Gillian noticed in the weeks after the fire that Caroline had been quieter than normal. She was more tactile, more snuggly, especially in the evenings when they were alone. She appeared to want more comfort. Gillian was fine with all of that; it gave her a sense of being needed she rather liked.
There was a flip side to it though; Caroline was calling more often during the day, wanting to know what Gillian was up to, urging her to be careful when even the most minor risk was involved. She'd taken to texting Caroline whenever she went anywhere, which saved some angst in the evenings, but it was beginning to grate on her nerves. To make matters worse, when she was home Caroline never seemed to take her eyes off her and the soulful blue gaze followed her around incessantly. She'd realised even moving to the kitchen to make a cup of tea was likely to inspire Caroline to find a reason to move too. She was starting to feel watched, tracked.
She wasn't sure what had happened for Caroline, but the fire had obviously triggered something. Gillian had that itchy sense of being controlled crawling up her spine from the moment Caroline was awake. She'd never had that with Caroline before and it brought with it uncomfortable memories she thought she'd left behind. Even small niggles between them were becoming larger problems, magnified under the constant observation and increasing tension.
"Why can't we get normal bog roll, Caz? Why do we have to pay for the 300-ply expensive ff-bloody stuff? You're not the ff-bloody queen!"
Gillian saw Caroline glare at her with the haunted look of someone not sleeping well. Gillian knew she was spoiling for a fight but disappointingly, Caroline wasn't going to give her one in the middle of Costco. Since Flora was in the car with them, it was an unusually quiet ride home, as was lunch. For a Bank Holiday, this was turning out to be anything but enjoyable. Straight after lunch she headed outside to 'tend her flock' as she called it, which involved standing in the middle of the paddock, sporadic pacing, and trying to work out what to say to Caroline.
Gillian intentionally took longer than usual outside to buy herself more time to gather her thoughts. By the time she entered the house, her muscles were so tense she had taken to consciously unclenching her fists, trying to relieve their aching rigidity. She had actually prepared a speech, but it would have to wait; she found Caroline sound asleep on the couch, Flora presumably upstairs having a nap of her own.
She watched Caroline for a few minutes, the exhaustion apparent by the dark smudges under the closed eyes. She reached out and gently touched Caroline's shoulder, the warmth of their connection travelling up her fingers. This was untenable, but she couldn't afford to lose Caroline. She sighed softly, wondering when they'd be able to resolve this, whatever this was.
She couldn't recall Caroline napping like this in a long time; she smiled wistfully, covered her with an old quilt to keep the afternoon chill away and went upstairs to clean up.
When Caroline woke late afternoon, she felt a little more human than she had in a long while. She hadn't meant to fall asleep but since she had, she hoped it would give her more clarity when talking with Gillian. She recognised something had been off with Gillian the last two weeks but she was too wound up by the lurking shadows of her past and all the extra work the fire had caused to have the energy to deal with it all properly. She had thought she'd left her grief and depression behind after it had fled under the warmth of Gillian's love, but she was no longer so certain. The last few weeks had turned her upside down.
She swung her legs off the settee and slipped her feet into her Uggs before standing and folding the quilt with her usual precision; it never registered with her that she hadn't pulled it over herself. She followed the sound of Gillian and Flora and found them cleaning up the kitchen with Caroline's favourite cake resting on the cake stand.
"You two have been up to no good I see," she said in greeting, relief audible, before walking up to Gillian and hugging her from behind. She smiled at Flora who was on the other side of the table grinning at the sight of her Mum. Caroline held on to Gillian for a few moments longer than normal, finally releasing Gillian in a rush before moving to hug Flora. As she came around the table, Gillian looked up at her, giving her a weak smile. That's when Caroline saw Gillian's cut on her cheek, barely hidden by a plaster, just below her left eye.
"I'm okay, Caroline. It's fine. I'm fine," Gillian quickly said, seeing Caroline freeze, her only sound the gasp she couldn't quite hold in. Seeing the blood drain from Caroline's face, Gillian rushed around the table, pulling the crumpling frame into her arms.
Gillian wanted to get Flora out of earshot. "Chicken, you can go play Mario Cart while I get your Mum to set the table? We'll call you when your tea is ready."
Caroline all but collapsed onto the nearest chair at the table. When the fear and loss in Caroline's eyes fully registered with Gillian, Caroline's recent behaviour made sense.
"Caz, I'm fine. I threw a spanner. It hit an old Mason jar of nails. It shattered and a shard or sommat ricocheted back and bit me. I knew better. I was mad and shouldn't a' done it."
