Chapter 14
DAY THREE
“Take this outside please, boys,” Branwen said, her voice calm, “but make sure my mother has gone.”
There was no doubt in Deryn’s mind that this was stage two of the plan to stop him looking into Mason’s disappearance.
Which suggested very strongly that even Branwen had little faith in stage one.
It was a nice story, and perhaps his colleagues would be happy to take it at face value, but Deryn knew it was a lie and Branwen knew he knew it.
If Deryn had needed any more evidence that Mason’s disappearance was down to his family, this was it.
He would visit every abandoned mine in south Wales if he had to, because Phillip wasn’t the kind of man to commit murder face-to-face.
He didn’t care if his victims overdosed and died, as long as his own hands were clean.
That didn’t bode well for the long-term future of his leadership, but for now he had minions to do his dirty work.
Deryn’s immediate problem was getting out of their way.
The three men moved towards him as he perched on the ridiculous stool.
He had a police-issue baton in his pocket, but if he reached for it, they’d be on him.
He lunged over the marble breakfast bar and grabbed Branwen’s mug, flinging it and its contents at the floor-to-ceiling window.
As the tea flew in an arc of brown liquid, Deryn jumped from the stool and yanked his baton out, snapping it open.
There might be three of them, but they were all focussed on the mug as it hit the glass, and he was armed with a weapon that could hurt.
The nearest man was an open target. Deryn flicked the baton at the man’s arm, feeling the shock in his own wrist as the end made contact with flesh at high speed.
The man yelled, Deryn flicked again, this time at the man’s leg.
He staggered and slid to the floor, clutching his leg.
Now only Shane stood between Deryn and the door, and he held a knife.
“Bring it on, kid,” he said, shifting his weight from side to side, a sneer on his face.
Deryn snapped the baton to Shane’s wrist. That he didn’t drop the knife told Deryn that Shane was tougher than Phillip, so the next blow of the hard steel hit Shane on the side of the head and Shane collapsed with a cry of pain. Deryn ran.
Outside, his car sat on flat tyres. The Tesla was drifting silently down the drive to the gates. Still holding the baton, he sprinted, hearing shouts of pursuit behind.
His mother stopped. The passenger window rolled down.
“If you want a lift, please put that nightstick away,” she said.
Deryn complied and the door opened.
“Shane and co slashed my tyres,” he said, wondering how his mother would justify having left him to the attentions of three thugs with no means of escape. He needn’t have worried. She sidestepped it as easily as she had sidestepped everything else over the years.
“Oh, was that what they were doing?” She piloted the silent car through the gates. “You know, Deryn, I love all my children equally, even though it is sometimes difficult. Your father had, shall we say, some fixed views …”
“You mean he was a disgusting old bigot?” Deryn said.
“Perhaps we can agree on old fashioned. On some issues.”
Deryn had no intention of agreeing, but he kept quiet.
“The thing is, Branwen told me something about you that I found rather disturbing. I’m not sure what to do.”
They were making their way through the maze of steep valley streets in the direction of Cwmcoed, and the big dark stone house where she lived, and which had been Deryn’s childhood home.
There were cars parked on both sides of the road regardless of yellow lines so that vehicles were forced to give way endlessly, stopping and starting to pass in the few spaces.
It was the main road, and a bus route, but it made no difference; residents insisted on seeing their car from the front window. If that meant traffic jams, so be it.
“Perhaps you don’t have to do anything, Mam,” Deryn said. “Live and let live. You seem to be able to live with drug dealing, smuggling and protection rackets. Corruption, money laundering. Anything I do must be pretty small in comparison.”
They came out of one settlement and onto a brief strip of dual carriageway with views of the surrounding hills. His mother indicated left, and pulled into a lay-by, next to an overflowing rubbish bin. She stopped the engine, but continued to stare ahead, as a line of cars and vans streamed past.
“Dressing up in women’s clothes isn’t natural,” she said after a moment.
“It is for me,” he said. “It’s not dressing up like going to a fancy dress party, it’s part of who I am. It’s not hurting anyone.”
“But you put Phillip in hospital. That’s hurting someone. And you’re a policeman.”
“So?”
“Well, those are masculine things, hitting people and so on. It doesn’t make sense.”
How could he explain what he barely understood himself? “When I look like this, I’m Deryn, the copper who knows how to fight, and when I wear a dress, I’m different, female. She’s called Dee, and she is also me, but she doesn’t hit people. It’s possible to be both. I like being both.”
“But if people find out …”
“So, don’t tell them. And in return, I won’t tell anyone you left me alone to get beaten up by Shane and his mates, or that Phillip’s drugs have killed three people and orphaned a tiny baby. Or that Mason Abruzzi was kidnapped and is probably dead, too.”
“It’s really not that simple,” she said, “and you know it.” She turned the engine on and merged into the traffic. Deryn didn’t answer, and his mother said nothing more until they were coming into Cwmcoed. “Do you like my new car?” she asked.
Deryn took the proffered olive branch. “Very smart,” he said.
“I’ve sold the house. I’ve decided that I’d like to live somewhere nicer.
By the sea, somewhere with better shops.
I’ve bought a bungalow at the Mumbles. You can come and visit when I move, in a dress if you like.
Do you know, there is a campaign to reopen the old Cwmcoed Railway Tunnel and make it into a cycle path, all the way to the coast?
Now, where can I drop you? Post Office OK?
So you can go and see your friend.” With that, she drew up outside the Post Office on Cwmcoed’s tired high street, and Deryn got out, his mind reeling.
Had his mother just told him where Mason had been taken?
Had she just said he could visit her as Dee?
Before he could say goodbye, the blue Tesla had gone.