Lewis Fic: Suspended
Story: Suspended
Rating: Teen
Pairing: James Hathaway/Robbie Lewis
Thanks: to wendymr who beta'ed this in such an encouraging and helpful way.
Chapter: One of Two. ( Chapter Two here )
Note: This story has references to childhood sexual abuse of a canon minor character. Nothing descriptive.
Summary: James loses control in the interrogation room and has to face the consequences. Robbie, once he gets to the heart of the matter, only wants to intervene to protect him from further pain. But then it starts to hit home how much he doesn't want to lose his sergeant.
Suspended
Chapter One
Robbie pauses on his way out of their office, because James, pulling on his suit jacket to follow him, has been arrested by the sound of his desk phone. James settles himself into the jacket, drops back into his desk chair, mouths one minute and starts frowning already into the middle distance, fingers reaching for a pen, focusing on whatever the voice in his ear is relaying to him.
It’s more than one minute, it transpires. Robbie, waiting for his sergeant outside the interrogation room, leans against the one-way glass and uses the time to study Wilson, who’s already in there sitting at the table. He's a rather arrogant, frustrating side-issue to their most recent closed case. Nothing to do with the case, as it turned out in the end. Just an unexpected find, stumbling across the evidence that also puts Wilson securely in the picture for a recent spate of burglaries. James’s find really. Somehow Wilson, not a stranger to interrogation rooms, has always managed to evade retribution until now. Largely because he never gets his hands dirty himself, Robbie would bet. Uses others for that. But this time, everyone’s fairly convinced that they’ve got him. Smug as he still looks.
James appears, striding rather rapidly, but his gaze isn’t checking in with Robbie’s as it normally would as he approaches. Instead his eyes are reaching somewhere past him. He stops at the door and opens it, a signal to the young uniformed constable to come out. Then he closes it again, his eyebrows and head tilt asking permission.
Robbie, surprised, considers only briefly and then nods at him. And James pauses another moment, his hand on the door handle, gazing past Robbie’s shoulder now, with his eyes narrowed. Then he shoulders the door open and heads in.
So he wants to have a go at this himself. Well, all right. He’s perfectly able.
But as Robbie moves back over to the window and takes up position, he feels slightly disconcerted, all the same. Something is suddenly just a little off about James’s demeanour. Well, they don’t, of course, carry out all interrogations together. Not by any means. And they hadn’t discussed a strategy for this. But Robbie had planned that they’d be feeling their way through this one together and so he’d just naturally assumed that James would know that.
Because they generally are on the same page when it comes to the two of them dealing with other people. It usually takes no more than a glance in James’s direction for Robbie to delegate, or suggest their next tack, whether they’re dealing with suspects or victims, anyone appended to either, hapless bystanders who need to be questioned or even slightly tiresome chief superintendents… And as if the very thought has summoned her up, there’s the sound of a distinctive footfall and Innocent appears, her intent unmistakeable. Robbie moves further along, away from the door, to allow her access to watch James too.
James seems to be having a bit of trouble already, somehow. He just seems a bit distracted and restless. He’s pacing as he rattles off a series of questions, and still looks rather wired up as he stops beside Wilson to finally wait for his answers.
Wilson, a proper slippery customer, starts off okay. Smoothly disdainful and affecting amusement, but condescending to provide some information. James waits, standing rather rigidly with his hands jammed in his pockets, for Wilson to get to the heart of the matter. But then Wilson must drop his voice very low because it fades, although he’s obviously still speaking, perhaps whispering, and he’s gazing up at James with something of a slightly suggestive, conspiratorial smirk in his expression.
There’s no rational way that they’ll be able to make out his words, but both Robbie, and Innocent beside him, lean forward slightly, in an instinctive effort to hear better. And James does the same, starting to lean down towards Wilson. But then he stills abruptly. And suddenly Robbie is pushing past Innocent, even as she reaches to pound on the glass, and then he’s fumbling at the door handle with fingers made clumsy with urgency and shock.
Because James has Wilson up out of the seat and he’s slammed him against the wall.
===
It takes a considerable effort to get James off a completely unresisting Wilson. Wilson is just pinned against the wall with James’s bent arm pressed against his chest, but James jerks his other elbow back, hard, when Robbie first tries to grab him. Fuck. On the second attempt, it seems to be Robbie’s voice, his shouted command, that makes James abruptly let go, rather than the grasp that Robbie has taken on his sergeant’s upper arm. When James swings around, though, releasing Wilson, yanking his arm from Robbie’s hold, he doesn’t seem to be seeing Robbie somehow, as he turns his head past him and makes for the door. It actually makes Robbie stop, James’s expression; Robbie stills, startled, despite having every intention of going after James and just grabbing hold of him-
“Lewis,” comes Innocent’s voice. He turns his head towards her, still distracted. “Take Mr Wilson back down to the custody suite.”
Robbie stares at her, fully focusing on her now. What? “No. No, I need to-”
“You need to take Mr Wilson back down to the custody suite.” And she’s gone out of the room, after James. Leaving Robbie with Wilson, with the stunned young constable, and with no other option.
It takes a while. It seems to take forever. Realistically, all he has to do is escort Wilson, see him secured and brief the custody sergeant to call a doctor to get him properly checked over just in case. There’s an overwhelming need to do this by the book. But now, of course, is the time that Wilson chooses to request the solicitor he has previously rejected. Well, naturally he does. He’s no stranger to the system. He knows exactly how he can capitalise on this. He’ll hardly be able to believe that his half-baked tactics have yielded such results. On James. James of all people. It’s bewildering.
When Robbie finally gets to Innocent’s office, her PA is mercifully absent. The door to the inner sanctum is shut, but he can see through the surrounding glass, his view partially obscured by the tilt of the blinds. And while Innocent is sitting, James is standing, his back view very stiff. Robbie knocks. He knocks again and then he just goes right ahead and opens the door anyway. “Ma’am-” But Innocent is on her feet, coming around the desk and approaching him, moving swiftly so that he automatically backs out of her way, out of the doorway. Then she closes it, firmly, she and Robbie in the outer office and James alone on the other side. James, who hasn’t turned to look at Robbie at all.
“Go back to your office, Lewis.” And she’s perfectly calm in a particularly deliberate and formal way that bodes absolutely no good for James.
“Ma’am?” It’s meant to sound like an enquiry, but it somehow comes out more like an appeal. James is going to make this worse for himself if Robbie can’t mitigate it somehow. He’s going to make it worse and get himself-well Robbie finds he doesn’t quite want to contemplate the worst case scenarios here.
“Go on. Or-well, you’ll need to get that looked at.” She angles her eyebrows at Robbie’s left cheekbone and Robbie registers that a vaguely distracting ache there must have translated into something visible to others. “And then get your statement written up.”
He’s going to have to write a witness account. On what he’s seen James do. How can he-Christ. And what the bloody hell is wrong with James anyway? He needs to get in there and-“I’m his governor.”
“And I’m both of yours. Your services as Sergeant Hathaway’s governor are not currently required. So get that looked at and write up your statement. Preferably in that order.” And he’s trapped. In a battle of pronouns, and pulling rank, she’s always going to win. There’s nothing else he can think of to say that wouldn’t rile her fruitlessly and risk making things even worse for James in this so-critical conversation that he’s about to have with Innocent. By himself.
Then Innocent stops in the act of turning back towards her office door. “Robbie?” He recognises an off-the-record request when he hears one. He looks at her. “He did snap-very suddenly, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Robbie says, with certainty, rather relieved that she’d seen that too. She nods at him and heads back into her office. He catches a glimpse of James through the door before she closes it, and he’s still standing there staring straight ahead. Everything about his bearing tells Robbie that Innocent has absolutely no chance whatsoever of getting anything out of him at the moment.
===
Robbie gets precisely nowhere with his statement. DS Hathaway, he writes. And then it hits him again. And his hand jerks a bit as the pen comes to an involuntary halt, smudging the ink. It’s the adrenaline, he supposes. That and-well, what the hell was that with James? What exactly is he saying to Innocent right now? Between the frame of mind that he seemed to be in and Robbie’s own experience of what James can be like when something’s really disturbed him-Christ, he could be saying anything. If she uses the threat of dismissal, would James just overreact and save her the trouble-
For a moment Robbie toys with the mad idea of sending him a text. As if James is in a position to answer it. What would he even say? Keep your ruddy temper. Be deferential. Act remorseful. And what the hell was that all about? Get back here the second she’s done with you because you can bloody well try to explain yourself to me next. Maybe, though, just the feel of the phone vibrating in his pocket could remind James that he isn’t alone in this, that please just not to make things even worse for himself... But it’s all pointless anyway. Because he can see that James’s mobile phone is just lying on his desk.
“Robbie?” Laura is standing in front of his own desk, staring at him. It’s obviously not the first time she’s tried to get his attention. “Did James really just-” So it’s all around the station. Already.
“Yeah.”
“God. Well-how bad is this?”
“Well, he did it right in front of Innocent, for starters.”
“God,” says Laura again. Then her focus narrows and her gaze shifts to just below Robbie’s eye. “And you got in the middle, did you?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“Want me to see to it?” she offers.
“It’s fine.” He meets her inquiring gaze and gives her a half-hearted shrug.
She bites her lip. “He's not going to lose his job over this, Robbie.” She’s making an attempt to reassure him. “Or even his rank?” She’s even less sure on that one. “It’ll-he’ll get through it. He’ll be all right again. Eventually.” But she’s spent too long in working in a police station to be able to believe her own words that easily. And she’s always been too direct to be any good at platitudes.
