PART TWO
16 December 1990
"You staying late?" Jim asked, lifting his jacket from the stand.
"Yeah, I need to finish this paperwork from yesterday," Christina replied, head bent over the typewriter as she processed Leonard Smith's confession. "He wants to read it over before it gets sent to CPS."
"Is everything all right between you two?"
"Who?"
"You and Burnside."
"Fine, why?"
"Well, it's just that..."
She paused and looked up. "It's just what?"
"When you came back from seeing his snout earlier...well...there was a bit of an atmosphere."
"What sort of atmosphere?"
"Well, as if you'd had a row," Jim said. "Did he give you a hard time about Stewart?"
She paused, thinking back on what had been said, and done, in the car and felt a shiver run through her. "You could say that."
"It's not your fault you know, Stewart that is."
"I know."
"I mean, we can all see it...we've all seen it for a long time now. The way he is, the way he treats you..."
"Jim, please..." she sighed heavily, unwilling to get into a debate about it with him. It had been a difficult day all round, the ride back from the Maycroft estate undertaken in relative silence. The atmosphere in the car had swung between awkward and electric and she had climbed out quickly the moment Frank had pulled into the yard and hurried away from him. Kim Reid, the new DCI, was due to arrive the following day and there had been a flurry of activity in preparation, but she had tried to busy herself in her work for the afternoon which had meant little contact with Frank. But on the occasions when he had been in his office, she had felt his eyes on her.
"Sorry," Jim said. "I didn't mean to…"
"No, it's not you…" she finally looked at him. "I hear what you're saying."
"It's almost a new year," he remarked. "New year, new start and all that. Anyway, see you in the morning."
"Night," she said, watching him go, his words playing on her mind. Was it so obvious to everyone what her marriage had become? Had they all been pitying her all this time, even before Stewart had been shot? She glanced over at the door to Frank's office, closed over as it had been for the last hour, and wondered what Jim would say if he knew what had happened between them in the car that morning. Would he congratulate her for making a move on another man or berate her for cheating on her husband? Focusing once more on the job in hand, she finished typing up the confession, pulled the paper out from the typewriter and got to her feet. As she approached the office door, she could see Frank through the glass, sitting at his desk, focused on whatever task it was he was doing. For a moment she just watched him, almost unable to believe how much had changed between them in the space of a few hours. Finally, taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door. He looked up and caught her gaze, holding it for a moment before inviting her to come in.
She pushed the door open, stepped in and then found that she didn't quite know what to say, though it should have been simple. The paperwork was in her hand and all she had to do was hand it over, but something in the way he was looking at her seemed to render her speechless.
"Everything ok?" he asked after a long moment.
"Yes. You wanted to see Leonard's confession before I submitted it to CPS." She held it out to him, embarrassed to see her hand shaking. Before he could take it, she let it fall onto his desk and as he lifted it, she took a deep breath, keen to address the elephant in the room and yet not entirely sure where to start. "I'm sorry about earlier."
He looked up, "What have you got to be sorry for?"
"I shouldn't have yelled at you."
"Well, I've had worse in my time. Besides, if anyone should be sorry, it should be me."
She frowned, confused, "You? Why?"
"I shouldn't have kissed you."
Her cheeks flamed at the very words, and she looked down at the floor as he stood up. "Well, I wasn't exactly fighting you off."
"No, you weren't."
"I kissed you as much as you kissed me." It was a question wrapped up in a statement, an attempt to gauge whether or not he thought the same way about what had happened as she did, whether he believed she was equally as culpable.
"Well, I'll take that." He paused. "There's a lot of things I want to say to you."
"I think you said quite a bit earlier, don't you?" He said nothing. "What else do you want to say?"
"Leave him."
She sucked in a breath, feeling her heart hammer wildly in her chest as he kept his gaze trained on her. "Just like that?"
"Why not?" he came around the side of his desk and she found herself taking an involuntary step back. "He treats you like shit, we've all seen it. And after last night…why would you want to stay?"
