Ray was sitting in the Chang's living room, a cup of tea balanced precariously on his knee, looking at the pictures of the mother's missing son. "That's my Bao," she said tearfully, "my jewel."
"He's a handsome young man," Ray stated, politely, "you must be very proud."
"Oh, proud, very, very proud. He has never had to do anything to make me proud. He just is. He is a good boy. A mother knows." Her spoke carefully, her accented voice clear, although tears continued to snake down her face.
"When did you last hear from him?"
"Like I tell your detectives already, three days. I know something is wrong when he didn't come home. He would have called me if he stay with friends. But your detectives, so rude. They tell me that I'm being a … what is it the word, a 'nag', that boys his age don't tell their mothers where they go. I say to them, maybe you treat your mother with disrespect, my Bao never would. Then they are angry, and I don't hear from anyone, even though I keep phoning, until you come."
"Well, Mrs Chang, I'm really sorry, I'd hate it if someone talked to my Ma like that. When I get back to the station I'll get you a form so you can make a complaint against the detectives. But, in the meantime, tell me everything you can remember, everything that might be relevant. The last time you saw your son, what was he wearing?"
"He was wearing his grey suit and his best shoes. Like here..." She pointed to one of the photos. The young man smiled out at them, in a powder blue grey suit.
"Snazzy... was he going anywhere nice?"
"He goes to see his girlfriend I think."
"And who's she?"
"I don't know. He never told me her name. But it is obvious he loves her, a boy doesn't sing to the mirror unless he is in love. And he dances. With empty arms. And then I see the picture in his wallet."
Ray smiled, reminiscing. She had a point a point about the singing. "Is there any reason he wouldn't tell you who she was?"
"Her family did not approve, I heard him talking to his friends." She smiled, and wiped her eyes. "They think I don't understand because my husband and I talk Chinese together. Bao knows better, but he forgets when his friends come."
Mothers, Ray thought, wrily. They were all the same... their kids thought they didn't know what was going on, but they had their ways and means. He rapped his pen on his note pad, thinking.
"Do you know the friend's name?"
"No, a boy from college."
"So, do you know why the girl's family didn't approve?"
"They wanted her to marry a white boy, a rich boy."
Ray froze for a moment, caught in the beginning of a hunch. "Mrs Chang," he said, "you said that you saw your son's girlfriend in a photograph. Would you recognise her again?"
"Yes," she nodded. "I think so. She a very pretty girl."
Ray rummaged through his notes, and found that he still had a photocopy of Sally Cooper's graduation photo.
"Is this her?"
Mrs Chang put on her glasses, and carefully took the photo in her hand. Handing it back she nodded. "Yes," she affirmed. "This is her."
"Thank you Mrs Chang," Ray said, "you've been a great help."
…
Welsh received the news with mixed feelings. What had seemed like a potential kidnapping case now appeared to be a simple elopement by a young couple caught up in their first real romance. While that was good news it didn't go down as well as he'd expected with Mr Cooper. The man responded firstly by accusing everyone in the department of idiocy, then finally declared "my Sally would never have a relationship with someone like that."
"Like what, Mr Cooper?" Welsh was dangerously quiet.
"Oh, you bleeding hearts," he sneered, "I suppose you think I'm being racist. Well, maybe I am, but the fact is that different is different. She was perfectly happy with Harry, she's known him since they were both children, and our families have known each other forever. They were getting married. Why would she run off with a ..." his lips curled in a sneer, "with a Chinese?"
Welsh could think of a thousand reasons why a young woman would want to run away from this particular family, but he kept them to himself.
"Perhaps you didn't know your daughter's feelings as well as you thought?"
"I know my daughter." Cooper glared bullishly at the Lieutenant. "If she went with that boy then she's being hoodwinked. He's after her for her money, that's what it is. I want him found, and arrested."
"We can't arrest a Asian man for falling in love with a Caucasian woman," Welsh said tersely.
Cooper thumped his fist on Welsh's desk. "You can find something on him," he snarled.
"Mr Cooper," Welsh smiled, and spoke smoothly. "You may have good friends in public office, but just let me say this... if you try to push me or this station around I will have you arrested in a heart beat."
