The club was hot and sweaty, indicative of the mild summer night air swept inside by the myriad of bodies. It had been years since she had set foot inside such a place for purposes of pleasure. Stewart had never really entertained them and the few friends she'd had had never really been the types to enjoy them. She was enjoying herself now though, enjoying the feeling of being slightly inebriated, but not in a way that made her feel ill or out of control, more happy and carefree. She had lost Viv long ago and, somehow, she had found himself dancing with a good-looking bloke who had introduced himself at one point as Tom. From the few scattered bits of conversation they had had over the roar of the music, she had gleaned one very important piece of information; he wasn't in the job. She couldn't remember exactly what he had told her he did do, but that failed to matter. She was done with arsehole policemen.
As the night wore on, they grew physically closer, his hand starting in hers then moving to her back, her waist and then her bottom, pulling her into him as he kissed her, his tongue exploring her mouth. It was certainly different and perhaps that was what she needed; a random hook up, a blurred memory for the following morning of being with someone she would most likely never see again. It must have been the effect of the dress, a slutty little blue number she remembered buying a few years ago on a whim and then hiding in the back of her wardrobe so that Stewart wouldn't find it. Putting it on had made her feel like a different person. Liberated, almost.
She found herself in the corner of the room, barely able to see a fraction in front of her face, her back pressed against the wall and Tom's hand under her dress, the fingers on one hand sliding into her underwear whilst the other manoeuvred her to touch his bulging manhood. It felt good to be so wanted, so desired. She could almost imagine that he was someone else entirely. She'd gotten good at that in the dying embers of her marriage.
He pulled his mouth away from hers suddenly and pressed his lips against her ear. "Toilet? I've got a condom."
Her head swam, the combination of alcohol and longing coursing through her bloodstream but then stopping dead in the face of uncertainty. "Oh…ummm…I don't…don't think so…"
"Oh, come on…" he said, squeezing her bottom. "I reckon I could make you come in ten seconds flat."
A shiver suddenly ran through her and she pushed herself away from the wall and out of the circle of his arms. "Yeah, I'm not really into casual sex. I probably should be getting home anyway." The moment the words left her mouth, she wondered if he might get angry with her. She had led him on after all, danced with him, kissed him, touched him…perhaps she owed him.
To her surprise, he simply shrugged and grinned at her. "Yeah, all right, I get that." Glancing around he reached over to a nearby table and lifted a beermat before producing a pen from his pocket and scribbling something down. "My number," he said, passing it to her, "in case you fancy meeting up somewhere less noisy."
"Thanks," she replied. "I should try and find my friend." Biding him goodbye, she started wandering back through the crowds of people, trying to locate Viv. After a good ten minutes with no sign of her, she left, stepping out into the cooling night air and taking a deep breath. For a few moments earlier, she hadn't recognised herself. In a million years she would never have imagined acting so brazenly with a man she barely knew in such a public place, not to mention his suggestion of them going to the toilet together…an inappropriate giggle left her throat as she suddenly thought back on the many times she had fantasied about having sex with Frank at the station. Toilets were an obvious location, though the ultimate fantasy remained his office. Sometimes, at night, she still thought about what it would have been like if he'd fucked her on his desk.
As she waited for a taxi, she wondered how his evening had been. Dinner with Fiona, Spain the following week…he seemed to have it all under control, everything going exactly as he wanted, as though nothing had ever happened to upset the apple cart. Jealously shot through her as she opened the door of the next taxi to arrive at the rank and climbed inside. How easily he seemed to flit from woman to woman and what of Fiona? What kind of woman was she to not care how many times he lifted and laid her? Clearly one who had no stake in him, who didn't care if he was hers or not…didn't care the way she did.
"Sorry," she leaned forwards. "Can I change my mind? Manor Avenue please, number twelve."
It was your idea to be friends. You were the one who said that you needed time.
She pushed the reasoning from her head and focused instead on the journey, and how long it appeared to be taking for so late at night. By the time the taxi pulled up in front of Frank's building, she had all but decided it was a bad idea, but the thought of having to ask the driver to take yet another route felt more embarrassing than what she was intending to do and so she paid him and got out of the taxi. The night air hitting her once more made her stumble slightly on her heels, but she took a deep breath, strode up the path and pressed the doorbell.
XXXX
Fiona's orgasms were always loud and noisy, as though she had been taking pointers from some sort of dodgy porn star. He tried to think of it as being a reaction to his incredible talents and skills in the bedroom, but he couldn't help but wince slightly as she screamed and thrashed about and he found himself longing for the more natural, genuine sounds that Christina used to make when they were together. Truth be told, he missed everything about her, and not just in bed.
He couldn't shake the hurt over her not telling him about the operation to catch Whelan and yet, when he thought about it and rationalised his forgiveness of her threat to accuse him of rape, it seemed ridiculous by comparison. If he could forgive her for that, why couldn't he forgive her for this?
