SIX – Deus Ex Machina

Generally, Grace is content, but there are times when she finds she's extremely happy. Usually when she's speaking to Boyd on the telephone, or reading one of the surprisingly long and rambling emails that always seem to be time-stamped well after midnight and come with the suspicious suggestion of whiskey fumes. She's happy that he's happy, and he seems to be going from exuberant strength to strength. She laughs almost until she cries at his elaborate but whimsical tales of trying to instil some kind of discipline into the fat, wriggling ball of black fluff he steadfastly insists will one day grow into Man's Best Friend.

"I'm going to have to go," he says to her one afternoon. "Finlay's eating the cooker."

"It's a puppy, Boyd. It can't possibly be eating the cooker."

"You don't know Finlay. Oh, for… I have to go."

It amuses Grace no end, the visions she has of Boyd – impatient, irascible, mercurial Boyd – dealing with the mess and chaos that only a young puppy can bring. She finds herself relaying the tales to several of their erstwhile colleagues, none of whom seem to find them anywhere near as funny and enchanting as she does. It dawns on her eventually that with the possible exception of Frankie, none of their erstwhile colleagues have ever found Boyd himself as funny and enchanting as she does, either. She feels their interest in where he is and what he's up to steadily waning as they move ever-onwards with their own lives and careers and eventually she starts to actually feel a little embarrassed mentioning his name.

Frankie notices. Frankie notices and Frankie pragmatically says, "Just go down there and see him, Grace. It can't be more than an hour's drive. And if he invites you to stay for breakfast, so much the bloody better."

But it's just not that simple, and sometimes Grace doesn't think she even remembers why.

The final draft of her book remains unfinished. It's a change of direction for her, not the sort of thing she usually writes, but her publisher remains convinced that it will be a best seller, feeding the public's seemingly insatiable demand for insights into crime and the solving of crime. For Grace, though, the manuscript is an intensely personal thing, a documentation of almost a decade spent with some of the most fascinating and cheerfully maladjusted people she's ever known. She's not at all sure that the average reader of such things is altogether prepared for some of the wilder of Boyd's eccentricities or the more gruesome of Frankie's pranks on her unsuspecting colleagues.

How to explain the dark hilarity of the lab where the need for dignity and respect always co-existed with the equally powerful need to release the emotions stirred up by painful and exhausting cases that left all of them drained and cynical? How to explain to faceless strangers why the sheer belligerent hyperactivity of Chair Throwing Day went down in departmental legend as one of Boyd's finest hours? How to begin to explain a freak phenomenon, a fluke of time, circumstance and personality?

Grace misses those days. Misses the comradeship, the certainty, the knowledge that whatever happened, no matter how many sharp words were exchanged, the next morning she wouldn't be able to stop herself smiling as Boyd cannonballed his way through the basement, shouting and grinning and cajoling as necessary. She misses all of it and all of them, but it is Boyd's long shadow that keeps her from moving on as all the others have.

-oOo-

There's nothing remarkable about the Tuesday she returns home after a very ordinary trip to the shops and hears her house phone ringing and ringing endlessly as she struggles to juggle keys and carrier bags and get the front door open. When she finally picks up with a breathless hello, it's Frankie's voice that demands, "Grace? Where on earth have you been? Your mobile's switched off."

"I forgot to charge it," Grace says, bewildered by the intensity of the other woman's voice. "Frankie? What's the matter?"

"Boyd," Frankie says, and for a moment it seems as if she thinks just the name should explain everything. "He's in the Royal Sussex in Brighton."

Inevitably, Grace feels her heart sink. "What's happened?"

"Oh, he's pretty much all right, from what I can gather – a few cuts and bruises. Got side-swiped by an oncoming car on one of those Godforsaken country lanes. Hit and run. The police are dealing with it. Anyway, they're keeping him in overnight for observation – concussion."

Relaxing slightly, Grace asks, "They called you?"

"No, he did. Couldn't get hold of you, could he? He's going mad about that wretched bloody dog of his."

"Finlay?"

"Whatever the hell it's called. Dog got hit too, took off over the fields and disappeared. Farmer found it and took it to the local vet. Boyd wants someone to go down there and sort it all out. Actually, he wants you to go down there and sort it all out."

"Me?" Grace challenges, startled.

"Well I can't go, can I? I'm up to my elbows in some poor bugger's intestines here."

"Frankie."

"What? I'm looking for any evidence of – "

"I really don't need to know," Grace assures her. She sighs. "All right, all right. Just tell me where I'm supposed to be going..."

