Chapter 6

Walking through the doorway was the single hardest thing Kim had ever had to do. It wasn't exactly on her intended schedule for the day. She'd managed to avoid the place so far. She'd chickened out of entering when she'd been there with Alex and Robin, then when they'd returned the following morning they hadn't even needed to get that far because Layton made his presence known on another floor. Facing her terror was something Kim would only have done for a select few people. Luckily for Robin, he was one of them.

He somehow looked like Little Boy Lost, standing and staring out of the window while cops in uniform dusted for prints and examined the flat for evidence. She took a deep breath as she walked up towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He jumped a little but as he turned around and saw her his sense of relief was immense.

"Hey," she said quietly, "It's just me."

"Sorry," Robin felt embarrassed about his startling. He looked at her seriously. "I'm so glad you're here," he whispered.

"Come here," Whispered Kim as she wrapped her arms around him in a comforting hug that took the edge off his nerves

"Hey-ho, Robin's gone straight," one of his colleagues from the canine division called out.

Robin looked at him with a slightly mocking smile and indicated first Kim and then himself in turn.

"Married lesbian, sad, lonely gay idiot," he said, "not going to happen."

"Who's that?" Kim asked as Robin's friend laughed.

"Oh, that's Jason, don't mind him, promising career in stand-up comedy," he raised his voice towards the end for Jason to hear and got another laugh.

"It's funny," Kim said with a smile, "I haven't seen you around your work friends before."

"They're not really friends," Robin said, a little sadly, "colleagues, really."

"You don't need to keep making yourself an island, Rob," Kim told him.

Robin hesitated. He did do that, didn't he? He sighed.

"I called you, didn't I?" he said quietly.

Kim gave him a smile but it was tinged with sadness and worry.

"What happened, Robin?" she asked with a sigh, "how the hell did they let Layton loose?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Robin said quietly, "he stabbed a doctor in the neck with a needle. Then he battered the guards with his drip stand. How he had the strength, no one can explain. I mean, you saw him on the roof, Kim – he was weak as it was… ravaged by years of drugs and god knows what else. He's been in a car crash and in a bloody coma! It doesn't make any sense!"

"Has he definitely been back here?" asked Kim.

Robin nodded.

"The dogs picked up his scent," he said, "He's only been in this flat. They checked the whole building, looks like he just stopped off here."

A fast trail of footsteps came towards them and Robin looked around to find DI March standing there.

"They pulled some prints in the bathroom, but it's not like we don't know it was him," he said.

Robin sighed.

"Always good to be sure," he said.

March glanced at Kim.

"You are…?"

"DI March, this is Kim… Kim?" Robin asked, not sure what name he was supposed to introduce her as.

"Kim," Kim agreed. While the rest of the people in her life knew her as Alex it didn't seem right for Robin or anyone connected with police work to call her anything but Kim. She was just going to have to juggle two names, she supposed.

"Yes, but, who is she?" March frowned.

"Kim is an excellent ex-detective and soon to be detective again," said Robin, "she was on the roof with me and Alex. She's due to actually rejoin the force next week."

March hesitated.

"Ri-i-i-i-ight," he said, "but she's not officially a part of the station right now?"

"Well, no."

March shook his head a little doubtfully.

"She can't come on board while she's not actually working with us."

"Kim did some bloody fantastic work talking to Layton on that roof," Robin told him, "she'd going to be invaluable in helping us here."

"I'm not sure the insurance is going to cover this," March said doubtfully.

"Oh, fuck the insurance!" cried Robin, "if you want to see this guy back where he belongs then you need Kim on this case."

DI March stared at Robin. He seemed to gulp. For a terrible moment Robin wondered if he'd overstepped the mark, but March took a step backwards and nodded slowly.

"It's your call, Chief Inspector," he said, "as far as I'm concerned, she's not here."

Robin closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you," he whispered.

March nodded a goodbye to Kim, then left the flat as Kim turned to Robin with surprise and amazement in her eyes.

"My my, Robin, where's this come from?" she said, a smile of amusement on her face, "you're not the quiet, nervous Robin I met not so long ago."

Robin blushed. He wasn't sure where it had come from either if he was honest.

"Shame I never had guts like this in my lion taming phase," he said.

A moment of silence descended. They watched as the other officers finished their investigations and left the flat one by one, before Kim finally asked.

"So, what now?"

Robin closed his eyes for a second. He tried to get into Layton's mind-set. Where would he go if he'd already left the Falcon building? Where else was he likely to go? A sudden, terrible thought occurred to him and he opened his eyes.

"Oh my god," he whispered.

Immediately Kim felt alarm settling through her body.

"What?" she whispered.

Robin looked at her, his eyes open wide.

"No one's warned Evan," he whispered.

Kim hesitated.

"Evan?"

"Layton's on the loose and in desperate need of money," said Robin, "where did he turn the last time he needed cash?"

Kim bit her lip. Even she was doing it now.

"His last blackmail case," she whispered.

Robin nodded.

"Come on," he hissed, "looks like our next stop is Beard Country."

