Usual notes and disclaimer: I don't own any of the original characters nor the original Inspector Lynley Mysteries – they belong to Elizabeth George and the BBC. I have borrowed the characters from the TV-Show and solely own the ideas of my stories and the developments I've let them go through.
Please let me know if I did something terribly wrong (rating, grammar, spelling...). Thanks!
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Author's note: After a little break I'm back. Here's another so called story which I first intended to write as a 299-words-story but then... This is a twin-story, of which more later. This whole thing is not yet totally finished, I still struggle with the end.
Warning/Spoiler: Don't take this story too serious but also do not forget to always be in private and in a balanced mood when you read M-rated stories! ;-)
This is M-rated for reasons. If you don't like that don't read it. If you read it anyway don't blame me.
Summary: They had just returned from a tough case and were sent to Rome immediately after. Barbara was angry with Tommy though it was not his fault she had to come with him and she decided to use the police laptop for her personal distraction.
Wiki says: Cinderella, one whose attributes were unrecognized, or one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect.
Author says: Therese, not only a nun's name ;-)
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Sheffield - Rome
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It had been a really tough case near Sheffield. The local CID had some references to a series of events in London so DI Lynley and DS Havers had joined them. What should have been a two days appointment had turned into a one week nightmare with rain, mud, cold, three more bodies, two badly injured Constables, a fatally shot bloodhound and turns of events that drove them all mad, gave them not a minute's rest, woke them too often in the night and left them all horribly tired.
In the end Havers and Lynley had been arguing about everything and nothing until they finally had nothing more to say to each other, or better they had decided to say only the bare necessities to each other, though everybody thought they should clear out their divergencies soon and comprehensive. But both just wanted to get back home and have a quiet weekend without talking, without listening, without questions and also without answers and without each other. The tension between them had turned really unbearable for those around them.
Now the two metropolitans were on their way back to London. Havers had driven the first half and now, with Lynley at the steering wheel, she was sleeping the sleep of the just with her head on the window pane of his classic car.
His mobile buzzed.
"Lynley."
"Sir? Nkata here. We have a problem."
Lynley sighed. "What is it now?"
DC Winston Nkata filled him in on the latest news of a case that seemed to be closed a few years ago. Lynley had been suspected of killing the woman and he dearly hoped all this would stay in the past. But there was no way out. It all came back with the voice of Nkata telling him some new aspects and complications. Hillier wanted Lynley to fly to Rome to get some things sorted with a relative of the victim from a year ago, find out more about another event and assist the local commissario.
"Sir, Hillier made it an urgency and... um... can you speak, Sir, or is Havers listening?"
"Looks like she's fast asleep. Are you awake, Cinderella?" He heard a snorting laughter from the other side of the line. "Shut up, Constable, I just tried something funny to know that she really is asleep and not just pretending. It's... umm... quite edgy at the moment. I assume she's to be coming with me?"
"Who?"
Lynley was slightly angry about the dumbness of his Constable. "Who do you think I'm talking of? Cinderella?"
Now he had to snicker himself.
"Well, you called her so, Sir. Then, yes, if you mean your Cinderella who's just sleeping in your passenger seat-"
"Yes, I'm talking about my Cinderel- oh, no, Winston, cut it out! Yes, sure I mean her. Now stop being cheeky and give me more information about that bloody flight."
"I've tried to convince Hillier that I could use some mediterranean sun to intensify my tan. But no chance. He said you should be accompanied by your usual partner."
"She'd be enormously happy." Lynley sighed. "Now, come to the point. The flight?"
Nkata briefed him a bit more and later sent a text with the rest of the details and their flight numbers.
Lynley drove around London to get directly to the airport. Unfortunately Hillier had wanted them to fly this evening and the booked flight was too soon to stop over at their homes to shower or collect a few more, that is to say a few fresh clothes, clothes who would be more suitable for mediterranean warmth. But their little suitcases packed for three rainy nights in the middle of England had to be enough. The Hotel in Rome will have to clean their stuff once they get there and hopefully they would have some spare time to go shopping on their day of arrival.
