DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

May 2014 - written entirely as a b'day present for CatS81 - happy birthday! xx

Necessary Lies

by Joodiff

The ramshackle little house belongs to a friend of a friend; a wealthy psychotherapist, author and gifted amateur painter who has lived more-or-less permanently in New York for the better part of the last two decades. Olivia Walker inherited the place, so the story goes, from her late husband Ralph, a moderately successful sculptor and musician who never quite forgot the island's infamous heyday back in the 'sixties and apparently bought the house for a pittance back in the late 'seventies. The chequered history of the small wood and brick structure perched right on the edge of the Thames is irrelevant really, but there's no-one who knows Grace who wouldn't decide on very first sight that it's exactly the sort of place she should seriously consider purchasing for herself one day. The infamous hippie commune may be long gone, but the island's residents remain an eclectic, eccentric bunch, and Kingfisher Cottage is about as characteristic of the artistic, quirky spirit of Eel Pie Island as it's possible to get. Oh yes, it's a very Grace Foley sort of place.

Conversely, she reflects, as she heads through the eccentrically decorated main ground-floor room towards the sliding glass doors that lead out onto the rickety wooden deck that's balanced out over the water, received wisdom dictates that Boyd should loathe the place. Both the house and the community to which it belongs. Too avant-garde, too idiosyncratic; altogether too artistic and bohemian for such a hard-headed and apparently very conventional man, one who has spent most of his adult life to date as a serving police officer. Grace knows better. Knows he is a singular sort of character, one whose dangerous tendency for insolence and insubordination stems from a dark, iconoclastic streak that runs straight through the heart of him. Knows, in fact, that he is nowhere near as conformist and reactionary as he so often used to appear seated authoritatively behind his desk in the CCU's basement headquarters. She accepts that it's unlikely Boyd would ever choose to reside permanently in such a place – but he seems to be tolerating it as a temporary retreat well enough.

Or perhaps, Grace thinks with a twinge of unease as she steps out into the warm early-evening air, he simply has far too much else to brood over at the moment and hasn't bothered paying much attention to his surroundings.

He looks peaceful enough, sprawled out on an elderly cane recliner with his bare feet propped up on the painted wooden rail that encloses the deck, but she knows him too well to take the relaxed pose at face value. He doesn't look as if he's moved much since the preceding night, but most of the empty beer bottles have disappeared from the low table next to him, and although he still hasn't bothered with a shave, yesterday's crumpled sweatshirt has been replaced by a clean polo shirt of uncertain vintage that might once have been black, many washes ago.

"Wake up," Grace says with just the right amount of deliberate asperity. She knows he's not asleep, and Boyd almost certainly knows she knows he's not asleep, but it's an expected part of the old, old game.

"Not asleep," he retorts right on cue and opens his eyes to squint up at her. "What time is it?"

"A little after seven," she informs him, moving to lean against the rail. There are a couple of ducks squabbling by the water's edge, their confrontation mostly noise and bravado. Irritable Mallard drakes, asserting their masculinity. The neighbouring house is uncomfortably close but mostly obscured by several mature willow trees. Quiet strains of classical music emanate from its open windows, oddly soothing but nothing Grace recognises. She picks absently at the rail's peeling cornflower blue paint as she debates the wisdom of what she's about to say. It's probably not the best opening gambit, but the words have been constantly rattling round her head throughout the drive to Twickenham. She takes a deep breath. "I saw Spence today. He says you're still not taking his calls."

The reply is laconic. "He'll get over it."

She turns to face him, trying to gauge his mood. "It's not his fault, you know."

Boyd shrugs. "Never said it was."

"He didn't have a choice, Boyd; he had to accept the transfer to Wandsworth."

"I know."

Frustrated by his lack of reaction, she demands, "So, what… you simply resent him for moving on so quickly?"

"You know me better."

Grace sighs. Too many of their conversations seem to be following the same pattern just recently. She understands that Boyd is still feeling wounded and lost, that he's struggling to make sense of the world around him now everything has changed so very much, but attempting to tell him that he's making things even more difficult for himself than they need to be always seems to end the same way. Badly. She tries a different tack. "I hate lying to him. He doesn't believe me for a minute when I tell him I have no idea where you are. Neither does Eve, for that matter, or any of the others who keep asking."