Robbie’s too distracted to even try to reassure her back. He’s gone beyond even thinking of the possible consequences into something that’s troubling him even more. It was the way he looked. You didn’t see the way he looked. “It’s just-James. You know,” he says, inadequately.
Laura looks at him for a long moment. Then she gives a small shake of her head. “Come on. Come and let me put something on that.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me do what I can for you and it might land up a bit less visible. Attract less attention.” He’s about to protest again, but he suddenly wouldn’t mind the grounding of Laura’s practical ministrations. And she’s right about the need for this to look as unobtrusive as possible. She just doesn’t know quite how right she is.
“Come on,” she says again, tilting her head towards the door. Robbie rises to follow her.
But it turns out to be a bad idea, after all. For when he gets back to his office afterwards, that mobile phone is no longer on his sergeant’s desk. Because James has obviously been and gone.
===
The statement is a struggle to put together, but it’ll be the price of Robbie’s release to go after his sergeant. His sergeant who presumably is still his sergeant- It doesn’t help that he hasn’t had an answer to his call. Although it’s probably best to wait until this conversation can be had in person, anyway. He’s finally signing his name to his account of what James has done when his desk phone goes. It’s Innocent’s PA. The monthly area meeting. It’s their turn to host it this month and he’d clean forgotten. Well, he’ll catch Innocent and make his apologies in person on the way out.
“No, Robbie. I need you here.” She’s keeping her voice low but Robbie can see full well that she’s perfectly adamant.
The assembled senior staff, from this and other stations, are provided a convenient hum of chatter. Robbie pitches his own voice low, for a fresh attempt. “If I was on a case I wouldn’t even be here-”
“But you’re not on a case,” says Innocent inexorably. Then she raises her voice into the familiar addressing-the-ranks tones. “Well, good afternoon-”
Robbie knows when he’s beaten. It’s a feeling of helplessness that he seems to be coming up against repeatedly today. He doesn’t know how she expects him to make a useful contribution to this meeting. But he pulls out a chair and drops down into it. Then he pulls out his phone and jabs out a text: You go home. You stay there. You don’t start drinking and you stay there. He doesn’t know why it’s important to say that about the drinking, but he’s ignored his instincts once already this morning when it comes to James. And just look where that’s led.
When the interminable meeting finally draws to a close, Robbie’s watch informs him that, actually, it’s only been an hour. But Robbie’s had no reply to his text, so God only knows what James has been thinking or doing for that hour. It’s his awareness of that that makes Robbie wait for Innocent as she detains one of the chief superintendents from another station to put some request to him. But he tunes in in a hurry to what she’s saying to CS Bradford when he catches the words “…panel for his disciplinary hearing…” Oh, Christ. James.
As soon as Bradford, having obviously agreed to the request, has departed, Innocent turns enquiring eyebrows on Robbie. Robbie’s had enough. “Ma’am. Look-would you just tell me…?”
“Oh.” He sees Innocent’s face soften a bit as she understands. “No, I thought he would have told you-I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark-He’s been suspended, Robbie. A full three weeks. Pending a disciplinary hearing. I did genuinely need you to be at this meeting. Look, you can go-”
And he’s gone.
===
James’s car is outside his flat, which is something. Robbie gives himself a moment to sit in his own car and take a deep breath before he gets out. He’s just not quite sure how this is going to go. Now that the urgency in locating James, in making sure that he’s physically okay, is abating, he finds his thoughts returning to how suddenly things had gone so very wrong this morning. How James had looked just after. The way he’d sort of looked right through Robbie, confused. Almost as if he didn’t really register who Robbie was for that one moment.
James has the sense not to look in the least bit surprised to find Robbie on his doorstep already, a couple of hours before their working day should officially end. He just steps back, without meeting Robbie’s look at all, holds the door open and, once Robbie is inside, turns and leads the way into the living area of his flat. Robbie pauses only to secure the front door and follows him, so he almost trips over him when James suddenly stops dead, turning abruptly, to face Robbie, very close to him. He’s belatedly registered something about Robbie’s appearance. “Did he do that to your face? Wilson?”
“No,” says Robbie evenly.
“Oh, you just happened to get an injury in the normal course of duty in the last couple of hours?” James accuses. He’s becoming quite agitated already.
“No. I got an elbow to the face all right. Wasn’t in the normal course of duty. Unless you call restraining my sergeant the normal course of duty.”
James blinks rapidly, suddenly uncertain. “I-”
“You did that, yes.”
“I-sorry.” He bites off the last word.
“Yeah. I know you are. Would help your case a whole lot more with Innocent if you were half as sorry about what you did to Wilson.” But James isn’t listening. He’s reaching out his fingers to the welt on Robbie’s cheekbone, edging his fingers around the stiffening, sore area, very gently. His eyes are fixed on the injury, not on Robbie’s eyes. He seems to be almost in a trance. Robbie just stands there and lets him explore it with his barely-there touch. He waits.
He may not know what’s going on, but one thing he does know is that it’s more important than it’s ever been, right at this moment, not to push James.
===
They’re both sitting on James’s couch now, but James isn’t saying anything. It’s a bit hard to know where to start when he seems to be in this rather fragile state. Maybe right at the point where things had seemed to take a turn for the worse this morning. And this needs to be done in a matter-of-fact manner that doesn’t betray to him how much he’s worrying Robbie. “So, what was that phone call about?” Robbie asks.
“Just about testifying in the Harris case in a month’s time.”
“Okay,” Robbie says, slowly, casting his mind back. Well, they’d known James would be called for that. Not the easiest case, but he certainly hadn’t noticed anything particular at the time that had upset James about it. Nothing to account for this.
James shoots him a glance, knowing what he’s trying to figure out. “The prosecutor,” he says shortly. “They mentioned who’ll be taking it. Same as in Zelinsky’s trial.”
Oh. Oh, hell.
“I’ll handle it,” James adds, rather indifferently, at the look on Robbie’s face. “It was just unexpected.”
It was just in your head going back in there. Us interrogating Zelinsky together for all that time. Often in the same bloody interrogation room. No wonder he’d seemed thrown after the call. And had had the urge to get away from Robbie’s scrutiny. He’s always kept the real horrors of that case shut up inside himself. But what he should have done is handed the interrogation over. “You could’ve taken a few minutes to get your head together after that, you know. Or let me take it? Christ,” Robbie can’t help saying, “it would have saved us a whole lot of problems now, James.”
James stares at him in what seems like rather unwarranted disbelief. Robbie’s hardly said anything James wasn’t aware of, after all. But when he speaks again, he seems to have headed off down a different path. “I could have hurt your eye.”
“Yeah,” Robbie acknowledges. “But you didn’t. And I think we have ourselves enough difficulties here without borrowing trouble, don’t you?”
James is gazing at him now, his expression quite unreadable. “What do you mean?” he says, after a moment, frowning as if something doesn’t add up.
Robbie, assuming that he’s used an unfamiliar saying and confused the lad, in the way that he still occasionally does, tries to clarify what he’s said. “Well, I just meant that we need to deal with the problems that we actually have.”
“But you’re not saying you. You keep saying we. You said ourselves.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Like we’re both in this together. Instead of just me.”
Does it matter so much which pronouns he’s apparently using? But he can see that this is important to James somehow. “Well, must just be the way I feel, then, that,” says Robbie matter-of-factly.
“Is it?”
“’Course.” But Robbie can feel that he’s suddenly on shifting quicksand here. In his efforts to get James to somehow properly trust him, this bit-Robbie letting James know for sure that he is, without fail, instinctively on his side-is for some reason absolutely essential, right at this moment, to James. So maybe he’ll just keep on confirming it for as long as James needs him to.
James’s voice has a shake to it when he finally speaks again. “I do-something like this-and you’ll still say-us?”
“Yeah. I will,” Robbie says simply. And then James, taking Robbie completely by surprise, drops his head on Robbie’s shoulder, one arm making its way around Robbie. “All right,” says Robbie, getting an arm around him too and returning the clasp so James can feel he’s being held right back. “There you are, now, lad. ‘S’all right.”
He doesn’t really know what else to say now, so he just sits and holds onto him.
===
It’s gone quite silent in James’s flat now.
James puts a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of Robbie and drops back down on the couch without a word. He hasn’t even made one for himself. Robbie doesn’t want tea either but it had seemed best just to agree when James had suddenly released himself and had stood up, looking down at Robbie and making the offer. He’d probably wanted a minute to himself, as such.
Robbie looks at him now, right beside him. He could take it as a good sign that James is still siting very close. Just as close as he usually does, in fact. But James isn’t looking back at Robbie, not really. His eyes are darting about a bit. This still doesn’t add up. There’s still something very wrong here. Something James is thinking about and not saying. “And what happened then, James?” Robbie asks softly. “What did Wilson say to you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Look. James-”
“I don’t, honestly-Innocent didn’t believe me, either.” Utter resignation in his tone.
“Stop that, stop putting me in the same box as Innocent. I’m not here for that. If you say you don’t remember, then fine, I’ll believe you don’t remember. Okay?”
James, surprised, gives him a nod. His whole posture seems to soften with relief. Robbie gives him a moment to take that in. That Robbie’s really not here as his governor. Then he asks, carefully, “So, what was it?”