Because this was professional. This was work. She undermined you. She's supposed to be on your firm. She's supposed to be in love with you. You would have told her.
"Would I?" he asked himself softly as he lay looking at the ceiling.
"Would you what?" Fiona asked, emerging from her trip to the bathroom back into the bedroom and climbing back into the bed beside him.
"Nothing," he replied, as she nestled herself closer to him.
"I was just having a nosy around. How come you've never invited me round here before then?"
"Your place is nicer."
"Bollocks." She looked up at him. "You've had her here, haven't you? Ginger?"
"Why do you care so much about her?"
"I don't. I'm only asking. I just think…" she broke off as the sound of the doorbell reverberated around the room and she frowned. "You expecting other company?"
"No." He got out of the bed and pulled on his boxers, making his way to the front door as the bell sounded again, before wrenching it open. She was the last person that he had expected to see, dressed as she was in a way that left little to the imagination. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, his tone harsher than expected.
"Oh…umm…" she stepped back suddenly from the door, and he watched as her eyes raked over his semi-naked form. "Uh…nothing."
"Nothing? It's two o'clock in the bloody morning!"
"Is it?" she took another step back. "Sorry, I must have lost track of the time. Viv and I went clubbing after the pub and…" she waved her hand as though the end of her sentence should have been obvious, and he could tell she was inebriated. "Sorry to…umm…interrupt."
"Hang on!" he called after her as she made to turn away. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she said cheerfully. "Nothing at all."
"So, what are you doing here?"
"No idea. I'll see you in the morning."
"Christina…" he followed her down the path, caring little for what any neighbours might think about his state of undress. "You don't just turn up like this for no reason! Stop!" he took hold of her arm and swung her round to face him. "The last time you did this unannounced, Stewart had just lobbed a glass at your head!"
"And we made love," she replied, her gaze sliding past him to the door behind. "Like I said, I'm sorry to interrupt." He turned to follow her gaze to see Fiona standing at the door, wrapped in a blanket. "Sorry, I should go." Wrenching her arm out of his grip she turned and started running towards the road, pausing only to pull her shoes off.
"Wait! Chris, wait!" he made to go after her then stopped, realising that he wouldn't get far dressed as he was. Within seconds, she had disappeared around a corner and all he could do was walk back up to the front door where Fiona still stood.
"Ginger, I'm guessing."
"Her name's Christina," he replied, stepping past her back inside the flat.
"What did she want? Frank, what did she want?"
"I don't know." He moved back into the bedroom and started retrieving his clothes from the floor. Something wasn't right about the whole situation and despite how pissed off he was with her, he knew he couldn't leave things as they were.
"Where are you going?"
"Never you mind. Get dressed, will you?"
"Oh, that's nice. You're chucking me out?"
"No, I'm not chucking you out. I'm just asking you to get dressed."
"So you can chuck me out!" He didn't reply. "Fine then. If that's what you want…" she dropped the blanket and gathered up her own discarded garments. "Thanks a lot."
"Look, this is nothing personal, all right? I don't expect you to understand."
"Maybe you should be taking her to Spain instead of me," she grumbled.
"Yeah, maybe I should," he shot back. "You being petty like this is something I really don't need right now."
"Petty?!" she gaped at him. "Christ, you really are a bastard Frank Burnside, you know that? I don't know why I let you back in again and again and again. You can stuff shagging me in the future and you can stuff your trip to Spain and all!" She flounced out of the room, down the corridor and threw open the front door and he suddenly felt a modicum of remorse.
"Look, let me at least drop you home," he said, following her.
"I don't need you to drop me anywhere, all right?" she rounded on him. "Do you know something? I actually thought you might have cared for me, just a little bit!"
"You said you didn't want anything serious!"
"That doesn't mean you can just lift and lay me whenever you feel like it!"
"You said I could come to you anytime I needed an outlet!" He shook his head, convinced that he would never understand the female brain. If she had wanted more from him than just sex, why hadn't she said so?
"Yeah, well this shop is now shut!" she pushed him in the chest. "Find someone else to be your bit on the side!"
"Come on, don't be like that!"
"Screw you!" she strode down the path away from him, and he suddenly realised that the neighbours would be having a field day if they were watching. Moments later, she too had disappeared, and he paused, pondering on the wisdom of what he was considering doing and eventually deciding that, as things stood, there was little to lose.
XXXX
She knew she should just go to bed, but her brain was wired, and she knew she would be unable to sleep. Peeling off her dress and underwear and leaving them lying in the middle of the floor, she took a quick shower, allowing the water to flow over her body and wash away the memories of the evening. Tom's hands on her, the sight of a half-naked Fiona at Frank's door, the knowledge of what they had clearly been doing together…perhaps she should have taken Tom up on his offer of a quickie in the toilets. It might have made them even. But even as she allowed the thought to enter her head, she knew it wouldn't have been the right thing to do. Both men that she had slept with had meant something to her; both of them still did in very different ways.