"Because we've been married for ten years...because we've been together since we were sixteen..." The excuses from her end never changed. Sometimes she thought that the more she repeated them to herself the more she might start to believe they still meant something and yet…now…standing in front of him, it felt as though they had never meant less.
"And that gives him the right to treat you the way he does, does it? That gives him the right to grind you into the ground with his behaviour, to hurt you, physically hurt you?"
"I…"
"I told you, you deserve better."
Though she knew he was right, hearing him say it only served to cause tears to pool in her eyes, and she put her hands over her face, as though a lack of vision would make things better. The next thing she felt was his arms go around her and her body pressed against his. Instinctively, though what instinct it was borne from she didn't know, she wound her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. She didn't want to cry, was desperate not to cry and yet she couldn't stop the tears from falling and he held her and gently stroked her hair, the sensation slowly calming her until her body had stopped shaking. For a moment, they didn't move. She kept her face hidden, breathing in the scent of his aftershave familiar, and yet not so. The silence in the room seemed deafening and when she chanced to lift her head, her forehead brushed against his as their mouths sought and found each other.
The kiss was gentle, soft, much like it had been earlier in the car, and yet it seemed so unexpected. Her fantasies of this very moment had always included both of them being overwhelmed by a wave of passion, tearing at each other's clothes and giving in to the most basic need and desire. That was the kind of man she had always assumed him to be; sex not lovemaking. But this was different, as though there was so much more behind the kiss than just the physical. Pulling back, she heard herself breathe his name as he held her in the circle of his arms.
"I won't tell you to leave him again if you don't want me to," he said softly, "but, like I said, you must know how I feel about you."
Knowing and hearing were two entirely different things. Perhaps a part of her had always known, or at least suspected that he cared for her more than he should and yet, how did he feel about her? How did he really feel about her? Saying that he cared for her, as he had done in the car, could mean anything. Were his feelings anything like what she knew her own were, the ones she knew she could no longer deny? "I suppose…in a way I sensed it, but I told myself that it was so ridiculous and…" she shook her head, "I've tried so hard to fight against how I feel about you."
"How do you feel about me?"
It was such a loaded question, one that she really wasn't sure how to answer. She didn't know if she even knew the full answer and yet, part of it was so obvious. "I know how I feel physically," she said slowly, "but emotionally…" he didn't say anything, just kept looking at her with as soft an expression as she thought she had ever seen, his jaw tightening slightly when she went on to say the inevitable. "I'm married."
"But you're not happy."
She knew he was right, of course he was, and yet the traditional part of her that believed in a marriage being forever still held sway over her. "But what does that have to do with it? I took a vow, made a promise…in sickness and in health…you're not supposed to just give up because you're unhappy."
"Listen to me…" he took her face in his hands. "Over the time I've known you, I've seen how he's treated you, the things that he's said to you, the lack of care he's shown you over the simplest things…"
"Don't…" she pulled away from him again. It was one thing to have those thoughts herself, to admit how little her own husband appeared to care for her, but to hear someone else, especially him, voice them… "Don't say that." She leaned back against his desk, letting out a long breath as she did so, feeling her head swim.
"Fine, I won't say that. I'll say this; I'm in love with you and I have been for a long time."
She met his gaze and searched his face, looking for any trace of untruth or ridicule and finding none. The space and the silence stretched between them, and she felt her breathing grow shallow at the enormity of what he was telling her. He moved towards her, and a shiver of expectation ran through her, her hands gripping the edge of the desk for support. What now? Did they kiss again? Did they engage in wild, uninhibited sex right there in his office as she had often fantasised? Did she run for the door?
He reached out and slid his hands onto her waist, pulling her gently upright, and she felt herself tremble under his touch, the heat from his hands almost seeming to burn through her clothes to her flesh. "I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you."
"That can't be true," she replied, breathlessly. "You've been married…you loved your wife…" her words were cut off by the force of his mouth on hers again, as gentle as it had been before and yet with a growing heat behind it that she found irresistible. She found herself responding ardently, her body unashamedly reacting in every natural way imaginable, no question of hesitation or refusal, not even as his hands slid down her back and over her bottom, his fingers gently gripping the fabric of her skirt and sliding it slowly upwards, bunching it around her buttocks, kneading them gently.
