Discovered in a haunting - Iris
Hi guys
Here is a short ficlet I wrote for this month's challenge. Hope you like it.
Bodie shut the back door quietly behind him and stepped out onto the small patio at the head of the garden. In front of him, a narrow strip of overgrown grass stretched down towards a rusting metal gate, which opened out onto the back lane of Hengham Street. Dawn was breaking over the row of terraced houses which stood on the other side of the lane, bathing their roofs and chimneys in a faint orange light. In just a couple of hours people would be waking up, making their breakfasts, reading their morning papers. Bodie breathed in the cool, fresh air and watched the sunrise for a moment. Poor, ignorant sods. They had absolutely no idea what was going on right in front of their noses; no bloody idea how quickly an ordinary day could turn to shit in the blink of an eye.
Bodie kicked at a clump of weeds growing through the cracks in the paving stones and looked over at Stephanie Walker’s pink and white bicycle, still lying on its side on the corner of the patio, exactly where she left it when she’d been called in for tea about 36 hours ago. Fish fingers and chips, with jam roly poly for afters, and then a quick errand to the local shop at the end of the street to buy sugar and teabags before closing time. Five minutes there, five minutes back.
Half an hour after Stephanie’s mum admitted to herself that she hadn’t just dropped round to a friend’s house on way back from the shop, CI5 had been called in. The house was now a hive of activity, with agents posted front and back in two hour shifts and Cowley taking up permanent residence in the downstairs living room. Bodie looked up at the drawn curtains of 109 Hengham Street. Poor little Stephanie, whose pickpocket father got more than he bargained for when he found forged diplomatic papers and a coded list of names and contact details inside one of the wallets he’d lifted the day before. Apparently the owner of the wallet wanted those papers back, and Jimmy Walker’s only child was the current asking price.
Bodie rubbed his hand over his eyes, wincing as he inadvertently made contact with the patch of broken skin on his forehead. Eight bloody stitches and a bump the size of a golf ball, with slight concussion thrown in for good measure. And on top of everything their only lead had got away, leaving Bodie half conscious on the pavement and Stephanie Walker no closer to being found alive. He looked down at his watch. For six hours now he’d been reduced to the sidelines, stuck in that damn house with a hysterical woman and a headache that would kill a horse, while Doyle was out there… The second hand on his watch ticked slowly towards 5.45 a.m. Bodie swallowed. Twenty minutes since Doyle had finally radioed in, providing the kidnapper’s position and requesting immediate backup.
Bodie turned his back to the house and walked slowly down the stone path that ran from the patio to the bottom of the garden. On one side of the long grass a few yellow flowers had begun to bloom from a knotted and neglected rosebush, and a large cluster of dandelions grew unchecked on the edge of the lawn. On the other side of the garden, a clutch of irises stood to untidy attention.
Bodie gazed across at the bright blue flowers. Irises were for hope, Doyle had told him once. He snorted at the irony - Doyle, who hadn’t been able to keep a potted plant alive for more than a week but who had suddenly revealed something of a green finger as soon as he was given his own CI5 issue garden flat. Every flower had a meaning, Doyle had said, which is why you have to be careful choosing just the right bouquet if you really want to impress the girls. Not that there’d actually been any girls lately. Not since the first time he and Doyle had... Bodie picked off the dead head of one of the pale yellow roses in front of him. Red roses stood for love. Yellow roses were just for friendship.
He checked his watch one more time. Twenty-five minutes since they’d last heard from Doyle. Nearly thirty-seven hours since Stephanie Walker had been snatched. Thirty-eight hours since he and Doyle had had that bloody, stupid, pointless, argument. Bodie pulled another dead rose from the bush and flung it to the ground. Their first bloody argument since they started sleeping together, and he’d behaved like some jealous schoolgirl with her first crush. No wonder Doyle had been so thoroughly pissed off with him. Imagine Doyle giving up girls! And for good, not just for the last few weeks. Bodie kicked at a clump of earth with his toe. Stupid, stupid thought.
A loud shout from behind him brought Bodie back to the present. He turned and looked up at the back of 109 Hengham Street. Lights on in all the windows now, the door wide open and agents rushing in and out. And there was little Stephanie, bundled up and carried inside by Cowley himself. .Bodie closed his eyes and let out a long, low breath. Alive then, thank god. That was the main thing after all, finding the girl in one piece and getting her back home, back to the people who loved her.
No sign of Doyle. The back door slammed shut behind Cowley, the noises from the house becoming muted and muffled. Bodie took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
There! - at the top of the garden. Standing on the patio, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets, staring right at Bodie.
Waiting…
Bodie moved, crossing the lawn in three steps and grinning stupidly at the cluster of tatty blue flowers poking up out of the earth as he strode past them. Absolutely bloody beautiful, they were.
After all, irises stood for hope.
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For the prompt:
“It is a good idea to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presence may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought.” (James Douglas)
Title: Iris
Author: Foxcat
Slash: Bodie/Doyle
Archive at Proslilb: Yes
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing etc...