Barbara woke to the sound of a full fire brigade howling past them.
"Oooh... Mmmm... Where are we, Sir?" she sleepily asked.
Lynley shot a side glance at her and thought that her cute sleepy appearance soon will turn into anger when he would have told her where they were heading.
"Morning, Havers." he tried to joke.
She snorted disparagingly. It was dark outside and they had just passed a sign saying Heathrow. She knew that this was not the way to her home.
"Sir?" she asked, her voice dripping with premonition.
Hesitantly Lynley started to tell her of the call from Nkata and that there was an old case to be handled again.
"You know of that case. This... when I ... errm... had been in Italy..."
"You mean, that case where you behaved like a bloody idiot and nearly... fucked up the whole affair?" Barbara knew very well of that case.
"Exactly this." Lynley sighed. This would not be going easy. "Hillier said something about a loose end in the files that needed to be cleared out in Rome and he ordered me there."
"And I am allowed to drive your precious car back home from the airport?" Havers looked quite amazed. "I can't believe the honour..."
"No." This was absolutely not easy. Lynley deeply inhaled. "Hillier ordered you too."
"To Rome?" Her voice was icy cold now and Lynley only dared to nod before she exploded.
They parked the car, checked in and were the last who entered the plane. She had not said a word after she finished her explosion how daft and dorky all this was and she even did not let him help her on with her coat or let him carry her suitcase though it was not very easy to handle all her stuff and the cigarette she had lit in the instant she got out of the car.
"Don't wake me 'til Frankfurt." she grunted and turned her head away but angry like she was she knew she would not be going to sleep the whole flight. As if he was responsible. Well, anyway...
This trip will be hell. he thought while he sipped at his water. I have to be very careful with that little volcano during our stay in Rome. Then he closed his eyes and leaned back. He did not find sleep either.
In Frankfurt they had a stop over. The money of his Lordship made it possible to spend the two hours in the first class airport lounge. Havers usually would have left a comment on that but she was too fuming and admittedly too tired and angry about the fact that she was not allowed to smoke there. The nearest smoking area would be somewhere on the other side of this building, out on the balcony without a canopy. It was raining cats and dogs. This was definitely not lightening up her mood. She decided to take the well needed shower and then opened the laptop she had with her and which was only supposed to be worked with. Fortunately it has a browser and fortunately the lounge provided free WiFi.
She gave a damn about that thing being for working purpose only, ignored Lynley's raised eyebrow and continued to read. Lately she had discovered an internet community where people wrote stories about TV shows or books or films. They created new scenes, filled in gaps or what you did not see on screen or finished stories that were cut leaving the audience in the lurch.
Unleash your imagination, the page said, and unleashed fantasies were what she liked to read from time to time. There were case fics, philosophical stories, dramas and so on and some of the stories she had read were highly erotic, something she especially liked to read in the late night hours when she was alone at home. And her own imagination sometimes had replaced some figures with her own and one certain man she knew, especially those stories about William 'Liam' MacKenzie, an unbelievably rich inspector, policing for interest and fun, and Therese Gibson, his female working class sidekick, the whole thing being a TV show on AAB. The two protagonists had gone through many years together, always close, always close to being closer but never taking that last step. Sometimes she thought they must have peeped into their lifes and transformed it onto screen. Barbara looked up at her DI, then she shook her head.
No, too stiff for MacKenzie.
Unfortunately the AAB had cancelled the series and left the frustrated audience to their own imaginations on this platform where the DI and his DS mostly got romantically involved. To her special delight the community around this story was very lively and three or four authors provided her nearly daily with a new story or a new chapter.
She opened that site and continued with the story that had distracted her last night. The author had posted a new chapter of a bundle of independent stories named 'Get together, for heaven's sake - short stories with just one destination'.
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