First thing's first – thank you so much for your lovely comments! And secondly – how brilliant was it to watch our boys win Best Partnership at the weekend?! Yay for Stendan! :)
Hope you enjoy chapter four – please leave a review
x
They left Mrs Boyle, the dead man's frail looking widow, a good while later.
This was the worst part of the job for Ste. When he was focused, a body and a bit of blood didn't faze him. But sitting in someone's house and telling them their loved one had been killed – that he found soul destroying.
The woman he and Nancy had been instructed to talk to today was in her sixties. She should have been looking forward to retirement with her husband, continuing to grow old together until a peaceful death came, warm in their beds.
Instead she had to listen to two strangers, telling her that he was gone.
"What time are you coming back to collect her?" Ste asked as they drove away in Nancy's car. She would be returning later to accompany the woman to view her husband's body and confirm that it was indeed the man they thought it was.
Nancy looked about as sombre as he felt. "After lunch. Not that the poor woman will be able to eat anything. I hope that daughter of hers gets to her soon. She can't go and see his body alone."
Ste nodded, because what else was there to say to that?
He let her lead the way when they arrived back in MIT. The boss was nowhere to be seen, and neither was DI Walker.
DS Brady, however, was still sitting in the same spot he'd been in when they'd left.
"Are you kidding me?" Nancy called out, arms folded as she made her way over to stand in front of him.
"I don't know, shorty, am I?"
"Have you actually even moved since you got here?" she demanded.
Brendan lifted a brow and pointed behind him. "About half an hour ago I got up for another coffee," he replied with a smirk.
Ste watched as Nancy marched over to her desk in a huff. On the one hand, he sympathised with her wholeheartedly. The man was the laziest detective he'd ever come across.
On the other hand...
Brendan's eyes were fixed on him, and he felt his insides turn to jelly. It took him far longer than intended to look away.
When he finally did so, Ste walked over to lend a hand to his fellow DC. But before they could do anything else, the Irishman spoke again.
"Jeffrey Humes."
Ste's head snapped up at the same moment that Nancy squeaked out, "What...?"
Brendan still wasn't moving; hadn't even glanced in their direction.
"While ye two ladies were busy drinking tea and comforting the wife, I went out and knocked on a few doors," he added.
Whatever Ste had been feeling before the man's revelation had now withered, and been replaced once again by irritation at his belittling statement.
Neither he or Nancy responded, though, so Brendan continued in casual tones. "Seems Peter Boyle had at least one clear enemy."
There was silence between the three people in the room until eventually Nancy moved to stand in front of the Sergeant.
"Jeffrey..." she repeated slowly.
"Humes," he finished with certainty.
"Right. So you mean to tell me you've actually been out of this building, done some real work, and come up with a name for us?"
An outsider would have made the fair assumption that Nancy was the superior officer here, addressing one of her officers.
Any normal Detective Sergeant would surely go mad at one of their Constables talking to them like this.
But, as Ste was already growing privy to, Brendan Brady was far from normal.
As it was, the guy barely blinked at Nancy's sarcastic mini-rant.
"Yes, yes and yes again, Hayton," he replied, drumming his fingers against his desk as though thoroughly bored by her implications.
"So then why are you sitting here, still looking like you belong in the morgue yourself while doing absolutely nothing?"
Ste was starting to feel like a spare part amidst all their banter. He was pretty sure this conversation could go on for hours.
"Keep ye hair on, woman! Uniform went to bring the guy in for questioning about...oh, half an hour ago. Should be here any minute."
At this point Ste thought it relevant for him to speak up. "Isn't that our job?" he asked, gesturing towards Nancy and himself.
Brendan's mouth twitched into a half-smile as he regarded Ste with interest.
"I was wondering when ye were going to join us, Steven," he replied, sounding amused. "As I said, ye were otherwise engaged, and time waits for no man."
"Apparently it waits for you though," Ste muttered under his breath at Brendan's immobile state.
"What was that?"
He decided it was probably wise not to repeat himself. The Irishman's voice was sharp - and Nancy may not have cared either way, but Ste did. A list was beginning to form of the various things Brendan Brady made him feel, and one of them was 'scared'.
"Nothing...I was just wondering who's going to interview this guy," he said instead.
"Well, seeing as finding this Jeffrey was all down to Brendan's fine skills, why don't we let him do it."
DI Walker had crept in behind them without detection. Ste turned to look at him now, and didn't like the expression he saw on the man's face.
It was plain to see that the words of praise he'd just given to the Sergeant were in complete contrast to whatever was going through his mind.
There was something about the Inspector that put Ste on edge, and he knew Brendan felt the same way because he'd had a glimpse of that the day before at the scene of the murder.
"Well I'm honoured, Walker, truly I am. I suppose I'd best go and see if Humes has arrived yet, then," Brendan announced without looking at the man. "Where's our esteemed leader?"
"He's here," replied DCI Osborne right on cue. "Ah, I see you're up and about, Brady. Good."