Boyd doesn't move, stays slouched in the old cane chair, hands now behind his head as he watches her with no particular expression. It takes several moments for him to say, "That's rather the point of abdicating, Grace; no more responsibility for – or to – other people."

His sardonic flippancy irks her. "Well, hard luck. Spence still needs you, whether you like it or not."

"He's a big boy now. It's not my job to tie his bloody shoelaces for him; not anymore."

She glowers at him, annoyed by his attitude. "He's really struggling to find his feet, Boyd. Oh, he won't openly admit it, but he is. He's spent far too many years in your shadow."

Boyd still doesn't stir. He doesn't even sound angry as he responds, "How did I know that this would somehow all be my fault?"

The urge to pace across the deck, grab him by the shoulders and shake him is very strong. She doesn't. It won't do either of them any good. Still, Grace is tempted. She needs to see some hint of the old fire, some evidence that his notoriously quick temper hasn't been extinguished entirely by the catastrophic chain of events that so recently overtook them all. Boyd's morose composure is unnatural and uncharacteristic and she doesn't like it. Not one bit. They don't even fight the way they used to, however much she needles him in search of a reaction. Nowadays when he doesn't like what she says he doesn't rear up at her, he simply retreats into sullen silence.

She turns her back on him again and stares at the lazy ripples on the murky surface of the river. "They expected you to fight, that's all. They expected you to use the truth about Nicholson as a lever to save the unit. They don't understand why you didn't even try."

"Except I did try," he mutters with a palpable amount of bitterness, "and look where it bloody got me."

Grace closes her eyes for a moment. Opens them and takes a deep steadying breath. She hopes she sounds calm and resolute as she says, "You have to tell them. If you don't, I will."

"I don't respond well to threats, Grace. You should know that by now."

"It's not a threat," she assures him, resisting the strong impulse to look round, "it's a simple statement of fact. I can't go on lying to them, Boyd. I can't and I won't."

She hears him shift against the creaky interwoven cane and almost flinches. When he speaks again he is far closer than she expects, tribute to his uncanny knack of being able to move very quietly indeed when it suits him. "You can and you will. We agreed."

Grace hasn't forgotten. "Maybe we did, but it was obviously a mistake."

A heavy hand falls on her shoulder and this time she does flinch. His firm grip is gentle, however. "We agreed. We sat in your damned kitchen for hours discussing it, and in the end we agreed that all things considered it was for the best."

"The best for you."

"The best for everyone," he contradicts. He sighs. "Oh, let them think whatever they want; it doesn't matter."

"It does, Boyd. You're not the one who sees it in their faces – the bewilderment, the disappointment. I hate it."

His other hand takes its customary place on her opposite shoulder and he moves just enough to bring them into close physical contact, his chest warm and solid against her back and shoulders. "Icarus fell, Grace. He flew too close to the sun and he fell. Let's just leave it at that, hm?"

"And that's really how you want to be remembered, is it? For hubris?"

The reply is sullen. "I don't give a fuck how I'm remembered. I know what really happened, and so do those jumped-up arseholes at the Yard; that's enough for me."

"Peter…"

"Don't," Boyd says, close to her ear. He suddenly sounds far more resigned than irritable. "Don't, Grace."

"It's just all so unfair." She knows it's a childish thing to say, but she doesn't care. It's simply how she feels.

His tone hardens again. "Life is unfair – don't tell me it's taken you this long to realise it?"

"It's not funny," Grace rebukes, almost as angry with him as she is with the whole sorry situation.

"I'm not exactly laughing my bloody head off about it."

"I hate them." Her sudden vehemence is real and potent. It burns inside her, hot and vengeful. "Maureen, the Commissioner – all of them. They crucified you, Boyd, and you let them."

"I had no choice."

"You did," she retorts, obstinate to the last. "You could have saved the CCU – and yourself – if you hadn't been so bloody…"

"Protective?" he suggests. His grip on her shoulders tightens a fraction. "That's just the nature of the beast – and you know it."

