"If I ever, ever see you doing that again you'll be out of this syndicate so quickly you won't have time to pack. Now go on, get me some results!"
Rachel Bailey entered her office after a week's leave with a grin on her face and a casual, relaxed air about her. She slipped off her coat, hung it on the peg and turned to her best friend and colleague Janet Scott.
"Who's rattled 'er cage?" It was said lightheartedly but something in Janet's expression made Rachel's brain catch up with her mouth for once and she ceased talking. Mitch then came scuttling out of his boss's office looking quite shocked and embarrassed. "Mitch?! What did golden boy do to deserve that ear bashing from Godzilla?" Rachel lowered her voice, unable to resist carrying on the conversation. While DC Ian Mitchell didn't have quite the flair that Rachel did for instinctive detective work, he did work bloody hard and was very good at going through the finer details of gathered evidence. He never put a foot wrong and seemed to be Gill's favourite male member of the team, at least until now.
"Probably nothing, Gill's been in a foul mood all week." Janet whispered back to her friend and their nearby colleagues, Lee and Pete, nodded their heads in agreement to back up her observations.
"She was in a mood the week before. She having women's problems or summat?" Gill could often be in a sour mood in the office but it was always related to a work issue. Most often when someone had done something wrong that needed fixing and would reflect badly on the syndicate or personally on Gill.
"Rachel!" Janet couldn't believe her friend's audacity, especially since she was a woman herself.
"I'm only saying!" Rachel shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, not really understanding what she'd said that could be taken in offence.
"Perhaps she's still thinking about the kidnapping?" Rob, their exceptionally young, bright eyed and bushy tailed Sergeant chipped in helpfully.
"Yeah, maybe." Janet wasn't so sure, it was very unlike her boss and longtime friend to be unprofessional like this. She heard Gill's office door slam shut, effectively cutting herself off from them and everyone turned to Golden Boy for an explanation.
"You alright mate?" Pete asked his colleague.
"Yeah, don't ask! I wouldn't get on the wrong side of her at the moment, she's in a really crap mood." Everyone looked at each other with raised eyebrows and then at Gill through her office blinds. She appeared as though she was working diligently at her computer but Janet could tell that she was actually deep in thought about something or other. She had a nagging feeling that there was more to this than women's problems or a simple off day.
Several days later Janet tentatively knocked on Gill's office door and waited for her to ask her in. As time had gone on the atmosphere in the office hadn't changed and Gill's mood seemed just as bad as it had ever been, even with a weekend in the middle. Everyone had agreed that someone needed to do something and Janet had been unanimously voted as the person to do it. She was a close personal friend of more than twenty years after all.
"Come in." Gill responded and Janet walked in knowing that she would find her elbow deep in work with her glasses perched on her nose. She would be willing to bet that the cup of tea on her desk was stone cold too. Janet shut the door behind her.
"Gill, I was wondering if I could have a word? A personal word?" Gill looked up from her computer screen, took off her glasses and indicated the seat opposite her.
"Please, sit. Something up cock?" Janet shook her head and didn't take up the offer of a seat.
"That tea looks stone cold, did you want to go over the road and grab a coffee? My shout." Janet didn't think it was fair or right to be discussing Gill's personal issues in the middle of her office and thought perhaps a change of scene away from the troops might be better.
"Sounds serious?" Subtle Janet, the blonde detective thought to herself and should have realised that the DCI would see right through her.
"Kind of, not really, delicate maybe?" Janet internally rolled her eyes at herself and wondered how many more times she could trip up over her own words.
"Okay, give me ten minutes to finish this and I'll meet you at your desk." Fortunately Gill had bought it and it gave Janet a bit of time to compose herself and work out how she was going to approach the issue.
Half an hour later they were ensconced in a booth at the coffee shop across the road from the station with a steaming, frothy coffee each.
"Are you alright Gill? Only, you've really not been yourself these last couple of weeks and I'm worried about you, we all are." Gill was quite taken aback at the reason for Janet's concern.
"I'm absolutely fine, what have I done that makes you think that?"
"I'm going to be honest with you here, friend to friend. You've been in a right stinker of a mood ever since you came back to work since…since Helen. You hauled Mitch into your office and tore strips off him for doing bona fide research on a gambling website. Mitch is never told off, he plays by the rules and works bloody hard. You've been hiding in your office with the door closed most days and I haven't seen you smile in ages, not even at Rachel's rubbish jokes." Janet gave Gill a few moments to digest her little speech.
"And you've all been discussing this behind my back?" To her credit Gill didn't seem angry, just surprised, although she really shouldn't have been. If she'd have been a witness to her own behaviour she'd probably have been the first to raise questions.
"Only because we're concerned, no one's having a go. How are you dealing with everything that happened with Helen Bartlett? Are you going to the counselling sessions? Did going to her funeral help in any way or did it make it worse?" Janet thought she would hazard a guess at what the issue was as it made sense if Gill hadn't been coping with the aftermath of her ordeal.