“He whispered.” And James stops. Robbie waits. He hears a car go past in the afternoon quiet. The sound of its engine fades away. Robbie doesn’t know if James is listening to it too, if he’s waiting for that sound to fade to nothing. It’s hard to tell because James is gazing across the room and he doesn’t seem to be quite here. Part of him has gone right away from Robbie now. “He whispered-something,” James says at last. “I don’t know what. It was just the look on his face, I think, and the way he brought me in closer by whispering. Closer to him. It reminded me-”
“Of Zelinsky?” Robbie offers gently when he stops again.
“No. Crevecoeur.”
Oh. Robbie feels suddenly ill. No.
“It reminded me of-I was twelve. I’d been having piano lessons for a while. In the summerhouse?”
“Yeah,” Robbie manages.
“And he-Mortmaigne-he’d stopped instructing me and he whispered something, so I came in closer to hear him and then-it was just very confusing. I thought he went to move his hand-I really thought-so I got up and backed off and took my music, I don’t know why I stopped to take my music, but then I just left.”
Oh, thank God.
“So I tried, I did try to tell my father. When he got home. I’d waited and I tried to explain-”
“And did he not believe you, James?” Robbie asks gently when he seems to be losing him into silence again.
“No he did-then. Just not later. Never after that first bit when I told him. He believed me at first and said I was right to tell him but then when he spoke to Mortmaigne-God, this is all years ago, I was twelve when we left, I hadn’t been near the place in twenty years until-”
“Until we got the case and you went back.” The same bloody day you’d had to testify in Zelinsky’s trial. I sent you. Because I had no idea that place meant a thing to you. How could I? So I sent you. I sent you by yourself.
“James the Just, that’s what he called me. Mortmaigne. When he recognised me. That’s what he always used to call me. That’s what he called me back then when my father spoke to him about it. Laughing. ‘Big sense of injustice for your tender years, eh, James, righting imaginary wrongs? Always been a fanciful lad, hasn’t he? Should hear some of the games he’s dreamt up for Scarlett.’ That’s what he said.”
“What do you mean, James? He said that to you? When your father spoke to him? How come you were there?”
“He took me with him. My father. When he went to speak to Mortmaigne.” Oh, the stupid bastard. “And when he made me describe it again-in front of Mortmaigne-I could see how it sounded-how nothing had happened, really, I supposed, it had just felt like he was going to-and then there had been Paul, you see, I’d just thought that one day when I’d been early for a lesson, that I’d seen-but Paul had said that I didn’t, I was wrong.”
Except you weren’t.
“And then my father.” James stops and swallows hard, looking straight ahead now again. “He started to back down, after all. He apologised for me. Made me apologise too. He must’ve thought worse had happened to me, and then thought that what did happen-didn’t matter so much. He was sorry he’d said anything.”
Jesus Christ.
“And it seemed to turn into an argument about other things then too, well, as much of an argument as anyone could have with Mortmaigne, more like my father was trying to appease him, something about some quibble over mismanagement of the estate. I didn’t quite understand, but then Mortmaigne, he said, ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t want to stay in any case.’ That’s how he told us we were to leave. ‘With young James so uncomfortable…’ But it wasn’t so long after my mother had-so I really didn’t want to leave-”
Robbie stops himself from asking about his mother when nothing more is forthcoming. She’d been completely gone by that stage, that much is clear. And for all that James has rarely mentioned his father over the years, he’s never mentioned his mother.
“And he was furious about it. My father. Would never discuss it from that day forth. Well, I went off to school soon after and he was just-more and more distant every time I came back. Depressed, maybe. I don’t know. He never had a permanent job like that again, anyway.”
And James has ground to a complete halt now. He turns to gaze at Robbie, slightly desperate, like he really needs to hear-God, what does he need to hear? Why’s he focusing on how his father felt? Robbie looks back at him and tries to feel his way.
“So you lost Crevecoeur. You lost the friends you’d grown up with there. Like Scarlett and Paul. You lost the home you knew and you were coming back to a strange one whenever you came back from school. And you thought your father had lost his job because of you.” And was probably resentful by the sounds of it. “You felt you were responsible for all of that.” James doesn’t nod but his eyes are fixed on Robbie’s. He’s so still.
“And you thought that you’d been wrong to have said anything, that there’d been no need, no need to do it because no-one had been at risk of any harm? That what you thought?”
“I wished for a long time I’d just kept quiet. I thought I’d been wrong and overreacted and ruined everything. For nothing.”
“Thank God you didn’t,” says Robbie shakily, “keep quiet.” Your friend Paul probably did.
“But I didn’t stop it, anyway.” James’ says, very low. “All that and I didn’t stop it happening. It wasn’t worth it. All that and it did no good at all. When I saw Briony’s arms-”
“Of course it was worth it,” says Robbie in disbelief.
“How?”
“Because it meant it didn’t happen to you.”
“Yeah.” James releases it on a sigh. And then Robbie understands. James gets that, of course. He knows that full well. But his father had acted for years as if losing his job, the cottage, his position had mattered more to him than what could have happened to James. That was the message James had received.
And at that crucial moment, when it had been Montaigne against his son, he’d made it apparent that he would have been willing to stay if it had been his choice, to put any fears for his son aside. To risk James’s welfare, let himself be convinced there was no risk really, so he could stay. He hadn’t had that visceral fear of any harm befalling James that should have made his son his one priority. James didn’t matter-quite that much. His father had acted, then, and in all the years that followed, as if everything else, the impact on him, had mattered more than James.
And that man had been pretty much all that James had had.
“If I’d made a better job of telling them,” James says, startling Robbie. “Or else not decided that I’d been wrong then I would have had someone look into Mortmaigne when I was old enough-”
“First you blame yourself, for years, for speaking up and being wrong, and then, when it turns out you’re right, you blame yourself for not saying more instead, sooner.” Robbie doesn’t even make it a question. He knows it’s true.
“That’s about the strength of it, yeah,” James says, rather helplessly.
“No, James. No. You told an adult. Hard enough to do, I’m sure.” Impossible, quite often. And not your fault what the bloody adults did then. And suddenly Robbie’s lost him again. James is gazing out the window, probably remembering working himself up to tell his father. And all the catastrophic consequences of that.
“James, you were twelve years old. Twelve.”
“It’s just-if I’d managed to-Briony’s family came after us at Lodge Farm. So if I’d just said enough then to convince anyone-”
Oh, you had no hope. No hope at all. “James, nobody wanted to be convinced. None of them were willing to see what was happening.”
“I-”
“And d’you think that’s fair, anyway?” Robbie asks. “You. Blaming a twelve-year-old?” James looks rather startled. “Don’t tell me it’s different when it’s you. I know that. But doesn’t apply to this part. You were still twelve. Is there any other twelve-year-old you’d tell that he was to blame for this?”
“No?” James actually looks quite confused at the realisation.
“I’ve said this to you before-” But Robbie still tries to deliver it as gently as possible this time. “Why d’you have to be better?”
“I know you did. I remember. And you said I wasn’t to blame. For any of it.”
“That’s right.” Well. At least he remembers that.
“It’s the closest to an absolution I’ve had. I do try-to believe it.”
“I-” But it’s making Robbie choke up a bit now. That his words had mattered quite so much as it turns out they had. An absolution. “I wish you could,” he says huskily. “Believe it.”
===
If it was a different time of the year, if it wasn’t summer, it’d be getting dark now. Dusk won’t even start to fall for hours yet. It just feels like it’s been an incredibly long day already. God only knows what it feels like to James. Robbie has vaguely registered the sounds of James’s neighbours on his street returning from work, some of them heading back out, going about their lives on what vaguely looks like a lovely summer’s evening. It makes it all the more extraordinary that so much has been turned around in just one day, that there’s so much uncertainty now hanging over James’s future.
James’s thoughts must have turned in the same direction as they sit here in silence now. “What do you think they’ll do to me?” he asks. “This panel?”
Robbie really doesn’t want to voice the worst of it. Dismissal doesn’t seem that likely. But-well, it’s already occurred to him that James would be unlikely to hang around in the police force to serve out a demotion. He’d probably work his notice period and be done with it. But there’s no point raising that prospect with James just now. “Look, if Innocent had any idea what was really going on for you in that room-” Then she’d handle all this rather differently from what she’s going to do.
“I’m not telling her anything.”
“No. No, of course not.” Robbie pauses, thinking. He can make a very good guess what Innocent’s likely next steps will be, dealing with James. She’s already pulling people in from outside for his panel. Everything done completely by the book. No suggestion of impropriety in how she handles this.
She, or one of the people on that panel, is going to recommend that anger management group that one of the DCs who Robbie supervises had had to attend last year. For James. Who would then have to sit in a room with a group of strangers for however many sessions and find some way to talk about triggers and strategies while this, all of this, the actual trigger for what happened, goes through his head. And this is miles away from an anger management problem, but Innocent has no way of knowing that. Well, no. That’s not about to happen to James.
Because Robbie’s not going to let it.
“What about,” he suggests to James, “if you were to offer to go to counselling? They just send a report back at the end that doesn’t break your confidentiality, you know.” One to one. Has to be better. James could keep his privacy because Innocent would never know the details of what was discussed. Robbie’s been copied into those reports with other officers who’ve worked under him. The police psychologist basically just confirms attendance, and that “a number of issues” have been discussed. Gives a recommendation in terms of fitness to resume duty. Nothing detailed about what’s been discussed unless James gives permission. They’re not allowed to. And James agreeing to this would help because-well, what James doesn’t realise is that another option this panel might go for is mandatory counselling. But-
“Nothing happened to me,” James says briefly.
“James, sometimes an attempt like that-” But James has had the same training updates over recent years as Robbie has. He knows.
