Spring-heeled Jack - Part Three
WEDNESDAY
Bodie got back to his own place a little after 6 a.m. to shower and change. He tried not to think about what had just happened, but his own body felt strange to him. There was a red patchover one hip bone, a memento of Doyle's bristly chin, and a bruise on his shoulder he did not remember getting, and somehow it felt as though everything had changed.
Back to 43 Minster fucking View. The attic had acquired a somewhat lived-in look, as well as the distinct and unpleasant odour stakeouts always got when they were occupied by men with no reason to treat the place properly; a combination of stale food, stale bodies, paraffin and cigarette smoke. Bodie took the sound recorders, appropriating them with unthinking arrogance because his eyes felt gritty and sore after a largely sleepless night.
Over the road at least two men, Irish by their accents, were going through the domestic business of the day, arguing about the washing up and who the hell had left a black sock in with the whites. Bodie recorded it all, making the occasional note. They were getting testy over there, been cooped up too long. There was the occasional reference to "when we do it", but that could have meant anything from an assassination to a roofing job. Noise of the television, noise of someone having a bath and complaining that Liam hadn't washed it out after his.
Another dull day with nothing much happening. A day which left him far too much time to think and what he mostly thought about was Doyle. Not so much what they had done, but more what it must have been like for the poor bastard in the days leading up to it, and what it must be like for the poor bastard now. Waiting for it to happen, knowing he might die and knowing there would be next to nothing he could do to stop it. Trusting his life to a few quids' worth of unreliable electronics and the almost equally unreliable good graces of George Cowley. He remembered the Molner op and wished he hadn't.
Normally, Bodie was a great believer in `you don't have to think about it if you don't want to'. There were large parts of his earlier life he had been successfully ignoring for years, but for some reason it did not work today, and he was conscious of a growing tension. He shouldn't be here! He should be with Doyle, watching his back, from a distance if he had to, but definitely there. He kept expecting the r/t to summons him to a briefing, the set up for that night's op and, as the day went on and no summons came, the tension grew, a physical knot between his shoulder blades and a dull ache in his belly.
And underneath all that there was something else, something that nagged away at the back of his brain, something that refused to be pinned down. A vague sense of dissatisfaction, the odd conviction that, despite all that he had tried to do (and he tried in vain to drum up some sense of pride in his own generosity) he had somehow failed.
About five o'clock Tom Spencer came for the day's tapes and notes. He had been on the A Squad in his time, before a car smash wrecked his knee, and he arrived preceded by the smell of warm newsprint. Bless his little cotton socks, he'd brought fish and chips. Bodie dug in thankfully, running an automatic eye over the newspaper it had come wrapped in. He had never been able to resist reading anything stuck under his nose like that, a childhood habit left over from the days when he had read from sauce bottles and cereal packets just because he could. As he ate and read, he saw with mild surprise that the paper was yesterday's. Made a change; usually he ended up reading three-week-old football scores.
He turned it over to read the back, and what he saw sent him lunging for his r/t, his heart pounding. "3.7 to Alpha One." He realised he was shouting only when he saw Jackson and Spencer turn to stare at him.
"Alpha One." Cowley, sounding testy.
"You seen yesterday's Daily News?" He looked down at the table in front of him, a centre page spread. The headline `How long must this go on?' and long article of newspaper truisms and shit-shovelling and a photograph of mourners at the graveside of PC Henry Williams. A photograph which included a first class shot of one Raymond Doyle, sideways to the camera, the damaged cheekbone unmistakable.
"No."
"Get one -- I'm coming in." He cut the connection before Cowley could reply and, snatching up the paper, made for the door. Spencer could nurse-maid Jackson `til the night shift arrived.
Cowley was waiting for him, the newspaper neatly folded on his desk and Bodie waded in, too angry to think straight. "You've got to pull him out."
"No." There was no attempt to hide his knowledge of what Bodie was talking about. Things had gone too far for that.
Bodie leaned over the desk, unconsciously menacing. "You've got to. It's too dangerous. It was bad enough before -- it's madness now. If you don't, I will."
"You take one step out of this room and I'll have you arrested." Now Cowley was standing and shouting too. "Ye bloody fool, do you think I don't know what I'm asking of him? You think I don't know the risks? He knew what he was taking on when he volunteered, and so did I."
"He didn't know, and neither do you." He waved the fat-stained photograph under Cowley's nose. "This makes all the difference. The Daily News is Fleming's paper. If he's read it, the minute he sees Doyle, he'll set the gorilla brothers on him; and that's assuming they don't spot him themselves and just divert to the nearest quarry. You can't have everything you want, Cowley. Sometimes the risk is just too damn high."
To Bodie's astonishment, Cowley stepped back, his anger visibly draining away as he dropped back into his chair. Suddenly he looked every bit of his age and then some. "Aye, mebbe," he said gently. "But that's not for you and me to decide. Not this time. He knows about the photograph, apparently he knew yesterday, and he's decided to carry on."
"Of course he's decided to carry on!" Bodie was desperately trying to hold on to his anger. "You know what he's like, he's had days to psych himself up for this, what fucking choice does he have now?"
"The same choice he had when he first signed on with CI5. Is it worth it or not?" Cowley took off his glasses and rubbed tiredly at the bridge of his nose. "He's decided it's worth it, he's decided to run the risks and he's right. You know what's at stake here. You know how many people could die, not just here, but all over the world. There's plenty of madmen out there who'd pay handsomely for one of those damn things." Then, with a last flare of temper. "And don't tell me I don't know what it's like -- I've hung around for more filthy jobs that you've had hot dinners, laddie. I know what he's done already. If you foul it up now, he'll have done it all for nothing." His head came up and he skewered Bodie with a look. "He'll not thank you for interfering, you know that."
Bodie tried again for anger, but it was already out of reach. He dropped into a chair, knowing himself defeated. "You Machiavellian old bastard," he said, accepting the glass that was thrust at him.
"Ach, get that down and come along with you, we'll be late. You might as well see it through." He took his gun from a desk drawer and limped towards the door. "And that's Machiavellian old bastard, sir, to you."