He pulled back suddenly and looked at her, his eyes pale and yet filled with a hunger that she hadn't really noticed before. "You said you knew how you felt, physically."
"Yes."
"Does that mean you want me as much as I want you?"
"I…" she wavered, aware that it was a fairly straightforward question and yet the answer she gave would change so much. "Yes…"
It was seemingly all the encouragement he needed. The kiss was more forceful this time, his hands squeezing her buttocks, pulling her pelvis against his so that she could feel the strength of his desire for her, then moving around and pulling her blouse out from the waistband of her skirt, his hands warm on the bare flesh of her belly, moving upwards over her ribcage to the heavy lace of her bra. His mouth moved to her neck, and she gasped as pleasure shot through her. His fingers found their way to her buttons, prising them slowly open, his lips moving softly down over her collarbone to the swell of her breasts, causing her head to drop back and her eyes to close.
"There's so many things I want to do to you," he murmured, his fingers once more finding the hem of her skirt and then slowly moving upwards, circling the flesh of her thighs. "Do you have any idea…how badly I need to be inside you?"
She raised her head again and, placing her hands on either side of his, pulled him up so that their gazes were locked again. It might have been wrong, but her body was demanding things that had been denied to it for too long and her brain seemed only too happy to agree. "I want you inside me." She heard herself say the scandalous words and then her senses were flooded with him, kissing her again, his tongue pushing inside her mouth, his hands now under her skirt, seeking the fabric of her underwear. He groaned softly as she ran her hand down below his belt and then back up to the buckle, pulling it open, her fingers probing for the button and then the zip…
"Guv!"
A shout came from the far end of the corridor, the door suddenly slamming, and, like scalded cats, they sprang apart, retreating to opposite corners. She pulled her skirt down hurriedly, her fingers flying to her blouse in an attempt to rebutton it, hampered by the trembling coursing through her whole body. She turned towards the window just as Tosh came barrelling into the CID office.
"Guv, I need to speak to you!" he declared loudly. "Guv!" Storming through the office door, he looked between them, seemingly surprised to see her. "Oh, sorry Chris, I didn't see you there. I'd thought you'd gone already."
"That's ok," she replied quickly, hoping that her voice didn't come across as high-pitched as it sounded to her own ears. "We'd finished, hadn't we Guv?"
"Oh…uh…yeah…" he replied, moving back around to his side of the desk.
"I was just going to head off. Night." Without waiting for either of them to respond, she hurried out of his office and back over to her desk. Switching off the light, she grabbed her keys from her drawer and lifted her coat, swinging it over her shoulders and deliberately not looking back, praying that her legs would be able to carry her. She could hear Tosh's voice, loud and irritated as he regaled Frank with whatever problem he had, but she didn't want to hear the resolution. She hurried along the corridor and down the back stairs towards custody, out into the yard. The cold air hit her with a jolt, and she inhaled sharply, her throat freezing with the cool temperature, and it was all she could do to force her legs to walk her to the car.
She sagged against it, every muscle in her body seemingly unwilling to bear her weight any longer, and after fighting with the door key, slid gratefully inside, the windows instantly misting up as the engine roared into life. She pulled the rear-view mirror around so she could look at herself, see if there were any tell-tale signs of what she had just done…what they had just done. Apart from a slight reddening around her chin, she looked no different than she had before he touched her. Before she had let him touch her.
"Christ…" she swore softly, taking a deep breath and reversing out of the parking space. "Jesus holy Christ."
XXXX
"Tosh…" Frank closed his eyes in frustration, borne out of more than just the other man's ramblings, "this is all very interesting, but I don't quite know what you expect me to do about it."
"Do about it? Take it to the DCI!"
"He's left, in case you hadn't noticed."
"The new one then!"
"She doesn't start until tomorrow and whilst the notion of 'taking it to her' is all well and good in theory, I doubt very much if she's going to be interested in your transportation problems."