“I don’t want to. Don’t need to. It’s all years ago. Not something I think about now.”
“All right.” Robbie, knowing there’s no point in disputing that stance now, capitulates immediately. Because you don’t push people into talking about these things unless they’re ready for it. It’s not the right way to go about it. He knows that all too well that from his own unwanted experience of that bereavement counselling. And he also just knows James. It’s still a flaming miracle that he’s opened up to Robbie today. It’ll take James a while to deal with the fact that he’s even done that. Robbie’s going to have to be damn sure he tries to treat him very much the same for the next while, for all that his protective instincts are up. James will need things back on an even keel. But for now, there’s still the thorny question of that ruddy inescapable panel. Dismissal. Demotion. Group Sessions. Mandatory Counselling. Bloody hell.
And James, who is really in no fit state to even think about any of this, is just looking utterly weary now, utterly spent.
“You want to get some rest, lad?”
“No.” He looks a bit ill at the thought of it. He doesn’t want to be left by himself, Robbie realises. Left to his own thoughts.
“All right.” But nor he is likely to admit to his need and agree to come back to Robbie’s for the night. So probably best just to keep it very casual. “You hungry? Probably time we ate something, anyway. Let me-”
James doesn’t put up any protest. By the time the food that Robbie orders has arrived, Robbie’s turned on the TV and they’re ostensibly watching some documentary, although it’s unlikely that either of them has understood much of it. James doesn’t really stir. Not when the food arrives, not to do more than pick at it, and not even when Robbie gets up to clear. He watches Robbie, though, as Robbie moves around, ditching containers, washing plates and eventually getting two bottles of beer from James’s fridge. Robbie feels James’s eyes just follow him as he moves around James’s own kitchen. His eyes are the only part of James that are still moving. He really does look shattered.
“Thought I wasn’t allowed to drink?” he enquires, after Robbie puts those two bottles down on the coffee table and sits back down on the couch, still very close to him.
“Yeah. Well.” Robbie rubs the back of his own neck, with one hand, rather embarrassed now by that text.
“It’s okay,” says James, gazing at Robbie. His head is lying right back against the top of the couch by now, his long body slouched down in a pose that’s still more spent than relaxed. “I didn’t mind. You saying that. It was sort of a relief to get orders from you again.”
Robbie frowns at him. “You hardly thought you’d lose your place as me sergeant-” Not by my choice, anyway.
“I just figured you’d be disappointed in me. In what I’d done.” He sounds as if he’s still checking that out slightly. Making sure it isn’t true.
“James.” Robbie doesn’t know how he can say that after all that James has explained, all that was behind this. James still somehow doesn’t quite feel that he’d had a right, that twelve-year-old, to protest and react so hard, after all the consequences that had, so terribly unfairly, descended on his head for that. All that punishment it must have felt like. He might know he was right now but he doesn’t seem to feel it properly. It’s not something Robbie can hope to get through to him in the space of one afternoon, either. But even if they never talk about this again-and knowing, James, it’s not unlikely-there are other ways to get through to him how much his wellbeing actually matters, how much he matters. How much he matters to Robbie, that’s a good starting place.
“C’mon now, lad. Do me a favour, would you? Just put your head down and try and let yourself stop thinking for a bit, yeah?”
James frowns at him, unsure. Robbie, holding his gaze, raises his arm and drops it along the back of the couch, opening a further space for James. An invitation. If he wants it. And James makes a small noise of relief and drops his head sideways onto Robbie’s shoulder.
Robbie tucks his arm around him, pressing James in against his side. “That’s it. Just try and rest, okay? I’ll watch this, I’m fine here, no need to worry about me, just try and rest a bit.”
He’s thoroughly relieved when James gives a shaky sigh and gives in at last. The slight movement of his head suggests he’s settling in. James badly needs this. The rest and the contact, both. Robbie rather welcomes the contact himself after all the shocks of the day. His own head is almost spinning at this point in a way that has nothing to do with the barely-touched beer. He reckons he might just sleep too if he hadn’t got so much to think about.
Because this is going to get worse for James before it gets better, unless Robbie can work out the right way to intervene. And it’s going to be bloody tricky to do that.
===
James, when he’d eventually wakes late that evening, is so dazed that he doesn’t need much persuasion to simply head for bed. And he doesn’t really protest much either when Robbie lets him know that he’s staying, that he’ll sleep on the couch. James makes an effort, turning back, to offer up his bed. But Robbie rises and steers him firmly out of the room. When he reappears a few minutes later, Robbie just relieves him of the bundle of spare bedding that he’s returned with, drops it on the couch and propels him back out in the direction of his bedroom once again.
Robbie bids him a firm goodnight this time, in the narrow interior hallway. By James’s standards, that was very little resistance, he’s thinking, as he heads back to see what can be done with this couch. But then there’s a tap on his shoulder and, as he turns, James is getting his arms around Robbie, his head down, his expression hidden. He seems to be trying to say something with his embrace. Robbie just pulls him in closer so that he can find a place for his head on Robbie’s shoulder one more time tonight. If he likes. He does seem to want to.
===
In the morning, there’s a parting of the ways. James has, of course, no work to go to. He’s staring in the face of three whole weeks of enforced leave. That’s going to be-well, a problem in itself. But there’s nothing much that can be done to ease the impact of that just now.
There’s something more pressing that needs Robbie’s attention first.
“Try and take it easy today, yeah?” Robbie suggests, on the doorstep. The lad looks absolutely done in still. “I’ll give you a call later.”
Robbie had been up early, although only to find that James was awake before him. Christ, that couch. He maybe should have listened to James after all last night. But it would just have been hard to leave him. A quick hot shower at his own flat will help with the stiffness in his back, anyway.
===
“I do want to level with you, ma’am, I’m not-at liberty to say -but there were extenuating circumstances that I know you’d take into account somehow. If you knew what they were.” She would, Innocent would, if she knew it all, Robbie is still somehow sure of that. “He wasn’t just stressed or unleashing his temper.”
“Yes. You would if you could, wouldn’t you?” Innocent says, thoughtfully, “Tell me? Because you’d do anything to get him off the hook-No, I don’t mean I don’t believe you. I’m just saying-I believe you obviously think you can’t tell me.”
Robbie nods at her, relieved. She frowns at him briefly.
“There is-more formal support he can avail of, you know,” she suggests. “I assume he’s well aware of that?”
And this is exactly why Robbie’s here. “No,” he starts. “Well, yeah, he does know that. But-” This is unexpectedly more difficult than Robbie had thought it would be, putting the suggestion that he’s about to make, into Innocent’s mind, for James. Robbie takes a breath. But he really needs her to agree to this. If the alternative is James having to go to one of those groups or mandatory counselling-well, needs must. "Look, as a suggestion. Instead of any sort of rehabilitation-you could demote him to supervised interrogation only. A higher-ranking officer always in the room. For a probation period.” But Robbie comes to a halt again because it turns out that this next part is somehow quite a personal wrench to say. “And the higher ranking officer-probably shouldn’t be me.” Just let him prove himself again. Objectively. In front of any of the inspectors in this station. They’ll soon see how good he is at the job, how he really can handle himself in the face of provocation. He can prove that so there’s no doubt.
There’s a long silence while Innocent’s eyes just search his face. Then-“You think you let him down somehow, don’t you, Robbie?”
“Ma’am?” Robbie stares at her.
“Of course you can be the higher-ranking officer. You won’t always be here when you need James to do an official interview. So he’ll have a range of officers supervising, I should imagine. But of course it can be you, when circumstances allow.”
Does that mean she’s going to go for the idea?
“But, Robbie-that’s a best case scenario. I’ll submit it as a mitigating factor, an argument, if you like, to strengthen his case. That he has his immediate superior’s offer of support in that way. And I’m strongly minded to also recommend counselling as advisory, personally. So that if the panel agreed with my stance on that, it would be up to James if he takes the option up. But these factors-counselling versus probation, I suppose-they’re not the actual crux of the matter. They’re really more of a recommendation that we can implement once the decision has been made. And your plan-it will only be relevant if James is still a sergeant.”
It’s like some of the air has evaporated from the room, to cause this sudden tightening in Robbie’s chest. It must be hearing the possibility finally said aloud in Innocent’s matter-of-fact voice. Still your sergeant, that’s what Robbie hears. If James is still your sergeant.
Innocent is pulling up something on her computer screen, frowning, now. Possibly some sort of official guidelines. Robbie waits, silently. You think you let him down, somehow. Well, he could have made more of an attempt, maybe, to get James to talk, a little sooner, after Zelinsky. Although, Christ, it had been near impossible to get through to him back then. But he could have-not followed up, exactly, after Crevecoeur, because James hadn’t wanted that but-maybe it’s just yesterday, really, when things had just been so crucial. He could’ve just followed his instincts, after that phone call, and acted faster in response to James’s changed demeanour. He could have stopped James, dropped a hand on his arm and held him back and gone in himself to that interrogation room.
It’s not guilt, as such. It’s not even a feeling of having let James down. It’s just-he just wishes that he’d managed to know sooner, had somehow let James see he could tell him all of this that he carries and then somehow intervened before it got to this stage. When James now has to go before a disciplinary panel, who will make all sorts of decisions about his future. And James with all this in his head. Because he still can’t quite imagine just how exposed that’s going to make his intensely-private sergeant feel.
“I just wish things had turned out a bit differently, ma'am,” he finds himself saying aloud.
“Don’t we all,” Innocent says with a sigh.
