God only knows

Pairing: Grace/Boyd

Rating: T

Summary: My first case FF, set sometime after season 5

Author's notes: Special thanks to shadowsamurai83 for the beta

Disclaimer: Waking the Dead belongs to the BBC. I'm taking them for a kick and a giggle but promise to be back before the main game.


Chapter 7

The next day, and arriving two hours later than normal, Boyd and Grace walked into CCHQ.

Turning off the alarm, Grace had let Peter sleep in. From the groans and swearing that had come from upstairs as Boyd had showered and dressed, Doctor Chen had been right. Peter would feel a lot worse the day after the accident. He'd flat out refused to wear the sling for his badly bruised left arm that he'd barely been able to move. He had his reputation to uphold, he'd argued. Her reply had been to almost lose her tea all over him with laughter, but that hadn't stopped her from putting it in her handbag if he'd needed it later on.

Staring at the transparent board, Spence, Eve and Stella had been going over what little they had on Helen Chandler as they waited for the boss to arrive. There were her details, her photograph and the nine photos of the people she'd appeared to look at before freezing, but not much else. Eve had drawn a blank with the fingerprints and the DNA. None of the samples she'd taken had been a match on their system.

There was nothing to suggest a reason for her behaviour.

"Sir?" Stella was the first to see them come into the bullpen. Any normal human being would've have taken a day off, but Boyd was Boyd. The only outward sign that he'd been injured was the stitches and associated small section of hair missing above his right ear. That looked nasty, but overall he looked all right considering, Stella thought.

The rest of the team stopped what they'd been doing. All wanting to ask the same questions, but their boss circumvented them first.

"Okay." Boyd decided to get it over with in one hit. He wasn't it in the mood to recount it all again, feeling stiff all over and he still had a residual headache, but a little discomfort wasn't going to stop him finding out who the woman was and why she'd kept popping into his mind. He addressed all the team with a typically understated comment, "I'm fine. Now can we get on with it?"

Like the rest of the team, Eve was going to say something because she didn't believe a word he'd said, but a shake of the head from Grace indicated that the profiler knew his true condition and would keep on top of it.

Reluctantly, the team did what their boss had asked.

Boyd walked up to the board and stared at the driver's licence photo of Helen Chandler. Instead of seeing the typical jaundiced licence photo, Boyd's mind had imposed her scared face. He looked intently at the photo until Grace coughed, interrupting him and brought him back to reality. "Spence, what have you got?"

Spence told them what little they had. The only thing they didn't have back was the facial recognition check on the people in the intersection. That would take another day. In the meantime, the DI had requested Uniform help to trace the photos the old-fashioned way by doing a door-to-door of the surrounding businesses to see if anyone recognised them.

"Anything from the witnesses?"

"Nothing. No police records. And they all said the same thing."

"So there's nothing on police record for Miss Chandler?" Boyd repeated.

"No, sir."

"What about mental health services?" Grace asked. Perhaps Helen Chandler was on their system.

"They refused to give us any details." Stella replied, and then smiled, hoping to use Grace's professional ties to get the information. "But perhaps you can?"

"I'll get right on to it." Oh joy, she thought. It was just what she wanted, being on hold forever while the bureaucracy decided if they'd let her have access. Grapping a tea and her copy of everything they had on Helen Chandler, she went to her office and made the call.

Boyd saw the woman's handbag on Stella's desk. "Spence? I thought I told you to return it."

"We tried, but we went to her place yesterday, she wasn't home and she hadn't gone back to work afterwards."

"Stella, find out if she's at work now and if she had any problems - the usual stuff." Boyd rubbed his goatee, and then turned back to Spence. "Friends and family?"

"Not yet. I'm about to go through her phone contact list and her address book."

"Right. Good work." Proud of his team, Boyd nodded. They'd waded through a lot of information for not much reward. When he'd been a DC, he'd hated trawling through records, but understood that tedious leg work was the backbone of most investigations. These days it was a lot easier with everything computerised and in databases. In his day, it was all card based and a bloody nightmare. With a shake of his head and a smirk, he remembered the Monty Python sketch, the four Yorkshiremen, and he muttered to himself, "And you try and tell the young people of today that ... they won't believe you."

Nonetheless, he was very thankful that information gathering was the domain of constables and sergeants and not DSIs like himself. Gladly leaving them to get on with it, he picked up his copy of the file and retreated into his office to read everything they had on Helen Chandler.

- - -

"It was like getting blood from a stone," Grace mumbled to herself. They all worked for the same Home Office. She'd worked with some of them at Broadmoor. Hell, most of them have read my books, she sneered to herself. Then why had it just taken an hour on hold or transferred from bureaucrat to another one, only to be transferred back to the one she'd called in the beginning? It was enough to make her scream, but that wasn't her style.

Maybe there was something in Boyd's methods. She'd sat and stewed while she got the run around and she wondered if she'd just yelled a bit, like Peter, would she have gotten the information sooner? Probably not, she realized; her tone of voice, when angry, wouldn't put the fear of God into anyone, unlike Boyd's.

Speaking of Boyd, Grace looked across to his office. Peter had just rubbed his left temple with his right hand. He hadn't used his left arm. She'd seen the very nasty dark purple and green bruise that ran from his shoulder to his elbow, and it was no wonder he hadn't or couldn't move it.