-oOo-

"Ah," the young vet says with the kind of twinkly-eyed smile that Grace suspects is probably responsible for a considerable amount of wistful female sighing. "Mr Boyd's dog, yes. Finlay."

"Finlay," she agrees, wondering why she suddenly feels very old and very invisible. It's got to be that smile, she decides. "Is he badly injured?"

The vet chuckles. "Good Lord, no. Absolutely bomb-proof, that dog. A few cuts and bruises – much like his owner, I gather. Lucky, the pair of them. I'll get the nurse to fetch him for you."

"Wait," Grace says quickly. "Fetch him for me?"

The young man looks faintly surprised. "Well, yes. There's absolutely no reason for us to keep him overnight. Keep an eye on him for a day or two, and if you're worried bring him back – but he should be as right as rain."

"Mr Boyd is in hospital," Grace points out. "He won't be discharged until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Oh? Well, do pass on our best wishes. Nice chap."

"So?" Grace prompts. "He can't look after Finlay while he's in hospital, can he?"

"Well, I'm afraid we can't keep him here…"

She's right to be apprehensive. Finlay the ball of black fluff is now Finlay the leggy teenager, a big, muscular, exuberant creature who seems to possess a will of iron and the inclination to do exactly as he pleases. It's not a great stretch of imagination to draw the obvious parallels between dog and owner, which amuses Grace for about the first three minutes of their association. Plainly, she can't take him back to London with her and she's not at all sure about leaving him in the car while she visits his stricken master. Glaring coldly at the dog sitting on the back seat, she says curtly, "If you chew anything at all, your dad's getting the bill."

Finlay smiles toothily at her, his tongue lolling happily, and Grace very definitely questions the wisdom of leaving him on his own in the vehicle. As she walks away she risks a glance back. Finlay is staring at her mournfully, big brown eyes on the soulful side of beseeching and she once again finds herself mentally comparing man and beast. She's seen that look – or one very like it – often enough before in the past. Usually at very close quarters in the quiet confines of the bedroom. Aware that such thoughts are both dangerous and destructive, she banishes them from her mind and goes in search of the man in question.

She finds Boyd on an open ward, battered, bruised and characteristically bad-tempered. He's very definitely not impressed with the idea of being mixed in with the hoi polloi, and though he greets her warmly, he descends rapidly into the kind of irritable grumbling she remembers far too well. Grace waits patiently for the worst to pass and then says, "So what am I expected to do now? Ten years ago you would have just discharged yourself."

"Ten years ago I was younger and fitter. Have a bloody heart, Grace, I was hit by a damned car."

"I do know that. I can't take Finlay back to London with me, Boyd, it's just not practical."

"Well, there's an obvious answer to that, isn't there…?"

-oOo-

Against all expectation – and her own better judgement – Grace falls in love with the little cottage immediately. Like many buildings in the area it's predominantly built of flint and it sits well back from the narrow lane that provides the only vehicular access, but instead of a sense of crushing isolation she feels only peace as she surveys the sweeping views from various windows. Finally, she thinks she understands. It's not an alien, unwelcoming place, it is home. There's nothing twee about it, it's simply quiet, practical and solidly dependable. She watches the way Finlay lazily curls up in his basket in the kitchen, and she feels completely serene.

It's foolish, she realises as she explores her temporary home a little more. Foolish and pointless. This is Boyd's home, not hers, despite the uncomfortable sense of familiarity generated by some of the furniture and possessions she remembers. Most of the things from his big Greenwich house went into storage while he was in prison, and she knows he's subsequently disposed of many of them, but here and there Grace spots things that take her years back in time, including, she discovers, the big leather armchair that used to grace the master bedroom and the mirror from the long hall. There's a sense of permanence about the place, a strong feeling that this is where life has brought him and this is where he's staying. Yet, there's nothing sentimental about any of it, no indication that there's anything in him that's hankering for the past.

"I think I could live here," she says to Finlay when she returns to the kitchen. Slightly embarrassed, she chuckles. "Don't you dare ever tell him I said that."

The afternoon slowly becomes the evening and she feeds both of them before retiring to the main living room. There's a television in the corner – modern, flat screen – but from the dust on the remote control it's barely used. Doesn't surprise her; Boyd never was one for watching, not when he could be out doing. It seems he reads a lot, and listens to a lot of music – his collection is extensive and eclectic – and there's a very new, very lightweight laptop on the solid oak coffee table. There's nothing anywhere that hints at any kind of restlessness or regret. It seems he really is as happy and settled as he's been leading her to believe.

