L'Aimant – Chapter 63(M)
(M-rated version of Chapter 63 of "L'Aimant")
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.
Chapter 63: After the near miss in the alley, and the necessary probing at the station, Christopher and Sam snatch a little time for themselves, and Foyle revisits some of the late afternoon's events.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Notes:
This is the M-rated version of the chapter. The T-rated version will shortly be appended to the main story.
...
Affectionate thanks to dancesabove for her edits, inspired additions, and continued encouragement.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
"Your son is an awful correspondent," Georgie flicked a convenient crumb from the tabletop.
"Can't argue with you there."
Their eyes met, and Christopher's contained a twinkle.
"We're on the home run, Georgie. Won't be long now." He leant across the table and squeezed her hand. "Don't sit up too late reading."
"Hmmf!" she grinned in spite of herself. "Sometimes I think my eyes are going to pack up, I read so flipping much in bed."
"There was a time, and not so long ago," said Christopher, "when I felt just the same."
Sighing, Georgie pushed her chair back from the table and gathered her sleeping puppy from the kitchen basket where the spaniel lay curled. "This one's going to whine if she wakes up and finds herself alone."
She paused at the doorway and frowned down at Wommel cradled on her chest. "Life can be such an effort, can't it?"
"Wull, I think you'll find that time's the only thing in life that carries on without us putting any effort in."
"Is that good or bad, d'you think?"
Christopher's eyes crept sideways. "Still pondering the answer. Good, on the whole, I think." He gave her a half-nod of reassurance. "You'll get him back, you know."
She smiled a little sadly. "'Night, Christopher."
"'Night, Love."
Chapter 63
Friday night, 4th May, 1945
A strip of light was visible under their bedroom door when Christopher reached the landing.
"All done," he announced brightly as he entered, expecting to find Sam at the dressing table brushing her hair. Instead she was already tucked beneath the covers, head turned to one side and quite fetchingly asleep.
Mid-step, he halted in appreciation of his wife: the red-gold locks cascading on her shoulders; the soft rise of her stomach, nurturing their child, and framed by pale, slim arms atop the blanket. A slight kink in the crookedly-healed little finger of her left hand testified to her run-in with the monster Fielding.
How many men, particularly his age, could hope to have and hold such unspoiled beauty, could be blessed with promise of such tender warmth?
He should have let Sam sleep; undressed and climbed in quietly beside her so as not to disturb her rest. But the quiet confidence that his need would be hers drove him the selfish route. Christopher knelt beside the bed, lifted her arm, and laid it loosely round his neck, resting his head against her side. The pang of guilt was only momentary, but sharp.
Sam stirred, blinked down contentedly upon the greying curls. "Did Georgie mind the washing up? You helped?"
Helped. "Mmmyep," he fibbed, thinking with an affectionate quirk of his lips about his lounging daughter-in-law, but not wishing to betray himself as such a soft touch in the kitchen. And why would he complain on days like this, success at work behind him, and a home life that felt like a little slice of heaven?
"Should've let you sleep. You need your sleep." He paid lip service to remorse, whilst burrowing into her side.
Sam moved her hand to rest on the soft, thinning waves misting his pate. "I need my husband. Then I'll need my sleep," she smiled. And when he raised his head, the halo of the bedside lamp was lending radiance to Sam's already angelic aspect.
"You saying that I put you to sleep?" he screwed one eye shut comically.
"I'm saying that I'm banking on it." Sam's gentle smile became a pixie grin, and Christopher's remorse for waking her drained clear away.
"Wu'right!" Eyes widening with anticipated pleasure at the promise she'd just made him, he pushed himself to his feet, and wheeled towards the tallboy, the better to un-nib his tie before the mirror. "Be there directly, Sweetheart."
Sam watched him as he raised his chin and worked the knot loose at the collar. The crisp white of the pristine shirt against the florid blush of his skin always excited her. Particular about his laundry and his person to the nth degree, her husband ran a household where the ironing board and pressing cloth were seldom in the cupboard—the knife-edge crease he wore along his trousers testified as much. Nor was he apt to leave the pressing to Samantha. Often she'd find him with his sleeves rolled up and waistcoat unbuttoned, applying the iron carefully to shape and smooth tomorrow's suit. Sam found the sight of domesticity in Christopher arousing—that a man should carry pride in his appearance, without shifting the burden of it onto her. He'd kept his standards through the years of widowhood. Worthy of the office and his duty he'd maintained the Foyle persona—never out of vanity, but from respect for self, and for the public that he served.
