FIVE – Duty and Honour

Ellen tells him that evening, not in person but on the phone, and he's left reeling under the impact of the call. Not because she makes it very clear that they won't be seeing each other again – that leaves Boyd largely unmoved – but because the implications of everything else she says genuinely shake him. Grace. In the end, it is always Grace, the woman who's infuriated and entranced him for more than a decade and a half. Anger and regret swirl inside him and it takes a considerable amount of effort not to simply leave his basement flat at a run. The impulse to get straight into the car and head for the house that was briefly his home is staggeringly intense, but he manages to overcome it. He's learning that sometimes it pays to listen to his head instead of his heart – and he has no idea how ironic that is.

Boyd doesn't know how he feels. Too many complicated, contradictory emotions fight for supremacy inside him, and his response is to reach for the half-empty bottle of whiskey and simply stare into space as the heavy, melancholy notes of Mahler fill the big room. He drinks and he thinks and neither do him very much good. His mind wanders to dark places he usually makes a conscious effort to avoid, associations and memories tumbling over one another and he concludes that he's made a serious mistake delaying his departure from London. He loves the city in all its moods, loves its colours and its shadows equally, but it's become a haunted place for him, a place where every turn seems to bring him face to face with yet another ghost.

He thinks of his dead son, of all the things that could have been, all the things that should have been. He thinks about the once-happy marriage destroyed by drink and pain and emptiness. He thinks, too, of the stellar career he could have had if he'd been less bullish, less determined to march to the sound of his own drum. The career that eventually imploded so spectacularly. He thinks of Grace.

He needs peace. If nearly two years of therapy have taught him anything it's that he needs peace.

There will be no peace with Grace. She simply doesn't know when he needs to be left alone with his thoughts. Always talking, that's Grace. Always talking, always questioning, never content to simply sit back and observe. It used to amuse him when he was younger and had more tolerance for it, and then came the dark days when his world was reduced to an eight by ten foot prison cell and after that… very little amused him.

Boyd needs peace. While he's still a few good years left in him. He thinks of childhood holidays and the open stretches of the South Downs with the sea glistening in the distance. Peace. A small cottage, maybe, or a barn conversion. An old man with a dog at his heels as he wanders aimlessly for perhaps the first time in his life. He isn't even that fond of dogs, but the man in his perfect vision of the future is definitely accompanied by a sleek, solid black Labrador.

It's a fantasy. It could be a reality. He needs the open space, needs the freedom to wander free of ghosts and bad memories. He fancies he will die alone as an old man living on the outskirts of some small village, and his neighbours will shake their heads in bewilderment when the story finally comes out who and what he used to be. They will only know him as the quiet, scarred old man with the black dog, the one who walks up the dusty lane to the local shop to buy a newspaper every morning.

The whiskey is going down in the bottle, which possibly explains his increasingly gloomy thoughts.

Grace. Oh, yes, it's always Grace in the end.

Can't live with her, can't live without her. It faintly amuses Boyd to be caught in such a trite dilemma. He goes to sleep with the glass still in his hand and the visions of the Downs still in his head.

-oOo-

Inevitably, she surprises him. The reception he receives isn't exactly fulsome, but it's nowhere near as frosty as he anticipated. Sheepishly, he admits, "I thought you'd be angrier."

The look Grace gives him is speculative and very wise. "Oh, I'm angry. Furious, in fact. Just not with you."

"Now I'm confused," he says, following her into the living room. It hasn't changed much in his absence, and he can clearly picture the many evenings they spent sitting together on the sofa.

"Good," Grace says as she sits down.

Boyd shakes his head. "That's it? That's the sum total of your input?"

"I told you, Boyd, I'm experimenting with being as laconic as you are."

He decides to risk provoking her. It might prove painful, but it might also help him ascertain exactly what's going on behind the tranquil expression. "So you're not intending to tear my balls off for screwing Ellen, then?"

"No."

Boyd studies her carefully. She looks perfectly calm, perfectly composed. In fact, he thinks, his attention wandering, she looks calm, composed and impossibly serene. Beautiful. He sees exactly what she sees, but he doesn't process the information in the same way. He doesn't see a woman growing older day by remorseless day, he sees a woman he's loved for longer than he can accurately remember, one who's as attractive to him now as she ever was. He tries hard not to smile, but fails. "This is going to be a great conversation if we're both using monosyllables."

"Why are you here, Boyd?"

He decides to simply be honest. "Because I can't stay in London, Grace. I thought I could, at least temporarily, but I can't. I rang some letting agents this morning. They're hunting for a suitable place for me."

"Where?"

"Sussex. Maybe Hampshire."

"You'll hate it down there."

"No, I won't," Boyd tells her languidly.

