Not long after Laura finally found Ian. She'd gone to his office but he wasn't there, she'd gone to the lab but he wasn't there either. She eventually found him outside the entrance smoking.
"Bad for your health you know." Laura told him coming to stand beside him, leaning on the barrier with her good arm.
"I know, I've been trying to quit for a month. I'm down from twenty a day to ten a day. This is my sixth already." Ian turned to look at her, carefully making sure he didn't blow smoke on her face.
"Sixth since the day actually began or sixth since the day would normally have begun?" Laura looked at him, her eyes met his, she'd never seen such empty eyes.
"Sixth since the day would normally have begun." Ian finished his cigarette, from his pocket he withdrew a small tin box. He opened the box and put the cigarette out on the lid before putting it in inside the box. "Cigarette butts start fires and litter the place, I'm not giving Boyd another reason to kill me." Ian explained, answering the unspoken question.
"Yeah about that. There's something you don't know." Ian raised his eyebrow and snorted with derision.
"What's there not to know he's a self-centered asshole."
"That might be true but it might not be. You don't know the whole story. Why for instance did the person you replaced leave?" Laura asked, Ian shrugged clearly skeptical but willing to play along. "Why did I arrive the same time you did. Two new members at the same time in a five man team, why was that?" Ian shrugged again. "I'll tell you why. The person I took over from, DS Mel Silver, she died." Ian closed his eyes.
"Jesus." he muttered
"The person you took over from, Dr Frankie Wharton, she couldn't really cope with the loss of a colleage, transferred to the met main lab. Do you understand now?" Silently Ian nodded, reaching inside his jacket for another cigarette.
While Laura talked to Ian, Grace went to talk to Boyd. She knocked on his office door, he immeadiately looked up.
"Grace." Taking that to mean she could come in, Grace came in and sat down opposite Boyd, before Boyd could ask why she was here Grace started to talk to him.
"Peter, I want you to listen to me and hear me out. That means no interrupting ok?" Boyd narrowed his eyes but nodded his consent. "I know you think that Ian, Dr Carrier, is insensitive and annoying and not a patch on Frankie. That could well be true but he's not deliberately being insensitive, he doesn't know about Mel. As soon as he walked in here you both started to rub each other up the wrong way, and neither of you gave each other a chance since to make things right since. It can't go on, it's upsetting the whole team."
"He really didn't know?" Boyd asked, Grace nodded her head, Boyd sighed. "I guess I'll give him a chance but he's got to stop being so damn obnoxious." Grace closed her eyes.
"You know what I think the real problem is between you two?" Boyd shook his head "You're too damn similar."
That afternoon the team gathered in the main office, Grace had finished her report and the others had finished the gate logs, it was time for an update. Neither Ian nor Boyd mentioned what had happened that morning, Ian being almost painstakingly polite and Boyd, well being Boyd.
"Ok. We've finished the gate logs. There were twenty civilian cars that entered the base, fifteen of them were driven by women. They all live in the area and they all need to be interviewed. However looking at the names, the most probable on the list are Helen Waters, Michelle Rodgers and Sandra Matthews. Laura, Spence, I want you to interview Sandra Matthews. Grace you and I will interview Helen Waters and Michelle Rodgers. They live in the same street." Boyd explained.
"What can I do?" Ian asked. Boyd shrugged.
"You can go with Spence and Laura to interview Sandra Matthews I guess, just don't get in their way." Ian nodded ignoring the disparaging end to the order and went to get his coat and meet the others out front.
"See Peter, isn't it nicer when you two are getting along?" Grace smiled, Boyd just looked at her.