And once again, it melted Sam to see him shed that carapace for her and become something softer. Quietly, she let her feet down on the rug and padded up behind him, touching warm lips to the inch of bared neck above his loosened collar, where the feathery hairs of his nape began. Her hands crept up beneath the open front flaps of his waistcoat, cheek pressed against the tailored satin covering his back.
"You're beautiful," she sighed into the smooth, cool fabric. It wasn't, strictly speaking, flattery—more of a candid meditation on her luck at owning something precious.
But Christopher exchanged a doubtful glance with his reflection. "Sure you've got the right chap, Sam?"
"Not a shadow of a doubt." Sam snuggled in as closely as the little Foyle inside permitted, plucking impatiently at the buttons that held his shirt together.
His fingers slid down from his collar. "All right. I'll be there, Love." Covering her hands with his own, he took over the task. "You climb back in."
Sam gave his ribs a parting squeeze and trailed back to bed. Christopher's eyes followed her through the mirror; Sam's hands moved down to brace her lower back. He bit his lip. She must be in some discomfort. On the dressing table was a can of talcum powder she kept to dust her underarms. Christopher picked it up and carried it to the bedside table.
Casting off his clothes onto the chair, he climbed under the sheets next to her, propping himself up on an elbow.
"Achey, Sweetheart?" A finger traced her bare arm from shoulder to crook of elbow.
Sam stretched, cat-like under his touch. "Mmm-hmm. I try my best, but things are sort of off-balance, you know?" She cast him an amused look, and patted her stomach. "My spine feels permanently arched these days. Still, it won't be for much longer."
"Seems to me, you might enjoy a back-rub." Christopher's hand slid over Sam's, his fingers slotting easily between hers.
"How?" She gave a tiny huff. "I can't lie on my front."
Her husband weighed the possibilities with downturned mouth and a rock of the head. "We'll find a way. We always do. Turn on your side."
With a contented sigh, Sam half-rolled, half-shuffled over, back turned towards him, and tucked a hand under her head. Next thing, she felt her nightie being drawn up at the back, and a pillow being gently eased between her knees.
Christopher surveyed the landscape approvingly under the billowing cotton fabric. "Perfect fruit. You couldn't get these at the greengrocer's this time of year."
Sam grinned into the crook of her elbow, and batted him away with her free hand. "Behave yourself!"
"Now, now." Gently, he steered her arm out of the way. "Don't beat the servants, Sam. They might rebel." He landed a soft smack on her behind, drawing a squeal of indignation.
"You've got a cheek! I am 'the servants'!"
"Wull, think I'm better placed to judge a cheek. Or two."
Tongue peeping out to graze the inside of his upper lip, Christopher trailed a finger down the valley in between the two pert orbs. Reaching the crease where thigh met buttock, he ran a teasing sweep along the underside of one peach-like muscle.
"That tickles... oh!" Sam sucked in a sharp breath as two fingers eased themselves into the void created by the pillow parting her two legs.
It was a confident invasion, and the moistness Christopher encountered left him in no doubt that it was welcome.
"You have... original... ideas... for curing... backache." Samantha felt her body melt and meld around him, swallowing the invaders deeper.
He let his fingers curl a little, then uncurl to reassert their 'otherness' inside her. "All in good time, Love. Relaxation comes in stages."
The eager squeeze of inner muscles drew him closer. He brushed his lips against her ear in an exploratory caress.
"Sssam." It was a gentle sibilant of pure temptation. "You taste of sunlight and ... um... let's see... custard?"
"Charmer." Sam's retort was salty, though she couldn't help a tiny squirm of pleasure.
"You do, though." Christopher drew back in mock offence, only to resume the teasing with a lick below the earlobe. He followed through with an exaggerated smacking noise of tongue against palate. "Very appetising."
Sam turned her grin into the pillow. Banter with her husband was such fun. "Really not sure how I feel, being told I taste like pudding." Now she stirred the pot (as it were). "I suppose it's because I must look like one."