Grace snorts, her scepticism quite clear. "Oh, come on, you're a city boy through and through."

"Born and bred," he agrees. "It's time, that's all. I don't want to end my days surrounded by ghosts. I'm getting out while I still can. Before it's too late."

"Have you actually thought this through?"

Wondering how she still manages to make him feel like a naughty schoolboy, Boyd eyes her placidly. "Yes, Grace."

"Now who's being monosyllabic?"

"Have you got any whiskey?"

She blinks, clearly bemused. "It's a bit early, isn't it?"

"Sun's over the yard arm, and you and I are going to have a very long conversation."

"We are?"

He nods, his determination not wavering. "We are."

Grace stands up. "I'll get the whiskey."

-oOo-

It takes longer than even he expects, but thankfully it's not as difficult. Perhaps because he's more practised now at explaining himself or perhaps because Grace says very little. She prompts when necessary, and she asks occasional, gentle questions, but she doesn't push and she doesn't try to second-guess him. Boyd works his way steadily through from the beginning to the end, and into the silence that eventually falls between them he says, "It was never about shutting you out, Grace."

"I know that now. I'm just sorry I didn't know it then."

"I didn't know it then, either," he admits. "Actually, I don't think I knew what the hell was going on then. I wasn't in a good place."

"Oh, I knew that. I just didn't know how to help you. I thought I was doing the right thing."

Boyd watches her, well aware of the anguish in her blue eyes. "I want to close the door on it, Grace. On all of it. I can't do that without your… cooperation."

"Do you really think locking it all away is wise?"

He wonders if he can even begin to explain to her the things he barely understands himself. "That's not what I'm trying to do. This is about reconciling everything, about accepting it and moving on. Leaving it all in the past where it all belongs."

"That might be the healthiest thing I've ever heard you say, psychologically-speaking."

"Yeah, well I've had a lot of therapy."

"So I gather."

Boyd does not miss the undertone in her voice. He can almost see her claws starting to show. He doesn't blame her at all. He knows exactly how he would feel if the situation were reversed. Knows the jealousy would be eating him alive. They still love each other far too much for things not to hurt. As gently as he knows how, he asks, "Do you want to talk about Ellen? About me and Ellen?"

The imaginary claws flex. "Nothing to do with me."

"Bollocks," he says succinctly. Oh, yes, he knows how she feels, knows what his own possessive streak would drive him to. He wants to explain, to at least try to explain. "It was just a… circumstantial thing. Nothing inappropriate happened while she was my therapist. We just sort of drifted together a bit. Afterwards."

"There was a little more than drifting going on, from what I hear. And from what I saw for myself yesterday morning."

He can't hold her gaze. The blue eyes are too intense, too knowing. He looks at the floor. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that."

There's finally a reluctant note of humour in her voice. "I'm never going to visit you unannounced again. I'm too old for the trauma."

Maybe it's all right. "I've had my marching orders in that department."

Her response, though, is sharper than he expects. "Obviously. Well, why else would you be turning up on my doorstep?"

Typical. Push him off balance with a flippant comment and then go straight for the jugular. Wearily, he says, "I'm not playing this game with you, Grace."

"Fine by me."

Boyd can still see the seething jealousy in her, and though he wisely doesn't comment on it, he actually finds it quite heart-warming. He thinks it proves beyond all doubt that maybe she still feels the same way about him as he does about her. Love is a very strange thing. Deliberately changing the subject, he says, "I want to close the door on it all, Grace. To do that, I need to know that there's nothing left you need answers to."

There's a long pause. Then, "You've told me more in the last couple of hours than you've told me in the last fifteen years, Boyd."

"Best opportunity you're ever going to get to ask me anything you want," he teases gently.

A tiny smile ghosts across her face. "Anything?"

Boyd sighs quite deliberately. "Within reason."

-oOo-

"In the spirit of openness and honesty…"

At the sound of her voice, Boyd opens his eyes again. It doesn't do much for the headache throbbing sullenly behind his eyes. He's inordinately glad the room is shadowy, lit only by the standard lamp in the corner. He says, "You're very drunk, Grace; you know that, don't you?"

"So are you."

He shakes his head and immediately regrets it. "I'm not very drunk. I'm merely mildly inebriated."

"Whatever. In the spirit of openness and honesty…"

"Yes?"

Grace shrugs. "I've forgotten."

Boyd knows that look. It's the look that suggests she's thought better of whatever it was she was going to say. He closes his eyes again. "Don't believe you."

"All right. In the In the spirit of openness and honesty… why did you plead guilty?"

Not the question he was expecting. It's a question that requires a moment of reflection. He shrugs dismissively. "Because I was guilty? Because if I'd pleaded not guilty it would've made a mockery of my entire career?"

