"How...did you…?" Barbara stared at Tommy, confused and unable to think.
"Charm and my warrant card. The girl on the desk gave me your room number. I needed to see you." Tommy heard his voice crack like a nervous teenager and he cleared his throat to cover his anxiety.
Barbara did not notice the slight edge to his voice. To her Tommy looked calm, in control and as if he knew exactly what he wanted from her. She felt the opposite. She was glad, almost relieved, he had followed her but had no idea where this was leading. Surely it could not be what she hoped? Common sense told her it was anything but that, yet the look in his eyes was new and it perplexed her. They had the tender fondness she had often seen but there was something else there too, a smouldering intensity that was almost frightening. Barbara shivered as she tried to decipher his stare.
She did not want to let him see how much having him stand there had affected her. Barbara took a breath and tried to sound indignant. "I'll have to talk to them about security. What if you'd been coming up here to murder me or worse?"
"How do you know I haven't?" he asked with a falsely menacing tone that he thought might ease the tension between them. She was clearly as lost in this situation as he was and the alarm on her face when he said it was priceless. He laughed before softening his voice, "I'm not, you know that, but I think you should let me in."
She scowled at him but stood back and let him past. The door clicked ominously closed behind him and she dreaded what might follow. She watched him walk over and sit confidently on the edge of her bed. A bit too bloody familiar! They had parted amicably why did he have to come up and spoil everything again? He would never understand why she could no longer just be friends with him and she had no experience with relationships to adequately explain it. "We said everything downstairs Sir, we should just let it go."
The room was the same bland decor as the hall, impersonal and uninviting. Cheap blonde laminate masquerading as real wood accented the table, suitcase rack and wardrobe that all ran together to dominate one wall. The small TV was a cheap brand with a blurry and faded picture. Tommy grimaced involuntarily as he sat on the lumpy mattress that dipped unpleasantly in the middle. This was hardly the place he would have chosen to tell Barbara how he felt about her but he had little choice.
Barbara crossed the room to look out the window so that she did not have to look at Tommy, afraid that she might let down her guard. She had been about to undress and shower before ringing room service to order her staple diet, chips and beer. The news story about the fire in Manchester had stopped her removing her shirt and now she pushed it self-consciously back into her trousers as she wondered what to say or do. She watched him closely in the reflection of the window. He was not as controlled as she had thought. He was shifting his weight awkwardly and she had seen that expression before. He was working up to saying something important. Her heart started thumping.
This remarkable woman in front of him could be volatile but that fervour was something he had always found attractive in her, ever since their first case in Yorkshire. Most of the women he knew had been brought up to be controlled and never flustered. It was one of the things he had admired in Helen when she was his friend and had listened endlessly to his lamentations about Deborah. As his wife her ability to detach herself and be dispassionately sterile and logical had driven him mad. The contrast was stark. Barbara had been sympathetic about Deborah as he had made her traipse all over the moors following his futile flight of fancy but had balanced his naïve romanticism with her realistic and practical approach to life. Yet at other times she was as equally illogical and sentimental as him and he had needed to ground her. That was why their partnership had been so successful and why their friendship had worked. It could also be why a relationship would work. They were different and yet alike; a good counterbalance to each other. As he looked at her now he could not believe he had let her walk out of his life.
Tommy had decided that simple honest statements would work best but all the succinct phrases he had thought of in the lift now deserted him. As he sat looking at her trying not to look at him as she straightened her clothing all he wanted to say was 'I love you' and follow it with a never-ending embrace. Instead he asked what he really had to know before he said anything more, "do you love him?"
"Who?" Barbara was confused. Tommy's voice had been so uncharacteristically soft she had at first thought he had said 'me' and her heart had skipped.
"Your man in Kent." Tommy stood and went to stand behind her, almost trapping her against the window. Despite how he felt about Barbara he did not want to interfere if she was truly happy. That was unfair. He had wasted plenty of chances and she would never forgive him if he ruined things for her now. Tommy had seen her eyes downstairs and was confident she did not love whatever-his-name-is, or at least not as much as she would if there was any real future in the relationship. He was prepared to gamble. "I want you to be happy Barbara. I'll let it go if you can tell me honestly that you do."
