After being away from the Fanfiction scene for the past five years, I have decided to return with what I hope is renewed vigour and enthusiasm. Due to the extraordinary circumstances in which we all find ourselves today, I now have far more time on my hands and an urgent need to find something to occupy the long hours spent at home every day.
I have therefore decided to have a crack at writing an Endeavour story. It's one of my favourite TV programmes, I love all the characters and I hope I will enjoy the challenge of bringing them to life in these pages. I have set my story somewhere in Series 5 though I have changed one or two things, so it is not 100% accurate in terms of the plotlines in that series. For example, I wanted Morse and Strange to be sharing a house again as I thought the two of them living together was rich with comic potential. You will doubtless spot a few other similar twists in the timeline of Morse's life but I hope it won't spoil anyone's enjoyment.
All the main characters will feature – Morse, Thursday, Bright, Strange, Trewlove and of course Fancy who has not been killed yet! I hope you enjoy what lies ahead – even I don't know fully yet what that will be!
As ever I shall be thrilled and grateful for any reviews, comments or constructive criticism that any of you can spare the time to make on any of the chapters once you've read them. Suggestions too!
CHAPTER 1 – Something's Cooking
The alarm clock sounded right on cue on the stroke of seven o'clock and continued to ring its sustained irritating cry until Morse finally forced himself to stretch out an arm to turn it off. He rolled over on to his back and squinted as the early morning sunlight pierced the crack in the curtains and streamed across his face, causing him to blink several times. He took a while to get used to the idea of being awake before leaping out of bed and setting his mind to think about the kind of day that might lie ahead. After a brief wash and shave, he dressed meticulously yet purposefully and made his way towards the kitchen, from where the unmistakeable smell of fried breakfast filled his nostrils with a pungency that made him take a deep breath before entering the room.
Strange was stood at the hob, in shirtsleeves, sweat beginning to form on his brow if not actually threatening to run down his face, deep in concentration over a frying pan in which eggs, bacon and sausages could all be seen to be co-existing in an unholy alliance.
'Morning, matey!' said Strange in that cheery, happy-go-lucky early morning voice that always slightly irritated Morse. Did the fellow never have a bad night's sleep or a hangover or at least some inkling that the day ahead wouldn't be a bed of roses? 'D'you fancy some bacon and eggs? I can easily throw a few more in, you know,' he said, gesturing down at the already cluttered frying pan.
Morse doubted that very much. There wasn't room to swing a cat in that pan, he thought, as he watched Strange skilfully push eggs, bacon and sausages around and over each other with a spatula. He said, 'No thanks,' and put some brown bread in the toaster while he made himself a bowl of cereal. When he finally set down at the kitchen table and began his breakfast, Strange was already halfway through his fry-up, wolfing down each constituent part with gusto, as if it might be his last meal.
'You know, you will get a heart attack if you carry on eating that much fat that quickly all your life.' Morse looked at Strange with an expression which he intended to be one of genuine concern and not a little pity, but he suspected he probably came across as a professor ticking off one of the junior fellows for a poorly prepared lecture.
Strange looked down at his plate which was swimming with grease and fat, somewhat nonplussed.
'What do you mean? This is good, wholesome food. You need a hearty breakfast to set you up for the day. Besides, eggs are good for you. Good for the brain, matey!' He grinned hugely and continued to pile up egg, bacon and sausage onto his fork.
Morse stifled a laugh at Strange's delusion that what he was stuffing into his mouth would in any sense be good for his heart.
'That's cheese,' he replied, correcting Strange as he felt he really had to. 'Or at least, so they say. Can't say I set much store by that theory.'
'Well, you're hardly likely to build up your strength eating cornflakes and toast, are you? I certainly won't be calling on you if we need a bit of muscle when the going gets tough, will I?' Morse forced a smile and shook his head. Muscle was definitely Jim's domain, not his. His talents lay elsewhere in more cerebral pursuits. He got up and put his dishes in the kitchen sink while Jim finished wiping up the remains of the juices on his plate with a piece of bread. Jim didn't believe in leaving anything on his plate, it was against his religion, it went against everything he stood for.