"I appreciate your concern Janet, I really do, but I thought I'd been dealing with everything quite well thanks. Seeing as you asked me as a friend I'll tell you; the funeral helped to close the book on how I felt about the actual event itself and I've reconciled Helen's actions in my head and feel no resentment towards her. Yes, I have been going to the counsellor, although I'm not really sure what good it does and I will continue until I've completed all the sessions."
"That's good, I'm really glad to hear that. So what is going on then? Why have you been so bloody moody?" Gill looked like a deer caught in headlights and Janet thought that she was about to receive a bollocking for being so impertinent. For half a second Gill thought about telling Janet the truth, about sleeping with Julie on the night of Sammy's engagement party then agreeing to just remain friends and the current state of their friendship. But she couldn't, to say it aloud to Janet would make it real and Gill wasn't ready to face it outside of her own thoughts yet.
"I wasn't aware that I had been. I shall endeavour to improve my conduct in the office from now on." Gill had gone from being friend to boss, and the moody version at that, in a matter of seconds. Janet must've hit some sort of nerve but she was buggered if she knew what it had been.
A couple of weeks later
Janet arrived at the bottom of the stairs near the station reception desk slightly out of breath. She might be slim but she wasn't the fittest member of the team so she tended to leave most of the running to Rachel and the younger lads. Janet pushed through the double doors and spotted Detective Superintendent Dodson reading something intently as the duty officer waited patiently for her to finish and presumably sign for whatever it was she was reading. Seeing an opportunity for her to broach the subject of Gill as the situation hadn't really improved at all, Janet took several steps closer.
"Mick, this is going to be collected by a Mr Santosh sometime after three o'clock." Janet handed the large brown envelope to the duty officer. It had a note attached to it with the details on anyway but Janet hadn't wanted to startle Julie. The taller woman looked up from her reading briefly after she'd recognised Janet's voice but went straight back to the document. "I can wait and walk back upstairs with you if you like?" Janet presumed that Julie was going to drop in and visit her best friend while she was there.
"I'm not staying, just came to pick this up." Janet thought it was very odd, normally Julie would take any opportunity to cause havoc in Gill's domain, especially since she'd made the effort to come all the way out to Oldham from HQ. Behind her the double doors opened with a sticky swoosh and Gill stepped through them with an envelope in her hand. She stopped dead in her tracks as her eyes immediately fell on Julie talking to Janet. Julie had realised it was Gill a split second before Janet and looked past her shoulder to meet her eyes. Janet looked between them and immediately felt the palpable tension.
"Hi." Julie said tentatively.
"Hello." Gill responded automatically, as though she were just any other colleague. Julie's heart fell to the pit of her stomach and she fought hard to keep the expression on her face neutral. Gill switched her gaze to Janet and held out the envelope. "You left this behind, part of the paperwork for Mr Santosh." Janet took it from her and muttered a thanks. Gill met Julie's eyes again and for a second she considered that perhaps they needed to talk and clear the air, maybe ask her over the road for a drink. However, as soon as she'd had the thought she immediately thought better of it. It was far easier to keep up the pretence of being disinterested than to face up to her feelings and her mistake. Gill turned and walked back through the double doors and up the stairs without so much as a goodbye. Janet was speechless at what had just happened and didn't really know what to say to Julie. The older woman had turned back to the duty officer at the front desk and was putting her bundles of paperwork back into their respective files.
"It looks complete, I'll take it back to HQ with me and if there is anything I'll contact the officer directly." Mick handed Julie a sheet of paper on a clip board and a pen to sign for the documents with. Janet still hovered at her side and waited until she'd finished.
"Have you two had a row or something?" Janet would be surprised, she'd never heard of them arguing before and especially after the events of Gill's kidnapping several weeks ago everyone, including herself and Rachel, had realised that life had been too short for petty squabbles.
"I can't…sorry." Julie didn't know what to say, not only did she not want to betray Gill's trust but she didn't even think she'd be able to find the words to explain everything that had happened between them. Julie turned on her heel and muttered a goodbye. Janet turned back to Mick at the front desk and added the envelope Gill had handed her to the other one and got Mick to pass her an elastic band to make it extra secure. Rachel came through the main entrance with Mitch just as Janet was about to head back upstairs.
"Hey Jan! What's up with Dodson?"
"I dunno, why?"
"We passed her outside, making fists at the wall. She looked like she was upset about something or other." Not that Rachel particularly cared but it had been a strange sight to behold. Of course she hadn't the courage to question her superior officer directly, they'd never quite seen eye to eye in the past and she didn't really know her well enough to pry.
"Bad case?" Janet suggested and shrugged her shoulders in bafflement for Mitch's benefit but she then leaned in to whisper in Rachel's ear. "Ladies, ten minutes."
Rachel sat up on the surface next to the sinks in the loos while Janet paced the floor and explained what had just happened with Gill and Julie.
"They must've had a falling out but about what?"
"Perhaps it's over what happened at the party?" At Rachel's questioning look Janet explained further. "Apparently Julie and Dave had an altercation? Almost came to a fist fight according to Pete."
"Whatever it is we need to do something, Gill's been a right cow and it's only going to get worse." Normally Janet would suggest that it was Rachel's own perception of their boss, Godzilla as Rachel had nicknamed her, but on this occasion she couldn't help but agree.
