The brightly-coloured mug on the side-table proclaims 'Bournemouth: where the fun begins'. The tea inside it has been cold for at least two days, and the curdled milk floating on top makes a pattern that looks like a grinning skull. In the armchair next to the table is the owner of the house, who will not be having fun in Bournemouth or anywhere else, ever again.

"Is it suicide, Laura?"

"Could be. Empty bottle of sleeping pills, prescription filled just last week, and the symptoms are consistent with an overdose. I won't know anything definite until I get the toxicology report."

James straightens, just a little, as his governor turns to look at him. "What do we know about him?" Lewis demands.

James rattles off the facts without consulting his notes. "Alexander Carr, 47. Accountant for a car hire firm. No criminal record. Lived alone. Next of kin is a married sister in Bournemouth. Dorset Police are notifying her."

"No note?"

"SOCO haven't found one." James knows the statistics: only one in five leaves a note. Assuming this actually was a suicide.

The evidence seems to point that way. The tox report shows a massive overdose of sleeping pills in Mr Carr's system. The tea is uncontaminated, though there are traces of the drug on the rim of the mug. His fingerprints are the only ones on the pill bottle and the mug.

"Everything points to suicide," Dr Hobson announces. "That's what my report will say." She looks at Lewis, who is frowning. "Do you doubt my conclusion, Robbie, or are you just disappointed you don't have a murderer to chase?"

Lewis shakes himself, as if coming awake. "Eh? No, I don't doubt you, Laura. Just thinking." After the pathologist departs, Lewis declares the day over. The paperwork can wait until the next day.

"Pint, sir?"

Lewis frowns, which makes James wonder if something is wrong. "I think I'm going to go over to Carr's house."

James blinks. "Do you doubt Dr Hobson's findings?"

"No, I don't, but there's something not quite right in that house. I'll sleep better if I check it out." He adds hastily, "No need for you to come along."

James ignores the last sentence. He's not going to allow Robbie to visit a deserted house alone. Silently, he chides himself for the slip. He doesn't permit himself to think of his governor as 'Robbie' on the job. If he does, one day he may say it aloud. That would be a disaster—not because Lewis would object, but because James would be at risk of revealing the emotions he's worked so hard to control. To conceal.

The house looms over them in the semi-darkness. Not many street-lamps on this stretch of road, and the house itself is completely dark. "I thought we'd left the porch lamps on for security," Lewis comments.

"It was still daylight when we left," James reminds him. "Maybe one of the constables or SOCOs switched them off."

Lewis pulls out a torch to navigate the front steps. Once he's unlocked the door and stepped inside, he flips the light switches. Nothing happens. "That's peculiar."

"Maybe the sister asked to have the power shut off?" Unlikely to have been done so soon, but possible. Lewis only grunts. They make their way upstairs by the light of Lewis's torch and the flashlight app on James's phone. Their footsteps on the uncarpeted staircase echo loudly in the empty house.

"Big place for just one man."

"He inherited it from an uncle who died last year."

"What did the uncle die of?"

"Natural causes. Pneumonia, I think. Something lung-related."

Except for the absence of the corpse and the mug of tea, the study looks the same as before. It feels different. Empty. Cold. Don't be fanciful, he tells himself. It's dark, and the gas is probably shut off. And there isn't a full investigation team tromping around the house. You're a grown man, James. Try to act like one. "Sir? Was there something in particular you wanted to look at?"

Lewis has drifted over to the bookcase beside the window. "No. I just had a feeling that there was something..."

James can't take his eyes off the armchair. He doesn't know why. SOCO examined it thoroughly, and it's not as though the late Mr. Carr is going to reappear to explain his life and death. He stands and stares—and nearly jumps out of his skin when the attic floorboards above him creak, and soft clicks skitter back and forth. "Fuck!"

Lewis chuckles. "Got any prayers for things that go bump in the night?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I left the seminary before they taught how to perform an exorcism." James doesn't bother to mention the rigorous requirements of an exorcism, which must be performed by an experienced ordained priest with the consent of the local bishop. "In any case, I don't think it would be efficacious against squirrels." Or rats or whatever vermin are haunting Mr. Carr's attic.

"Didn't St Patrick drive the snakes out of Ireland?"

