"No, I'm good. I'm way out of practice."
Annie turned down the full tumbler of Bushmill's Matt offered, poured from the bottle he'd picked up on the way back from Southwark. She and Matt and Gil had spent more than their fair share of drunken nights over the years, but the truth was Annie wasn't just deferring to good judgement; if she had much more she'd be on her face. And that would be abjectly embarrassing, despite everything that had happened since her arrival.
"Great, more for me." He had the next two days off for personal leave and was taking full advantage.
"He's finally got a chance to spend some personal time with his only last link to his best mate," Ronnie had told the boss. "I can press gang some PC to help with our cases if I have to. He needs a chance to grieve, Guv, and this is the best chance he's got."
DI Chandler was predictably inclined to agree so after "sending Gil on his way" as Matt described it, he and Annie were free to spend the night as freely as they liked.
Annie had seen Matt loaded before - "pissed" she corrected herself internally - but never with such determined purpose as tonight.
"Good thing the Crown can do without you the next couple of days," she noted as he flopped onto the sofa beside her, setting the bottle on the table so precariously she reached out to steady it.
"Bugger the Crown." He held the bottle somewhat less than firmly until it stopped wobbling. "Steady mum, I've got it."
"So now... what comes next?" It was a question that came to Annie as habitually as breathing and it felt unnatural to ask it of someone else, even Matt. "The company is in limbo so I have no job. No home in the States, no home here. Even when I sell the flat, immigration is screwed up because I don't have a job anymore. And now that Gil's death isn't considered a crime... no law can help me." She wouldn't consider even setting foot in the King's Cross flat, and planned to find a way to sell it, but didn't yet know how. For the first time she could remember Annie was without a "real world" and was scared to death.
Matt focused with a huge effort. "I'll talk to Angie... she knows geek jobs. Alesha has friends in the Foreign Office. We'll get you fixed up, I promise." He leaned sideways and pulled Annie over to lay a sloppy kiss against her head. "Promise. And this is home as long as you want."
But there was something else scaring Annie, something bad. She'd never been able to sensibly order her emotions like she did her work, so they came out a little disjointed sometimes, but Matt's dive into the whiskey bottle made her think of things she didn't dare keep to herself.
"Stop," she told him, taking the bottle from his hand before he could pour another one. "Stop swilling this cheap shit painkiller and talk to me."
He was more puzzled than displeased. "I am talking to you, I'm telling you we're gonna get you set up here, I'm telling you you don't have to worry. Why are you looking at me like I've got three heads?"
She didn't know how to lead in, so she just jumped. "I'm remembering that time you called me after you found out how your friend died."
"Pete," Matt said. "What the hell has you thinking about that?" God knows he didn't like to think about it, even a year or more on.
"You called me, middle of the night so here it had to be four in the morning, Gil was in Edinburgh I think, and you didn't want to wake Judy, you called me and I saw you on caller i.d. and thought oh, Matt and Gil fell out over some girl, or you were upset about a case and I know you didn't take that to Gillie even though he wouldn't have minded. Maybe it's because I was so far away it didn't feel like it all was piling up right here..."
Matt shook his head, smiling in spite of the painful subject. "Blimey, I'm the one pissed but you're the one not making sense." When Annie grabbed his arm hard his smile evaporated.
"Mattie, now you're not talking to me, not about this, about how I know it's tearing you up inside, you're a copper, and you couldn't do anything for him, it was too late... you've called me before in the middle of the night, for stuff like that, that your job always sets you up to be too late to stop and if you're lucky you can keep it from happening to somebody else."
He would have interrupted, told her to slow down, but she was beginning to look and sound frantic so he didn't try to stop her as she jumped to her feet and paced back and forth.
"I never have any wise words but I listen, don't I always, and I told you over and over that night you called about Pete, that you still had Judy, and Gil, and me, even when we didn't know what to answer you wouldn't be all alone with it like Pete was. But now I'm right here, I couldn't be at first but now I am, and you're not talking to me, you're keeping all alone with it, and I know you don't really blame yourself and I could tell if you were lying when you say that helping me helps you, but that," she paused for breath then declared in an increasingly shaky voice as she pointed at the whiskey bottle, "that can twist you all around, you know that, and what if it did and I wasn't here, it could make you do something dark and final like Pete did." She was shaking now, dry-eyed but shaking badly. She stopped pacing, and her voice dropped and she looked away.
(I got nobody left, Pete didn't talk and you're not talking)
He heard every word just like always and when she looked at him again with wide scared eyes at last something clicked in Matt's whiskey-fogged brain.
"Oh Annie, no." He stood and reached for her, kicking over the bottle, and pulled her closer by one hand. "I won't go where Pete went, I'm never gonna do that, I'd never leave you alone like that..."
She grabbed him around the neck so hard and so suddenly he had to lean back to keep them from falling onto the floor.
"Matt promise, promise me, you'll tell me if it starts getting dark in your head, you'll tell me!"
"I promise, I swear, you believe me, right?" He pulled her head up from his shoulder and made her look him in the eye.
She nodded and her thoughts started rushing again. "I'm sorry Matt I'm so sorry, I haven't been any good to you at all, I haven't been here like I promised..." The disordered words and feelings kept tumbling out, whispered and out loud, until he hugged her tight again.
"Shut it, Annie, you're doing fine for me, I promise it'll be okay." He tried to look her in the eye again, to read her, then added, "And bugger the Crown."
Finally a faint smile appeared. "Yeah. Bugger the Crown."
The sudden burnout of high drama left them both a little disoriented. Out of nowhere Annie observed, "I'm starving." She looked at the upturned bottle and the pool of whiskey on the floor. "And we spilled the rest of your dinner."