"Perhaps I should give Sammy a ring? See if he knows anything, maybe something happened at home? If not, I'll have to confront her again, you're right this can't continue."
Meanwhile, Gill had escaped back to the safety of her office and stared out of the window deep in thought. She'd panicked on sight of Julie and hadn't known how to act normally in front of Janet. They'd not spoken in weeks, Julie presumably had been thoughtful and kind and had given her some space. The trouble was it made it all that harder to pretend that everything was okay between them and Gill certainly wasn't going to make the first move. She couldn't imagine Julie coming over, getting pissed and gossipping into the small hours now without the thought that they would end up in bed together again. She couldn't reconcile their thwarted romantic relationship with the platonic friendship they had agreed upon, albeit at Gill's own request. Gill loved Julie, deeply and intensely, and she couldn't escape her feelings despite her desperate attempts to. She watched as Julie crossed the car park to reach her car, which Gill had spotted when she first glanced out of her window. Her heart twinged with a pang of sorrow as she watched Julie get into the car and drive off. Gill sat back down at her desk and noted the time, only a few hours to go before she could drown her sorrows in the bottom of a wine glass or three.
"Hello, Sammy?" Janet had taken advantage of the fact that Gill was observing an interview that Rachel was conducting with Lee and slipped into her boss's office for a few minutes of privacy.
"Hi Janet, is everything alright? Mum should be at work?"
"Yes I know, she's here. Sorry to have worried you. Actually it's you I wanted to talk to." Janet should have realised that Sammy would immediately think back to when she had called him on the day of his mother's abduction and she briefly felt guilty for worrying him unnecessarily.
"Oh, okay?"
"It's just that, we've noticed your mum hasn't been quite herself at work lately and she says that she's fine and going to the counsellor about…well you know, the kidnapping. Only I don't think she is fine and wondered if she had been alright at home or if you knew anything more? Has it got something to do with Julie? Have they had a falling out?" Sammy sighed deeply and realised that he needed to tell Janet the truth. He knew that his mum hadn't been dealing with it very well at home but the fact that she'd been so obviously upset at work meant that she needed to be forced to confront things. He'd known Janet all his life and she was his godmother, so he trusted her with his mother's well-being.
"They split up."
"Who?"
"Mum and Julie." Janet went silent on the phone as she tried to process what Sammy had just told her. Surely he didn't mean…?
"What do you mean split up?"
"Exactly that. Mum told Julie they should stop seeing each other, except that I think she regrets it now and that's why she's been so down." In fact Sammy knew that she regretted it. After her initial breakdown he'd heard her crying in her room a few times and had caught her daydreaming over breakfast or dinner some days. He'd also noticed that she'd got through more than a couple of bottles of wine during the week but hadn't felt brave enough to broach the subject.
"I didn't know that they had been seeing each other like that." While it surprised Janet because she'd never thought of Gill as anything less than straight, she could see where her close friendship with Julie could quite easily have spilt over into something more. She herself was Gill's oldest friend but from the moment the two older women had met, Janet had picked up on the chemistry between them. Of course, at the time she hadn't been looking any deeper than their evolving friendship, natural wit and sarcasm and equal passion and rank in their careers. Janet surmised all that would have been required was some sort of a catalyst like most relationships and they'd have taken that extra step into something more.
"It was over before it began to be honest. Have you seen Julie? Do you know how she's doing?" Sammy felt guilty that his police training hadn't given him much free time to find out for himself.
"She's pretty much the same as your mum from what I witnessed the other week." Things were starting to fall into place for Janet and she was beginning to wonder if Gill's kidnapping had been the catalyst to change things between Gill and Julie. The timing would certainly fit in with the atmosphere in the office the last few weeks and it would have been a big enough event for the two senior officers to have taken the time to reflect upon what was important in their lives and take a chance on something that had always been there but never voiced.
"I was thinking of going to see her, see if she can try again with Mum."
"And you're happy about that?" Janet wondered if her girls would have been quite so accepting if she suddenly took up with a decidedly female lover, especially if it was someone they had already come to know as a friend. Rachel's image popped into her head for a brief moment as an example. She considered that Tasie would possibly be over the moon at the prospect as she practically worshipped the ground Rachel walked on, even after being let down by the whole Kevin debacle. Elise wouldn't be quite so easy to convince and she would probably take sides with her mother Dorothy, who was less than impressed by Rachel anyway. Janet was sure that she could win them round eventually though and then realised just where her trail of thought was leading her. She shook her head free of such a bizarre notion and went back to the issue at hand.
"Of course, why wouldn't I be? I'll admit that it was strange when I first found out but they seemed so happy together it made a lot of sense. Mum does love her but I think she's just scared to throw herself into another relationship after what happened with Dad."
"You're very perceptive?"
"I've spent a lot of time talking to Mum over the last few weeks. I'm worried about her too."
"Do you think Julie would be willing to try again?" Janet hoped it would at least lead to the two friends getting back on speaking terms if nothing else. She didn't think that syndicate nine would survive much more of Gill's irritable moodiness.
"I don't know, but it can't hurt to ask."