Chapter 6 - The Morning After

*.*.*.

Phryne had taken many lovers. Her first few had been customers who simply cared only for their own pleasure and nothing for hers so she hadn't enjoyed it. Then there had been a sailor who changed all that, had made sure that the young woman he had made love with understood why this activity was so good that men were willing to lose money and reputations in pursuit of that moment of pleasure. Having never had much money in her life, Phryne was astute enough at saving to quickly reach a stage at the club where she could chose who she took to her bed and once she'd managed to impress Madam Lyon with her fighting abilities she found herself earning enough money through her other skills that she didn't need to charge for sex. Some men paid anyway and she wouldn't turn down what she insisted was free money but she never expected or demanded payment from them. It was a little bit of control she found in a world full of men who wanted her to have none.

She turned in his bed to look at her new lover. He was not her usual type. She usually went for the very young who just needed a bit of experience, those who shared her own horror at the idea of anything resembling commitment, or the very married who would never be able to follow up on any declaration that they'd fallen in love with her. That had still happened, of course, men deciding that they'd fallen in love with her even to the point where they'd be willing to leave their wives for her. She had turned down more than one marriage proposal in her life, always ending their affair at that point and refusing to see them ever again.

This one she had never intended to seduce at all. She'd looked into him after his initial visit to the club and he'd seemed that rare breed of a good and honest policeman. Her criminal associates knew of him and steered clear and her more law abiding ones who knew of him spoke well of him. So she'd gone against Madam Lyon's instructions and sought him out to try to help both of them find Lavinia's killer. Then he'd called her Miss Fisher… he wouldn't be welcome back in the club after the way he'd upset her.

She came to find him to apologise and to beg him not to tell Janey what had become of her when she'd spotted the gunman lurking in the shadows, clearly stalking him same as she was. She almost hadn't been quick enough to save him but at least he wasn't left with much of a wound, just a deep cut. As she cleaned the wound and found herself opening up to him she found herself also longing for something, some sort of connection to the past. She'd seen him look at her before, she knew Jack was attracted to her but there were moments when it seemed like he saw more, saw beneath her tough exterior to the frightened little girl who'd had to forge a life on the streets because it was safer than going home. In that moment it hadn't even been that she'd wanted him, somehow she'd needed him, and when he'd adorably tripped over what to call her after making love to her, she found herself needing to be Phryne for him.

"Morning handsome," she purred as his eyes opened.

"That…that really happened?" he asked her, still half asleep and endearingly confused.

He slowly sat up and looked at his arm, as if he trusted his body's reaction to the wound more than his eyes telling him that she was in his bed. "Ouch."

Phryne sat up beside him, not caring that the covers fell down, exposing herself. He already knew far too much and her body was certainly one thing she no longer needed to hide from him. She carefully undid the bandage to inspect the damage.

"It still looks nice and clean. Keep it dry and clean and it should heal fine."

"Thank you."

It felt awkward for a moment so Phryne did the only thing she could think of and kissed him. He relaxed slightly as they embraced but he pulled away before she could pull him back down on top of her. Kissing him again had reignited her passion.

"I have to get to work," he told her, almost sounding disappointed at the prospect.

"If you come back to the club Madam Lyon will send you packing," Phryne warned him, knowing that work was investigating Lavinia's murder.

"But you're the brawn," he joked. "Surely I'll be safe now that we're... friends."

"Not that simple," Phryne told him sincerely. "They all saw you upset me, Madam Lyon won't let you near me now."

"Fine. You need to come with me to the station to identify Foyle anyway. We can discuss the case at the same time."

She laughed at that. "I told you, not unless you arrest me."

Jack glared at her. "So this really was just one glorious night, wasn't it, as we will clearly never see each other again? Will you at least go and see your sister?"

Phryne leapt on him and kissed him again, purposely ignoring what he said about Janey. "I know where you live now, Jack. Don't worry, we can have plenty more blissful nights together."