Click here for Chapter Two.
Rating: Teen
Pairing: James Hathaway/Robbie Lewis
Thanks: to wendymr who beta'ed this in such an encouraging and helpful way.
Chapter: One of Two. ( Chapter Two here )
Note: This story has references to childhood sexual abuse of a canon minor character. Nothing descriptive.
Summary: James loses control in the interrogation room and has to face the consequences. Robbie, once he gets to the heart of the matter, only wants to intervene to protect him from further pain. But then it starts to hit home how much he doesn't want to lose his sergeant.
Suspended
Chapter One
Robbie pauses on his way out of their office, because James, pulling on his suit jacket to follow him, has been arrested by the sound of his desk phone. James settles himself into the jacket, drops back into his desk chair, mouths one minute and starts frowning already into the middle distance, fingers reaching for a pen, focusing on whatever the voice in his ear is relaying to him.
It’s more than one minute, it transpires. Robbie, waiting for his sergeant outside the interrogation room, leans against the one-way glass and uses the time to study Wilson, who’s already in there sitting at the table. He's a rather arrogant, frustrating side-issue to their most recent closed case. Nothing to do with the case, as it turned out in the end. Just an unexpected find, stumbling across the evidence that also puts Wilson securely in the picture for a recent spate of burglaries. James’s find really. Somehow Wilson, not a stranger to interrogation rooms, has always managed to evade retribution until now. Largely because he never gets his hands dirty himself, Robbie would bet. Uses others for that. But this time, everyone’s fairly convinced that they’ve got him. Smug as he still looks.
James appears, striding rather rapidly, but his gaze isn’t checking in with Robbie’s as it normally would as he approaches. Instead his eyes are reaching somewhere past him. He stops at the door and opens it, a signal to the young uniformed constable to come out. Then he closes it again, his eyebrows and head tilt asking permission.
Robbie, surprised, considers only briefly and then nods at him. And James pauses another moment, his hand on the door handle, gazing past Robbie’s shoulder now, with his eyes narrowed. Then he shoulders the door open and heads in.
So he wants to have a go at this himself. Well, all right. He’s perfectly able.
But as Robbie moves back over to the window and takes up position, he feels slightly disconcerted, all the same. Something is suddenly just a little off about James’s demeanour. Well, they don’t, of course, carry out all interrogations together. Not by any means. And they hadn’t discussed a strategy for this. But Robbie had planned that they’d be feeling their way through this one together and so he’d just naturally assumed that James would know that.
Because they generally are on the same page when it comes to the two of them dealing with other people. It usually takes no more than a glance in James’s direction for Robbie to delegate, or suggest their next tack, whether they’re dealing with suspects or victims, anyone appended to either, hapless bystanders who need to be questioned or even slightly tiresome chief superintendents… And as if the very thought has summoned her up, there’s the sound of a distinctive footfall and Innocent appears, her intent unmistakeable. Robbie moves further along, away from the door, to allow her access to watch James too.
James seems to be having a bit of trouble already, somehow. He just seems a bit distracted and restless. He’s pacing as he rattles off a series of questions, and still looks rather wired up as he stops beside Wilson to finally wait for his answers.
Wilson, a proper slippery customer, starts off okay. Smoothly disdainful and affecting amusement, but condescending to provide some information. James waits, standing rather rigidly with his hands jammed in his pockets, for Wilson to get to the heart of the matter. But then Wilson must drop his voice very low because it fades, although he’s obviously still speaking, perhaps whispering, and he’s gazing up at James with something of a slightly suggestive, conspiratorial smirk in his expression.
There’s no rational way that they’ll be able to make out his words, but both Robbie, and Innocent beside him, lean forward slightly, in an instinctive effort to hear better. And James does the same, starting to lean down towards Wilson. But then he stills abruptly. And suddenly Robbie is pushing past Innocent, even as she reaches to pound on the glass, and then he’s fumbling at the door handle with fingers made clumsy with urgency and shock.
Because James has Wilson up out of the seat and he’s slammed him against the wall.
===
It takes a considerable effort to get James off a completely unresisting Wilson. Wilson is just pinned against the wall with James’s bent arm pressed against his chest, but James jerks his other elbow back, hard, when Robbie first tries to grab him. Fuck. On the second attempt, it seems to be Robbie’s voice, his shouted command, that makes James abruptly let go, rather than the grasp that Robbie has taken on his sergeant’s upper arm. When James swings around, though, releasing Wilson, yanking his arm from Robbie’s hold, he doesn’t seem to be seeing Robbie somehow, as he turns his head past him and makes for the door. It actually makes Robbie stop, James’s expression; Robbie stills, startled, despite having every intention of going after James and just grabbing hold of him-
“Lewis,” comes Innocent’s voice. He turns his head towards her, still distracted. “Take Mr Wilson back down to the custody suite.”
Robbie stares at her, fully focusing on her now. What? “No. No, I need to-”
“You need to take Mr Wilson back down to the custody suite.” And she’s gone out of the room, after James. Leaving Robbie with Wilson, with the stunned young constable, and with no other option.
It takes a while. It seems to take forever. Realistically, all he has to do is escort Wilson, see him secured and brief the custody sergeant to call a doctor to get him properly checked over just in case. There’s an overwhelming need to do this by the book. But now, of course, is the time that Wilson chooses to request the solicitor he has previously rejected. Well, naturally he does. He’s no stranger to the system. He knows exactly how he can capitalise on this. He’ll hardly be able to believe that his half-baked tactics have yielded such results. On James. James of all people. It’s bewildering.
When Robbie finally gets to Innocent’s office, her PA is mercifully absent. The door to the inner sanctum is shut, but he can see through the surrounding glass, his view partially obscured by the tilt of the blinds. And while Innocent is sitting, James is standing, his back view very stiff. Robbie knocks. He knocks again and then he just goes right ahead and opens the door anyway. “Ma’am-” But Innocent is on her feet, coming around the desk and approaching him, moving swiftly so that he automatically backs out of her way, out of the doorway. Then she closes it, firmly, she and Robbie in the outer office and James alone on the other side. James, who hasn’t turned to look at Robbie at all.
“Go back to your office, Lewis.” And she’s perfectly calm in a particularly deliberate and formal way that bodes absolutely no good for James.
“Ma’am?” It’s meant to sound like an enquiry, but it somehow comes out more like an appeal. James is going to make this worse for himself if Robbie can’t mitigate it somehow. He’s going to make it worse and get himself-well Robbie finds he doesn’t quite want to contemplate the worst case scenarios here.
“Go on. Or-well, you’ll need to get that looked at.” She angles her eyebrows at Robbie’s left cheekbone and Robbie registers that a vaguely distracting ache there must have translated into something visible to others. “And then get your statement written up.”
He’s going to have to write a witness account. On what he’s seen James do. How can he-Christ. And what the bloody hell is wrong with James anyway? He needs to get in there and-“I’m his governor.”
“And I’m both of yours. Your services as Sergeant Hathaway’s governor are not currently required. So get that looked at and write up your statement. Preferably in that order.” And he’s trapped. In a battle of pronouns, and pulling rank, she’s always going to win. There’s nothing else he can think of to say that wouldn’t rile her fruitlessly and risk making things even worse for James in this so-critical conversation that he’s about to have with Innocent. By himself.
Then Innocent stops in the act of turning back towards her office door. “Robbie?” He recognises an off-the-record request when he hears one. He looks at her. “He did snap-very suddenly, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Robbie says, with certainty, rather relieved that she’d seen that too. She nods at him and heads back into her office. He catches a glimpse of James through the door before she closes it, and he’s still standing there staring straight ahead. Everything about his bearing tells Robbie that Innocent has absolutely no chance whatsoever of getting anything out of him at the moment.
===
Robbie gets precisely nowhere with his statement. DS Hathaway, he writes. And then it hits him again. And his hand jerks a bit as the pen comes to an involuntary halt, smudging the ink. It’s the adrenaline, he supposes. That and-well, what the hell was that with James? What exactly is he saying to Innocent right now? Between the frame of mind that he seemed to be in and Robbie’s own experience of what James can be like when something’s really disturbed him-Christ, he could be saying anything. If she uses the threat of dismissal, would James just overreact and save her the trouble-
For a moment Robbie toys with the mad idea of sending him a text. As if James is in a position to answer it. What would he even say? Keep your ruddy temper. Be deferential. Act remorseful. And what the hell was that all about? Get back here the second she’s done with you because you can bloody well try to explain yourself to me next. Maybe, though, just the feel of the phone vibrating in his pocket could remind James that he isn’t alone in this, that please just not to make things even worse for himself... But it’s all pointless anyway. Because he can see that James’s mobile phone is just lying on his desk.
“Robbie?” Laura is standing in front of his own desk, staring at him. It’s obviously not the first time she’s tried to get his attention. “Did James really just-” So it’s all around the station. Already.
“Yeah.”
“God. Well-how bad is this?”
“Well, he did it right in front of Innocent, for starters.”
“God,” says Laura again. Then her focus narrows and her gaze shifts to just below Robbie’s eye. “And you got in the middle, did you?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“Want me to see to it?” she offers.
“It’s fine.” He meets her inquiring gaze and gives her a half-hearted shrug.
She bites her lip. “He's not going to lose his job over this, Robbie.” She’s making an attempt to reassure him. “Or even his rank?” She’s even less sure on that one. “It’ll-he’ll get through it. He’ll be all right again. Eventually.” But she’s spent too long in working in a police station to be able to believe her own words that easily. And she’s always been too direct to be any good at platitudes.