Not the Rover, something anonymous and under-powered. Bodie drove, following directions through the back streets to a nondescript unit on a nondescript industrial estate in South London. The sign outside said `McIntyre Security'. They got out and transferred to a Transit van driven by an unremarkable woman in her thirties, medium height, medium brown hair.
They did not speak. There was a screen on the dashboard and a persistent winking light that told of a tracker beacon. The woman plugged a headset microphone/receiver into a small unit on the floor and occasionally exchanged low-voiced comments and directions with some unknown third party.
Out of London, the South Circular and on towards Winchester. There were no seat belts, and every time they took a corner, he could feel Cowley's bird-boned body, all elbows and sharp shoulders against his side. The rush hour traffic died away as they drove and it was beginning to get dark as they turned off the main roads and onto unlit B roads. Occasional villages, farmhouse lights in the distance, a feeling of growing excitement, or was it dread?
They stopped at a field gate and Bodie got out to open and close it behind them. Sheep scattered as they drove on side lights only to one corner and parked beneath trees.
There was dead silence as the woman climbed out and began to unpack electrical gear from the back of the van. Somebody rose out of the shadows, and Bodie reached for his gun, only to jerk it up and out of harm's way when he recognised who it was: Stuart, the deep-cover King of South London, self-contained as ever, dressed in black, hands and face white in the moonlight. Stuart waved, a sawn-off, almost imperceptible movement and disappeared behind the van with Cowley.
Stiff and mildly nauseated by the trip, Bodie paced, desperate to get on with it, but conscious that he did not know enough to barge in without ruining everything. He looked around for Cowley. The night was coldly clear and the stars were out, vivid in a way they never were over city streets. The woman hefted her kitbag and melted into the shadows as Stuart came over carrying two plastic cups that steamed gently. Bodie took his gratefully and they sat in the back of the van to drink.
"When does the balloon go up?"
Stuart consulted his watch. "Any time now. McIntyre's dealing with the security system, when she's done that, she'll start setting up the mikes and tape machines, and the rest of us can go in and stand by."
"Who the hell is she?"
"Angela McIntyre. Doyle hired her in to keep the Squad out of it. Ex-Special Branch. Set up on her own when they kept passing her over for promotion. Industrial Espionage and Security. Very good and very expensive. Cowley must be breaking his little Scottish heart."
The coffee was good, stiff belt of one of Cowley's specials in it by the taste. "You alone?"
Stuart shook his head. "There's eight or nine of us here. Deep-cover lads and out-of-towners. Nobody who can't disappear into the woodwork if it all blows up in our faces."
Bodie was beginning to have his own ideas about that. If Cowley thought he was going to stand by and watch his partner being fed to the wolves, he had another think coming.
"You'll never guess who's here," said Stuart. "Hobday."
"I thought he'd retired."
"I thought he was dead. Got a hell of a shock when he turned up at the briefing."
Bodie rubbed at his eyes. The tension was really getting to him; he felt ridiculously tired. He took another scalding mouthful, wishing the caffeine would hurry up and kick in. "Isn't it time we were moving?"
"Oh, I don't think you're going anywhere, do you?" Stuart's voice seemed oddly distorted.
"Wha'?" Bodie struggled to his feet. What the hell was going on? He shook his head to clear it, and the world lurched and tilted. The cup fell from his hands, spilling the coffee dregs down his leg, and he did not even feel the burn as he fell.
He woke with a pounding head and a mouth that tasted like it was full of old socks.
"Bugger! Thought I was going to get to wake you with a kiss!" Doyle's voice, alive with laughter and released tension.
Bodie forced his eyes open. He was lying on his back, the stars overhead and the noise of people and cars in the background. A woman laughed somewhere over to his left, high and long, genuine high spirits and the after-effects of fear. The op was over.
"Sleeping on the job, 3.7? Better watch out or Uncle George'll feed you to the big bad Macklin."
"What happened?" He struggled to sit up, thankful for Doyle's helping hand.
"Stuart slipped you a mickey -- I don't think they trusted you to keep shtum while little Raymond did the far, far better thing." He hauled Bodie to his feet, the strength Bodie now
knew too well, harnessed to gentleness. "Mind you, it gives me a warm feeling." He passed Bodie a bottle of water to wash his mouth out and Bodie leaned against the Transit, breathing in the clean night air, and trying not to puke.
Doyle leaned against the van too, one hand by Bodie's head, looking at Bodie closely, an expression in his eyes that Bodie refused to understand. "Jesus, Bodie, I'm glad to see you," he said softly. "Come round the back of this nasty little van and gis'us a kiss."
Bodie recoiled, knocking Doyle's hand away. The smaller man fell sideways, hitting the metal bodywork with a dull booming noise that turned heads. "What the hell was that for?" Doyle even had the nerve to look indignant.
"What d'you think?" Bodie kept his anger down to a whisper, conscious that there were people all around them. "Last night was a one-off, that was the agreement and that's the way it's going to stay."
Doyle froze, then one hand came up to cover his mouth in a totally uncharacteristic movement. He turned and walked away, just a few paces, away from Bodie and the noisy group sharing a couple of flasks round one of the cars, and stood with his back to them all.
Before Bodie could think what (if anything) he ought to do, Doyle came back. He stood in front of Bodie, his face serious but apparently not distressed. "So let me get this straight," he said. "It didn't mean anything, you only did it because you felt sorry for me, and it won't ever happen again. Right?"
"Right!"
Doyle thought for a moment and then he grinned. He squared his shoulders, tucked in his chin and assumed a bodybuilder pose, wrists crossed in front of him, muscles braced. He deepened his voice. "Because we are manly men. We drive fast cars and shoot people -- we don't go in for all that queer stuff -- love an' all that."
Bodie refused to rise to the bait and said nothing.
Doyle watched him for a moment, his eyes dancing and then he laughed, his face creasing in quite genuine amusement. "R-i-g-h-t," he said and patted Bodie on the shoulder, for all the world like an uncle whose infant nephew has just said something particularly cute.
He bent down and picked up his jacket from the place where it had been doing duty as a pillow. "Okay mate, I'll see you later."