Grace is glad, but it doesn't stop the tears that start to well up. She's being stupid and self-centred, she tells herself sternly as those tears start to spill. No-one else she knows deserves peace and happiness more than Peter Boyd, and the part of her that has been secretly waiting for him to admit his mistake and return to London is a selfish and unworthy part that shames her. Through the tears she looks at Finlay, lying placidly by the fireplace. "It's up to you now, Fin. You look after him, okay? He's been through so much…"

Finlay wags his tail slowly, and then suddenly more enthusiastically as he gets rapidly to his feet. It seems neither of them heard the latch on the back door being lifted.

"God's sake, Grace," Boyd's voice says from behind her, the note of indulgence quite clear. "You're on your own down here for five minutes and you're already talking to the bloody dog…"

-oOo-

He refuses to even entertain the idea of her driving back to London so late, and for once Grace is more than happy to pander to his stubbornness. She doesn't ask him what changed his mind, why he suddenly decided to discharge himself from the hospital. It doesn't matter and she doesn't care. She makes a token protest about the sleeping arrangements, but the look Boyd gives her in response is so wise and so steady that she submits without another murmur and simply precedes him up the stairs to the only bedroom. She expects it all to feel strangely surreal, expects a flash of déjà vu, but in the end it's just the most natural thing in the world to pull on the proffered oversized grey tee-shirt and settle next to him in the big, comfortable bed.

"Stay," he says simply, dropping the gentlest of kisses on her forehead.

Grace doesn't need to ask what he means. She knows. She looks at the shadows on the uneven plaster, looks at the slightly bowed ceiling. "Can I?"

Boyd snorts softly. "This was always going to be your home, too. In the end. You know that."

She explores the concept slowly and carefully and concludes that he's right. Somewhere deep in the furthest corners of her mind, the truth has always been there. "And if you hadn't needed me to come down here today…?"

"I would just have carried on patiently waiting."

"For how long?"

"For as long as it took, Grace. For as long as it took."

So warm, so solid. So familiar. Every plain, every curve, every angle so well-remembered. Grace listens to his strong, steady heartbeat and she knows what she's always known – she's exactly where she belongs. A moment or two later his voice says suspiciously, "Oh, God… you're not about to cry again, are you?"

"Yes," Grace admits, not moving her head from his chest.

"Wonderful…"

There aren't many tears in the end, but Boyd does what he's always done – he simply holds her gently and securely until the storm is over. Then they sleep.

-oOo-

"You're freezing," Grace complains bitterly far too early the next morning as jarring movement and sudden cold jerk her unpleasantly from a tranquil doze. It's no word of a lie, either – every inch of skin coming rapidly into contact with her is chilled. "What the hell have you been doing?"

"Letting the dog out. I'm afraid he doesn't have opposable thumbs."

It really is far, far too early. She groans and it's heartfelt. "Do we really have to have a dog?"

"Yes, we bloody do."

"Cold hands, Boyd," she complains. "Stay on your own side until you warm up."

Beautifully, blissfully ordinary.

Boyd ignores her, stays exactly where he is, his chest firmly against her shoulder blades, his arm curved around her waist. Grace waits, but he says nothing. All she can hear is the sound of him breathing, the barest hint of birdsong and the quiet rustling of the morning breeze in the trees outside the window. She says, "No traffic."

"You wait until rush hour. The postman and the local farmer both come down the lane within half-an hour of each other. It's absolute bedlam out there."

Grace rolls onto her back and regards him contemplatively. "I suppose there are worse places to wait for the Grim Reaper."

His reply is sardonic. "There she is, my little ray of sunshine."

"You have definitely been on your own too long."

"You said it, Grace. Give me your hand."

She raises her eyebrows at him. "You're feeling better, then."

"Like hell I am. I'm black and blue and any chance you had disappeared the moment I put one foot outside the back door. It's fucking freezing out there. Give me your bloody hand, will you?"

Bewildered, she does so, keenly aware of the sinewy strength of his fingers as he lifts her palm to his lips and kisses it gently. Reflexively, Grace closes her eyes and concentrates on the distinctive bristle of his beard, the softness of his lips. He kisses the inside of her wrist, startling erotic in a very artless sort of way. His voice has deepened a fraction. "Keep your eyes closed."

She does. She can feel the warmth of his skin, the tiny imperfections under her fingertips, the tough resistance of his cheekbone… and she understands. Grace doesn't open her eyes, doesn't try to find her own way. She lets him lead her fingers, lets him guide them slowly along the length of the deep scar. She can feel the slightly different texture of the tissue, feel how it's smoother and more inflexible than the surrounding skin. She can feel the distinct groove, the sharp notch it cuts into his eyebrow. Her pulse quickens autonomously and for a moment she isn't sure why.