Robbie’s too distracted to even try to reassure her back. He’s gone beyond even thinking of the possible consequences into something that’s troubling him even more. It was the way he looked. You didn’t see the way he looked. “It’s just-James. You know,” he says, inadequately.
Laura looks at him for a long moment. Then she gives a small shake of her head. “Come on. Come and let me put something on that.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me do what I can for you and it might land up a bit less visible. Attract less attention.” He’s about to protest again, but he suddenly wouldn’t mind the grounding of Laura’s practical ministrations. And she’s right about the need for this to look as unobtrusive as possible. She just doesn’t know quite how right she is.
“Come on,” she says again, tilting her head towards the door. Robbie rises to follow her.
But it turns out to be a bad idea, after all. For when he gets back to his office afterwards, that mobile phone is no longer on his sergeant’s desk. Because James has obviously been and gone.
===
The statement is a struggle to put together, but it’ll be the price of Robbie’s release to go after his sergeant. His sergeant who presumably is still his sergeant- It doesn’t help that he hasn’t had an answer to his call. Although it’s probably best to wait until this conversation can be had in person, anyway. He’s finally signing his name to his account of what James has done when his desk phone goes. It’s Innocent’s PA. The monthly area meeting. It’s their turn to host it this month and he’d clean forgotten. Well, he’ll catch Innocent and make his apologies in person on the way out.
“No, Robbie. I need you here.” She’s keeping her voice low but Robbie can see full well that she’s perfectly adamant.
The assembled senior staff, from this and other stations, are provided a convenient hum of chatter. Robbie pitches his own voice low, for a fresh attempt. “If I was on a case I wouldn’t even be here-”
“But you’re not on a case,” says Innocent inexorably. Then she raises her voice into the familiar addressing-the-ranks tones. “Well, good afternoon-”
Robbie knows when he’s beaten. It’s a feeling of helplessness that he seems to be coming up against repeatedly today. He doesn’t know how she expects him to make a useful contribution to this meeting. But he pulls out a chair and drops down into it. Then he pulls out his phone and jabs out a text: You go home. You stay there. You don’t start drinking and you stay there. He doesn’t know why it’s important to say that about the drinking, but he’s ignored his instincts once already this morning when it comes to James. And just look where that’s led.
When the interminable meeting finally draws to a close, Robbie’s watch informs him that, actually, it’s only been an hour. But Robbie’s had no reply to his text, so God only knows what James has been thinking or doing for that hour. It’s his awareness of that that makes Robbie wait for Innocent as she detains one of the chief superintendents from another station to put some request to him. But he tunes in in a hurry to what she’s saying to CS Bradford when he catches the words “…panel for his disciplinary hearing…” Oh, Christ. James.
As soon as Bradford, having obviously agreed to the request, has departed, Innocent turns enquiring eyebrows on Robbie. Robbie’s had enough. “Ma’am. Look-would you just tell me…?”
“Oh.” He sees Innocent’s face soften a bit as she understands. “No, I thought he would have told you-I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark-He’s been suspended, Robbie. A full three weeks. Pending a disciplinary hearing. I did genuinely need you to be at this meeting. Look, you can go-”
And he’s gone.
===
James’s car is outside his flat, which is something. Robbie gives himself a moment to sit in his own car and take a deep breath before he gets out. He’s just not quite sure how this is going to go. Now that the urgency in locating James, in making sure that he’s physically okay, is abating, he finds his thoughts returning to how suddenly things had gone so very wrong this morning. How James had looked just after. The way he’d sort of looked right through Robbie, confused. Almost as if he didn’t really register who Robbie was for that one moment.
James has the sense not to look in the least bit surprised to find Robbie on his doorstep already, a couple of hours before their working day should officially end. He just steps back, without meeting Robbie’s look at all, holds the door open and, once Robbie is inside, turns and leads the way into the living area of his flat. Robbie pauses only to secure the front door and follows him, so he almost trips over him when James suddenly stops dead, turning abruptly, to face Robbie, very close to him. He’s belatedly registered something about Robbie’s appearance. “Did he do that to your face? Wilson?”
“No,” says Robbie evenly.
“Oh, you just happened to get an injury in the normal course of duty in the last couple of hours?” James accuses. He’s becoming quite agitated already.
“No. I got an elbow to the face all right. Wasn’t in the normal course of duty. Unless you call restraining my sergeant the normal course of duty.”
James blinks rapidly, suddenly uncertain. “I-”
“You did that, yes.”
“I-sorry.” He bites off the last word.
“Yeah. I know you are. Would help your case a whole lot more with Innocent if you were half as sorry about what you did to Wilson.” But James isn’t listening. He’s reaching out his fingers to the welt on Robbie’s cheekbone, edging his fingers around the stiffening, sore area, very gently. His eyes are fixed on the injury, not on Robbie’s eyes. He seems to be almost in a trance. Robbie just stands there and lets him explore it with his barely-there touch. He waits.
He may not know what’s going on, but one thing he does know is that it’s more important than it’s ever been, right at this moment, not to push James.
===
They’re both sitting on James’s couch now, but James isn’t saying anything. It’s a bit hard to know where to start when he seems to be in this rather fragile state. Maybe right at the point where things had seemed to take a turn for the worse this morning. And this needs to be done in a matter-of-fact manner that doesn’t betray to him how much he’s worrying Robbie. “So, what was that phone call about?” Robbie asks.
“Just about testifying in the Harris case in a month’s time.”
“Okay,” Robbie says, slowly, casting his mind back. Well, they’d known James would be called for that. Not the easiest case, but he certainly hadn’t noticed anything particular at the time that had upset James about it. Nothing to account for this.
James shoots him a glance, knowing what he’s trying to figure out. “The prosecutor,” he says shortly. “They mentioned who’ll be taking it. Same as in Zelinsky’s trial.”
Oh. Oh, hell.
“I’ll handle it,” James adds, rather indifferently, at the look on Robbie’s face. “It was just unexpected.”
It was just in your head going back in there. Us interrogating Zelinsky together for all that time. Often in the same bloody interrogation room. No wonder he’d seemed thrown after the call. And had had the urge to get away from Robbie’s scrutiny. He’s always kept the real horrors of that case shut up inside himself. But what he should have done is handed the interrogation over. “You could’ve taken a few minutes to get your head together after that, you know. Or let me take it? Christ,” Robbie can’t help saying, “it would have saved us a whole lot of problems now, James.”
James stares at him in what seems like rather unwarranted disbelief. Robbie’s hardly said anything James wasn’t aware of, after all. But when he speaks again, he seems to have headed off down a different path. “I could have hurt your eye.”
“Yeah,” Robbie acknowledges. “But you didn’t. And I think we have ourselves enough difficulties here without borrowing trouble, don’t you?”
James is gazing at him now, his expression quite unreadable. “What do you mean?” he says, after a moment, frowning as if something doesn’t add up.
Robbie, assuming that he’s used an unfamiliar saying and confused the lad, in the way that he still occasionally does, tries to clarify what he’s said. “Well, I just meant that we need to deal with the problems that we actually have.”
“But you’re not saying you. You keep saying we. You said ourselves.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Like we’re both in this together. Instead of just me.”
Does it matter so much which pronouns he’s apparently using? But he can see that this is important to James somehow. “Well, must just be the way I feel, then, that,” says Robbie matter-of-factly.
“Is it?”
“’Course.” But Robbie can feel that he’s suddenly on shifting quicksand here. In his efforts to get James to somehow properly trust him, this bit-Robbie letting James know for sure that he is, without fail, instinctively on his side-is for some reason absolutely essential, right at this moment, to James. So maybe he’ll just keep on confirming it for as long as James needs him to.
James’s voice has a shake to it when he finally speaks again. “I do-something like this-and you’ll still say-us?”
“Yeah. I will,” Robbie says simply. And then James, taking Robbie completely by surprise, drops his head on Robbie’s shoulder, one arm making its way around Robbie. “All right,” says Robbie, getting an arm around him too and returning the clasp so James can feel he’s being held right back. “There you are, now, lad. ‘S’all right.”
He doesn’t really know what else to say now, so he just sits and holds onto him.
===
It’s gone quite silent in James’s flat now.
James puts a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of Robbie and drops back down on the couch without a word. He hasn’t even made one for himself. Robbie doesn’t want tea either but it had seemed best just to agree when James had suddenly released himself and had stood up, looking down at Robbie and making the offer. He’d probably wanted a minute to himself, as such.
Robbie looks at him now, right beside him. He could take it as a good sign that James is still siting very close. Just as close as he usually does, in fact. But James isn’t looking back at Robbie, not really. His eyes are darting about a bit. This still doesn’t add up. There’s still something very wrong here. Something James is thinking about and not saying. “And what happened then, James?” Robbie asks softly. “What did Wilson say to you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Look. James-”
“I don’t, honestly-Innocent didn’t believe me, either.” Utter resignation in his tone.
“Stop that, stop putting me in the same box as Innocent. I’m not here for that. If you say you don’t remember, then fine, I’ll believe you don’t remember. Okay?”
James, surprised, gives him a nod. His whole posture seems to soften with relief. Robbie gives him a moment to take that in. That Robbie’s really not here as his governor. Then he asks, carefully, “So, what was it?”