"Oh, now Sam—didn't mean..." Christopher's concern for the perceived offence was audible.
She had him. But she couldn't let him fret for long. A giggle signalled her capitulation. "I'm teasing. It's vanilla essence. Found a tiny bottle of it on the pantry shelf and dabbed some on my neck to save on proper scent. You like it?"
"Delicious. Love it. Where else... did you... dab... ?" Christopher applied a string of hopeful little kisses to the sweetly fragrant skin.
"You're the big detective. Jolly well detect."
"Wull fine." Challenged into action, his index finger tickled at the special spot he knew would catapult her into helpless pleasure. "Vvery happy... to detect... just... here."
Sam's restive undulations were already threatening to unseat his fingers when he slid a hand under her side to pin her to him. She felt firm, masculine lips bite softly at her shoulder, while busy fingers flexed and fondled in a rhythm that took away her self-control and made a sweet, unspoken promise to deliver ecstasy.
For Christopher, the surging, soft, full body circled in his arms set his arousal throbbing. Stoically he pressed his lower body hard into the mattress, seeking to control the powerful impulse to invade that softness with his other flesh. His turn would come, but this was for Samantha: all that she could take, he'd give her now. And how it pleased him, in a time when luxuries were rare, or doled in measly portions, that this off-the-ration luxury was in his gift.
"Nice?" he whispered. If Sam's body and her gentle moans made nonsense of the question, still he craved her voice.
"Mmm—please, Darling—oh!"
Sam's fingers closed around the hand wrapped underneath her side, and brought it to her breast. Her nipples ached—gone was the soreness of her early months, but at these times, arousal seemed to channel through the dark, engorged, elastic tips, till they felt full to bursting. Each breast craved to be cherished, stroked, supported, and her nipples stood erect as if to advertise their plea. Christopher's palm felt smooth, in contrast to the rough skin of his thumb and index finger, coarsened in the service of his fishing flies, and as they closed around the berry-coloured peaks, their grittiness shot ticklish, delicious signals to her core. Sam's mouth fell slack, emitting shallow, panting cries; her eyes lost focus. Any moment, she would cross the line.
"Sweetheart," Christopher urged softly, applying one more worshipful crook of the finger. He felt her tense, her quiet cries interrupted with her breath. A chain of strong constrictions squeezed his knuckles, telling him he'd brought her to release. Slowly, he eased her down, placing a soft, moist kiss upon her shoulder.
Sam collapsed against him, eyelids closed, contentment etched across her features in a serene smile. "Darling."
Christopher enjoyed the view in reverent silence, stroking at her hair.
"My clever girl," he mouthed against her cheek, and nuzzled there.
Soft laughter rippled through them. "If that was a back-rub," quipped Samantha, "I'm a Belgian bun."
"Um. Ssaying nothing." A vision of Sam's ample belly as precisely that confection rose in Christopher's imagination. Round, and drizzled in a coat of snowy icing… This pregnancy, indeed, was pushing out her belly button like the glacé cherry in the middle of a bun. He licked his lips, but it was more anticipation of continuing their intimacy than a yen for cake. His middle finger traced along the faintly darkened line bisecting from her navel down. He said in a low voice, "But you look distinctly edible to me."
"Haven't actually had any details of your day yet." complained a pleasantly sated Sam.
His tongue tip tickled at his upper lip. "Wull, true..." He stayed his hand and sketched an idle circle on Sam's flesh. "We couldn't p'raps just... first?" He shifted himself closer, letting his hardness be felt against her hip, and caressed her belly.
"You said you'd had an almost murder?" Cheerily, and to his gentle disappointment, Sam hoisted herself up against the headboard, smoothing her nightie down over her knees.
"Umm. Yyyepp." With a half sigh, he rolled onto his back and set his jaw in resignation. No way to sidestep this delay.
"Can't wait to hear about it!" Sam peered across him from her vantage point. There, on the bedside table, where he'd placed it earlier, was the bright cerise sifter-can marked, undeniably, L'Aimant. "I say, Darling, is that my talc?"
Christopher lifted an eyebrow. Well, here they were. A bargain was a bargain was a back-rub.
"Yep. Turn on your side, Sweetheart. We'll, ah..." he reached up for the sifter, "and I'll, um, tell you my version of today." He rolled against her, settling himself.