He pushed her away, clearly not letting her get away with it that easily. It was quite refreshing for Phryne to take a lover who was willing to stand up to her onslaught of sensuality. "And your sister?"

Phryne folded her arms in a huff, wishing that he'd let her family go. "Janey is better off not knowing that her sister works in a gentleman's club. Anyway, I thought you were duty bound to tell her yourself?"

"That I'd found you and you were alive, which I have done by the way. I still think you should make the effort to see her. She's staying with your aunt. Do you know where that is?"

"I know," Phryne sighed petulantly.

"And you haven't made any effort to get back in touch?"

"You know most of my lovers don't grill me on my family the morning after."

"Your lovers," he repeated emotionlessly, pushing himself out of bed. "Last night you made it sound like you didn't have scores of them."

"Only one at a time, Jack. Well mostly, two at a time can be very enjoyable but I suspect that wouldn't be your cup of tea."

Jack glared at her, wrapping a blanket around his waist to hide from her the part of his anatomy with which she was already intimately acquainted out of some sense of modesty that she personally didn't understand.

Phryne laughed at his reaction. "I mean it, Jack. I have to keep track of these things, otherwise how am I supposed to know whose doorstep to dump the baby on?"

His jaw dropped. She couldn't keep a straight face at his horrified reaction and she reached out to him, smiling broadly. "I'm joking, I'm joking Jack. I take care of that, there won't be a baby!"

His whole posture slumped and he put his head in his hands as he sank back down onto the bed. "Just what was I thinking? I'm not the right man for affairs. I'm a boring, old fashioned sort of man. You…you've bewitched me, Phryne Fisher."

"Not the first time I've been accused of that," she grinned.

To her dismay, instead of joining in with her jokes he stayed slumped. Jack was right, she supposed, he really wasn't the kind of man to have an affair with a woman like her. The thought saddened her but it was nothing. She liked him now but it would fade soon enough, it always did.

Phryne reached out and touched his arm. He didn't flinch or push her off. In fact he didn't move at all. "Jack…I enjoyed last night and I would like to spend more time with you but we don't have to, you know."

He let out a long, disgruntled groan and slowly raised his head back up to look at her. "But you're not going anywhere. I still need your help with Lavinia's murder and I have to see if you can identify Foyle."

She threw herself against his headboard with an equal groan to his. "I can come to the station if you absolutely need me to but if anyone sees me I will tell them you arrested me."

"Sounds believable to me," he replied. At first Phryne thought he was being serious until she saw a twinkle in his eyes. She did like a man with a sense of humour. "I gather from my investigations that you like tricks and magic."

"My father liked tricks," Phryne replied, mystified as to where this sudden change in direction was going. "I wanted to be able to wave a magic wand and make him disappear."

"So, would you happen to know how someone could escape from a locked room with a locked window and a tiny fireplace?"

Phryne narrowed her eyes at him. She'd read enough in the newspapers to know that described the room Lavinia had been found dead in, with only the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the room with her. "Why are you so convinced that this Sanderson didn't kill her?"

She watched Jack think for a moment. "Mostly because it makes no sense for it to be Sanderson, other than the extremely suspicious circumstances they were found in. Plus we found skin fragments under her nails from where she attacked her murderer. Whoever her attacker was, they have a tattoo. Sanderson doesn't."

Phryne sat upright at that. "That does put a different slant on things."

"So, any ideas?"

She thought. "Absolutely no way out of the window or fireplace? No trap doors or secret passageways?"

"No."

"So they had to go through the door."

"But it was locked, bolted from the inside."

Phryne tried not to smile. He seemed more animated now than he had when he'd first woken up and realised that he had, indeed, spent the night with her. She was beginning to suspect she and this Inspector were oddly similar, two people who loved a mystery and stood up for the underdog regardless of which society thought. It was such a shame she'd ruined it all by pushing him into bed before he was ready for that sort of relationship.