She does. Not for the first time angry tears prickle in her eyes. She blinks them away hard. It isn't her place to cry, not when it's Boyd who's the one suffering. Almost before she knows it, he's turned her around, his hands now resting on her waist as he looks down at her. The dark eyes are intent and intense, and Grace reads in them an unusual patience and forbearance that causes her throat to tighten. He says, "There are far worse sentences to serve than gardening leave, Grace. You understand me? Three months from now they'll grudgingly give me the traditional pat on the back, the gold watch and the pension. Spence will get his long-service medal, Eve will get her funding and you…"

"Yes…?" Grace prompts.

"You, Doctor Foley, will get to retire in your own good time with your unblemished professional reputation intact."

"It's not worth it."

"It is to me." Boyd tilts his head a fraction. "Don't imagine for one moment that they wouldn't have found a way to bring you down as well. Harry Taylor…? Murray Stuart…? God knows what else if they'd dug deep enough…?"

He's right. Grace knew it weeks ago when they sat up together into the small hours of the morning discussing his options and she knows it now. It seems that to the people at the very top of the chain of command the difference between fact and fiction ceased to matter a long time ago, and if rumour and conjecture hadn't been quite enough, she's well-aware that Boyd is correct – there are indeed things in her past that could be successfully used against her by anyone sly enough and motivated enough to distort the truth for their own ends.

"Anyway," he says, interrupting her melancholy train of thought, "what's the bloody point in telling any of them now?"

"At least if they knew – "

"Bollocks." Boyd abruptly releases his hold on her and moves to stand by the railing, taking her place gazing at the river. "Look, Grace, I was paid – handsomely – to sit in the big chair, to make the hard decisions… to look after the people assigned to me, and that's exactly what I did right to the bitter end. No more, no less."

Grace shakes her head. He hasn't changed in all the years she's known him. Still just as stubborn, intractable and loyal as he ever was. Loyalty is at least one trait they share. She joins him at the rail, standing at his side, just as she's always done. "No, Boyd, what you did was to volunteer to fall on your sword to save the rest of us."

"Emotive."

"It's the truth. And the others deserve to know it."

Boyd grunts, but a moment later he's back on the offensive. "And what do you think it would do to Spence, for example? To know that the people he's supposed to obey and respect – the people he's supposed to give his absolute loyalty to – were quite prepared to destroy him and his entire career with a single snap of their fingers just to stop me and the CCU from rising from the ashes? You're the bloody psychologist – tell me that wouldn't mess with his head from now until doomsday?"

Not able to offer any easy answers Grace chooses to assume the questions are rhetorical. Instead, she lapses into a long and meditative silence before eventually asking, "How long are you planning to stay holed up here for?"

"Hadn't thought."

She doubts it's the truth. If she knows him half as well as she thinks she does, Boyd has already considered the matter at some length. Sooner or later he will have to do something about his house in Greenwich – return to it, sell it or rent it out. Sooner or later he will have to face the world and all its difficult questions. She's about to question him further when he inquires, "What about you? Have you made any firm plans yet?"

"No." She glances sideways at him. "According to Dawlish at the Home Office I'm still officially consulting for the Met until further notice. Unofficially… well, let's just say that I'm not sure any of the whispers that have reached my ears so far are quite what I'm looking for."

"So, what are you looking for?"

Grace smiles despite herself. "No bloody idea."

"Makes two of us."

The Mallard drakes are scuffling again, pecking and flapping and sending shining water droplets flying in all directions. Their behaviour reminds her of past confrontations between Boyd and Spencer; lots of testosterone, noise and exaggerated male posturing but no real damage actually done. She watches the skirmish for a few moments, half-waiting for Boyd to say something more. When he doesn't, she suggests, "Well, I suppose we could just give in and grow old disgracefully."

"Together?"

The look she gives him is just about as pointed as is humanly possible. "You need to ask?"

They've never really talked about it, not directly. Assumptions have simply been made and tacitly accepted. On both sides. As far as Grace is aware there's never been a moment when any kind of conscious decision was made by either of them. Dozens of unspoken things just elegantly presumed. Their joint future merely extrapolated from all their unspoken expectations of each other.

Boyd shrugs. "Guess not."