'Are you picking up the old man?' asked Strange, as both men left the kitchen to put on their jackets and coats. Morse nodded. He always picked up DCI Thursday in the morning, so he never understood why Strange asked him the same question every morning before he left. 'Okay, I'll see you down the nick, then. Let's hope something interesting has come in.'
Morse silently echoed Strange's wishes. It had been pretty quiet in the last few weeks down at Cowley Station with nothing really meaty coming in to whet Morse's appetite. If Jim Strange needed a full cooked breakfast first thing to get him in the right frame of mind to take on the day, then what Morse desperately needed to get his juices flowing was a really good case to sink his teeth into. He couldn't be doing with run of the mill stuff like a few local robberies or burglaries. They weren't going to exercise his little grey cells, they wouldn't challenge him to use his vast intellect to crack a case that had foxed all the other great minds in the county – not that Morse knew who they might be anyway. As far as he was concerned, he, Morse, was the best detective on the Oxford force, though he would always tip his hat to his guvnor, DCI Thursday, as his mentor and inspiration in the field of police detection. _
It was just coming up to five to eight when Morse pulled up outside Thursday's neat little semi-detached house. Eight o'clock on the dot, DCI Thursday always reminded him the night before and the guvnor was a stickler for punctuality. But Morse always ensured he got to Thursday's house a few minutes early. He used to do it because it would give him a chance to exchange a few words with Joan, Thursday's daughter but she didn't live there any longer. She was back in Oxford now, that was true, but she had well and truly flown the nest and had got her own place somewhere on the other side of town. Morse suspected that finding her own flat had been a condition of Joan coming back to Oxford at all but he didn't like to pry into the Thursdays' private business so he never asked the guvnor directly, preferring to wait for any snippets of information that Thursday might choose to divulge in a quiet moment between the pair of them.
'Hello, Morse.' Thursday's wife Win greeted him with her usual welcoming smile and motioned to him to have a seat in the dining room where Sam was finishing off his breakfast. 'He won't be long. He'll be down in a minute. How are you?'
'I'm fine, Mrs Thursday,' replied Morse and he smiled back at her. A weak, unconvincing smile, maybe but Morse rarely went in for huge expressions of joy and happiness. It wasn't his style even when someone as nice as Win Thursday would be on the receiving end.
Sam nodded at Morse as he took a seat. 'Hi Morse,' he said indistinctly as he struggled with a mouthful of toast.
'What have I told you about speaking with your mouth full, Sam?' Thursday entered the room and nodded at Morse. 'Are you ready, then?' Clearly Thursday was in no mood for much small talk that morning, anxious to get to work and see what it had in store for the pair of them. Sam held his hand up in apology and pulled a face at Morse behind his father's back. Morse reacted with the slightest of sympathetic grins as he got up and followed Thursday out of the room.
Win came out into the hall from the kitchen, holding her husband's lunch in her right hand. Sandwiches as ever, and later on at lunch Morse would play out the usual scene with Thursday by predicting what the sandwich filling would be, depending on what day of the week it was, before Thursday had unwrapped the brown paper they were hidden in.
'Come home safe, Fred,' Win said as she always did with a forced smile but deep down she was terrified on a daily basis that one day he might not come home safe. It had happened once before that he hadn't come home safe and it had taken him a considerable time to recover fully from the bullet wounds he took in the chest. She never took Fred's safe return at the end of his working day for granted as she knew all too well the dangers that he put himself through every day he left for work.
'Much in, Morse?' Thursday asked after kissing Win goodbye as they went through the front door.
'Not much, I think. A couple more robberies, I believe. Same MO, same items stolen.'
'Oh well, if there's nothing else of any great import, perhaps you can help Strange with his enquiries.'