“He whispered.” And James stops. Robbie waits. He hears a car go past in the afternoon quiet. The sound of its engine fades away. Robbie doesn’t know if James is listening to it too, if he’s waiting for that sound to fade to nothing. It’s hard to tell because James is gazing across the room and he doesn’t seem to be quite here. Part of him has gone right away from Robbie now. “He whispered-something,” James says at last. “I don’t know what. It was just the look on his face, I think, and the way he brought me in closer by whispering. Closer to him. It reminded me-”
“Of Zelinsky?” Robbie offers gently when he stops again.
“No. Crevecoeur.”
Oh. Robbie feels suddenly ill. No.
“It reminded me of-I was twelve. I’d been having piano lessons for a while. In the summerhouse?”
“Yeah,” Robbie manages.
“And he-Mortmaigne-he’d stopped instructing me and he whispered something, so I came in closer to hear him and then-it was just very confusing. I thought he went to move his hand-I really thought-so I got up and backed off and took my music, I don’t know why I stopped to take my music, but then I just left.”
Oh, thank God.
“So I tried, I did try to tell my father. When he got home. I’d waited and I tried to explain-”
“And did he not believe you, James?” Robbie asks gently when he seems to be losing him into silence again.
“No he did-then. Just not later. Never after that first bit when I told him. He believed me at first and said I was right to tell him but then when he spoke to Mortmaigne-God, this is all years ago, I was twelve when we left, I hadn’t been near the place in twenty years until-”
“Until we got the case and you went back.” The same bloody day you’d had to testify in Zelinsky’s trial. I sent you. Because I had no idea that place meant a thing to you. How could I? So I sent you. I sent you by yourself.
“James the Just, that’s what he called me. Mortmaigne. When he recognised me. That’s what he always used to call me. That’s what he called me back then when my father spoke to him about it. Laughing. ‘Big sense of injustice for your tender years, eh, James, righting imaginary wrongs? Always been a fanciful lad, hasn’t he? Should hear some of the games he’s dreamt up for Scarlett.’ That’s what he said.”
“What do you mean, James? He said that to you? When your father spoke to him? How come you were there?”
“He took me with him. My father. When he went to speak to Mortmaigne.” Oh, the stupid bastard. “And when he made me describe it again-in front of Mortmaigne-I could see how it sounded-how nothing had happened, really, I supposed, it had just felt like he was going to-and then there had been Paul, you see, I’d just thought that one day when I’d been early for a lesson, that I’d seen-but Paul had said that I didn’t, I was wrong.”
Except you weren’t.
“And then my father.” James stops and swallows hard, looking straight ahead now again. “He started to back down, after all. He apologised for me. Made me apologise too. He must’ve thought worse had happened to me, and then thought that what did happen-didn’t matter so much. He was sorry he’d said anything.”
Jesus Christ.
“And it seemed to turn into an argument about other things then too, well, as much of an argument as anyone could have with Mortmaigne, more like my father was trying to appease him, something about some quibble over mismanagement of the estate. I didn’t quite understand, but then Mortmaigne, he said, ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t want to stay in any case.’ That’s how he told us we were to leave. ‘With young James so uncomfortable…’ But it wasn’t so long after my mother had-so I really didn’t want to leave-”
Robbie stops himself from asking about his mother when nothing more is forthcoming. She’d been completely gone by that stage, that much is clear. And for all that James has rarely mentioned his father over the years, he’s never mentioned his mother.
“And he was furious about it. My father. Would never discuss it from that day forth. Well, I went off to school soon after and he was just-more and more distant every time I came back. Depressed, maybe. I don’t know. He never had a permanent job like that again, anyway.”
And James has ground to a complete halt now. He turns to gaze at Robbie, slightly desperate, like he really needs to hear-God, what does he need to hear? Why’s he focusing on how his father felt? Robbie looks back at him and tries to feel his way.
“So you lost Crevecoeur. You lost the friends you’d grown up with there. Like Scarlett and Paul. You lost the home you knew and you were coming back to a strange one whenever you came back from school. And you thought your father had lost his job because of you.” And was probably resentful by the sounds of it. “You felt you were responsible for all of that.” James doesn’t nod but his eyes are fixed on Robbie’s. He’s so still.
“And you thought that you’d been wrong to have said anything, that there’d been no need, no need to do it because no-one had been at risk of any harm? That what you thought?”
“I wished for a long time I’d just kept quiet. I thought I’d been wrong and overreacted and ruined everything. For nothing.”
“Thank God you didn’t,” says Robbie shakily, “keep quiet.” Your friend Paul probably did.
“But I didn’t stop it, anyway.” James’ says, very low. “All that and I didn’t stop it happening. It wasn’t worth it. All that and it did no good at all. When I saw Briony’s arms-”
“Of course it was worth it,” says Robbie in disbelief.
“How?”
“Because it meant it didn’t happen to you.”
“Yeah.” James releases it on a sigh. And then Robbie understands. James gets that, of course. He knows that full well. But his father had acted for years as if losing his job, the cottage, his position had mattered more to him than what could have happened to James. That was the message James had received.
And at that crucial moment, when it had been Montaigne against his son, he’d made it apparent that he would have been willing to stay if it had been his choice, to put any fears for his son aside. To risk James’s welfare, let himself be convinced there was no risk really, so he could stay. He hadn’t had that visceral fear of any harm befalling James that should have made his son his one priority. James didn’t matter-quite that much. His father had acted, then, and in all the years that followed, as if everything else, the impact on him, had mattered more than James.
And that man had been pretty much all that James had had.
“If I’d made a better job of telling them,” James says, startling Robbie. “Or else not decided that I’d been wrong then I would have had someone look into Mortmaigne when I was old enough-”
“First you blame yourself, for years, for speaking up and being wrong, and then, when it turns out you’re right, you blame yourself for not saying more instead, sooner.” Robbie doesn’t even make it a question. He knows it’s true.
“That’s about the strength of it, yeah,” James says, rather helplessly.
“No, James. No. You told an adult. Hard enough to do, I’m sure.” Impossible, quite often. And not your fault what the bloody adults did then. And suddenly Robbie’s lost him again. James is gazing out the window, probably remembering working himself up to tell his father. And all the catastrophic consequences of that.
“James, you were twelve years old. Twelve.”
“It’s just-if I’d managed to-Briony’s family came after us at Lodge Farm. So if I’d just said enough then to convince anyone-”
Oh, you had no hope. No hope at all. “James, nobody wanted to be convinced. None of them were willing to see what was happening.”
“I-”
“And d’you think that’s fair, anyway?” Robbie asks. “You. Blaming a twelve-year-old?” James looks rather startled. “Don’t tell me it’s different when it’s you. I know that. But doesn’t apply to this part. You were still twelve. Is there any other twelve-year-old you’d tell that he was to blame for this?”
“No?” James actually looks quite confused at the realisation.
“I’ve said this to you before-” But Robbie still tries to deliver it as gently as possible this time. “Why d’you have to be better?”
“I know you did. I remember. And you said I wasn’t to blame. For any of it.”
“That’s right.” Well. At least he remembers that.
“It’s the closest to an absolution I’ve had. I do try-to believe it.”
“I-” But it’s making Robbie choke up a bit now. That his words had mattered quite so much as it turns out they had. An absolution. “I wish you could,” he says huskily. “Believe it.”
===
If it was a different time of the year, if it wasn’t summer, it’d be getting dark now. Dusk won’t even start to fall for hours yet. It just feels like it’s been an incredibly long day already. God only knows what it feels like to James. Robbie has vaguely registered the sounds of James’s neighbours on his street returning from work, some of them heading back out, going about their lives on what vaguely looks like a lovely summer’s evening. It makes it all the more extraordinary that so much has been turned around in just one day, that there’s so much uncertainty now hanging over James’s future.
James’s thoughts must have turned in the same direction as they sit here in silence now. “What do you think they’ll do to me?” he asks. “This panel?”
Robbie really doesn’t want to voice the worst of it. Dismissal doesn’t seem that likely. But-well, it’s already occurred to him that James would be unlikely to hang around in the police force to serve out a demotion. He’d probably work his notice period and be done with it. But there’s no point raising that prospect with James just now. “Look, if Innocent had any idea what was really going on for you in that room-” Then she’d handle all this rather differently from what she’s going to do.
“I’m not telling her anything.”
“No. No, of course not.” Robbie pauses, thinking. He can make a very good guess what Innocent’s likely next steps will be, dealing with James. She’s already pulling people in from outside for his panel. Everything done completely by the book. No suggestion of impropriety in how she handles this.
She, or one of the people on that panel, is going to recommend that anger management group that one of the DCs who Robbie supervises had had to attend last year. For James. Who would then have to sit in a room with a group of strangers for however many sessions and find some way to talk about triggers and strategies while this, all of this, the actual trigger for what happened, goes through his head. And this is miles away from an anger management problem, but Innocent has no way of knowing that. Well, no. That’s not about to happen to James.
Because Robbie’s not going to let it.
“What about,” he suggests to James, “if you were to offer to go to counselling? They just send a report back at the end that doesn’t break your confidentiality, you know.” One to one. Has to be better. James could keep his privacy because Innocent would never know the details of what was discussed. Robbie’s been copied into those reports with other officers who’ve worked under him. The police psychologist basically just confirms attendance, and that “a number of issues” have been discussed. Gives a recommendation in terms of fitness to resume duty. Nothing detailed about what’s been discussed unless James gives permission. They’re not allowed to. And James agreeing to this would help because-well, what James doesn’t realise is that another option this panel might go for is mandatory counselling. But-
“Nothing happened to me,” James says briefly.
“James, sometimes an attempt like that-” But James has had the same training updates over recent years as Robbie has. He knows.