As he led Kim out of the building and they raced to his car, Robin felt a terrible sense of dread building inside of him. He had a horrible feeling that Layton had already paid a visit to the bearded one. He didn't know why, he just knew it inside. What condition they would find Evan, or his beard, when they arrived was anyone's guess.

~xXx~

It was perfect, Keats thought to himself as he pulled up outside of the flat. News announced Robin was out looking for Layton, that automatically gave Keats a place a go, for a short time at least.

As he climbed the stairs he recalled the last time he'd paid a visit to Robin's, with an inebriated Simon who was soon be a deeply unconscious Simon. He smiled and gloated as he thought about that memory. It was one of his moments of glory. His one regret was not doing for real what he had set up the room to portray. Of course he'd have done it without batting an eyelid now. It seemed that each and every time he crossed the fine line between life and death he became a little more callous and lost even more humanity. It was highly debatable whether or not he had any left at all.

He was gathering more strength as time went by and he gave no hesitation in slamming his shoulder into Robin's door. It gave way with ease and Keats smirked.

"High ranking officer like you should have a more security conscious door," he commented. Since when had Robin been promoted to Chief Inspector anyway? Keats shook his head and sighed as he closed the door and paced through to the kitchen. He gave a nostalgia sigh. "Ahh, memories," he said happily, "the kitchen where I made Simon some lovely, sleepy bedtime drinks."

Curiosity and hunger led to him opening the fridge door and his eyes lit up immediately. It was a bit like winning the lottery, except in food. Forget his 'packed lunch' – Robin's fridge contained a veritable array of goodies.

Robin's problem was that he just couldn't get used to cooking for one so he had started making double portions and saving one for the next day. A rather nice looking chunk of lasagne in a Tupperware container tempted Keats. He quickly popped it onto a plate and loaded it into the microwave, then took another look in the fridge. There was pizza in there too. The sight of it made Keats practically salivate. Nothing wrong with a two course meal, he thoughts, so he fetched the slices and put them in the oven.

"Now, what fucking temperature does this thing go on?" he mumbled to himself, "Oh, I'll just stick it on gas mark six. Everything goes on gas mark six, doesn't it?" he wasn't much of an oven user, if truth be told. Microwaves were a much easier option. Quicker. Left more time for torturing people.

He wandered into the lounge and looked around. On the sideboard were photographs of Robin and Simon, plus a few random people. He scowled as he spotted one of Robin with Kim at some kind of Anti-Beard presentation awards ceremony, holding their anti-beard trophies for sterling work against shamed beard model Evan White. Neither seemed that enamoured with their awards. To his dismay he realised the photograph had been cut out of a glossy magazine, such as Hello or OK or Piss Off or some other random greeting. There was a small caption underneath that read; "ABOVE: Anti-Evan duo step out in style, picking up their trophies"

"My my, Robin, what an interesting life you seem to be leading out of Simon's shadow," he sneered, picking up a random tattoo magazine that Kim lad left from the week before with joking notes left all over it along the lines of "This is your next tattoo" on a picture of someone with a large banana tattooed across their back or "you're going to get one of these" on a rather horrible looking tattoo of Scrappy Doo. The more he saw, the angrier Keats became. What the hell had happened to that wreck of a man whose suicide had been on the cards just a few months before? He gave a growl of frustration as he realised that there was absolutely no way in hell he would be getting Robin's soul through that route.

"Well, maybe I'll just have to try a more direct approach," he said angrily as the microwave beeped. He set off back to the kitchen, opened the microwave door and inhaled deeply as the beautiful aroma of tomatoes and meat came flooding from within. The scent made his stomach growl in anticipation. Forget Evan's scraps of meat, this was quality fare. "Simon was a very lucky boy," her mumbled, his mouth full, "I'm surprised he wasn't as big as a house with cooking like this."

By the time he'd devoured the lasagne he was beginning to revise the order of his favourite seven deadly sins. Lust was still just about in the lead but gluttony was a close second. He inspected the oven to find the pizza just about done and greedily embarked on a slice, but with Layton's shrunken stomach he couldn't manage anywhere near as much as he'd hoped. Still, never mind – he could take the rest with him when he left.

He felt fairly certain that Robin would be gone for a while yet though. He wouldn't return home until 'Layton' had been found – and if his home was where 'Layton' was then Keats was pretty sure he'd be safe for a while longer.

His full stomach and the excitement of torturing Evan were making him feel sleepy. He knew where there was a lovely, comfortable bed though. It wouldn't be the first he'd spent a night there either. Leisurely he walked to the bedroom and drew the curtains.

"Ahh, I have such fond memories of this room," he sighed as he lay on the bed, pulled the duvet over him and snuggled down between the sheets, making sure that he wriggled and writhed to leave as much of his scent across the bed as humanly possible. He closed his eyes and sighed a happy sigh as he drifted off to sleep.

His sleep, however, was far from peaceful. The churning, disturbed thoughts of one Arthur Layton were flowing free without Keats's strong will to stop them. By the end of his nap he didn't feel particularly refreshed but thanks to Layton's memories he had a new location to head to. With dreams of a barge and a bullet plaguing him for hours it seemed like the best place to go. And who was he to argue with fate?