Gillian moved to a chair across from Caroline and reached out to take Caroline's hands in her own. She waited until Caroline looked her squarely in her eyes before talking again. Tears welled in Caroline's eyes and she looked down at their hands without speaking.
"Is that what it's been all about, the past few weeks?"
Caroline nodded. She pulled a crumpled tissue from her sweater pocket and wiped her running nose. A defeated sigh escaped her lips as she clung to Gillian, nestling into the strong embrace.
"You can't protect everyone." Gillian let her words hang in the air. This was not the conversation she thought they'd be having but it felt safer and more real than the fight she'd been gearing up for since the wholesale store. She'd all but forgotten about the wound as she and Flora baked the cake for Caroline. She knew that most of their fights ended with great make-up sex, but for the really bad ones, sometimes cake was needed as much as wine to clear the path to reconnection.
The last of her anger left her as she held Caroline, hands soothing along with the gentle rocking so familiar to any parent.
"I lost Kate when I should have protected her. I...couldn't protect the school. I don't know how to protect you and Flora but I can't..." Caroline confessed. She felt inept and defeated.
"You're not to blame for Kate," Gillian began. "And you're not to blame for the school." She leant back, tucking the escaping blonde hair behind Caroline's ear. "None of it's your fault, you know that."
Caroline gave her a weak smile, her hands still shaking slightly, relieved beyond words that Gillian understood. She offered a last regret, "I should have…"
"Coulda, shoulda, no. It's the not knowing who did it that's driving you mad." Gillian's response was firm but supportive. "You do your best to look out for us but I swear if you smother the kids and me much more, you'll—"
Gillian was interrupted by the sound of tyres crunching on the drive. "Who the?"
Ruth started barking as she raced to the kitchen door. Gillian gave Caroline a last, fond kiss as she rose to see who it was. Surprised by the police car, Gillian gulped. The plod was never good news. She glanced back to see Caroline trying to gather herself together, the telltale signs of tears visible on her cheeks.
Gillian took a deep breath, grabbed Ruth by the collar to stop her charging out, and then opened the door. Cheryl emerged from the passenger side, but when Sergeant Catherine Cawood climbed out of the driver's side, Gillian's mind went into meltdown, frantically scanning through her recent past for anything incriminating; nothing obvious and then her blood ran cold. Maybe Robbie had dobbed?
Old habits die hard. Gillian Greenwood glued a fake smile to her face and pretended all was well.
"Evening, ladies," Sergeant Cawood said in a clipped greeting. "Hope we've not come at a bad time." Cheryl was on her heels as they made their way toward the door Gillian was holding open.
Gillian felt Caroline's hand in the middle of her back. Obvious. Supportive. Possessive.
"You have some news..." Caroline stated in an equally clipped greeting before she introduced a mumbling Gillian, not realising Gillian knew the sergeant. Moments later Caroline led them into the kitchen, with Ruth bringing up the rear, while barking at Cheryl.
Caroline settled the dog while Gillian bustled about making coffee and serving the Victoria Sponge. While the awkward pleasantries were exchanged, Catherine looked about the room, taking everything in, including the tension between the two women on the opposite side of the table. She observed quietly, seeing Gillian touching Caroline every time she passed behind her, until she finally joined them at the table.
It was only then Catherine could see Caroline turning to Gillian, leaning towards her, hands reaching under the table to connect.
Caroline, absorbed by her own emotional turmoil, had taken the time to pull herself together, sitting up straighter to face the visitors in her kitchen. With Gillian finally seated beside her, Caroline realised she could feel Gillian devolving into the twitchy woman terrified of her shadow that she'd met so many years before. She had no idea of the history, but her intuition told her something had happened between the Sergeant and Gillian.
Knowing it wasn't the time to delve into it, Caroline continued, covering for Gillian. Allowing her curiosity to show, she asked what the police officers knew. She leant forward, following her natural inclination to hang on Catherine's every syllable, aware every move she made would be catalogued by the sergeant.
"There's been arrests," Catherine began, turning her laser focused eyes towards Caroline.
Cheryl sat grinning from ear to ear between bites of her cake, while her sergeant took the lead.
"I think you'll be relieved to hear they weren't your students after all."
Caroline sat back in her chair, gobsmacked. She'd assumed they had been her students and the relief they weren't was palpable. "Seriously? Not any of mine?"
"Nope. It was Cheryl who cracked it."
"Aye," crowed the younger police officer, puffing up her chest. "I busted a kid in Crow Wood Park around 2am a few days ago. In the middle of a drug deal he was. During intake I recognised his high-end black trainers with red and green stripes but didn't know where I'd seen them. I mentioned it to Sarge at shift change. She pulled your CCTV footage from the night of the fire and they matched what one of the kids was wearing."