Bodie was startled, and it must have shown in his face, because Doyle shrugged and spread his hands, in a gesture that was part-apology, part-challenge. "Look, if you're not interested in my manly charms, sunshine, I'm off to find someone who is."
He moved in closer, and gripped Bodie by one arm, his voice low and urgent. Bodie felt himself flush; the nearness brought back memories. "No, I haven't forgotten what I said, and yes, I did mean it, every word, but you know what it's like. I've spent the last week cooped up in a hotel room, convinced I was either going to die or spend the rest of my natural on the Moors, and I'm not."
He laughed again and shook the arm gently. "I'm alive, Bodie. I'm alive and I'm hyper. I need to come down and we both know the best way of doing that. So -- unless you've changed your mind -- I'm off to find someone who feels the same. I'm going to deal with it the way I've been dealing with it for the years that I've loved you, all those years when you didn't know." He turned to go and then turned back. "All you have to do is tell me you want me to stay, and I won't go."
Bodie said nothing; what could he say? So he watched Doyle walk over to the other vehicles, calling out something he could not quite hear. He heard McIntyre laughing like a fool and knew Doyle had found a fellow sufferer to play with. He walked over to the car, leaving his partner a free run to the van, and as he walked towards them, saw her swat at Doyle with a handful of cabling. Five minutes later the pair of them climbed into the Transit and drove off together.
He understood perfectly, who better? That sudden sense of yourself as more than alive, the craving for life and movement and excitement, the need for someone else to share it with. Oh yes he understood that and, no, he had no intention of being that for Doyle. So why did he feel so...cheated? The drug was still in his system and he felt vaguely sick. He knew he ought to search out Cowley and give him a piece of his mind, but there was no sign of him, off with the prisoner probably and, when an apologetic Stuart offered to drive him home, he accepted.
On the way there he listened to the other agent describing the op. Stuart too was `up' and it made him unusually enthusiastic. "You've gotta hear the tapes Bodie, they're bloody marvellous. Doyle got the lot, the who, the how, the why -- everything, just by talking to him. He had this...sort of...tone to his voice, a `we're all men of the world, we have nothing to hide from each other' kind of thing and Fleming fell for it. I reckon he's spent so long surrounded by flunkies, he's lost his street smarts."
"So why did he need the money?" It was the only thing Bodie was even mildly curious about. His stomach was complaining and he wanted to go to bed.
"Blackmail -- he's getting divorced, seems Lady Fleming fancied a tax-free lump sum. He's got a holiday home in the Philippines and she's got video tape. Adamson used to work in Vice, he reckons the Philippines probably means it was children."
"Not so white as he was painted then?"
"Apparently not."
By the time they got his place, Bodie was out on his feet. He fell straight into bed and woke next morning to find he was holding his pillow in his arms.
THURSDAY
He went into work alone. He had no idea where Doyle was; presumably in debrief, if he had ever got back from his night of passion with Angela McIntyre. HQ was buzzing with the story, the night shift had passed on as much as they had managed to find out -- which wasn't much -- and the day shift was desperate for news. He told them what he knew, careful to imply he knew more than he was letting on, and went to check the duty roster. Bloody marvellous -- on stand-by. Now he had all day to hang around.
`All day' lasted half an hour, just long enough for a cup of coffee and a read through the night logs. Fleming in Interrogation One, complete with solicitor. Cowley was really playing this one by the book. Doyle due in at nine for debrief in Interrogation Two by a couple of lads off the day shift.
By eight o'clock he was on his way with Jackson and Susan and the name of one of Fleming's accomplices. Either Fleming had already coughed, or whoever was working the tapes had found it. Arthur Taylor, Dispatch Manager.
He was not at work, so they went to his house and found him. A mousy little man with a wife who would have made two of him. Not only was he ready to come along, he was desperately grateful for being caught. He'd even packed a bag with his pyjamas and shaving tackle, and they had to stop him confessing in the car so they could get him back to the office and get it all down on paper. Bodie had seldom had a more eager prisoner and, since there was no skill in it when they were like that, he told Jackson it was all good experience and left him to do the paperwork.
11.30 a.m. and another arrest. Walter Markham-Jones, Head of Middle Eastern Sales. A much tougher cookie than Taylor -- Eton, Oxford and a couple of years in a smart regiment having polished his facade up to a high shine. So they went the `treat him like a common criminal' route. Always drove `em nuts when you finger-printed them and removed their belts and shoe laces. A couple of hours in a chilly cell with a chamber pot and a scratchy grey blanket, and the cracks began to show.
About 3.30 he went down to the basement kitchen to see if he could scare up a cuppa and something to eat; with everyone working at full pelt on the Fleming op, surely someone would have done a sandwich run.
He was in luck for once. Fred the doorman had laid on a fridge full of his famous doorsteps, and the kettle was boiling. Standing over the kettle, with a two-inch thick wodge of cheese and pickle in his hand, was Doyle.
For some reason Bodie was surprised to see him, possibly because he still had not got used to the way he looked.
Doyle, who pretended to have a mind above such things (while knowing exactly what suited him) had abandoned the jeans, T-shirt, and overshirt combo, probably because he knew it would not look right without all that hair. Instead he was wearing black cords, a white shirt and a black waistcoat, an outfit that emphasised the elegant lines of him, broad shoulders and narrow hips. Bodie looked away, uneasily aware that he did not normally notice what Doyle wore.
"Kettle'll only be a minute -- tea or coffee?"
"Tea."
Doyle lifted the lid of the teapot and sniffed suspiciously, god only knew when it had last been washed out. Apparently satisfied, he rinsed it out with hot water and brewed up one-handed, the other still occupied with the monster sandwich. Bodie, unable to bear the inefficiency, grabbed the pot and finished the job, and they ended up sitting either side of the table.
There was an old copy of Autocar lying around, so Bodie grabbed it and devoted himself to a thorough reading of the stats on last year's Porsche, a car he could not afford and would not have bought if he could. There was a tension in the air, and he for one had no intention of relieving it. He was going to eat his sandwich and drink his tea and pretend it was just another day fighting for Truth, Justice and the British way. Only the fact that he refused to let Doyle know how bothered he was, kept him in the kitchen at all.
