi. What’s your name?’ I asked into the rear as we drove away.

‘Josie.’ I thought she had said Josie.

‘You don’t strike me as a thief, Josie,’ I said, my eyes on the rear-view mirror, my tone telling her that I wasn’t being mean, letting her know that I was prepared to listen if she wanted to talk.

She stayed silent.

And she remained silent. The radio turned right down to velvet static, only the windscreen wipers and the wet tyre hiss as a backdrop. I would have heard it. I was sure of it. One of the few things I was certain of. At no time did I hear even the faintest hint of her seat belt being unbuckled.

I wasn’t used to this road, but I had driven it enough times to know about the bend. To treat it with respect. I had approached it with anticipation, doing all the right things, dropping down to third gear, braking evenly, starting the turn.

And then the car had stopped turning. A huge jolt, which I later realized must have been the offside front wheel hitting a rock on the verge after the tyre had blown. Then take-off.

Did she scream?

Am I going back into a voided memory and inventing that?

But her seat belt was on. And the rear door was locked.

How could they have found her outside the car?

Could I have missed anything in the build-up?

Emrys Hughes had called me. He was the local uniform sergeant, and acted as if Dinas had been his patch ever since his ancestors had crawled out of the sea complete with gills, Stalin moustache and truncheon. I could understand that he would have mightily resented it when my boss DCS Jack Galbraith had decreed that he was going to be sharing his demesne with me. I could even sympathize. Although empathy didn’t stop me from rubbing his nose in it from time to time. Sparking up Emrys Hughes had been one of the pastimes that helped to ease my way through a long Mid Wales winter.

‘Morning, Glyn.’ His tone was cheerful and friendly, and I was immediately wary. His usual greeting was ‘Fuck you, Capaldi.’

‘Emrys.’

‘I was wondering how busy you are.’

I was at my desk in Unit 13 Hen Felin Caravan Park, which doubled up as my office and approximation of a home. I didn’t have to look anything up to know that my caseload comprised a con couple, male and female, who were claiming to be from Social Services and targeting pensioners, and an outfit who were knocking off touring caravans. On the computer screen I had the latest swatch of missing person reports. Customers of varied form and function whose last-known coordinates made it possible that they could have been heading into these latitudes. I had a female Latvian student, a middle-aged Turkish Cypriot businessman, and a dyke from Brighton with a completely shaven head, including eyebrows, who was described as bipolar.

‘Snowed under,’ I told him.

‘Good.’ The bastard hadn’t even allowed my reply to register on his consciousness. ‘So how would you feel about helping make up the manpower on a stakeout that Inspector Morgan has asked me to organize?’

In the normal course of events I would have told him straight out where to stick his stakeout. But Jack Galbraith had recently instructed me to mend my bridges with the local force, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was responsible for alienating them in the first place by dumping me in Dinas to act as his command outpost in the empty quarter. Get onto sweetheart terms, he had told me, just in case I ever needed the back-up, because, in the current state of the relationship, any emergency call from me would have most of them reaching for the cudgels so that they could have their go at me before the opposition bagged all the fun.

Which meant that I now had to add finesse to my avoidance tactics. I sucked in a deep doubtful breath. ‘It’s looking like my diary’s pretty stuffed-up here.’

‘You’ll be free on this night.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because Inspector Morgan’s already cleared it with DCS Galbraith.’ I heard the smug chuckle spread down the line.

I checked my annoyance. He’d been playing with me, it was already a done deal. ‘What’s the operation?’ I asked.

His voice dropped low. ‘You’ll find out on the night. We’re keeping this close to our chest. A need-to-know basis, we don’t want the targets getting wind of it.’ Jesus, he was taking this way too seriously. I’ll bet he was even having Special Forces dreams.

I looked out of the caravan’s window. We were having a run of good early summer weather. The tops of the exposed boulders in the low-running river were bleached dry and streaked with wagtail guano, the deep green leaves on the alders that fringed the bank were a celebration of chlorophyll, and the sky thrummed blue with small groups of puffy prancing white clouds. I just knew that it was going to end up raining on the night.

I called Huw Davies, a local uniform cop I had made friends with. Huw kept away from the politics and the backbiting, but was an astute enough observer to be able to go to for an overview. ‘Have you got any information about a stakeout operation that Inspector Morgan’s corralled me into?’

He chuckled. ‘You too?’

‘It’s supposed to be a secret.’

‘Oh, it is, everyone that’s been told has been made to promise not to tell anyone else.’

‘Okay, so it’s a golf club locker room kind of secret?’ I ventured.

‘That’s right.’

‘So how come no one has made me promise not to tell?’

He laughed. ‘Because no one talks to you.’

‘I promise not to tell anyone, Huw.’

‘Have you heard of the Monks’ Trail?’

‘Vaguely. Remind me.’

‘It’s a long-distance footpath that starts near the village of Llandewi. There’s a purpose-built car park in the woods at the beginning of the trail. That’s where the problem is. Some of the cars that have been left there have been vandalized and broken into while their owners have been off hiking or mountain biking. Certain local worthies have got it into their heads that this is bad for tourism, ergo their businesses, and have bent Inspector Morgan’s ear.’

‘We’re gathering all this manpower and going on a stakeout for vandals?’ I let him hear my amazement.