Morse nodded silently but his heart sank at the sound of Thursday's suggestion. A few humdrum local robberies were far more Strange's bag than his. This was not why he had dragged himself out of bed that morning with hope in his heart. This had all the hallmark of being a really dull day.
When Morse and Thursday arrived at Cowley Police Station, the rest of the CID team were already in situ. The Chief Super, Mr Bright was hovering disconcertingly in the back ground, anxious to start his routine early morning meeting, or 'prayers' as Jim Strange was in the habit of referring to it, with Inspector Thursday to acquaint himself with the current state of play on their caseload. The new DC, George Fancy had been in the office for some time as he always liked to get in early so as to grab a few words with WPC Shirley Trewlove before she was dispatched on to the streets of Oxford on foot patrol. Not that he had so far found Trewlove an easy girl to talk to, never mind chat up or attempt to impress with his ready wit and school boyish charms. She had rebuffed all his attempts to get to know her to date, frequently with a withering and contemptuous dismissal that would have deterred even the most determined of other young men from even thinking of persisting with that line of enquiry.
This morning, Fancy's initial opening gambit of 'Hi Shirley!' had been met with a quizzical, raised eyebrow from Trewlove and a few half stifled sniggers from the rest of the guys in the office, this being very much a male domain with Trewlove the only female on the team and still a source of curiosity and speculation. She had been seconded to CID a few months back despite being part of Uniform branch on the basis that she had showed remarkable promise and ingenuity during her probationary period. Besides which, it was thought that the male-centric CID at Cowley could do with a female perspective and a woman's touch on some of the cases they handled and Trewlove was by some distance the outstanding candidate. She could give as much as she could take in the gentle teasing and general office banter stakes and had hitherto proved far too sassy and streetwise for Fancy. He suspected she was playing with him, teasing and torturing him with her rebuffs and cold shoulder treatment and, worse still, she was probably thoroughly enjoying his repeated misery.
Fancy had tried not to be too put out by Trewlove's initial dismissal and attempted some light, casual conversation with her to no avail. 'I'm busy, George,' she said with her serious face on. 'I'm off out on patrol in five minutes. Is it important? Is it about work? Because if it isn't, I'd save it for another time.'
She turned smartly on her heels and left the room, heading for the ladies cloakroom, leaving Fancy to pull a face and cast his eyes skywards as if in search for divine intervention in his quest to make some kind of impression on this beautiful, yet impossible young woman under whose spell he had so swiftly and so comprehensively fallen. He could hear the guffaws and the sniggers from the others behind his back, but he didn't dare turn around to confront them because they would see how bright red his face had turned and how embarrassed and insignificant he now felt.
Strange was seated at his desk going through the latest reports of robberies carried out the previous night while Morse was hanging around somewhat indeterminately, hoping that Thursday wouldn't instruct him formally to give Strange a hand on the robberies. His hopes were soon to be brutally dashed as Thursday beckoned him over.
'It looks like there's nothing much in overnight so you'd better assist Strange with these robberies, after all.' He could see the disappointment in Morse's eyes and sought to reassure him swiftly. 'I expect something will turn up soon. Knowing your luck, it's bound to. Besides, it won't kill you to do a bit of real police work for once. You can learn a lot from Strange. He's a good copper.'
Morse couldn't stop himself from smiling just a little at the mention of that old mantra. He had lost count of the number of times Thursday had pulled him up for his lack of enthusiasm for good old-fashioned police legwork, procedures, paperwork, doing the hard graft. It wasn't glamorous or challenging, it was mostly blood, sweat and tears and Strange was the best in the team at that. Thursday knew Morse found that side of his job dull, uninspiring, wholly unsuitable to his particular talents but Thursday knew equally well that he couldn't afford for Morse to neglect that part of his job or he would never get anywhere, or at least nowhere near the heights of seniority and command that Morse's special abilities and gifts merited.
'Go on, off you go,' Thursday gestured over towards Strange and Morse nodded reluctantly, dragging his body, though not his mind and soul, over to sit down with Jim and get acquainted and updated on the latest incidents in the world of serious crime.