Apologies, I never mean for these chapters to be so long when I start them …
-ooOoo-
In the twenty or so minutes after Grace watched Millie disappear out of CID, the door must have opened and closed frequently but with her head so firmly buried in paper records, banking, phone, tax returns, barely any of the comings and goings registered. So what made her look up this time was a mystery, but it certainly did her heart no favours. With her desk facing towards the door, she was the first to catch a glimpse of him walking in as if the clock had flipped back the year or so since he had last walked out of Sun Hill and on to bigger things. She froze, breathing suddenly secondary to the lurching beat of her heart as a strange palpating sort of excitement took over her body, the drumming of her blood in her ears threatening to deafen her as every other sound was obliterated. Never before one to fall so dramatically in love, she found herself unable to understand the confusion flooding her mind at the unexpected sight of him. He wasn't much to look at, didn't possess the dark charisma of Tommy Leighton or the near demonic intensity of Max Carter. The gentleness of Banksy left her indifferent, and as for Phil Hunter, well, she could never quite understand his purported number of conquests over the years although she had to acknowledge there must be a reason for Sam Nixon to have taken up with him. But Neil Manson, there was something different there. A mixture of kindness mixed with intelligence and genuine empathy had intrigued her, then it hooked her. He could appear so detached, but under that veneer was a vulnerability she found incredibly endearing, and even though he never appeared to notice her, sometimes she had found herself to be lucky enough to be the one to see beneath the surface. She thought she'd forgotten and moved on, had even gone on a couple of unfulfilling dates, but it was all still there the same as ever, utterly undiminished.
Finally, the need to breathe kicked in and the shock lessened, the hum of the room grew audible once more. Her eyes searched for his and she thought he was just about to connect with her when a clipped voice behind him captured his attention.
"Guv, would you mind …?"
"Oh, sorry Suzie," he turned back, juggling two laptop carry cases to hold the door open for her while she carried a box of what looked like files.
"Thanks."
As the younger woman walked through, all heels and assurance, he placed the cases down on the nearest desk and clearing space for her to set down the box. It was only a brief moment but the fluidity of their interaction made Grace stare with envy. The woman looked straight at Grace, her eyes narrowing before she turned back to Neil and whispered something, he nodded while she appeared to flick a speck of dust from his suit jacket and then disappear back out into the corridor. It was so casual, perhaps not exactly intimate, but definitely evidence of a deeply close relationship. Her eyes rested in the middle distance, her mind dwelling on how she had once imagined her relationship with him might be similar, only to have such notions quashed by the impersonal manner of his leaving.
When Grace regained her concentration he had already turned back to the heart of the room and she found his gaze had come to linger on her. For a moment she felt him reach out in silent recognition but it was gone as first Max then the stranger appeared behind him.
"I see you two have already met."
"Er, yeah. Suzie has introduced herself," explained Max wryly.
"I trod on him."
"I'll live, although I may have a limp," he muttered.
"I did apologise," Suzie appealed to her boss. "He was standing behind me, I didn't know he was there."
Neil sighed. He should have known these two were unlikely to hit it off. Perhaps he did know, after all, watching Suzie niggle at Max was likely to be almost as entertaining as ex-wife baiting.
"Well, anyway, we've got a lot to be getting on with."
"Do you need desks? Banksy's out this week and next," Max gestured towards the desk adjacent to Tommy and Grace, "or there's the briefing room?"
"The briefing room will be fine for both of us," declared Suzie confidently.
"Actually, Suzie, I think it would be a good idea if you took a desk in here. Bed you into the team."
She furrowed her forehead in consternation and looked across to the faces of her future deskies. One wore a grin, evidently appreciating the opportunity to assist with bedding her in, the other quickly diverted her attention back towards the paperwork on her desk.
"Well, I suppose so."
"I won't be far away."
Max cleared his throat, by way of interrupting the domestic which threatened to unfold.
"Grace!"