The pragmatic reply amuses her. It shouldn't, but it does. There's nothing sentimental about him, never has been, never will be. She's long past the age when it might have bothered her. Now, she finds it far more refreshing than exasperating. Flowers and honey-coated words are as cheap as they are ephemeral. Grace turns slightly, angling her body to the river. It enables her to study his strong profile; the aquiline nose, the uncompromising square jaw. So familiar for so many years. She says, "If you don't tell them the truth they'll always see you as the man who ultimately didn't have the guts to stand and fight."

Boyd's reaction is as irritable as it is predictable. "Fuck's sake, not again. Sing another bloody song, Grace. I did what I had to do, and that's the end of it."

She holds up a placatory hand, palm towards him. "I'm not challenging what you did – or why you did it. I'm challenging your pig-headed refusal to tell them that things just weren't as simple as they think they were."

"Jesus, you really want them to know that it all ended up in a gutter brawl? That none of us came out of it looking exactly whiter than white?"

"Ignorance is not bliss, Boyd."

"Yeah, well in this case I happen to think that it is. 'He who fights with monsters', Grace."

She frowns. "What the hell's Nietzsche got to do with it?"

"Oh, think about it, will you? In all the years the CCU was operational, how many corners did we cut? How many rules did we break? My unit, my orders, my responsibility – I have no qualms about acknowledging that… but you know as well as I do that it's not that simple." Boyd is facing her now, his stance taut and belligerent. "We're all culpable – and we've all done things that we'd prefer to remain quietly forgotten. Do you really want me to tell them just how closely they've all been looked at by their respective masters? How many details of both their personal and professional lives have been put under the microscope?"

She's not afraid to hold his truculent gaze. "So you're saying you'd rather they thought badly of you than of themselves?"

"Yes. No." Boyd sighs. "Christ, I don't know. Maybe I just don't want them to know how thoroughly their lives and reputations have been ripped apart for close scrutiny behind closed doors. To know that they're all somehow… contaminated… by association."

"And what's going to happen when you finally come face to face with them again? Because that day will come – you can't hide forever."

He bristles instantly. "I'm not hiding."

"Well, what would you prefer to call it?"

"Regrouping."

She snorts. "Semantics. Well? What are you going to do when they ask you why you apparently didn't even try to save the unit?"

"Nothing."

Grace can't help rolling her eyes skywards. "Great plan, Boyd."

It seems, however, that he isn't in any mood to banter. "I mean it, Grace. I'm going to do absolutely nothing. They can despise me, they can call me every name under the bloody sun, but I'm damned if I'm telling them that I willingly bent over and let those bastards at the Yard comprehensively fuck me just to stop them – and you – being thrown to the wolves."

There's fire in his dark eyes. The fire Grace has missed far more than she would ever have believed possible. It seems that somehow it fuels her, too. Reminds her that there's still a lot of life to be lived – and lived with unashamed verve and passion. She snags his wrist, grateful when he doesn't shrug her off. "You're a hard man, Peter Boyd – hard on yourself. All right. You win. If that's the way you really want it to be…"

"It is."

"Stubborn old fool." Grace shakes her head. "So what happens now?"

He visibly relaxes a little. "Depends."

"On…?"

Boyd slips free of her grip on his wrist and interlaces his fingers with hers. "Whether you're staying for breakfast or not."

"I was thinking rather longer-term than that," she tells him, straight-faced. The idea has considerable appeal but she's not the sort of woman to miss an ideal opportunity to turn things to her own advantage. "Besides, that also depends."

"On?" he echoes.

"Talk to Spence next time he calls. Build some bridges."

"Hm," is his non-committal response. He thumb brushes against hers, an apparently unconscious gesture. "Talking of bridges, have you spoken to that friend of yours recently? The Walker woman?"

Grace frowns, not understanding the link. "Olivia? Not since she agreed I could use this place for a few weeks, no. She's not exactly a friend; more a friend of a friend."

"Whatever."

"Bridges…?" she inquires.

"Eh?"

"You said 'talking of bridges'. What's that got to do with Olivia?"

"Footbridges," Boyd says, as if it explains everything. He gestures vaguely in the general direction of the narrow pedestrian bridge that provides the only access to the island that doesn't require the use of a boat, and at her askance look, he continues, "Oh, come on, Grace – tell me you didn't fall in love with this bloody place the minute you set eyes on it?"