Boyd says, "Relax."

The word triggers the memory of her own voice saying, "Peter? Peter, relax. Come on, you're fine. Everything's all right…"

…and for a moment she's back there, back in the moment when everything tearing him to pieces beneath the surface erupted, back in the moment when he swung his fist at her.

Her eyes snap open, and, yes, for that moment Grace is afraid. Coldly, bitterly afraid. Boyd is watching her intently, and he keeps her fingers deliberately pressed against the long, brutal scar. He knows where she is – she can see it in his dark eyes. He says quietly, "He came from behind me. Ellis. I don't think he cared where he got me or how much damage he did, just so long as people knew what he'd done. They pulled him off me, and they dragged us both off the wing with the alarms ringing and everyone screaming and shouting and banging on their cell doors. They had to sedate me before the prison doctor could take a look. I thought the bastard had blinded me."

"Spence called me," Grace says, finally letting the memories stir as they please. "We didn't know how bad it was, only that you'd been attacked by another prisoner. I sat by the phone for hours waiting to hear. I was so scared… And you still wouldn't let me visit you."

"It would've hurt us both too much, Grace. Don't you understand?"

"I do now – I didn't then."

He's silent for a long time before he says, "I didn't go in front of the parole board to come back to you. I did it just to get out of prison. I wasn't remotely ready to come back to you. Too scarred, too traumatised. Too frightened."

Ignoring the instinct to press, to analyse, to gather every scrap of information she can, Grace asks, "And now?"

"Now," Boyd says, his gaze still steady and intent, "I'm just scarred."

Wanting to believe, she asks, "Are we home, Peter?"

He kisses her palm again, just as gently. "Of course we are."

-oOo-

"I don't have any clothes."

"Personally, I see that as an advantage, not a problem."

Casting another look at the clock and inwardly groaning at just how late it's getting, Grace insists, "I need to go back to London, if not now, then certainly first thing in the morning."

"You really don't. Not until the weekend."

"Peter."

"Grace."

She does her best to glare at him, but he is so infuriatingly placid that it's frankly too difficult to maintain the requisite amount of ire. Lounging in his big leather armchair with Finlay asleep at his feet, he's just about as far removed from the volatile, highly-strung man she used to know as it's possible to get. The police officer, the grieving father, the prisoner and the traumatised licensee have all been reconciled and firmly relegated to the past. He is what he is and he is hers. Scarred, but whole. Grace says, "I'm so proud of you. Look at what you've achieved."

"A tiny cottage in the middle of bloody nowhere? Oh, and Fido here?"

"I'm serious."

"I know you are. I'm your greatest success story, Grace. And you can put that in your bloody book with my blessing."

"I've given up on the book," Grace tells him, settling unselfconsciously on his lap.

"Why?" Boyd asks, slipping his arms around her waist.

She kisses his throat. "I don't think the general public are quite ready for the unexpurgated truth about what really goes on in specialist police units."

"Damn. I was counting on living off the proceeds for years to come. You do know I'm absolutely broke? Barely a penny left to my name. Seriously."

"I'm not marrying you for your money."

"You're not marrying me at all, Grace."

"Oh, well, if we're going to live in sin," she tells him, getting back to her feet, "I really think we should at least attempt to do some sinning. Put the dog in the kitchen and come upstairs with me. Now."

Something sparks in the depths of his dark eyes. "God, I love assertive women."

Slipping free of his grasp, Grace gives him an artful smile. "I know."

-oOo-

It doesn't change, the heat and the desire. Only the minor and grudging concessions they reluctantly make to age and to his spectacular array of bruises make it any different from the way it was in the very first days. That, and the intimate familiarity that just makes everything that bit better. Grace knows how to make him purr, how to make him growl, and she joyously does both – and welcomes the subtle, teasing retribution that takes her way beyond any physical plain. They shift and they slide across each other, flesh against flesh, convex against concave; they kiss and they caress, and they worship all the places where they meet, the places where he is hard and she is soft. They travel together in heat and sensation, nothing between them barricaded, no positions left to defend. They bite and they scratch, too, when the moments become blindingly intense, and in the end they simply lie together in a tangle of limbs, neither of them really able to do much more than whisper and shiver and stroke.

"I love you," he says, and it startles her into raising her head and staring straight into his eyes. He smiles, and it's a very gentle, very real smile. "What? I still can't tell you that without you needing to analyse it from every angle?"

"You're a poster boy for the benefits of therapy, Boyd."