"You didn't kill him, though. Did you? Nicholson?"

"You said it yourself once before – I didn't pull the trigger. I knew what was going to happen to him. Wasn't the first… morally ambiguous… thing I'd done over the years, was it?"

"Stefan Koscinski? Eve's… whatever he was."

"Amongst others," Boyd says, opening his eyes again and looking across the room at her. "When I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young constable just getting used to wearing a uniform everything seemed very straight-forward. The law was the law, and it was my duty to uphold it. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that it was a ridiculously simplistic point of view. Justice – natural justice – doesn't always fall into the neat compartments created by society's laws."

"Very profound, Boyd."

"Mock all you like, it's the truth."

She says nothing for a long, long moment. Then she visibly sighs. "Promise me you're not just running away?"

"I'm not," he says truthfully. "I'm done with running; done with fighting, too, if it comes to that. Now all I want is peace."

"I'm going to miss you."

The words are so quiet, and they hurt so much. He says gruffly, "I'm hardly moving to the other side of the world, Grace. An hour and bit on the train, at most."

"I'm still going to miss you."

For a moment he almost wavers. Almost, but not quite. Forcing a light note into his voice, he asks, "How do you feel about dogs, Grace?"

"Dogs? Why?"

"I'm getting a dog."

Grace rolls her eyes. "Oh, now I really have heard everything."

-oOo-

It's the idea place. A small, isolated cottage not far from the tiny hamlet of Saddlescombe with trees and fields in one direction and the Downs and a distant view of the sea in the other. Even better, the owners have indicated a clear willingness to rent the place to him with a view to ultimately purchasing it from them. He walks round and round the few rooms, deep in contemplation while the letting agent, a small, nervous-looking young woman in high heels and round spectacles, watches him with wary suspicion. It's the scar, of course. Boyd is used to the attention it draws, used to the assumptions people make, the conclusions they jump to. He suspects the agent thinks he might be a small-time London villain looking for a rural bolthole. Somewhere to stash the sawn-off shotgun and the bags of used notes. He doesn't disillusion her.

"All right," he says in the end. "Tell them I'll take it."

It's that easy. Boyd returns to London that evening and quickly realises that he won't miss the heavy traffic, the continual hustle and bustle. He won't even miss the restaurants and the bars, the easy access to shops and entertainment. It strikes him that now he's in his sixties perhaps he's finally grown up a little. The quiet life that once would certainly have appalled him is now so powerfully seductive that he finds everything about his current surroundings only serves to make him more and more irritable. He wants to be out of Tufnell Park and out of London, and he doesn't care at all that he's going to lose a substantial deposit on his too-hastily rented basement flat.

There's only one cloud on Boyd's horizon.

He calls her far too late in the evening with his news, and isn't surprised when it's less than joyously received. He has dreams where he simply asks her to come with him and she agrees, dreams where they spend the rest of their days pottering about idyllic country lanes together. Happy dreams, but dreams nonetheless. Safe in his basement, he dares to suggest, "You'd like Saddlescombe."

"No I wouldn't."

"You would, you know. It's just a bunch of houses in the middle of nowhere."

"I rest my case."

"Brighton's just down the bloody road. Surely that's cosmopolitan enough for you?"

"Lovely," her voice says, her lack of enthusiasm quite clear.

"Have it your own way," he tells her, and not all of his annoyance is feigned.

-oOo-

They gather to give him a good send-off. A broad selection of friends and ex-colleagues, most of whom make no secret of the fact that they think he's finally gone completely mad. Frankie – who else? – is even openly taking bets on how long he'll last in the wilds of Sussex before he runs screaming back to London. He lets them have their fun. With the exception of Grace, none of them really have any comprehension of the extraordinary metamorphosis Boyd has been through over the last few years. They still see him as he always was – a tough, resourceful man capable of stalwart leadership in the most difficult times. Indefatigable, stubborn and absolutely committed to the pursuit of justice. To most of them he is still their former commander, a man to be respected… and just occasionally feared.

He remembers that man very well, but he doesn't mourn his passing. Boyd has finally learnt some of the lessons that would have made his life far easier if he'd learnt them years before, but he has also come to accept that it's better to have learnt those lessons late than never at all. He's not closing the door on all his old life, only on what has been one of the hardest chapters of it. In the morning he will take flowers to his son's grave and then he will leave the city, and he will leave it with a wry, fond smile on his face. He's deep in contemplation of the fact when Frankie sidles up to him. He looks down at her and smiles. He likes Frankie. He's always liked Frankie. He sees a lot of himself in her. She says, "So you're really doing this, huh?"

"Yeah."

"You're going to be bored shitless down there within a week."

"We'll see."

