ACT I

"When the mind is in a state of uncertainty, the smallest impulse directs it to either side."
—Terence

Chapter 1: Backing Up

29 June, 2004

She truly hadn't intended it today. If anything, Cully wanted the opposite. Why? Well, that was plain as could be, obvious even to the densest man. Though maybe not, considering the past few hours. She blamed them, a quiet collection of memories, some buried deeper than others. But she had never even called the entire affair—no, that was the wrong word, relationship—an error in judgment, at least regarding the man. Poor judgment of the situation, perhaps, the truth of their relationship as it had stood for the years her father had worked with him, but not the man. It was an impossible situation, and one really best ended and forgotten.

Cully had known most of his faults for years, having heard more than enough from her father over the dinner table. Frustrations as he leapt to an answer without consideration for everything right before his eyes, aggravation for his apparent lack of thought before speaking much of the time, disbelief about the views he occasionally spouted. But never a truly bad word about the man himself. His form, yes, but never his character, his loyalty, what truly mattered.

She closed her book, one finger still between the pages to hold the place. No point in pretending, she wasn't remembering a word after her eyes skimmed over it. Maybe, Cully thought, rubbing at an eye, I shouldn't have said anything at all.

But how? It had been one of those moments that could be neither accepted nor denied, only survived.

"Gavin!" she called, not quite believing the sight of him, coming the opposite direction on the sidewalk. Almost strange, really, seeing him out of a non-uniformed officer's unofficial-official uniform. In the last few months she'd been out of Midsomer, she had forced the old image of him back into her mind whenever a stray thought wandered back to him: a proper policeman in his basic suit, button-up shirt, and tie.

He looked at her for a moment, eyebrows furrowing a bit before he waved, then walked a bit quicker around a middle-aged woman with her small rolling shopping trolley. It was with a few stuttering steps that he came up to her, glancing at the ground for a moment before speaking. "Uh...hello...Cully."

"And hello to you, too." He had been much like this the last time they had spoken outside of his official capacity as a policeman, dressed rather the same—a dark polo shirt, jeans, tennis shoes—and trying desperately to bury his nerves. "Don't act like you've seen a ghost. It's just me." She was nearly surprised by how he avoided examining her, for she was surely a bit different. Her hair, though still light, was longer, her complexion a bit paler than even before, what with all her days spent inside either rehearsing, performing, or seizing a few hours of miraculous sleep whenever the rare opportunity came about.

He shook his head, a bit too quickly. "No, no, just—haven't seen you around, that's all," he said, almost stopping in the middle. His hands were in his back pockets, his gaze dancing around, falling everywhere but on her.

Cully could only smile a bit. This was the way she remembered him when they first met, that disastrous evening at the Causton Playhouse: like he wasn't sure what to make of her, how to regard her, where to categorize her in his world. "Well, it's hardly a way to greet a friend, then," she said.

"Right," he said, removing a hand from a pocket just long enough to scratch at his nose. Might as well help him, she thought. Before he had a chance to move, she ran an arm around his back, just a brief hug like she offered any old friend, and surely she could still call him that. He was tense for a moment and even after he returned the embrace, though he broke out of it quicker than she expected.

Silence, again. How easy does he think this is for me? she wondered, stepping back and trying to gather her next thought, waiting for him to say anything. But still, only the noise of the street was between them. "Been out of town for a couple of months," she finally said, "that's all. I just finished a production."

"Oh, right." He still turned his face anywhere else, as though he was worried about simply looking her in the eye. "What of?" he asked at last, and she heard the vagueness of the words, just noise to fill empty space.

"Shakespeare. Hamlet, actually," she said, shifting to one foot. His nerves were bleeding over to her, and she fought her eyes, demanding them to be still and look straight forward for the moment when he finally mustered his own courage. "One of those modern interpretations you either love or hate, nothing in between. Didn't Dad tell you?"

"No," he said with another brief scratch at his face, "must have slipped his mind."

Cully felt her own stomach begin to turn, his unease now entirely contagious. "Too many gristly murders in there instead?" she managed. A good topic, she decided, something safe.

"A few." He finally smiled, the same sort her father had worn as long as she could remember, a quiet expression to shove it all aside. A shrug of the shoulders, then. "Rather more than a few, I guess."

"Wouldn't be Midsomer without them, would it?"

"Hardly." The smile faded as he was silent again, the pause running a bit too long. He stepped to one side, clearing a path with a vague wave of a hand. Cully took the offer without a word, setting a slow tempo, and he fell in beside her, clearing his throat. "Just running around this afternoon?"

She crossed her arms over her stomach as she walked, a few twitching fingers digging into her elbows. "Mostly. I just came from the library."

"Find something interesting to read?" Again, bland, empty. She glanced at him—and he immediately looked down, like he was concerned about some invisible obstacle in the pavement. His hair was a bit longer than when she had last seen him, in need of a trim, but not quite long enough for the gentle curls at the front she remembered from the first sight of him.

