Chapter 31

Staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, Robbie couldn't quite seem to get moving. He'd slept fitfully. Val's words on a constant loop throughout the night. Could he really just ask Laura on a date? She was right, he did want to. But would Laura really want it to?

His phone rang. Rolling over, he glanced at the caller ID, the station. Grunting, he sat up, already on the move. "Lewis."

Automatically, he reached for the pad and pen he kept on his nightstand. Without uttering another word, he wrote down the details. Twenty minutes later, he was headed out the door.

Robbie walked around the crime scene pleased to find Laura attending the body. She was crouched over the man's dead body. Smiling, she looked up at him, "Morning Robbie."

He nodded at her, hoping his pleasure at seeing her wasn't misinterpreted. "Laura, what've we got?"

She stood, placing the lid on the specimen cup. "A gentleman of mature years been dead for some time but a bit of a puzzle. No maggots, no visible pooling, tongue's not distended, the nails…"

Robbie refrained from rolling his eyes at her delight. He waved off further description. "Spare us…"

Her smirk made his heart beat a fraction faster. He knew she took delight in breaking his composure. with the more vivid aspects of her job. "Best suit, polished shoes, clean white hanky in his top pocket…" Robbie knew she was holding back something. He met her gaze, looking only briefly at her lips curled into an almost smile. "No underpants."

His eyebrows raised. "No keks?"

She tilted her head at him, teasing him with his own accent. "Aye, you can take the lad out of Newcastle…" When he didn't respond to her teasing, she took a tentative step toward him, "You're not your usual focused self Robbie." He offered her his hand to help her out of the ditch. She happily took it, "Where's Hathaway?"

He pulled her up to him. "On his holiday." Pausing for a moment, her question made him think of another missing person, "Did you ever meet Jack Cornish? Fast track detective destined for great things."

Laura nodded, "Yeah, I've met him why?"

He scratched his head lightly. "Well it's just we were always great mates, cut from the same cloth and…" He looked down at her, Val's comments about the Cornishes flashing through his mind. He didn't need to bring more of his past into their relationship. Shaking his head, returned to the task at hand. "Oh, ignore me." He motioned towards the body. "Is that it?"

She shook her head as she looked down at the body. "Afraid not, I've saved the best for last, if I were to say all of the usual offices have been performed?" Robbie shook his head not understanding. "The thing is Robbie; this man has already been put through the tender hands of an undertaker."

She turned away, leaving him to puzzle at her words. Despite the gruesome scene and her insight into the body, his thoughts returned to Val's push from the night before. He walked away from her before he blurted out the question he so desperately wanted to ask.

He'd wandered the crime scene, acutely aware of where she was at all times. Her voice sent a thrill through him every time it cut through the air. A few times, he would have sworn he could smell her perfume, even though she never wore any to a crime scene.

Finally, he started digging through a pile of rubbish hoping to get his mind back onto the case and away from how he was going to ask her out.

"Interesting?"

He held up a sandwich container by the end of a pen. "Best before the 15th, that was when, last week?"

"You're a single bloke, zap it in the microwave, it'll be fine." She closed the hatch of her car and walked away.

He smiled as he watched her walk away. The smile deepened, Val was right. It was time he asked her out. Time for a proper date.

My apologies for the long delay. I had a significant health scare over the holidays. Trying to regain my equilibrium over the past 6 weeks has been my priority. Things are better now so I hope to have this finished by the end of next week. Then I will turn my attention to my other story. After that, I am going to return on the other thing I have been writing. It's not fanfiction but it is fictional. Perhaps one day I might even publish it.