She looked up, deliberately avoiding Neil and addressing Max directly. "Yes?"
"Clear Banksy's desk will you? DS Sim will be sitting here, for now."
"Oh, er, yes. Sure." With fumbling fingers, she attempted to put her own desk, and thoughts, into some sort of order.
"Now, Grace," snapped Max impatiently, irritated by her hesitancy, "we haven't got all day. Briefing in five minutes. I'll leave you settle in, Guv," he added stiffly to Neil who nodded and took himself off to the briefing room while Max retreated to his own office.
Suzie silently watched Grace scurry round to the desk and stood imperiously as the older woman completed her servile task. With little more than a murmur of thanks, Suzie sat and after smoothing her long hair back into a low ponytail secured with a plain black band, engrossed herself in setting up her laptop.
"Any chance of a coffee?" she queried, without looking up.
Realising after a moment that the request was aimed at her, Grace was just about to reply but Tommy butted in, rising to over the newcomer.
"Probably not. Although the machine dispenses coffee flavoured water if that will do? Would you like me to show you where it is?" Clearly affected by his proximity, Suzie twisted away so that she could look up at him without being too close to his body for comfort. Grace watched with interest, a spark had flown between these two and she did her best to suppress a smile, for once Tommy had come to her rescue, even though it was obvious his motives for engaging Suzie in chat were not entirely charitable in her own direction. Aside from relief at Suzie's distraction, Grace also felt a little bubble of hope. Perhaps she had misread the familiarity between Neil and her.
"I know where it is," snapped Suzie as she wheeled back in her chair to stand and round her new desk to pass a cable through a hole and into the power socket beneath, "I passed it on the way up but I don't have ti-"
"Bloody hell! Where did you spring from?"
A hearty slap on her back nearly sent her toppling across the desk toward Tommy who caught her by the wrist and surprisingly courteously helped her back to her feet, receiving little but a scowl for his efforts. Snatching her arm away she turned sharply back to the voice. "Mickey. Lovely to see you again," the tone in her voice not quite matching her words.
"Ha ha. I see you're the same as ever. What brings you back to Sun Hill anyway?"
"Suzie Sim!" Terry wandered in and with wide open arms engulfed her into his embrace. I heard from Smithy that you were here."
"News travels fast," she muttered, stiffly extracting herself from his bear hug and smoothing down the fine fabric of her immaculate shift dress. "I'm here with DCI Manson for the Fleischmann case."
Terry glanced at Mickey, speaking a thousand a words in silence before chuckling.
"What?" demanded Suzie.
"Oh, nothing. I bet Max is loving this though," Terry replied, rubbing his chin.
"What do you mean?"
"Two bulls in a room, never good news, particularly when one of them is full of sh-"
"Mickey! What are you still doing here? I though you were going to talk to this snout of yours."
Like guilty children, they all snapped to attention as Max made his presence known. Mickey sighed, there was no point repeating that Lesley wasn't a snout. "I've only just got hold of her. I've arrange a meet in half an hour."
"Hmm. Well as you are still here, you may as well hang around for the briefing," glancing down to check his watch, "in two minutes." With a final scowl in Suzie's direction, he headed off to join Neil.
"Is he always like that?" asked Suzie as the briefing room door closed.
"Believe it or not, that's an improvement. He used to be a real ars-"
"Terry," warned Tommy, "watch it."
-ooOoo-
"Right, settle down!" Max barked at the assembling team, thankfully minus Millie. "For any of you that haven't noticed, DCI Manson and DS Sim from SOCA are here to assist with the abduction of Carly Fleischmann." He eyed the room, silencing the murmurs of excitement at the reappearance of two former colleagues. "To recap, Carly is the daughter of this man, Georgie Fleicshmann. She has been missing since around four yesterday afternoon and although we can't be sure at this stage, it seems likely that she her abduction is linked to him."
"Why?" asked Terry.
"Fleischmann has links to several prominent gangland members. No one would want to kidnap his daughter unless they were sure that they could look after themselves, or unless they had a good reason."
