Author's 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 write a Private Message if I did something terribly wrong so I can fix it. Thanks!

Please read and review! More thanks!

Author's note and summary: Sometimes it's in your own hand to win or lose a bet. And sometimes it even could be better to lose because that way you can win so much more.

Enjoy...

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Easter Bunny

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"I bet it's been O'Connor!" she said. "And Lydia is doing all that only out of sheer love to him. Which, by the way, is no real crime."

"That she loves him?" he asked with amusement in his voice and tossed the notes onto his desk. He looked into a pair of glaring eyes.

"No, Sir. Driving the car to Oxford or turning on the lights in his flat is no crime." she grumbled. Then, picking up the spread files from her DI's desk, DS Barbara Havers muttered under her breath that loving someone was no crime either. "Even if she loves a murderer."

"If he's done it." DI Thomas Lynley objected. "Every sign, every trace, every evidence leads to her. We can't ignore that. We can't follow your gut feeling, Barbara. We have to keep to the facts."

Barbara sighed. Of course he was right. Still the feeling she had would not leave her and it even had deepened every time she had talked to that woman. Somehow she saw parts of herself, having a crush on her boss, which was not healthy at all for their working partnership and her personal sanity, made her doing things she would not do for other people. Fortunately they were both on the right side of the law.

"And there still is that timeframe in which everything could have happened. About 45 minutes in which he could have left that cinema and- oh, that's so clichéd, Sir, it hurts." It earned her a snickering wink from Lynley. "45 minutes to drive to the garden, exchange the liquids, prepare the cookies, let the dog out, leave her gin bottle he got earl- Sir, he could have done that! Don't roll your eyes at me! And there was enough time to also leave the hairs and get back to his seat to see Vin Diesel crashing these cars."

"There is no single evidence for him doing that! And the gin bottle has her fingerprints."

"What about the gloves?"

Lynley shook his head. Barbara snorted. "And still. I can't believe she's done it."

"We should keep to-"

"...the facts, I know."

For a while they kept quiet and sipped at their coffee. This break from the interview had been much needed. Lydia Banks still denied she had done anything of what the evidence was clearly saying but her alibi was as soft as a sponge.

"I still bet she hasn't done it." Barbara said getting up and ready to return to the interview room.

"If you're right, Barbara, then I do whatever you want me to." Lynley offered.

"Even buying us tickets for the Gunners against the Tigers?" At first Barbara had something totally inappropriate flashing through her mind so she was glad she already had turned towards the door. This way he could not see her blushing face.

"Sure." Seeing a sweet blush creeping across her nape Lynley had to smile. He deeply wondered what else could have crossed her mind. He knew he would even do that, whatever it was.

"It's football, Sir..."

"I know that, Havers."

"And I said us, Sir. It includes accompanying me."

"Even that." With a self-confident grin he held the door open to his Sergeant. They had to return downstairs. "But when you lose-"

"If!"

"When you lose you will come with me to Howenstow and attend the Autumn Garden Party."

Barbara groaned. He had been asking her not for the first time. She would not want to come but she was very sure she would not lose the bet. "Then we have a deal. Just let me talk to her alone first."

She did so. Of course it was recorded and Lynley watched them from the observing room but Barbara was able to tickle a few personal facts out of the small, almost broken woman so they had the hint of another lead for the Sergeant's theory. Still not completely convinced DI Lynley agreed on following it anyway.

It was the right thing to do. They found a witness who was confirming Lydia's weak alibi and a few traces that indicated Barbara's gut feeling could be right. It was enough to call O'Connor in the next day.

They started the interview together, watched by DC Nkata behind the one way mirror, and had agreed that Barbara would leave the room at Lynley's sign. So when he shoved the files to her side she started to feign reading them intensely, then whisper something into his ear as if she had found something else.

"I'll get me a coffee, Sir." she said loudly. "You want some?"

Never moving his eyes from the suspect Lynley shook his head. That little play had the wanted effect on O'Connor. He had started to become nervous. In the end Lynley managed to bring him to say something contradictory and finally to confess that he had not been to the cinema at all. It was a start.

"I've met another woman, Inspector. What do you suppose Lydia would think of that? She had killed a friend of mine! Do you really think under those circumstances I'd confess I've met someone else? She's in love with me and obviously madly so. I don't know what she would do to me if she'd find out?"

"Or to that other woman."