"As the fossil record proves that there have never been snakes in Ireland, the modern interpretation is that it's symbolic of his banishing pagan influences—" James doesn't get a chance to discover what Lewis thinks about modern interpretations of St Patrick, because at that moment, darkness descends. The pale glow of streetlights vanishes, as if someone had pulled blackout drapes across the window. The torch and the flashlight app wink out simultaneously like a pair of snuffed candles.

"What the hell?"

"I don't know. Even a city-wide power cut shouldn't affect torches or other things that run on batteries."

"That's helpful," Lewis grumbles. He can't be more than a few metres away, but his voice sounds distant and faint.

"Sorry..."

"You're useless." The voice is not Lewis's. It's deeper, with none of his governor's humour or affection. It's cold and harsh, and it seems to be coming from the armchair—or from the direction of the armchair, because James can't see anything in this enveloping darkness, not even vague shapes.

"Who's there? Sir, did you hear that? Sir?" Lewis doesn't reply. He's okay. He's got to be okay. He tries to turn, to make his stumbling way over to Lewis, but he can't move. Or maybe he's moving through some separate dimension with no landmarks to gauge his progress.

"Worthless," the strange voice hisses. "Good for nothing. No, that's not quite right. His Lordship thought you might be good for something. You were jealous of Paul, jealous of the attention he was receiving from the god of your little world when you couldn't get your own father to notice you. You tried to whore yourself for a few words of praise, only Mortmaigne didn't want you, did he?"

"No! That's not how it was. I didn't know what was going on—Paul didn't tell me. I just wanted to learn to play the piano." Like his mum had. And maybe his dad would want him if he was more like her, like the lovely, talented woman who'd gone to 'live with the angels' when he was six. He'd been twelve, and Paul fifteen, when he'd found the courage to ask His Lordship for piano lessons. The Marquess had peered down at him—James hadn't yet started to get his height—and murmured, "Perhaps in a couple of years." His voice had been cool, almost dismissive, but there had been something in his eyes that the pre-teen James had not understood. Some years later, after he'd left Crevecoeur, he suddenly realised what Mortmaigne's appraising look had meant, and what Paul's 'piano lessons' had entailed. He'd run to the loo and puked up every last bite of Sunday dinner.

He's never told anyone about that, not even his confessor. If he hasn't gone mad, if this isn't the fragments of his shattered mind battling each other, then the voice in the darkness must be... "Ne permittas me separari a te. Ab hoste maligno defende me." The prayer slips out of his mouth like the whisper of a frightened child.

Now the voice sounds amused. "Do you think that a few words of Latin spoken by a presumptuous boy will banish me? The words are nothing without faith. You don't really believe—isn't that why they cast you out?"

"I do believe..." he protests.

"Just another failure in a long 've never succeeded at anything that really matters. And if you had deceived them into keeping you, making you one of them, it wouldn't have done any good." The voice takes on a tone of mock piety. "'The priest who undertakes the office of exorcist should be himself a holy man, of a blameless life, intelligent, courageous, and humble.'" The laughter that follows hits him like a physical blow. "Foolish, cowardly, and arrogant."

The voice is right: he is far from blameless. Best to relinquish this battle he can't win. Who will care? Not even his boss will miss him for long.

As if summoned by his thought, James hears a low guttural keening. "Val, no! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry..."

"It's not you he's thinking about," the voice mocks.

Robbie! Yeah, he's been foolish and arrogant, thinking he was the only target, that Lewis wasn't trapped in his own personal torment. It doesn't matter what happens to James, but he won't go down into the darkness without fighting for Robbie. His governor, his mentor, his friend, his—No, can't be. Won't ever be. Never. Doesn't matter... He has to say something, find the words to help Robbie, only he's so pitiful and weak. Worthless. Cowardly. To fail now is to fail Robbie, and that thought freezes him to the very bones. I'm afraid.

'Love drives out fear.' The quote from the Epistle of St John echoes in his mind. It takes several long moments of concentration before he can speak the words. "Love drives out fear."

More laughter. "The only verse you can think of, and you can't even quote it correctly. 'Perfect love drives out fear,' is what Johnnie said. Perfect love."

James does his best to ignore the taunts. He's not perfect—of course he's not—but surely even imperfect human love has power. I love Robbie, he thinks. I love him. He focuses his mind, trying to recall everything he loves about the man: his warm smile, his fierce desire to see justice done, his kindness... I love him...

Nothing happens. "Useless, worthless," the voice chants. "How do you think he'd react if he knew you want him to shag you? He wouldn't run screaming in the other direction, not good old Robbie. He'd be kind, and then he'd shut the door in your face and go back to bewailing his dead wife."