Under the pretext of telling Boyd what she'd found out about the mysterious brunette, Helen Chandler, Grace would actually gauge how he was feeling and get him to have his medication. She knew that he'd have probably forgotten to take them, so engrossed in whatever he was doing. Gathering her file under an arm, she made two teas, and then went to his office.

Using her elbow, she opened the door and sat down opposite Boyd. His table strewn with papers, and on a notepad in front of him, he'd scribbled pertinent information and his thoughts. Normally, Grace couldn't read his scrawl that passed as his handwriting right side up, so she had no chance of reading it upside down. From the file information, there could be only conclusion - they just had no idea why Helen Chandler had stopped, but there was no way Boyd would stop now as she'd seen that determined look on his face so many times before. He'd have to get a direct order from the Commissioner himself, and even then, it probably wouldn't be enough to deter him. Once bitten, he became almost obsessed with finding the truth. This quality made him the great detective that he was.

The smell of the tea was so welcoming to Boyd, he looked up straight away. He'd been struggling to concentrate, having read the file three times and still it hadn't really sunk in. Perhaps Grace had been right and he should've stayed home, but he just couldn't. Helen Chandler's terrified face kept coming back, almost haunting him. He had to know why. Peter took off his glasses and smiled at Grace. "Thank you." Sipping the tea, he savoured the taste. The tea and his Grace were a lifesaver.

To Grace, Peter looked absolutely knackered. He should've stayed home, but she knew that wasn't going to happen as soon as Peter had spoken about the woman over breakfast. She'd just have to make sure he took his pills and drive him around. "Have you had your medicine?"

He looked at his watch, amazed at where the time had gone. "No."

"Take your pills and then I'll tell you what I've got."

"Tell me what you got first then …."

"No. Take your medication first."

"Grace, the information."

"Boyd, the pills."

"The information." Boyd's jaw clenched.

"Boyd, no. The pills." She steeled herself, not budging an inch.

Crossing her arms meant that she was all business, so Peter changed tack and tried to charm it out of her by smiling and using his softer tone of voice that he reserved only for her. "Please."

"No." She tried very hard not to laugh as he tried to worm the information out of her. It would take more than a sexy smile and a glint in his eye for her to budge.

"I'm fine. Really."

Grace shook her head. His 'tell' gave him away. He was lying.

"Grace. Just tell me." Trying again, this time his voice hitched a little as he became slightly aggravated. Grace could infuriate him sometimes.

Grace weathered Boyd's death glare with a smile. It may work on suspects and young, impressionable DCs, but not her. It was part of his armoury that used so effectively to intimidate people, but it had never really worked on her. She saw through it so easily. "Not until …."

"Grace, please," Peter begged. "Come on, please."

Rolling her eyes, she pursed her lips, only to stop a wry grin forming. He could be so childish sometimes. "For God's sake, just take the pills."

"Argghhh …." Boyd gave in. "All right. You win." Making a big show out of it all, he laid out the three pills, two for the pain, one for the swelling, and showed her each pill before swallowing each one with a mouthful of tea. "Satisfied?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Now, can you tell me what you've got?"

"All right."

"Well?" Boyd asked impatiently.

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing." Grace had to laugh. Boyd's exasperated look on his face was priceless.

"You made me beg for nothing."

"I know." Grace's smile grew larger. It made a change from her begging him to stop teasing her and take her all the way to paradise when they'd be making love.

Boyd shook his head and he couldn't help but smile too. Only Grace could get away with what she'd just done. "Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"No. Just that we'll need to talk to her family and friends to find out more."

"Once Spence's has done the checks, we'll do that."

The phone rang.

Boyd picked up the phone. "DSI Boyd."

Grace got up to leave, but Peter waved her to stay.

"Sir." Boyd sat up straighter. "Yes, sir. …. No, I'm fine. …. I did what anyone would've done. …. I'm not, sir. …. Definitely not. I don't want to talk to the press. …. No, sir. …. I'm not interested. Hair and make up can get their good news human-interest story from someone else. …. We haven't found the woman yet. …. Yes, sir. …. All right. …. Thank you, sir. Goodbye." Boyd hung up the phone and shook his head. "Shit!"

"What is it?"

"That was the Commissioner. The press want to talk to me."

Grace knew that Boyd was not into self-promotion like some other senior officers. He did what he did to find the truth. It was simple as that. And what he'd done yesterday may have been brave, but he hadn't done it to get his face in the paper, it had been the right thing to do. "When?"

"As soon as we find the woman."

"But what if she doesn't want to talk to the press or we can't find her?"

"I know." Boyd shrugged. If it were up to him, he wouldn't speak to the media. Tired from all the reading, he rubbed his eyes, and then decided he'd had enough. "Come on. Grab your coat. Let's go talk to Helen Chandler."

Spence had just run checks on Helen's family and friends, revealing only one conviction other than the usual minor traffic offences. A girlfriend had a shoplifting conviction ten years ago, when the girl was fifteen.

"Spence!" Boyd yelled, but regretted it instantly. A sharp stabbing pain above his right ear reminded him that yelling was not a good thing. He tried again, this time softer. "Spence, Helen Chandler's friends and family?"

"Nothing of note." Spence handed him the list. "Stella and I will start on the friends."

"Right. Grace and I will talk to Helen Chandler and then her family. And see if Uniform has had any luck with those faces."

"Okay."

Boyd waited until Grace had grabbed her handbag and coat and they left together.

- - -

TBC