"I did take something out, but I was there...professionally, I guess." Cully let out a quiet chuckle. "I'm going to be working on their mobile unit again, while I'm resting. Staying with Mum and Dad until I decide where to go next, find the next production, I guess."

"You still enjoy risking literary disaster during a quick right turn, eh?"

"Most of us don't make driving quite as much an adventure as you, Gavin." She had experienced it more than once and heard it harangued in absentia with more than a few grumbling words.

"He keeps dropping hints," he said, at last removing his hands from his pockets, "I think he wants me to take the driving course again."

"I think he wants to make it home each night in one piece." His laugh was short, but easier, more comfortable than anything he had said. "I think he likes seeing Mum and me every evening, at least until I decide what to do next." Already, Cully wanted those words back, not for what they meant but the words themselves. She knew what lay beneath Gavin's nerves, and it was no surprise. He didn't really believe her that blind, did he?

"I guess." The words were soft, but somehow stronger than his greeting. "Do you...want to grab a coffee, maybe?" He was silent again, and she heard him draw a deeper breath. "I'd like to hear about what makes a willing theater-goer hate Shakespeare."

Cully pulled her arms apart, slapping his elbow lightly with a hand. "Spoken like a true theater buff."

"Only where Pinter's concerned." She hardly thought about it—and he did not shrink from the touch—as she threaded her arm around his. All she knew was the smile she at last heard in his voice.

It had been a pleasant afternoon shared over a pair of coffees apiece, just a couple of hours to relive the past months. Cully had no illusions as to Gavin's appreciation of theater, her assumption proved particularly correct in his attitude to Shakespeare. He had laughed—really laughed—when she suggested The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) to cultivate a liking for the Bard, with its American football rendition of the histories and forty-three second long enactment of Hamlet. His brief review of the recent Midsomer crimes was cautious, circumventing the nastier details, but still more in depth than she was accustomed to hearing from her father. No matter her age, she remained his only child and daughter, territory that merited a permanent shield from the truly sordid nature of his work.

In the midst of Gavin's first coffee, he seemed to finally forget their immediate past completely, to jump into the present wholeheartedly. Old moments had invaded occasionally until then, but now they disappeared. All through the rest of the afternoon, he was the man she remembered, tripping himself up as he spoke before thinking and not entirely afraid of his own faults, either, though he seemed not to regard them all as such. Yet as they stood to leave, that old Gavin Troy vanished, replaced by the nervous, awkward doppelgänger who had met her on the sidewalk. He stiffened as she offered a final hug, shied away from her typical goodbye kiss on the cheek. And with just a quick farewell, he walked away, something between a normal pace and a jog with one final look and wave to her, and then he was gone around the corner. Like that was that.

Yet it wasn't, it couldn't be. Too much lay in the silence of the past months. It was nothing to do with that short period when she had allowed herself to think of him as something more than he had always been: her father's partner at work, another policeman. No, that time was long gone, the argument and final moment long since finished, resolved. After all, they had met and spoken without this...coldness in that year, when the normal order of things and relationships had returned. He had again been merely Detective Sergeant Troy, with only some memories to differentiate him from any other person with whom her father ever worked. But she knew: the end of the interval, that was what lay behind Gavin's demeanor, the cautious words, the unwanted common courtesies.

At last, she set the book aside, not caring about the lost page. It had all vanished anyway, the names, the first twists and turns of the plot. Slumping back in the armchair, Cully closed her eyes as she craned her face to the ceiling. The house was quiet, now, her parents on a long walk, and the emptiness suffocated her.

She was to blame, wasn't she?

Yes, she had kissed him that night, and Cully wouldn't claim it had been otherwise. Her choice, not his, at least not at first. She had tasted the wine on his breath, but couldn't bring herself to care, for this was her...test, almost. More than a year lay between them and that disastrous last night, when his fear overwhelmed anything he felt and her anger sent her off to another role in another play as quickly as she had a chance. She had kissed him again, those few months ago, and in a moment, he had kissed her back. And it was not a chaste return, or even a response in kind. It had been more, far more that she did not run from, and it had not frightened her or even stoked any worry. The fear was of...herself. Oh, it was so quickly—rightly—shoved aside by another addition to the case of three teenage homicidal maniacs, but...Once the terror seeped away, fear remained of herself and might, maybe, what if, all those bloody words.

It was a reasonable fear, too: of what had so quickly risen again, of the past-present-future, everything. He had passed, and Cully would have apologized, except...she had failed. In the first second, "I'm sorry" had been prepared, waiting to be born in her throat, but it was suddenly unnecessary as more unexpected—not unwanted—seconds came into being. So many weeks and months, more than a year, they all ceased to be, like they had never been at all, like she had not stormed away from him late that night.

And then to run away from him again, to want to forget him again, that demanded the apology still at hand. "Maybe I should wait," she said, whispering even in the empty house. Too loud. I might need to apologize again.