The man snorted. "Yah..."

"You don't mind that we check that? What's her name?"

"Angela." Lynley only raised an eyebrow before O'Connor added that he did not know her surename. "Langdon, Langley, something like that. I've only screwed her, we hadn't had much of a conversation. And before you ask, she's probably back home in New Zealand, I guess."

"Well, that's inconvenient, isn't it? Seeing that she's your alibi."

"Or convenient. She was just a bed bunny. Started to be clingy."

Lynley's eyes narrowed. That man on the other side of the table really did everything to be unappealing. His silence though made O'Connor go on talking about women.

"Lydia was quite a nice fuckable girl too. And clingy, you bet. But very convenient, being my secretary. Ah, don't look at me like this, Sir. You do want to shag your little Sergeant against the wall of your office sometimes, don't you?"

Cursing himself for actually having similar thoughts Lynley felt that his face turned slightly red. He overplayed it with anger. "Don't talk like that about Sergeant Havers, man! She's a true loyal friend and partner to me. And not everybody is as randy as you are. Let's get back to your things, O'Connor. Where had you met Angela?"

"In a little hut in the woods near Oxford. You should check that. I can give you the way there. On that occasion you could try to seduce the sergeant. It's quite romantic."

"Listen!" Lynley was short before shouting at O'Connor. This man really got on his nerves. And he had hit a soft spot. One look into the eyes of his opponent and Tommy knew that he was not able to lie to that psychopath. "We are not talking about what I should do with my Sergeant. Just for the record: she's a woman I respect very much-"

"And love." O'Connor interjected with a juicy grin.

Involuntarily Lynley had almost invisibly nodded but was sure nobody had seen it. His hesitation though showed everybody that he was searching for the right words. The pause it had caused stretched one second too much. He should not let the suspect take over the lead of the conversation.

The grin on O'Connor's face only turned broader.

"I'll get me a coffee." Barbara muttered when she suddenly left the observation room. She could not stand watching these two talk about her. Or what Lynley never would do to her. When the door fell into its lock Nkata was the only person who witnessed what followed in the interrogation room.

"Just for the record." O'Connor said closing the distance to the microfone. "DI Lynley has nodded."

"I haven't." Lynley hit the button that shut down the recorder. Instinctively Nkata hit the button that would record the conversation from the other room. Later he would make sure to delete whatever undeliberated things the DI would say in his anger but if there was any sign of confession from their suspect they needed it on tape.

A harsh argument followed. Lynley more than once confessed that he felt something for Barbara. At some point he even confessed that he loved her but he would not do any of the naughty things O'Connor suggested. Fortunately the emotional dispute made the criminal feel so safe that he eventually stumbled over his own story. It was enough to keep him at the station.

Tommy gave him a triumphant grin.

"John Anthony O'Connor, I arrest you for the strong suspicion of murdering Mary Jones. You don't have to say anything..."

Nkata had heard enough. He rubbed his forehead. This would become a long night in which he would have to try and manipulate the recordings so much that nobody would be able to hear what had slipped the DI's lips. He was thinking about constant static noise, crackling noise interferences and maybe even deletion of some parts. He was so deep in thoughts about how hard it would become to take the responsibility for not having switched off his mobile and accidentally brushing the on/off button that he jumped when suddenly the door swung open.

"Did you get that?" Lynley snarled. He still was agitated. Nkata only nodded. "Where is she?"

"Gone for a coffee, Sir." the DC croaked.

"How much did she hear?" Lynley's voice had turned distinctively softer.

"That you respect her, Sir." Lynley nodded, gave him a rather long and quizzical look but then turned to leave without saying anything else. Nkata deeply inhaled. "Sir?"

"What else?"

"With all due respect, Sir." Winston ignored the glare and the raised eyebrow that told him to mind his next words. "You should tell her that you're in love with her."

"Pardon?" Carefully closing the door behind him Lynley stepped into the dimly lit room.

"Sir, I know it's none of my business, but you've been dancing around each other constantly for years. I think you should tell her the truth."

"As you correctly discovered, Constable, it's none of your business what I tell her and what not. Now will you please take care of that recording you hopefully have started. Keep an eye on it, it's the only recording. Is that understood?"

"Very clearly so, Sir." Nkata swallowed down any other reply he had wanted to give his boss. In the end they were his superiours and it really was none of his business. It was a pity anyway.

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