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prison?’
    ‘Nothing yet. We’ve only just started. It’s all mundane stuff. They talk about his family and hers. Who had fallen out with who. Who is cheating on their spouses and then they talk about what they will be doing once he’s out. One of the calls is quite explicit. It all sounded staged.’
    ‘I want a transcript of all their telephone calls. There might be some aside or comment to suggest they were planning something.’
    Lydia nodded.
    ‘Don’t these prisoners have weekend releases before they reach the end of their sentence?’ Wyn said.
    ‘Check that too. If he was released, we need to know the times and his address. Everything. If he went out for a meal I want to know which restaurant and if he went to the pub I need to know which one. I want every single detail on Jimmy Walsh.’
    Wyn and Jane had been uncharacteristically quiet, both listening.
    ‘And then,’ I continued, ‘we take his life apart until we find something.’
    I turned to Lydia. ‘We’ll pay Kendall and Bernie a visit in the morning.’

Chapter 6
     
    Lydia and I left the rest of the team huddled over their monitors the following morning and headed down to the car park. Her Ford was neat and clean and I stared at the litter-free foot well in surprise. She paid me no attention as she rummaged through the storage compartment in the driver’s side door until she found a CD of Pavarotti’s greatest tracks. After choosing a disc she pushed it gently into the player. Then she pressed the forward button until she found track fourteen.
    ‘This is my favourite track “O soave fanciulla”. Excuse the pronunciation.’
    ‘
La Bohème
.’
    Lydia turned and gave me a surprised look. I shrugged. ‘It’s an Italian opera.’
    She started the car as Pavarotti’s voice filled the cabin.
    The music took me back to my childhood of listening to my Nonno on a Sunday afternoon humming along to the opera in his sitting room, insisting I sit with him. If I became restless Nonna scolded him but he would tell her how important it was for me to get a grounding in Italian music.
    Lydia interrupted me as I hummed along. ‘I thought you weren’t a fan of opera.’
    ‘I know all the important arias. Every Italian does, even one from Aberdare.’
    Lydia rolled her eyes.
    ‘How long have you enjoyed Italian opera?’
    ‘I had a boyfriend when I was at university. He studied music and he’d memorised all the words for most of the famous arias. I got to like the same music.’
    Sunshine caught against the surface of Lydia’s purple fingernails; her hands complemented her slim figure. Almost a year had passed since she’d been assigned to work with me.
    ‘Are you still together?’ I made it sound innocent enough. Lydia wasn’t my type, too serious, and there were protocols about officers having relationships with each other.
    ‘No, it was one of those university romances that didn’t last.’
    Not having been to university I couldn’t really comment.
    She parked about two hundred metres from the restaurant and takeaway owned by Mrs Walsh. In fact most of the businesses owned by Jimmy Walsh were in his wife’s name. And that made her a person of special interest. A few metal tables and chairs were set out on the pavement either side of the door like a scene from
The Sopranos
. I could imagine broad-shouldered Italian-looking thugs puffing on large cigars sitting around a table in a back room playing cards.
    But this was Grangetown, in Cardiff, and the restaurant sold fish and chips.
    There had been a collective sigh of relief audible throughout the police stations of Cardiff when Jimmy Walsh had been stopped in his Range Rover Sport in possession of enough class B drugs to make contesting a possession with intent to supply charge impossible. Relief had turned to despair when the expected five years in prison became three. Walsh had deep enough pockets to afford the best lawyers that money could buy.
    I left the car and walked over the road.