"Don't ask me that. You should leave please Sir," she said without conviction. She could feel his presence behind even though he was not touching her. She wanted to turn and face him but she knew she did not have the strength to resist his eyes. She would blurt out the truth and that served no purpose. David was a good man who amused her and cared for her; it could be enough. She could never have Tommy so she could settle but she had known since she had first seen Tommy earlier that she could not accept second best. It would not be fair on her or David. Damn you for ruining everything! Barbara was starting to become angry with him. She wanted to turn and yell at him.
"I have to know," he said quietly.
"No, I don't love him!" she shouted bitterly. "Why ask me that? I've been gone a year and you made no attempt to see me and now because of Winston's meddling you suddenly think you have the right to interfere in my life again. Well my flat doesn't need painting so there is nothing to throw your money at this time and I didn't meet David via some dodgy dating service so you've no reason to mock me. You've no reason to be here. It was friendly downstairs. Better than last year. You should've just left it at that."
Tommy did not move. "No!" he said calmly but firmly. "I'm not going to leave it. I should never have let you go last year. We belong in each other's lives. It's that simple."
She turned and glared at him and made a noise that sounded vaguely like a growl. She could be viscous in her attacks to protect the vulnerable; or clever and determined as she stalked her prey. She had always reminded him of a lioness as he had listened to her shout insults and indignation at him or as she had defended him to others. He still bore the metaphysical scars of those previous attacks and he sensed he would need to bear one more before he would feel that wonderful protectiveness that he had come to depend on. He knew his words would unleash her anger which might mean he could finally break through the armour-plating and discover how she really felt about him. He smiled to hasten the process. Three, two, one...
"You arrogant ponce!" Barbara fumed at the assertion and moved closer to him. "You decide that, and I'm just supposed to play along."
"Yes," he said provocatively.
"Get out. I've had enough of this...this attitude." She was angrier at him than she had been in years.
"No you haven't," he said calmly, "you need to yell at me and tell me what you feel so we can move on."
"No," she retorted determined to regain the upper hand. Now he was staring at her and his eyes bored through her. She was worried he knew, or soon would, why she had left him and she was mortified. She could feel her face reddening. Hopefully he would mistake it for rage.
"Maybe I should start then and tell you why I'm here?"
She tried to move away from him but he put his hand on her arm narrowing her avenues of escape. Her heart almost stopped before it resumed its relentless thumping. "Because you think you own me and you want a friend so I have to play along regardless of how it affects me."
Tommy decided on direct action and moved closer to her. "No, because we have danced around the truth too long. One of us has to say it. I love you Barbara."
Before she could react he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Her head spun from the words as well as his touch. His arms had slipped around her and he was holding her tightly to him. His lips were gentle but burning and without thinking she returned his kiss and bunched the back of his jacket in her fist.
For Tommy feeling her respond to him was like entering paradise. Knowing she loved him made his world suddenly brighter and feeling her love made the optimism he had lost years ago surge back. Then he felt the sting of her hand as she slapped him, hard. "Oww!"
"How dare you!" she screamed and he released her from his embrace.
Tommy was worried that he had misread her feelings. He had suspected she might be angry but he thought this was what she wanted, what they both wanted. "I'm sorry," he blurted out embarrassed, "I thought you felt the same way. I thought that was why you left me."
"It was! But you didn't feel that way a year ago. You were too busy dating every woman in London with long legs, good breeding and an eye on your title to notice me. You never came after me. You let me go. No, in fact you pushed me away."
This was the vitriol he had expected earlier and he needed to help her get it out of her system but at least she had confirmed she loved him. He tried hard not to smile. He had no right to do that no matter how elated he felt. He had made a mess of everything last year and wasted a year of their lives. "I did feel it. I just couldn't admit it," he responded sheepishly.
"Why not? Because I'm not good enough to be in a relationship with you?"
"Really Barbara! How can you say that after everything we have been through?" Now Tommy was genuinely angry. Her class issues had plagued them since the beginning and she needed to understand it made no difference to him. "Maybe I never thought I was good enough to be with you. Did you ever stop to think about that?"