Cooper leaned forward and opened his mouth to retort, then seeing the steel in the Lieutenant's eyes changed his mind. "Right then," he said. "So that's the way it is."
The door slammed behind him, rattling the room.
Welsh scowled. "Yeah," he said, "that's the way it is."
…
Ray was troubled. "I don't know sir, I don't think we should stop looking for these kids... they may be together, but we can't know that until we've checked everything."
Welsh rubbed his hands together, and nodded. "Yeah, you're right," he admitted, "but let's just say, I'm hoping we'll find them at Vegas honeymooning at the chapel of love."
Ray smiled. "That would annoy the hell out of the father, wouldn't it?"
Welsh laughed. "Yeah, yeah it would. But even so, leave no stone unturned."
"Yes sir."
"How's your friend?"
If Welsh had asked this yesterday then Ray would have bitten his head off. As it was the question caught him off guard. He blinked, and looked at his feet.
"If there's anything I can do," Welsh said. "I know he's not exactly employed by us, but still... he's one of the team."
"Thank you sir." Ray turned his back, shuffling papers, and Welsh understood the symbolic flight gesture.
"Okay," he raised his voice, and called around the room. "We still have to try and find these love birds, so nobody slack off. Understood?"
Ray let out a shaky breath, and made himself look busy. When he next looked up Welsh was in his office. Thank God, he thought, and closed his eyes.
This thing with Benny, this case... Mrs Chang and her slow tears...
Ray was having a very bad day.
…
Sally emerges from a grey space between sleep and despair, and hears tapping in the pipes. She blinks. It sounds familiar. She shuffles on her bottom to the radiator, and listens. There it is again...
"Oh!" her mouth flies open. She utters the first words she has done in days. "Bao," she calls, then bites her tongue. She taps back, the steps of their dancing. She remembers them floating across the ballroom floor, his arm on her back, feet nimbling to the music. That had been their first dance, their first lover's code.
He taps again, and she leans her head against the radiator, realising who the man had been whom she had heard cry out. She wishes she knew Morse code.
She taps the dance instead, a three four beat. She wants to be able to tell him that she loves him.
Bao hears the taps, and knows.
…
Early afternoon, and the endless shift was over. Ray was slouched on the sofa, a wet towel over his head. All day he had been fighting a caffeine headache and it seemed to be winning. He was busy trying not to think when the phone rang. He fumbled his hand out for it blindly.
"Yeah," he groaned. "Who is this?"
"Ray Vecchio?"
"Speaking."
"Next of kin for Benton Fraser?"
"Yes!" he jerked upright, heart racing, headache forgotten. The hospital had told him that he couldn't see Fraser for at least three days.
"What relation are you to the patient?"
"I'm his friend, goddamit, what's going on?"
The woman's voice on the other side of the phone took on a chilly tone.
"Mr Fraser's doctor feels that it would be beneficial to see you, if you have the time."
"Yes, yes... what, he wants to see me now? I'll be right there. Is Benny alright?"
Ray's concern radiated down the phone, and the nurse thawed a little.
"There seems to be some improvement, yes..."
"Oh, God, thank God. Tell the doctor I'll be right there."
…
His mouth was dry. He tried to swallow. A strange little noise... his throat felt full of sand.
Thirsty. That was the word for it. Not just thirst, a rage for water.
Where was he?
He managed to open his eyes, and at first saw nothing but white. Every blink scraped. "Ah... ah... aouwh," he said. He hurt. With a lurch he sat up.
The white was off white. The Inuit had a word for it. Dirty. He was in a cell. Was he under arrest?
He looked at his wrists. Saw the bruises, felt their match on his ankles.
He had been restrained.
A bed. Loose straps.
Ah.
He remembers.
Sitting on the bed in the white room he stares at the wall.
"Oh..." His breath is too loud. "Oh, he whispers. "Oh dear."
Shame rushes him, swallows him whole. He leans forward, like a man at church, shaking at his pew, and covers his face. Oh God, what did I do?
And he remembers everything. Without mercy. Every last damned thing.
...