Once dried and wrapped in her dressing gown, she made herself a cup of tea and was about to collapse on the couch with it and contemplate how she was going to get through a whole day of work in a few hours with no sleep, when there was a sudden knocking on her front door. She paused, thinking it must be some sort of mistake and that whoever it was would realise that they had come to the wrong address, but the pounding came again and then, his voice.
"Christina? Open the door!"
"Shit…" planking her cup down on the coffee table, she moved into the hallway and pulled open the door to find him standing in front of her, now fully dressed, his expression a mixture of confusion and annoyance.
"What was all that about?" he asked pointedly.
"What?" she replied, as though the notion that anything had happened that evening was ludicrous.
"Turning up at my door?"
"I dunno…I'm drunk."
He shook his head. "No, you're not."
"I am actually. I've had quite a bit to drink tonight, I'll have you know, and it's my birthday, so I reckon I'm entitled." She paused. "You didn't chuck Fiona out and come steaming straight over here, did you?"
"I did, as it happens."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to know why you'd come to my gaff at two in the morning!"
She met his gaze. "I copped off with someone at the club."
"So?"
"Ah…" she nodded, hurt by his seeming lack of concern. "Ok, I see. You don't care. You don't care that I snogged someone else, that I was going to fuck him in the toilets, because you're still angry at me for what happened with Whelan, aren't you?" He said nothing. "Aren't you?"
"Can I at least come inside, or are we going to have this discussion on the doorstep?"
Part of her wanted to slam the door in his face, but instead she found herself stepping back and allowing him in, closing the door behind him and wandering back through to the living room where her tea was cooling and to where they were finally, it appeared, going to have the argument they should have had weeks earlier.
"You should have told me what Reid was planning."
"Why? Why should I have been the one to tell you as opposed to Jim or Tosh or any of the others?"
"Because I thought we meant something to one another, that's why! Because I trust you more than I trust any of the rest of them!"
"We do mean something to one another."
"So, why didn't you tell me?"
"Because it was a direct order from the DCI not to!"
"And you care about your career."
She paused. "Yes, yes I do and, quite clearly, so do you, otherwise you wouldn't be so upset about it. A few months ago, you were poised to give everything up, leave the job completely, and now you're barely speaking to me because your professional pride's been hurt."
"You're supposed to be on my firm!"
"Christ, do you have any idea how tired I am of hearing that phrase?" she shook her head. "Your firm…for what's it worth, I told you that I was on your firm! I always have been, Frank, if you remember. I lied to SCS about what happened the night Powell was shot. If that isn't proof enough then I don't know what is! I have always backed you up." She took a breath. "But the DCI was right to make the call she did about Whelan."
Hie eyes darkened. "Oh, well that's all right then! Good thing Ted and I didn't get shot!"
"Your blood was up about the whole thing! Maybe Reid knows you better than you like to think she does because I reckon that if I'd been in her shoes, I'd have made the same call!"
"Well, it's lucky I outrank you then, isn't it?!"
There was a long moment of silence.
"You treating me the way you've been treating me lately isn't fair. I could understand why you did it after what happened in Brighton, but this is different, and you know it. I don't want things to be like this between us. It's hellish being ignored or…or spoken to with contempt whenever you deign to address me. I want things to go back to the way they were."
"Us being friends you mean."
"Yes, I suppose."
"You suppose?" he peered at her, and she felt herself wilting slightly under his gaze. "This bloke in the club, the one you copped off with."
"Tom."
"Tom…is he in the job?"
"No."
His jaw tightened. "And you were going to let him fuck you in the bogs?"
His crudity made her shiver at the memory. "What do you think? Do you really think I'm the kind of woman who just goes around sleeping with random men that she picks up in clubs?" He looked away and she gestured to the scrap of paper she had earlier deposited on the coffee table. "He gave me his number."
He lifted it and scrutinised the digits before putting it back down again. "Are you going to call him?"
"I don't know, maybe."
"Maybe?"
She took a breath, wanting to ask him the question and yet afraid of what the answer might be. "When we were friends, before the whole business with Whelan, were you sleeping with Fiona?"
He paused, "Before the business with Whelan?" She nodded. "No."
"So, you only started seeing her again after that night?"
"Yeah." He paused again. "Are you saying that if I see Fiona, you want to see this Tom bloke? I thought the whole point of you deciding we should be friends was because you needed time to think about things, not go around humping the local talent."
"So, it's all right for you but not all right for me? You're so true to form Frank. You feel hurt so you go off and seek solace with another woman. Anyway, we're not friends now, are we? You've made that very clear."