"Gucci. Can you imagine? 550 quid! Only dealers can afford those around these parts," Catherine interjected, her eyes drawn again to the plaster on Gillian's cheek, noting the bruising on her face looked fresh. "The detectives seized his mobile. When they ran it, they confirmed he was at your school at the time of the fire."
"It also showed who he'd been texting that night; through triangulation they confirmed the other two were at the school at the same time," Cheryl said trying to commandeer the conversation again. "As soon as he was interrogated, he sang like a canary."
"All three have been charged. They'll all be wearing her Majesty's finest standard issue shoes for a while," Catherine said with a self-satisfied smile on her face.
"That's amazing," Gillian chimed in, fingernails digging into her palms, trying to be part of the conversation. "Did you find out why they did it?"
Catherine leaned back in her chair, as relaxed as a predator stalking prey.
Cheryl jumped into the gap, "They were covering up evidence. They were worried they'd been seen so they lit the bin on fire, the stupid—"
"Yeah, well, not all criminals are blessed with brains," Catherine added, leaning forward slowly to pick up another slice of cake and for the first time Cheryl noticed both Caroline and Catherine were left-handed. Her jaw dropped open a bit, gawping at her boss then, the head teacher and back again, like she was watching a tennis match.
"So," Catherine held the pause, the change in atmosphere noticeable. She nodded her head at Gillian's face. "What happened?"
Gillian and Caroline looked at each other, the silent exchange potent. Gillian slid her gaze back to Catherine while tentatively touching her face.
"It's nowt. I were cranky and broke a bottle in the barn, and it came back at me. Me own fault. Stupid! Stupe... well, any road, it'll heal soon."
Catherine wasn't convinced, but the look of genuine concern Caroline gave the farmer was telling.
"She says she's okay," Caroline said quietly, the love she had for her partner obvious in her careful touch on the side of Gillian's face. "We were just discussing it when you drove up. I think we should go to A&E and have it properly checked out. Are you up with your tetanus shots? Should we—"
"Caz, it's okay. I keep telling you I'm fine," Gillian grasped Caroline's hand to calm her, knowing she had to stop Caroline's line of thought while they had visitors. "I'm really fine," she reiterated, in a soothing tone.
She gave Caroline a tender smile, her long gaze matched by a look of pure affection from Caroline.
Unbeknownst to either of them, Catherine's shoulders relaxed for the first time since she'd spotted Gillian's injury. Ever vigilant for family violence, spying a fresh wound was always going to have her watching for signs of coercive control and the like. It hadn't helped that Catherine knew about Gillian's history. She had been one of the detectives on the case when Gillian had been brought in for questioning about Eddie. She'd spent hours watching a hungover, skittish and traumatised Gillian stutter her way through the retelling of the horrors of that day, combing again and again through her and Eddie's life story. There were clearly gaps in it, not enough to be glaringly obvious, but there nonetheless. The word on the street was that Eddie was a thug with a temper and Gillian was tiny. It was fairly obvious what had happened, but proving it was tricky and the lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service didn't think they had a case. They'd let Gillian go.
Of course, that didn't mean Catherine, once she was back in uniform, hadn't kept an eye on Gillian, popping in unannounced every now and then, seeing what was what. She'd regretted not knowing to do so before the scrote Eddie died, as she'd been convinced Gillian had had to 'take steps' to protect herself and young Raff. As a woman who'd faced many violent men, and as a mother whose daughter died because of one, she knew exactly what it took to defend oneself against someone bigger and stronger. What she found afterwards was someone much more settled, much less fractured every time she visited Gillian and she'd grown rather fond of the farmer, whose no-nonsense approach to life and preparedness for hard graft was something Catherine could relate to.
Now it was apparent Gillian had finally found true refuge. Catherine nodded to her, and as if she understood, Gillian sighed, then a relieved smile brightened her face.
Catherine picked up her hat and was about to stand, the visit over, when Cheryl piped up.
"Y'know, it's weird, but you two look really alike."
"Who?" Catherine asked, knowing the answer but unwilling to voice it.
"You and Dr. McKenzie-Dawson," the ditsy copper responded in all seriousness, prompting Caroline, who was involuntarily shaking her head 'no', to lose complete control and cackle out loud to the point she covered her mouth with her hand to try to contain some of her amusement. Gillian, happy to see Caroline's mood lightening, joined in.
"What's so funny?" Catherine had more than a hint of defensiveness in her voice.
"It's not the idea we could look alike. It's just that…" Caroline reassured Catherine while looking for Gillian for assistance.