After a few minutes he made the mistake of looking up, and found Doyle watching him, what could only be described as an affectionate smile plastered all over his face. "Bloody hell Bodie, you look good enough to eat." He waggled his eyebrows, meaningfully. "Have we got time for a quick snack?"
Bodie scowled into his magazine. "Whatever happened to `I'll never mention it again'?"
Doyle laughed, refusing to let his grouchy partner dent his good mood. "That, my son, was before I found out that you love me."
That brought his head up. "What!" Bodie would not have been more outraged if he had been accused of treason.
Doyle smiled happily and Bodie recoiled, convinced his partner was about to grab him, here, in the CI5 kitchen. "Bodie, do you really think I can't tell? It's like the difference between a good pub scotch and one of Cowley’s only-on-Burns-night-and-only-then-if-you've-done- everything-right specials. One of them's okay but the other's stupendous."
"Pack it in, Doyle. Don't try and make it anything more than it was. We went to bed together. It was nice...."
"Nice!" Mock-devastation with a strong undercurrent of laughter.
"Nice!" insisted Bodie. "But that's all it was. I'm going to forget it about it. I suggest you do the same." He added an edge of menace to his voice, even Doyle usually eased up when he
did that.
It did not work. Doyle shook his head. "Not on your life. You can't shrug it off that easily. It meant something." He smiled reminiscently. "Apart from anything else, sunshine, you
came in my mouth, I'm not going to forget that in hurry."
"Hydraulics," said Bodie laconically.
Doyle smiled again and leaned over the table. "Hydraulics made you come, it isn't why you kissed me afterwards," he said softly.
Instantly it was there -- everything he had carefully managed to forget: the feel of Doyle's mouth; the taste of his tongue, the familiar salt that was himself and the unfamiliar sweetness that was Doyle. It was a flashback as horribly vivid as any he had ever had after the Congo. For a handful of seconds he felt it all again, the texture of Doyle's skin, the weight of Doyle's body in his arms, the bristly sensation of Doyle's cropped head between his palms, and Doyle's mouth. Oh god, his mouth! He felt himself bending at the waist, flinching as memory sent a thrill, swift and sharp as a flick knife, straight down to his cock.
He stamped on the reaction hard, shoving it all to the back of his mind, forcing all expression from his face. Dragging himself upright, he looked up to find Doyle watching him.
"Yeah, it was that good for me too," said Doyle, gently. Then he picked up his mug and walked out of the room, and Bodie did not see him again all day.
That night Bodie dreamed about him. They were both waiting outside a court somewhere, ready to give evidence. The trouble was that Bodie could not remember which case they were there for and, for some odd reason, it was vitally important not to ask Doyle. Then, with the dislocated logic of dreams, he suddenly found himself looking through the glass panel in the courtroom door. Doyle was in the witness box behind the chest-high rail. His hair had grown back but he was still wearing the Christopher suit and he looked confident and relaxed. Bodie even saw the judge smiling at some comment or other. Then suddenly, shockingly, Doyle took hold of the side of the witness box and swung himself out and over the top, an effortless, graceful movement that somehow shocked Bodie awake and he lay there, shivering with arousal, his cock an iron bar against his belly.
The basic dream was an old friend. Although he tried to hide the fact, he hated going to court, and had lost count of the number of times his dreams had had him giving evidence in his underwear or in a foreign court where he did not speak the language. The difference this time was Doyle and that lift at the end. He had seen Doyle do things like it before, the one that stuck in his mind was the time in Brownie's boat when he had watched with (he had thought) impersonal appreciation as Doyle hoisted himself off the boat, with an ease he knew he himself could not match.
He looked over at the alarm clock -- half-past five, no point in even trying to sleep, so he rolled out of bed and sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and trying to sort it all out. He'd always liked the way Doyle moved -- that whipcrack into action, nought to turbo-charged in half a second; the way he went up stairs two, three, four at a time. He'd always liked that -- his own personal Spring-heeled Jack. But that didn't mean he was queer for him, did it?
It was an unpleasant sensation -- not knowing himself. In a life that had covered half the globe, a life in which he had already seen more than most people would in a lifetime before he was twenty, the only constant had always been himself. He knew himself, and the self he knew was no queer. He shook himself like a dog and went for a run he did not really want or need.
FRIDAY
"Why Minster View?" They were in the car in a side street. Something was happening at last, and they were waiting for what Susan (who had a degree and was never allowed to forget it) had once characterised as a VIP -- a Very Iniquitous Person.
"What?" Bodie hooked one ear-phone higher up his head so he could hear.
"I said, why Minster View? The nearest Minster's bloody miles away."
"They probably didn't fancy calling it Underground Railway Line View," said Bodie patiently.
"That'd only be true of the other side of the street anyway," pointed out Doyle, with the air of a man who insists on absolute accuracy. "They'd have to call this side, Underground Railway Line View View."
"Somehow, Doyle, I get the feeling you're not taking this stakeout seriously."
Doyle turned and smiled at him and Bodie saw how much he had changed over the last couple of days. The stress of the op had disappeared, taking most of the lines and the best part of ten years from his face, but it was more than that. There was a good-humoured calm about Doyle. A calm Bodie had rarely seen before which made his partner look at once younger, because the strain was gone, and yet older, because the usual, slightly frantic edginess had gone as well.
"I can't help it, I'm happy."
Bodie shuddered delicately. "I know, s'horrible."
"Cynic." Doyle stretched enormously, his body a straight line from head to heels. "The sun is shining, I'm not dead and you love me, of course I'm happy."
"Delusions too." Bodie shook his head. "Sad really." He had settled his strategy over this morning's disgustingly early breakfast: don't argue, don't react, don't explain. It had worked in the army and it would work now.
Meanwhile Doyle was obviously in a chatty mood and, although he was dead wrong about everything, there was an undeniable frisson to be had listening to him. It was, when you thought about it, rather flattering to be wanted by Ray Doyle.
"Delusions nothing -- this is the fruit of many years experience." He went into his Walter Brennan voice. "So listen up, youngster, while your old grandpappy lays it on the line."
