Torn Asunder

Val had been worried about him all day. He'd seemed fine when he'd left in the morning. But she hadn't been so sure he'd gotten past the trauma of the day before, even though he'd seemed as right as rain when he kissed her goodbye and went off to Marlow with Morse. And, she'd been even less sure when she read in the paper about the boy's body found at St. Oswald's.

"There's more dead," he'd told her in the night, but that had been all he'd said. And in accordance with Inspector Grave's instructions, she hadn't asked for any more than he'd been willing to tell her. But three more deaths and one a boy…he wouldn't be all right, would he? No wonder he came home in such a state. And she'd sent him back out to it, hadn't she?

Still, she thought. That would be the end of…Morse would have it all sewn up by now. Robbie'd be fine. He always—only then her husband reached back into the car and drew out a new bottle of brandy.

She'd been fixing him tea laced with brandy all of their adult lives, but he'd never, not even once in all those years, asked for it, never complained when she put the bottle back in the cupboard and handed him his tea without, never made a single mention of it. Always, she'd been the one to make sure there was a bottle in the cupboard, the one to work the expense out of the household budget. What did it mean, how bad could it be that he was walking in with that bottle?

She turned from the window to watch him come down the hallway to find her. She swallowed hard and prayed. And then he was standing before her and holding out the bottle and only then did she think she should have put the kettle on. She searched his face. He looked all right as far as that went, not shaky or pale. Wordlessly, she accepted the bottle and set it on the counter. There was a paperback copy of Waiting for Godot sticking from his pocket which he took out and looked over as though wondering where it had come from. He gave a small shake to his head as though it wasn't worth the effort and handed it over to her as well.

He turned away from her searching gaze, looked about the kitchen, and said, "There's that shelf to hang in the corner. I got all busy and forgot, didn't I? Perhaps, I'll get to it tonight, like. Morse has gone off the beer again…twice that makes it. And the case is closed. Except for the paperwork, of course. It was a right mess…not sure I've quite got it all straight yet…"

His voice was steady enough. Maybe someone had given him the brandy. Maybe it didn't mean anything. She hoped that was it, but…she didn't believe it. It was too close on the heels of last night when the walls had all come crashing down—maybe that was the reason for the bottle. He quite well might think he'd emptied one over this case already and knew things were a bit tight at the moment for her to easily replace it.

It should have been a simple enough thing to open her mouth and ask, "What's this about then?" when he'd handed it to her. But it hadn't been then and it wasn't any easier now. She willed him to keep talking, to hold on to whatever semblance of control he'd clung to in order to finish out his day, to do his job when something dreadful must have happened sometime along the way. She didn't think she could survive whatever dark waters were about to engulf them because his words had died out and in the quiet following them there was a look in his face she'd never seen before. And she knew it was going to be bad.

She bit her lip and breathed out an almost silent, 'Robbie'. He crumpled into her arms then, buried his head against her, and they both shook with the force of his weeping.

Someone should have phoned, someone should have warned her, someone should have thought to bring him home. She'd have had a cuppa ready then, instead of the kettle standing empty and cold. She would have called someone to come for their children then, instead of them standing in the doorway, wide-eyed and frightened at the sight of their father weeping in her arms.

"A chair, Lynnie," she told her daughter, fighting to sound calm. "Bring a chair for your dad, won't you?" Because he was trembling against her and she was afraid he was going to go down and she'd never be able to get him up if he did. "Go on, luv," she encouraged when the little girl hesitated. "As quick as you like."

Lynnie scurried to the table; pulled out not the nearest chair, but her dad's chair out and dragged it around the others to bring it to them. "That's a girl," she told her as she eased Robbie down into it. He clutched her to him, kept his face buried into her, and she pulled him close and rubbed his bowed head. "I'm here, Robbie," she told him. "I'm not going anywhere." To her frightened daughter, she said, "I think, luv, that you might put the kettle on…as Mum's right here. And Kennie bring Mummie the phone, eh?"

Touching the cooker, messing about with the phone, two definite no-no's her children weren't quite sure they could break even with her there coaxing them. But, in the end, her mum was called and on her way to collect the kids, and Val was able to press a steaming cup of brandy-laced tea into his hands.

He raised his head and looked at her then. "It's got a drop," she told him. "Drink it down, it'll do you good."

"Yeah," he said, his voice soft and harsh and pained, but he didn't raise the cup to his mouth.

"Shall, I?" she asked because she'd brought a cup to his mouth before when he'd been bad, but…he'd never seemed aware of it. This…acknowledgement of his hurt, this awareness that he was bad off—it was new territory, and she was afraid at any moment she'd take a wrong step and he'd go plunging down into the abyss. He didn't answer and she moved to put her hand over his to raise the cup for him.

He shook his head then and put a still-less-than-steady hand over hers. He looked up at her beseechingly and opened his mouth, and there was something in that look that frightened her all over again. She looked away and saw the kids, back in the doorway, staring open-eyed, and whatever he was going to say wasn't for them to hear.

"You two, Gram will be here any minute for you. Off you go to fetch your things…toothbrush, your nightclothes, something for tomorrow, your luvvies, all the things we take when we go to Newcastle, Lynnie. Help your brother." The poor frightened tykes had moved off and then it was only them.

"Tell me now, Robbie," she said though she thought the last thing she wanted to do was hear what he had to say. No. No matter how bad what he had to say was, he was alive and unharmed and there was a lot that could be worse than what he had to say.

"I…I think I killed a man today, Pet," he told her and what could she say to that? "Harry Josephs, he was. A murderer. And he would have killed Morse if I wouldn't have been there. But…I hit him. With the candlestick. On the roof…I didn't mean to kill him! I just wanted him to leave off hurting Morse. But, he stood up. And he couldn't get his feet under him. Because I'd hit him, you see…and he, uh, he went over. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't." He finished in a harsh whisper, "And he died."

He stared at her as though he expected her to…what? Step back from him in horror? Condemn him? Pronounce him a murderer? "I think I killed a man today, Pet," he'd started, and she thought that was what this was all about; the bottle, the weeping, the shaking. He'd always meant to be a copper…not just any copper. A good copper. But, today…he'd lost faith in himself. Perhaps, perhaps he'd even thought about pulling the man off of his Morse and throwing him over the side. Perhaps he had. He was human, her Robbie. But. He wouldn't have done. Because even if right now he wasn't so sure of it, he was a good man.

She pushed the hair back from his eyes, smiled at him, and fought to keep her voice steady as she said, "Drink your tea, Robbie. Before it's cold."

"Lass?" he asked with a waver in his voice.

"I'm not going to do it, Robbie," she told. "I'm not going to even honor what you're thinking with a denial. I'm not…you're a good man, Robbie Lewis, and you're not what you're afraid. I promise you that."

"Promise?" he asked her and the plea in his voice broke her heart. Oh, Robbie.

She stepped back from him, swallowed the lump in her throat, and forced herself to say, "Now drink your tea and shift yourself before I have to call one of your mates to help me. Bed or bath, makes me no never mind." Her matter-of-factness reached him and gave him a thin thread of normality to cling to. When his whole world was crumbling, he could count on his Val to see him right. In the face of the day's events perhaps that didn't seem like much, but it was everything.