"Is there more than one version?" Sam smiled down on the grey fuzz, now nestled in her armpit.
"Wull, there's the fairy story someone tried to tell me. Wwwouldn't insult you with that. Amazing what some people think you'll swallow, when it comes to an excuse."
The can of talc, grasped in his hand, now rested on her stomach. Sam let her fingers skim the peppery, smooth hair along his forearm. Experimentally, she tried to make her fingers meet around his wrist, but even squeezing hard, she couldn't manage it.
"Wwhat are you up to now?" his tone was dry, amused suspicion.
"Your bones... are so... much..."—Sam pressed her lips into a hard line of effort as she strained to circle him. "So much stronger than mine."
Frustratingly, the broad spanse of his wrist defeated her again. A whole half inch of gap remained between her thumb and middle fingertip.
Christopher, whose nose was buried in fragrant, fleshy pillow, would've dearly loved to feel Sam's hand around a different part of him. But dignity and promises refused to let him hint again. Instead, he flexed his wrist and amplified the gap another quarter of an inch.
"Wasting your time," he spoke into her softness. It was his secret pride that he could heft Sam's weight, and master or defend her physically regardless of their similar heights. Not given to the use of physicality in any of his daily dealings, this atavistic part of him around Samantha was no longer a surprise. Since Fielding, and the hard-learned lesson of his abject powerlessness that day, he found he wanted more than ever to surround her with his strength. Aware that he was being measured with appreciation now, surely he could be forgiven just a smattering of self-regard.
Sam shifted to take up the challenge and improve her grip. A heady, musky scent arose and took possession of her husband's senses. Already rigid, he was tempted to discard the talc, and paste himself against her side in hopes of stealing a sweet release.
Sam's appetites, alas, had switched to other matters of the flesh. "So what's all this about a juicy murder?" She eased his wrist away and slid down onto her right side. "Make me a bit of room now, Christopher. You know I'm not as slender as I used to be."
"Nnnot complaining." He ran a hand appreciatively along one cotton-covered thigh. "Bones are no comfort for a chap."
"Come on. You promised," Sam persisted, eyes agleam.
Christopher bit into his inside cheek until he his eyes began to water. It took a moment for the self-inflicted pain to quell his inconvenient excitement, and when at last it did—allowing him to shift up onto one elbow—he had at least a sporting chance of answering clearly when Sam asked,
"How did you come to hear?"
"Wull, Brooke. He stumbled on the aftermath. A pile of bodies." He held his hand at mattress level from the floor, to indicate how high.
"Good heavens!"
"Yep. Defies belief," he frowned, reflecting. "But there you are."
"Whatever did you do?"
Christopher glanced up at Sam. The hunger for excitement shone in her eyes. "We brought the bodies in and, ah, we interviewed them."
"Christopher!" Sam's playful push toppled him onto his back. "You said there was a murder!"
"There would've been," he rubbed his shoulder theatrically, wincing for effect, "if not for timely telephonic intervention, you might say."
"Somebody rang for help?"
"Nope."
To Christopher's credit, his mouth barely twitched.
"Bystander swung a four pound lump of Bakelite and brained the would-be killer."
...
Foyle's starting point with Ziegler had been a document unearthed at The Majestic.
"Tell me what you make of... thiss." He'd slid the letter underneath the doctor's nose, then stepped carefully around the desk to take his seat.
"Your signature?" Foyle waited, fingertips splayed on the desktop.
Ziegler brows contracted as he focussed on the page.
"Um. Yes." He raised puzzled eyes to Foyle. "Um. Yes, it is."
"So, you... signed Martin Longmate's exemption on angina grounds?" Foyle pressed him gently.
"Well, evidently, since this IS my signature. But..." Tense-jawed, Ziegler sifted through long-archived memories. Finally, his expression cleared. "Don't you see?"—he waved the paper—"This is why I thought I knew him. The name was familiar. But, Mr Foyle, the day I signed this document, some other man was using it."
"You're certain?"
"Quite certain." Ziegler pushed the sheet away. "Exemptions for angina weren't—aren't—easy to obtain, and I have an excellent memory for faces, even if the names play tricks."
"Rright."
Ziegler caught the hesitation in Foyle's tone.
