Chapter 2

"How was lunch?" Dempsey enquired as Harry slipped into her seat across from him.

"Good, thanks." She nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. It was very nice."

Dempsey was curious, the reply not having a particularly natural flow.

"An' how was Ange? She still got the hots for me?"

They had met up quite a few times at the various venues he had attended with Harry over the months and it was now a given that Angela would flirt outrageously with him and that Dempsey would reciprocate. There was nothing in it or at least that was what he assumed because she'd never come onto him on the odd occasion when they'd been alone together.

"Of course she has," Harry answered.

Dempsey waited.

Was that it? No clever put down? Not even a hint of irony?

He watched her take up the folder she had been working with before she broke for lunch.

"We've got Lionel Ashbon at three, haven't we? Hope he's in better mood this time. He wasn't exactly full of the joys last week, was he?"

He saw her cheeks lift as her mouth contorted into an unwilling smile.

"Very creative," she murmured. "No need to ask how you spent your lunchtime."

Dempsey had even impressed himself with his level of artistry. Using nothing but a sheet of white A4 sized paper and a pair of scissors, he had created a Winter wonderland and located it right there on the inside front cover of the folder – well, a quite intricately designed cut-out paper snowflake anyway.

Over the last three and a half weeks he had managed to come up with a seemingly endless supply of Christmas related entertainment. It had all been kept very subtle of course so as not to draw too much attention but the odd thing had been noticed and commented on. The whistling, singing and humming of festive tunes was the most obvious and it had become accepted that it was to 'rattle Makepeace's cage' because, as Dempsey had fabricated with ease, 'they had had a weird conversation in Cornwall about her dislike of Christmas music being played too early in London department stores'.

But Frank had spotted the shiny bauble hanging beneath her desk though and Chas had smelt the cinnamon in her coffee.

The scented pine tree air freshener in her car had been a wonderfully cheesy touch, equalled only by The Choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields, 'The Joys of Christmas' tape he smuggled into the cassette deck. Harry had been driving alone when she decided a bit of Simon & Garfunkel might be in order but instead of picking up from half way through 'Cecelia' which was where she was sure it had left off, she was treated to 'O Tannenbaum' instead. It had made her smile for a good five minutes.

Last week, Fry had pointed out the tiny flecks of silver glitter adhering to Harry's cheek and she'd passed it off as being make-up she'd used at the weekend which had spilt in her handbag and got transferred to her face. The real culprit, although still in her handbag was actually a folded sheet of paper bearing the words, 'TeN moRe SLeePs Til ChrisTMas' in Dempsey's weird Studley caps handwriting. He'd then drawn a box around it with a glue stick and sprinkled glitter over the top. She knew she'd be finding bits of that glitter for months to come.

Still, ten more sleeps was quite a noteworthy prospect and worth commemorating. If only Doctor Roper had realised the stir of sexual excitement her words had caused when she had suggested that his next appointment with her should be the last time she needed to see him and after that he could resume normal duties. It seemed a bit strange, having an actual date set for their out of hours activities. It could be argued that it was taking away the spontaneity but at this stage, the anticipation was almost overwhelming and therefore spontaneity was a completely redundant concept.

Of course, they both knew that Doctor Roper's final word on Friday was simply a formality. Dempsey's shoulder was, according to him, ninety-five percent recovered and there was nothing except their own verbal agreement stopping them from jumping into bed right now. But no, the date had been set and Christmas Day this year fell on Saturday, September 14th.

Yes it was amusing but there was a serious side to it all too. The level of effort he was putting into this whole thing was quite touching; he wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't important to him, if he didn't think what they were about to embark upon was a significant enough cause.

He was having fun and wanted Harry to as well.

And now with only three more sleeps ahead of them, Harry had a surprise or two of her own planned.

"Where'd you eat?" Dempsey flipped back to the original topic, wondering if it was just his imagination or if there really was something amiss with Harry.

"That little Italian in Covent Garden, Gianelli's. They do a fabulous Tiramisu there but fortunately for my waistline, there wasn't time for dessert."

If she'd gone for that coffee, she would have been really late back and would definitely have had to come up with some explanation.

Yeah, I know the one you mean. I never been. It's good?"

Harry busied herself flicking through the file. "It's fine for a lunchtime. Nothing flashy. Now are we going to do a bit of digging on this sleeping partner of Ashbon's? I'd quite like to be able to put dear Lionel on the spot."

She would tell him about her impromptu encounter in Covent Garden, only not here, not at work. She really didn't want to get into that sort of discussion with others present. Well, if she was honest, she didn't want to talk about it at all, she'd much rather just put it out of her mind only Dempsey had this annoying knack of reading her like a book and she knew he'd picked up on her discomfiture. She found it disconcerting at times. Being a naturally private person, she had always found it easy to keep her emotions hidden from view. The only person who had ever known, with any degree of accuracy what she was feeling when she chose to put the shutters down was her father. She had always attributed that to some sort of parental bond though. So what was it with Dempsey?

He was looking at her from across his desk, looking into her it felt like. And then he switched off and let her go, moving his attention on to their current embezzlement case instead.

hanks so much to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. Love everybody guessing who he is and what's going on. Sorry this is only a short chapter but it's just the way it went. I'm probably 2/3 through writing chapter 3 and it's flowing quite well at the moment so hopefully won't take too long to finish... famous last words. I'm such an incredibly slow scribbler, I infuriate myself!