"Well, she bloody well should be!" Tosh railed. "How am I supposed to do my job if I don't have a set of wheels?"
"Use one of the pool cars."
"You've got to be joking. Those cars are death traps. When was the last time one of them went through an MOT?"
"Are you suggesting that we're not complying with the legal requirements for having vehicles on the road?" he turned to face his officer. "Really?"
"Well, I don't know," Tosh harrumphed. "It just feels as though I'm putting my life on the line every time I get in one of those pool cars. If I die in an accident, who's going to look after my kids?"
"Maybe you should have thought about that before fathering five of them!" Frank snapped before he could stop himself. Tosh stared at him, and he immediately regretted his words. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's been a difficult day today what with Wray leaving and Reid about to descend on us. I will speak to her when she gets here and see what she says."
"Thank you," Tosh replied. "I'd appreciate that." He paused. "Everything all right?"
"Like I said, it's been a difficult day."
It felt like the understatement of the year and once he was alone again, he found that he could no longer concentrate on anything remotely work related. Leonard's confession lay untouched on his desk, the words jumping around on the page and making no sense when he chanced to look at it. All he could think about was her, all he could feel was her pressed against him, the heat of her mouth, the softness of her skin, her wanting him as badly as he wanted her. Christ, if Tosh hadn't come in when he had, they would have done it. They would have had sex right there on his desk and loved every minute of it.
He had told her. She knew now how he felt. He had spilled his truth and he couldn't help but think that if they had had more time alone together, she would have spilled hers. She had been trying to restrain it, he could see that, but a little more time and he knew she would have been unable to hold it back any longer. He had seen it in her eyes.
The drive home seemed to take forever in the worsening weather, the radio playing Christmas songs that brought him no cheer. She had obviously gone home to him, and he couldn't help but wonder what she would say when she got there. Would she pretend all was normal or would she go inside and tell him what she had done, what they had done? He prayed for the latter but expected the former. He knew it was a lot to expect from her; she had a hell of a lot more to throw away than he had but now…now that she knew, now that she had all but given in to her own feelings, things had to change. She and Stewart couldn't go on as they had, how could he expect her to?
He flicked the lights on in his flat, turned on the television and hunted in the fridge for something edible. The late news swirled around him as he sat on the couch, not seeing or hearing anything, his brain and body completely wired to her.
She just needed a little time, that was all. Just a little time.
XXXX
She could hear the television blaring loudly from the living room when she opened the front door, and her heart sank. Any ridiculous notion she might had had that Stewart would be sober and cooking a late dinner when she got home was quickly dispelled by the debris lying on the hall floor. The post hadn't been picked up and there was a trail of washing leading towards the kitchen. She took a breath and moved to the living room doorway to see her husband sprawled across the couch in a vest and jogging bottoms, looking for all the world like some dosser who had taken over the place.
He looked up and squinted at her. "It's you."
"Yes, it's me," she replied with faux brightness. "Have you had any tea?" He shook his head. "Right, I'd better make some then seeing as it's nearly nine. You must be starving, I know I am." She made her way into the kitchen and grimaced at the mess it was in. There were pots and pans lying everywhere, newspapers and other debris littering every surface and she sighed as she took her suit jacket off and started to clear space.
"Where have you been anyway?" Stewart said from the doorway.
"At work."
"Really."
"Yes, really. Where else would I have been?" She turned and glanced at him. "Have you had a shower today?" He shook his head. "Don't you think that you should?"
"Why? I'll only be going back to bed in a while anyway."
She shuddered at the thought of sharing a bed with him but covered it up by putting a pan of water onto boil and pulling a packet of pasta from the cupboard. "Spag bol alright?" she asked, reaching into the fridge and lifting out a tub the contents of which she had made earlier.
"Whatever," he said, moving past her and opening the cupboard to procure another bottle of whisky before pouring himself a generous measure.