Without missing a beat, Gillian made eye contact with Catherine as she duly finished her partner's sentence. "The other day Caroline said how Cheryl reminded her of Natasha Blakeman, the character on Corrie. I told Caroline that to me she had the wrong hairdresser as I think she looks more like that hairdresser in Hebden, Julie Mulligan. We had a fun little exchange about that," Gillian said with a twinkle in her eye as she looked back to Caroline.
"Julie? Ashley Cowgill's widow? The one who owns that Day Spa?" Catherine relaxed further, teasing her misguided copper, "Oh, I can see you as a hairdresser."
The sun was beginning to dip below the distant horizon as Catherine and Cheryl climbed into the cruiser. The soft pink light that bathed the valley below as they headed back to the station had the sergeant feeling momentarily content with her lot in life. Conversely, the beauty around them was lost on Cheryl; despite how well their meeting at the farm had gone, she feared she'd put her foot in her mouth once again in front of her sarge and for a change, sat motionless.
"You're awfully quiet," the sergeant said, peering at the sky threatening its impending inky darkness. "You okay?"
"That Caroline is one classy lady. Always in her pearls. She does look like you, good, but a bit more posh," Cheryl said, watching her boss, hoping the compliment would land.
"Aye. She obviously has some money," Catherine offered, not wanting to admit they looked similar, only it was obvious one of them had had a harder life and she knew who that was.
Catherine let the rest of the comment slide. She was busy mulling over her apparent similarities with Caroline and she wondered if she'd have taken the same path if she'd been born into money. Of course, her background had had an impact; she knew her history with Clare and losing her parents early had primed her for a role in policing, but she wondered if class was also a factor. She sighed, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. She would have resented Caroline's privilege more if she hadn't seen first hand how miserable most of them were, despite their wealth, and Caroline had obviously been crying before they'd arrived so there was more to the story than her looks.
Despite Gillian's obviously potted history with men, Catherine felt she had more in common with her. Class was a big part of it; that and grit. Feeling protective of Gillian, Catherine glanced at Cheryl, measuring her words. "Gillian's not what you think. There's more to her than you're seeing. She's one of the good ones, I suspect."
Unwilling to cut Gillian any slack at all, happy to see the worst in her, Cheryl wondered if the boss was somehow taken in by Gillian's strange attraction too somehow. "I wonder what Caroline sees in her," Cheryl said with resignation in her voice.
They drove on in silence, until Catherine's comment niggled again at Cheryl. "What did you mean when you said you could see me as a hairdresser?" Cheryl's feelings were hurt but she wasn't sure if she was being too sensitive. Deep down she feared that if she messed up on nights there would be nowhere else for her to be moved but off the squad.
"It wasn't an insult," Catherine explained. "You're more girly than most women on the force and keep yourself tidy. Your hair and make-up are always in place, even after a night shift, and I've never seen you in a plaid shirt and jeans when you're off duty. You always seem to be in something more glitzy."
"Oh," said Cheryl, surprised at the warmth created by her boss' words, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks. Before she could say anything further, Catherine continued.
"Your interest in fashion might be part of why you noticed those trainers. What you have to watch is giving into gossip and judging people by their looks or circumstances." Catherine kept her eyes on the road and let her words sink in.
"I remember the night that young lass Leona was attacked and the night shift treated her worse than dirt under their nails. They missed what could have been a really big connection to that serial killer. All because of where circumstances landed her in life. They made assumptions. Couldn't see she was a feeling, scared victim," she continued, glancing sideways to confirm Cheryl was listening. "I gave them a thorough bollocking when I found them on their dinner break. One of them was too jaded and never learned from it but the other took it on board and went on to become a really decent copper. She kept an eye on Leona and singlehandedly stopped her pimp from beating her to a pulp one night."
Cheryl looked down at her nails, not sure where Catherine was going with her story but knowing better than to interrupt her when she was on a roll.
"I know you've had issues with Gillian, but Robbie was to blame more than her," the tired sarge explained. "Keep an open mind about people in future. Look at a situation from all angles," She could see Cheryl nodding her head and felt she's said enough to get her point across.
"I'm moving you back up to days and I want you at the press conference tomorrow. Without your keen eye, we'd still be looking for those tossers. You should be there to take your due," she said as she turned and gave a relieved officer a smile. "Just don't let it go to your head."
Feeling a bit cold, Catherine went to adjust the temp and noticed that someone had been clearly playing with it. It wasn't the first time she'd found it had been switched to Fahrenheit and set to "69" degrees. Smirking, she made a mental note to check the roster to see which wiseguy had taken the car out before her and make a joke of it in the morning meeting. Then she suddenly remembered that Cheryl had probably driven it last, inspiring a more appraising look at her co-worker. The joke would keep.