Bodie yawned and unscrewed the top of his thermos. The smell of his patented heart-starter coffee -- three parts coffee to one part bourbon -- filled the car. He poured himself a cup and drank it with lip- smacking relish. He did not offer his partner any.
Doyle ignored him. "Thing is, mate, you're spoilt -- you've always been loveable and lots of people have loved you. Me, I've had loads of sex, some of it great sex, but I can still remember every time I've ever made love with someone who loves me. The last time was the night before last in room 427 of the Grosvenor Palace Hotel W8. Wonder if I can get them to put up a plaque."
"Jesus, you can't half talk crap when you want to." Bodie was not going to get involved in this conversation.
"No. S'true. It's a completely different experience, and the only reason I recognise it and you don't, is because you've had it so often you've got used to it." He sat back in his seat and gestured expansively. "You see mate, the world is divided into lovable people and unlovable people. And lovable people get loved and made love to. You're one of the lovable people; you're a good bloke, Bodie, a good friend. You know how to do all that, how to look out for people. I never learned -- that's why I'm not much of a friend. I'm one of the unlovable people."
Bodie snorted derisively but Doyle just kept on talking.
"I put it down to early training myself. There's that little house in Liverpool with your Mum and your Auntie Rita, and little Billy Bodie in the middle, monarch of all he surveyed. I bet you got loved to death for years before it all went wrong. So you learned how to do it. On the other hand, there were eight of us and we fought for everything from attention to clean underpants. There wasn't enough love in there for a fair-sized hamster. As a result, not one us knows how to love properly; my sisters shack up with bastards and my brothers are the sort of bastards other people's sisters shack up with. There's not one of us worth tuppence as a friend either, including me."
"Doesn't seem to worry you much," interrupted Bodie dryly.
"It doesn't, not now," Doyle replied, his smile dazzling.
"Anyway, you're not that bad."
"Oh yes I am -- either I don't notice people are in trouble or I lose my temper. I don't want to be like that, I try not to be, but underneath I'm not much to write home about. That's why it never lasts for me -- I get found out. That's why this is so great -- you know me and you still love me. You must be barmy, mind you, but you do."
Bodie wrenched himself back to scepticism. This was all getting far too close for comfort. The car was warm, and Doyle's voice was warmer, and if he wasn't careful he was going to start believing it. "This is all bollocks, isn't it?" he said roughly. "You don't believe all this crap -- you just can't take the fact that you're never going to get to fuck me."
Doyle grinned and shook his head, unoffended and unoffendable, accepting the change of subject with apparent equanimity. "I take it the idea doesn't appeal."
"No!"
Doyle let himself slide down in his seat, closing his eyes and tilting his face up to the sun. "Okay," he said equably. "If you don't fancy the idea -- I've always been an equal opportunity arse-bandit -- you fuck me. I'd like that." He clasped his hands lightly over his belly and smiled, a secret, knowing smile. "And you know what? So would you."
Bodie shivered, helpless to deny his response to the husky voice speaking forbidden truths he did not want to know.
"You ever done it? With a woman I mean," hurrying to forestall the obvious objection. "It's not like the usual way at all. The muscle on the outside will have to be loosened up before you can get in and even once you do, that bit will stay the tightest. It's like the neck of a drawstring bag, you'll still be able to feel the grip of it, like a noose, as you go in and out. And once you are in, the muscles on the inside go round and round and they'll grab hold of you like a fist. So that when I come..." he opened one eye and caught Bodie looking at him, "and I will come, you'll get this incredible rippling, clenching sensation all round your cock." He held up one hand, the fist half-closed, the fingers flexing in a gesture at once entirely unexplicit and yet shockingly erotic.
Suddenly Bodie was so hard he could scarcely breathe, he wanted Doyle to shut his mouth, he wanted to shut it for him. He clamped down hard on his reactions, desperate to keep it all from showing on his face but it did not matter because Doyle had closed his eyes again. His voice dropped further, so low Bodie could scarcely hear him. "And I give you a week. A week before you start wondering what it is I'm getting out of it, what's causing all the thrashing about and moaning -- `cause I'm a noisy fuck, me -- and so you'll wonder and eventually you'll want to find out and when you do...."
His voice trailed away and he reached down and settled himself more comfortably inside his jeans, supremely unselfconscious. "Don't mind me mate. Remember what it used to say in the bogs, `Gentlemen should adjust their dress before leaving'."
They sat for a long time in the sunshine without speaking. Eventually Doyle hoisted himself back up, and they watched Minster View sideways on, while the shadows lengthened and the leaves swirled in the gutters. The tension he had felt yesterday was growing, a feeling like impending thunder which made him uncomfortable inside his clothes, his hands and feet felt enormous and clumsy and he felt at odds with himself. He felt got at.
Oddly enough, he did not feel as if he could blame his partner for it. Doyle neither whined nor nagged -- and Bodie had met more than his fair share of whiners and naggers of both sexes. Doyle was just waiting, anticipating without anxiety, like a kid waiting for Christmas, eager for it but utterly secure, knowing it must come. It was driving Bodie mad. It was a responsibility he had not asked for, and did not want.
Back to HQ and, while Doyle went to report another wasted day, Bodie stayed behind in the garage to report a suspicious knocking from the engine block. It was still early and he decided to take his frustrations out on the punchbag.
He went to get changed and there was Doyle, just out of the shower, nothing on but his underpants, water still clinging to the hair on his chest and arms. He was towelling himself vigorously and looked every inch the athlete he was, lean muscle stretched over long bones. Bodie shivered and wondered how long this appalling awareness was going to last.
Doyle spotted him in the mirror and grinned. "Watch out, the water's bloody freezing -- I don't think Cowley paid the bill this quarter."
Bodie nodded at the shirt on the hanger. "Going somewhere?"
"I'm taking Angela to the Shakespeare at the National."
"Bit hypocritical, isn't it? said Bodie sourly, and could have bitten his tongue.
Doyle reappeared from under the towel, his eyes alight with an infuriating combination of affection and amusement. He glanced round the Changing Room and saw they were alone. "Hey, it's not my fault I'm only a part-time poofter," he said cheerfully.