She looks uncomfortable, then blurts out, "What about Grace?"

Boyd regards her neutrally. "What about Grace?"

"You're just going to walk away and leave her on her own?"

"There's no 'just' about it, Frankie."

"For God's sake, Boyd…"

"Let me tell you something about me and Grace," he says, drawing her slightly to one side to reduce his chances of being overheard. "When we're apart we pine for each other, and when we're together we tear chunks out of each other. I'm too damned old and tired to go through all that fucking and fighting again – "

Frankie winces. "Too much information, Boyd."

" – on a daily basis."

"So that's it? You just walk away?"

"Leave it alone, hmm?"

Frankie's expression makes it clear she's not happy. "How can I do that? I think you're making a huge mistake. The pair of you… surely you could make it work if you really tried?"

"Aren't you a bit old to still believe in 'happily ever after'?"

She pouts. "Dad – "

Boyd gives her a gently tempered glare. "Come on, Frankie, don't try that old trick on me."

"Why not? It usually works. You've been more of a father to me than – "

"Frankie."

She subsides unwillingly, and despite all the years that have passed Boyd catches a glimpse of Frankie as she used to be – feisty, rebellious, prickly and far too clever for her own good. Without thinking he wraps his arms around her and pulls her into a tight, affectionate embrace. "Daddy's girl, huh?"

"Yeah," she says, her voice muffled against his chest. "Always bloody was, wasn't I? I'm really going to miss you, you cantankerous old bugger…"

Boyd sighs. "Why does everyone seem to imagine I'm moving to the end of the bloody earth…?"

-oOo-

Whether it's planned or not, eventually it's just the two of them sitting at one of the quieter tables while those of their friends and former colleagues who remain are gathered together at the bar. Years of experience tell Boyd that there's far more going on behind her quiet, faintly amused expression than he's ever going to get to the bottom of. He refills her glass for her. "Go on, then."

Grace blinks innocently. "What?"

"The lecture you're going to give me about keeping busy and staying out of trouble."

"Oh, that. Not going to bother. You're a lost cause, Boyd."

"Thanks, Grace."

"In the nicest possible way."

"Hmm," he mutters. He sips his own drink, listens to the background noise, the chatter and the laughter, the sound of glasses. There are still things that need to be said, and he's fairly sure she knows it as well as he does. He draws in a long breath, exhales slowly. It doesn't help much. "Cards on the table?"

"Why not?" Grace says, sounding far more languid than she evidently feels.

"I wish we hadn't spent so long fucking about and getting nowhere. Maybe things would've been different if we hadn't waited so long."

"I don't think they would. Different pressures, same outcome."

"You think so?" Boyd asks quizzically.

Grace nods solemnly. "I do. We were together for, what, just under a year before you were arrested? I don't remember it being particularly easy. Trying to balance work and… us… I mean."

"Mm. I suppose you're right."

"I'm always right."

Boyd grins. "No, you're not."

"True."

He asks carefully, "Are you going to ask me to stay?"

Grace shakes her head. "No."

"Thank you," he tells her with absolute sincerity.

"Cards on the table?" Grace says, echoing his words.

"Go ahead."

"I made a mistake. A big mistake."

Boyd shrugs. "I think we both did."

"I think you had more of an excuse than I did."

"Please tell me you're not going to be maudlin for the rest of the evening?"

Grace smiles slightly. "No. I'm going to have another drink to wish my old friend well in his new life, and then I'm going to go home and cry myself gently to sleep."

"Oh, God."

"And in the morning I'm going to think of you cursing your head off as you get lost in all those country lanes, and I'm going to laugh like a hyena."

"Yeah, I can picture it quite clearly."

Grace picks up her glass. "Are you going to ask me to come with you?"

It's Boyd's turn to shake his head. "No."

"Thank you."

"You make sure you grow old disgracefully," he instructs her a few moments later, uncomfortably aware of the catch in his voice. "Drink too much, burn the midnight oil, get on everyone's nerves; go ahead and finish writing your damned book about all the fun you had working in the basement with the Met's finest. But I warn you, I'm not afraid to sue."

"I'm changing all the names to protect the guilty, Timothy."

Boyd growls and challenges, "You wouldn't bloody dare."

"Oh, I would, Detective Superintendent."

"You're extremely lucky I love you so much," he tells her, no longer caring that his voice is raw.

She gives him the tiniest of smiles, but there are tears in her eyes. "I know."

She's so fragile, so tiny and yet so strong. So delicate, so hauntingly beautiful. He loves her beyond all reason. Always will. Boyd watches her for a moment as she sips her drink demurely and he wonders why trying to do the right thing for both of them is so incredibly, impossibly painful.

-oOo-

Continued…