"Do you imagine I am in the business of falsifying papers, Mr Foyle?"
"Wull," Foyle tilted his head, "thought might have crossed my mind, if not for your confused reaction to Longmate at the committee, and, um, his refusal to acknowledge you."
Ziegler exhaled through gritted teeth and offered back the letter. "I'm grateful for your powers of observation, Mr Foyle. How did you come by this?"
"My sergeant found it amongst Martin Longmate's papers."
Ziegler closed his eyes and shook his head. "Ashamed to say that I was taken for a fool."
"Console yourself. You haven't been alone. My sergeant's on the case. We're checking records of arrests for medical exemption fraud."
"Then may I suggest he narrows down the list to men whose prison medications..."—Ziegler reached into his pocket for a pen and beckoned for a sheet of paper—"include glyceryl trinitrate."
Foyle nodded. "Right. Might take a while, but Milner's very thorough. Meanwhile, we've got your statement; there's no need to keep you any longer. Can my driver run you home?"
Ziegler rose and gave a small, sad smile. "You're looking at a disillusioned man, Mr Foyle. The veneer of civilised behaviour lies all too thinly on some people."
Foyle walked him to the door. "Tend to agree. We see far more of it in this job, p'raps, than you."
Ziegler pushed his pen into his pocket, and Foyle noticed the slight tremor in his hand.
"He tried to kill me, Mr Foyle. A man I barely knew."
Foyle nodded silently, sensing the man's need, and cast a forlorn look towards the filing cabinet.
"I'd offer you a snifter to, er, take the edge off, but the cupboard's bare."
"Not Longmate's cupboard." Ziegler's expression hardened. "Man's been offering to bathe the town in gin for Victory Day."
Foyle's eyes widened. "Hate to see the town miss out, but Martin Longmate will be otherwise engaged." He signalled down the corridor to summon Georgie.
"Safe journey home, now, Dr Ziegler."
Foyle stood and watched Georgina's cheery management of Ziegler as she escorted him away. Once the pair had disappeared from view, Foyle closed his office door, resumed his seat, and dialled a number.
"Guy? We're ready for you. But before you come, you might appreciate a bit of background..."
...
"Been in the wars?" Guy Grindley's grizzled brows met in a creditable show of interest above his seated patient. "The DCS here thinks I should be giving you the once-over."
An ocular conspiracy took place over the top of Longmate's head.
"Wwouldn't have it any other way," supplied Foyle, on cue.
"So!" Guy rubbed his hands and peered at the abrasions decorating Longmate's face. "Fell forwards, did you? Looking nasty."
The patient raised a finger to his mouth. "Tooth," he said, pathetically. "Loose."
"Oh? Show me."
Longmate's finger hovered in the air before an upper left incisor.
"Hmm," opined Guy, extending a careful fingertip to test the biting surface. "Yes, I agree with you, it's loose."
Before his patient could object, the tooth was grasped, and with a swift twist and a downwards flick, unceremoniously yanked out of its socket.
Longmate's flinch came too late to prevent the brusque extraction. His hand flew to his mouth. "Owww!" he objected.
Unperturbed, Guy handed him the gory relic, bedded on a wad of lint. "Ach, nonsense, man. You didn't want it dangling there. The thing was going to be a nuisance. Here, bite down on this until the bleeding stops."
A glare, and Longmate snatched the proffered cotton pad and pressed it home, scrutinising Grindley's face with some suspicion.
Guy's expression stayed impenetrable as he opened up his leather bag.
Foyle, equally inscrutably, took to examining the papers spread before him on the table.
"Now, how about the rest of you?" Guy's tone was quiet concern, as he took out his stethoscope.
Longmate saw an opening, and removed the wad of lint.
"I don't make a habit of mentioning it, Doctor, but... historic trouble with my heart. The odd twinge of angina. Surprised it isn't worse, with all the stress of this misunder—aagh!" With a wince that would have won him accolades at the Old Vic, he doubled over in his chair, clutching his collar bone.
In several calm movements Guy delved inside his bag and produced a plain brown bottle of white pills. Grasping the man's chin, he deftly slipped one between Longmate's lips.
"There now. You know the drill. Under your tongue."
Seconds passed, and Longmate's theatrically stricken face grew calmer.
"Thank you," he panted. "Yes, the pain has slackened."