He knows her just as well as she knows him. Sometimes she forgets that. A little sheepish, she shrugs. "So?"

"Eccentric little hideaway just a stone's throw from Richmond Park? Shouting distance of the Tube at Hounslow? Makes perfect sense, don't you think?"

Bewildered, Grace asks, "What makes perfect sense? What are you talking about, Boyd?"

He raises his eyebrows at her. "Can you think of a better place to grow old disgracefully?"

"Las Vegas?" she suggests, not certain the unforeseen conversation is really going where it seems it might be.

"A better place not five thousand miles away from the Thames. Don't be intentionally difficult."

"I'm not," Grace objects despite her sudden suspicions. "I just have no clue what you're talking about."

Boyd releases her hand and folds his arms across his broad chest. Leaning nonchalantly against the wooden rail, he says, "Have you seen how much property in Greenwich is selling for nowadays? Give me her phone number and I'll make her an offer she can't refuse."

She shouldn't be surprised, not really. He's always been inclined to do the most unexpected of things on a whim. If she's honest with herself, Grace has always rather envied his reckless spontaneity, risky though it has often proved to be. In their own very different ways they are both free spirits. Perhaps that's part of the attraction. "Boyd – "

"Think of it," he interrupts before she can voice her protest, "as payment in full for past debts. And a down-payment on all the screw-ups I'm going to make in the future."

"Not funny."

"Not trying to be."

She eyes him with increasing suspicion. "Just how much have you had to drink today?"

"You don't want to own a place like this?"

With complete honesty she replies, "I'd love to own a place like this, but – "

"Well, then," he says, arms still folded. "Happy birthday, Grace."

"It's nowhere near my birthday."

"Humour me, for God's sake."

"It's a ridiculous idea." Grace looks at the house, momentarily entranced by persuasive visions. She can see herself pottering around the small and chaotic garden; see herself working at the desk upstairs, the one that looks out over the water. She gives herself a mental shake. It's just a silly fantasy. "For a start, where are you going to live?"

It's Boyd's turn to sigh and glance heavenwards. "With you, obviously."

He's a big man, close on six feet tall even barefoot and proportionally well-built. She considers the available space, thinks of his propensity for relaxing untidily stretched out; thinks of the sheer amount of physical space he takes up even when he's not restlessly on the move. "This place is barely big enough for one, let alone two, Boyd."

"Ah, but we're not going to actually live here, are we? Keep up, woman. Weekend hideaway? Quiet little bolt-hole within striking distance of civilisation? You always said you'd like to try your hand at painting one day – well, this is the perfect place to set up an easel."

"While you do what…?" Grace asks, trying to imagine it. She can't. "Shout at people on passing boats? Glare at the neighbours every time you think you catch even the faintest whiff of marijuana?"

"Grace."

She knows that tone. It's both reproving and tolerant and he only ever uses it when he thinks he's won and has decided it's time to curtail further debate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on Boyd's degree of complacency and her level of exasperation with him. It works, in fact, when Grace allows it to. She narrows her eyes, studies him intently. "You're serious?"

"I'm serious." He regards her with a steady dark gaze. "We've paid our dues, Grace. New chapter, new start, call it whatever you damn well like. You could sit out here and write as many bloody books as you like with absolutely nothing to disturb you."

"Apart from the ducks."

He glances with some malice at the still feuding Mallards. "Don't worry about them – I have plans for the noisy little bastards that strongly feature orange sauce."

She looks at the river again as she thinks. Eel Pie Island. Semi-mythical '60s music venue. Commune, artistic haven. Small, eccentric and feted, yet oddly insular in so many ways. It couldn't be more perfect for her. She says, "Tell them the truth, Boyd. Eve, Spence and the others. Tell them what really happened and I'll think about it."

The temperature between them drops instantly. "No. No, Grace. That's not the deal. I'm offering you far more than a damn house here. I'm offering to give you a bona fide piece of the kind of…" Boyd breaks off, apparently searching for the right word, "…bohemian lifestyle you've always wanted."

"I know."

"And that's not enough?" he demands, and she flinches at the sudden amount of bitterness in his tone.