Doctor Peterson was an elderly man with a cut glass English accent, and in his anxious state Ray found it hard, at first to understand him. He tried to convince himself that it was the accent that was throwing him.
It was not the accent.
"I'm sorry," the doctor paused, and smiled gently. "You're probably finding it hard to take this in."
Ray had bitten the inside of his cheek so hard that it bled. "Yeah... yeah, you could say that," he muttered.
"Do you need a moment?"
"Could I... could I have a coffee?" he asked, knowing as he did so that he was putting off hearing the truth, and that it would just make the headache even more murderous.
"Certainly." Doctor Peterson leaned towards the door, and called through. "Hannah, would you be so good as to get two coffees, please? Thank you."
The coffees arrived, and Ray glanced at Hannah, the nurse he had offended on the telephone earlier. She was heavy set, with swollen ankles. She looked tired. "Thank you kindly," Ray heard himself say, and looked wretchedly at his hands.
The doctor's voice floated back into his awareness, and the second time he knew that he was hearing it right.
"Your friend has suffered an acute psychotic break. It is early days, but his symptoms are congruent with a diagnoses of schizophrenia. There is the possibility of an affective disorder, but that is less than clear at this juncture."
"Affective disorder?"
"Psychotic depression, or perhaps bipolar disorder."
Ray clasped his hands around the coffee to stop them from shaking.
"Oh." He gulped. The silence stretched out until he could have plucked it like a harp. This wasn't going away. "So... so what does that mean?"
"Well, it means that your friend's life is going to change considerably. I see from his notes that he is in law enforcement. He will probably be invalided out, receive a disability pension. If it is any comfort I understand the Canadians are very generous to their civil servants. He won't be destitute."
Ray took a gulp of bitter coffee, and put the mug back down, still shaking. "Yes," he repeated, "but what does that mean?" His voice was a little too strident, and he paused, taking it down a notch. "I mean... will someone need to look after him?"
"With proper medication there is a good chance of his managing his condition. There is, however, no cure for schizophrenia."
"Oh hell," Ray twisted in his seat, wishing he could just run away. "Oh hell, Benny..."
The doctor waited till the patient's friend had composed himself, then cleared his throat. "There is some room for hope though."
"Yeah?"
"He has made a rapid improvement in a very short space of time. It could be a response to the medication, and if so then it would indicate that he has a... a reasonable chance of a normal life afterwards."
"But he'll not be a Mounty."
"It would seem unlikely."
"You know, you talk like him?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're both very polite. And he never just says 'yes' or 'no' either. It's always, 'not to the best of my knowledge Ray,' or 'it would seem unlikely.'" Ray looked the doctor straight in the eyes. It was important for him that this man know what Fraser was like. That he wasn't just some cop who'd got out of bed one Monday morning and cracked up. "What you saw when he came in, that wasn't him. You've been good to him, I know that, and I'm grateful, but I just want to say, you don't know him." Ray blinked, his eyes suddenly wet. "He's the best friend I ever had," he said quietly. "I just wanted you to know."
..
"Hello Benny."
"Hello Ray."
"How you doing, buddy?"
Fraser looked away.
"Listen, it will be okay... I've been talking to the doc. He says you're doing great, and you'll feel better not being in this dump anyway, so you're getting sprung." Ray swallowed. He'd argued hard for Fraser to be released early, and only now was he beginning to wonder if the doctor's faith in him was misplaced. "You and Dief come and stay with me for a while, okay? You won't miss that apartment of yours, and when Ma gets back there'll be plenty to eat."
"That won't be necessary Ray."
"Sure it's necessary. You don't want to stay in here with all the crazy people, do you?" Ouch, Ray thought, wincing at his tactlessness.
Fraser pulled a face, and tried to look at his friend. He couldn't hold his gaze. It hurt.
"Ray... I'm sorry."
"It's okay, we all have bad days."
"Don't... please don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't humour me."
"Awh Benny," Ray held his friend's hands, grasped hard when Fraser tried to pull away. He wasn't about to let him go. "I'm sorry too. But please? You don't have to be here. You have a home to come to."
Fraser put his head on the table to hide his tears.