Bodie could not help it, he had to laugh. There was just something irresistibly comic about Doyle, standing there looking so happy -- big cheesy grin and his hair standing up in spikes, a real golly for once.
He opened his mouth for a counterblast but the door crashed open. Allinson came in whistling and Bodie had to content himself with a totally redundant glare as Doyle ducked back under the towel. He stomped off to his locker, trying not to listen as Doyle started singing, in his surprisingly melodious tenor.
"If I can't be with the one that I love,
I'll love the one that I'm with."
Allinson interrupted. "Oi, Doyle. I thought it was `If I can't be with the girl that I love'."
Sitting on a bench at the other end of the room, Bodie watched half furious, half unwillingly amused, as Doyle swung the towel round his shoulders, Marlene Dietrich with a fur stole, and drew himself up to his full height. "You sing it your way, ducky," he said imperiously. "And I'll sing it mine." And he and Allinson both roared with laughter.
The punchbag did not help one little bit.
SATURDAY
"I've been thinking."
"Oh God."
They were back at Minster View. The unseasonable warmth had been replaced by driving rain and a wind that rocked the car. Still no sign of the VIP and they were having to run the engine to keep the windows clear.
"I haven't really made my position clear, have I? Bit much expecting you to admit you love me without telling you how I feel."
"You been reading the Guardian Women's Page again?"
Doyle merely grinned. It was getting too bloody difficult to get a rise out of Doyle. "Nah -- Cosmopolitan. You ever read it?"
"Course not."
"You should -- Every Boys' Book of Knowledge is Cosmopolitan. Jesus, the things women put in magazines. You just read what they say they're not getting and give it to them. You can't go wrong with articles with titles like `101 Things You Wish Your Man Knew About Oral Sex'."
"Some us get by on natural talent."
Doyle ignored him. "Mind you, it's too late for you to learn how to do it properly now -- no more birds for you, my lad. Not once you've come to your senses anyway."
"Hang on," interrupted Bodie, indignant despite himself. "How come I have to forsake all others, and you get to spend your nights with South London's answer to that bloke in James Bond, you know, the one with all the gadgets?"
"Oh, I'm forsaking all others too, the minute you admit it. Just me and you against the world, love, `til death do us part." He eyed Bodie's sandwich with well-practised disgust. "Which the way you eat'll be the week after next." He twisted round in his seat to look at Bodie full face. "Does it make a difference, knowing?"
"No!" Thickly round a defiant mouthful of cold bacon sandwich.
Doyle twisted back, apparently unbothered. "Ah well, so much for theory B. Right, on to theory C."
"What happened to theory A?" Hells bells, this was a weird conversation.
"Oh, I abandoned that one early on," said Doyle cheerfully. “I did think you might be worried about the queer thing. But since it took you all of about 30 seconds to get over it in bed, and since you always did have a monumentally good opinion of yourself, I reckon you'll find a way to square it with yourself. You've never been very good at denying yourself what you want."
"This, of course, presupposes that I want you."
"I'm taking that as a given. So theory C. You just don't like being rushed. If this was all your idea, you'd have no trouble with it, you're just spooked because I started it and you haven't had time to think it all through. You're not used to the idea of settling down anywhere, anytime, with anyone -- least of all me. I can understand that, we've both been alone too long for it to be easy." He folded his arms, tucked his hands into his armpits and stretched his legs out in front of him, tilting his head to admire his new boots. "But there's not a lot you can do about it now, mate. I'm written right through you like Blackpool through a stick of rock."
"I thought you were a horrible bastard no one could love?"
"Ah, but you're famous for your poor taste, so I'm all right there."
Bodie laughed, he couldn't help it, and they sat in companionable silence for a time, watching the rain come down, until Doyle spoke again.
"I'm joking about it, but you want to be careful, Bodie. In this job you don't usually get the time to take your time. You like poetry, `Had we world enough and time this coyness, Bodie, were no crime'. Only in this job we don't have either. Who knows how long we do have -- another day, another hour...."
"We've got less than that -- O'Donnell's here."
Instant alert. Urgent voices over the r/t, the sound of Doyle checking his gun, the snap of the breech and the soft slap as it went back into its holster.
Anson's voice, whispering for some bizarre reason. "4.5, 3.7, hold your position, they're not answering the door."
"Don't blame them, I wouldn't want O'Donnell in my house either." Doyle's soft-voiced commentary was a distraction and he waved him quiet.
"Hang on -- hang on. He's in. Looks like Burns at the door. Give `em a minute to get their coats off and the kettle on and...GO!"
The engine squealed and the car shot out of the side street, over Minster View and up the alley between the houses opposite. Bodie wrenched it round in a tight turn that threw them both sideways, and shot up the dirt track between the backs of the houses and the railway line.
The car bounced on potholes and the paintwork scraped against garden walls on one side and wire fence on the other. The houses all looked the same from the back, big Victorian terraced jobs with flat-roofed extensions built on the back for kitchens. Doyle was counting, winding down the window as he did. "60, 58, 56, 54, 52...." His voice was lost as a train passed in the cutting below them. "There!"
The car slid to a halt, the garden gate hanging on one hinge, next to the driver's door. Doyle was eeling out of his window as Bodie threw open the door and powered his way through the gate. The slap of the rain and his feet sliding in the mud. He made for the back door, knowing Doyle was watching out for him.
The sound of a shot behind him and, when he turned, his partner's gun was aimed high and left. "Bedroom window." Doyle's yell was whipped away by the wind but Bodie could see what he meant. Someone, `Liam' by the looks of him, was out of an upper window and running down the row of houses, leaping from flat roof to flat roof and away.
A blur of movement and Doyle passed him, up onto the garden wall and then onto the kitchen roof of 44. There was a tree in the garden of 42 and neither of them could get off a decent shot. The last thing Bodie saw was Doyle racing over the roofs as he turned and dashed back to the car to cut off the escape.
The dirt track ended in a builder's yard, so it was back down the track in reverse, more paint off the bodywork, and back up Minster View. The door of 44 was open as he passed and he could see Anson and Cowley conferring. They turned as he passed, so at least back up shouldn't be a problem.