"Such as?"
"That, we don't know. All we do know is that this man," he pointed to the image supplied by Tommy, "appears to have disabled the security cameras at the salon and was in area around the time of her disappearance. We have to assume that he is in some way involved."
"Mickey peered at the picture. Is that a tattoo?"
"Think so," confirmed Tommy.
"Looks familiar. Where have I see that before?" he murmured quietly to himself.
"We also know that Fleischmann was talking to someone called 'Kiril' this morning, making threats if Carly is harmed."
"Kiril?" interrupted Neil, glancing across to Suzie. He nodded at her prompting her fingers into a flurry of activity on her keyboard. The private code between the two was not lost on Grace. "You didn't mention this before."
"Only just came to our attention half an hour ago, PC Brown brought it in. She overheard Fleischmann talking to him on the phone. But as yet, we don't know who he is. Mickey," Max paused to emphasise his irritation at Mickey's sluggish inactivity, "has an informant inside one of the clubs. He'll be catching up with her after this briefing. Perhaps she'll be able to shed some light on whoever he is."
"No need," announced Suzie briskly. "Kiril Barsukov." With the room waiting, she coolly tapped away for a few moments longer before a fresh image appeared on the screen. "He arrived in the UK nearly three years ago, shortly after the banking crisis hit and began to invest in property at rock bottom prices. We can only guess where his cash came from. Since then we've heard rumours of money-lending and even protection racketeering but so far there's been nothing we can officially trace back to him. He is very careful about maintaining a clean business image, both for himself and his known operatives."
"We believe," continued Neil seamlessly, "that he brings in muscle from Russia to carry out his dirtier work and them ships them back when the faces become too familiar."
"And you believe there is a connection to Fleischmann?" asked Grace.
"Well obviously," interrupted Suzie dismissively, "if they were speaking to each other."
"I think what Grace means, is what is the connection between them," explained Neil softly and receiving a tiny smile of thanks from Grace. It was only a moment, nothing that anyone else would have noticed, except of course for Suzie. She frowned and in doing so her jaw jutted out slightly, Tommy watched, his fingers itching to slide it back into place and ease away that pout.
"Oh, well," she continued, "Barsukov is director of a variety of enterprises, most notably Drobyshev Holdings and its various subsiaries.
"Drobyshev? I've seen that name in Fleishchmann's bank records. He makes a regular monthly payment. Maybe a security contract? You mentioned that he has been linked to a protection racket. Perhaps that's how it starts, a legitimate contract turns into something else. Perhaps Fleischmann isn't playing ball and Carly has been taken to show him who is boss."
"Makes sense," agreed Max, quietly enjoying the unexpected face-off between the two women and for once not being the target of the animosity. It also served to distract him from the nagging feeling that his own authority was going to be undermined by presence of the former DI. "Mickey, get on to your Linda-"
"Lesley."
"Whatever, and find out what she knows about this Barsukov as well as this guy," he tapped at the almost forgotten picture of the masked man. "Find out if there's a link between them."
"Nothing from PC Brown yet on the image?" asked Tommy.
"No," replied Max more firmly than he intended, "she's still on her way back to Fleischmann, stuck in traffic. She'll call me as soon as she speaks to him." Max suddenly felt uncomfortable with inquisitive eyes on him from most of the room, his relationship still the enigma that it ever was. "Right, that's it for now, unless anyone has anything else to add?"
As the team filed out, Grace took her time in collecting her papers together until only the two of them remained. She wasn't quite sure why, certain that Neil was unlikely to make his way over to her side of the room. After all, why would he? She was clearly nothing special to him. Yet as she stood and lifted her head, tucking her hair behind one ear she felt his eyes on her, watching her. She opened her mouth to speak but realised that she had no idea what to say. 'How are you?' seemed bland and dull and 'Why didn't you say goodbye?' bordered on bunny-boiler, but she had no idea what should come in between. However, in the brief moments of her hesitation, her opportunity was lost as Suzie re-entered and once again the connection was gone.