Guy hung the stethoscope inside his ears and listened with practised gravitas to his patient's chest while Longmate leant over the table, head dramatically in hand.
"Lllet you have your privacy." Foyle rose and left the room.
Some moments later, Guy joined him.
"Well?"
"Well. If your blokey there has got angina, I'm an ape's relation."
"What did you give him in there?"
Guy sucked in his cheeks and gave Foyle a sideways glance. "Baldwin's Herbal Female Pills. Some Woolworths' bob-a-bottle quackery I confiscated from the JP's medicine cabinet."
Foyle gave a low whistle. "Rummaging through her cupboards, Guy? Thhought she had you there on garden duty."
"No you didn't."
The men exchanged broad grins. Guy jerked his head towards the interview room.
"He's an operator. Butter wouldn't melt."
Foyle's eyes twinkled. "We had eye witnesses, but now we also have a motive."
"What d'you plan to do with him?"
"Let him dig himself a hole, then fill it in."
...
Sam leant back, savouring the incredible account her husband had confided of his day.
"Golly! Actually, I didn't like the look of him from pictures in The Chronicle. A bit too pleased with himself, for my taste. But murder? And imagine," she wrinkled her nose, "all the blood if he'd have managed it. You'd think he'd be too squeamish for a knife, if he made all that effort to evade conscription."
Christopher wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to rest against his chest. He smiled in reminiscence of their virgin outing in the Wolseley. How little things had changed, with Sam still hankering after the visceral aspects of crime in all their dubious glory.
"Nnot indicative that he's averse to violence, Love. Simply means he likes his targets unarmed and defenceless in an alley, rather than out in the field with weapons drawn."
Sam warmed to her subject. "Still, the practicalities of getting home without anybody noticing the state of him... say if Ziegler's wound had spurted blood all over his clothes... whatever was he thinking?"
Christopher frowned. Indeed, the 'How did he expect to get away with it?' angle had niggled at him. And Longmate's claim that he had feinted the strike as some sort of ill-judged schoolboy joke was a slim—a laughable—defence.
But, in the hands of an unscrupulous defending counsel? Foyle gave Sam a firm embrace of reassurance, which was more an easement to himself.
"Seems likely that he wasn't thinking straight, and panicked—thought he'd been discovered, and that Ziegler was about to denounce him for dodging his duty to serve."
"How can you be sure that he doesn't have angina?" mused Sam. "I mean, it must be a difficult disease to prove that someone has or hasn't got. Especially if they pretend to have it…"
Christopher smiled down on his wife's golden locks. Now, in the wake of bloodthirsty Sam, came analytical Sam. And though, occasionally, those analyses were apt to take her off at something of a tangent, this was one occasion when she was spot-on with her probing questions.
"Two things. Firstly, nno prescription medicines to indicate angina in Longmate's local medical records. Secondly, Guy examined him, and not only did he act out an attack, he acted out a recovery when Guy administered a snake-oil remedy. The man's a fraud. And worse than that, his personal ambitions make him murderous." And worse than that, thought Christopher, he's delusional enough to think that he belongs in public life.
Sam fidgeted against him. Christopher could sense her scoping out the loopholes. He patted her.
"I know. I know. But Milner's making some enquiries. There are enough men serving sentences for aiding and abetting at exemption medicals. With luck, we'll track the man down who stood in for Longmate."
Sam shook her head, brow furrowed in angry wonderment at the unpatriotic mendacity. "What happens next?"
"Well, we're holding Longmate on the eyewitness evidence. We hope to find the draft fraud opportunist, and when we do, we'll add that outcome to the list of reasons to charge Longmate with attempted murder."
"You need more reasons?"
Christopher closed his eyes. "Motive will be crucial. He's a shrewd, deceitful man, Sam. Just the kind to play on reputation, argue circumstance, and evade conviction."
"You don't sound too happy, Christopher. Who's acting for him?"
Alan Spurlock's snakelike gaze formed in the void behind his eyelids.
"Mephistopheles."
"Who?"
"Apprentice of the Devil." Now Cunningham's demonic features loomed.
"Oh, well, if you're going to talk in riddles..." Sam scraped a fingernail down his chest, and not without a little pressure.
Christopher stretched his limbs. "It's been a very… complicated day, Sam. Left me tied in knots."