She looks straight at him. "If you still don't understand what's actually important to me after all these years, nothing you can give me is ever going to be enough."

"Well that's that, then, isn't it?" Boyd growls, glaring at her. "Because I'm not telling them a damn thing."

Grace can't stop herself from biting back with, "Well, I'm glad to see our future meant so much to you."

He straightens up, tension clear in the strong lines of his body. "Don't even think about starting down that road, Grace."

Unintimidated, she retorts, "Hubris, Boyd. You're right – Icarus fell. He fell and he drowned. Tell them the truth."

His reply is as predictable as it is obstinate. "No."

"Why?" Grace demands, frustrated by his stubbornness. "Is your pride really so important to you?"

"It's got nothing to do with my pride."

"Really."

Boyd takes a single step towards her, a touch of menace in the way he does it. It's clear his temper is rising. "Yes, really. You honestly think that with such high stakes the Commissioner was going to settle for a deal sealed with just my word and a gentleman's handshake?" He shakes his head. "You saw for yourself just how deep the Nicholson affair was buried – do you really believe that could have been achieved without government approval and assistance at the very highest level?"

An unexpected chill tracks up and down Grace's spine. Annoyance and frustration forgotten, she asks, "What are you saying, Boyd? What are you really saying?"

His reply is quiet. "I'm saying… that it's definitely in everyone's best interests that I do exactly what I agreed to do and keep my bloody mouth firmly shut."

"So you're still protecting them – us – even now?"

"Oh, what do you think?" Boyd starts to pace barefooted up and down the small deck. "Have you forgotten the Karl Barclay case already? Because I certainly haven't."

It's going to be a long time before Grace forgets – if she ever does. Boyd abducted from the street in broad daylight by the shadowy servants of the Security Services. The state he was in when he and Sarah Cavendish eventually returned to headquarters… She swallows, mouth suddenly dry. "You really think they'd go to such extreme lengths to keep it quiet?"

"I think that if they ever start to question whether my signature on the Official Secrets Act is really enough, then other measures to maintain the status quo might be considered."

It barely seems possible that they are discussing such a thing on a warm evening in such an idyllic setting. Yet Grace knows he's deadly serious – and when Boyd is as earnest as he is now, she's learnt to listen. She rests her hand on the rail again, perhaps unconsciously seeking support. "This isn't just your paranoia, is it?"

Boyd shakes his head again. "Last time they bust my cheekbone and three of my ribs and they left me unconscious and tied to a chair in a room rigged with explosives, put it that way."

"And if it hadn't been for Sarah…" Grace lets the words hang in the air.

He stops pacing. "If the media ever get hold of the details surrounding Nicholson's death, the story will blow the upper echelons of the Met apart – and that will only be the start of it. Someone at Westminster has to have rubber-stamped the cover-up, Grace, and I'm fairly sure that if things start getting hot their… associates… won't be stopping by just to take afternoon tea with me."

"Strong-arm tactics."

"Quite." Boyd moves to stand next to her again. His voice is quiet. "The Nicholson files have been removed from the archive. All the CCU's paperwork has been redacted – and I know for a fact that Eve and Spence were given the same stern pep talk about public interest and the Official Secrets Act that you were. They've buried it, Grace, and they intend it to stay buried. Tony Nicholson died while rallying the troops at an armed police stand-off with an Eastern European criminal gang; he was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. All very tragic. The man's a damned hero. End of."

"That's why you've gone to ground here," she says, knowing she's right. "That's why you're refusing to have any contact with Eve and Spence. You think they're watching you to make sure you keep your side of the deal."

"Not just me, Grace."

"It was already too late for me, wasn't it?" she guesses. She shakes her head fatalistically. "That's why there was no point in you breaking contact with me as well. I was already in the crosshairs."

"The rumour mill's got a lot to be blamed for, hasn't it?"

"Not all of the rumours were actually rumours, though, were they?" Grace points out with a grim touch of humour.

Boyd almost smiles. Almost but not quite. "Sorry about that."

"Ruining my reputation?" she queries, reaching out to stroke his face, days of rough stubble coarse under her fingertips.

With no sign of reluctance or self-consciousness Boyd leans into her touch. "Mm. You're a fallen woman, Grace."