-ooOoo-
Neil followed Max back into his old office, shutting the door behind him. He looked about briefly, nothing much had changed, including the surliness of Max's expression. "Brought you that Fleischmann file you requested."
"Oh, yeah, thanks." Max took the thin card wallet, curiously noting that it wasn't nearly so full of paper as most files this old. "I'm going to head out soon, there's someone I want to talk to. Might shed some more light on this Barsukov character."
"Who's that?" Neil asked innocently, willing to bet that the 'someone' would be Charlie Hammond.
"A source," replied Max defensively, immediately conscious that he was being childish in his secrecy.
"I'm not trying to interfere, this is still your operation, Max. I though I'd made that clear."
Max regarded him carefully, mulling over his response. "Yeah. Except it's not is it? You've been after Fleischmann for years. Of course it's your operation."
"No, Max. I want you to head this up. Suzie and I are only here to help, and of course exploit any opportunity that comes out of it. Nothing more." Seeing that Max was unconvinced by his assertion, Neil changed tactic. "So, you didn't tell anyone that I was coming in?"
"Nah," responded Max flippantly as he rounded his desk to sit behind it, throwing the file down and appearing to relax with the change of subject.
"Why?"
"Because I didn't know how long you were going to be and this lot can spend hours gossiping if they get the chance, which they don't. They didn't need to know until you got here, what good would it have done? Even if I told them someone from SOCA was coming in, but not that it was you, they would spend every minute trying to guess."
"These people are your team, not children in a playground."
"These people need to stay focussed on the job in hand."
"So you can get your result? Nothing has really changed with you, has it Max? I mean, from what I've heard you're, let's say, not quite so aggressive, but underneath it all you're as manipulative as ever."
Max raised his eyebrows. "Got a problem with that? Sir?"
Neil held his stare for a moment longer before allowing himself to chuckle. "No, Max. It's nothing to do with me anymore." Max's silence told him it was the first thing they had found to agree on so far. "Anyway, how are things with Millie? Still together?"
"Yeah. It's good." He thought about revealing their engagement, but it didn't feel right in the current circumstances.
"Even though you've been investigating her Godfather, a close family friend?"
"How do you know that he's her Godfather?" Max demanded.
"As I told you, SOCA has been trailing Flesichmann for a long time now. Every known connection has been examined, including Millie's father. It's those connections we can't pinpoint that interest us now."
Max lapsed into silence. "Ah, she doesn't know, does she? Hmm. Tricky. Yet you've got her down as FLO on the abduction? I hope you know what you're doing."
"I'll explain everything to her when there's something more concrete to go on. As it stands, Fleischmann trusts her more than he would any of the rest of us. He's more likely to let his guard down around her than anyone else I send in."
"So you're using her relationship with him to pump him for information that you might useful?"
"It's not like that."
"Isn't it?"
-ooOoo-
"Sit up!" Carly felt something paper-like hit her face. "I said, bitch, get up!"
She blinked, readjusting to her place on the floor at his feet. One foot pulled back and she recoiled instinctively, curling herself into a foetal position, bracing for the blow that was likely to come. But it didn't. Instead, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to a sitting position. He crouched down, his eyes maliciously staring into her hers, enjoying every moment. "I want you to pick up all this shit, and stuff it into here," he jabbed the jiffy bag envelope at her again, "it'll make a nice message for Daddy, don't you think?"
Shaking, Carly looked at the detritus surrounding her, her hair. Her carefully chosen beautiful hair which had made her beautiful, which had signified everything she had striven to be. Hesitantly she raised a hand to her head but the moment she made contact with the roughly shorn spikes, she snatched it away as if scalded. With her hair scattered on the floor, he had in one fowl swoop managed to make her the ugly little girl she had always believed herself to be.
A/N – Brownie points to Firebird & Feebee for their correct guesses!