“I don’t want to. Don’t need to. It’s all years ago. Not something I think about now.”
“All right.” Robbie, knowing there’s no point in disputing that stance now, capitulates immediately. Because you don’t push people into talking about these things unless they’re ready for it. It’s not the right way to go about it. He knows that all too well that from his own unwanted experience of that bereavement counselling. And he also just knows James. It’s still a flaming miracle that he’s opened up to Robbie today. It’ll take James a while to deal with the fact that he’s even done that. Robbie’s going to have to be damn sure he tries to treat him very much the same for the next while, for all that his protective instincts are up. James will need things back on an even keel. But for now, there’s still the thorny question of that ruddy inescapable panel. Dismissal. Demotion. Group Sessions. Mandatory Counselling. Bloody hell.
And James, who is really in no fit state to even think about any of this, is just looking utterly weary now, utterly spent.
“You want to get some rest, lad?”
“No.” He looks a bit ill at the thought of it. He doesn’t want to be left by himself, Robbie realises. Left to his own thoughts.
“All right.” But nor he is likely to admit to his need and agree to come back to Robbie’s for the night. So probably best just to keep it very casual. “You hungry? Probably time we ate something, anyway. Let me-”
James doesn’t put up any protest. By the time the food that Robbie orders has arrived, Robbie’s turned on the TV and they’re ostensibly watching some documentary, although it’s unlikely that either of them has understood much of it. James doesn’t really stir. Not when the food arrives, not to do more than pick at it, and not even when Robbie gets up to clear. He watches Robbie, though, as Robbie moves around, ditching containers, washing plates and eventually getting two bottles of beer from James’s fridge. Robbie feels James’s eyes just follow him as he moves around James’s own kitchen. His eyes are the only part of James that are still moving. He really does look shattered.
“Thought I wasn’t allowed to drink?” he enquires, after Robbie puts those two bottles down on the coffee table and sits back down on the couch, still very close to him.
“Yeah. Well.” Robbie rubs the back of his own neck, with one hand, rather embarrassed now by that text.
“It’s okay,” says James, gazing at Robbie. His head is lying right back against the top of the couch by now, his long body slouched down in a pose that’s still more spent than relaxed. “I didn’t mind. You saying that. It was sort of a relief to get orders from you again.”
Robbie frowns at him. “You hardly thought you’d lose your place as me sergeant-” Not by my choice, anyway.
“I just figured you’d be disappointed in me. In what I’d done.” He sounds as if he’s still checking that out slightly. Making sure it isn’t true.
“James.” Robbie doesn’t know how he can say that after all that James has explained, all that was behind this. James still somehow doesn’t quite feel that he’d had a right, that twelve-year-old, to protest and react so hard, after all the consequences that had, so terribly unfairly, descended on his head for that. All that punishment it must have felt like. He might know he was right now but he doesn’t seem to feel it properly. It’s not something Robbie can hope to get through to him in the space of one afternoon, either. But even if they never talk about this again-and knowing, James, it’s not unlikely-there are other ways to get through to him how much his wellbeing actually matters, how much he matters. How much he matters to Robbie, that’s a good starting place.
“C’mon now, lad. Do me a favour, would you? Just put your head down and try and let yourself stop thinking for a bit, yeah?”
James frowns at him, unsure. Robbie, holding his gaze, raises his arm and drops it along the back of the couch, opening a further space for James. An invitation. If he wants it. And James makes a small noise of relief and drops his head sideways onto Robbie’s shoulder.
Robbie tucks his arm around him, pressing James in against his side. “That’s it. Just try and rest, okay? I’ll watch this, I’m fine here, no need to worry about me, just try and rest a bit.”
He’s thoroughly relieved when James gives a shaky sigh and gives in at last. The slight movement of his head suggests he’s settling in. James badly needs this. The rest and the contact, both. Robbie rather welcomes the contact himself after all the shocks of the day. His own head is almost spinning at this point in a way that has nothing to do with the barely-touched beer. He reckons he might just sleep too if he hadn’t got so much to think about.
Because this is going to get worse for James before it gets better, unless Robbie can work out the right way to intervene. And it’s going to be bloody tricky to do that.
===
James, when he’d eventually wakes late that evening, is so dazed that he doesn’t need much persuasion to simply head for bed. And he doesn’t really protest much either when Robbie lets him know that he’s staying, that he’ll sleep on the couch. James makes an effort, turning back, to offer up his bed. But Robbie rises and steers him firmly out of the room. When he reappears a few minutes later, Robbie just relieves him of the bundle of spare bedding that he’s returned with, drops it on the couch and propels him back out in the direction of his bedroom once again.
Robbie bids him a firm goodnight this time, in the narrow interior hallway. By James’s standards, that was very little resistance, he’s thinking, as he heads back to see what can be done with this couch. But then there’s a tap on his shoulder and, as he turns, James is getting his arms around Robbie, his head down, his expression hidden. He seems to be trying to say something with his embrace. Robbie just pulls him in closer so that he can find a place for his head on Robbie’s shoulder one more time tonight. If he likes. He does seem to want to.
===
In the morning, there’s a parting of the ways. James has, of course, no work to go to. He’s staring in the face of three whole weeks of enforced leave. That’s going to be-well, a problem in itself. But there’s nothing much that can be done to ease the impact of that just now.
There’s something more pressing that needs Robbie’s attention first.
“Try and take it easy today, yeah?” Robbie suggests, on the doorstep. The lad looks absolutely done in still. “I’ll give you a call later.”
Robbie had been up early, although only to find that James was awake before him. Christ, that couch. He maybe should have listened to James after all last night. But it would just have been hard to leave him. A quick hot shower at his own flat will help with the stiffness in his back, anyway.
===
“I do want to level with you, ma’am, I’m not-at liberty to say -but there were extenuating circumstances that I know you’d take into account somehow. If you knew what they were.” She would, Innocent would, if she knew it all, Robbie is still somehow sure of that. “He wasn’t just stressed or unleashing his temper.”
“Yes. You would if you could, wouldn’t you?” Innocent says, thoughtfully, “Tell me? Because you’d do anything to get him off the hook-No, I don’t mean I don’t believe you. I’m just saying-I believe you obviously think you can’t tell me.”
Robbie nods at her, relieved. She frowns at him briefly.
“There is-more formal support he can avail of, you know,” she suggests. “I assume he’s well aware of that?”
And this is exactly why Robbie’s here. “No,” he starts. “Well, yeah, he does know that. But-” This is unexpectedly more difficult than Robbie had thought it would be, putting the suggestion that he’s about to make, into Innocent’s mind, for James. Robbie takes a breath. But he really needs her to agree to this. If the alternative is James having to go to one of those groups or mandatory counselling-well, needs must. "Look, as a suggestion. Instead of any sort of rehabilitation-you could demote him to supervised interrogation only. A higher-ranking officer always in the room. For a probation period.” But Robbie comes to a halt again because it turns out that this next part is somehow quite a personal wrench to say. “And the higher ranking officer-probably shouldn’t be me.” Just let him prove himself again. Objectively. In front of any of the inspectors in this station. They’ll soon see how good he is at the job, how he really can handle himself in the face of provocation. He can prove that so there’s no doubt.
There’s a long silence while Innocent’s eyes just search his face. Then-“You think you let him down somehow, don’t you, Robbie?”
“Ma’am?” Robbie stares at her.
“Of course you can be the higher-ranking officer. You won’t always be here when you need James to do an official interview. So he’ll have a range of officers supervising, I should imagine. But of course it can be you, when circumstances allow.”
Does that mean she’s going to go for the idea?
“But, Robbie-that’s a best case scenario. I’ll submit it as a mitigating factor, an argument, if you like, to strengthen his case. That he has his immediate superior’s offer of support in that way. And I’m strongly minded to also recommend counselling as advisory, personally. So that if the panel agreed with my stance on that, it would be up to James if he takes the option up. But these factors-counselling versus probation, I suppose-they’re not the actual crux of the matter. They’re really more of a recommendation that we can implement once the decision has been made. And your plan-it will only be relevant if James is still a sergeant.”
It’s like some of the air has evaporated from the room, to cause this sudden tightening in Robbie’s chest. It must be hearing the possibility finally said aloud in Innocent’s matter-of-fact voice. Still your sergeant, that’s what Robbie hears. If James is still your sergeant.
Innocent is pulling up something on her computer screen, frowning, now. Possibly some sort of official guidelines. Robbie waits, silently. You think you let him down, somehow. Well, he could have made more of an attempt, maybe, to get James to talk, a little sooner, after Zelinsky. Although, Christ, it had been near impossible to get through to him back then. But he could have-not followed up, exactly, after Crevecoeur, because James hadn’t wanted that but-maybe it’s just yesterday, really, when things had just been so crucial. He could’ve just followed his instincts, after that phone call, and acted faster in response to James’s changed demeanour. He could have stopped James, dropped a hand on his arm and held him back and gone in himself to that interrogation room.
It’s not guilt, as such. It’s not even a feeling of having let James down. It’s just-he just wishes that he’d managed to know sooner, had somehow let James see he could tell him all of this that he carries and then somehow intervened before it got to this stage. When James now has to go before a disciplinary panel, who will make all sorts of decisions about his future. And James with all this in his head. Because he still can’t quite imagine just how exposed that’s going to make his intensely-private sergeant feel.
“I just wish things had turned out a bit differently, ma'am,” he finds himself saying aloud.
“Don’t we all,” Innocent says with a sigh.
Click here for Chapter Two.