"Can you get me into the room?" she asked him eagerly. "Before I was the brawn my act used to be a magic show, more or less. If there's a way out of the room, I'll find it."

He leant close to her and she felt his breath move her hair against her face. "Will you come to the station to look at a picture of Foyle?"

For a moment she stared at him and then a slow smile spread across her face. She held out her hand. "All right, Inspector Robinson, you have a deal."

He returned the smile but he didn't shake her hand. Instead moved towards her and then, unbidden, he kissed her deeply and firmly. Phryne returned his kiss and put her hands behind his head, pulling him closer to her. As much as she wanted to find Lavinia's murderer, Phryne was beginning to hope this investigation would go on for some time.

*.*.*.

Jack supposed that if the trousers had shocked Collins, any of her other outfits would have made him faint. If he recognised Phryne from the club the constable said nothing. Jack tried to be as vague as possible about who the woman he'd brought into the station was, for Phryne's sake, although her name would be against two reports; as Phryne Fisher in the case of her own disappearance and as Peony "Smith" for Lavinia's murder. She did identify Foyle as the man who had tried to abduct her as a child. Jack warned her that he'd been seen lurking around her aunt's house, that whatever he had wanted her for might still be relevant and she may still be in danger from him. Phryne hadn't seemed to care, she was so certain of her own ability to protect herself from harm. So long as he was after her and no one else, Janey was safe and he wasn't was all she'd hinted at.

Jack then drove her out to Sanderson's. He had found the old picture of him and Rosie in the library on an earlier visit when he'd been desperately searching for an escape route. Certain that it wasn't evidence, although not completely sure why George would still want any photographs of him on display, he had moved it into another part of the house. He had done this not so much as to hide his personal link to the Sandersons from the other officers, more to make it clear that his connection was irrelevant and not worth bringing up. It was, however, something he was especially glad to have done now. Phryne seemed suspicious enough of the police, if she found out that the Deputy Commissioner was his former father-in-law he suspected that despite the intimacy they'd already shared, she'd stop cooperating with him altogether.

There were a few raised eyebrows from the officers on duty at him bringing a random woman with him to a crime scene but as he was the superior officer, no questions were asked. He got the distinct impression that Phryne quite enjoyed being able to walk past police officers in uniform with no fear of being arrested.

Once in the room she was straight to business. She instantly dismissed the fireplace, declared the window unlikely and after making sure there was no secret passageway that Jack hadn't discovered, she went to the door.

"There are scratches on the outside."

Jack nodded. "They had to break the door down to get in here."

"Yes, I can see that damage," she seemed to be offended at his explanation. "I know what a door looks like when it's been smashed in, Jack. No, this is a different kind of scratch. Like something's been dragged across it like…what's the bolt made of?"

"I'm not sure," Jack replied. "Some sort of metal."

He watched her take out a hat pin and placed it on the bolt. She took her hand away and the pin didn't move. "There. See, the door was the escape route. They magnetised the lock then used a magnet to close it from the outside."

"That's extraordinary." Jack came closer to inspect what Phryne had spotted.

"If you want to celebrate, that desk looks pretty sturdy."

Jack looked up to see her smirking at him. He wasn't entirely sure if she was being serious or not, which was happening all too frequently in his interactions with her. Serious or not, there was no way he was making love to her in the library of his former wife's father.

"I don't think that would be a sensible thing to do in my boss's house, Phryne."

"Boring," she declared, sitting on the desk regardless. "So that's the how sorted. Where are we with who?"

Jack leaned against the door, fearing that walking over to the desk would involve trouble that he couldn't trust himself to stop. "Someone with scratches on their tattoos. Sound like anyone you've seen around?"

"Father Blackburn has tattoos," Phryne offered, then sighed apparently already dismissing him, "but then so do lots of men who go through our doors."

"I'll start with Father Blackburn, then."