Ste looked over at their boss and considered that these people were really going to have to stop popping up out of nowhere, otherwise one of these days he was going to have a heart attack.
"Have been for a while, actually, boss," Brendan assured him with a satisfied grin.
"Yes, I've just seen uniformed officers downstairs signing in somebody by the name of Jeffrey Humes on your say so. Just wanted to see you in action with my own eyes first. Off you go then, Sergeant - you can fill me in later."
He did as instructed, and the DCI turned to address Ste next.
"DC Hay, I'd like you to accompany DC Hayton again when she goes back to collect Mrs Boyle and her daughter. I'd prefer it if there were two of you on hand when the poor souls have to view the body."
Ste just gaped at him, his mind replaying the look on the poor woman's face that morning.
"You alright there, son?" the older man looked concerned. "You've dealt with dead bodies before, yes?"
He nodded quickly at that. It would have been a bit late to freak out over the body now, even if that had been the case. When he didn't offer a reason for his subdued state, Osborne seemed to click on to what the real issue was.
"It's tough going, telling someone their loved one's dead, isn't it," the older man pondered thoughtfully. "I was a young police officer once too you know. I hated that part of the job."
"How did you get past it?" Ste found himself asking, now hanging onto every word.
"I didn't. Not fully. Still hate it; but it has to be done. Eventually you just learn how to look these poor people in the eye, say what has to be said and then switch off from it when you get home at the end of the day."
DI Walker had sloped off to his desk, but Nancy had been listening in and now moved to put a reassuring hand on Ste's shoulder.
"It gets easier," she promised, giving him an understanding smile. He managed to smile back at her, and the two of them then left to set off back to the widow's house.
He told himself to shut off all emotion and to just get on with the job. After all, if he couldn't do that, then what was the point in being here?
~ Exposure ~ Exposure ~ Exposure ~
He was just settling down with a takeaway when he heard a knock at the door. He sighed in annoyance. Justin was at his girlfriend's for the night, so he was alone in the flat. He'd been looking forward to a peaceful evening, but that plan had clearly gone down the drain now.
The knocking became more persistent, and Ste slowly rose to his feet and trudged over to the door.
When he opened it he came face to face with DS Brendan Brady. And the man didn't look surprised to see him, so clearly he'd been seeking Ste out specifically.
"How...how did you find out where I live?" he stuttered, completely stunned amongst other thoughts. He really hoped the Irishman hadn't snooped at his personal file to find his address. He didn't fancy adding 'stalker' to the many words that came to mind when he thought of Brendan.
"Hayton mentioned that ye flatmate just so happens to go by the name of Justin Burton," he replied, as if that explained why he'd turned up at a new colleague's house at half eleven at night, completely out of the blue.
"Right..." Ste vaguely recalled chatting with Nancy on the way back from the morgue a few hours before – an obvious tactic to take his mind off of what they'd just had to do. She'd asked about his life and he'd told her about moving in with his friend; and it transpired that she had met Justin at college a few years before. Apparently they were still on good terms, although they didn't actually socialise together.
It was fairly likely that Brendan knew him too, though.
"You're here to see Justin then, yeah?" Ste assumed out loud. He didn't know why his heart dropped so much at the possibility of it.
The man leaned against the door frame and shook his head, bemused. "Nope. Came to see ye."
"Why would you do that?"
Brendan leaned in closer to him. Ste felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
"Like I said, I was talking to Hayton earlier. She was telling me ye were struggling with all that stuff with the widow today. Thought I'd come and see if ye were okay."
The gesture seemed so uncharacteristic that Ste almost forgot to be angry at Nancy's blatant blabber-mouthing.
"Er, thanks. I'm fine though, really."
"Now don't start that again, Steven," the other man eyed him sternly, in direct contrast to the softness in his voice. "Ye gonna let me come in or not?"
After half a minute's internal debating, he stepped aside to allow Brendan access, and shut the door behind him.
"I was just gonna have a beer," he managed on an increasingly dry throat. "Would you like one?"
"Sure."
Ste turned and headed for the kitchen. By the time he returned, handed him the bottle and took a sip of his own, his hands were shaking with nerves. Brendan apparently mistook this as a sign of distress from the day's events.
"Hey," he said, moving closer to him. "It's okay."
It was until you showed up and got me all flustered, Ste thought, swallowing awkwardly. He tried to distract himself by taking a swig of his drink, but this only made the trembling more prominent.
"Calm down, Steven," Brendan told him gently. "The day's over with now."
Ste was still trying to keep up with the ever-changing personalities of this man. Despite only having known him for two days, he felt certain that the Sergeant was rarely ever sympathetic to anyone.
Only, this instance contradicted that statement quite heavily.
"It's...it's not that," he finally answered, unable to bring himself to edge away from Brendan now that he could practically feel his breath on his face.
"Then what is it?"
What it was, was that Ste wanted this man. He wanted him more than he'd ever desired anything or anyone in his life; and he was only just admitting it to himself after 48 hours of mixed emotions.
And he didn't have the first clue why.