"Bollocks am I. I spent a year or more staring down the Cooper woman's cleavage, and God knows how long trying to convince Campbell I didn't feel the urge to punch absolutely everyone I met."

"She does have some considerable cleavage, it has to be said."

His eyes are firmly closed. "Mm."

She nips his neck. Hard. "You're a bad, bad boy."

"I have a thing for psychologists, Grace."

"She's a psychotherapist."

"It's all the same to me."

She smiles and then she says, "Marry me."

Boyd opens his eyes. "Why?"

"Because I want you to," Grace tells him patiently. "And because it's well past bloody time."

-oOo-

EPILOGUE – Special Relationship

Sometimes, even after so many visits, she still misses the turning and has to reverse back. The lanes all look pretty much the same to Frankie – narrow, empty and flanked sometimes by trees and sometimes by hedges. It's even worse at this time of year when everything's in leaf and it's impossible to even catch a glimpse of the cottage until it's too late. This time, though, she's lucky. She manages to brake in time to turn into the correct lane, and halfway down she spots the solitary slate roof she's looking for. She still teases them mercilessly about living out in the wilds, but although the place is small it's a lot more comfortable than the expensive London apartment she reluctantly calls home.

She turns onto what could laughingly be described as the drive – a bit of loose shingle and a lot of churned-up dried mud, and she tries not to notice that while Boyd's dirty, battered four-by-four is relatively neatly parked, Grace's car is still rusting peacefully against the hedge exactly as it was the last time she visited. And the time before that. Neither of them drive much anymore, and Frankie feels that's almost certainly for the best, given that although Boyd stubbornly refuses to admit it he's now almost completely blind in one eye thanks to the old injury – traumatic glaucoma, Frankie suspects – and that Grace has become so cheerfully absent-minded there's no guarantee she could ever find her car again if she left it parked somewhere. Whatever. Frankie still adores them both, and always will. She's the only one of the former comrades-in-arms who's stayed in anything like regular contact with them, and they treat her the just way they always have – as a sort of accidental, faintly exasperating surrogate daughter.

Getting out of her car, Frankie spots Boyd sauntering towards her. He doesn't really seem to get any older, he just gets shaggier and more grizzled with every passing year; a little more stooped, a little more shambling. Finlay pads quietly behind his master, his black muzzle long ago turned to grey. Smiling, Frankie calls, "Hey, dad."

"You don't have to shout," he chides her irritably. "I'm not bloody deaf and I'm not bloody senile."

"Good," Frankie says. "Because I'm not looking after you, you miserable old sod."

"Piss off, Frankie."

She hugs him tightly, too aware of how gaunt he's become. "How's Grace?"

"Looking forward to seeing you. God knows what she's up to in there. Damned woman never could cook to save her life. Don't be surprised if Sunday roast turns out to be whatever was left at the back of the fridge. Go in. Taking the dog down the lane for ten minutes."

Frankie smirks to herself as he ambles away, Finlay at his heels. Laconic and gruff as ever, and just as affectionate in his own highly idiosyncratic way. She heads into the house, struck as ever by how at home she instantly feels. Grace is in the kitchen, and she looks up immediately, blue eyes shining brightly. "Frankie."

The hug she gives Grace is much lighter, much gentler. Always slight, there doesn't seem to be much of her anymore – physically. Mentally, well, the eccentric absent-mindedness aside, she's every bit as sharp and shrewd as she ever was. Kissing her on the cheek, Frankie says, "I'm sorry it's been a while."

Grace shrugs mildly. "We're not going anywhere. So how is the new job?"

Frankie leans up against the kitchen counter. "Interesting, but a little… strange. Did you hear that we're not allowed to call ourselves the Cold Case Unit? Someone at the Yard's got a long memory."

"Same old cases, brand new name?"

"Yeah. There's stuff down in the archives we looked at nearly twenty years ago, Grace. Some of it's still got all our annotations all over it. It's like stepping back in time."

"How's the new Boyd?"

Frankie grimaces. "Nothing like the old one. This one has a degree in criminology and a penchant for disappearing off home at five o'clock sharp. He doesn't shout, either. Or throw tantrums. Very disappointing."

They chat and they reminisce, and when Boyd comes back with Finlay they eventually eat lunch. Frankie tells them about her new colleagues and the latest Mr Right who turned out to be yet another Mr Wrong. They talk and they laugh, and she watches the old, familiar banter between husband and wife that still carries more than a hint of a mordant edge, and she smiles to herself. Old and battle-scarred they may very well be, but Frankie knows without any doubt that they're perfectly happy with each other and with the life they've built together.

- the end -