Phryne shook her head. "I'm not convinced if I'm honest. We don't like him, he comes to try and save us girls as it were. If it had been me lying dead on that floor then I'd suspect him, he does not like me at all, but unlike the rest of us, Lavinia listened to him. She'd starting wearing a cross."

"You think they were in league?"

"Definitely up to something," Phryne agreed, "although I always thought it was harmless. We didn't want to lose her to religion but at least she would have been safe and presumably happy locked away in a convent, although I personally would never understand the appeal of that sort of life."

"Unless maybe he thought she couldn't be saved."

"Maybe. Maybe he wasn't as good as he made out and his visits were more about earthly desires than heavenly ones, then something went wrong…it wouldn't be the first time. That's why all women are expected to only work in the club where I'm on hand."

"Except you," Jack pointed out.

She smiled fondly at him. "I told you, that was pleasure, not business. But you're right, that was risky for me. Still is, I hope you realise."

"So you think I'm dangerous, do you?"

She slid off the desk and walked over to him, placing a hand seductively on his chest, her body almost pressing against his. "Not physically, Inspector Robinson, no. I do think you'd be quite capable of breaking a woman's heart. Luckily, I don't have one."

"I don't believe that for a second," Jack replied huskily. "I've seen your heart, when you talk about your girls and your sister."

"I don't fall in love," she told him solemnly, her eyes searching his face as if fearing the wrong reaction to that statement.

"I didn't think last night was about love."

"It wasn't." She stepped back and straightened herself up. No, Jack realised, she was putting up her mental barriers. "But you seem like a fall in love and get married sort of man. I just needed you to know…"

"Not to fall in love with you. Phryne, I've just got out of a bad marriage. Falling in love with another woman just for her to break my heart is the last thing I want, trust me."

She nodded with the ghost of a smile. "Good. I should get back to work. Look out for injured men with tattoos for you."

"You will tell me if you see anything, won't you?" Jack asked, suddenly worried that she was going to keep him out of the investigation if she managed to make some headway without him present. He was already fairly certain that Phryne Fisher acted first and thought later, which might mean that she'd get her own revenge on the murderer before thinking that maybe she should hand them over to the police to deal with.

"Of course," she replied, "and you likewise?"

"How?" he asked her, exasperated. "When I'm not allowed at the club and I don't know where you live?"

"I live at the club, I have my own room," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "Fine, I'll speak to Madam Lyon, tell her I've spoken to you and you're very clear on what is and isn't acceptable behaviour. Do you really want to be one of our regulars?"

"No," Jack admitted. "This will only be until I've found Lavinia's killer."

Phryne had her hand on the door, ready to leave. "Do you want me to come back to yours tonight after I finish work? It could be late."

Jack found himself muttering and staring down at his feet. "I suppose that's our best chance to catch up on what we find considering…"

"Not what I meant, Jack."

He looked up to see her staring questioningly at him. She wasn't smirking or flirting this time, she seemed completely genuine in her question.

"Look, Phryne, last night was fun but –"

"Wait," she interrupted. "Before you give me the speech, consider this. Society makes up stupid rules all the time about who we should and shouldn't be with. If the only reason you don't want to sleep with me is because of our jobs, is that alone a good enough reason?"

"I'm a police detective; I have to abide by the law."

"I'm not suggesting breaking it."

Jack shook his head. "I know, but ethically... You've admitted to me that you have done illegal things in the past. You're the subject of one of my cases, heavily involved in another, if my boss was to ever find out what we've done, or if the newspapers got wind of it…"

"Fine, Inspector, I give in. Last night was a beautiful mistake."

Jack watched as she flounced off in a huff. She almost seemed upset with him. He wasn't terribly happy either, he realised, because despite all the reasons he shouldn't he had hoped to see her again. But he couldn't have an affair with her, it wouldn't be right. Besides, Phryne had been right in her appraisal of him; if he wanted another woman in his life he at least wanted it to be an official courtship. As he'd told her, he wasn't keen to rush into another marriage but just sex with a woman of loose morals was not what he was looking for.

TBC...