The moment Taffy was arrested, seeing him from the back of the wagon as they took him away, turning, that one last time, as Dillon and the boys saluted him, was a moment Dillon would never forget. There was still that flash of pride on the Welshman’s face, still that kind of ‘take any bugger on, man!’, his shoulders straight, his fists tensed, his chin out. But in his eyes hung the shadow of pain, the silent cry for help. There was no one who could give it to him, no one who could get him off a murder charge, or manslaughter with diminished responsibility tagged on the end of it. Taffy knew what he had done and would take his punishment. That was the shadow of pain, he knew, and asked for no pity, just forgiveness. Susie found the note and stuffed it on the dressing table as she gathered the clothes for the weekly wash. Since Taffy’s arrest Dillon had been sullen, uncommunicative, staying in bed until eleven or later. She was surprised when she heard him on the phone, not that she could hear what he was saying as the tumble-dryer sounded like an express train shuddering through the kitchen.