He sighed heavily and shook his head. "All right, I'm sorry for taking the Whelan business out on you. I was out of order. I suppose I just thought…I just thought that, if you loved me, you would have told me. Saved me from being humiliated like I was."
"I never wanted you to be humiliated, Frank and I do love you, you know I do but…" she sighed, "perhaps this is also part of the reason why people who care about each other shouldn't work together in this job. It creates too many conflicts of interest. She's my DCI at the end of the day and if she gives me an order that conflicts with your position, what am I supposed to do?"
"Yeah, all right, I get that." He hesitated. "You'll get no more hassle from me on that score."
A sense of relief flooded through her. "So, we can at least be on speaking terms again then? I don't have to endure any unbearable silences?" He nodded. "Good." She paused. "Do you want a coffee?"
"Why not? Doubt I'm going to be getting any sleep tonight before the shift anyway." He followed her through to the kitchen and hovered whilst she boiled the kettle. "So, what's he like then, this Tom bloke?"
"Ummm…" she thought back, trying to remember some salient feature to regale him with. "He seemed all right. Good looking, chatty, you know the type."
"Full of himself then."
"Who, him or you?"
"Very funny. His idea or yours to get frisky in the toilets?"
"His, of course."
"I see. Cheers." He took the cup she offered to him and then sat down at the table. "I don't think Fiona's too chuffed with me right now."
"No?" he shook his head. "I would have thought she'd have been excited about going to Spain."
"Oh, she was, until you showed up."
She looked down into her own cup, unsure as to how sincerely upset she felt at the prospect of ruining his holiday. "Sorry."
"Don't be. She knows the score when it comes to you."
"Does she?" He nodded. "You've talked about me to her?"
"Always in very flattering terms." He paused. "Why are we doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Denying how we feel."
"I'm not denying anything. You know that I love you and I know that you love me."
"Yeah, but saying it and acting upon it are two very different things, aren't they? I respected your decision to want to be friends, Chris because you said it was what you needed."
"It is. At least, I think it is."
"You think?"
She shook her head, trying to make sense of all the things running around in it. She had gone to his flat, for what purpose? A chat? At two in the morning? No, that was ludicrous. She'd gone there because what had happened with Stewart and the experience with Tom had made her realise how much she'd needed him, wanted him and if Fiona hadn't been there…
"I don't know," she said finally. "I really don't know. Counselling is helping with everything that happened with Stewart, it really is, but there's so many other things to think about, the same things that have always been there, always been barriers…the job, our respective positions, not to mention the court case…" She waited for him to jump in like every other time and say that none of that mattered, that they would find a way through it, that he was desperate to be with her, but instead he just sat looking at her and nodding.
"You're right," he said after a long moment. "There's a lot to think about."
"I do love you though," she added for emphasis.
"I love you too. But I think you were right to say that we should wait until the court case is over and done with and then see how the land lies."
"You do?" He nodded and she felt an acute sense of disappointment. "Oh, right."
"Come on Chris, you know I'd have you naked in that bedroom in five seconds flat if I thought it would do either of us any good right now, but best to wait until we know if your husband's going to make us go through the indignity of giving evidence, then we can decide how best to go forwards."
He made it sound so clinical, like it was a business decision rather than one made about their future together. "I see…no, you're probably right."
"I'm always right. Anyway, I'd better go." He smiled at her and got to his feet, making his way towards the front door almost before she had time to react. "I'll see you in a few hours, no excuses for slacking."
"Uh…yes, you will. Oh, Frank?" He turned back to face her. "Thanks. I'm…I'm glad we sorted that Whelan business. I much prefer having you as a friend than an enemy."
"Yeah, me too." He paused and then kissed her on the cheek. "Night."
"Night." She watched as he made his way down the path and back to his car, raising his hand in a final farewell before driving off. Slowly she closed the door and wandered back into the kitchen, her eyes falling on the two discarded cups that sat on the table.
He had always been the one to push, the one who wanted her to leave Stewart, wanted her to move in with him, wanted to marry her and now, when the boot was on the other foot, he was the one putting the brakes on. He should have jumped all over her indecision, but he didn't. What did that tell her? That he cared about Fiona more than he wanted to admit? That he wanted to salvage his holiday in Spain? Sliding into bed, she lay looking at the ceiling. Perhaps it was possible to love more than one person. Perhaps he loved her and loved Fiona too. After all, she still loved Stewart, in a way. Perhaps it was unfair of her to expect more from him. And perhaps he was right in any event. Perhaps it was better to wait until after the court case, as she herself had previously suggested and yet, moments earlier, had seemed willing to forget ever mentioning.
As sleep claimed her, she couldn't help but wonder if she was as in control of her relationship with Frank as she had always considered herself to be.