"Right then. I think I'll go and get changed." Breezily, she moved past him and climbed the stairs to their bedroom, wilting slightly at the mess it was in. The bed was unmade, and Stewart's clothes were strewn everywhere. In the past, he had always taken a pride in his appearance, regardless of the occasion, but now it seemed that the demon drink had robbed him of that too. She quickly took off her suit and pulled on jeans and a sweater and as she turned to head back downstairs, she found him standing behind her in the doorway, glass in hand. "You made me jump."
"Place is like a pigsty," he commented.
"Yes, it is. Maybe you could give it a clean and tidy tomorrow if you're not doing anything else."
"Why should I do it?"
"Because you made the mess."
"You don't like it, you clean it up," he said pettily, pointing the glass at her. "I'm going to get another drink."
Despair flooded her. "That's all you care about these days, isn't it? Drink! That's all you want to do! I know things have been hard for you but you can't keep…"
"What would you know about things being hard?!" he rounded on her at the top of the stairs. "I was shot in the back, Christina, and I lost my job! I'm an unemployed fucking cripple!"
"You're not a cripple," she followed him down. "And just because you're not on the job anymore doesn't mean that you don't still have a lot to offer. We talked about those security jobs, didn't we, and you could…"
"Oh, shut up!" he turned on her again. "You don't know what you're talking about with your cushy little number at Sun Hill! You don't have the first clue what it was like to be on a squad like I was! You have no idea about how you would lay down your life for each other, the bond that creates! And they thought Hoxton was a good substitute? Ha!"
"Of course, I can understand…"
"No, you can't! You've got no bloody clue because you're just playing at it!" he waved his glass at her. "You're just in CID to make up the numbers! To show that the Met is trying to be more inclusive in the nineteen nineties! You know you should be on the beat, all you birds should!"
She tried hard to keep her temper, aware that he was drunk and ranting and would likely not remember any of the hurtful things he was saying in the morning. But it was the same old lines that he had trotted out before, even away at the very beginning when she had made TDC and joined him in CID at Catford. In all the years since, she had fooled herself that he had grown to respect her position and what she had achieved, despite being a woman in a male dominated environment. It was clear, however, that his opinion of her had never changed. They often said that the truth came out through drink. "That isn't true. I've got where I am because I'm a good detective…"
"Oh yeah? Only because you've got Frank bloody Burnside watching over you," Stewart sneered. "He fancies you rotten. I bet he's just waiting to get into your knickers, the dirty bastard."
The memory of what had transpired mere hours earlier came flooding back to her and her insides contracted. If everything he had said had been true, he didn't just fancy her, didn't just want to get into her knickers, as Stewart had crudely put it, but loved her. "Leave him out of it," she said quietly.
"You're all the same anyway. Slags, the lot of you. All you women in CID. You and that…that dark-haired slut and all." He ambled into the kitchen and poured another drink. "I bet you all hang around Burnside like dogs with your tongues out, just waiting for the opportunity to suck his fucking cock."
"Stop it! You're disgusting!"
"I'm disgusting?" he drained his newly filled glass. "You're the disgusting little slut here, not me!"
It was almost all too close to the truth. An hour or so ago, another man had been kissing her, another man had had his hands on her body. An hour or so ago, without an interruption, another man would have been inside her…
"You need some coffee." She made to move past him towards the kettle when, all of a sudden, the glass he was holding flew out of his hand and smashed against the wall beside her head, causing her to scream as a sliver of pain shot through her. Without stopping to look at him, she grabbed her bag from the table and raced for the door. The darkness of the evening seemed to envelop her, and she ran for the car, unsure if he was following her and too scared to turn back to look. Once inside, she jammed the key in the ignition and tore away from the kerb, the engine screaming in protest. Her heart was thudding in her chest, her breath coming in gasps and when she glanced at herself in the rear-view mirror, she could see the slow ooze of blood from a gash on her forehead.
What the hell had just happened? Who was that man?
She wasn't sure if it was conscious thought or not but, ten minutes later, she found herself turning into a quiet side street, parking on the kerb and hurrying quickly up the path, her finger relentless on the buzzer until it was answered.
"I'm sorry," she said when he opened the door, "but I didn't know where else to go."