"And proud of it, too." She sighs and lets her hand drop away. "All right. You've convinced me to toe the party line."

He reaches out to her and as she steps into his embrace he says, "If I honestly thought it would be safe…"

"I know." She rests her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes. Waits for a moment to let her thoughts and fears settle. She's as pragmatic as he is in many ways, and she's certainly not easily frightened by shadows. Nor is this the first time in her life that she's been caught in the centre of a potentially dangerous and controversial situation. "So we keep our mouths shut, hold our secrets tight and get on with our lives, hm? For everyone's sake."

She feels rather than hears his heavy sigh. It's followed by, "Let me buy you the damned house, Grace. It's as close to a wedding ring as you're ever going to get."

"Expensive sort of wedding ring."

"I'm a generous sort of guy."

Not a sentiment Grace would ever argue with. She looks up at him, searching his face for any hint that he's not completely sincere and finds none. The last lingering traces of uncertainty prickle at the back of her mind, but not enough to prevent her from responding when his lips meet hers. It's an unhurried, tender kiss, one that tells her everything she needs to know. When Boyd draws back she smiles up at him, not at all surprised when his solemn expression is immediately replaced by the extraordinary, gentle smile she loves so much. She stretches up to kiss him again, quick and affectionate, then takes his hand. Together they contemplate the house, neither voicing their thoughts.

It's more than a minute before she says, "We could both sell up and leave London altogether."

"Is that what you want?"

"No." It's the absolute truth. "The sensible thing to do would be to buy a decent-sized house together."

Boyd's answering snort is telling. "When did we ever do anything the sensible way? It's always arse-about-face with us. Always either ridiculously complicated or ridiculously simple. Either way, it's never exactly conventional, is it?"

"True." A stray memory plucks at her and Grace smiles to herself. "Do you remember the first time we…?"

Boyd evidently follows her thoughts perfectly because he grimaces. "I try not to."

"I could be extremely offended by that if I wanted to be, you know."

"Don't be." The look he gives her is sly and conspiratorial. "I seem to remember that the execution was flawless – it was just the timing that was… unfortunate."

She chuckles, remembering the whole incident very clearly. Then she says, "Eel Pie Island, though, Boyd. It's hardly your sort of place, is it?"

"Says who?" he asks, releasing her hand.

"Just because you once had long hair and you tried a spliff about forty years ago…"

"Who told you that?"

Grace smirks. "You did."

"Must be true, then." He grins back at her, quick and feral, and then shrugs his broad shoulders as the expression fades. "Maybe it's the best chance of freedom we'll ever have after everything that's happened, Grace. All the secrets, all the necessary lies – they're always going to be there. Nicholson's not going to be rising from the dead anytime soon… and neither's the CCU. New chapter, like I said."

Without warning, the gentle classical music coming from the direction of the neighbouring house behind the willows ceases. It's quickly replaced by the strident sound of Roger Daltrey talking 'bout his generation at a peculiarly moderate volume. She exchanges a wry, amused smile with Boyd, knowing that if she utters a single word of criticism he will staunchly leap to the defence of The Who by launching a scathing attack on the perceived genius of Lennon and McCartney. The Thames and the Mersey, mighty rivers both. The sun is low in the sky now, and the surface of the river sparkles with every tiny ripple.

"All right," she says simply, "I'll give you Olivia's number, but the rest is up to you, Boyd."

"Finally."

A sense of peace descends on her. "That's it, then? Can we have a quiet drink and contemplate the sunset now?"

It's not long before they are settled together in harmonious silence, Boyd lounging in the cane recliner he seems to have become so very fond of, Grace similarly relaxed in a threadbare but unexpectedly comfortable deckchair, only the small table a barrier between them as they listen to the mixed soundtrack of the evening. Ducks and water and The Who; the distant rumble of traffic from across the river and the occasional shrill whistles of the kingfishers that give the house its name.

As the sun finally disappears behind the treetops she asks, "You're absolutely sure this is what you want? Us, I mean, not the house?"

"Absolutely sure."

"Why?"

Boyd glances at her, expression both amused and quizzical. His reply is languid and just a touch gruff. "Self-interest, Grace. No-one else would put up with me 'til the end of their days."

- the end -