It was Saturday and the yard was locked, so he slid to a halt inches from the heavy wooden gate, and was out of the car and onto the bonnet in seconds. A bounce and a heave and he could see over.
Doyle was standing on the last roof looking over the fence that ran round the yard, gun pointing down, trying to spot their quarry amidst the stacks of timber and building materials and the parked machinery. So Liam was in here somewhere. He whistled and Doyle raised a hand without lifting his head.
Up and over the gate, it was high and he had to roll when he landed, feeling the wet strike through his clothes. A shot from Ray, but when he looked, Doyle was shaking his head and pointing away from Bodie towards the railway line.
He headed that way, threading his way between the stacks, listening hard. Footsteps to his left but, although he moved to cover them, he knew it was Doyle; and it was, gun in one hand, r/t in the other.
"He got through the fence and on to the line -- I've got the lads looking for him back of the house but he's bound to have gone the other way, towards the tunnel."
The rain was easing now, too late to do any good. They sprinted over to a corner and peered down, no sign of Liam but the tunnel mouth started below and immediately to their right. Nowhere else for him to go, above the tunnel was more fencing, barbed wire this time to keep the kids away from the power lines, and the other side of the line was the blank wall of a warehouse.
"I don't suppose you brought the torches from the car?"
"What do you think? Look, you tell Cowley what we're doing and I'll see what I can find."
He had spotted them by the gate, a pile of the old red tin box warning lanterns, the kind they used on road works. He sorted through the pile at speed, flinging the useless ones behind him until he found a couple with some life in them.
He sprinted back to Doyle in time to catch the end of the conversation with Cowley. "...next station. I'll get onto London Transport."
"I take it he wants us to go in?" He set the lanterns against the tyre of an earth mover and broke a pane of red glass in both of them with his heel.
"We're to drive him through. He's going to try and get the power turned off but it'll take a while." Doyle hefted the lantern by its long, curved handle. It was heavy and awkward but it would do. "I feel like one of the seven dwarfs," he said as he wriggled through the gap in the fence.
Bodie took rather longer. "I didn't know there was a dwarf called Randy." He was through, but only at the expense of a torn shirt.
Doyle was already halfway down the litter-strewn embankment. "You've got me all wrong, mate," he shouted over his shoulder. "I told you yesterday -- I'm Happy." He grinned as Bodie joined him at the bottom, laughter beneath the feral excitement of the chase. "You, of course, being Bashful."
They moved apart automatically, one to each of the tracks, taking it carefully to avoid the live rails. It was cold in the tunnel and wet; water dripping down the walls and from the roof. An icy draught blew in their faces, chilling them to the bone.
Doyle took point to Bodie's left and, as he followed, gravel crunching underfoot, Bodie could see his partner, trotting steadily in the darkness, the light of his lantern moving from side to side with only the occasional flash towards the ground.
A scramble up far ahead, and the light of both lanterns caught a glimpse of the back of their missing man, disappearing out of sight round a long gentle bend. They picked up speed. Doyle drew ahead slightly and Bodie could see him, elbows high for balance, running sure-footed on the shifting ground; and he felt what he had felt so many times before, that he was lumbering after Doyle, awkward and clumsy beside that elegant economy of movement.
He ran on. A lantern flash picked out the hiding place, a half-moon cut out of the brickwork and a ladder stretching upwards towards the surface. He ran on. He could hear Doyle's breathing above the crunch of their feet. And then he heard something else.
Far off and faint, a familiar metallic scraping, the noise of cables flapping, the rush of wind.
A train.
He put one foot on a rail and felt the vibration -- the train was on his track, so he moved over to Doyle's side, picking his way carefully between the rails. Then he looked up and saw Doyle had done the same.
Oh Christ -- two trains!
"Doyle!" Doyle's face white in the darkness. "The ladder!" He couldn't wait, he turned and fled, feet slipping under him, the lantern banging against his leg as he ran. He tripped and went down and was up again, the lantern fell from his hand but he could see the ladder up ahead so he left it and ran harder. Oh God this was like a dream, running on shifting sand from a monster you can't see. The noise of the trains was deafening now and he couldn't tell where it was coming from. Dust and rubbish rose in swirling clouds and he choked as he dived into the little alcove and turned.
Ray! He had grit in his eyes and he couldn't see, but suddenly there was Doyle. He grabbed hold of him and dragged them both backwards, banging his own head against the ladder's edge. There was so little room! Doyle was gasping and holding on, hiding his face in Bodie's neck against the dust. He could feel the rungs of the ladder against his shoulder-blades and hips and there was nowhere to go. No time to climb because the train was here!
He hid his face in Doyle's neck, damp sheepskin beneath his cheek and damp skin beneath his lips. A roar, deafening in the tiny space, and then the dust hit them, thousands of tiny pinpricks. Doyle was pressing back, strong hands on the ladder, pulling himself against his partner and both of them to safety. Bodie held on tight, wrapping one arm round Doyle's back and one hand round his head as the slipstream snatched at him, almost wrenching him from Bodie's arms.
No! He dug in his heels and leaned back, pushing with every ounce of strength he had.
And all at once he saw it. What had been underneath all the time, just waiting to be discovered. Doyle was right. This was what mattered. This skinny bag of bones in his arms.
The train passed and made a last despairing tug at them, but he hardly noticed. His mind was racing as it all unfurled before him. It was all so simple. The rest of it: freedom, privacy, independence, was all still there, his for the taking, just a plane ride or a letter of resignation away, and he didn't want it any more. He wanted what he had. This life and this man.
He could feel the great vein in Doyle's neck beneath his lips, thudding with life and he kissed it, feeling Doyle's breath hitch against his neck, and then the soft exhale, breath curling down inside his shirt. There was a huge lump in his throat and he was almost shocked to realise what it meant -- that he was happy. So much? So soon?
The train was passing on the other track now, and the dust was still driving against them like hail in the wind, and they stood, still holding on, not because they had to but because they wanted it. Doyle was trembling and so was he; and it might have been shock and it might have been adrenaline but it wasn't, not all if it, and so he began to laugh. Bloody hell, here all the time, it was here all the time. He wondered what Doyle would do if he lifted him up and whirled him round. Try and hit him probably, but it might be fun anyway, and now Doyle was laughing too, not knowing why and probably not caring.