"Ohhh." Sam's hand slid down his belly. "Should I try unravelling you?"
Christopher smiled. It was a fortunate characteristic of his marriage that the appetite for giving and receiving comfort was never absent long in either partner. And so it proved itself now, as Sam set about unravelling her husband's tension with a soft assault of dedicated strokes and chivvies to his person.
Christopher allowed himself to drift into a state of otherness under her expert and familiar touch. The problematic Spurlock/Cunningham alliance threatening to derail his case was pushed from conscious thought. Instead, he found himself in the protected zone of trust and love that was the golden core of happy marriage.
Christopher Foyle had known it once, and knew it once again. For Sam had brought him everything he'd lost: youth; energy; a cheerful certainty of better times; and she'd restored to him the lease of life he'd carelessly neglected in the sad years after Rosalind. Before Sam, Christopher had kept his person unengaged, closed down, turned in upon itself. Now, there was every reason to unwind, unbend, embrace—and be embraced.
These were the colours of Foyle's thoughts as Sam's deft fingers closed around his twitchingly expectant member. A hitch of pleasure froze his throat, chased by a swooping feeling, not unlike the trepidation brought by one of Sam's more breakneck driving moments. Safe in the knowledge that he wasn't being propelled inside a ton of metal, Christopher surrendered to the thrill.
"Aaah! Sam!"
"Mmm. Is that nice?" Sam's query was unhurried, lazy. She pressed a kiss into his curls, applying gentle strokes she knew would ramp his level of arousal, and felt the tender tug inside her chest that came from pleasuring her man. A fluctuating, blissful mix of power and subjection filled her as her fingers slid over his tautening flesh.
They settled to an undemanding rhythm: measured, slow, unenergetic. For here was time—time to appreciate and savour; time to coax, tease, heighten to the bursting joy of full release. Sam stroked the dry, warm skin, catching the pearl of his arousal as her fingers danced over the glistening purple head. Her hand swept down, anointing the full length of him until it reached his soft, warm sack, then rose again, caressing round the hardened ridge that marked the threshold of his sensitivity. It was so little of the man himself—so frivolous of nature to invest such feeling in this whimsical appendage—yet the passion of such moments made this piece the essence of him. Sam caught her breath in admiration of the firm, impressive size of him.
A flush imbued her husband's skin, warming the peppery beard growth on his chin and cheeks. Sam brushed her lips against his face and gently scraped her teeth over the late-day bristles, sighing at the gentle rasp of their resistance under her exploring tongue. And all the time, her hand was working for his pleasure: gliding, squeezing, angling and lingering around the engorged tip of his arousal.
Christopher's mouth fell slack, his body in the thrall of Sam's attentive fondling. In the barren years of widowhood, he had turned a clinical hand to the necessity of venting and releasing what he came to think of as his "trouble", spending himself irritably and pointlessly in arid, covert moments. Now, in the caring hands of his young wife, and caressed by soft lips, Christopher existed in the happy state of utter and complete fulfilment, massaged and propelled beyond the gates of satisfaction into ecstasy.
He turned, tilting his chin so that his lips could lock with Sam's, and found her hungry for the contact. Reaching a hand into her hair, he pulled her closer and secured her to him.
In a pose where neither spouse could speak, their conversation deepened, lip on lip, and hand on body. In that joining came an intimacy to rival even the most intimate of couplings.
Snatching greedy breaths between hungry kisses, Sam's excitement coiled within her, and she sensed Christopher's arousal mount as he responded to her lips and fingers. The moment just before he came, he pulled his lips away, caught in the throes of pleasure, and groaned helplessly as the orgasm slammed through him. He finished in a pulsing fountain, soaking Sam's hand and his own bare, sweat-drenched belly.
When his breathing calmed, he leant to touch his forehead to Sam's, and whispered "Everything."
"Hmm?" Ruddy with success, Sam pulled his underneath arm round her.
"Everything." Christopher kissed her brow, then fell back on the pillow, eyes closed in exhaustion. "Everything. You're everything to me."
...
