DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Val McDermid. Just takin' them out for a little ride.
SPOILERS: Two, if you watch the series. One from "Justice Painted Blind" and one from "The Mermaids Singing".
SUMMARY: An argument leads to introspection. Tony POV.
FEEDBACK: Compliments and/or constructive criticisms are greatly appreciated. Send any combination of those choices to:
AUTHOR'S NOTES: These characters started in books (now up to four) and are now in a British series called, "Wire in the Blood". Kudos to all those involved (VM, Robson Green and Hermione Norris), and I hope I've done your characters justice. Other WitB fic can be found on my website (email me) or My thanks to my beta reader, papiliondae, who teaches me all about British stuff… among other things.
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The evidence room is deathly quiet, an amazing contrast really to the din of noise that filled it not ten minutes ago. Somewhere between examining evidence and tossing around theories, Carol and I got into an argument. No, a shouting match, if I'm to be honest. As our voices rose higher and higher, the eyes of those around us –Don, Kevin, and that girl whose name I can never recall –right, Paula –got wider and wider. I was so intent on making myself heard that I didn't even notice them leave, though I have no doubt it was under a cloud of awkward discomfort.
I think that was ten minutes ago. I can't be sure because we're now entrenched on opposite sides of the room and my back is to the clock. It's become a silent contest of wills –who will figuratively blink first –where even the subtlest of movements might be taken as a sign of weakness. It's hard not to frown as I'm thinking back to what we were fighting about in the first place. I can't recall. I do know that this particular case involves the abduction of children, which always hits a nerve, whether you're on the police force or you're a university professor. Emotions we have learned to push down and deny on any other case somehow ooze through the cracks in our strongest defences. Carol and I both have a theory about this one; unfortunately, it's not the same theory. Now, in our desperation to move beyond the heightened stress of the case, emotions have frayed and we've taken it out on each other – the only person we know who will forgive us.
Of course, forgiveness has yet to grace us with its presence.
I can look at her and not break our current embargo, as she is sitting stock still in her chair and looking at the board to her right. Her arms are crossed tightly across her chest –I don't have to be a psychologist to know this isn't a good sign. With her longish blonde hair tucked behind her ear, I can see her profile, her brown eyes hard and stern, her mouth is set in a firm line. None of which do anything to make me revise my previous analysis. She's angry. Angry with me.
I don't recall ever fighting with Carol before today. Not like this, not with raised voices and hurt feelings. Often there will be verbal shots across the bow, but truces are quickly offered and accepted. Such is the nature of our… relationship.
If a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client, I wonder what can be said for a psychologist who analyzes himself? I think I should leave any deeper consideration about our relationship for another day, and yet it's hard to separate it from who we are –it is part of who we are. Once, during an early case, we talked about dominance and submission and how it is evident in every relationship. We weren't talking about us at the time –quite frankly, we seem to have grown accustomed to ignoring the elephant in the room –but Carol took the moment to ask how dominance and submission could possibly be evident in our relationship. It was an unusually direct question, but she had had the courage to ask, so I found the courage to answer. There would be minor turf wars, I told her, each one fighting the other to see who could be most dominant. Or most submissive. She seemed to mull this over for a bit, quite seriously taking my words into consideration, then filing them away and moving on.
There's no submission here today, let me tell you.
And yet if I were to pick a single moment to define our relationship, it would be something entirely different, and something much earlier on. We arm-wrestled once to prove a point I was trying to make. Not exactly something you'd find in a psychology book, is it? But theory is only as good as the paper it's written on. Hands on experience, that's where it all comes together. And this was certainly hands on. She thought perhaps a woman had committed the murder, I thought it was a man. After several volleys back and forth with no agreement, I finally challenged her to an arm-wrestling contest. I remember she laughed, but when she realized I was serious, she was game. So there we were, in the chip shop, arm-wrestling to prove a point. She gave as good as she got, I'll give her that much. In fact, she caught me quite off-guard at first and nearly pinned my hand. And even as I slowly pushed her hand to the opposite side of the table, I could feel her putting up a fight, not prepared to give up. Then she did the most amazing thing –she laughed when she lost. And I knew then that I was done for.
Of course, I didn't really know it then. That sort of knowledge only comes with hindsight and the luxury of experience. And I couldn't have known then what I know now, because one single moment only becomes important when those experiences are built upon it and it all becomes an exercise in circular logic, doesn't it? But if I were to choose one microcosm of time to stand for our relationship, it would be that one. The two of us, our friendship barely days old, arm-wrestling in a chip shop, her pushing, me pushing back, a contest of resolve and determination that seemed to end up with both of us winning somehow.
I want to feel that again.
"We're being childish," I say out loud, hoping it's not an inappropriate thing to say, considering the circumstances.
I'm not sure whether it is my voice shattering the silence, or the oddity of my remark that causes her to swivel her head sharply in my direction. "What?" she asks.
"I feel like I've been sent to the corner as punishment. And you're sitting over there, practically pouting."
She coughs her disbelief and crosses her arms even tighter. But the twinkle in her eye doesn't escape me. "I'm telling Don you're bothering me," she says.
And just like that, we forgive and are forgiven.
"Let's arm-wrestle for it," I suggest.
"What?" she asks again, this time with more amazement than the last.
I'm already clearing a space on the table. "Do you remember the last time we did this?"
Her eyes narrow suspiciously at the events unfolding, but she pulls the chair across the floor to the table anyway. "I do. The last and only time. In a chip shop full of people."
"To settle a point," I add. "So let's do it, right here. You win, we'll follow your theory. I win, we follow mine." I give her an obvious once over. "I bet you've been working out since the last time, and I'm still a weed. It might be closer this time."
She takes off her jacket and drapes it on the back of her chair. "It was close last time, if I recall." As she rests her right elbow on the table, she looks right into my eyes. "You're mad, you know that, don't you?"
"You've made me this way, Carol."
A charged moment crosses the table and crackles between us, until she purses her lips and shakes her head. "Oh, I think you were all sorts of wacko long before I met you."
I put my elbow on the table. "I'm telling Don you're calling me names."
This gets a laugh from her and I smile. Stretching open her hand, she invites me to lay my palm across hers and I accept the invitation. As our fingers slowly enfold each other's hand, our gazes lock across the table. In her eyes I see a challenge, a playfulness, a world of possibilities. Unlike the last time, I don't need hindsight to make this moment clear to me; I already recognize it for all its implications.
I'm done for.
And I couldn't be happier.
"On the count of three," I tell her. I only get to "One…" before her voice joins mine.
"Two… three!"
-end.