The other train was going, and he could hear what Doyle was saying now, and that made him laugh harder, because Doyle was angry even though he was laughing. "You dozy pillock," he was saying. "You steaming great dozy pillock! Of all the places to choose! Of all the times to choose."
So he kissed him, touched by the realisation that Doyle was angry because he was relieved. "Not as confident as you made out, eh?" he said softly, nuzzling at the damaged cheekbone, and wondering if he could find out who had done it and go and smash their heads in.
Doyle pushed him away. "Don't be stupid! Nobody's that confident! And what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I thought that was obvious." He reached out again and was shoved back.
"Aren't we forgetting something...like a missing suspect?"
"He probably went under a train -- let someone else find him." This was going to be the best night of his life, and Bodie had no intention whatsoever of spending any part of it collecting bits of dismembered terrorist.
Doyle wrenched himself away. "So why didn't the trains stop? That's what happens if there's a body on the line. Remember? Bloody hell, it's good job one of us has some brains." He turned and stalked off down the track, scooping up a lantern as he went and, a little further on, his gun. As Doyle walked away, Bodie was gratified to see that his partner was walking funny.
He picked up his own lantern and gun and started after him. There was no way he was going to risk losing him now. It was beginning to get light up ahead, so they must be getting near a station. He picked up speed, last thing they needed was their man loose amongst the Saturday shoppers.
"Come on, Bodie, get your arse in gear!" That sounded a bit venomous, what was wrong now?
The r/t in his pocket sounded, which was a shock because he hadn't thought it would work down here. He fished it out.
"4.5, 3.7. Come in. Are you all right?" If he hadn't known better he might almost have thought Cowley was concerned.
"We're okay." Jesus, what an understatement! "I don't know what happened to our man, though." Doyle was still up ahead, listening, making no effort to go forwards or come back.
"It's all right, he made it through to the station, we got him. The power's off now, you can hurry on through yourselves."
But something felt wrong and what was more he knew what it was. Oh shit! He patted his pockets. Shit shit and double shit. He'd lost it. He took a deep breath. Neither Doyle nor Cowley was going to like hearing this. "Sorry sir, we're going to have to go back. I've lost my spare clip."
Whatever Cowley intended to say was drowned by the howl of anguish from up the track. "You prat!"
"Quite. For once I agree with you, 4.5. You'd best get back and find it."
Doyle came back up the track, head down, fists clenched. As he passed, Bodie tried to put an arm round him and was thrown off.
"Just get looking. We don't have time for this." Doyle's voice sounded thick, muffled. Hell, he really was angry. "I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time than hang around freezing my bollocks off in a fucking railway tunnel looking for lost property." He stomped off, light shining on the ground, muttering angrily to himself. The bits Bodie could hear were not complimentary.
After ten minutes of this treatment Bodie was getting pissed off. All right, so it was a shame, and he could make allowances for Doyle (he usually did) and, all right, so Doyle had a point. But he wanted to get out of this bloody tunnel as much as his partner did, more in fact because he was wetter. There were things he wanted to do, he had an entire list of things he wanted to do. He wanted a hot shower -- at Doyle's place because, knowing him, his plumbing would work. He wanted something to eat. He wanted a kiss and a cuddle, and what was more, he rather fancied some of that thrashing about and moaning he'd been promised.
They walked down the tunnel side by side, inspecting between the rails, stopping to turn over scraps of paper and all the time Doyle grumbled; by now he had got on to Bodie and how fucking long it had taken him to catch on.
"I don't believe you, I just don't believe you. You couldn't have realised it last night? When we could have had an entire eight hours of bliss in a double bed? Oh no, that was too easy. You had to come to your senses in a fucking railway tunnel."
There was a limit to how much Bodie was prepared to put up with and they had just reached it. Just because he loved the chancy little bastard, it did not mean he was going to let Doyle walk all over him. If he wasn't careful, Bodie knew he could spend the rest of his life hearing about how slow he'd been, and how much time they'd wasted, and what they could have done with the fortnight's leave they'd just had.
They were almost out of the tunnel now, it would have to be soon. He waited until Doyle was looking away, and then he grabbed him, pushing him up against a satisfyingly damp and slimy bit of wall. Doyle's head came up and then Bodie saw it, what all the belligerence and all the anger had been trying to hide; the happiness that had overflowed all over his dirty cheeks, leaving tracks he probably didn't even know were there, like a kid with a cut knee.
He nearly said something and bit his tongue. One day maybe, with any luck one day soon, when they knew each other better, when he had told Doyle everything and learned everything in his turn; one day there would be no need for pretence, no need for pride. One day but not today, today it was Doyle's pride and he would not bruise it for a king's ransom.
He jostled them both sideways and shoved the cropped head under a broken pipe that was spraying water everywhere, washing the marks away, knowing he would never forget them.
Doyle was cursing and struggling and laughing again, and Bodie shook him, pretending an anger he no longer felt. "Listen to me, Doyle. I've had enough! Enough do you hear? In the last seven days you've left me behind, kept me in the dark, laughed at me, fucked me about."
"Not literally, worse luck."
Bodie ignored the interruption. "And rearranged my sex life for good. I've had too many sleepless nights worrying, too many days with Darren-bloody-Jackson as back up. I've been drugged by my own side, I've nearly been run down by a train and I have had enough without you belly-aching! I am not going to spend the rest of my life listening to this."
Doyle opened his mouth and Bodie kissed him, hard and long. In fact rather harder and considerably longer than he had meant to. "Shut up, I'm talking. I've come to a decision and this time we are going to do what I say. Right?"
"Right." He could feel Doyle shaking with suppressed laughter, a movement that was having interesting effects further south for both of them.
"So I'm going to let you say it once. Right? Once only. Here and now, for the first and last time and then you're never going to say it again. Right?"
"Right."
"All right then -- let's get it over with."
Doyle smiled, perhaps he knew what Bodie was doing, perhaps not, but it didn't matter. He reached up, put both arms round his lover's neck and drew him down for the kiss. "I told you so," he said.
The End