By sitting next to him, Gwen got the same clear view of the street, ideal on a sunny day and still acceptable as the sky became more overcast and early evening began to draw in. There was a pre-storm smell in the air, ‘the ozone tang of unspent lightning’ Jack had called it as they’d sat down. The tarmac released the day’s earlier heat. Shoppers bustled past with too little time and too many bags on their race back to the car parks against the coming rain.
A small knot of Merryhill pupils, still in school uniform, jostled past another group from Roath High. The early evening concert at the Millennium Centre must just have finished, thought Gwen, spilling a brawling crowd of secondary-school kids into the area on their way home. God, it was bad enough keeping them apart when they got older and got bladdered and went on the town. She hoped they weren’t going to have to keep them apart when they were in their early teens as well.
Then she remembered that wasn’t her job any more. And wasn’t sure whether to be sorry or just relieved.
She and Jack were served by the same good-looking waiter who had served Gwen on their last visit. Her mental notebook told her he was Enrico ‘Rico’ Celi, early thirties, second-generation Welsh Italian, with almost stereotypical Latin looks but an incongruous South Coast accent. He’d inherited the café from his dad. Jack teased him that his tan was fading the longer he stayed in South Wales. Rico could swear in Welsh, Gwen discovered. But he didn’t seem to mind Jack slapping his backside as he stooped to deliver their drinks.
Gwen had a lemonade, ice and lemon, tall glass. Jack ordered a still water in a plastic cup. He paid for it as soon as it arrived by dropping money into the ashtray on the metal table. ‘Means I can get up and go whenever I need to. Rico’s too cute for me to rip him off,’ Jack explained to her when she asked. ‘Or steal one of his glasses.’
Gwen fingered the coins in the ashtray. ‘Exact change,’ she noted. ‘No tip?’
‘He’s not that cute.’
Throughout this, Jack’s eyes never left the street. He obviously wasn’t going to let their target slip past unnoticed while Gwen was making polite conversation.
Gwen let her eyes linger on him for a while instead of the street. Jack had told her once that he drank water because it kept him hydrated, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Apart from what he wore, and a few minor and rather odd artefacts back at the Hub, Jack didn’t seem to own anything. He was tall and broad, a big presence physically and personally. And yet if he disappeared he would leave little evidence behind. Though he would leave a large gap in her life.
A couple of months had passed since she’d first become aware of Torchwood, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Jack was like the ideal boss she’d imagined back in the force. When she did the right thing, he told her. When she screwed up, he told her that too. That didn’t make it comfortable, but it meant she knew what was expected, understood it, accepted it. No soft soaping, no bullshit. None of the fast-track bollocks she got from Inspector Morrison, no discussions about structured career paths for officers who showed ‘flair and potential’. No courses on assertiveness without aggression. And no listening to fellow officers like Andy, bleating about the inadequacies of the system, giving her grief about being overtaken by smartarse graduates who wouldn’t know an arrest form from their arsehole.
She had no idea where this job with Torchwood was taking her. The more important thing was, she didn’t give a toss about that either. She only knew that she loved it. When had she last had to give evidence in court, escort a scumbag to the cells, go through the rigmarole of writing up a witness statement?
She loved every day. She loved working with Owen and Toshiko and Ianto and Jack. Just now, she couldn’t conceive of leaving them. Couldn’t imagine Jack disappearing. Losing him.
Jack sneaked a quick look at his watch, then at Gwen, then straight back to the street. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or irritated. Shouldn’t you be watching for our guy instead of watching me?’
Gwen snapped her eyes back to the street, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Yeah.’ She fumbled for her palmtop computer, and called up the image that Toshiko had sent them earlier. The screen showed her a badly lit, flat-featured picture — a face with the rictus grin that characterised any security photo. Guy Wildman, early forties, grey suit collar to match his hair. What made him the killer of four vagrants in Cardiff?
What made anyone?
She and Jack observed the pedestrians flowing through the street. An old lady in a patterned headscarf hobbled along, a Tesco bag in each hand. A pinstripe suit beside her flicked a finger at the city types on the next table, who jeered a boozy chorus in response as he joined them. A blue one-man dustcart paused outside the café to empty a waste bin. Jack was on his feet immediately, getting an unobstructed view, shooing the driver on, watching the street beyond. Watching a tired woman struggle with a squealing preschool child along the opposite pavement. Watching two teenagers as they idly peered through a newsagent’s window, their shirt tails stuck out below their school pullovers and each with their backpacks slung low over one shoulder. Watching a bleach-blonde woman in a too-tight skirt and fuck-me shoes totter in the opposite direction with a supermarket trolley full of groceries. Watching a crumpled man thread his way through the thinning crowds on his way north. Watching him shoot looks to left and right. Watching him clasp his briefcase firmly in one hand, and clutch his collar tightly to his throat with the other.
The man’s demeanour drew attention to him. He was short, maybe five foot six, broad rather than athletic. He was in a hurry, but trying not to look it. He was grey-haired, dishevelled, on a mission. The way he grasped his beige raincoat collar, it was as though the weather had already worsened and he was walking through a non-existent rainstorm. He was Guy Wildman.
‘That’s our boy,’ said Jack. He swerved around the dustcart, and manoeuvred into the street thirty metres behind the target. Gwen fumbled her palmtop computer into her jacket, and started after him. As she did, her sleeve caught the half-empty glass of lemonade. The glass fell, rolled across the table, and smashed on the pavement. The city types at the next table cheered and clapped sarcastically.
Wildman heard the noise. Turned and saw Gwen.
She flicked a look at Jack. Immediately cursed at her own tactlessness.
Wildman was already looking back at Jack. Seeing Jack’s hand reach beneath his greatcoat for a weapon. A panicky look of disbelief. And Wildman darted into a side street and away.
Jack was after him in an instant. Pedestrians scattered like a flock of startled pigeons as he burst through their midst.
Gwen launched herself after him, half-colliding with the woman pushing the supermarket trolley. She ignored the woman’s stream of obscenities, resisted the temptation to stop and give her a hard slap, and chased down the narrow side street after Jack. She could see the tail of his grey greatcoat twisting behind him as he shimmied between a couple of shoppers. Far ahead of them, Wildman was rounding the next corner.
As she approached it at a run, Gwen could hear angry shouts and swearing. She turned into the alleyway, and found half a dozen school kids gesticulating after the disappearing Jack. A ginger-haired lad had been knocked down in the rush. One of his friends was helping him to his feet again, and another was recovering his scattered ciggies from the gutter.
‘Watch where you’re fucking going,’ bellowed the ginger lad.