Saturday morning, 5th May, 1945
Attempted murder, in the purely selfish sense, meant Saturday became a working day. In quieter times, Foyle would have said it cut into his fishing time. These days, there were competing interests in terms of things he might like to be doing early on a Saturday. A replay of his time with Sam, for instance. Or a leisurely, if ration-curtailed breakfast, listening to Georgie's quirky chatter—a pastime he was fonder of than he'd admit in public.
Instead he found himself behind his desk, perusing the report that Milner, bleary-eyed, but clearly pleased with his achievement, had slid under his nose first thing.
Foyle looked up at his sergeant. "Up late producing this?"
"Yes, Sir. Made myself unpopular on the phone with several prison governors with dinners to go home to." Paul's forward head-tilt with raised brows was tired, but wry. "But in the end it was a tip from Hythe that sent me in the right direction. Spoke to Pat Dale."
"Sergeant Dale?" Foyle looked up. Already, he owed her an immense debt. "How did she help?"
"DCS Fielding sent a character down last year for medical exemption fraud, after a family doctor got suspicious and reported him. At trial, he asked for five offences to be taken into account."
"Longmate one of them?"
"No, but this chap didn't come cheap. All of his customers were well-heeled, and one of them, as it turns out," Milner produced a pale green oblong sheet from his folder, "shares a surname with Longmate's late wife."
Foyle examined the proffered marriage certificate. "Good work, Milner. Where are they being held?"
"Both in Lewes gaol, Sir."
A smile spread across Foyle's face. "Even better. Get Georgie and the car. I'll telephone Lewes to expect us."
Paul drew himself up tall. "I took the liberty—did that already, Sir."
...
Driving westwards along The Marina, Georgie was obliged to halt while an ARP contingent hefted a large roll of now-redundant barbed wire away from the seafront. The Wolseley had stopped a short distance east of the Royal Victoria Hotel, and Foyle, who always travelled with his left shoulder leant against the passenger-side door—a habit he'd developed early on, for observing Sam while she was at the wheel, and which he hadn't broken since—followed the wardens' progress with lazy interest, glancing briefly past Georgie's pert profile towards the hotel entrance.
As he looked, the figure of a well-dressed gentleman emerged, and turned his steps east towards town.
"Glad to see the back of that awful stuff!" quipped Georgie over her shoulder to Paul.
But Foyle's attention riveted itself upon the walking man. The more he looked, the less he could believe his eyes. A sight he'd never thought to see again, and one that sent him leaning heavily across Georgie to reach the window-winder.
"Christopher!" Finding herself with an unexpected mouthful of trilby brim and a bust full of overcoated shoulder, Foyle's daughter-in-law temporarily forgot the on-duty proprieties.
Foyle's left elbow hit the horn as he lowered the window with his desperate winding.
"Really!" protested Georgie mildly, pushing herself belatedly into the seat-back to give him room he'd already taken. "You only had to ask!"
"Stephen!" Foyle's voice, though not by any means raised to the level of a shout, carried clear across the empty carriageway.
Alerted but unfazed, the figure turned to ascertain the source of the commotion, and slowed his gait. A smile tipped up the corners of his mouth, and casting precautionary glances left-then-right for vehicles, he stepped into the road and closed the intervening distance.
The thinning auburn hair was now tinged with grey, but the frank, unflinching agate eyes remained unchanged.
"Christopher." Beck's eyes crinkled in a show of open pleasure. "I vos intending to seek you out before very long." The Germanic r's of his enunciation gurgled softly in his throat.
Foyle's pushed his left hand through the open window, his right being otherwise engaged in preventing himself from collapsing into Georgie's lap.
Beck reached out for a handshake, tactfully ignoring his friend's indignity of posture.
"You are surprised to see me?"
"I'm... mmmore than surprised. And more than happy." Foyle clasped the proffered hand awkwardly in his.
Beck squeezed hard, lowering his chin, and meeting Foyle's eyes with a warmly penetrating gaze.
"Ja. Flesh and blood, Christopher. Flesh and blood. Do not delude yourself that you have seen a ghost."
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
Thanks for your patience. I know this has been a long time coming.
...
Alan Howard, whose nuanced portrayal of the sharply intelligent barrister, Stephen Beck in War Games was a highlight of Foyle's War, sadly died on 14th February, 2015. Pleased to be able to resurrect him on the anniversary of his death, in fiction, if not in the flesh.
...
More will follow. It's a promise.
GiuC