"I. Don't. Care. I love him, and that's enough." That's got to be enough.

"A twisted love, a shameful love."

Nonsense. He's not ashamed of his love for Robbie. He's just... afraid. Of what? The love that dares not speak its name? No, not that. He knows and accepts what he is now, and he knows that Robbie doesn't care. If Robbie rejects him, it won't be because James is a man, it will be because James is... James.

"He will never love you. No one else ever has; why would he?"

It doesn't matter if Robbie returns his love or not. How can he return what he doesn't know about? Coward.

And then he gasps, because it can't be that simple, can it? "Robbie, can you hear me? I love you." He raises his voice, not at all sure if his words will reach Robbie across the malignant darkness. "Robbie, I love you!" And the third and final time, at full volume, "Robbie Lewis, I love you!"

There's a hiss and a roar, and something that feels like whirlwind, and then there's Robbie, looking pale and bewildered in the light of an electric torch. "Bloody hell, James—no need to shout. I'm not deaf. And if you must have the words, I love you, too." He beckons to James.

James covers the distance between them in three quick strides. He throws his arms around Robbie in a sudden, fierce embrace.

"Oof! Mind my back, will you?"

"How long?" James demands. "How long have you loved me?"

"Years, I think, only I didn't see it for what it was until you spoke up. I didn't put a label on it. Sometimes, I'd think of you as me best mate, but mostly you were just... James. My James."

"Yours." James sighs into the warm hollow of Robbie's throat.

"James..." Robbie hesitates. "I don't want to spoil the moment, but there are other things we need to talk about first." He waves his right arm in a circle that encompasses the room. "Before, did you hear—"

"A voice? Saying things?"

Robbie nods. "Horrible things. It wasn't—it couldn't be real. Could it?"

He considers and discards suitable quotes. 'What is truth?' 'More things in heaven and earth, Horatio' Or that old chestnut that the Devil's greatest achievement is convincing humanity he doesn't exist. "I don't know," he confesses. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"Could be that tomorrow Laura will discover that there's some kind of chemicals in the cellar, sending up fumes through the vents an' making us hallucinate. Maybe that's why Carr killed himself, poor sod."

"I don't know," James repeats. "When I was up at Cambridge, I went to a public lecture by a famous theologian on religion and rationality. The speaker said that people ask the wrong questions about inexplicable events in the Bible, or in the lives of the saints. He said there's no point in asking how the Red Sea could have parted or if St Anthony was really tempted by demons in the desert. He said the best question—the only question—is 'What does this teach us?'"

"Sounds like a load of bollocks to me," Robbie says flatly. "Or like whatserface in 'Alice' who kept finding a sodding moral in everything that happened."

James spreads his hands in apology. "Sorry. Just offering another option."

"All I need to know is that, whatever happened, it happened to both of us. I may be barking, but at least I'm not alone."

James smiles. "Not alone. Never alone." He scans the room. "What now?"

"Now I return the key of this bloody house to Evidence. An' then we get a takeaway and go home to mine."

"That is an excellent plan. And perhaps a visit to the off-licence as well?"

"You intending to get pissed tonight?" Robbie sounds curious rather than disapproving.

"I'm giving the idea careful consideration. Do you want to join me?"

Robbie shrugs. "If that's what you want, only I'm thinking about the hangovers tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is Saturday, and we're off the rota for the weekend."

"That's true enough, but..." Robbie ducks his head, looking atypically shy. "I was thinking about other things we could be doing together this weekend, and hangovers might interfere."

"Oh?" James can feel his heart race.

"I'm not a young man. If me head's pounding like a bass drum, I won't be able to do a proper job of snogging you. Erm, that is if you're interested..."

James starts to reply, then his mouth descends on Robbie's. He doesn't need words to explain how very interested he is. This is eloquence enough.

- THE END -

The Latin that James recites is part of the Anima Christi (Soul of Christ), a Roman Catholic prayer dating back to the 14th century. Those lines translate as: "Suffer me not to be separated from Thee. From the malicious enemy defend me."

"Perfect love drives out fear" is from 1 John 4:18. I used the New Jerusalem Bible, which is a Catholic translation.

"The love that dare not speak its name.'" is an archaic euphemism for homosexual love. It comes from the last line of a poem ("Two Loves") by Lord Alfred Douglas, published in 1894.