"No because that's just an excuse. It would never work, even if it did we'd have all the pressure from your family, the Met, everybody. I accepted that I could only ever be your friend. It was enough but when you started going out with those women and came in and told me all about them I couldn't stand it. I'd lie in bed at night imagining what you were doing with them, it just got too much."
"Nothing. I did nothing with any of them except take them to dinner. I thought you wanted me to, what was your phrase, 'get back on the horse'? I thought you'd feel better if I pretended to be enjoying myself. In reality I was miserable. I wanted to be with you then but I couldn't risk losing you as my friend. I even tried asking you out if you remember but you kept fobbing me off. As soon as you left I stopped seeing any of them. I just sulked in my corner hoping you would grow tired of Kent and come back to me."
"You could've come after me," she spat at him.
"I tried. That night I went after you but you were so angry I just let you go. I was stunned. I had not expected it and you were so…so…cold! After nine years you expected to walk out of my life with a handshake? I don't think I believed you would go. I thought you would stay in touch and then I got angry but after my pride subsided I used to drive down and sit outside your house and wait. Sometimes I'd see you come home but you never once looked over and noticed me." Tommy ran his hand through his hair and sat back on her bed. "I thought you might've recognised the car at least. Once I even got to the front door but what was I going to say? How did I know if you felt that way? It was just an assumption in my head. Then you started to come home with someone. You looked happy so I stopped driving down."
Barbara looked contrite, her anger suddenly gone. "I'm sorry. I never saw you. I expected you to turn up at a crime scene like you used to when I was sent somewhere. Every time I'd look around hoping you were there. You never came and I assumed you were either still angry with me or had moved on."
"If I'd asked that last night why you were leaving would you have told me?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Probably not."
"Will you tell me how you feel now? Forget about everything and everyone else. Just tell me how you feel about me. We both owe each other that."
His voice was calm and reassuring. "I'm confused," she said honestly, "I knew when I saw you tonight that nothing had changed. I still love you as my friend, I miss not having you in my life and I'm still in love with you but I can't see how it would ever work. We're too different and circumstances…"
"No circumstances," he said, "I asked what you felt, not what you thought."
"Sorry." She sat beside him and looked steadily at the carpet.
"My turn," he said as he took a deep breath, "you had been my friend, my only true and honest friend, and my feelings moved far beyond friendship some time ago but I was too scared of losing you to ever say anything. Then I lost you and it hurt, like nothing has ever hurt before. When I saw you again tonight I had to tell you. I can't let you go again."
Barbara looked up to see that same look she had seen as she opened the door. He smiled at her with that slightly awkward grin that he only ever used for her and the last shred of her defences crashed down. She had no idea how it was going to work but she knew they would find a way. They always had in the past and it would be be different now. She reached up and stroked his face. Suddenly she was falling, pushed back onto the bed by Tommy.
They had fallen onto the bed more by accident than design as he went to kiss her. This is not the bed I will make love to my future wife in! "I love you Barbara." He kissed her with tenderness but urgency and she responded. "We should get married." It sounded sudden but it seemed long overdue.
"What? But I'm in Kent now."
Tommy resumed kissing her, refusing to accept her objections. "Marriage was legal in Kent last time I checked."
"But my job."
"It's fine. We'll move to Dartford or Eltham or somewhere and we'll both commute."
Barbara was stunned but was rather enjoying his attentions. He was a much more passionate kisser than she had imagined. She had only ever seen him kiss Helen and that had seemed much more clinical. "Alright." The words escaped before she had a chance to think about them.
"Oh Barbara, that makes me unbelievably happy." He held her tightly so she could not escape then they lost themselves in their kiss.
Tommy eventually broke free long enough to suggest adjourning to his house. Barbara shook her head. "Plenty of time for that. Stay here tonight."
"But this bed is so uncomfortable," he complained.
"I don't recall asking you to sleep in it Sir."
Tommy grinned at her again. "Sleep is the last thing on my mind Havers but I do think that considering where we currently have our hands we might consider moving onto a first name basis."
"Only if you're a very good boy Sir!" she said wickedly.
It was the last time she ever called him 'Sir'.