Hidden by Emma Kavanagh Page A

he was thinking anything, that it was just another day at the pool. Only this wasn’t the pool. The current was strong, swelling against him, tugging him downriver faster than he would have thought possible. His arms, cutting against the current, pushing as hard as was humanly possible, because the girl – he could see now that was what she was – was sinking under. Swimming and swimming, every inch a fight just to stay alive, and then, just when it seemed like there was nothing left in him and that he had attempted an impossibility, questing fingers feeling sodden fabric, beyond that ice-cold skin. Wrapping his arms around her, her body inert, useless, shifting onto his back and fighting towards the opposite bank. Because he had come so far that there was nothing to do but fight onwards. And then, miraculously, his knee hitting something solid, sending a shooting pain arcing up his leg, into his spine. Land. And then Aden breathing, not for one but for two, into the girl’s mouth, a sinking realisation as it distantly connected just how young she was, the teenagers screaming from across the river because it seemed inevitable that their friend was dead. But then a splutter and a heave of river water, and she was alive, shaken and shaking, but alive.
    ‘So, have you ever shot anyone?’ Rhys asked tentatively.
    Aden shook his head. ‘Nah. We’ve never had a shooting in the Southern Wales force.’ Words that would replay for him, over and over again.
    They had sat, listened to the rain.
    ‘It’s really quiet, isn’t it?’
    Aden had turned towards Rhys, stared at him. Had let his mouth drop open in disbelief. Rhys looking suddenly sheepish.
    Then the radio had crackled to life.
    Aden had stared at the radio, back at Rhys, had shook his head. ‘You’ve got to be bloody kidding me.’ Aden pulled the radio free. ‘Whisky Tango Three Eight.’
    ‘Shots fired at Harddymaes off-licence. Reports of a group of people running from the scene. Permission to arm.’
    Aden shook his head, looked at Rhys. ‘Dude! NEVER use the Q-word.’ Pushed open the Armed Response Vehicle door, dived out into the pouring rain, iced fingers down his back. Kicking though puddles, water slopping up over his high-laced boots. He could just about make out Rhys, splish-splashing from the passenger side. Aden opened the boot, punched numbers into the lock-pad of the gun safe, pulling free the Glock, grabbing the magazine that he had pressed bullets into earlier. Another magazine. Just in case. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? There had been so little chance that the just-in-case would happen. They trained for it. They trained and trained and trained. Just in case. But there had never been a shooting. Not in this force. So, odds-wise, they would get to the end of this shift, same as any other, and the guns would go back into the armoury, and the magazines would contain the same number of bullets as they did when the shift began.
    Odds-wise, that would be what would happen.
    ‘Sometimes, I wonder if it’s because I wasn’t prepared,’ Aden said, studying the Artexing.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Imogen tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear.
    ‘I didn’t expect it. I mean, you know that it could happen. It’s what you train for. But still . . .’
    ‘You weren’t anticipating it.’
    ‘No. I wasn’t anticipating it.’
    Aden had put the sirens on, the blues-and-twos wailing. There weren’t many cars on the road, with the weather, the late hour. But those that were there moved out of the way. Ploughing down Carmarthen Road, throwing standing water that must have been a foot deep up over the windscreen in a wave. A sharp left at the lights, climbing, the rain driving into the windscreen, road so slick it felt like the car couldn’t possibly hold on. A second tone. Another ARV coming up behind them. High up on the hill now, Harddymaes grim and grey, buffeted by the wind that was screaming across the bay.
    Aden scanning, scanning.