"I meant to get groceries but no time... pantry's choice." As he headed for the kitchen Annie yelped in pain.
"OW!" She grabbed the side of her head. Clinging to Matt's wristwatch was a respectably sized tuft of her hair.
"Sorry." He went back and planted a kiss on her head. "All better." Then he wove his way to the kitchen, more than a little wobbly.
"Fish fingers?" he called out, "Cheese sandwich?"
"Whatever you have that isn't Marmite." The very thought of the stuff made her nauseous. Not to mention the sudden stops and starts between waves of grief and confusion and moments like now that seemed almost normal. The pieces weren't fitting, not at all.
She was standing in the middle of the room sorting (almost) silently through the bits and pieces she would have to assemble to get to What Comes Next when she heard the knock at the door. "Matt," she began, but figured it had to be after midnight and if someone was going to be rude to a neighbor better it was her.
"What?" Amplified by whisky Matt's voice was louder than it needed to be, given the hour and the size of the flat. "I'm toasting some cheeses sandwiches, yeah?"
"Okay." When she went to the door the face she saw through the peephole surprised her. More than surprised. Given what had happened today, and Matt's condition, it actually kind of terrified her. She opened the door halfway.
"Mr. Steel?" She glanced over her shoulder then told him (unnecessarily) "It's late. I don't know why you've come but it's not a good time." As he apologized for the late hour and assured her it was important Annie was caught by the intensity of those crystal blue eyes. Everyone seemed to have them around here, but his seemed to hold onto her harder than the others.
"I don't imagine Matt would be glad to see me," he concluded.
(but he'd be glad to punch your lights out)
Annie was startled by Steel's quiet laugh. "That I believe." She didn't think she'd said that out loud.
Matt came in from the kitchen, two plates bearing toasted cheese sandwiches in hand. Annie's head whipped around and for a second she swore he was going to peg the plates right at James Steel's head. He was tall enough that Matt had a clear shot.
"You've got some bloody nerve coming here!" Matt barked as he dropped the plates on the coffee table with a crash.
"Matt, this couldn't wait." James tried to continue but Matt cut him off.
"Bugger off you gutless bastard. Or if you've come to grovel do it outside where I don't have to hear it."
Annie was on the verge of telling the Chief Crown Prosecutor to get lost but his eyes caught her again. Not pleading, but reasoning.
"Just five minutes," he said in a low voice.
"And bugger the bloody fucking-"
Annie planted a hand in the middle of James Steel's chest and shoved him out into the corridor, shutting the door behind her.
"Look, I think I told you it's not your fault or something like that." She paused and squeezed her forehead for a second then looked up at the tall, sharp-featured barrister. "Matt's having a bad time, he's... we're... look you shouldn't have come here."
"We're going forward with your brother's case." Saying the words lifted a weight off of him.
"What?" Before he could answer she was hauling him by the sleeve to that stupid little bench by the lifts. Without thinking she gave him another shove to sit him down then sat down next to him and waited.
"We're going to build a case and prosecute Ralph Baxter for your brother's murder."
Annie could feel her eyes narrow. "How. Why?"
"George Castle changed his mind." He was, of course, leaving out rather a lot.
"I don't get it." Annie was shaking her head. "How did he get from 'bad investment' to 'going forward'?"
He wasn't about to get into it. "Don't look a gift horse, Miss Roland. If you're up to it we can get started in the morning, my office. Bring any sort of relevant papers from yours and your brother's business, any contacts with Baxter." She was smiling a little. "Forgive me, bring all relevant silicon chips you have. Your original statement mentions the project he was pushing you to finish, and that you were holding him off."
"Right, I told Gil I wanted to see something that proved a reason for what he wanted, that would prove it wasn't some shifty scheme."
"Well then," Steel announced and stood, pressing the lift's call button. "You just gather everything you have that might indicate what he had in mind and we'll go through it together." He saw her eyebrows rise. "Miss Roland the Crown represents the interests of your brother, and that means you as well. Your knowledge will be key in helping to establish a motive."
Annie actually felt herself brighten. Finally something more than sitting around and being led here and there. "I can do better, I think... I have the actual framework for the Homecoming project. Don't look so surprised, why would I do nothing only to have to rush like hell if Baxter turned out to be legit? I have his specs, and the work was almost done. I wasn't just gonna deliver it until Baxter proved there was a good reason for wanting that kind of security. It just didn't make sense."
"But your brother must have thought it made sense."
Annie replied with a pained sigh. "My brother... Mr. Steel my brother was blinded. Not by cash but by the puzzle. The project. He was so focused on it and getting it finished and making it work... I guess I was the one who looked for the holes, in everything. It was always like that; he said he was the accelerator and I was the brakes and together we kept the whole thing from crashing or locking up. I can bury you in relevant silicon chips. What time tomorrow?"
"Nine a.m. all right? I've already shifted my other cases to associates. Good night then, I've kept you long enough."
She reached in to stop the lift door from closing. "You could've called or told us tomorrow."
"I wanted to let you know in person." Until now he'd been animated as he always was when starting a new case, but now a frown appeared. "You left my office thinking nobody cared about what happened to your brother. I didn't want you spending the night thinking that."
Annie grinning ear to ear as she bounded into the flat.
Matt, however, was glowering from where he sat on the sofa. "Have a nice chat did you?"
"They're going to take the case, Mattie!" She sprang to where he sat to kiss the top of his head.
"What?"
"You heard me. You owe James Steel an apology. Now gimme a sandwich before I pass out."
